It all depends on the alternative. But I will say that I can not vote for the man. He will not make it out of the primaries unless we have major crossover voters.

It depends on the alternative. If it is McCain vs. HRC where would you go???

i would write in someone.

why because he not NAzi?!

My first response was to say "hell yes I'm with you. Fuck that guy and his 'independent'thinking." But, the more I think of it, I'd rather have McCain than a Dem. McCain has some high profile fuck ups but he is still a pretty reliable conservative vote. He also is one of the more articulate spokesmen we have for providing justification for Iraq and the war on terroism.

What places him beyond redemption, Annie? (I realize there a long list of items that could drive you fucking crazy.) I'm curious about what particulary pisses you off. Filibuster? McCain-Feingold? etc etc etc

Anyway, he'll never win a Rep primary. So, this is just an academic exercise.

I'm down. If that happens we'll talk. I'm sure I can turn you onto some delightful little third party w/o a chance in hell of winning but whose candidate makes you think , "yeah; true dat". But in any case when it comes to not voting for a RINO I got yo' back.

i knew i could count on you, Publicola.

Blu, it's McCain Feingold (one of the shittiest pieces of law to come down the pike in a long time.) and his being a member of the "seven." On every issue that i've heard him speak about, McCain bends over backwards to be accomodating and collegial to the Senate Democrats. But does anyone really think that if he were president, the liberals would not try to demonize him the way they do every other Republican in existence?

Wow, three comments before some idiot throws the Nazi label out there. Impressive.

I can't ever imagine voting for McCain but I can see a siutation where he might be the lesser of two evils. We just have to make certain that he does NOT get the nomination.

yeah, He is a very very ambitious man, who loves to be in the limelight and dosent mind sticking it to his party. Also dosent care too much for the first amendment. Now some would call that being a politician, I call it, a no vote.

McCain is a goldplated prick with no allegiance to anything or anyone but his own ambition. I plan to crossover to AZ to register to vote sometime this year.

Most definitely. He's a Republican in the populist nutball tradition of Huey Long (D); that is, he has little in common with the Republican party's tradition of limited government, social conservatism, etc. He's affirmatively dangerous. Moreoever, he uses his war experience as a cudgel to silence his critics, which makes him an asshole under most common definitions. Plus, he rudely fanned flames of racial and religious unrest in criticizing Bush for visiting Bob Jones U in 2000, which was a below-the-belt criticism that basically implied Bush was a racist--which he most definitely is not, whatever his other faults may be.

McCain would be like Bush's big government worldwide crusading side without the social conservative and limited government instincts of the traditional right. It would be about one thing: McCain's power and legacy.

I will never support a Senator for President. They cannot win.

Harding and Kennedy are the only two senators who have won the White House in the history of America.

A Senator has a better chance of being struck by lightning than he has of being elected President.

I am supporting a Governor to be named.

I would probably write in myself.

(Struggling at my new mu.nu site. *Sigh*)

Well I've voted for him and would be more than happy to see him run. I think the same qualities that make him seem like a bad senator, of late, would make him an effective president. None of us are going to get the dream candidate, so a McCain-Watts ticket is great comprimise.

"Anyway, he'll never win a Rep primary. So, this is just an academic exercise."

If only it were academic. My fear is that he's just the sort of egomaniac who, once it's clear to him as it is to the rest of us that he's not getting the GOP nod, might want to replay Perot '92 and thereby hand thw White House to the Dems (i.e., presumably HRC).

Not to worry, in that case, someone will cut the punk.

John McCain is a more reliable statist than he is a conservative.

I, on the other hand, am only a Republican because I am a conservative/libertarian. Thus there is no conceivable reason why I would throw my vote away on a man who does not represent my political views. If he is nominated, I will vote for whomever the Constitutional or Libertarian parties put up.

Would I sooner see the Hildebeest than the McCainiac elected? No, but unfortunately discerning the lesser of evils is pretty tough in this case. At least the Hildebeest would be stymied by a Republican House and Senate, whereas the McCainiac would mount the bully pulpit, the press would have a collective orgasm, and the Congress would probably roll over to do whatever he wanted.

I'm with you, Annie. There's so much I admire about the guy, but much that I despise abbout him as a politician, particularly his certainty that he's smarter than the Founding Fathers. I couldn't vote for him.

By the way, he'll be 72 in '08. Uncle Ronnie was only 69 in '80, so McCain may be a bit long in the tooth for the presidency, by recent standards. And he's had melanoma twice.

Desert Cat has articulated the best reason i've seen for throwing away my vote, in the event of a Hillery McCain general election. Bravo.

i'm dusting off the Huge Comment of the Week for you my friend.

cool :)

Casca's "cut the punk" comment gets my nomination. ;)

Damn. I said "i got yo back". I said "I'm down". Even said "true dat". Brother can't get no love round here :P

But there's another reason, which appeals to me more. See even if McCain is the lesser of two evils, that still makes him evil. Sure, it's relatively better to vote for the false prophet than the antichrist (so to speak) but neither will endear you in Heaven. & when the lesser of two evils wins that seldom causes him/her to repent. If anything it fuels their ambitions which tend to gravitate toward the evil rather than the good.
Hell look at Arnie. Lesser of two evils compared to a democrat, but yet no democrat governor anyplace in the u.s. has banned a type of bolt action rifle.

when ya vote for thelesser of two evils ya get what ya pick - evil. & McCain (with his bill to de facto ban gunshows across the u.s. as well as his limits on free speech) is close enough to evil that him being the lesser of the choices would not endear me to the process, let alone casting a vote for him. (& the same applies for anyone in his position - I'm just picking on McCain cause I can). Shame we seldom have a choice between good & really good (like Kozinski v Ron Paul).

Oh, & it's not throwing away your vote unles syou feel the goal is to pick the winner. It's never a wasted vote if you wouldn't regret the candidate you voted for winning.

If McCain is the nominee against Hillary, I'm voting for myself. Physics Geek for President!

McCain is a strutting, self-important peacock whose sole purpose in life appears to be garnering positive review from the NY Times. It's too bad, really, since he served this country well during wartime and suffered in ways that I cannot imagine during his captivity. But that pain doesn't excuse his having become a gigantic asshole.

I would choose McCain over any other Republican. I remember how he was targetted by the far right in the 2000 primaries after he surprised Bush with his upsets. Money flowed like floodwaters into the NRA, anti-abortion groups, and other arch right organizations, who proceeded to set up quick reaction call center campaigns intent on smearing McCain. The distortions and slander was so shameful that I began to question my 20 years as a stalwart Republican. Bush's cavalier 'We are in the delegate business' attitude finally convinced me to lead the Republican party on principle.

I had spent so much time acting as an apologist for my former party; I now enjoy my independent stance, as neither side can shake free their extremists, so I will focus on supporting those who will do the best for American, vs. the special interests of either party.