Andrew McCarthy makes the case over at National Review:
Are John McCain’s supporters trying to drive conservatives away from their candidate?
Senator McCain is the inevitable Republican presidential nominee. He is headed, though, for a defeat of McGovernite dimensions if he can’t sway conservatives to get behind his candidacy. For their part, conservatives don’t want McCain, but even less do they want to spend the next four-to-eight years saying “President Obama,” let alone reliving history with another President Clinton.
In short, there are the makings here for a modus vivendi, however grudging. Yet, McCain’s admirers appear to think belittling the senator’s good-faith opponents is the way to go. Theirs is a case of the pot calling the kettle “deranged” — and it will prove duly futile.
Put yourselves in my shoes for a moment. I have not supported Sen. McCain. I admire his perseverance and love of country. Still, I don’t think he is a committed conservative, and his penchant for demonizing all opposition is, to me, extremely off-putting. Protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, there’s nothing delusional about that.
In fact, as between the two of us, it’s McCain’s supporters who are deluding themselves. I take them at their word, for example, that a hallmark of the senator’s politics is his tenacity on matters of principle. Consequently, I am skeptical of his assurances that he would appoint conservative judges who will apply rather than create law. Why? Because he has a recent, determined history of beseeching federal courts to disregard the First Amendment in furtherance of a dubious campaign-finance scheme in which he believes passionately. Conservative judges would (and have) rejected this scheme, just as they would (and have) rejected another signature McCain position: the extension of Geneva Convention protections for jihadists.
Now, the appointment of conservative judges is a crucial issue — one McCain posits as central to why we should prefer him to Obama and Clinton. Thus supporters breezily wave off such concerns, maintaining that McCain both promises there will be no issue-based litmus tests for judicial nominees and has conservatives of impeccable legal credentials advising him.
But for me to conclude McCain would surely appoint conservative judges, I also have to believe campaign-finance and the Geneva Convention weren’t all that big a deal to him after all — a possibility that runs counter to everything McCain’s fans tell us about his fidelity to principle. He’s fought tirelessly for years, in the teeth of blistering criticism, to establish campaign-finance regulations, and I’m now supposed to believe he’ll just shrug his shoulders and meekly name judges who’ll torpedo the whole enterprise — all in the name of upholding a judicial philosophy I’m not even sure he grasps? How exactly is it deranged to have my doubts?
Read the whole thing. McCarthy's piece is a rearranged litany of indictments against McCain.
We've heard it before.
But who does this help? Certainly not Mike Huckebee, who was the target of the irrational right around the time of his big win in the Iowa caucuses. Remember, Huck's the governor who wanted illegal aliens to attend college. Aghast, an open-borders recidivist!!
So what's McCarthy doing? He's turning the psychological tables.
Obviously, the arguments elucidating McCain Derangement Syndrome have been compelling, so the Malkin-tents and the Rush-bots need to fight fire with fire.
Sure, the GOP needs the base to win, but the anti-McCain forces seem to be the last ones to recognize it. So, what's it going to be for the Rush-bots: purity or victory.
That's what's at stake here. McCain's already conceded his faults and reached out to the party ideologues, with his speech last week at CPAC. Unfortunately, MDS is so chronic, many attending the convention can never look past the alleged McCain apostasies for the good of the party.
Is that smart, or clear-headed? Here's more from McCarthy:
There remains a rational case to continue rejecting McCain. We are, after all, electing a government, not just a president. I strongly suspect the conservative movement and Republicans in Congress would perform better if set against a Democrat president than in an uneasy alliance with McCain. Thus it’s not a simple matter of determining whether McCain is superior to Obama or Clinton; the question is whether he is so much better that we should tolerate the heavy cost of a movement and a party less disposed to fight a President McCain on the several flawed policy preferences he shares with Democrats.
That’s far from a no-brainer. But for me, the question must be resolved in McCain’s favor because of the war. Our troops in harm’s way deserve the best commander-in-chief we have it in our power to give them; the American people deserve the most vigilant protection against a rabid enemy we have it in our power to give them. For these purposes, McCain is measurably superior to Obama and Clinton. That doesn’t mean my reservations are any less real; they are just comparatively (and barely) less important.
So, that it? It's a no brainer that conservatives have a rational, principled position to take in continued oppostion of McCain? But in the next breath they have the easy out in backing the Arizona Senator because of the war.
Aha!! There it is, the Holy Grail!!
Base conservatives can continue to rail away at McCain's apostasies, while simultaneously they can concede that things must be resolved in favor of the war!
This is not estrangement, but further derangement. There's no such thing as the perfect Republican presidential candidate.
Reagan certainly wasn't.
Reagan amnestied 3 million illegals in 1986. Boy, that sure did improve the immigration situation, right? Conservatives don't talk so much about that. It's all McCain...
How about Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee? Kennedy's now the key swing vote on the Supreme Court, who for all intents and purposes is the larger threat to conservative judicial supremacy than a future McCain nominee.
No, the anti-McCainiacs aren't talking about all of this. They'll dig the knives deeper into McCain, in hopes of proving to the fanatical talk radio base that they've still got it - that they're not increasingly marginalized and irrelevent.
Consider this: The conservative base is, well, so "1990s."
That's right. Rush Limbaugh can claim true brilliance in helping the GOP come to congressional power in 1994, but now conservative talk radio and shock pundits like Ann Couter are increasingly seen as a conspiratorial fringe.
As Nicholas Confessore noted this weekend:
They [movement conservatives] still see themselves as indispensable kingmakers without whom no Republican can win the nomination, let alone the White House. As a result, Mr. McCain has emerged as a genuine threat. Should he win the nomination over their opposition after all, the kingmakers would be dethroned.
“What goes around comes around,” said Morris P. Fiorina, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University. “It’s a self-appointed establishment to a great extent, and I think all along they overestimated their own importance.”
Hmm...
Self-appointed, eh?
Whatever it is, pride, hubris, or delusion, the continued battle by the irrational right against John McCain damages the efforts of conservatives of all stripes to rally behind the GOP's presumptive nominee.
But maybe there's hope here, as McCarthy perhaps reveals the seeds of clarity in his argument. Perchance, with this prompt, anti-McCainiacs can start pumping up the benefits of a McCain presidency, while realizing that his conservative bona fides are just a strong as many of his great Republican predecessors.
Wait, don't get too excited about that prospect! See Michelle Malkin for more conservative battening down of the hatches.
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