Your platoon is pinned down in a rice paddy by a sniper in the tree line. One trooper is screaming from pain. The medic went to him and was shot through the head. The radio is under water. Your men are being killed one by one. The only hope is that platoon on the far right will make it to the tree line, and kill the sniper.
Who do you want as the leader of that platoon? John McCain or Mitt Romney?
The Military Trump Card. No matter what the politics of the candidate who has been heroic in service of his country, it carries a lot of weight with voters. They feel that this military heroes will protect the country. They can be sane and wise, like George Washington, or mad like Andrew Jackson, but their military service is something the public looks up to.
The general public probably either doesn't know John McCain's positions on a lot of issues, or if they do know, they don't care. They see him as someone who will be there in a fight, and he has been there done that.
Fighter pilots are prima donnas. They don't have to get along with fellow officers, or have the men respect them. Only they sit in that multi-million dollar monster and get catapulted off into the wild blue yonder. And then come back and have to almost crash land on a bobbing, rolling football field in the middle of the ocean. Go watch Top Gun a few times to get the idea.
Fighter pilots are the top-guns. The best of the best. A multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier is their stage, and the entire cast is there to put them up to shoot down enemy planes. Narcissistic, self-involved. Tom Cruise on steroids. When McCain got home from Vietnam, his wife had suffered a disfiguring car accident. A former beauty Queen. He divorced her.
John McCain has no coherent political philosophy that anyone can figure out. Perhaps, he flew too many missions with his oxygen mask off. He has a random grab bag of issues. Totally incoherent.
But one thing is certain, he knows how to be and stay the prima Donna. Generally, he has done it by being a contrarian. Getting elected as a Republican, and then taking Democratic positions. Gets him in the paper, gets attention. If he was in the Democratic Party, he would have been condemned to obscurity years ago.
Illegal immigration? Maybe he will call up the 82nd Airborne to protect the border and have mass deportations. Or, maybe he will go down to the border and personally assist Mexicos across. In Iraq, well he might launch into Iran and invade Ireland for good measure. He might close down the Federal Reserve and issue gold coins with his portrait. Good enough for Caesar, good enough for John. Totally unpredictable.
John's opponents think that John will be predictable in the White House. That the Dems and the Libs are going to love him. That he is going to be a party line boy. Maybe, maybe not. Why not piss them off as well. Abolish the Education Department and stop public radio. "I'll show those guys. If the NY Times thinks they have me in the bag, well, whose Top Gun around here anyway?" Appear on the Rush Limbaugh show and cuddle up to Tancredo. To keep the spotlight on you, you got to freshen up your act.
Once he takes a position, he doesn't let go. Why should he change his mind? It is great being omnipotent. He doesn't change his mind. He has to be beguiled, fooled flattered into that he had the idea in the first place. "Hey John, remember that great idea you had about closing the border." "I did." "Sure, you are a genius in your timing." "Right, I think as President we should do that now." Or maybe now the act is now to completely reverse yourself. From the Mop Tops to the Hippies, like the Beatles.
This writer far underestimated McCain and thought that when he ran out of money, he would quit. (How foolish.) This is a guy that was stuck seven years in a prison, he could do eight years behind GB without breaking into a sweat. "Shttt, that wimp was in the Texas Air National Guard. I'd rather have my sister in a whorehouse than my brother in the Air National Guard."
McCain cut back staff, fired advisors and was just ol' Maverick John again and starting winning again. No strategy, no script, no positions, no nothing. Just plain old John blustering around again. Straight talk, straight bullshit, what did it matter. "I’m a war hero. Shot down. Tortured. Stick that up your ass."
The public likes action heroes. Romney is a corporate stiff. Obama is a lightweight. Maybe he will join a doo-oop group. "Doo-wha diddly, talking bout the boy from the Windy City." Hillary is well, sorry, a girl, although she does her best to conceal it. More testosterone than that wimpy husband, but still a girl.
Rednecks, truck drivers, lumberjacks, guys watching the Super Bowl drinking beer, blue-collar guys and the girls that sit behind them on their Harleys will vote for John in a heartbeat. YAHOO!!
Jonbo goes to Washington
Paul Streitz
Co-director
CT Citizens for Immigration Reform
amfirst@optonline.net
Author of AMERICA FIRST, Why Americans must end free trade, stop outsourcing and close our open borders
