Libertarian Think Tank

Vern Mckinley is a Republican running in Virginia’s 10th District primary against incumbent Republican Frank Wolf. McKinley has a picture of Barry Goldwater on his campaign website, so you know he’s the real deal. Wolf strikes me as one of those conservatives-for-rent that followed strong Republican leaders, but turned into Democrats when nobody was looking. One thing is for sure, though; even if Mckinley beats him, he is going to meet a lot more Wolfs in Congress. Their ranks will have shrunk. They will be tired and forlorn. Can Vern Mckinley give back the cojones that Pelosi snatched away? Maybe his youth is the key.

 Here is Vern with Bob Barr, Wayne Allen Root, and Mike Gravel at Reason Magazine in D.C.

Good luck tomorrow, brother.

 Who else wants to run?

I don’t know much about Larry Cooney, except that he has been a contributing commenter at the Tank and that he was a Washington State delegate for Ron Paul. Now he is running to represent Kitsap.

 Get a website and send us the link, Larry!

I got wind that there was an effort to draft Alaska’s Governor, Sarah Palin to serve as John “Washington Changed Me” McCain’s Vice President. I didn’t realize the scope of the movement until I learned that Newt Gingrich is pushing the idea as well.

I’ll make this quick:

Why would any real conservative want to see that disaster? Sarah Palin is a faithful conservative. She spanked incumbent, Republican governor Frank Murkowski in the last election precisely because he prostituted his conservative principles for personal gain and she regularly, retroactively embarrasses his administration for the same reason.

Why would she sell her soul to serve under an even bigger sellout -an admitted sellout, no less? I’m all for a Sarah Palin presidency, especially considering that she’s one of the few standup conservatives left in the party. Heck, I’ll run her campaign in 2012 or 2016. But I couldn’t stomach the spectacle of her nodding along as McCain spews his interventionist, neocon agenda, which she would be required to do, no doubt. I couldn’t watch the Republican Party’s Richard Perle/William Kristol/David Frum faction close in on her like a pack of infectious zombies whose only relief from the pain of being undead is to breach the integrity of the conservative soul, turn it inside out, and thusly make more neocon zealots. Worse, I bristle at the idea of a woman, who is immensely more qualified to be a Republican President than John McCain, doing his bidding.

No Ma’am. If Sarah Palin gives McCain anything, it ought to be her Murkowski treatment.

In response to the Washington Times article, Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard manages to whine about an inferred victimization of his ethnicity and attack Ron Paul supporters in one fell swoop:

…but let me just say to Ron Paul supporters everywhere, and on behalf of the New Right (by which I assume Paul means the Jew Right), get lost.

Get lost? Chump, this is my party. First, God forbid we characterize big government conservatism with a term that rhymes with “Jew”. Sure, it’s your ethnic background we have beef with, as opposed to the more obvious ideoligical differences.

Second, you’re about to find out that conservatives (the definitive kind) aren’t just a wing of the Republican party. We’re the base. I cannot wait to watch your grimacing demogogue straight-talk his way out of a win. We *do* plan to get lost for this election. It’s gonna hurt you.

Third, I enjoy reminding you of this inconvenient fact: Paul is the favorite candidate for military donations and the troops comprise the biggest group of Paul donors. I love watching you Kristolites alienate the military.

Allah didn’t beat you to the punch. He just thought of something you didn’t. In response, I note that aside from his summary descriptions of Paulnut’s motivations (over which he would certainly get his ass handed to him if he engaged us in debate) and his musings over the left calling Paul the most principled Conservative, he forgot that McCain already made the same claim, “you are working for the most honest man in Congress [Ron Paul]” (Yes, it checks out).

Bring it. Both of you.

Thanks to Sully

Everyone is hatin’ on Hillary. Maybe everyone is wrong.

The blogosphere has lit up with Hillary-hate. Andrew Sullivan says that the Daily Kos leads the way, yet Sullivan strikes me as a pretty anti-Clinton himself, “the next generation can still stop [the Clintons]”. And, of course, the right-wing cannot help itself. Hewitt interviewed Chris Hitchens, who is super-duper convinced that Clinton will be the next president, not for her merits of course, but for her power-lust.

This seems indicative of the general sentiment that I encounter. My Democrat friends certainly echo Obama’s frustration with Clinton. My Republican friends go insane when I tease them that I’d rather vote for her than McCain. Everyone handicaps her chances against The Maverick. They say her ‘experience’ jig will be up in the general election.

Nonsense. Hillary Clinton could spank McCain in a way that Obama could never hope to. You see, this election proposes an odd twist of ideologies. Actually, it’s more like a wringing of ideologies- as in, McCain is wringing the last drops of conservatism out of the Republican Party and moving back toward a Nixon-esque authoritarian mix. But he has neither Nixon’s brains nor temperance and he would never be able to pull this nonsense in a debate against sharp-tongued Clinton. 

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton doesn’t strike me as all-that-liberal. Not compared to McCain’s brand of confuso-conservatism. And not compared to Obama’s liberalism. Really, the Democrats have no choice but to entertain fiscal conservatism now that unprecedented debt levels, the collapse of Social Security, and the most expensive war in history are all up in their grill. And let us not forget that she was a Goldwater Girl, so she must have some libertarian sympathies. Sure, she proposes Universal Health Care, but faced with seemingly insurmountable financial challenges, I am forced to wonder if anyone as characteristically sharp as Hillary Clinton would really try to push it if the other side framed health care as a fiscal disaster. She cannot charm a Democratic Congress like Obama. She cannot coerce a lily-livered Congress, like McCain. In that sense, she just may become a de facto conservative.

The beauty of all this is that disaffected, limited-government conservatives are looking for a new home. Sure, Rush Limbaugh is pushing Clinton because he doesn’t want to risk an election against Obama, but he has always been anti-McCain, big time. Ann Coulter’s endorsement of Clinton in the McCain vs. Clinton hypothetical strikes me as even more genuine. And these two are more right-wing than us strictly limited government-types, who don’t really side with McCain on anything. Now that Buckley has a grave to roll over in and with Goldwater and Reagan already gone, the conservative diaspora is a vote-in-play. Clinton could line up with the fiscal conservatives like tough old adversaries fighting the greater fight together. She could fight McCain’s moderation as the opposite kind of moderate; liberal where he is conservative, conservative where he is liberal, she could make a case for constitutionalism, while he waxes authoritarian about presidential powers. She would beat him up in debates.

She didn’t cry.  

DIGG THIS