"If McCain doesn’t win, the liberal tyranny of Obama will be so epic, you’ll vomit." The reason this sounds more like a Lodo bar conversation than your typical pundit is that Jim Krefft is a year out of Colorado College, an Ebay entrepreneur, and author of a book on military history -- the very picture of a twenty-something in a hurry and pardon his dust. I asked Jim, who helped me in the Colorado Senate when he was in high school, why he's for McCain and whether the old guy can win. Here's his answer - Editor HOW MCCAIN CAN WIN
Conservatism is defined by its ability to hold true to cherished values and ideals both fundamental and foundational to the American way. We uphold the traditional family and free market as both allow us as citizens to be healthier, happier, and freer. But the often unnoticed part of conservatism is that it has a built-in elastic clause: a proviso that allows those fundamental ideas to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of a moving and advancing world.
In 2008 this means that the GOP and conservative leaders alike must begin to listen to the ideas and observations of the new and next generation of young conservatives. People like, with all humility, this 24-year-old author.
This year is a critical pass for the Republican Partyand the conservative movement. We could both, party and movement, continue our current state of malaise and surrender ourselves before the marching armies of Senator Obama’s rather invasive liberalism.
Or we could act like men, act like conservatives, take our medicine like adults and fight until our last breath. Our standard bearer is John McCain, an absolutely relentless leader who is often misunderstood, but always honorable.
For McCain to win will require a few things. Foremmost of these is his own aforementioned quality, the quality that will get conservatives to show up en masse for McCain on Election Day and earlier. McCain won’t win if GOP members and activists sit at home pining away for the happy days of 1980. Oh and believe me, if McCain doesn’t win the liberal tyranny of Obama will be so epic, you’ll vomit.
To win McCain must also do his job; he must make it clear to the nation just how hard-left Obama is and who he represents. McCain must also show how Obama is, quite directly, a fraud who is misleading the American public with high rhetoric and undeliverable promises.
McCain must win the idea battle. He must show that the GOP can own the energy issue; that we can drill in the short term and pursue alternative energy in the long. Or that we can care about and protect the environment without devolving into the religion of Al Gore and the Human Extinction Movement.
McCain needs to present fiscal sense that allows for maintained military spending and balanced budgets. He needs to show that we will finally start fighting the War of Terror with sense and thought, finding those responsible for 9/11 and executing them publicly. McCain must argue for the free market and empowerment of small business while ensuring that the corporate giants participating in said market do so with ethical dealing and care.
John McCain must win in 2008. If we work and he wins the battle of ideas, those electoral states will fall right into place.