Maverickety
September 27, 2008 | Filed Under Election 2008, Opinion and Commentary | No Responses
While the pundits dissect last night’s debate and the fact-checkers serve up an all you can eat buffet, I’m thinking about something else. I think the debate will land on the public in a pretty much zero-sum way–the already committed will be more committed, the undecideds will think it’s a tossup. Like all the other Campaign 2008 watchers, I’ll be curious to see how the next few days shake out poll-wise.
For the moment, however, I’m more curious about the contempt that John McCain has for Barack Obama. It reminds me of the contempt the Clintons had for Senator Obama in the primaries. What’s this about? Well, in both camps, the McCain Rich Old White Guy camp and the Clinton Democratic Royalty camp, the guy is an interloper. He’s in line for the throne that both camps thought was rightfully theirs. (Bill Clinton is still harboring a grudge bigger than a Krispy Kreme franchise.)
What’s more, Senator Obama looks at what is at the heart of America’s ills and addresses fundamental change, not just tactical change, he has a scandal-free marriage, and he is graceful under pressure. He is managing one of the best campaigns in modern American political history. In short, he is cool, clean, and he respects the US Constitution, all factors that make him enviably appealing to the grief-stricken voter who thinks and cares about this country. Did I mention that he is smart? Something that John McCain is proving that he is not.
I get the feeling that McCain has wanted payback ever since he returned from those 5 years of pure hell in a Hanoi prison camp. His repetitive adultery, and subsequent divorce from a swimwear model who’d become disfigured in an accident while he was away, looks like the behavior of a guy who was entitled to be reckless and self-absorbed to make up for lost time. His first wife offered a more charitable view– “John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens. . .it just does.” And who am I to say what happened between the two of them in private. I’m just noticing a trend toward having it all, his way. Next up, just a month after the divorce? Marrying a significantly younger beauty with gazillions of dollars, and using her family’s influence and money to fast track a bid for political office. Hanging out with the likes of Charles Keating. It’s pretty tough not to view McCain as someone whose chief motivation was McCain First, not Country First. And now there is this pesky Obama guy, pretender to the throne.
McCain likes the appellation, “maverick,” a term that enjoys multiple meanings. It could be “someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action,” or “an unbranded range animal (especially a stray calf) that belongs to the first person who puts a brand on it.” There was a time, indeed, when we all thought McCain was a good guy, and a tough one in the mold of the first definition. But there is a current shared view–among evangelical leaders (think Richard Cizik) and lefties alike, conservatives (think George Will) and liberals–that McCain has been dishonorable in how he has conducted his campaign, with his cynical selection of Sarah Palin a prime example and his massively debunked campaign ad lies, slanders, and downright smears the smarmy followup. So now he is the “unbranded range animal” with less independence and more brand changes than Coca Cola. It would be nice to have the “Classic McCain” back, but we’re stuck instead with the Slime-flavored McCain, and we get the sense he’ll change that brand in a moment to further that aforementioned payback that he thinks is his due.
Following that first of three debates, all commentators noted McCain’s dislike of or contempt for Senator Obama. It is hard not to think that race plays a part in McCain’s emotions about Obama, not to mention the public’s as displayed in the relative evenness of the polls–ask yourself whether a white guy with Obama’s appeal and growing presidential credibility would be 20 points ahead in the polls after the long string of McCampaign disasters instead of just to 3 to 9 points. But even if we rule out race, I don’t think that McCain’s vitriol is a case of a conservative hating “the most liberal man in Congress” (something that Obama is most definitely not). I don’t think McCain cares enough for ideology, or even thinks in terms that large.
“Maverick” also happens to be the name of a pinball machine based on the Gibson-Foster movie of the same name. As McCain goes careening about, hitting the flipper, being the flipper, changing his brand and trying some very odd maneuvers to achieve his rightful destiny as President, this Obama guy is blocking the shots. This upstart! This young guy who was never a POW! This fellow who has not suffered enough! This community organizer! First it was McCain’s own party, with Rove and Bush II smearing him out of the running in 2000. He has waited impatiently over eight recent years for his due, and even embraced his Republican Chief Torturer, Karl Rove. And now this? No wonder the man is full of outrage and contempt.
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