Letter: Republicans to blame for election's outcome, McCain weak candidate

11/18/08 - To the Cigar,With the defeat of America on Nov. 4, a knife was inserted into each of our hearts. But even during this time of arid depression and trepidation, as we hold our breath before James Buchanan loses his longstanding place as the worst of all U.S. Presidents to our new President-Elect, I believe that some knife-twisting is in order for those of the Republican persuasion - because this Presidential nightmare could have been avoided.

Republicans scoffed at more than one better-qualified, better-suited and more-viable candidate this election season. The blatant idiocy of these sad rejections laughs in the long faces of all Republicans today. They said, "No" to Fred Thompson, whose pearls of wisdom I have confused more than once with the brilliance of Ronald Regan - the Great Communicator.

They said, "No" to Rudolph Giuliani, the savior of New York City and hero of Sept. 11, whose extensive experience and success in organized crime-prevention and disaster management begged for more than just a petered-out "runner up" status.

They said, "No" to Mitt Romney - a man who spent many more years in business and executive management than American politics, the man who co-founded and headed the firm Bain Capital for 14 successful years, the man who saved his former firm, Bain and Company, from financial collapse in less than a year, doing so without layoffs.

Confederate State's President Jefferson Davis once remarked that, "If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: "died of a theory". On Nov. 5, the day that "Decision 2008" died, there should be written on the Republican tombstone those same words - with different spirit behind them: the theory of sacrificing principle for political expediency.

While the other candidates were viable to varying degrees across the board, Sen. McCain was good for only one adversary - Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose near-certain nomination provided many Republicans with a shameful feeling of justification to discard their party's conservative principles for premature certainty of another Republican victory.

John McCain promised to be a "maverick". John McCain promised to question his party, John McCain promised to reach out to independents and "moderates" and reached out to them more than he did to his own partymen.

John McCain's campaign promise was to act as little as a Republican as possible, and has paid the price for his grand compromising.

He threw his base under the bus during the 2007 Illegal Immigration bill disaster, suggesting that his own ideological brethren suffered from a kind of xenophobia. He advocated bigger government intervention in this century's Democrat-induced financial crisis. He refused to ascribe, due blame to the Democrats for the said crisis, insisting to lay the guilt on the American private sector. He terminated the possibility of the approval of several U.S. Supreme Court justices when the infamous "gang of 14" ended measures being taken against the Democrats' unconstitutional filibustering of Supreme Court nominees. He flouted the First Amendment with his Campaign Finance Reform Bill, stating afterward that he "would rather have a clean government than one where "First Amendment rights are being respected."

John McCain has been given a lesson that the only "maverick" the public likes is one attached to the payload of an A-10.

He alienated and took for granted his party's base, expecting die-hard Republicans to vote party line by necessity instead of by conviction, and reduced his support by his beloved independents with his wishy-washy, "trying to please everyone" indecisiveness.

His campaign smacked of inactivity. He willfully handicapped himself from the beginning with his inappropriately-Quixotic definition of "honorable campaign," refusing to highlight Sen. Obama's bountiful shocking associations with unrepentant terrorists, black supremacists, slum lords, and communist mentors until the final stretch, a day late and a dollar short.

It tears my insides to think of how little the financial crisis would have affected Romney's campaign had he secured the nomination. Indeed, it may have even helped him by letting him emphasize his area of expertise. But Gov. Romney must have attracted a stronger sense of resentment from McCain than Obama would. When the Arizona senator deigned not to afford the governor the same level of "honor" he afforded Obama - presumably his ideological enemy - by taking Romney's comment about troop withdrawal "timetables" completely out of context and running with it all the way to nomination.

McCain got as far as he did by creating an enhanced "lesser of two evils" dilemma for his base, surviving only on the fear of Obama's potential four-year reign.

John McCain is one of the only politicians I have seen who, by necessity, had to take comfort in his record of being an underdog. It didn't work out this time, and I find it disgracefully irresponsible for republicans, with the stakes so high, to have bet on such a lame horse.

Congratulations, Republicans. You shoulder much of the blame for this mess.


Frank LiVolsi