The anti-McCain forces

The Weekly Standard looks at the hysterical campaign against the front-runner:

"McCain is not only not conservative enough," writes David Limbaugh, Rush's brother, "he has also built a reputation as a maverick by stabbing his party in the back--not in furtherance of conservative principles but by betraying them."

Like so many McCain critics, Limbaugh turned to former Senator Rick Santorum--"whose conservative credentials are beyond question"--as an expert witness. "I don't hardly agree with him on hardly any issues," Santorum said.

Really? Santorum's lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 88. John McCain's is 82.3. One would suppose there might be some overlap. The difference between a real conservative and a phony one apparently lies in those six points.

Although many others have been as critical of McCain, perhaps no one has been as hypocritical. In 2006, when Santorum was running for reelection, he asked McCain to come to Pennsylvania to campaign on his behalf. When McCain obliged, Santorum put the video on his campaign website, listing it first among "key events" of the year. That's gratitude, Santorum-style.

Other conservative politicians--or former politicians--have taken their anti-McCain arguments to absurd lengths. Take Tom DeLay, for instance, whose K Street pandering led to numerous indictments and contributed greatly to the Republican losses in 2006. The former House majority leader said, without a trace of irony in his voice, that John McCain "has done more to hurt the Republican party than any elected official I know of."

It's strange, how so many members of both major parties have worked themselves into a frenzy against their most electable candidates.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at January 27, 2008 09:15 AM