McCain NYTimes Interview: Roosevelt Conservative

[weslinder]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/u...r=1&adxnnlx=1215964935-KMmFfmTA6EZK1D 1ERcerA

Read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt:

Q: How do you think of your self as a conservative. Do you think of yourself more as a Goldwater conservative or Reagan conservative or George W. Bush conservative.

Senator John McCain: A Teddy Roosevelt conservative, I think. He’s probably my major role model, we could go back to Lincoln, of course. In the 20th century Teddy Roosevelt. I think Teddy Roosevelt he had a great vision of America’s role in the 20th Century. He was a great environmentalist. He loved the country. He is the person who brought the government into a more modern – into the 20th century as well. He was probably engaged more in national security slash international affairs that any president ever been. I understand that TR had failings. I understand that every one of my role models had failings. TR became embittered at the end, we all know that. If you look at his presidency, if you looked at his reformist agenda from the time he was the police commissioner in New York City…..

Q: Would you consider Roosevelt a conservative? Didn’t the modern conservative movement began with Senator Goldwater?

Mr. McCain: I think there’s always been tensions within the Republican Party. David Halberstam’s book was – The Coldest Winter– really gives a good demonstration of the tensions within the Republican Party long before Goldwater. ..

“I think what Goldwater was able to do is he kind of wrenched the control of the party out of the hands of the quote Eastern establishment of the party and sort of moved it into a long-term more populist kind of and more – well Ronald Reagan was able to turn it into a majority, even though Barry turned it into one of the major landslide defeats in American history. Now those Barry Goldwater followers like me would say it was because the tragedy of Dallas. But still, you know.

I think there’s always been tensions within the Republican Party. There’s a more isolationist wing, a more protectionist wing, there’s been the more internationalist.

 

[PhantomPhoenix]

Interesting. Was TR the first interventionist, then?

If only Goldwater had been president. Too bad Lee Harvey Oswald defeated him, because I think that a Goldwater administration would have been just the thing to subvert the growth of government that ended up continuing to this day, and will continue under McCain or Obama. Edit: Oh right, but McCain is going to be a total big-government "conservative" and this proves it.