Shirley: McCain Should Have Opposed Bailout

Matt Lewis | December 15, 2008 11:33 AM

Politico has a cool feature called The Arena. It essentially is a daily debate between opinion leaders.

Today's prompt is: "Is the RNC, as John McCain suggested, wasting its time with Obama-Blagojevich? What should the GOP be doing right now?"

Without a doubt, the best response came from Craig Shirley, who had this to say:

We followed you before...and you lead us down the road to defeat," Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen stormed at two time loser Tom Dewey during the 1952 Republican National Convention.

What the GOP should be doing is try to differentiate itself from its past which includes clean breaks from both George Bush and John McCain.

McCain missed his chance to make his candidacy viable and more importantly meaningful by joining the insiders---Wall Street, K Street, Capitol Hill, the media, the Bush Administration and Senator Obama in supporting the hideous bailout of Wall Street last fall. Goldwater lost in 1964, but becaused of his principled campaign, conservatives knew they had something to build upon. Reagan lost in 1976 but again, because of his pricipled challenge of Ford, we felt as if we had something to build upon. McCain's campaign will go down as Dole 2.0; ineffectual, meaningless.

Had McCain opposed the bailout, though he may still have lost, he not only would have made the campaign interesting by positioning himself as the principled, populist champion standing up to the corrupt, monied elites, he would have also left a legacy for the GOP, of once again being a Reaganesque party, believing in the many people rather than the few elites. McCain had a chance to save the Republican Party, but he blew it.[# More #]

Now the task is left to what remains of the Republican Party to begin the process of rebuilding. A good place to start is to shed it own corrupt image by going after the corruption of the Chicago and the National Democrats, and if that leads all the way to President-elect Obama, then so be it.

I don't recall any Democrats or their allies in the media urging that the investigation of Iran-Contra stop, even if it led to Reagan. I don't recall any Democrats or their allies in the media urging that the investigation of Watergate stop, even if it led to Richard Nixon.

I say take that sauce for the goose...and shove it down their [expletive deleted] throats.