Super Fat Tuesday

Well with today being Super Fat Tuesday it seems to me that this
confluence of events is appropriate since the continuing political
season is sure to be quite penitential and unfortunately goes way
beyond forty days.  With the candidates available I feel like
saying “Bless me Father for I have voted.”  There are of
course never any perfect candidates and they are all flawed in one way
or another.  With the internet us political wonks certainly
suffer from too much information as to these flaws.  Though it
is much better to go into the voting booth with your eyes wide open and
being able to take this into account to best promote the culture of
life.

Now I had already voted in the Florida
primaries and I voted for Gov. Huckabee, but without much enthusiasm.
 Gov. Giuliani was out of the question and McCain and Romney
both support embryonic stem-cell research at least in regards to frozen
embryos.  Since Fred and Duncan Hunter had already bowed
out.  I was left with Gov. Huckabee and Ron Paul who are both
fully pro-life.  I simply didn’t trust Ron Paul to pull our
troops out of Iraq without a subsequent massacre and think we owe it to
the Iraqi people to fix the situation we helped to create.  I
have lots of caveats on Mike Huckabee but it doesn’t really matter
since Huckabee and Paul are not going to get the nomination and it will
be either Sen. McCain or Gov. Romney. They  both support ESCR
– John McCain voted for ESCR twice though has since narrowed his
support to not allow cloning  which makes his position
seemingly now identical to Romney’s.

I kind of like the positions of Romney 2.0
for the most part.  The question is is Romney 2.0 a firmware
upgrade or to extend the software metaphor has he selected a
conservative skin to pretty up his conservative interface?
 No doubt Romney 2.0 is much better than Romney 1.0 in pretty
much all the right directions and I certainly like to give people who
become pro-life the benefit of the doubt.  I find it quite
strange just how many conservative talk radio pundits and other
conservatives buy into Romney 2.0 without and spoken qualms.
 Though I guess that is part of human nature in the political
process is that you ignore or diminish the doubts or faults of the
person you end up supporting.  Can’t say though I am very
impressed by his actions as governor and when it came down to really
doing something about their court ruling on same-sex marriage, making
Catholic hospitals use Plan B, and forcing homosexual adoption on
Catholic Charities. I don’t see how he says he “stood up” against
same-sex marriage.  

Now I put Senator McCain at version 1.1
since with the Senator what you see and hear is mostly what you get.
 He has had some slight changes in positions such as now he
supports the fence first, before addressing immigration, as I mentioned
has tightened his view on ESCR, and he now has a different reason for
why he opposed the Bush tax cuts (class warfare before and now because
spending wasn’t reduced).  The problem with John McCain 1.1 is
that I didn’t much like 1.0 and the minor upgrade isn’t much better.
 Though there are some things I do like about the Senator.
 If it wasn’t for ESCR his pro-life voting record would be
perfect.  His view on torture and not being one of the people
to think that water boarding is “enhanced interrogation” also knocks
him up for me.  His consistent fight against government
spending and earmarks also gives him a checkmark in my book.
 He was willing to take a strong stand on the surge during a
time when many had written off Iraq.  There is not doubt that
McCain sticks to his principles, my problem with him is often that
these are not conservative principles and the reason he is so often
called a Maverick and so loved by the press at times is because
Maverick principles go all over the map.

He is running a commercial saying he was a
foot soldier for the Regan revolution. Well considering his support for
global warming hysteria and carbon caps, restriction of free speech,
 voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment, comparing
drilling in Anwar with drilling in the Grand Canyon,  saying
Its not social issues I care about and I have no doubt Senator
Clinton would make a great president.,  his diatribe against
“greedy” corporations and seeing profit as something less than good, I
think that he is a foot soldier in the Ron Reagan revolution, if
anything.  If John McCain has made a negative comment about
someone you can be sure it was against a fellow conservative and not
someone in the Democratic Party.  There is good evidence that
he considered jumping ship in 2001 ala Jumping Jim Jeffords and that he
also considered running with Sen. John Kerry.  Considering his
falling ACU rating I am not sure how he can be considered a Ronald
Reagan foot soldier.  He certainly has shown no leadership in
regards to social conservative issues and the trend of bills he
sponsors like McCain-Lieberman, McCain-Fiengold, McCain-Kennedy don’t
exactly help him make his case.

Though I am not like Ann Coulter
or James Dobson and would certainly vote for Sen. John McCain over
Hillary or Barack.  John McCain is much more likely to appoint
a judicial conservative (though I have my worries) and you know the
Democratic nominee will certainly pick judges who will ensure that Roe
v. Wade will continue to be the unjust law of the land.  There
is also no doubt that a President McCain would not veto pro-life
 legislation (except possibly on aspects of ESCR).

Unfortunately judicial activism has made Supreme Court nominations so
vitally important and an issue and requires a high trust level.
 I don’t have a high trust level on nominees for either McCain
or Romney.  Mitt Romney does not have a good record of
judicial appointments in Massachusetts and while McCain backed all of
the judges appointed by Republican presidents, he did the same for
Democratic presidents.  Though when it comes down it to I
would want Romney or McCain and part of that is because I prefer
governors over senators as candidates and maybe part of it is that I
have disliked McCain longer than I have had mixed feelings about Mitt
Romney.

Though I am not like some pundits who say a vote for one candidate is a
vote for another one.  If you can’t vote your conscience in
the Primaries exactly when are you allowed to?  While someone
can prudently select a candidate for electability or in a close race to
try to support one over the other, one can choose to not make their
decision on this criteria.   I have certainly in the past
during the primaries supported Quixote candidates like Alan Keyes who I
knew were never going to get the nomination.