and must also lambast McCain.

Given the DRASTIC difference between EMBRYONIC and NON-EMBRYONIC the term “stem cell” by itself is meaningless and its a tactic the left uses to mislead voters from knwoing they favor harvesting humans to be killed for experiments.

shame

I, for one, am encouraged that Sarah Palin’s name is not featured prominently in this ad. That gives me hope that in that intramural fight, we’ll have an ally in the White House.

I also agree with gamecock and pilgrim above; we need to be very clear in our discussions about stem cells on the distinctions between embryonic and non-embryonic research. Not doing so does a disservice to an ill-informed public.

First of all, how many voters on the pro-stem cell side care about this issue and are going to consider voting McCain?

This is just like the Amnesty Bull ads. Amnesty did him no good in this campaign and he keeps running ads on it assuming that all Hispanics support amnesty and that those who do will consider supporting McCain. I can think of some pro-life folks that will be ticked and won’t vote Obama, but may feel less motivated to vote for McCain.

I don’t object to embrionic stem cell research for moral reasons like many of my fellow GOPers. I’m against it because it’s lousy science. Granted, George Bush was against it on moral grounds, but the outcome was better than we could of hoped. Why use embrionic stell cells, when you can turn someone’s own skin cells or cells from their teeth into stem cells. Even many of the scientists who were studying embrionic stem cells have moved onto adult stem cells.

This reminds me to trust my instincts.

If you know what I mean.

I, for one, love this advertisement. I’m a supporter of non-embryonic stem cell research, and think it does not get enough attention lately.

I also love the fact that McCain is putting out ads about “the issues” that people care about now, instead of continuing to go down that lipstick road. I think that ad (and the other attack ads this past week) have hurt him after his moving and powerful convention speech about accepting the best ideas and appealing to independents. I really hope his campaign continues to do more positive ads like this on issues. Some negative ads are certainly okay, but it’s bad when they dominate the campaign.

Also, I do think this issue can sway many independent voters. Issues like this that the Republican party has traditionally been dogmatic about are not the way to win the critical election this year.

Take that, Mr. Obama, who claims we ignore the issues!

This can do him no good.

One, this risks pissing off the base.

Two, this does not win him the middle. Independnet voters care about bread and butter issues far more and this is not on the public radar.

Three, the Democrats use this as a wedge issue. The GOP candidate either gets accused of bowing to the religious right or pisses off social conservatives. If I have no confidence he will not veto embryonic stem cell funding, (which is far less than what I want – an outlaw of the proven to be useless research known to take life not even for “women’s choice”), can I still vote for him? That is the question social conservatives will now be asking. When your opponent is drowning, do you throw him a rope? Not everyone here will like that, but it is a fair question if you believe, as McCain has stated he does, that life begins at conception.

Stem cell should not be brought up by the GOP right now. We can win that argument later, but we don’t have the time to do a massive public education campaign on that now, and anything short of that screws ourselves. Just don’t go there. Don’t.

we lose. It was either we go with someone hard-right at the top and moderate at the bottom, or vice-versa. I hate to say it, but it’s true.

Why? Because as we speak, the Republican brand name is tarnished. Even though we of the right realize that true conservatism was not represented in the Republican rule of 2001-2007, the general public does not. They equate Republican with conservative, and saw a truckload of politicians prostitute the ‘conservative’ view to get themselves elected. Additionally, we didn’t have anyone running of a Reagan caliber-a man who could get elected if every other Republican in the nation were involved in a dead girl/live boy scenario.

Think about our options we had:

-Mitt Romney: My personal favorite, but a lot of questions on his previous positions, plus an unfortunate-but-still-lingering bias against Mormans.

-Fred Thompson: Great on paper, but didn’t inspire folks until it was too late.

-Mike Huckabee: Lincoln Chafee with a respect for the sanctity of human life.

-Rudy Giuliani: Great on national security, but was Chafee-ish on issues that Huckabee isn’t.

-Ron Paul: Do I even have to discuss this one?

-Tommy Thompson/Jim Gilmore/Sam Brownback/anyone else: Yeah……

And so, we had John McCain-given to us by Dems and independents, to be sure, but possibly the best way it could have happened. Wish it weren’t so (God, I wish it weren’t so), but it is.

I want to be very clear…for this entire campaign season, I was wavering between “sitting this one out” and “holding my nose while I punch the ballot for McCain.” However, once Palin was selected for VP, I’m in the crowd that was ready to get completely on board.

This ad is a suckerpunch to the gut of social conservatives.

You can argue whether or not the past 8 years have gone “too far” right on the social issues (you can go “too far” in favor of life? really? we want to be that relativistic?), but at the end of the day, if social conservatives stay home, McCain loses.

The Palin nomination was a masterstroke to bring the so-cons back into the fold. An ad like this makes the selection look more like political manipulation than actual conviction.

Now, I’m willing to give McCain the benefit of the doubt…but he only gets this one. It’s real easy to release version 2.0 of this ad that says “adult stem cell research,” continuing the Bush policy of funding existing lines and prohibiting new lines, while mentioning protecting ALL life, from embryonic form to old age form. Get that done tomorrow, and we’ll call it even.

But this is something that NEVER should have happen. I don’t see Obama running massive pro-ESCR ads. In fact, if you rank the issues of this election, ESCR is so far down the list, it’s not even funny. This ad never should have run.

And it NEVER should have been promoted on the front page of this site. The title and subtitle are practically a giant middle finger to so-cons. “…Maverick is Back…Having Solidified the Base, McCain Can be McCain Again.” How are we to read that in any other way as “hey, you guys that put a premium on life…welcome back to the fold…enjoy some punch, sit back, and watch yourselves be used yet again.”

This ad needs to be replaced immediately, or all forward momentum from the Palin selection will be gone before you can say “President Obama.”

Why should we fund stem cell research at all from a federal level? This is an issue that for instance, in Illinois, the state chose to spend the money funding research grants. While I agree with SteveLA that this is one of the many issues where the Christian Right is far too dogmatic, I believe that the best approach here again is a federalist approach that would allow the citizens of each state to decide whether they are going to use taxpayer money to fund this. Let the hard right SoCons ban this in their areas and let the people who are interested in exploring this arena do so as well, without waging a culture war debate where no one wins.

Why should we fund stem cell research at all from a federal level? This is an issue that for instance, in Illinois, the state chose to spend the money funding research grants. While I agree with SteveLA that this is one of the many issues where the Christian Right is far too dogmatic, I believe that the best approach here again is a federalist approach that would allow the citizens of each state to decide whether they are going to use taxpayer money to fund this. Let the hard right SoCons ban this in their areas and let the people who are interested in exploring this arena do so as well, without waging a culture war debate where no one wins.

Why should we fund stem cell research at all from a federal level? This is an issue that for instance, in Illinois, the state chose to spend the money funding research grants. While I agree with SteveLA that this is one of the many issues where the Christian Right is far too dogmatic, I believe that the best approach here again is a federalist approach that would allow the citizens of each state to decide whether they are going to use taxpayer money to fund this. Let the hard right SoCons ban this in their areas and let the people who are interested in exploring this arena do so as well, without waging a culture war debate where no one wins.

Wow. McCain wants to spend government money on stem cell research. What’s next, bailing out banks? I hate it when politicians pander, and this action is to pander to the idiots in the middle. It never ends. How do you know a politician stops lying? You don’t. Even when they are dead, they are lying.
Jim
http://www.the-right-guy.com

is if he can pull off coning indies into thinking McCain=Bush. So I dont have an issue with the ad because it provides example 1,000,000 why that is not true, plus with the advancements in ASCR makes ESCR a moot issue in terms of policy.

Figure it this way:

• Obama wins – 100% chance he pushes for ESCR
• McCain wins – 25% chance he pushes for ESCR, 75% chance he pushes for ASCR. The Palin effect is liable to take effect here

You knew he was gonna gore a SoCon ox eventually. The maverick in him can’t resist. I don’t know how anyone could be surprised.

JohnMcCain.com: Human Dignity and the Sanctity of Life

Addressing the Moral Concerns of Advanced Technology

Stem cell research offers tremendous hope for those suffering from a variety of deadly diseases – hope for both cures and life-extending treatments. However, the compassion to relieve suffering and to cure deadly disease cannot erode moral and ethical principles.

For this reason, John McCain opposes the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes. To that end, Senator McCain voted to ban the practice of “fetal farming,” making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes. Furthermore, he voted to ban attempts to use or obtain human cells gestated in animals. Finally, John McCain strongly opposes human cloning and voted to ban the practice, and any related experimentation, under federal law.

As president, John McCain will strongly support funding for promising research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research and other types of scientific study that do not involve the use of human embryos.

Where federal funds are used for stem cell research, Senator McCain believes clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress, and that any such research should be subject to strict federal guidelines.

The ad was dumb. So far, we’ve managed to re-ignite battles from the primary and get people jumping on the candidate. We’ve managed to surface internal squabbles and make people feel used, abused, and for me, it’s bringing back unease about voting for McCain (and don’t give me any garbage about how me not voting for McCain will elect Obama. I live in a state that will go for Obama when hell freezes over.)

A smart ad focuses on issues that people care about: The price of Gas, economic insecurity. Not this garbage.

The ad was dumb. So far, we’ve managed to re-ignite battles from the primary and get people jumping on the candidate. We’ve managed to surface internal squabbles and make people feel used, abused, and for me, it’s bringing back unease about voting for McCain (and don’t give me any garbage about how me not voting for McCain will elect Obama. I live in a state that will go for Obama when hell freezes over.)

A smart ad focuses on issues that people care about: The price of Gas, economic insecurity. Not this garbage.

This is another of the “new” republican issues that seem to define the party these days that I just don’t get. I’ve been luke-warm on McCain and would have preferred someone with more hard-headed business experience like Romney, but I appreciate McCain’s view on this subject – though few others.

Aren’t there many fertilized eggs in fertility clinics across the country that get tossed all the time? Why don’t we see the fundamentalists up in arms about this?

I would think that the “party of life” would want to support research that would extend life, and improve life; even if that meant using already existing eggs for research, especially if those eggs would likely eventually be tossed out with the trash.

I double checked my facts with a friend who has been a nurse in a fertility clinic at a major hospital for many years. She assured me the eggs are tossed with the garbage if they aren’t used for research.

To me, as a disillusioned Republican, I just don’t get why we would dilute a good economic and defense message with these hard to defend culture issues. They always smack of holier-than-though people trying to impose their beliefs on others.

That is not a Republican value I can support. I think its time we left Rovian wedge issues behind and got back to basics.

One word: Terrible.

Terrible.
Terrible.

This made me remember why I supported Huckabee instead of McCain. Even Fred Thompson was against ESCR.

Does McCain want to lose his lead?

Was McCain lying when he said that he believed that life begins at conception?

Does McCain want to lose thousands of grass-roots Catholic and evangelical supporters who would have volunteered for his campaign?

When McCain was in South Carolina battling Huckabee in the primary, he was pandering to So-cons and claiming that he was willing to change his stance on ESCR.

Now he moves left. This is unacceptable. In a word: terrible.

It is positively IDIOTIC to run it. This is not a major issue in the campaign – has it even been mentioned before now?

WHO precisely is going to vote for McCain because of this ad? Not 1000 votes to be had nationwide . . . but how many could be lost? And for what point?

Every ad we run from now to election should tout tax cuts, spending cuts, earmark reform, or hit Obama as a lying misogynist empty suit with radical and criminal associations and no record of reform or bipartisan cooperation against his party leadership. Anything else is wasted money.

PLUS – it breaks the cardinal rule of debating: when you are kicking ass, NEVER introduce a new subject.

The way some people on this site get loose with the name calling towards the “christian nutjobs”. This is the second time in 2 day’s I have seen an angry tone taken toward’s Christian’s and single issue voters.

And when exactly did culture issue’s get hard to defend? Roe vs. wade is a joke decision that people have grown to accept. Choice is not a right given in the Constitution. It was made up by the bench which is something everyone should be scared of. And good luck winning the election without the people you mock Blackrepub. McCain was more than wanting until he got us wacko’s on board.

As far as this ad goes, I get it. He is reaching some people that he needs to reach to win the election. While the ad is vague on specific’s, I trust McCain’s straight answer at Saddleback that life begin’s at conception and is sacred. I take that as including embryonic stem cells too. The thing that really bother’s me is that alot of this issue is strictly theory with no real proof to back it up. Kind of like global warming. The science is moving though, and I think there is a way for both sides to be satisfied.

I agree with adjoran the most in this thread. Why bring up a new subject when everything is going great? No one has even talked about this issue and all it will do is tick people off.

I think the so-called base is about 1000 times more ecstatic about Sarah Palin’s selection than maybe they ought to be. The reality is that, if elected, McCain is likely to serve out his four years, and he’s likely to serve it out as the same old John McCain.

McCain realized he needed the base when it came time to pick a VP. In his heart, he wanted Joe Lieberman, who is pro-choice from the word go. If he couldn’t have Lieberman, his follow up personal picks according to the inside scuttlebut were pro-choicers such as Ridge.

Saner heads prevailed. He was persuaded that if he actually wanted to win, he needed to pick a pro-life candidate or the base would not turn out for him.

Smart move.

Here’s the question, though. Come July 2009 or 2010, when the Democrats control the Senate 55-45 or so, who is he going to need to get his Supreme Court pick through? The base, or Harry Reid? Sadly for the base, the advise and consent power goes to the Democratically controlled Senate.

It would not surprise me one bit to see McCain go to Lieberman for his first Supreme Court pick. I can see him saying that Lieberman is like Roberts and Alito in that he is a solid lawyer, and will not legislate from the bench. He would respect rather than overturn long held precedents (like, not incidentally, Roe v. Wade, which goofy as it is as a matter of con law is still the long established law of the land). He would get through the Senate in nanosecond if only because the Dems would see it as a sure way to get a fully Democratic liberal into his seat.

I’m surprised McCain ran this ad. I think it reflects not only a misunderstanding of what pro life is all about (either the embryo is a human life at the moment of conception or it isn’t; it cannot be that it is a life when it’s in a womb but not a life when it’s in a petri dish) but also profound cynicism. It also reflects a certain arrogance towards the base. He figures he’s got them; already, now he can disregard them.

Newsflash: moderates don’t much care about stem cell research. In the abstract, they are for it because maybe it can cure cancer, diabetes and the common cold, but they haven’t thought about it or what the costs are. It’s not why they get out bed on a cold morning to go vote.

Pro life people, on the other hand, do care. And now he’s just told them what he thinks about them and how deeply he really cares about the issue.

A firestorm will break out. When it does, I predict McCain will end up saying that what he really means is that he supports non-embryonic stem cell research – not because that’s where he really is, but because that will make it go away for a while.

McCain is running a very cynical campaign. As we cheer that on, we need to think for a minute what that means for conservatives if he also chooses to run a very cynical presidency.

I wish Thompson had run a better campaign.

If it sways some undecided voters to the GOP I’m all for it.

I have no ethical issue with stem cell research of any kind. The research of today brings the cures of tomorrow.

As long as she keeps nursing Trig, she remains the only daily stem cell donor on the ballot.

There are stem cells in breast milk.

Other places to find stem cells: bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, and regenerative endometrial cells (i.e., the result of Aunt Flo’s monthly visit). That’s in addition to the stem cells made from reprogrammed wisdom teeth and adult skin.

What is Lieberman like 70? I dont see a Supreme Court nomination in his future. I do think McCain will bring him into the administration somehow.

I’m sick to death of you people who wring your hands about what this might do to McCain’s standing among So/Cons, yet at the end of your screed you say “But I myself am voting for him”.

If you’re going to vote for Mac anyway, then why are you trying to undermine his support among others? Who the hell says that you speak for other So/Cons?

You people (obviously not everybody on this thread, but you know who you are) aren’t nearly as frightened of Obama as you should be — Otherwise, you’d have gotten over your foot-stomping tantrums about McCain being the nominee, months ago! Who cares whether he got the nomination because of Dems or Indies (or Whigs or Tories or Anarchists)??? HE’S THE NOMINEE, SO GROW UP ALREADY — And it didn’t help your “cause” that he was up against 5 or 6 Reagan-wannabees who, like the Keystone Kops, couldn’t get out of one another’s way!

(To the guy still crying in his beer over Huckabee — As Nick Haynes said [about 9 times]), Huckabee is as pro-life as Linclon Chafee of Rhode Island!)

You know where McCain has stood on certain issues…He’s always been honest & forthright about where he stands…If it floats your boat to say that you support him only because he picked Sarah as his running-mate, then JUST STAY FOCUSED, FOR THE SAKE OF AMERICA’S FUTURE!

And if you acknowledge that at least he didn’t advocate the wrong kind of SCR in his ad, THEN DON’T BE READING ANYTHING NEGATIVE INTO IT — While you’re getting your rocks off by trying to undermine Mac’s support among people you’ve never even met, you yourselves are the ones trying to propagandize swing-state-voters into SWINGING THE WRONG WAY!

I’m socially conservative, too, BUT AMERICA’S FUTURE IS SO MUCH MORE AT STAKE IN THIS ELECTION, AS NEVER BEFORE! Bill O’Reilly painted a very frightening picture, a few weeks ago, of what COULD happen if Obama won — Israel attacks Iran because of Obama’s non/leadership, World War III thus breaks out in the Middle East, OIL BLASTS PAST $200/BARREL, & THE ECONOMY TRULY COLLAPSES!!!

ARE YOU “ONE-ISSUE VOTERS” WILLING TO RISK ALL THAT, JUST BECAUSE YOU STILL CAN’T GET OVER McCAIN BEING THE NOMINEE???

HOW PROUD RONALD REAGAN WOULD BE OF THIS IN-FIGHTING!

McCAIN/PALIN ’08!!! COUNTRY FIRST!!!

And don’t give me this cr@p about not voting for either one — A “conservative non-vote for Mac” might as well be a vote for Obama anyway, and we all know it. Such people are the ones “trying to lose”.

of his position in favor of embryonic stem cell rsearch. I’m an Orthodox Jew. While our religion teaches against abortions for convenience, we are mostly big supporters of in vitro fertilization and of all kinds of medical research including embryonic stem cell research. This may help neutralize the hesitancy that many Jews have because of the link between Sarah Palin’s church and the leader of Jews for Jesus, and Patrick Buchanan’s insistence that she was a supporter of his.