Some Dems would have objected. However, in terms of creating a ticket with a greater chance of winning, having McCain as the VP would have been a plus, with little downside potential. Legalized abortion in the US is popular with the electorate overall. Reagan and the Bushes basically totally failed to achieve much in the way of laws against abortion. Thus for the Democrats they’d likely have expected McCain would have had the same problem if he ever tried pushing a pro-life agenda. For the pro-lifers, their only (slim) hope is to back the Republicans. There is a chance that if a Republican president could nominate enough pro-life SC justices, SCOTUS might overturn Roe v Wade. There politically is basically no chance a pro-life Constitutional amendment could ever get off the ground.
Does anyone seriously NOT think that that Cheney will resign after the 2006 midterm elections? I’m sure this has been the Republican strategy all along. Don’t dump Cheney before the election, but make sure someone gets in there who can run on the 2008 ticket.
Of course, this could be prevented by electing Kerry!
The last thing on earth the Republicans want to do is actually outlaw abortion. What keeps the single-issue right to life crowd in the GOP camp is that possibility that someday it will happen. If and when it does, it would demobilize the right to life vote and mobilize the pro choice vote.
I dunno. There was definitely a lot of chatter about it. Was he actually offered the spot, or offered the chance to be on the short list? Either way, he might have “understood” that he’d have to shut up about abortion to get the slot, and he was unwilling to do that. It might have been that he was one of the strongest Iraq war hawks, too. I never saw any realistic way for McCain to be on the Kerry ticket unless he (McCain) changed some of his strongest beliefs. Atany rate, it’s entirely reasonable to assume that the abortion issue is one reason that McCain is NOT on the Kerry ticket now, if he in fact had a chance to be on it in the first place.
And it’s a good thing, too. Imagine where Kerry would be now if he had McCain on the ticket. He’s now the anti-war candidate (that’s the major thrust of his campaign), and McCain would’ve never gone along with that.
But, anyway, we’re just sepculating. Maybe Powell didn’t really have a shot at the VP slot either. It just seems that the Pubs are slightly more tollerant of a pro-choice stance than the Dems are of a pro-life stance. Since it’s never really been tested on the presidential ticket, we’d have to look elsewhere. William Weld and Arnold come to mind immediately. Are there any pro-life Democratic governors out there, or have there been any recently?
Rice/McCain sounds too much like a side dish. I’d sooner vote for Potatoes/AuGratin.
Cynical, but you may have a point. However, note of the hypothetical the Pubs do outlaw abortion, and the pro-choice vote gets mobilized, the pro-life folks would not want to demobilize because they’d see their victory in danger. I do agree I see little evidence for the last quarter century that the Pubs really wanted to outlaw abortion. Basically, even all Reagan did was spout of rhetoric against abortion the keep the pro-lifers mobilized, but never really tried to deliver. The reason almost surely is that for Reagan to have got anywhere with the abotion issue is to have done some serious political horsetrading. Reagan also wanted to cut taxes, and vastly expand the military. Those were the issues he horsetraded for to get. He was unwilling to compromise on those to achieve anything for the pro-lifers. In particular to get anywhere with Roman Catholics. Catholics oppose abortion, but like government welfare programs, and definitely don’t want to sacrifice the poor to build up the military. And also the Catholics don’t like the idea of school prayer in a Protestant dominated US. Catholics are quite happy to pray on their own the way the Vatican says to.
Now this is something into which we can really get our teeth. I’m more of a Meat / Potatoes man myself.
You guys don’t seem to notice that the Republican party has changed. I don’t see a problem with getting a pro-choice Republican on the ticket. In fact, that already happened 24 years ago. George Bush was pro-choice when Reagan picked him as his running mate. He changed his position later, ‘on paper’, but I don’t think anyone really believed it. And that was 24 years ago.
Look at the Republican convention - Almost all the speakers were pro-choice.
Now, I don’t think a Republican could get elected shouting, “Abortions for all!”, but certainly there is room for a pro-choice Republican to be elected as long as they fell back on the position that it was a state issue, which has become an acceptable alternative to many Republicans.
And also, the Republican party will change further in the next four years. A lot of the up and coming stars in the party are at least open-minded on the abortion issue.
But it’s also true that a pro-life Democrat couldn’t be elected. Democrats are much more intolerant on this issue than are Republicans. It’s meaningless to say they ‘wanted’ McCain as a running mate - we’re talking about whether he could get through the primaries.
Well, you know, for that very reason he might actually get a nomination some day, and it might not be such a bad thing if he did. If we have a black president I’d rather he were a hellraising, rabblerousing activist like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. But the first black president will be a lot more like Powell than Sharpton; we need a conservative and acceptably bland oreo to break the color barrier. Once that barrier is down, then we can start thinking in more serious terms.
I’ve never heard of the “paper bag test.” My definition of an oreo is one who could pass the “telephone test” – get taken for white over the telephone.
I love it when conservatives accuse liberals of being “intolerant” of those who want to take away civil rights. :rolleyes:
Be fair, Diogenes. He’s talking about being “intolerant” of dissenting opinions within one’s own party, not about being “intolerant” on any particular social issue. Who’s right? I don’t know. Both parties are pretty big tents.
Dio: You do know that I’m strongly pro-choice, right?
Fair enough, Sam. My apologies.
Big deal – all that showed was that the GOP was effective in pretending to be a bunch of moderates for four days. Their actions in the last twenty years speak otherwise.
And when I logged into MSNBC during the RNC, they actually had a photo of a black woman wearing about 100 Bush buttons. How they were able to find the one black woman in the audience is a mystery to me.
But Condi?
Please.
Watch her eyes when she speaks. The woman is a terrible liar, and you can’t be a Republican President if you can’t lie in front of the American public.
Bush/Rice, 2008.