Campaigning in South Carolina yesterday, John McCain announced that he believed Roe v Wade should be overturned. In other words, he's raising his bid for conservative votes. Conservatives are suspicious of McCain because of his positions on campaign finance legislation, immigration policy, and gay marriage and McCain's been attempting to overcome these problems by making nice with Jerry Falwell and becoming the chief advocate of President Bush's war policy.
However, McCain has been falling behind Giuliani in the national polls. So, he's upping his bid to conservative votes by making a push on Roe v Wade. It's obviously a calculated move to let conservatives know that he's with them on one of their most important priorities, so calculated here that it's doubtful that conservative voters will be impressed.
In the final analysis, John McCain is going to have to raise his bid a lot higher if he wants conservative votes.
What can he do?
The obvious thing would be for McCain to recant and apologize for his support for McCain/Feingold and any legislation that would allow illegal immigrants to gain citizenship.
But would that be enough?
I don't think so.
Here's a short list of things that right-wing voters would want McCain to do in order to reassure them that he is really conservative.
1. Pledge never to appear on "Meet the Press" (NBC) or Face the Nation (CBS) again. One of the things that conservatives don't like about McCain is that he is much more comfortable with the mainstream media than the conservative attack media.
2. Promise to launch a nuclear attack on Iran immediately upon inauguration. The Bush administration has been playing around with ideas of "bunker busting" nuclear weapons. That's for wimps. Real conservatives want McCain to use those nukes.
3. Promise legislation against "strident" opposition to the war. Newt Gingrich has been calling for changing the First Amendment to the Constitution; neo-con warmonger Frank Gaffney recently argued that Sen. Carl Levin should be hanged for criticizing former Bush Pentagon official Douglas Feith. Conservatives want tough action against war critics.
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8 comments:
That would be a great way to court the right-wing voters that inhabit your imagination. For actual right wing voters, it might not be of much help.
If he wanted to use the same strategy and go to the left, he could propose a law that abolishes all profits for private companies.
Let's see. I got the McCain and the mainstream media thing from Hugh Hewitt, the nuking Iran idea has been circulating in right-wing circles for a long time, and Newt and Gaffney have been "out" in treating dissidents as traitors. Who on the left has been calling for the abolishing of profits?
My point was, I think perhaps you're exaggerating those right wing views a bit. I'm sure you can find some nut to say we should use nukes on Iran, but that's way out of the mainstream. My comment tried to do the same sort of exaggeration in relation to Hillary Clinton's recent statements on oil company profits: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/capitalcommerce/070212/windfall_profits_tax_some_mode.htm
From the Communist Party USA:
"With capitalism gone, crime will also begin to disappear, for it is the vicious profit system that corrupts people and breeds crime."
http://www.cpusa.org/article/static/13/
This is the actual policy view of a group of people on the left.
By contrast, what you've mentioned are either the views of some random nutcases or a distortion of statements made more to needle the opposition than as an actual view.
The Communist Party isn't part of the contemporary political "left" any more than the Nazi Party or Klan is part of the right. So, I don't think that's a valid example.
Those "nuts" either work in the Bush administration or are members of think tanks that have considerable influence. The main thrust for the "surge policy" came from the American Enterprise Institute rather than the military, defense, or intelligence.
As for being provocative, the Bush administration has made being provocative one of the core elements of public policy. They're not that far off from the professional provacateurs of talk radio.
I don't think you can back up any of the three points you made with links. The ball is in your court if you want to try. I'm particularly eager to see who on the right is urging nuclear attacks on Iran. The other two points seem like distortions of what was actually said.
First attempt to reply didn't work. Later perhaps.
Here we go. I revised the original post to include the links. Much to my dismay, I couldn't readily provide the links in this reply.
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