He'd Rather Switch Than Fight

John McCain got so beat up by the Neo-Conservative Wing of the Republican Party that he has decided that he has no chance of becoming President unless he sells out completely and gets into bed with the devil.

As the Seattle PI reports, McCain who once stood against the influence of religious fundamentalism has now begun courting the Christian Right:
“When running against Bush in the 2000 presidential race, McCain said neither party should pander to "the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance," including "Jerry Falwell on the right." But last fall the senator met with the right-wing preacher.”

And despite the beating that the Bush Campaign put on McCain, saying that he capitulated to the Communist North Vietnamese while a prisoner of war there and that he did not support veterans, McCain is now trying to get chummy with the Bush White House. He has even gone so far as to start hiring some of Bush’s and Tom DeLay’s political operatives.

According to the Washington Times McCain has hired Terry Nelson who is named in the indictment of Tom DeLay in the Texas money laundering case:
“Terry Nelson, political director for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, was hired by McCain's Straight Talk America PAC, a move the Democratic National Committee immediately jumped on for what it sees as proof of the GOP's "culture of corruption," playing up Nelson's ties to money-laundering charges against DeLay, a Republican U.S. House of Representatives member from Texas."A reputed champion of campaign finance reform, John McCain just hired the middleman in Tom DeLay's money-laundering scheme," the DNC charged.Nelson was deputy chief of staff at the Republican National Committee in 2002 when DeLay employee Jim Ellis allegedly delivered a check to Nelson for $190,000 in corporate contributions. Texas law bars the use of corporate funds for political purposes. Funds later went to seven candidates named in the initial transaction by a non-federal RNC arm.”

So McCain’s play at being a moderate is over. His voting record exposes him as clearly far to the right. According to the Washington Post:
“Mr. McCain is happy to shower benefits on the most fortunate. He recently voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, an action that will worsen the budget deficit while mainly benefiting people with very high incomes.”

And recently McCain’s office has said that he would have signed South Dakota’s new anti-abortion law. So he is clearly onboard with the Religious Right’s battle to take away a woman’s control over her own body. And he is willing to bankrupt the country to make the Corporate Right happy. And he is already talking tough about containing Iran.

So he has abandoned the middle and moved to the right. But will his new friends on the fringes of the right have him? That is a question that has not been answered yet.