John McCain vs. The Republican Base
John McCain’s relationship with the conservative base of the Republican party can, at best, be compared to an arranged marriage. With McCain playing the part of the groom and the Republican base playing the part of the reluctant bride. In this particular scenario, the bride’s heart belongs to someone else, but due to cultural and extraneous mandates, as in all arranged marriages, the bride will see it through out of respect for the culture.
As in a system when a relationship is arranged, the benefactor of the arrangement has two antagonistic approaches in their cultivation of the relationship. The first approach would be to have a supercilious and dispassionate affiliation with said partner, because out of arrogance, they can. The second approach would be to reach a conciliatory relationship with said partner by maintaining your core beliefs and staying true to your values so as to not become a hypocrite just for the sake of conciliation, while simultaneously respecting said partner’s ideological differences and forging a mutually beneficial congress between the two for the sake of the greater cause.
John McCain seems arrogantly comfortable taking the first approach of continuing to cultivate an inflexible and tumultuous relationship with the Republican conservative base.
Whatever juxtaposition one would choose to view McCain’s current relationship with the conservative base of the Republican Party, it irrefutably parallels an anxious arraigned marriage with remarkable replication. He is the probable nominee and, at this particular point in the process, has settled into his position without the full consent of the Republican Party due to the arbitrarily undemocratic nominating process that always begs the question: Would he be here if the caucuses and primaries were held in the same week?
This past week, at a rally in Cincinnati, conservative radio host Bill Cunningham was hired by, and specifically told, to “fire up the crowd” by the organizers before McCain took the stage. Cunningham did not deviate from his intolerant and grandiloquence rhetoric against the Democrat party and their brand of liberalism, which is the defining characteristic of his program.
Cunningham repeatedly used Obama’s full name, Barack Hussein Obama, during his warm-up speech for McCain. Cunningham had the crowd on its feet and fired up.
When McCain took the stage, he immediately denounced Cunningham’s enthusiastic tautology. This immediately drew the ire of Cunningham, who was not a McCain backer until left with no viable Republican choice. Cunningham is an influential conservative voice on the radio. Cunningham says McCain has now lost his support. He had the following to say about McCain: “I’m gonna follow the lead of Ann Coulter. I’ve had it with John McCain.”I’m going to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton for president because she would do a better job in the Oval Office, I think, than the liberal John McCain. I’m done with him.” Cunningham has since created a moniker for McCain, “John Juan Pablo McCain.” This would be a direct reference to the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill. The McCain-Kennedy immigration bill is the most ominous palisade that separates McCain from the Republican conservative base.
Cunningham is not the first Republican to attack the Democrat opposition in this fashion and will not be the last. McCain has vowed to control these types of messages. If McCain continues with this counter productive approach, he will be allocating a disproportionate amount of his energy, resources and focus on this battle rather than focusing on winning the war in the general election.
As the Republican conservative base tries to adjust, adapt and accept McCain as their nominee and bequeath the obligatory support that customarily comes from within one’s own party affiliation, it would bode well for McCain to reciprocate the support for his arranged and, at this point in time, unstable supporters in hopes of creating a united force in the general election— for better or worse.
