Despite his longtime alienation of the Right on countless issues, John McCain secured a solid win in a closed Florida Republican primary and is assuming the air of inevitability. Many pundits have been urging John McCain to reach out to conservatives (how novel that would be). In response, he made a small point tonight in his victory speech of emphasizing judges–an olive branch, apparently, in the aftermath of the Alito/Fund kerfuffle.
Well. We hear what he says now. But we know what he has done for years:
Insult the base, trash the base, and pay lip service to the base only when it suits his needs.
The declaration that he is the “conservative leader who can unite the party†is yet another smack in the face to those who have watched him reach out and slap conservatives time and again–and then run to the warm, gooey embrace of the liberal media. Is it too much to ask to nominate a Republican candidate who is not as openly and historically hostile to the Republican base as CNN and (McCain’s endorsers at) the New York Times are?
McCain’s open-borders supporters will declare that immigration is no longer a factor in this campaign. They so wish it to be so. (Right on cue, here’s Kennedy-fawning NYT columnist David Brooks dismissing immigration sniffily as “not a good issue for Republicans.â€)
But the fact is that McCain was driven to play up his border security promises (however hollow they may be) and to start talking up attrition through enforcement.
That’s a small victory. But questions like this remain: How can McCain honestly reach out to conservatives when he defends his extremist campaign Hispanic outreach director who doesn’t believe in borders and when he boasts a national campaign finance chair and soft-money mogul who poured millions of dollars into the fight against English-language instruction in California, Planned Parenthood, and radical environmental fear-mongering groups?
We know that Juan Hernandez is McCain’s Hispanic outreach director.
Who is McCain’s conservative outreach director?
Hillary Clinton likes to say that whatever differences she and her Democrat opponents may have, “they pale in comparison†with the differences she and her Dem rivals have with the Republicans.
Can the Republican front-runner say that the differences between him and his GOP opponents pale in comparison with the differences between him and the Democrats?
The McCain=Hillary ad from the grass-roots conservative group Citizens United provides the disturbing answer.
Conservatives have core concerns about McCain’s trustworthiness, adherence to conservative ideology, and commitment to sovereignty that can’t easily be brushed off with glib answers about being the “straight talk†candidate. The problem is that the media chuckleheads who get to question the GOP candidates are as hostile and out of touch with the conservative base as McCain is. This monumental deficiency has been exposed repeatedly during the election-year “debates.â€
Wouldn’t it be helpful to have at least one bona fide conservative questioner on the CNN debate panel tomorrow night when the GOP candidates meet at the Reagan Library? They made room for minority journalists when they broadcast minority interest group-sponsored debates. They made room for local journalists when they broadcast the Iowa caucus and NH primary debates. Why not someone at the GOP debate who actually knows and cares about what conservatives care about?
Too much to ask, apparently.
***
Last month, I asked readers: “Would you, could you, vote McCain?†How about now? At the moment, I’m with Rush: “I can see possibly not supporting a Republican nominee.â€
Yes, the possibility is real. But we also have a long, long way to go.
With that in mind, I’m running a closed poll for registered MichelleMalkin.com commenters. (For those who can’t access the poll, I’m asking: Where do you stand with nine months to go until Election Day? If it’s McCain vs. Hillary in November, will you 1) Vote McCain; 2) Vote Hillary; 3) Stay home; or 4) Don’t Know.) I’ll post the results at the end of the day.
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/01/30/john-mccain-vs-the-right-no-easy-peace/Heard Michelle on Beck this morning and every caller after her (didnt hear the whole segment) was just absolutely furious with having McCain as the nominee..
