For all the flack Romney has gotten for “going negative”, one of his problems has been that he has been playing softball, while everyone else has been playing baseball, including cleating opponents sliding into base. Apparently you’re only supposed to run issue ads and push polls through third parties, negative attacks through proxies, and expect to be lied about the weekend before elections.
I didn’t watch the debate tonight, but here’s an excerpt.
That grin McCain gets when he thinks he has the advantage has started bothering me almost as much as Hillary’s laugh.
I hope this vain petty man does not become President. He has dishonered himself, and dishonored those supporting him. Unfortunately I doubt that those supporting him understand this, and doubt that he cares.
Some conservative reactions to tonights debate.
McCain’s desire to smear Romney so overwhelmed his judgment that he returned to this attack in response to a totally unrelated question about his ability to lead the economy. McCain answered the question by talking about his service in the U.S. military, during which he took another shot at Romney over his alleged proposal to withdraw from Iraq. This one had even my wife, who likes McCain and is skeptical about Romney, rolling her eyes.
More generally, if McCain thinks that invoking his military experience is going to persuade voters that he can be trusted on economic issues, he should reconsider. He’s starting to sound like Rudy Giuliani, who answered every hard question by talking about New York. McCain can probably skate past Super Tuesday with this sort of line – his persistent smirk certainly suggests he thinks he can – but it won’t work against Clinton or Obama. But then, McCain doesn’t hate them like he hates Romney, at least not yet.
The other thing I wanted to see was some sign that McCain was ready to be a leader and be a less irritating figure than he has been up to now. . . His dishonest attack on Romney’s war stance, captured above, just signals that he’s the same old McCain.
I’m now in the position of having come around to like Romney. He’s decent, smart and fair and I think he would make a fine president. And I dislike McCain all over again. He’s a smarmy beltway insider who just lied to everyone who was watching while he smeared a good man, flipped on his own awful legislation and belittled free enterprise. This man wants to lead the party of Reagan?
Unfortunately he will probably be the Republican nominee.
So it is over. Finished. In November, we’ll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate vs. to take on Hillary Clinton—perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy.
And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it.
Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party.
If he is elected (without my support or vote) I will then support him as President (as I will whoever is elected), and hope and pray that he leads this nation well. But I do not have faith that the character he has shown in this campaign, and in the last 25 years in Congress will change.