John McCain: Conservative, Principled, even Truthful?

A recent turnaround in the polls have now thrust Sen John McCain back into the national presidency scene. Counted out just a couple months ago, he began picking up newspapers endorsements as well as the endorsement of independent senator and recent vice presidential candidate for the democrat party, Sen Joe Lieberman; then he finished in a practical tie for third in Iowa. Now he has been catapulted to the top of the race in New Hampshire. But who is John McCain and should he be the nominee of the republican party?

In 2000, Sen McCain ran a campaign for the GOP nomination, riding his straight talk express. He was the golden boy of the main stream media, for one because whatever he felt, he said; for another, he held some views that were not exactly in step with true conservatism such as his McCain Feigold campaign finance bill and his willingness to NOT support tax cuts like the death tax. He was heralded as an honest politician who, whether you agreed or disagreed with him, told it like he saw it. He pulled the upset in NH then but was beat back in SC by perhaps some trickery by Bush supporters and some plain old realization that he was no true conservative across the board. Sen McCain lost the nomination to then Gov George Bush.

In the years since, Sen McCain got his McCain Feingold through (which I should add is probably THE worst piece of legislation in my lifetime. It denies freedom of speech, freedom of assmbly, and the freedom to do with your money what you see fit to do with it.) He had influence on the Bush administration to extend our involvement in Iraq through the surge. He was one of exactly two GOP senators who voted against the Bush tax cuts. To top it off, he pushed for immigration reform, including in 2003 saying, "I think we can set up a program where amnesty is extended to a certain number of people...Amnesty has to be an important part, because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here and pay taxes here and are not citizens."

Enter John McCain 2007. With all this very unconservative baggage from the past 7 years, he began the race one of the frontrunners, fell in the polls over the summer as he pushed for another immigration bill, and now has grabbed again the roll of front runner. But what ought we to think of John McCain? I will give him "war hero." I will give him a "prolife voting record." What I won't give him is a "conservative," for if nothing else, what is a conservative but at least for cutting taxes? What I won't give him is "principled man," for what kind of man claims the moral high ground on negative ads by not paying for one, yet makes sure a negative ad gets out into the press? (Sounds like another current frontrunner who wants to be looked at as conservative, Mike Huckabee. What a couple of hypocrites!) To top it off, no one despises another candidate personally like McCain dislikes Romney (a close second, Huckabee's dislike of Romney.)

I used to think of John McCain in the way he is characterized by the press. I used to think he was dead wrong on taxes, campaign finance, immigration, etc. yet was principled in that he was consistent and true with his positions. I used to think him a tenacious yet honest moderate. No longer is that the case. With the aforementioned hypocrisy and the fact that just this weekend Sen McCain claimed in the ABC debate that anybody who says he did support amnesty is a "liar, is lying."

So Sen McCain is not just wrong on the issues for conservatives, not just a hypocrite in his campaign, but turns out he is the very liar he calls others.