Good Grief

When it comes to John McCain, I'm apparently grieving all out of order. Over the weekend it was "denial." Yesterday was both "acceptance" and "anger". Late last night until this afternoon was "depression". Now I'm finally rounding it out with "bargaining":

McCain seems to be trying to play nice with conservatives now. For instance, see his new robo-call. So, I'm trying to think of what McCain could do to get me to vote for him in November. (Note that this is in contrast to voting against Obama/Clinton.)

Some conservatives are making their argument on SCOTUS appointments. In the above mentioned robo-call, he talks about appointing people like Alito and Roberts. That's a nice sentiment, but the trust factor leaves me still a bit lacking ... Per his Gang-of-14-ing, I really fear he'd bow down to Democrats and wind up appointing a Kennedy or Souter.

On the judges issue, I want to hear him say "I will appoint a justice in the mold of [pick from (Alito, Roberts, Thomas, or Scalia)] and will risk the 'nuclear-option' to do so!". Until I hear something that definitive, I just can't trust his bow-to-Democrats-past on this subject.

I also want to hear him apologize ("flip-flop"!) on at least one of the following:

1. "I was wrong to have voted against the Bush tax cuts"


2. "I was wrong to accuse Romney of wanting cut-and-run time tables in Iraq"


3. "I was wrong to call corporate America 'greedy'; it's the jobs American companies have created that have made America prosperous!"


4. "I was wrong to differentiate service 'for patriotism' as superior to service 'for profit' [it's service 'for profit' that's created jobs that have made America prosperous!]"


5. "I will not give amnesty to illegal immigrants, and I now recognize that my McCain-Kennedy bill would have done just that"


6. "I will veto legislation that funds embryonic stem cell research. Such research falls into the same moral category as abortion"


7. "I was mistaken to sue Wisconsin Right to Life. I will work to repeal McCain-Feingold. I re-read the Constitution and realized there's this first amendment protecting speech. Oops!"


8. "I won't do anything that would bring hardship to globally-competing US companies, such as items proposed in McCain-Lieberman"

Actually, that list has gotten so long, I think I want him to apologize for at least two.

Finally, if he were to do either of the following, maybe I could pull his lever even without any of the above apologies:

1. Name Sarah Palin as his VP. I could maybe even pull the lever for Huckabee if Palin was also on the ticket.


2. Promise to make Newt some sort of high level advisor in his administration. Newt will be able to give McCain advice on "75% issues" to go after -- issues that enjoy broad national support of the electorate. McCain will doubtless try to do lots of things that "reach across the aisle", but with Newt's help, I think McCain might actually be able to pick issues which won't utterly alienate conservatives (like McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Liberman, McCain-etc-etc-etc.)