Get Herald RSSIt's a general rule in American politics that - while voters may be averse to notions of defeat or surrender - they by and large do not respond well to promises to send their children to die in far-off conflicts.
Which is why John McCain's already improbable candidacy deserves recognition for yet another feat of improbability. On Jan. 27, McCain assured a group of supporters, "It's a tough war we're in. It's not going to be over right away. There's going to be other wars." With those words, McCain entered the record books. He may be the first viable presidential candidate in American history - nay, perhaps even world history - who has run a campaign based on a pledge to launch more wars.
Indeed, in most presidential elections of the modern era, it's the "peace candidate" who's won the day. Though their policies may have changed after inauguration, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon all ran, regarding the major conflicts of their time, as candidates who would most quickly and effectively ensure peace and avoid war. Even the great war-monger of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler, couched his venomous rhetoric, condemnations of the Treaty of Versailles and demands for German expansion in the - obviously false - context of desiring peace.
Of course, McCain would likely respond that, while other candidates merely pander to the peace-loving whims of the electorate, he offers honest "straight-talk." This may be true. While Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pledge to ensure American security through diplomacy and multilateralism, it's possible that, as president, either one would find the unrivaled might of the American military too tempting a hammer for the various nails challenging our national interests around the globe. Meanwhile, John McCain, riding his famous "Straight Talk Express," retrofitted with cluster-bombs and tactical nukes, offers the hard truth. Soothed only by the sunny sounds of California beaches, he sang his foreign policy perspective in Beach Boys parody at a rally last April, "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."
Although America's enemies in past struggles - Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungry, the Nazis and the Empire of Japan, the Soviet Union - were indisputably more intractable and far more deadly that our current opponents (however one chooses to define them), our viable presidential candidates nevertheless proffered promises of peace. Whether or not their words reflected honest intentions is irrelevant - in an American political campaign, peace is a historically winning strategy. Is it possible that John McCain is just so candid, so committed to the "straight talk" of pledging more wars, so unique in his dedication to an honest exposition of his perspective, that he stands as a beacon of truthfulness in the otherwise mendacious darkness of American presidential politics?
The answer, of course, lies partly in which wing of contemporary American political discourse one inhabits. To those who see the rise of radical Islamism as a direct and violent challenge to America's existential and physical survival, McCain simply reports the cold facts of how this threat must be countered. This is why even the most arch-conservative McCain-haters can't help but feel stimulated when the candidate titillates them with war-talk. On the other hand, Americans who see terrorism in the context of poverty, dictatorship and American intervention believe that McCain's belligerence is misguided and fanatical - and that it might actually produce more enemies.
Yet I'm inclined to see McCain's historic break with the successful precedent of presidential peace-promises as less an honest statement of the facts, or a foolish manifestation of extremist war-mongering, than an example of old-fashioned, practical campaign strategy. McCain's candidacy is built on the premise that voters will support him - despite any disagreements over policy - because he is perceived to say what he really believes. On issues like immigration, torture and the war, McCain has actually emphasized his controversial positions in order to foster his image as a "straight talker."
Of course, the flip-side of this approach is that the candidate must nurture this representation by continuously affecting a rhetoric which seems to uncompromisingly offer unpopular truths. This is no more honest than our previous presidents' broken promises of peace.
Executing a classic maneuver of political strategy, McCain has attempted to triangulate his threats from both the conservative base of his party and the more liberal moderates he needs to win the national election. On the right, McCain stokes the frenzy of the remaining neo-conservatives and security-voters who want unilateral action from the American military to neutralize our perceived terrorist and state enemies. On the left, moderate voters more skeptical of the wisdom of war nevertheless find themselves drawn to McCain's perceived frankness and sincerity.
Thus, the reason for McCain's first-in-history promise of more wars can be found in the contours of the contemporary political landscape, not in any unique honesty on the part of the senator. After years of plastic, dishonest and opinion-poll driven candidates, voters crave a president who will unapologetically offer what they don't want to hear (witness the humiliating, though hilarious, defeat of the practically manufactured Republican Mitt Romney). Peace continues to be what most American voters most desire, which is why, for the first time, we have paradoxically selected a candidate who pledges war.
The multitude of issues on which John McCain has failed to deliver or stand by his supposed "straight talk" - comprehensive immigration reform, the Bush tax-cuts, the intolerance of Christian evangelicals - should provide enough evidence that the candidate does not have some exclusive preserve of candor, nor is he immune from the practical strategies of political pandering. He has marketed himself as an uncompromising teller of uncomfortable truths, and now he must maintain that image by taking positions, and adopting rhetoric, which seem to offer voters a reality which they don't want but, somehow, must accept.
This is brilliant political maneuvering, not integrity. If elected, John McCain may or may not become the war-president that his campaign promises portend. But the American people should not feel obligated to select a candidate who affects an image of "straight talk" by resisting our historical, and contemporary, yearning for peace.
Jacob Schuman '08 has a competition in him
is a member of the 
