John McCain: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

If you try to look at McCain as the presidential candidate, from an objective viewpoint, what might you see? Pat's done that from two different articles he's taken excerpts from, to give us a peek at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly we might see from a McCain Presidency:

More lemonade out of lemons

[...] Reading this made me realize what my basic problem with McCain is: he's a neoconservative not a traditional conservative. He believes that citizens are subservient to the state; that we are all duty-bound to toil in the cause of "National Greatness." In other words: he believes that government is the solution not the problem and has not understood the anti-statist, individualistic core principles of the American Revolution. If McCain were omnipotent, he would soon have us all in uniforms marching to his ideas of "National Greatness."

Fortunately that can't happen in the US and the worst that can happen under President McCain is that he will compromise too much with the left because of his belief in government-led social engineering.

I will continue to fight for Mitt (who, unlike McCain, has grasped the core principles of American individualism and does not see us citizens as potential drones in a "National Greatness" beehive.) But whoever the nominee is, I will back the winner. [...]

Read the whole thing for the Good, Bad and Ugly excerpts which he is commenting on, and more.

It's too early in the primaries to say if John McCain is the new face of the Republican party. We have to hear from more states, which we will on Super Tuesday.

The Reagan Coalition, in whatever form it still exists, may have been splintered between the many candidates. Now that the field has narrowed, they may rally around Romney to appose McCain. But that's not a sure thing.

What about states southern states like South Carolina, where some people say more liberal north-easterners have been moving in and dominating the local GOP chapters, outnumbering the more conservative local Republicans? Are there enough Reagan conservatives left to carry these states for the Coalition, or will they support John McCain?

We shall see on Super Tuesday, which way the wind is blowing.