Posted by Matthew J. Cunningham at 12:00 am on Jan 30, 2008 2 Comments
Except for a brief time before his exit when I decided to vote
for Fred Thompson, this presidential contest marks the first time
in my entire life I have been undecided in a GOP nomination
fight.
Going into tonight’s debate at the Ronald Reagan Library, I was
strongly considering voting for Sen. John McCain, in spite of
McCain-Feingold and other heresies. After watching McCain in action
tonight, he’d have to make a heckuva case in the next few days to
keep me from voting for Romney.
There were a number of flash points tonight that pushed me away
from going with McCain. First was his exchange with Mitt Romney
over his charge that Romney supported fixed timetables for
withdrawal. McCain was obviously misrepresenting what Romney said.
Even Anderson Cooper pointed out that Romney had not called for
publicly fixing deadlines for withdrawal.
Yet even after his misrepresentation was made plain to him,
McCain stuck to his story and continued insisting that Romney had
said something that Romney clearly had not — and at that point it
just becomes a lie. And that’s significant for a man who has built
his campaign on honor, straight talk and… Read More