He just recently was the only senator who didn’t show up for a vote on a version of the economic stimulus plan in which he would’ve been the deciding vote to break a filibuster, so I think “he bails” is probably a good bet, on both the torture bill and probably several other pieces of controversial legislation between now and the presidential election.
Republicans, despite popular Democrat belief, aren’t stupid. They see in McCain the only chance they have of retaining the White House. And they’re right; he’s their best shot by far and he could well pull it off (a feat I would have put beyond the power of any Republican candidate six months ago).
Though I’m not a registered Republican, I tend to vote that way most of the time (with some notable exceptions), so perhaps my opinion can add to the discussion.
I support McCain for two main reasons: he is a man of integrity, and he is a serious minded political professional. Both of these traits become evident by examining notable moments in his political career; for example the so-called “Gang of 14” controversy in which McCain helped avoid the jettisoning of years of legislative tradition by reaching across the aisle and compromising. This pissed off many, what I term as, Principle Conservatives, who seem to have an alacritous willingness to destroy and tear down anything that stands in the way of conservative principles, even if it means annihilating tools and traditions that could end up working for them in the future. I find this attitude to be juvenile and reckless.
I guess it could be said that I am a political realist, and I look for candidates that approach government like adults, with full realization that the economic, military, and cultural issues in a country this large and diverse will be complex and difficult, and will require a certain measure of realistic expectations and the willingness to compromise. Yet McCain still is able to hold onto his principles, even when they are unpopular with his “base”, such as his realistic approach to immigration reform, his opposition to earmarks, and campaign finance reform.
So to me he is a man with the best of both of these strong traits, he has solid principles and he sticks to them, yet he is wise enough to know that the good kind of change is accomplished by baby steps, that taking a wrecking ball to the house is not a good solution for fixing the clogged up sink.
As for how he has done so well in the primaries I’ve found this to be true of almost all of the other McCain supporting conservatives I know: We feel the party is starting to turn away from us lately. This is evident in the following ways:
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I was a regular listener to talk radio up until about a year ago (I liked Bill Bennett, Rush, and Hugh Hewitt, plus Medved when he did movie stuff). But, for some reason the illegal immigration issue took conservative media by storm about a year ago. It became a constant obsession, and the rhetoric turned into crazy talk very quickly, just an absolute irrational panic with some really hateful undertones. I stopped listening and I can’t foresee ever starting again. I just can’t relate at all to the discussions on talk radio these days. Yet compare this to the exit polling taken on Super Tuesday. Only 5% of Republican voters listed immigration as their top issue. So 99% of talk radio focuses on immigration while only 5% of Republicans are so concerned. There is a disconnect. McCain’s success proves that the screaming pundits aren’t speaking for us all, and we are using our votes to speak out.
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Bush has, for many of us, turned out to be mildly to terribly disappointing. McCain has (since the 2000 primary) been seen as a viable anti-Bush conservative, and has taken up that mantle several times in the past decade. Many Republicans, even supporters of Bush, see McCain as being able to rescue the image of the party from the taint of the Bush administration because of his perceived political independence.
P.S. – I see the term neoconservative used here in odd ways. I’ve always classified a neocon as one who mixes pro-intervention, hard line foreign policy with liberal domestic and cultural policy. I can’t imagine why anyone would think Rush Limbaugh to be a neocon.
They’ve hatched. I have no problem predicting a loss for McCain no matter who the Democratic nominee is. Yes, I suppose it’s possible Hillary Clinton could be photographed eating babies, or Barack Obama pushing old women down a flight of stairs, but it’s pretty clear McCain is going to lose, current superficial polling be damned.
I’m not saying people who hate Hillary will be cajoled into voting for her, but thet’re going to quickly run out of reasons to vote for McCain once the general election scrutiny starts–in other words they’ll stay home, skip the top of the ballot, or vote for a throwaway like Michael Bloomberg or this-year’s-Libertarian. Bush is a vastly unpopular president, with approval ratings in the post-Watergate Nixon range; the more McCain’s tied to the failed administration, the farther he falls. And does anyone really believe Iraq is going to be quiet this summer? Violence has gone down because Muqtada Al-Sadr has called an uneasy truce, and once that breaks we’re going to see American casualties increase. McCain will have a lot of trouble backing off his support for Bush’s “surge” (a Congressional renewal of that plan is coming up in July), and most likely will be spending much of the summer defending a failed war. And that’s his best issue.
McCain’s “maverick” and “straight talk” reputation are a favorite media narrative that don’t really hold up to scrutiny. He now champions making the Bush tax cuts permanent, but voted against them twice, and talks rather circuitously about those votes. He has taken contradictory positions on Senate ratification of the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty; a trifle to be sure, but he’s at odds with the anti-UN GOP base (note both cites are from conservative sources). Then there was that media event in Iraq a year ago, when he pretended to walk blithely around a Baghdad bazaar, but as the camera pulled back he was surrounded by at least a dozen heavily-armed US soldiers. And these are all things conservatives have said about him. I just don’t think the image is going to hold up when the Dems start poking at it, and if–as others on this thread suspect–he’s going to skip the waterboarding vote, he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do.
Trust me; when he gets challenged during the debates, he’s going to implode into the grumpy loose cannon we’ve seen flashes of (in re: the “bomb Bomb Iran” comment). I honestly don’t see any way he can win the general election.
OK. I was thinking more of those who are actually registered with a party. If you ask which way they lean or which way they vote, you’re going to get a lot fewer independents. After all, most everyone ends up voting Democrat or Republican, when it comes down to it.
True, but one of “those people”, or rather someone who was sold by his pitchmen as an acceptable approximation to one of “those people”, HAS been the visible head of the Republican body politic (and the national body politic) for 8 years now, with the assent of the GOP mainstreamers.
I welcome that the Republicans may be trying for something different… and I’m hoping Mac doesn’t do the expected thing, which would be to pick the Huckster as a VP candidate to “secure the South and the CC Base”. Find a nice, solid, **normal ** conservative 
for the VP spot.
And CJJ, I’m with What Exit?, we still only have a basket of eggs. …
And the “Straight Talk Express” changes his mind again. Clinton and Obama will pick this up and run with it…
What the fuck! Damn McCain, don’t pull a Rudy and run away from your strength. Actually, screw it, run away, I want Obama to win anyway. Stupidity like this will not help McCain’s campaign.
Jim
Here here. These clowns have had eight years to repudiate the failed boy-king. They aren’t allowed to walk away from him now–especially when they still support his petty veto threats in the Congress.
Yeah, good luck with that…Florida Govenor Jim Pawlente is probably his best choice–young, loyal campaigner, smart politician, and he hands McCain 25 electoral votes. Otherwise the pickings look thin–former PA GOv/DHS chief Tom Ridge is a possibility–and it really depends on McCain’s chances this summer. My prdiction is he ends up with a loony pick–Fred Thompson, or maybe taking a flyer on Joe Lieberman–in a desperate attempt to turn around a hopeless race. After all, no substantial choice will sign on for an all-but-certain loss; the carer of Jack Kemp post-1996 is proof of that…
People support McCain for a whole bunch of reasons.
He’s a pretty straight shooter. Yeah, he’s a politician. You’ll find occasions where he flip-flopped. But not many. Way below average. He generally says what he believes and does what he says he’ll do.
He’s a ‘Maverick’. People are tired of Washington, and McCain gives Washington a pretty good kick in the teeth from time to time. He constantly outs his fellow Senators for pork spending. He’s one of the only Senators who refuses to earmark spending bills. He’ll directly oppose the President of his own party when he thinks the President is wrong. He’ll take positions, such as his support of stem cell research, even when the majority of his party opposes it. You can count on him to not play party games as President.
He’s tough as nails. When John McCain was being held captive in Vietnam and routinely tortured, he was offered early release because he was the son of a VIP. McCain refused to leave without the others, seeing it as a publicity stunt that would help the enemy, and spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. His treatment worsened because of his refusal to leave.
I’m sure the various attack machines will be in full gear shortly and we’ll hear that McCain eats babies. I just hope people can argue against his ideas without trying to destroy the person. Because I think he’s earned a bit of respect.
Yeah, where a person “leans” is pretty much always in flux, whereas numbers of registrations changes slowly over many years.
I do have to dispute your earlier 33-33-33 figures. To my knowledge the GOP has never been on par with the Democrats in party registrations. They’ve always been the “second” party. I think the number used to be around 60-40 in favor of the Democrats. I believe all that has changed significantly is now more people register as independents–it used to be registering as an independent was rarely done.
Some quick googling shows that the 10% Democrat margin that they have traditionally held over the Republicans remains 42%-32% or so, with 24% independents (I’ve cut off some decimals without rounding, thus the numbers don’t add up to 100.)
And the backlash begins.
I have to disagree with this. Huckabie is a phenomenon that the Republican establishment rejected as “unelectable,” and so he got no support from them. Nevertheless, he tapped into a growing sentiment in the country of evangelicals who care about other things than homosexuality and abortion–things like helping those in need, the environment, etc. They’ve become disillusioned by the way the Republican party has cynically taken them for granted. The party, on the other hand, doesn’t know how to deal with this new phenomenon.
That being said, he’s said some stupid things. For example, when asked to comment on Butto’s assassination, the best he could do was to say that 500 or so Pakistanis got into the U.S. illegally by crossing the U.S./Mexico border. He probably could’ve gone farther if he’d known how to answer a question like that.
Cognitive dissonance. He’s singing half the songs in the Pub hymnbook while contradicting the other half. Makes the movement conservatives’ heads explode.
Well, that’s a more colorful way to say what I was trying to say. Thanks!
But maybe we’ll need to redefine “movement conservative” pretty soon. He got pretty far without much money. And apparently he’d never run as vice-president for McCain.