Conservatives Lament McCain, Yet They Really Should Take A Good Look In The Mirror

An article in the Observer this morning asks if John McCain is a "lemon" for the portion of America that calls themselves conservative. Basically McCain has been a terrible candidate with no true economic vision and a consistent flip-flopper that at times sounds like Barack Obama when it comes to dealing with our fiscal woes. Examples include the $300 billion mortgage buying scheme mention at the last debate and then pulled back, endorsing the bailout by Paulson and his meaningless focus on $3 million dollar earmarks while everyone else is talking about numbers in the hundreds of billions.

Yes, I agree with the fact that McCain is a lemon to those that hold on to their fiscal conservative roots. Yet, he is merely one lemon that hangs on their tree full of sour ideas. The fact is, conservatism (or what Republicans have made of it) is dying a terrible death. For twelve years in Congress and for twenty out of twenty-eight in the White House, conservatives have implemented their schemes as best they could and it failed spectacularly. De-regulation was a disaster, as America had to take in the reality that a "free" market does not police itself and when given more room, greed inevitably takes over.

Now that the situation at Wall Street has exploded and the debris is affecting everyone, the fiscal restraint we've been preaching to other (poorer) nations becomes hypocritical condescension. Paulson, Bush and yes, some Democrats decided that we should embrace a form of corporate socialism that gives these greedy bastards in the financial sector gobs of taxpayer money (borrowed from others of course) in order to fix their mess. To top it off, there are hardly any regulations put in place to prevent a repeat of their derivative-based economy.

McCain, in his lust for power after being robbed of it eight years ago, is stopping at nothing to get elected. He does not care about conservatism, he cares about himself. That selfishness is what ultimately connects him to their tree because when you get down to basics, conservatism is all about "me" and nothing for you. "Me" wants no taxes so I keep my wealth and/or power, "me" could careless if you are sleeping on the street, "me" wants to bomb your oil-rich nation so I can feed my petro-addiction and "me" wants all of it now without any thought of the future.

For John McCain, he wants to be President, and he'll say whatever it takes to satisfy his "me."