The Next Reagan

You know, not even six months ago, if you had told me that an Obama presidency would have been the worst thing ever, I would have agreed with you.  I still think that he’s terrible for the country, and will through his saintly intentions make a righteous mess out of things, namely the economy.

While I still plan on voting for Johnny Mac, my concern with an Obama presidency was that he’d go all Jimmy Carter on us and that the Republican party doesn’t have another Ronald Reagan waiting to pick up the pieces left behind by four years of socialism and screwing with the economy.

I don’t think that any longer.  I feel like with Republicans like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal,  and others that the Republican party does have strong, young candidates waiting in the wings.  The question then in my mind is whether or not having McCain lose to Obama would be disastrous enough to tell the Republican party to stop running these guys, and run someone who is actually a conservative.

Unfortunately, the problem with realizing that the conservatives actually have strong, charismatic potential candidates waiting is that it leads me back to my previous moral dilemma about voting for McCain.  Since I’m in an election where I’m forced to pick the lesser of two evils, picking McCain leaves a foul taste in my mouth.  Like many others, I’ll be at least half in the bag to have to actually punch the button for this guy.  At the same time, I cannot in good conscience vote for Obama and sleep well that night – the best I could do in that situation is simply not vote for the president, and cast my ballot solely for other races.

Of course, I run into the problem of wondering if the US could actually take 4 years of Obama – we barely made it out of Jimmy Carter’s presidency from an economic standpoint, and with the battering that the dollar has taken I kind of wonder if we could actually make it.  And that doesn’t even bring up the question of Supreme Court justices either.  With only a 5-4 for a .38 revolver on Heller, the potential for Obama to appoint 1-3 justices to court scares the crap out of me.

So where does that leave me?  Unfortunately, right back where I started.  I think the deciding factor for me will ultimately come down to economics – whether or not I believe that the country could make it through 4 years of Obamanomics and socialist programs will be the final deciding factor on whether or not I vote for McCain.

The bright side of the issue is that if the Republicans lose and that loss is devastating, maybe, just maybe, the GOP will wake up and realize that they need to put Bobby Jindal or Sarah Palin or Mitch Daniels or someone other than the same old RINOs in the driver’s seat.   Until then, I guess I’ll just keep having this debate with myself every election season.

10 Comments

  1. Ahab,

    I think that others have said it better, but I think that it won’t matter if the republicans win or lose the presidential election. I think it really matters at the lower levels; electing the true conservatives and letting them work their way up.

    The Palins, Jindals, Daniels are out there; how much do we do to grow that group of young conservatives? I know in my case it hasn’t been much. Getting involved at their levels may make more of an impact.

    Another aspect is the behind the scenes activity; JR at a Keyboard and a .45 really brought this home. He contributed some wording to the local republican platform that was incorporated at the state level.

    I’ve been debating the McCain/Obama issue myself; I’ll probably vote for McCain but really I’ll be looking harder at the local levels to see what impact I can have there. If nothing else, ensuring that true conservatives are elected at the local level may offset some of the impact at the national level.

  2. Two minor nits…

    One, the economic disaster that was the ’70s started long before James Earl Carter came on the national scene. Not that that lets him off the hook for the unmitigated disaster that was his Presidency, but he didn’t start the fire.

    It was started by Republicans ::coughNixoncough:: trying to out-liberal the liberals. Which, if you think about it, is kind of a precursor to the modern situation: the GOP yet again failing to figure out that conservatism is the Way, the Truth, and the Light.

    And, whether Squirrelly wins or loses, I suspect the GOP will draw exactly the wrong lesson from the experience. In the former case, they’ll say, “See? Conservatives aren’t all that much of a factor. We won by appealing to moderates and independents — the swing voter swung our way.” In the latter case, they’ll blame conservatives for the loss.

    Having made these brillig prognostications, I am forced to admit I have no clue as to what to do in the short term. Like you, I’m going to probably go to the polls and vote buzzed — but only so buzzed I don’t go “WTF!” and vote for O’Hopeychangey in a moment of rebellion and weak impulse control.

    M

  3. I have to say, my vote for McCain completely and totally rides on who he’s picking as his running mate. Maybe by some miracle he’ll pick one of the up and coming Conservatives. Since I don’t think he’ll run for more than one term (given his age), his Veep pick would likely be the next Republican nominee in 2012. If that’s the case, I’ll vote for him.

    However, if he picks anyone from the NE US (including Romney, I simply don’t trust anyone from Massachusetts except my own Grandfather, and he only grew up in Boston, he’s lived in Maryland for most of his life), or any moderate Republicans, I’ll likely simply vote for the Libertarian or not vote at all. I refuse to vote for the Dali ‘Bama no matter what.

  4. Remember folks, it’s not just about our guns. SCOTUS handed us some help on that, so at least a complete ban appears to be off the table.

    What’s really scary about Obamarama is the social(ist) programs he wants. Any new government agency will NEVER go away. It may get renamed or absorbed, but once in place, it’s there for keeps. If socialized healthcare is pushed down our throats, we’ll never be rid of it. Keep this in mind when you vote. Ask your veteran friends about VA hospitals and the level of care they get. THAT is what socialized medicine will mean for all of us.

    McCain may not be a true conservative, but the alternative is a hard-core socialist. A vote for McCain may be giving ground, but a vote for Obama is self immolation on a national scale.

  5. I’m not voting for either of them. Rewarding Republicans for nominating poor candidates is not a good practice.

    I wouldn’t be too sanguine about Obama and guns, though. Remember, this is the guy who wanted to ban gun shops within five miles of a school or park, which means everywhere. Heller is going to do DC residents very little good–they can’t buy revolvers in the district, as there are no gun shops and there won’t be any; it’s illegal for them to buy them at gun shops not in the district, and they can’t have autoloaders because they’re “machine guns.” Furthermore, the district is taking the position that you can’t unlock or load your gun except if in “immediate” danger, and the fact that an intruder has broken into your house doesn’t mean you’re in “immediate” danger. Oh, and if you are the one who has registered a gun, no one else in your family can touch it. And registering a gun can take months, if you have the patience to keep coming back. Heller doesn’t say that any of these rules is unconstitutional; we will need many years of litigation to get anywhere serious. And Heller was a 5-4 decision; the makeup of the court will be different next time.

  6. I’ve been hoping that McCain would pick a Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal for VP, but it’s looking less and less likely.

  7. “The bright side of the issue is that if the Republicans lose and that loss is devastating, maybe, just maybe, the GOP will wake up and realize that they need to put Bobby Jindal or Sarah Palin or Mitch Daniels or someone other than the same old RINOs in the driver’s seat.”

    They haven’t learned in the past. I have little faith they’re learn from such a defeat this time around.

  8. Four years of McCain means a bad taste in your mouth. Four years of Obama means a descent into socialism.

    On the one hand, we have a war hero with a wife who’s a hottie that owns a brewery. On the other hand, we have a socialist lawyer with a lawyer wife who hates any America where her husband isn’t in charge. Why is this a difficult decision?

  9. I might be slightly influenced by that if any of those young, charismatic, and sexy Republicans were in California – but the best we can do is Tom McClintock and he’s great but he’s none of the above.
    We already have really-really-really bad gun laws, insane and botox’d national “representation”, and the whole fruit-nut-and-hemp-sensitive crowd – they need no further encouragement, they need to LOSE the whole Obama Diefication and just lose, LOSERS.
    And we’re stuck with them, because the State’s Voting Dstricts are gerrymandered to win Democrat for the next 100 years. There’s not even any republicans running in my district, they don’t exist and can’t compete, it’s not worth the money they just get crushed. Instead what I have is a 2rd generation Democrat scion running the Family’s Seat – and they learned this from the Kennedy’s in MA because a LOT of the California Crazies in politics here come from there (Boxer for one, Pelosi is another) – they’re not native, they’re invasive weeds from another state, loco weeds.

  10. A Barack bin laden O’bama presidency would be a greater catastrophe to this nation, than that of the world’s greatest socialist, Fascist Demogogue Roosevelt.

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