December 12, 2005
Beltway Conservatives Take Second Look at McCain
By Patrick
Hynes
A lot has changed since 2000, when Sen. John McCain stuck his
thumb in every Republican eye he could find and then lapped up
the drippings of approval from a national press corps, prouder
than a new puppy on graduation day of obedience school. Not only
is John McCain the clear frontrunner for the 2008 Republican presidential
nomination, but many beltway conservatives are beginning to accept
the inevitability of a McCain-run party.
According
to several sources in Washington, DC – all of whom have,
at times said things drastically critical of the Arizona Senator
in my presence – McCain is the GOP’s only hope in
the post-Bush era.
“The
national environment has gone to s—t and Republicans are
going to take a beating in 2006,” one prominent Republican
consultant – who is a movement conservative -- told me recently.
“McCain is the only guy out there with the credibility to
maintain Republican control in Washington.”
“He’s
not as liberal as some make him out to me,” one leader of
a major conservative activist group told me. “On the three
issues most conservatives are energized about right now, the war,
spending and the court, McCain is hardcore.”
Yet another
movement conservative inside the beltway tells me McCain isn’t
really liberal, he just has a different style than we’re
accustomed to. “The Bush crowd has put a lot of Republicans
in a difficult position back home,” he said. “And
they’re starting to get resentful. Meanwhile, McCain has
been to almost every one of their districts in 2002 and 2004,
campaigning hard for Republicans, even those he doesn’t
see eye-to-eye with. He’s got a different style than Bush.
And people appreciate it. It’s refreshing.”
Meanwhile,
McCain’s trusted advisor John Weaver, who was Karl Rove’s
arch-nemesis for over a decade before losing their 2000 battle
royal, is on the “ins” in Washington again. Weaver
had switched parties and had even been retained by former Democrat
congressional leader Dick Gephardt. Today, Weaver is a Republican
again and meets regularly with Rove and other movement conservatives.
Whatever
McCain’s drawbacks, he certainly has smoothed over some
ruffled feathers inside Washington. And his political ascension
in 2008 seems almost inevitable to some of Washington’s
conservatives.
http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/
