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Opinion L.A.

Opinion: Chapter and verse on a litmus test

By Michael McGough
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The Wall Street Journal has published on its website the text of the proposed 10-point checklist for determining whether a Republican candidate is orthodox enough to benefit from the party’s endorsement and fund-raising.

The affirmations issues are quite a mixed bag. Some are perennial and cosmic, such as: ‘We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.’ Others are micro-specific and could be obsolescent by the time they are proposed to the Republican National Committee in January. Take: ‘We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare.’ In January, they might have to change ‘oppose’ to ‘opposed.’

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And, even if you’re a true-blue conservative, is legislation opposing ‘card check’ as a way to organize unions as big a deal as abortion or the right to keep and bear arms? Presumably not, but all of the propositions are weighted the same. As George W. Bush said of Al Gore’s economic proposals, this is fuzzy math.

-- Michael McGough

Opinion L.A.
Michael McGough

Michael McGough is the Los Angeles Times’ former senior editorial writer, based in Washington, D.C. He wrote editorials for The Times from 2006 to 2021. Before that, McGough worked for 30 years for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a reporter, editorial writer, editorial page editor and Washington correspondent. He wrote about law, national security, politics, foreign policy and religion. McGough is a graduate of Allegheny College and also attended the University of Kent at Canterbury in England and Yale Law School, where he received a master of studies in law degree.

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