Commentary 17- Is McCain a Reaganite?

From New Jersey Star-Ledger 02/05/08

McCain must revive the Reagan revolution
Posted by John Farmer February 05, 2008 10:00AM
Categories: Politics

The presidential race, conventional wisdom has it, is a lock for Democrats. Betting on Republicans to pull a rabbit out of the hat this fall would be as foolish as, say, putting the rent money on the New York Giants to beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. But then stuff happens, as we all know.

There is another side to the conventional wisdom coin. It holds that Republicans can still win this fall, despite the burden George W. Bush has imposed on his party with the ill-conceived Iraq war and now a slumping economy, if they can piece together something like the old Reagan coalition.


It won't be easy. The GOP is more seriously divided than at any time since the post-Watergate era more than 30 years ago. Its conservative business base hankers for Mitt Romney, its increasingly important evangelical auxiliaries are avid for Mike Huckabee and its far-right irreconcilables, personified by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, think the sky is falling and Armageddon is at hand. Meanwhile, John McCain, a maverick who gives much of his party nervous indigestion, is about to run off with the nomination. It's a recipe for chaos rather than coalition building.

But coalition can be done, according to one old Reagan hand, Ken Duberstein, now a Washington business consultant but a former chief of staff to Ronald Reagan. And McCain "is the best bet to reassemble the Reagan coalition," said Duberstein, adding that he has not yet endorsed any GOP presidential candidate.

In an interview over the weekend, Duberstein cited exactly those McCain attributes that drive hard-core Republicans up the wall as reasons the Arizona senator can rekindle the old Reagan magic -- his independence and cross-party appeal. Like Reagan, he said, McCain has the potential to win over "independent-minded suburbanites, blue-collar (Reagan) Democrats and to add a respectable share of the Hispanic vote as well."

McCain's performance in states where independent voters and even Democrats could participate in GOP primaries -- and did to McCain's benefit -- demonstrates that Reaganesque appeal, as Duberstein sees it.

The principal challenge for McCain, Duberstein said, will be how to shape his campaign's treatment of Bush, who remains popular with a large share of the Republican electorate despite the broad disapproval of the public. It will require "delicacy," Duberstein said, making clear McCain's independence as a different kind of Republican while still demonstrating respect for Bush.

The independence part should be easy, McCain having broken with Republican regularity by supporting climate change legislation, embryonic stem cell research, campaign finance and immigration reform among other things. "McCain has clearly established his independence," Duberstein said. "There's even enough difference that he can make the case that he's an agent for change."

How Bush reacts to this independent streak will be important. Although much of McCain's record can be read as a repudiation of Bush -- he has from the beginning criticized Bush's handling of the Iraq war as "mismanaged" -- it is in Bush's interest that McCain, or whoever is the Republican nominee, be elected, Duberstein said.

"Ronald Reagan always understood that for his eight years to be seen as successful, he had to be succeeded by a Republican president," said Duberstein. And he was in 1989, by his vice president, George H.W. Bush. Reagan felt that a loss to a Democrat would be seen as "a repudiation," he said.

Does George W. Bush feel that way? Duberstein, who retains good relations with the Bush White House and the Republican establishment in Washington, can't say for sure, but believes the president understands the extent to which his legacy is in the hands of McCain or whoever wins the GOP nomination. But it will require more, he said.

"I would hope that George W. Bush would give McCain enough latitude" to make his own independent case, he said.

The toughest hurdle for McCain may be trying to satisfy -- or at least neutralize -- the ultra-conservative wing represented by Limbaugh, who has said McCain's nomination would be "the end of the Republican Party." It may not be possible, Duberstein said, recalling that they even grumbled about Reagan. "I'm not even sure they want to be satisfied," he said.

Original Referenced Link


My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 02/07/08 at 8:13PM

I doubt this will be possible. There appears to be a fundamental difference between Reagan and McCain on their respective views on the nature of government.

Reagan was a champion of the individual. In his 1981 presidential Inaugural Address he made this plain:

"...[O]ur concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected...It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we're sick -- professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers."

At the same time, he was openly skeptical of government. There was his famous "[G]overnment is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Deriding "government by an elite group", he asked "if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

McCain's sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill was designed to protect the "elite group", incumbents, by restricting first amendment rights. In addition, he has in the past advocated mandatory national service (http://www.reason.com/news/show/118937.html).

But these words by McCain from his essay "Putting the 'National' in National Service" (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0110.mccain.html)are most disturbing:

"In America, our rights come before our duties, as well they should. We are a free people, and among our freedoms is the liberty to care or not care for our birthright. But those who claim their liberty but not their duty to the civilization that ensures it live a half-life, indulging their self-interest at the cost of their self-respect. The richest men and women possess nothing of real value if their lives have no greater object than themselves.

"Success, wealth, celebrity gained and kept for private interest---these are small things. They make us comfortable, ease the way for our children, and purchase a fleeting regard for our lives, but not the self-respect that, in the end, matters most. Sacrifice for a cause greater than self-interest, however, and you invest your life with the eminence of that cause."

To belittle the individual's pursuit of his own self-interest as a mere "indulgence"...to call his individual achievements "small things" if he benefits from them (kept for private interest)... is to make a mockery of the "right to the pursuit of happiness". To attach the concept "duty" to a person's rights is to obliterate the very foundation of our nation's birth...the concept of individual rights as inalienable. His belief that our rights must, in effect, be purchased for the price of some "duty to the civilization" is standard collectivist jargon that really means "duty to the state". The very concept of "national service" that he enthusiastically endorses is distinctly un-American.

In today's speech, following Romney's pullout from the race, McCain said a lot of the right things, especially his explicit reference to the words of the Declaration of Independence. But those words in our founding document, that we are "endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights" don't square with the spirit of the above quote.

Reagan said "We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around." McCain seems to lean toward "the other way around." We shall see.