That's The Ticket
This column from The New Republic was written by Andrew Sullivan.
There is one obvious possible result of the Abu Ghraib fiasco, and it affects the presidential election profoundly: It has, I think, made the possibility of a Kerry-McCain ticket much more imaginable. In fact, in some ways, a Kerry-McCain pairing would be an almost painfully appropriate response to the recent loss of confidence both in the war and in the Kerry candidacy. Such a bipartisan ticket remains highly unlikely, but recent events make it less so.
Here's why. There is no one better suited in the country to tackle a difficult war where the United States is credibly accused of abusing prisoners than John McCain. He was, after all, a victim of the worst kind of prisoner torture imaginable in the Hanoi Hilton. His military credentials are impeccable but so are his moral scruples and backbone; that's a rare combination. As a vice-presidential candidate, he would allow Kerry to criticize the conduct of the war and occupation, but also to pursue them credibly. He would give Kerry credibility on national defense, removing the taint of an "antiwar" candidacy headed by a man who helped pioneer the antiwar forces during Vietnam. He would ensure that a Kerry victory would not be interpreted by America's allies or enemies as a decision to cut and run from Iraq.
In office, McCain could be given real authority as a war-manager, providing a counterweight to Kerry's penchant for U.N.-style non-solutions. There's a precedent for such a powerful vice-president who could not credibly be believed to have designs on the Oval Office himself: Dick Cheney. Why no credible ambitions for the presidency himself? If McCain agreed to run with Kerry, he would also have to agree to support Kerry for possible reelection. There's no way that McCain could credibly run for president in eight years' time -- as a Democrat or as a Republican. So he could become for Kerry what Cheney has been for Bush: a confidant, a manager, a strategic mind, a guide through the thicket of war-management. But he could also be more for Kerry: He could be a unifying force in the country in the dark days ahead.
Domestically, a Kerry-McCain ticket would also go a long way toward healing the Vietnam wound, now rubbed raw again by recent events in Iraq. The two men represent very different responses to that war, and could help unite their generation -- finally! -- over it. To have two combat veterans up against Bush and Cheney would also eviscerate Republican attempts to paint Kerry as weak on defense and in the war on terror. Besides, McCain represents a real and utterly unrepresented constituency in America: the fiscally conservative, socially tolerant hawks, usually described as "independents." By bringing these people into the Democratic big tent, Kerry could not only win the election, but help position the Democrats to regain majority status. It would be, for the Democrats, a strategic coup de main.
McCain, of course, is a Republican. But he has worked with many Democrats, including Kerry, and has been systematically excluded by the increasingly fundamentalist caste of the Republican establishment. On domestic issues, such as campaign finance reform, corporate scandals, and the deficit, he might actually be more comfortable in conservative Democratic ranks. He is pro-life, which makes him anathema to Democrats. But this year, with Kerry under fire from the Catholic hierarchy on the abortion question, picking McCain would enable the Democratic candidate to insist that there is real diversity within his own party, and that he respects those who disagree with him on abortion. His position would remain the same, but he could go a long way to reversing the unfortunate litmus test among Democrats and Republicans that abortion has become.
Would McCain agree? The one sticking point has been his loyalty to his party. That counts for something. But we are now in a national crisis of confidence in the middle of a crucial war. The next president, whomever he is, may well have to encounter seismic shocks from new terrorist atrocities in America and the world. Under those circumstances, America cannot afford more polarization, partisan division, and acrimony. In parliamentary democracies, such crises sometimes provoke the formation of a "national government" in which both major parties serve together. (People forget that Churchill staffed his war cabinet with a plethora of Laborites.) The American tradition demands otherwise. But the need to heal divisions and yet fight on in Iraq and around the world would lead naturally to a particularly American version of the national government in the shape of a unity ticket.
McCain could say that this national crisis demands that he put country ahead of party and serve. His loyalty to his party would therefore be trumped by loyalty to his country. Kerry could also say that his impulse is to be a "uniter, not a divider," and that, unlike Bush, he will actually show it in his pick for the vice-presidency. Their platform? Winning the war, cutting the deficit, reforming corporate excess. A Kerry-McCain ticket, regardless of the many difficulties, would, I think, win in a landslide. Will it happen? Still unlikely. But Abu Ghraib has shortened the odds; and the arguments for such a dramatic innovation just got a lot stronger.
Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at TNR.
By Andrew Sullivan
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