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Brave or Bullheaded?
Ultimately, his candidacy will likely rise or fall on his policy stands. And he's almost sure to disappoint some constituency he desperately needs. Enamored independents and moderate Democrats will discover that McCain is fully honest when he says, "My 24-year voting record is a consistent, conservative voting record. Socially, fiscally and militarily, I am a conservative." He is certainly pro military and antiabortion, and a foe of excessive federal spending.
But these stands won't necessarily win over the party's base. They aren't forgetting that McCain went against President Bush on his tax cuts, and that he championed federal campaign finance reform alongside liberal Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. And evangelicals will be reminded that in 2000, McCain characterized Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance" and "corrupting influences" in American politics. It's true that last year, Falwell reached out to McCain, who responded by giving the 2006 commencement address at the Falwell-founded Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. That led to charges that McCain was pandering to the evangelicals, even though he delivered the same speech in Lynchburg that he gave at the ultraliberal New School in New York -- all about the need for greater tolerance of others in this country.
There has been another shift, though, that's harder to justify. Clearly hoping to mollify conservatives, McCain has come out in favor of making the Bush tax cuts permanent, even though in his previous incarnation as a deficit hawk, McCain didn't support them. "A profile in courage can become a profile in unrestrained ambition," said Kenneth Duberstein, Reagan's White House chief of staff, in an interview with Time magazine. "He has to remember who his friends are and not spend his integrity on one-night stands with those who will never fully trust him."
On one issue, and it's a big one, McCain has remained constant: Iraq. And that may prove the greatest barrier between McCain and the Presidency. The Senator believes the invasion was the right thing to do, has consistently called for more -- not fewer -- troops and thinks victory is still possible. Former Senator John Edwards, who is pursuing the 2008 Democratic nomination, has taken to calling the policy of sending more American soldiers to Iraq the McCain Doctrine.
This is intended to stigmatize McCain with voters, which it may do. If that happens, McCain says simply, it's the price of patriotism. "I harbor ambitions to be President of the United States," he says. "Those ambitions pale in comparison to my view that America's national security is paramount, and I have to do what's right, even if it costs me my entire political career."
Call this brave or call it bullheaded. Either way, it's vintage McCain.
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