It must be the water in Arizona that makes conservatives turn liberal. Take John McCain.
Yes, THAT John McCain. The guy who will likely be the Republican's nominee for president. His positions are causing most of the radical right of his party to curse his name and wish there was some other lamb that could be sacrificed this fall.
McCain is not the hardliner that neocons want and Jonathan Chait, writing at the New Republic recently dragged up some quotes he took from an interview with McCain in 2000:
McCain acknowledged that he was moving to the left, and I asked why this evolution was happening so late in his career. Sure enough, I found the same confession: "In the interest of full disclosure," he told me, "I didn't pay nearly the attention to those issues in the past. I was probably a 'supply-sider' based on the fact that I really didn't jump into the issue."
Chait also notes
Nearly every liberal editorial board that has made a Republican endorsement has chosen McCain, and nearly all have offered variations on the same theme. "Voters may disagree with his policies, but few doubt his sincerity," editorialized The Boston Globe. "The Arizona senator's conservatism is, if not always to our liking, at least genuine," concluded the Los Angeles Times.
John McCain a liberal? Hardly, but there must be something in the Arizona water that softens up tough old conservatives.
Take Barry Goldwater. Yes, THAT Barry Goldwater.
In his later years, Goldwater became more liberal as he saw the error of his ways. In a 2006 interview with the New York Times Magazine, C.C. Goldwater says her HBO film paints her late grandfather "as a kind of liberal," with testimonials from Al Franken, Sen. Ted Kennedy, James Carville and Sen. Hillary Clinton. Yes, Hillary was a "Goldwater Girl" before she saw the error of her ways.
Goldwater favored abortion rights and allowing gays in the military, and refused to attend President Nixon's funeral because he "cheated" the country.
The Arizona Republic says in an editorial, "John Dean, the former Watergate figure, argues in his new book Conservatives Without Conscience, that 21st century GOP leaders have rejected Goldwater values. Instead of calling Goldwater a liberal, he suggests that today's prominent Republicans really aren't true conservatives anymore. (Dean's title is a play off Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative.)"
Dean has it right. McCain and Goldwater do not represent today's Republican Party any more than the Democratic Party represents the values of Progressives.
So what are the values of the Democratic and Republican parties? That's not a question that can be answered right now. For Progressives, it's a time for us to help focus the Democratic Party on issues that have sustained it and America for decades: equality, fairness, support for the middle class and, at the core of each value, justice.
And who knows, along the way we might even pick up a few old Republicans who have seen the error of their ways.
-- Jim Grinstead
Comments