Reuturs is reporting that McCain has officially begun the process of seraching for a running mate. He declined to comment on Romney as a running mate:

Speaking to reporters on his campaign plane, the expected Republican nominee said he had seen news reports that a defeated rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, had expressed interest in the job, but he offered no comment one way or the other on whether Romney would be a candidate.

Any thoughts?

Labels: John McCain, Vice-President

Look, she may be a little extreme, but she says what we all want to say in our heart of hearts. Coulter is still hammering McCain and praising Romney:

In fact, McCain and Romney are mirror opposites: As Romney had to tailor his conservative views to the liberal voters of Massachusetts, McCain has had to tailor his liberal views to the conservative voters of Arizona. While Romney's record in a liberal bastion is as bad as it will ever be, McCain's record from a conservative bastion is as good as it will ever be. Which isn't very good.

In the immortal words of -- well, me, actually: Always choose a strong conservative from a blue state over a lukewarm conservative from a red state.

Labels: John McCain

I just got done listening to a little bit of Michael Medved. I know, I know…I should know better. Anyway, Medved was talking about how this election is different from others where there was an ideological battle taking place in the primaries. Of course it benefits Medved to say this because it diminishes the key differences between McCain and Romney, making it a contest more of personality than of policy. Of course I could list several key policy decisions that distinguish McCain and Romney, but none is more important than McCain-Kennedy. Immigration is the core divide in the Republican party right now and Romney and McCain stand on opposite sides of that gulf. McCain now downplays the significance of his role as leading advocate of amnesty for illegal immigrants. He and some other Republicans, like Trent Lott, famously called conservatives in favor of border enforcement xenophobes. McCain now tries to rewrite history by suggesting that Republicans rejected HIS bill only because of lost confidence in government, as if it were a purely psychological issue. That misses the point that Republicans rejected the full idea of HIS bill for various reasons, but mostly because its whole purpose was to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. McCain-Kennedy’s failure was not lack of confidence in government, but a lack of confidence in McCain himself and his vision of immigration reform.

However, even granting Medved’s proposition that there is little policy difference between McCain and Romney (which I find lacks any substance), Romney has the better personality and temperament for the office of president. Medved stated that he liked that McCain was a tough guy, but it seems to me that McCain is a tough guy only on some issues. When was the last time McCain got fiery over judges? When was he a tough guy on tax cuts? When was the last time you remember him worked up over education? Indeed it seems that McCain gets fiery over things he understands, but that is a limited number of issues. I do admit that McCain is a tough guy on immigration, interrogation, and the First Amendment, but he’s on the wrong side of those issues. To project that McCain is a tough guy on all issues misunderstands who McCain is.

Romney, on the other hand, has shown a consistency of character. He is affable and engaging publicly and coolly competent behind closed doors. He is never out of his league on any issue and generally is the most capable person in the room. He refrains from making personal attacks and always projects a sense of optimism. This is the kind of personality that I want in the president’s office. Indeed, it seems much better than someone whose temper is never out of reach. Competence is what I want in a president, not a bully.

Labels: John McCain, Michael Medved

All McCain’s straight talk is going to get him into trouble.

First we have multiple instances where McCain openly acknowledged a deficiency on his part with regards to an understanding of the economy. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should."

Now McCain gives us a little more straight talk…apparently while campaigning in South Carolina he told reporters on his bus that “It’s not social issues I care about.” (HT to Anne Leary)

Everyone got that? He doesn’t understand economics, and he doesn’t care about social policy. Should anyone be surprised at the push-back McCain is getting from real conservatives like Michael Reagan?

Labels: John McCain

Robert Novak confirms what John Fund said last week: McCain has serious reservations about conservative jurists like Justice Alito. Novak writes:

I found what McCain could not remember: a private, informal chat with conservative Republican lawyers shortly after he announced his candidacy in April 2007. I talked to two lawyers who were present whom I have known for years and who have never misled me. One is neutral in the presidential race, and the other recently endorsed Mitt Romney. Both said they were not Fund's source, and neither knew I was talking to the other.

As I said last week in response to Fund’s assertion:

As for the judges, this is truly disturbing. Alito is no Ann Coulter, a provacative figure that takes pleasure in deriding McCain's friends across the aisle. He is a thoughtful and intelligent jurist whose measured approach has been a model of restraint. To say that Alito wears his conservatism on his sleeve is just patently false. If Alito's conservatism is worn on his sleave, there are few conservatives that do not.

Moreover, this issue gets at the question of McCain's ability to judge the judicial philosophy of judicial nominees. If Alito's conservatism is too provacative, principled jurists like Scalia and Thomas would certainly be excluded. We have had many Republican presidents who have been unable to distinguish between conservative and liberal jurists. President Eisenhower nominated two of the most liberal judges (Warren and Brennan) the court has ever had. Gerald Ford nominated Justice Stevens. Bush 41 famously got "Soutered" by one of his picks to the Supreme Court. All of these misteps have further entrenched liberal ideology and seriously hindered true conservative change.

Ed Morrissey over at Captain's Quarters says this:

This actually makes it slightly worse. The Fund quote implied that McCain wouldn't appoint an Alito because he thought Alito was too overtly conservative. Novak's report shows that it wasn't Alito's overtness, but his conservatism that McCain found unattractive. That won't help convince conservatives to trust McCain on judicial nominations.

Labels: John McCain

From the results last night, there appears to be two distinct mistakes being made by supporters of John McCain. The first mistake is that voters have mistaken McCain for Gen. Petraeus. McCain is correct in identifying himself as one of the chief advocates for a change in military strategy. It is one thing, though, to have been an advocate for change and the actual accomplishment of it. It is not McCain that has been implementing strategic and tactical decisions. That post has been occupied by David Petraeus. To equate or conflate the two is to seriously misunderstand McCain’s role in the success in Iraq. McCain was an important voice, but that is all we can credit him for. McCain would have us not distinguish between the advisory role that he has played for the last 25 years in the Senate and the executives (Petraeus, Reagan, etc.) who have actually brought about the real changes McCain has only talked about.

The second mistake being made is the diminution of the role that the economy plays in our individual and national liberty. The principle and lasting accomplishment of Reagan’s tenure was a rethinking of the economy. Through the reorientation of the economy, Reagan was able to not only end the stagflation of the 1970’s, but was able to win the Cold War. It was through economic dominance that the United States beat the Soviets. It was not the result of superior battle strategies (given that there weren't any military engagements as such), but through prosperity brought about through a strong economy. Likewise, today our ability to defeat our foes (i.e. al Qaeda) abroad and compete with rivals (i.e. China) depends on the health of our economy. Reagan’s use of the economy to defeat the Soviets is one of the underappreciated truths of our time.

Milton Friedman’s book Capitalism and Freedom notes the relationship between a free and prosperous economy and individual freedom.

On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.

The first of these roles of economic freedom needs special emphasis because intellectuals in particular have a strong bias against regarding this aspect of freedom as important. They tend to express contempt for what they regard as material aspects of life, and to regard their own pursuit of allegedly higher values as on a different plane of significance and as deserving of special attention. For most citizens of the country, however, if not for the intellectual, the direct importance of economic freedom is at least comparable in significance to the indirect importance of economic freedom as a means to political freedom.

A citizen of the United States who under the laws of various states is not free to follow the occupation of his own choosing unless he can get a license for it, is likewise being deprived of an essential part of his freedom. So is the man who would like to exchange some of his goods with, say, a Swiss for a watch but is prevented from doing so by a quota. So also is the Californian who was thrown into jail for selling Alka Seltzer at a price below that set by the manufacturer under so-called "fair trade" laws. So also is the farmer who cannot grow the amount of wheat he wants. And so on. Clearly, economic freedom, in and of itself, is an extremely important part of total freedom.

Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other.

Thus, our economic freedom has a close relationship to our political freedom. Increasing regulation of our economic freedoms (McCain-Feingold, McCain-Lieberman) are essentially assaults on our political freedom. Our tax burden (votes against the Bush tax cuts) likewise limits our political freedom. These are not old positions that McCain has learned from, but are currently held positions where McCain seeks to limit our freedom. By doing so he diminishes our political freedom and our ability, as discussed above, to fight our foes and compete with our rivals.

Labels: David Petraeus, John McCain, Milton Friedman

George Will seems to be joining the chorus of denouncing McCain's baseless attack on Governor Romney. Indeed, he makes the broader claim that McCain has joined the Clintons as conjurers of false claims:

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the Clintons should bask in the glow of John McCain's Clintonian gloss on this fact: Ten months ago Romney said that President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki should discuss, privately, "a series of timetables and milestones." That unremarkable thought was twisted by McCain, whose distortions are notably clumsy, as when Romney said, accurately, that he alone among the candidates has had extensive experience in private-sector business. That truth was subjected to McCain's sophistry, and he charged that Romney had said "you haven't had a real job" if you had a military career. If, this autumn, voters must choose between Clinton and McCain, they will face, at least stylistically, an echo, not a choice.

But that dreary scenario need not come to pass. Romney seems to have found his voice as attention turns to the economy, a subject on which McCain seems neither conversant nor eager to become so.

Labels: George Will, John McCain

John Fund says that John McCain didn't like the nomination of Justice Alito:

Mr. McCain bruised his standing with conservatives on the issue when in 2005 he became a key player in the so-called gang of 14, which derailed an effort to end Democratic filibusters of Bush judicial nominees. More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."

Therein lies the problem that many conservatives have with John McCain. It is the nagging feeling that after all of his years of chummily bonding with liberal reporters and garnering favorable media coverage from them that the Arizona senator is embarrassed to be seen as too much of a conservative.

Couldn't have said it better myself. McCain should just come out and say it "I'm a moderate." For all his "straight talk" McCain has left out the most important piece of the puzzle: himself. If McCain were being honest with himself he would come out and tell the world that he is no conservative.

As for the judges, this is truly disturbing. Alito is no Ann Coulter, a provacative figure that takes pleasure in deriding McCain's friends across the aisle. He is a thoughtful and intelligent jurist whose measured approach has been a model of restraint. To say that Alito wears his conservatism on his sleeve is just patently false. If Alito's conservatism is worn on his sleave, there are few conservatives that do not.

Moreover, this issue gets at the question of McCain's ability to judge the judicial philosophy of judicial nominees. If Alito's conservatism is too provacative, principled jurists like Scalia and Thomas would certainly be excluded. We have had many Republican presidents who have been unable to distinguish between conservative and liberal jurists. President Eisenhower nominated two of the most liberal judges (Warren and Brennan) the court has ever had. Gerald Ford nominated Justice Stevens. Bush 41 famously got "Soutered" by one of his picks to the Supreme Court. All of these misteps have further entrenched liberal ideology and seriously hindered true conservative change.

John McCain, whose conservatism begins and ends with the War in Iraq, would be an absolute disaster for America domestically and especially with the courts. His disdain for "agents of intollerance" and other advocates on issues of life, gay marriage, and other social issues is barely contained. He has tried at every point to undermine their ability to advocate (i.e. McCain-Feingold) and now would avoid nominating judges who supposedly wear their conservatism on their sleeves. The contempt for social conservatives could hardly be more.

Labels: John McCain

There's a lot out today about McCain's continued dishonest portrayal of Romney's Iraq position and I thought I would do a run down:

Paul Mirengoff: In doing so, he relies on a statement which cannot fairly be construed as advocating withdrawal. This is the conclusion of virtually everyone who has looked at the issue, except for some of McCain’s supporters. McCain, in short, has smeared Romney.

Quin Hillyer: John McCain today flat-out lied about Gov. Romney's position on the troop "surge," etc. This is no surprise. McCain's "straight talk express" has been anything but straight for quite some time now. He has been making false claims about what his position on immigration was just last summer. He has been making false claims about why he opposed Bush's tax cuts. He has been making false claims about Romney's stance on "torture." He has made misleading (not exactly false, but certainly misleading) representations about Giuliani's position on the line item veto. He has misrepresented his helpfulness on judicial nominations. And I know I am forgetting some of the other things he has not been exactly straight about.

Mark Levin: Since McCain and his surrogates insist on making this a big issue, let's engage them. They are dissembling about what Romney said. I have provided quotes below. We have now heard from Woolsey, who is repeating the disinformation. And we have now viewed the video-tape, which clears Romney of the allegation, i.e., he did not call for a specific time to withdraw our troops. Now, if this is the big bombshell the McCain campaign is using in the days before the Florida vote (albeit people are casting votes throughout via absentee ballots), it's pretty disgraceful stuff.

Allahpundit: Yeah, pretty egregious. He never said he “wanted” to withdraw or that he wanted a date set, and it’s patently clear he doesn’t want any timetables publicly announced.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: It’s a reminder — like the McCain campaign’s dishonest line of attack this weekend — that as admirable McCain is as both a hero and a politician, he is not irreproachable even on national-security issues. McCain is fond of saying he’d rather lose a political campaign than a war; he now seems to be swimming close to using the war to win a political campaign in the most dishonest of ways. It’s conduct unbecoming a man we all respect.

Marc Ambinder: Then he was asked to justify his contention that Romney once supported a withdrawal timetable for Iraq. (I wrote this morning that McCain "stretched" history with the remark, and a few moments before this particular question received a stern talking to by two McCain aides and one reporter.)

Ed Morrissey: This is a fundamentally dishonest attack. One of the reasons why some Republicans who have opposed McCain over issues like the BCRA and immigration have tried to keep a civil tongue in discussing McCain is because of the respect he has earned as a stalwart on the war. He deserves that respect; he has been an indispensable voice for the effort and has the right to hold himself up as that. However, he should be showing that respect to others who have supported the war and the troops.

David Freddoso: McCain’s unfair stab at Romney this weekend may not cost him anything. The endorsement from Florida’s popular governor, Charles Crist, came at just the right time to bury the item in the local news. And if he does win the nomination, this moment may not even be remembered. Unfortunately, the truth is always too complicated for a quick explanation.

Labels: John McCain

Romney's position on Iraq Benchmarks and Timetables, in April of 2007:

"There's no question that the president and (Iraqi) Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone."

Clearly, any competent military commander will have a way to measure progress and success. To execute any operation without clearly defined goals, benchmarks, and timetables is to be flying blind. Yet, for the reasons Romney mentioned, it's important that such a plan not be public information for the enemy.

McCain is now attacking Romney for supporting of private benchmarks and timetables. This is galling in that McCain knows as well as anyone why such private benchmarks currently exist, and will continue to exist with any future operations. And in characteristic form, McCain goes on to smear Romney's position as advocating for withdrawal from Iraq.

"If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher."

Were this simply a case of McCain misrepresenting Romney on an issue, it would be any other day of the week. But consider that at this time last year, McCain embraced the very same thing for which he is attacking Romney today. To quote from the article:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the most stalwart supporters of the war in Iraq, said Thursday that he might propose that the Iraqi government meet certain benchmarks for the United States to continue its engagement.
...
Asked what penalty would be imposed if Iraq failed to meet his benchmarks, he said: "I think everybody knows the consequences. Haven't met the benchmarks? Obviously, then, we're not able to complete the mission. Then you have to examine your options."

And to put the final shock and awe on this already remarkable display of hypocrisy, what is McCain's response to Team Mitt's demand for an apology on the misleading attacks?

"I think the apology is owed to the young men and women serving this nation in uniform, that we will not let them down in hard times or good. That is who the apology is owed to."

Indeed, apologies are due. To the Romney campaign, for knowingly distorting his position. To the public, for turning a military strategy debate into "gotcha" politics for McCain's political advantage. And to the American soldiers whom McCain is using as pawns in his decade long quest for the Presidency. Disgraceful.

Labels: iraq war, John McCain, mitt romney

There has been a lot of discussion about the Courts and judges today in the blogoshpere (Hugh, NRO Editors, Andy McCarthy, Marc Ambinder, Ramesh Ponnuru, Andy McCarthy again, Mark Levin, and Brad Smith). This is definitely one of the subjects where there is a difference between Romney, McCain, and Giuliani. Being a law student (my last semester, thankfully), this is a subject that I am passionate about. I have written before about what kind of judges each of these candidates would nominate. I find the most telling indicators are the issues that these candidates have gone to the courts to advocate.

Rudy went to the Supreme Court to fight against the line item veto. Some may yawn at the line item veto issue, but coupled with statements that Giuliani has made about his view of “strict constructionist” judges, a very troubling trend emerges. I wrote back in October:

Second, and I think even more illuminating, is who Rudy thinks is a “strict constructionist”. Apparently Rudy’s idea of a “strict constructionist” is someone who could come out either way on abortion, finds that the constitution mandates taxpayer funding of abortions, and agrees that the line-item veto is unconstitutional. This “strict constructionist” judge of Rudy’s looks more and more to me like John Paul Stevens, who was nominated by a Republican President, Gerald Ford. Of course Justice Stevens would be nobody’s idea of a “strict constructionist”, routinely finding in favor of race-based school classifications, abortion rights, and other “rights” found nowhere in the Constitution’s text. Certainly Rudy’s idea of a “strict constructionist” is not what Republican voters are looking for.

McCain fought against Wisconsin Right to Life to preserve the limitations on speech imposed by campaign finance reform. Campaign finance reform turns the First Amendment on its head, prioritizing the regulation of money over the freedom of speech and the political advocacy it was designed to protect. I wrote back in June:

McCain should be embarrassed for supporting such a blatant infringement of the First Amendment. While his concern with political corruption is laudable, silencing political speech is directly prohibited by the First Amendment, and certainly is not the method to avoid corruption. That McCain would choose to sacrifice free speech for the sake of political candidates is indefensible.

Romney went to the court to defend traditional marriage. After the ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court declaring gay marriage a right, Romney went to the court to force the legislature to allow the citizens of Massachusetts to vote on the issue. The Washington Post describes Romney’s efforts:

Romney said he will ask a justice of the state's Supreme Judicial Court to direct the secretary of state to place the question on the ballot if lawmakers do not vote directly on the question Jan. 2, the final day of the current session.

Romney has criticized lawmakers since they refused earlier this month to take up the question during a joint session, voting instead to recess, all but killing the measure.

"A decision not to vote is a decision to usurp the Constitution, to abandon democracy and substitute a form of what this nation's founders called tyranny, that is, the imposition of the will of those in power, on the people," Romney said earlier. "The issue now before us is not whether same-sex couples should marry. The issue before us today is whether 109 legislators will follow the Constitution."

Labels: John McCain, judges, rudy giuliani

I was listening to a little of Michael Medved on my way to school this afternoon. He had Joe Lieberman on and then was talking about how John McCain’s crossover appeal is something that Reagan had and is important for an electable president and for the party generally. I figure most of you have an opinion of Michael Medved these days (as do I), but I wanted to talk about crossover appeal and how it is achieved.

Medved is right that John McCain’s candidacy appeals to independents and some Democrats. I think that the election results so far bear this out. However, is John McCain’s type of crossover appeal the type that we are looking for? McCain’s appeal to independents and Democrats comes not by moving them to the right, but by McCain moving to the left. This is a key distinction between the type of appeal that Ronald Reagan hand and what John McCain has. Reagan was able to persuade Democrats to move to the right. Especially on economic matters, Reagan ushered in conservative economics by persuading them on his ideas. Additionally he was able to persuade a Democratic Congress to build up the military less than a decade after the end of the Vietnam War.

McCain, on the other hand, has crossover appeal because of his moves left on key issues. McCain has been the one persuaded and not the one persuading on issues such as immigration, interrogation techniques, campaign finance reform (and the First Amendment generally), global warming, and taxes. McCain’s type of appeal to Democrats does not move the discussion to the right, but moves it to the left. He cedes ground on these issues and moves the country in a less conservative direction, not a more conservative direction. This type of appeal is not the type of crossover appeal that I am looking for in a presidential candidate, and I suspect a similar sentiment from many of you.

I want a president that can move the country to the right. This is going to happen not through ceding ground to more liberal thoughts, but through persuasion that conservative ideas will improve this country. McCain is not that type of man. He has been the crossover leader on bills that have moved the country left (McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Feingold, etc.). This is classic Washington compromise and not leadership. Even recognizing McCain's advocacy for the surge, the net effect of his tenure has been to move the country to the left.

Mitt Romney is the type of conservative leader that can move the country right. He was able to persuade an overwhelmingly liberal legislature that his state needed tax cuts, that his state needed fiscal restraint, that his state could provide healthcare to its citizens through market-based reforms, and that his state could improve education through charter schools and merit-based teacher pay. All these changes moved the discussion in a conservative direction. This is the type of crossover appeal that I am looking for.

Labels: John McCain

One of the things that makes apparent McCain’s lack of understanding on the issues is his quick resort to the emotional plea. Tying policy to emotion is generally employed to hide deficiencies. If the policy is sound there is little reason to resort to sob stories about one or two individuals. Thus, McCain’s repeated use of soldiers in Iraq whose parents are illegal immigrants is a crutch to prop up a policy that lacks for sound substance. He can tell the story of a soldier whose parents are here illegally until he is blue in the face (or, as his tendency is more, red in the face) and it still does not address the fact that his policy encourages more illegal immigrants to come here. That McCain’s knees buckle at the thought of enforcing the law against otherwise good people does not make him look compassionate but unjust and unwise. Would he refuse to send a soldier’s parent to jail for murder? Would he refuse to send a soldier’s parent to jail for rape? Surely McCain would enforce those laws, but somehow he wants an exception for a crime against our national sovereignty. This seems hopelessly foolish and an affront to the common sense of justice that we all share. Indeed it makes me wonder what other crimes McCain wishes to not enforce. This kind of shallow emotional pandering is one of the lowest forms of politicking and should be rejected.

Labels: John McCain

At this point in the campaign, there's almost nothing new to write about the different candidates. So I looked back at the different arguments that I've made this past year that have dealt with John McCain and thought I would give you a healthy sampling of them:


McCain would still vote against the Bush tax cuts - see the video.


Judged by his record:

McCain tries to conflate what he has done (debate and vote) with what a president does (execute laws). While McCain’s record of experience is lengthy, it is in developing an entirely different skill than what a president does. It would be foolish to assume that the two are equivalent. Indeed, McCain’s experience is more pundit than president. He has spent his time making arguments like a pundit. The difference is that McCain makes a vote at the end of the day. Such a distinction seems to hardly qualify McCain more than George Will or Rush Limbaugh.

Harkening back to a previous debate, Mitt Romney and John McCain had a scuffle over waterboarding.

McCain, of course, is supposed to have "moral authority" because, as a naval airman decades ago, he was tortured at the hands of his North Vietnamese communist captors. (By the way, were any of them ever tried for war crimes?) Moral authority, however, is not a substitute for accurate information.

Furthermore, it is a matter of controversy whether waterboarding constitutes torture. McCain's position is certainly a defensible one, but we find his instinct unsettling. There are going to be gray areas in the war on terror, and we'd rather have the man at the top be someone who, when faced with difficult questions, errs on the side of protecting American women and children from being murdered rather than protecting terrorists from being treated unpleasantly.

McCain's New Entitlement:

On the morning of the debate about economics, McCain offers this economic proposal:

He suggested that government should supplement the income of older workers for “a few years” so they could afford to take lower wage entry-level jobs in newer industries.

Uh…really? Government should be supplementing worker’s income? How much should it supplement their income? How long is a “few years”? Where's the talk of fiscal restraint? How will this be paid for?

Count me unimpressed.

McCain the Ideologue:

McCain’s absolutist position on the surge, while admirable in his support of our troops, is almost the dictionary definition of ideologue. It’s not the facts that convinced McCain that the surge is working, but the idea itself. In McCain’s mind it would be working whether or not the facts showed it, because the idea is right in his mind. This is the same kind of stubbornness that has kept him supporting “comprehensive immigration” when the facts don’t support him. Similarly campaign finance reform has been an abject failure, but McCain still supports it because the idea is right, in spite of the facts. Likewise McCain has come to the correct conclusion on the surge, not lead by the facts, but lead only by the idea. McCain is right more out of luck than any sort of analytical process that lead him to the right conclusion. Such a blind adherence to ideas is unsupportable, which, luckily, is what most Republicans have come to conclude.

The episode, to me, illuminates one of the areas where Romney stands above other candidates: his strict adherence to facts and analysis. Romney’s “let’s let the facts be told and then decide” sounds so ordinary and common sense in the normal world, but yet so out of place with politicians. No rational person would make decisions like McCain (and, honestly, most other Senators), giving unfailing support to ever failing ideas. Romney’s analytical processes are much more reasonable and certainly more reliable to produce the best results.

Labels: John McCain