McCain’s fade

Talking Points Memo offers an interesting take on the fading of John McCain’s presidential aspirations:

He’s been toadying to conservative orthodoxies for the past year. Something that makes him seem doubly non-independent and craven since it’s pretty clear he’s doing it just because he wants to be president. That is to say, he’s not like longstanding toadies like Bill Frist and others like him. He’s also embracing an extremely unpopular position on Iraq — a war that is extremely unpopular amongst independents. And of course he’s George Bush’s new best friend.

The idea that John McCain is going to stay the darling of self-identified independents and centrist Democrats while acting like a partisan right-winger and supporting a deeply unpopular war reminds me of those dingbat prognosticators who argue, in so many words, that now that the GOP has the racist vote sewn up all they have to do is get the blacks too and then the Dems won’t ever be able to win an election again.

People aren’t that stupid.

Why do we think John McCain is going to play like he did in 2000 after he’s turned himself into a gruffer version of George W. Bush?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

One thought on “McCain’s fade”

  1. Maybe fading, but McCain is a lock in \’08 for the Republican nomination and all his pro-Bushness is paying the bill for that nomination. I despise Bush\’s Iraq fiasco and I despise the proposed \”surge\” as more \”stay-the-course\” stupidity (when will we ever get a serious public discussion of whether Iraq is \”winnable\”, and what \”winning\” means in Iraq rather than assumptions about this on all sides of the debate), but if McCain gets Surgeman tattooed to his forehead, he will be the most beatable of the \’08 candidates. A high-profile Surgeman is a sure loser.By the way, for those who recall Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 1972, doesn\’t McCain remind you of the bit where Thompson talked about the addictive quality of running for president? McCain and Biden both have exactly the addiction Thompson described.

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