What John can teach David
- 1 Oct 06, 03:37 PM
One’s 70. The other’s not yet 40. The first is the current favourite to be the next Leader of the Free World. The second’s the chattering classes favourite who’s still a long long way from becoming prime minister. Until today the two have never met. What then links Senator John McCain who speaks at today’s Tory Conference and David Cameron?
Both have become pin-ups of what they call in the States “the liberal media” while actually being pretty conservative. Both have challenged their parties head-on but look, for now, to be their parties' best hopes. Both now present their parties with a choice – back us to reach out to new voters or bring us down with charges of betrayal.
McCain has been the enemy of many admirers of George Bush ever since he took on the Republican establishment in a bid to become his party's presidential nominee in 2000 and lost.
Far from pandering to the Christian Right he dubbed them "agents of intolerance" and joked about battling "the forces of evil." He is accused by his party’s rightwing of flip-flopping on taxes and gun control (the symbolic equivalent of Europe on this side of “the pond”).
America’s most feared talkshow host has dubbed him a "RINO - Republican in Name Only." Odd this, since McCain, is hardly that liberal – he’s anti-abortion, anti-gun control, pro-death penalty, he favours cutting back the size and reach of the federal government and has backed the war in Iraq.
David Cameron now faces accusations from his party's right-wing that he’s “unsound” on tax, Europe, immigration, selection in schools and much besides.
So, the two men have a political challenge in common. The gulf between them is not just age. McCain has many years service in the Senate and a proven record of taking tough decisions. Not to mention the fact that no-one challenges the strength of character of a man held prisoner and tortured in Vietnem while Cameron was still in nappies. When McCain called his campaign bus “The Straight Talk Express” no-one laughed.
Cameron’s challenge this week is to prove that his campaign bus isn’t just “The Smooth Talking Express”. He plans to show his strength by standing up to those who demand that he promises tax cuts now. The test of leadership will come, though, not simply by standing up to Norman Tebbit or John Redwood but by telling the country – not just his own right wing - things they may not wish to hear.
