John McCain

First of all, The Brody File has made numerous (dozens) of requests for a one on one interview with John McCain. Those requests have been turned down due to various reasons. Usually I am told it is a scheduling issue. I have been trying for six months. The Brody File has bent over backwards to try and get John McCain to discuss issues of faith, social policy and other matters. I am told that an interview will eventually be forthcoming. I believe it will happen and that is encouraging. ... Here’s why: There is no doubt that the McCain camp realizes that religious conservatives are crucial to winning in November. The McCain staff is working hard to get out the vote. But the thinking inside the McCain camp also centers on how they need to appeal to Independents and moderates who may get turned off to some degree with excess talk about faith and social issues. There may be a reluctance to appear in part for this reason. After all, Brody File interviews end up on The 700 Club. But what’s important to remember about our audience (and I get reminded everyday in the emails I receive) is that we are read and viewed by voters from all faiths. It’s a wide spectrum with various political views. So when you see Barack Obama sitting down with me and appearing on CBN, don’t think for a minute that we aren’t affording the same opportunity to John McCain. We are.

As we noted before, the Right was positively thrilled with both John McCain's performance and Rick Warren's faith forum as a whole. But even we didn't fully realize the extent to which this event seems to have fundamentally transformed the Religious Right's heretofore tepid support into a full-blown fever:

Several conservative activists identified McCain’s response to the question, “What point is a baby entitled to human rights?” as his finest moment of the evening.

McCain replied quickly: “At the moment of conception,” and continued: “I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate. And as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president.”

“He was just right out of the box,” said Lynda Bell, the president of Florida Right to Life. “McCain was so incredibly decisive and he was so clear in his answers. There was no gray area.”

“They feel like this is the start of John McCain’s coming out, in terms of embracing the conservative evangelicals,” Andrews said, comparing the event to the 2000 primary debate in which George W. Bush named Jesus Christ as the philosopher who had influenced him most.

According to Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Christian conservatives were especially eager to hear this message from McCain.

“I think they needed to hear it and they needed to hear it when the question was asked in that way, that protections need to come at the moment of conception,” Land said. “That removes all doubt.”

...

The importance of McCain’s performance at the Saddleback Church, then, was to show religious conservatives that the candidate genuinely cared about their issues.

“People were, before, just kind of wringing their hands thinking, what kind of mess do we have here, what kind of choice do we have,” Perkins said. “I think he stopped the … ambivalence that was out there toward John McCain.”

Andrews agreed, explaining: “When they see McCain’s actual position and him talking about it, it makes a difference, instead of looking at roll call tallies.”

“McCain’s performance was so genuine and so real,” Bell added. “This became clearly, no longer that, ‘This is the best of the two choices,’ and moved from that over to, ‘This is a great, great candidate that we need to get behind.’”

Of course, McCain's new-found support could still all be wiped out if he chooses a running mate who does not meet the Right's requirements:

“The party will just implode” if McCain makes such a choice, Perkins warned. “[Social conservatives] are going to have to know that he’s totally committed to these issues, and that’s going to require a running mate that has an even better ability to communicate with the base than John McCain has.”

The conventional wisdom is that John McCain and his campaign are exceedingly reluctant to discuss McCain’s experiences in Vietnam when, in reality, they cite it repeatedly – even in cases where it has absolutely no bearing on the issue at hand.  
On the same note, it is widely accepted that McCain is equally reluctant to discuss his personal faith yet, whenever the topic arises, he inevitably relates the story about the kindly Vietnamese prison guard who loosened his ropes and sketched a cross in the dirt.

While McCain may very well have been hesitant early on to discuss his faith, it doesn’t seem as if that is any longer the case – his appearance at Rick Warren’s faith forum is evidence of that.  In fact, his appearance at the forum was really the culmination of an effort that had been underway for several weeks. 

For example, a few weeks ago, David Brody posted an email distributed by McCain’s Americans of Faith team that was designed to “explain the shaping and content of John McCain's faith.”  Around the same time, the candidate had an essay in Time magazine on his faith and then, just last week, McCain sat down for an interview with the Chicago Tribune to discuss “how his faith was tested during his years as a prisoner of war.” 

And now Beliefnet is reporting that the campaign has been busy screening a video of a “faith interview" that McCain originally conducted with the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network for right-wing leaders:  

[S]ome of the nation's top conservative Christian activists have already seen a glimpse of McCain discussing the influence of his religion in his life in deeply personal terms, in the form of a Christian television interview with McCain that his campaign has been screening for religious audiences.

…

McCain's "faith interview" originally ran on "First to Know," a program on TBN, which describes itself as "the world's largest religious network and America's most watched faith channel." TBN does not offer a video or DVD versions of its programs for purchase, and the full video is not available online. A McCain aide says it will likely to be posted to a new evangelical section of the campaign's web site that is scheduled to launch in the next week or two.

A McCain aide says the campaign began screening the video for Christian audiences in Iowa in advance of this year's caucuses there, and that it had begun showing it to national evangelical leaders in late spring or early summer. "The exciting thing about the piece is that it wasn't generated after Obama started talking about faith--it was a piece that showed he was engaged [on faith issues] before the Iowa caucuses," the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "It will be used more often... we have plans for using it in a larger arena."

On top of that, as the Boston Globe reports, McCain has developed a tendency to start discussing every issue in terms to “Judeo-Christian values”:    

On a frozen winter evening at a Town Hall meeting in a school in the Manchester, N.H., suburbs, John McCain expressed surprise and irritation with an intelligence report downplaying the threat of Iran's nuclear program.

At the end of a long list of reasons to be suspicious of the Iranians, McCain declared: "And they sure don't share our Judeo-Christian values."

It seemed at the time to be an odd thing to say about a Muslim country. After all, even if there were no nuclear program, no oil, and no rabble-rousing president, Iran still wouldn't have Judeo-Christian values. And it's troubling to wonder if that alone would be a reason for suspicion.

Even President Bush has resisted framing the war on terrorism as a clash of religions; his inexpert use of the word "crusade" early in the conflict set off a wave of criticism and backtracking. He's never repeated it.

Perhaps McCain's comment was a similar mistake.

But on Saturday, at the nationally televised forum at evangelist Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California, McCain declared: "Our Judeo-Christian principles dictate that we do what we can to help people who are oppressed throughout the world."

And a review of online records by the Globe library shows that McCain uses the term "Judeo-Christian values" quite often, and in varying contexts. For example, last week in York, Pa., he praised small-town Americans by saying, "The Judeo-Christian values that they hold are the strength of America."

He has also repeatedly urged that illegal immigrants be treated in a manner "consistent with Judeo-Christian values." In February, he declared that job training was a Judeo-Christian imperative.

"We've got to educate and train these people," he said, referring to laid-off workers. "It is a Judeo-Christian values nation and it's an obligation we have and we are not doing it."

Last year, when he was criticized for telling the website Beliefnet that America was founded on Christian principles, McCain's defense was that he meant to say "Judeo-Christian." (When pressed, he said he believes a Muslim could serve as president.)

If McCain really is reluctant to discuss his faith, he sure is doing a good job of hiding it.

While Mike Huckabee’s supporters are busy threatening mutiny unless their candidate gets the nod as John McCain’s running mate and launching a seemingly endless parade of anti-Mitt Romney efforts, Huckabee himself as been a most loyal of soldiers, saying that his sole goal is to do whatever is most helpful to McCain and that “this isn't about me anymore. It's really about John McCain and winning.”

And if what McCain decides is most helpful to him would be to name him as his vice presidential candidate, then that would be just swell with Huckabee:

Mike Huckabee on Tuesday said he has not been approached by John McCain about being the U.S. presidential candidate's running mate. But he'd certainly consider the offer.

Huckabee said he didn't think anyone who has run for the U.S. presidency would turn down a chance to be vice president. The former Arkansas governor dropped out of the presidential race last March after McCain clinched the Republican nomination.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Huckabee said he has received "no indication" that McCain is considering him as a running mate. But if asked, Huckabee said it would be hard to resist.

"I don't think anybody that runs for president turns around and says no," he said.

After all the controversy provoked by the fact that John McCain was set to attend a fundraiser with Jack Abramoff crony Ralph Reed, it looks like the McCain campaign and Reed both wised up and decided not to be seen together at last night’s fundraiser in Atlanta:

John McCain raised more than $1.75 million for Republicans Monday at a fundraiser clouded by confusion over the role of a political operative connected to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The downtown event was promoted by Ralph Reed, a former head of the Christian Coalition. McCain's campaign said the event was organized by the Republican National Committee , not Reed, who was linked to the Abramoff scandal that McCain investigated in the Senate.

McCain didn't raise the issue during his 22-minute appearance. Instead, he thanked donors to the Republicans' umbrella campaign fund.

"Everybody in this room could be someplace else," the Arizona senator told the crowd of several hundred. "Everybody in this room could be donating to some other cause or to their own well-being. But I want to thank you."

Reed was not seen inside the hotel ballroom; a McCain campaign spokeswoman said he did not attend.

Last week, we reported that the on-line activists who constitute Huck’s Army were warning that they would not support John McCain if Mike Huckabee was not named his running mate or at least chosen to deliver the keynote address at the upcoming convention.  

While Huckabee obviously can’t control what his on-line supporters do, that doesn’t mean he can’t undercut them:

Huckabee said he assumes he will be asked to speak during the convention, but didn't know whether he'd be a major player in the GOP's quadrennial pep rally.

…

"My goal right now at the convention would be to be the most helpful I can be to Sen. McCain," Huckabee said. "Whether that's visible or invisible, that's something he's got to decide, not me."

His schedule will include a couple performances with his Arkansas-based rock band and a conference on obesity. Huckabee also will join the Creative Coalition for a news conference on the importance of music and art education in schools.

"What I want to do is help not just Sen. McCain, but my party and my country," he said, adding, "This isn't about me anymore. It's really about John McCain and winning."

And predictably, the activists behind Huck’s Army have now sent out a clarifying email saying that the previous message was not the official position of the group:

The message that went out to our forum members today is not the official position of HucksArmy and was a communication from a few of our members who were concerned by some dismissive treatment toward supporters of conservative cultural values.

Many of our members and leaders consider the earlier statement overly harsh and demanding. Understand that any directives that HucksArmy sends out is not a command but an option.

HucksArmy is a community and not an organization and so we rarely issue statements representing the whole of our community.

HucksArmy as a whole is not demanding that Huckabee be the VP or be given a keynote at convention or else. While we would love to see these things happen, we do not have any official demands as a collective group.

But just because Huckabee and his supporters are playing nice, that still doesn't mean they've given up their almost militant opposition to Mitt Romney:

Bauer said he personally believes that Romney "would be a great running mate" and said he has conveyed that message personally to Romney. Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families political action committee, said he was not allowed to say whether he advised McCain to pick Romney.

Bauer said that he recently conducted an unscientific poll among activists about who should be picked for vice president and said that Romney won a plurality of votes. He said that "it was notable" that among those who backed Huckabee, "many of them said negative things about Governor Romney."

In fact, a battle between Huckabee and Romey supporters continues to unfold in Michigan:

In a blistering e-mail Friday to Michigan Republicans, a former aide to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign accused Michigan social conservative activist and Mike Huckabee supporter Gary Glenn of "a vicious smear campaign" against Romney.

Katie Packer, the strategist for Romney's successful Michigan primary campaign, accused Glenn, the head of the American Family Association of Michigan, of distorting Romney's record on social issues and "declaring war on other members of the Republican party."

Glenn, in an e-mail to The Detroit News, responded with a list of criticisms of Romney's record on social issues. "If Katie wants to have another full-fledged public debate about Mitt Romney's pro-abortion, pro-homosexual record, now is an excellent time," he wrote.

At the beginning of Saturday night’s faith forum at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, Warren announced:

Now what I’ve decided is, to allow for proper comparison, I’m going to ask identical questions to each of these candidates so you can compare apples to apples.  Now, Senators Obama is going to go first.  We flipped a coin.  And we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence.

When McCain arrived on stage for his portion of the program, the two even joked about it, with McCain saying he had been “trying to hear through the wall.”

Obviously, since both candidates were going to be asked the exact same questions, there would be something of an advantage to the candidate going second, provided there was some way they could hear the questions in advance.  Supposedly, that was what the “cone of silence” we meant to prevent.  Of course, a “cone of silence” works best if the second candidate is actually in it:

Senator John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California.

Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life.”

When asked about it, Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, responded with incredulity:  

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.

At the New York Times reports:

The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied.

Of course, another explanation of why McCain’s answers might have been so smooth is because they were mostly the standard points he makes while on the campaign trail, such as his bogus claim that he opposed torture when asked to provide examples where he had bucked his own party, his vow to track Osama bin Laden to the “gates of hell,” and even going so far as to cite the need for offshore drilling when asked to identify a position on which his views have evolved. Likewise, his answers on questions regarding abortion, marriage and judges were the same as he’s been delivering throughout his campaign and he even trotted out his standard story about a prison guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand – a story which some are now questioning.   

And predictably, right-wing leaders are praising McCain for “winning” the forum and saying he has finally “closed the deal with evangelicals”:

Bishop Harry Jackson, Sr., Pastor of Hope Christian Church in Washington, D.C. and author of “The Black Contract with America on Moral Values,” added, “I think that Senator McCain closed the deal. I think he made a clear contract between himself and Barack Obama. Many evangelicals will vote for him.”

…

Bishop Jackson also chose McCain as the clear winner, “He got energy, he got obviously many more applauses from the people in the room...But, I say this with a caveat. I think he won – if he can continue with the kind of fervor and integration of issues and faith, I think that he may be on to a new high in his campaign. If he retreats to a place of not wanting to talk anymore about these kinds of things, I think it will not help him. So, tremendous win tonight. I think it's a new chapter. I hope it continues.”

All of which raises the question:  McCain didn’t say anything at the faith forum that he has not said repeatedly on the campaign trail and yet right-wing leaders and activists have been notoriously reluctant to support him, so why was simply repeating them in an event held in a church all that it took for him to finally “close the deal” with the Religious Right?  

Mike Huckabee may not have had the most supporters during the Republican primaries, but he certainly had the most vocal supporters.  From the get-go, Huckabee secured the support of the Religious Right’s most fringe activists and even though he didn’t win the nomination, that hasn’t stopped his supporters from continuing to push his candidacy.  

Even before John McCain freaked out the right-wing base with talk of choosing a pro-choice running mate, we noted that Huckabee supporters were pressing him hard to pick their man for his number two slot.    And now it looks like they are threatening to abandon McCain altogether if they don’t get their way:

A group of Michigan social conservatives who support former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee threatened Thursday to abandon Republican nominee John McCain, upset that McCain's vice presidential choice may not reflect their anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage positions.

The uproar came after a pair of meetings Wednesday -- while McCain was campaigning here -- in which his campaign hoped to strengthen its support with religious conservatives. Huckabee supporters said they were especially upset at word that, at a meeting in Birmingham between McCain and a small group of conservative activists, a top McCain ally had floated the possibility he'd pick a running mate who is for abortion rights.

"We are totally done with McCain at this point," said Debra Mantey, one of the organizers of the other meeting, in Saginaw. She said she and many others in the group will refuse to help McCain's campaign unless Huckabee is on the ballot, or given the keynote address at the GOP convention.

Even the on-line activists who make up Huck’s Army are livid and threatening to mutiny against the GOP unless their demands are met:

WE WILL NOT VOTE FOR A MCCAIN TICKET UNLESS:

1)    Mike Huckabee is the VP; or

2)    Mike Huckabee is the KEY NOTE SPEAKER at the National GOP Convention

Know that our meetings here in Michigan with McCain prompted this urgent action--

Romney is being shoved down our throats here, and misinformation about us is rampant.

In addition, you may know that this also happened at one of the meetings:

"Several in attendance reported to me that Sen. Lindsey Graham seriously asked if social conservatives would support a vice president who favors abortion on demand.  They were shocked the question even had to be asked, and alienated that the McCain campaign appears to be even considering it." --Gary Glenn, Mich. American Family Assn. President

So now, we know what McCain thinks of us and our issues.  He is only concerned with catering to the independent voters.  We, who supported Mike Huckabee, the millions of voters who earned him a 2nd place in delegate count--are being ignored by McCain.  McCain must know that he will LOSE not only Michigan without us, but the election.  At this point, he does not HAVE US.   We've tried repeatedly to reach out to him, and he has ignored us. 

Just yesterday we were noting the Right’s repeated warnings to John McCain not to pick Mitt Romney as his running and their incessant clamoring for him to pick Mike Huckabee.  Now it looks like Huckabee himself is getting into the act:

"I think a lot of people, not just social conservatives, but a lot of the Republicans I know are not necessarily comfortable with Romney," Huckabee told CBSNews.com. "But it has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with inconsistencies in positions he's held, and that's it."

In our earlier post on this, we cited Tony Perkin’s advice that McCain needed to pick a running mate who is “strong where he is weak” and had a “record of delivering” on the issues that matter to the Right and speculated that McCain’s statement yesterday that he wasn’t ruling out the possibility of naming a pro-choice running mate, possibly Tom Ridge, was not going to go over well with the Right.

And it hasn’t:

But social-conservative leaders say a pro-choice nominee would cripple Mr. McCain politically with the Republican Party base.

"I think McCain has to have a running mate that clearly connects with social conservatives in the party," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "That is where he is lacking. So if he picks a pro-choice running mate, I don't see how he can win this race."

Asked whether social and religious conservatives would walk away from Mr. McCain if he picks Mr. Ridge or some other pro-choice running mate, Mr. Perkins said, "I'm not going to say people will stay home, but there is a core of voters whose level of enthusiasm influences people further from the core.

"So if McCain picks a pro-choice running mate, the strength of turnout on Election Day is not going to be there for him," Mr. Perkins said.

Considering that the Right’s support for McCain is tepid at best and hinges almost entirely on his choice of running-mate, McCain can hardly afford to pick someone like Ridge.  In fact, just last week, Richard Land told CBS that Ridge would be an unmitigated “catastrophe,” so it’s not as if McCain hasn’t been warned.

And just in case McCain needs any more advice on picking a running mate, Rick Santorum is there to give it to him:

If the Republican victory strategy is to disqualify Obama, McCain can't do anything that would disqualify himself in the minds of these less-than-ideological voters prepared to shift his way. As such, McCain's vice presidential pick has to be a nonevent, something of a yawner.

McCain needs someone who isn't going to upset the essential conservative base of the Republican Party, but will not raise red flags to moderates who have disqualified, or are ready to disqualify, Obama.

...

Better for John McCain to be safe than sorry.