{"id":23757,"date":"2012-11-26T12:38:28","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T17:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=23757"},"modified":"2012-11-26T13:04:26","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T18:04:26","slug":"mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain calls for GOP to drop social issues (in other news, water still wet)"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday, Republican Sen. John McCain suggested<\/a> to Fox News\u2019s Chris Wallace that it might be time to drop those pesky social issues:<\/p>\n

WALLACE:<\/strong> Does your party need to change, especially in its outreach with those groups, on social issues like same sex marriage, on immigration reform?<\/p>\n

MCCAIN:<\/strong>\u00a0I think we have to have a bigger tent. That’s – no doubt about it [\u2026] And as far as young women are concerned, absolutely – I don’t think anybody like me, I can state my position on abortion, but, to – other than that, leave the issue alone when we are in the kind of economic situation and, frankly, national security situation we’re in.<\/p>\n

WALLACE:<\/strong>\u00a0When you say leave the issue alone, you would allow, you’d say, freedom of choice?<\/p>\n

MCCAIN:<\/strong>\u00a0I would allow people to have those opinions and respect those opinions. I’m proud of my pro-life position and record. But if someone disagrees with me, I respect your views.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, because John McCain’s approach to winning the White House worked so well last time around.<\/p>\n

Like most seasoned politicians, his answer is a bit evasive – at the end, he swaps Wallace\u2019s word \u201cchoice\u201d for \u201copinion.\u201d Well, yes, Senator, we \u201callow people to have\u201d all sorts of abhorrent opinions. It\u2019s perfectly legal to think<\/em> whatever you want about fetuses, blacks, Jews, gays, women, Muslims, immigrants, etc., but the real question is what the law lets you do<\/em> to those groups. And on that point, the rest of McCain’s answer gives the unmistakable impression that he would indeed abandon the unborn.<\/p>\n

Sigh. What a departure from the man who proclaimed in 2008<\/a>, \u201cI am pro-life because I know what it is like to live without human rights,\u201d referring to the five years he spent in a North Vietnamese prison camp.<\/p>\n

Or is it? McCain\u2019s voting record<\/a> is pro-life on balance, but there are a lot of failing grades in there, and it\u2019s an issue that\u2019s often lost out to his greater passion: getting Democrats to like him. During his previous presidential run, he told reporters<\/a> that \u201cit\u2019s not social issues I care about,\u201d and Sen. Rick Santorum reveals<\/a> that McCain often sided against introducing pro-life legislation because it was too \u201cdivisive.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s hard to see anything other than partisan opportunism in those suggesting<\/a> that this reflects some deep need for Republican moderation. John McCain doesn\u2019t need an occasion to advocate a pivot to the middle.<\/p>\n

Yes, the GOP took a beating on abortion this year, but not because they opposed it; they suffered because they let the Democrats define what their opposition meant. On the substance, there was no reason for abortion to be Republican Kryptonite. Mitt Romney\u2019s stance was well within the American mainstream<\/a>, while Barack Obama\u2019s \u201cany time, any reason, at taxpayer expense\u201d one wasn\u2019t. Obama should have been the one constantly on defense.<\/p>\n

But when Democrats spun professional drama queen Sandra Fluke’s testimony<\/a> and the rhetorical blunders of two pro-life senators<\/a> into an imaginary \u201cwar on women,\u201d Team Romney thought dismissing it<\/a> as a distraction from the economy<\/a> would suffice, instead of confronting the narrative head-on, explaining its distortions, and forcefully offering an alternate, truer narrative.<\/p>\n

Taking stances acceptable to the public isn\u2019t enough; a winning candidate also has to get across a certain level of comfort and confidence in his own convictions. When one side is accusing someone of all kinds of scary things, and the target doesn\u2019t even want to talk about the accusations, it leaves the impression that there\u2019s something to it the public should<\/em> be scared of. That\u2019s why, despite a majority of Americans reaffirming in August<\/a> that they\u2019d ban most abortions, after the election, a majority identified themselves as pro-choice<\/a>: Republicans let the opposition define what \u201cpro-life\u201d and \u201cpro-choice\u201d mean.<\/p>\n

Politicians like Romney take the right positions but screw up the follow-through, and politicians like McCain take that as evidence that the positions themselves were the problem. How about we try standing on principle and making the case for it, and see what happens?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Better idea: let’s try standing on principle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":23771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMcCain calls for GOP to drop social issues (in other news, water still wet) - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"McCain calls for GOP to drop social issues (in other news, water still wet) - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Better idea: let's try standing on principle.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-26T17:38:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-11-26T18:04:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/mccain.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"473\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"408\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Calvin Freiburger\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/6eb2bf94c8064b71953ba137bf413c4d\"},\"headline\":\"McCain calls for GOP to drop social issues (in other news, water still wet)\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-11-26T17:38:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-11-26T18:04:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/\"},\"wordCount\":701,\"commentCount\":12,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mccain-calls-for-gop-to-drop-social-issues-in-other-news-water-still-wet\/\",\"name\":\"McCain calls for GOP to drop social issues (in other news, water still wet) - 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Calvin is an editor and administrator for TheFederalistPapers.org, and his work has appeared on NewsRealBlog.com, PatriotUpdate.com, LifeNews.com, LifeSiteNews.com, RightWisconsin.com, AmericanThinker.com, Stream.org, AmericanClarion.org, and more. Please check out his official website, ConservativeStandards.com. 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Calvin is an editor and administrator for TheFederalistPapers.org, and his work has appeared on NewsRealBlog.com, PatriotUpdate.com, LifeNews.com, LifeSiteNews.com, RightWisconsin.com, AmericanThinker.com, Stream.org, AmericanClarion.org, and more. Please check out his official website, ConservativeStandards.com. 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