the mccain problem (part 1)

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is ann coulter serious when she says that if mccain gets the republican nomination she'll support hillary over him?

with her you've always gotta wonder, but yeah, i actually think she might be--she is that anti-mccain, and she's far from alone among conservatives in that regard.

so why do they hate him--a fellow republican--so much? oh, there are all kinds of typical-republican reasons, such as:

• his distaste for the religious right
• his "soft" stance on terror (because he opposes waterboarding and other forms of torture, and advocates closing guantanamo)
  
• his criticism of rumsfeld (yeah, seriously)
  
• his co-authorship--along with a liberal anti-war democrat--of campaign-reform legislation

in addition they have a couple of, to my mind, seriously legitimate gripes against the guy:

• his votes against bush's middle-class tax cuts
• his collaboration with ted kennedy on a de facto amnesty bill for illegal immigrants

so basically, the right sees mccain as a maverick that can't be controlled or counted on to put his party's interests first--i.e., basically the same way the dems saw lieberman. normally, this independent streak would elevate a candidate in my estimation, but not in the case of mccain; on the contrary, i see him as by far the most dangerous of the four remaining viable candidates--and for some reasons that nobody seems to be talking about.

until tomorrow, anyway.