North Coast Online

Give The Guy A Break

Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for the 2004 Bush campaign, has had a very public falling-out with the President.  He now claims he wishes Kerry had won.  While Democrats certainly feel he's simply awakened to reality, Republicans are mystified.

"In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd's premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic."

Michael Barone knows Dowd and has his own theory for the break-up.

Dowd mentioned at the lunch that his wife had just given birth prematurely to twins and that (my memory is a little hazy on this) they were still in the hospital and in precarious shape. When I read the quoted sentence, I thought: This man's life has fallen into terrible ruins. To watch a child die, to have a marriage break up, to see another son (presumably from an earlier marriage) risk his life in Iraq—this must be heartbreaking. How much disaster can one person take? It's Book of Job country. In our lunch, Dowd talked of possibly running for statewide office in Texas, as a Republican (just about the only way you can win there these days). In the Times article he is quoted as saying, "I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work." Some conservative bloggers have scoffed at this. I say, Give the guy a break. His whole world has crumbled around him. He probably thinks constantly about escaping to a whole 'nother world.

Barone goes on to write about Dodd's and, interestingly enough, Andrew Sullivan's explicitly-stated "love affairs" with Bush and how their loss of respect for Bush are similar.  Good stuff as usual, read the whole thing.

McCain vs. Giuliani

Paul at Powerline explains (quite well I think) why some Conservatives are more resistant to McCain than they are to Giuliani.  After all, McCain has been consistently center-right -- with a few notable exceptions -- while Giuliani is much more center . . . period.

The answer seems to have mostly to do with style. When McCain embraces non-conservative positions, he seems also to adopt an in-your-face posture and, indeed, to demonize conservatives who disagree with him. Those who don't accept his position on campaign finance reform are deemed corrupt; those who don't accept his position on interrogating terrorists are, if not torturers, then at least out of step with American values.

Giuliani, on the other hand, seems to have mastered the simple art of expressing an understanding that people of good will might disagree with him. This is probably more a matter of necessity (he can hardly afford to demonize social conservatives) than of temperament (as a prosecutor and mayor, Giuliani was a pretty good demonizer). Nonetheless, it constitutes a major advantage at this juncture.

I think that about sums it up.  McCain strikes me as egotistical, showboating and of unstable temperament. In short, I don't trust him.

Plus Ça Change

Thoughts on the election.

Since our last meeting we have been through a disastrous election. It is easy for us to be discouraged, as pundits hail that election as a repudiation of our philosophy and even as a mandate of some kind or other. But the significance of the election was not registered by those who voted, but by those who stayed home. If there was anything like a mandate it will be found among almost two-thirds of the citizens who refused to participate.

Bitter as it is to accept the results of the November election, we should have reason for some optimism. For many years now we have preached “the gospel,” in opposition to the philosophy of so-called liberalism which was, in truth, a call to collectivism.

Now, it is possible we have been persuasive to a greater degree than we had ever realized. Few, if any, Democratic party candidates in the last election ran as liberals. Listening to them I had the eerie feeling we were hearing reruns of Goldwater speeches

It Felt Good

I was too tired to blog about it last night but I did thoroughly enjoy that most satisfying of conservative holidays, the end of daylight saving time.  The one day each year when we get to turn the clocks back for real -- even if only by one hour.

They Can't Get Enough Of Her

Yet another Ann Coulter interview, this time from the British Observer.

'Who looked after your emotional welfare?' I ask.

Coulter laughs out loud - a laugh that means: what will these idiot liberals think of next? 'Wasps [sic] aren't into that,' she says. 'In fact, if I ever used the words "emotional welfare", I would be sent to my room without dinner.'

Heh.

Up And Down

Just when it seems that Canadian conservatives are on the comeback; their British counterparts are committing suicide.