JOHN McCAIN: AN APPRECIATION
John McCain left us last month. I’ve been preoccupied with other things, but I did have a few comments.
1. Personally, I’ve always had respect for him. Which is not to say I’ve always agreed with him, or that he’s always made good choices (see: Sarah Palin). But he came across to me as someone who didn’t just follow the bullet points - he actually put some thought into the issue at hand, and would actually take the time to listen to your views and respond to them. Which is preferable to the hyperpartisan batshit nonsense that the rest of his party has embraced. Sure, his maverick reputation was overstated and his “Straight Talk Express” was mostly a gimmick. But there was a certain amount of truth behind both.
Admittedly, my assessment of McCain’s politics has to do with the fact that I’m not a party guy per se, and I’ve always figured that if you’re pissing off the extreme hardline wings of both parties, yr probably doing something right. McCain did that, and that’s fine by me.
2. That’s why I felt in 2000 that if he had managed to win the nomination and the presidency I would have been okay with it. My philosophy of POTUS elections has generally been that if my preferred candidate doesn’t win, the winner should ideally be someone who isn’t too far from the center and can at least try to be a unifying figure and work with the opposition (assuming the opposition is willing to do likewise). I think McCain would have been such a POTUS. He certainly would have been better than the one we ended up with in 2000.
3. That said, I was less sanguine about a McCain presidency in 2008 - partly because he admitted having never sent an email (which I seriously felt ought to be a basic requirement to be POTUS in the 21st Century), and partly due to his running mate.
Some people have argued that we basically have McCain to thank for Trump because he gave Sarah Palin a national platform to demonstrate that what the conservative base really wanted in a POTUS was a clueless, xenophobic demagogue whose sole qualifications for office were blatant political incorrectness and insulting liberals. But I don’t think it’s fair to pin that on McCain - the Tea Party/MAGA base was already there, as was Fox News, the Koch Brothers and Breitbart, etc, and the GOP had been quietly courting them for years. Given all the Obama conspiracy theories and racist memes already in circulation during the 2008 campaign, I think the GOP would be exactly where it is right now, sooner or later, with or without Palin as poster girl.
4. Granted, selecting Palin wasn’t exactly good judgment on McCain’s part (which he would later admit). On the other hand, when McCain was handed a golden opportunity to exploit conservative xenophobia over Obama’s heritage, he refused. And he got booed for it, if memory serves. But he didn’t change his answer even when he saw it was backfiring. The same can’t be said for most of the rest of the GOP. So I have to give him points for that.
5. As an aside, it’s interesting in retrospect to note that one of the main arguments against voting for McCain in 2008 - namely his age, which meant that Sarah Palin was “one heartbeat away from the presidency” (translation: if McCain dies in office she gets to run the country) - turned out to be unfounded. Turns out McCain would have lived long enough to serve two full terms. So it goes.
Of course, we can never know that for sure, and given the pressures of the job, his health might not have held up as long as it did. I’m just saying.
6. This article in The Guardian is a pretty good overview of McCain’s many personal and political contradictions. Put simply, he was a complex person and he leaves behind a complex legacy that doesn't fit into anyone’s oversimplified partisan socio-political litmus test. He did good things, he did bad things, and he did neither consistently, but he did most of them out of what seemed to be a genuine desire to change things for the better. And if it wasn’t genuine, he was extremely good at faking it.
7. As for his funeral, it says a lot that he received such a huge send-off. And yes, it also says a lot that Trump wasn’t invited (at McCain’s own behest), and why should he be, all things considered?
And as for Meghan McCain’s dig at Trump, I think she’s more than entitled.
Half-staffed,
This is dF
This entry was originally posted at https://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1619977.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
1. Personally, I’ve always had respect for him. Which is not to say I’ve always agreed with him, or that he’s always made good choices (see: Sarah Palin). But he came across to me as someone who didn’t just follow the bullet points - he actually put some thought into the issue at hand, and would actually take the time to listen to your views and respond to them. Which is preferable to the hyperpartisan batshit nonsense that the rest of his party has embraced. Sure, his maverick reputation was overstated and his “Straight Talk Express” was mostly a gimmick. But there was a certain amount of truth behind both.
Admittedly, my assessment of McCain’s politics has to do with the fact that I’m not a party guy per se, and I’ve always figured that if you’re pissing off the extreme hardline wings of both parties, yr probably doing something right. McCain did that, and that’s fine by me.
2. That’s why I felt in 2000 that if he had managed to win the nomination and the presidency I would have been okay with it. My philosophy of POTUS elections has generally been that if my preferred candidate doesn’t win, the winner should ideally be someone who isn’t too far from the center and can at least try to be a unifying figure and work with the opposition (assuming the opposition is willing to do likewise). I think McCain would have been such a POTUS. He certainly would have been better than the one we ended up with in 2000.
3. That said, I was less sanguine about a McCain presidency in 2008 - partly because he admitted having never sent an email (which I seriously felt ought to be a basic requirement to be POTUS in the 21st Century), and partly due to his running mate.
Some people have argued that we basically have McCain to thank for Trump because he gave Sarah Palin a national platform to demonstrate that what the conservative base really wanted in a POTUS was a clueless, xenophobic demagogue whose sole qualifications for office were blatant political incorrectness and insulting liberals. But I don’t think it’s fair to pin that on McCain - the Tea Party/MAGA base was already there, as was Fox News, the Koch Brothers and Breitbart, etc, and the GOP had been quietly courting them for years. Given all the Obama conspiracy theories and racist memes already in circulation during the 2008 campaign, I think the GOP would be exactly where it is right now, sooner or later, with or without Palin as poster girl.
4. Granted, selecting Palin wasn’t exactly good judgment on McCain’s part (which he would later admit). On the other hand, when McCain was handed a golden opportunity to exploit conservative xenophobia over Obama’s heritage, he refused. And he got booed for it, if memory serves. But he didn’t change his answer even when he saw it was backfiring. The same can’t be said for most of the rest of the GOP. So I have to give him points for that.
5. As an aside, it’s interesting in retrospect to note that one of the main arguments against voting for McCain in 2008 - namely his age, which meant that Sarah Palin was “one heartbeat away from the presidency” (translation: if McCain dies in office she gets to run the country) - turned out to be unfounded. Turns out McCain would have lived long enough to serve two full terms. So it goes.
Of course, we can never know that for sure, and given the pressures of the job, his health might not have held up as long as it did. I’m just saying.
6. This article in The Guardian is a pretty good overview of McCain’s many personal and political contradictions. Put simply, he was a complex person and he leaves behind a complex legacy that doesn't fit into anyone’s oversimplified partisan socio-political litmus test. He did good things, he did bad things, and he did neither consistently, but he did most of them out of what seemed to be a genuine desire to change things for the better. And if it wasn’t genuine, he was extremely good at faking it.
7. As for his funeral, it says a lot that he received such a huge send-off. And yes, it also says a lot that Trump wasn’t invited (at McCain’s own behest), and why should he be, all things considered?
And as for Meghan McCain’s dig at Trump, I think she’s more than entitled.
Half-staffed,
This is dF
This entry was originally posted at https://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1619977.html. Please comment there using OpenID.