What A Miserable Set of Choices

I don't recall the last time I was this disappointed with my choices--and by the time we hold the Republican primary here in Idaho in May, most of the choice will almost certainly be made. I'm not the only blogger disappointed with the results. Professor Mike Rappaport at The Right Coast lists the objections that he has to McCain. Some of them are objections with which I completely agree with Rappaport:

1. Not only does McCain support McCain- Feingold, it is one of his signature issues. This will infect many aspects of his presidency, including his appointment of judges. It will be devastating to have a President and a Congress who strongly support this issue at the same time.

2. McCain opposed the Bush Tax Cuts, and what is worse, used class warfare rhetoric to criticize them.

3. McCain has taken strong positions against doing anything about illegal immigration. I don’t believe his recent “conversion” on the issue. For the record, I favor a large amount of legal immigration, but I believe that illegal immigration needs to be addressed.

...

7. McCain takes a strong position on opposing global warming. For the record, I think that the evidence probably supports taking some actions now, such as establishing prizes for the development of technology reducing greenhouse gases, but not the kind of strong regulatory actions that McCain seems to support.

8. McCain opposes drilling in ANWR.

9. McCain generally favors regulating American business, including pharmaceutical companies and transportation companies. This is his instinctual reaction to actions he does not like. He does not seem to understand economics. Recently, he spoke about the subprime problem in terms of “greedy people on Wall Street who need to go to jail."

10. McCain would not be good on judges. Despite his claims to the contrary, there is strong evidence that he would not have appointed Alito. And he is not likely to appoint people who think campaign finance is unconstitutional.

There are some areas where I disagree with McCain, but to steal John Kerry's favorite word, I have a more nuanced disagreement:

4. McCain opposes strong interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, for top members of Al Qaeda like Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

I understand McCain's reasons for this. As I pointed out in my discussion of 24 and torture, there are certainly a few circumstances where it might be the only way to get information necessary to save innocent lives, and that it is best to leave terrorists in doubt as to whether it might be used against them. I was tempted to paraphrase Bill Clinton's famous statement about abortion, "legal but rare," but that's just a little too playful for such a serious subject.

I think that waterboarding crosses the line between "strong interrogation techniques" and torture. I believe that it is best to leave such practices unlawful--and recognize that there may be circumstances where if torture is actually necessary to save innocent lives, the President has it within his authority to pardon someone for such an unlawful act. If this happens on a regular basis (to the point where the President has a stack of fill-in-the-blanks forms for this), I would be very skeptical that there's good reason for it.

There are a few aspects of McCain that I agree with, for example, his recognition that premature withdrawal from Iraq will make a real mess. I can admire his courage and service to America as a naval aviator and POW.

But there's a lot about McCain that I don't like. This article from American Thinker points out that McCain's American Conservative Union rating isn't really all that impressive--and is getting worse over time. To my surprise, McCain voted against the 2004 renewal of the federal assault weapons ban.

Not to my surprise, McCain voted to close the so-called "gun show sales loophole" which is really the private party loophole. There's nothing special about gun shows. Many states have no laws against private party sales of guns. There's a legitimate argument for requiring background checks on firearms sales, but that's properly the job of the states--not the federal government. I would be more tolerant of such a requirement once we get the Supreme Court to make a clear statement that the Second Amendment protects an individual right--and applying strict scrutiny as the standard for laws regulating that right.

I'm concerned also that McCain has so many skeletons in his closet (such as the Keating 6 scandal) that the leftist news media, once he is the Republican nominee, will use to hammer McCain into defeat. Now, if the matchup is McCain vs. Clinton, this won't be a problem. Clinton doesn't have a skeleton in her closet; she has a warehouse full of them, and there won't be much traction against McCain on this basis. McCain vs. Obama might be another matter. (I doubt that Obama is all that clean--he is an elected official, after all--he just looks clean compared to Senator Clinton.)

Rapport also makes the argument that while McCain is the Republican most likely to defeat the Democrat for President--because he is so far to the left--that it might be better for the Democrats to win this election. I've seen this argument made quite a bit, especially by pro-life Republicans. The argument is essentially, better to get whipped, and let the Democrats run the country into the ground, so that Republicans can take control again in 2012.

There are several problems with this theory:

1. The winner of the 2008 presidential election will be picking at least two, and probably more, Supreme Court justices. If McCain wins, there is a real risk that they will be Justices like O'Connor and Souter--Republicans who are hard to tell sometimes from Democrats. His statement over at the Federalist Society page (like that of Romney, Huckabee and Ron Paul) are all about the same--and if they do so, great! I just don't trust McCain to appoint judges that so fundamentally disagree with his policy positions.

Of course, if Clinton or Obama win, there is a near certainty that they appoint Democrats, and almost certainly in the style of Breyer or Ginsburg. The living, breathing, constantly mutating Constitution will be completely unrecognizable. Gay marriage? Mandatory, for every state. Striking down statutory rape laws? Very possible. Requiring churches to officiate at gay weddings, or lose their tax exempt status? Possible. McCain's choices will likely be bad, but I doubt that they could be as bad as the choices that Clinton or Obama will make.

2. We are at war. Now, I think Clinton will actually try to win--but she will be fighting a Democratic majority (perhaps a stronger majority than now) that includes significant numbers of the billionaire's wing of the party, who desperately want us to lose the War on Terror. I think McCain will end up being stronger than Clinton for that reason alone. I do worry about McCain's legendary temper. Our enemies should fear that our President might overreact, but that's not quite the same as actually having someone short-tempered whose finger is on the nuclear button.

Obama is another matter. Obama seems to represent the bilionaire's wing of the party rather too well. I really don't want someone up there who I have to worry is going to let George Soros and Michael Moore's view of foreign policy influence what we do.

3. What if all the suffering and blunders that the Iraq War represents, starts to bear fruit? We're already see some serious improvements in that theater. The last thing I want is for the party that has aggressively tried to lose this war then get into office and try to take credit for it. The economy is also taking a dip right now (standard business cycle stuff, as near as I can tell). I don't want the Democrats to take credit for a recovery that is almost certainly going to happen anyway.

I can't spend the time right now to discuss my feelings about Romney. I'm not thrilled with him, or his sudden conservatism. Was he misleading people when he was governor Massachusetts? Or is he misleading them now? Will he tack to the left if he is running against a Democrat in the general election? I don't know.

Huckabee manages to combine the worst aspects of populism and liberalism together. I can't take him seriously.