Sometime last year, I remember watching a video of Barack Obama addressing his campaign staff in Chicago. The talk took place after Obama had won the Democratic primary. It was a pep talk, and the theme was, “Now it’s really serious, we have to win.” One thing Obama said stood out. He said that if John McCain won, none of the important issues facing the country would be solved, and he singled out climate change. I don’t care what McCain promises, Obama told his staff, if he wins, he’s not going to do anything about it.
At the time it struck me as perhaps a bit unfair--McCain had demonstrated what seemed to be genuine understanding of and passion for the issue. But it’s pretty clear now that Obama was right. Politico has an excellent story about how McCain has abandoned his support for climate change legislation:
McCain has emerged as a vocal opponent of the climate bill — a major reversal for the self-proclaimed maverick who once made defying his party on global warming a signature issue of his career.
Now the Arizona Republican is more likely to repeat GOP talking points on cap and trade than to help usher the bill through the thorny politics of the Senate.
McCain refers to the bill as “cap and tax,” calls the climate legislation that passed the House in June “a 1,400-page monstrosity” and dismisses a cap-and-trade proposal included in the White House budget as “a government slush fund.”
Politico suggests that the change in McCain’s staff has played an important role:
Current and former aides suggest that staff changes since the campaign could also have something to do with the change in tone. Several of McCain’s longtime staffers, including top aide Mark Salter, left the office after the campaign. And Floyd DesChamps, a Commerce Committee aide who worked closely on the McCain-Lieberman climate bill, left Capitol Hill after McCain gave up his longtime seat on the committee last January.
The staff that remains, say former aides, lacks the institutional history on the issue and the ability to steer McCain toward productive solutions.
Another factor, not mentioned by Politico, is that McCain is facing a right-wing primary challenger who’s currently running a dead heat.
Of course, if McCain had won the presidency, he’d also be surrounded by conservative aides--that’s just the intellectual infrastructure available to any Republican president. And he’d also have pressure from the right. All in all, it seems pretty clear that the remaining traces of the progressive McCain that emerged from 2000 through 2003 have finally been extinguished.
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COMMENTS (5)
Jon, to paragaphrase Justice Scalia, the good people of the national news media mistook McCain's fit of spite for a change in philosophy.
Jon, to paragaphrase Justice Scalia, the good people of the national news media mistook McCain's fit of spite for a change in philosophy.
Wildboy: right on.
Jon: Going back to 2006 or whenever it was that I started writing these posts, I have insisted that McCain is a phoney. He has not shown any leadership on any matter - being a "maverick", whatever that might mean, is not the same as leadership, for you lead no one if you simply go it your way each time - and demonstrated even less judgement and zero integrity on everything throughout the campaign. This is the horny goat who foisted the Palin on us; this is the oik who failed to rein in the crazies throughout the campaign and in fact fed the fires with overheated rhetoric; this is the man of low character who never resisted the temptation of his using POW experience for lo ... view full comment
Wildboy: right on.
Jon: Going back to 2006 or whenever it was that I started writing these posts, I have insisted that McCain is a phoney. He has not shown any leadership on any matter - being a "maverick", whatever that might mean, is not the same as leadership, for you lead no one if you simply go it your way each time - and demonstrated even less judgement and zero integrity on everything throughout the campaign. This is the horny goat who foisted the Palin on us; this is the oik who failed to rein in the crazies throughout the campaign and in fact fed the fires with overheated rhetoric; this is the man of low character who never resisted the temptation of his using POW experience for low political advantage, even as the logic of his POW experience should have led him to take the moral high ground on matters such as torture.
There is no "descent", really, for he never was exalted; he is a hack and a hackneyed hack at that; he is a knave and a charlatan in a "maverick's" disguise; he bucks the trend or folds into it for political advantage and for no other coherent purpose.
I hope this is the final final descent story - the old McCain the press loved has been dead for years now. I'd say Palin was the final hurrah, he simply cannot go any lower than that. This is child's play - and totally predictable - compared.
(Remember what an airhead he was in the campaign? How little he actually knew about anything?)
I hope McCain loses to the winger loon, I bet he'd be a happier man. Maybe he'd finally learn that bitter lesson we Dems keep trying to forget: there simply is no reasoning with the far right, no ass kissing, so selling of your soul that will do anything but make them hate you more.
I hope this is the final final descent story - the old McCain the press loved has been dead for years now. I'd say Palin was the final hurrah, he simply cannot go any lower than that. This is child's play - and totally predictable - compared.
(Remember what an airhead he was in the campaign? How little he actually knew about anything?)
I hope McCain loses to the winger loon, I bet he'd be a happier man. Maybe he'd finally learn that bitter lesson we Dems keep trying to forget: there simply is no reasoning with the far right, no ass kissing, so selling of your soul that will do anything but make them hate you more.
I respectfully disagree with icarusr. I think McCain really held to the beliefs that he had circa 2000. The fact is that almost all politicians are opportunists who have to know which way the wind blows. McCain, back then, thought he could rekindle the notion of a TR-like Republican party that was progressive domestically (relatively) and aggressive in the promotion of U.S. interests abroad. That wind has been extinguished, and he is now positioning himself to keep his status and the power and prerogatives that it entails in a different political climate. He will never be president, and he knows it, so he's going to hold on to the Senate seat come Hell or high water. McCain (and this is not ... view full comment
I respectfully disagree with icarusr. I think McCain really held to the beliefs that he had circa 2000. The fact is that almost all politicians are opportunists who have to know which way the wind blows. McCain, back then, thought he could rekindle the notion of a TR-like Republican party that was progressive domestically (relatively) and aggressive in the promotion of U.S. interests abroad. That wind has been extinguished, and he is now positioning himself to keep his status and the power and prerogatives that it entails in a different political climate. He will never be president, and he knows it, so he's going to hold on to the Senate seat come Hell or high water. McCain (and this is not charitable) reminds me of John C. Calhoun: a powerful advocate of national power who transmogrified into the champion of states' rights once the South Carolina electorate changed. In short, McCain disappoints but does not surprise.
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I was influenced long ago by a favorable TNR article by, I think it was, Michael Lewis. For a long time, I held that belief until McCain convinced me otherwise.
I was influenced long ago by a favorable TNR article by, I think it was, Michael Lewis. For a long time, I held that belief until McCain convinced me otherwise.