Top Religious Right Figure: 'I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience'

Hillary and Obama supporters can take solace from today's words of the religious right's most important figure, James Dobson, founder and chair of the influential Focus on the Family.

From today's Laura Ingraham show:

Should the presumptive GOP nominee McCain win the nomination, James Dobson says he will sit out the campaign:

"I'm deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, who organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.

"I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.

"But what a sad and melancholy decision this is for me and many other conservatives. Should John McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can't vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life. These decisions are my personal views and do not represent the organization with which I'm affiliated. They do reflect, however, my deeply held convictions about the institution of the family, about moral and spiritual beliefs, and about the welfare of our country."

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McCain Would Be a Weak Nominee

Update II: McCain Maverick, War Hero, Amnesty Supporter, John McCain

Update: McCain: "simply loathed by many fellow Republicans"

Democrats are looking forward to a John McCain GOP nomination for president.

McCain faces the impossible task of disentangling himself from George W. Bush and presents the close-to-impossible task of bringing along the religious right.

John McCain — "Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson. Few religious right leaders have forgiven McCain for his wildly unpopular (in Republican circles) McCain/Feingold bill, and his April 9, 2000 speech trashing the religious right (that’s the Robertson/Falwell “agents of intolerance” speech).

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly has a column laughing at the contortions McCain performed on taxes and obeying GOP orthodoxy at last night's debate.

Benen writes:

.... In 2001 and 2003, Bush pushed two massive tax-cut packages through Congress, with near-universal Republican support. Indeed, it was something akin to a GOP fealty test -- to vote for the White House taxes cuts was to be a good Republican.

In the Senate, two GOP lawmakers balked -- Lincoln Chafee, who later left the party, and John McCain, who no longer wants to talk about his votes.

When pressed, McCain usually argues that he rejected Bush's tax cuts because there were no accompanying spending cuts to prevent massive deficits. The defense has always been largely incoherent, for at least two reasons. First, McCain now believes tax cuts can pay for themselves (aka, the "Tax Fairy" theory), so there was no need for spending cuts. Second, McCain, at the time, said quite clearly that his opposition to the cuts had nothing to do with spending, and everything to do with Bush's policy being excessively skewed to the wealthy.

At last night's Republican debate in Simi Valley, the LAT's Janet Hook asked for an explanation. McCain responded:

"I was part of the Reagan revolution. I was there with Jack Kemp and Phil Graham and Warren Rudman and all these other first that wanted to change a terrible economic situation in America with 10 percent unemployment and 20 percent interest rates. I was proud to be a foot soldier, support those tax cuts, and they had spending restraints associated with it.

"I made it very clear when I ran in 2000 that I had a package of tax cuts, which were very important and very impactful, but I also had restraints in spending. And I disagreed when spending got out of control, and I disagreed when we had tax cuts without spending restraint. And guess what? Spending got out of control.

"Republicans lost the 2006 election not over the war in Iraq; over spending. Our base became disenchanted."

Does this make any sense at all? The question was rather straightforward: what McCain said in 2001 and 2003 doesn't match what McCain is saying now. He had one rationale for his position then, and a different rationale for his position now. That's not necessarily the end of the world -- candidates can change their mind -- and this was a chance for McCain to explain the pretty obvious inconsistency.

But he responded with a garbled and incoherent mess. Noam Scheiber said McCain's answer was "one of the most incoherent answers I've heard at a presidential debate this campaign season." I'm hard pressed to disagree.
The point I can't get around, though, is that McCain had to realize a question like this was coming. Indeed, after a year of campaigning, he's probably heard it before.

Maybe McCain's vaunted political skills have been exaggerated a bit?

And for sure, McCain straight-talk express that he BSs about has also been exaggerated a bit.

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