Let us concentrate on Specter.

he smugly explains to daughter Meghan the reason RINOS like himself get away with abandoning the GOP when ego or whimsy may strike.It’s because conservatives don’t have the courage or principle to fight him tooth and nail.How can we rail against anyone who throws the GOP under the bus when we don’t hold them all accountable.So let’s empower McCain to abandon us again and again?And we wonder why so many conservatives are disaffected with the political process.

McCain just came out against Obama’s version of cap and trade, so that’s good.

Hopefully he’ll keep his word if Comprehnsive Immigration Reform is introduced and demand the border be secure before any sort of reforms are passed.

We can do both to the betterment of the party. Arlen AND John are not needed for a resurgent GOP and they are poster children as to why we lost and lost BIG.

The one vote away filibuster proof Senate is an illusion as long and John, Arlen and the Maine “twins” are in office, when the going gets tough you can usually find them glaring back at conservatives from the Democrat side of the aisle.

At what point does principle get put in the driver’s seat over pragmatism (the same “pragmatism” that keeps the squishes in charge and the GOP losing elections).

McCain tends to p** on or leg at times, however has been pretty reliable as a vote (with weight attached) against the Obama administration. Don’t forget he has always been on the front line of the fight for freedom; eg. Veit Nam and Reagan Cold War supporter.

As an Arizona resident, a Vietnam Veteran, and as a retired law enforcement officer from Arizona I can only state what I believe to be true based on my personal experience.

Erick Erickson, you are naive. You obviously don’t live in a border state. John McCain is not representing Arizona or the conservatives in the Republican Party. It is time to send him into retirement.

Though Arlen Specter should be a top priority to defeat, along with the likes of Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, both of Maine, you have no idea what is going on in Arizona or any of the border states.

The movement to give blanket citizenship to “illegal” residents of the U.S. by the Obamanista regime is in the forefront of John McCain’s “Washingtonian Theocracy”. He is a Beltway insider who is only interested in keeping his Senatorial position and does not speak for the people of the State of Arizona who oppose illegal amnesty by a 3 to 1 margin.

Arizona, like other border states, is currently battling Mexican drug cartels for supremacy in the streets of it’s cities. This is, in part, thanks to the do nothing attitude of the former governor Janet Napolitano, a super liberal, who lied to the people of the state while pursuing her non-existent policy of border enforcement and supporting of illegal immigration.

Like Napolitano, John McCain does absolutely nothing in the state of Arizona to curb the border problems. All John McCain is good for is talk. Talk is cheap, action pays.

The recent Tea Parties in Arizona were a protest not only of the Fascist tactics of the Obamanista regime on taxes, but also against the usurping of Arizona sovereignty by the pro-amnesty policies of the Washingtonian, John McCain.

John McCain is only one of many “good ol’ boys” who need to be replaced in the 2010 elections. He consistently stands against conservatism. His phony pretense of being a conservative has come to a head in this state. When his name was mentioned at the Tea Party I attended, it was met with a chorus of “boos”. The people of the State of Arizona will speak “if” there are fair elections in 2010. John McCain will go down in a ball of flames.

To you in the Republican Party who believe that keeping these “phony conservatives” in power is an attribute to re-energizing the Party, you are simply naive and totally ignorant of the facts concerning the Border States. People like John McCain have to be, and by the Grace of God, will be defeated.

And I am strongly on the pro-enforcement/no amnesty camp of the illegal immigration argument.

But Chris Simcox would be nothing but a huge embarrassment for the GOP, He is a huckster and a scam artist. He raised millions of dollars to build a privately funded border fence and never built more than a few hundred feet with materials that were below the standards of the proverbial wet paper bag. Beyond his ethics challenges, if you listen to what has come out of his mouth over the years, Simcox is not even close to being a conservative.

John McCain does not throw the Republican Party under the bus quite as often as Arlen Spinctor, but he has a bad habit of doing at CRUCIAL moments. I would love to see him unseated in the next election and if Arizona Republican can come up with a credible challenger, (and that wold not be Chris Simcox), I will send some money.

And as a bonus, throwing John McCain out of office would have the dual beneficial effect of kicking the soapbox out from underneath Meghan in her self-appointed and MSM annointed role as spokeshole for the future of the Republican Party.

You’re absolutely right Simcox would be thoroughly trounced and as you mentioned wasting resources gunning for McCain when we could be using those resources to help Toomey is just bad management of our time and money.

I’m no fan of McCain but there are bigger fish to fry!

What are we looking for my friend? A “reliable” vote, or a person who endurably believes in core conservative principles and supremacy of our Constitution. Certainly, we can make a very plausible argument that Mr. McCain has, when politically pressured, shown a proclivity to distort our Constitution in matters that have profound, perdurable implications. This is of course, contrasted by political decisions which may be temporary and remedied overtime vis-à-vis legislative action or electoral situations which can be cured by reformulating a party based on principles, not parochial voter strategies.

An endorsement of McCain is in essence an agreement with the direction he has tried to take the party. I think we can agree that his brand of politics has not only damaged the party image, but has exposed us to very severe long-term reputational risk. The argument for McCain appears to be the same argument which falsely led us into the last election and ultimately our contemporary wilderness.

So do we choose a road where “our” candidate distorts Article II Section 2 in the context of his Gang of 14 actions, votes against tax cuts, believes our Bill of Rights to non-citizens (specifically terrorists), attempts to write international law- such as UNCAT into legislation and constantly assaults the 1st Amendment under the guise of Campaign Finance reform? Or do we choose, to take a stand against those who have exacerbated this situation and put us in the minority to begin with? My apologies, but I choose the latter and truly believe until that realization comes to fruition we will not return to a majority.

I have enormous respect for Mr. McCain and his service as a patriot to our country. I also find Mr. Specter deplorable, unreliable and disingenuous fellow who needs to retire. However, to say we must choose either/or appears to be a flawed a choice which ignores history and current realty in search of an elusive voting majority. That not only ignores the very loud call for fundamental governmental change, but distorts and cheapens our values by trading them for political gain.

I could not be happier that we might see Senator McCain retired to the pathetic Hall of Fame of big government Republicans. If he had any shame at all after the pitiful campaign he ran, he would have announced he was not running for reelection immediately after his election. To add insult, we have to deal with his media darling liberal daughter pretending to speak for conservatives. No one would dare suggest that he wants to hold the seat for her until she turns 30?

I had to hold my nose to vote for him in 2008 but he continues to stick his finger in the eyes of conservatives when he needs a dose of adulation from the Washington crowd. He is not a man of conservative principles and it is time we stop compromising to support these politicians. Eliminating these type of Republicans is exactly what the TEA party movement is seeking. You are wrong on this one Erick.

McCain deserves a final whipping for the atrocius campaign that gave us a marxist in the White House.

Erick, you of all people should know better. We need ture conservatives.Your thinking on this is what got the Republician Party in trouble. To hear this kind of stuff from now to the election day from people I admire kindly makes me sick. Wake up.

so we should support the incumbent moderate. Simcox may or may not be the guy. But we never know if we strangle his candidacy in the crib for the sake of political expediency. But my bigger problem is the “a conservative underdog can’t win so we’ve got to support the RINO” mindset. With all due respect, that would only come from someone who doesn’t truly believe in conservative principles. I believe a properly backed conservative candidate will beat any other candidate every time. I believe this because conservative ideas work every time. And we should be backing the conservative.

If we’re conservatives first, McCain needs to go. His name is on far too much bad legislation for principled conservatives to ever support him again, and his performance as the GOP nominee last year deserves total abandonment.

If we’re Republicans first, we want to hold the seat – and the best way to hold the seat is to put the guy who’s currently in it back on the ballot for the general election.

The Republican approach is tactically superior, but it’s a strategic failure. It’s tantamount to selling out your principles at a time when they’re going to be on the way back in a major way. I’d rather lose that seat and gain it back six years later than have six more years of somebody who supports socialism at a slightly slower pace than the Democrats want it.

Democrats focus on beating Republicans. Republicans focus on beating Republicans. That’s a real winning combination.

Didn’t we try purging our ranks already. To what end I dont know. Getting our butts kicked two cycles in a row. Destroying the Party in the Northeast and Rust Belt. Letting Begich win a Senate seat in a Redstate. Not getting behind Coleman because he wasnt pure enough even though Minnesota is a purple state.

Let the people of their rerspective states decide. The people of PA should determine who should represent them, so can the people of Arizona. I think that’s what the founders would have envisioned. The people get to actually choose THEIR representives in Congress. State Republican parties and organizations dont need carpetbaggers.

Resources are limited. Every dollar wasted here is one less dollar that can go towards defeating Dodd.. One less dollar that can go towards defeating Bennett. One less dollar that can go towards defeating Carnahan. One less dollar towards holding the Florida or Ohio.

These little fratricidal wars are a diversion and counter-productive.

Lets start focusing on beating Dems.

McCain is essentially an unbeatable force in AZ. Something akin to a Kennedy in MA. His popularity is high, and while many here do grumble about him, in the end, the people of AZ will vote for him. The only way McCain will leave office is either through a retirement or his passing. And if you ask me, I’s my opinion that he has been prepping the vacuous Meghan McCain to take his place.

Erick is correct in targeting Specter. He is a bigger VOTING problem than McCain and focusing our efforts upon that problem is key. We need to throw out the squishies and it can not be done en masse.

Believe me, I am first in line to kick McCain to the curb, but Simcox is not electable to the Senate. He has too many background problems and his minute man project is a polarizing issue which will not help in the current environment. Much of the Hispanic community hates this guy and in AZ you need to pull some of that demographic to win.

I like the idea of taking out McCain in the primary, but will echo others that I’m not sure if Simcox is the right person to do it (since I don’t know enough about him to say).

What I’m worried about is the possibility that we do defeat McCain in the Republican primary, but McCain goes on to run in the general as an independent where he might well win. That would be almost as bad as losing the seat to a Democrat.

As as someone who likes John McCain more than about 90% of the regulars at RedState, I like what you’ve written as a practical matter. I’m not sure though why you contend that the demographics are better for Toomey in PA than they are for Simcox in AZ. My impression is that AZ is still a fair sight more conservative than PA. If I were a generic Republican running against a generic Democrat, I’d much rather do it in AZ than in PA.

-exits (who is afraid that Toomey is going to get his hat handed to him in the general election)

It’s pretty much impossible at this point to primary McCain, and it will just waste time, manpower, and good candidates to challenge him. Far better to wait until the man croaks, and in the meantime to build up party infrastructure in Tucson, as well as a credible replacement for McCain when the time come.

But I have to say, it’s difficult for me to say with a straight face that McCain is conservative: at best, he’s a conservative-leaning moderate. His strongly held positions are those that are disagreeable to conservatives, and his mealy-mouthed support of core Republican principles leaves me underwhelmed. Adding to that his penchant for pulling the rug from under Repubs’ feet at the most inopportune moments, and you have someone who can only loosely be identified w/conservatism. In that sense, I have to disagree w/Erick that he is a conservative. I tolerate him because I have to, not because it warms my heart, or because I feel that he advances my political views effectively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_Senate_elections,_2010&oldid=285477210

Five to six of our Senate seats are currently rated tossups, quite a few due to retirements. Of the Democrat’s seats, only 0 to 2 are rated tossups. We have a lot higher priorities than McCain (or probably Specter).

I don’t really care for McCain (just about everyones here seems to need to put this disclaimer in their posts), but I also understand the point Mr. Erickson is making. Obviously, running for national office requires a lot of resources, and McCain has those. While he drives me nuts on some specific, and important issues, McCain overall has a relatively (not perfect by any means!) conservative voting record over the course of his career as senator.

That being said, I have to respectfully disagree with some of the points made in the OP.

Resources and support, IMO, are available, but I think we have to understand that there are a lot of people on the right that won’t give of their time and money unless the candidate actually represents the majority of their views. People want to donate, help out, etc., but they have been burned too many times by the likes of McCain when important issues have come up for a vote. There is a reason folks are withholding support for Repubs, and many people were saying this prior to both the 2006 beating we took in Congress, as well as the big loss in 2008.

We need fresh blood and solidly conservative candidates that don’t have a history of stabbing the party in the back. Probably every politician goes off the reservation from time to time for various reasons, but repeat offenses, combined with a thumb-in-your-eye attitude someone like McCain portrays when he does go off the reservation, make it very hard for people to give them a break when they do stray.

Furthermore, I think we are overlooking a couple of important aspects of the last election cycle. The Repubs were probably doomed no matter who they ran (for POTUS or Congress) because people were sick of Bush. It doesn’t matter at this point whether it was Bush’s fault, the fault of Repubs in Congress, the media propoganda that was in the tank for the Dems, etc. The fact is, Bush lost the last election all around, even though he wasn’t running. It was a referendum on his administration, and it didn’t help that we had complicit Repubs in the Congress and a biased media to stoke the fires of the “throw the bums out” or “send them to the wilderness” attitudes.

As well, it should be noted that the Dems won big by even though their candidate had little name recognition prior to his winning. Who ever heard of Obama before he became a presidential candidate? He had never completed a full term in office as a Senator, and yet he not only usurped the Dem nomination from Hillary (who’d a thunk it?), but he won the general election to take the reigns of power. Hillary was THE nominee, she had the whole thing wrapped up, and all of a sudden Obama came on the scene and yanked the rug right out from under her. Hillary had HUGE name recognition, lots of money and support, and yet she lost the primary to a nobody because the Dem base got behind someone else.

In the case of McCain, I think he COULD be successfully primaried, and that we could get a conservative into the Senate in AZ, but I’m not sure if the Minuteman is the guy to do it. I would dearly love to see McCain go down in flames, and I don’t think its ultimately about name recognition, resources, money, and so on.

If the Dems can run a nobody against Hillary, and not only beat HER at her own game, but also win the most powerful political post in the world, I think conservatives could get their guy in as AZ senator.

Respectfully, its not just about resources.

and I will give to him again every other month until the election….he may or may not beat him in the primary but if NO ONE ever stands up to take him on he will continue to be the loser R that he is and by God he has created another one just like him!

But John McCain is b>NOT the problem with either the Republican Party or the conservative movement. Moreover, John McCain is b>NOT a backstabber. If we want to be honest with ourselves, he has always been quite upfront about when and where he has fought against his fellow Republicans and conservatives. Indeed, if we are going to be honest, that last fact is probably the reason why we all dislike him so.

The problem with the Republican Party today and the conservative movement is all those Republicans and so-called conservatives who b>do stab us in the back by voting and acting like liberals all the while they are mouthing conservative platitudes.

No, check that. The problem really isn’t even the Republican Party politcians who vote like liberals all the while they are mouthing conservative principles. The problem is those of us who keep voting those Republican Party politcians who vote like liberals all the while they are mouthing conservative principles into office.

John McCain is what he is: a moderate who actually does vote conservatively on many issues. He has something like a +95% pro-life voting record, was one of the few Republicans to stand against that travesty we call Medicare Part D and, although he did not vote for the Bush tax cuts, has never voted for a major tax increase. All in all, John McCain is far from the worst. He may go off the reservation way too many times — on that, I think everyone here will agree — but so does everyone else. Even Fred Thompson, the hero of many here on RedState (myself included) voted for McCain/Feingold; yet we (justly) condemn John McCain for it but we (inexcusably) excuse Fred Thompson.

The problem with John McCain is not that he goes off the reservation so often. In total, he doesn’t go off the reservation that much more than most. The problem with John McCain is that he doesn’t try to lie to us about it. And that is not a problem with John McCain; that is a problem with us.

people went from McCain supporters to haters overnight, the day after election day. It is much easier to blame our hero than ourselves. We all know his negatives, no point in listing them again here.

As you say, we do have to be strategic just whining is not a winning strategy. McCain will not be in leadership anyways. But Specter is simply not on board, I see him as a slightly more malignant John Warner, getting more liberal towards the end with no interest in helping the party. We should primary Specter, and not out of anger, but because we plan on winning the seat with a real Republican.

This is while I’ll leave it Pennsylvanians. The Republican Party Chair is publicly stating that Toomey told him that he didnt want to be Senator eight weks ago. This is really the conservative savior of PA. I dont like like Specter, but I have no reason to beleive Toomey is a viable candidate.

http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/04/gleason_toomey_did_not_want_to.html