No On Joe (And Tom Ridge, Too)

National Review: McCain Should Choose A Pro-Life Running Mate

(National Review Online)  This column was written by The Editors Of National Review Online.

---

Conservatives who skipped the Olympics on Saturday to watch John McCain’s gold-medal performance at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church saw a man they can affirmatively support for president, as opposed to a Republican candidate they merely prefer to Democrat Barack Obama. When he announces a running mate, McCain should seek to build on this momentum - rather than shatter it, as he would if he were to pick Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman or former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as his running mate.

“As president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies. That’s my commitment. That’s my commitment to you,” said McCain on Saturday. Nothing would do more to undercut this assurance - or to demoralize McCain’s base - than the selection of a vice-presidential nominee whose record and convictions don’t match this pledge. Also, although you would never know it reading the media, abortion is a winning issue for Republicans, and it’s not as though the party has so many of those that McCain can afford to throw it away. Yet he seems to be flirting with the possibility of a pro-choice vice-presidential pick. “I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican party,” said McCain last week in an interview with Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard. “And I also feel that - and I’m not trying to equivocate here - that Americans want us to work together.”

If “working together” on abortion is the rationale, then Lieberman should immediately be disqualified from vice-presidential consideration. Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-quasi-independent, is a good man who has demonstrated an admirable ability to follow his conscience on important issues, the war foremost among them. On abortion, he’s just wrong. His voting record earns perfect marks from pro-abortion groups such as NARAL. He has even opposed a ban of partial-birth abortions, which is one proposal in recent years that has managed to unite confirmed pro-lifers and moderate pro-choicers.

There are other reasons to oppose the choice of Lieberman. Last year, he earned a rating of just 8 percent from the American Conservative Union - a single point better than Obama’s score of 7 percent. (McCain’s rating was 80 percent.) On issue after issue, Lieberman would clash with the man on the top of the GOP ticket. Rather than allowing McCain to snatch the mantle of post-partisanship, these abundant contradictions would threaten to sink the “Straight Talk Express” into a morass of disagreement and inconsistency.

When McCain made his comment about the need for pro-lifers “to work together” with pro-choicers, he wasn’t talking directly about Lieberman. He was talking about Ridge: “You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out [for the vice presidency],” McCain said. The comment was widely interpreted as a trial balloon. Whatever the motivation, the notion deserves pricking.

Although Ridge isn’t pro-life, neither is he a pro-abortion militant. Along with a majority of Americans, he supports reasonable restrictions such as a ban on partial-birth abortion and a requirement that minors obtain parental consent. He’s an adoptive father. But his nomination for vice president would still alienate many of the voters whose enthusiasm McCain needs.

And Ridge poses a deeper dilemma. He isn’t a conservative who happens to be pro-choice, but rather a moderate who has abandoned conservatives time and again. When Ridge was a congressman during Ronald Reagan’s second term, Congressional Quarterly found that he was more likely to oppose White House initiatives than to support them. Some of these quarrels involved labor policy, which was perhaps understandable given Ridge’s Erie-based congressional district. Others were strange, such as Ridge’s support of the nuclear-freeze movement and his hostility toward missile defense.

Finally, it must be said that Ridge never has been “one of the great leaders,” even in the rhetorically superlative world of American politics. His two-term governorship of Pennsylvania yielded no special hallmarks of conservative reform - instead, its missed opportunity to deliver school choice remains a frustrating failure. Likewise, Ridge’s tenure as the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was unspectacular at best.

Heading into the conventions, McCain remains an underdog. Yet his situation is far from desperate. For vice president, he should make a choice that’s conservative in both meanings of the word.

[jjreding-2009]

I can''t believe that in this era of runaway deficits, over-the-top fuel prices (and I''m not just talking about gasoline), out of control food prices (have you seen the size of the increases in food prices over the past year - and that includes foods that have stayed the same while their packaging has shrunken to absurd sizes) and all the other woes that this country has suffered at the hands of the current regime, that there are still fools out there that put abortion at the top of their list of factors to consider for appointing a successor government. Absolutely ridiculous - and these are NOT the people I want representing me in this country.

[ubrew12]

sassychick07 said: "Evangelicals need to start focusing on the issues that really affect mankind and the planet, and quit obsessing over abortion and homosexuals."

jankebenz said: "In order to get your house (nation), back in order, one must clean up and throw out the trash "

Isn''t that what Hitler said about the Jews?

[bobnjersey]

[You could''''nt muster 20% from the right wing. You need to go back to math class.]
[Posted by gunfighter51 at 09:52 PM : Aug 19, 2008]

and without that 20% mccain will have to go back to arizona.

[labrat9999]

By the way, just to be clear..I personally don''t agree with using abortion as a form of contraception, but I''m not so naive that I don''t undersand that with the law, and the pro-life movement, it is all or nothing.

[labrat9999]

Again I ask my question to the pro-life folks and McSame. Serious answers only please. If someone broke into your house, raped your 14 year old daughter, she became pregnant, is this God''s seed or Satin''s? She MUST have the baby, right? Second question, if your wife is pregnant, is in danger of dying because of the pregnancy, does she die because this is the will of God or the work of Satin? I really get the God Satin thing confused and trying to figure out who is doing what...I mean the whole good and evil thing. So please answer.

[superdem]

The insanity of the "pro-life" position is that there is a party involved they care nothing about - the poor woman who wants the abortion. It''s her body, it''s her life, it''s her choice. Nobody put a gun to her head and forced her into the clinic. I guess having a baby is her punnishment for having ***. "Small government" conservatives are insane to force government into the most private medical decision a woman can make. There''s nothing "conservative" about it - it''s just insane moralizing and hysteria divorced from reality, like most Republican positions. If Republicans really wanted to save lives, they''d care about polluting industries or food safety, but NO - those require "regulations". You''re on your own, Jack, the moment it costs some corporation a penny. Republicans who are "pro-life" might also oppose war, but they love it. They want war again, against the Russians. There''s nothing "pro-life" about the Republicans and their "every acorn is an oak tree" stupidity.

[babooph]

Both parties need a GOOD general-not one of the nuts Bush pushes-govt. is NOT a business,the BS that it needs to be run in a business like fashion ,is pure trash.Ike looks more & more like a superman-stopped the war,very high tax rate for the rich,kept his foot on the warmongers at the pentagon & cia.

[roger3815]

The ever tiresome obsession of conservatives with abortion--a minority position mind you--reminds me of Nero. They seem perfectly content to fiddle while America burns. Chasing toothless monsters and jumping out to go Boo! We are a doomed race of sheep if we vote for this guy.

[bmadeline-2009]

The world is going to hell in a bucket and all you fools can still think about is abortion. Get real.

[sleepyric]

The picture says it all....it''s going to be McCain and Joe Slobberman....McCain needs Joe to tell him what to say....sort of like a Scientologist escort....can''t stand Slobberman...