Will McCain Jump?
A symposium with Dick Morris, Russ Smith, Kate O’Beirne, & Mark R. Levin.

Compiled by Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor
June 4, 2001 12:10 p.m.

Dick Morris, columnist, New York Post & president, Vote.com
I do not think that McCain will leave the GOP this year. I think that there is little for him to gain and much for him to lose in the animosity of Republicans. He is pro-life, anti-tax, and basically a conservative, so there is no reason to leave.

I do believe that McCain may become an independent and run for president in 2004 against Bush. I think that he would have a very good chance to win in that event. Bush is drifting too far to the right and the Democratic field is very weak. The thing about McCain is, once he takes a lead, he'll be hard to dislodge with the kinds of negatives that brought Perot down. He's been through a race already and his background well vetted and with his war-hero record, it will be hard to attack him personally.

McCain, not any Democrat, is the big threat for Bush in 2004.

Russ Smith, editor-in-chief, New York Press
I have about as much respect for John McCain as I do for David Bonior. Yes, I think he'll leave the GOP: The timing will be determined by his ego and need for further media attention. President Bush ought to monitor McCain's various acts of betrayal, but not be consumed by him. He has as much control over McCain as he does over the New York Times or the Washington Post. There is an upside: If McCain decides to run for president, perhaps he'll hire David Brooks, the "conservative" Gail Sheehy of his generation, and thus take this awful journalist out of public circulation.

Kate O'Beirne, Washington editor, National Review
Now that newly liberated Minority Leader Trent Lott no longer has to cater to his whims, the odds are that John McCain, fueled by anger and envy, will bolt the GOP. Sen. McCain is convinced that an inferior man cheated him out of last year's nomination, and John McCain can't allow the media adulation Jim Jeffords enjoyed following his defection to cut into his base. If hero status was conferred on the "media shy" Jeffords, just imagine the reception that awaits McCain when he throws off the shackles of a Republican party that doesn't deserve him.

Once Sen. McCain goes Independent, the McCainiacs will get to work defining George Bush as a failure, to lay the ground for a 2004 challenge. The sooner McCain makes his switch, the better for the GOP. Republicans can then stop pretending he is a valued member of their team, and conservatives will have plenty of time to appreciate that there's nothing conservative about the Arizona senator.

Mark R. Levin, a former Reagan administration official
Will John McCain leave the Republican party? Well, let's see if the man is worth having in the first place. He's a politician of average wits and a rapacious ego, who has an obsessive-compulsive need to trash conservatives in order to curry favor with an adoring liberal media. He voted against President Bush's tax cut, the keystone of the administration's economic program. Yet, McCain joins Ted Kennedy in promoting national health care, supports Joe Lieberman in advancing gun control, and teams with Russ Feingold in advocating speech control. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, John McCain is an immodest man with much to be modest about. But, if the Democrats are so enamored with McCain, I assume there's room in their "big tent" to accommodate him.