Can't We All Just Get Along?
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Can’t We All Just Get Along? John McCain courts the right. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES Less than 12 hours after polls closed on Super Tuesday, the press corps covering John McCain gathered in a...
...Some of the reporters hovering around Graham wandered over to Lieberman...
...McCain, Graham said, will be able to present a “conservatism that is not a threat, that will be attractive to Reagan Democrats and independents...
...Before Romney, Vice President Dick Cheney had spoken, to even more enthusiastic applause...
...Arizona senator Jon Kyl...
...Nothing...
...McCain highlighted his willingness to work with Democrats and touted his ability to work “across the aisle” as a strength...
...No one budged...
...Then I asked McCain about the perception that he enjoys sticking his fi ngers in the eyes of conservatives when he disagrees with them—while he takes pleasure in working with Democrats...
...Senator Lindsey Graham arrived as reporters waited...
...Two women in the third row who had refused to clap when McCain was introduced applauded reluctantly when he criticized Senate Democrats for blocking legislation to extend FISA reform...
...The result was a rousing, well-crafted call for conservatives to join his campaign...
...Among the conservatives who took their places in the new McCain section were elected offi cials who would have been comfortable—more comfortable than McCain himself—in the CPAC crowd: former Solicitor General Ted Olson...
...He is very quotable and very willing to be quoted, so reporters fl ock to him...
...Senator Clinton and Senator Obama will withdraw our forces from Iraq based on an arbitrary timetable designed for the sake of political expediency, and which recklessly ignores the profound human calamity and dire threats to our security that would ensue...
...But, said Coburn, “the concerns I hear about John McCain pale in comparison to the two greatest challenges facing our country: terrorism and a Congress that refuses to correct our unsustainable fi scal course...
...The absence of another 9/11 is not an accident,” Cheney added...
...former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating...
...At their feet was the detritus of an eventful morning—an empty Starbucks cup, a copy of the Washington Times, a brochure for the conservative website Townhall.com, and a discarded pair of fully infl ated red “Mitt Romney” thunderstix...
...McCain’s top adviser, Mark Salter, the coauthor of several McCain books, had stayed in Phoenix an extra day to blend the many drafts of this speech into a cohesive and sometimes powerful text...
...They fetched a dozen chairs from the kitchen and the holding room just to the left of the stage and began to create a new section for the McCain campaign VIPs, alongside the conservative activists who had been there all day...
...Just as George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” bothered some conservatives—aren’t most conservatives compassionate?— selling McCain as the nonthreatening conservative implies that other conservatives are threatening...
...After George Allen endorsed McCain, Tom Coburn, perhaps the most conservative member of the Senate, introduced him...
...Informal chats become impromptu press conferences...
...BY STEPHEN F. HAYES Less than 12 hours after polls closed on Super Tuesday, the press corps covering John McCain gathered in a hangar at Swift Aviation in Phoenix, Arizona, for another press conference...
...It is an achievement...
...And would I support those same decisions today...
...I’m going to need you all to move,” the McCain aide said...
...Conservatives, he said, appreciate it, too...
...One thing I’m convinced of, without a doubt, is that conservatives are glad when Joe Lieberman and I worked together in establishing the 9/11 Commission and then moved and got many of their recommendations into law...
...Then someone shouted, “We paid for these seats...
...Moments later Joe Lieberman arrived...
...McCain walked up next, looking relaxed...
...You’re damn right I would,” he said...
...Former House majority leader Tom DeLay stood to the side of the stage for most the speech with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face...
...He boasted of his “fundamental conservative philosophy” and said raising taxes would be “the worst thing we could do to our economy...
...Also with McCain, sitting nearby, was California representative Dan Lungren...
...It’s possible to make too much of the seating squabble...
...Those seats are reserved for the congressmen and senators supporting Senator McCain...
...There is little doubt the CPACers would have moved for, say, Dick Cheney’s intimates—not to mention, in an earlier day, Ronald Reagan’s...
...Even as he did so, his supporters urged him to continue, with shouts of “Fight on...
...The focus, as it had been for more than a week, was on one question: How will John McCain repair the breach with the conservatives who have been so vociferously critical of his candidacy...
...He framed the race as an argument “about hugely consequential things,” with signifi cant differences between his views and those of the remaining Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama...
...I intend to cut them...
...The important thing to win this election is to win the majority of independents and some Democrats...
...Senator Clinton and Senator Obama want to increase the size of the federal government...
...At CPAC, McCain spoke vaguely of favoring marketbased solutions...
...He struck some conservative notes...
...Senator McCain is a devoted Republican, but has always worked across party lines...
...ringing out while Romney spoke...
...He was wearing a navy sport coat, gray dress slacks, and a blue shirt without a tie...
...Still, it was revealing...
...Reporters were obsessed with it...
...The diffi cult task for the afternoon speaker, then, would be to move a largely Dick Cheney crowd to support a John McCain Republican...
...They are very signifi cant differences, and I promise you, I intend to contest these issues on conservative grounds and fi ght as hard as I can to defend the principles and positions we share, and to keep this country safe, proud, prosperous, and free...
...They won’t recognize and seriously address the threat posed by an Iran with nuclear ambitions to our ally, Israel, and the region...
...To the surprise and disappointment of many in the crowd, Romney had used his speech earlier in the day to drop out of the race for the Republican nomination...
...And the equally diffi cult immediate task for the McCain aide was to move the CPAC VIPs—wearing “Diamond” and “CoSponsor” badges that indicated their relative importance—from their seats at the front of the room...
...In his stump speeches, McCain used to point out that he opposed a $20 billion “bailout” of the auto industry in Michigan, something Romney favored...
...Coburn acknowledged that he and other conservatives have fought with McCain on judges, immigration, and campaign finance reform...
...For weeks, McCain advisers had spoken with confi dence about the inevitable coalescing around their man once he became the presumptive nominee...
...There were other differences, too, and they would be heavily scrutinized the following day, in what would be McCain’s biggest speech of the campaign so far...
...As always, McCain patiently tried to take a question from any reporter who wanted to ask one...
...But when I asked him if he had ruled out a vote for McCain, DeLay said rather emphatically that he had not...
...Most conservatives do not...
...I intend to make unmistakably clear to Iran we will not permit a government that espouses the destruction of the State of Israel as its fondest wish and pledges undying enmity to the United States to possess the weapons to advance their malevolent ambitions...
...It was a telling description...
...They’re for members of Congress...
...After the speech, DeLay criticized McCain...
...I intend to win the war...
...But even DeLay managed a few half-hearted claps when McCain promised to appoint conservative judges...
...And I will not allow that to happen...
...Mississippi representative Chip Pickering...
...The problem that conservatives have with him is his record,” DeLay said, adding that one speech cannot obscure that bigger issue...
...He was particularly forceful on Iraq and the broader war...
...Still quiet...
...The most compelling moment in all this campaign in many respects— not all, many—was standing on the stage with Joe Lieberman,” he said...
...I know that the costs in lives and treasure we would incur should we fail in Iraq will be far greater than the heartbreaking losses we have suffered to date...
...These are but a few of the differences that will defi ne this election...
...Soon, television cameras and their bright lights were trained on Graham’s face as he praised McCain for his leadership and made a case that McCain will be a strong nominee...
...and Kansas senator Sam Brownback...
...Cheney had received a long standing ovation when he was introduced and again as he defended the Bush administration’s most controversial policies...
...I’m serious...
...Y’all have to move, now...
...I used my question to press him on one possible source of the mistrust between McCain and movement conservatives: his demeanor...
...But many of his answers sounded the same bipartisan theme that had emerged from the exchanges with Graham and Lieberman...
...They made appropriate last minute tweaks, including the softening of some language that could have been seen as criticism of Romney...
...Graham is McCain’s closest friend in the Senate and a trusted adviser...
...As former senator George Allen spoke from the podium at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington last Thursday, offering his surprise endorsement of McCain’s presidential bid shortly before the Arizona senator took the stage, a McCain advance staffer in a sharp navy blue suit quietly approached the CPAC dignitaries sitting in the first two rows of chairs in the cavernous ballroom...
...McCain didn’t address the fi rst claim and defended himself against the second...
...McCain’s aide, realizing his predicament, huddled with a CPAC organizer...
...I intend to reduce it,” he said...
...Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...McCain’s team had been working on it for more than ten days, beginning even before McCain had formally accepted the invitation to address CPAC...
...Coming from one who previously said McCain had “done more to hurt the Republican party than any elected offi cial I know of,” that’s progress...
...And so it was last Wednesday, a few minutes after 9 a.m...
...The Connecticut senator, a former Democrat, said the key to a McCain victory would be his bipartisan appeal...
...I suggested we stipulate that his record is more conservative than some of his critics have claimed...
...As Graham started to answer questions, reporters pulled out their notebooks and turned on their audio recorders...
...Just hours before the speech was to be delivered, the McCain team learned from the cable news networks that Mitt Romney would be dropping out...
...And if not all of the CPAC VIPs in the front of the room were ready to volunteer for McCain, they slowly warmed to him over the course of the address...
...And one major difference between McCain and other conservatives is that he sees bipartisanship as both a means to an end and an end in itself...
...McCain had just defended his record by citing his high ratings from the conservative groups Citizens Against Government Waste and Citizens for a Sound Economy...
...When McCain spoke, he emphasized those points...
...And later: “Senator Clinton and Senator Obama will raise your taxes...
...The McCain campaign was not...
...Setting aside that specifi c claim (I’m not convinced he is right), McCain’s answer was interesting because it seemed to affi rm the premise of the question...
Vol. 13 • February 2008 • No. 22
