June 16, 2008
Will someone please tell John McCain that he has already secured the Republican Presidential nomination? He doesn’t seem to have trouble acknowledging this during talk shows. Nevertheless, many of his positions on the important issues in this election contradict those we would expect to hear (and those we have heard in the past) from John McCain. Arianna Huffington summed it up best, with her proclamation that the John McCain of 2000 is not a candidate in this election. McCain seems to be stuck on winning over the Rovian “base”. This may be the result of the favoritism extended to Willard “Mitt” Romney by Fox News and the “hard right” talk radio punditry during primary season. The primary season is over now. So, why does McCain continue to campaign as though he is still trying to win over the hearts of the most conservative Republicans, rather than win over the independents and undecided Democrats?
His critics call him “McBush” and the candidate for “the third Bush term” because he is pledging support for most of the current policies of what has become the most unpopular Presidential administration in modern times. Most would have assumed that after securing the Republican nomination, McCain would have moved back to the center, reflecting the positions of the moderate “maverick” we knew from the past. However, the current incarnation of John McCain is heading toward the far right spectrum of the Republican ranks in the belief that this is the best route to The White House. His traveling companions have been two faces we now regularly see in the news. One is Joe “The Tool” Lieberman. Joe hopes to bring him some support from independent voters, despite the fact that Lieberman sold his soul to Bush, Cheney and Rove in 2006. The second is Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the most likely choice as McCain’s running mate. The choice of Graham would reinforce the obviousness of McCain’s tack to the right at a point in the campaign when conventional wisdom would seem to suggest the opposite move.
Beyond his support for the unpopular Iraq war, McCain is now ready to revitalize Bush’s failed attempt to “privatize” Social Security, as depicted in a CNN report from June 13. A report by Charlie Savage in the June 6 New York Times, discussed how McCain’s current view, supporting Bush’s wiretaps, contradicts the view expressed by McCain to The Boston Globe six months earlier. Although McCain previously opposed the Bush tax cuts as skewed to benefit the wealthy, he now favors extending those cuts. Most recently, as disclosed by neoconservative Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, McCain and Lindsey Graham are plotting to subvert the recent Supreme Court decision protecting the habeas corpus rights of “enemy combatants” with the introduction of legislation to create a “national security court”. ¡Viva Guantánamo! This legislation would be introduced on the heels of a June 15 report by Tom Lasseter of McClatchy Newspapers that “dozens of detainees” at Guantanamo have been imprisoned by the U.S. on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence.
Much of the criticism directed against McCain’s campaign has concerned the slim turnouts at his rallies, his speech delivery and his failure (or unwillingness) to keep economic issues on the front burner. Although quite a bit of criticism has questioned his ability to carry “the base” in November, precious little has been focused on how he expects to win over “undecided” voters and those from the center. McCain has to face up to the fact that “the base” has no other alternative than to vote for him. If he expects to win the election, he would be wise to distance himself from the policies of the Bush administration, rather than cling to them as some sort of political life-raft.