Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
June 9, 2008
Conservatives Rue McCain Nomination

Panic is creeping up in the Republican camp.

Neo-con Kristol in the NYT comments:

[McCain]
read a disjointed set of remarks at a badly staged rally at the
Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, La. Here’s part of an e-mail message I
received as McCain spoke, from a Republican who admires him: “They
could have done so well tonight, shown a tone of confidence. Instead it
looks like a bad Congressional race: dumb green puke background, small
crowd … Makes me want to cry.”

From the ground in Ohio LA Times reports:

If McCain tried to gather his volunteers in Ohio, "you could meet in a phone booth," said radio host Bill Cunningham, who attacks the Arizona senator regularly on his talk show. "There’s no sense in this part of Ohio that John McCain is a conservative or that his election would have a material benefit to conservatism."

Novak opines in WaPo:

The evangelicals are not an isolated problem for the Arizona senator. Enthusiasm for McCain inside the Republican coalition is in short supply. During the four months since McCain clinched the nomination, he has not satisfied conservatives opposed to his positions on global warming, campaign finance reform, immigration, domestic oil drilling and how to ban same-sex marriages.

There will be more of such reports and voices. The false ‘maverick’ image that made McCain a media darling and gave him the primary votes is now hurting him with the ultra conservatives.

It will not keep all of them away from the polls though.

If McCain runs a positive campaign, arguing the conservative causes, they will not believe him. So instead  McCain must and will run a campaign that instigates ‘fear of worse’. That will motivate many conservatives to hold their nose and give him their vote in hope of preventing a Democratic presidency.

But others will also choose the libertarian alternative to the right of McCain. Some will stay at home. The total will not be enough.

For now the conservative coalition puzzle in the U.S. seems to have fallen apart. McCain is not the person who can put the pieces back together.

As this slowly sinks into the party’s mind, some elders may start to acknowledge the necessity of an intervention by some ‘higher force’ before the convention opens.

Comments

What do you exactly mean by “higher forces”? Like, Bush Sr, Baker, Gingrich and others intervening to replace McCain with a younger more right-wing lunatic guy? Or something entirely different to convince the American people only the GOP can save them?

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Jun 9 2008 8:43 utc | 1

What do you exactly mean by “higher forces”? Like, Bush Sr, Baker, Gingrich and others intervening to replace McCain with a younger more right-wing lunatic guy? Or something entirely different to convince the American people only the GOP can save them?
Both are possibilities.
But they also could just resign to accept deep permanent damage.

Posted by: b | Jun 9 2008 12:05 utc | 2

You know that McCain is in real trouble when Ron Paul, without any media coverage at all, managed to garner almost 25% of the vote in the Idaho Republican primary and high teens in two other Midwest primaries last week. Even Romney scored a good percentage in Idaho — and he is not even running anymore. This is the equivalent of Dennis Kucinch scoring 25% and John Edwards picking up several more points against Obama this close to the conventions.
While McCain has the sense to stay away from Bush, somehow promising a 100-year war in Iraq is not the “change” that Republicans really want to hear about.

Posted by: Ensley | Jun 9 2008 13:26 utc | 3

When my local chapter of Horowitz Youth returned from the College Republicans convention this year , they were wet little fur balls of misery. Their favorites pulled out of the race and they were stuck with McCain. It took the little toadies less than five minutes to break out in at least 15 different anti-McCain protests and rallies after the announcement. On their return, two of them claimed they would now vote for O’bama. I think they’ve changed their tune now because they’re back to calling him a Muslim and a friend to terrorists. But they still hate McCain. None the less they’re the party’s flying monkeys and will do the bidding of their dark master. They’ll continue to spread slander, lies and disinformation as they goose-step toward November. Republimonkeys can only obey.

Posted by: Diogenes | Jun 9 2008 14:03 utc | 4

I don’t think an outright intervention of party elders is realistic. The PTB must preserve the illusion of legitimacy that the nomination process provides. Some pretext, such as bad stuff in McCain’s medical records being leaked to the press, would have to precede that kind of intervention.
As for “something different”, that would most likely come from within the current administration. I doubt that the party elders outside the administration would conceive something like this when they are reported to be actively involved in thwarting the neocon foreign policy. The wild card, with emphasis on wild, in this regard is Dick Cheney. He, Wolfowitz and Libby authored a proposal for Bush I in 1992 (Cheney was Sec Def then) to occupy Iraq and remake the Middle East (with the ultimate objective of creating a permanent US global empire) after the Soviet Union dissolved and removed any impediment to such a move (except, of course, the Iraqi people). One can trace BushCo’s foreign policy lineage back to this paper, going through Perle’s authorship of Bush’s 1999 campaign positions and PNAC’s founding in 1995 with Cheney among the founders. The point is that this policy is Cheney’s baby and he is not willing to abort. As long as he is around, the possibility of “something different” exists if he 1) thinks it necessary to force the US to continue on the course his administration initiated and 2) is able to muster an in-house bureaucratic coalition to pull it off.
Which brings us to the question: How badly do they want to win? Some partisans realize the next 4 years will be bad and want to hand off this shit bag to the Dems to blame. Others want to purge the party leadership of neocons and theocons at the top and hope a sound beating will give them the leverage to do that. The second group realizes that the party is losing some of their corporate wing to Dems in this cycle and don’t want to see this become a permanent loss. Those they have lost this time are wealthy, powerful and well traveled US elites who are in touch with elites on other parts of the world. They understand how bad BushCo has hurt US standing in world and their own along with that. If McCain were to win, it would mean continuation of the same behavior that caused the damage. Very bad for business.
If the Rethugs lose, they will be the party to watch. Nothing forces one to re-think one’s assumptions like humiliation. It’s early yet, but I’m guessing the people to watch are the Paulites for the re-thinking and the corporate wing of the party for the muscle to make an impact. It could be lively.
The Dems are really the party of the status quo, despite all the talk about change you can believe in. Why should anyone believe in changes the candidate won’t talk about with any specificity in public? However, you can bet his big donors know what kind of change he has in mind, and their interests are not the same as the infatuated Dem base. The Dem ascent has been due to public rejection of Rethugs, not to anything they stood for themselves. They will leave much of what BushCo did domestically in place and try to preserve and restore some of the US’ standing (i.e, empire) in the world that BushCo squandered, a difficult task at best. Soft power is built upon the perception of substantive hard power. BushCo bet on hard power alone and lost. When empires do that, their soft power is devalued as quickly as the US dollar.
Long story short: this election will tell us how the ruling class perceives the needs of the US empire. Kristol’s despair is one revealing tea leaf.

Posted by: lg | Jun 9 2008 14:22 utc | 5

Oh, thought you meant stealing the election again. That’s easiest: one estimate sez Obama has to win with a margin of 10% in the popular vote to offset the effect of GOP voter suppression and electoral fraud. Statistically, that margin will be most closely associated with economic variables (in the FAIr model, institutional variables are now uniformly adverse for the GOP).

Posted by: …—… | Jun 9 2008 16:04 utc | 6

Even if Obama were really 20 points ahead the media would portray it as a tight horse race. It’s entertainment. Almost two years with a majority in Congress and the Democrats have done fuck all. Let’s wait eight more months. Maybe gas prices will decline 10% and everyone will go back to sleep.

Posted by: biklett | Jun 9 2008 17:07 utc | 7

The Bam’ Man Drinks the Red Kool Aid
Yes, sad to say, as Mos’Admiral McCain’s star fades into the East,
the Bam’ Man’s just waking up to a hot cup of Bilderberg whoop ass,
Hot Red Kool Aid in a styrofoam Dixie cup.
“We need to stop spending $12B on reconstruction in Iraq, and start
spending that money on our own infrastructure (sic) and good jobs for
hard-working American (code word ) families. And I’m proposin’ another
$50B rebate economic stimulus program (code word), to help that along!”
Oh joy! Obliterate another country, then loan ourselves our own money!!
OK, first, we ain’a gonna’ be spendin’ no $12B in Iraq no mo’. That’s
what Mos’Admiral McCain and the Neo-Zi.Con’s are busy doin’ there now,
makin’ sure the only buildin’ we do is hundreds of new military bases,
and plenny of outsource contractin’ support services, and juicin’ it
all up with a fat 60% cut of oil royalties, 40% going to Iraq based on
last year’s oil price, and tapped to pay for their own reconstruction,
again, with plenny of outsource contractin’ support services from US.
So that’s just pure Bilderberg bullshit, warming up his audience.
Now comes The Man With The Plan. A $50B Improvized Economic Device,
lying in wait by the side of the economy, to blow a gaping hole in our
children’s future income and all our taxable SSTF and 401k benefits.
They can’t wait for the Baby-Boomers to retire. Fed.gov’s burn rate is
too high, astronumerological, with all that bailout money sloshing
around in the bilge. Let’s light another “economic stimulus” candle!
PT was first to report here at MoA that the true numbers behind Bush.Con’s
first economic stimulus con revealed a darker side. Running the numbers
from DoLabor and Census, that $160B rebate program would only pay out to
the American taxpayer less than $100B. A 33% origination fee, off the top!
Then came Fed rules that only American citizens (and dual citizen Israeli-
Americans) would receive rebate checks. Non-citizens, spouses and family
of non-citizens, toto por nada, friendo. That reduced the actual
payout to less than $80B, in essence, a 50% origination fee on the loan!!
But wait! There’s more! That loan to ourselves is taxable income!
There goes another 30% down the rabbit hole, plus another 10% in State
and local taxes. (20% of the total loan). And the interest on the entire
program, financed by Treasuries over a likely 15-year payback, if ever,
at another 5% a year is … do the math … That’s a 200% payback!!
That $160B rebate program costs US $320B right from the git-go!
Where are our fancy-pants trust accountants and tax advisors!!?? Whores!
At the end of the day, this illegal taxation-by-rebate con has a NAV of:
1) 50% origination fee; 2) 20% effective tax rate, and 3) 200% financing
fee. We’re on the hook for 270% surcharge on these economic rebates!!!
270% is usury in any language, in any society, at any time in history!
And as PT warned MoA’s before, what if this rebate succeeds so well that
the next Congress bumps it to $1.6T? Well, the Bam’ Man says that’s OK!!
What they can’t achieve by taxation, since that affects Corporate-State,
(at least for those corps that haven’t fled the country already), and what
they can’t achieve by inflation/devaluation, while faking the CPI/PPI to cap
inflation indexed bonds, SSTF payments, Fed, State and local salaries and
retirement benefits, they’re just opening a new front on the US taxpayers.
Improvized Economic Devices.
Like the Fed, where central banking became gov.con’s open checkbook, from
the day Fed was formed, central banking and central government have grown
like a malignant tumor, metastasizing with each made-to-order war, reaching
deeper and deeper into our economic sinews, our intellectual property brain
cells, until now,… 1) the majority of all Americans work for government or
are contracting to it; 2) the majority of US GDP is produced for government,
in other words, the lion’s share of our GDP is just our recycled taxes!!!;
3) the majority of all new patents and copyrights are either government or
institutional, funded again, by the taxpayer, all without any benefit to US,
and usually to our detriment, individually, and as a society.
Oh, wait, I forgot the $100M NASA space pen … that writes underwater!!
Tell the Bam’ Man to take his Pay Day IED jihad, and shove it up his keester.
Nobody should have to pay 270% interest on any loan, especially when it’s going
toward growing Corporate-State faster, in a geometric death spiral of malignancy.
This is the part where you elect radiation or chemotherapy after surgery.
But, I bet you spent your rebate already, didn’ you’all?
What part of six-kinds-of-stupid don’t you get?!

Posted by: Bwa Kwaib | Jun 10 2008 3:06 utc | 8

Many Conservatives want to lose this one, and are happy to lose this one. They can blame the loss on McCain’s moderation and it serves their interest in retaking the Republican Party at all levels. Then they wage all-out war on President Obama. Impeachment won’t work a second time, so they are left with one option– foment a military coup to bring in some “savior” like Petreus. This will require either a total economic meltdown or a terrorist strike on the US, or both. How do they get the meltdown? Big investors pull their money out and intensify their run on the dollar. How do they get the terrorist strike? A false-flag operation with some muslim (think Sirhan Sirhan) as the dupe with the bomb. Or some Tim McVeigh does the act, but the Detroit police arrest a bunch of Lebanese innocents calling them a “sleeper cell.”
Think it can’t happen? It’s happened elsewhere. Do you think Americans are really that sophisticated to not fall for gambits that have worked in other 3rd world countries? I hope I’m a crazy conspiracy theorist totally off the wall. But if I’m not, let this prediction stand for the record.

Posted by: the exile | Jun 10 2008 14:59 utc | 9

What PT and BK failed to deduce in this Bush.Con so-called “tax rebate” (or higher, wider), “economic stimulus” (really $320B deficit sinkhole) is what NeoZi.Cons are
after. Think it through again. 50% origination fee. 50% origination fee.
So where’s the other $80B gone?!
More doughnuts at the Pentagon?
More golfballs at State?
More funny papers at Treasury?
It’s Gone to Fractional War
With the $80B that Fed.gov skimmed off our “economic stimulus”, they’re able to
create financing of easily $8,000B, enough to run the GW3 another hundred years,
or more likely, enough to deleverage every single one of the $5T in derivative
SIVs hanging over the US financial sector
, and still leave enough junk in the
trunk to prop up the US$, and finance GW3 for another ten years.
That’s what I call creative financing! No wonder the Obama.Man has signed on to
“a $1,000 rebate for every American man, woman and child” on the next VC round.
NeoZi.Con Bilderbergs have sold our souls to the Devil on the finance plan.
Once that hard reality sinks in, you’ll realize how pointless it is to resist.
We’re all in the PNAC poorhouse now.

Posted by: Ente Prise | Jun 11 2008 4:19 utc | 10

Last time we got a leetle fractional gift from the feds, my cousin drove up to Canada and invested in greenage. Put dat in deine Pfeiffe und schmoke it.
Time for our very own dark ages. Best just hang on for dear life and shake yer stuff.
Soundtrack for the apocalypse courtesy Rob Brezsny and World Entertainment War.

Posted by: Katzefrau | Jun 11 2008 5:04 utc | 11

“Let me remind you who you really are: You are one of the chosen ones. You’re a luminous being. A primordial miracle. A resplendent avatar. You are a deity in disguise–not a Buddha or a Christ, but of the same lineage and made from the same mojo.
I want to be sure you get what I’m saying. You’re an immortal messiah. You have been around since the beginning of time and will be here after the end. Every day and in every way, you’re getting better at playing the mysterious master game we all dreamed up together before the Big Bang bloomed:”
Fractional Neo-Zi Government! 1 for you, 1,000 for me, and, oh, you owe me 2.

Posted by: Ome Two | Jun 11 2008 6:24 utc | 12