John McCain, despite his protestations to the contrary, is not a conservative. He can (and does) say over and over and over how proud he was "to have been a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution," and that plenty of bona-fide conservatives (like dinosaurs Jack Kemp, Warren Rudman, and Phill Gramm) support him. But I'm not buying it.
Talk show host Michael Medved has taken a lot of heat over the past week or two because he has been going on his nationally-syndicated (and great) talk show talking up John McCain, talking down Romney, and claiming that John McCain is, in fact, a true-blue conservative. He takes it a step further, though, and claims that conservative talk shows that are lambasting McCain right now are only doing so on the basis of emotion - because McCain is a meanie - and not based on anything substantive. Callers to his show last week were met with what I thought were lame responses whenever they tried to point out McCain's shortfalls as a Republican senator. This is unusual for Medved, but not unexpected, as he strongly backed the McCain-Kennedy amnesty disaster a few months ago.
I was going to post a list of reasons I don't like McCain for president anyway, and Human Events has published an article and accompanying cartoon that sums up most (not all) of my complaints, so let me run them down quickly, in the hopes that others who support him now will think twice.
- He was front-and-center in creating the "Gang of 14" senators, 7 from each party, who came together to block Republican legislation to outlaw the filibuster in judicical appointment fights. We had Democrats' backs up against the wall on the "nuclear option" a couple years ago, and then John McCain stepped in and snatched it away. Thanks for the support, John.
- He was one of the architects of the McCain-Kennedy legislation that would have given illegal aliens a special "pathway to citizenship" after paying a small fine (and how would they have enforced that?) We need stronger action on the southern border, not weaker.
- He opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a potentially large supply of oil for our country in a time when everyone agrees we need to become more energy-independent.
- He appears to be anti-business, making such comments in last week's debate. He said he went into the Navy "for patriotism not for profit," which was a clear shot at Romney (and what is wrong with profit?). He also mentioned that some people on Wall Street had been greedy in the subprime lending crisis run-up, and that they should be "put in jail." And, he said in an earlier debate that pharmaceutical companies were "the big bad guys"and that we should do something to take away their power.
- He buys the global warming hysteria 100% and is trying to get legislation through the Congress that would place carbon-emission restrictions on American companies. Human Events reports that the EPA estimates that the cost of this legislation could be as high as two trillion dollars.
- He supports embryonic stem cell research
- He condemns "waterboarding" as torture, when it really is debatable whether it constitutes torture. McCain gets plenty of play on this because he was tortured while a POW in Vietnam, which is why he moves his arms sort of strangely. Again, bonafide war hero in my eyes, no doubt about it. But I don't believe waterboarding constitutes torture and it has been proven to get results with some of these terrorist leaders we've been capturing.
- He wants to close the Guantanamo Naval base in Cuba. I am unclear whether he wants to actually close Gitmo or just the use of it to house terrorist prisoners; but I think he's wrong on either count. Bringing detainees into the United States would allow leftist lawyers to get them into the American justice system and afford them all kinds of rights they don't deserve, plus it would serve to help Al Qaeda generate all kinds of propaganda here in the U.S. We definitely don't need any of that.
- Besides his comments on the pharma companies I mentioned earlier, he voted for the (in my opinion) disastrous Sarbanes-Oxley bill that came down after the big Enron debacle a few years ago. As a business software developer I often work with sensitive data, and I have seen firsthand the repercussions of "Sox" as we call it. Huge amounts of money to protect officers from huge personal liability; the hiring or re-tasking of auditors to handle "Sox Compliance" full-time; new, lengthy procedures and paperwork requirements for even the simplest tasks; more large amounts of money spent on hardware and software to handle the new rules. I guarantee smaller competitors went out of business, too, because they couldn't keep up with these new costs. And for what? Are we safer now than we were before? I don't think so; not at all. The CPA market already took care of the Enron fiasco by liquidating Arthur Anderson and toughening their own rules and procedures. Overbearing new regulation by the government was not necessary and is counter-productive.
- He doesn't want to repeal the "death tax" on inheritances. Explain to me why the government should get a cut of the estate I want to leave to my children. I pay taxes as I build my little empire, and yet that's not enough.
- He is extremely weak on the all-important illegal immigration problem, despite the fact that he comes from a border state with thousands upon thousands of people crossing through it every month. His director of hispanic outreach in his campaign is a notorious illegal alien activist who used to hold a position in Mexican president Vicente Fox's government.
- He did not support President Bush's tax cuts several years ago, one of only two Republicans to not have done so (the other was Lincoln Chafee, a RINO who was dismissed in the last election cycle). On top of that, as I mentioned in a previous post, he now regularly lies about his rationale for these votes. He claims now that it was because the tax cuts were not accompanied by spending cuts, which sounds reasonable enough. But if you look at the record, he actually complained that the tax cuts were geared to help "the wealthiest" among us, not the poor, so he opposed them. This is standard liberal class warfare-talk.
- I am not very familiar with the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, but everyone complains that it restricts free speech around elections and is unconstitutional. The first actual example of this that I've heard about was a couple of days ago, when a filmmaker who produced "Hillary - The Movie" stated on the radio that he cannot advertise his new movie because of these new campaign laws. As I said, I don't know the specifics of the law, but McCain wrote it; conservatives hate it; and this movie I'm interested in is being unfairly held back because of it. That stinks.
- He opposes a federal Marriage Protection Amendment, which would define, federally, marriage as between one man and one woman. Clearly this is needed as the individual states may redefine it within their borders and potentially cause problems if those "married" people travel to another state. Pro-gay marriage referendums were tried in 11 states in 2006, and lost in every state by gigantic margins. The public doesn't want gay marriage, but gay activists will continue to push, and activist judges may force states to give them what they want, as they did in Massachusetts.
There are other reasons, as well, but these are the big ones for me (some bigger than others). Unlike Michael Medved claims, I don't complain about McCain (nor does anyone I know of) just because I don't like him. I complain because I don't agree with his views and he is claiming to be a conservative like me. And he looks like he's about to win the GOP nomination against a guy I really like.
Tomorrow we'll see what happens. But if you're an undecided voter on the GOP side of the equation tomorrow, please consider my points above before pulling the lever for John McCain.
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