Moderates Should Blame Themselves
If you have ever wondered why we, as the American Silent Majority, are under-represented, you need to look no further than this presidential election. Although this website is devoted to solutions and not personalities or parties, the political evolution of Senator John McCain has become an irresistible cautionary tale. It is cautionary because his evolution illustrates nicely what is wrong with the American Silent Majority.
John McCain, for most of his political career, might have been considered a friend of the American Silent Majority. He was a solutions man. He tended to be less interested in ideology or party and more interested in how to fix a problem. In his 2000 campaign he talked about “building a bigger Republican Party”. That was code for dragging the wingers kicking and screaming toward the moderate middle. He backed his dream of a more inclusive Republican Party with his rhetoric. McCain called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson “the agents of intolerance.” With Russ Feingold, a Democrat, he wrote sweeping campaign finance reform legislation. In 2001 and 2003 McCain voted against his party and George W. Bush on tax cuts that our grandkids would have to pay off. Being one of the two Republicans who voted against the cuts he said, “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of the middle-class Americans who need tax relief.” He ran a principled campaign in 2000 that made him sleep really well at night. But, George W. Bush and his right wingers beat the crap out of him. However good or noble he felt, he lost.
John McCain learned a lesson in 2000. We did not see the results until Bush’s 2004 campaign. But, McCain heard the right wing of the Republican Party loud and clear. He has flip-flopped to the right on everything from social security to oil drilling and immigration to gun control. But, perhaps the most shocking of all, McCain changed his stand on torture. In order to solidify his “heir to W” status, he used semantics to appear to support the George Bush doctrine regarding detainees. He decided the military should not torture. But, the CIA could torture all they wanted. I wonder if his interrogators in Hanoi were military or intelligence officers.
Intelligence should be the hallmark of the American Silent Majority. We saw what the right wing was up to in the 2000 election. We stood by while the wingers called McCain unpatriotic and ran ads which made their grandmothers blush. Most of us didn’t call them a liar at the water cooler. We didn’t put up a sign in the yard or even give a few bucks to his campaign. Finally, some of us didn’t vote. Now, we have turned a perfectly good candidate into a right-wing hack. McCain found he can’t rely on the moderate middle to put him in office. So today, we are stuck. We can either vote for a man who owes the right wing or a man who stands for some kind of nebulous change.
We are to blame for this crappy choice.