Take a stand on VP choice
There is a sound and simple reason why John McCain should not be John F. Kerry's running mate on the Democratic ticket in November. He is a Republican.
The distinction still matters, even in an era when both major political parties are fixated on the nonpartisan, centrist, independent voters who political consultants insist determine the outcome of federal elections.
Reports that many on Kerry's campaign staff are smitten with the idea of the Massachusetts Democrat naming his Republican colleague from Arizona as his vice presidential choice make for amusing chatter in this long lull between the presidential primaries and the party nominating conventions. It is still a fundamentally foolish idea.
Far from elevating Kerry as a bold, bipartisan thinker, the choice of McCain would enshrine forever Kerry's reputation for political equivocation. The question his campaign has spent months sputtering to answer (what does John Kerry stand for?) would only be amplified by such a selection.
McCain, the crowd-pleasing "straight shooter" who lost the Republican nomination to George W. Bush in 2000, has had no such record of vacillation in his 17 years in the Senate and four in the US House of Representatives. He is a social and economic conservative and proud of it. As McCain said himself when asked about speculation that the two Vietnam war heroes might join forces to deny Bush a second term, "It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a prolife, free-trading, nonprotectionist, deficit hawk."
The trouble is, it's not that hard to imagine the self-destructive Democratic establishment doing just that. Having convinced themselves that presidential politics is less about ideas than about money and personalities, the Beltway crowd is more than capable of underestimating the intelligence of the people.
Voters might identify less intensely with party labels than they once did, but they still know the difference between Democrats and Republicans. The electorate knows, for instance, that choosing one's ideological opposite as a running mate is not the same thing as constructing coalitions among competing interests. That takes a skill so long missing from Washington that Capitol Hill is locked in partisan gridlock on some of the most pressing issues facing the country, from the war in Iraq to the lack of affordable health care at home. How exactly would teaming up with a fine fellow who rarely agrees with him on public policy solve that problem for Kerry?
It is not enough that the two veterans worked in concert to reopen diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam or that McCain has come belatedly to oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. He still has an approval rating in the single digits, as rated by Americans for Democratic Action.
How would adding a Republican to the ticket who just voted for a sweeping ban on late-term abortion advance a Democratic platform that describes reproductive choice as a matter to be decided by a woman and her physician? How would Kerry square his decision to oppose the recent Medicare overhaul because he said it did not go far enough with McCain's decision to oppose the same bill because he said it went too far?
Both senators opposed the president's tax cuts, but McCain supported Bush administration budget priorities that Kerry rejected. How will Kerry explain his running mate's decision to vote for an additional $87 million for the war in Iraq that he voted against? If early Bush ads are having fun with Kerry's contention that he actually voted for the $87 million before he voted against it, imagine the fodder to be found in McCain's unequivocal support for the president's request.
If talk of a Kerry-McCain ticket was intended to generate buzz, mission accomplished. Marketing the pairing as a bold move, however, will only generate another round of the same old question: What does John Kerry stand for?
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com.
