The Super Tuesday Shuffle - And Beyond

Is that all there is? - Peggy Lee

Even the president of the United States sometimes must walk naked
-Bob Dylan

Super Tuesday is upon us, and in a couple of days time the American people will have made a substantial statement towards picking the nominees for the`08 presidential contest. In other words, Bubba, the train is about to pull into the station, and there are a lot of people who apparently aren't planning on getting on board, especially on the Republican side of the station.

One of them is conservative diva Ann Coulter, who announced onFox's Hannity and Colmes show that if front runner John McCain ends up the Republican nominee, she's going to campaign for Hillary Clinton.





Ann Coulter frequently pulls our collective appendage just for effect, but I think she had a serious point to make here. So does Rush Limbaugh, who seems to have a similar position.

There are some major underlying economic problems with our economy, and with our foreign policy and the rot is deep..with a large part due to out of control spending, the frantic outsourcing of American manufacturing overseas, a deliberate decision to weaken the dollar to promote exports and the huge problem of our unsecured borders.If the nasty stuff is going to hit the proverbial fan, she's probably thinking that it might be better on President Hillary's watch than on another self-identified `conservative' Republican. Ann Coulter's also smart enough to realize that that the actions of the current occupant of the White House have shattered his own party and given the brand name of `conservative’ a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. Bush is deeply unpopular,and rightfully so. especially among those who deem themselves conservatives. And it's no good trying to deny it and rope-a-dope saying that Bush never was a conservative - he ran as one and as self-identified as one. Buy the ticket, take the ride. The mud sticks.

So I think Coulter's reasoning is that after four years of corrupt socialist government ala' Hillary or Obama, and all that it entails, The American people will once again be ready for a return to first principles.In fact,that’s exactly how Ronald Reagan was elected,following the buffoonish one term Jimmy Carter.

In Rush Limbaugh's view, McCain, Obama and Hillery would all be dangerous for America,and it's simply better for the Republicans to be in the opposition rather than be compromised by party loyalty to a dysfunctional president.

I don’t entirely agree with them, but I don’t entirely disagree either. Another Bush-style presidentcy would have the Republican party looking like the Whigs towards the end. And I give Coulter points for this much…unlike the GOP establishment and a lot of so-called conservative opinion mongers, she had the sense to figure out the one candidate in the race who actually was cast in the Reagan mold, never wavered from it and would have likely made a superb president - Duncan Hunter.

I’m bitterly amused these days to hear conservative pundits whine about there being `no real conservative leader out there’ in the race and screwing up their faces to endorse Mitt Romney as a McCain alternative like kids taking an unwanted dose of medicine. Meanwhile Duncan Hunter was in the race all along, right there in front of them and got mostly dissed and ignored for his trouble.Towards the end, Fox and the other networks didn't even bother including him in the debates, talk radio continued ignoring him and small children snickered as he walked by. Selah.

So the Republicans seem to have narrowed down their options to John McCain, Mitt Romney and dark horse Mike Huckabee, with John McCain looking more and like the GOP nominee.If the polls are even remotely correct, McCain has a 10-12 point lead over Romney, especially since Giuliani endorsed him and a lot of Rudy's pals jumped aboard McCain's bus. And Huckabee is draining off just enough of the social conservative votes from Romney to keep it that way, the way things look so far.

There's another factor at work as well, I think. McCain, because of his past mano a mano with the president in 2000 and his image as an anti-Bush maverick on things like Gitmo and pushing for the troop surge long before the White House was ready for it is seen as the anti-Bush candidate, and gets a boost from a lot of people who really, really don't like the current occupant of the White House one bit. As I wrote before, the best chance a Republican has this year to win is to run against Bush, and McCain,without having to come out openly and do it is the closest thing the Republicans have to a perceived anti-Bush candidate.

Romney, in order to be competitive is going to have to deal with that little issue in a way that resonates with the American people and especially his fellow Republicans. And even at that, it's going to be a tall order. It will be even taller if McCain does the smart thing and starts making a few conservative noises on talk radio and in his stump speeches to mollify the base, who he undoubtedly has as much contempt for as Dubbyah did.

And if he actually gets the nomination, McCain may actually have a chance at unifying at least most of the GOP if he picks the right running mate to paper over some of his negatives.

So we are likely looking at a McCain/ Hillary contest, although Obama and Romney likely have enough juice to carry themselves to the conventions. And yes, it will likely be Lady Macbeth, by the way, although now that George Soros got some of the Kennedys to come out of the woodwork and work the Hispanic vote for his boy Obama, it's going to be closer than it was before.

With either a President McCain or a President Hillary, we will likely get amnesty for the 11 million or so illegal aliens here in America, they will likely get driver's licenses and thus vote in greater numbers, thanks to the motor-voter legislation Bill Clinton passed and the country's basic fabric and culture will be substantially altered. The flow over the border will likewise probably not be halted.I mean, does anyone really take McCain's sudden reverse on immigration seriously?

You can expect either of them to raise taxes, to do nothing major regarding energy independence aside from shilling for that tired old scam,global warming. Expect them to likely take some steps to regulate free political speech,particularly ontalk radio and the internet and to play politics by 'punishing' the already stricken mortgage industry, thus worsening the housing and credit crisis.Both of them have said as much,and it's particularly funny coming out of the mouths of these two. One of them was one of the Keating Five in the Lincoln Savings scam and the other was an attorney for a bogus real estate trust who prepared fraudulent documents for them and who's only out of jail because federal prosecutors couldn't prove intent and because Web Hubbel and Susan McDougal kept their mouths shut and sat in jail until Mr. Bill could pardon them. That hammer will undoubtedly come down,with consequences neither one of them realizes.

But then, neither of them has much in the way of economic expertise either, Hillary because she instinctively dislikes entrepreneurs and wants to expand the welfare state and McCain simply because, as he cheerfully admits, economics is not his strong point.

They will likely differ in a few significant ways.

Hillary is, at the core, anti-military and opposed to the sort of national security apparatus we're going to need in the future to prevail in this war. Not only that but she will have the baggage of the Democratic party on her neck to deal with. And enough of her constituency is even further to the left than she is to make that pretty scary. Remember how Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick prohibited different federal security agencies from sharing data on people like Mohamed Atta because `it could compromise their legal rights'? No kidding.

And her foreign policy advisers, members of the old Clinton team like Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect in the foreign policy realm. We've been there before, and it wasn't pretty.

To add to the mix, any Supreme Court Justices she nominates will likely be as lunatic as the other Clinton judicial appointees have been.And the potential for scandal is off the charts. Lady Macbeth says she only going to appoint honest and upright people in her White House. Does this mean that Mr. Bill is going to be served with a restraining order?

John McCain, for all his craziness at least understands and respects the military and could be expected to make the tough decisions without taking a poll first. He'd doubtless be a better commander-in-chief than either Hillary or Obama.

Not being a boomer, he incorporates at least some of the old values and avoids the malignant narcissism that's so much a part of that generation.

He'd likely appoint better judges, and if he takes advantage of some of Giuliani's foreign policy team instead of the usual State Department flunkies he'd certainly have an edge in the foreign policy area.BIG ifs, but possible. And McCain might just be nuts enough to do it.

Is any of that enough to get disaffected Republicans to vote for him ? Time will tell. I still haven't made up my mind.