Dan

Calabrese

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January 28, 2008

A Conservative Looks for Reasons to Believe in John McCain

There are so many things wrong with the Republican Party nominating John McCain for president, it is hard to know where to begin.

But listing all his shortcomings may be a waste of time. Conservatives may soon have to seriously consider whether, in spite of all the reasons he has given us to doubt him, we can find a way to make peace with him and hope for the best.

I think I can, but he doesn’t make it easy.

When McCain was wooing the mainstream media by spearheading his unconstitutional campaign finance reform bill, opposing the Bush tax cuts, denouncing torture of terror suspects and helping Democrats block conservative judicial nominees, I was one of many livid conservatives who vowed that if he ever ended up winning the Republican nomination, I would stay home.

I did this in 1996. Bob Dole’s campaign was so disingenuous, I felt he had not earned my vote and didn’t deserve to receive it. Compared to McCain’s track record, Dole was a right-wing icon. Surely he deserves no better.

But presidential elections are not about what the candidate deserves. They are about what the nation needs. One thing the nation desperately needs is to keep the narcissistic Hillary Clinton from winning the presidency. The reasons could fill many pages, but suffice it to say that her only true conviction appears to be the belief that America owes her the presidency, and that anything she has to do to get it is justified.

Barack Obama would be better than Clinton, but given his inclination toward socialist economic policies and international weakness, it is not enough that he seems to be an earnest and relatively honest individual. Either of the two leading Democrats would make bad presidents at a time when the nation can ill-afford it.

So if McCain wins the GOP nod – and he’s clearly the favorite at the moment – I could hold my nose and vote for him, figuring the lesser of two evils is the best we can do this time. But I’d rather feel that there’s some chance I’m voting for a man who can capably lead the nation.

Here’s my attempt to convince myself:

The best thing for McCain might be to get the hell out of the Senate. The place has a tendency to warp otherwise smart people’s brains. When he emerged as one of the infamous Gang of 14 senators who prevented the Republican “nuclear option” from ending judicial filibusters, his sentiments about how they saved their grand institution made me want to gag.

The structure and rules of the Senate tend to squeeze everyone toward the center, and McCain’s infamous collaborations with liberal colleagues like Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy show he was as willing as anyone to be so squeezed.

Removed from the Senate and planted in the Oval Office, McCain might rediscover the steely sense of purpose and principle that prevented him from selling out his country or his colleagues during his years of torture in the Hanoi Hilton. Every time you want to declare McCain completely unprincipled, you remember his heroic endurance in that unimaginable hell, and you just can’t quite complete the condemnation.

This may be counterintuitive, but I also find some reason for hope in the belief that much of his recent apostasy has been calculated to curry the media’s favor. Why is that a reason for hope?

First, McCain clearly sought positive media coverage to help him reach the White House. If he actually gets there, he may consider the operation a fait accompli. Second, there is no chance the media will love him once he becomes a Republican president. One suspects McCain will realize this quickly, and perhaps he will conclude that doing the people’s business is more important than maintaining the affection of his fair-weather friends in the press.

His steadfast support for the war in Iraq, even while he maintained his many criticisms of its execution, seems to support this hope. McCain surely knew he would forfeit most of the media’s goodwill by backing the war so strongly during its period of greatest unpopularity. There is no reason to think his support was not genuine. McCain may be many things, but a willing accomplice to America’s defeat, he is surely not.

Ultimately, a president is remembered for what he does in office, not for what he did before getting there. There was little to recommend Abraham Lincoln as president before he was elected. We all know what happened. There was much to recommend Richard Nixon. We all know what happened.

It is unimaginable that a man could take the oath of office to the presidency without being fundamentally changed in one way or another. But not every change will be the same. Perhaps the change in John McCain would be that he is freed from the influences that have made him such an unattractive choice, and finds the character and conviction that might see him rise to the moment.

If conservatives have no choice but to choose between McCain and Clinton or Obama, we might be better off embracing these hopes than feeling we have to hold our noses.

This is Column # DC147.  Request permission to publish here.