For the second time in 48 hours, Sarah Palin praised the ultra hardline Republican platform which ignores John McCain's past stands on abortion, same-sex marriage and stem cell research. One day after a CBN interview in which she extolled the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage it calls for, Palin told James Dobson that her running mate supports the extremist platform planks he in fact long opposed. As it turns out, McCain's acquiescence in the writing of the Republican platform revealed both his weakness - and disinterest.
Literally speaking to the converted, Governor Palin reassured Focus on the Family's Dobson "from the bottom of my heart" that John McCain was with them on the culture war issues they about most:

DOBSON: In your private conversations with Senator McCain, it is your impression that he also strongly supports those views? I know that he did not oppose that platform when it was written. Do you think he will implement it?
PALIN: I do, from the bottom of my heart. I am such a strong believer that McCain believes in those strong planks and we do have good conversations about some of the details of the different planks and what they represent. I'm very heartened that John McCain...he doesn't want a Vice President who will check the opinions...of me at the door and we talk about some of these and they're very important. It's most important though, as you're suggesting, that Americans know that John McCain is solidly there on those solid planks in our platform that build the right agenda for America.

Dobson has it exactly right. Wary of a backlash from social conservatives, McCain did not oppose their harsh platform planks during the Republican National Convention. And the result, as I've documented previously, is that the 2008 GOP Platform reflects the views of the Party's vice presidential nominee and not its presidential candidate.
At every turn, McCain deferred to positions contradicting his own, starting with abortion.

During a July 30 interview, John McCain admitted he had "not gotten into the platform discussions." And it showed. Unlike Barack Obama, who personally intervened to help create a new abortion plank in the Democratic platform, John McCain left the GOP committee to its own devices in producing a document that is far more radical than even McCain's own draconian anti-abortion stand.
In reaching out to his party's religious right, John McCain famously reversed course on overturning Roe v. Wade. But as the Washington Post noted Monday, McCain in a May interview still claimed to support exemptions for abortions in cases involving rape, incest or the life of the mother:

"My position has always been: exceptions of rape, incest and the life of the mother," the senator said.
When asked if he would encourage the party to include them in the platform, he replied, "Yes," adding: "And by the way, I think that's the view of most people, that rape, incest, the life of the mother are issues that have to be considered."

As it turns out, not so much. As predicted, McCain flip-flopped on his position in 2000 that the Republican platform should allow the abortion exemptions. His hands-off approach resulted in a hard line GOP abortion platform that not only did away with those most minimal of protections for women's health, but called for that total abortion ban to be enshrined in the United States Constitution:

"We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

While the Republican Party apparently added fetal due process rights during the process of creating the 2008 GOP platform, John McCain played no part in the process at all. An astonished Chuck Todd of MSNBC described McCain's abdication of the platform-writing to radicals in his own party:

"Well what’s interesting is that Gary Bauer, the onetime presidential candidate, was, was John McCain’s representative on the platform trying to, trying to soothe everything. They made the decision not to fight these delegates here on this issue. Senator McCain, this platform does not represent Senator McCain's conservatism. He did not make it his party's platform. He made it the Republican Party platform, that he happens to be representing. Stark contrast to Barack Obama who went ahead, changed the wording on abortion, put in a line in there that made pro-life Democrats a little more comfortable. That was not done here. If anything this is as stringent of a platform on abortion the Republican Party ever has. And the problem is this. These delegates are more conservative -- I had, I had -- than, than even the ones four years ago. Than even the ones eight years ago."

And McCain's detachment from the platform of his party hardly ends there. John McCain has consistently opposed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Going back to 2004, McCain deemed a constitutional amendment "antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans." In 2006, he told ABC's George Stephanopolous, "Just as I believe that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by the states, so do I believe that we would be better off by having Roe v. Wade return to the states." Yet sure enough, the Republican Party document calls for precisely such a prohibition:

"We call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it."

So, too, on stem cell research. During the recent forum at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, John McCain told the assembled evangelical faithful, "I've come down on the side of stem cell research." Of course, the Republican platform committee never got the message. As the National Review noted, "the 2008 Republican Platform calls for a ban on all embryonic stem-cell research, public or private:"

"We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes."

Immigration reform, once John McCain's signature issue, has been gutted in the Republican platform. In 2003, McCain declared, "I think we can set up a program where amnesty is extended to a certain number of people who are eligible." But under siege by conservative GOP primary voters who opposed it, McCain during a January 2008 debate answered, "No, I would not" if asked if still he would vote for his original proposal came to a vote on the Senate floor. Despite McCain's desperate pandering to Hispanic voters in asking them to trust him on his immigration U-turns, the GOP platform committee this week made the decision for him:

"We oppose amnesty. The rule of law suffers if government policies encourage or reward illegal activity."

On each of these issues, McCain's caving to the extremists in his own party only served to once again demolish the maverick myth. It's not just that John McCain lacked the courage to truly confront his party in hoping to escape the Republican National Convention in one piece. His subservience is much more cynical than that. He just doesn't care.
Earlier this year, Dr. Dobson wondered aloud whether he could ever endorse John McCain's candidacy. But with the sneering contempt McCain showed for the "health of the mother" during a discussion of abortion in the final presidential debate and Palin's reassurances today, Dobson must be happy with his choice.