Head
Strong: A Republican who can win in Pa.
February
10, 2008
John
McCain appeals to suburban residents who are hawkish on terror, but moderate on
social issues.
By Michael
Smerconish
Eleven
months ago, I wrote here that the key for Republicans to win Pennsylvania and
the White House in 2008 was to focus on suburbanites who wanted a hawk on
terror but a moderate on social issues.
"GOP presidential
candidates need to focus on surviving primaries and winning the general
election, not vice versa," I wrote.
John McCain is such a
candidate, and he will be a formidable opponent for Barack Obama or Hillary
Rodham Clinton - notwithstanding the daily barrage he is enduring from
conservative voices. In fact, I'm starting to think their criticism helps him
by accentuating his platform.
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity
and Glenn Beck, three of the biggest talkers in the nation, are among those
outwardly apoplectic about McCain's success. Another conservative, James Dobson
of Focus on the Family, has even said he won't vote for president at all as
"a matter of conscience" if McCain wins the nomination.
Conservative criticism of
McCain aims at his stance on illegal immigration, his close relationship with
Edward M. Kennedy, his opposition to the Bush tax cuts, his desire to close
Guantanamo, his embrace of global warming, and his (perceived) defiance of the
First Amendment on campaign-finance legislation. All of which, we're told,
makes him no Ronald Reagan.
Ironically, a full year ago,
at the National Constitution Center, I asked McCain whether he was a Reagan
conservative, and he told me: "Was Ronald Reagan a rigid ideologue? No - I
think if you look at his record when he was governor of California, he even
raised taxes. But he had a vision. He had a vision grounded in good fundamental
conservative principles and an optimistic vision of the future and an
unshakable faith in America and its citizens, in the unique role we played in
history and will continue to play."
Look: McCain's brand of
Reaganism could return Pennsylvania to the GOP fold for the first time since
1988, when George H.W. Bush carried the commonwealth. In the intervening 20
years, the Republican Party has lost its hold on the Philadelphia suburbs. Why?
The national political pendulum swung after 12 straight Reagan/Bush years,
Democratic voters continued to flee Philadelphia for the suburbs, and the
Democratic Party built solid organizations and gained traction in those
counties. Consider that in Montgomery County, which in the 1980s was a
well-oiled Republican machine, Democrats just won five of the nine row offices.
Karl Rove sought to stoke
the more conservative GOP base in central Pennsylvania and the upper tier (the
so-called conservative "T") of the state by relying on wedge issues.
But that strategy didn't deliver a win for Bush in 2000 or 2004, nor do I think
it would win in 2008. For every extra voter who gets pulled out of conservative
enclaves in central Pennsylvania through wedge-issue rhetoric, the Democrats
will continue to pull out an extra vote or two in Philadelphia and its nearby
suburbs.
Instead, I say, the GOP
needs to concentrate on appealing to Philadelphia suburbanites on common
ground. Incidentally, last month I offered my thinking to Rove
himself, and he said: "To win Pennsylvania as a Republican presidential
candidate, you've got to do three things. You've got to drive up the Republican
turnout in the T. You've got to eat into the Democrat numbers in Allegheny
County and Southwest Pa. And you need to maximize your vote in the collar suburbs,
the inner suburbs there around Philadelphia.
"The Republican
candidate who wins Pennsylvania this year is going to be the candidate who can
do not just one thing - maximize the Republican vote in the suburbs - but do
all three things."
If John McCain wants to win
Pennsylvania, he needs to maintain his maverick status. His independence and
moderation on social issues may draw Rush Limbaugh's ire, but it's exactly what
may enable him to appeal to some of the voters who sent Patrick Murphy to replace
Mike Fitzpatrick in the House, and Bob Casey to relieve Rick Santorum in the
U.S. Senate. They are the same voters who have been returning Arlen Specter to
the Senate since 1980 and are comfortable voting for Ed Rendell regardless of
party affiliation. These voters do not share in the conservative condemnation
of McCain. To the contrary, they will appreciate that he isn't running for
president on an ideological platform.
Which is why I believe the
conservative blasting of McCain is good publicity around here.
Come to think of it, maybe
the conservatives have this all figured out and realize McCain is their only
hope in thwarting their archenemy, Hillary Clinton. I needed to know. So the
morning after Super Tuesday, tongue planted firmly in cheek, I called Sean
Hannity at home and told him I was wise to the cabal. I said I suspected he'd
had dinner with Rush at Patsy's Italian Restaurant in New York and, united in
their hatred for Hillary, decided the only way to deny her the White House was
to overlook McCain's shortcomings and unite behind his candidacy because of his
appeal to independents. How best to do that? By calling
attention to his liberal votes in a mock bid to do him political harm.
Hannity, of course, told me
I was crazy. He then said if it happened, it would have begun at Ruth's Chris
Steak House - not Patsy's.
Which, come to think of it,
was not an outright denial.
Michael Smerconish's column
appears on Thursdays in the Daily News and on Sundays in Currents. He can be
heard from 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210).
Contact him via the Web at http://www.mastalk.com.