McCain is a dirty old man
January 2008: “I’m going to raise the level of political dialog in America,” John McCain said at a campaign rally in central Michigan, “and I’m going to treat my opponents with respect and demand that they treat me with respect.”
April 2008: John McCain called for a presidential campaign that is more like a respectful argument among friends than a bitter clash of enemies. “We have nothing to fear from each other,” the Arizona senator said. “We are arguing over the means to better secure our freedom, promote the general welfare and defend our ideals.” McCain recalled also that shortly after his own election to Congress in 1982, Arizona politician Mo Udall took him under his wing. “I intend to wage this campaign and to govern this country in a way that [Mo] would be proud of me,” he said. ”Let us exercise our responsibilities as free people. But let us remember we are not enemies.”
10th June 2008: The Democratic hopeful Barack Obama took his campaign to the Republican bastion of North Carolina yesterday, while his opponent, John McCain, launched the first television attack ad of the presidential election. Despite promises to stay on the higher ground, Mr McCain’s commercial uses imagery to suggest that Mr Obama is a friend of America’s enemies. It shows an apparently badly shaven Mr Obama looking across at the bearded face of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is a far cry from the candidate’s pledge in April for a campaign that is more akin to a discussion among friends than a bitter clash of ideological rivals.
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Glad to see John McCain is a man of his word, as well as being a trigger-happy Republican.
I think the Tories should realise, and are realising, that the US Republicans are not their natural allies. While I have a great deal of respect for Tory England at its best, the US “right” in all its forms fills me with horror. It was a terrible mistake to support the government over Iraq, when the natural instincts of Conservatives were against it.
I recall Michael Gove asserting that as a “right-wing polemicist” he admired Blair. But if he were a Tory, which he appears not to be, he’d be repelled by Blair in general & his Iraq policy in particular, as liberals were.
There is a potential for a non-ideological party of the right, which disowns neoconservatism, to establish itself in America. But it will still be far away from what natural Tories are thinking.
Right there with you. This whole ‘conservatives together’ rubbish ignores the reality of how different American and English conservatism really is, but the natural instinct of a lot of Conservatives I know was to support the war and still to support military action in the Middle East – something that I find extremely frustrating.
I don’t want to have anything to do with American conservatives as they are right now, because in my opinion they are obsessed with military action, have lost control of the biggest economy in the world through complete mismanagement and profligacy and offer little or no solutions on the domestic or international agenda to some really serious problems.
I think Cameron and Obama could offer a very different view of the world than Cameron and McCain.
I suspect Obama is finding his feet, but then so am I (that should be obvious from reading my spewings) and it’s certainly possible that he will make a good president. His early mistakes shouldn’t be held against him, imho.
Obama and Cameron might make an interesting duo. People wouldn’t have said “Obama and Howard”, would they? But the Tories are moving from what seems to have been their flirtation with neoconservatism, and becoming a force to represent the real conservative elements in this country. Not that I’m one of them, but still
“I suspect Obama is finding his feet…”
if he is, it’s only so he can put a bullet in them…
Now now, JuliaM. McCain is just as vulnerable as Obama, thanks to his ridiculous policies and gung-ho attitude to diplomacy.
Yeah, it’s a pretty poor field all round. But I’d take McCain over Mr Empty Suit if I was an American…
I don’t see the Republicans as natural allies of the Tories – in fact I think that popular association to be damaging now. The Republicans are increasingly seen as the party of the Bible Belt, of the rednecks and of the warmongers.
In terms of the British political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans seem to be Right and Righter. At the current moment, I think Obama’s policies are actually closer to Cameron’s than they at first appear, since they begin from such different points. If Cameron shrinks our state and lowers our taxes (eventually), and Obama grows the US state and raises their taxes (eventually), we’d probably end up meeting somewhere in the middle.
Of course, there are natural ideological disagreements between Conservatives and Democrats, just as there are between Labour and Democrats and between Conservatives and Republicans, but my gut feeling is that Gordon Brown’s Labour, with it’s ever-more-noticeable socialist leanings, is to the left of any American party, while Cameron sits somewhere between the two.
Of course, I’m not yet a fully versed student of American or British politics. I’m just saying it as I’m seeing it.
I agree with you Stu
But Turtle John isn’t a conservative – he is a nothing.
He spouts all the rhetoric of a person so desperate for power he could be Hillary Clinton!