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McCain for Veep
Posted 5:39 p.m., April 4, 2004
Open letter to Sen. John Kerry:
Dear Mr. Kerry:
I am requesting that you set aside your reservations, steel yourself to the inevitable protests of the Democratic "party faithful," and select Arizona's Republican Sen. John McCain as your vice-presidential running mate.
I am speaking to you, Mr. Kerry, not as a member of the club of lifelong Democrats. I am not a Democrat. Nor am I a Republican. If I have a party affiliation, it is with the Independence Party that I caucused with a few weeks ago, a Minnesota-only party of sensible centrists.
I hope that means to you exactly what it should mean. I am one of your prize targets. An ever-so-slightly left-of-center political independent. And I'm from Minnesota, which one of George Bush's chief advisors, Vin Weber, has rightly identified as a key battleground in the coming Bush-Kerry slugfest.
Let's parse out the implications.
A Nation of Thirds
According to a "political landscape" survey of 2,500 Americans published in November 2003 by the Pew Center for the People and the Press, this indeed is not an "evenly divided country," as we so often hear--as though Democrats and Republicans stand alone on the political playing field.
In fact, in the Pew Center survey, conducted during the summer of 2003 after the Iraq War began last April, showed that 30 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans; 31 percent as Democrats; and 39 percent as independents. So nearly 40 percent of the country, Pew indicates, considers itself as occupying the "none of the above" slot.
Notably, the Pew survey shows that the field tightens up when you look to actual registered voters. Of those, 33 percent identify themselves as Republicans, 34 percent Democrat, and 33 percent "independent or other."
There is no way to directly correlate these numbers to voting behavior, but clearly there is a difference in the number of people who say they are independents and the number of registered voters who say the same thing. And it is no secret, as Mr. McCain has made clear in his efforts to institute campaign financing reform, that lurking cynicism is keeping many people out of the process, out of the polling place.
That cynicism is in part a byproduct of a modern culture that has given us cheap "reality TV" entertainment, which seems to have as a running theme the humiliation of our more naïve fellow citizens. But it runs much deeper than just that simple cultural corrosion.
Cynicism also keeps people out of the polling place on Election Day because so many of your potential voters realize that this two-party system, which has focused for so long on maintaining derisive, combative, tribunal-minded partisanship, offers them no reason to respond to their citizenship impulses. Nowhere, really, to direct them. They are turned off.
They see the extent to which the two parties have effectively cooperated to steer the country away from solving its biggest looming crises--a staggering budget deficit, looming bankruptcy in the Medicare and Social Security trusts. No one in government has the courage to make tough spending decisions, and independent voters--particularly those under age 40, sense that their safety net will be yanked out from under them long before they ever enjoy its benefits.
Disaffected independents see the extent to which Democrats have capitulated to the Bush White House, enabling a president who campaigned as a "uniter" to divide the nation's spoils among his cronies and contributors. They see how the Democratic Party gave this president a blank check to conduct a war, then back-flipped to become opponents once the war was underway. To normal folks, Mr. Kerry, that's something of a bait and switch. And you participated in it.
Further, they see how much time and energy is wasted on wedge issues--gay marriage, guns, abortion--and they rightly sense that what is being done is the twisting of inflamed sensibilities for the express purpose of steering focus away from the hard, crucial questions.
Citizen McCain
This is why you must select John McCain as your running mate, Mr. Kerry. It was reported today that you are now on a fast track to selecting a vice presidential candidate. Adam Nagourney of the New York Times reports that the old Washington hand James A. Johnson is "interviewing Democrats to see whether they would be interested in being the running mate."
It's time to ask Johnson to start interviewing at least one Republican.
Selecting John McCain would be ample demonstration to the American electorate, particularly those in the undecided middle, that at least one presidential candidate in the race is serious about solving the nation's problems, and not just padding his own personal resume and catering to his party--and its controlling special interests.
Yes, John McCain is a genuine conservative, and he is very much unlike you in that regard, Mr. Kerry. He expressed support for the Iraq invasion, but forgetting that for the moment, his position on what to do now seems very much in keeping with your own attitudes.
What's most important is that McCain has proven a willingness to work across the aisle--signing on with the unabashed liberal Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, for instance, to get campaign finance reform passed. Rather than exhibiting the usual disspiriting tendency to push ideology at the expense of prudence, McCain works to get things done. He is not afraid to annoy his fellow Republicans--by forcing passage of a measure that will require a 60 percent vote of the Senate to extend any further tax breaks. And his 2000 campaign demonstrates his ability to ignite excitement among the young and disaffected. His is a refreshingly democratizing presence.
In short, McCain has proved his willingness to do what is right, even if it is not the most politically expedient thing. That, in a nutshell, is the most important message your campaign can send to a public that is increasingly uncertain about what is happening to this country and how the servants of public policy will guide us out of the weeds.
Deep into the Nagourney story, there is reference that "McCain is an alluring choice," and that his selection would almost guarantee a Kerry election.
I don't know if that is true. But I can say this: selection of John McCain as vice president, assuming you will grant him the right to maintain his Republican party affiliation and identity, would guarantee that you have my vote. And I think you can probably multiply that effect by a factor of many thousands.
Copyright 2004, by Kevin Featherly
