‘People see him as a centrist’

April 14, 2008

What a pleasant surprise; the Associated Press has made note of John McCain’s political ideology.

The independent label sticks to John McCain because he antagonizes fellow Republicans and likes to work with Democrats.

But a different label applies to his actual record: conservative.

The likely Republican presidential nominee is much more conservative than voters appear to realize. McCain leans to the right on issue after issue, not just on the Iraq war but also on abortion, gay rights, gun control and other issues that matter to his party’s social conservatives.

The four-term Arizona senator, a longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, criticized the earlier handling of the war but has been a crucial ally in President Bush’s effort to increase and maintain U.S. forces in Iraq.

”People see him as a centrist. They don’t see him as a conservative,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. He added, “In fact, they put him pretty close to themselves, in terms of ideology, and put President Bush way to the right of themselves.”

The AP’s Libby Quaid noted, however, that this perception is disconnected from the votes and policy positions McCain actually embraces. (At least, that is, this McCain. After all of his flip-flopping and efforts to reinvent himself, I get the sense this is at least McCain 4.0.)

The next question, of course, is why McCain can vote like a conservative and be perceived as a moderate. I think there are three main reasons.

First, McCain used to be far less conservative than he is now. There’s a reason he considered leaving the Republican Party in 2001 and joining the Democratic ticket in 2004. He worked with Dems on a variety of left-leaning caucuses, including campaign-finance reform and a Patients’ Bill of Rights. McCain’s rise to national prominence came in 2000, when he ran away from the GOP’s far-right base. McCain came to believe, however, that he couldn’t win the Republican nomination in ’08 as a moderate, so he conveniently went through an ideological transformation. The problem is that most Americans aren’t aware of the shift, and still perceive McCain as he was, not as he is.

Second, Dems don’t help. After having worked with McCain in the past, a few too many Dems still perceive him as reasonable and accommodating. Just two weeks ago, Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife, hailed McCain as a “moderate.” Not helpful.

And third, in general, the media has been anxious to help McCain out on this.

Since his rise to prominence on the national scene, McCain has been routinely referred to as a moderate — despite the fact that both his voting record and McCain himself attest that he is a reliable conservative. Take abortion. Over the years, McCain has voted for cutting federal funding of family planning clinics that counseled pregnant women on abortion and has supported a ban on late-term abortion. He has consistently received zero ratings from NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood. In 2000, hard-line social conservative Gary Bauer actually endorsed McCain over Bush because he said McCain assured him he would appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He has opposed extending the assault weapons ban, federal hate crimes legislation, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, pro-labor legislation, ergonomics rules, lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and benefits for gay partners. He has supported privatizing Social Security, conservative judicial appointments, the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. On national security, McCain has consistently proven himself to be one of our most hawkish senators. Conservative groups such as the American Conservative Union and the Christian Coalition of America routinely give McCain high marks.

It’s why today’s AP item is such a treat. More, please.

…why McCain can vote like a conservative and be perceived as a moderate.

Because the lying liars in the MSM have decided that, this time, they will fraudulently hoist a senile fool that stands for nothing as successor to dur chimpfurher. The truth does not matter because the MSM “catapults the propaganda” and creates the memes that allow elections to be stolen.

All they have to do is continue to label him a “straight talker” and “moderate” and then they can proclaim a “highly energized base” turns out in impossible numbers to elect him in November. They will never talk about the election fraud – the lying liars in the MSM will just talk about how the “straight talk” and “moderate” politics of this mentally impaired man made him an ideal candidate for “soccer moms”, “the religious right,” and “independents.”

It will all be a lie – but it will serve a purpose – distract from election fraud and provide a convenient way to change the subject.

  • Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife, hailed McCain as a “moderate.”

    Gee, Bill, is there anything you wouldn’t say to get your lying ass back into the whitehouse?

  • But meanwhile, McCain also voted against the Same-Sex Marriage Amendment, for comprehensive immigration reform, against tax cuts, for campaign finance, and spoke out in favor of MLK day. The only part of this post I disagree with is the concept of consistency.

  • Getting this message out, now — while the intra-party fight is still going on — is OUR job — and I wish I had any capacity for, or skill at, visual presentations. It would be so simple to run a series of YouTube pieces on McCain. Just imagine this article used as the text for an ad or a YouTube video. Picture a high-school gym filled with people behind a banner “Independents for McCain.” Then imagine the article as a crawl beneath the picture, and every time a different position is brought up, a group hears it, responds with revulsion, and walks out of the picture, throwing their button into the trash. At the end of the piece there are maybe five people in the gym, and the camera zooms in on the now-filled trash can with the ‘catch-phrase’ of the ad being stated.

    (I can’t decide between
    “John McCain — not who you think he is”
    “John McCain — a true Republican, not an independent”
    or
    “John McCain — the closer you look, the less there is to like”)

    Of course this ad assumes — as I do — that despite the noise from Republicans, these positions are despised by most Americans.

    The Hagee ad should be a print one — and the ‘buy’ should be a lot of small to medium-sized papers in the ‘purple states.’ (Let the big papers and tv treat it as a news item — the same people will see it, but it won’t cost as much.)

    That one is simple. “Sen. McCain, after you had sought out the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, you said that you did not accept all of his positions. This means there are some positions he has taken which you do support. Which of the following do you reject, and which do you support?”
    (followed by a full list of Hageeisms, not just the ones that have already made news. Be sure to include the slave auction — with a copy of the poster Hagee used — and the “PMS women” jokes. The tricky one on that is to find a short, simple quote from Hagee that sums up his real reason for supporting Israel — that if the Jews return this will bring on Armageddon and the Second Coming — but there’s got to be one. Couple that with the quotes about the Jews having brought about the Holocaust — that it was God’s method of chastizing them for their ‘liberalism’ and forcing them back to Israel — and you’ll see McCain floundering and wishing he’d bothered to investigate Hagee before asking for his support.)

    The tag-line should include a reference to Hagee’s “hateful, hate-filled” positions. (And while I give these ideas freely, I only ask that that line be used, and yes, if the credits work in “based on an idea by Prup” I wouldn’t complain.)

    If Hillary continues her Kamikaze mission, it might be an idea to end the piece with a voice-over of her or Bill praising McCain, but that might involve a loss of focus.

    And, finally, WE can use the ‘age issue.’ That’s a simple one, as I’ve mentioned in the past. It could be video or print — though it might require ‘slick’ paper for the contrast to be visible. Very simple, graphic, almost no words. Just a series of ‘before and after’ pictures showing every President from Truman on, at his inauguration and four years into his Administration — of course you’d have to skip JFK — showing the wear-and-tear and aging the job causes. Then just a picture of McCain today and a blank space for ‘four years after.’ End it with a quote — I know there are some — from a President on how strenuous the job is and how much it takes out of its holders.

    In short, one — of many — thing the Internet has changed is the idea that ‘politics is a spectator sport.’ Blog posts aren’t enough, there are just too many peopole talking on both sides of the argument for them to make news unless they come up with something really new. But we can make our own ads, our own ‘short films’ etc.

    [Speaking of short films, LOGO — the gay tv network — runs a weekly ‘best short films’ show with the audience voting for them on the web iste. A purely political ad wouldn’t get accepted, but there must be a way of putting together a gay-themed film, maybe using a statue of two med embracing with groups of people using it as a tug of war, pulling it on one hand to the past (the closet, pre Lawrence laws, homophobic references acceptable) and one group to the future (legal equality and acceptance, including marriage). Only somewhere in the pice quotes from Obama and McCain should be used.

    Just a few starters. There are a lot of you better able to work on these — only keep the ‘Bush Crime Family” and other similar exaggerations to a minimum.

  • Join the grassroots political organization SWW for McCain! Their motto is “He’s one of us!”

  • While Dems fight among themselves, McCain and the media are casting his imaginary image in concrete unchallenged. Good luck trying to “re-unite” the party and dismantle McCain in the 9 weeks between the convention and the general. Keep this up and it doesn’t matter who Dems nominate; McCain wins. Clowns to the left of me, assholes to the right.

  • Where on earth does the media get the idea that the “people” see McCain as anything other than a right wing neocon conservative. Who are the getting this idea from…are there polls showing this…really, I want to know because most everyone I talk to see McCain as another Bush but worse. The MSM has this habit of using the term “most Americans” when they are in fact referring to their own beliefs about “most Americans”. These repoters state their own personal beliefs as if they were the beliefs of “most Americans”.
    McCain is just this side of senile. He’s cantankerous and belligerent and can barely remember what his advisers tell him to say. The idea that this man will get anymore than 1/3rd of the vote is ludicrous. The same one third that is the Bush base. The man solicited the endorsement of Hagee for God’s sake (I’m sure it was on the advice of Jerusalem Joe and his Christians for Israel support group). McCain’s insane and would feel right at home at a KKK mtg. He wants everyone’s endorsement…no matter who it is. People are terribly misguided to think this man has any integrity at all after reversing his position on torture and supporting GI benefits. He’s merely the least embarrassing and revolting candidate republicans could come up with to enter in the presidential race. since so many were alienated by Ron Paul. No matter who wins the dem nomination, ‘more wars’ McCain is still insane and only two steps from senility.

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