Vice President Kay Bailey Hutchison Sounded Better
In their endorsement of Barack Obama for President, the Houston Chronicle had this to say about a lost opportunity for John McCain:
McCain has an illustrious record of service to America, first as a pilot taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, and then with a distinguished Senate career. To his credit, he has broken with his own party in the past to fight for campaign reform, oppose the sanctioning of torture and acknowledge the threat of human-induced global warming. However, in his bid for the presidency, he has aligned himself with a more conservative political base and disappointed moderates.
Perhaps the worst mistake McCain made in his campaign for the White House was the choice of the inexperienced and inflammatory Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Had he selected a moderate, experienced Republican lawmaker such as Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison with a strong appeal to independents, the Chronicle’s choice for an endorsement would have been far more difficult.Emphasis mine
The common wisdom from conservatives, including myself at times, was that choosing a moderate would have caused the GOP base to bolt. But I don’t think that was going to be the case this time around. It would have in the past, but this was a moment where the GOP had a chance to reach out beyond it’s base and create a new coalition. Someone like a Hutchison or a Tom Ridge would have attracted moderates and independents (and maybe women, in Hutchison’s view). Yes, the Religious Right would have squawked, but they weren’t going to go anywhere else and he could have made the experience argument more soundly.
The GOP has tended to ignore moderates and independents. Sometimes they are actively driven out of the party, other times, they just given a few bones to get just enough of their votes. As we are now seeing, moderates led by Colin Powell, are voting with their feet.
Maybe a proper drubbing in two weeks will help my party realize that they need to expand the tent. I hope that can happen.
Thanks to MarkH over at Lloydletta’s Nooz for the hat-tip.
7 Responses to “Vice President Kay Bailey Hutchison Sounded Better”
I thought Obama should have offered the VP slot to Kay to reach further across party lines, but the Dems would not have gone for it.
What would happen if McCain drops Palin at the last minute and chooses Kay as VP? Or is it too late for McCain to change running mates because of election law? Would ballots have to be reprinted and what about absentee ballots already received?
But even with Palin on the ticket, McCain can still win. I'm not counting him out.
Stockster, if McCain drops Palin now, he has conceded defeat already.
Note that a “more moderate” choice was preferred by many who said upon Palin's selection that they wanted Lieberman. The problem was that many conservatives and hard-core partisan Republicans would have revolted at such a decision. The same is true for Hutchinson, or someone like Snowe, Collins (who should be Dems), or Arlen Specter [gag], etc. And Palin is far from being truly far right. She's not even as far right as, say, a post-1994 person of note such as Linda Smith (a good subject for study by curious readers on this site, it should be noted).
Palin initially appealed to a broad population, but this shrunk — kind of like what happened to Huckabee. The residual support (and support for McCain) likely is underreported (deliberately), but the impression you or I or others on here can get from listening and observing on “the street” as well as interpreting what really is being said on the lefty and righty radio shows (filtering out the nonsense), is that the McCain team is weak but the Obama team is strong and preferred by most. That's how it appears, at least. I'd be truly surprised by a McCain upset — it's possible, but not likely to me. That's even with the likelihood of distortion of public sentiment in favor of Obama as well as suppression of support for McCain. I just don't believe Obama's lib-Dem agenda really repels vast numbers of people (a vast fraction of the electorate, most crucially swing voters). There's even a perverse conservative case for putting Obama and the Dems fully in charge of Washington, to make the public face what it really means to have them fully in charge and to eliminate all the fake excuses for lib and Dem failures to date, that shift blame to the Republicans.
We already have seen Thumbs Down or No Confidence expressed toward the GOP, in 2006, and I believe it's going to be more anti-GOP next month.
McCain lost this election, not Palin………..all 6,254,976 words posted at TMV to the contrary.
He's stuck with her- and CO, they are losing as a team. Conservatives don't trust him and no one but conservatives like her or think she's qualified.
I brought up Kay's name on here as well- it seemed like a no-brainer. I'm still shocked that a man as smart and independent minded listened to those two nuts Kristol and Morris. Palin is the gift that keeps on giving.
DLS : “There's even a perverse conservative case for putting Obama and the Dems fully in charge of Washington, to make the public face what it really means to have them fully in charge and to eliminate all the fake excuses for lib and Dem failures to date”
Well, those “lib and dem failures to date” quickly fade into the distance when compared to the real and immediate failures of the GOP. That said, I'm quite willing to take the chance of having the Dems “fully in charge”, or considerably more in charge than they are now. Don't expect miracles of instant gratification though, we are in a hole afterall. At least the digging can be stopped.
DLS-
the truth is that the GOP failed in the most utterly miserable way. They are disintegrating as a party (fulfilling SD's nightmares of the one-party state dominated by little brown and black people, LOL) and now they can't get it together. Palin is on one page appealing to one part of the party, McCain on another one. They can regroup or disintegrate further.
The reason some want the Democrats to win is that they know whoever gets in will spend the next 4 years digging us out. The Repubs can sit back and throw rocks at Biden and Obama, and feel relieved that the embarrassment of GW Bush is now history.
The Monday morning quarterbacking on this is what it is. It didn't matter who McCain picked. It could have been Lieberman–if McCain would have picked him the Left would have attacked Lieberman as an apostate. They pretty much already do. The conservatives could have cried all they wanted to but they still would have voted for McCain over Obama. At the end of the day, it's the Dems vs the Repubs and each side will find something to attack the other with. Just look at what the Right has done with all of their apostates. Saying “it would have been harder” is just cover to make it sound as if it was actually a difficult decision.