After a generally conservative career, the John McCain who emerged in the 107th Senate really was a moderate Republican. According to the Poole-Rosenthal "optimal classification" algorithm, only Lincoln Chaffee, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins were less conservative among members of the GOP caucuses. But by the 108th Senate he'd decided not to run for Vice President on John Kerry's ticket, George W. Bush had been re-elected, and McCain decided to shift back far right en route to the nomination. Suddenly only Don Nickles, Jeff Sessions, and Jon Kyl were more conservative than McCain. And in the 109th Senate, only Kyl has been more conservative.
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The McCain Shift
13 Feb 2008 12:41 pm
Comments (14)
I'd be very curious about what we'd discover if we applied this "Poole-Rosenthal" metric to (say) Rudy Giuliani.
I'll bet he'd have been classified as far-and-away the most liberal Republican in the primaries, perhaps even more liberal than a large fraction of the Democrats in Congress.
One dimension metrics just aren't very good at measuring highly-multidimensional spaces...
That's great because it feeds the flip-flop narrative, credible to both Democrats and disgruntled Republicans; it provides evidence for conservatives convinced that McCain is really a 'liberal' without prejudicing the Democratic argument that he's just about the most right-wing member of the Senate.
When you look at his career record, McCain is a childish joke of a man. He only moved to the left after 2000 because he was pissed off with George Bush for beating him to the nomination. And he had a right to be pissed. But he was a longtime member of the Republican party. He knew what they were about. And this kind of thing led him to substantially alter his politics? But then he moved back to the right to secure the nomination in 2008. So his whole moderate/maverick image is based on a good relationship with the media and a hissy fit he threw after losing the last nomination.
So what you actually have is a solid conservative with a minimum of integrity. Ridiculous.
Can we really trust this given that it shows Russ Feingold jumping from the most liberal, to the middle of the Democratic pack, then back to the most liberal?
That's just one example that jumped out at me, so I bet there are a lot more anomalies.
I do agree that McCain's ideology has shifted wildly. But I'm wary of data like these.
So what you actually have is a solid conservative with a minimum of integrity. Ridiculous.
You don't have to repeat yourself twice in two sentences.
So what you actually have is a solid conservative suffices.
these left - right ratings of, of course, dependent on what issues are brought up by the leadership. Measuring legislators on this spectrum works when comparing one legislator to another in the same year, but not from year to year as a guide to ideological fortitude.
It's unfair to say that McCain is flowing with the political winds based on this measurement. For example, he took a very un-conservative stance on immigration in 2006 that nearly cost him the nomination this year.
Gregor- Fair enough. I'll try to be more sunccinct in the future. :)
I think the only cause McCain actually cares about is war. He wants to bomb people. (We stay in Iraq to win Vietnam, and we need to bomb Iran to win Iraq. Then we'll have to bomb somebody else to win Iran. I guess Pakistan.) I suspect that if you asked McCain, unprompted, to name his top five priorities, neither abortion nor any kind of "marriage amendment" would make the list. He votes with the Republicans when the issue comes up, he'd criticize the liberal positions if somebody reminded him about the base, but he doesn't care. That said, he'll be all the further to the right if he manages to get into the White House, to get support for his wars and a second/succeeding term. The old man is more dangerous than Bush.
Another alternative: His membership in the Republican party was always an imperfect fit, he always was uncomfortable with aspects of his party, but he kept his mouth shut as much as he could b/c he wanted to advance w/in that party. Once he was rejected he spoke w/ his true voice. We all do that to some extent w/in groups we belong to - does anyone here speak their mind at every staff meeting they attend? At every family dinner table? Nope. Go along until there's sufficient reason to not do so. McCain may well be a generally conservative man who also happens to be a decent person. He just needed a sufficient nudge to speak plainly.
And in the 109th Senate, only Kyl has been more conservative.
It's not hard to have a near-perfect conservative voting record in the current Senate/Congress, considering its key initiatives have been:
1. token, insincere, unserious Iraq withdrawal plans (as opposed to viable ones)
2. a monetarily self-defeating (and possibly unneeded) SCHIP expansion
3. a myopic concern with oversea wire-tapping (while ignoring the state's far more dangerous data-mining operations)
4. the "Sins-of-the-Father" sanctioning of a much-needed ally in Turkey
5. the appropriation of tax dollars for carbon offsets, which are an obvious scam
6. the naming of buildings in Charlie Rangel's honor (at taxpayer expense)
7. the earmarking of millions of dollars to a private company that doesn't exist (Murtha)
8. the forcing out of the Capitol Hill cook becuase the food she made wasn't ritzy enough
The upcoming John Kerry/Peter King bill on the extension of Veteran benefits to guardsmen serving in Iraq will be the first positive thing to come out of either house in years.
Not to quibble or anything, but we're in the middle of the 110 Congress right now, not the 109th. The original post seems premised on the notion that we're mid-109th Senate right now. Thus, in the 108th Senate, McCain indeed may have decided not to run as Kerry's veep, but GW Bush had not yet been elected to a second term, and Kerry only got the lock on the nomination about 2/3s of the way through the term. Also "only Kyl has been more" conservative in the 109th really ought to read only Kyl was more conservative in the 109th. The linked site doesn't seem to have data from the current Senate (about which Shinyk writes).
Does that change the analysis?
The problem with these stats is the fact that McCain rarely even votes.
"He only moved to the left after 2000 because he was pissed off with George Bush for beating him to the nomination."
I'd put this differently, but I think there's some truth to this.
I don't know how valid this analysis is, but it's true his more liberal period was something of an aberration. Although many liberals seemed to love him in 2000 his actual record at that point was on the Right with fair consistency. He despised Clinton on North Korean and other foreign policy matters. He was, still is, consistently for school choice and reduced government spending. His record was also generally Pro-Life.
However I get the sense he felt the Right "betrayed him" in 2000 so he may indeed have decided to get some kind of revenge. (Although I doubt he was ever seriously considering switching parties and I don't find the evidence on it compelling. I do think he might've wanted to float the idea so he could shake people up, kind of like one of those "contract renegotiation" strategies.) Then the anger passed, or alternately he made some kind of undisclosed deal with the Party, and returned to his generally Right-wing pattern.
All that said I don't hate him. Politically I'm a moderate conservative, I guess, except on abortion where I'm further to the Right. I guess Chris Smith of New Jersey is the closest thing to a politician I admire. So anyway McCain and Thompson were my preference pretty much all through.
Comments closed February 27, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
He was against conservatism before he was for it?
Posted by Ron | February 13, 2008 12:56 PM