Yesterday I attended the excellent Conservative Intelligence conference that looked at the new intake of Tory MPs and Cameron's key advisers. ConHome had run an opinion poll of the new intake (which is being published tomorrow) and most of the findings were unsurprising: they are, by and large, Thatcherites rather than Heathites and they are particularly Eurosceptic. Excellent.One finding that appalled me, however, was that 48% of those who replied to ConHome said that they would have voted for America's first Kenyan-American President, Barack Hussein Obama, and not the fiscal conservative war hero, John McCain.
It might be, of course, that in doing so they adopted the strict Eurosceptic line of the great Daniel Hannan - Dan took the view that McCain's support for Eurofederalism ruled him out. But I cannot help but suspect that most of the prospective Tory MPs who said they were glad to see Obama in the White House did so from a position of ignorance about US politics (yes, that's you, Simon Burns). For while I can see some merit in hoping that the message of "change" that Obama campaigned on translates to British politics so that the "change" candidate here, David Cameron, wins the next election, which of Obama's other policies was it that so impressed these prospective Tory MPs?
Is it his chippy partisanship? His liberal voting record that was even more extreme than that of Ted Kennedy or John Kerry? His desire to appoint more judges who legislate from the bench? His appeasement of Islamists? His reckless spending? The higher taxes he is imposing? His soft immigration policies? His desire to give more power to trades unions? The extra business burdens inherent in his energy policy? His weak diplomacy towards North Korea, Iran and Latin American dictators?
Or perhaps it is his character that they so admired - his consorting with crooked property developers such as Tony Rezko, palling around with terrorists such as Bill Myers or worshipping for 20 years at the church of racist preacher Jeremiah Wright?
Or his family values - with an aunt living illegally in the US, a wife who only finally became proud to be an American last year and a half-brother denied entry to the UK?
Barack Obama is many things: a powerful orator who stood on a twin campaign pledge of hope and change and who had the potential to be America's first post-racial President. But he is also a dangerous radical whose actions in office these past six months have shown him to more like Jimmy Carter than a latter day FDR. It is unconscionable for any Conservative to support Obama.
8 comments:
I suspect that most of them have just fallen for the media propaganda about him, which doesn't bode well for the bunch of credulous fools we could be electing.
I will link to this but I fear that Obama supporters care little for facts or argument; they just believe.
Could it be because he's a popular leader of the free world with a vision to actually deal with the healthcare problems in America and call time on the constant violence in the Middle East.
I don't think he'll manage it all, indeed such are the expectations on him he is bound to fail in the long run. However I would just dare to believe that he might actually be able to do some good.
The last 8 years of Republican rule haven't exactly left America in an improved state have they?
I'll give Obama the benefit of the doubt for now.
Americans have better healthcare than we do here: you are more likely to die of prostate cancer in the UK than in the US, for example.
And the notion that Bush or indeed Clinton were refusing to call time on the constant violence in the Middle East is fatuous.
You are right that Obama will fail. But I'd have Bush back tomorrow. Despite his big government conservatism (which I, as a Reagan conservative, disapprove of) he kept the US safe from terrorism and cut taxes.
I think conservative support for Obama had a lot to do with John McCain being unable to inspire his own side. You describe him in this piece as a fiscal conservative war hero, but you have been far from complimentary about him in other pieces. I think the problem for him was that he personally couldn't inspire conservatives and effectively this made conservatives leaderless during the election period. In that situation, it was always going to be easy for someone with such enormous charisma as Barack Obama to seduce them.
Towards the end of the election period John McCain was almost irrelevant and Obama was the only show in town. It was natural in that situation that Obama would win over conservatives. Particularly, amongst younger voters who were given the impression by virtually every media source that you almost had to be mentally ill not to support Obama.
John McCain is a great individual in many ways. All Americans owe him a great debt, because without generations of people like him willing to make the sacrifices he made during Vietnam, there may not be a U.S.A today. He is a man of great courage and conviction who deserves respect from all people who enjoy western freedom, regardless of whether they are conservative or socialist. But the fact is that he is not a conservative and it was ridiculous Republicans having him as the conservative candidate.
It demeaned him by forcing him to shamelessly abandon positions which I think he still believed in and it deprived the U.S conservatives of a candidate who would inspire them.
In 2000, when US politics was bitterly divided, the Democrats had not escaped the shadow of Clinton sleaze and the Republicans had chosen Bush, McCain would have been a great moderate independent presidential candidate. He could have fought as a moderate candidate for issues such as campaign finance reform and cleaning up politics. He would not have won but he could have stayed true to his views and would have been remembered as a great campaigner and war hero. The tragedy is that he was so desperate to be president in the end that he threw away his credibility and through the luck of facing a load of Republican opponents in the primaries who split conservatives, he managed to impose himself on a party which was not very enthusiastic about him. This tragedy holds a lot of political lessons and with the Republicans struggling to find a natural nominee for 2012 I think there is a danger that they could see the situation repeating itself when Obama is up for reelection.
Donal,
You are more likely to die of a heart attack in the US than in the UK.
Most deaths from prostrate cancer occur among the v. elderly. For example, in the UK something like 25% of men aged over 85 have prostate cancer.
It just shows how unfit the Tory Party is for government, even though they will most certainly win.
Until people start to think for themselves and not just follow the media or their whips like sheep, we will never have a fit government in this land.
My guess? Delusion and good intentions of not being the "nasty wacist Towy Pawty", along with a good dose of swallowing media agitprop without question and a simple, hollow political message you can nod your head to. At least 52% of new MPs would have voted for McCain, which is the popular vote percentage Omoron got, incidentally.
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