McCain: Warning to All GOP Candidates: Support the War at Your Own Risk

[Imagevision]

McCain: Warning to All GOP Candidates: Support the War at Your Own Risk

John McCain's cratering campaign is an object lesson in how to kill a candidacy in three simple steps: 1) locate the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history 2) embrace it 3) implode.

McCain's fate should be a warning to all Republicans seeking office in 2008: continue to back the president's war policy at your own risk.

McCain's fall has been precipitous -- tumbling from establishment GOP front-runner to single-digit also-ran.

Through much of 2005 and 2006 he was widely regarded as the presumptive Republican nominee. Hypothetical 2008 matchups regularly had him beating presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll in December 2006 had him beating Hillary by 14 points -- 50% to 36%.

That's when he decided to go all-in on Iraq, anointing himself head cheerleader for the surge.

On January 5, 2007 -- less than three weeks after that poll had him trouncing Hillary -- McCain gave a widely-covered speech at the American Enterprise Institute in which he advocated a "substantial" and "sustained" escalation in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, tying himself to President Bush and his delusion-driven New Way Forward.

--> Lately McCain's main competitors have clearly taken note. A story this week in the LA Times claimed that the three leading GOP presidential contenders "have been quietly backing away from any commitment to continuing" with the delusional Bush surge.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/mccains-fall-a-warning-t_b_56291.html

[TwilightGardener]

1. Well, by this calculus, Ron Paul and Chuck Hagel are the frontrunners, right?

Stupid analysis. The GOP decides the GOP nominee. The base still loves the war. The fact is, they just don't fucking like McCain, and they never really did. That simple.

[Imagevision]

2. McCain's main competitors have...

clearly taken note. A story this week in the LA Times claimed that the three leading GOP presidential contenders "have been quietly backing away from any commitment to continuing" the surge.

[TwilightGardener]

4. First of all, Foghorn Thompson said recently that he thinks we should

stay in Iraq FOREVAH, or words to that effect. Rudy's whole stock-in-trade is "They started it" in terms of conflating the Iraqis with 9/11, and Mittens, well--he says he's "flexible" on Iraq, whatever that means. I think if they get quieter on cheerleading the war, it's more of thinking ahead to the general election--certainly has nothing to do with winning the GOP primary. They're walking a fine line.

[TlalocW]

3. Why is this a surprise?

I've been telling all my friends that voted for Bush that unlike them, I actually read up on the man before the elections, and it was apparent the guy was a serial loser - ran two oil companies into the ground even with help from Arab backers (friends of his daddy), gave away Sammy Sosa from the Rangers, lost a congressional run, drunk until he was 40, and Texas had to reverse several of his initiatives just to pull them out of the hole he put them in.

For a few years, he actually lucked out and had the support of almost all of America as well as the rest of the world (although he should have been ridden out of town on a rail for ignoring security reports on Al-Qaida and then sitting around like a moron for 10 minutes after the second plane hit), and he squandered all that as well.

McCain isn't completely dense. He should know all this. It is just incredible how stupid the man could be to try and hitch his wagon to W's star.

TlalocW

[Exultant Democracy]

5. Lol, McCain didn't do his homework.