Much Ado About Nothing: the Conservatism of John McCain
As John McCain sealed the Republican nomination for President of the United States, conservatives from nearly every part of the Republican Party were upset. Religious conservatives pointed to McCain’s “agents of intolerance” remark; supply-siders lamented McCain’s initial votes against the Bush tax cuts; paleoconservatives saw McCain as a war-monger; and immigration hawks balked at McCain’s plan to grant “amnesty” to undocumented workers. With all that being said, one wonders how McCain was able to clinch the nomination of the Republican Party, a party that, as history has shown, needs these groups to come together in a cohesive way to achieve victory. Since receiving enough delegates to capture the nomination, McCain has moved rightward on some issues, like offshore oil exploration, while also offering more moderate proposals such as his policies to combat the issue of global warming. Taking a look at several issues, it becomes clear that John McCain is a fairly conservative Republican.
Perhaps nothing is more central in the Republican Party platform than our opposition to abortion. McCain has a solid anti-abortion record, going back to he beginnings of his political career in the 1980s. Though he characterizes himself as pro-life, it is difficult for some conservatives to seem him that way given his past support for embryonic stem cell research. But as science has progressed, one has to wonder whether the debate over stem cells is a debate of a bygone era. And perhaps what is more important on the abortion issue is McCain’s long-standing pledge to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court, whom he says will be “in the mold of Justices Roberts and Alito.”
Another area that has given some conservatives heartache is the issue of McCain and economics. John McCain has admitted that he is not well versed in economics. He has never been a darling of supply-siders, but his calls for less spending are admirable, to say the least, and his plan to lower the corporate tax rate has won praise from many economic conservatives. McCain says that the reason he voted against the 2001 Bush tax cuts was because they didn’t include spending limits. McCain likes to say that had the country adopted his line of thinking in 2001, we would currently have spending under more control and could cut tax even further.
Two of the most difficult problems that conservatives have had with McCain over the last several years are policies on global warming and immigration. There are still many conservatives who are unsure that carbon emissions are the contributing factor to global warming. John McCain, on the other hand, has been to the polar ice cap, thinks that global warming is a problem, and believes that even if global warming turns out to not be true, at least his environmental policies will create a cleaner planet for our children and grandchildren. And even though many conservatives still distrust McCain on immigration, the Senator has shifted his stance, recognizing that before any sort of comprehensive immigration reform can be passed, the borders must first be secured.
These are just a few of the issues that have caused some conservatives to be slow to support John McCain. In an election year tilted against Republicans, picking a nominee who could excite moderates and conservatives was difficult. In early 2007, as the primary season was in its infancy, my roommate and I argued, sometimes heatedly, about who should be the nominee. I was an economic conservative who didn’t understand nor have much sympathy for the religious right. My roommate was a devout Christian who didn’t understand or have much sympathy for business conservatives. After several intense arguments over a period of months, my roommate and I, both of us strong supporters of the Iraq War, though representative of two of the very differing parts of the Republican Party, came to the realization that the best candidate would be John McCain. If he could unite us, we thought, could he not unite the Republican Party as well?
Only time will tell whether or not McCain is conservative enough to motivate conservatives to vote for him and moderate enough to attract independent votes. The facts are clear though. McCain is against abortion, supports tax and spending cuts, and has pledged to appoint strict constructionist judges to the federal bench. John McCain is not a liberal; he is a conservative, albeit a moderate one. It seems to me that all the fuss about his conservatism is just that – much ado about nothing.
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