Political Buzz

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been giving a series of speeches recently to both define himself to the general electorate and highlight his positions on issues that he intends to campaign on in the fall. The speeches also have the added benefit of generating news coverage for McCain as the Democratic primary race continues to occupy most of the media’s and America’s time. McCain’s last two speeches have indeed brought exposure to his campaign; but they may have only served to remind suspicious conservatives and Republicans why they have a hard time putting their complete trust in the Arizona Republican. McCain can sound like Ronald Reagan on one day, and Al Gore on the next.

The first of the two speeches in question was delivered on the day of the North Carolina and Indiana primaries and laid out McCain’s beliefs on judges. One of the core issues for conservatives is the appointment of Federal judges, and especially Supreme Court Justices, that will not legislate from the bench. Conservatives have fought a 30-year battle to win back control of the federal judiciary; and they are loath to see that effort wasted to the appointment of liberal jurists and Justices by a Democratic president. McCain’s speech did not disappoint. He hit all the right notes on conservative judicial philosophy; and he hit his Democratic rivals, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, for their differing ideas. McCain pledged to appoint judges like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both popular and conservative Bush appointees to the high court. He decried the judiciary’s expansion of its role to deciding policy questions in the place of elected legislatures. And he criticized past and recent Supreme Court decisions that were based on favored policy outcomes as opposed to the Constitution. “There are still men and women who understand the proper role of our judiciary,” McCain said. “And I intend to find them, and promote them, if I am elected president.” It was pitch perfect.

That speech alone had the potential to make grudging supporters of McCain into enthusiastic ones. But McCain followed it with an address that reminded conservatives all over again why they cannot trust him. McCain went to the west coast and gave a speech on global warming. Conservatives are far from sold on global warming as a growing number suspect that the whole theory is a hoax, cooked up to make the passage of liberal environmental and social policy ideas acceptable to the general public. McCain said that global warming is real, urgent, and reversible. All three are the subject of intense debate in political, and increasingly scientific, circles. He embraced alternative sources of energy, a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions, and set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. “We need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring,” he said. “We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge.” It could not have been worse.

McCain has a long history of advocating for good judges and environmental legislation in Congress, so the positions he outlined should not come to conservative voters as a surprise. McCain’s reputation as a party-bucking maverick is both carefully crafted and well earned. Less well known is his record on conservative issues. This is largely because a generally liberal media only really showers attention on McCain when he breaks with Republican orthodoxy. But it is also a problem of McCain’s own making, as demonstrated in his two speeches. The global warming speech almost completely overshadowed what should have been a convert-making speech on judges. McCain never seems to argue as vociferously for policies that Republicans and conservatives value, as he does for those that curry favor with independents, moderates, and Democrats. It is not that McCain doesn’t believe in certain aspects of conservatism, it is that he emphasizes the areas where he does not.

If Sen. McCain is to have any chance at wining the presidency, he will of course have to build a coalition that contains at least some of the other party’s voters. But if he does not shore up conservative votes first, it will not matter. There are not enough independents, moderates, and Democrats to give McCain the White House without holding on to a significant proportion of Republicans and conservatives. The way for him to do that is to give more speeches like his speech on judicial philosophy, and leave the ones like his global warming speech on the campaign website.

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Mark Impomeni is a contributing editor at RedState and covers the White House for AOL’s new political blog, The Political Machine. He writes a column with a conservative’s take on the state of the 2008 presidential race for Political-Buzz.com.

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