Romney Out of Race; McCain Presumed GOP Nominee, But Are We All On Board?

Mitt Romney is out and the presumed GOP nominee is John McCain. Romney gave the best speech of his campaign today at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Romney has spent millions of his own money to give Republicans, and by extension, all of America, a real choice. He has run a spirited campaign that didn't get as much attention when he was in the race as it did when he dropped out.

Personally, I would rather see him stay in right to the convention, and make everyone in the race for the GOP nomination compromise to some degree. But he is taking the high road, and because of his concerns for the War on Terror, he is out of it.

This is a perfect time to allow a guest columninst to apply his take on the questions.

Fred Breese is an old friend from my Marine days. We served together in New River, North Carolina, at the helicopter base that is part of the sprawling Camp LeJeune, Marine complex, then fought side-by-side in Quang Tri, Vietnam, and completed our service together in Nofolk, Virginia at the Naval Air Station.

Fred is a conservative Republican who has some questions about the state of our party, considering the split between McCain and many conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others. His points deserve consideration.

McCain Drummed by the Right Wing.
Does This Mean I lose My Conservative Membership?

By Fred Breese

Leading conservatives including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others, say John McCain is not conservative enough. He has crossed the isle time and time again. He has sponsored liberal legislation. They might be right - but consider this.

Why did we lose Vietnam? We lost because of a bunch of left wing cowards were not willing to save that little country from the scourge of communism. We did not lose that war because our military did not fight and win. We won every battle. We were kicking butt and we had the North Vietnamese on the ropes.

Yet our president and Congress pulled us out. Then they cut off funding to South Vietnam and that was the end of that. Millions of Southeast Asians died at the hands of the communist conquerors when we abandoned them.

Had they stood their ground, had they not pulled us out and cut off funding, it is likely that South Vietnam today would be a strong democracy with an emerging economy, much on the scale of South Korea.

If you did not serve in Vietnam, then you cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to have sacrificed, risked your life, and experienced the loss of friends just to watch a bunch of Washington politicians walk away from all you fought for at the behest of a bunch of cowardly protesters.

Had Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi had their way, this generation of brave soldiers would already have had the same experience. That is something I don't want any American to ever experience again.

The only Washington politician running for president, who never lost his resolve to see this war through, was John McCain. Maybe Romney and Huckabee would have taken that position, but they were not Washington politicians, so we can never know for sure if they too would have had the resolve to stay through to victory in the War on Terror.

McCain was standing behind our effort even when we were barely holding our own. McCain was supporting the war effort when it was affecting his chance of successfully running for president.

He did not waiver in his resolve regardless of how unpopular it was. Now we are winning in Iraq and he is reaping the political benefit, yet the ultra-right wing is lambasting him on every issue they can drum up. Are they forgetting that he believes in winning? Is it not important to them that without John McCain, and others on the Republican side, that we would have already lost this war? Do they really believe that because McCain is not their kind of conservative that he is unfit to be president?

Why do you think John McCain stood behind the war? Read my second paragraph again. Remember, McCain is a Vietnam vet too. He saw his friends killed too. He experienced the same frustration that all Vietnam vets experienced when our appeaser president pulled us out and our weak-minded Congress cut off funding.

He is not willing to let that happen again if he can prevent it and I, for one, support that position. So to hell with the ultra-right-wing conservatives who are going all out to discredit McCain.

I have always considered myself a conservative too, until this campaign. I was in total agreement with Limbaugh and Hannity on most things but those guys are way off target this time. If I cannot be an ultra-right-wing conservative because I don't agree with Limbaugh and Hannity then I'll have to be satisfied with being just a plain old conservative.

Domestic political issues will take care of themselves. They always do. Eventually the immigration issue will get resolved in the way the American people want it resolved. The people will speak up and whoever is president will listen because they have to if they want to be reelected.

The economy will come back as it always does. But, the War on Terror will not be won unless we have a Republican president and McCain is the best in that regard.

Both Hillary and Obama have said over and over that they are going to pull us out right away. They are taking this position in spite of the fact that we are winning this war. They want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Once again, we have our enemy on the ropes and once again a large segment of our Washington politicians wants to abandon our efforts at the behest of a bunch of left-wing cowards. I feel confident that if McCain is our president, that won't happen.