McCain on the issues

Everyone should watch this conversation between Jon Chait and Matt Yglesias, because I think it gets at an extremely important question about John McCain. I think everyone grants that McCain had a "liberal" streak between 2000 and 2003 or so (excluding war issues, on which he's consistently been to the right of George W. Bush). And I think everyone grants that from 2004 forward, he's basically abandoned his podium on those issues. But before you speculate about the way McCain would govern, I think it's probably a good idea to examine what he actually did vis-a-vis the issues themselves in the years he spent clawing his way back from apostasy into the Republican mainstream.

Jon rightly points to his position on climate change--indeed, in 2003, when McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced the Climate Stewardship Act, they were way ahead of the curve, and if the bill had passed then, it might well have been a sufficient regulatory solution to the problem. But the problem has grown worse and the measures needed to combat it more expansive, and as such, when the Democrats took over in 2007, they began discussing a whole host of new legislation, the weakest of which--sponsored by Lieberman and John Warner--has a lot of momentum behind it. But it doesn't have the support of McCain himself, who basically thinks the bill is too far reaching, except in that it doesn't contain a provision to back a dump truck full of money up to the front door of the nuclear energy industry. Today, his campaign says almost nothing about global warming at all. So I suppose he should get some plaudits for opening the climate change conversation up to other Republicans (like Olympia Snowe and John Warner and others). But he's not leading on the issue anymore, and it's pretty clear where he'd govern from as president.

There are other examples, too. He lost a lot of friends in his party by spearheading the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. By the time that was done, it was full of holes, and even though he can't exactly be blamed for the disruptive nature of the legislative process, he can be blamed for exploiting those loopholes once it became law... which is exactly what he did.

It goes on from there. We can watch him everyday between now and the end of the primary season pretending as if he never had unorthodox ideas about immigration and that he never said anything bad about the Bush tax cuts and so on and so on. And it's a stretch, I think, to assume that, once elected, he'd just destroy his already tenuous relationship with the conservative movement by reassuming his old positions. More likely, I think his old positions were his old positions because they were politically expedient. Since they're no longer expedient, they're no longer his positions. And even if in his heart of hearts he thinks they're good ideas, he'll just close his eyes to them when he's sitting pretty in the oval office, flanked by many of the same conservative thinkers that have guided his campaign thusfar.

Full list below the fold.

Political advisers

• John Weaver- Chief political strategist for McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. He continues to be the senator's top political strategist as a paid consultant to McCain's political action committee, Straight Talk America. Weaver was national field director for former Texas GOP Sen. Phil Gramm's 1996 presidential campaign and was once executive director of the Texas Republican Party.

• Mark Salter - A McCain staffer for than 17 years and his current Senate chief of staff. He has co-authored books with McCain, Faith of My Fathers; Worth the Fighting For; Why Courage Matters; and Character Is Destiny.

• Rick Davis - National campaign manager for McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. He is a partner at a political consulting and lobbying firm.

• Greg Stevens - Media adviser who worked on McCain's televisions ads in the 2000 presidential primaries. He is founder and president of a media consulting firm.

• Terry Nelson - Has signed on as senior adviser to McCain's Straight Talk America PAC. He was national political director for Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.

• Mark McKinnon - An Austin, Texas-based consultant who directed advertising for Bush's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns.

• Chuck Larson - Iowa state senator who is a consultant to Straight Talk America. He was the Iowa vice chairman of Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and served as chairman of the Iowa Republican Party from 2001 to 2005.

• Bill McInturff - Conducted polling for McCain's 2000 presidential campaign and is a partner and co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, a political and public affairs survey research firm.

• Wes Gullett - McCain's deputy campaign director in 2000. He is a Republican political strategist and was chief of staff under Arizona Gov. Fife Symington.

• Deb Gullett - Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon's chief of staff. A former state representative and former McCain aide. She is married to Wes Gullett.

• Mike Murphy - A senior strategist for McCain's 2000 campaign; affiliated with a consulting firm known as Navigators, based in California .

• Craig Goldman - Executive director of Straight Talk America.

• Michael Dennehy - Paid political consultant to Straight Talk America. Was the New England political director and New Hampshire campaign manager for McCain in 2000.

• Tom Loeffler - Former Texas congressman, who was a top fund-raiser for Bush. He is founder and chairman of the Loeffler Group, a lobbying firm.

• Carla Eudy - Republican fund-raising consultant who was McCain's chief campaign finance director in 2000. She now helps raise money for Straight Talk America.

• William Ball III - Managing director of the Loeffler Group. Former secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and former trade association executive (president of the American Beverage Association).

• Marshall Wittmann - Former director of communications for McCain's Senate office, and a 2000 McCain presidential campaign staffer. He is now a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, affiliated with Democratic Leadership Council.

• Charlie Condon - A Straight Talk America co-chairman. He is a former South Carolina attorney general and a former circuit solicitor of Charleston and Berkeley counties. Served as a South Carolina state co-chairman for Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000, and state chairman for Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign.

• Bob McAlister - A Straight Talk America co-chairman. He is president of a crisis management and media relations firm, and was a consultant to the 2000 presidential primary campaign for then-Texas Gov. Bush in South Carolina.

• Orson Swindle - Prisoner of war with McCain in Vietnam and a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.

• Trevor Potter - Elections lawyer who served as general counsel for McCain's 2000 campaign.

• Michael Deaver - Former White House chief of staff under President Reagan; he works for Edelman Public Relations, one of the world's largest public relation firms.

• Stuart K. Spencer - A trailblazing political consultant from California.

• Sig Rogich - Nevada-based GOP fundraiser. He is president of the Rogich Communications Group.

Domestic policy

• Phil Gramm - Former Texas GOP senator, presidential candidate.

• Dan Coats - Former Indiana GOP senator.

• Dan Crippen - Economist and former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

• Kevin Hassett - Economic adviser to McCain in the 2000 presidential primaries; directs economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

• F. Philip Handy - Chairman of the Florida State Board of Education. He is a Straight Talk America adviser to McCain on education policy and a co-chairman of the PAC. He served as state chairman of Jeb Bush's gubernatorial campaigns in Florida in 1993-94 and 1997-98 and as co-chairman of Jeb's 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

• Douglas Holtz-Eakin - Former director of the Congressional Budget Office and chief economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

• Lisa Graham Keegan - Former Arizona superintendent of public instruction.

• Marshall Carter - Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. He served on the national finance committee of McCain's 2000 campaign.

• John Thain - Chief executive officer of the New York Stock Exchange.

• Ted Forstmann - Wall Street financier.

• Gerald Parsky - Chairman of the regents of the University of California.

• Eric Eberhard - A lawyer whose practice focuses on representation of Native Americans; previously served as staff director and in other posts with the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and as legislative counsel to McCain.

• John Raidt - Policy coordinator for McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.

• Vin Webber - Former Minnesota GOP congressman, lobbyist, and chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, a democracy building group.

• Herb Allison - Chief executive officer of TIAA-CREF, one of the country's largest financial service companies; he served as a national finance co-chairman for McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.

• Bill Bailey -Former aide to McCain on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Recently hired by Walt Disney Co. lobbyist Preston Padden.

• Mark Buse - A government affairs consultant who served as an aide to McCain for 18 years, both in the Senate and the House.

• James Jay Baker - Attorney and former chief lobbyist and chairman of the National Rifle Association's political action committee.

• Lance Tarrance Jr. - Senior strategist for Straight Talk America; author and co-author of five books about electoral behavior.

Foreign policy, national security

• Henry Kissinger - Former U.S. secretary of State.
• William Kristol - Editor of the Weekly Standard, a Washington-based political magazine.

• Robert Kagan - A senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a columnist on world affairs.

• Randy Scheunemann - Consultant who was defense and foreign-policy coordinator to McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. Like Kagan and Kristol, he also is listed as a director of the Project for the New American Century, a non-profit conservative organization whose self-stated goal is to promote American global leadership.

• Gary Schmitt - Senior fellow at the conservative Project for the New American Century. He is an author and served under President Reagan as executive director of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

• Stephen Biegun - Ford Motor Co. vice president and former national security adviser to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. He also served as executive secretary of the National Security Council at the White House from 2001 to 2003.

• Brent Scowcroft - National security advisor under President George H.W. Bush and fellow board member with McCain on the International Republican Institute, a democracy building organization that McCain chairs.

• Colin Powell - Former secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

• Niall Ferguson - A professor of history at Harvard and prolific author.

• Barry McCaffrey - Retired Army general and former White House drug czar under President Bill Clinton.

• Robert Zoellick - Former Deputy Secretary of State and former U.S. trade representative.

• Richard Armitage - Former deputy secretary of State..

• Eliot Cohen - Conservative professor of military affairs at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

• Robert Kimmitt - Deputy secretary of the Department of the Treasury; former ambassador to Germany.

• Andrew Krepinevich - Retired Army officer who is now executive director at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that focuses on defense spending and planning.

• Ralph Peters - Retired Army office and author.

• Charles Larson - A retired Navy admiral, who twice served as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy. He ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for lieutenant government of Maryland in 2002 and now serves on the board of directors of the Northrop Grumman Corp., a defense company.

• Bernard Aronson - Former assistant secretary of State for inter-American affairs.

• Lorne Craner - President of the International Republican Institute. He served as assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor under Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Fellow senators

• Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

• Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.

• Gordon Smith, R-Ore., a Straight Talk America co-chairman.

• Trent Lott, R-Miss.

• John Sununu, R- N.H.

• Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

• Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. (has been mentioned as a potential 2008 presidential candidate himself).

• Susan Collins, R-Maine.

• Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

• McCain remains close to former Sens. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and Bob Dole, R-Kan.

House members
McCain consults closely on immigration policy with fellow Arizonans, GOP Reps. Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe. He also is close to Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.

Governors

• Jon Huntsman Jr., R- Utah, who already has endorsed McCain for 2008 and is national co-chairman of Straight Talk America.

• Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.

• Mark Sanford, R-S.C.

• Jeb Bush, R-Fla.

• Haley Barbour, R-Miss.