Ross talks about the Bacevich and Kmiec endorsements of Obama, which I am likewise inclined to see mainly as statements of how utterly unacceptable they find McCain and the modern GOP, at The Current and also here.  It seems clear to me that both endorsements hinge on foreign policy disagreements with the Bush administration, and both see Obama as a possible improvement over the status quo and in any case much to be preferred to McCain’s promise of more of the same.  On anything else, especially domestic social policy, the problem is fundamentally one of trust: the GOP could say anything at this point on any of a host of issues, and for many conservatives it wouldn’t matter.  Regardless of platform differences and potentially worse domestic policies coming from the other party, the GOP is now seen by many on the right as operationally no better than the Democrats and in many respects much, much worse.  Indeed, because they are for the most part operationally no better, it is that much worse to continue to entrust them with power. 

In their defense, the GOP leadership and its defenders will say, “We gave you Roberts and Alito!  What about the lower court appointments?  What more do you people want?”  Of course, part of the problem for pro-life conservatives who are frustrated with the GOP is that these appointments, while reasonably sound, have accomplished nothing and, if their confirmation testimony is anything to go by, will accomplish nothing as far as these voters are concerned.  This may be an irresoluble problem for the GOP, because it is increasingly difficult to sustain a voting coalition based perpetually deferred hope, which is a result of the original judicial usurpation that took this issue away from the normal deliberative and electoral process.  Having heard the claim, usually not true, that “this is the most important election ever” for determing the future of the Court every four years for the last 30, pro-life conservatives not only begin to feel taken for granted, but also begin to think that their agenda will never really be a top priority for the party so long as their support for the party is basically guaranteed.     

Finding Bacevich’s treatment of life issues lacking, Ross said:

It further remains the case that while overturning Roe wouldn’t magically restore us to some Ozzie-and-Harriet wonderland, returning control over abortion law to the hands of the voting public remains a necessary goal for any pro-life, socially-conservative politics that takes itself seriously as a change agent in American life. And it further remains the case that to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 is to give up on overturning Roe for at least a decade, probably for two, and possibly for all time. These realities may not require pro-lifers to vote for John McCain, but they deserve more serious consideration that Bacevich affords them.

They certainly deserve serious consideration, but in Prof. Bacevich’s defense I think he does not give them more serious consideration than he did because the GOP doesn’t give this issue very serious consideration.  Pro-life voters aren’t blind–they saw a party apparatus that was perfectly willing to embrace the pro-choice Giuliani or the until-very-recently pro-choice Romney, and they saw the vituperation and even hatred shown to Huckabee, one of the most consistently and reliably pro-life candidates in the race, to say nothing of the contempt for Ron Paul, the candidate who secured the endorsment of none other than Norma McCorvey.  Are all these people now supposed to pretend that the party and even conservative movement establishments weren’t openly rooting for the defeat of the pro-life candidates and cheering on Giuliani and Romney?  Considering the utterly disproportionate opposition to the long-shot candidate in Huckabee compared to the extremely positive and friendly treatment meted out to Giuliani and Romney, you could hardly blame a disaffected pro-life conservative for thinking that the GOP’s main priorities are war and money, and that social issues are good for mobilising turnout and nothing else.  

I have made some small effort in discussing the problems of essentially being single-issue voters, whether as pro-lifers or war opponents, at Taki’s Magazine, but that post is really just the starting point for more extensive discussion.  The argument in support of Bacevich and Kmiec’s position would be that voting for a presidential candidate on an issue of war and peace is much more likely to lead to the desired result in the foreseeable future than voting based on the promise of future judicial appointments, whose ultimate decisions in a case many years down the road may or may not lead to the overturning of Roe.  Of course, all of this effort that goes into weighing the pros and cons of this or that candidate assumes that individual votes have any impact on the final outcome, when in almost all cases they don’t, and there is something slightly ridiculous about essentially powerless voters pondering how their votes will affect things on a grand level of national policy.  If one feels compelled to vote, it seems as if it ought to be based on a decision about how well each candidate represents your views and how likely it is that he will represent your interests.  Clearly, except for single-issue antiwar voters, supporting Obama is somethig of a reach for anyone to the right of Lincoln Chafee, which is why the endorsements of Obama are largely anti-endorsements of the opposing party.  It’s the old “he can’t possibly be any worse” logic, when, of course, he can be worse in many ways.  That does not mean that he will be, but the easy assumption that he almost has to be an improvement is one that many people made about then-Gov. Bush, much to their later chagrin.  Pessimism reminds us that it is hope that is the dangerous, distorting force in our politics, as it causes us to act against our own interests and to believe things that we would normally never believe.    

Ross’ Current piece is especially interesting to me, since the title (“Catholics for Obama”) draws attention to one of Obama’s consistent weaknesses in state after state, which is, as Ross notes, his weakness with Catholic voters.  The coverage of Bob Casey’s endorsement, like the Kennedy and Kerry endorsements before them, also highlights this weakness, since it would not be considered so important except that Casey is an at least nominally pro-life Catholic in Pennsylvania.  What Ross might have emphasised more is what Bacevich and Kmiec have in common, both with each other and with Obama.  All of them are academics, and I suspect that Obama’s professorial manner has something to do with winning them over.  Perhaps less important, but potentially relevant, Kmiec and Obama share some similar background in the study of law, and Bacevich, as a much more advanced scholar of international relations, has something in common with Obama in that Obama was an IR student in his youth.  This is a kind of identification that many Catholic Democratic voters, whether in Pennsylvania or elsewhere, cannot make with Obama, and may actually be a hindrance to their identification with him.

Update: Jim Antle joins the conversation.

Filed under: foreign policy, politics