Terry Preston's in-depth views on the pressing issues of the day, from God, sex and national politics to the high price of a good beer at the ballgame. Any and all comments to these comments are encouraged.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

The McCain Factor

One of the weirdest things going on around Liberaldom these days is admiration for Senator John McCain.

“Oh, he’s so –principled-!”, I hear.

Yeah, but in this governing coalition that really doesn’t require working very hard.

John McCain has one of the worst voting records in Congress. Why the love?

Is it simply fear that anything’s better than whatever the Bush White House anoints as successor emperor-in-chief?

Is that there’s no one with any personality on the Dem side, so that even a McCain seems intriguing?

Are people hoping to see the ghost of Barry Goldwater, the last honest Western conservative, arise out of the good senator?

Is it that he was willing to take on major league baseball over the steroids issue? After all, any man who can stare down Mark McGwire must be a real man.

The mind boggles. The political mind boggles even more.

Personally, I don’t think he’ll get two feet in the primaries. The Rep forces who run the Bush world has stacked enough party machines in enough advance states to dump him early, helped in good part by the right wing Crusaders who work so well on the ground in key states.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the liberal love of the doomed but righteous cause. That’s gotta be it. Because nothing else makes sense.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to have some respect for the guy. McCain talks a good "I'm a straight shooter" game, but when push comes to shove he's the consummate party man. His kissing up to Bush in 2004 after what happened to him in 2000 was quite telling. Guess he wants to be President really badly.

Terry Preston said...

They all want to be president really badly. Someone, maybe Truman, said dealing with the Senate was dealing with 100 people who are all convinced they can do your job much better than you can.