Election

I was listening to Mark Levin's radio show driving home yesterday. He argued in favor of McCain by saying the main objective of conservatives had to be beating the Marxist first and then taking back the Republican party for conservatives. He acknowledged that McCain was not a conservative but insisted Obama had to be beaten first before addressing McCain's shortcomings. My reaction is that history does not support this approach. Electing a non-conservative Republican insures that the Republican party will not move in a conservative direction for many years. Imagine if Gerald Ford had beaten Jimmy Carter in 1976 (which he almost did). While I think Ford would have been a superior president to Carter, I really doubt that he would have been able to effectively deal with the stagflation of the late 1970s. In 1980, the Republicans would have been blamed for the economic mess since they would have held the presidency for the previous 12 years. It's likely a liberal Democrat, perhaps Ted Kennedy, would have been elected. Thus, it was only Carter's victory and Ford's defeat that resulted in Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980. Similarly, a Humphrey victory in 1968 may have led to an earlier Reagan presidency, perhaps in 1972 or 1976. Instead we got Richard Nixon who pursued very left-wing policies and expanded government power greatly with his wage and price controls and new agencies. Thus, I don't see much argument for McCain especially in light of his embrace in the last debate of an even greater Government takeover of the private economy.