McCain’s Maverick Status Belies Party-Line Record

He’s a lawmaker who voted the party line of the religious right for years. He has opposed gun control, abortion and minimum-wage increases. In the 1996 presidential campaign, his candidate of choice was archconservative Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas).

So why is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) the darling of so many people who would never dream of calling themselves conservative?

McCain’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination depends heavily on his reputation as a maverick who defies party leaders on issues such as campaign finance reform and anti-tobacco legislation. He reinforced that image Tuesday by detailing a tax policy flouting conventional GOP wisdom that, when it comes to cutting taxes, more is better.

But a look at the record of his 17 years in Congress shows that on most key issues McCain is squarely in line with his party’s conservative majority.

“This maverick business is overstated because of a handful of issues that have become high profile,” said Gramm. “He’s campaigning on [those issues] because it’s an area where he’s different.”

The combination of McCain’s conservative voting record and his campaign’s iconoclastic persona points to a basic challenge he faces in building a broad coalition for his White House hopes: Many party regulars are put off by his reformist streak, but ticket-splitters may be alienated by his voting record.

“He hasn’t been talking about things that are important to Republicans,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who is supporting the presidential bid of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

That may be so, but in Congress McCain has voted consistently for such GOP staples as tax cuts and spending restraint. From 1992 to 1997, he sided with the Christian Coalition on almost every key vote identified by the group. And as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he has championed pro-business legislation to reduce regulation and exposure to litigation.

And yet, as McCain hones his presidential candidacy, some of the sharp edges of his record have grown subtly smoother. As a result, he has come under attack from powerful GOP constituencies who accuse him of backing away from their causes to advance his own ambitions.

Would Use Surplus to Fix Social Security

Despite a litany of anti-tax votes, McCain in his Tuesday speech called for using most of any future federal budget surpluses to shore up Social Security, while cutting taxes by $240 billion over five years--nearly half as much as has been proposed by Bush, the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

Even before McCain unveiled his plan, he dismayed his onetime anti-tax allies with a scathing attack on the $792-billion tax cut the GOP pushed through Congress in 1999. Ultimately, he was strong-armed by party leaders into voting for the bill (which President Clinton vetoed).

“That was grandstanding” for the presidential campaign, said Grover Norquist, a leading anti-tax activist.

Similarly, after years of voting against a stream of gun control measures, McCain last year supported mandatory background checks at gun shows (an initiative that remains stalled in the House).

McCain’s Christian Coalition rating, after years of perfect 100% scores, dropped to 73% in 1998 as he split from the group on issues such as campaign finance reform.

And despite a solid anti-abortion voting record, remarks he has made during the campaign are regarded by some abortion foes as waffling.

“McCain is in the process of abandoning any commitment to the pro-life cause because it conflicts with his deepest commitment: to cultivate the approval of the media elites,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.

McCain aides deny he is wavering on conservative causes. They blame the sniping on the GOP establishment’s opposition to his campaign finance bill.

At heart, the difference between McCain and other congressional conservatives may be a matter of style more than substance. McCain is less polarizing, more willing to reach across the aisle and less virulently anti-government.

“There’s no question he’s a conservative, but he’s not an ideological conservative,” said David Cohen, a lobbyist for a variety of liberal causes. “All liberals have their favorite Republicans, and for some years McCain has been in that category.”

The early stages of McCain’s campaign focused more on his life story--particularly his war hero status as a former POW--than his stands on the issues. But his four years in the House and 13 in the Senate provide a detailed road map to his positions on major policy questions.

McCain came to the House by capturing an open seat in 1982. As a junior member of the minority party, he had little influence on legislation. But he soon emerged as the heir apparent to Barry Goldwater’s Senate seat. Goldwater retired in 1986, and McCain was easily elected.

McCain’s political career hit its first big bump in 1989, when he came under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee as part of the “Keating Five”--five senators accused of improperly intervening with federal regulators on behalf of a savings and loan after receiving campaign contributions from its owner, Charles H. Keating Jr. The committee ultimately concluded that McCain “exercised poor judgment” but did nothing improper. Still, it was a grueling experience for McCain, who believed he had been unfairly kept part of the case because he was the only Republican of the five.

The controversy helped propel McCain to the forefront of the campaign finance reform movement, which seeks to limit the influence of special interests. “The lesson Sen. McCain learned from the Keating Five is that not only do you have to be extremely sensitive to what you do in Washington but to the appearance of what you do,” said Nancy Ives, a McCain spokeswoman.

McCain’s push for campaign reform has incurred the wrath of party leaders who say it would hurt the GOP’s ability to compete with Democrats and their labor union supporters. His measure also has drawn fierce opposition from interest groups that are core GOP supporters--including the National Right to Life Committee and the National Rifle Assn.--whose influence could be severely limited by the bill.

Additionally, McCain angered other Republicans by pushing anti-tobacco legislation in 1998 that would have imposed sharp increases in cigarette taxes and new regulation on the tobacco industry.

It was a huge legislative endeavor that was thrust upon McCain, who had shown little interest in the issue. But as chairman of the Commerce Committee, he was assigned by Senate leaders the job of drafting a bill to carry out the landmark agreement between the tobacco industry and its legal adversaries.

The measure he helped craft passed the committee, 19 to 1, but fell apart on the Senate floor, where it came under attack from both sides of the emotionally charged issue. Some debate participants wonder if a more experienced committee chairman might have won the bill’s passage, but others argue it is amazing McCain carried it as far as he did.

McCain’s Commerce Committee chairmanship, a post he has held since 1997, has thrust him into the center of several other business issues. In 1999, he shepherded legislation to limit companies’ exposure to lawsuits arising from the year 2000 computer glitch. In 1998, he helped establish a three-year moratorium on taxation of Internet sales. In 1997, he helped negotiate an agreement with television networks to establish a voluntary rating system in exchange for a promise that Congress would not legislate on the issue for three years.

Last week, his use of the chairman’s power came into question because of reports that he recently wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission--an agency the Commerce Committee oversees--urging quick action on a business matter affecting a major campaign contributor. McCain responded that he merely sought to prod the FCC to a decision, not influence its ruling. But critics said the incident tarnished his reformer image.

On other issues, McCain long has been a hawk on defense spending and intervention abroad but has brought a skeptical eye to weapon systems and military engagements he thinks ineffective. He was a staunch supporter of President Reagan’s aid to the contras in Nicaragua but opposed his deployment of Marines to Lebanon. He backed the Reagan-era Pentagon buildup but fought the Sea Wolf submarine and other projects he regarded as “pork barrel” spending.

His crusade against pork--and his more general fiscal conservatism--made him one of 20 Republicans to vote against the 1998 budget deal cut by Clinton and GOP leaders that was larded with special projects.

His opposition to special interest subsidies fueled McCain’s ambivalence about the 1999 tax cut, which he said was riddled with big breaks for favored lobbies. He nearly voted against the bill despite his anti-tax record. In 1990, for example, he was one of 22 Senate Republicans to vote against a budget negotiated by President Bush because it would raise taxes.

On gun control, McCain voted for years against major initiatives, including the Brady bill, which set a three-day waiting period for handgun purchases, and an assault weapon ban. But some gun advocates now worry about his support for mandatory checks at gun shows and recent statements he has made criticizing Republicans for their handling of the issue.

“He’s said a number of things that have been squirrelly, to say the least,” said one gun lobbyist who asked not to be named.

Tolerant of ‘Differing Views’ on Abortion

On abortion, McCain has consistently supported legislation to ban “partial birth” abortions and other restrictions on abortion. But he also has urged his party to be tolerant of “differing views” on the subject. And he infuriated anti-abortion leaders when, in an interview last summer, he said: “Certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade,” the Supreme Court’s decision establishing women’s right to abortion.

McCain later retreated from that comment, but Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee remains skeptical.

McCain aides argue that his harshest critics are simply trying to distort his conservative credentials as a way to derail a candidacy that scares them.

“These are the extremists that see Sen. McCain’s message of conservative reform gaining momentum across the country,” said Ives, his spokeswoman. “These are a small group of people in Washington whose livelihood and causes would be affected by changing the status quo.”

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‘RADICAL RECIPE’: McCain pledges to cut taxes by $240 billion over five years and save Social Security. A14