Centerfield

Is America really ready to elect a Mormon Republican? Hillary, I could buy, Condi I could buy, but a Mormon? It seems to me that the GOP base will run a mile because he's a heretic and the Dem base will run a mile because he has, well, any religious beliefs, while mainstream Dems will probably not be especially enthused by someone who - while moderate - is hardly Lincoln Chafee or anything (mind you, neither is McCain, but he seems to get a free pass). Which leaves him with the mainstream GOP, and that isn't enough to win an election on its own. Can a Mormon win and keep the GOP base?

Posted by: Simon at March 16, 2006 09:00 AM

I think it's a mistake to make too much of what 1 southern state thinks. Northern, midwestern, and western states get to speak as well.

This is the 2nd time this week I've seen the "Real Republicans don't like McCain" vibe. Since I like McCain, I'd love to be able to dismiss it, and to suggest that those seeking to amplify it are probably Frist, Romney, and Allen (etc.) partisans.

But I know that vibe is out there. This means that centrists who want McCain to be an option should plan to participate in GOP primaries.

It will be interesting to see if any candidate emerges from among democrats who provides a compelling reason for centrists to participate in the democratic primary. I can't see a good case for Kerry or Gore. Clinton has positioned herself towars the center, but my opinion is that many centrists don't trust the authenticity of that positioning. Edwards? I'm not sure what makes him especially centrist, and he still has a gravitas/experience deficit perception problem to overcome.

Maybe Richardson and Warner? My guess is that the problem there would be that the lack of name recognition means that it'll be hard to motivate centrists to wake up that early. If we presume that centrists and independents are less likely to participate in primaries, it makes sense to assume that the only way to increase that participation is by increasing the motivation of such voters.

IMO, McCain is the only guy with the power to do that. So McCain should consider inviting independents to join the GOP to vote for him in the primaries and turn the GOP back towards the middle "because I'm not a quitter or a traitor." That's the savvy move if archconservative loyalists seek to marginalize him. AND, he could later run as an independent with a clear conscience if he could trick the archconservative loyalists into "kicking him out," as it were. I hope he fights, and makes his enemies choose between getting in line behind him or throwing him out the front door. And it would make a great show, too.

Posted by: bk at March 16, 2006 09:13 AM

Twenty years of independence, courage, creativity and conscience will do that for you (as Joe Lieberman is finding out across the aisle).

I know this is pie in the sky, but if McCain can't win the R primary, I would love to see a McCain/Lieberman Independent ticket. Half of me knows it will never happen, but the other half of me thinks they couldn't lose. Maybe I'll take up religion and start praying.

Posted by: WHQ at March 16, 2006 09:24 AM

I'd vote for them.

Posted by: Tully at March 16, 2006 09:40 AM

There is an article in The New Republic discussing McCain's attempted reconciliation with Grover Norquist. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060320&s=lizza032006

If the article is correct, it looks like McCain is going to run as pretty much a typical Republican conservative reaching out to the base. At the same time, according to the article, some on the right, while not terribly enamored perhaps with McCain, think that he is strong enough that they may need him more than he needs them.

The fact is, for better or worse, McCain is a conservative; probably not as rigid as the hard core right and more of a maverick. I certainly respect him, but, IMO, he is hardly a centrist. The best thing about him is that he probably would not kowtow to the religious right, which is important, but not enough by itself to make him an appealing candidate to me. The talk about McCain/Lieberman, IMO, assumes that the two are the same kind of candidate. They aren't. Lieberman is essentially a Democrat--more conservative on foreigh policy perhaps, but not--despite what Kos thinks-a conservative. McCain is a conservative. If you are looking at this as a utopian centrist ticket, it seems to me that this illustrates one of the problems that centrism has. What kind of program would a McCain/Lieberman ticket represent? Who is going to coalesce around a ticket that really has no substance other than they are not "real" conservative or "real" liberal. And, if McCain is the presidential candidate, Lieberman's relative liberalism is pointless unless you assume that Lieberman will be a Chaney-type vice-president. I wouldn't vote for the ticket just because Lieberman is on it when it's likely to be a predominantly conservative administration.

As for Romney, I think he is a stealth candidate. He tried to moderate his views for Massachusetts, but now he is moving to the right for the GOP base. My fear (and belief) is that he is like Bush--a reputation for being a moderate (pre-2000), but someone that when the chips are down will move right. Romney scares me--not because he is a Mormon but because I can't figure out where he is coming from. Of course, you could say the same about Hilary Clinton.

Posted by: Marc at March 16, 2006 09:59 AM

I think McCain could get the GOP nomination if it looks like Hillary is running for the Dem. ticket. The impression that I'm getting from alot of those in Republican circles who aren't that enamored of McCain is that picking some-one who they feel confident will trounce Hillary is more important then picking thier own ideal candidate. If there is enough nervousness about Clinton then I think McCain could get the nod even though he's far from every conservatives first choice for the Prom. Which I'm happy about, because I really like McCain even if I don't always agree with him.

Posted by: cengel at March 16, 2006 10:14 AM

Marc,

I think the appeal of McCain and Lieberman is that both have consistently shown a willingness to vote against party lines and to work across party lines. Both McCain and Lieberman share a similar foreign policy outlook, and I know McCain voted against the Bush taxcuts, voted against all the pork-barrel monkey-business, voted against the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, tried to reign in acceptable practices towards detainees, and is very green. So to me, the major difference between McCain and Lieberman lie in fiscal policy, and I'm not sure the gulf is too wide. But it is no surprise that you don't find the two appealing -- both are war supporters and neither is solidly liberal.

I like McCain and Lieberman because they actually seem honest; not just a bunch of weasely, posturing, spineless pols nor a bunch of flaming nuts. IOW, although I'm probably significantly more liberal than McCain, I like them a lot because they actually seem to put country above party. With any other candidates, I think we would continue to see this divisive point-scoring, us vs. them, crap going on. And that, rather than actually mirroring me ideologically, is much more important to me. Because then I think we would actually get stuff done, instead of expending countless energy of obfuscation, spin, etc.

Posted by: Adam at March 16, 2006 10:33 AM

While ideologically conservative, McCain is an old-school politician, a pragmatist. As is Leiberman. We need more of that.

Tutakai has some relevant thoughts on pragmatism and centrism.

Posted by: Tully at March 16, 2006 10:34 AM

The fact is, for better or worse, McCain is a conservative; probably not as rigid as the hard core right and more of a maverick. I certainly respect him, but, IMO, he is hardly a centrist.

As Tully points out, there is a school of thought that centrism is better defined as an approach more than a set of substantive policy views. If so, McCain is very much a moderate, in the sense that he acknowledges that politics is the art of the possible. Posted by: Simon at March 16, 2006 11:03 AM

Gallup recently did a poll that showed McCain with substantial support within the base, and I personally think Morris makes predictions now for the sake of being heard alone. The trouble with the conservative grassroots overcoming the establishment Republican Party to stop McCain isn't viable when you consider they do not have a candidate. Bush was strong because he had BOTH grassroots and establishment support. No candidate except McCain will come close to that in the primary. The idea of Newt Gingrich is a joke, Romney lost when he decided not to run for Governor again, Brownback isn't electable, Frist's political career is over, Giuliani is looking like he will not run, Condi Rice has stated pretty emphatically that she doesn't want to do it, etc. George Allen is a likely conservative hero against McCain, but I have serious doubts that he has the intellectual weight to beat him, although I guess the same could have been said about Bush. I think the biggest challenge to McCain is Governor Huckabee from Arkansas or an individual who has yet to be named. As of right now, however, I think he will be the Bob Dole, it's his turn, nominee of the Republican Party. The difference is, there isn't a Democrat alive that can beat him, except possibly Evan Bayh or Mark Warner, IMO. Warner is the only person I would consider voting for over McCain.

Posted by: Mathew at March 16, 2006 11:11 AM

As Tully points out, there is a school of thought that centrism is better defined as an approach more than a set of substantive policy views.

I've said it frequently, and will continue to do so in the future. Centrism is the pragmatical practice of democratic pluralism. You can be a liberal or a conservative and still be a centrist. But you can't be a dedicated ideologue and be a centrist. Ideologues want holy wars and utter victory for their ideology, centrists want workable results for the body politic. Centrist programs and positions should not be defined by the wings, but in spite of them.

If centrism is not a flexible and pragmatic process approach, then it's just standing in the middle of the road, waiting for an 18-wheeler. And "...the only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead skunks." [Jim Hightower] If that's the case, you don't even get to help lay out the route, you just stand where the shoulders of the road say you will, and the ideologues get to paint all the lines.

Posted by: Tully at March 16, 2006 11:35 AM

And there is something else appealing about a McCain/Lieberman ticket, competence. And if you like Liberman, whether or not you think he would affect the administration's agenda, you can expect him to run for president with a greater chance of success after having been vice-president.

Posted by: WHQ at March 16, 2006 12:12 PM

I reiterate the points on what centrism is. It's an approach. While McCain may be more conservative than billed and it's true, he shows a willingness to break ranks when partisanship is clearly at play.

For all intents and purposes, McCain would be a healer. I can see him proposing budgets and programs that do not suit either party to a T...but his genuine popularity would have most people (casual voters) on his side giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Since he doesn't strike me as the type who would push an agenda that repells the Left, getting results would be easier.

Posted by: John at March 16, 2006 12:32 PM

The idea of Newt Gingrich is a joke

That's not quite the way I'd put it, because I certainly don't think of Newt as a joke, and in some ways, as I mentioned before, I think he'd make a good President. Whenever you get an opinion poll asking who you'd vote for in the primary, I usually pick Newt if he's an option, because I figure McCain gets plenty of votes. Depending on how the primaries go - perhaps if it's clear by the time they roll into Indiana that McCain's won it - I'd consider (I stress "consider" - the fact is that people's attitudes in their private lives affect their personal lives; that was true for Clinton, and it's true of Newt) voting for him in the primary. So I'd say Newt is a non-starter (or at least, a non-finisher), rather than a joke.

You can be a liberal or a conservative and still be a centrist. But you can't be a dedicated ideologue and be a centrist.

I think you can still be an ideologue on some issues and still qualify as a centrist. I'm thinking in particular of my own commitments in terms of judicial philosophy, but I think it's fair to say that there are certain sacred cows that no centrist would sacrifice, and I think every centrist has at least some views which are so basic, so bedrock that they are unwilling to compromise. Posted by: Simon at March 16, 2006 01:34 PM

Since he doesn't strike me as the type who would push an agenda that repells the Left, getting results would be easier.

But that can't be right. McCain takes more-or-less the same view in foreign policy that Bush does. If the left (by which I mean, the moonbat wing) failed to oppose McCain just as vigorously as it does Bush, wouldn't their hostility to Bush's policies be shorn of its pretense of being anything more noble than mere hostility to Bush? Posted by: Simon at March 16, 2006 01:50 PM

Matt, Romney clearly (and wisely IMO) eschewed running for a 2nd term as MA Gov precisely because he IS running for President. He has to tack right to have a shot. Please explain to me why this choice, in your estimation, disqualifies him from contention. I don't get it.

I'm going to be watching Romney with an eye to the battle between perception and reality. There has NEVER been a single doubt in my mind that Mitt Romney is primarily three things, which explains all of his positions pretty well:

1)a venture capitalist, he's gung-ho free markets pro-business

2) a mormon and devout family man, he's fundamentally quite conservative socially

3) he's a very ambitious politican from a political family who was carefully groomed and who has planned his resume meticulously

Somehow, Romney has been tarred as a liberal nationwide, apparently under the assumption that only a GOP libertine such as Bill Weld could win th MA Gov slot. The fact is that he's no such thing. He's way more like Bush and Clinton together on steroids...he's ROBO Compassionate Conservative. If people give him a chance, he'll be a formidable candidate for the Presidency. He's good looking, well spoken, charismatic, politically experienced and skilled, has a LOT of executive experience, and is a fairly thoughful and forthright guy as politicians go. He has shown that he can appeal to liberals by winning in MA, but he is in fact a pretty strong conservative republican whose only departures can all be attributed to a pragmatic willingness to compromise and defer to the wishes of his relatively liberal constituents and a legislature that is totally dominated by democrats.

I just don't see how he can be so easily dismissed. And if he fails to gain GOP traction because social conservatives won't believe he is socially conservative enough, i will laugh about it until the day that I die. BELLY laughs. Guffaws! It'll be a perfect 100 on the unintentional comedy scale.

Posted by: bk at March 16, 2006 01:55 PM

Matt, Romney clearly (and wisely IMO) eschewed running for a 2nd term as MA Gov precisely because he IS running for President. He has to tack right to have a shot. Please explain to me why this choice, in your estimation, disqualifies him from contention. I don't get it.

Because in the eyes of many Republican activists, in my view, he lost a Republican seat to a Democrat by not running. True or not, that is the perception. I agree it was his only option if he wanted to be President, but it didn't help his stature in the party.

he's ROBO Compassionate Conservative.

That's right... It is fake, and many moderates and or conservatives don't buy his line. He is like a used car salesman. Whether or not Romney is really Romney is in question, and I don't see how he gets over that coming from such low name identity and one lackluster term as Governor.

I didn't say it was reality, but he has had the same start to running for President as Pete Wilson did, and despite his obvious talents, IMO, it is over for him.

I say all this with the caveat that most voters, even those in the primary, have short memories. If Allen doesn't run or is deflated for some reason, and conservatives need someone to turn to in order to McCain, than a comeback for Romney isn't out of the question. At this time, however, I don't see it. Furthermore, I think it doesn't help that many evangelical Christians at the base of the GOP believe that mormonism is a cult. I am not making that up.

Posted by: Mathew at March 16, 2006 02:51 PM

Simon,

I agree. Newt, the man himself, is not a joke. I to think he could be a capable President. However, the idea of a valid Newt Gingrich for President candidacy, in my eyes, is a joke. It isn't going to happen. He knows it, and in the end he won't run or will drop out immediately after Iowa.

Posted by: Mathew at March 16, 2006 02:55 PM

Matt,

Let me elaborate a bit on my percpetion of McCain.
Yes, his stance on Iraq is a bit more obstinate and Bush-like than many Dems would prefer. BUT, we don't know what Iraq will be like by that time. Besides, I think McCain, as president, would be more pliable and responsive to some Dem concerns about the occupation's handling...thus quelling some Dem griping. I'll also go out a limb and say that if McCain had been president, he wouldn't have gone into Iraq under the same circumstances as Bush did...if at all. McCain is not a PNAC neocon kinda guy. Thus, his staff and advice would have looked very different: No Wolfowitz, Rummy, Cheney or Feithe (sp?)...instead, more Powells and O'Neils. But that's neither here nor there. It's one thing to support a policy as a senator (as Kerry did too at the start), it's another to create your own policy.

But what I had more in mind was domestic policy. McCain's views would not, IMO, be so at odds with Dems to produce the gridlock that you see with Bush. He wouldn't be as tax-cut happy or ideological. Result: you'd see mopre moderates from both sides coming out and supporting his proposals early(instead of staying quiet until it gets nuclear). You'd see more free-will consensus and less partisan whipping. In short, ideologues on both sides would have to give ground or risk being radicalized since McCain is no favorite of ideological think-thanks and their policies.

Also, IMO, if he did take hard-line stands, it would be on systemic, inner beltway waste and corruption issues that would resonate with all voters and thus scare congressmen who don't want to change.

Posted by: John at March 16, 2006 03:11 PM

Simon, above post was in repsonse to your comment. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote "Matt".

Posted by: John at March 16, 2006 03:18 PM

That's right... It is fake, and many moderates and or conservatives don't buy his line.

Not what I meant. I meant he's the big powerful souped up version. There's not a single doubt in my mind that Romney is pro-business fiscally and a genuine, honest-to-goodness social conservative. NO doubt. None. He's the genuine article. I watched this guy run a pretty good campaign against Ted Kennedy, maintain visibilty while he ran the Utah Winter Olympics to widespread acclaim, and then win the MA governorship as a republican. He may have fooled some liberals, but he didn't fool me. Never. Ever. He's a staunch social conservative. Always has been. Tempered by the realism of executive experience? You betcha.

And now, very ironically IMO, social conservatives are penalizing him for for fooling liberals while always retaining his basic stripes. He did too good a job. He was always a mole, but his side thinks he's some sort of a traitor. And now the perception he fostered has threatened to become the reality he can't escape. It's priceless stuff if it unfolds that way.

Posted by: bk at March 16, 2006 03:30 PM

John,
Well, Rumsfeld is no neoconservative; he (and Rice, for that matter) would eschew that label, and most neoconservatives would disown him. One has only to glance at what the Weekly Standard has had to say about Rumsfeld to realize there is no love lost. Cheney is borderline; the case could be made that he is, but I think he is essentially just a conservative hawk, the same as Rice.

I think that on domestic policy, too, McCain is likely to offend Democrats. I trust McCain to nominate my kind of Judges a lot more than I trust Bush to, after the Miers business. Likewise, I think McCain's views on campaign finance reform and dealing with pork - are hardly positions that would please the dems. He has some idiosyncratic views, but in the main, McCain strikes me as being in many ways, essentially the exact sort of small-government federalist that should absolutely terrify democrats. If anything, Dems should be happier with Bush than with McCain; after all, their beef with Bush isn't the tools he uses, its the use to which he puts them. They will (and have) change their tone if they get back the white house; seems to me that McCain would do more to disassemble those tools than Bush has.

Posted by: Simon at March 16, 2006 03:37 PM

Incidentally, John, you missed the biggest neocon from your list. In my view, Bush 43 meets practically all of the criteria offered for defining neoconservatism. He is an idealist and an interventionist hawk in terms of foreign policy, and domestically, he is more concerned to see government used to support socially conservative objectives than to reduce the size of government.

Posted by: Simon at March 16, 2006 03:45 PM

Simon, the only point I would make is that GB 43 did not start out that way on foreign policy. During the campaign, he was almost as isolationist as Pat Buchanan (well, maybe not THAT isolationist, but still). Remember the concerns of the Jewish community and others that he wanted the U.S. to seriously withdraw from its previous role as a peace broker between the Isrealis and the Palestinians.

He may be close to neo-con now, but that was definitely a post-9/11 apotheosis.

Posted by: PatHMV at March 16, 2006 05:05 PM

Pat -
That's certainly true, but I think that his attitudes on domestic issues are (and always have been) decidedly neoconservative. Your old-style conservatives want to do it like Grover Norquist: reduce government until the beast is so enervated that it can be drowned in the bathtub. But your neoconservatives, on the other hand, want to harness the beast for their own ends. And thus, you see stuff like NCLB, increases in government spending, creating new government bureaucracies and so on.

Posted by: Simon at March 16, 2006 05:29 PM

I have trouble taking seriously anything they say before they get elected, as most politicians will say whatever they think is required to get elected. And they all talk pretty, it's a job requirement. Not until they're sworn in do you really get to see their colors.

Posted by: Tully at March 16, 2006 05:46 PM

What Tully said. The problem of divisiveness is not so much with the politicians as with the voters. Even centrists will get all hyped up in the election process that McCain (or whoever) is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then he'll take office and be forced to make actual decisions which will inevitably tick off some of the people some of the time. And then those people who thought he was so great will feel betrayed and claim he lied to them about who he was and what he intended to do. And then the search for the next sliced bread will begin.

In other words, DON'T put all your hopes in one person or one party. They will inevitably disappoint you in many ways. Pick a candidate, surely, and be involved in the process, but be tolerant of reality once that candidate takes office. Don't take it personally when he compromises on something you would never compromise on in a million years.

Posted by: PatHMV at March 16, 2006 06:29 PM

I basically agree with the crux of what Mathew is arguing-- that McCain has a substantial number of very strong advantages not only with Dems and Independents, but with core conservatives that we don't give him credit for, and that make him far and away the favorite for the GOP nomination in 2008. I don't give too much stock to name recognition per se (if anything I sense that Hillary's polarizing name recognition is damaging her, making her a constant target of the wrath of conservatives and the Democratic Left alike), but McCain has something far beyond name cachet-- *a very strong and consistently positive vibe nationally with the voters*.

For us centrists, there's no doubt in my mind that John McCain is our best candidate (unless the Dems nominate someone like Mark Warner, Wes Clark or Brian Schweitzer, who'd also be good candidates-- especially Warner). McCain's one of the few Republicans who's been willing to buck the GOP party line and work hard for fiscal responsibility. He's also a states rights advocate and a pragmatist at heart. I suspect he'll get centrist support in the open primaries and maybe in some of the closed ones as well.

But I've been to some GOP party gatherings before, and my general sense is that McCain is much stronger among the GOP conservatives than many might otherwise assume. McCain's been a big supporter of Bush's judicial nominees, the one crucial litmus test essential for social conservative support. McCain has lately been opposing gay marriage-- a view I don't care too much for, but which McCain has to do to win conservative support, which he's done. McCain is campaigning for Republicans in 2006, and he's making nice with the establishment, including the religious conservatives. Plus, McCain would be strong in the early primaries.

George Allen would be the strongest choice among the Bush-ite conservatives, but he'd have to fend off challenges from Sam Brownback and Mitt Romney, who would split the vote. Only Rudy Giuliani IMHO could really pose a challenge here. John McCain may be despised by the extremists like the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweilers and the like, but I suspect he has broad-based support in general.

Posted by: Charles at March 16, 2006 07:54 PM

Brownback is chanceless, and knows it. He's in the race for power chips and funding, just like Jesse Jackson. Allen and Romney are different stories. I don't think Guiliani's really interested, but he polls very well indeed. But pre-contest polling is fickle.

I pray that some day I'll see a ticket where I actually have to think about my vote on something other than the lesser of two weevils standard.

Posted by: Tully at March 16, 2006 10:56 PM

Dick Morris puts in his two cents. His pick for best GOP candidate? Our secretary of state.

Posted by: Tully at March 16, 2006 11:05 PM