[Mb-civic] McCAIN: A Maverick No More? - E. J. Dionne - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

A Maverick No More?
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By E. J. Dionne Jr.
The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 28, 2006; A23

In April 2004 I put in a call to John McCain's office to see if he would 
respond to a group of House Republicans who had attacked his fellow 
Vietnam veteran John Kerry.

In a preview of coming assaults, the Republicans accused Kerry of, among 
other things, "aiding and abetting the enemy" by coming to oppose the 
war in Vietnam, where Kerry had earned so many medals.

McCain's spokesman at the time said he doubted his boss would want to 
get into the controversy. But within an hour or so, McCain called back 
to denounce the attacks on Kerry. "He's my friend. He'll continue to be 
my friend," McCain said. "I know his service was honorable. If that 
hurts me politically or with my party, that's a very small price to pay."

That was McCain the Maverick, who has won much affection outside the 
ranks of his own party. McCain the Maverick fought for campaign finance 
reform, took global warming seriously, opposed Bush's tax cuts and spoke 
out against torture.

Those positions bred mistrust in McCain's own party, even though he was 
always a staunch supporter of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, a firm 
opponent of pork-barrel spending, an abortion foe and an advocate of 
private accounts carved out of Social Security.

McCain's problem is that political parties rarely nominate mavericks, 
and McCain has decided the only way he'll ever be president is as the 
Republican nominee. So today he cares very much about what hurts him or 
helps him in his own party.

The most flagrant sign of this was his February vote to continue Bush's 
dividend and capital gains tax cuts, which he once eloquently opposed. 
"It's a big flip-flop," one-time McCain foe Grover Norquist, president 
of Americans for Tax Reform, told The Washington Times' Donald Lambro, 
"but I'm happy that he's flopped."

Those of us who defended McCain in the days when the likes of Norquist 
were attacking him do see the Arizona Republican's new position as a 
major flop. But so what? Norquist has more power in Republican primaries 
than McCain's old base among pundits and reporters. Whenever a liberal 
turns on McCain these days, the senator's supporters gleefully e-mail 
the criticism to conservative activists as a sign of their man's true faith.

The prevailing view among McCain's lieutenants -- it's also the 
conventional political view -- is that since the main obstacle to his 
nomination in 2008 comes from the right and from Bush partisans, 
McCain's main task is to appease the right and make nice with Bush on 
issues (such as Iraq) where McCain actually agrees with the president. 
Liberal attacks can be ignored, since most liberals will eventually vote 
against McCain anyway. There will be plenty of time after he's nominated 
for McCain to don his maverick apparel again for the benefit of 
moderates and independents.

All terribly logical, but it's a more dangerous strategy than it seems. 
McCain's central appeal, even to people who disagree with him, has 
always been his willingness to do the nonpolitical thing -- for example, 
to defend Kerry that day in 2004 simply because he thought the attacks 
on Kerry were wrong.

If McCain spends the next two years obviously positioning himself to win 
Republican primary votes, he will start to look like just another 
politician. Once lost, a maverick's image is hard to earn back.

Moreover, McCain is winning a hearing from previously reluctant 
Republicans as the one person who might save the party if Bush's 
popularity continues to sink. But if McCain gets too close to Bush in 
the next two years, he will no longer have his independence as a selling 
point. And if Bush should make a comeback, a lot of Republicans flirting 
with McCain now out of necessity will happily abandon him for someone 
more to their liking.

Republican and Democratic friends alike object that this analysis is 
based on a misunderstanding: McCain's nonconservative, non-Republican 
sympathizers, they argue, have always overrated his progressive 
credentials. It's time to face the fact that McCain really is a 
conservative Republican and stop hoping he's something else.

Perhaps that's good advice, but I still don't regret arguing back in 
1996 that Bob Dole should pick McCain as his running mate. "Maybe the 
political climate is too quarrelsome and unforgiving to permit someone 
as interesting as McCain to get on a national ticket," I wrote then. 
"But that would be a shame."

In light of his current strategy, McCain seems to have decided that our 
even more quarrelsome and unforgiving political climate requires him to 
be less interesting and more conventional than he used to be. Call me 
naive, but I think that's a shame, too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/27/AR2006032701300.html?nav=hcmodule
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