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Would McCain consider a pro-choice running mate?

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Just a few months ago, Chris Matthews asked John McCain if he would consider a pro-choice running mate, such as former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. “I don’t know if [his position on the issue] would stop him, but it would be difficult,” McCain said.

McCain is saying something different now.

Republican John McCain says he has not ruled out choosing Pennsylvania’s popular former Gov. Tom Ridge as a running mate despite his support for abortion rights, a hot-button issue that could inflame some voters among the party’s conservative base.

McCain appeared to be testing the issue — weighing the benefits against the costs of picking Ridge, who could help the Arizona senator win Pennsylvania. […]

“And also I feel that — and I’m not trying to equivocate here — that Americans want us to work together,” McCain added. “You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily would rule Tom Ridge out.”

Chatting with the Weekly Standard, McCain was pressed a little further, and reminded that he told Republican primary voters that he wouldn’t consider NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the ticket because he’s pro-choice. McCain told the Standard that Republicans should be inclusive, and the party’s voters could find Ridge more palatable because Bloomberg “is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.”

In other words, the GOP should be open to voters who support abortion rights, but not gay rights. Republicans should be tolerant, but not too tolerant.

How open minded of him.

I should add, by the way, that McCain’s remarks about considering a pro-choice running mate might lead some to believe that McCain is some kind of “moderate” on reproductive rights.

Sarah Blustain had a great item in The New Republic this week

, explaining just how big a “zealot” McCain is on this issue.

During his political career, McCain has participated in 130 reproductive health-related votes on Capitol Hill; of these, he voted with the anti-abortion camp in 125. McCain has consistently backed rights for the unborn, voting to cover fetuses under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and supporting the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which allowed a “child in utero” to be recognized as a legal victim of a crime. He has voted in favor of the global gag rule, which prevents U.S. funds from going to international family-planning clinics that use their own money to perform abortions, offer information about abortion, or take a pro-choice stand. And he has voted to appoint half a dozen anti-abortion judges to the federal bench, as well as Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. During the Bork hearings, McCain attacked the Court’s creation of a right to privacy in Roe v. Wade: “Whether one is pro-or anti-abortion,” McCain said in an October 1987 hearing, “it is difficult to argue that the Court’s opinion is not constitutionally suspect.”

Some of these votes were, politically speaking, no-brainers for anyone vaguely in the pro-life camp. But McCain also joined efforts supported only by the radical wing of his party. He voted, for instance, with only one-fifth of the Senate to remove family-planning grants from a 1988 spending bill and with only 18 senators that same year against allowing Medicaid to pay for abortions in cases of rape or incest.

In 1994, the year after abortion provider David Gunn was killed outside a Florida clinic, McCain voted with 29 members of the Senate against establishing penalties for violent or threatening interference outside abortion clinics. Many solidly pro-life Republicans–Mitch McConnell, Kit Bond, John Danforth–voted in favor of the bill, called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). “We tried to get as many co-sponsors as we could, and we postured the thing as anti-vigilante violence,” recalls Judy Appelbaum, a Washington lawyer who was counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy at the time and the lead Hill staffer on the bill. “We argued that, even if you oppose abortion, you should not condone these actions.” According to Appelbaum, law enforcement officials, newspaper editorialists, health care providers, and law-and-order politicians all supported the bill. “There were a number of very anti-choice senators who voted for FACE,” she says, “and [McCain] wasn’t one of them.” Instead, McCain joined senators like Orrin Hatch and Jesse Helms in opposition.

Conservative writer Charlotte Allen summarized McCain’s congressional career well last year in The Weekly Standard, noting, “[He] has never failed to cast his vote in favor of whatever abortion restrictions are arguably permitted under Roe v. Wade: bans against partial-birth abortion, abortions on military bases, transporting minors across state lines to obtain abortions behind their parents’ backs, and government funding for abortion both in the United States and abroad. … In addition, McCain has voted to confirm every ‘strict constructionist’ judge … appointed by the various Republican presidents who have served during his tenure.” And, she added, “Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America…consistently award him ratings of absolute zero on their scorecards.”

If your concern is for women’s rights and reproductive freedom, McCain is a nightmare. Don’t let the running-mate trial-balloon fool you.

Comments

  • Lance

    says:

    McCain told the Standard that Republicans should be inclusive, and the party’s voters could find Ridge more palatable because Bloomberg “is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.”

    Republican’ts only open the tent enough to get to 50.1% (less if there are liberal third party candidates, thank you Ralph Nader). And they demand that 25% of them do what the other 25.1% say.

    It’s an unholy alliance, and we can only hope that their defeat in 2008 will bust it apart.

    Re #1, I was answering the headline.

  • PJ

    says:

    It would be a bad move for him. Wouldn’t get him PA, and would lose some of his other base, that being Republicans. I hope he does it!

  • chrenson

    says:

    Mr. Carpetbagger, I have a question. When do you sleep? I mean, it seems to me you need to spend at least 22 hours a day adding content to the Official John McCain Flip-Flop List.

    I think the old man is just floating it out there in August so he can gauge the reaction and abort the idea before it becomes an unwanted vice-presidency.

  • Lance

    says:

    PJ said: “It would be a bad move for him. Wouldn’t get him PA, and would lose some of his other base, that being Republicans. I hope he does it!”

    Damn! I want him to choose Romney. First, they hate each other. Second, it would be fun to pull their comments from the debates and ads. Third, Romney would piss off the ‘real’ Christians.

    Besides, I want to put out a bumper sticker:

    McCain/Romney 2008
    A Polygamist…
    … and a Mormon

  • Dennis-SGMM

    says:

    Would McCain consider a pro-choice running mate?

    If he did, his keepers would quickly remind the public (again) that McCain doesn’t speak for the McCain campaign. After distracting him with a bowl of pablum they’ll “remind” the old gaffer that his real choice was someone who will throw red meat to the Base.

  • Racer X

    says:

    Please, please, PLEASE pick a pro-choice VP. Might as well pick a gay Republican like Charlie Crist*.

    Without the fundies he’s got left, he’s toast.

    * or so they say 🙂

  • Racer X

    says:

    Something tells me the McCain team is having a really hard time with this whole VP thing, and that they’ll probably end up rolling out some unknown numbnut like Quayle or someone with a criminal record because they were too busy squabbling to do background checks or proper polling.

    The train wreck that is the McCain campaign hasn’t missed many opportunities to screw the available pooches, I’d say this could be the mother of all pooches.

    If there is a God, it’ll be Lieberman. Doesn’t believe in Jesus, supports abortion rights, and kissed Bush on national TV. He’s perfect.

  • jibeaux

    says:

    Well, just to make sure Gregorio shows up to harass and ridicule me for having the temerity to express opinions on the commentary section of a blog, I’ll go on record as also being for supporting criminal charges against people who commit crimes on pregnant women that also harm their viable fetuses/babies. A woman around here, 8.5 months pregnant, was killed last year with the killer still at large. No reason in the world why, if he’s found, he shouldn’t be charged with two counts of murder. No pro-choice/pro-life axe to grind about it for me, but I’m a mom and my kids at 8.5 months of gestation were definitely babies, and it is generally accepted in civil law that a viable fetus is just as good as a person, too.

  • libra

    says:

    […] and I’m not trying to equivocate here […] — McCain

    Of course not! Why bother? Equivocations are for people who try to maintain a semblance of a *coherent and consistent* position on various subjects. For people like John Sidney (the Third and Least), who have an entirely new (or recycled) position every 24hrs, equivocation is a waste of effort and energy. And you can’t afford wasting anything, when you reach “a certain age”; you never know *what* the next day will bring, or even *if*, Because, when you think of it, John Sidney is already living on borrowed time, having exceeded his alloted three score and ten.

  • Dennis-SGMM

    says:

    The Caped Composer said:

    It won’t be Lieberman. Holy Joe wants to be SecDef.

    Aw, c’mon. Holy Joe is the ideal Republican VP candidate. He’s sycophantic, two-faced, willing to say anything, and he supports a constituency that didn’t vote him in. The End Times fundies would be delirious with joy at a Lieberman pick.

  • William

    says:

    Slightly off topic (forgive me) but my car is sporting the “Save marriage; Vote No on Prop 8” sticker. Ha ha ha ha ha! Using the Repugnic*nt tactics against the fundies! I noticed several drivers who looked confused in my rear view mirror. Regardless, this is the last time I’m getting gay married so overturned or not, the State of California is not going to see another dime from me for a gay marriage license. Oh yeah, Tom Ridge (inventor of the terror color swatch!) will do just fine. He has experience from his stint over at Fatherland Security too! McTrollop/Ridge 0-wait!

  • Chad

    says:

    NO, NO, NO, NO, NO,NO.

    If he wants any chance of winning this election, he will not pick a pro-lifer, or a dumbocrat. McCain is already treading on thin ice as it is with the conservatives. All he has going for him now is that most people are either going to vote for Obama, or vote against Obama, which equals a vote for McCain. If he wants to keep that, he’ll pick a true-blue conservative to unify the party. Once he does that, game over, Obama loses.