The once and future John McCain
While the Washington Post's John Harris hypes a future Hillary Clinton candidacy (which, for the record, I don't believe will ever come to pass), the New Yorker's Connie Bruck (article not currently available online) did the honours last week for the other side's 2008 Everyone-Assumes-He's-the-Frontrunner, John McCain.
Erza Klein thinks the most interesting bit in Bruck's long, admiring article is the revelation that Gary Bauer endorsed McCain in the 2000 primary because he couldn't wring a promise from Governor Bush to litmus test Supreme Court nominations on abortion, an anecdote that, Ezra notes, jibes quite well with the "revelations" from those Doug Weed tapes released not long after the 2004 election. (Those were the tapes on which nice-guy Bush swears to his comfidante and to his hidden cassette recorder that he won't ever fire gay people just for being gay etc etc.)
There are two details in Bruck's piece that struck me as more interesting than that anecdotal testiment to Bush's personal liberalism (not that the fact of Bush's personal liberalism -- and it really is a weird sort of liberalism, not "compassionate conservatism" -- isn't interesting in itself). The first interesting detail is the observation in passing that McCain was diagnosed with melanoma -- operable, now in remission -- in July of 2000. That means that, had McCain been the Republican nominee that year, he almost certainly would have lost the election* (more ominously, he might not have had the cancerous growth diagnosed in time to remove it had he been in a heat of a presidential campaign). A McCain loss to Gore not only would have ended McCain's national ambitions, but it would likely have been viewed by the Republican establishment -- particularly its theocon base -- as yet another example of the party selling out to the Washington "liberal" elite. McCain, afterall, was a media darling from the moment he declared his candidacy. He was the candidate of William Kristol and the Beltway-neocon Weekly Standard; even The New Republic broke its Democrat-Only tradition and endorsed his primary bid. McCain's candidacy almost certainly would have provoked a more aggressive campaign from Pat Buchanan whose would-be high-profile supporters on the nativist far right opted to be practical and support Bush. And, in the wake of his loss (especially the symbolism of his being smote with cancer in his bid against the heir to Clinton decadence), the reverb from the Buchanan-Falwell right might well have been enough to split the Republicans in a very serious way, possible forcing them to nominate someone far more embarrassing than Bush in 2004 and driving the party's moderates toward the arms of the New Democrats.
Of course that's all speculation. But it's interesting when you remember that, after the New Hampshire primary, McCain looked like he might well win the GOP nomination until he angered the theocon right by complaining of Jerry Falwell's and Pat Robertson's "evil influence" on the Republican Party, provoking their enthusiastic aid in push-polling McCain's candidacy into the ground before the crucial South Carolina primary. But the other, more interesting, aspect of Bruck's article concerns McCain's future rather than his (and our) past. Bruck dishes (gently, in that wonderfully earnest New Yorker style) plenty of dirt about McCain's relationship with John Kerry and the Kerry campaign's early and persistent overtures to McCain to form a bipartisan ticket (extensive courting that, of course, Kerry's campaign has always officially but unconvincingly denied). Essentially, Bruck implies that McCain reached a (maybe tacit) agreement with his own party's leadership not only to reject Kerry's offer, but to lend his much-needed impremateur to Bush's reelction campaign instead, in return for the chance to establish his own indispensibility and to achieve a rapprochement with the official Republican establishment. Bruck writes:
In a footnote that seems to capture the new spirit of amity between the White House and the once renegade Senator, [McCain aide] Weaver -- blacklisted no longer -- is McCain's liaison to the White House. McCain aides even talk enthusiastically about Karl Rove helping McCain in 2008. And his supporters have been observing this rapporchement with delight. In the months since the [2004] campaign, Ken Duberstein, a Republican lobbyist who supported McCain in 2000, told me, "John has continued to be one of Bush's strongest supporters. I think he has been quite careful. He's making all the right moves." (Emphasis mine)
Rove working for McCain in 2008? It boggles the mind, but it's not entirely inconceivable. The Republicans are a political party, after all. They want, above all else, to hang onto power. And McCain remains a popular figure outside of the extreme right even if his proximity to Bush during the 2004 campaign succeeded in grossing out liberals who wouldn't be likely to vote for him anyway. The broad swathe of Americans may be very tired of the meddling, statist extreme right by 2008 (sort of like they were tired of the meddling, statist New Democrats in 2000). McCain could stand as both an alternative, a reprove, to the Republicanism of "saving" Terri Schiavo and destroying the judicial filibuster, and to the usual Democratic social license that all Republicans must effectively oppose in presidential elections.
There's lots to dislike about John McCain -- the way his brand of Barry Goldwater conservatism has come to define "moderation" in today's Washington; the overemphasis he induces on biography and personal quirks like "Straight Talk" rather than actual substance (at times in 2000, McCain didn't seem to know his own tax plan); the media fawning he receives that continues to produce pieces like this one (and much worse) even from ostensible liberals. On the other hand, a McCain candidacy would offer liberals a few bones. McCain has, for instance, become an apparently dedicated convert to the problem of climate change, an issue so demagogued by both the left and (especially) the faux-science right that no liberal-IDed politician will be able to touch it in the near future, but that McCain's conservative bonafides might well allow him to tackle as president. He'll also continue to piss off the Rush Limbaughs and Jerry Falwells of American politics, which both makes him defeatable by a good Democratic candidate and offers the solstace that his victory would prove that the Republicans can win without the hard right's toxic help. And, of course, if he does manage to come back in 2008, with Karl Rove's help (!), he will have proven himself the ultimate survivor. You can't help but admire that, at least a little.
* Polling digression: actually, I've always doubted that McCain would have beat Gore in the 2000 election even without a cancer diagnosis. The exit polls from that election show that, among the 9% of first-time voters, Gore won by 9 points, but that among the 13% of voters who didn't vote in the 1996 election (including those 9% of first-timers), Bush carried the day by 8 points. That means that the 4% of previous voters who stayed home in 1996 but turned out in 2000 voted heavily Republican. Would those voters really have turned out for McCain? Despite all the Nader talk among liberals, the polling evidence suggests that, at least since the rise of right wing talk radio in the 90s (and don't forget how much Rush Limbaugh loathes John McCain), Republican base voters are much more likely than Democratic base voters to punish their party for nominating a candidate they don't like, either by voting third party or by sitting on their hands.
Erza Klein thinks the most interesting bit in Bruck's long, admiring article is the revelation that Gary Bauer endorsed McCain in the 2000 primary because he couldn't wring a promise from Governor Bush to litmus test Supreme Court nominations on abortion, an anecdote that, Ezra notes, jibes quite well with the "revelations" from those Doug Weed tapes released not long after the 2004 election. (Those were the tapes on which nice-guy Bush swears to his comfidante and to his hidden cassette recorder that he won't ever fire gay people just for being gay etc etc.)
There are two details in Bruck's piece that struck me as more interesting than that anecdotal testiment to Bush's personal liberalism (not that the fact of Bush's personal liberalism -- and it really is a weird sort of liberalism, not "compassionate conservatism" -- isn't interesting in itself). The first interesting detail is the observation in passing that McCain was diagnosed with melanoma -- operable, now in remission -- in July of 2000. That means that, had McCain been the Republican nominee that year, he almost certainly would have lost the election* (more ominously, he might not have had the cancerous growth diagnosed in time to remove it had he been in a heat of a presidential campaign). A McCain loss to Gore not only would have ended McCain's national ambitions, but it would likely have been viewed by the Republican establishment -- particularly its theocon base -- as yet another example of the party selling out to the Washington "liberal" elite. McCain, afterall, was a media darling from the moment he declared his candidacy. He was the candidate of William Kristol and the Beltway-neocon Weekly Standard; even The New Republic broke its Democrat-Only tradition and endorsed his primary bid. McCain's candidacy almost certainly would have provoked a more aggressive campaign from Pat Buchanan whose would-be high-profile supporters on the nativist far right opted to be practical and support Bush. And, in the wake of his loss (especially the symbolism of his being smote with cancer in his bid against the heir to Clinton decadence), the reverb from the Buchanan-Falwell right might well have been enough to split the Republicans in a very serious way, possible forcing them to nominate someone far more embarrassing than Bush in 2004 and driving the party's moderates toward the arms of the New Democrats.
Of course that's all speculation. But it's interesting when you remember that, after the New Hampshire primary, McCain looked like he might well win the GOP nomination until he angered the theocon right by complaining of Jerry Falwell's and Pat Robertson's "evil influence" on the Republican Party, provoking their enthusiastic aid in push-polling McCain's candidacy into the ground before the crucial South Carolina primary. But the other, more interesting, aspect of Bruck's article concerns McCain's future rather than his (and our) past. Bruck dishes (gently, in that wonderfully earnest New Yorker style) plenty of dirt about McCain's relationship with John Kerry and the Kerry campaign's early and persistent overtures to McCain to form a bipartisan ticket (extensive courting that, of course, Kerry's campaign has always officially but unconvincingly denied). Essentially, Bruck implies that McCain reached a (maybe tacit) agreement with his own party's leadership not only to reject Kerry's offer, but to lend his much-needed impremateur to Bush's reelction campaign instead, in return for the chance to establish his own indispensibility and to achieve a rapprochement with the official Republican establishment. Bruck writes:
In a footnote that seems to capture the new spirit of amity between the White House and the once renegade Senator, [McCain aide] Weaver -- blacklisted no longer -- is McCain's liaison to the White House. McCain aides even talk enthusiastically about Karl Rove helping McCain in 2008. And his supporters have been observing this rapporchement with delight. In the months since the [2004] campaign, Ken Duberstein, a Republican lobbyist who supported McCain in 2000, told me, "John has continued to be one of Bush's strongest supporters. I think he has been quite careful. He's making all the right moves." (Emphasis mine)
Rove working for McCain in 2008? It boggles the mind, but it's not entirely inconceivable. The Republicans are a political party, after all. They want, above all else, to hang onto power. And McCain remains a popular figure outside of the extreme right even if his proximity to Bush during the 2004 campaign succeeded in grossing out liberals who wouldn't be likely to vote for him anyway. The broad swathe of Americans may be very tired of the meddling, statist extreme right by 2008 (sort of like they were tired of the meddling, statist New Democrats in 2000). McCain could stand as both an alternative, a reprove, to the Republicanism of "saving" Terri Schiavo and destroying the judicial filibuster, and to the usual Democratic social license that all Republicans must effectively oppose in presidential elections.
There's lots to dislike about John McCain -- the way his brand of Barry Goldwater conservatism has come to define "moderation" in today's Washington; the overemphasis he induces on biography and personal quirks like "Straight Talk" rather than actual substance (at times in 2000, McCain didn't seem to know his own tax plan); the media fawning he receives that continues to produce pieces like this one (and much worse) even from ostensible liberals. On the other hand, a McCain candidacy would offer liberals a few bones. McCain has, for instance, become an apparently dedicated convert to the problem of climate change, an issue so demagogued by both the left and (especially) the faux-science right that no liberal-IDed politician will be able to touch it in the near future, but that McCain's conservative bonafides might well allow him to tackle as president. He'll also continue to piss off the Rush Limbaughs and Jerry Falwells of American politics, which both makes him defeatable by a good Democratic candidate and offers the solstace that his victory would prove that the Republicans can win without the hard right's toxic help. And, of course, if he does manage to come back in 2008, with Karl Rove's help (!), he will have proven himself the ultimate survivor. You can't help but admire that, at least a little.
* Polling digression: actually, I've always doubted that McCain would have beat Gore in the 2000 election even without a cancer diagnosis. The exit polls from that election show that, among the 9% of first-time voters, Gore won by 9 points, but that among the 13% of voters who didn't vote in the 1996 election (including those 9% of first-timers), Bush carried the day by 8 points. That means that the 4% of previous voters who stayed home in 1996 but turned out in 2000 voted heavily Republican. Would those voters really have turned out for McCain? Despite all the Nader talk among liberals, the polling evidence suggests that, at least since the rise of right wing talk radio in the 90s (and don't forget how much Rush Limbaugh loathes John McCain), Republican base voters are much more likely than Democratic base voters to punish their party for nominating a candidate they don't like, either by voting third party or by sitting on their hands.
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