McCain: The Immoderate Maverick

Since John McCain emerged as the Repuliblican front-runner, conservative Republicans have been staggering through the stages of grief. James Dobson remains in denial. Rush Limbaugh, in character, is apoplectically enraged. CPAC organizers are instructing the faithful not to boo McCain's speech today. The inimitable Grover Norquist has smoothly sailed from bargaining to acceptance -- in time to do more bargaining, presumably.

Schadenfreude aside, it would be wrong to conclude that McCain's victory spells the end of conservative rule. The enemy of my enemy, in this case, is not my friend.

"Maverick McCain" is hardly the centrist moderate that a hostile conservative movement and a friendly press corps portray him to be. McCain proudly and rightly boasts that he is a true conservative. And he is.

Why the disjuncture between the image and the reality? The answer lies in the confusion of meaning generated by the three adjectives most commonly used to describe McCain: maverick, independent, and moderate.

McCain's undeserved reputation as a moderate rests almost exclusively on his independent streak, on maverick actions against the dictates of conservative leaders. True, there are a few issues on which McCain has broken substantively with the conservative movement. His principled condemnation of torture and Guatanamo, and his advocacy of humane immigration reform are positions that put him in the American mainstream. He's distanced himself from the wacky right by acknowledging that global warming is real. But, for the most part, McCain has earned the Right's enmity for bucking their directives, not for going against party orthodoxy.

For reasons of temperament and principle, McCain has often refused to be commanded by the unelected leaders of the conservative movement. For example, McCain is a fiscal conservative who supports tax cuts and cuts in social spending, but he has never signed Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform's no-tax pledge. Since Bush senior broke that pledge -- remember "Read my lips, no new taxes" -- few Republicans have dared to thumb their nose at Norquist so brazenly as McCain has. When conservative interest groups demanded McCain drop restrictions on issue advertising from campaign finance reform, he rebuffed them. The National Rifle Association and anti-abortion groups want to pay him back for that. The Christian right is having difficulty finding forgiveness in their hearts for McCain's denunciation of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance" in the 2000 campaign.

The pervasive misunderstanding of McCain will pose a special challenge to the Democratic nominee and down-ticket Democratic candidates in the general election competition for independents and real moderates. True, McCain is a different kind of conservative Republican, one more independent of the conservative movement than most Republican politicians of the Bush era. But make no mistake. If elected, McCain will govern as a conservative. Because he will run on his reputation as a maverick, and because he is not a run-of-the-mill rightwinger, he won't be easy to dismiss. To make the case against a McCain presidency, Democratic candidates and progressive bloggers will need to be smarter, more subtle, and less inflamed by partisan loathing of the right. First, they will need to report on and analyze his conservative record. (NARAL has a good entry on this today in "Myth of the "Moderate Maverick'") Second, they should turn the spotlight on McCain's courtship of the right and the promises he has made to them.

McCain deserves to be accorded respect for the service he has given to this country, for his defense of American principles against the prevailing opinion in his party, and for his few moments of political courage. The nation deserves an honest appraisal of McCain's bedrock conservatism and the potential consequences of the conservative policies he will undoubtedly advance if elected.

Comments

[IndependentMeans]

He is so over. He is so old. I could not vote for him at his age.

[JimR]

My hometown of Springfield, MA just emerged from the brink of bankruptcy thanks to two terms from a former mayor who worked long hours with enthusiastic energy to turn the city around. He turned over control to the new mayor last month.

He is 80 years old.

What a bunch of crap.

[sweetsue]

If legions of Obama supporters stay home because Clinton won the nomination, then they are, indeed, cultists and not rational voters.

[cynubie]

Yes Ms. Cohen,
But what of Charles Keating? The same manner in which "the Hon." Mr. McCain hugged Dubya at the 2000 RNC was also utilized for Mr. Charles Keating--you remember Chuck, no porn, but graft and corruption were fine. Mr. Keating liked to tell depositors their money was insured when it wasn't. Mr. Keating was also a very big supporter of McCain.
But what of J. Fife Symington. Symington worked a little scam using state employee trust money in helping him develope the Mercado in Phoenix. Why is this important? He didn't have permission--he essentially embezzeled it. Why bring it up in relation to John McCain? He gave the opening speech to open the strip mall, he made guarantees as to Mr. Symington's solvency. John has a real enrapturement of rich people--like shiny objects.
Ms. Cohen, when the real record of John McCain is brought up, it will be obvious to anyone who can read a USA TODAY pie chart that any questioning of Mr. McCain will have to include how he managed to keep his campaign afloat. Though I would rather he come clean about the Abramoff scandal too! Just because he listened to a 1/3 of his constituents (alot of Hopi, Apache, Navajo in AZ!) and started the ball rolling on dear Jack, it's time for dear John to explain all the charges.
Respectfully submitted,
Francis Jens Erickson

[lungfish]

McCain's commentary about Rove recently was enough to make me, an Independant, ill. His comments about occupying Iraq for 100years also were repulsive. His shifting commentary now that he is a candidate implies an almost textbook example of flip-flopping.
I have said elsewhere that I would vote for a dung beetle before I would vote for a GOP anything. The GOP attempts at revisionism, including obfuscation and lying are at the root of my repulsion and they can't fix it.
The Dems really don't deserve my support either and if I could find a way to vote that would hurt both parties I would.
The fact is that the war and the surge is a failure. Torture and secret prisons and Guantanamo are an affront to American principles. The refusal of the Executive branch and the DOJ to accept Congressional oversight and the fundamental destruction of the balance of power between the three branches of gov by the GOP are bad enough...
Lets look at it this way:
The GOP came on board after a contested election to a balanced budget with a surplus, a stable and growing economy, an acceptable American presence on the global stage, a GOP Congress and everything they needed to turn their time at bat into a glowing home run. And they blew it so badly that it defies belief.
A war in Iraq that was founded on lies and manufactured intelligence. A complete failure to capture Osama bin Laden and co. Hundreds of thousands of dead civilians and Americans with no end in sight and a boost to the Jihadist movement that was beyond their wildest dreams....­etc., etc....

Why would anyone vote for a GOP offering? McCain is proving to be nothing but a neo-Neocon and they are all slapping him on the back apparently, because if their guy gets in office he can take the heat off of them if the Dems manage to hold them accountable for anything..­.

Nope, wouldn't vote GOP if it was the ONLY choice on the ballot.

[mamacat]

Sen. McCain looks good only in comparison to Pres. Bush.
It is not enough to be against accepting torture as official government policy, although that decision does show moral background. There are a number of issues, from health care, to reinstating progressive taxation, to imperialism as an acceptable foreign policy tool, on which he is not an acceptable candidate. Compared to either Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton, he looks like a poor choice indeed.

[Rockyman]

An "honest appraisal" of the "new" McCain is a candidate who is suffering amnesia...­.or dementia! He is absolutely selling out to the regressive wing of the party. He has lost any chance. In a debate with either Obama or Clinton his mantra will be "the terrorists are coming"...­."I can better protect America"..­.."surge working"..­..."make tax cuts for the rich permanent". NOT a winning strategy!

[Researchguy66]

It strikes me that the McCain you describe may not be the one you'd prefer, but he quite likely is the candidate that can get 50% to 55% of the popular vote and an electoral victory to go with it.

The Hillary/Obama debate is futile precisely because neither one can actually win the election against McCain. I'd prefer to be wrong, but I have a sense that the Denocrats will do everything they can to condescend to anyone who goes to church, performs some type of manual labor for a living, who dare demand that people behave like decent humans in public. In that, we lose the election yet again.

[ScienceLady]

It sounded like you were trying to imply that that going to church is required to be a decent human in public. Stop making this connection. It's condenscending.

[Chewelahboy]

Is Senator McCain the Repulican Front Runner or the Republican Fall Guy?

His only hope would seem to be that the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton and the legions of Obama supporters stay home. I do agree with your characterization of Senator McCain.