McCain Unexceptionalism
In the New York Times today, Bill Kristol elevated Republicans' wishful thinking into the GOP's presidential election strategy this fall. Dragged down by President Bush's record-setting unpopularity and a brand one of its own leaders likened to tainted dog food, the GOP's last best hope, according to Kristol, lies in the "exceptionalism" of John McCain. That is, the GOP can maintain its grip on the White House precisely because John McCain is a different kind of Republican animal able to distance himself from his moribund president and his fading party. Sadly for Kristol, the record shows that John McCain is merely more of the same.
In his Monday piece, Kristol in essence defined the battle for the Republicans as a struggle to ensure that McCain is not seen as one of their own:
On Wednesday I received an acerbic e-mail message from a disgusted young G.O.P. loyalist: "I just have to say that Republicans are a dumb party that chooses stupid candidates. With the exception of McCain." Who says the young lack wisdom? In fact, Republican hopes of denying Democrats complete control of the federal government for the next couple of years may rest on the promise of "McCain exceptionalism."
The Republican Party is clearly in bad shape - trailing by double digits in party preference among the electorate, very likely to lose House and Senate seats in the fall. But John McCain - despite a rather haphazard campaign so far lacking in thematic coherence - is doing pretty well. In two public tracking polls, by Gallup and Rasmussen, he's basically even with Barack Obama; other polls have him slightly behind.
Kristol is far from alone in proclaiming the anti-Republican McCain the savior of the Republican Party. House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH), architect of the GOP's disastrous "Change We Deserve" slogan, declared of McCain last week, "He's our nominee and he has his own Republican brand - frankly it's better than the Republican brand," adding. "We are going to wrap our arms around him as tightly as we can." In the Washington Post on Sunday, the puerile Dick Morris argued that McCain can win in November "if, and only if, he moves to the center." Like Kristol, Morris contended that McCain is uniquely positioned for victory, provided he runs against everything the Republican Party of George W: Bush stands for:
"McCain needs to not run as a traditional Republican, which is easy, since he's not one."
Two weeks ago, McCain water carrier Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), too, made the case for McCain's supposed exceptionalism:
"John is his own guy. Good luck making him George Bush."
Unfortunately for Kristol, Boehner, Morris and Graham, John McCain has already made himself into George W. Bush. After all, John McCain in his eternal quest for the Republican presidential nomination has already adopted virtually the entire Bush agenda.
A quick survey of the McCain program shows 2008 is just more of the same from the Republican Party. As it turns out, his grandstanding on global warming and the environment is the exception that proves the rule.
Permanent American presence in Iraq. Of course, McCain's perpetuation of a third Bush term starts with Iraq, but hardly ends there. Both have argued for an extended U.S. military presence, which in McCain's telling could last 100, 1000 or even a million years. At a January 2008 town hall meeting, McCain showed his commitment to upping Bush's ante in Iraq:
Q: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years - (cut off by McCain)
McCAIN: Make it a hundred.
Making the Bush tax cuts permanent. No area of policy foreign or domestic reveals John McCain's transformation in the second coming of George W. Bush than in his gymnastic flip-flop on the Bush tax cuts. Despite twice voting against Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who need them least ("I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief"), McCain now wants to make them permanent. Worse still, an analysis by the Center for American Progress shows the McCain tax plan wouldn't merely blow a $2 trillion hole in the U.S. budget; it is even more regressive than his predecessor's.
Broken promises on the deficit. Like George W. Bush, John McCain has been quick to abandon his promises to slash the federal budget deficit. On track to produce a $400 billion deficit this year, President Bush has stopped talking about his bogus 2004 pledge to halve the deficit by 2009. Self-proclaimed "deficit hawk" John McCain likewise has already given up on his February 2008 promise to offer a balanced budget by the end of his first term. It's no wonder Douglas Holtz Eakin, McCain's top economic adviser, declared in April, "I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction."
Health care redux. Last week, McCain unveiled what is essence a warmed version of the Bush health care plan, one which was dead on arrival. As the Miami Herald noted, both put health insurance tax credits at the center, "Bush proposed tax credits of up to $3,000, but they were never enacted. McCain has upped the ante to $5,000." Like Bush, McCain would end the employer health care deduction. And like President Bush, John McCain would leave most of America's 47 million uninsured without coverage and those with pre-existing conditions in jeopardy.
Opposed the expansion of S-CHIP. President Bush vetoed the expansion of the effective - and wildly popular - State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). And John McCain was with him, calling the veto a "right call by the president." Of course, that didn't stop McCain from making an appearance at a Florida children's hospital last week, a hospital that happened to support the S-CHIP expansion he opposed.
Social Security privatization. Social security privatization may rank among President Bush's greatest failures, but that hasn't stopped John McCain from adopting it as his own. In March, McCain confirmed for the Wall Street Journal that "As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it - along the lines that President Bush proposed."
Conservative Supreme Court Justices. Desperate to quell an insurrection among the GOP's hard right, John McCain made it clear he would follow George W. Bush's lead on appointing only the most conservative judges to the Supreme Court. Having previously expressed misgivings about Samuel Alito, McCain in January 2008 told the National Review's Byron York:
"Let me just look you in the eye. I've said a thousand times on this campaign trail, I've said as often as I can, that I want to find clones of Alito and Roberts."
(For more background on McCain's standard fare Republican judicial philosophy, see Jeffrey Toobin on McCain's Court in the New Yorker.)
Overturning Roe v. Wade. McCain also removed any ambiguity about his preferred future of Roe v. Wade. Having declared in 1999 that "I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade," John McCain by November 2006 told ABC's George Stephanopolous that he joined President Bush both in wanting Roe overturned and in backing a constitutional amendment banning abortion.
These and countless other examples demonstrate that John McCain, far from being an exception to Republican orthodoxy, is the natural heir to George W. Bush.
Which is a huge problem for McCain and his Republican allies. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 43% of Americans think John McCain is too closely aligned with President Bush. (As MSNBC's Chuck Todd noted, that makes George W. Bush - and not Jeremiah Wright - "the biggest political albatross heading into November.") Given that over 70% of Americans disapprove of President Bush and more than 80% believe the country is on the wrong track, it's no wonder Karl Rove, Lindsey Graham and the coordinated efforts of the McCain campaign and the White House are trying mightily to create the facade of distance between George W. Bush and his would-be successor.
You can't blame them for trying. A week before Kristol unveiled his McCain exceptionalism thesis, senior McCain campaign adviser Charlie Black relabeled his man as being "slightly right of center." (That extreme makeover came just three months after John McCain's campaign ran television ads titled "True Conservative.") When the American people now trust Democrats more than Republicans across virtually major issue, McCain's prospects hinge on proving himself to be what Monty Python once deemed "something completely different."
For Democrats, the outcome in November may well hinge on demonstrating that John McCain is utterly the same.
who does he think is going to vote for mccain?
in order to turn his back on bush, he has to turn his back on his own party. but what does mccain have to look to? he can't go left, because the democrats are standing there (well, sort of), and right is out of the question as there is barely anything on the republican wish list that can be uttered in public at this point without hails of derisive laughter and scorn.
the republicans have spent the last forty years building their base on a foundation of "family values" and "christian morality," and they are only now discovering what should have been obvious -- there is only so long you can maintain a national party on a handful of fringe.
it's a pretty funny picture in my mind's eye: bush and mccain standing around, looking forlorn, with bits of fringe dangling from their clenched fingers.
the laughter is short lived, however. the country i thought i lived in is gone forever. sadly, i realize now it never existed.
life is a very strange trip.