McCain Democrat

As promised, more on my being a McCain Democrat these days.

Let me make this clear from the outset: I am not a disgruntled Hillary supporter! I honestly feel the one service Obama has rendered the nation is to stop the Clinton Restoration, thank God! No more Bushes, no more Clintons, that's my motto.

The problem I have generally with the Democrats and specifically with Obama, though, is how much both have moved to the left these days. Clinton and the folks around him won hard-fought gains by championing free trade via NAFTA, as well as by finally voting for welfare reform. The problem is that the current crop of Democrats dominant in the party regard all these Clintonian accomplishments as being unacceptable examples of right-wing deviance to be expunged.

Bill Clinton once campaigned to the right of George H.W. Bush in the 1992 campaign on foreign policy, criticizing him for being soft on the Russians and the Chinese and for being loath to use NATO to stop the depredations of the Bosnian Serbs. Currently, the Democrats haven't found a foreign foe we shouldn't be nicer or a conflict we shouldn't flee or avoid.

This trend has been ongoing since the 2000 election. I think it's what cost Gore the clean victory he should have had. Instead of acting as the inheritor of a successful economy and a reasonably successful foreign policy, given that we'd stopped the Serbs belatedly in Bosnia and quickly in Kosovo, he acted as though things were bad, as though the people were oppressed by the powerful, and that he suddenly was going to be a champion of the people after 8 years as Vice President of the United States. I voted for Gore in 2000, but he was a dreary candidate, a most unhappy warrior.

Kerry and Edwards took it further to the left in 2004, although for the most part they kept their Bush Derangement Syndrome that had infected the Democratic base in check. Still, Kerry was unconvincing in his efforts to portray himself as a more effective warrior against Al Qaeda than George W. Bush, and I think that was the crux upon which the election turned.

And now Barack Obama has taken the Democrats further left than they've been since the time of George McGovern, and we all know how well that turned out!

Also, I worked early and often against Bush in 2000, happily championing McCain against him that year. I can proudly say I've voted against Bush three times! Once in the 2000 primaries, where I registered as a Republican just long enough to vote for McCain, then in the general elections in 2000 and 2004. I was hoping for a difficult choice between Gore and McCain that year, but alas 'twas not to be.

So that's where I've been politically, the next one will be where I am now.