Austria is almost exactly the same
geographical size as the State of South Carolina,
and it now has a very similar problem. Just as South
Carolina has people throughout America trying to
dictate what is on our capitol dome, Austria has
all of Europe trying to decide what party it is
to be governed by.
Like the rest of Europe, Austria has been slavishly
following America's trendy liberal ideas, and has
opened the floodgates to immigration. Now one in
six people in Austria is a recent immigrant, and
they are taking up huge amounts of public money.
Austria has the area of South Carolina, and already
has twice our population. The cozy coalition of
two major parties which has governed Austria since
1955 kept immigration coming.
Not surprisingly, Austrians turned to a new, anti-
immigration party, the Freedom Party, with 28 percent
of the vote at the last election. The leader of
that party has signed onto a coalition to rule the
country in the new government.
Let it be said at the outset that the COMMUNIST
PARTY is part of the governing coalition in Italy,
but no one saw anything wrong with that.
But the European Union is now threatening a boycott
of Austria if it dares include the Freedom Patty
in its governing coalition.
The Clinton Administration is also considering sanctions
against Austria if it decides to form its own government
on its own terms.
|
To my amazement, Senator John McCain
has not yet demanded that ground troops be sent
into Austria if it allows the Freedom Party in its
government. That would be the trendy move, and media
liberals must be sorely disappointed in their champion.
They may rest assured, however, that when they need
Senator McCain, he will be there for them.
We all remember that while other Republicans were
dragging their feet on bombing Serbia, McCain was
trumping Clinton with a demand for ground troops
and double the bombing effort.
But McCain looks like the only really live candidate
running.
Watching Bradley campaign in New Hampshire, I got
the impression that he was a very bored, tired man.
Never a smile and no energy.
If "bland" could be a verb, I would say
that one got the impression that Bush was trying
to bland his way into the nomination.
Gore was Gore.
In fact, a little excitement is the only reason
that Bradley wasn't crushed in a landslide the way
Bush was. In the closing days of the campaign, Bradley
started hitting back against Gore's attacks with
negative ads. As a result, polls showed that 68%
of the voters who made up their minds in the last
three days chose Bradley.
McCain was the only candidate who appeared enthusiastic,
and his rallies reflected it. I discussed this side
of politics on March
20, 1999 in "BOOOORING!"
The Bush strategy has been to keep his image as
middle-of-the-road as possible. The normal strategy
is to run right of center in the Republican primaries,
where voters are more conservative, and then to
move toward the middle of the road after securing
the nomination. Bush is trying to make it all the
way with his speedometer pointed to Bland.
New Hampshire has been tending toward rebels in
recent years. They went for Buchanan over Dole,
and they went for McCain over Bush big time. South
Carolina plodded along with Dole, and saved his
candidacy because he was sure to beat Clinton.
All the polls said so.
McCain is coming out of New Hampshire with two things
Buchanan did not have in 1996. First, he won by
a landslide in New Hampshire. Secondly, and more
important, he has the unanimous backing of the national
press. This is because, while McCain has a steady
conservative voting record in the Senate, he can
always be counted on to back the liberals on any
issue that really matters to them.
The key word here is MATTERS. McCain can make the
usual noises about abortion, but it's easy to avoid
action on that. He will make the usual pronouncements
about smaller government, but his major initiative
on the subject was to push a government windfall
tax on tobacco. That would have brought over five
hundred billion dollars into the Feds, and no one
can tell me that libs wouldn't have gotten a good
slice of that for their programs.
The tobacco taxes would have landed right on the
backs of working people, which is where liberals
like them. Another windfall for liberals would be
the campaign "reform" which McCain is
leading the fight for. He is practically the only
Republican backing it, and for a good reason. It
cuts into Republican and grassroots fund sources,
but leaves the big unions totally free to back liberals.
McCain supporters keep claiming he is just being
"independent." I cannot give that the
slightest credence until McCain takes AT LEAST ONE
BRAVE STAND against other Republicans WHICH IS NOT
the exact stand trendy liberals want him to take.
By any accounting, that is the difference between
an independent thinker and a simple sellout.
McCain is a fanatical backer of the liberal agenda
in foreign policy. When Clinton wanted to intervene
in Kosovo, McCain wanted to make it a full-scale
war.
Liberals are not consistently anti-military. During
World War II, the entire left, including the Communists,
backed the military solidly in its battle against
the fascist right. It was only after the Cold War
began against the Communist Progressive Peoples'
Republics that leftism took a pacifist turn. Since
the Cold War, America's military adventures have
looked good to the left. As Clinton's Secretary
of State Albright pointed out, a big military is
fine if it can be used for her purposes ( See April
24, 1999, Madeleine Albright Asks, "What Good Are American Lives?").
When the gun bill was dying in the Senate, the two
old reliables, McCain and Hatch, tried desperately
to save it. Hatch wanted to please Teddy Kennedy
(See August 14, 1999, "Orrin Loves Teddy"). McCain wanted to keep his
reputation with liberals for being there when they
needed him.
Meanwhile, Bush is supposed to be the "electable"
one. That means that he is going for the so-called
"middle of the road" vote. Now, in the
real world, nobody knows where this middle of the
road is. The media are constantly telling us that
if a Republican takes a "moderate" stand,
liberal on some issues and conservative on others,
he will win.
In the real world, most people who actually get
elected to Congress are consistently conservative
or liberal. If this "middle of the road"
business actually worked, we would find congressmen
clustering right there in the middle of this mythical
road. But, to
repeat, if you look at their ADA and ACA voting
records, you will find that congressmen cluster
on the left and on the right.
So, when Republicans nominated moderates, on the
basis of the good old, plausible-sounding middle
of the road nonsense, they lost. Reagan won twice.
Ford lost. Dole lost. Bush, Sr. won once when he
ran as Reagan's successor and lost when he ran as
his moderate self. The media is always selling Republicans
on this middle of the road nonsense and for good
reason. It keeps liberals in office.
Liberals are able to sell the middle of the road
program to Republicans. They are good at selling
their programs. And as always with programs liberals,
it doesn't work.
True to a tradition of stupidity, Republicans usually
take the advice of their enemies on political strategy.
|