I’m a little behind on this one, but with the Southern Republican Leadership Conference unofficially kicking off the 2008 presidential campaign over the weekend in Memphis, there’s been some renewed buzz about the GOP field and whether John McCain is the likely Republican nominee, as conventional wisdom suggests. Paul Krugman explained yesterday that it’s “time for some straight talk about John McCain.”
So here’s what you need to know about John McCain: He isn’t a straight talker. His flip-flopping on tax cuts, his call to send troops we don’t have to Iraq and his endorsement of the South Dakota anti-abortion legislation even while claiming that he would find a way around that legislation’s central provision show that he’s a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush.
He isn’t a moderate. Mr. McCain’s policy positions and Senate votes don’t just place him at the right end of America’s political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party.
And he isn’t a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration’s ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.
Not surprisingly, I agree with all of this. For that matter, the closer one looks at McCain’s record, the easier it is to believe he won’t be president, conventional wisdom notwithstanding.
The odd part of McCain is that he’s taken just enough positions against the conservative agenda to make him unappealing to GOP primary voters and just enough positions with Bush to make him unappealing to Dems.
For the right, the campaign ads almost write themselves. Republicans were united on Bush’s tax cuts, except McCain. Republicans were united on the “nuclear option” for Bush’s judicial nominees, except McCain. Republicans generally opposed campaign-finance reform, the patients bill of rights, limits on torture, and Ted Kennedy’s immigration bill. McCain broke party ranks on all of them. He even opposed a constitutional amendment on gay marriage.
In 2004, McCain said his Republican Party had “gone astray.” When there were rumors that John Kerry would consider him in the campaign to defeat Bush-Cheney, McCain told a national television audience, “Obviously, I would entertain it.” These are the kinds of things that will Republican activists will find it hard to overlook — and the kinds of things that a handy campaign consultant can turn into pretty hard-hitting ads before a presidential primary. Newsday’s Jim Pinkerton wrote today that GOP activists, “who actually pick the nominee, don’t seem to like him very much.” It shouldn’t be a mystery why.
On the other side of the aisle, McCain is an enthusiastic supporter of the war in Iraq and Bush’s handling of it; he supports privatization of Social Security; and he opposes abortion rights. In other words, on the issues Democrats and left-leaning independents care about most, McCain holds diametrically opposing views.
Pulling this together into a successful national strategy would be quite a needle-threading exercise. He’ll tell Republicans, “Yeah, I voted with the Dems on the issues you cared most about, but I’m electable so get in line.” He’ll tell the Dems, “Yeah, I’m at least as bad as Bush on the biggest issues of the day, but I broke ranks with the GOP base a few times so you can feel comfortable voting for me anyway.”
A lot can and will happen over the next year, but I don’t think he can pull it off.