Trading Places
BARNES, FRED
Trading Places The coalition party becomes the consensus party, and vice versa. BY FRED BARNES For decades, Democrats have been the coalition party. They brought together groups of people who...
...He has made no adjustment for the success of the surge in Iraq, scarcely even acknowledging that the violencewracked, politically polarized country of a year ago is no longer the Iraq of today...
...Imagine a presidential debate this fall between McCain and Obama, the coalition candidate versus the consensus candidate...
...He’s rated by the National Journal as the most liberal member of the Senate, but he’s never had to defend his liberal views...
...On everything that matters—Iraq, taxes, immigration, health care, the war on terrorism— Democrats basically agree...
...Oddly enough, this role reversal may help Republicans retain the White House in a year that, by most political yardsticks, favors Democrats...
...It’s precisely the things they don’t like about McCain— things I’m not crazy about either— that make him a tough target for Democrats: torture, Guant?namo, global warming, guns, stem cells...
...McCain specializes in it—one more thing infuriating many Republicans...
...It allows him to campaign not from his ideological home on the left but from somewhere above the fray, somewhere in the heavens...
...Republicans, at least since 1980, have been the consensus party...
...Certainly in the 18 televised Democratic debates this year, including last week’s Texas faceoff with Hillary Clinton, he hasn’t...
...He’s their guy...
...Iraq is an example of a major issue that Obama has not been forced to think through because of the Democratic party’s consensus...
...Obama has barely had to respond to Clinton at all, since their disagreements are so trivial...
...If he did, would it work...
...This is the core of Obama’s appeal...
...That won’t suffi ce when McCain insists Obama’s plan for Iraq would amount to pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory...
...You merely have to watch a Democratic presidential debate to realize Democrats are now the consensus party...
...She says some of his words are “change you can Xerox” because he plagiarized a tiny portion of his stump speech...
...His answer in last week’s debate was, “C’mon...
...He’s joined with Democrats on campaign fi nance reform, immigration, global warming, judicial nominations, and a lot more...
...Perhaps Obama, if he’s the Democratic nominee, will be able to dismiss Republican attacks as easily as he’s brushed off Clinton’s criticism of him on minor points and peripheral issues...
...Getting Republicans to coalesce around him is...
...It took no effort for McCain to round up Republican moderates...
...McCain has little margin for error...
...Their debates sound like an echo chamber...
...So he must, fi rst, attract strong conservatives, including the talk radio hosts who’ve often zinged him for being insuffi ciently conservative...
...Since Ronald Reagan was the party’s presidential candidate in 1980, Republicans have lined up reflexively behind their usually conservative nominee...
...With McCain as their nominee—one with whom many conservatives have disagreements— Republicans have become the coalition party...
...McCain, for sure, would skewer him on national security, the war on terrorism, taxes, and spending...
...In contrast, Republicans have become a party of squabbling ideological groups that John McCain must bring together if he is to win the presidency this fall...
...He must attract the relatively small contingent who’ve supported Ron Paul to prevent Paul from running as a third party libertarian candidate for president...
...In 2008, the parties have reversed roles...
...In his brief political career, Obama has experienced the easy life...
...The debates have been liberal lovefests...
...She has a point...
...Paul says he has no plans to do this...
...McCain, alone among Republicans, can bring him back to earth...
...Conservatives may not admit it, but their failure to nominate one of their own may turn out to be a godsend in 2008...
...With McCain, Republicans have a presidential candidate less vulnerable to Democratic attacks than the Democratic nominee, especially if it’s Barack Obama, is to Republican criticism...
...Obama talks about crossing the partisan aisle and ending polarization, but he’s never done it in any serious way...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...And he’s gotten the George Bush wing with endorsements from Jeb and the elder George...
...Then there’s bipartisanship or, as Obama puts it, bringing us together...
...But McCain is anything but a reliable conservative...
...They brought together groups of people who differed on ideology and in social status...
...They rallied behind the standard positions of conservatism, differing only (and then mildly) on social issues...
...He needs to win the overwhelming backing of social and religious conservatives, too...
...The surge isn’t a problem for McCain...
...But I doubt it...
...Hillary Clinton argues that she’d be a better Democratic nominee because she has been forced to deal with what she calls “the Republican attack machine,” and he hasn’t...
...Would Obama dare invoke his signature response and claim McCain is being divisive and partisan and we must rise above such disagreements...
Vol. 13 • March 2008 • No. 24
