{"id":9975,"date":"2007-02-19T14:00:35","date_gmt":"2007-02-19T19:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9975.html"},"modified":"2007-02-19T14:00:35","modified_gmt":"2007-02-19T19:00:35","slug":"which-mccain-is-the-real-one-on-abortion-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/which-mccain-is-the-real-one-on-abortion-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Which McCain is the real one on abortion rights?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McCain raised a few eyebrows over the weekend when he told<\/a> a large South Carolina audience, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”<\/p>\n

Now, as Carpetbagger regulars know, McCain has been all over the map<\/a> on this one. During his first presidential campaign, in 2000, McCain told reporters that “in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade<\/a>.” By the time he started running for the 2008 nomination, he’d reversed course and said the exact opposite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shameless flip-flopping notwithstanding, it’s only natural to wonder which McCain is the real McCain. One of the two contradictory positions is\/was obviously a lie, but which one?<\/p>\n

I think Scott Lemieux gets it right today when he argues<\/a> the new McCain is stating the senator’s actual beliefs.<\/p>\n

Given the unpopularity of his position, though, when it comes to forced pregnancy it should be pointed out that his record is in fact fundamentally consistent: he’s for it. He has a 0% NARAL rating. He’s never met a federal abortion regulation he doesn’t like. He voted for Robert Bork, which would have meant Roe being overturned 15 years ago. He favors a constitutional amendment banning abortion. It’s true that he has said that he wouldn’t want his daughter forced by the state to carry a pregnancy to term, but basically all American social conservatism comes with an implicit self-exemption for rich white people, and John McCain’s daughter won’t have a problem obtaining a safe abortion if Roe is overturned.<\/p>\n

So while McCain made some egregious panders about abortion when running in a primary in which his major opponent already had the social conservative vote locked up, McCain is in fact a consistent supporter of criminalized abortion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Agreed. The 2000 McCain thought the politically expedient thing to do would be to run as a moderate and support Roe, so he did. But given what we know of McCain’s record, it was a cynical sham intended to fool voters. The new far-right McCain seems to be a reflection of what he really wants to do as president.<\/p>\n

Though, given McCain’s tendencies, it’s safe to assume that he’d gladly take the opposite position, if he thought it’d help him win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McCain raised a few eyebrows over the weekend when he told a large South Carolina audience, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.” Now, as Carpetbagger regulars know, McCain has been all over the map on this one. During his first presidential campaign, in 2000, McCain told reporters that “in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}