What McCain’s Tactics Teach
John McCain is headed back to the U.S. Senate, perhaps a changed and chastened man, and perhaps not.
But the manner in which he secured his Senate seat for another six years is instructive, and not only for moderate Republicans facing off against conservatives and tea party candidates, but for 2012.
Realizing his career was on the line, McCain began to run attack ads against his rival, ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth, an authentic conservative, while J.D. was still a radio talk show host.
When J.D. announced, and surged to within five points of McCain, the senator did not hesitate to call in Sarah Palin, though his own staff aides from the 2008 campaign had been trashing her as a lightweight and principal cause of McCain’s defeat.
McCain then repudiated his famous “maverick” moniker as a misnomer, as it implied that he had been First RINO (Republican in name only), who had relished siding with Democrats against his own party — a practice that had endeared McCain to the mainstream media.
McCain then joined Sen. Jon Kyl in proposing a 10-point border security plan calling for a fence and troops. John Amnesty of 2007 was now doing a passable imitation of Tom Tancredo 2008.
McCain used much of his $20 million war chest to savage J.D. on radio and TV, then created an ad with him walking the border with no-nonsense Sheriff Paul Babeu, saying, “Complete the dang fence!” and Babeu responding, “Senator, you’re one of us.”
While J.D. ran a courageous campaign, he never got the support to which his conservative record entitled him, and lost by 24 points.
McCain’s victory has cost him dearly with a national press that loathed the campaign he conducted. Many concur with the Democratic National Committee, which charged McCain with selling his soul to win his renomination. From the network studios in New York to the newsrooms of Washington,McCain is no longer Lancelot, but Mordred.
Yet, he did what he had to do to keep his job. And he has kept his job for six more years.
Had he been as ruthlessly opportunistic and pragmatic in his run against Barack Obama as he was in the campaign against J.D., McCain would be president now.
Indeed, had McCain led the battle for border security in 2008, conceded that NAFTA had not worked, called for its renegotiation and an industrial policy to create manufacturing jobs in America, and taken Obama apart as a man of the radical left, comfortable in the church of a racist preacher, McCain would have been leading his country this year, not fighting to save his Senate seat.
Instead, the stunning selection of Palin aside, which sent his campaign surging, McCain ran a race that seemed designed to lose gracefully and maintain his standing with the Washington press.
As he has seen how softball failed him in 2008, but hardball succeeded for him in 2010, one wonders if McCain has any regrets. And when he gets back to Washington, will he revert to the maverick for whom the press fell so hard in 2000?
For conservatives and tea party activists, the lesson to be taken away from McCain’s campaign is clear. Confrontation and conflict are not to be avoided, but sought out.
And, as one looks around the political landscape, the issues that are turning toward the tea party and populist right are astonishing.
Even Democrats are now parroting the right on border security and amnesty. Voters are overwhelmingly endorsing English as the national language. Affirmative action is being voted down in deep blue states like Michigan, California and Washington. Pro-life is gaining among the young.
Abortion on demand has lost it feminist luster.
Same-sex marriage has been rejected in all 31 states where it has been on the ballot. Even Obama refuses to endorse it and back up the California federal court, and now appears suddenly hesitant to impose the values of Fire Island on Parris Island.
The election of 2010 will surely turn on the economy — jobs, deficits, debt. So, too, may the election of 2012.
But there are other aces and face cards in play.
But if the GOP takes the advice of its establishment, and the neocons who seek power to start another war, and walks away from cultural, social and moral issues, which are far more popular than the party itself, folks who care about the character of the country and national identity should walk away from that party, and find outliers who will pick up the banner and carry it forward.
Americans motivated by causes need to maintain their freedom and independence of both parties, forming what George W. Bush liked to call “alliances of the willing.”
If the tea party has taught us anything, it is that the mindset which says, “Lead, follow or get out of the way,” is the quintessential ingredient of political success and future progress.
Patrick Buchanan is the author, most recently, of Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback. COPYRIGHT 2010 Creators.com.
“Had he been as ruthlessly opportunistic and pragmatic in his run against Barack Obama as he was in the campaign against J.D., McCain would be president now.”
I like Pat, but that has to be the most delusional sentence that I have read in a long time.
“Lead, follow or get out of the way,”
“charged McCain with selling his soul to win”
Ooh. I wish I’d said those things early and often. Oh wait. I did.
McCain’s tactics, old and new, teach nothing new. He’s always taken the position that he believes is most likely to get him reelected. When those went against the wishes of his party, he happily embraced the “maverick” label and became the sweetheart of pundits like David Broder. When being a maverick and “working across the aisle” became a potential liability, he went in the opposite direction. Campaign finance reform? Who needs it. That border fence McCain long opposed? How fast can it be built? Etc.
So if by “chastened” you mean, unlikely to flip-flop again if the political winds change, history suggests the opposite – he’s been consistently and richly rewarded for doing and saying whatever it takes to retain his seat. What does he actually believe? You got me.
I have become a single issue voter: we need to end mass immigration.
Build a fence, guard our borders, enforce our laws, and stop issuing millions of work visas to foreign laborers while we are in the midst of a terrible recession.
“Instead, the stunning selection of Palin aside, which sent his campaign surging”
Until Americans became more familiar with the largely unknown Palin, and then the polls started crashing for McCain and his incompetent, unqualified running mate.
“Had he been as ruthlessly opportunistic and pragmatic in his run against Barack Obama as he was in the campaign against J.D., McCain would be president now.”
You seem to regret the fact that McCain didn’t win in 2008. But, while he reversed himself on virtually every position in his Senate renomination fight (including the “maverick” label which had adorned the cover of his book), McCain did not reverse his positions on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Georgia or the countless other parts of the world where he wanted to see the U.S. military involved. I fail to see the difference between McCain and “the neocons who seek power to start another war,” whose policies you justifiably bemoan. (wasn’t McCain Bill Kristol’s preferred candidate in 2000?). And, of course, had he won the Presidency in 2008, there would have been absolutely no need to reverse himself on all the domestic issues as he did in 2010 and we would have been left with the virtually unchanged John McCain who was such a darling of the Washington press corps.
That does not touch on McCain’s basic competence as a political leader. Remember that he was so clueless when it came to economic matters that he literally worshipped the overrated “genius” Alan Greenspan, the true architect of the financial mess the U.S. found itself in by 2008. As someone who voted for every Republican Presdential nominee from Reagan in 1980 through Bush in 2000, I simply could not bring myself to vote for McCain in 2008, any more than I could bring myself to vote for Bush/Cheney in 2004. And, despite my disappointment with Obama on virtually everything from healthcare to Afghanistan, I still don’t regret voting against McCain/Palin, for I think that matters would likely be far worse than they are now.
I agree with Gil, in a recession with 10%-30% unemployment and scores of longterm uncounted unemployed legal and/or illegal immigration is the perfect symbol for a representative government that is not considering what is best for the country and the voters.
As far as McCain is concerned, he fell in love with Washington and the national media and became completely oblivious to Arizona but I give McCain credit for recognizing the Tea Party at its infancy with Sarah Palin. Its to bad that McCain cared more about deferring to a non-birth certificate christian impersonating african/indonesian/half white muslim than running a real campaign.
Im glad that Buchanan brings up the jews through codewords Bill Kristol and neocons by saying that if they manage to continue Bush’s proIsrael policies of invading ME countries like Iran then the conservative and republican party will go the way of the Whigs and be replaced. Americans are done with the jewish and Israeli demands for more money, more weapons and more war. Americans want their borders closed, their troops home, their manufacturing jobs returned and their taxes lowered by eliminating civil servant unions from the government.
The “Man of the Radical Left” sure hasn’t been acting like a radical leftist. He’s been acting a lot like the cautious moderate he seemed to be. So much so that his base is pretty mad at him.
McCain has been unmasked. I once actually believed that he was something of a statesman. I disagreed with many of his policy positions, but he seemed reasonable and open to compromise and furthermore managed to fool me into thinking he had integrity (silly me, he’s a politician!). But when his job was on the line, he did like most politicians do: whatever it takes to win, past positions & principles be damned. I’m glad he’s not President, even if I’m disappointed with Obama.
Pat Buchanan extols the virtues of the voter who is attracted to ” cultural, social and moral issues.”
Who better to tell us that voters react to “cultural, social and moral issues” than Pat Buchanan? After all he, along with Kevin Phillips, concocted the famous “Southern Strategy” used to exploit the cultural, moral and social issue of racism to attract dumb, fearful and bigotted Southern white men (like my dearly departed father who loved Pat Buchanan and voted for him for President every time Buchanan was on the ballot) to the Republican Party. In so doing, any chance that our national government could actually solve real national issues for which it was designed by the founders by engaging in rational debate would forever be mired in the emotional language of hate, fear and bigotry.
My father died a racial bigot even demanding that a white nurse clean his bedpans in his final days at the hospital. But he lived vicariously through the firery appeal of the Republican Party to those cultrual, moral and social issues that were demagogued by its leaders. And he was a loyal supporter to the end.
Ah, the sweet smell of success!
Against J.D. Hayworth, McCain did a “McCain”…whatever it takes to win…much like he did in the presidential primaries against Mitt Romney.
But in the presidential campaign, he was fearful of being tarred a racist — in the history books.
Being in the history books is what McCain craved…to out shine his father and grandfather, admirals in the U.S. Navy — bad portrayals in the history books just wouldn’t do.
Lessons?
Hardball works, particularly for entrenched encumbents, who have at least a residual of “good feelings” among the electorate.
Those against illegal immigration, amnesty, and for a reduction of legal immigration need a concise plan — a battle cry, if you will — and claim the label “reform” for their own.
Assuming a house majority in Congress, Republicans need a bill directing the federal government to enforce immigration law which will put the Senate & Obama on the spot.
Let Obama veto a “tough” immigration bill and see how well that plays in 2012.
Bush’s presidency doomed McCain. He’d have needed Jesus as a running mate to get past a crashed enonomy 2 struggling wars, infrastructure weaknesses and internal failures like Katrina. The Dems time had come through our own failure to govern plain and simple.
My main concern is there is absolutely no proposals to get us out of the ditch aside from going back to Bush policies. If they’d worked we wouldn’t be in this hole. Blaming migrants is laughable. Sure lets control the border but lets not pretend that we were not the problem. Migrants didn’t invade Iraq, allow Insurers to amalgamate so much that there was no competition and fail to regulate both them and every other bstard mining us for money. Big Business wrecked the joint here … not Mexican gardeners, no matter how many anchor babies they have. In twenty years time you’ll be glad for those anchor babies while they fight our eternal wars and pay taxes for our retirement. In hard time minorities always get the blame. In the 1920s Germans blamed Jews in 2010 Americans blame Mexicans. Grow up.
How could the people of Arizona be so brain dead as to fall for this crap? Perhaps they use Diebold voting machines.
ian wrote: “Sure lets control the border…”
But in the same breath:
ian wrote: “In twenty years time you’ll be glad for those anchor babies while they fight our eternal wars and pay taxes for our retirement.”
Sure sounds contradictory.
Wages for lower middle class and working class stagnated over the last decade. Wages were lowered in specific industries like sheet rock hanging (construction) and meat packing plants, and other fields. And, yes, jobs were taken from Americans, despite the propaganda about “jobs Americans won’t do”.
Many American jobs (high paying) were given to legal H(1) B (1) aliens in the computer programming and software industries, again lowering wages and depriving highly educated Americans jobs with upper middle class wages.
An imported class, illegal aliens (if given amnesty) will swing the electorate to the left, supporting a continued drift to centralized Socialism. Crime has jumped in certain states as a result of illegal aliens.
Public tax dollars have been strained to meet illegal alien needs (school, medical, social services). And, as a result political pressure increases for tax hikes at all levels of government.
The American body politic will be further balkanized (a major result of the 1965 immigration act) preventing united action against elite policies that damage American sovereignty.
Globalism will be served by amnesty, and continued high legal immigration.
The Globalists engage in divide & rule, and illegal & high legal immigration serves this “divide & rule” strategy.
It’s not at all clear that illegal aliens have done much harm at all to American wages. Companies now hire Indians, in India, to do their IT gruntwork for them. Nobody crosses any borders.
While I think we need a more intelligent immigration policy (and then we need to enforce said policy), blaming our ills on Mexican illegals is weak.
Rob in CT wrote: “Nobody crosses any borders.”
Completely false.
“This indicates a repeat of last year when the flow of petitions towards the quota of 65,000 was laboured. Contrast to this, three years ago when the quota was exhausted within a day. The USCIS was then flooded with 1.5 lakh [H (1) B] applications and had to resort to a lottery system for allotments…”
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/H1B__loses_its_weightage_among_Indian_techies-nid-68532.html
Nobody crosses any borders for jobs?
Complete malarkey.
Rob in CT wrote: “It’s not at all clear that illegal aliens have done much harm at all to American wages.”
False, as well. Any American sheet rocker in L.A. will tell you. And a few computer programmers, and others, too.
Rob in CT, the gigs up.
You cheap labor mongers and American worker sell-outs ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
McCains win proves no such thing, what it does prove is that the Neocons have done a good job infiltrating and co-opting the Teaparty movement.
Controlling the borders of a country has nothing to do with the laughable anchor babies fox so called controversy. Migration is usually good for a country. however when it gets out of hand and theres an economic reversal that lasts I guess there can be a few problems. It seems to be entirely forgotten that many migrants work, pay taxes, spend money, rent houses create demand for services. The agricutural sector of the US economy has been running on migrant labour particularly in manual crop work for decades.
Are US citizens really going to work in that heat for migrants wages? The lacvk of human dignity and respect in the public debate is astounding? Are these not people? We’ve certainly beeen glad to have them here for decades. Personally we should control the borders .. what country doesn’t? Thats nothing to do with stripping US born citizens of their citizenship. Right wingers are certainly not slow to bring up constitutional amendments when it comes to guns as being inviolate like the word of god. Not very consistant guys.
I was just listening to Sarah Palin echoing Margaret Thatcher in cutting social programs. Sometimes Sarah is so dense that I am ashamed that she represents the Tea Party movement.
Ok so Palin and McCain get it on balanced budgets, closing the border, limiting immigration, ending anchor babies, debt, (no) amnesty, (no) affirmative action, etc.
Look only part of the problem is social programs…THE BIGGER PROBLEM IS GOVERNMENT CIVIL SERVANT UNIONS, TO MANY GLOBAL MILITARY BASES AND COMMITMENTS AND OK THIS IS A BIG ONE…
AND NO NATION CAN PROSPER UNLESS THEY LIMIT IMPORTS WHICH OBVIOUSLY MEANS DONT JUST STOP STOP IRS SUBSIDIES FOR OUTSOURCING, OFFSHORING BUT TAX THEM, SUBSIDIZE US EXPORTS AND TAX IMPORTS LIKE EVERYONE ELSE DOES.
Right now from the liberal democrats we are getting status quo on the military and more social programs, imports, outsourcing, offshoring, affirmative action and immigration
If the republicans win it will be status quo again….
Thats why people like Ron and Ran Paul, Gov of NJ Chris Christie…they have the courage to cut both democrat and republican favorites.
Jim,
I was speaking specifically about outsourcing coding work to India. And actually, sometimes US employees are sent to India for a week or two, and vice-versa. The overall point, however, is that US companies can tap overseas labor without that labor moving here.
That is obviously not true in all industries – IT is but one example. I think you though I was making a larger point than I was.
“Rob in CT wrote: “It’s not at all clear that illegal aliens have done much harm at all to American wages.”
False, as well. Any American sheet rocker in L.A. will tell you. And a few computer programmers, and others, too.”
This has been studied. Google is your friend. As far as I can tell, some studies have shown little to no impact. Others have show that they do drag down wages, particularly for the most unskilled jobs.
The programmers I know (and I know many) have had their jobs impacted by outsourcing to India, not by illegals coming across the Mexican border.
My point, basically, is that while I think we need a smarter policy and better enforcement, you cannot totally insulate the US labor market from the world.
One more thing:
“You cheap labor mongers and American worker sell-outs ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
You’re probably not talking to the right people, if that’s your message. You need to be in board rooms, on shareholder conference calls, at conferences where CEOs schmooze, etc. I work in a cube, man.