Meanwhile, I’m waiting for pro-life voters to remember this guy named John McCain. ~Matt Yglesias
In a different cycle, this might have actually happened. David Corn has made a similar proposal, arguing that McCain is in a good position because he is just marginal enough now that other candidates aren’t attacking him, but he has the credentials, at least “on paper,” to appeal to the party. Corn makes the good point that McCain should have reserves of support based on his views on the war and the political support he has lent the war over the years. I think he is grudgingly respected because of this among core Republican voters, but it doesn’t outweigh what they see as his flaws. “The answer is right in front of your face!” Corn declared to Republican voters, but I don’t think they are going to go that route. As Jim Pinkerton reminded Corn during that episode, immigration and campaign finance reform (important to the activists who have an outsized impact in Iowa) are the dealbreakers for McCain. Unlike Huckabee, whose immigration views are probably still not widely known, and unlike Giuliani, who can pretend that he cares about border security, McCain has been the standard-bearer for deeply unpopular immigration legislation and his allies (such as Graham) pushed for that legislation by denouncing the party base as racists. Being on the wrong side of the party on immigration is politically dangerous enough in the primaries this cycle, but McCain is prominently and inextricably linked with one of the most hated pieces of legislation of the last ten years. He might turn in a decent result in New Hampshire, given the role of independents in the primary and his history of popularity in that state, but the virtual consensus at the end of summer that he was finished was probably right.
P.S. Of course, I have had such a lousy track record this cycle of picking winners and losers that whenever I am ready to dismiss a candidate, he begins to make a comeback, and when I predict a candidate’s victory it is a sure sign of his impending doom. For instance, the RCP national average shows McCain gaining.
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December 5th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Koz
Campaign finance reform and immigration are bad enough, but that’s by no means exhaustive of McCain’s apostasies. There’s also, ANWR, global warming, taxes, and the Gang of 14 judges deal. On the plus side, he has been on the side of the angels on spending/earmarks/corruption, but largely ineffectual. He also gets a substantial amount of respect for stalwart support for the war.
All that aside, the Republican base can forgive a pol who, after all the sturm und drang, has to go the other way on a big issue. McCain’s problem is that he goes well past that. He just pisses on the base and just doesn’t care.
December 5th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Howard J. Harrison
This deep red, paleoconservative, right-wing, traditionalist Republican thinks John McCain dangerously out of touch with reality. In short, he’s a bit nuts. He is a fine American patriot and is safe enough to keep among 100 in the U.S. Senate, but he is not to be entrusted with the authority to launch nuclear missiles. Sorry. I would vote for Hillary Clinton first. I have posterity whom I want to survive. To suffer socialism would be better than to risk an unnecessary nuclear war.
What I think is of course unimportant. I shall leave it to you however to infer how many Republican primary voters detect the same, fundamental instability in John McCain’s character I detect. The typical Republican voter is pretty sober, though: one suspects that Mr. McCain’s support ceiling may be too low for him to carry the nomination under any circumstance. Not for the presidency. Not in the nuclear age. Mr. McCain seems twice or three times as unstable as Ross Perot ever did.
December 6th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Grumpy Old Man
Brave, principled, and (often) wrong.