Conservatives Undecided About McCain But United on Clinton
This Hillary Clinton bobblehead, created by Dayna Meserve, was on sale at the CPAC convention. (Photo courtesy of Dayna Meserve, http://www.hillnoshesgottogo.com/)
WASHINGTON — Her image festooned on a lively array of bumper stickers, buttons, t-shirts and bobblehead dolls — her head wobbly, her mouth agape and her body substituted by a donkey — Hillary Clinton continues her more than 15-year run as conservatives’ most despised person in America.
Conservatives may find John McCain uninspiring, but they have nothing but cold, hard zeal for the woman he could face in the presidential election next November, the former first lady who once called them the “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
“I am here to contribute to the downfall and demise of Hillary and what she would do to this country. I am here as a conservative, as a mother, as a grandmother,” said Dayna Meserve, who created the “Hill No! She’s Got to Go,” bobblehead dolls for sale at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.
“I would rather she not get the nomination and just get dropped-kicked off the planet,” Meserve said.
Clinton’s image, and the very thought that she might become America’s 44th president, lent an edge to the CPAC proceedings last week.
“There are so many people who — even Democrats — just hate Hillary,” said Courtney Morrow of Crown Forum, which publishes conservative authors and subjects and displayed its latest product line, including a number of expose-styled Clinton titles.
But a conundrum pervades the conservative ranks. While they despise Clinton, many of them hope she will be the Democrats’ presidential candidate in the fall, because they believe she will galvanize disenchanted conservatives to vote.
With polls indicating that Barack Obama would do better than Clinton against McCain, conservatives are feeling torn about whether they should plot her demise or pray for her nomination.
“I think she has the potential to get conservatives out to the polls,” said Michelle Healy, director of donor relations for Citizens United, a conservative activist group that has been running a negative television ad comparing the legislative record of McCain to Clinton. Citizens United was also hawking copies of “Hillary: The Movie” at the CPAC event.
“It’s a double-edged sword, yet people get motivated when they see a specific threat.”
Turnout is critical to many Clinton-haters, who note that the number of Republican voters participating in primaries and caucuses has paled in comparison to the Democrats.
Most people interviewed at the CPAC convention said they would not join opinion makers like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter in rejecting McCain. Instead, they are starting to conceptualize strategy for a general election that pits McCain against either Clinton or Obama.
“We have a real chance to win against Hillary,” said Dick Collins, a Texas Republican who runs StopHerNow.com. “It will energize conservatives to get active again in campaigning.”
But not everyone is convinced that a liberal bogeyman — or woman, as the case may be — can pull conservatives out of their funk and deliver a Republican victory in November.
“I just don’t buy it,” Joy McCann, who publishes the Little Miss Attila Web log, said of the idea that a Clinton nomination would be a boon for Republicans.
“Look, Nancy Pelosi was going to do the same thing,” she said, noting that the threat of Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House conjured the same prediction before the 2006 mid-term election.
“People aren’t just going to wake up, we have to wake them up,” she said. “[They] won’t do it without a huge organizing push by us.”
Others said the Clinton factor may be a bit overstated.
“I don’t think she plays much of a role here right now,” said Katie O’Malley, a columnist for Human Events magazine.
O’Malley says it’s too early to focus on the Democratic candidate.
“I think we are still struggling for the soul of our party. We need to get our head together, and then we can get focused.”
Part of that process entails getting behind a candidate. McCain, who is running far ahead in the delegate count for the Republican nomination, has failed to charm the conservative crowd, as demonstrated by the mixed reception to his speech at the CPAC.
McCain became the virtual GOP nominee after Mitt Romney suspended his campaign last week, but Mike Huckabee, who won the Louisiana primary and Kansas caucus on Saturday, remains in the picture.
Huckabee wasn’t a favorite at CPAC either — participants there weren’t convinced his evangelical Christian credentials made up for what they say is a lack of fiscal conservatism — but the weekend results show that the party is as hesitant as Democrats about the best route to victory.
In both private and public conversations at CPAC, conservatives said they were unsure whether McCain, 71, can beat Clinton or Obama, although they appear to worry more about the youthful and charismatic Illinois senator.
But in the meantime, what better way to liven the atmosphere than to concentrate on an old foe? Clinton, as some vendors pointed out, is good for business.
“She’s the gift that keeps on giving,” said Kitt Gasper, who works with Meserve on the bobblehead business.
“Hillary Clinton is great for business,” said Stacey Stine of ConservativeShirts.com. This year, big sellers included a host of anti-Clinton buttons and a t-shirt announcing the “same old socialism” and portraying Clinton alongside the iconic depiction of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
“If she were to win the presidency, we’d sell even more anti-Hillary merchandise,” Stine said, before delivering her knockout blow:
“But she would raise my taxes so much it wouldn’t matter anyway.”
I’m a DEMOCRAT, and you can add me to the list of people that will not vote for Hillbilly Clinton, even if Obama shares the ticket with Clinton! I promise you I will vote for McCain! McCain needs to carefully decide who will share his ticket in November. He will have to pick someone who can generate the type of enthusiasm Obama has generated. Mitt Romney can create the kind of energy the Republican Party needs to win the national elections. There are too many Clinton haters, including myself, who will vote for McCain, but this has been a very different race due to Obama, and the Republican Party will have to create the kinds of crowds that will translate into a “Republican Mania” that will overtake the mania seen in the Democratic primaries! Romney has a solid history of business experience behind him. Democrats are concerned with the war in Iraq, McCain needs to come up with a plan to end the war, yet protect the people from future terror attacks within this country. Romney also has developed and implemented a viable healthcare plan! If you like it or not, people in this country want healthcare, and are willing to pay for it! Republicans need to recognize this fact, and start devising a means for people to have health insurance at an affordable cost! Put together a committee that’s capable to responding to the attacks Clinton will wage against the Republican Party! McCain needs to appear human to the American public, and if Romney becomes his running mate, Romney will also have to forego the superior persona and reach out across race, gender and economic differences within this country! Please don’t like the Clintons back into the Oval Office!
[...] Undecided About McCain But United on Clinton February 11th, 2008 Kleinheider wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWASHINGTON — Her image festooned on [...]
Strudel, I may be wrong but I don’t think my comparison was faulty - the point I tried to make was that the people who are assuming that being any type of Muslim equals being a threat are using the same mindset that the Nazis had about the Jewish people in the 1930s. Of course the German Jewish population in the 1930s didn’t set off bombs and kill thousands but with the delusional Nazis the perceived threat of the Jews was real, to them they were a cancer and needed to be eliminated, they were seen as the race that lost them WW1 and plunged the country into hyperinflation. Therefore the Jews were dehumanized and hated en-masse, similar to how some people now see Muslims. The modern-day Islamic terrorist threat is real but is practically non-existent from within the indigenous Muslim population of the US, it is external and not from the likes of Obama (who is a Christian, anyway).
Does the fact that some Middle Eastern Muslims are murderous lunatic fanatics justify the sort of dehumanizing racism seen here against a whole people, including Muslims born in the USA? Of course not. The hatred and deliberate & deceitful demonizing of an entire race or religion can never be right, period. That is the parallel with Nazism.
Strudel states that “The Muslim extremists(not jews) are the sworn and proven enemies of the USA” and I completely agree. However, the comments I quoted (where I replaced the word ‘Muslim’ with ‘Jew’ to put them in another context and to identify how truly offensive the comments were) had been directed at Obama, who as far as I can tell is not a Muslim extremist & could never be construed as one. The comments were directed at a nice guy, a middle of the road decent man not a terrorist, therefore they were unjust, racist & extreme.
Folks I couldn’t agree more on Hillary…But I almost feel you are pushing votes to the antiCrist when you push them towards Mc Cain or Obama…These are some evil people running today and they all have things they are hiding from the public…So in the end we may wish to God Old Hillary had of won….Obama is bedded up (so to speak)with Oprah…Why???
Could it be because he promised he would allow Afrcia to pour into the USA to lay up on the Social Services and Mc.Cain has done Mexico??
It’s about time we freed ourselves from this two-party tyranny. If (when) McCain gets the GOP nomination, voters will have a choice between two equally extreme liberals.
Conservatives fed up with Republican abandonment of their small-government principles should seriously have a look at the Libertarian Party (http://lp.org).
Liberals who are fed up with attempts by the national government to regulate what goes on in private bedrooms and back yards need to seriously look at the Libertarian Party.
There is an alternative to choosing between two corrupt liberals. This two-party system that has worked so well for so long has now become just a contest between two equally liberal rivals for ever-increasing government power. Choose another option! Choose the Libertarian Party! http://lp.org
It’s no surprise that Conservative is launching a hate campaign against Hillery. Hatred is liveline of all conservative parties around the world, now and in the past. However Conservatives will survive because mankid has not yet learned a way to live together without hatred.
“Sittinpretty” has presented a faulty comparison of 2 very different peoples and times.. The Muslim extremists(not jews) are the sworn and proven enemies of the USA. Checking back over the last 20 yrs or so, we can find numerous examples of bombings, murders, attacks on ships and airplanes, destabilizations, etc by extreme muslims. I can find no evidence of the same sort of activities by jews. During the time leading up to WWII, the jews were not involved in the sorts of violent activities that invited the attacks on them. Therefore, your comparison is faulty. — The American people have not only the right but the responsibility to be wary and vigilant. We have become much too complacent about the people who represent themselves as our “leaders.”