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The Daily OrangeMcCain exposes 'dark side' of the GOP
By Kevin Eggleston
Posted: 3/31/08, 11:45 PM EST Section: Opinion
In the 2000 presidential primary election, Sen. John McCain's Straight Talk Express crashed because his talk was too straight. During that campaign, McCain delighted liberals and independents with his candid observations on the darker elements of his party.
Sen. McCain decried evangelist leaders like Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" and, as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, labeled the establishment of the GOP the "Death Star." Not surprisingly, with honorable truth-telling like that, Sen. McCain lost the Republican nomination.
In response, McCain had a choice. He could continue to fire his torpedoes at the GOP, or he could cozy up to them in an attempt to win a future nomination with the tried and true method of pandering.
McCain chose the latter.
In 2004, Sen. McCain - who was famously offered the VP spot by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry - forfeited what was most certainly a ticket to the White House for a chance to make nice with Republicans for a shot at the top spot in 2008. He hushed rumors of a Kerry-McCain ticket by publicly supporting the reelection campaign of President Bush, just four years after the Bush campaign won South Carolina in part by spreading dirty rumors of McCain fathering an illegitimate black child.
After just one photo of President Bush embracing McCain as if he were the GOP's prodigal son, it was clear the Bush tactics were simply water under the bridge.
In 2006, McCain continued rebuilding bridges he had righteously burned down just several years before. This time, it was with a speaking engagement at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.
Just six years after McCain told America, "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right," the senator was pandering to the right.
Despite McCain's denials that making amends with Falwell was an attempt to make nice with a base of the party, even Falwell acknowledged to ABC News that what McCain was doing was nothing short of political maneuvering.
Sen. McCain decried evangelist leaders like Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" and, as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, labeled the establishment of the GOP the "Death Star." Not surprisingly, with honorable truth-telling like that, Sen. McCain lost the Republican nomination.
In response, McCain had a choice. He could continue to fire his torpedoes at the GOP, or he could cozy up to them in an attempt to win a future nomination with the tried and true method of pandering.
McCain chose the latter.
In 2004, Sen. McCain - who was famously offered the VP spot by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry - forfeited what was most certainly a ticket to the White House for a chance to make nice with Republicans for a shot at the top spot in 2008. He hushed rumors of a Kerry-McCain ticket by publicly supporting the reelection campaign of President Bush, just four years after the Bush campaign won South Carolina in part by spreading dirty rumors of McCain fathering an illegitimate black child.
After just one photo of President Bush embracing McCain as if he were the GOP's prodigal son, it was clear the Bush tactics were simply water under the bridge.
In 2006, McCain continued rebuilding bridges he had righteously burned down just several years before. This time, it was with a speaking engagement at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.
Just six years after McCain told America, "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right," the senator was pandering to the right.
Despite McCain's denials that making amends with Falwell was an attempt to make nice with a base of the party, even Falwell acknowledged to ABC News that what McCain was doing was nothing short of political maneuvering.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
S. Grzelak
posted 4/01/08 @ 8:27 AM EST
WOW. It is amazing how it is PC to lift portions of sentences from a lifetime, insert the "reasons why things were done" (although you cannot possibly know) and conclude, after a ref. (Continued…)
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