When Elephants Forget: John McCain

The smell of Super Tuesday is in the air, the field of Republican Candidates is narrowing down, and the talking heads are saying whatever they can to make you forget who they are because of what they want. That certain unmistakable smell, all too familiar to southwestern cattle ranchers, permeates society from the television, the newspapers, and the radio and you try your best, as a good Republican should, to rally behind one of the uninspiring candidates you´ve been given. A decision must be made and soon. Do you choose the nearly fossilized war hero, the charismatic business man, the comfortable looking Preacher, or the fire and brimstone spewing congressman with the freakish eyebrows? This is a huge question that conservative Republicans must resolve before February 5th aka Super Tuesday. But from the look of things February 5th may well turn into Stupor Tuesday if the Elephants forget, as their eastern brethren have, just what Arizona Senator John McCain actually is.

John McCain, my state Senator, has been a fixture in the Arizona political landscape since he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. In 1986, after two terms in the House, McCain was elected serve in the U.S. Senate where he has been re-elected by Arizona conservatives four consecutive times. I´m ashamed to admit that I voted for him on three of those four occasions. The last time I voted for him was, by far, the most difficult because I understood, without any doubt, that John McCain was a purely political beast. As many Arizonan will attest, John McCain will say and do whatever he deems necessary to advance his singular all consuming ambition to become President of the United States. But, as is typical in American politics, given the choices of that time Senator McCain was the lesser of the evils – but not by much.

After watching the primaries, I am alarmed that eastern republicans have rallied behind Senator McCain. But then again I´ve felt for a long time that Americans are, with few exceptions, growing politically lazier and culturally stupider faster than their waistlines are getting wider. How else could John McCain garner so much support after nearly eight years of very open obstructionist behavior in the U.S. Senate? How could his flagrant disregard for the will of those who kept him in office be rewarded by the RNC nomination?

The 2008 Republican debates have proven to be both interesting and infuriating. Almost all of the substantive ideas have come from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul. These two men, in my view, are the only two men that should legitimately be given any degree of consideration for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2008. Why? Because faults notwithstanding, Ron Paul is verifiably conservative despite his views of the war on terror and Mitt Romney is a Washington outsider who has been a successful entrepreneur and a remarkably successful republican governor from an ultraliberal state. Yet, Ron Paul is virtually ignored during primary debates and Mitt Romney´s momentum is either downplayed or completely omitted from media coverage. Perhaps the most frightening observation to come from these debates is the obvious media bias toward Senator McCain. The media has not only overlooked a bevy of contradictions, inconsistencies, and deceptions but it has also allowed the Senator to literally dismiss any claim against him with single statements based on is word alone. Only Senator Hillary Clinton has known such a media favoritism; that is until Barak Hussein Obama entered the picture.

Some in the media have speculated that the McCain momentum is actually the Republican Party shifting from a Conservative platform to a more moderate platform in an effort to modernize itself with contemporary society. John McCain, they surmise, has wisely anticipated this trend and has positioned himself to take advantage of the shift in order to save the Republican Party. But Arizonans know this Senator all too well. The media may call him a Maverick, the Democrats may have wanted to call him John Kerry´s running mate in 2004, but Arizonans know him to be hypocritical backstabbing liberal turncoat that is weak on national defense, weak on illegal immigration, and weak on fiscal responsibility.

Mr. McCain claimed in the California debate that he knows something about building walls since he comes from a border state? Indeed he does, he´s quite good at stonewalling the Arizona citizens who elected him to accommodate illegal aliens that have entered our nation and have been allowed, by Mr. McCain and other likeminded politicians, to abuse our economy and pull down the quality of living in his home state. As if his inaction wasn´t bad enough, the Arizona senator has supported numerous amnesty bills and even worked with Senator Edward Kennedy to craft an under the table amnesty bill that would have silently provided amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens residing in the United States.

Also in the California debate, Senator John McCain recalled and promoted his conservative ties to President Ronald Reagan and the Reagan revolution of the 1980´s. But John McCain, war hero, Congressman, and Senator is hardly a conservative. He has repeatedly used conservative rhetoric to successfully secure votes in his home state to satisfy his own ambitions. Unfortunately for those Arizonans who voted for the war hero-statesman, once his loftier aspirations manifested themselves any semblance of fidelity to the conservative values which got him elected became a liability to his personal objectives. John McCain smugly does what he feels will manifest his goal to be president of the United States. Will he react any differently if he does indeed become president of the United States?

Mr. McCain says he´s for energy independence. Yet he was staunchly against drilling for oil in Anwar, Alaska. The location of the acreage where the drilling would have occurred is small (2000 acres) in comparison to its surroundings (317 million acres) and the region is so remote and cold that impact to the environment and wildlife is minimal. There simply are no people anywhere near the proposed drilling sites at Anwar or the pipeline to move the estimated 4-11 billion barrels of oil south. It´s a given that any oil extracted from Anwar would not be a permanent solution to the oil dependence America finds itself in. But even the low estimate for oil would buy the US time to produce renewable energy supplies while reducing the amount of money being given to nations hostile to America. Yet, the Maverick frontrunner bucked his party and voted with the democrats against reducing America´s dependence on foreign oil.

In an effort to cover ground lets, to borrow from Mr. McCain, have some actual "straight talk" expressed for a change:

John McCain spoke out to close the prison that houses terrorists from the war in terror in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. John McCain has fought to give terrorist´s access to US Courts which would have provided terrorists with rights under US civil law (including the right to sue). John McCain has fought to ban torture from the United States interrogation arsenal to prevent future terrorist acts against Americans. John McCain was a leading advocate of the obstructionist "Gang of 14" which prevented Republicans from overriding Democrat filibusters of President Bush´s´ judicial nominations. John McCain, the environmentalist, validated global warming simply by traveling to Alaska and observing the northern lights with his "close" friend Hillary Clinton. John McCain supports global warming theory despite any evidence to suggest that mans carbon emissions has any impact on the environment at all and that global warming is anything more than a naturally occurring atmospheric cycle. John McCain co-authored McCain-Feingold which has limited free speech prior to elections. John McCain opposed building a wall along the US-Mexico border despite very vocal sustained efforts in his home state and across the country to quell the estimated 4,000 illegal aliens a day entering Arizona (so much for public servant). John McCain opposed Arizona´s employer sanctions law that went into effect on January 1st 2008 which made it a punishable crime for business to knowingly hire illegal aliens– a law which has thankfully caused nine homes in my neighborhood to immediately be abandoned and the local Latino corner grocery store (where people used to congregate night and day) to close down. John McCain has done nothing to stop Mexican citizens and the Mexican military from shooting at Border Patrol agents to protect drug runners who cross the border into American towns and cities along the Arizona-Mexico border. John McCain, environmentalist, has done nothing about the tons of garbage (not to mention dead bodies) left in the desert by the hoards of illegal´s entering the United States. John McCain, conservative, has allowed countless billions of American dollars to be siphoned out of this country into Mexico alongside the countless billions of taxpayer dollars spent on health care, education, welfare, crime and mortgage bailouts for illegal aliens. John McCain, in his support for illegal immigration, has allowed Al Qaeda terrorist to use Mexican drug smuggling tunnels to enter the United States in order to plot an attack Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona.

So just what are John McCain´s strengths as a Republican? What are his strengths as a Conservative? Can he really be called a moderate? As an Independent I can´t vote in the Arizona Republican primary. The remaining elephants better not forget their duty to the nation or get swept up in the media hype for McCain. The time to take down a McCain is in the primaries not the general election. The last thing this country needs at this point in history is to choose between a semi-closeted globalist-oriented liberal republican and a socialist liberal democrat for President in 2008.