John McCain: Underdog

David Brooks wavers, it seems to me, between thoughtful philosophical conservative and Republican talking head. Today he writes in his capacity as the latter.

John McCain, apparently, is at a disadvantage. He isn't getting to play the kind of politics he wants, where he appears to be the post-partisan healer of the country to Barack Obama's left-wing nutjobness. His campaign is being forced against his will to have structure, and to attack people. This isn't the kind of good-natured, easy-going presidential race John McCain signed up for. And this means that he's fallen behind and has had to turn to a more nasty, traditional kind of politics. Now, this doesn't come naturally to him, of course, and he's really had to work at it, but after long last his newly minted tactics of personal attacks and mocking of truth and justice have paid off. He's nearly neck-and-neck with Obama, and so in Brooks's own words, "a long-shot candidacy now seems entirely plausible."
And the American Dream is saved.

No. No no no. John McCain is not a long shot. He has never been a long shot. John McCain has held office in the United States Senate for over 21 years. He ran a nearly successful race for the Republican nomination for President in 2000, and has had more publicity than nearly all other senators for many years. He has the endorsement and financial support of hordes of super-wealthy Republican donors, not to mention a little cash in the bank of his own.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, emerged recently from extremely local politics, is the first viable African-American candidate ever, and defeated the most powerful family in the Democratic party to become the nominee. I'm not going to say it's truly a long shot, because his family does have some background in politics and he has served in the Senate, but he's a hell of a lot closer than McCain.

I know that I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but it really does irritate me when people use John McCain's poor policy choices and lack of charisma to characterize him as some kind of David to Obama's Goliath.

Burke gets abused (as usual).

Matthew Yglesias linked to an article in the Atlantic about how John McCain is a Burkean conservative. Personally, I think it's trying too hard.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he isn't a neocon. But it isn't metered change he's doing, it's pandering. The reason he's for the tax cuts now is because it will get him votes. Same reason why he voted against the anti-torture bill. It isn't that he philosophically opposes changes and restrictive reforms, he's just more spineless than we give him credit for.
Yes, the James Dobsons and Rudy Giulianis of the American right aren't real conservatives. Yes, what the Republican party needs to get it back on some kind of philosophical path is more Burke. But John McCain just isn't the guy. He's a maverick, remember? He stands up for what he believes in, even if it isn't the norm! Granted, John McCain is as much a maverick as Mike Gravel is a libertarian, but conservatives (authentic or otherwise) can't have it both ways.
The way I see it, the Republican party has three directions they can go:
1. Neoconservatism. Like Reagan with a sadistic edge. Low taxes for the rich, strong military presence in every country between Egypt and India, and a centralized government doing whatever the hell it wants with its people, resulting in generations of debt, broken alliances, and wholly useless moral "highground."
2. Federalism. Starve Washington, let the libertarians run free in the streets, and kick back as the poor of America rise up and bring the long-awaited Proletarian revolution.
3. Real conservatism. Elitism. The kind of thing Burke wanted- social conservatism, economic protectionism, and a heavy dose of aesthetic power plays. This direction is actually impossible.

These options all have some stuff in common, and McCain has to an extent flirted with all of them without commiting to one. Intriguingly, this is one of the things that makes him so appealing to moderates. They don't know what kind of a conservative he is, so they can't be sure of all the terrible things he'd most likely do. He might invade a country, but he might not be a neocon. He might gut welfare and education and social security, but he might not be a small government libertarian. He might purely maintain the status quo and waste everyone's time talking a big game about America versus the ideological forces of evil. Is he John? Is he President McCain? Or is he J.S. McCain III? Hopefully, time will never tell.

In any case, he's no Edmund Burke, and he's still a bad candidate.