'Smart Cookie' McCain Is What GOP Needs

PR-savvy moderate gives party hope in courting youth vote
By Gabriel Winant,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 25, 2009 8:07 AM CDT
'Smart Cookie' McCain Is What GOP Needs
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his daughter Meghan McCain react to the crowd as they arrive at a rally in Henderson Nev., Monday, Nov. 3, 2008.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Meghan McCain’s scuffle with Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham has shown she knows how to take a punch—and how to throw one, writes Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post. McCain’s critique of her party’s bomb-throwers is accurate, and her strategy has been savvy. "If McCain doesn't make it in journalism, she has a future in marketing," Parker predicts. "Madonna, meet Britney."

The GOP is at sea, struggling to accommodate the more moderate cohort the younger McCain represents and “allegedly, hoping to expand its tent.” Reaching out to McCain and her generation would be a good start, Parker argues: "The GOP's extreme voices are a turnoff, not just to young people but to millions of Americans who might otherwise be attracted to conservative principles."
(More Meghan McCain stories.)

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