How John McCain ran against himself
The maverick of days past might be deadlocked with Obama now if he hadn't let the Republican right hijack the Straight Talk Express.
By Walter Shapiro
Salon.com
Oct. 29, 2008 |
Just over the horizon lies an alternate universe in which John McCain is locked in a tense nail-biter of a presidential race with Barack Obama, one in which the polls gyrate daily and "too close to call" describes most of the contested political landscape. To create this what-if Republican fantasy, only one thing needs to be changed -- and that mystery element has nothing to do with a mythical Barack Obama scandal or an inexplicable surge in George W. Bush's approval ratings. All that would have been required to achieve electoral parity and a plausible road map to the White House would have been for the Republican nominee to have transformed himself into ... (Warning: Mind-bending content ahead) ... the John McCain of the 2000 primaries.
That was the fabled McCain who wooed reporters with nonstop rolling press conferences about the Straight Talk Express, who electrified independent voters in the New Hampshire primary with his clarion call for political reform and who late in the campaign denounced Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance." Make no mistake, McCain 2000 was an unabashed hawk ("rogue-state rollback" was his bellicose mantra) who never deviated from conservative orthodoxy on abortion (though he did give off the impression that rolling back Roe v. Wade was about 993rd on his list of life ambitions). Whether that candidate was the authentic McCain or an impromptu confection whipped up for a gullible press corps, the result was one of the most beguiling losing campaigns in modern political history.
This time around, the septuagenarian Arizona senator shrewdly (or cynically) decided from the outset that he would get right -- very right-wing -- with the Republican base. In mid-2006, when he still dreamed of replicating the front-runner juggernaut of the Bush campaigns, McCain paid homage to Falwell himself by giving the commencement address at Liberty University. Even though McCain was one of only two Republican senators to oppose the Bush tax cuts (liberal Lincoln Chafee was the other), he implausibly championed the cause of making them permanent.
McCain presumably believed that these sharp policy reversals were necessary to win the GOP nomination. But, in truth, McCain triumphed because fortune looked his way with a broad grin. (Never underestimate luck in politics -- think where Obama might be if, say, Hillary Clinton had aggressively contested the caucus states after Iowa.) McCain narrowly edged Mitt Romney in the 2008 New Hampshire primary because, according to exit polls, he was strongly favored by Republicans and independents who felt "dissatisfied" or "angry" with Bush. Where South Carolina had been McCain's primary of broken dreams, it became in 2008 his political land of enchantment: Fred Thompson lured just enough social conservative votes away from Mike Huckabee that McCain squeaked to victory.
(More here.)
By Walter Shapiro
Salon.com
Oct. 29, 2008 |
Just over the horizon lies an alternate universe in which John McCain is locked in a tense nail-biter of a presidential race with Barack Obama, one in which the polls gyrate daily and "too close to call" describes most of the contested political landscape. To create this what-if Republican fantasy, only one thing needs to be changed -- and that mystery element has nothing to do with a mythical Barack Obama scandal or an inexplicable surge in George W. Bush's approval ratings. All that would have been required to achieve electoral parity and a plausible road map to the White House would have been for the Republican nominee to have transformed himself into ... (Warning: Mind-bending content ahead) ... the John McCain of the 2000 primaries.
That was the fabled McCain who wooed reporters with nonstop rolling press conferences about the Straight Talk Express, who electrified independent voters in the New Hampshire primary with his clarion call for political reform and who late in the campaign denounced Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance." Make no mistake, McCain 2000 was an unabashed hawk ("rogue-state rollback" was his bellicose mantra) who never deviated from conservative orthodoxy on abortion (though he did give off the impression that rolling back Roe v. Wade was about 993rd on his list of life ambitions). Whether that candidate was the authentic McCain or an impromptu confection whipped up for a gullible press corps, the result was one of the most beguiling losing campaigns in modern political history.
This time around, the septuagenarian Arizona senator shrewdly (or cynically) decided from the outset that he would get right -- very right-wing -- with the Republican base. In mid-2006, when he still dreamed of replicating the front-runner juggernaut of the Bush campaigns, McCain paid homage to Falwell himself by giving the commencement address at Liberty University. Even though McCain was one of only two Republican senators to oppose the Bush tax cuts (liberal Lincoln Chafee was the other), he implausibly championed the cause of making them permanent.
McCain presumably believed that these sharp policy reversals were necessary to win the GOP nomination. But, in truth, McCain triumphed because fortune looked his way with a broad grin. (Never underestimate luck in politics -- think where Obama might be if, say, Hillary Clinton had aggressively contested the caucus states after Iowa.) McCain narrowly edged Mitt Romney in the 2008 New Hampshire primary because, according to exit polls, he was strongly favored by Republicans and independents who felt "dissatisfied" or "angry" with Bush. Where South Carolina had been McCain's primary of broken dreams, it became in 2008 his political land of enchantment: Fred Thompson lured just enough social conservative votes away from Mike Huckabee that McCain squeaked to victory.
(More here.)
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