As somebody who has occasionally taken positions at odds with a
large majority of my fellow conservatives (see war, Iraq), far be
it from me to deny somebody the right to go off the reservation
from time to time and still be called a conservative. But most
McCain critics, like most Huckabee critics, aren't simply insisting
their least favorite candidate isn't a conservative. They are
making a case based on McCain's
record on certain issues, no different than looking for Romney's
flip-flops or pointing out the flaws of Mitt Care. Ramesh Ponnuru,
a McCain supporter, opens his National Review story on the
Arizona senator by observing, "John McCain lost the fight for the
Republican nomination in 2000 because he was too far left for his
party. He's moved farther left since, yet this time he could very
well win."
Excessive litmus tests could read virtually every conservative
out of the movement at some point. William F. Buckley Jr. supported
the Panama Canal Treaty. Barry Goldwater backed Gerald Ford over
Ronald Reagan in 1976; he was also pro-choice (so was Robert
Nisbet). Reagan favored the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban.
All the top-tier Republican presidential candidates endorsed, and
President Bush signed, McCain-Feingold. And so on. But that doesn't
mean certain positions aren't consensus conservative positions --
otherwise the term conservative would have no political meaning --
or that conservative priorities don't change over time.
Goldwater voted against the Kennedy tax cuts in the early 1960s,
but support for lower marginal tax rates is clearly a conservative
priority today. Pat Buchanan supported the 1986 amnesty. While some
conservatives in good standing still favor that approach, that is
not where the consensus on the right is in 2008.
Sure, these intellectual debates about conservatism aren't what
electoral politics are all about. But they may have a longer term
impact than whether Republican primary voters pick McCain or one of
his opponents.
topics:
John McCain, Law, Iraq, NATO, Conservatism
