McCain finds that the far-right is hard to satisfy

April 5, 2006

John McCain doesn’t have a lot of experience pandering to the GOP’s religious right base. For years, he believed that the party should distance itself from “agents of intolerance.” All of that came to an end last week, of course, when McCain embraced Jerry Falwell and announced that he no longer believed that the man who blamed 9/11 on Americans and said we deserved the attacks is intolerant.

But one thing McCain will likely learn pretty quickly is that the far-right is incredibly hard to please. For example, McCain already started subtly flip-flopping on the so-called “Federal Marriage Amendment.” He used to believe the constitutional amendment is “antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans,” and now he believes he may support it after all.

So, the right is thrilled with the change of heart, right? Wrong.

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins, who will be sharing a stage with Senator McCain at the Liberty University graduation, is calling on the Senator to support the Marriage Protection Amendment:

“Although Senator McCain holds claim to the ‘Straight Talk Express,’ we are confused about his commitment to protect marriage. Two years ago, the Senator opposed a marriage amendment because he felt that state marriage amendments would survive federal court challenges. However, since then we’ve seen Nebraska’s marriage amendment struck down and other state amendments tied up in court.

“Is the Senator backtracking from statements made two years ago on a marriage protection amendment? Now, he says he would support a marriage protection amendment but only if his own state’s amendment is struck down.”

McCain is slowly taking up residence in “crazy base world,” but he may find that his new buddies haven’t rolled out the welcome mat for him. They have several hoops for him to jump through, and appearing with Falwell and some cautious rhetoric about the FMA won’t be enough. The religious right wants full, unswerving allegiance. How far is McCain willing to go?

McCain has no idea of the buzz-saw he’s walking into. I can hardly wait to see him run for cover when the howling mobs come after him expecting to see actual results instead of the usual political pablum.

  • McCain and Hillary are both doing the same things — they are trying to appeal to voters they aren’t likely to ever get and alienating the ones they could have gotten in the process.

  • McCain would blow Bush AND Jerry Falwell in order to lock up the Republican Guard nomination for president in ’08. Getting buggered by Dobson, Norquist, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and the rest of the rabid religious right will bring him fully on board with that constituent group.

    Bend over, John, and see what selling out cheap gets you!

  • Edward Copeland nails it.

    What’s particularly sad is that in McCain’s case, he’s had a chance to remake American politics by striking out further on the path he seemed to walk from the mid-1990s through about 2003: independence in the true spirit of country-before-party. The logical culmination of this would have been a third-party presidential run in 2004, on a national unity platform emphasizing balanced budgets, a smart pro-democracy foreign policy, environmental preservation and political and appropriations reform.

    With his charisma, adoring media following, and public distaste with both Bush and Kerry, I really believe he could have won–and moved the country to a better place. Instead, he traded the legacy of principled Republicanism from TR to Goldwater for the mild approbation of Grover Norquist and James Dobson.

    The irony, of course, is that it’s still not going to work: as CB infers, McCain can’t out-stupid George Allen, nor out-intolerant Sam Brownback. And the harder he tries, the more his grip on the imagination of the moderate middle will loosen.

    It’s more sad than anything else, because the time is right for a transformational champion of “national greatness.” McCain has badly misread the moment.

  • I don’t think the GOP fundy-base will ever fully frust McCain– the bottom line is that he’s not a born again wingnutter Evangelical. They need their candidates to have “I turned my life over to Jesus” salvation stories to get truly excited. McCain ain’t going to do it for them. Therefore IF Frist is still a viable candidate I think they’ll support him over McCain.

    Also, a good blog that catalogs all the reasons McCain is a big phony.

  • Am I the only one who has noticed (not that I watch enough TV to make that claim) that Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, e.g., tend to leave McCain alone?

    I agree with Copeland and dajafi. I can’t see either party, when all is said done, falling for Hillary or McCain. They’re both wind-up dolls, and I’d like to hope (for the sake of our system of government) that we’re neither naive nor cyncical enough to go along with their all-too-obvious game.

  • McCain’s going to be sorely disappointed when the religious right abandons him and backs Sam Brownback. Hopefully, he’ll get the message when he’s again the victim of a vicious whisper campaign in the South Carolina primary.

    What’s amusing is that McCain’s new buddy Jerry Falwell and his soon-to-be buddies Pat Robertson and James Dobson have lost control over their flock. All three strongly backed Harriet Meyers’ Supreme Court nomination, and the religious right still rejected her outright. They’ll do the same to McCain. They don’t want another smooth-talking Republican in the vein of George W. Bush, they want someone who is ideologically and philosophically pure.

  • Oh yeah, I forgot about Brownback. There is no way they’d support McCain over someone with real right-wing street cred like Brownback or Frist.

    At the very least it appears at this point that the GOP is going to have a base problem. They don’t have a candidate that will satisfy their wingnut base and the average republican.

  • Am I the only one who has noticed (not that I watch enough TV to make that claim) that Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, e.g., tend to leave McCain alone?

    Ed – seems that way to me too. Last night was an exception, still gentle, but mocking McCain’s hypocrisy. Will other comedians mine that gold? We’ll see.

  • This will be an ongoing story for all Republican presidental candidates in 2008. While Democrats are looking to nominate a candidate who would appeal to swing voters in the general election, Rebublican candidates who might do well in a general election (Guliani, Hagel, McCain) will face their biggest fight in the Republican primaries, because of the opposition they will get from the GOP’s far right wing base.

  • He could talk about how Jesus helped him survive a Vietnamese POW camp. That just might work.

  • The worst part about McCain’s actions now, is that he appeared to like a relatively honest and genuine policitian in 2000. He seemed like a man of integrity, especially compared with his main rival. Now look at him. To see him selling out like this. Its as though he was the only politician who hadn’t concluded you have to be a huge phony to get elected President, but now he’s in the same place as all the rest of them. I thought he was better than this. Edward Copeland is exactly right though, he (and Hilary) aren’t picking up any new support, they’re just eroding the old. Neither of them are worth a damn.

    • Comments are closed.