Grand Old Protectionists

[groovedaddy]

NOW that John McCain is, formally, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, he can stop worrying about winning primaries and caucuses and start worrying about winning over conservatives. Mr. McCain still faces a large challenge from his right in the fall, as many conservatives suspect he isn’t really one of them.

To prove his bona fides as a conservative, Mr. McCain and his defenders often cite his support for free trade. A writer in National Review, for example, suggested last year that conservatives should support Senator McCain because he is, in Mr. McCain’s own estimation, the strongest free trader in the Senate since Phil Gramm (an adviser to Mr. McCain) left that body.

Mr. McCain may be a conservative. But his unbridled free-trade policies don’t help make that case.

Free trade has long been popular with liberals, and it remains so with liberal elites today. The editorial pages of major newspapers consistently support free trade. Ted Kennedy supported the advance of free trade. President Bill Clinton fought hard to win approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Despite some of his campaign rhetoric, Barack Obama is careful to express qualified support for free trade, even when stumping in the industrial Midwest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/opinion/06lighthizer.html?th&emc=th

[Fovea]

1. There is no free trade

Because all nations trade unfairly.

Free trade is just a term to excuse corporatist economic imperialism.

That Bill Clinton is seen as a liberal says a lot about where the media thinks the center is in Amerika. Funny how the real liberals are gone from the race, and we now have two centrists trying to look liberal. No matter which Dem wins in November, they are going to be hamstrung by a very very very insistent mandate welded inextricably to their new legislative majority and executive control.


This is the end for the DLC. They have to get Hillary in, no matter what, or they are over. Even if she gets in, they are no longer important to the party, as they represent an ever shrinking element of the Democratic party: the third way.

They have triangulated the right for so long, they lack the ability to appear liberal.
I think the blue dogs are not going to be very important in the mid to long run.

[2Design]

2. he sold his soul to bFEE already - probably can go to some baptist churches to become born again n/t