Daniel Larison, in response to Bill Kristol's suggestion that
Palin campaign for McCain in the Arizona Senate primary, writes:
Were she to side openly with McCain in a primary against
Hayworth, whose views match up a lot more closely with her
supporters’ views, she would be seen as imitating McCain’s
worst habits. She would be considered a worse sell-out than
McCain. She would be doing exactly the opposite of what she did
in NY-23. Her intervention may have failed to elect Hoffman,
but rank-and-file conservatives generally loved her for it
anyway. She would fritter all that away if she backed McCain.
In exchange for the contempt and disaffection of the people who
currently adore her, she would win the enduring affection of
editors at The Weekly Standard. McCain seems to be
satisfied with this, but I doubt it would be enough for Palin.
There is not much nuance to Larison's thinking here. It's
completely absurd to compare the NY-23 Congressional race to the
Arizona Senate primary, because beyond the broad outlines -- a
race between an establishment candidate and a conservative
insurgent -- there are few similarities. Scozzafava was not a
moderate, she was a liberal who ultimately endorsed the Democrat
anyway. It was not a matter of one issue -- she held liberal
views on abortion, pledged to vote for "card check," and
called the cops on a reporter who asked whether she would
vote for a health care bill that raised taxes. McCain is
pro-life. He has been firmly against "card check" to the point
where he has actually blocked
the nomination of Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor
Relations Board (Becker is an SEIU lawyer who has written that
"card check" could be implemented by the NLRB without
Congressional action). He voted against the economic stimulus
bill. And he has been adamantly against the health care bill.
There's also the distinction between losing a single House seat
and losing a Senate seat that could mean the difference between
giving Obama a rubber stamp in the Senate or perhaps gaining a
few seats next year to be able to effectively block anything
major that Obama proposes. And while it was realistic to think
that Hoffman could have a chance of winning, there's less reason
to believe that J.D. Hayworth -- who couldn't win a Congressional
race -- could win statewide. Now, I've had my share of issues
with McCain over the years and am not going to argue that he's a
perfect conservative. And for those who see immigration as such a
crucial issue to them that they have to support Hayworth as a
matter of conscience, I'm not going to tell them not to. But for
Larison to sugeest that for Palin to keep in the good graces of
her base, she has to back the more conservative candidate in
every single race, no matter what other circumstances are in
play, is totally ludicrous.
If there's one thing I've learned about Palin supporters --
especially when I've criticized her -- it's that they are
generally very forgiving of her and willing to cut her a lot of
slack. Ever since she burst
onto the scene, I've been trying, to no avail, to argue that
we shouldn't compare her to Ronald Reagan when he spent decades
studying conservative philosophy and defending it and served two
terms as governor of California, and she has a very slim
governing record and it's unclear whether she's really a
committed small government conservative. Even though I avoid the
personal vitriol that has consumed much of the anti-Palin
commentary and try to raise what I see as fair questions about
her qualifications to be president, her acceptance of pork
spending, her initial support for the "Bridge to Nowhere," etc.,
I'm brandished an elitist RINO who should shut up and go back to
my brie and chablis. This is a long way of saying that it would
take a lot more than backing McCain over Hayworth for Palin's
supporters to view her as a "sell-out."
