Why Do Republicans Pander To Nutcases?

First, it was Mike Huckabee. Now it is John McCain who is hemming and hawing, backing and filling, kind-of-disassociating but not-denouncing-and-rejecting an endorsement by John Hagee, the notorious San Antonio preacher. As noted by Dave Leventhal, I have contributed to McCain, and as noted by Tim, I asked for my money back from Huckabee because he spoke at Hagee’s church. Now I don’t know what to do. I am very disappointed in John McCain.

Putting aside matters of basic decency and honor, I also find McCain’s waffling incredibly stupid as a matter of basic politics. As the Democratic primaries have shown, the largest single swing vote in this election is white men. (Read David Paul Kuhn’s astute analysis here.) Those white men are the very “Reagan Democrats” McCain needs to win the general election — and they are overwhelmingly working-class Catholics in the major states.

Like the ex-military guy he is, John McCain may be caught in the trap of fighting the last war. No surprise there. Hillary Clinton thought she was fighting the last war, too, following the Karl Rove and Mark Penn tactic of picking out and appealing to small segments of voters in order to win 50.1% of the vote. I’ve got news for McCain that he may not have noticed. Barack Obama is not playing the same game. He’s not even playing on the same field. Against Obama, the politics of hate will result in lost yardage on every play.