Oh no doubt and it’s likely why he lost. But I still think his loss to an idiot in 2000 colored all his actions. Bad news for him was that America had changed quite a bit in those 8 years.
Do the words, “Dan Quayle” ring any bells? The GOP has been trending either stupid or malign for decades. Trump is just the epitome (thus far? - dear lord I hope it can’t get worse).
Heh, I’d forgotten about Quayle. He looked pretty good next to Palin.
I’m in the same boat you are, my friend. Shall we row down the river to Hell together? ;)
Thank you for being the dick so I didn’t have to. I’ll echo all of the sentiment about fuck cancer and McCain’s service.
But let’s also be clear about something. In both major books about the 2008 campaign (Game Change, by Halperin & Heilemann, and Battle for America by Dan Balz of the Washington Post), McCain gave the go-ahead to unleash Sarah Palin in October of 2008 as the attack dog of the campaign, and she immediately zeroed in on Obama “Pallin’ around with terrorists” and playing up his name and tacitly fanning the flames of those who came to see her speak by not blithely saying that she didn’t know if Obama was Christian. And it got McCain a small up-tick in polling and he gave it a thumb’s up, but his campaign people recognized that it wasn’t going to be enough.
And so in the final weeks of that campaign, Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace came to McCain separately and together and said “She’s doing real damage. To the institution and to norms of political discourse. You have to call her off.” Which he did. And then he was told by Schmidt that it was probably not going to happen for him in 2008, but if he could do any good at all, he needed to try to tamp down what Palin had started.
And so in that clip in the OP, you see McCain just a week before election day, abashed and aghast at what had happened under his watch, desperately trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
aaaaack.
Fixed!
Seems like one of McCain’s greatest flaws is a deep-rooted internal conflict about whether or not negative campaigning is necessary in politics. That’s a pretty good character flaw.
Certainly a ton of respect for McCain’s life of public service and his sacrifices and courage during the war, but I’ll join the small chorus of naysayers who wish he hadn’t been complicit in all of the dog-whistling during the '08 campaign, that he had risen above the “obstruct at all costs” policies of his party during the Obama era, and that he had taken a stand against our current president who called him–essentially–a failure and a coward. Maverick? Not so much.
My secret hope is that McCain bounces back from this, or is able to continue serving during his treatment, and decides he has no Fucks to give and it’s time to stand up for what his party and country could be, rather than what it has become. I really feel like he’s got that in him, ready to be unleashed.
That would be pretty amazing to watch.
I retweeted the Kyle Griffin tweet in the OP and then noticed some replies by Muslims complaining that McCain tacitly accepted an opposition between ‘an Arab’ and ‘a decent man.’ Others pointed out that he was responding on the fly and just trying to show respect to his opponent, etc.
Now I feel slightly annoyed, slightly abashed.
I get why the clip can be seen as offensive. I wonder how I’d feel if the lady had said ‘atheist’ and the rest of the conversation continued in the same way.
Still, it’s pretty exhausting to stay on the right side of the Twitter moralverse. I guess my annoyance is similar to the seed of all the anti-SJW sentiment out there.
I have run into this on Facebook in attempting to explain my desire to empathize and appreciate his attempt to raise the level of discourse despite possible poor wording in this example. It is exhausting trying to explain my appreciation for his accomplishments and feel sympathy and that I am not “white washing”, as one person put it, all of the things I oppose that he has done. I feel like I am simply attempting to be human and being told how I am doing it wrong. If I appreciate Obama’s contributions do I also need explain how I hated his continued use of drone strikes or his inability to deliver are certain promises he made? Do I have to way the su total of everyone’s personal and political accomplishments before I can comment on their contribution in either?
I understand the dangers and incremental creep in ignoring the negatives of a person because they get sick or something horrific happens and that it can color your entire perspective and cause you to view everything through rose colored glasses. However, flatly stating that is not what I am doing is not enough it seems.
Given his age (and recent re-election) he really should have reached that stage already.
I agree with CNN’s Chris Cizzilla’s analysis
It was a nomination [2008] that turned out to be barely worth having. The unpopularity of Bush, the Wall Street collapse and the once-in-a-generation political talent of Barack Obama ensured that the 2008 general election was never really close. (McCain didn’t help himself when, in the midst of the financial panic, he declared that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.”)
It was clear that campaign was in trouble by the convention. The base (who as we now know consist of lot Trump xenophobe and racist voters) weren’t enthused about McCain. All the nice clips of McCain saying Barrack Obama is good man, and Muslims aren’t enemy which are admirable to sane people, turned off the base. (Triggercut, I hope you aren’t implying that McCain just started doing at the end, saying his opponent were good people was characteristic of both the 2000 and 2008 campaigns). Sarah Palin was a hail Mary pass, and it at first looked like it worked. I was charmed by her speech at the convention. Sure she wasn’t ready to be President, but McCain was healthy 71 year old and I thought she could grow into the job.
When the financial crisis hit in full force in the fall. I knew it was over. Even I, one of McCain biggest fans who thought John McCain was the best person in the world to face down Putin, get rid of Al Queda, work with China, and perhaps come up with a North Korea solution, wasn’t convinced that McCain was a good person to stare down Central Bankers.
Obama appeared calm, collected and thoughtful during Oct.financial crises meetings, McCain was hyperactive and scattered.
I do appreciate the generally positive things the QT3 folks have John McCain.
My observation is that many have been disappointed in him since the 2000 campaign because you had unrealistic expectation.
Sen McCain is a patriot first, a conservative second, and Republican third. He is also a politician. The conservative part bothers most of you and confuses you because McCain also has several liberal positions. Campaign finance reform, human rights e.g. torture, and Indian affairs.
He is also a pragmatist on a number of issues like immigration, health care, entitlement reform, sentencing etc.
But he generally holds standard Republican positions on most issues. In 2000, when I worked on his campaign his voting record was smack in the middle of the party, by all the measuring groups NRA, Planned Parenthood etc. By 2008, he was slightly to the left of the party.
He isn’t a RINO, like Senator Jim Jeffords, or Arlene Spector, or even a true moderate like Susan Collins.
But he is a true conservative, not the horror show of protectionism, xenophobism, pro-authoritarian, isolationism, and welfare for white people that the Republicans have become under Trump.
Which means he is going to vote against a protectionist trade rep like Robert Lighthizer. He is going to scream bloody murder at the collusion between Trump and Putin. He is also going to oppose Trump’s trampling on the Constitution because he is a patriot.
But isn’t going to oppose an arguably incompetent Betty DeVos, because school choice is a traditionally conservative value. McCain, like most senators of either party, he believes that Senate should generally defer to a President’s cabinet choices.
He certainly isn’t going do anything to stop, a highly qualified jurist like Neil Gorsuch from put on the Supreme Court. Several of you have suggested that McCain should have opposed lifting the filibuster. I find that baffling, it would like a liberal opposing Ruth Bader Ginsburg because Bill Clinton lied.
A man of principles.
You can disagree with him (he seems of the wrong side of history), but seems a solid person.
Since McCain’s gotten his death sentence, maybe he’ll use his remaining time to try to rally the GOP back to sanity? I mean, it’s not like he has to worry about re-election.