Posted on 02/04/2008 4:08:00 AM PST by moderate_conservative
Republicans rooting for Rudy, overlooking his liberal positions on social issues and instead focusing on his national security hawkishness or his record of fiscal conservatism as Mayor of New York City, are already gravitating to John McCain based on Rudy’s say-so. It stands to reason that if these Republicans could forgive Rudy’s apostasies, they can surely overlook McCain’s. But what about those who consider McCain anathema – despite his 82 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union? Why is it that the same conservatives who can forgive Mitt Romney’s flip-flopping on just about every significant issue can’t get past McCain’s deviation from conservative orthodoxy on campaign finance, immigration and tax cuts?
It may be too late to talk Ann Coulter down off the ledge – she famously announced on Hannity & Colmes that if McCain is the Republican nominee, she would campaign for the pro-abortion, pro-cut-and-run, pro-illegal immigration, pro-tax hikes and pro-socialized medicine Hillary – but The Stiletto would like to make the case for McCain to conservatives who like to consider their options rationally and dispassionately.
† He has a shot. The FL primary demonstrated McCain’s appeal amongst Republicans who consider themselves moderates or independents – and he also won one out of four conservatives, one out of three evangelicals and one out of two Hispanics. McCain’s broad appeal in a state that is notable for its diversity is a huge asset going into Super Duper Tuesday, which is tantamount to a “national primary.” A coalition is beginning to form around McCain’s candidacy that gives him a good chance of securing his party’s nomination – and of winning the White House if Hillary is his opponent, as expected.
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. notes: “McCain would be the first Republican nominee since Gerald Ford in 1976 to win [the nomination] despite opposition from organized conservatism, and also the first whose base in Republican primaries rested on the party’s center and its dwindling left. McCain is winning despite conservatives, not because of them.” He’ll get no argument from Rush Limbaugh, who called McCain a Republican “imposter” In a recent broadcast: “McCain is in a lot of these places not actually the Republican candidate. He is the candidate of enough Republicans, but independents and moderates and probably even some liberals.”
Maybe that’s the point – McCain can be a uniter, as opposed to Romney. According to the results of a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 45 percent of voters in Super Duper Tuesday states said it would be harder for a Mormon to unite the country. McCain’s candidacy may even create a new political demographic: crossover McCain Democrats.
† He will not roll back the Bush tax cuts. While he has not signed Grover Norquist’s pledge, McCain “has moved in the right direction strongly and forcefully on taxes.” Here’s what McCain told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, after Wallace questioned him on his spotty record supporting the Bush tax cuts over the years:
Wallace: As president, will you veto any tax increase passed by a Democratic Congress?
McCain: Yes.
Wallace: That’s quick, but - and in fact, I think …
McCain: Well, I think the worst thing we can do right now, Chris, is - we’ve got some shaky economic times - is to increase people’s taxes. And I think that what we need is more tax cuts. We need to make Bush tax cuts permanent.
We need to get rid of the ATM. Corporate taxes in America are the second highest in the world. We need to cut corporate taxes. We need to give people reasons to write off and depreciation their business investments and equipment investments.
We need to stop the pork barrel spending. Look, the president signed into law two major spending bills that had $35 billion worth of earmark projects. And if we had taken that money, we could have given a $1,000 tax credit for every child in America.
This is big money. Everybody says, “Oh, it really isn’t that much.” It’s a lot. And even more importantly than that, it has totally eroded the confidence of the American people about what we do with their tax dollars.
Taxes aside, McCain has a long record of fighting pork barrel spending and government waste – issues that allowed Dems to recapture Congress in 2006 - and is the only candidate who can be trusted to make a serious attempt to rein in runaway government spending and whack away at the deficit.
†He took his lumps on illegal immigration and learned his lesson. Here’s what McCain said in last week’s primary debate in CA when asked whether he would back an immigration proposal that included a pathway to citizenship, as his own 2006 proposal had:
No, I would not, because we know what the situation is today. [W]e’re all on agreement as to what we need to do. we all know the American people want the border secured first. We will secure the borders first when I am president of the United States. I know how to do that. I come from a border state, where we know about building walls and vehicle barriers and sensors and all of the things necessary. I will have the border state governors certify the borders are secured, and then we will move on to the other aspects of this issue. Probably as importantly is tamper-proof biometric documents, which then, unless an employer hires someone with those documents, that employer will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And that will cause a lot of people to leave voluntarily. There’s 2 million people who are here who have committed crimes. They have to be rounded up and deported.
†He will appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court. During the last Republican debate, McCain said, “The judges I would appoint are along the lines of … Justices Roberts and Alito [sic] have a proven record of strict interpretation of the Constitution of the United States of America,” and elaborated further on Fox News Sunday:
Wallace: Will you appoint conservative Supreme Court justices even if you have reason to believe that they might vote to overturn McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform?
McCain: I was very aware of the opinion of Justices Roberts and Alito, and I was one who fought hard for the confirmation of both of them. First of all, I wouldn’t impose any litmus test. That would be totally inappropriate. But second of all, I will appoint justices such as the ones I’ve strongly supported and gotten through the Senate, with the help of many others or help along with others, only those who strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States and do not legislate from the bench. And I have a clear record of that, too.
Wallace: And even if they might vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade and also McCain-Feingold.
McCain: Look, you cannot impose litmus tests. If you have justices that have a clear conservative - a clear, strict interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, then you don’t have to worry about what their decisions will be, because it’s pretty obvious that people who strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States are worthy of our confidence.
† His strength of character overcomes his character flaws. McCain is on the “right” side of the vast majority of positions that Republicans and conservatives care about, so why does he engender such intense antipathy in some? Columnist Lorie Byrd, who blogs at Wizbang, thinks it “has almost as much to do with the way McCain has taken the positions he has, as the positions themselves,” and goes on to cite his characterization of the Bush tax cuts as “tax cuts for the rich”; cultivating his media image as a maverick rather than representing the Republican party – even briefly flirting with being John Kerry’s running mate in 2004; his temper, barely contained the CA debate as he ruthlessly whaled away at Romney.
Pundits and politicos, who care about this inside baseball stuff, are seeing a different man than rank-and-file Republican voters: In FL, “voters perceived him as a person. He was picked overwhelmingly as the candidate who says what he believes,” reports the Los Angeles Times. And regardless of whether his accusation that Mitt Romney once favored a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq is mistaken or willfully misstated, the fact remains that when it counted most McCain was out front drumming up support for the surge. His political courage resonates with voters, who just don’t see Romney having that kind of backbone or constancy.
† McCain may well be the last of his kind. In a race that New York Magazine columnist Kurt Andersen has described as a political freak show (“the first female, African-American, Italian-American, Mormon, or ecclesiastic president … except for McCain, no candidate from the regular-mainstream-Wasp-guy pool that has produced 42 of our 43 presidents has a chance to win.”), McCain is the only candidate who has served in the military. (In the CA debate, Romney made a show of saying that he “regrets” not enlisting in one of the armed services, and he no doubt “regrets” that not one of his five sons has served, either.) This election could be the last time that Americans will get to vote for a candidate who is battle-hardened. On a real battlefield.
McCain is trying to mend his fences with conservatives, and while he may never win over many in the conservative chattering class – notably, Limbaugh, Coulter, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and former Sen. Rick Santorum - he has started to rack up some pretty impressive endorsements: Steve Forbes (who was formerly in Rudy’s camp), former Solicitor General Theodore Olson (an advisor to Rudy’s campaign), GA Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, Fmr. Sen. Don Nickles of OK and Fmr. Gov. Paul Cellucci of MA. If McCain eventually gets enough of the conservative establishment to back him, the anti-McCain talk on talk radio will ring hollow to Republican voters.
Maybe it’s time for the Reagan Coalition to give way to the McCain Coalition. As Karl Rove puts it in Newsweek: “Every presidential election is about change, and no more so than at the end of a two-term president’s time in the White House. Parties have to constantly update themselves if they hope to remain relevant. Both parties are suffering the consequences of seeing substantial parts of their 20th-century agendas adopted; both parties are struggling to fashion new answers to the new challenges of a young century.”
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog.
Ping
Well in our guts we know he’s nuts. But apparently we’re going to have to go to war with the nut we have.
Nope - I truly think he is insane. He is too liberal, but worse, I think he is temperamentally unsound.
“despite his 82 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union?”
OK - I’m getting tired of having the media and others throw around McCain’s “lifetime ACU rating” We all know that he’s taken a dramatic turn to the left in the last 8 years, doing whatever he can to polk conservatives in the eye. His 2006 rating is 65 so lets look at the #’s he’s been at recently.
Now there's a great bumpersticker!
forget it. never.
It was first used against Goldwater. ;-)
i totally agree with you. that is my basic problem with him. i do not trust him not to go postal the minute he is confronted with any serious adversity.
McCain is so NOT inspirational, regardless of the issues.
I am bored already just watching him as he tries to say something intelligent and spiffy.
Mean, vindictiveness. That’s all the man seems to have.
You're going to have to go to war with the nut you have. I won't be part of giving the keys of the car to the faithless son of a bitch. I refuse to give John McCain or the GOP suits the satisfaction of even thinking "well, if he's the candidate, I'll vote for him;" I no longer volunteer to be the good old boys' hostage.
Mr. niteowl77
And we were so worried about Rudy last summer. Wasn’t that a lot of wasted effort?
“moderate”?
Moderate what?Moderate intelligence,moderate honesty,moderate reliability,moderate virtue...
Moderate interest!
I hope he doesn't get rid of the ATM or I'll have to find another way to get cash. Now getting rid of the AMT would be a much better idea!
With you: moderate temperament, my friend.
McCain sided with the ACLU against Wisconsin Right To Life and recently said that he would not nominate a judge like Alito, because he was too conservative. (Certainly can’t nominate anyone that would threaten the incumbent protection act otherwise known as McCain Feingold.
And let’s not forget Mr. global warming would cap American CO2 emissions (without any scientific basis for doing so), while China opens a new coal power plant every day.
If a Republican is endorsed by ultra lib, Rudy, the NY Times, the LA times, and every liberal pundit between here and Lennin’s tomb, he will never ever get my vote.
P.S. I took great pleasure in tossing to RNC fundraising letters into the trash this weekend. Although I did pull one out, write on it “If I want to support RINO’s I’ll give to a wildlife conservation fund.” before mailing it back in the pre-paid envelope.
You would have this piece of garbage "McCain" run the party?
We need a song based on "Next Time ... He'll Think Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood , " about McCain.
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," January 31, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. [ 5 minutes 32 seconds ]
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: And Senator John McCain is gaining momentum, but not all conservatives are jumping for joy.
Senator McCain is a polarizing candidate for many. And critics point to his stance on immigration, his work with Russ Feingold.
But with a potential Hillary Clinton candidacy on the Democratic side of the aisle, will true conservatives eventually fall in line and support the Arizona senator?
Joining us now, author of the "New York Times" best seller, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd be Republicans," our friend Ann Coulter.
How are you?
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR, "IF DEMOCRATS HAD ANY BRAINS": Fine, thank you.
HANNITY: Your thoughts about -
Look I'm standing on substance here.
COULTER: Yes.
HANNITY: It's immigration.
It's limits on free speech.
It's not supporting tax cuts.
COULTER: It's Anwar. It's torture at Guantanamo.
HANNITY: Class warfare rhetoric. It's interrogations. It's Guantanamo. It's Anwar.
These are not small issues to conservatives.
COULTER: No, and if you're looking at substance rather than whether it's an R or D after his name, manifestly,
if he's our candidate, then Hillary's going to be our girl, Sean,
because she's more conservative than he is. I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism.
I absolutely believe that.
HANNITY: That's the one area I disagree with you.
COULTER: No, yes, we're going to sign up together. Let me explain that point on terrorism.
HANNITY: You'd vote for Hillary —
COULTER: Yes. I will campaign for her if it's McCain.
HANNITY: If Hillary is watching tonight, you just got an endorsement —
COLMES: I just heard the word no.
COULTER: I was touched when she cried.
That part isn't true.
But the rest of it is true.
He has led the fight against
— well, as you say, interrogations. I say torture at Guantanamo.
She hasn't done that. She hasn't taken a position in front.
HANNITY: Without interrupting you, let me give you one distinction
— that's what liberals do to you. Let me give you one distinction, he did support the war —
COULTER: So did Hillary.
HANNITY: But he stayed with it. He supported the surge.
I didn't like his criticisms of Rumsfeld, but he was right —
COULTER: OK, let's get to him supporting the surge.
He keeps going on and on about how he was the only Republican who supported the surge and other Republicans attacked him.
It was so awful how he was attacked. It was worse than being held in a tiger cage.
Okay, well I looked up the record.
Republicans all supported the surge. He's not only not the only one who supported the surge,
I promise you no Republican attacked him for this. And you know why he's saying that, Sean,
because he keeps saying it at every debate, I'm the only one. I was attacked by Republicans.
He's confusing Republicans with his liberal friends.
They're the ones who attacked him for it, his real friends.
HANNITY: Hillary Clinton, if she gets her way, will nationalize health care.
She's going to pull the troops out of Iraq.
COULTER: I don't think she will.
HANNITY: That's what she's saying she's going to do.
COULTER: Compared to John McCain, she will do better.
HANNITY: She says in a hundred days she's immediately going to begin to pull out.
(CROSS TALK)
COULTER: Look, she's running in a Democratic primary. He's running in the Republican primary, and their positions are about that far apart.
When George Bush said at the State of the Union Address that the surge is working in Iraq,
Obama sat on his hands,
Kennedy sat on his hands,
Hillary leapt up and applauded that we are winning in the surge and that the surge is working in Iraq.
She gave much better answers in those debates when Democrats like Obama and Biden were saying what do we do? What do we do if three cities are attacked. She said, I will find who did it and I will go after them.
HANNITY: You want to sit back.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Can I just say something — Ann -
Coulter: I would trust any republican - any republican - but John McCain - more than Hillary Clinton
.HANNITY:)Hey, you want to sit back -
COULTER: - Because with John McCain - Hillary is absolutely more conservative.
Moreover -
(CROSS TALK)
COLMES: My work is done. My work is done.
COULTER: Moreover, she lies less than John McCain.
I'm a Hillary girl now.
She lies less than John McCain.
She's smarter than John McCain,
so that when she's caught shamelessly lying, at least the Clintons know they've been caught lying.
McCain is so stupid, he doesn't even know he's been caught.
COLMES: Go.
In fact, could you fill in for me next week?
COULTER: If it's McCain, I will.
COLMES: Let me get this straight, would you vote for Hillary Clinton?
COULTER: Yes.
COLMES: You would actually go in a voting booth —
COULTER: If it's close and the candidate is John McCain, because John McCain is not only bad for Republicanism,
which he definitely is. He is bad for for the country —
He is very very bad for the country.
(CROSS TALK)
COLMES: Can I tell you the last thing that Hillary Clinton wants? Ann Coulter's endorsement.
COULTER: He will not give up on amnesty.
He will not give up on amnesty. Now -
Even now he's running as a Republican, he won't give up on amnesty. I'm at that debate the other night, he's coming in attacking profits, capitalism -
(CROSS TALK)
COULTER: I'm serious.
COLMES: I know, but let me get serious for a second, because so far I haven't been.
Look, are you telling me —
look at all the people endorsing McCain.
I'm not talking about Johnny come lately Republicans.
Nancy Reagan is wrong?
Rick Perry is wrong?
Arnold is wrong?
Charlie Crist is wrong?
COULTER: Okay, other than Nancy Reagan —
(CROSS TALK)
COULTER: No. I will explain. It's not that they're wrong other than Nancy Reagan. And by the way
we loved Nancy Reagan for loving Ron Reagan. We didn't love her for her political positions.
Who wants embryonic stem-cell research? And I'm moving Nancy reagan to the -
(CROSS TALK)
COLMES: Hello. Hello. Are all of these people are off the beat.
COULTER: I'm trying to answer the question. Stop talking.
I'm moving Nancy Reagan to the side, and I'm saying all the rest of these political endorsements mean one thing;
they think he's the front runner. They want a job in his administration.
Nothing means less than an endorsement from someone who wants a position.
COLMES: They're all hoes just looking for a job?
COULTER: No,
but they all do want jobs.
COLMES: I'm giving her the opportunity —
COULTER: They do all want jobs. What they want -
It's good to be friends with the king.
Some people - like me -
HANNITY: Will you be careful.
COULTER: Some people don't care about being the king.
Read Mark Levin
I don't think most conservatives are interested in McCain’s class ranking at Annapolis or how many planes he was nearly killed in. There have been a few posts here mentioning it.
And I appreciate all the references to Reagan's efforts to advance his agenda, which did involve making compromises with a Democrat House and, throughout most of his presidency, a Democrat Congress.
And if John McCain showed this kind of temperament and vision in his political career, I don't think most who object to his candidacy during the primaries would be objecting to it today. I think we would be enthusiastically supporting him.
Painting Reagan as a tax-and-spend Republican, who basically went along with Washington and appointed a bunch of moderates to the Supreme Court, in an apparent attempt to build up McCain's conservative and leadership credentials and mollify his critics, has the opposite effect mostly because it is inaccurate. It reminds me of Bill Clinton's supporters using Thomas Jefferson's alleged adultery to explain the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Reagan challenged his party from the Right. He sought the Republican nomination in 1968 against Richard Nixon and lost. He sought the nomination against Gerald Ford in 1976 and lost. He fought the Republican establishment in 1980 as well, including Bob Dole, Howard Baker, and George H. W. Bush, and won.
McCain has challenged his party from the Left. I don't know how many more times I and others have to lay out his record to prove the point.
To put a fine point on it, when he had to, Reagan sought compromise from a different set of beliefs and principles than McCain. It does a great disservice to historical accuracy and the current debate to continue to urge otherwise.
Let me be more specific, rather than spar in generalities. Reagan would never have used the phrase "manage for profit" as a zinger to put down a Republican opponent. Reagan believed in managing for profit because he believed in free enterprise. That doesn't mean he didn't agree to certain tax increases (after fighting for and winning the most massive tax cuts in modern American history), which were incidentally to be accompanied by even greater spending cuts.
McCain believes the oil companies are evil, and said it during one of the debates.
Among his first acts as president, Reagan decontrolled the prices of natural gas and crude oil with the stroke of his pen because, as he understood, profit funds research and exploration. Reagan had a respect for and comprehension of private property rights and markets that McCain does not. There never would have been a Reagan-Lieberman bill, in which the federal government's power over the private sector would have trumped the New Deal.
Reagan opposed limits on political speech.
The Reagan administration ended the Fairness Doctrine and the media ownership rules, which helped create the alternative media that McCain despises. Reagan's reverence for the Constitution would never have allowed him to support, let alone add his name to, something like McCain-Feingold.
As for Reagan's Supreme Court appointments, it is wholly misleading to simply list those who turned out to be disappointing as evidence of Reagan's willingness to compromise on judicial appointments or appoint moderates, or whatever the point was.
In Sandra Day O'Connor's case, he was assured by Barry Goldwater and Ken Starr that she was an originalist. While on the Court, she started out on fairly sound footing, and then lurched toward the Left, something Reagan could not foresee or control.
Yes, Reagan appointed Anthony Kennedy to the Court, but only after:
Reagan sought to abolish all kinds of federal programs and agencies — from the Department of Education to the Action Agency/VISTA — and the list goes on and on.
I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for someone with the time and inclination, such as a think-tank scholar, to go back and examine the early budgets that Reagan sent to Congress. Am I the only one who remembers all the horror stories in the media portraying Reagan's budgets
The one area Reagan drastically increased spending was defense.
And while McCain is said to be among the most capable of hawks, he used little of his political capital and media savvy to oppose the Clinton cuts — or to warn the nation about the rising threat from al-Qaeda, for that matter. He did not call for the resignation of his good friend Bill Cohen, who was a terrible defense secretary. McCain was not alone, of course. But a more fulsome examination of McCain's senatorial record relating to defense, intelligence, and law enforcement is met mostly with silence or admonitions to avert our eyes.
Reagan would not have led efforts to grant the enemy constitutional and international rights, as McCain has. I believe he would have sided with President Bush. After all, as president, Reagan rejected efforts to expand the Geneva Conventions to cover terrorists.
This is a key area of departure for McCain not only from Bush but most national security advocates. But, alas, we must avert our eyes, again.
As for the 1986 Reagan amnesty for illegal aliens, we've been down this road time and again.
The bill was carefully reviewed within the Reagan administration, including at the Justice Department (at the time, the INS reported to the attorney general). Reagan agreed that amnesty would be conferred on 2-3 million illegal aliens as a one-time event in exchange for adequate funding for border security. The bill passed in 1987. The border security part of the deal was never enforced.
To say that Reagan supported amnesty and no more is to rewrite history. There would have been no Reagan-Kennedy bill, written largely by LULAC and LaRaza.
But we must rewrite history
if we are to make the case that McCain is no different from Reagan,
Reagan is no different from his predecessors,
and Reagan's speeches weren't all that revolutionary.
And if we object to such characterizations, then the argument shifts to Reagan wasn't perfect,
the Reagan era is dead,
these are different times, etc. Then, if we criticize McCain's record we are told
Look, I do not believe that McCain is a principled conservative.
I believe he is a populist hawk in the tradition of a Scoop Jackson. This isn't a perfect comparison, of course, but nothing is ever perfect, is it?
In my view, this is why the hawks will support McCain regardless of his record in virtually every other respect. Moreover, they see McCain as the only Republican who has the will or ability or whatever to fight terrorism. I don't.
But please, can we at least agree, on National Review's website of all places, to stop dumbing down or dismissing the Reagan record. If you are going to use it, at least be accurate about it. It isn't perfect, but it is far superior to the backhand it received earlier.
02/02 12:52 PM
Mark Levin isn't called the GREAT ONE for no reason.
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