Carrot and stick.

School choice is the carrot. While we grasp for it he'll be beating us with the amnesty stick.

I'm still not convinced that the RNC is STUPID enough to field McCain as the candidate with the poll numbers like they are. There's still time to put a real candidate on the ballot.

You forgot the main reason conservatives hate McCain.

"Amnesty John" wants to hand out free citizenship to 12 million people who came here illegally.

“Is it enough to make TomW into At Least a Tepid John McCain Supporter?”

No.

For myriad reasons.

I’m ALL FOR real school choice (i.e., choice among “public” and “private” schools). And I give him credit for raising the subject before the NAACP (which if it really worked toward its stated mission would be screaming to high heaven for school choice … instead it’s just a front group for the Democratic Party’s welfare wing).

But it’s a throwaway line – there’s no way that a Democratic Congress is going to sign-off on school choice, for the Democratic Party is addicted to teacher union money and influence, children be damned.

And we will get amnesty under McCain (btw, how does he define “secure the borders first” – what does he really mean)? Amnesty will bring “family reunification” and tens of millions of “legal” children and senior citizens who will not be coming here “to do the jobs that Americans won’t do”...

... but to go to our schools and take advantage of taxpayer funding for ESL and “special needs” programs (you can just picture the dues whores at NEA salivating at the prospect of hundreds of thousands of new dues units hired to service this new influx of millions ESL and “special needs” children). Now add in the millions of “legal” seniors who presumably will be immediately eligible for Medicare / Medicaid, if not Social Security.

Think your taxes are high now?

This, coupled with reluctance (if not active resistance) to assimilation, will result in an increase of tens of millions in the government program dependent class (no wonder the Democrats are so hot for this – this alone could give them a permanent majority).

In turn, this will certainly lead to the demographic suicide of the Republican Party (at least for the GOP as it should be – folks like Arnold Schwarzenegger; Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are actively trying to morph the entire GOP to resemble its Northeast wing - which is curious given that the “moderate” GOP here keeps shrinking (as is predictable and warranted).

I attribute their actions to self-interest, the “moderate” capitulation of Reagan Republicanism works for them individually, and that is their primary focus, not the long-term viability of the Republican Party or the long-term good of this country).

If I really believed that John McCain was serious about border security first and appointing conservative judges my position might change. But to put it bluntly, I believe that he is lying.

Once in office he won’t need the Republican Party anymore, much less conservatives, and will revert to form (if not move even further left) in “reaching across the aisle” to the Democrats (which in his case means crossing the aisle to be one of them).

So I’m convinced that we will get “comprehensive immigration reform” a.k.a. amnesty without secured borders and with "family reunification," and nominations in the mold of David Souter, not Antonin Scalia. McCain’s vaunted “lifetime conservative rating” his belied by his past decade’s record, where he is smack dab in the middle of Susan Collins and Lincoln Chafee and their RINO ilk.

The GOP has been drifting left since Reagan left office. We’ve had 20 years of being told that we must “vote for the lesser of two evils” - and all we have to show for it is the enactment and implementation of the Democrat agenda, albeit at a slightly slower pace than would have occurred under Democratic presidents.

McCain’s election will mark the final victory of the RINO / professional politician wing of the Republican Party. Four years of McCain will finally purge the remaining conservatives and bury the last vestiges of the Reagan Revolution.

I choose to make a principled stand hoping that out of the ashes the Republican Party can be reborn, and we can again get conservative leaders like Reagan who will force the Democrats to choose more conservative candidates and force their people to start “voting for the lesser of two evils” in an attempt to slow down the Republican reversal of the socialization of our government and economy and restoration toward constitutional government, the federal government acting within its constitutional role and no more, and restoration of a true free-market system.

Obama is a Marxist, and will be a disaster for this nation. I have no illusions to the contrary. And in the short run we will be better off if McCain wins. But the cost of that will be no viable Republican Party left, opening the field wide-open for future Obamas to complete the transformation of the U.S. from the letter and spirit of our Constitution into a European Socialist-Democrat model. So in the long run I believe that we will be better off if McCain loses and we can start working to restore the Republican Party.

My decision is made easier because in Rhode Island the electoral votes will all go to Obama anyway, so no matter what I do my vote is symbolic only and so I can afford to “throw away” my vote on a third-party candidate. I will admit that if I were in a swing state I would be agonizing much more, and perhaps with my hand on the lever would be forced at the last minute to pull it for McCain, even as I vomited.

If only I were so articulate.

Normally I tell people that Obama is the better candidate for the survival of conservativism because the sooner we facilitate the apocolypse the sooner we may rebuild America from the ashes in its own image. An Obama presidency, if nothing else, will finally incite Americans to pick up their pitchforks and torches.

I like your answer better.

Hyperbole aside, it was the failed Carter administration that gave birth to the Reagan era.

On the subject of vouchers, I think that as dismal as public school performance is in comparison to other countries, at some point the Democrats have to distance themselves from their current stance.

Roland Martin did a piece on vouchers today...

Viva la Revolution!

I still can't believe people are willing to sacrifice the war on terror, health care, border security, and the next three SCOTUS justices on the "HOPE" that all of it will incite some sort of conservative riot.

Sorry, I'm not willing to sacrifice the next 30 plus years of damage to my country (and the world) that an Obama presidency would cause.

I'm with EMT here (sorry Tom). Although I might think it better for the conservative movement that John McCain lose (I agree with the Jimmy Carter/ Ronald Reagan analogy), my first priority is to the country, not to the Republican Party or even to the conservative movement.

Obama is uniquely unqualified to be President -- perhaps even less qualified than Jimmy Carter (gasp!). I don't even have the words to describe how dangerous things will become if he is in charge. We might as well put up a sign at the border saying "Come and get us" -- assuming we'll still have a border. He doesn't have an original thought in his mind, despite all the empty rhetoric. Frankly, I think he's a Manchurian Candidate.

If you have no other reason to vote for him (and I know many people in that predicament), despite his occasionally non-conservative inclinations, McCain would nominate much better Supreme Court judges than Obama. There will probably be 2-3 appointments in just the next 4 years. They have lifetime tenure, so people Obama might put in could affect the court for a generation. I know that conservatives don't like the influence that the court has, but we have to deal with reality, not in what would be ideal.

I will say here on the record that -- barring an especially crappy VP choice -- I will vote for John McCain in November. I will hate myself for doing it, and will probably need to take a shower afterwards. However, I could become more enthusiastic (read: "I could actually care") about his campaign, if he makes a good choice for his VP. I'm not saying I'll send him a $25 check, but I might get a bumper sticker or a lawn sign, if he plays his cards right! Don't let any pundits say otherwise: McCain's choice is absolutely critical to his success this fall.

However ... Tom is right when he says:

"My decision is made easier because in Rhode Island the electoral votes will all go to Obama anyway, so no matter what I do my vote is symbolic only and so I can afford to “throw away” my vote on a third-party candidate. I will admit that if I were in a swing state I would be agonizing much more, and perhaps with my hand on the lever would be forced at the last minute to pull it for McCain, even as I vomited."

As long as the race in Rhode Island is not close, then you can safely choose to throw your vote away in regard to the presidential race -- which is one of the benefits of the Electoral College to smaller states, like RI. If the polls in RI tighten up between McCain and Obama before election day, then you'll have a lot more soul-searching to do.

As someone who has worked in the field of education for a decade now, I would like to contest a few points made by Tom W:
-Special Education and ESL - In districts with high concentrations of English language learners, training ALL teachers to work with such students is essential. These students have the absolute right and need to be served equitably. That does not mean sink or swim. Countless research studies (I would be happy to provide the actual pdfs of studies to anyone who would like to read them.) have clearly emphasized the need for English learners to build their academic skills while also building knowledge of English. The most effective way to build both simultaneously is to conduct content area instruction through sheltered English - highly contextualized, comprehensible language. Learning to teach via sheltered instruction is not easy and teachers who become trained in this area are essential. If you desire to see schools move out of corrective action and for test scores to improve, the needs of English language learners must be effectively met. For special needs students, the need for highly trained teachers is also vital. The most popular approach these days - inclusion - requires that two teachers (one trained in content and the other in strategies for working with diverse learners)be trained to team teach and meet the needs of students with varying levels of ability, literacy, and motivation. Neither addressing the needs of special education students nor English language learners is a waste of money. In today's society, when ever greater levels of education are necessary for jobs paying even a mere subsistence wage, addressing the needs of all learners will result in fewer people in jail and on welfare. Jail and welfare are far more expensive prospects than effective education. Again, I'd be happy to provide pdfs or links to studies backing up my points. Additionally, I have had the experience of working for 8 1/2 years in Providence public schools, as a bilingual special ed teacher, a literacy coach, and finally the English language learner specialist for all of the middle schools in the city. I am currently pursuing a doctorate in English education and teach graduate level courses in working with English learners and working with special needs students (as well as a class in basic pedagogy in secondary English and a course in teaching grammar and usage). My knowledge in this area is fairly solid.
-Several landmark court cases (e.g., Lau vs. Nichols, Casteneda vs Pickard,etc) uphold the rights of English learners to receive an equitable education and the federal piece of legislation known as IDEA (formerly PL 94-142) enforces strict regulations for serving students with special needs.
-School choice - While I understand the frustration of parents who must send their children to substandard schools, I would rather see money actually making it to the children in the schools. Too often,money gets caught up in bureaucratic BS and doesn't make it to the actual schools in need. I would like to see more effective systems for channeling money to support needy students, which would require administrative overhaul in most school districts in need. It's a complicated issue. In the meantime, diverting too much money for private school vouchers will only cause the students most in need to suffer. Money earmarked for public education will instead go only to students with the most savvy parents, who know how to work the system effectively. The students with parents who do not know how to access resources effectively will suffer in schools even more depleted of essential resources (e.g., books, stable faculties, basic technology).
These are just my thoughts from my own experiences and knowledge of the research literature. Obviously, I can only argue within the limited space of a comment but I would be quite willing to further discuss the topic with any who wish to pursue it.

EMT,

Rewind to 2004. Given the damage that a historically unpopular Bush second term has done to the Republican party - and how much of a boon it has been for liberals - do you think if Kerry had been elected the GOP would be able to field a better candidate than John McCain in 2008?

Fast forward to 2012. If a McCain presidency proves to be unable to deal with the turbulant social and economic climate of the past (next) four years, what kind of candidates do we get then?

America is becoming a nation of slowly boiling frogs. Lethargic and uninvolved, suffering from the constant evolution of "the lesser of two evils." So yes, for love of country, the utilitarian in me hopes that Obama wins for the longevity of America.

Tabetha, re your post above describing your educational experience, I believe you missed Tom W's point regarding the influx of "special needs" students after an amnesty. Tom is not, I believe, challenging how genuine "Special Ed" students are currently serviced or taught. He is speculating that the numbers of students so classified will grow tremendously due to fraudulent overclassification. By the way, it's not strictly racial or ethnic. The family which I knew who most abused this system was a Swamp Yankee family that was probably related to the Brown's and Chafee's if you traced the family tree back far enough. Momma was a single mom petty criminal/druggie and she got her son in Special Ed under some kind of ADHD baloney because she needed the money she got from SSI disability to support herself.God knows, she wasn't going to get a job. Additionally, one of the communities in America who most abuse the Special Ed system are the ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish groups in Rockland County, NY. Poppa doesn't want to work and be part of the secular world, he wants to study Torah all day with the Rebbe. Momma is not formally educated, but she can get a government sponsored job with the school system or health agency taking care of other special ed kids while she and Poppa get a check for their kids. The community is politically powerful, they basically block vote for whomever the Rebbe tells them to in the town council and school board elections, so no one will challenge them. Also, it's not worth the headache because, after all, it's federal money being wasted, and if the local politician or educator trying to clean up the system is gentile, he will be automatically accused of anti-semitism.
I don't know anyone who wants to deny "deserving" Special Ed students the services they will need to survive. But we are tired of a fraudulent system which classifies 20% of our students as Special Ed.

Tabetha,

The problem with your (and I do understand that it's a standard usage in the educational community) use of "equity" as a goal is that it makes high-cost mediocrity into an acceptable outcome. You can make progress towards "equity" by dragging down the high-end of the scale just as well as by pull the bottom end up, i.e. by cutting resources from programs where students are exceeding expected performance, because the goal of an "equity" policy isn't to see anyone do well, it is to enforce everyone doing the same.

The thing is, governments can be better at achieving their goals than many people (including conservatives) give them credit for, but they don't multi-task very well, meaning they have to pick one goal in a given policy area and go for it. So if you set high-cost mediocrity as your goal, there's a very good chance that what's you are going to get, and nothing else.

People should have a right to participate in a system that sets more ambitious goals.

Observer:
You do make a good point that many children are wrongly classified with special needs. I agree that better evaluation processes should be implemented to reduce the number of students who are classified. Misdiagnosis of disabilities is neither good for the child nor the taxpayer and better evaluation procedures would reduce the number of students who are misdiagnosed. This includes having evaluation teams skilled at testing students who speak other languages. I had one student who was diagnosed with mental retardation and, from teaching this child, I doubted she even had a learning disabilty. As it turned out, she was diagnosed as a very young child not long after moving to RI from the Dominican Republic and had been through trauma shortly before she was tested (witnessing violence). What she really needed was a combination of ESL services and counseling. By the time she got to my eighth grade class, she could function on about the same level as her general education peers. I had her mainstreamed and she did fine in high school and graduated. So, I understand that misdiagnosis is a problem. It is a fine line that must be walked between ensuring all students who need support get it and those who might be misdiagnosed aren't.
Andrew:
I do not support mediocrity for all. What I would like to see is improvement across the board in failing districts so ALL students are prepared for either college or the job market upon graduation. I do think the charter school model can be extremely successful. Times 2 Academy (Providence) and the International Charter School (Pawtucket) have demonstrated high levels of success with inner city students. If we could build on those models in the public school spectrum, perhaps we'd see test scores rise and students across the board attaining higher levels of success. Perhaps then some people who are sending their children to parochial and private schools may even decide to give public school another try. Some large inner city districts have attained this level of success. St. Paul, Minnesota and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas are some examples. Certain factors, such as teacher stability, have to be in place, though. This would mean practices such as "bumping" (when a teacher with more seniority can take the position of a teacher with less seniority, regardless of teacher performance) would have to end. A workable agreement between the union and the administration would be necessary - one that protects teachers' basic rights but does not shield bad teachers from corrective actions. Again, I think more money also needs to make it into the schools themselves rather than getting tied up in bureaucratic processes. This is also tied to more stable leadership in the administrative levels. The turnover rate in superintentdents in Providence, for example, has been very detrimental. One superintendent will put money into a particular program or partnership, then when that person leaves, the new person will end the last superintendent's initiatives and will redirect money into new programs and partnerships. No program is ever given the chance to yield results and money ends up wasted due to frequent changes in initiatives, policies, and curricula. It is a no-win cycle. I think that this implies that an overhaul of failing districts is necessary. That may, in some cases, include high levels of intervention from the state (as was done at Hope High). However, just giving the money to a few families for private school education while allowing the rest of the student population to fester in bad schools does not seem an appropriate use of taxpayer money to me. Waiting lists to even get such vouchers may mean that students must attend ever more depleted school districts for an extended period of time before actually getting into a private school. Once there, those students may not have the necessary skills (due to so much time in substandard schools) to keep up with their peers. Private schools typically have fewer support systems in place for struggling students simply because most of their student population does not struggle. (Parents of students in private schools generally have more resources and are better able to prepare their children starting at a very early age. Studies have shown that preschool education makes a huge difference and that there is a direct correlation between educational levels of parents and subsequent school success of their children.)
As for cutting down on illegal immigration to reduce the number of students from illegally residing families in the schools, I support strengthening borders and creating better pathways for people to enter the country legally through the correct channels.

As an aside, I do not support a general amnesty. I think that those who want to stay but did not come here legally should have a pathway to become citizens (if they are law-abiding), but that pathway needs to include: (1) going to the back of the proverbial line; (2) paying back taxes; (3)working consistently while enrolled in ESL and citizenship classes. (More adult ESL classes also need to be made available. I have known some people who were desperately looking to attend adult ESL but could not find classes at an accessible location. In fact, I would recommend incentives for businesses with high levels of non-English speakers to start job-site ESL classes, but that is a topic for another post...)

Since McCain is running against Obama, as a conservative I have to vote for Obama.

Things will get worse with McCain.

Things will get much worse with Obama. And that is why I am voting for Obama. For things will only get worse with McCain but they need to get much worse for us to survive as a nation.

Of course a statement like that needs an explanation. And I will do so in the form of an analogy. Do you know how to cook a frog? Well, if you put it in a pot of boiling water the frog will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of water that is warm and turn up the heat gradually up to boiling the frog will just sit there not even realizing it is being boiled alive.

Obama is the one who puts the frog into the hot water and McCain is the one who turns up the heat gradually. With Obama his extremism will cause a backlash so great that America will start electing good leaders to oppose him. It happened in 1980 and it happened in 1994. And it will happen again.

But McCain he will really be the death of the Republican Party. As I said above things will get worse with McCain and therefore he and the Republican Party will get the blame. And then America will elect a Democrat in 2012 for President. And if recent history has shown us anything it has shown that the Democratic Candidate has been getting increasingly extreme. So I can’t tell you who the Democrats will put up that year but I can tell you that person will be as extreme if not more extreme than Obama. So, how long are we putting off having an Obama-like President? Four Years?

And meanwhile McCain has shown that he wants to drive conservatives and conservatism away from the Republican Party. For those of us who believes that the only solution to our country’s problems, it is unacceptable that neither of the two major parties represents conservative values.

So, I am left with the ultimate act of “tough love”. Not to say there aren’t hard times ahead for there is but that is true with McCain as well. But at least with Obama there is hope that things will get better after him. With McCain all hope is lost.

Since McCain is running against Obama, as a conservative I have to vote for Obama.

Things will get worse with McCain.

Things will get much worse with Obama. And that is why I am voting for Obama. For things will only get worse with McCain but they need to get much worse for us to survive as a nation.

Of course a statement like that needs an explanation. And I will do so in the form of an analogy. Do you know how to cook a frog? Well, if you put it in a pot of boiling water the frog will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of water that is warm and turn up the heat gradually up to boiling the frog will just sit there not even realizing it is being boiled alive.

Obama is the one who puts the frog into the hot water and McCain is the one who turns up the heat gradually. With Obama his extremism will cause a backlash so great that America will start electing good leaders to oppose him. It happened in 1980 and it happened in 1994. And it will happen again.

But McCain he will really be the death of the Republican Party. As I said above things will get worse with McCain and therefore he and the Republican Party will get the blame. And then America will elect a Democrat in 2012 for President. And if recent history has shown us anything it has shown that the Democratic Candidate has been getting increasingly extreme. So I can’t tell you who the Democrats will put up that year but I can tell you that person will be as extreme if not more extreme than Obama. So, how long are we putting off having an Obama-like President? Four Years?

And meanwhile McCain has shown that he wants to drive conservatives and conservatism away from the Republican Party. For those of us who believes that the only solution to our country’s problems, it is unacceptable that neither of the two major parties represents conservative values.

So, I am left with the ultimate act of “tough love”. Not to say there aren’t hard times ahead for there is but that is true with McCain as well. But at least with Obama there is hope that things will get better after him. With McCain all hope is lost.