Are Disgruntled Conservatives Backing Obama?
The San Francisco Chronicle has a feature article alleging a phenomena that has conservatives - disgruntled after eight years of Bush, a lackluster Republican-led Congress and the nomination of a lackluster candidate in John McCain - supporting Obama.
Personally, I can go along with the whole “disgruntled conservative” meme. Aside from Bush’s tax cuts, federal court appointments and his foreign policy I don’t think there’s been a lot Bush has done right from a conservative perspective. He exacerbated the already dire entitlement spending situation by passing a prescription drug entitlement. He trampled the principles of federalism with No Child Left Behind and other initiatives. In short, his administration has been a mixed bag for conservatives.
The Republican Congress has been similarly lackluster. Spiraling spending? Growing government? An unwillingness to take up prickly issues, instead leaving those issues to be solved through the judicial activism of the courts? There’s a reason why the GOP is in the minority in Congress.
And do we really need to talk about John McCain, who has made a career in the Senate out of thumbing his nose at the conservative base?
So yes, conservatives are ticked off. They’re not excited about lining up behind McCain, and many probably won’t line up behind him at all. But will these disgruntled conservatives (and libertarians too) really choose to line up behind Barack “Let’s Double The Capital Gains Tax” Obama? A man who has given campaign speeches where he mentions that America is losing standing in the world because we drive SUV’s and set our thermostats too high?
Conservatives and/or libertarians who would vote for Barack Obama cannot, by definition, be conservatives or libertarians. Because being those things means a belief in the principles of limited government and individualism, and Obama represents neither.
I think many reporters would like to think that rampant dissatisfaction with John McCain and the GOP means defections to Obama’s side, but it’s just not so. Any conservative or libertarian who claims to be supporting Obama probably wasn’t much of a conservative or a libertarian to begin with.















