Politics
Sullivan describes himself as a conservative and is the author of The Conservative Soul. He has supported a number of traditional conservative positions. He favors a flat tax, limited government, and opposes welfare state programs and interventionism. However, on a number of controversial public issues, including same-sex marriage, social security, the U.S. government's use of torture, and capital punishment, he takes a position typically shared by those on the left of the U.S. political spectrum. In July 2012 Sullivan said that "...the catastrophe of the Bush-Cheney years... all but exploded the logic of neoconservatism and its domestic partner-in-crime, supply side economics." His position on abortion is mixed; he says that he personally finds it immoral and favors overturning Roe v. Wade, but can accept legal abortions in the first trimester.
Sullivan supported George W. Bush in the 2000 election. In 2004, Sullivan reluctantly decided to support John Kerry's presidential campaign, due to his dissatisfaction with the handling of the postwar situation in Iraq by the Bush administration, their views on gay rights, and their fiscal policy. In 2006, he supported the Democratic Party. Sullivan, among a number of other conservative writers, endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic Nomination in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, and Rep. Ron Paul for the Republican nomination. Sullivan endorsed Obama for President on the eve of the election. Sullivan has declared support for Arnold Schwarzenegger and other like-minded Republicans, and written sympathetically about Republican congressman Ron Paul, whom he endorsed for the 2008 and 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
In January 2009, Tunku Varadarajan, Elisabeth Eaves and Hana R. Alberts, writing in Forbes magazine, ranked Sullivan #19 on a list of "The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media", writing that "he clings unconvincingly to the 'conservative' label even after his fervent endorsement of Obama. His advocacy for gay marriage rights and his tendency to view virtually everything through a 'gay' prism puts him at odds with many on the right."
Sullivan rejected the "liberal" label, on the grounds that he supports a flat tax, rejects progressive taxation as unjust and counter-productive, is skeptical of universal healthcare "on European lines" and supports a free market in healthcare and pharmaceuticals, strongly, supports "fighting a war against Jihadist terror", and therefore does not meet Forbes magazine's own criteria for a "liberal", which include support for progressive taxation and universal healthcare and "a certain queasiness about the war on terror." He argued that Forbes writers, including Tunku Varadarajan, whom he called "smart and decent", consider him a liberal because he is "openly and proudly gay" and because "conservatism has become a religious movement" while he does "not believe that any specific form of religion has a veto in determining who is or is not a political conservative in a secular society."
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