Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Why is McCain trying to get elected on such a conservative agenda?

I read this column in Washington Post, and it raised a question I have been asking myself. First, though, let me say that I don't agree with everything that is said in this column, which is full of harsh words and a downright sexist attack on Sarah Palin's wardrobe.

But the columnist, Eugene Robinson, does have a point, or so I think anyway. This is what he says about McCain:

I'm not asking you to agree with Robinson's choice of words here, when he talks about McCain's 'slavish devotion to Republican orthodoxy'. Nevertheless, McCain's rightward drift during this election campaign is puzzling to me. He does want to get elected, doesn't he? Does he really believe that presenting himself as a pretty hardcore conservative will endear him to American voters of the fall of 2008?

I remember when McCain won his own party's nomination campaign. He quickly and easily defeated all the other GOP contenders. And why was that? The way I remember it, almost all commentators said that most Republicans are aware that their own party is at a disadvantage after eight years of Bush, and they were looking for a candidate that was as far away from Bush as possible. Not only that, but a lot of people seemed to think that McCain was a sort of 'cross-over' candidate, one that could appeal to a number of Democrats as well as to Republicans. Several commentators pointed out that McCain had voted against his party on important issues - once, for example, he had apparently objected to President Bush's tax cuts for the rich, and on another occasion he had championed the case for illegal immigrants. So all in all, at the beginning of this presidential campaign, McCain could be seen as a 'leftist' representative for his party, or, if you will, he could be regarded as a 'centrist' politician.

And McCain won the GOP nomination precisely because he was seen as so relatively centrist. So why, then, has he drifted rightwards so much since then? I'm not saying that hardcore Republicans don't like McCain better now than they did when he tried to come across as a centrist candidate. But surely they don't expect very many independent voters to be attracted to a candidate who now comes across as very conservative?

Compare McCain's 'evolution' to that of Obama's. I think both have drifted rightwards during the last few months - Obama has agreed to some off shore drilling, for example. But Obama has drifted rightwards from a liberal position, so that he now comes across as fairly centrist. McCain has drifted rightwards from a centrist position, so that he now comes across as a pretty hardcore conservative. At a time when the American electorate seems to be rather tired of strongly conservative politicians, after eight years with Bush, how smart is John McCain's strategy?

Ann