Now he's wobbling on taxes:
"Republican presidential candidate John McCain drew a sharp rebuke Monday from conservatives after he signaled an openness to a higher payroll tax for Social Security, contrary to previous vows not to raise taxes of any kind. Speaking with reporters on his campaign bus on July 9, he cited a need to shore up Social Security, saying: “I cannot tell you what I would do, except to put everything on the table.” He went a step farther Sunday with his reponse on a nationally televised talk show to a question about payroll tax increases. “There is nothing that’s off the table. I have my positions, and I’ll articulate them. But nothing’s off the table,” McCain said. “I don’t want tax increases. But that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table.”
Conservatives are rebuking McCain briskly for this--and they should be.
Read the whole piece--the record is clear. McCain had said that there would be no tax increases in a McCain administration. Now he's contradicting himself.
John McCain can never secure his conservative base with positions like this. And without conservatives, he cannot win this election. The sooner he figures that out, the better. One worries that his ability to figure it out seems broken.
