Monday, March 20th, 2006...7:56 pm
Just Reverting Back to Form
You might say “Say it isn’t so!” but I say, “I told you so.”
One of my ongoing frustrations when talking to Democratic activists around the country is their ongoing infatuation with John McCain. “Oh, you are so lucky to have him there,” or “I’d vote for him if I lived in Arizona.” Somehow, they equated his personal animus for the President (which only rarely resulted in votes against administration policy) and his zeal for campaign finance reform (which always seemed to increase when it came to taking on unions) with being an actual liberal, or at the very least a moderate.
Well, the man who back in 2000 said here in my very own city that he wants to be “president in the best way and not the worst way,” has completely thrown in with the pod people. According to Josh Marshall’s TPM Muckraker, McCain’s Straight Talk PAC has hired Terry Nelson. Nelson not only worked for Bush’s 2000 campaign, but is tied in with Tom Delay’s money laundering scheme. “Reformer with Results” my half-Mexican behind.
While my friends with stars in their eyes were thinking of McCain the reformer, we who have been following his career were thinking of the McCain that was the only senator not to return the money from Charles Keating, the McCain that used his office to carry out grudges against moderate Republicans and non-fawning reporters in the 1990s, and the McCain who was so partisan that he was almost ready to tank our state’s CAP money in an effort to embarass Governor Rose Mofford.
What we are seeing now is not a “new” McCain, but rather McCain out of disguise.
12 Comments
March 20th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
You will be calling Sen. McCain….President McCain in 2009!
Get used to it Teddy….Nice ring to it…President John McCain!!!
March 20th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Amen, Tedski.
McCain is a glory hog, and still a conservative on everything that matters. God help us all if the man ever becomes the President of the United States.
The good news is that he is also a fool. Last year he made a Faustian deal with Karl Rove and the rest of the brain trust of the Republican party to go out and campaign for the President in return for whatever they promised him. Not hard to figure out what they promised him, just think about what he wants that they could offer.
But like a stupid mule that you can dangle a carrot in front of and then jerk it away at the last moment, the expected party support for McCain in 2008 won’t materialize. There are two reasons for this: 1) they are more Machiavellian than he is, and they don’t trust him, so they will push for someone more malleable, and 2) even if they did back him, the Republican party is starting to fractionate and the support of the Bush squad probably wouldn’t be enough to snarf the nomination anyway.
The religious and neo-conservatives now dominate the Republican party, and the only way I can see them nominating McCain is if things look so bad for their party by 2008 that they expect to get beat real bad, then they may send him out to be their sacrificial ‘Bob Dole.’
But if there is any doubt about McCain, just point out the company he is keeping nowadays: IRI a supposedly ‘nonpartisan’ (MY ass) organization put together by the neocons to ‘monitor elections’ (as opposed to the Carter institute or the U.N.) around the world.
Here are some members of their board:
John McCain, chairman.
one other sitting Senator and two sitting Congressmen– including Jim Kolbe– and all are Republicans.
Lawrence Eagleburger
Frank Fahrenkopf
Jeanne Kirkpatrick
Brent Scowcroft
and an assortment of other Republican party hacks, CEO’s and you get the idea.
But not a Democrat to be seen. And McCain isn’t just a member, he is the chairman of the board.
McCain is old. McCain is up in 2010. By then he will either have become President or tried and failed (most probable). I suspect he’d be thinking retirement. Oh, and Janet is term limited in 2010. Confluence of the stars?
March 20th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
I have watched Presidential primaries for years. I will never forget how the “straight talk express” was derailed when it headed into South Carolina. Christian conservatives spanked him and hard…
So, I ask, how well “moderate” McCain get through the all too important southern Republican primaries?
Answer A: He will become as conservative as they are.
Answer B: He already is as conservative as they are.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:15 am
McCain will never be the GOP nominee, despite his exertions to once again re-invent himself. The red-meat dogmatists distrust him because of McCain-Feingold, his lack of total fealty to the NRA, his unwillingness to drill for oil in ANWR and his numerous attacks the “religious right” in 2000.
I agree that he is neither a moderate or a “straight talker,” but he is what passes for both in today’s GOP. Who in prominence is to the left of him in the national party? Mentioning Arnold or Giuliani doesn’t count because they have even less of a chance to be on a national ticket due to their apostasy on abortion and gay rights.
As someone who WAS a Republican in 2000 and DID vote for McCain in that year’s primaries, you can add me to the list of people who now feel duped, but perhaps that is more my fault than it is McCain’s. After all, Tedski points out many (but not all) of his pre-2000 antics that should have made me and others more skeptical at that time.
George Allen or someone of his ilk will be the GOP nominee in 2008, just as sure as Randy Graf will win the Republican nod in CD8 this year. The so-called moderates will get hosed on both counts. Hopefully, they will then have time and cause to wonder why they let their former attack dogs and hatchet men on the right take over control of their party.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:42 am
Great points Rex! (and I also was a Republican for a long time)…
It will be interesting to see if he can re-position himself with the right for the primaries…especially those southern ones. Iowa and NH tended to give him a lift before, but then that road to South Carolina, and thereafter, became a minefield for him. I see him working now to get in with the right, but still…look what happened in that Tennessee straw poll with Frist.
It is a long time off, but I think Rex and I are going to be joined by a lot of moderate republicans who may not switch to Democrats, but who will not support the Republican party. If so, who will be left? The Graf supporters, the Munsil supporters, the Goulds, the Harpers, etc.
I am not sure if this will last until 2008 though…that is a long way off, but I think moderates are going to stay home and even cross parties in the general after their moderate candidates in the R party are out of the race.
March 21st, 2006 at 8:55 am
okay. i can’t believe no one has said yet b/c it’s so obvious, so let me get it out of the way.
Caption to the photo accompanying this post: “I wish I knew how to quit you!”
March 21st, 2006 at 11:14 am
hahahahahahaha! Perfect caption!
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:51 pm
McCain has demeaned himself by allowing himself to be used by Bush. I think he’s going to have to sell his soul [and sell-out the independents who have supported him] to get this nomination. I wonder what he’s going to say when the Focus on the Family group asks him whether he has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior???
March 23rd, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Hell…Gretchen…I know what he is going to say…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAmen!
Roger
March 23rd, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Have you been watching West Wing this year? Remember what happened to Vinick… Totally realistic.
March 23rd, 2006 at 7:31 pm
What, is McCain going to grievously injure his shakin’ hand?
March 24th, 2006 at 9:19 am
[laughter]
Can you really get a broken hand from having it shaken too much???
I was referring to Vinick during the Republican primary last year (?)when his evangelical opponent and the media were asking him about his churchgoing [or lack of], and he and his campaign staff were all worried about this. Vinick ultimately decided to NOT pander and NOT pretend he was something that he was not [i.e., religious churchgoer]. It will be interesting to see whether McCain panders to the evangelicals. I don’t know McCain’s religious views, but I don’t think he is a fundamentalist/evangelical.
Howard Dean had problems with this same issue in ‘04.