{"id":3238,"date":"2004-12-20T12:35:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-20T17:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3238.html"},"modified":"2004-12-20T12:35:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-20T17:35:00","slug":"mccain-wont-impress-gop-base-by-differing-with-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-wont-impress-gop-base-by-differing-with-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain won’t impress GOP base by differing with Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, reporters were insisting that John McCain’s work on steroids<\/a> would propel him presidential bid in 2008. This week, it’s his maverick streak that helps his ambitions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

John McCain is back.<\/p>\n

In the six weeks since the end of a campaign in which he wholeheartedly promoted President Bush’s reelection, the Republican senator from Arizona has wasted no time reasserting his independence from the White House. <\/p>\n

Just two weeks after the election, he renewed his opposition to Bush’s policy on global warming and urged action against greenhouse gases. He went to Europe and promoted a harder line against Russian President Vladimir Putin than the administration has voiced, and he returned home to take a harder line against steroid use in baseball than the administration had done. <\/p>\n

Then, last week, he took aim at Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying he had “no confidence” in Bush’s defense secretary. “There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld” on U.S. troop strength in Iraq, he said.<\/p>\n

The highly visible stands by McCain have revived speculation that he will seek the White House for a second time in 2008.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This really doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would McCain’s high-profile spats with the White House be part of a broader goal to win the GOP nomination in 2008? Wouldn’t the opposite be true?
\n
\nI certainly give McCain credit for standing up to Bush on key areas of public policy, but — and here’s the kicker — I’m a die-hard Democrat. Republicans, near as I can tell, love Bush. Some of them believe that God literally chose him to be president. Bush’s support among Republicans is greater than any president’s support within his own party since pollsters started keeping track of such things.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, I have no idea why reporters believe McCain’s squabbles with Bush would help him in a presidential campaign. If anything, it would renew concerns that McCain isn’t loyal enough, as evidenced by House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s contention<\/a> that McCain isn’t a “real” Republican.<\/p>\n

Republicans don’t like mavericks; they like true-believers. If McCain were really gearing up for a 2008 run, he’d be cozying up to Bush, not reasserting his “independence from the White House.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, reporters were insisting that John McCain’s work on steroids would propel him presidential bid in 2008. This week, it’s his maverick streak that helps his ambitions. John McCain is back. In the six weeks since the end of a campaign in which he wholeheartedly promoted President Bush’s reelection, the Republican senator from Arizona […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}