John McCain’s victories in yesterday’s Super Tuesday Electoral Extravaganza indicate Republican voters are ready to let bygones be bygones with the Arizona senator’s spotty record of immigration, campaign finance reform and support of fellow Republicans. While the race for the GOP nomination isn’t quite over, it is becoming clear McCain will be the nominee.
What are conservative Republicans to do? It is obvious a Barack Obama presidency would be disastrous for conservatives, which is evident from his rating by National Journal as the “most liberal senator of 2007.” Hillary Clinton is really no better; she and Obama have many of the same positions on issues like taxation, judicial activism and entitlements. Nevertheless, some Republicans have taken a bold stand, stating they would never vote for McCain, even if it meant crossing party lines to vote for the usually politically despicable Clinton or (in fewer cases) Obama.
I wonder if this is a wise move for Republicans. After all, conventional wisdom within the party suggests in the White House, any Republican would be better than a Democrat.. Do Republicans support him solely for the reason of stopping Clinton or Obama from winning in November?
In a way, McCain’s candidacy may mirror those of other failed candidates. In 1976, Gerald Ford ran to stay in the office he was appointed to after Nixon’s resignation. A moderate in the GOP, he faced competition in the primaries from the conservative challenger, Ronald Reagan, but Ford ultimately prevailed. Well, until the general election, where Jimmy Carter won by a small but decisive margin.
Twenty years later, Bob Dole, the senator who had run for the presidency three times before (and obviously lost), was nominated for a fourth time. A member of the Washington Republican establishment for decades, Dole also lost, this time to Bill Clinton, in what was admittedly a lackluster campaign on the Republican’s part.
The problem with these candidates was they were running as moderates, touting experience and, especially with Dole, emitting the air of inevitability for the nomination. Moderate Democrats win elections because their quiet disavowal of the left-wing fringe of the party keeps voters from being scared away and their soft populism on economics appeals to the middle class.
Moderate Republicans, on the other hand, usually lose unless they embrace conservatives or conservatism. George H.W. Bush won as Ronald Reagan’s vice president but lost as the moderate president. George W. Bush won as a compassionate conservative in a very tight race in 2000, but here, the evangelical voter turnout put this moderate Republican over the edge. The last moderate Republican running as a moderate to win the presidency was Nixon.
McCain has been consistently conservative on national security and government spending. He usually sides with the conservative wing on taxes, pro-life issues and judges. He differs with conservatives on issues of immigration and free speech. The bottom line, however, is that McCain is a different kind of moderate than the Bushes, Dole or Ford. He is actually at odds, for whatever reason, with the Republican Party that supports him.
McCain’s enablers in the media overuse the “maverick” meme for his willingness to break with his party and work across the aisle with Democrats. I wonder if McCain has the gumption to be a true maverick and actually support the Republican Party on some of its most prized issues.
As much as it pains me to do so, I will admit I will be supporting John McCain if he is the Republican candidate, and I would encourage other Republicans to do so as well. Just because the good senator has crossed us and moderated on us over the years, it gives us no right to back out on the party which better serves our conservative principles than the Democrats.
We should support him, but we shouldn’t expect a win until a conservative runs for the president again. Bobby Jindal, 2012!
Are you kidding me,
Are you kidding me, what?
For starters, claiming that Dole ran in 1996 as a moderate is just laughable.
But even beyond that, both Dole and Ford faced elections that simply had other factors that were far more controlling over the results. For Dole, his opponent was a highly popular incumbent president. For Ford, he was Nixon's unelected vice president.
And you know, it doesn't exactly help your party to be writing columns like this telling people how much it "pains" you to vote for him. If it pains you so much, go vote for Obama. It's the kewl thing to do these days on college campuses.
Thanks
Thanks for reading my column Michael.
You said that it is laughable that Dole ran as a moderate in 1996. I don't know why, because Dole was a moderate Republican senator with a moderately conservative voting record. He supported tax cuts and smaller government, but he also worked with Democrats on compromise bills. The ACU gave him a Lifetime Conservative Rating of 82, which is what I would call moderate or moderately conservative. Perhaps you disagree.
You refer to 1976 and 1996 as elections that "had other factors that were far more controlling over the results." I didn't attempt to say that 2008 is exactly like those other elections, but that there are some similarities in the type of candidate the Republicans are going to run. I can humor your idea of controlling factors by suggesting that McCain's support of the war (support that I admire, by the way) and the general trend of voters that leans toward Democrats are two such factors that make it hard for a moderate Republican to win.
As for your final point, you make a good point, but I still believe you are wrong. First, I am not looking to help the GOP with every column I write. I write to inform my audience of my meaningless but (hopefully) thoughtful opinions. Secondly, I am not helping the party win this election, but hopefully I am but a minuscule part of the chorus of conservatives that reject the moderation of our party by nominating John McCain. I think that if our party embraces its conservative base rather than abandon it on certain issues as soon as it gets some power, our party is better off and we win. 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004, we did it because conservatism was the idea behind it all. Americans can get behind good ideas like conservatism. It's hard to get behind moderate, watered-down ideologies.
Then again, it's just my opinion. What do I know?
Oh, and as far as Dole is
Oh, and as far as Dole is concerned, really? An 82 out of 100 is moderate to you? What's conservative? 95? 100? And compromising to get things done is wrong, now? Conservatives don't compromise?
I guess Reagan wasn't a conservative then.
"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it.
"Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything.
"I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.
"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it."
You don't have to support
You don't have to support McCain. But don't sit there and pretend to be a conservative by tearing down the one guy who can advance most "conservative" ideals in contrast with Obama or Clinton.
I can guarantee you that if either of them win, your precious "conservative" ideals will find themselves on the side of the road.
As far as making it "hard for a moderate" to win, what would you have? Someone from the far right? How is that going to win 2008 for us? If the general trend of voters is toward the Democrats and the Iraq war is such an issue, then how is nominating someone even further from the general electorate a good idea? You know, sometimes parties have to evolve and change. Stop living in the 1980s.
Finally, you may not be writing to advance the Republican Party and that's fine. But don't think you are doing the conservative movement any good by trashing the Republican nominee in a college newspaper. There are people in college, even at Vanderbilt, who go with the crowd way too easily. You're just giving them another reason to join the quasi-cult of Obama.
Reagan didn't compromise on
Reagan didn't compromise on principle. There's a difference, I believe. Your Reagan quote is interesting. I especially like "If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later..." That's how Reagan compromised, he got what he wanted even if it took him a couple times to do it. His attitude was to make the other side give in as much as possible so that conservatives could win. McCain's attitude seems to focus on compromising so that the other side gets what they want. Conservatives should stand on certain principles that they can never compromise. John McCain compromised those principles with McCain-Feingold and Comprehensive Immigration Reform, among other instances. You don't compromise so that you lose. You compromise so that you win.
There seems to be this idea among GOP party people that there is the great big moderate mass of voters that need to be capitalized upon. They say "if only we moderate, we move to the center, then we can win." Maybe it's moderating on immigration, on the war, on spending, on judges, on whatever issue du jour that Republicans believe we should change our position on. I think this thinking is simply misguided. There are conservative voters out there, voters concerned about securing our borders, about winning the war, about cutting spending and lowering taxes, about getting strict constructionist judges, on all of these things that are conservative positions on the major issues of our day. They come out of the woodwork and vote for Republicans when those Republicans speak and show that they get behind those values. When they don't, we get the 2006 elections. I think you are right that parties change and evolve. The Republican Party has, and we lost.
Philosophy and principles don't evolve. They can be applied to new situations and new issues, but conservatism isn't something that changes. Republicans have always believed in the preciousness of life, for instance. In the 1860s, it was about the abolition of slavery. Since 1973, it has been about preventing abortions. In this decade, it was about not federally funding embryonic stem-cell research. The same principle, that human life is precious, is applied to three different issues. You don't change those principles or moderate on them to win an election. You win an election because your party and its leaders are resolute about the values they espouse, and voters respond to that.
I also think that if Hustler readers are going to be swayed by what I write, you should note that I have written articles critical of Obama and Hillary, and I will probably continue to do so. But I would give Vanderbilt students the benefit of the doubt and say that they can probably make better judgments about who they want to vote for than the average voter. If this column has given people a reason to vote for Obama, then either they didn't read the column or they are so far gone there's no stopping them. At any rate, I'm glad you are concerned about the GOP being able to win in 2008, but this column was only commenting on my belief that John McCain won't win in November, not that he can't or shouldn't win. Thanks for your comments.
Your argument is based on
Your argument is based on the false assumption that all conservatives hold the same "principles." If you're willing to call McCain a liberal or moderate because he supported campaign finance reform and immigration reform (as did George W. Bush...who won, twice), then I can't stop you.
Moreover, your argument that principles and philosophy don't change is also not true, as you impliedly admit. Applying your principles to "new situations and new issues" requires a reevaluation of those principles on a constant basis. The idea that there is this mythical "conservatism" that is out there is simply not grounded in reality. Conservatism, just like any other political philosophy, has evolved and changed with the times.
As far as your argument concerning Hustler readers, don't be so quick to give the general populace the benefit of the doubt. That being said, you may not explicitly say "vote for Obama," but by writing an article painting McCain as something he is not and saying he will not win because of it doesn't exactly encourage the proverbial swing voter to place their confidence in voting for him. Unless you are hoping to do some sort of reverse psychology, painting McCain as a moderate so that moderates vote for him. I generally don't believe that most people have ulterior motives behind the words they speak or write because it takes great talent to be able to do so.