McCain Continues to Prove Himself the Enemy of the Grassroots

My latest essay at Pajamas Media is up today, "McCain Continues to Prove Himself the Enemy of the Grassroots":

The timing was impeccable. On the day after HarperCollins released the cover photo for Going Rogue — Sarah Palin’s highly anticipated autobiography — Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s former chief campaign advisor, predicted that if Palin were to win the 2012 GOP nomination, “we would have a catastrophic election result.” It was Schmidt, a veteran Republican strategist, who first advised Senator McCain to select Palin as his running mate in 2008. And it was Schmidt who first criticized Governor Palin within the McCain camp as “going rogue.” Asked how Palin’s book might describe their relationship during the election, Schmidt suggested that perhaps he was the “anti-rogue in the running of the campaign.”

Schmidt’s comments provide a nice backdrop to a recent report at Politico (”McCain’s Mission: A GOP Makeover.”) It turns out that the Arizona senator has been positioning himself as a major power broker within the Republican Party hierarchy. He is identified in the article as the party’s titular head; and the erstwhile presidential nominee has been raising money for moderate GOP candidates and hitting the campaign trail for pragmatic allies. As noted in the article:

“I think he’s endorsed people with center-right politics because he has an understanding that the party is in trouble with certain demographics and wants to have a tone that would allow us to grow,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is McCain’s closest friend and ally in the Senate.

“At a time when our party is struggling and has a lot of shrill voices and aggressive voices, he’s one that can expand our party,” said John Weaver, a longtime McCain friend and strategist.

This meme of McCain’s reemergence as the GOP’s elder statesman and centrist savior is not likely to go down well among grassroots conservatives.

Read the whole thing at the link.