John McCain's Extreme Makeover
In a doddering performance Josh Marshall deemed "frighteningly sad," John McCain tried to steal Barack Obama's thunder on Tuesday night. As he lambasted Obama and reached out to Hillary Clinton's supporters, McCain laid out his strategy for the fall campaign. Making a mad dash to the center for the general election, the born-again 2000 maverick is running away from his party, his president and his "true conservative" record he relied to win the Republican nomination.
To gauge the extent of John McCain's extreme makeover last night, a look back at his themes and messages during the GOP primaries is helpful. Desperate to win over the party's hard right base, McCain adopted virtually the entire Bush agenda while reversing his past criticism of the religious right. Identifying himself in one primary night speech after another as a "foot soldier" in the Reagan revolution, McCain touted his conservative credentials that featured a Senate voting record CQ gave 90% score for party unity, one aligned with President Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% in the previous year.
McCain's tack to the hard right during the GOP primaries reached its apogee in his ad titled, "True Conservative." In that spot, McCain portrayed himself as reliably well to the right, even on social issues:
Announcer: As a prisoner of war, John McCain was inspired by Ronald Reagan.
Mr. McCain: I enlisted as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.
Announcer: Guided by strong conservative principles, he'll cut wasteful spending and keep taxes low. A proud social conservative who will never waver. The leadership and experience to call for the surge strategy in Iraq that is working. John McCain: The true conservative. Ready to be commander-in-chief on Day One.
It's no wonder McCain in February announced:
"I would be proud to have President Bush campaign with me and support me in any way that he feels is appropriate. And I would appreciate it."
Alas, that was then, this is now.
The GOP nomination won, John McCain began his frantic scramble back toward to the political center and away from George W. Bush and the festering carcass of the Republican Party. His senior adviser Charlie Black gave a hint of centrist things to come with his laughable pronouncement last month that his man was "slight right of center."
Which brings us to McCain's salvo last night. Treating President Bush as if he were the Ebola virus, McCain began the strategic retreat from his own record:
""You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it's so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it's very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false."
"I have worked with the President to keep our nation safe. But he and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues. We've disagreed over the conduct of the war in Iraq and the treatment of detainees; over out of control government spending and budget gimmicks; over energy policy and climate change; over defense spending that favored defense contractors over the public good."
(It's no coincidence that the McCain appeared before a green backdrop, a symbol of his use of the environment and global warming as the one major issue where he disagrees with Bush.)
Never identifying himself as a Republican, McCain deployed the term only to falsely hype a bipartisan image belied by his voting record. In McCain's new found independence, miraculously discovered after capturing the GOP nomination, Republicans and Democrats exist only as factions he bridged - or bucked:
"When I fought corruption it didn't matter to me if the culprits were Democrats or Republicans. I exposed it and let the chips fall where they may. When I worked on campaign finance and ethics reform, I did so with Democrats and Republicans, even though we were criticized by other members of our parties, who preferred to keep things as they were."
"I'll reach out my hand to anyone, Republican or Democrat, who will help me change what needs to be changed."
Last night's John McCain is far cry from the "true conservative" who claimed victory during the Republican primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. But to win in November, McCain has little choice but to undergo his extreme makeover.
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