Constant Conservative

While I cannot subscribe to everything Rick Moran (Right Wing Nut House) is saying here about McCain and the debate, I see the benefit of striving to ensure that the Senate doesn’t go filibuster-proof liberal, regardless.

McCain must find a way to keep it close enough that he doesn’t drag 2-3 additional senate candidates down with him thus handing the Democrats a filibuster proof majority in the senate. I am at a loss as to how he might do this except my sense of the moment is telling me (and the polls somewhat confirm) that most of his attacks on Obama have backfired and he has lost support because of them. Would a “take the high road” campaign where he spends the last three weeks as a wise man/Cassandra, warning of the dangers of “Creeping Socialism” and an abandonment of classic American values work? No one knows but it’s something he hasn’t tried so perhaps it is worth looking into.

If McCain is a lost cause, it is time for the Republicans to perhaps look to salvaging what they can from the disaster. And that means fighting like hell for the filibuster in the senate. It is potentially the only brake on Obama and the Democrats and given how the far left is licking its chops at the prospect of radically changing the economic and social landscape of America, it might have come to the point that we start thinking about shifting focus from the presidency to the senate.

Many of those races are extremely close but the GOP has one advantage in many of them; incumbency. If McCain really goes off the deep end, there’s nothing much that can be done. But if he can keep the presidential race about where it is now, Republicans will lose 5-7 seats and the filibuster will be safe.

I’m not sure that McCain will be willing to play it safe at this point since he has not done so in the past at critical junctures (Palin pick, financial crisis, etc). However, I agree with Mr. Moran that McCain should use his bully pulpit to speak out on socialism and American values. If we consider the Joe the Plumber factor, crying out regarding a need to return to what make America what she was (and can be again) may be just what the apathetic middle-class need to drive away the quadrennial election day blues.

(No, the reference to blues was not racist, even though Duke Ellington was a black man.)