Why are there questions about McCain's conservative credentials?

[SkinsHokieFan]

As I have read the red blogosphere this morning, it is clear that conservative bloggers and writers at NRO are scared of a McCain nomination, calling it a return to the Teddy Roosevelt, Nixon, Gerald Ford wing of the GOP and distancing itself from the Regan/Gingrich wing

I seem not to be able to find much evidence of this, except maybe for his support of immigration reform last year.

If any R's or right leaning people on here can clarify this, I'd like to know. Because his record indicates otherwise

Here is an article talking about it

http://www.lagrangenews.com/articles/2008/01/28/opinion/editorials/edit01.txt

Are McCain’s conservative credentials a myth?

Published:

Monday, January 28, 2008 3:02 PM EST

John A. Tures

Back in 2000, gadfly Ted Sampley openly speculated that Arizona Senator John McCain was perhaps a “Manchurian Candidate,” brainwashed in captivity during his Vietnam War POW days, a theme picked up by the anti-McCain crowd. Others criticize his work across party aisles, such as the campaign finance reform bill with Democrat Senator Russ Feingold. Some supporters even claim McCain should be the nominee because he has a “centrist” voting record, and would therefore appeal to the most voters in November of 2008.

To test this myth that John McCain is not a real conservative, I examine two ratings of Senate voting records. One is conducted by the American Conservative Union (ACU). The other is compiled by the Council for Citizens against Government Waste (CGW).

The ACU is chosen because it has a long history of rating legislative voting records, dating back to the 1970s. I opted for CGW because it is widely touted in the media as a source of rating fiscal responsibility.

For ACU, I compare McCain’s historic voting record compared to the overall record of his colleagues serving in the U.S. Senate through the end of 2006 (I do not have access to the 2007 numbers yet, but we’re talking about politicians with two to 30 years of Congressional voting). I compare McCain to all U.S. Senators, as well as all U.S. Senate Republicans.

The overall average voting rate for the careers of all U.S. Senators serving in the year 2006 is 52.644. Given that numbers closer to 100 reflect a more conservative record, this reflects a U.S. Senate in GOP hands. McCain’s lifetime rating, as of 2006, was 82.3, so he’s clearly no liberal Republican.

In comparison to his Republican colleagues, McCain is 39th of 55 GOP Senators, which certainly gives ammunition to his campaign rivals. But the Republican average voting record is 84.45, so McCain’s pretty close to the middle of his colleagues. As far as ACU scores go, he’s the average Republican Senator in his career voting record.

As for the data from Council for Citizens against Government Waste, McCain finished in a tie for first place for reducing the role of government spending, with a score of 95 per cent. This earned him the CGW rating “Taxpayer Hero.” Others tied with him include John Sununu Jr., Tom Coburn, Jim Inhofe and Jim DeMint.

Perhaps you are concluding that this is sort of an award where everyone who is a Republican does well. This is not the case. Outside of CGW’s “fab five” only three other U.S. Senators topped the 90 percent mark: Johnny Isakson, Richard Burr and Rick Santorum. Some Republicans received marks below 40 percent!

From this information, I think it is safe to say that there’s no support for McCain’s rumored liberalism. He’s certainly not the most conservative U.S. Senator overall, but is right at the average Republican voting record. And his CGW numbers show that he’s the leader when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It is safe to say that he’s perhaps conservative enough on general issues, and hawkishly conservative on government spending.

[PeterMP]

Generally, the anger really stems from one issue:

McCain-Feingold. I don't think many people even understand the issues here. I think for mzny that do, it isn't really a "conservative" issue. The "party leaders" believed the old campaign finance laws gave them an advantage over the Democrats so it was put that this wasn't a "conservative" position.

That trickled down to through talk radio to many of the voters. People will tell you that McCain Feingold is a bad law, but can't tell you anything specific about it (I will point out that McCain even acknowledges that it has issues, but mantains it is better than what was in place before it so to a certain extent they are correct. Nobody is claiming that it is a perfect law.)

Somebody posted the Gun Owners of America rakings of McCain in the last week. He gets F's and D's from them, but if you look at his votes on gun issues, there is no way he deserves those kinds of scores. People with comparable votes on gun issues do much better.

What they are really upset about is McCain-Feingold.

[Mass_SkinsFan]

You want to know why he isn't a Conservative, it's VERY simple....

He will willingly listen to and consider the viewpoints of this country's enemies (Liberals & Democrats) and at times even side with them on certain things. NO REAL CONSERVATIVE EVER DOES THAT.

[Larry]

Re: SHF's article:

They say McCain is, according to those ratings services, a "conservative" on social issues, and "extreme conservative" on spending.

Maybe they don't like him because what they want is a "big spending conservative".

Re: PeterMP:

Yeah, I've heard a lot of folks insulting McCain over Feingold. And over actually speaking to Kennedy.

OTOH, the GOP has had a problem with McCain long before Feingold. For example, IIR, the "half-black love child" smear that cost McCain the NC primary didn't come from the Bush campaign, it came from the party. (Because the party wanted Bush.)

-----

It's tempting to say that maybe the system has a problem with his integrity.

[SkinsHokieFan]

You want to know why he isn't a Conservative, it's VERY simple....

He will willingly listen to and consider the viewpoints of this country's enemies (Liberals & Democrats) and at times even side with them on certain things. NO REAL CONSERVATIVE EVER DOES THAT.

The thing is MSF, I can't even consider you or people with similar views like you a conservative because you want to go to a time that never existed :laugh:

Essentially I am questioning why those who would have voted for Ronald Reagan, would not vote for John McCain.

Pete went into it a bit, and if there is one issue I am more "libral" on it is campgain finance, so McCain-Feingold does not bug me in the least

[The_cavalierman]

Sweet mother of Grits and Gravy....

Enemies of the country are liberals and democrats???

That is a pretty inaccurate and broad generalization

[Larry]

(Fleeing the scene of Yet Another Mass Hijacking.)

[JMS]

McCain is not a conservative because frankly Bush has changed the meaning of what a conservative is.

McCain is a fiscal conservative, but when the standard barrer in the GOP presides over a decade of record deficite spending that doesn't give John McCain any conservative points with the current residents under that flag.

McCain has been pro life all of his political life, but he was against the Influence of the Church in politics via McCain Fiengold campagn finance reform. So he's pissed off the born agains leaders.

McCain sponsored immigration reform with the McCain Kennedy bill and that issue ( bush agrees with McCain on immigration ) is one of the few issues the Republican party has today.

McCain voted against Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, and even though he now wants to make them permanent that still left a bitter taste in the mouth of many of the Bush hoard.

McCain was the Cheif opponent to Bush within the GOP party in his first term in office. This gave McCain huge cache with independents but invoked the ire of Bush Base who are likely the only guys who will vote for the GOP in 2008.

McCain stood up to Bush on Torture, publically and for months. Sure he caved in at the end and betrayed what he called one of his core issues, but many on the far right only remember that he ran the Bush administration through the mud on this issue.

[Mass_SkinsFan]

Essentially I am questioning why those who would have voted for Ronald Reagan, would not vote for John McCain.

I would likely have voted for Reagan, if I'd been old enough. He was close enough that I'd probably have voted for him to ensure that his opponents didn't get in.

Unfortunately, John McCain is no Ronald Reagan. If nothing else his ratings from the NRA makes him unacceptable in my mind. The campaign-finance reform issue is another vote killer so far as I'm concerned. His positions on those two issues, if nothing else, push him away from being a Conservative in my estimation.

[JMS]

Essentially I am questioning why those who would have voted for Ronald Reagan, would not vote for John McCain.

Ronald Reagan presided over a cooelition of fiscal conservatives, military conservatives, and social conservatives. Reagan was actually the archetect of that coelition which defined American politics for decades after Reagan first won office.

Under Bush, social conservatives have essentially taken over the party, at the very least become pre-eminant in what had been very much a joint rule arrangement before Bush. John McCain's best pedigree is with the fiscal conservatives, and Military wings of the GOP which are decending in power, largely because Bush is not a fiscal conservative with his record deficite spending, and he's really not a military conservative either. ( Riding rough shot over the Pentigon, creating a crisis in American Generalship and taking us into needless wars weaken us militarily and has caused him to loose face with the military's chief proponents in politics )...

Reagan's cooelition is fracturing and McCain is on the wrong side of the crack from the Bush base which is currently the strongest voice in the GOP leadership.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Pat Buchanan had the line of the night last night when he summed up McCain's platform as "The jobs are leaving the country and not coming back, the illegals are in the country, and staying, and we're going to have more wars!"

Really, its the first two that are not considered "conservative" values. He also did not vote for the Bush tax cuts, which is not very fiscally conservative of him. (I was willing to buy that it was fiscally conservative b/c it didn't reduce spending, but my very republican friend told me that the cornerstone of the policy is that reducing taxes produces MORE revenue for the government). So, you have those three things.

As a democrat, I think he's a conservative though.

[Larry]

He also did not vote for the Bush tax cuts, which is not very fiscally conservative of him.

But (at least according to the CAGW ratings posted in the OP) he does vote, consistently, for spending cuts.

So when did spending borrowed money become the definition of "fiscal conservative"?

[PeterMP]

Ronald Reagan presided over a cooelition of fiscal conservatives, military conservatives, and social conservatives. Reagan was actually the archetect of that coelition which defined American politics for decades after Reagan first won office.

Under Bush, social conservatives have essentially taken over the party, at the very least become pre-eminant in what had been very much a joint rule arrangement before Bush. John McCain's best pedigree is with the fiscal conservatives, and Military wings of the GOP which are decending in power, largely because Bush is not a fiscal conservative with his record deficite spending, and he's really not a military conservative either. ( Riding rough shot over the Pentigon, creating a crisis in American Generalship and taking us into needless wars weaken us militarily and has caused him to loose face with the military's chief proponents in politics )...

Reagan's cooelition is fracturing and McCain is on the wrong side of the crack from the Bush base which is currently the strongest voice in the GOP leadership.

JMS, I'm not sure, especially if you look at the primaries this year, you are right. I think the social conservatives are the ones in decline. At least, they've been fractured.

Look at their "leadership". None of them endorsed Huckabee, but he is the one that is winning the evangelical vote. That isn't good for them. Their "leadership" is clearly done. Beyond that, the voters (as demonstarted by Huckabee) have at least changed their rhetoric for simply being anti-abortion and anti-gay to ALSO being pro-enviroment and pro-social spending and helping the poor through goverment. This is a pretty new move.

I think the financial conservatives are up-set about what Bush has done and what you are seeing with the nomination of the McCain is a fiscal conservative revolution w/ in the Republican party in the context of supporting the Iraq war (Most of the fiscal conservatives I know don't like the war much, BUT they see it as a temporary thing that will more than likely end in a similar time period w/ McCain, Romney, or a Democrat in office (eventually the Democratic Congress will get the guts to shut off funding if things go poorly) or will settle down and not be a huge money drain into the future).

[GibbsFactor]

Generally, the anger really stems from one issue:

McCain-Feingold. I don't think many people even understand the issues here. I think for mzny that do, it isn't really a "conservative" issue. The "party leaders" believed the old campaign finance laws gave them an advantage over the Democrats so it was put that this wasn't a "conservative" position.

That trickled down to through talk radio to many of the voters. People will tell you that McCain Feingold is a bad law, but can't tell you anything specific about it (I will point out that McCain even acknowledges that it has issues, but mantains it is better than what was in place before it so to a certain extent they are correct. Nobody is claiming that it is a perfect law.)

Somebody posted the Gun Owners of America rakings of McCain in the last week. He gets F's and D's from them, but if you look at his votes on gun issues, there is no way he deserves those kinds of scores. People with comparable votes on gun issues do much better.

What they are really upset about is McCain-Feingold.

That's one of the issues, but the Gang of 14 is an issue, his immigration reform, his reluctance to sign off on the tax cuts, his relationships with the left, etc.. It's the whole bag. He doesn't fit into the GOP robot line and that's why they are not backing him. He's a maverick and may not go along with everything the GOP wants.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

But (at least according to the CAGW ratings posted in the OP) he does vote, consistently, for spending cuts.

So when did spending borrowed money become the definition of "fiscal conservative"?

I sorta thought I addressed that in the following sentence of my original post?

I thought it was fiscally conservative of him, but I'm told it was not. And most people who consider themselves conservative, apparently find it repulsive of him to vote against it.

[PeterMP]

He also did not vote for the Bush tax cuts, which is not very fiscally conservative of him. (I was willing to buy that it was fiscally conservative b/c it didn't reduce spending, but my very republican friend told me that the cornerstone of the policy is that reducing taxes produces MORE revenue for the government).

Tell, your friend that only works up to a point. It might have been valid when Reagan took office, but interest rates where higher, unemployment was higher, inflation was higher, the tax rate was higher, individual savings were higher, and the debt was lower.

Tax cuts might make under some conditions because it might encourage spending and companies to hire more worker (especially if you have high unemployment like we did in the late 70').

At some point in time, though the goverment's debt over rides that. Companies and investors know that eventually that bill is going to come due so that negatviely affect everything else they do and cutting taxes doesn't hold the same incentive because it is only going to increase the debt further.

In general, you hear people say this about Reagan and it betrays his true actions. Nobody that is intelligent appllies the same solution to a problem under very different conditions, which is how some "conservatives" now want to apply the Reagan principles. Reagan himself raised taxes when it became clear the debt was increasing faster than the federal goverment in-take as a result of his tax cuts:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E5DE1F31F93BA35755C0A9629C8B63

It's the same for people that go on about what Reagan would do on the "War on Terror" w/o mentioning that he pulled out of Lebanon.

The fact of the matter is nobody knows what Reagan would do. He was an intelligent person that was capable of looking at different data from related issues and coming to different decision. Today's issues are not exactly identical to the one's that Reagan addressed, and there is no way of knowing what he would suggest.

[GibbsFactor]

I sorta thought I addressed that in the following sentence of my original post?

I thought it was fiscally conservative of him, but I'm told it was not. And most people who consider themselves conservative, apparently find it repulsive of him to vote against it.

I'm a fiscal conservative first and foremost. I'd vote for McCain because he is the second best choice fiscal conservatives have. What keeps me from him is his foreign policy. No thank you. I don't understand how he can't see how wasteful our foreign policy military spending is right now. If you really want to cut spending, stop bombing countries because they aren't giving us good oil deals.

[Fergasun]

Michelle Malkin also has a similar piece up here. She's been running reader e-mails all night/morning. Mainly many conservatives believe McCain behaves too much like a "Democrat". Some examples:

McCain’s biggest successes in the Senate are renowned as the liberal’s biggest legislative accomplishments in the last quarter of a century. McCain-Feingold, a big blow to free speech and capitalism, McCain-Kennedy, was not only a smack-in-the-face to conservative Republicans, but also to more than 80% of the American people, who believe that there should be no amnesty, whether technical or not, and finally his global warming initiative McCain-Lieberman is a monstrosity that demonstrates his self-acknowledged lack of understanding of how economies work, particularly the economy of the nation for which he is running to lead.

...

I cannot support a candidate who claims that the American people have lost their faith in government and claims that he can restore faith in government, yet at the same time cannot even refrain from being dishonest in a campaign. John McCain is one of the biggest reasons people have lost faith in government, especially over the McCain-Kennedy bill where secret meetings were conducted with the hopes of ramming amnesty down the nation’s throat, despite overwhelming opposition direct from the American people.

...

My first and biggest beef with John McCain is that when a very brave group of Vietnam veterans who had served with John Kerry stood up to say that Kerry’s self-serving portrayal of his war record was patently false, that his blanket charges of war crimes against them were absurd, and that his testimony in Congress was used by the North Vietnamese to further torture McCain’s fellow POW’s, Senator McCain airily dismissed these courageous men and sided with his Senate pal. Playing conciliator in the national media, McCain despicably denounced the Swift boat veterans’ ad as dishonest and dishonorable, hinting that they were pawns of George Bush and the Republican right.

...

And for all his maverickness, McCain does vote conservative about 80% of the time. That fact gets lost in his high-profile betrayals of conservatives and conservative principles, and the existence of legislation called “McCain-Feingold” and “McCain-Kennedy.” He needs to work on something called “McCain-DeMint” or “McCain-Hunter.” Some sort of earmark-slashing tax cut package would be nice.

I don't know. I'm not convinced McCain is a staunch conservative, but in our flawed election system I could see myself voting for him over Hillary. Most of the time you're not going to agree with a candidate across the board... that's why we go through this primary process. The fact that McCain had to struggle until Florida doesn't bode well for Republicans... ie if Mitt had won than no money would've gone to McCain. It's not like Mitt is a great conservative either. McCain has only garnered about 1/3rd of the GOP vote so far, with Rudy and Huckabee taking a significant number of voters. Now that Rudy has endorsed McCain, I just don't see how Romney can compete...

[Mass_SkinsFan]

JMS, I'm not sure, especially if you look at the primaries this year, you are right. I think the social conservatives are the ones in decline. At least, they've been fractured

In that you are correct. The backbone of the social conservatives seems to have been severed completely at this point. They've given up on doing what's right and a lot of them are willing to give on certain issues to get movement on others. They've sold their souls and I hope they rot in hell for eternity because of it.

Unfortunately that lack of steadfastness by the social conservatives is allowing the 2008 Presidential election to become a race between a bunch of immoral, gutless and soulless individuals who wouldn't know what morals are if they jumped up and bit the candidate's already castrated balls off (yes, including Hillary).

[Fergasun]

I'm a fiscal conservative first and foremost. I'd vote for McCain because he is the second best choice fiscal conservatives have. What keeps me from him is his foreign policy. No thank you. I don't understand how he can't see how wasteful our foreign policy military spending is right now. If you really want to cut spending, stop bombing countries because they aren't giving us good oil deals.

Many people don't understand that link. The Iraq War is probably the biggest part of the budget now, no?

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Tell, your friend that only works up to a point. It might have been valid when Reagan took office, but interest rates where higher, unemployment was higher, inflation was higher, the tax rate was higher, individual savings were higher, and the debt was lower.

Tax cuts might make under some conditions because it might encourage spending and companies to hire more worker (especially if you have high unemployment like we did in the late 70').

At some point in time, though the goverment's debt over rides that. Companies and investors know that eventually that bill is going to come due so that negatviely affect everything else they do and cutting taxes doesn't hold the same incentive because it is only going to increase the debt further.

In general, you hear people say this about Reagan and it betrays his true actions. Nobody that is intelligent appllies the same solution to a problem under very different conditions, which is how some "conservatives" now want to apply the Reagan principles. Reagan himself raised taxes when it became clear the debt was increasing faster than the federal goverment in-take as a result of his tax cuts:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E5DE1F31F93BA35755C0A9629C8B63

It's the same for people that go on about what Reagan would do on the "War on Terror" w/o mentioning that he pulled out of Lebanon.

The fact of the matter is nobody knows what Reagan would do. He was an intelligent person that was capable of looking at different data from related issues and coming to different decision. Today's issues are not exactly identical to the one's that Reagan addressed, and there is no way of knowing what he would suggest.

Well, since I'm NOT a fiscal conservative, I don't think the approach EVER works. :laugh:

So, I agree with you it doesnt always work as well. :laugh:

[SkinsHokieFan]

Many people don't understand that link. The Iraq War is probably the biggest part of the budget now, no?

Not even close

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security take up about 35 percent of the budget

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget%2C_2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget,_2007

Here are the totals

SSI, Medicare, Medicaid=1.023 trillion

Defense and GWOT= 481+145= 629 billion

Total budget=2.9 trillion

[GibbsFactor]

Not even close

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security take up about 24 percent of the budget

That is the scary part. Medicare and Medicaid huh? How about universal health care?

But you can't compare them to discretionary spending. Entitlements are what they are.

Don't get me started on our so called "mandatory" spending. This is where Obama and Hillary will kill us.

[SkinsHokieFan]

That is the scary part. Medicare and Medicaid huh? How about universal health care?

But you can't compare them to discretionary spending. Entitlements are what they are.

Don't get me started on our so called "mandatory" spending. This is where Obama and Hillary will kill us.

Agree, which is why the budget, deficit and overall economy is by far my number 1 issue in this election

[PeterMP]

Many people don't understand that link. The Iraq War is probably the biggest part of the budget now, no?

I think people understand the cost of the Iraq war. The question is since we are there now, what is the better option.