Jazz touched on the McCain Derangement Syndrome that afflicts the pundits and bloggers on the right
below.
Watching last night's Republican debates was a somewhat painful experience, not just because of the repetitive nature of these dog an pony shows, but more for the increasingly desperate attacks being launched at John McCain by opponents and pundits alike.
The objection to McCain seems to be his lack of ideological purity - he won't walk in lockstep. How they could consider Mitt Romney as an alternative escapes me. Judging from the results of the primaries and the polls it is the pundits and right wing bloggers who are out of touch with the Republican voters. The
New York Observer makes the following observation:
But it may simply be that the Republican electorate (or at least enough of it to select a nominee) may not be as ideologically pure as the conservative pundits might prefer. Perhaps many Republican voters really do think global warming should be addressed. It could be that lots of Republican voters like tax cuts but want them accompanied by good old-fashioned budget cuts. It may be that when they’re not in the throes of an impassioned immigration debate, many Republican voters wouldn’t mind eventually legalizing millions of immigrants, so long as the border is sealed first. And frankly, G.O.P. primary voters simply may find Mr. McCain’s heretical support for campaign finance reform a lot less significant than personal character traits like honesty, courage and persistence.
At the moment the economy seems to be the issue that most voters are concerned about. There are some interesting observations to be made here as well. Mitt Romney is running on his business experience but it appears the voters are not buying it. Before the Florida election a
SurveyUSA poll showed John McCain was beating Mitt Romney among those who considered the economy the major issue 37% to 25%. McCain actually
received 40% of those votes in the election. While the Republican/Conservative punditry may think a business man is the solution to economic problems a majority of even the Republican voters see investment bankers and CEOs as the problem not the solution.
