Presidents By the Numbers

Again, I'm off my typical topic to talk briefly about the U.S. Presidential race.

A lot of Republicans are seeing red, although not the kind of red you see on an election map. No, they are furious that Senator McCain is the front runner for their party's nomination. Led by the right side of the radio dial, they deride Senator McCain as less than a true conservative and have attempted to label him with the "M" word, moderate.

Two big issues seem to be his stands on immigration and taxes. Senator McCain supported a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. I understand that this angers many Republican voters, but Senator McCain's position was the same as or very close to President Bush's, the Conservative in Chief.

Conservatives also have complained that Senator McCain broke rank with conservative principles by opposing tax cuts that did not have offsetting spending reductions. I am at a bit of a loss though how promoting spending cuts is no longer considered a conservative principle. Does anyone believe that the U.S. budget is so lean that there is no spending that we could do without?

So what is an angry conservative to do about this interloper? Well, one option is to vote in the primary for another candidate, like Governor Huckabee. Some angry elephants have gone further, and pledged that if McCain is the nominee, they will punish the Republicans and vote for Senator Clinton (or perhaps Obama). They claim that since McCain is really a Democrat in Republican clothing, they might as well vote for the real McCoy. It has been said that McCain is no better than Clinton when it comes to upholding conservative principles.

Now I certainly don't want to get in the way of a good temper tantrum, but when my conservative brethren stop holding their breath and jumping up and down, they might want to consider the numbers 82, 8 and 9. These are the lifetime ratings of Senator McCain, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton from the American Conservative Union (ACU), an organization that has rated Congress members on conservative principles since the 70's. A perfect conservative score is 100, while a 0 indicates a liberal pinko commie :D. So while Senator McCain votes for "conservative" principles eight out of ten times, Senators Clinton and Obama do so about one in ten times. Now while I never finished my first semester PhD statistics course at Boston College, I do seem to remember from some where that 8 of 10 is a lot higher than 1 of 10.

Another interesting number is three, which pundits predict will be the number of Supreme Court nominees that the next President will have the opportunity to appoint. I'm sure the appointments of a would-be President Hillary Clinton would be very much in line with Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck's audience. Well, maybe not, but it would give them a lot to complain about, and when it comes down to it, isn't that the most important thing?

A few other comments…

The other day I saw a friend of mine who is a big Hillary supporter pulled over to the side of the road filling her gas tank with a plastic red jug. She saw me and yelled “Don’t you say a word!” I just smiled and couldn’t help but wonder if her predicament was a metaphor for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. As Obama wins primary after primary, I can’t help but wonder if she running out of gas?

I am an admirer of President Ronald Reagan. I think he was an excellent president, the right man at the right time. While some might think the righting of the economy and the destruction of the Soviet Union were inevitable, I think that they would have occurred much later, if at all, under a second Carter or first Mondale presidency.

Despite my admiration for President Reagan, I found the constant invoking of his mantle by Republican candidates this season not only annoying, but bordering on idolatry. Am I the only one that finds the near worship of a human being by members of a party that claims so many fervently religious members ironic?

The whole Reagan mantra thing kind of reminds me of an old game show I watched called the Liar’s Club. They would have 3 guests, who would all say they were the same person. The contestants would get to ask them questions, and then had to guess which guest was telling the truth. At the end they would say “Would the real [Joe Blow] please stand up” at which time Joe Blow would stand. If the candidates were playing it, when they said “Would the real heir to President Reagan’s mantra please stand up”, the candidates would all jump to their feet, point at each other and yell “he’s a moderate” or “he didn’t support Reagan until 1978, he’s a Johnny-come-lately”.