There is yet one more candidate in the presidential race. Many conservative Republicans, showing more honor than Democrats, have decided to take action in response to their party nominating a candidate who is unfit to be president. Anti-Trump Republicans have been talking about having a conservative Republican run against Donald Trump. They object to both the racism and xenophobia which many on both the right and the left object to. Conservative Republicans also object to a Republican candidate such as Trump who seems to reject neocon foreign policy and who has expressed support for preserving Social Security and universal health care. Plus he doesn’t have his heart into homophobia and restricting abortion rights enough to satisfy social conservatives.
I would think that at least one well-known movement conservative, or a member of Congress who wants to expand his name recognition, would have taken up the offer to run. Instead they have had to settle on an unknown candidate. The only taker was Evan McMullin, “a CIA veteran and chief policy director of the House Republican conference.” McCullin has had a number of tweets I agree with, criticizing Trump for his xenophobia and authoritarianism. I also agree with his recent tweet on Clinton: “Hillary Clinton fails the basic tests of judgment and ethics any candidate for President must meet.”
Beyond his basic criticism of Trump and Clinton, McCullin doesn’t have much to offer. His website is still fairly vague, justifying his candidacy on the failings of the two major party candidates:
Hillary Clinton is a corrupt career politician who has recklessly handled classified information in an attempt to avoid accountability and put American lives at risk including those of my former colleagues. She fails the basic tests of judgment and ethics any candidate for President must meet. Moreover, she only offers stale economic ideas like the same old top-down government control that has brought us eight years of historically low growth.
Donald Trump appeals to the worst fears of Americans at a time when we need unity, not division. Republicans are deeply divided by a man who is perilously close to gaining the most powerful position in the world, and many rightly see him as a real threat to our Republic. Given his obvious personal instability, putting him in command of our military and nuclear arsenal would be deeply irresponsible. His infatuation with strongmen and demagogues like Vladimir Putin is anathema to American values. We cannot and must not elect him.
Millions of Americans are not being represented by either of these candidates; those of us who care about the strength of the military and intelligence services find little to embrace in either Trump or Clinton.
Americans who believe in limited, Constitutional government that is smaller, smarter, and more accountable view both Clinton and Trump as symbols of corruption and excess that provide no hope of basic competence in the federal government.
Beyond this, it is basic conservative Republican thought, including expressing opposition to abortion. From newspaper accounts it does sound like he might not be as anti-immigration as the GOP mainstream.
He obviously cannot win, and I have my doubts as to whether he has time to meet the 15 percent threshold to make the debates. At this point Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson has an outside chance of making it, sometimes polling over ten percent, and Jill Stein of the Green Party will need a strong show of support from Sanders supporters in order to make it.
This does seem primarily motivated by the determination of some conservative Republicans to keep Donald Trump from winning. He is a Mormon who is concentrating on Utah. Perhaps, with Clinton polling better than usual in Utah and some other red states, he could take enough Republican votes to enable Clinton to take those states. Some conservatives might be hoping he could actually win some states and prevent both Trump and Clinton from winning in the electoral college, and then become president by winning the support of a majority of House Republicans by being preferable to Trump.
While such scenarios beyond making it even harder for Trump to win sound far fetched, I do have to give conservative Republicans some credit for standing up for their principles in opposing a candidate who is clearly unfit to be president. If only Democrats would show such commitment to principle. It is hard to overstate how disgusted and disillusioned I am in the Democratic Party for nominating someone as unfit as Hillary Clinton to be president. It is as if the Democrats had nominated Dick Cheney.
If it wasn’t bad enough that the Democrats nominated a neocon interventionist who echoes Donald Trump on suppressing civil liberties, they have no qualms about embracing a culture of corruption. There is overwhelming and indisputable evidence as to Clinton’s dishonesty and corruption, yet the Democratic Party still nominated her, and many of her supporters still claim she is innocent of all wrongdoing.
Hillary Clinton was shown to have acted improperly and having lied about her actions in the State Department Inspector General Report. The FBI report showed that pretty much everything she has said about the email scandal publicly has been a lie. Newspaper fact checkers have also repeatedly verified this. The press has also revealed that Hillary Clinton failed to honor her agreement to disclose all donors to the Foundation as Secretary of State and that she has unethically made decisions regarding parties contributing to the Foundation and/or paying unprecedented speaking fees to her husband.
While Clinton has moved to a large lead in the polls, there is talk that Clinton could still lose because of an “October surprise” from WikiLeaks. Democratic leaders and the Clinton campaign probably wouldn’t be so worried about an “October surprise” if they didn’t realize how much damaging information they have been trying to hide.
It is certainly understandable that people would want other choices this year. It is disappointing that it is some Republicans and not Democrats who are promoting their principles rather than pure partisanship.