If McCain's A Moderate, I'm The Easter Bunny

Funny how the right-wing echo chamber is reverberating in the mainstream media. Consider an article in Saturday's New York Times about the fast-fading presidential hopes of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. According to the article, Bloomberg's chances are "diminished by the success of Senator John McCain, a moderate candidate..." and because "Mr. McCain's centrist views" appeal to the same people that Bloomberg had hoped to attract.

Moderate? Centrist? Is this the same John McCain whose voting record and views since his election to the Senate in 1986 have consistently been conservative, even reactionary?

During the past year, right-wing opinion-makers and politicians -- including Rush Limbaugh and other radio talk-show hosts, the Religious Right leaders like James Dobson, and the Romney and Huckabee campaigns -- kept repeating the mantra that McCain was a "liberal." In her New York Times column last week, Gail Collins, trying to figure out how these adults could be so worked up about McCain, concluded, correctly: "These people are nuts."

This seems like a reasonable description of Limbaugh, Dobson and their ilk. But how do we account for the reporters on Collins' own paper, plus the rest of the establishment press, who continue to define McCain as a moderate and a centrist, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary?

Indeed, McCain keeps insisting that he's a conservative, a "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution," but the right-wing attack machine has so far prevailed in defining him otherwise. Exit polls showed that evangelical and conservative voters were more favorable to Romney and Huckabee. Now McCain, the likely GOP nominee, is trying to win them back. He's not worried that they'll vote next November for Obama or Clinton (as Ann Coulter has threatened to do as a protest against McCain), but that they'll stay home on Election Day.

Eventually, most of the right-wing fanatics will make peace with McCain, and may even contribute to the 527 political groups that, allegedly independent of McCain's official campaign, will embark on a mud-slinging campaign against Obama or Clinton like they Swift-Boated John Kerry in 2004.

But, as Ari Berman wrote in an article, "The Real McCain" in The Nation two years ago (December 15, 2005), "McCain has always been far more conservative than either his supporters or detractors acknowledge." On foreign and military policy, economic policy (like taxes, aid to the poor, and regulating business to protect consumers, workers and the environment), and issues like abortion and gay rights, McCain has consistently taken conservative positions. In recent years, he has co-sponsored a handful of bills with Democrats on immigration reform and campaign finance reform, that violated GOP orthodoxy, and cast an occasional vote (for example, initially opposing Bush's tax cuts for the rich, a position he has now reversed) that fueled the right-wing's over-reaction. But these votes are rare exceptions, hardly indications that McCain would govern from the center.

These rare votes, however, have considerable weight in the National Journal's ratings of senators on the conservative-liberal dimension. During his first decade in the Senate, McCain consistently scored in the 80s (100 being the most conservative). In the late 1990s, as he began thinking about running for president, he cast a few votes that broke ranks with the Republican party line and reduced his overall conservative ranking, but he still scored in the low- and mid-60s.

The nonprofit nonpartisan group Project Vote Smart compiles the ratings of various interest groups on its website, along with each congressmember's key votes on each major issue. Consumer and environmental groups, civil liberties groups, labor unions, groups that advocate for women's rights, groups that voice the concerns of small family farmers, and groups that advocate for public schools, children, and the poor consistently give McCain low marks. Even the Disabled American Veterans gave McCain a bare-bones 20 percent rating in 2006, the most recent scorecard. In contrast, groups representing big business and social conservatives (such as the American Conservative Union) rank McCain among their loyal supporters.

These rankings and votes are public information and available on-line to even the laziest reporter, as are news clippings about McCain's membership in the Keating 5 scandal in the 1980s (senators caught in a web of corruption that involved lobbying federal bank regulators to lay off Charles Keating, a campaign contributor whose savings-and-loan company was under investigation).

But, with some exceptions, the mainstream media have given McCain a free pass, allowing his right-wing opponents to define him as a moderate, without scrutinizing his record. Perhaps because McCain is a somewhat avuncular, charming, grandfatherly guy with a sense of humor who occasionally shows up on "The Daily Show," he doesn't come off as an angry right-wing curmudgeon. Perhaps because he cosponsored a handful of bills with Democrats, and occasionally broke ranks with GOP litmus tests, reporters think he's a real maverick. Or maybe reporters' love affair with McCain stems from the fact that he battled and beat cancer, or that he was a prisonor of war during the Viet Nam war.

But reporters would have to be on a different planet to not recognize that McCain's views on health care reform, global warming, and war put him solidly in the conservative camp. Yes, there are some Republican senators who have even higher conservative scores, showing how far right the party has moved in the past decade. But to call McCain a "centrist" or a "moderate" is to remove any meaning from those terms. In terms of what McCain would be like as President, think William McKinley, Herbert Hoover, and George W. Bush. His agenda would please the Chamber of Commerce and the social conservatives.

Between now and November, McCain will try to reposition his image to attract the independent and moderate voters he'll need to win the White House. The media, however, have a responsibility to report objectively about McCain's views, the corporate interests he has served, and his voting record, rather than simply echoing the spin of his own campaign or of the ultra-right. In that context, McCain remains today, as he's been his entire political career, far outside the American mainstream.

Comments

[charlesrfd2003]

We have McCain's mother to thank for reminding us how he supported the Bush.

We have his remark about staying in Iraq 100 years.

And did I hear him right, he wants to catch the guy that who tortured him in Vietnam and who he calls Fidel. McCain wants to try him and imprison him. He is another Republican with a revenge agenda.

Let us call John, INSANE MC CAIN.

[raymundorassilon]

The question is whether American voters want a continuation of the Unitary Executive's UNBRIDLED and UNACCOUNTABLE, ILLEGAL USE of presidential power in the psychopathic John McCain who would undoubtedly carry on a Bush-influenced third term of republican FOLLY, or a COMPLETE and SWEEPING change to GET RID OF any foul miasma of Bush/Cheney's sulphurous stench of LAWBREAKING CRIMINALITY!

[SonnyBono]

Face it people, John McCain is and always has been a conservative - he only gets the maverick label because at certain times, the Republican position on issues would make even a goat gag. So Johnnie votes against it - as with torture - but then he remembers that he desperately wants to be president so he swallows what's left of his pride and he goes along. By that time, the media (ah, those liberal devils) will point and say - Look, John McCain is a maverick.

Anybody remember McCain's views on the Bush tax cuts - he was against them but then the Republican insiders reminded him about running for president and he "flip-flopped" just like Mitt would have done.

Funny - for a rugged individualist conservative like McCain - but has anyone noticed that he has always been on the public payroll -- Went to Annapolis, joined the navy - dumped the first wife for a younger, richer version and got elected to public office - has been on the government payroll since then and still talks the convervative BS. John, time to park the Straight Talk Express next to the Mission Accomplished banner.

[Bettysdad]

The whole effort by the lunatic fringe to portray McCain as "not a conservative" is an orchestrated endeavor to convince independents that he's safe to vote for; he's not another Bush.

We must portray this guy as the loon he is.

[Tulka2]

McCain is not a political animal is what the right-winger means when it is said he is a "moderate".

A political animal, will change her song daily in order to win. Not McCain, but McCain is so wacky-woo in his own way, that to make the point that he is not a political animal is completely moot. The GOP faithful are so used to men who will say any damn thing to get their own way, McCain seems reasonable, but reasonable, of course, is the one thing McCain is not. Pundits are confused and think moderate means taking a few unpopular views.

Mark Twain would have a lot to say about McCain's "moderation". I know this because of Twain's opinion about the stupidity of the South's idea of "honor". Twain blamed it on Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe_ which, along with the Bible, were typically the only two books in the ante-bellum southern home. Southern resentments about the loss of that war infect
military officers in this country to this day. Perhaps because generations of West Pointers and Navel officers re-live those battles over and over?

Anyway, when we lost the Viet Nam war too, bam, all those southern resentments about the Civil war transfered to the new sad, hopeless fiasco. Men like McCain have been fighting that war every day since. He wants to win in Viet Nam and before that he probably thought Robert E. Lee was an honorable, tragic figure too. Yikes.

We will fight these seminal "lost wars" of our nation all over again if it's McCain/Huckabee. It will be no accident that the south will vote for this ticket. Here we go again. Doesn't it seem as if the Civil war never ended?

[Mormondude]

Ah, so McCain-Lieberman is a right wing approach to Global Warming?

You need to fire your fact checker.

[scooperss]

If mccain's a moderate, I'll lay an egg.

[Timma]

To all you bloglanders saying Clinton is a liberal - You're nuts! Clinton's campaign at this moment isn't going so smoothly. Clinton will do anything - as is quintessential Clinton style - to get the nomination. Including creating whole cloth fiction about her leanings. To get better turn out Clinton has to appear more liberal.

Trouble is she also needs the moderate and independent voters just like McCain. Beside the point, Clinton has supported almost everything with the WHite House imprimatur.

Clinton's a liberal like McCain's a moderate. If Clinton's a liberal, surely the Easter Bunny's real.

[RogerHWerner]

Compared to McCain, Clinton is a liberal but the definitions of liberal and conservative are practically meaningless. What was once merely liberal today looks socialist and what was once conservative seems centrist. In truth, Bill Clinton was right of Nixon and it was Bush I and Clinton that brought the Reagan revolution to near fruition. Hillary is a centrist but she appears somewhat left of her husband on social issues while a Neoliberal on like Bill foreign affairs.

The bar has moved so far to the right that what once once liberal seems downright revolutionary. This happened to conservatives during the New Deal era: Progressive liberal politics were so entrenched that Ike and his fellow Republicans didn't dare propose moving to the right. Centrist Democrats can't bring themselves to move left because they have spent much of their careers seeking a center and now that the bar has swung to the left they can't seem to find their footing. Clinton appears liberal because she understands the bar has moved. You'll recall she took a very liberal position on health care a while back and got her head handed to her: The woman's not stupid and doesn't intend to let it happen again. I don't think she comprehended the magnitude of the left shift caused by Bush. It may be too late for her.

[apogee2perogee]

Persuasive and well-written. That said, I think an important observation is the republican spinmeister's and party role in this. I think they are trying to brand McCain centrist so they can avoid the frame that would appear when he lost: that conservatism has been repudiated by McCain's loss. They are worried they will receive this treatment from the dem spinmeisters precisely because it is what the repukes have and would do themselves to the term liberal. They are making these decisions in light of the fact that so far democrats have turned out 50% more voters in the primaries and caucuses.

[dsbsh]

And let's not forget the complete BS claim that the Supreme Court is "evenly divided between the four liberals and the four conservatives, with Kennedy as the moderate center." We have four moderates, a conservative, and four far-right movement conservatives. And that court is at the top of an extremely conservative federal judiciary made up of 70% Republican appointees. This matters because, consistent with his conservative record, McCain is on record wanting more of the same.

[ld]

All right, those of us that have followed McCain since the Keating Five know he's very right-wing.

Can I have some chocolate eggs anyway?

[RogerHWerner]

Of course he's a hard conservative. The only reason the man has this gold plated rep as a maverick is owing to his willing to buck the party and vote once in a while with Democrats. So, they have labeled him a centrist. All this goes to prove is the conservative penchant for not compromising not even with one of their own, which begs the question why do Democrats expect conservatives to compromise on anything when their idea of compromise is to walk away if they don't get what they want. This has been the big problem for the DLC, Pelosi, and Reid. They just don't seem to get it: The way the GOP plays is heads or tales, we win.

[lisakaz]

He's been a rabid warhawk. These neo-cons are drunk on their Kool-Aid. Seems to me all one has to say is: If you like Iraq and think Bu$h was a great president, vote McCain. If you don't, vote for me.

[apogee2perogee]

That does it for me. My simplest and dominant motivations are exactly those. I think the war in Iraq is a waste. Worse yet, it has had a host of predictable negative consequences and will continue to generate negative consequences even after our departure. Bush and his entire administration are a trainwreck.

All that I need to know to vote for a Democrat, and a Democrat only.

[Garvagh]

John McCain sees US military power as the solution to problems in the Middle East when the intervention of the US is itself the largest part of the problem. A committed militarist, his election to the presidency in the wake of Bush would be a catastrophe for this country.

[Kundera]

Excellent. Thanks for doing the Republican's job. Call him conservative all you want. Way to rally the conservative base. Dems: always working hard to defeat themselves.

[Citizen54]

It's all part of the mediapolitical narrative: McCain is a moderate who will keep us safe. Note all the talk about how "conservatives" don't like McCain... all part of the campaign to make McCain look okay to "moderates."
And remember: "centrist" no longer means what it used to mean because the "center" has been shifted to the right. There are no leftists in our government, and certainly none of the Democrats are true leftists.

[DrJ]

John McCain not conservative enough? Well that’s certainly quite obvious from his comments on religion, religious tests, and other matters dear to the heart of the Republican Christian Right as cited by The National Jewish Democratic Council (January 8, 2008(http://www.njdc.org/issues/detail.php?id=767&iss=3), don’t you think? “ … the Christian right has a major role to play in the Republican Party” [New York Times, 4/3/06]; McCain stated that a candidate’s Christian faith is “an important characteristic” for a president, that he would prefer a Christian president and that the "Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation," and that "America is a Christian nation, and it is hardly a controversial claim" [The New York Sun, October 1, 2007]; The Arizona Daily Star reported that McCain "sided with the president" on "teaching intelligent design in schools;" McCain "told the Star that, like Bush, he believes 'all points of view' should be available to students studying the origins of mankind; McCain has endorsed an Arizona ballot initiative that banned both gay marriage and civil unions by writing discrimination into the Arizona constitution (Arizona Republic 1//8/06); on his campaign bus in March of 2000 Sen. John McCain told reporters, "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3/2/00); in November, 2007 a John McCain supporter in South Carolina asked him "How do we beat the bitch” in reference to Senator Hillary Clinton. Senator McCain response was to laugh and respond "That's an excellent question" (New York Times 11/14/07); In an April 16, 2007 letter to Service member’s Legal Defense Network (SLDN), McCain stated that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy instituted in 1993, “unambiguously maintains that open homosexuality within the military services presents an intolerable risk to morale, cohesion and discipline.” [http://www.sldn.org/templates/press/record.html?record=3877§ion=2].
Steven Jonas, MD, Portions of this text have previously appeared in column No. 177 of mine for The Political Junkies.net, January 23, 2008

[AnninCA]

I'm just now learning more about McCain, because of the Democratic mess.

He echoes much of my own "important stuff," except on the war.

My Gen-X son is talking to me. We are all Clinton supporters in my family, including him. He's very much going to work on me not to support McCain because he's a hawk.

I'm just now even paying attention. I figure, frankly, a dead Democrat could beat them in the Fall.

But now? With the primary race being so very offensive to long-term Democrats?

I'm listening.

And reading.

He is definitely OK by me in terms of abortion rights, economic issues, and other key platform point.

So who knows. This is the year of change, right?

I may vote Republican.

One of my key reasons was disgust against the slime machine. Turns out? My Democratic party is doing that number on Hillary, so I guess that reason to not vote Republican is dead in the water. Heck, this primary was worse than the real deal.

So I'm open to McCain.

[Phaedrusnyc]

Your comment is measured and polite, so I have no interest in "sliming" you. But I am curious- if McCain's policies on abortion rights and economic issues matches your own, why exactly have you been voting Democratic up until now?

[Ides]

I told you you weren't a Liberal but you didn't believe me. Good to see you've found your true calling.


By the way, that wasn't meant as an insult, just a follow-up to an observation I've previously made.

[Phaedrusnyc]

Confused- are you speaking to me or AnninCA? Of course I'm a liberal- I wouldn't touch McCain with a 9 1/2-foot-pole.

[SocialistDistortion]

Go ahead and vote for McCain if you want, but when you do and when he takes office next year, do me a favor. Send me a postcard from Iraq when you or one of your loved ones gets drafted, and tell me if your vote for Johnny McPain was worth it then.

Hope you like sweltering, arid climates year round...