McCain '04...as a Democrat?

[BlackMage]

The year was '02. Old Georgie Bush was in the White House, nickels have pictures of bumblebees on them, the cable networks were speculating as to the prospect of war with Iraq, I was in shorter pants than now...

...and John McCain was the Republican you could take home to your lesbian vegan mom. Witty, smart, charging off in whatever direction suited him and infuriating his own party, he was the most popular politician in America, with the title 'Maverick' permanently seared into the tender flesh of his buttocks.

So the media began to speculate: what next for the dashing crusader of the Arizona plains? What if...the presidency?

And so, two of America's most reputable liberal publications, the Washington Monthly and The New Republic, published, at the same time and seemingly by coincidence, articles speculating: What if he becomes one of us?

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=dbef5d29-82bf-444d-9dea-4d18d271d5a0http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=4a65fb2f-7752-493f-a8d3-7fa4aa5e55d0
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.green.html

Now from...whatever year this is, this appears one of those charming retro trends, like flares, disco, or John McCain. But this, for a brief moment, consumed political debate.

So...what if? What if John McCain took the plunge, leaped from one horse to another, and charged for the White House?

(Ignore the prolix prose, above; I decided that if I couldn't pick an entertaining topic, I might as well use entertaining words.)

 

[Dr. Waterhouse]

The beltway fascination with McCain as a liberal really does seem symptomatic of the personality-over-policy preoccupations. I mean, the lesbian vegan mom mentioned in the first post probably would have a slight problem with McCain's position on abortion (politically, McCain may have the worst strategized position on abortion in America--neither firm enough in prolife/antichoice ardor to win over the right, nor strongly enough in the other direction to actually pick up support on the issue from moderates).

What's really interesting though is that the issue on which one could most strongly make the case for McCain as a kind of progressive--campaign finance reform--he enacted his proposals into law while still a Senator. And moreover, the result of those proposals was to make it impossible for old school money operations to counterbalance the power of small-donor fundraising on the internet, and we know who benefited from that change.

On many issues, McCain sides with Democrats in noting the insufficiency of a Republican response to an issue (such as opposing the conduct of the war in Iraq) but then his prescription just shows him to be a different, older style of conservative more in the tradition of Barry Goldwater (the solution to the problem of Iraq in his view was to send more troops, not withdraw them).

And probably in terms of fiscal policy, labor issues and civil rights I actually think McCain is to the right of the Bush administration.

Finally, the beltway pundits are telling people all the time that Americans are hungry for a middle-of-the-road pragmatic bipartisan approach. But does anyone remember how Joe Lieberman did in the 2004 New Hampshire primaries? Or for that matter Rudy Giuliani this past year on the Republican side?

The missed opportunities in American politics of the past few years are on the ideological edges, not the middle. The Democrats could have nominated a populist angrier than Obama (HRC's primaryseason imitation of one notwithstanding). The Republicans could have tried to see how far they could get on immigration this year. Either would have been interesting.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth.