Your humble Goliard concurs with Jonah Goldberg’s post on the tone of things primary-related in The Corner as of late. Part of the problem, as already mused on, is that it’s so soon. It’s not even Groundhog Day, for crying out loud…so unless Senator McCain was a person’s enthusiastic first choice all along, some level of freakout is only to be expected.

I also agree that a transactional relationship seems preferable right now…if one can rely on the transaction. Yet something in me remains wary. The incentives in Washington all run against a Republican staying bought (forgive me if I put that too delicately), so it’ll take a rock-solid faith in McCain staying true to both the letter and spirit of his promises for me to be solidly on board, no matter how attractive the promises he is willing to make, and no matter how much I like him generally.

The “one of us” path seems so attractive by contrast because it’s hard to rely on transactional promises from a Republican—much harder, I believe, than such promises from a Democrat. I can think of three reasons for this.

First, the Democratic party is more structurally based on discrete special interest groups, and transactional politics is more of a habit and acquired skill. Republicans are less likely to be adept at playing this game, and more likely to feel (unjustifiably) sleazy when they try.

Second, the risk-reward ratio is wildly different for, say, a Democrat who makes certain promises to NOW but then cuts a deal on social issues with Phyllis Schlafly, than the other way around. (No “growing” in office, no Strange New Respect, no breakthrough in popularity on the Washington cocktail-party circuit for such a Democrat!) The Republican has to constantly swim upstream in Washington to stay bought; the Democrat doesn’t.

Third, and closely related, there is not a powerful Left-is-evil, Right-is-virtuous paradigm constantly threatening to seduce orthodox Democrats into betraying their own side. Whereas there is a real sense in which many Republicans—both President Bushes very much included—feel a sense of virtue and relief and expiation of sins (mostly, the sins of not being liberal and of associating with icky conservatives) when they are able to work together with Ted Kennedy. Washington Democrats, by contrast, are far more likely to simply feel like they need a shower when cutting a deal with Newt Gingrich or Gary Bauer.

Your humble Goliard has been banging on his high chair (as Jonah would put it) about this last bit for ages, trying to popularize the term “Reverse Goldwater”: “In their hearts, they know they’re wrong.” (Or, at the very least, right-but-wicked.) And my Reverse Goldwater alarm bells really got set off by the recent John Fund/Alito quote controversy. The purported quote from McCain about Alito “wearing his conservatism on his sleeve”, and therefore perhaps not being a suitable nominee for a President McCain, could be taken to mean that:

a) He buys into the double standard that grows from the evil-virtuous paradigm, where Justice Ginsburg’s history as chief litigator of the ACLU’s women’s rights project is normal and unobjectionable, if not actually virtuous, whereas Justice Alito’s signing up with the Concerned Alumni of Princeton at one point decades ago is a Very Serious Problem and a sign that he wears his conservatism on his sleeve. (A conservatism that, being inherently wicked, must be kept more discreet than that…preferably over a person’s entire adult life.)

b) He feels that Washington piety demands that he meet the Left halfway and disavow at least one of President Bush’s high court nominees, to demonstrate that he’s a reasonable man and not one of “those” conservatives.

Either way (or, worse, both ways) it put a good scare into me.

So, bottom line, what do I want to be assured of by McCain? Not that he agrees with me on everything, or will never cross the aisle—nothing like that. What I need to be secure in is simply the following:

1) That he considers the conservative movement to be full of good people, who have positions on the issues that are usually reasonable, honorable, and well-thought out—even when he disagrees with them.

2) That he acknowledges conservatives have the right to raise and debate any and all issues they care about, even if some such issues are ones he would rather not deal with, or that he and the Democrats regard as too icky, “divisive”, or unfair to allow discussion of. (Recent cloakroom whisperings have made this a high priority.)

3) That he will always give respected conservative leaders a fair hearing, disagreeing with and opposing them if he chooses—but on the merits of the issues, not because he dislikes them or is irritated by them, or is scared off by the Left’s anathematizing of them.

4) That he will regard opponents on his left and right equally, taking equal pleasure in building bridges to the right as he does in building bridges to the left…and taking equal pleasure in poking liberal Democrats in the eye as he does in poking conservative Republicans in the eye. (A real maverick bucks both ways, after all.)

Oh, yes, and one more thing: absolutely, positively, no Souters! (Or Mierses, or even O’Connors.)