Goldwater, Reagan, McCain?

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This Issue...

(Full PDF of the issue)

McCain's conservatism just might take him all the way.

By: Joshua Xiong on March 8th, 2007 at 4:42 PM

Conventional wisdom says that in 2008, conservatives will and should have a difficult choice to make. At first glance, the Republican Party seems to have no clear frontrunner for presidential candidacy. The field is rife with talent, led by a maverick senator, an All-American ex-mayor, and a controversial blue-state governor. If conservatives dig a little deeper beneath the surface, however, it should be evident that first among those three is also the best. Here is the case for John McCain:

For at least the next five to ten years, and probably a lot further than that down the road, the War on Terror will be incredibly significant. For any voter, conservative or liberal, this should be the defining issue of any presidential debate, and it should figure into at least 50 percent of a voter’s calculations on which candidate to support. This view is, of course, not written in stone, and it is not my intent to defend such a premise. Still, most conservative intellectuals, pundits, and opinion leaders, along with some liberal hawks, view Islamic Fascism and Jihadism as the hallmark security threat of our times, tantamount to Nazism and Soviet era Communism. In light of this, only John McCain possesses the foreign policy experience, knowledge, consistency, and conviction to help us win this war.

McCain’s neoconservative credentials are impeccable, and they are consistent with the insight that the terror threat of asymmetrical warfare, transnational military actors, and theocratic backers cannot be rationally contained through cold war political realism, let alone idealistic liberal internationalism. Rather, McCain rightfully believes that terrorism must be aggressively but tactfully confronted and co-opted. For example, he has been the leading opponent of an immediate troop withdrawal in Iraq and was the instigator, along with former general Jack Keane and AEI scholar Frederick Kagan, of the recent surge to stabilize Baghdad and Anbar. He advocates taking a reasonably hard line against Iran, including meaningful economic sanctions and proactive assistance to dissident and pro-democracy groups within the relatively pro-American populace of the theocratic regime. And while other candidates have more or less backed these positions, they all lack either authenticity or tenacity. McCain’s positions, though prudent, aren’t politically popular, and one wonders if the rest of the field, save maybe Giuliani, will stop echoing them if the American mood grows more pessimistic. This is indeed an alarming possibility. Mitt Romney, for one, already has quite a few eyebrow-raising “flip-flops” of political convenience on gay marriage and abortion, going from liberal centrist to social conservative standard bearer (with Sam Brownback the only other contender for that title). It isn’t hard to fathom him giving into popular pressure on Iraq as well. Giuliani, while unapologetically anti-terror, lacks the foreign policy experience to deal with such an enormous issue. It is doubtful that either one will understand how to approach a politically unstable Lebanon and prevent it from falling into the hands of Hezbollah, or how to break the marriage between Sunni Syria and Shiite Iran. Moreover, neither has ever had to confront problems on a national scale, let alone internationally pressing ones.

Even those who may disagree with McCain’s approach to the War on Terror should still recognize its utmost importance. And in doing so, they need to ask themselves which Republican candidates can command national unity on that very issue. If we are going to win the war then we must convince liberals that it is worth fighting. As Jonah Goldberg insightfully put it in his National Review column, “Only a handful of people on the Left — and far too few liberals — see radical Islamists as a bigger threat than George W. Bush.” Among the candidates, only Giuliani and McCain are up for the task. One may wonder if Newt Gingrich’s eloquence qualifies him, but it is doubtful that the left will believe anything he says after their miserable experience with him during the Clinton years. Putting Giuliani’s lack of expertise aside, the comparison between him and McCain on national unity is a fair one. McCain still has a large amount of respect within the media and in liberal circles. The left may frown upon his hawkish tendencies, but they are far too indebted to him on countless issues, from torture to immigration to the filibuster rule (incidentally, so are conservatives, as congressional Republicans are now in the dog house). While not all conservatives like McCain’s bi-partisanship, in this case it is a valuable asset. The next president will have to work with a likely Democratic majority, and he will need to get things done. McCain’s willingness to hand the Democrats some of their pet issues will potentially allow for the give and take necessary to legislate a tough foreign policy platform. Moreover, McCain is a “national greatness” neoconservative in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt. It is a kind of tone and approach to politics that can potentially unite Americans behind a reasonably nationalistic effort to combat a dangerous foreign enemy. Giuliani, however, matches up with his own command of the common American man. He is lauded as a hero of the 9/11 aftermath. His working class, politically incorrect, responsibility brand of conservatism resonates with many Americans. But it is precisely that political style that hurts Giuliani with the cultural left. Giuliani’s time in New York, with his unapologetically anti-crime and illiberal self-empowerment policies, earned him many left-wing enemies. He may have saved the city, but he is hardly revered by liberals for the impolitic measures he took to do so, and that fact alone makes him weaker than McCain on national unity.

With fifty percent of the considerations down, let’s look at the domestic issues. Certainly McCain has had his share of controversies, though they really don’t merit concern. On fiscal issues and the economy, McCain is as conservative as the next guy. He might even be superior, given his near perfect record on free trade, his legacy of fighting pork and budgetary waste (the man sacrificed his campaigning opportunities in Iowa in 2000 to oppose their ridiculous agricultural subsidies), and his dedication to run-of-the-mill conservative issues like social security privatization, entitlements reform, and school choice. And while it isn’t preferable that McCain voted against Bush’s tax cuts, one has to realize that in 2008 and beyond, the age of globalization will come under intense attack from populist Democrats. It does the free trade movement no good if the public perceives Republicans as looking out only for their rich selves. McCain wisely understood that the Bush’s tax cuts for the investor class would only aggravate populist tensions and stall any progress to be made on expanding free trade deals or lowering tariffs and subsidies.   

Finally, let’s take a look at the elephants in the room. As a domestic libertarian, I’m not inclined to care much about social issues. While Giuliani’s pro-choice, pro-gay politics is more preferable, it is only of marginal importance. For the cultural right, moreover, there shouldn’t be much cause for worry when it comes to McCain. He commands an absolute 0 rating from NARAL Pro-Choice, having voted repeatedly against abortion funding and partial birth abortion. On matters of gay marriage and religion, he has slightly more trouble, but only due to the stubbornness of a minority within the conservative movement. Yes, McCain voted down the Federal Marriage Amendment and called Pat Robertson an “agent of intolerance.” But in doing so, he has made some good points. The recent surge in religious conservative activism is worrying in that it is far too interventionist and big-government. To any conservative who was inspired by Reagan and believe in the mantra that “government is the problem,” trying to institute a constitutional amendment on marriage of all issues seems at best silly and at worst unjustly overreaching and un-conservative. Rather, McCain borrows from Reagan and Goldwater’s traditions of deferring social issues to the states, letting the experiment of federalism resolve social disputes. The fact that McCain has such a sense of tradition puts him one level higher than the dogmatic Brownback and the wishy-washy Romney.

Conclusively, the very issues of contention – immigration and torture – are what will solidify the case for McCain. The Republican reaction to immigration is one that always puzzles me. As the party of free markets and rationality, we should ask ourselves why we simply want to deport all the local immigrants who contribute to the heavily demanded labor supply of southern economies. It is neither economically desirable nor, for that matter, feasible (if it were, it would have been successfully implemented long ago). We should also ask ourselves why we want to construct a wall – through a wasteful, pork-laden congress, no less – to seal out those who are coming for available jobs when we know for a fact that America hands out too few visas each year to match the labor demand. If anybody adheres to conservative principles of markets and reason on such a matter, it is John McCain, who has co-authored the Senate comprehension immigration reform bill akin to the president’s.

McCain’s opposition to the practice of torture also sets him apart from the rest of the candidates. He understands what Islamofascism truly means. If jihadists can ram planes into tall buildings, sacrifice their own families, and strap bombs to their chests, they can undoubtedly withstand practices like water-boarding. For the Islamic martyr, pain is simply a hallmark of their sacrifice to their faith. And for those who are ticking-time bomb advocates, ask yourselves this: if you were a jihadist and you had information relevant to an imminent attack, wouldn’t you be motivated to hold out against torture precisely because your sacrifices will be vindicated fairly soon? McCain argues that if torture is ineffective, it is simply detrimental to our image of moral superiority at no great benefit to our security. And if we are to win the War on Terror, we must be able to win the war of ideas in the Middle East, and that entails a moral high ground.

John McCain has shown himself to be a stellar conservative on all the issues that matter. He has the courage to serve America right and stand up to irrational populism, the knowledge to fight the War on Terror, and the leadership to elevate the country to a higher level of greatness. There is no question that he should be the one leading the GOP in 2008.

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