McCain-No Longer Winning One for the Gipper?

[babylonsister]

No Longer Winning One for the Gipper?
By Shawn Zeller, CQ Staff


Once the lights go down at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul after the final night of the Republican National Convention, hundreds of delegates and their hangers-on will head across town for an event that could foment as much party unity as the speech just delivered by John McCain.

At “A Tribute to the Reagan Revolution: A Late Night ’80s Celebration,” a cover band will offer hits from the Ronald Reagan decade. Michael Reagan, the president’s older son, is expected to attend.

And so clearly the party — sponsored by the American Conservative Union Foundation at the trendy Minneapolis nightclub Aqua — is meant to evoke nostalgia. But for a growing chorus of restive conservative critics, it could just as easily double as a wake for a Reagan coalition now in profound disarray.

Forecasts of the coalition’s demise have been made before, of course. But the rise of McCain to the top of the GOP hierarchy seems to be triggering more soul searching than ever among the Reaganite faithful.

While the Arizona senator offers both major blocs of the coalition something they want — fiscal conservatism for the business wing, orthodox stands against abortion rights and same-sex marriage for social conservatives — McCain is nevertheless finding his post-primary push for party unity to be an exceptionally tall order. And the reason may ultimately have more to do with the states of the principal partners in the Reagan coalition than with the broader acceptability of the candidate to the conservative movement.

Which is not by any means to say that many orthodox conservatives are enthusiastic about the presumed GOP nominee. They “fear McCain as president would destroy what’s left of the Republican brand and would finish off the conservative movement,” said Richard Viguerie, the political direct-mail mogul who was an architect of the religious right’s initial surge into power when Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=weeklyreport-000002921723

[saltpoint]

1. Good piece and well worth a save. As conservative as McCain is,

the fundie nutbags and the Reagan crowd want somebody even farther to the right.

Very frightening Reagan-as-Daddy complex if you ask me.

McCain does have his job cut out for him. He has to find something that's interesting for people to watch and pay attention to for 4 days in early September.

That's Labor Day weekend and Minnesotans and most everyone else are likely to be outdoors, traveling, hanging out with friends and family -- that sort of thing -- and not watching a cranky old guy licking Reagan's boots on national television.

And isn't the Jerry Lewis Telethon that weekend, too? I bet the muscular dystrophy telethon outpolls McCain.

[babylonsister]

2. Ha! One thing's for sure: "I" won't be watching. And this

Reagan obsession is so bizarre to me. Harkening back to the good ole days?

[saltpoint]

3. LOL! Maybe McCain thinks if he can conjure the image of Reagan,

GOP voters will forget how brain-addled McCain is.

I don't think it will work!


:hi: