ANALYSIS

Palin Brings McCain's Critics Rushing To His Side

Weyrich, Schlafly And Others Say They'll Fight For A Ticket That Includes The Alaska Governor

by Kirk Victor

Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008


About a month ago, conservative activist Paul Weyrich delivered a message to John McCain's campaign managers: The Republican presidential candidate should make Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin his running mate. Weyrich even dared McCain. "I don't believe he's got the guts to do it," he told a campaign staffer.

The pitch from the tenacious Weyrich, who heads the conservative Free Congress Foundation, might have been the kiss of death even though it was shared by others on the Right, because Weyrich and McCain have battled bitterly over the years. Their clash underscores McCain's fierce loyalty to friends and his pugnacity toward those who cross him.

Weyrich told National Journal earlier this year that he questioned whether McCain had the temperament to be commander in chief because he was too hot-headed.

McCain has been equally scathing. "Weyrich possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain," he wrote in his 2002 book, Worth the Fighting For. "Corpulent and dyspeptic, his mouth set in a perpetual sneer as if life in general were an unpleasant experience, he is the embodiment of the caricature often used to unfairly malign all religious conservatives." McCain added: "I like to think I know a pompous, self-serving son of a bitch when I see one."

That ferocity was prompted by Weyrich's testimony that helped torpedo the nomination of John Tower, McCain's mentor and friend, to be Defense secretary in 1989. Weyrich charged that Tower was a womanizer with a drinking problem.

Today, with the selection of Palin, all is forgiven. McCain understood the stakes, Weyrich said. "He realized he had to listen to the base -- the base was clamoring for her."

And what about McCain's temperament? "He wants this [election] bad enough that he has been restrained," Weyrich told NJ. "I figured he'd be blowing up all over the place. He hasn't. Not once. He has shown extraordinary discipline."

"Palin is right on every issue -- she's better than he is," Weyrich added. "She's for drilling in Alaska and he's not. She doesn't support [the campaign finance law] McCain-Feingold and he does. She's good on immigration and he isn't."

Weyrich even said he will publicly endorse McCain -- a move he resisted when the senator from Arizona asked him earlier this year. "I was going to swallow hard and vote against Obama," Weyrich said. "Now I actually have a reason to vote for McCain."

Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative firebrand who has been at every convention since 1952, is another skeptic who has done an about-face. She adamantly disagreed with McCain's approach to immigration that allowed people illegally in the U.S. to pursue a path to citizenship by satisfying various criteria.

Calling the selection of Palin "brilliant," Schlafly, an alternate delegate from Missouri, said of her differences with McCain: "We'll just have a good platform and hope that McCain catches up."

James Dobson, head of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, who had vowed not to vote for McCain, also switched. "A lot of people were praying, and I believe Sarah Palin is God's answer," Dobson said at a lunchtime meeting of conservative leaders in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Steve Scheffler, an Iowa delegate and president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, changed his tune from a month ago when he gave McCain a C or C-plus on issues. "Picking Palin ignites the bonfire -- people will be excited," he said. "I will walk on broken glass or do whatever I can to get this team elected."

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