Meghan McCain really is scaring some conservatives at The New York Post. The article concludes, “Meghan, they’re using you to make the GOP look broken and stupid; and I can only imagine you’re using them for fame.” Sure, she is using them and her last name for fame which she otherwise would never have achieved. Others in the GOP have already done enough to make the party not only look but be broken and stupid.
Interesting article. I wonder if the author realizes, with her catty little piece, how much she is showing herself to be the things she accuses Meghan McCain of being?
Meghan McCain is not a rocket scientist or a policy wonk, no. Then again, she doesn’t present herself as such. I haven’t noticed that she is too much more catty and mean-spirited than Anne Coulter, Laura Ingraham, or Michelle Malkin. Indeed, she seems like a nice enough girl. If my memory is correct, the ladies in question picked their fights with her in response to statements about the GOP’s need to drop aspects of its culture war that did not mention them personally at all.
I think Ms. McCain is certainly milking her publicity for all it is worth. While I don’t agree with her on many issues, I certainly can’t blame her for that. Particularly if she really feels the pressing need for the GOP to adopt a policy friendly to civil rights for all Americans.
As for why she’s a Republican, I’d think that would be obvious. In most cases, when children first register to vote, they register with their parents’ party. My mother, despite being extremely liberal, registered as a Republican because her father was a Republican and never felt the need to change her registration until relatively recently. Until slightly less relatively recently, there was a place for social liberals in the Republican Party. The defining ‘Republican’ issues were fiscal discipline and a pro-business economic policy.
The real issue is not whether Meghan McCain is or isn’t a dim bulb, but why many Republicans care so much about her to go so far out of their way to attack her. As far as I can tell, she’s a nice girl without a lot of genuine political education who identifies as a Republican for family reasons (and appears to have a basically fiscally conservative and pro-business outlook, though I doubt it has any firm basis in her experience or education) who happens to feel strongly enough about gay rights to say the GOP needs to take the question seriously in a mature and modern manner.
This is likely exactly why they feel the need to tear her down. Because however dim a bulb she may be (and she may not be ‘dim’ at all, she may just not be a devoted policy wonk with a deep obsession with politics and philosophy… there aren’t many of us around), she gets something they don’t and is pressing that button.
The people attacking Meghan McCain all wish to stake out a strong position against gay rights and declare it to be the cornerstone, defining Republican position. These are the people who drove me away from the Republican Party long before I was anything like the raving socialist I am today. 🙂
She is a Republican due to family background, and even then she might not be a Republican today if her father hadn’t been their last presidential candidate. She voted for Kerry in 2004. If McCain wasn’t on the ballot I wouldn’t be surprised if she would have supported Obama in 2008.
She sure isn’t a policy wonk but at least she does get the key fact, which many Republicans are missing, that they are losing a generation of supporters with their extremist views.
Fleming is catty as only women can be catty. Just read my posts on Palin and Fox. We can say things about each other that men might like to say but they don’t dare.
“She sure isn’t a policy wonk but at least she does get the key fact, which many Republicans are missing, that they are losing a generation of supporters with their extremist views.”
I sure hope you’re right, Ron, but I don’t think we can allow ourselves to get too complacent. I just read this morning that Fox’s ratings have grown by 11% since the inauguration. It’s these seemingly small things that bother me and that added up alltogether could make for a pretty distressing picture.
BTW, I know this isn’t the place for this, but since I’m here, my URL has changed to http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com –
It’s really quite sad when you think about it. More than a decade ago Meghan McCain would have been a dream come true for the GOP, where she lacks in experience she at least makes up for with Charm and diplomacy. Nowadays pragmatic free thinking young women like her are no longer welcomed in today’s conservative movement which has offered nothing but theocratic rigidity, covert racism, rabid anti socialist fanaticism and blatant dishonesty.
Leslie,
I would expect Fox’s ratings to grow despite a declining number of Republicans. Having a Democratic president and Congress fires up the far right. There are less Republicans, but those who are still around are more likely to watch Fox now than when Bush was in office.
Mr. Jefferson,
Besides, conservatives don’t care if a woman lacks experience and knowledge if she echos their message. They have no problem with Sarah Palin.
Ron – #5. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. I think we can see that in these crass, rude, crude, mean screamers, they don’t have the intellectual capacity to argue the points of Health Care reform. It’s just a lot easier to shout.
In my first graph, I was referring to Foxx of NC – not Fox TV.
Ron -#6
But that’s my point exactly Meghan McCain would’ve attracted many moderate and “not so liberal” youth to the Party thus keeping it mainstream as well as fresh Whereas Sarah “Go out and kill all the wildlife in Alaska” Palin has only attracted the Pious and the ignorant.