Arizona Senator John McCain has been insisting for several days that he is confident a compromise can be struck with the White House on the hotly-debated torture issue that’ll be one he can live with.
But is McCain already political toast within the GOP?
The Washington Post:
Sen. John McCain’s bid to position himself as the natural heir to President Bush as a wartime commander in chief and to court conservative leaders in advance of his likely 2008 presidential campaign has threatened to run aground in recent days, as the two men clash over how to detain and try terrorism suspects.
For months, McCain has been wooing Bush’s donors, hiring his former advisers and standing by him in the Iraq debate. But the fragile rapprochement between two men who were once bitter rivals for the presidency is facing a sharp new test over McCain’s rejection of Bush’s pleas to let the administration interpret the Geneva Conventions as it sees fit.
The impasse, which has preoccupied Congress this month, is likely to be settled within a few days but could remain hanging when lawmakers adjourn in a few days. Either way, it is likely to carry a long echo — especially if the senator from Arizona forces Bush to back down.
Indeed, there is a segment of the Republican party — you can’t say all Republicans due to the mini-rebellion that has burst into public among traditional conservatives who now say a 2006 mid-term defeat might be a good thing — that will follow Bush’s wishes, no matter what. They will quickly jettison long-held principles and values if Bush argues they need to be tossed overboard.
The Post notes that what’s at stake is the administration’s anti-terrorism policies — and the limits on them — during its final two years in office. The paper doesn’t note one fact: Bush has been REGAINING some of his party’s base that he lost earlier this year. And the base is at the root of McCain’s challenge (and potential problem):
Politically, McCain’s willingness once again to confront Bush raises questions about how he will position himself toward the Republican Party’s conservative base, which he has aggressively cultivated over the past year as he pursues the presidency.
In a reprise of criticism showered on McCain during his 2000 campaign, some prominent conservatives are branding him a disloyal Republican and an unreliable conservative because of his assertiveness on the detainee issue.
What’s interesting is that Republicans who are lambasting Democratic party leftists for going after Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman on what Lieberman insists is to him a matter of conscience in the case of the war, are now among those considering McCain disloyal in the case of another matter dealing with the war and conscience.
But didn’t you know that conscience is relative? Besides: whoever said consistency is a value in 21st Century politics? (Actually some HAVE and ARE saying just that: the traditional Republican conservatives now publically breaking with the administration on several matters).
The senator’s actions “are blocking our ability to gain from terrorist captives the vital information we need,” said a front-page editorial Saturday in the Union Leader of Manchester, N.H., the largest newspaper in the state with the first presidential primary.
Conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh said Friday that opposition to Bush’s approach “is going to go down as the event that will result in us getting hit again, and if we do, and if McCain, et al. , prevail, I can tell you where fingers are going to be pointed.”
So there you have it: if the U.S. is attacked by terrorists, it’s all John McCain’s fault.
(And if the U.S. is decimated by a big windstorm, it’ll all be Rush Limbaugh’s fault.)
If McCain or his backers worry that such pointed criticism threatens his presidential hopes, they do not admit it, calling the issue a matter of principle on which the senator has had a long record. But his camp acknowledges being well aware of the potential political ramifications.
For now, those ramifications remain uncertain. McCain’s maverick style has long been popular with GOP voters in New Hampshire, where he bested Bush in the 2000 primary, said Andy Smith, a pollster who directs the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center.
McCain has always been an independent sort: he has been reviled by the right and left during his career and if he smiles at one side, the other side calls him a hypocrite.
He must know this is his last shot at the Presidency. So what will he decide to do over the next week or two? Insist on a compromise that adheres to his key values, or go along to get along to get a nomination?
Stay tuned for the full story.
But for an accurate story, skip Rush Limbaugh…
UPDATE: Taylor Marsh notes that Fox’s Britt Hume, conservative Bill Kristol and an anonymous White House strategist have said McCain is done or will be done if he doesn’t go along with the President. Of course, it is George Bush who LEADS the base on these issues and sets the agenda that excites the base. Months ago pundits were saying Bush was losing his base and needed to find a way to excite it and get it all riled up and to the polls.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.