McCain's Independent Streak

By Ramesh Ponnuru

John McCain's town-hall meetings in New Hampshire the weekend before he won the primary were packed--a fire marshal had to keep overflow people from entering one of them--and not with conservatives. At a school in Salem, the Republican fielded question after question from his left. What would he do to promote gun control? How would he fight global warming? How could he justify not raising taxes? More than an hour into the event, a woman got up and complained about liberal smear artists. She was the first questioner who was obviously a Republican.

McCain was usually the most conservative speaker at his town halls. He mentioned that he favored some restrictions on guns but also said he supported the Second Amendment. Nuclear power is part of his answer to climate change. What the town halls showed is that McCain is a moderate conservative who appeals to people who are a few steps to his left. (Sometimes quite a few: when the talk turned to taxes, McCain asked people who wanted to pay higher taxes to raise their hands and seemed surprised when several people did.)

Appeal to independent voters--those not tied to either party--is an increasingly rare commodity in McCain's party. Republicans used to think they could ignore independents because many were independent in name only, reliably voting for one party or the other without joining it. And independents have long been vital to the Democrats: since more Americans consider themselves conservatives than liberals, Democrats have to win big among moderates to get a majority.

The midterm elections should have been a wake-up call for Republicans. Conservatives showed up in the usual numbers to vote for the GOP. But some Republican-leaning independents switched sides, and the Democrats got 57% of all independents. If Republicans don't win some of them back, the GOP is headed for a long spell in the minority.

Several of the GOP candidates have qualities that might appeal to independent voters: Rudy Giuliani's successful record as mayor of New York City, Mitt Romney's intelligence and competence, Mike Huckabee's concern for the poor. But McCain just won more independent voters than the others in the swing state of New Hampshire. And he is the only candidate with a platform that might attract them.

Huckabee's radical tax plan--replacing the income and payroll tax with a national sales tax--is a right-wing cause. Giuliani's support for legal abortion repels some independents while attracting others--and to make up for it with conservatives, he has toed the line on just about everything else. Romney and Fred Thompson have been too busy trying to prove their movement-conservative creds to pay attention to independents.

A lot of Republicans are raising the drawbridge--and not only against foreigners. They're not looking for issues on which conservatives and independents agree or can find common ground. Call it the closing of the conservative mind.

McCain wants to reopen his party. Young voters have been fleeing it. McCain goes on Jon Stewart's show--"at great risk," he cracks. He has freewheeling conversations with reporters, which have helped win him good press. "I kind of enjoy the give-and-take," he says. "I really believe that Presidents run into difficulties when they don't communicate all the time with the American people."

He didn't have to underline the contrast with President George W. Bush, who has spent most of his time in office muscling legislation through a Republican Congress rather than trying to persuade the public to his way of thinking. McCain's style would be different.

In ways large and small, McCain distances himself from a President whom independents loathe. Bush infamously said he looked into Vladimir Putin's soul when he met the Russian strongman. McCain doesn't explicitly mention it. He just says that all he sees in Putin's eyes are "a K, a G and a B."

The Senator is not a perfect fit for independents, and he would have an uphill climb in the fall. Economic distress is moving some independents toward the Democrats, and McCain has yet to develop proposals to help them. But at least he has his eye on the prize at a time when his party has become a kingdom of the blind.