09/05/2008
VDARE.COM focuses on immigration and National Question issues, so GOP Presidential nominee John McCain’s acceptance speech last night was on its face uninteresting to us. For broader analyses, I recommend the comments of our contributor John Zmirak on Takimag and MSM ambassador to the patriotic immigration reform movement Mickey Kaus on Slate (here and here).I am struck, though, that McCain’s paen of praise to his war own record included the concession, slightly jarring and surely unnecessary, that his North Vietnamese captors "broke me". There have long been rumors that McCain’s POW record is not as publicized. Is he trying to pre-empt a looming Democratic "October surprise"?
Referring to a couple of rah-rah bipartisanship passages in McCain’s speech, Kaus writes shrewdly:
Am I crazy or are these passages a blazing arrow pointing toward … comprehensive immigration reform, one big bipartisan "solution" that the Democratic Congress will be all too happy to work with President McCain to achieve? What else is he talking about? OK, maybe Social Security (where Congress will be far less helpful.) … Surprisingly, immigration reform — which McCain’s friend Lindsey Graham pledged he "will" take up — wasn’t actually mentioned at all in the speech. I'd thought McCain would at least "flick" at it as part of his pitch to the Latino swing vote. Maybe the convention really was all about the base (which doesn’t like the semi-amnesty parts of McCain’s reform). They can always be betrayed later.
No, Mickey, you're not crazy.
Another possible hint: McCain said
In this country, we believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential, from the boy whose descendents arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers.
The GOP delegates may have assumed this meant Grapes of Wrath-style nomadic fruit pickers. But "migrant" is the immigrant enthusiasts' favorite euphemism for "immigrant", including illegals (when they're not calling them "citizens").
My guess is that McCain really means illegal aliens — and amnesty will be his first order of business.
The GOP could easily win this race with what VDARE.COM calls the "Sailer Strategy" — run against immigration, affirmative action and the imminent swamping of the traditional American nation. And maybe it will — but not because McCain mentions these issues, or will do anything about them.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.