Excellent comment.

Chris,

An excellent point.

McCain has some problems wiht party discipline, and those are rightfully worrying to Republicans. But Romney has done much more harm to the party, I think, by repeatedly going after other Republicans directly.

I hope you are right about McCain's positive style. Hillary's negative one is the reason that I support Obama for the Democratic nomination [1].

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/01/03/vote-mccain-vote-obama.html

The truth is the Republican Party as currently composed and led has been betraying its principles and its history.

Bush is not a real conservative. He's nothing of the sort. The only real conservative thing he's done is get 2 conservative judges onto the Supreme Court, which is, definitely a big deal.

If McCain's immigration ideas were so out of line, why didn't he lose in one of the states worst-hit by illegal immigration, SC? The anti-illegal immigration advocates (who I actually agree with quite a bit) lost their damn minds about a few months ago when they thought the rest of the country shared their sense of panic and resolve. Its most certainly not so simple. The country supports stiff legislation like that passed by Oklahoma (the 1804 law) but has begun to understand something McCain has long understood…. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

Since Reagan cut funding to a number of government agencies, it has been no surprise that many of these agencies (like the FAA and what is currently ICE) have been doing a crap job over the past 20 years. Hmm… how is that a surprise? If you don't fund the service, the service doesn't fund itself, except in the rare case of the ICE which tripled its charges on most if not all immigration requests (ala a fiance visa that was once $155 is now $455) in order to attain some degree of independence from a fickle Congress.

McCain wants to toe the line on spending, which angers many a supposed conservative in Washington (as well as their blogger and media allies) who have come to depend on their pork barrel projects. Indeed, one wonders if Sen. Tom Coburn, quite possibly the most conservative senator Washington has seen in the past 20 -40 years, is some type of liberal because he worked with Sen. Obama on several issues relating to reigning in pork spending and adding a serious degree of oversight and accountability into the system, ala a website citizens can visit to see exactly what the USG is spending their tax dollars on. He did that with McCain's backing and support… how is that not conservative?

Most of all here is the delusion of many self-professed conservatives who live in a dream world where the GOP can shove its views down the voter's throats and get away with it. Those days are over, probably for the next decade or more, thanks to the gross incompetence and corruption of the prior GOP congressional leadership and Pres. Bush.

What McCain understands is that he can avoid this defeat by building a new coalition of existing Republicans like veterans, budget hawks, foreign policy hawks, the young, independents and numerous other groups and save the GOP from likely defeat in November. Not to mention, and most important of all, McCain knows he can co-opt 30% or so of the Democrats in Congress on issues he wants their votes on, simply because his policy proposals will be conservative enough to win his party's backing but centrist enough to win the backing of the majority of the voters, hence making Democrat opposition quite dangerous for a number of red and purple state senators and Congressmen.

They broke the law to get here and along with a mostly unskilled, uneducated labor force they bring a criminal element that forms the backbone of major hispanic gangs (MS13, etc.) in almost all major cities, smuggle narcotics, and contribute inordinately to our prison populations, increase pressure on our social support networks, and stress our schools. They have limited knowledge of and little respect for our democratic traditions, institutions, and the rule of law. And because their earnings are so low, most pay no taxes and any taxes they do pay are nominal compared to the costs incured on their behalf.”

Read my previous comment, Rex. McCain-Kennedy may not provide a satisfying scourging of societies ills, but it does provide something more important– information. Give an illegal alien a chance to come in out of the cold, and you gain a chance to find out:
How he got here, so you can start shutting down the smuggling network that put him there.
Where he came from, either so you can start nagging the Mexican government about conditions in some of its provinces or so you can watch out for OTHER foreigners disguised as Mexicans.
What his biometric data (fingerprints and DNA come to mind) look like so any crimes he commits can be tracked back to him more quickly.
Where he works, so you can start getting him paid a minimum wage and taxes paid for his labors.
Where he lives, so at least some of that extra tax income can be directed at the schools and other social services in his area.

His crime does not go unpunished, as he is required to pay back taxes plus a fine, to submit fingerprint data to DHS (just looked the text of the bill up), and to learn civic and english within a certain period of time. This last part also helps them to learn about our democratic traditions and laws. And the presence of democratic traditions and laws that actually help them and treat them fairly also gives them an opportunity to develop a degree of respect for same.

He is the Republican version of Joe Leiberman.

His stances on issues and his persona make him a palatable Republican to many Democrats. The same qualifications make him political toxic waste to many hard core Republicans.

For all that people talk about working together, the real winner in politics is vigorous, organized, competition. Nancy Pelosi and the Dems in the House have learned this. Harry Reid on the other hand weakly(and weekly) caves in to Republicans in the Senate.

In a different era politicians were clubby and friendly, even mannerly. Today even the best pol is one serious gaffe away from humiliating loss. Pressure has increased from interest groups who, because of sunshine laws, know who is really working for their interest. The internet has increased the pace and effectiveness of spinners and dirty-tricksters.

Politics, in other words, has become a brutal and untrusting place. John McCain aims to change that.

Except that the game has rules.

I can think of free trade in goods (even when people call re-importation a liberal idea), free trade in labor (even when people call immigration a liberal idea), to name two.

(Us people in AZ hate the Feds. )

Do you just hand the immigrants an id card and let them go, or do you gather information on them first? Physical information (biometric data, infectious diseases) could help catch them more quickly if they commit a crime or prevent an outbreak of something. Background data could be followed up on to make sure they are who they say they are, thus helping to catch career criminals or terrorists and find smuggling networks.

McCain-Feingold is a ham-handed, unconstitutional attempt to restrict political speech. Along with politically correct speech regulation, this is a position strictly in modern left wing liberal territory. No conservative position here.

Those of us from the west are proud of our many hispanic American citizens and friends whose forefathers chose American democracy over Mexican citizenship from the beginning, and most of them are no happier with the current illegal alien situation than western anglo citizens. And the failure of the national government to control our southern border has been a longstanding source of unhappiness throughout the western states.

Unfettered access to the southwestern U.S. by aliens from south of the border is not acceptable. While some businesses benefit from their labor, illegal aliens impose an unacceptable social and financial burden. They broke the law to get here and along with a mostly unskilled, uneducated labor force they bring a criminal element that forms the backbone of major hispanic gangs (MS13, etc.) in almost all major cities, smuggle narcotics, and contribute inordinately to our prison populations, increase pressure on our social support networks, and stress our schools. They have limited knowledge of and little respect for our democratic traditions, institutions, and the rule of law. And because their earnings are so low, most pay no taxes and any taxes they do pay are nominal compared to the costs incured on their behalf.

So, John McCain's liberal multicultural attitude with respect to illegal aliens is not that of a conservative.

To his credit, McCain has made no secret of his philosophy and attitudes on the economy, taxes, and social issues, and one could go on with the laundry list of his less than conservative positions.

Historically, America has had a core of citizen warriors that don't like war very much, but when attacked they will brook no appeasement. And John McCain's position on the response to 9/11 and the wars in Afganistan and Iraq are well known and get him a thumbs up from those who feel that it is appropriate to respond to our mortal enemies with extreme prejudice. Supporting his fellow American citizen's who will stand their ground and not wimp out when the chips are down goes a long way with conservatives.

So, while I believe most conservatives would prefer someone more in line with their social, fiscal, moral, and religious views than John McCain, they will undoubtedly support him against a liberal Democratic nominee should he by some twist of fate become the Republican nominee.