Time’s Karen Tumulty wrote one of the better, more even-handed pieces on Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign that I’ve seen in a while. It not only skipped over false-but-obligatory praise for the senator’s “maverick” tendencies, the article even went to so far as to point out a major substantive hurdle — his inconsistencies.
After staking his reputation on the moral high ground by speaking truth to power on issues ranging from deficits to torture, McCain is uniquely vulnerable to anything that hints of hypocrisy–even on questions that ordinary politicians would get a pass on. To have a shot at winning a presidential election these days, for instance, it is nearly a requirement that candidates opt out of the federal finance system, forgoing its matching funds because it’s too difficult to mount a credible campaign within the law’s spending caps. But that move, however pragmatic, would look bad coming from an author of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform law.
Also, it’s harder for McCain than most to explain away inconsistencies. How, for example, could a deficit hawk vote to make President Bush’s tax credits permanent after opposing their passage in the first place as fiscally irresponsible? Or why, after declaring Jerry Falwell to be an agent of intolerance during the brutal 2000 primary campaign, did McCain deliver the commencement speech last May at Falwell’s Liberty University in Virginia? […]
Critics pounced last week when McCain let it be known that he has lined up a top G.O.P. operative to run his campaign — Terry Nelson, who was national political director for President Bush’s 2004 campaign…. Nelson is yet another recruit from the once antagonistic Bush operation, and more evidence that the party establishment is falling into place behind McCain. But Nelson is known for hardball tactics that don’t exactly square with the Arizona Senator’s white-knight image.
Thank you, Karen Tumulty; I was afraid only the blogs had noticed.
Indeed, the article even noted that even some of McCain’s long-time allies are concerned about the senator’s shift to the far-right. “A profile in courage can become a profile in unrestrained ambition,” says former Reagan White House chief of staff Ken Duberstein, who was one of the few GOP establishment figures to support McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. “He has to remember who his friends are and not spend his integrity on one-night stands with those who will never fully trust him.”
Too late for that, I’m afraid.
By the way, Tumulty had a detail I hadn’t heard before about McCain’s new message/theme.
As a rallying cry, “Common sense conservatism” doesn’t have quite the ring of “Straight Talk Express.” But the new slogan on the website of John McCain’s presidential exploratory committee — a slogan he manages to repeat at least three times in every speech he gives these days — tells you all you need to know about how different this presidential campaign will be from his last one. McCain ’08 will be a bigger, more conventional operation — a tank, not a slingshot.
In other words, the “Straight Talk Express” went into the shop for some repairs … and ended up as “Common sense conservatism”? You can tell McCain has a lot of the Bush gang helping him out — we’ve gone from “compassionate conservatism” six years ago to “common-sense conservatism” now. I guess in some GOP circles, that’s what passes for progress.
McCain seems wholly unaware of what made him a political celebrity in the first place. He was willing to take chances, say unconventional things, and think outside the GOP box. In a word, he was “different.”
Now, McCain’s not only running as a far-right conservative, he’s also running as a mundane far-right conservative. He’s just another Republican, running just another typical Republican campaign.
As someone who wants to see a Democrat in the White House in 2009, I’m feeling less and less afraid of McCain all the time.