Jeff at TvM points us to this excellent, thought-provoking, and – in the end – intensely frustrating piece on the GOP electorate’s second look (real or imagined) at John McCain.

McCain is the greatest frustration in my political life at the moment.  At least week’s debate party, I remember sitting, watching McCain speak, and thinking “damn – I wish I could vote for the guy!”. 

The Economist piece touches on McCain’s pros – and there are very, very many (emphases added):

Mr McCain is such a familiar figure that it is easy to forget how remarkable he is. He fought heroically in Vietnam, spending more than five years as a prisoner-of-war, when many other politicians of his generation discovered, like Dick Cheney, that they had “other priorities”. He has repeatedly risked his political career by backing unpopular causes. [Remember that – we’ll be returning to it – Ed].

Mr McCain’s qualifications extend beyond character. Take experience. His range of interests as a senator has been remarkable, extending from immigration to business regulation. He knows as much about foreign affairs and military issues as anybody in public life. Or take judgment. True, he has a reputation as a hothead. But he’s a hothead who cools down. He does not nurse grudges or agonise about vast conspiracies like some of his colleagues in the Senate. He has also been right about some big issues. He was the first senior Republican to criticise George Bush for invading Iraq with too few troops, and the first to call for Donald Rumsfeld’s sacking. He is one of the few Republicans to propose sensible policies on immigration and global warming.

Again, we’ll return to that.

Mr McCain’s qualities are particularly striking if you contrast him with his leading rivals. His willingness to stick to his guns on divisive subjects such as immigration stands in sharp contrast to Mr Romney’s oily pandering. Mr Romney likes to claim that his views on topics such as gay rights and abortion have “evolved”. But they have evolved in a direction that is strikingly convenient—perhaps through intelligent design. Can a party that mocked John Kerry really march into battle behind their very own Massachusetts flip-flopper?

One can expect that Romney’s “soul-searching” would be closely examined.  As someone who’s “flip-flopped” – or, alternately, “found reason to change his mind” – on gun control, abortion, gay marriage, and liberalism itself in the past 25 years, I can truly respect both informed changes of mind as well as “sticking to one’s guns”.  And on many issues – the war, gun control, spending – McCain is on the side of the angels. 

So what’s wrong?

The Economist piece comes close, without quite hitting it:

So why have so many Republicans written off Mr McCain? There are two reasons—one bad, the other more reasonable. The bad reason is that they worry that he is not really one of them. Mr McCain has broken with Republican orthodoxy on everything from tax cuts to campaign finance to immigration. But look at his record more closely and you discover that he is a Republican in good standing. His fights with his fellow Republicans have been driven by his (usually justified) conviction that they were betraying Republican principles. He opposed Mr Bush’s tax cuts because he thought they would create a deficit. He led the charge against pork-barrel spending and lobbyists such as Jack Abramoff because he thought they undermined the principle of small government. Immigration is a genuine problem: he is seriously at odds with the bulk of his party on the issue, though many independents would go with his plan.

The Economist brushes past the whole “McCain-Feingold” thing as if it’s no big deal – and emphasizes McCain’s “republican” qualifications while ignoring the “conservative” ones that are so vital. To many of us who are driven by “first principles” first and foremost, McCain’s dodginess on McCain-Feingold (and the “Gang of 14” debacle) are offenses not against the party (with which many of us have a love-hate relationship at best) but against the principles we espouse…

…as, indeed, does McCain himself.  Albeit frustratingly inconsistently.

I want to like McCain.  If he were to repudiate McCain-Feingold, I’d be more than willing to give him a second look. 

But that’s a big “but”. 

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Campaign '08, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.