McCain Courts The Clintonites

So John McCain likes Alito and Scalia, but to Democratic audiences, he notes that he voted for Justices Breyer and Ginsberg too:

Bower said he'd liked McCain's answer on judges, in which he "pointed out that he supported Bill Clinton with both Ginsberg and Breyer."

Another person who was present, but asked not to be named to avoid conflict with fellow Democrats, said he'd pressed a McCain staffer on McCain's position on same-sex marriage.

The staffer "said it was the same as [John] Kerry's position," he said.

The exculpatory answer is that there's a difference between supporting qualified nominees and prefering Alito and Scalia. But, as MK notes, "this is the sort of leftward wink that will drive conservatives crazy, with reason."

Also, the McCain staffer who told a Democrat that McCain's position on same-sex marriage was like John Kerry's is clearly incorrect. McCain and Kerry might oppose same-sex marriage but only in the same way that they both supported the origin of -- and then condemned the Rumsfeldian prosecution -- of the Iraq war. Kerry strongly supports civil unions for gay couples and supports modifications to federal laws that discriminate against gay people; McCain does not.