But he's more Maverick than Tom Cruise and James Garner's characters put together!

Still, I wish he would have gotten the GOP nomination in 2000.

Hopefully either Hillary or Obama can save us from this anti-choice madness!

All of which is why I am scared shitless that he portrays himself as a "moderate" (instead of one more anti birth control, "traditionalist" lunatic asshole) and am even more frightened at the notion of a McCain/Huck ticket (or...presidency).

And it pains my heart to consider that the GOP and "independents" would rally around them, even IF Hilary or Obama pointed out their insanity or, ha, Mike Huckabee's fuckheaded record as governor and the little tiffs he's had with the families of murder/rape victims.

It galls me to think that if anything an attempt to skewer Huckabee for the loser he truly his, "personable" as he may seem, would simply energize voters leaning in that direction anyway. I'm not convinced GOP and conservative independents have moved away from people like James Dobson (sad fucking state of the party that Huckabee is a "traitor" to the party line for discussing child poverty and global warming, instead of just slamming choice) and we forgive Republicans for the worst of their scandals. The party that stands for "family values" and stands for "life" while Democrats stand for death, pedophiles (gays, that is) and moral relativism is the party of Randy Cunningham, Mark Foley, and an ass-backwards view of family planning (all while slicing or resisting expansion of programs like S-Chip, of course).

The thought of their (further) empowerment....ESPECIALLY with Huckabee...and the thought of their victory makes me hate this country.

Such a comfort that I'm more or less repulsed by the rest of the world just as much, if not more so. It all works out.

Thank you for posting this! I hear people call McCain a moderate WAY too often. I will simply refer the misinformed to this post from here on out.
Conservatives love to hug Bush. He must give them some kind of secret evil energy boost through embracing.

One of my favorite writers, Warren Ellis (who is a Brit), said the other day on his mailing list that he was becoming very interested in Obama. Why?

Simply because he doesn't feel Hillary can beat McCain. Don't know if I agree with that, but I respect his opinions and I thought it was interesting.

I'm really worried that all this anti-McCain talk from the rightwing extremists is going to convince uninformed moderates and independants that he's middle of the road.

There are even some liberals who have taken up this meme, like Randi Rhodes. She was saying just the other week that conservatives won't be happy with McCain because there are apparently some pro-choice quotes by him floating out there somewhere. And she excused his 0% NARAL rating by suggesting that he's only voted for things that were unconstitutional and he knew they'd be struck down, so he's not really pro-life. WTF, Randi!?

I always knew that John McCain is further to the right than the Taliban. And now, I'm glad that Planned Parenthood is getting on the air as quick as they are exposing the real John McCain. Now, PP needs to remain on the offensive against the fourth-most anti-choice Senator in the chamber (the three most anti-choice Sens. are Sam Brownback (KS), Tom Coburn (OK) and Jim DeMint from here in South Carolina) for the next nine months.

The way I view McCain is Bush plus a few extra brain cells. Scary.

what a great report. Sums up a lot of things and I tried to make my way through the notes section but couldnt. Mccain has to be anti-choice if he wants to have any hope of winning the Presidency as a republican. Always hard for me to read voting record bullets or notes though. Just a few weeks ago, might be more than a month by now, everyone but 2 in the house voted for a "anti-child porn law" but it was a horrible, horrible law. I know Mccain has a long history and is either truly antichoice or made the pragmatic choice but voting records require context. Should make for some fascinating reading.

Would it ever, ever be possible for a candidate to be embraced by feminists if he/she was anti-choice? Is that the 1 and only dealbreaker?

Haha, I used that same exact picture of him on my blog when I posted about his war record. If I was better with Photoshop I'd find a way to make them spoon.

Pimpification of my blog post about him: http://profoundsarcasm.blogspot.com/2008/02/see-i-said-id-find-something-on-mccain.html

dananddanica, I can't speak for all feminists, obviously, but I personally would NEVER endorse a candidate that wasn't pro-choice. To me it's not about abortion as much as it is that being anti-choice is symbolic of a complete lack of respect for women and their agency over their own lives and bodies.

I'm losing hope for America.

Would it ever, ever be possible for a candidate to be embraced by feminists if he/she was anti-choice?

I don't think so.

Now, let me say that I've long argued that there are plenty of conservative or libertarian positions that are entirely compatible with feminism, and that our cause would be strengthened by reaching out to sympathetic Republicans.

But choice is one of those core issues that defines feminism. It just does. It you're anti-choice, you by definition are no longer a feminist. Anti-choicers are willing to use the force of law to tell women what to do with their bodies, and that is the very essence of what feminism opposes.

"Pro-life feminist" makes about as much sense as "pro-corporate communist" or "pro-God atheist." Know what I mean?

i know exactly what you mean forbidden. I'm about as libertarian as one can get, which causes some issues with some of my feminist friends as well as my friends who adhere to most other outlooks. Choice is a major thing for me, theres little in this world I believe i shouldnt be able to do as long as it does not directly hurt someone else. That being said, in a pragmatic sense I can say im a pro-god atheist. the church does a lot of bad, the organization is inherently corrupt but religion also has its uses. as for the abortion litmus test, i completely understand it as at its base its a choice/freedom argument but i can imagine a person who believes in equality yet believes abortion is inherently wrong. wrong as in affecting someone else. I dont know why someone would think that way but i think we paint people into idealogical corners, you must be this or that, and perhaps we need that for politicians but it doesnt have to always be the case.

for me i always wonder about when the rights of the zygote/fetus/baby begin to equal those of the mother. i know you can be convicted of murder for killing a fetus (if youre not the mother) i know you can be put into custody if you harm the fetus with drugs or alcohol (though this is rare) and you can also be sterilized. so is the moment the rights of the fetus equal the mother the moment it crowns? 1 week before that? is it not possible for a rational intelligent person who belives in equality for all to also be pro-life? just find it interesting.

Much of the antipathy toward McCain among advoctes of criminalizing abortion or restricting abortion rights (let's use accurate words here rather than "choice"-based euphemisms) stems not from his position on abortion, but from his sponsorship of campaign finance laws that ban or limit so-called "issue ads" near to the time of elections, when such advertising can be most effective.

In speaking to such groups as the Federalist Society and the Conservative Political Action Committee, McCain has said that he will nominate judges who will defer to legislative bodies and who will not frustrate the will of the people's elected representatives. This may be code speak for using a prospective nominee's willingness to uphold McCain-Feingold as a litmus test for judicial appointments.

Senator McCain apparently believes that Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided. He has called for the reversal of Roe v. Wade and for the criminalization (or not) of abortion to be returned to the states. No surprise there, given the Republican obsession with who sticks what into whom and (in the case of vaginal intercourse) the sometime result thereof.

How many other judicial decisions wherein the Supreme Court has found legislative enactments to conflict with constitutional guaranties would Senator McCain jettison? Griswold v. Connecticut? (overturning criminal statute which prohibited use of contraceptive devices); Loving v. Virginia? (overturning statute that criminalized interracial marriage); Brown v. Board of Education? (holding racial segregation of public schools to be unconstitutional); Reynolds v. Sims? (requiring one-person, one-vote principal in apportionment of state legislatures). Each of these decisions, all of which held legislative enactments to conflict with constitutional guaranties, has become part of the fabric of constitutional law in this country. I hope that the media (or better yet, the voters) will press for Senator McCain to declare whether he would favor turning these matters back over to the states.