My Reasons for Not Voting McCain…

I’ve written four blogs on Governor Mike Huckabee.  I will probably write more as the primaries wage on.  However, I feel the need to touch on John McCain’s record as well as few conservative testimony’s about McCain in the senate.  It’s not a very pretty sight.  This pains in me in a way because I do have good friends that support John, but I’m sorry I have to speak my mind about someone I consider a moderate republican at best.

This is not a personal indictment against The Senator.  I’ve never met him and I’m certain he and I could get along personally.  A lot of people seem to like him so I imagine he’s a fun personality.  However, while this is important a good personality does not make a good President.  I will concede that John is very good on spending. That being said I don’t know how much John is into entitlement reform which is the bulk of our overspending.  Earmarks are just a drop in the bucket and good for him that he opposes him, but that’s barely a start.  He is also very good about the war on terror although him taking credit for the surge is getting a little old.  You can brag about questioning the President in a time of war all you want, but you weren’t in the drivers seat.

First of all John’s record on economic issues is troubling.  As we all know he opposed the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.  It’s not even that he just opposed them, but as to HOW he apposed them.  He used liberal talking points and class warfare.  Not to mention inaccurate class warfare.  Rick Santorum(former conservative republican senator) says the tax cuts would have been even larger had John McCain gotten on board.  This is very, very troubling to me and knowing this would make it more difficult for me to vote for him in the general should he win the nod.  He was wrong then and thankfully he did not get his way completely. 

Also in regards to the economy he seems to me almost anti-big business.  He seems to take the narrow road of slightly demonizing “big oil profits” and believes big oil should re-invest in alternate sources of energy.  I’m sure many read that and say “yes, Cory that makes perfect sense” and if big oil chooses to do that I would certainly agree.  However, what business is it of the government?  Well, at least he’s consistent I guess because he did vote to ban drilling in ANWR.   He does not have a very good record on energy independence.  In fact he has about a 17% voting record on energy independence by CAF.  So it makes it that much more interesting to me when he says “We have got to achieve energy independence.”  Well, John I think we all agree with that, however you don’t seem to want to follow through.  At a recent debate he said something that concerned me deeply.  About some jobs that have gone overseas he said “we are responsible” for those jobs as to imply that government should replace those jobs.  Excuse me?  Do we want to open THAT door?  So anytime someone loses a job it needs to be replaced? This is the structure of a free market economy.  Jobs are lost as technology and efficiency grows and with new responsibilities by private business new jobs are created.  It’s cyclical and no amount of government intervention will change that fact.  It will actually make it worse and tougher for those new jobs to come about in a timely manner.

Obviously he’s been very, very poor on illegal immigration.  He is rated an 18% voting record by the US Border Control which indicates an open border stance.  Not only did he help author and support the disaster known as Kennedy-McCain, but he kept pushing down the throats of the American people after they overwhelmingly rejected it.  He says “the reason the American people reject the bill is because they do not trust government anymore” and while that may be true we don’t trust government anymore you are absolutely wrong about that being the reason the American people rejected it.  We reject it because it’s a bad bill.  It’s as simple as that and I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand.  He votes YES on allowing illegal immigrants to participate in social security and voted YES on giving guest workers a path to citizenship.  He voted YES on limited welfare to illegal immigrants.  He also said he’d have to “seriously consider” changing the constitution to allow immigrants to run for President.

Let’s not forget McCain’s assault on political free speech.  I don’t mean to sound that it was intentional.  Once again I don’t know because I don’t know McCain personally.  However when he says “I’d rather have clean government than free speech” I get a little concerned.  Frankly I don’t see how one is possible without the other.  The McCain-Feingold bill obviously was a possibly unintentional attack on political free speech. This, of course, includes a 60 day restriction on political free speech.  It also serves incumbents who are usually more well known than their opponents by restricting the quantity, regulating the content and timing of political speech.  Let’s not forget that this thing was a complete failure as it was passed in 2003 and more money than ever was spent in elections in 2004. 

It seems McCain has also fallen into the typical liberal global warming crowd with the McCain-Lieberman stewardship act.  Ah, more government intervention.  Definitely sounds like conservatism to me.  He also said he wanted to sign the Kyoto protocol.  Let’s forget what kind of damage for a second this would do to our economy.  Here’s a look at what it would do in this article http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lewis200406160854.asp I guess this also goes with his economic record as well.  Frankly, I don’t believe personally that McCain knows a whole lot about economics. 

I haven’t even gone over another majority of the list of awful legislation either sponsored of co-sponsored by McCain such as McCain-Kennedy-Edwards(the supposed patients bill of rights which trial lawyers everywhere are crying tears of joy).  Also  McCain with the re-importation of drugs which is bad for pharmaceutical research and consumer protection.  I could also go into the gang of 14 disaster during appointment of judges selected by our President.  The list goes on and on and well you get the point.

He’s currently running on his record as a war hero.  Good.  That’s good politics I can’t blame him for that.  God Bless him for serving.  God Bless him for his sacrifice.  However, that doesn’t mean I feel he could make a good President.  Tom Coborn has recently endorsed John McCain.  Tom is a very respectable conservative and he has his right to endorse whom he wants, however I’m going to have to disagree with him on this one.  Rick Santorum says No.  George Allen says No.  Robert Bork says No.  Jim DeMint says No.  Pat Toomey says No.  Tom Delay says he may not even be able to vote for McCain in the general should he win the nod.  The vast majority of conservative talk radio says No to McCain.  I also say No to McCain.