The Next President Up Close and Personal
If the presidential election were held today, John McCain would win despite Democratic inroads in the mid-term election. When the presidential election is held, John McCain will win unless fate intervenes.
In my view, the presidential election is McCain’s to lose.
Other than that torture thing (as in McCain tacitly supporting its use by U.S. intelligence officers despite his own anti-torture legislation and own harsh treatment by the North Vietnamese as a POW), I like the senator from Arizona a lot and I’m not a conservative.
So I read Todd Purdum’s profile of the presidential wannabe in the new Vanity Fair with much interest.
The title of the piece — “Prisoner of Conscience” — tells all, and in the end I was disappointed with this rather shallow, if lengthy, portrait of a man who is trying awfully hard to be touchy-feely, wants to do the right thing but knows he can’t please everyone all of the time.
Conspicuous in its absence from the article: Any mention of McCain’s capitulation to the White House on his own torture bill despite much graphic discussion about himself being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.
You can read the profile here.
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27 Responses to “The Next President Up Close and Personal”
McCain will win in 2008 assuming Iraq settles down to peace and tranquility, all of the troops come home, and ponies are passed out to everyone.
He bet his candidacy on these things happening.
He lost already, but doesn’t realize it yet.
I generally like McCain too, and voted for him in the 2000 primary, but I don’t think he has a realistic shot at 2008. He is a moderate rebulican in a time where his partry focuses on its base. That means he won’t get passed the primary. And even if he did make it to the big show, his complicated, nuanced, or perhaps even contradictory stance on gay marriage would be a disaster. Lets face it, there is a large contingent in this country that are avidly anti-gay marriage, and put it as their #1 or #2 issue, while there is only a small contingent of pro-gay-marraige voters who rank it that highly. The majority of this country’s center are either ambivolent about the idea to begin with, or believe there are more pressing issues to be delt with. Our media loves a controversy, and something they can report on day after day. McCain’s abivalence would yeild tons of sound bites, creating an ever-changing, rattings grabbing story that would consume too much of his airtime. He would constantly be on the defensive, preventing him from framing the debate in the way he should.
If I were McCain’s advisor I would tell him to just split the hair once and be done with it. I’d say he should just come out in favor of Civil Unions but opposed to Gay Marraige. It’s not a perfect make-everyone-happy statement, but atleast it cools down the media buzz.
Kevin, I think you’re exactly right. McCain (and Guiliani) can’t pass the primaries, and rightly so, because the GOP can’t win without its social conservative base. Plus, McCain has derailed the “straight talk express”. He’s no longer credible. Face it, he’s a “flip-flopper” and we know what happens to “flip-floppers”. “Flip-floppers” who “flip-flop” flop in the election. Did I say it enough yet?
I won’t support McCain absent a really bad alternative because he’s willing to sell the First Amendment down the river in return for favorable press on “campaign finance reform”.
McCain has stretched his whole “maverick” shtick rather thin at this point. Lately he’s making Kerry look like a firm rock of principles, saying whatever the current audience wants to hear. I remember him calling Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance”. I also remember him some time later, giving the commencement speech at Liberty University, the “agent of intolerance” smiling by his side.
Unfortunately, the Presidency is Hillary’s to lose, and I think she will lose it.
McCain is a disaster waiting to happen. If the Democrats have a lot of activist with video cameras they can get him to say something stupid. In addition, opposition research will have a field day with his business and personal life.
There is no way McCain (or any Republican) can win barring some very stupid mistake by the Democratic Party candidate.
McCain has courted the approval of Jerry Falwell, the administration, and the Republican base. He has changed his positions on abortion, gay marriage and tax cuts. He is probably the one Republican who could have stood up to Bush on the war, on torture and on habeas corpus. He did so when the cameras were rolling, then quietly capitulated when they were turned off. As such, I now find him totally untrustworthy. We’ve already had one president with a credibility problem- do we want to elect another??
“He did so when the cameras were rolling, then quietly capitulated when they were turned off. As such, I now find him totally untrustworthy.”
Thanks, Kim! Great and unfortunately true statement. I used to think he might be worth the vote despite some major differences. Not anymore.
“”We’ve already had one president with a credibility problem- do we want to elect another??”"
Yeah, we’re on our 2nd already.
“”Kevin, I think you’re exactly right. McCain (and Guiliani) can’t pass the primaries, and rightly so, because the GOP can’t win without its social conservative base”"
Dem’s couldn’t win in 06 without some pretty conservative candidates.
Tossing his much-trumpeted “principles” and “maverick persona” overboard to cater to the Fundies and Neocons is hardly McCain’s first fold. He lost me forever when he decided to suck up to Bush, whose campaign had so scurrilously attacked his family.
Maybe he thinks family members, and esp. daughters, are “fair game” in politics – he liked to make cruel jokes about Chelsea Clinton – but that’s just more evidence of a lack of basic character.
He’s never done much for Arizona; on the contrary he’s done his best to change this state to mimic the cesspool known as Mexico with his support of open borders and amnesty. I’m not anti-Mexican people, I am anti-Mexico. What’s happening is a bum deal for the whole country – the rest of you just don’t know it yet. I will never vote for him.
We got a sorry bunch to chose from, McCain being the least sorriest. That’s not saying much. I’m not excited.
Frankly, I think the 2008 presidential election is the Democrats to lose. But, given the apparent frontrunners at this point, they appear intent on giving it away.
I just had my thought for the day–what if McCain gets Lieberman to run as Veep? McCain has a fair amount of negative momentum going, which will only increase as Iraq continues to deteriorate. His constituency outside the Washington media is steadily shrinking.
Wait a second… Would he be doing that to pull in Democratic voters, or Republican ones?
The sad thing is, we are seeing just how much the media has contributed to creating poor candidates by hastening to accentuate the extreme. McCain is scarcely the first to play hard to the base, and hope he can win enough votes from the center and the other side to win. That’s been Hillary Clinton’s problem as well. For that matter, it is Mrs. Pelosi’s problem as Speaker. What the country really needs is a Gerald Ford sort of President, who will be a centrist (Good heavens what a concept – on a blog called ‘The Moderate Voice’ no less!)who works for the middle of the road consensu, but will do the right thing even when it is not overwhelmingly popular.
The Democratic party has been suffering from this problem since 1968, when the left-wing crazies stormed the smoke filled rooms of the palace, and changed the practices, ensuring that the most extreme views got more consideration in setting party strategies. Unfortunately, the Republicans followed a similar course, with the right wing crazies taking over after 1974. You see, this really is back to the sixties and seventies – the Daily Kos crowd is trying to re-live the salid days of Berkeley Free Speech and ‘Hell No! We Won’t Go!’ while the Little Green Footballs team is trying to return to their own vision of the past, a strong presidency that took no crap from the left, i.e. the Nixon white house circa 1970. Neither vision is particularly productive.
The country votged for change last year, but not the kind of change the base of either party wants. There is not a mandate for massive congressional investigations and impeachment of the president. Speaker Pelosi seems to understand this, even if the Kos Krowd does not. Likewise, the right wing Republican base may want to move to the far right socially, but the country isn’t supporting that, either.
I have said it before, most Americans seem to want a centrist policy which is more socially liberal than the most extreme of the Christian right, but much more conservative than the secular left. They want a foreign policy which is more nuanced than either the America First! views of the far right, or the One World Brotherhood of the far left, a policy with a strong defense and protection of our interests, but without being the world’s policeman. The desired domestic policy is probably not goting to please the fringes either: A balanced budget, rational policies on social spending, and recognition that we cannot solve all the problems people have for them.
In simplistic terms, my perception of what the moderate majority wants out of government is not exciting enough for the media, who thrive on controversey. But just as the Republicans made the mistake of getting sloppy, and corrupt, and promoting narrow self-interest, the Democrats are equally capable of making the same mistakes. The question is: How fast will they follow the same old path that led to the voters tossing the Republicans out? It is, I believe, only a matter of time. Lord Acton was correct when he observed that, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
How ’bout you folks voting for a non-D or R candidate?
I used to think McCain was an OK guy; then we got to see him a lot better over the next 8 years. Better than Giuliani, I suppose, but it’s close — the last thing we need is someone inclined to foreign policy adventurism.
I will be severely depressed if I have to support Hillary. In 12 years, can’t the Dems find someone to run who ANYONE really likes? For that alone, I’ll probably take Obama, even though his name alone almost ensures a loss from an electorate barely informed by a shallow media.
I’m not wild about Hillary, but better her than someone whose lips have been tightly pressed against the presidential posterior for the last 4 years! McCain is in a little too tightly with the “America First” crowd, and another 4-8 years of military adventurism or preemptive attacks will ruin our economy and our military. Why isn’t McCain, who is in a great position to lead on this issue calling Bush’s bluff on the surge? Afraid of losing the base if he strays too far from the official White House position on the war?? No way I would vote for him now.
cosmoetica, because in the true here and now barring a new party with some real clout it’s a wasted vote.
SFB: The Democratic party has been suffering from this problem since 1968, when the left-wing crazies stormed the smoke filled rooms of the palace, and changed the practices, ensuring that the most extreme views got more consideration in setting party strategies. Unfortunately, the Republicans followed a similar course, with the right wing crazies taking over after 1974. You see, this really is back to the sixties and seventies – the Daily Kos crowd is trying to re-live the salid days of Berkeley Free Speech and ‘Hell No! We Won’t Go!’ while the Little Green Footballs team is trying to return to their own vision of the past, a strong presidency that took no crap from the left, i.e. the Nixon white house circa 1970. Neither vision is particularly productive.
I won’t try to speak for the LGF side of this equation, but I think you’re mostly mischaracterizing “the Daily Kos crowd.”
I’d say the prevailing viewpoint on blogs like Kos is that the GOP is almost entirely unrepresentative of the interests of common people and the Dems fall short insofar as they’ve attempted to emulate the GOP’s corporatist tendencies. You might be of the opinion that that’s tantamount to leftwing craziness, but I see opinions like that as willful suppression of sensible and in some cases even obvious distinctions.
That opinion I see as similar to commonly expressed opinions in ’02 and ’03 that opposition to the Iraq War is tantamount to appeasement of terrorists or to nihilist Marximism or some such.
Do you see all stands on principle as being extremist posturing? I think it’s fair to say that sometimes happens, but not that the occasions where it happens justify a characterization of all who claim to be standing on principle as extremist posturers.
Sometimes you have to make an effort to understand what people are saying instead of immediately consigning them to somewhere on the fringe because something about them is distasteful. Admittedly not always easy, but I think it’s important that we try harder to actually understand.
Jim S, Voting D or R is the true wasted vote, because in 4 years you’ll be typing similar sentiments against the next Prez, and bemoaning why you didn’t do anything earlier, just as many people who whined about 00 and 04, are now complaining over the bad choices. Change the system by not beinf a DRONE. Of course, the electorate loves to whine and do nothing. Is there any wonder their politicians do the same?
Voting for Nader in ’00–now THAT accomplished something!
Yeah, and voting for W or Gore was such a good tactic! Haha!
jjc: Thanks for the response. I think that generally the comments on Kos strike me as people who are true believers, who really don’t think that the GOP represents the ‘little man.’ The problem is, the Kos folks, like many who read and agreed with “The Trouble with Kansas”really do not understand the depth of old line cultural values in Kansas and much of the so-called red states. What seems logical to urban dwelling secular liberal folks is not necessarily logical to rural dwelling conservative religious folks. Given their choice, they’ll vote for the candidates of the extreme right before they vote for the Kos approved Democratic candidates.
An afternoon reading through Kos anytime around the election, or the confirmation hearings for the two Supreme Court justices shows lots of Kos postings with references to Bush = Hitler, Bush = criminal, and more than one or two comments to the effect that the poster would like to see members of the administration killed. Calls for impeachment are almost a daily appearance. This is not what I call mainstream, rational political conversation. Which is why I place it in the same category as LGF. Both offer a very one-sided view, and a lot of vituperation, bile, spleen, and vitriol, and the occasional logical comment. Opinions vary, of course, but I have found both Kos and LGF to be long on polemic, and short on reasoned discourse.
Thanks.
SFB
very well thought out. I agree, and for that matter the 06 elections also agree. People are more likely to vote leaning conservative than they will leaning liberal. Thats one reason the Dems did great in 06 and are setting themselves up for solidifying their numbers in 08 – they had Conservative Democrats who ran. Battling the far right with the far left doesn’t work (Kerry anyone) but battling the far right with central does work. – or at least Central appearing (Clinton, etc).