McCain Must Define the Post-Bush GOP

I think you're right Patrick, but I believe that the convention is the key to presenting the GOP as a post-Bush party.  Make the main speakers Jeff Flake, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Joe Lieberman, Mike Pence, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tim Pawlenty ... you'll have people seeing that the GOP is about reform, about limited government, about returning to our roots as conservatives, but also about a big tent.

The biggest question for the convention though is, what role if any should President Bush himself have?

Arnold Schwarzenegger?  You jest.  He should be kept as far from the convention floor as security permits.  A "big tent" does not include a man who has completely abandoned any semblence of Republican values, sending Caleefornia on a suicidal spending spree that would make Gray Davis blush.  And Joe Lieberman only to the extent that he limits his speech to the war on terror, Iraq, and support for Israel. 

When a journalist/pundit in the MSM talkls about breaking with Bush, they mean one of several things.

1. Iraq
2. Economy/Trade/Taxes
3. Healthcare/SCHIP
4. Energy policy

Anything not on that list doesn't really count for media-types.  Striking the more subtle differences Patrick lists is an uphill battle.

Let's have a look at the McCain message you describe:

Distanced himself from Bush: Climate change, Katrina response, openness and accessibility as President

I can't see any conservatives getting excited for McCain's Kyoto Jr. plan on Gore-bull Warming. It depends how McCain is throwing Bush under the bus for Katrina, and most conservatives would support a less secretive administration than the current one.

Traditional Republican: Iraq, tax cuts, conservative judges

Considering that McCain has no credibility on taxes or judges, I don't see how this helps. McCain's biggest problem is that he's become the John Kerry of the Republican Party in 2008 by flip-flopping on everything from taxes to torture.

Thrown People Under the Bus: Bill Cunningham, NC GOP, Lobbyists (x3), Hagee/Parsley

In fairness you do point out that in most of these cases these are self-inflicted wounds by McCain. While Hagee/Parsley and (argueably, depending which side of the story do you believe) Cunningham needed to be thrown under the bus, this demonstrates the "holier than thou" attitude that McCain has and which will turn off the American people in the end. John McCain, I'm convinced, is just not that good of a campaigner.

I agree with Langley, a McCain-defined GOP is one I don't want to be a part of.

Instead, we need to define a conservative GOP, one that stands for limited government and Federalism, a strong national defense, and defending traditional values. Bush has governed as a European-style Christian social democrat while McCain is running as a liberal. We need to get away from the Bush-McCain "compassionate conservatism" and reembrace limited government conservatism.

In order to keep the Republican Base at home,  Barack needs to alienate them from their candidate. If he can trap McCain into becoming the Bush bashing Republican, then he does two things.

1. The Campaign remains about Bush, not Obama.
2. Pro-war, pro-Bush Republicans become alienated from McCain and stay home.

Obama is very rich and is polling high, but this is the Spring. Democrats always poll high in the Spring. Last cycle, at this time, this was John Kerry's Election To Lose. 

So what to do?

As the first commenter said: McCain needs to run to something, not away from Bush.

1. The Congress is deeply unpopular. Left wing bloggers try to pretend that this is because of some sort of anger on the part of the Electorate at the Minority. Voters don't think that way. Run against the free-spending, fishing-expedition hearing, Do-Nothing Congress.
2. Win the War, then Win the Peace. Show the electorate that the success in Iraq will lead to the Troops coming home and Victory over Bin Laden. Challenge Bambi to come forward with a program for Victory that outdoes Petraeus and Odierno. He won't because he is committed to his Pollyanish Withdrawal Program. Jimmy Webb will be his shield against the charge of Petainism. It will only work if we let him get away with it. 
3. Offer a program of restraint in Government Spending and solid Economic Growth.
4. I know Larry Kudlow and Grover Norquist are like broken records about taxes, but if they were clocks, even they would be right twice per day. Emphasize what Barack will do to the investor classes, and just how big the investor class actually has become.
5. Crash Program for alternative energy, including Big Fusion. People will vote for someone who looks like they want to do something to screw the Saudis. Until then, drill, drill, drill and force march the auto industry into new propulsion systems.
6. Infrastructure maintenance. People remember I-35 and look at all those Chinese Schools that fell down. They don't want the same thing to happen here. 
7. Rearmament, rearmament, rearmament. We have F-15's that are falling out of the sky because they are flying well past their sell-by date. The Chinese Navy isn't getting any smaller. Be bold, be big. 

If JMC listens to some of the clowns around him and campaigns like George Bush the Elder, it's going to be a long season. If he tells everyone around him to go shinny up a tree and lets loose his Inner Ronald, we can win this thing. 

That is, if McCain has an Inner Ronald. We'll find out. 

Oh yeah, one last thing. Obama is, at bottom, a very mean candidate. He's not a nice guy. He'll send out surrogates like Ed Shultz to smear McCain's war service record, then walk away with his hands in his pockets as if nothing happened. Wait until Obama starts rolling out the surrogates about the Keating Five thing.

McCain needs to understand the Chicago Way. There is no fair in this campaign. There is only Victory and Defeat. 

McCain needs to hit first, hit hard, and keep on hitting. Fight fair, but be firm and stay on the offensive. 

Maybe I'm missing something here; this site is "the next right"....right?  Not "the next GOP".  Now I'll be holding my nose like many others and pull the lever for McCain, but at some point, doesn't this party have to ask itself why bother?  I see no mention in section9's post about border enforcement....that was THE grassroots issue of the past year, when brain dead GOP congressional leadership kept banging the drum for 'comprehensive immigration reform' that their voters tossed right back in their face.  McCain is wrong on immigration/borders, wrong on election "reform", only recently born again on taxes (we'll see).  He continues to revel in sticking it to conservatives that put his party in power, only to be abandoned when the K Street money began to flow. 

I'll vote for McCain because he's right on judges (arguably the most important issue in the campaign, and one that is almost never mentioned), and he's right on the war on terror and victory in Iraq.  He wasn't my first, nor second, nor third, choice when this primary began, but now I'm stuck with him.  The alternatives are too hideous to imagine, as usual. 

"This is a problem because in the exception of Hagee,  McCain didn't need to go as far as he did."

McCain is barely tolerated by the Evangelical voters.  Throwing Hagee under the bus seals the deal.  You may not agree with Hagee, but what he said is an opinion held by some Jews. (See Dennis Prager's article this week "God, the Holocaust, and a Pastor")

Remember value voters for GWB?  They won't be voting for McCain.  McCain now has to leave the GOP base and try to lure in centerist voters from the Democrats.  They aren't interested in influencing the country in a conservative way and the country will make another huge lurch left. 

McCain has failed to distance himself from Bush, people thinks he is more of the same. McCain was the only one in the Republican party that has some moderate appeal (I personally liked Ron Paul but he had no chance). Picking Sarah Palin was a mistake as media circus kept on ridicule her, and with her being one heartbeat away from presidency if McCain is elected, voters had to choose Obama instead. free ads |jobs part time |article directory