Peter Beinart had an <a href=”http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1046039846312083903-search,00.html?collection=wsjie/30day&vql_string=Beinart(article-body)” target=”_blank”> excellent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal yesterday (subscription required, I think). He argues that the Democratic Party needs a John McCain of their own. “They need someone to incite a rebellion against the party’s base, someone who will risk pariah status to lay the groundwork for the long-term ideological reconstruction of the Democratic Party.” Beinart identifies two central problems with the Democratic Party right now: Al Sharpton and Iraq, which is to say race and foreign policy. The party is in the process of coronating Al Sharpton as a leader of the party and make him if not a king than a racial kingmaker. Meanwhile on foreign policy, the party is incoherent at best and pacifist at its base. He argues that a Democratic McCain-type would and should denounce Sharpton in much the same way that McCain denounced Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell:

Mr. McCain’s insurgency wasn’t based simply on a compelling persona; it was based on a frontal assault on the principles of the post-Gingrich GOP. With his support for campaign-finance reform Mr. McCain attacked the Republican Party’s alliance with K Street; with his denunciation of George W. Bush’s proposed tax cut he took aim at supply-side economics; and with his condemnation of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, he took on the Christian Right. It was an ideological kamikaze mission, an attempt, as people like William Kristol understood at the time, to blow up the post-cold war GOP and begin anew.
Not surprisingly, Mr. McCain lost. But his overwhelming support among independents, and Al Gore’s subsequent victory in the popular vote, suggest that a Republican Party built upon the twin pillars of corporate special-interest and evangelical moralism did indeed have feet of clay. I suspect that had 9/11 not come along, and re-established Republicans as the hawkish party in an era dominated by national security, Mr. McCain’s insurgency might eventually have transformed the GOP.

Beinart’s certainly correct when he predicts that a Democrat running against Sharpton and for war would lose the nomination. Indeed it’s hard to imagine any Democrat following his advice. Also, I think his analysis misses something about McCain. Attacking K-Street and special interests does not run against the grain of conservative voters. Running for mainstreet not Wall Street — or K Street — has been a winning cause of the conservative base of the GOP for a generation at least. Opposition to supply-side economics — while unpopular — is not a career-killer. After all, George H.W. Bush coined the phrase voodoo economics and was still picked as a the Gipper’s runningmate because he represented a sizable portion of the GOP. As for running against the Religious Right, yes McCain did deliver a powerful speech against Falwell and Robertson, but, if memory serves, that was only after it was clear his campaign was doomed. Until then, his conflict with religious conservatives was narrowly focused on the issue of campaign finance reform. The speech was a huge Hail Mary pass delivered, some believe, only after the McCain campaign convinced itself that winning the praise of The New York Times and The New Republic could win you votes in Republican Primaries.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see a Democratic McCain emerge and challenge the Democratic race-mongering machine and its McGovernite peacenickery (and it’s pro-abortion extremism). But finding a Democrat to run against pretty much everything the Democratic Party is will be pretty damn hard.