Chait: McCain is a LiberalHere's a pretty oddball
little observation:
I should note one more point. Ross says I'm confusing moderate liberals for liberals generally. In fact, there are lots of disagreements within liberalism. I think McCain is (or was) a liberal because a liberal today is anybody who rejects conservative assumptions about the role of government (and isn't a socialist.) By today's standards Eisenhower and Nixon were liberals, a fact conservatives make themselves.This does get back to a theme I blogged often on in 2004, that liberals today define themselves as un-conservatives. In other words, it's not that liberals have ideas and programs to propose; it's that they oppose the conservative ideas and programs.
As for Nixon and Eisenhower, they were conservative for their time; it was just a whole lot more liberal time.