The Three Faces Of John McCain by Tim Siggia

The Three Faces Of John McCain

By Tim Siggia

February 19, 2008

Three weeks ago, I was convinced that we were about to witness another 1996: a scripted, orchestrated election fixed for Clinton to win, only this time the Clinton in question would be Hillary, not Bill. Not that it makes a whole lot of difference, mind you. As Bill put it himself in one of those rare moments in which he actually tells the truth, when you elect one, you get both, and we may rest assured that in a worst-case scenario -- that of Hillary Clinton becoming president -- Hubby Bubba will be having a lot to say about a lot of things. However, it seems something happened, beginning with Super Tuesday and continuing through the next five Democratic primaries/caucuses: and that something was Barack Obama -- and it seems that Hillary, who once carried the Aura of Inevitability and awaited an expected coronation, is now in a fight for her political life. But then again, this too could be all just for show. If the Democratic "Superdelegates" in the end come out for Hillary, we'll know the whole thing was a fix, even if we can't definitively prove it.

The one thing we do right now know for absolute certain is that the next President of the United States will be a liberal. The only question is, will it be a Democrat liberal or a Republican liberal? The only difference between the two is the letter that follows their name. Just ask anyone who lives in Connecticut, where mid-term elections tend to be match-ups of ideological identical twins, both sworn and committed to the doctrine of liberalism. The best thing that can be said about nomination of Barack Obama is that if this happens, he will have kept Her Royal Most Imperial Majesty out of the White House, and, in doing that, he will have performed a public service for his country. As for what he himself would actually do if elected, well, that pretty much remains to be seen. So far he seems to have come out in favor of things no reasonable human being would ever be against, and has spoken in generalities of things like change, hope, and so on. As Rush Limbaugh has put it, Obama in essence says nothing, but he says it compellingly. The only clues we have as to how Obama would govern America lie in his voting record in the Senate, which currently stands as the most liberal, surpassing even that of Commissar Clinton. What's encouraging here, though, is what it's saying about Democrats these days -- that perhaps even many of them now have grown weary of the obnoxious duo that has dominated and defined their party for the past 16 years, and are ready to go with just about any promising alternative.

Republicans, on the other hand, are apparently eschewing the legacy of Ronald Reagan to go for the candidate who, though he invokes the name of Reagan in virtually every other breath, bears far more semblance to former senators Lincoln Chafee and Jim Jeffords. That candidate would be John McCain, who staged what might be called a Clintonian comeback from near-obliteration in the polls to a surge of popularity in the primaries and caucuses. (In fact, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out this whole phenomenon is more Clintonian than it might appear on the surface -- that Clinton operatives were instrumental in engineering this in order to divide the Republican Party against itself and thus assure the coronation of Hillary. But I digress.) With the recent bowing-out of Mitt Romney, and his subsequent endorsement of McCain, the last hope for a conservative White House in the next four years summarily expired. This is of course not bad news for the RNC types, who have been trying for years to move the party to the left. (I stopped making contributions to the RNC years ago, though they still send me solicitations.) But it puts conservatives in a most uncomfortable position in having to make a lose-lose choice in November: Do we hold our noses, vote for McCain, and hope for the best, or do we follow the example of Ann Coulter and vote for Her Royal Most Imperial Majesty (or Barack Obama, should the Democrats nominate him instead) out of spite, because we know we'll be getting a bad deal either way?

When we speak of John McCain, we must keep in mind that there are three of those, all somehow inhabiting the same human body. First, there's John McCain the Aviator, retired Navy captain and prisoner-of-war for five years. He was the one who underwent torture and had his shoulders broken rather than betray either his country or his fellow POWs. Nearly all Americans, with the exception of those who follow Jane Fonda, like this John McCain. Being a Navy retiree myself, albeit an enlisted one, I cannot help liking him. In fact, I would have trusted my life with him. Then there's John McCain the Political Maverick, the quintessential anti-conservative who jumps at every chance to go against his party's base and make deals with every Democrat looking for a Republican to make deals with. This is the one who gave us McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy, and of whom it was once speculated that he might go so far as to change his political party affiliation. Now it seems we have a third incarnation: John McCain the Conservative, who has suddenly seen the light and repudiated some of his former positions to follow in the footsteps of the late Ronald Reagan -- a transition which takes place, conveniently enough, as a presidential election ensues. In my mind's eye I can see the three of them sitting side-by-side in a panel, and I can hear the voice of the late Garry Moore saying, "Will the real John McCain please stand up?" Would that it were really that easy; it would eliminate the need for a lot of soul-searching on the part of conservative voters.

Buying the idea of a conservative John McCain is something of a tough sell for me, if for no other reason, because in order to completely accept that idea I have to somehow convince myself that at least one of those other incarnations never existed. This is not an easy thing to do when you have history staring you right in the face. It's like trying to convince yourself that Vanessa Del Rio is somehow still a virgin. Too many questions come to mind when McCain calls himself not just a conservative, but a conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan. For instance: Would Ronald Reagan have co-authored anything like the McCain-Feingold campaign reform bill, which abridges the free speech guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Constitution? Or the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, which amounts to amnesty for illegal aliens in everything but name? Would Ronald Reagan, in fact, have collaborated with the likes of either of these Democratic senators, or, for that matter, with Tom Daschle? Would Ronald Reagan, an ex-Democrat, even for one moment have considered going back to that party, or inviting speculation that he might? Would Ronald Reagan, in fact, even feel the need to keep reminding everyone that he was a conservative, or would he instead let his actions speak for him? This is, in fact, exactly what The Gipper did, and the only name he ever invoked was that of God.

But Ronald Reagan is gone, and that vast majority of Americans that does not believe in reincarnation must accept the fact that he is never coming back. Unless Mike Huckabee can somehow pull off a miracle which at this point only he and a minority of fanatical followers believe possible, our choices in November will be either Clinton and McCain or Obama and McCain. And then, which McCain? Despite whatever he might protest to the contrary, he cannot be both a maverick and a conservative. A conservative is committed to the ideals of his ideology: strict adherence to the Constitution, limited government, fiscal restraint, a free-market economy, a strong national defense, and traditional moral values. A maverick, by defintion, is committed to nothing except his own personal whims. Sometimes he goes this way, and sometimes that. He is predictably unpredictable, and therefore unreliable. How can anyone possibly trust a maverick when even he himself at times seems uncertain of which way he will go? And let us not forget that John McCain has prided himself on his reputation of being a maverick. And though some may believe he has a powerful booster in President Bush, who says McCain is conservative enough for him, we must also remember that not only were Richard Riordan, Harriet Miers, and Arlen Specter also conservative enough for Bush, but that the Compassionate Conservative is himself not all that conservative. No conservative dedicated to the ideal of limited government would have given America such initiatives as No Child Left Behind, or saddled us with the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the biggest government entitlement program since Medicare itself, or instituted a whole new federal bureaucracy. The Department of Homeland Security, however well-intended, in fact duplicates the functions of other existing bureaucracies, most notably the FBI and the CIA. So somehow this endorsement rings hollow.

To be fair to McCain, some of his current rhetoric is not only laudable, but also credible. His stand on Iraq has been consistent throughout, and in this we see flashes of the old Navy captain. We may feel fully confident that President McCain will not cut and run from Iraq, as both Clinton and Obama have promised to do. We may also, to a considerable degree, at least, take him at his word on fiscal matters. We know, or at least have a pretty good idea, the direction Hillary Clinton will take our country if she in fact gets that office she so long has coveted, and Barack Obama is already on the record as being no friend of conservatives or conservative ideas.

But questions still loom: Is the apparent conversion genuine, will McCain actually be the Reagan conservative he promises to be if we elect him? Or will he revert to form once safely elected, and go back to making deals with Democrats, and compromising and undermining his party and its base, moving himself, his party, and his government to the left? These are questions we must each reconcile in our own minds before November. This will not be an easy task, for if we want neither a President Obama nor another President Clinton, then we have no choice but to vote for John McCain -- and as those votes are cast, so is cast our country's future.