The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has picked a candidate to endorse in the remaining GOP field.
Gee, the Editorial Board really went out on a limb by choosing John McCain.
The endorsement is a kiss and slap.
For every positive cited there's a negative note.
The Board gives Mike Huckabee a bit of a nod, but in the end, it was scared by him.
[W]hat makes McCain different than myriad conservative voices is his capacity to selectively forsake crowd-pleasing ideology when his principles take him elsewhere.
...Of course, presidential candidate McCain has differed a bit from pragmatic Sen. McCain. He changed course a bit on immigration, emphasizing enforcement more after those shouting "amnesty!" came gunning.
He says he now favors those tax cuts. And he blasted the evangelical right in his 2000 presidential campaign but has been cozying up in 2008.
Our hope is that the McCain who emerges from this primary campaign is the one who hewed to his principles - the one who dared join the people the purists term "the enemy," the better to try to get done things that need getting done.
The McCain candidacy would be well-served also by listening more to one of his remaining opponents.
Huckabee is wrong with his idea of a 23% federal sales tax to replace the current income tax.
It's regressive, harming lower-income consumers, and will starve the federal government of essential revenue. And the high tax creates a huge incentive to avoid it altogether, by not buying or going underground to buy.
His comments on amending the Constitution "so it's in God's standards" are scary even if, as he explained to the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board on Friday, he was speaking purely of abortion and marriage.
Oooh. Scary.
Yet, the former governor's concern for the middle class and the lower class is admirable and, we are convinced, heartfelt.
While other GOP candidates were jumping onto the morning-in-America bandwagon vis-a-vis the obviously souring economy, Huckabee has been a courageous voice merely stating the obvious: Lower income folks and the middle class are hurting as they see prices go up faster than their wages, if they have jobs at all.
McCain has said that the economy is not his strong suit. He must make himself a quick study. He can do this without sparking charges of class warfare.
Among the most conservative in the Senate, the Arizonan has proved himself selectively flexible - too flexible for some, not flexible enough for others.
These principles are what make him the best candidate in the GOP field.
Even when endorsing McCain, the Journal Sentinel manages to be critical.
The Board complains:
Don't go cozying up to evangelicals.
Don't favor the Bush tax cuts.
Don't get tough on ILLEGAL immigration.
The Board qualifies its endorsement by saying after the primaries, it hopes McCain reverts back to blasting evangelicals, opposing the Bush tax cuts, and abandoning his newfound tougher stance on ILLEGAL immigration.
To say that McCain is the best in the GOP field is a grudging endorsement at best. It also could be seen as an insult.
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