The Occasional Observer

Ramesh Ponnuru, outstanding author ("Party of Death") and the guy who puts the "C" in conservative, repeated his endorsement of McCain with the following interesting analysis:

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani differ in a lot of ways, but as candidates they have one important feature in common: Their vulnerabilities in the primaries are also vulnerabilities in the general election. Romney’s Mormonism and flip-flopping are political liabilities both with Republican primary voters and with the electorate at large. So too with Giuliani’s support for abortion and his messy personal life: They will cost him votes both in the primaries and, if he makes it through them, in the general election.

John McCain has a different situation. Almost all of the features that hurt him in the primaries — from his willingness to break with his party to his campaign-finance legislation to his belief that global warming is a real problem — would help him in the general election. Even at this stage of the campaign, he is doing slightly better than Giuliani in polls testing the Republican candidates against Hillary Clinton. (Both McCain and Giuliani do much better than Romney or Fred Thompson in these polls, but keep in mind that McCain and Giuliani are better known.)

My own view is that McCain would be the strongest general-election candidate the Republicans could put up next year. He is solid on almost all of the important issues: the war, judges, entitlements, abortion, trade. . . Even on taxes, he has righted himself. He voted against the Bush tax cuts, but he has never voted to raise income taxes and, this spring, ruled out any such move in an interview with me...

Sometimes people remember that they dislike someone even when they have forgotten what inspired their dislike. I think something like this has happened to McCain: His biggest problem with conservatives isn’t that they have had so many disagreements, but that they have a bad impression of him. If he is to win the nomination, he needs to do something to make them take a fresh look.

I think this is, in large part, quite true. My own opposition to McCain at the beginning of the cycle was over the fact that, as a Senator, he has always seemed to promote himself over principle. As the cycle has gone on, that concern has evaporated for two reasons: (1) he seems less self-promoting when you're reminded of his bio, what with his self-sacrifice and hero status in a class of their own; and (2) the field seems more self promoting, what with a bunch of guys jockeying for the Presidency with every breath they take. With my personal objections fading to the background, McCain's bio continuing to generate respect, and his policies clearly conservative, I can no longer reject him out of hand. (PS, still have my grudges over Gof14 and McCain-Kennedy, but neither are disqualifying-- especially since CIR never passed and he's admitted that the people want border security first).

That said, Ponnuru's ultimate suggestion for McCain makes little sense to me:

I think he should do something dramatic: Renounce ambition for a second term. He should say that he intends not just to win the presidency but to win a mandate for the few big things he really wants to accomplish: fixing entitlements and beating terrorists. A one-term limit would instantly separate McCain from the pack, making the other Republican contenders look self-interested by comparison. Concentrating on issues such as terrorism and entitlements would also play to his strengths with conservatives, and distract attention from his weaknesses.

I’m unclear on why Ponnuru has been pushing this idea (and K-Lo, BTW, has been endorsing Ponnuru's proposal). Rather than making McCain seem less self-interested than his opponents, as Ramesh states, I think the one-term idea just refocuses attention on McCain’s biggest vulnerability: his age. People aren’t likely to say, “I’ll vote for this guy, even though I don't think he's the best candidate, simply because we’ll only be stuck with him for 4 years and not for 8.” That reasoning just doesn’t wash for me.