by Frank James
Sen. John McCain received the endorsement of President George H. W. Bush today, the current president’s father.
Explaining his reasons for embracing McCain, “41,” as his son President Bush has been known to call him, or Poppy, the Bush family’s name for him, said:
“As someone who also helped lead our great party at the RNC (Republican National Committee) and as president, I believe now is the right time to help John in his effort to start building the broad-based coalition it will take for our conservative values to carry the white House this fall.”
There was a bit of irony in that statement which included the term “conservative values” since Bush was viewed with suspicion, before and during his own presidency, by conservatives within his party, many of whom saw him as a crypto-moderate despite his efforts to mollify them.
For many conservatives, it was a suspicion that was vindicated when he as president accepted tax increases as part of a budget-deficit reduction plan that contradicted the “no new taxes” pledge he made with a great flourish at the 1988 Republican National Convention.
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So it’s unclear how exactly Bush the elder will help McCain. McCain already attracts the kind of Republican moderates who had no quarrel with Bush the First. The senator from Arizona’s problem is with conservatives. The former president doesn’t do much for him there.