McCain Wins On Looks, Too!

Since the mainstream media is focused on doing their best to drag the undeserving Obama ticket across the finish line in November, it is unlikely that they would actually report anything that makes McCain/Palin appear in a positive light. However, this focus on serving as Democratic Party lapdogs does free up the blogosphere to actually do their job for them. In the vein, Captain Capitalism decided to do a little objective comparison of the physical appeal of John McCain versus Barack Obama on the site Hot or Not. As the Captain writes,

To prove who was the better looking I took two pictures; one of John McCain in his prime and one of Barack Obama in his prime. I faced the problem that if the pictures were too easily identifiable then the screeners at Hot or Not would reject them.

The methodology was as fair as the Captain could make it. He found pictures of both McCain and Obama in their youthful prime (done from an Internet search for 'young McCain' and 'young Obama'). The resulting pictures were posted on Hot of Not under suitable aliases and the Captain then sat back to await results.

Surprise! It turns out that McCain was rated as a 9.9 out of 10, whereas Obama was a pedestrian 7.2 out of 10. McCain also seemed to be more attractive- his profile was reported to have received requests for meetings from members of the opposite sex and also was invited to be the site's Person of the Week- something that the Obama profile did not receive.

As Captain Capitalism concludes,

Of course, looks are irrelevant when it comes to selecting the president of the United States and this was done largely out of humor and jest. However, while you may not be able to date John McCain, you can vote for him. For while he may beat Barack 9.9 to 7.2 in looks (adjusting for prime), I would surmise he equally, if not, more than trounces him in experience.

Agreed. Now if only the mainstream media would perform their jobs with even a small amount of the professionalism displayed by Captain Capitalism, we MIGHT actually have an informed electorate. of course, if that occurred, the Democratic Party would probably never win another election.

It's........Palin!

Republican Presidential candiadte John McCain selected Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate today. According to the announcement sent out by the McCain campaign,

Governor Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president. She has brought Republicans and Democrats together within her Administration and has a record of delivering on the change and reform that we need in Washington.

Governor Palin has challenged the influence of the big oil companies while fighting for the development of new energy resources. She leads a state that matters to every one of us -- Alaska has significant energy resources and she has been a leader in the fight to make America energy independent.

In Alaska, Governor Palin challenged a corrupt system and passed a landmark ethics reform bill. She has actually used her veto and cut budgetary spending. She put a stop to the "bridge to nowhere" that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars.

As the head of Alaska's National Guard and as the mother of a soldier herself, Governor Palin understands what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops.

I think this is an excellent choice on many levels. First, Governor Palin has the executive experience that both Biden and Obama (and McCain himself, to be honest) so conspicuously lack. Secondly, as the youngest member of either ticket, she is able to challenge Obama's youth-based celebrity (she was herself a beauty contestant in her younger days). And she, like McCain, is a maverick- she has consistently fought the special interests and corruption in her own party and defeated several Establishment candidates to win her current position. She is someone who can bring a voice of reason to the energy debate, as she is Governor of the state with American's largest oil reserves. Finally, as a working mom, she can connect to women on a level that neither Biden nor Obama can, and McCain's choice shows once again that he is the real agent for change and is willing to take risks- in short, as Pajamas Media's Jennifer Rubin so aptly put it "he thinks he can win".

Palin is solidly conservative. As governor, she reduced spending, exposed corruption and worked to make Alaska independent of federal money. She has a long record of fighting corruption and is not close to either of Alaka's corrupt Congressmen- Senator Stevens or Representative Young. She is also a hunter, a lifelong member of the NRA and she is a confirmed pro-life candidate- she chose to have her latest child even though doctors told her that the child had Downs Syndrome. Her oldest son is in the Army, and is preparing to deploy to Iraq.

The risk here is that Palin's experience is limited. Before being elected governor, she was a member of the city council and later mayor of Wasilla, a small town of only 5400 residents in Alaska. However, both her mayoral and her gubernatorial experience trump either Biden or Obama- neither has any executive experience at all. And she, like McCain, has a long record of reformism- in fact, her reformer credentials are even more solid than McCain's- she was never involved with the Keating Five.

In conclusion, Palin may be weak on the experience bit, having less than ten years in elected office. But she has executive experience as both a mayor and as a governor- no one else on either ticket can make that claim. And she is as much the outsider as McCain- in contrast to the Chicago machine politician Obama and the ultimate Washington insider Biden. And she also brings intangibles that neither Biden nor even Obama himself can- she is a woman, and with the Hillary supporters still unhappy with the way their candidate was treated, she may be able to siphon off some of the female support Obama desperately needs in order to win.

USA Today Targets McCain in Hillary Article

Just in time for the Democratic Convention in Denver this week, is the national press doing their best once again to tilt the playing field in favor of Senator Barack Obama? It would seem that that is indeed the case.

Case in point is an article in the USAToday online edition headlined Poll: More than half of Clinton backers still not sold on Obama. However, once the story passes it's purported main point of listing the challenges faced by Obama in uniting a Democratic Party thoroughly fractured by the rough campaign season, the story manages to include points that are designed to be negative for the Republican candidate, Arizona Senator John McCain.

the writer, one Susan Page, admits that many Clinton supporters are ambivalent at best about Obama, and also does include the fact that many Americans have concerns over Obama's lack of experience, but she then includes several points that are unhelpful to McCain, writing,

A majority say his policies as president would mostly benefit the wealthy. Four in 10 worry McCain is too old to be president — he'll turn 72 on Friday — and 66% say they're concerned he'll pursue President Bush's course. That includes 64% of independents and 35% of Republicans.

McCain also gets more blame for the campaign's negative tone. Nearly half of respondents, 48%, say McCain has attacked Obama unfairly, compared with 30% who say Obama has unfairly attacked McCain.

I wonder what the polls would say if the mainstream media- yes, this includes you, Miss Page- had actually covered the campaigns from an objective point of view? if the media had not relentlessly written misleading stories on the economy (hint- it isn't as bad as they would like us to think) and on McCain's supposedly negative campaigning.

Is it negative to point out one's rivals flaws, faux pases and mis-steps? Is it negative to point out one's rival's many mis-statements and apparent lack of knowledge? And I notice that the real negative comments from the Obama campaign about McCain somehow seem to be entirely acceptable to the MSM. His age, his 28-year old marital affairs and his wealth seem to be acceptable targets, yet any comparable comments about Obama seem to be unacceptable. How is this possible?

in any event, we already know that the mainstream media are in the tank for Obama. this article, though innocuous on the surface, is merely one more shot from a media that desperately wants to prove it can get its man into the White House after failing to give the past two elections to their favored candidates.

Cross-posted on NewsBusters

Goodbye Hillary- for now

Well, it appears that after the primaries earlier this week, Hillary Clinton has bowed to the inevitable and is ending her candidacy for the Presidency. According to the story in the Associated Press,

Hillary Rodham Clinton will end on Saturday her historic bid to become the first woman president but Barack Obama said he won't be hurried into a decision on whether to make her his running mate.

Clinton, in an e-mail to supporters, said she "will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise."

The e-mail was a shift in tone by the former first lady, who announced 17 months ago that she was "in it to win it." Many of her supporters now are pushing for her to be included as the vice presidential candidate, in their minds a "dream ticket" that would bring Obama her enthusiastic legions and broaden his appeal to white and working-class voters.

The Democratic Party has long based its strategy on the politics of race, sex and class division. In any other year, it seems certain that Hillary, despite her well-documented weaknesses as a candidate, would have swept to the nomination. However, Barack Obama, just as Bill Clinton did in 1992, took advantage of a relatively small field and the weakness of the front-runners to eke out a narrow victory in the primaries. However, there can be no doubt that neither Hillary nor Obama would have been in this position if it were not for their sex and color respectively. No white male with the thin resumes both of these candidates had would have been considered. However, Barack Obama is now the Democratic Party's candidate for President. Hillary now has to hope that she is offered a spot as the Vice-Presidential candidate.

I do not see Obama offering her the spot, however. Despite her appeal to a large percentage of the Democratic Party, I believe that she was more the anti-Obama candidate for voters who were appalled at Obama's arrogance, naivete, and the positions of some of his long-standing advisors. And the campaign exposed some serious fault-lines within the Democratic Party, between the various 'favored victim' groups, with personal dislikes between the candidates playing a factor as well. There is some real dislike between Hillary and Obama, and it may be too much to ask that they bury those before the general election. Of course, Democrats as a party are all about winning at any cost- they have a long history of being willing to say and do anything in order to get elected.

If Obama does put Hillary on the ticket, that will mostly assuage her supporters within the party. But on the other hand, it will certainly fire up the opposition. Hillary remains an incredibly divisive figure, and her inclusion on the ticket will bring out Republicans and conservatives who might otherwise sit this election out. I wold suspect that Obama will only put her on the ticket if he is forced to by Democratic Party leadership- if left to his own devices, I believe he will choose someone else- someone who is less well-0known and polarizing than Hillary.

And what of Hillary's own ambitions? If Obama wins, she cannot run for President again for eight years. However, if McCain wins, she will almost certainly run again in 2012. However, regardless of whether she runs in 2012 or not, I believe that this was her best chance to win. Unless she is the Vice-President in an Obama Administration, she will probably be facing a Vice-President in 2012. And she has now shown that she is very vulnerable in a national campaign- her stiffness, arrogance and general unlikability, coupled with her claims to experience she simply doesn't possess, make her unlikely to win against a serious opponent. the fact that she could not even beat Obama- and in fact lost to him- makes it unlikely she will win the big one. However, don't ever count the Clintons out. After all, there is always Chelsea...

So can Obama beat John McCain in the general election, with or without Hillary on the ticket? In part, it depends on McCain's campaign and his choice of a running mate. If he chooses wisely and if he runs a strong campaign, he could beat Obama, though ther is no doubt that he is an underdog- especially when one considers taht the antional Press corps will do everything in their power to elect Obama. After their narrow misses in throwing the election to Democrats in 2000 and 2004, the media is desperate to hand this one to Obama. Thus, McCain will be a decided underdog, but he has a resume and experience that Obama cannot hope to match. In addition, while Obama may like to hype his work as a 'community organizer', McCain has real service- he was a prisoner-of-war to the North Vietnamese while serving his country.

But I think ultimately the election will come down to whether or not McCain can pull the independent vote that the Democrats desperately need. I do not believe that McCain can count on the Democrats crossing over- they tend to be far more partisan and vote the party line, as opposed to actually comparing candidates. But if McCain can get the independents, then he has a real shot at beating Obama, despite the fact that this is shaping up to be a Democratic year in politics.

Paul Plots Revolt

The antipathy that much of the Republican Party holds toward John McCain has been well-documented. Today, a story in the Los Angeles Times highlights that antipathy, and also contains a possible threat to McCain's smooth nomination at the convention in September.

According to the LA Times, Ron Paul's forces are trying to organize a public revolt against McCain at the convention. The main goal, at least according to the Times, is to influence the party's platform and get Paul a high-profile speaking slot. The Times writes,

In the last three months, Paul's forces, who donated $34.5 million to his White House effort and upward of a million total votes, have, as The Ticket has noted, been fighting a series of guerrilla battles with party establishment officials at county and state conventions from Washington and Missouri to Maine and Mississippi.Their goal: to take control of local committees, boost their delegate totals and influence platform debates.

Paul, for instance, favors a drastically reduced federal goNobody told these supporters of Texas Rep. and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul that the French can't vote in American electionsvernment, abolishing the Federal Reserve, ending the Iraq war immediately and withdrawing U.S. troops from abroad.

They hope to demonstrate their disagreements with McCain vocally at the convention through platform fights and an attempt to get Paul a prominent speaking slot. Paul, who's running unopposed in his home Texas district for an 11th House term, still has some $5 million in war funds and has instructed his followers that their struggle is not about a single election, but a long-term revolution for control of the Republican Party.

I am not sure how seriously to take this story. On the one hand, it is certainly true that the rank-and-file of the Republican Party, including myself, have some serious disagreements with Senator McCain on a number of issues. Speaking only for myself, I take issue with the Senator's approach to border security and his ideas about the proper treatment of enemy aliens. However, I also am well aware that the mainstream media, despite their preference for Senator McCain during the primary season, will do their best to enhance his opponent during the general campaign. This story may be a simple test to see if they can spread disarray in the Republican Party to match that on display in the Democratic Party.

While I do believe that Senator McCain needs to do more work to convince conservatives that he can respect their wishes, it is patently obvious that neither of the Democrats will do a better job in that area. Thus if conservatives wish to throw the election to either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, then by all means they should try to undermine the Republican Party. However, they need to ask themselves if they would be better served by a Democrat in the White House. For myself, the answer is a definite no.

Ultimately, I believe that conservatives should (and probably will) support Senator McCain, considering his opponents in November. So this story to me is most likely an early attempt by the MSM to stir up controversy and discord in the conservative ranks.

StoneHead Returns

In more ways than one. Despite the continuing demands of my real job, I am back and will do my best to maintain a steady stream of posts. There has been a lot happening over the past few weeks, from the move by Captain Ed Morrissey from Captain's Quarters to Michelle Malkin's Hot Air site, to Senator John McvCain's clinching of the Republican Presidential nomination, to the continuing struggles of the vaunted Clinton Machine.

First, let me congratulate Ed Morrissey on his move to Hot Air. As of January 29, 2008, he had closed Captain's Quarters, though his posts will remain online as archives for those who are interested. Captain Ed has been a model for my own modest blogging efforts, and I am sure that he will continue to provide scintillating commentary and analysis on current events from his new perch. I will miss the daily exercise of checking Captain's Quarters, but at least with his move to Hot Air, I have one less bookmark to keep up!

I would also like to extend my congratualtions to Senator McCain for clinching the Republican Presidential nomination. According to the Associated Press, not only has McCain has secured more than the requisite 1191 delegates to clinch the nomination in last night's contests, but his remaining serious rival (no, I don't count Ron Paul), former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, has withdrawn from the race. Writes the AP,

John McCain clinched the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, an extraordinary comeback for a candidate whose White House hopes were dashed eight years ago and whose second bid was left for dead eight months ago.
"The most important race begins," he said in an Associated Press interview.
According to the AP count, the four-term Arizona senator surpassed the requisite 1,191 GOP delegates as voters in Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas put him over the threshold. The triumph came one month after his Super Tuesday coast-to-coast victories gave him an insurmountable lead in the delegate hunt and forced his chief rival, Mitt Romney, to drop out of the race.

I find the AP's report interesting insofar as they don't seem to feel the need to admit that their own reporting was one of the primary causes why McCain was 'left for dead eight months ago'. Interesting how there is no mention of just who left McCain's candidacy for dead. However, as I wrote earlier, while I endorsed former massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (shortly before his Super Tuesday defeat that led to his withdrawal), I believe that Senator McCain is a worthy candidate and an honorable man. I am proud to support Senator McCain and I strongly urge any readers of this blog to consider doing so as well.

Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Clinton's Texas/Ohio firewall has apparently held- at least to the extent of allowing her to stay in the race for the Democratic nomination. However, she trails Illinois Senator Barack Obama by just over one hundred delegates with twelve contests and 611 delegates left to be pledged. According to ABC News, neither Obama nor Clinton are likely to be able to secure the nomination prior to the convention, which means the Democratic superdelegates will end up deciding who is the nominee. Writes ABC News,

ABC News' current delegate estimate has Obama at 1,555.

That means he would need to win 77% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024 to secure the nomination. That is highly unlikely due to the proportional delegate allocation rules in the Democratic Party.

Clinton would need to win 94% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024. (ABC News currently has her at 1449.)

So, clearly they both are going to be relying on superdelegates to secure the nomination.

This exposes both the structural problem with the Democratic Party- allowing too many party bigwigs to decide nominations, and the issues the Democrats have with identity politics. Since you have two of the Democrats' favored victims classes- a woman and a black man- running for the nomination, the traditional Democratic politics of destruction are going to be used internally for the first time. This is why running on identity politics is a bad idea and why Republicans need to really emphasize that it is who you are, not what you are, that really should matter.

Ultimately, I believe that Barack Obama will be the nominee, unless the Clinton machine uses the superdelegates and the courts to overturn the primary voters' decisions. Since this is the Clintons we are discussing, that is a definite possibility- we already know that if the decision comes down to the convention, the Clintons will use all arguments necessary to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates, despite the Democratic Party's stated refusal. However, the Democratic race will be fun to watch- especially for Republicans who listened to pundits crown Hillary a year ago and tell us that the Republicans would have a bruising, lengthy primary. that the exact opposite has occurred despite the best efforts of the media should tell you all you need to know about the pundits' accuracy- and the preferences of the national media.

On Break Temporarily

I apologize for the scarcity of posts in the recent past. I have been and continue to be somewhat overwhelmed both at my regular job and with family issues. I will resume posting once I have managed to clear a few of these off of my plate.

I hope to resume posting by the beginning of Marh as the election season kicks into high gear and the media brings out these best shots to disparage and smear the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain. I observe that the New York Times has already printed the first of presumably many smears on Senator McCain.

However, since they have no sourcing save for self-admitted disgruntled former campaign workers and the allegations are strongly denied by McCain himself, I feel safe in suggesting that there is no point in spending much time on this ridiculous attempt to smear Senator McCain- it is simply the Times being the Times. Fishwrap might better described the paper's worth than it's current claim to 'Alkl the news that is fit to print".


As a personal note, I did endorse former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. However, I said at the time that while I have had past disagreements with Senator McCain, he represents a far better choice for the United States than either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama. I cheerfully will vote for him in November's general election, and urge all Republican/conservative/libertarian readers of this blog (and any stray liberals as well) to vote for Senator McCain in November.

Hope to see you all in March!

And Then There Was One

Well, it appears that for all intents and purposes, the Republican primaries have come to an end. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney announced today that he was suspending his campaign. Although former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee remains in the race, his chances of winning the nomination are infinitesimal, especially with Romney's withdrawal. A victorious John McCain, meanwhile, is at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this week, to bolster his credentials among the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

So what does this mean for conservatives? Firstly, it means that it is now time for conservatives to recognize that McCain is the nominee of the Republican Party and for better or worse, we need to make an accommodation with him. There are definitely areas where McCain needs to explain himself to conservatives, but it is also incumbent upon conservatives to make and effort to work with McCain as well. I cannot imagine a worse scenario than conservatives sitting out the election and handing the Presidency to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Neither of these two represents conservatives at all, and while we have some legitimate issues with some of McCain's policy decisions, neither Clinton nor Obama has ever made an effort to work with conservatives and would certainly not advance conservative principles.

Secondly, it is time for conservatives to abandon any residual anger at McCain and recognize that despite his highly-publicized departures from conservatism, he does vote with conservative ideals most of the time. And while McCain may not be an ideal candidate, the Republican Party is not made up only of conservatives, and as Captain Ed Morrissey pointed out, even within the 'conservative' group there are some important differences. Captain Ed writes,

Despite the size of CPAC, the conservative wing of the Republican Party is one of several factions within a big tent. Within that movement exists sub-factions as well. In order to have influence over public policy, any movement has to align itself with other compatible factions to form a governing coalition. That means sharing decisions and sometimes subordinating some issues in order to hold the coalition together, including leadership decisions.

If we are to be adult and responsible members of the Republican coalition, as we should be, then it behooves us to accept McCain as our nominee and do everything we can to help him win in 2008.

However, it is also time for McCain to recognize that in order to win in 2008, he needs to reach out to conservatives who are not very pleased with some of his deviations. I believe I can understand his thinking on McCain-Feingold, though I deplore the methodology and the resultant attack on political speech. However, the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill needs to be explained, and McCain needs to assure us that he understands the anger and will not do that again as President.

I would hope that McCain also understands that he should end his faux populism- that kind of thing may work for Barack Obama, who after all has no experience, but it won't work for Republicans and conservatives in particular. And Captain Ed recommends that McCain promise to elect strict constructionists to the bench- that is one area where all conservatives can agree progress is needed. If he can do that, I agree with captin Ed that much of the conservative ire will be defused.

Ultimately however, McCain has won the Republican nomination. Conservatives are still much more at home in the Republican Party than they are in a Democratic Party that promotes defeatism, anti-Americanism, and government nanny-ism. Prior to Super Tuesday I wrote that I would prefer Romney, but I could happily support McCain. that is still true,. And with McCain's victory and Romney's withdrawal, it is time for conservatives to cease the harsh words and concentrate on supporting the nominee who, despite his flaw, is a far better choice for America than either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

A Two Horse Race?

Well, it appears that the Republican nomination for President is indeed down to a straight choice between Arizona Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The latest polls out of Florida seem to indicate that former new York mayor Rudy Giuliani is falling fast and will almost certainly not win in a state where he has been leading almost since the beginning. I think that is too bad. Guiliani had issues right from the start with some of the party;'s base, but I think he would have been a very strong candidate and certainly would have given the Republicans a good alternative to the either of the policy neophytes advanced by the Democrats. He also would have brought the security factors front and center, due to his previous position. However, it appears that he, like Fred Thompson, may have waited too long to engage in the process, and now may be forced to retire. I regret that I agree with both the guys at Power Line who write eloquently,

After tonight, the contest likely will be down to Romney vs. McCain. But, although the race has been simplified, for me the choice still isn't simple. Every time it looks like McCain will break away from the pack, I panic in anticipation of four years of watching him stick it to conservatives on a more than occasional basis. When things seem to be breaking Romney's way, I panic in anticipation of an electoral rout in November followed by four years of a Clinton or Obama presidency.

Today, Florida Republicans are asked to make this call, but my turn is coming soon.

This is kind of how I feel as well, though I agree with what many others have said, to wit, any of the putative Republican candidates are infinitely more qualified and more desirable in the middle of a war against Islamic aggression than any of their Democratic rivals. However, ultimately the Republican Party will have to make a choice. I still have not made up my own mind as to which candidate will ultimately be best for the nation and for the party. However, as the Power Line crew so aptly said, I also haven't had to decide yet, but my own decision time is rapidly approaching. Fast.