Sunday, May 14, 2006

McCain, Falwell and the swing voter

I saw at Swap Blog that the religious right aren't trusting McCain cosying up to Jerry Falwell. But it was recognised that he had appeal to the swing voter.

Well, yes he did. McCain seemed like the reasonable Republican - the one who might tempt a fair number of centrists to vote for him, particularly if the Democrats choose a far-lefty. But no more.

In the Economist this week his latest lurches to the right include:

  • backing "Intelligent Design" being taught in classrooms
  • supporting the South Dakota abortion law
  • endorsing Arizona's constitutional amendement to ban same-sex marriage

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I kinda found McCain's lurch to the (religious) right almost comforting in that it means my loyalties are unlikely to be torn next time and I should be able to wholeheartedly support the Democrats in 2008 too! Now the Dems need to find someone who can appeal in the South - not to win the South, which is unlikely, but because without appealing to the South (ie the fightin' Scots-Irish), the Dems can't even take the Mid-West. Ohio was lost in the Scots-Irish rural south of the State, as Tom wolfe explains - http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/wolfe/lecture.html

"The 2004 election came down to one state: the state of Ohio. Whoever won that state in the final hours would win the election. Northern Ohio, the big cities of Cleveland, Toledo on the Great Lakes, were solidly for Kerry. But in southern Ohio, from east to west, and in the west was the city of Cincinnati, Ohio went solidly for George Bush. And the reason? That great swath of territory was largely inhabited by the Scots-Irish. And when the Democrats came out in favor of gun control, the Scots-Irish interpreted this as not merely an attack on the proliferation of weaponry in American life but as a denunciation, a besmirching, of their entire way of life, their entire fiction absolute. Guns were that important in their scheme of things..."