Is a Republican Split Shaping UP?

The second half of the Diane Rehm Show today which featured an interview with Mickey Edwards. He is a former Republican congressman who has been chairman of the American Conservative Union and a trustee of the Heritage Foundation and presently teaches at Princeton and is Vice President of the Aspen Institute. He attacked Bush for attempting to seize executive power illegitimately and argues that he not a legitimate American conservative. He also said that the Bush crowd used Christian conservatives as a cover for their activities. A summary of his book appears on the Oxford Press website. While Edwards seeks to defend John McCain despite the fact that he is running on Bush's record. This is all just political expediency he says in a post on PoliticoRating John McCain's rightness. I think it is interesting to watch people like Mickey Edwards flake off as the disarray in the Repbublican party grows.

Exit polls revealed that Republicans who consider themselves “very conservative” (in today’s shorthand, those who fit Rove’s definition) generally made up no more than 30 percent of this year’s GOP primary voters. Seven of 10 Republican voters describe themselves instead as “somewhat” conservative, or moderate. Thirty percent is not insignificant, but it is nonetheless the tail rather than the dog. The “very conservative” element of the party exercises disproportionate influence in primaries, caucuses and conventions only because those people tend to be more zealous in their beliefs and are thus more likely to participate in party functions. But if being “conservative enough” means McCain has to appeal to the majority of Republican voters, his message must be far different than if he were merely trying to win the support of the Christian Coalition or other “hard right” voters. So what are the proper standards against which McCain is to be measured? First, true conservatives believe in limited government, as characterized not solely by size or cost but also by the ways in which the exercise of power is constrained. McCain, unlike the current president, has forsworn the use of presidential “signing statements” that purport to give presidents the right to decide for themselves which laws to obey. Treaties to which the United States is a signatory (meaning those approved by the Senate and signed by a president) are also binding U.S. law, and McCain has resisted presidential declarations that they need not be obeyed (most notably in his insistence that the U.S. military abide by Geneva Convention prohibitions against torture of prisoners). While these positions have been vigorously attacked by the administration, it is McCain’s stances, not President Bush’s, which reflect true conservatism.