John McCain is no liberal

I've made plain my skepticism regarding real and enduring change in the rhetoric of any of the prospective candidates for this year's presidential election.  However, I have to admit, that as I have watched the Democratic debates, interviews and commentaries, I do feel more confident that either Democratic candidate would be a strident, positive change for the future.

Unfortunately, now as I watch the news and listen to the various talking heads, I have a far more pressing fear, reinforced as I speak with my friends, most of them minorities of one denomination or another.  Many of these reasonable people seem to be under the mistaken impression that Senator McCain is a liberal!  And that impression -- erroneous as it is -- along with protracted Democratic conflict has lead me to believe that McCain now poses a very real threat to a future democratic President.

I'll be honest, I am still reeling from 2004's "morning after" when I walked dazed from my front door into Trafalgar Square clutching an early edition declaring Bush's re-election.  I can tell you, I looked around at local people and tourists alike staring blankly through each other, wondering "how could this happen for a second time?"  For weeks and maybe months, it felt like the fog that characterized and plagued 19th century London had returned -- stifling us once again.

So it worries me when I see and hear independents and right-leaning Democrats speaking about McCain as if he were "a liberal" -- more liberal in some minds than Hillary.

I don't think I can take another 'morning after' like 2004's.  That time I was 5000 miles and a  continent away and was still side-swiped by the seismic shock wave; this time, closer to the epicenter, I might not make it.

The reason McCain seems to have been able to adopt the mantle of "reasonable Republican - friend to black, poor and gay" is his own party. His detractors, the proud ultra-conservatives and the religious right within the Republican party, rip him and his policies mercilessly and espouse his supposed liberal credentials enough that he comes away looking like a bruised and benevolent grandfather.  The detractors in his own party have inadvertently positioned him as a brave and reasonable alternative to Hillary for a fiscally conservative Democrat or a more conformist, less radical option to Barack for a center right independent.  Even staunch Democrats have to admit that Hilary polarizes a lot of people and many still remain skeptical of Obama's efficacy "on day one," an impression furthered by Hilary's "3am call" TV ad.

I am concerned that conservative mouthpieces like Laura Ingraham, blow-hards like Rush Limbaugh and even the skeletal tautologist Anne Coulter might very well insult McCain right into the White House, nudged gently over the top by endless Democratic infighting.

Senator McCain is not a candidate of choice for an electorate interested in progressive change - he is the very definition of more of the same.  His campaign  - running on a Reaganesque coattail should inspire as much fear as a return of the Iron Lady (Maggie Thatcher) would in the UK.

A candidate that cares about rehabilitating the image of America in the world isn't focused on 100 more years in Iraq.  A forward looking candidate who wants to resuscitate an ailing economy isn't talking about making the Bush tax cuts for the upper middle and upper class permanent in the middle of a recession, a mortgage crisis, two wars and yes, a Republican dug deficit of somewhere between $400 billion and $600 billion, depending on which paper you read.

I know I may be preaching to the choir, but I think we need to stay vigilant, remind ourselves, our friends and neighbors what has been endured and who has been responsible as the poor get poorer and the rights of equality and privacy are regressing back to the last time the British were in charge.  I'm British and even I don't want that!

We need to remember that whether it is "change and hope" or "change and experience" that you support, either is better than more of the same.