Quote:
Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin
that is not the topic that came up. That's the topic mavdog (and now you) are trying to shift to. Matching a boilerplate is your idea. And I did not offer this up. Mavdog said that the election is a referendum on conservative politics. I said that McCain does not represent conservative policies.
To turn it into a policy list (which anyone could google if they cared to do more than try to win debate points) and then argue some goofball argument about how many policies it takes to be conservative is not the point. I will concede gladly that McCain is more conservative than Obama, and more conservative than both chumdawg and mavdog. And if that's your definition of conservative, then go ahead and apply it to McCain, and you'll get no argument from me, except for saying that it's stupid to treat the concept as relative and the label as categorical.
But whether or not he is a conservative (or even "is conservative") is not the issue mavdog brought up. The issue is whether he represents conservative policies in such a way that the election can be defined as a judgment on conservative policies.
Even without talking about immigration and campaign finance and the role of the government in buying peoples mortgages, or any of the other issues that people on the right quibble over, it's obvious that McCain is not the standard bearer for conservative politics. If he were, then his running mate wouldn't have given him a boost among conservatives.
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the point is that mccain is representitive of conservative principles of american political thought, and his running mate is also a candidate that reflects those principles.
the list of conservative policies that mccain incorporates in his platform is pretty darn complete. the fact that you refuse to indicate where mccain deviates from those core ideals exposes the hollow claim that he isn't a conservative, or that his campaign is not based on conservative ideals.
mccain is hitting those conservative platforms hard in an attempt to stay competitive, and so far it is not bringing any success, even more of a statement that the nation is rejecting those planks and voting for the liberal alternative.
coupled with the clear liberal philosophies proposed by obama and his running mate, this election can be viewed as a juxtaposition of conservative and liberal ideals...and it is clear that the country is embracing the liberal candidate, not the conservative candidate.