Kyl for Whip
Written by Sean on November 27th, 2007
While some might like to think that one of the freshman, like Coburn or DeMint, would be better for the position, the Senate is an old boys network. Some will cry foul over Kyl’s recent statements on immigration, but over his time in the Senate he has established himself as a pretty darn reliable conservative on everything from limited government to Supreme Court nominations. If he gets a challenger, it will probably be from an old bull who thinks he has accumulated enough owed favors to get the position, and that person would almost certainly not be even close to as friendly to the right as Kyl is.
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“Some will cry foul over Kyl’s recent statements on immigration, but over his time in the Senate he has established himself as a pretty darn reliable conservative”
But McCain isn’t a conservative because of his views on immigration?
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PM
Come on, David, you know better than that. Our problems with McCain reach far beyond immigration. Our problems with Kyl are pretty much limited to it. McCain-Feingold, opposition to the Bush tax cuts, and his leadership in the Gang of 14 agreement are all long-standing gripes that we have with McCain. Oh by the way, he also supports expanded embryonic stem-cell research, even with the recent developments that suggest that there is no longer any benefit to it, and by some accounts he is not actually pro-life.
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PM
Sean–don’t forget that McCain said he was against overturning Roe v. Wade, when he ran for president last time.
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Oh, is this why Gary Bauer endorsed McCain in 2000 and Brownback has just recently endorsed him.
Or “by some accounts,” Bauer and Brownback are also not actually pro-life.
The most damaging piece of evidence against McCain is that he suggested that there might be some worries once Roe v. Wade is repealed, as he strongly supports.
However, McCain does not support abortion (see Guiliani), has never lobbied for a pro-abortion group (see FDT), or donated to planned parenthood but had an intellectual awakening at a very convenient time (see Romney).
So that leaves the Estimable Huckabee and Ron Paul, oh and I still think Duncan Hunter.
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Pat Robertson endorsed Giuliani despite Giuliani’s support for abortion. So the fact that Gary Bauer and Sam Brownback endorsed St. John of Arizona doesn’t prove squat about the latter’s willingness to overturn Roe. Especially because, two days after it came out that McCain explicitly said he opposed ever overturning Roe, McCain changed his position. Sort of. http://www.nrlc.org/news/1999/NRL999/mccain.html When McCain talks about abortion, he talks out of both sides of his mouth. To trust him would be utterly insane.
The only way your argument makes sense is if we assume that Bauer and Brownback have infallible instincts on this issue. Without that assumption, your assertion is a glaring non sequitur.
McCain, moreover, has only two significant achievements in his generation-long “service” in Congress: a blatantly unconstitutional campaign-finance-reform statute, which no originalist would ever vote to uphold, and a ban on torture, which he never made a priority until the War on Terror began (talk about bad priorities). As to the McCain-Feingold bill, that’s basically his signature achievement, so the idea that he’ll ever appoint justices who’ll overturn Roe is very difficult to credit. Very few jurists think that Roe should be overturned but McCain-Feingold upheld. Because McCain has explicitly said he opposes overturning Roe, I have no doubt that he thinks it’s more important to save McCain-Feingold than to save the unborn. It’s undeniable that his contempt for the First Amendment is more consistent than his alleged opposition to Roe. While McCain now says he favors overturning Roe, he said precisely the opposite when he ran for president the last time; but McCain has been perfectly consistent, since the Keating Five scandal so many years ago, in his support for federal rationing of the freedom of speech.
All that’s not to mention what a louse McCain is on so many other issues. For instance, he’s repeatedly said in this campaign that he favors making the Bush tax cuts (which he opposed) permanent; but that’s a lie. Even if you accept that McCain changed his position on those tax cuts (which he hasn’t–and his stated reason for opposing them at the time was that too much of the tax cut went to the wealthy), there still remains the fact that making the Bush tax cuts permanent would entail permanently repealing the death tax–and McCain favors the death tax.
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1) Pat Robertson was clear that he endorsed Guiliani based on the issue of national security, not his views on social issues
When Gary Bauer decided to endorse McCain, he stated that he asked one determinative question: Whether the candidate promises to only nominate a justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade? McCain answered: YES
2) Mocking an American Hero who spent 6 years as a POW for his stance to ban torture is despicable.
3) McCain has been open that he is not knowledgable about Economics Issues as other areas. But out of all the candidates he has been at the forefront of combatting wasteful spending and supporting free trade.
-Based on what is the claim that he changed his mind regarding tax cuts after he so much they helped his economy
4) McCain is wrong about Campaign Finance Reform. But there are a few MUCH more important issues today. And it seems there are plenty of ways to get around it. That is why groups like Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America are actively supporting McCain.