A Political Rant

I was going to title this, "Why I'm not a Republican Any More," but it went further than that.

My political outlook has changed little in the past decade. I’ve gone a little more green, but I’m still a fiscally conservative/socially libertarian/states’ rights/small government/foreign policy activist with an environmentalist streak. There is no political party that encompasses these views, or even tries to, and at times it’s almost enough to make me stay home on election day (which I will never, ever do).

In college I was a Republican, because I was registered to vote in Clay County, Florida, the most Republican county in the state and a place where all local and legislative offices were decided in the GOP primary. Also, my parents were Republicans. And, I was reading a lot of PJ O’Rourke at the time and he hadn’t yet admitted he was really a libertarian at heart (this was the era of Republican Party Reptile).

But even then I was a half-hearted Republican. I called myself conservative then because the people in power who called themselves conservatives still pretended to give a darn about fiscal responsibility; this they no longer do. I didn’t join the College Republicans. I worked at the official campus newspaper, and made fun of the upstart conservative one (which is still worth making fun of). I didn’t even join my local church like a good little conservative, because the pastor there, during my freshman year, complained to the media that the Carolina Panthers, who were playing home games in Clemson’s Death Valley that fall while Ericsson Stadium was built, should give money to all the local congregations because of the decreased donations from people staying home to tailgate for the football games instead of going to church. Never said a word about the souls that weren’t saved or the good news that wasn’t spread; no, it was about the money that wasn’t collected. I’ve never met a pastor who has so lost his way.

I didn’t even vote for Bob Dole in 1996 (it was a Harry Browne year). By 2000 I was working for the Democratic Party. I didn’t win the race I was managing, but I was drawing a paycheck. At this point I was still a registered Republican—because I was still registered in Clay County (which is now only the second-most Republican county in the state, thank you very much Santa Rosa). But I didn’t vote for Al Gore for President that year (I was one of those horrible Nader voters the Gore camp kept complaining about. No matter. Al Gore is a better person for having lost in 2000; I maintain he would have been a lousy president, though whether lousier than the current louse we will never know).

When I moved to Tampa in 2003 I registered as a Democrat for the first time—again out of necessity, because I now live in a very Democratic district. If I had my choice I’d register without party affiliation, but state law makes that foolish. And yes, in 2004 I did vote for John Kerry, who I think was a terrible candidate and would make a dreadful president. But I also think he might have been just a wee bit less dreadful than the alternative. This was the first time I had voted for a major party candidate for President, and I felt dirty doing it because I knew I wouldn’t be happy with either man.

The one time I’ve ever been really happy with a major-party candidate for President was in 2000, when John McCain raised my hopes that someone with some actual balls, and sense, might have a chance. And he did have a chance, until Karl Rove and his team of miscreants smeared him in South Carolina: Bush supporters suggested McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually his illegitimate black child, distributed flyers at South Carolina churches calling McCain “the fag candidate,” claimed that Cindy McCain was a drug addict, suggested that his time in a North Vietnamese prison had actually driven him insane, made suggestions that McCain had committed treasonous acts while a POW (while Bush was safe at home, ready to act in case the Viet Cong came swarming across the Rio Grande), and called McCain a “Manchurian candidate” who had collaborated with the North Vietnamese and was recruited by the Soviets (this last was accomplished by one Ted Sampley, who was the driving force behind the SwiftVets campaign against Kerry last year). Had Bush and his cronies not signed off on this blatant filthmongering, McCain would very likely have been elected President in 2000. (If you’re wondering where my animosity towards Bush comes from, this list of lies is a good place to start. Why do so many military personnel like him, given the things he’s said about a decorated military officer and POW in the past simply to gain political power? What blinders are my colleagues wearing that they trust one word that comes out of his mouth? I’ve always wondered.)

But that’s another matter. McCain looks likely to run in 2008 and I should be thrilled about that, right? I should be. But I’m not. While I still think he’s likely the best of batch of potential candidates in either party, I don’t share the same devotion that led me to send him over $1000 during the course of 2000 campaign. It’s because of Republicans.

He has to win a GOP primary. This means he has to appear more “conservative,” by the narrow definition of the activist right wing of his party. Just this year he has come out in favor of making the Bush tax cuts permanent (the OMB’s budget projections, which show a continuing deficit as far as the eye can see, assume the tax cuts will lapse), agreed to address the graduating class at Liberty University (Jerry Falwell’s “college” and just a step shy of Bob Jones U), and changed his mind on Roe v Wade (from not supporting its repeal to supporting a nationwide abortion ban).

I certainly don’t think people can’t change their minds; I expect them to, and I hate it when people (frequently Republicans, I’ve noticed, but then only because Democrats don’t have any values to start with) accuse a politician of “flip-flopping” or “waffling” for changing his or her mind on a topic—especially when the change occurred years ago; we are none of us the same person we were five years ago, nor should we wish to be. But it was the positions he took in 2000 that made independents like me support his campaign with our votes and our dollars. For me, the worst was his strong support of Bush’s 2004 campaign. He could have just kept his mouth shut, instead of standing by his man all autumn while the same person who fabricated lies about him in 2000 did the same to John Kerry. I’m sorry, but that strikes me as a total lack of character; to me, McCain’s late 2004 activities were about expediency and making friends with GOP stalwarts and not about principles at all.

I’m not a fool. I know that John McCain is far more conservative than I am, and I knew he was in 2000. I can forgive a politician a lot of faults in ideology if I believe his character and judgment are above reproach. I believed that about John McCain in 2000. I’m not so sure I believe it now.

And I really think it’s partisan politics, especially in the GOP (remember, the Democrats don’t know what their values are so they’re not nearly as prone to attacking each other’s positions), that has caused this diminution in character. Examine Rudy Giuliani, another potential 2008 candidate (though he seems less certain about this than McCain does). Giuliani is as socially liberal (read: tolerant, because that’s what I mean when I say “liberal”) a Republican as exists in this country. The GOP likes him, because he is extremely popular—and he’s popular not just as the very public face of New York after the 9/11 disaster, but for the turnaround he engineered in the city in 1990s. But he’s also a social liberal, and while there are apparently still social liberals in the GOP, right-wing activists and primary voters demand unyielding social conservatism in their candidates. Giuliani has a lot of backtracking to do. He’s been doing it lately, stumping yesterday for Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, one of the most socially conservative members of the Senate, and later this week working a fundraiser for Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and noted FOA (Friend of Abramoff). Why? What does he have in common with these gentlemen? Giuliani’s popularity in the GOP stems from his stands on things like terrorism, the Iraq war, and foreign policy. Reed doesn’t deal with any of those things, and Giuliani as president would have nothing to do with Reed as lieutenant governor of Georgia. Do they need each other’s support? Does anyone need Ralph Reed’s support right now, given his scandal-plagued campaign? Giuliani must show the right wing that he is one of them; there is no other possible reason for his support for Reed (the two are not personal friends, which would explain it).

Again I come back to the way partisanship seems to eat away at a man’s principles the longer he stays in government or the higher he tries to rise in it. It’s time to start over with new parties, and more of them.