McCainian "Conservatism"

A list, compiled by the indispensible, delightfully irascible Mark Levin.

Domestic policy:

McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

McCain-Reimportation of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).

And McCain’s stated opposition to the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was largely based on socialist, class-warfare rhetoric — tax cuts for the rich, not for the middle class. The public record is full of these statements. Today, he recalls only his insistence on accompanying spending cuts.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.

McCain also led the Gang of 14, which prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.

That should be enough to reduce his GOP support (in REPUBLICAN primaries!) to subterranean levels.  It is why I never considered him a serious 2008 contender for the party's presidential nomination.  I could not conceive of center-right voters' memories being that short, and that foolishly forgiving.

But, as Don West is fond of saying, "That's not all!":

McCain-ACLU — the unprecedented granting of due-process rights to unlawful enemy combatants (terrorists).

McCain has repeatedly called for the immediate closing of Guantanamo Bay and the introduction of al-Qaeda terrorists into our own prisons — despite the legal rights they would immediately gain and the burdens of managing such a dangerous population.

While McCain proudly and repeatedly points to his battles with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had to rebuild the U.S. military and fight a complex war, where was McCain in the lead-up to the war — when the military was being dangerously downsized by the Clinton administration and McCain’s friend, former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen? Where was McCain when the CIA was in desperate need of attention? Also, McCain was apparently in the dark about al-Qaeda like most of Washington, despite a decade of warnings.

The only areas where the Sith Master can boast of anything close to bona fide conservatism are his support for the "Surge" strategy in Iraq and...well, I was going to say his conspicuous opposition to pork-barrel spending, but just as with his faux moral absolutism on "campaign finance reform," he has his ways of getting around it to quietly claim his piece of the action.  To "have his cake and eat it too," as it were.

I still can't make myself believe that "Sailor" will actually go all the way to Minneapolis next August.  Ditto Huckles.  No matter how strenuously the Enemy Media tries to shove that diabolical duo of deceit down our trunks, there are primaries up-coming that are firewalled against Donk/"Independent" interference, where the true voice of the GOP electorate can be heard.  The question is whether that GOP electorate will have been convinced that Thompson, Romney, and even Giuliani are "finished" and their only choice is between Elmer Gantry and Darth Queeg.

The EM tried that eight years ago, but George W. Bush had a much stronger frontrunner perception in the public mind, and McCain self-destructed right after his New Hampshire upset.  This time Huckles is running away with South Carolina, McCain is running away with Michigan, and there is no default conservative alternative.  It's difficult to think either of them will blitz through the February 5th "national primary," but if no dominant counterpoint emerges against them....

Could we really be looking at a McCain-Huckabee ticket?

Sheesh, I thought Halloween wasn't until October....

UPDATE: Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little about Michigan; my latest polling composite shows McCain and Romney in a flat-footed tie at 24.9%.

Could the Kos-hacks be unwittingly coming to conservatives' rescue?  Why not?  In this election cycle, I'm beginning to think there's no such thing as "too strange".