I have to confess that I’ve never had a high opinion of John McCain. I remember Christmas 1999, when I gave one of my brothers a book by Bill Bradley and he gave me a book by Sen. McCain. I took a look, but I was unimpressed. It seemed then, and it seems now, too, that McCain’s pattern in life is to make large mistakes and then spend years trying to atone for them. That’s my understanding of his campaign finance reform efforts. And that’s why he attacked Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell at the end of his 2000 campaign, after having sucked up to them and defended the Confederate Flag in South Carolina. McCain unleashed a howling, racist beast when he selected Sarah Palin. In effect, he Palinized the Republican Party. Now he wants to make amends.
McCain is recruiting candidates, raising money for them and hitting the campaign trail on their behalf. He’s taken sides in competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial primaries and introduced his preferred candidates to his top donors…
…It’s all part of an approach that is at odds with most other recent failed presidential nominees, whose immediate response to defeat was to retreat from the electoral arena. But those familiar with McCain’s thinking say he has expressed serious concern about the direction of the party and is actively seeking out and supporting candidates who can broaden the party’s reach.
In McCain’s case, that means backing conservative pragmatists and moderates.
“I think he’s endorsed people with center-right politics because he has an understanding that the party is in trouble with certain demographics and wants to have a tone that would allow us to grow,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is McCain’s closest friend and ally in the Senate.
In choosing Palin, McCain morphed what could have been a genuinely mavericky campaign into a drive for a third Bush term. I said repeatedly during the 2008 primaries that McCain could not win a base election and that his only chance was to run madly for the center. He did the opposite. He embraced the know-nothing element of his party to a degree not seen in American history. And, in doing so, he empowered the kooks and freaks of the right.
Despite this, the Republicans do seem to have learned some lessons. They are pushing moderate candidates for the Senate races in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Illinois, California, and Florida, much to the consternation of their base. They’d love to convince moderate Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware to run for Biden’s old seat. They’re pushing a very moderate Republican in an upstate New York special congressional election (who is being opposed by the Club for Growth).
Because of his bellicose foreign policy beliefs, I’ve never really thought of McCain as a moderate. I haven’t seen him casting too many votes with the Democrats on domestic policy, either. But it’s clear that he doesn’t like the fundamentalist strain of the GOP and he’d like to see some more tolerant colleagues on his side of the aisle. His failed efforts on immigration reform are the best sign of this.
McCain doesn’t really fit in with the lost moderate caucus (Chafee, Jeffords, Specter) that has recently been run out of the party, but he shares certain assumptions with them. He knows that his party will remain in the minority unless it can win back some of that turf in the center.
For the good of the country, if the Republicans are going to start chipping away at the Democratic majority, it is imperative that they do it with moderate candidates. Some blurring of the ideological lines between the two major parties would be a very healthy development. But, it won’t be enough to just regain a moderate wing. That moderate wing must be big enough and forceful enough to protect their own from the strong-arm tactics of the party leaders. During the Bush era, their chairs and committee assignments were threatened anytime they fell out of line. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
McCain is a tragic figure, no? He’s the guy that should have known better, but kept f’ing up. His wife has loads of money, so theoretically he could have maintained some form of distance from the standard DC BS. His presidential campaign (especially his vp selection) may have done more damage to the Republican party than all of GW’s antics. Who even knows what McCain believes in anymore?
At this point, the word that I assign him is: conflicted.
I think he believes in having a chairmanship, and he is more clear-eyed about how to get that done than he was about his presidential campaign.
McCain is the Admiral’s son who has always taken privilege for granted. He has always coasted on his name and family reputation, doing the least he could get away with. From his earliest days at the Naval Academy, he was the cut-up who went over the wall after lights out to party, then coasted through class, doing just enough to pass. He had a fine reputation amongst his classmates as a party hound and a joker, but his grades were nothing to write home about. He finished next to last in his class, something like 537 out of 538. His career in the Navy was not much better. He crashed five or six aircraft before getting shot down in Viet Nam, somehow always escaping serious injury up til then. If he hadn’t been a McCain, son and grandson of distinguished Admirals and Naval Academy grads, he never would have gotten the third aircraft and probably not the second.
I highly recommend The Nightingale’s Song by Robert Timberg. Timberg profiles five Annapolis alumni, McCain among them, beginning with their time as Midshipmen and following the course of their careers afterward. The common thread of the book is that the outlines of their character, from the course of their careers to their personal lives, was already apparent during their time at Annapolis. It’s a good read.
What does John McCain believe? He believes he is entitled, and he will do just what he has to in order to maintain his entitlement.
I’ve never liked McCain either. Regarding his “pattern in life,” my take is that he is (a) an opportunist who started his career with advantages far beyond his abilities; and (b) not very bright, although (to put this in proportion), considerably brighter than George W. Bush
One thing about John McCain, and one source of his largely illusory “maverick” image, is that he really doesn’t like the religious right (because he isn’t religious). Barack Obama’s nomination by the Democratic Party was predicated on a power struggle within the party, won by the Obama forces. No such struggle took place within the GOP; McCain was simply the default candidate. So I think Palin was more or less forced upon McCain by powerful forces within the GOP, and McCain was never comfortable with her as his running mate, although at the time his opportunism and conceit no doubt led him to believe he could handle it.
McCain’s “atonement,” then. seems to be not so different from what happened with Al Gore or even (to a lesser extent) John Kerry after their defeats. He realized his campaign had been badly mismanaged, that he had been forced into a mold that did not fit him, and now that he’s free of it, still in the public eye, and not even holding public office, he’s exercising leadership in a more comfortable direction. The best you can say is that McCain is not afraid of the Limbaugh faction and he has a different idea of what the GOP should be. He’s still an opportunist, but the opportunities now available allow him to be a reformer, and no great intelligence is required of him to see where to go with that, given his visceral dislike of the religious right. Under the circumstances he looks relatively good, but he’s still the same John McCain.
he’s still a U.S. Senator, you know?
Sorry, I had a senior moment there. — But that doesn’t change my point.
I took that to refer to Gore’s post-political career.
The republicans sure know how to run a tight ship when it comes to party discipline. Vote out of line and your career is in jeopardy. Such control reminds me of a certain group in Germany, say from 1933 – 1945.
Despite your worthy advice, BooMan, to run to the center, McCain did the opposite in the election of 2008. Perhaps, he feared the dreadful whip of the GOP right wing.
McCain unleashed the demons during his campaign for a very simple reason;
he agreed with them.
Let’s not forget, he remained silent about the demons until virtually everyone saw it was not working, only then did he pull back (and not a very hard pull, at that).
He never believed Obama was deserving of the office of POTUS, and still does not believe that. Because of color? In my opinion it probably has more to do with Obama’s age, but I promise you, color is also involved.
McCain is an old man, and is a product of his time. ‘His’ time was a segregated time.
If he was truly seeking atonement he would not be working towards a majority when he knows fully well the nutcases are in charge, and knows fully well what would happen to Obama if the Republicans get control of the House of Representatives. Everything he is doing is a means to an end. He is seeking ‘moderates’ because they can be elected, but they will be controlled by the crazies. He knows this.
So he helps ‘moderates’ get elected, and then watches as they all pull Obama apart. And he gets revenge against the young uppity black man that took ‘his’ presidency.
TRUE atonement would be working with the POTUS to get things done that are so obviously good for the country.
But McCain is a mean, nasty, old man who cannot let go.
I know him because I have been fighting a group of mean, nasty, old men in my private life. They are exactly like him.
nalbar
Ideology and policy are irrelevant in the current GOP. It was Digby (IIRC) who pointed out it’s a party run by (and in the interests of) ex-college Republican operatives willing to do or say anything to manipulate the base.
McCain was the logical followup to Bush. Without the family obligation he would have been a frat boy fuck up at Yale or Princeton instead of Annapolis.
Mittster will be their guy in 2012. THAT disaster may finally bust up the unholy alliance. Whether what arises in it’s wake has use for the Republican label remains to be seen.
Maybe W.J. Bryan. Though McCain’s historical import is of the John W. Davis variety. I would note that at their nadir the Jim Crow era Democrats had iron fisted control of the South to fall back on. The modern GOP is the party of Jim Crow without the structural advantages.
THen, when all is said and done, we should thank McCain for giving us Palin in 2012. What a gift, unless of course the American public dumbs down again, and sees another Bush, a beer with the guys, on the horizon, albeit this time, a cozy hunter.
And they are pushing those moderates because they think the base can keep them in line if they get into office.