McCain's Consistency

I thought Elizabeth Bumiller did a really good opening here for The New York Times:

Senator John McCain likes to present himself as the candidate of the “Straight Talk Express” who does not pander to voters or change his positions with the political breeze. But the fine print of his record in the Senate indicates that he has been a lot less consistent on some of his signature issues than he has presented himself to be so far in his presidential campaign.

Mr. McCain, who derided his onetime Republican competitor Mitt Romney for his political mutability, has himself meandered over the years from position to position on some topics, particularly as he has tried to court the conservatives who have long distrusted him. His most striking turnaround has been on the Bush tax cuts, which he voted against twice but now wants to make permanent. Mr. McCain has also expressed varying positions on immigration, torture, abortion and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary.

Mr. McCain’s advisers say that he has evolved rather than switched positions in his 25-year career in the House and Senate and that he has been remarkably consistent on his support for the war in Iraq and the American troop escalation there.

I think things go a bit downhill from there, but this captures the essence of the matter quite well. Since the late-1990s, John McCain has expressed a very clear and consistent preference for very aggressive use of unilateral American military force. He broke with the GOP leadership to support intervention in Kosovo, then he broke with the Clinton administration to argue for a land invasion and a more sweeping conception of victory. He called for a policy of "rogue state rollback" in 1999, and attacked Bush from the right on foreign policy in 2000. He supported invading Iraq in 2002, argued that more troops should be sent ever since 2003, and is basically a rock-ribbed hawk.

But on other issues, McCain's stances tend to meander. I think it's perhaps counterproductive to speculate as to precisely why this is. But precisely because he has broken with the GOP on a potpurri of issues, but rarely done so with a great deal of consistency, he's really quite a bit more flip-floppety than the average politician even as he relies on his image as a consistent "straight talker" quite a bit more than your average pol.

Comments

Being a straight-talker is not incompatible with being a flip flopper, if one means what one says at any given moment but your opinions swing with the wind (as opposed to someone who always believes the same thing but feigns otherwise when useful).

Posted by Scott P. | March 3, 2008 3:55 PM

I want to second Scott's point. We need a distinction between Straight Talk as saying what you really think versus consistently advocating a position. I think the first is the more intuitive sense of the term.

Posted by Dug | March 3, 2008 4:06 PM

I don't trust Atlantic Monthly's opinion on these things. They magazine is full of ads for Arms Manufacturers.

Posted by Jims | March 3, 2008 4:09 PM

That's fair enough, Dug and Scott, but should it really be considered a compliment to say, "that McCain, he always says what's on his mind, even if he almost certainly said the exact opposite at some point in the past."

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | March 3, 2008 4:09 PM

McCain: fickle but forthcoming

yeah, that'll sell

Posted by cleek | March 3, 2008 4:19 PM

There's nothing in McCain's support of Bush's tax cuts or his squirmy enabling of torture or his suck-up to the likes of Pat Robertson that admits of anything except rank ambition dictated his change of mind.

There was an exchange on Taxi between Latka and Alex, something like Latka not being materialistic -- all he wanted was a nice house and car. Alex responded by noting that was what people meant by being materialistic. McCain finding nice compromises to please the cretins is what people mean when they say "flip-flopper". Somehow or other, politicians with the presidency on their minds never "evolve" into positions unpopular with swing constituencies.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 3, 2008 4:22 PM

Comments so far: If you have a consistent, well thought out philosophy, the press will pick you apart. If you have a consistent, well thought out philosophy and bend to practicalities, the press will kill you. If you have no philosophy and say anything that will ingratiate you to your audience, you will be deemed a straight talker and the reporters will love you.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | March 3, 2008 4:25 PM

I take your point, Elvis. My read of McCain is this. It's unusual and refreshing for a politician to say what he really thinks as often as McCain does. And when this happens, it really does seem like he's prepared to lose votes for it. But later on his electoral ambition kicks in and he flip-flops for votes. Seems to happen more on issues that, deep down, he probably doesn't care all that much about (e.g. tax policy). So I don't think his actual views are blowing with the wind, just that some days he's a straight talker, and sometimes he's a flip-flopping panderer saying what he has to in order to get votes. McCain gets a pretty big fat pass from the media on the flip-floppery because of his bouts of incautious honesty.

Posted by Dug | March 3, 2008 4:29 PM

Isn't the first line of Bumiller's article an example of the same fallacy that Yglesias has excoriated Russert for engaging in?

Namely: if your view has changed over the years, you must be lying. The entire flip-flopping criticism usually is lacking at least one premise. Why did these people change their fundamental position (if in fact they did)? There mighthave been some good reasons. A lot of these so-called changes are different votes on completely different bills years apart.

Romney is still in a class by himself. He changed his entire persona. Politicians muddle around, change, and shape-shift from issue to issue, especially on things they don't care about too much. Romney claims that he underwent a fundamental political change 3/4 of the way through life. That beats any waffling, hedging, etc. Hillary or McCain have done.

Posted by Colatina | March 3, 2008 4:35 PM

What the heck are you trying to do here? I've gotten used to being instructed by the liberal blogosphere that Bumiller is an evil incarnate Bush-boot-licking member of the Judy Miller yaya sisterhood.

That said, on this:

But on other issues, McCain's stances tend to meander. I think it's perhaps counterproductive to speculate as to precisely why this is. But precisely because he has broken with the GOP on a potpurri of issues, but rarely done so with a great deal of consistency, he's really quite a bit more flip-floppety than the average politician even as he relies on his image as a consistent "straight talker" quite a bit more than your average pol.

some call it "flip-floppety," some call it "maverick."

Posted by artappraiser | March 3, 2008 5:12 PM

I think the lesson is that McCain is far less interested in being President generally than he is in being Commander-in-Chief specifically. "Give me control of the empire's expansion, and the rest is negotiable," or something to that effect.

Posted by Adam | March 3, 2008 5:22 PM

Sucking up to Robertson et al and caving in on torture: that's pure conscienceless pandering. Pistachio to McCain and the horse he road in on.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 3, 2008 6:08 PM

It would be interesting for someone to flesh out how often the famously contrarian Maverick has decisively influenced the outcome of anything, versus how often he blew hot air over inconsequential procedural votes, to create the illusion of independence while actually changing nothing.

My guess is aboout 95% hot air.

Posted by Aatos | March 3, 2008 6:25 PM

It would be interesting for someone to flesh out how often the famously contrarian Maverick has decisively influenced the outcome of anything, versus how often he blew hot air over inconsequential procedural votes, to create the illusion of independence while actually changing nothing.

My guess is aboout 95% hot air.

Posted by Aatos | March 3, 2008 6:26 PM

[McCain] argued that more troops should be sent [to Iraq] ever since 2003

And he was right. That is, he was right in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. If we were going to be there at all, and we were, we did need more troops. Charlie Rangel was also right: we needed a draft to provide the number of troops actually required in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain and any number of Dems were right that we needed a tax increase, not cuts, to pay for it all. And some industries nationalized to keep up with the need for body armor, armored vehicles, and other war materiel.

But Bush was never going to do any of that. That would mean paying for his war.

Bush and Rumsfeld wanted a free lunch: the war they wanted, without paying any price for it at home (except the debt, but nobody really feels that directly and immediately). They wanted -- and got -- a war that required no sacrifice from the overwhelming majority of voters.

Bumiller is right to bust McCain on his tax flip-flop. It's insane and irresponsible, especially given the likelihood of even more military adventures during a McCain administration. Everybody who busts him for his militarism and his economic ignorance is also right.

But on the subject of troop levels in 2003-2006, he was right. Bush was wrong.

Again, this willingness to let Bush off the hook just to have a marginally better position from which to criticize McCain is asinine. There's plenty to criticize McCain for without papering over Bush's cowardice and immorality.

Posted by urbino | March 3, 2008 6:44 PM

My guess is about 95% hot air.

If so, that would be the lowest percentage hot air of any Senator. Have you ever watched C-SPAN?

Posted by Exile on Ericsson St. | March 3, 2008 7:59 PM

Urbino, the problem with the notion of increased troop levels is that it would have required half a million troops to even begin to stabilize Iraq - and it's not certain even that would have been enough, given the country and the problems involved. At best, it's likely that would have delayed the development of the insurgency for a year or so. That might have helped, but over the long run, not likely.

Counterinsurgency doctrine says you need 20 troops per thousand civilians. In other words, you need a platoon in every neighborhood. Figure it out for an Iraq population of 25 million - that's 500,000.

And at that level, how long could the US sustain it? Almost certainly not more than a year, if that.

A draft? Right - that would have flown like a lead balloon. You would have had to draft half a million more men at least, train them, and supply them.

The war cost would have ballooned from the previous $4 billion a month to the current $12 billion a month (and THAT'S only with 160,000 troops!), and then probably to $50 billion a month.

More likely, more troops would have meant more insurgency more quickly (if not more effectively), not less, and more dead Iraqis and dead US troops by now.

Insane.

McCain and Bush were wrong about the war on all counts.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 3, 2008 9:09 PM

"McCain has expressed a very clear and consistent preference for very aggressive use of unilateral American military force . . . But on other issues, McCain's stances tend to meander."

It's almost as if he's a crazy, militant codger of the sort who used to have the decency to confine themselves to afternoon happy hour at the VFW.

Posted by IOZ | March 3, 2008 9:26 PM

All those downsides and political costs are part of my point, Hack. That's why a president has to get the country fully on board before s/he takes the country to war. War isn't something you can half do. Either do it for real and pay all the costs, or stay the fuck home.

We should've stayed the fuck home. This was obvious at the time. But since we didn't, we needed to do it right. Bush wasn't and isn't willing to do that. It would cost him and his supporters too much. This is both cowardly and immoral.

We shouldn't be bashing McCain for correctly pointing out that we were making a half-ass attempt at war. We should be bashing Bush for making it.

McCain we can bash for wanting to continue it even though it's clear the country isn't behind it, and therefore won't be willing to pay the costs.

Posted by urbino | March 3, 2008 11:01 PM

Urbino: "We should've stayed the fuck home. This was obvious at the time. But since we didn't, we needed to do it right."

You're missing my point. There WAS NO "do it right" in the cards. Period.

Half million troops, draft, whatever. It would still have failed. It would just have (probably) taken longer. It might even have seemed a "success" by this time. Before long, though, it would still have failed.

And don't point to the Balkans, that was a half-assed mess even if NATO managed to avoid an out and out insurgency. And they DID have 20 troops per thousand civilians or close to it. And the Balkans are irrelevant compared to the situation in Iraq anyway, despite the presence of Muslims in both areas.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 4, 2008 1:13 AM

There's ALWAYS a "do it right" in the cards. period.

The true way to do this right would be to exterminate the population, but we as Americans (and every other present day country) are bound by our silly and (in the case of the U.S.)discredited morals.

"Half million troops, draft, whatever. It would still have failed. It would just have (probably) taken longer. It might even have seemed a "success" by this time. Before long, though, it would still have failed."

Of course, you're talking about within your lifetime, right? If not, a century of occupation will make any invasion a success (except Israel, don't mess with their holy land...ever). If you're talking about the U.S. the only way we can fail a true occupancy is if we either pull out or run out of cash. Personally I think we'll run out of cash (and turn into a second world debtor country) before the public manages to vote in a legislature able to pull out of Iraq.

Posted by Skeptical | March 4, 2008 3:48 AM

John McCain appears to have an obsession with proving himself within the context of his warrior ancestors, and to avenge his embarrassment at being shot down and imprisioned for so many years in Viet Nam. A dangerous background, especially given his advanced age.

Posted by Hedley Lamarr | March 4, 2008 10:46 AM