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00Publius Contributor - Elections - GOP - News - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Thompson Visiting McCain This Weekend… So What?

April 5, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

MSNBC is reporting that Fred Thompson is visiting John McCain in Arizona this weekend.

From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann and Adam Aigner-Treworgy

NBC and National Journal have learned that former presidential candidate Fred Thompson is visiting GOP nominee John McCain at McCain’s Arizona cabin in Sedona this weekend.

No word of what’s been discussed, although a source with knowledge of the visit says that the purpose may be more of a relaxing weekend getaway than a business meeting. (The two men have been longtime personal friends, even during their overlapping presidential bids.)

Now let’s make short work of this meaningless bit of news. There is zero chance that McCain will pick Fred for VP, so get it right out of your heads. People are already saying that McCain is too old to be president and there is some validity to the point. But, Fred is too old for VP if you want to claim that McCain is too old for president! An old Fred isn’t going to offset the worry that McCain himself is too old.

Besides, Fred Thompson is too conservative for John McCain. I maintain that McCain will continue to contemptuously take conservatives for granted and that his VP pick will end up being a so-called moderate Republican — NOT a conservative.

After McCain picks his liberal VP he’ll then claim that HE is the conservative candidate of the pair. Then he will continue to ignore conservatives… in fact will go out of his way to prove he is NOT one of them… and he will aim squarely for the conservative Democrats and independents. They have been his base all along and he won’t forsake the liberals now.

Now, as to why Fred is going there? Just to show support, get a little news out that the conservative Fred is still pals with McCain… it’s all to keep in the news and has little to do with Fred having anything to do with the campaign much less becoming the VP pick. They may be discussing a few appearances together, but that is about it.

So, look at this report of Thompson visiting McCain as meaningless news.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - Morals/Sex - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

AP Lumps McCain’s Wife With Wives of Serial Cheaters

February 22, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Guilt by association, that’s the trick that the AP just pulled on the wife of GOP presidential candidate John McCain. In a story about the non-story du jour, AP writer Libby Quaid has placed Cindy McCain in with jilted political wives of the likes of Hillary Clinton, Suzanne Craig, Dina McGreevey, and Carlita Kilpatrick. They even reached back into the graveyard of political careers and dug up Lee Hart, wife of Donna Rice’s paramour Gary Hart.

The AP got all weepy eyed over how Cindy McCain “did not hesitate” to step forward to take “her place in the history of political wives who stood by their men in the face of rumored or alleged marital infidelity.” The AP then states her first lines as “Well, obviously I’m disappointed.” AP thinks this is interesting because, “A coterie of wives has confronted the public pain of such an accusation. Smaller still is the band who, like Cindy McCain, have spoken out.”

As the AP begins the story, you’d think that John McCain is exactly the same as Bill Clinton or Gary Hart… in other words guilty of screwin’ around on his wife. Even the way they quote Cindy McCain could be taken as that she is “disappointed” in her husband if the reader stops there!

Then the AP’s writer details the trials and tribulations of Hillary Clinton who’s husband, Bill, “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica.” Quaid tells us how Hillary stood firm beside her man, just like Cindy McCain.

And then they give us a list of other recently jilted political wives.
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00Publius Contributor - Elections - GOP - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

How Conservatives Are Being Told to Throw Away Principles

February 19, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is getting tiresome already, but we are starting to see a new kind of story on this issue of McCain and his tiff with the conservative wing of the GOP and that is the shut-up-and-take-it style of commentary, the style were conservatives are told to throw away their principles and just vote McCain anyway.<.p>

I am sure that you all have noticed that John McCain is not the conservative’s hero? There has been story after story expounding on how McCain has a lot of cajoling to do before principled conservatives will vote for him in November. He hasn’t made those efforts yet, at least if looking at the primaries and caucuses that have occurred since McCain became the “presumptive nominee” — at least according to the media — are concerned. These last few early February events did not make him look much like an obvious winner, either. Even president Bush has said that he has some convincing of conservatives to do before he could expect their vote. All this clearly shows that McCain lacks serious conservative credentials.

A recent editorial by former Scripps Howard News Service editor Dan K. Thomasson serves as a perfect example of this sort of wrist slapping that conservatives are increasingly receiving from so many quarters, both from the left and their own reputed party members. Thomasson even takes it a step further by positing that conservatives should act like John F. Kennedy who allowed Lyndon Johnson to become his vice presidential pick even though they were rivals for the Democrat nomination for president in 1960. Similarly, he says, conservatives should accept the ideologically impure McCain and then work with him to put one of their own guys on the ticket in the second spot.

All of these stories have a singular concept underlying them and that is that conservatives should throw away their principles and vote for McCain without a whimper. In other words, the press imagines that conservatives should rather be more interested in a White House win than in upholding their principles. But this raises an interesting question: where were all the stories that chided Dail Kos, netrooters for holding to their principles by attempting to take over the Democratic Party during the 2006 midterms? Far from scoffing at the netrooter’s too stiff spines, they were praised for their campaign to force the Party into going their way.

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