McCain Rally in Seattle

I took chance and drove down to the Westin Hotel in Seattle last night to see if I could get into the ballroom where Sen. McCain was delivering his Washington state address the night before today’s Washington caucuses. After hearing the horror stories of 17,000 ecstatic and tearful attendees earlier yesterday at the Obama rally in Seattle’s Key Arena, turning Obama supporters away at the door, I was surprised to find McCain’s rally only had about 500 attendees – and I easily found a place to stand about 20 feet from McCain’s podium. This was a small crowd of good, sensible, courteous people. They represented all age groups and vocations almost evenly, with a peppering of Navy vets, active military, Seattle businessmen, college students, and whole families. Although I never had the chance to speak with McCain – they rush him in and out pretty quickly – standing twenty feet from him showed me that he’s vibrant, healthy, full of energy and extremely sharp of mind. Age is not a factor here, no matter what anyone says. He was flanked by his Washington state supporters: Attorney General Rob McKenna, former Washington Governer Dan Evans, former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton, who was very old and rough – he made McCain look like an infant, and U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (former King Co. Sheriff). The one dignitary notably missing was Washington Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Dino Rossi; it would have been fitting and appropriate to see him there after Gov. Christine Gregoire endorsed Barack Obama earlier in the day.

After seeing McCain and his supporters in person, it’s now clear to me that there’s a divide so vast between the McCain and the Obama campaigns that it could never be reconciled: McCain’s following is of working people, feet firmly grounded, thinking, rational, aware, well-tuned to the reality of evil in the universe. Obama’s is truly a cult following, and an expansive one that wins Obama the popular election with little effort if the counter-effort fails to come out in force for McCain in November. Obama supporters look like some of the people we see everyday, but at Obama’s speeches around the nation, Seattle’s rally being no exception, the followers descend into an primal emotional trance of ecstasy and fainting. These rallies sound like charismatic revival meetings, with salvation and healings and Obama standing before them as the Christ-figure. Since we’re talking about a U.S. presidential candidate, and in fact, not the Messiah, this portrait should be repugnant to all Republicans and Democrats with a care for the future of our country. A word to voting Democrats: I would strongly urge that you consider the much more sensible Hillary Clinton if McCain doesn’t hold up your political values. It looks pretty plain to me: McCain = policy, thought and action; Obama = self-indulgence, emotion, and unspecified “change” – more bluntly, a gaggle of idiots.

Here’s the Seattle Times writeup on last night’s McCain event:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004173350_mccain09m.html
The psychiatrist (Dimitry Davydow) mentioned toward the end of the article was standing two feet from me as the Seattle Times spoke with him, and I heard his interview firsthand.

A New Era in American Conservatism

I believe an important milestone in the history of American politics was passed today as events unfurled to indicate the inevitable nomination of Senator John McCain as the anointed Republican candidate of the 2008 United States Presidential Election, crowned by a forward-sighted speech from McCain to the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.

This was most monumental to me as I was one who declared immediate and hearty support of a McCain presidency the day after he entered the race on 25 April 2007, and I have not strayed from that support a single day since. But it’s not a great occasion so much because the candidate I supported has found victory over the other suitors for the party endorsement; the day is important because our nation has just pushed through the sorest spot in an ideological growing pain, and now the slow healing can begin as a new age in conservatism begins to bloom. Whether or not everyone realizes it, the conservative wing of America just endured some of its greatest internal warfare it has seen in decades, both on the level of the news media and more importantly on the grassroots level. This is a healthy national development, and it proves that America is vital, breathing, and cares for her own welfare in the universe, even when misinformation and shrouded truth is owned and shared by the masses. The liberal wing of America is waging its own ambiguous battle of “change”, which has very little essence of substantive progressiveness, but much more of revolt against what was and what is. I have to emphasize this because the Obama and Clinton campaigns are founded primarily on a heavy sentiment of feelings and appeal, and they have offered up precious little in the way of a real game plan, executable policy or far vision. McCain has offered up all of these things, and the entire nation, conservative and liberal alike need to recognize that he alone has done this.

Now, with McCain on the bridge deck of the USS GOP we can witness the kind of progress that happens when a nation’s most critical foundational ideas are recollected, reconstituted and transferred into its most meaningful expression of a prosperous society undergirded by the guarantee of individual liberty. And we’re not just bound to witness it, but obliged to drive it, in a way that can only happen in America. Among past presidents, the spirit McCain possesses was held by Thomas Jefferson, by Abraham Lincoln, by Theodore Roosevelt, and by Ronald Reagan – and without a doubt Winston Churchill breathed this spirit into Mother England as he led the charge against the unprecedented fascist tyranny of the last century. President George W. Bush also bears this spirit, but many imperfections of circumstance during his administration have suppressed it at times into complete ineffectiveness. My senses tell me that McCain has the unique will and ability to blast off this same suppression that crushed Bush, pick up the banner and oversee a great reformation in our time. The Reagan Era of conservative ideology is now finished, and the McCain Era has commenced.

In subsequent entries, I’ll map out this McCain Republican ideology in detail as I see it, one point at a time with hopes of assuaging the fears of those who love liberty and prompting the same to fervently support and consecrate a McCain presidency through the power of the vote.

Read John McCain’s address today to the CPAC