“I think McCain is coming around to our thinking.”
If McCain is truly coming around to our thinking then a good first step for him to get my vote would be for him to initiate legislation right now repealing McCain-Feingold.
I will not vote for McCain as long as that assault on our fundamental liberties stands as law. If he can pass it then he can UNpass it.
That would be a sincere first step in shoring him up the conservative base, and he missed that opportunity in his speech at CPAC where he didn’t apologize for any of his legislation.
McCain is not doing a great job building a coalition between the moderates and the conservatives. I think he also has to take a lesson from Ronald Reagan, who has a similar task in 1980 before his landslide victory. It was Barry Goldwalter’s run for the Presidency in 1964 that brought the John Birchers into the Republican Party. Many of the Moderates saw the John Birchers (incorrectly I may say) as the loony right. The Democrats exploited this element of the Republican Party by trying unsuccessfully to label Ronald Reagan as part of the loony right.
To Ronald Reagan’s credit, the effort to cast him as a part of the far right backfired and gave him the landslide victory in 1980.
We only hope the McCain has the wisdom to build a powerful coalition that will crush the Democrats on all levels of government this fall.
I can dream can’t I?