Anti-Choice McCain is Not a Moderate

Posted by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon at 5:04 AM on May 20, 2008.

One of the ongoing issues in this election is going to be waking people up to the fact that John McCain is a grade A, totally not moderate social conservative. This is critical for that swing vote, especially those swing voters that say, “Well, I don’t think abortion should be illegal, but it’s bad to use it as birth control.” Translation of that sentiment: “I want to be able to have an abortion if I so desire, but I reserve the right to gossip about others in tones that indicate that I’m so scandalized.” These people would shy away from a ban, of course, but they probably can be convinced to vote for someone they erroneously believe talks the anti-choice talk but won’t do the anti-choice walk.

Or, long story short: McCain is running the same campaign that worked so well for Bush. The “compassionate conservative”, i.e. panders to the haters but wants you to think deep down inside that he’s not really a hater. This goes for the gay thing, too. Bush pushed for the marriage ban, but to maintain the illusion of compassion, the Bush administration actually tried to rein in some of their crazier homophobes. Not sure what the line in the sand is on reproductive rights, though, since the Bush administration appointed a bunch of misogynists to the Supreme Court and passed a really terrible piece of anti-abortion legislation and tried to block emergency contraception from being sold over the counter.

Educating people about McCain’s hard right views on women’s rights will be an uphill battle this election, but I was pleased to see that he was helping us out with his mailers.

On the downside: The flier uses the unavoidable euphemism “pro-life”, but we can’t expect a major Presidential candidate to advertise himself as “anti-woman” or even “anti-choice”, even as those terms might be a lot more accurate. But otherwise, I think this is a great assist to those of us trying to reveal the truth.

First of all, the whole thing reeks of defensiveness. I like the use of his wife draped over him, which in an ad like this is supposed to convey the message that regardless of his odious views on women’s rights, McCain still gets someone to hang out with him. A better idea would have been to put his daughter in the ad, to convey the message, “Hey, I’ll throw her under the bus as an egalitarian gesture.”

The “24 years” thing is somewhat strange to me. He wants you to know that his loathing of women’s autonomy goes way back and hasn’t wavered, that number seems low. You know, especially considering how old he is. He’s been in Congress for 26 years, so what was he doing those other two years? Dicking around and paying for abortions that he was the original cause of? Foolishly allowing his second wife to use contraception? Wishing that his first wife had just aborted the pregnancies that led to the children who wouldn’t speak to him after he left her for a richer, younger, more politically viable wife that had been his mistress during the first marriage? It really undermines his claims to be always anti-choice and never wavering about that.

And that tagline is like the ultimate in defensive posturing: “Not just recently. Always. Unwavering.” Like Lindsay says, protesting too much tone to it, even though he’s had the properly wretched voting record on women’s rights. But this is where he’s doing us a favor, because the widespread belief that McCain just recently came to the anti-choice fold actually works for him. People like to believe he’s just pandering on reproductive rights, and that when push comes to shove, he’ll suddenly remember that he doesn’t really hate women, and that he has a daughter who he’d like not to suffer. But don’t believe it. Like his ad says, he’s an unwavering misogynist, a true believer and a shithead. If you want evidence of him waffling, look away from abortion rights and look towards his drifting rightward on torture.

Tagged as: anti-choice, john mccain