Not The Same
Robert Stein - a person I disagree with daily - wrote a good post about John McCain. As expected, it’s negative, but I think there’s a lot of truth to what Robert’s saying nonetheless. His main point: the McCain of 2008 isn’t the McCain of 2000. They’re two completely different politicians.
But that McCain, who charmed the media with his candor, is long gone, vaporized by bitterness over what Bush et al did to him back then, by his decision to court the Religious Right he once disdained, by tailoring his views on tax cuts for the very rich to win over the Grover Norquist gang in the primaries, by hooking up with the likes of Joe Lieberman to become the champion of a war he might never have started.
In the coming months, Democrats will have to work hard to make voters understand that this year’s Republican standard bearer is not the John McCain of 2000, who would not have needed Lieberman to whisper in his ear after confusing Iran and al Qaeda, who would not be entrusting his own professed ignorance about the economy to those who helped deregulate us into recession, who might have included Independents and Democrats in an administration back then but would be too compromised to do so now.
Although I think that Robert forgets to keep in mind that McCain is sucking up to the far right because he, wait for it, has to, there’s most certainly truth to the claim that McCain may not be much of a maverick anymore. He’s defending tax cuts he once opposed; he’s being endorsed by pastors he once dubbed “agents of intolerance”; he was a hawk, but he’s now an überhawk.
I’ve never bought into the entire “straight talk” thing. It’s sheer propaganda, in my opinion. McCain isn’t more willing to tell the truth than other politicians, or at least not so much more that one would actually notice a big difference.
I’ve said in the past that I would endorse someone at the moment that I realize that my blogging may be influenced by my political preferences. That’s why I endorsed both Romney and Clinton. But if the race is between McCain and Obama, I’m not going to endorse either one. McCain is - from a policy perspective - obviously less bad than Obama from my perspective, but I’m negative about both.
That would actually be nice; it would mean that I won’t have to defend myself any longer for endorsing this or that person, and people can also finally stop saying that I’m blogging in an effort to get a candidate nominated or elected. That’s most certainly not the case: I simply share my views, but some believe it nonetheless.
If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, I’ll finally be able to say “I don’t support either one, and I wouldn’t vote for either nominee if I were American either.” I would write in.
UPDATE
Dean Esmay: “I think he’s exactly the same John McCain he’s always been, with a few small changes that have occurred naturally as the last 8 years have gone by. I just think that, like so many Obama fans, in 2000 a lot of people projected onto McCain traits and ideas he didn’t actually have, and to an extent they’re still doing it.”
Should it come to an Obama v. McCain choice, something to chew on:
It does not really make sense to consider the choice of the executive as if in a vacuum. Considering that the Democrats will certainly increase their majorities in both the House and Senate (with a real possibility of securing a fillibuster proof plurality in the Senate) the choice should be considered in the context of the resulting government as a whole. The three most likely resulting government state:
President - Speaker - Senate Majority Leader
Clinton (D) - Pelosi (D) - Reid (D)
Obama (D) - Pelosi (D) - Clinton (D)
McCain (R) - Pelosi (D) - Clinton (D)
A consideration should be whether we want a continuation of the relative fiscal restraint and enhanced oversight we get with divided government, or whether we really want a return to single party government.