Why My Best Friends Will Be Voting For John McCain Over Hillary Clinton. Ponder This. [View All]

[David Zephyr]

For over over thirty years, a couple that I introduced to each other, have been die-hard, liberal Democrats. We have phone banked together, we have stuffed enveloped, canvassed neighborhoods, planted yard signs, held fund-raisers and more for Democratic candidates. Those years in the trenches together endeared them to me in ways that only life-long friendships can. But this weekend, they dropped the bomb: should Hillary somehow wrestle the nomination away from Senator Obama by her threatened "nuclear option" at the convention, they will be voting for Senator John McCain in November. Here's how they explained it to me:

John McCain will move the Republican Party more to moderation than any GOP president since Gerald Ford. John McCain, they pointed out, will not be beholden to the anti-immigration bigots that he stood up to last year. McCain will not be beholden to the anti-science crowd that have dominated the Republican Party for a decade. McCain will not be beholden to Rush Limbaugh who opposed him daily on his radio show. McCain will not be beholden to Pat Robertson or James Dobson who would not endorse him. Moreover, McCain will support embryonic stem cell research and while he will not support gay marriages, he has spoken favorably at times about civil unions for gays and lesbians. And while John McCain certainly would never govern as a liberal, they argued that McCain would do America more good by moving the GOP away from its extreme right-wing clutches than Hillary would by moving the Democratic Party more to the right.

Hmmmm...

"McCain would do America more good by moving the GOP more toward moderation than Hillary would by moving the Democratic Party more to the right, more to the bidding of the military contractors, more to the bidding of the transnational corporations."

I asked them both why they'd be willing for the first time in their lives to help a Democrat lose in November and they answered that losing would purge once and for all the DLC types, the Liebermans, etc. from the Party and would leave Americans with two choices in the future: a more moderate Republican Party vs a truly progressive Democratic Party...which they argue would be in America's best interests long term.

Barack in 2012?

I argued back saying that this sounded like a mirror image of what many are saying is Bill and Hillary's 2012 plan: lose the nomination, but put up a fight and weaken Obama letting McCain win and then blaming him for the loss so that she could be the clear choice in 2012. "Is that what you are saying?" I asked.

They said that it was exactly what they were proposing should Hillary and Bill and the corporate media steal the nomination from Obama.

And they said that a moderated GOP under McCain would be far better for America than a rightward turn by the Democratic Party would ever be.

I spent a great part of today thinking about that. I don't agree with that logic, but I wonder if others have heard this. Remember, this came from activists who love the Party.