Adventures in Maverickyness — Flip Flops Are Not Just for Kids Anymore!
The biggest drawback to the Democrats not officially settled on a candidate is that John McCain gets to fly beneath the press radar, flip-flopping his legacy away, out of view of the folks who nod their heads when they head “moderate” and “McCain” in the same sentence.
So now he has flip-flopped — again — on immigration amnesty policy. If you remember, McCain was a strong supporter of the Bush effort for paths to citizenship and for a guest worker program (collectively called amnesty by people on the right) and that strong support almost gave movement conservatives enough leverage to derail his candidacy for President. He went down to the CPAC meeting in February and told those folks what they wanted to hear — he would work to secure the borders first, then they’d talk about accommodating plans for controlled immigration.
Well now he’s thrown his movement conservatives back under the immigration bus and gone back to his comprehensive reform position. The Raw Story article I linked to has some of the right wing reaction to this, but these guys probably ought to throw away their sunscreen and get used to the smell of rubber and diesel because they’ll be spending a good portion of the summer underneath the Double Talk Express bus.
So how does this square with the “character” and “moderate” narratives again?
It is the rarely seen “flip-flop-flip.”
Watch out, here comes McCain swerving to the left, with his blinker on for the last 30 miles.
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He’s turning left…no..He’s turning right…no, left again.
He didn’t flipflop. He never abandoned amnesty, and almost always caveatted “security first” with “then we’ll deal with the 12 million”. It’s just that most on the right chose to ignore it when he started talking about security first.
It was only when he resurrected the magic phrase “comprehensive immigration reform” did it occur to to them that he might still do both at the same time.
Much of the anger at McCain is projection from folks who fooled themselves.
It is the rarely seen “flip-flop-flip.”
Oh! Tryouts for the Olympic Flip Flop Team, then.
I don’t know, LB. If you look at the clip of that part of the CPAC speech it certainly sounds to me that he was talking about a 3 step process (and the last two items are dependent upon the first being done): Secure Borders; Get Agreement Borders Are Secure; Deal with 12 Million. Movement conservatives fooling themselves is not exactly a new thing, but they certainly used to have better negotiating skills than this.
Bob Barr is going to have a hey day.
Or is it “Hay Day?”
Either way, Barr is going to go nuts on McCain.
Yes, it does sound that way, and I think intentionally so. But nothing he has said would preclude him from including the three steps in one bill, security milestones and all.
The assumption that it would be separate legislation for each had conservatives figuring that he would not be able to complete the border in time to start new legislation in four years (most folks see him as one term only due to age), and the successor, if conservative, would be less likely to pursue amnesty.
With all in one bill, however, we’re stuck with amnesty no matter what, and congress might be tempted to tamper with the milestones to bring it about sooner.
Just my opinion from being on the other side of the fence…. 😉
His worse mess is yet come! Phil Gramm the “lobbyist lobbyist”! Lets see if he throws him under the bus.
If you like Lobbyists, you’ll just love McCain. I agree Jason this is Barr’s opportunity to go after Mccain. Now we will have the republicans beating each other up, right up to the election. Ain’t democracy grand.
Meanwhile Greg Palast reports with proof (he has 500 of Rove’s emails) they claimed went missing. Turns out the “Bush campaign” insiders were figuring ways to disenfranchise millions of voters. They sent these internal secret confidential emails to: georgewbush.org. instead of the real gwb email address: georgewbush.com.
Some democrat owned that site. Sent the mess to Greg Palast and the BBC who investigated, and now have the evidence,, They prove how Rove and his minons disinfranchised millions of votes of our “troops” in 2004. Palast has the names of every voter who was purged in every state. I sent the youtube to Jason if he would like to post. Amazing! 2008 is about to be stolen
And thanks for your opinion from the other side of the fence!
As I rewatched that clip, the point where he said that he would get agreement that the borders were secure is where the folks in the room warmed up again and sounded as though they heard something they wanted to hear — such as an opportunity to put the brakes on the last step. But you could be right that that moment was likely the prestidigitation portion of the evening.
The Swerverick better not sway too much from the Right path or many of the Americans who think they are tough guys and prefer to vote based on fear, hate, exclusion, and selfishness just may stay at home on that November day….
…what do repubs stand for nowadays anyway?
BTW Cass – got the book. Looks like a good one, though I’m sure I’ll be throughly pissed after reading it.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
– John Kenneth Galbraith
Why is there any point to discussing McCain’s chances? Its like talking about the impact of the Lee or Protack campaign.
I think his immigration policy is reasonable. Doesn’t the fact that right-wing bloggers’ heads are exploding over it mean anything to you?
Did you notice the part of the article where he mentions that he worked with Senator Kennedy on an immigration bill? This is a man who doesn’t really shy away from defending his base. That’s pretty admirable. Doesn’t the fact that he already has a history of being a ‘unity’ candidate mean anything to those of you on the far left? Doesn’t it matter that you don’t just have to take his word for it?
Sometimes you guys are a bit unreasonable.
Correction: I meant to say ‘offending’ his base. Duh.
This thread is not about the content of his policy (which I am agnostic On) rather than the fact that he needs to change that policy with some frequency, depending upon whether he needs the goodwill of the wingnuts or not.
Working with your colleagues (R or D) really ought to be the default position — holding one guy up for praise for occasionally working with Dems seems to set the bar pretty darned low.
But the very McCain friendly media has been good at pushing the moderate business, which I expect will be a dead story by the end of the summer. Good thing too, since it is not true.
Enjoy the book, VonC! It will make you mad, but you’ll never hear another “jobs creation” or “free market” scheme from a pol ever again without deconstructing who gets paid.
Cass – I started it last night and had a hard time putting it down. If I hadn’t taken that Advil PM, I’d have finished it and been (more) useless at work today.
It really is compelling — watching how what used to be called patronage just become an accepted feature of capitalism. With your tax money.
I read the book mostly on a recent train trip to Boston and had to keep reminding myself to not keep saying WTF out loud while reading…
😳
‘the very McCain friendly media’
I guess they’re going to face a real dilemma once Obama wraps up the nomination. I wonder who they’ll turn on.