McCain = Real Hope

I consider myself open minded. I read a broad array of sources and try to take in as much information from pundits on both sides of the aisle. I am not a person that refuses to watch Fox News because they have a conservative slant... I simply remind people that the news sources they watch (CNN, MSNBC, the "big" three networks, the NY Times, etc) all have extreme liberal biases and if you truly want to be open minded you have to try and give equal opportunity to all sources and opinions, otherwise your politics become akin to a religious faith.

One of the things that is really irking me lately is this constant insistance that John McCain needs to reach out to the "conservative base." First off, who are these people? What is the "conservative base?" Is a pro-life, pro-war, anti-earmark senator not conservative enough? What reaching out needs to be done???

Do democrats ever reach out to their base? Of course not. One of the most interesting things about this election has been the fight between Obama and Hillary and how little substance has been produced because of it. They don't discuss policies, or taxes, or the economy. They speak in vague terms, snipe at each other with cheap attacks and tactics, and at the end of the day, all they have really done is appeal to either the race or the gender card (which is pretty much the standard democrat political playbook).

I humbly believe that after 16 years of highly charged, extremely partisan bickering (Clinton and Bush 2) the nation is ready for a centrist. McCain is the perfect candidate for this time.

When Newt Gingrich formulated the Contract with America, the ideas on the platform were not conservative- they were tested and polls showed the ideas had an estimated support of 65% or better of the populace. I believe these polls are correct and I believe that most Americans have similar opinions on the relevant issues today:

- Most Americans agree we can't just cut and run from Iraq.
- Most Americans believe that high-gas prices (and energy prices) need to be dealt with.
- Most Americans hate earmarks (except the ones in their district) and would like to see them drastically reduced, if not eliminated.
- Most Americans want less government involvement in their lives and certainly less taxation.
- Most importantly, I believe most Americans are completely fed up with the zero-sum game that the extremely partisan nature of politics has had for the past 2 decades.

McCain is the right man for this time. He actually has a record of working, successfully, with members of the other party. He is on the right side of the majority of the important issues that most Americans agree on today. He has more experience than Clinton or Obama have combined.

Hopefully 2008 will be a year where Americans forget what party they are normally loyal to and actually look at the candidates and where they lie on the issues. This rings especially true for democrats: most of them are still (irrationally) angry about the 2000 election (moveon.org all of a sudden has a poetic irony to it) and I fear that many of them will (again, irrationally) attempt to use this year to take out their anger about Bush's victory in that election.

If that happens, it will be a sad, sad day in this country because it would mean that people no longer care about their civic duty to choose the most competent leader, (based on using one's reason to see who would respond best to the salient issues of the time) and instead would have made thier decision on a knee-jerk reaction or a dogmatic faith to a party that will nominate an inexperienced candidate who is out-of-touch with the majority of America's ideas.