Is John McCain the New Bob Dole?

It seems the Republican party has a propensity to pick up whatever leftovers it has to serve and wonders why they end up with a candidate without any fire in his belly and a vision for the future. The emerging front runner as of this date is John McCain. Not because he has been always a favorite and now his time has come but because there is no one that fits the idealized Reagan image. Therefore it is time to give seniority its due. This happened with Bob Dole.

The platform of Bob Dole was , " We need to get President Clinton out of the White House." This was an anti-campaign that had nothing positive to offer. It was a stodgy effort to pick a safe candidate who wasn´t terribly popular, who had a long track record in Washington and in the Senate and in essence offered nothing new.

Now comes John McCain. Senator McCain has been around for a long time and has as often been the darling of the liberal media as he has of a few conservative stances. He has been unconvincing on his reduced spending by Washington message. Although he has railed against the irresponsible pork barrel antics of the Senate the results have been mostly a rejection of his arguments.

A man without a message will not move voters. A good presentation of bad ideas seems to be the preference of most voters over a poor presentation of good ideas. A candidate who can convey conviction of the impossible is preferred to the drone who speaks with common sense as if it is a relic of the past. No one fought the elements to get to the polls to vote for a message of repetitious platitudes. No one follows a leader who emits a tired enthusiasm. There must be a tone of inspiration and hope. There must be a voice that makes you feel that progress is on the horizon. After listening to Senate speeches for decades what must make anyone think that here is a voice that now needs to be heard? Yet all of this was ignored as Bob Dole came forth and for lack of agreement on anyone else emerged to take the Republicans down to defeat.

A political party without a consistent set of principles eventually evolves into a tired tradition of picking the next in line. There are no champions that can emerge to project the progress that must follow from these principles for the divisiveness of bull headed ideological bigotry crashes down on any who are out of step with the party line. It is only the ones who can blur the lines enough to slide their true messages by that can emerge. And without these voices, the old guard anoints the senior as familiar and safe. The voters usually rebel and see through the selection but when the next election comes around the same method emerges with the usual results.

A good speaker can win converts. An appointee that believes his time has come and who projects this by a rehash of his longtime experience is old news and receives the response of the uninspired. We saw this time and again in the "debates" and the speeches during the campaign that pitted Bob Dole against Bill Clinton. It was the like-ability factor that carried the day and it wasn´t necessarily what was said but how it was said. The speeches of President George H.W. Bush were without the desire to be reelected. And again we watched a tired message go down to defeat even as promises that could never be kept were tossed to our ears.

It takes a good message and a good messenger to carry the day. In the political climate of a primary or a general election it is a great disadvantage to ignore either of these elements. Yet too often this is ignored and we see a certain defeat emerge because of an underestimation of the presentation of the opponent. Visualize a debate between John McCain and Barrack Obama and see how much the content will resonate with voters? The contrast alone of seeing the future leader of the United States as this choice will give most voters the promise of the hope for something new and different. And this often is all it takes to place the new and untried into a position where charisma may carry us into disaster.

To my notion the status of a leader must emerge from an exhibition of his capabilities. Spending years in a legislative arena acting as a glorified committee member doesn´t cut it. At least Bob Dole held a leadership role in the Senate. But when a person is confronted with a problem that is his responsibility and he must act to correct it, that demands leadership. Collaborating and conferring with fellow legislators only demonstrates an ability to "get along".

It will be very difficult to herd Republicans around the candidacy of a John McCain and if it happens it will be for the same reason Bob Dole got the nod. By contrast Rudy Giuliani has the leadership credentials and the enthusiasm to triumph against the spellbinder Obama. But since the conservatives have this lock step view of who can be included in their camp, they will passively allow what they consider the least of the bad and may endure the Clinton regime all over again whether it is called Clinton or Obama.

I wrote several articles ago about the need for the Republicans to dump the conservative affiliation and this election only demonstrates the futility of clinging to it. The Republicans lost trust with the American people when they sought power over principle and now they are finding it cannot be won back under the Republican banner especially with the hamstring of conservatism confounding the message. It will take a new party to challenge the socialistic Democrats and it will have to have a consistent purpose and message centered around limited government. Only from this consistent approach can the march to collapse be halted. We have seen what unlimited government can do to us and we have seen the compromises of the Republicans cannot save us or even themselves. When all they can put up for election is a person of mixed messages and experience that has witnessed years of demise they have nothing to offer the political future of America either in candidates or policies. They are no longer the party of limited government that can rein in the Washington juggernaut. They are part and parcel of the same ideological drift as the Democrats but with less fire and vision. We no longer have a two party system but a reincarnation of the Democrats of old , conservative and liberal. This is the result of trying to have it both ways. Give the voters the "freebies" and entitlements and no one will notice the creeping spending monster that is used as the vehicle. Spend like a Democrat and talk like a Republican should be enough to get us elected. The facade is off and the trust is gone. And with the trust is the credibility of the party. Who believes government can be reined in by those who have participated in the orgy for years on the government payroll? Who believes the enthusiasm of youth can come from a man on the verge of retirement? The pretending of the Democrats has filtered into the Republican party and when the vision dims, all that is left is blind hope. The proof of the weak vision of both parties is the yearning for the past. The Republicans seek another Reagan and the Democrats are trying to resurrect Clinton. The fresh face and enthusiastic rhetoric of Obama may demonstrate to the Republicans what they need for presentation, but first the diligent work of building a believable workable platform needs to begin. Otherwise a new party must emerge that articulates what the Republicans only pretended they stood for.