Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS] What's wrong with McCain?

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Feb 1, 2008 8:14 PM, Stephen Montgomery-Smith
<EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> I am on many right wing mailing lists, and I am rather surprised at
> their antipathy to McCain.  I guess that I am not getting it.  For me,
> McCain (and Huckabee) are just outstanding candidates.  Why do Rush and
> Sean Hannity dislike McCain so much?

There is a fairly strong strain in contemporary Republican politics
that values "loyalty" to the party's leadership pretty much above all
else. John McCain really doesn't feel the same way about this. He
voted against the Bush tax cuts in 2001, and was the co-sponsor of
McCain-Feingold, which tried to put limits on campaign fund-raising.
In some circles, these acts were considered essentially treasonous to
Republican values.

Huckabee has a similar problem with respect to the party leadership.
He is clearly very conservative on most social issues, but he is
something of an economic populist. Not very long ago, somebody like
Huckabee would have been a Southern Democrat. Conservative as you
please on most things, but perfectly willing to tax the rich and/or
support federal spending on programs they thought would help their
constituents. The more modern equation of government == bad is
actually a fairly recent invention.

As to why Rush and Hannity dislike McCain so much, my guess is that
they don't think he can be trusted always to favor the interests of
the wealthy. Mitt Romney apparently can be so trusted, but he has the
problem that it is pretty clear that he really isn't as socially
conservative as he is claiming to be now. You really just don't get to
be the governor of Massachusetts by being a movement conservative
these days.

jking

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