A lot of email came in overnight chastising me for even the most grudging praise of McCain. And while I said I’m well aware of the criticisms, I thought this one summarizes (some of) them well. From a reader:

Jonah, The big problem with McCain is that he repeatedly takes a high profile stand for the Democrats on important partisan issues. He does this on important policies like W’s tax cuts and torture legislation, and of course campaign finance. Even on the war he has often given credibility to the left’s rhetoric about Rumsfeld, torture, administration incompetence, etc., even though he’s been solid on the core substance. Its not just that he occasionally votes with the Democrats, its that he’s willing to become their chief spokesman when he does it. Sure he may hold conservative views on 80% of the issues, but the other 20% seems to be what he really cares about. Sort of the opposite of Giuliani: Rudy is solidly conservative on his forefront issues but liberal on issues that are minor for him but very important to the base. McCain is liberal on his forefront issues, except for the war, though conservative on issues that are minor for him but very important to the base. Big danger with a moderate is that the liberal positions will become law because they’ll be able to pull enough Republicans over to join the Democrats while conservative views get bogged down in partisanship – think Bill Clinton reforming welfare, cutting taxes and expanding the death penalty while never getting very far with his liberal agenda. I think this is more worrisome for McCain because he hasn’t shown much interest in sticking his neck out for conservative positions other than the war. Maybe he’ll be different as a President, but as a Senator he’s just been the New York Times’ favorite Republican. Great on the war to be sure, but most of the Republican candidates are pretty solid on that front.