Will The Wingnuts Come Out For McCain In November? Will The Sun Rise Tomorrow?

War Room:

With Mitt Romney's departure from the Republican presidential race yesterday, it's clear that John McCain is all but his party's nominee. While McCain has had a history of poor relations with some of the more conservative members of the party, some prominent conservatives are quickly accommodating themselves to McCain, and exhorting their ideological allies to do so as well. But others favor self-immolation for the greater good, and are suggesting that conservatives should stay home in November or even vote for the Democratic candidate; their argument is that a short-term Republican loss will mean long-term conservative gains.

In a column Wednesday in the Washington Times, conservative columnist Tony Blankley suggests that he's considering whether it might not be better for the Republican Party's future if conservatives stayed at home this fall instead of voting for McCain. Blankley states that hardcore conservatives gained dominance over the Republican Party in the wake of Barry Goldwater's doomed 1964 presidential bid. They won the future by losing the present, and by refusing to give in to the more moderate members of their party, such as George Romney, Mitt's father. Blankley asks, "If conservatives sit on our hands this November as moderates did 44 years ago, will we marginalize ourselves within the party (as the old Romney moderates did)? Or will we be saving the party for the grand old cause?" While Blankley is not ready just yet to commit to voter suicide, apparently some other Republicans are.

Ann Coulter fumed about McCain's nomination in a column Thursday, presenting the upcoming election in these stark terms: "If Hillary is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with Republicans ferociously opposing her, followed by Republicans zooming back into power, as we did in 1980 and 1994, and 2000. (I also predict more Oval Office incidents with female interns.) If McCain is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with the Republicans in Congress co-opted by 'our' president, followed by 30 years of Democratic rule."

Rush Limbaugh is also lamenting the McCain nomination. On Wednesday, he responded to a caller to his radio show who said they were considering a write-in vote in November by saying, "That is clearly an option. The write-in is clearly an option. It's clearly permitted. Whether it will be counted is another thing."

However, the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger wants to stop all this talk about Republican political suicide. In an Op-Ed published Thursday, he wrote, "There are reasons, though, why a principled political retreat won't make conservative prospects better. The point of a principled retreat would be to rediscover coherence amid doctrinal confusion. The exact opposite is likely to happen."

Also on Thursday, the New York Post -- which had already endorsed McCain -- exhorted its readers to buck up and support the presumptive nominee. In an editorial, the Post said, "John McCain may never win the presidency of the American Conservative Union -- but he's no Nelson Rockefeller, either. He may be just what is needed to attract the independents needed to keep the Democrats out of the White House -- and the true believers at CPAC would do well to keep that in mind."

Fox Bidness Journal:

Coming off of a string of Super Tuesday primary wins that gave him a near lock on becoming the Republican Party's presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain turned his attention toward gaining the trust of rank-and-file conservatives who eye him warily.

The Arizona senator acknowledged past disagreements in a speech alternately self-assured and self-effacing at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference this past week. His speech came hours after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told the same audience he is suspending his campaign. Mr. McCain amassed a solid delegate lead earlier in the week against Mr. Romney and both remaining contenders, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

POINTS OF VIEW

"I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of the party.
-- John McCain
"McCain thinks he can thumb his nose -- poke a stick in the eye of conservatives -- and not pay a price for it."
-- Rush Limbaugh
* * *

But Mr. McCain's electoral gains have been shadowed by hostile fire from conservative partisans, and in particular, influential radio talk-show hosts, who have threatened to sit out the election and are upset that a man who has often challenged conservative orthodoxy emerged the favorite. That resentment was on display during his address earlier this week, where he received scattered boos.

He now faces twin challenges: rallying disaffected conservatives (Mr. Romney won the vote of self-identified conservatives by a seven-point margin this past Tuesday, according to exit polls) without estranging himself from moderates and independents.

Here's a closer look:

How conservative is Mr. McCain? During his quarter century in Washington, the senator has assembled an 82% rating from the American Conservative Union, placing him 39th among senators in 2006, while drawing a 25% lifetime rating from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has a 75% ACLU lifetime rating. A scorecard by the antitax Club for Growth, a conservative political-action committee, ranked him 29th among 55 Republican senators in 2006.

In his conference address, Mr. McCain highlighted his solid credentials on issues such as abortion, limited government and national defense. His message sought to remind conservatives that "on the really important ones, we're on the same page," says Michael Franc of the Heritage Foundation.

Why are conservatives skeptical? While the senator has a solid record of supporting free trade and cutting government spending, he opposed President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as too tilted to the wealthy. Despite his staunch opposition to abortion rights, social conservatives oppose his support for funding embryonic-stem-cell research and his resistance to a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and recall his description of some evangelical leaders as "agents of intolerance." Most damaging was his support of last year's failed immigration overhaul to provide illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Also unpopular: his championing of campaign-finance reform and a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions that contribute to global warming.

Can he win conservatives' trust? Mr. McCain has garnered endorsements from supply-side economics icon Jack Kemp and legal luminary Theodore Olson. Former critics such as the Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land came to Mr. McCain's defense amid attacks from radio host Rush Limbaugh this past week. But some independents have been turned off by his wooing of the conservative religious leaders he had clashed with in 2000.

In the past two presidential contests, conservative voters have played a key role in Republicans' get-out-the-vote effort, and critics warn that their decision to stay at home on Election Day -- or their willingness to vote but not mobilize to walk precincts -- could make a difference in a close race.

Facts

• A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Mr. McCain running in a statistical tie with either Democratic candidate. He leads Sen. Hillary Clinton 49% to 46%, and he trails Sen. Barack Obama by the same margin.

• In his victory speech on Super Tuesday, Mr. McCain used the phrase "I am a Republican" six times.

• Mr. McCain broke with his party in 1983 when he opposed a resolution that extended President Reagan's deployment of U.S. Marines in Beirut. One month later, a suicide bomber killed 241 servicemen in their barracks there.

• In 1986, President Reagan vetoed a bill that would have imposed sanctions on apartheid South Africa. Mr. McCain broke with his party to overturn the veto.

• Many believe Mr. McCain's zeal for campaign-finance reform was born of his involvement as one of the "Keating Five" senators who tried to intercede in the case of a savings-and-loan operator who was ultimately jailed. An ethics investigation cleared Mr. McCain of wrongdoing but chided him for "poor judgment."

• Mr. McCain has admitted to being superstitious. Before winning last month's New Hampshire primary, he slept on the same side of the bed in the same hotel room he had stayed in before his 2000 primary win there.

• Growing up in a military family, Mr. McCain had no permanent home. Tagged as a carpetbagger during his 1982 congressional bid, he responded, "I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and...spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things."

Then look at this graphic. I see it as Republicans who would be comfortable voting Dem, no? With a Dem, you get similar positions (unless of course the Straight Talker now tacks hard to the right for the election) but a distance from the crazier elements of the current administration.

And, of course, even though the flip-flopper appears as something of a centrist, there cannot be any doubt or faith that he would govern from anywhere but the hard right.

And then there's this, the voice of rightist reason, such as it is:

There's an old Groucho Marx riff in which he launches a new career as a stick-up artist -- while worrying that his native cowardice may not induce the requisite fear among his victims. Sure enough, after a little time in a dark alley he springs out to confront his first victim, points his gun to his own head and says, "Take one step closer and I'll kill myself."

Such is the posture today among pundits on the far right of the Republican Party as Sen. John McCain moves closer to receiving his party's nomination. Consider the destructive implications of their pledge to work against Mr. McCain's nomination and even -- in the event he is nominated -- not to vote in the general election. Start with where it would leave our country -- presumably under the leadership of either Democrat candidate -- in the two domains where we will face critical challenges in the years ahead: our national security and the threat of an economic meltdown.

Notwithstanding the reversal of trends in Iraq of a year ago, we face a long and difficult struggle in the war to turn back the nihilistic crusade being waged by radical Islam. By my reckoning after 25 visits to Pakistan, over a half-million adolescents willing to blow themselves up have "graduated" from more than 1,000 Wahabbist madrassas in that country.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are on the threshold of sinking into violent chaos as failed states unless new, experienced American leadership can conceive and launch an effective strategy -- and convince allies to join in its execution -- to turn matters around and cut off the Taliban and al Qaeda at their roots. Such a victory is feasible under competent leadership by introducing a classical counterinsurgency strategy.

Concurrent with the conflict on the battlefield, the new administration must tackle the complex task of fostering long-term economic and political stability in these forlorn countries. Here again, such a strategy is complex but not difficult to conceive. Its successful execution is only imaginable, however, in the hands of a knowledgeable, experienced leader -- who enjoys respect among allies -- who will be sorely needed to win this struggle.

Clearly John McCain fits the bill. To choose anyone without the vital knowledge, experience and leadership skills for this role is to invite disaster.

The nonmilitary cost and impact of these national security challenges form a natural segue to consideration of major economic challenges we must overcome in the years ahead. Today we are spending more than $300 billion annually to purchase foreign oil. It is well known that some of that money is passed on to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Indeed, it is fair to say that we are funding both sides in this war.

We spend $500 billion each year on our military forces. One of their most vital missions is to protect the flow of Persian Gulf oil which fuels the global economy. The disruption of those oil flows -- such as by terrorists disabling a major Saudi processing terminal -- would bring down economies throughout the industrialized world.

Here again, one can conceive a strategy for neutralizing this threat. It involves moving urgently to introduce a profoundly different national energy policy designed to do the following:

- Provide market-based incentives to justify the essential re-tooling of our automobile industry to enable it to produce flexible-fuel, plug-in hybrid electric cars and trucks, using carbon composite materials (as Boeing is doing in the new 787 airliner);

- Accelerate the commercial production of cellulosic ethanol, butanol and other bio-fuels; and

- License new nuclear power plants.

In addition to the aforementioned challenges, our next president must prevent the spread of nuclear weapons by any of the more than 40-plus nations that are capable of that step within five to 10 years. Of course we must also prevent terrorist groups from gaining access to nuclear materials -- not a task for someone learning on the job.

Surely Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter can agree that these challenges are terribly demanding and cannot be left to luck or divine providence. Finally, there is the cost of their extremist rhetoric to the Republican Party. As President Reagan once told me, "Going over the cliff, flags flying, is still going over the cliff."