For McCain is an Honorable Man, Part 2

So down here I turned the tables on Senator McCain by pointing out that if he wants to win the war as badly as we think he does, he should have no problem tacking right and giving us some concessions.

Helping make my point, this week's Newsweek cover story is about exactly that subject--McCain's attempt to sew up conservative support. Worth a read, and here's a taste:

But now the McCainiacs were growing worried that conservative Republicans would not rally on voting day and perhaps stay home. "The Republican Party needs to find its bottom," says conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck. "I'm an alcoholic. I understand what it means to bottom out. When you find your bottom—when you say, 'I can't live like this anymore, I can't live this lie'—that's when Republicans and conservatives will start doing some real soul-searching to determine what their values are."

McCain and his campaign know that the conservative uprising poses serious practical problems as well. A senior McCain aide, who didn't want to be named talking about the campaign's woes, cites the difficulty in fund-raising that the candidate faced a year ago when GOP critics targeted his compromise position on immigration reform. (McCain championed a bill with archliberal Ted Kennedy that would have allowed illegal aliens to participate in a worker-visa program. He later retreated.) Campaign donations quickly dried up—particularly among small donors, whose checks are looked upon as an indication of how much grass-roots support a candidate is getting. Aides privately worry that more barking from McCain's critics could create a similar scenario—a devastating financial blow in an election year when Republicans are already being outspent and outraised by Democrats. "We can get past people bashing us—even [George W.] Bush got some of that," says a McCain adviser, who declined to be named discussing internal strategy. "But if it starts affecting [the money], it's a problem."

It's his move, after all. We are conservatives are locked in what Anwyn calls a very ugly game of chicken with McCain. But it's an unusual game of chicken, because we don't have to make our move until after he makes most of his, and if we're smart, we won't. He has several things he can do to enlist conservative support, meaningful things, not just buttering our muffins with pleasant speeches. We conservatives only have to make one move, and that's voting in the general election. He has several moves he has to make, including

A: picking a running mate, and
B: reacting to the Democratic proposal to re-introduce the Shamnesty bill. What a brilliant piece of politics that was. McCain has to respond to it and if he says "sure, I'll sign that" it'll just drive the wedge between McCain and conservatives even deeper. I hope the press will push him to comment on it, though; a lot of the GOP will be looking to see how he handles it and a dodge isn't going to impress anyone. If he's smart he'll take this as an opportunity to condemn this bill and Amnesty.

If we play it cool and string him along, he won't be able to take us for granted. But whatever you do, I'll say again, don't say you've made up your mind. Make sure he hears there's a chance he can win conservatives over with some conservative personnel and policy. Otherwise he won't bother trying to please us, if he thinks he can't please us, or if he thinks we're in his back pocket and he doesn't need to try.

So please don't endorse McCain, or declare your unquenchable enmity for him, or demand everybody support him right away NOW NOW NOW FALL IN LINE NOW!, at least until he picks a running mate. I know it's fun to go on the blogs and declare that I could never vote for the man. Whatever. Stop saying that. What you need to say is: if McCain wants my vote, he needs to do X and Y, with those being realistic conservative things. Whether you actually give him your vote or not is your business.

One more thing:

Just because McCain needs conservatives to show and vote for him in order to win doesn't automatically mean that therefore we can demand whatever we want. If McCain pulls too far right he'll look like a flip-flopper and lose credibility--he can bend but he won't break. Also, as he moves right, he'll lose some voters from the left and middle, so at a certain point there is a diminishing return for further rightward movement. Have very low expectations about what is feasible here: if we can nudge him slightly right it will be quite an achievement.