Big lizards give advice to John McCain
Dafydd over at Big Lizards has been giving John McCain advice on how to run his campaign… and I think McCain should be reading it. The latest starts riffing off of how slashing Medicare means reducing “the Medicare growth rate from 7.2% per year to 5%” even though “inflation has averaged 2.69% per year during Bush’s presidency” and will probably rise to only “around 3.5% this year”.
He’s also giving some very good advice about choosing a running mate.
This can either be an ordinary election—or a transformative one. We can choose to just kick the can down the road, or we can establish what Republicanism will mean for the next several decades. McCain is the gateway to 21st-century Republicanism; but like Moses, he can see but not enter the promised land. To make this election transformative, we need someone who exemplifies the future of the party…and the vice presidency is one good way to highlight such a person.
A little free association ideas: Suzanna Gratia Hupp, Kurt Russell, Janice Rogers Brown. Of course, my choices tend more towards the Libertarian side of the conservative movement, but they’re all well-spoken with a strong philosophy. Surprising choices, but not inappropriate. Outside the box.
I’d second his non-recommendation of General Petraeus, and would take Condoleezza Rice off of the table for similar reasons, even though I’d love to see her as president. Bobby Jindal is being floated, too, but I think he needs to be off the table as well—Louisiana needs him right where he is.
- Democrats Reject “Slashing” Medicare Down to a Scant 5% Increase
- “John McCain has not yet proposed a serious solution to the problem, but there are quite a few very good ideas out there. I expect he will make entitlement reform the centerpiece of the domestic part of his campaign… because he has no choice. The retirement time-bomb is ticking, ticking, ticking; and neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has made—or will make—any serious proposal.”
- Romney: My Fave for the Nomination, But a Mistake for VP
- “What are we looking for? Maybe someone a little bit dangerous, a man or woman who sometimes is the story, just as McCain often is the story. A William Jennings Bryan, a George S. Patton.”
- Transformative Elections vs. Kicking the Can: a Sermon
- “This can either be an ordinary election—or a transformative one. We can choose to just kick the can down the road, or we can establish what Republicanism will mean for the next several decades.”
- Suzanna Gratia Hupp at Wikipedia
- “Hupp has hosted a radio talk program in the Greater Austin area. She is a co-founder of the Civil Liberties Defense Foundation, a non-profit legal foundation dedicated to providing educational information relating to the preservation of civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution and to providing legal services to protect those rights.”
- Kurt Russell at Wikipedia
- “Kurt Vogel Russell is an American actor. He became known during the 1960s, having starred in several Hollywood films, and has continued appearing in a variety of roles since, including Escape from New York, Stargate and most recently Grindhouse.”
- Janice Rogers Brown at Wikipedia
- “She described private property as ‘the guardian of every other right‘ and libertarianism is known for its strong defense of property rights. Later on in her speech she described collectivism as ‘slavery to the tribe’ and that government was a ‘leviathan [that] will continue to lumber along, picking up ballast and momentum, crushing everything in its path’.”
More John McCain
- Citizens United and libertarian schizophrenia
- The latest Supreme Court ruling on free speech pretty much completes my renunciation of the Democratic Party.
- McCain sees the light: campaign finance reform dead
- Now, will he introduce bills to repeal those laws?
- Moving on to John McCain
- The more I learn about John McCain the more I want to vote for him.
- McCain’s success is not surprising
- Is McCain’s success really a surprise given the available candidates? I don’t think so. Ditto for Huckabee. Their success may be simply that voters are still paying attention to the issues. Objectively speaking, McCain is a stronger conservative candidate than Giuliani and Romney.
More presidential elections
- Nothing to fear but a brokered convention
- The reason someone smart would want a brokered convention is that it’s exciting, and it means media coverage, and even more, it means unfiltered media coverage.
- If I were running for president…
- I’d make heavy use of short videos, and I’d record everything I did with the media.
- Fighting for the American Dream
- Joe the Plumber writes about his experiences at the center of one of the most vicious smear campaigns in recent memory.
- McCain sees the light: campaign finance reform dead
- Now, will he introduce bills to repeal those laws?
- Vote on performance, not promises
- If you’re disappointed that President Obama is the same wheeler-dealer he was when he was a Senator, take it as a lesson for future elections: vote performance and record, not promises.
- 21 more pages with the topic presidential elections, and other related pages