Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Honestly, though, what would have actually happened if McCain was on the ticket with Kerry? Would he have suddenly reversed his positions on virtually everything he opposes Kerry on, despite their amiability to one anther—kept his mouth shut and become Kerry’s nice little meek lapdog throughout the campaign? McCain is a charismatic maverick who never fails to speak his mind, and the potential for upstaging and contradicting Kerry would have been a total disaster for Kerry.

Also, McCain is a pretty old-school Republican who, in the end usually supports his party. Imagine the potential for an electoral trojan horse strategy: two weeks before the election he decides to make a major speech repudiating Kerry and throwing his support to Bush. Don’t vote for us, America. On reflection, I’ve decided that George Bush would make the better president. Don’t imagine it would never happen.

Also, no matter what happens in 04, with Cheney out of the picture McCain has to be considered a top potential Republican prospect in 08. I’m sure he knows this and wouldn’t want to shoot himself in the foot. Jeb, Frist, Rice, Powell—I can’t imagine any of them getting the traction with moderates—even moderate Dems—that McCain could.

(1) “It’s impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk…They’d have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen.” - John McCain about being a VP…thats a great quote!

(2) the irresponsible rhetoric is coming from both sides at equal strength. If you listen to the dems spinsters, Bush is the most evil, terrible, poor-people hating, power-thirsty man that has ever been in the white house; if you listen to the republican spin machine, kerry is going to turn over the keys to washing to Osama. As I have posted several times on this page, this all needs to stop. I agree with you 100%, lets talk about the issues. take an issue like say social security. Do not say “Bush wants to privatize social security because he wants all the poor people to die and starve to help out the rich”, argue against the merits of the proposal. Or lets say the death penalty.. dont say “kerry is against the death penalty because he wants to let murders rome the streets and doesnt care about punishing crime”, talk about the merits of his position. Its hard to have a debate when you think the other side is trying to achieve some evil, alterior motive.

(3) I do not think McCain will be the republican nominee in 2008. I think Colin Powell has it if he wants it (just like he had it in 2000 if he wanted it). McCain pissed off a lot of republican primary voters with that terrible campaign finance reform, they arent going to forget that by 2008.

he’s a reasonable man who’s on the other side of the fence on a lot of issues - we need more people like him and Hagel from Neb - we could enjoy real back and forth debates then, because there are no easy answers or fixes for the myriad of questions this election will be decided on and no single group of people have the answers - like my American politics prof used to harp, what made America great are cross-cutting cleavages - the things we agree about are more important than the things we disagree about - i.e. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

There is no way McCain would pull a Trojan Horse. He utterly dispises Bush and has voted against many things that the administration has pushed on Congress. As a matter of fact, Bush has called McCain trying to obtain his vote on issues but he keeps putting him down.

Perhpas my favorite interview was with him on The Daily Show. As much of a “fake” news show as it is, lots of important interviews happen there and are ignored by too many. The best thing is that they are all viewable. Check them out Interviews

He may dislike Bush, but McCain (unlike his and Bush’s mutual Democratic adversaries) doesn’t tend to personalize his disagreements to quite that degree. As much as he resents Bush for the sharp elbows thrown in 00, he’s already agreed to co-chair Bush’s Arizona re-election committee. Doesn’t sound like a Kerry voter to me, much less a Kerry veep.

Wow Martin! You may be even more cynical and distrustful than me! :)

Judging by McCain’s support for Bush under the circumstances, I believe that if McCain made the decision to run with Kerry, he would honor that decision and back Kerry up. I would not expect betrayal from a man like him.

That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be disagreements. But if the two men respect each other, as they say they do, the differences can be worked out or compromises can be made for the good of the country.

If Kerry and McCain decided they could work together, I think it would be just what America needs to move both parties closer to the center, tone down the partisan rhetoric, reunite America, and get some real work done reducing the deficit, improving the economy, and strengthening our position with our allies and against global terrorism.

Having said that, in my original post I acknowledged,

I agree with him that he’d be a better president than vice-president.

And added,

if McCain had decided to run against Bush for the Republican nomination, surprising things would have happened.

> I think Colin Powell has it if he wants it
> (just like he had it in 2000 if he wanted it).

LOL, a black man winning the Republican Primary? This is terribly unlikely to happen. As sad as it sounds, America (and in particular the right wing of the Republican party and the base for the primary season) still tends to be pretty racist. Not to mention that many of Bush’s supporters vehemently hate Powell because of his insistance on being all diplomatic all the time.

-Cf

Christopher, if you read the polling data, Powell had like 80% support among likely primary voters in 1996 but declined to run, the data would have been nerely the same in 2000. its not the 1950s anymore, Powell would be president today if he had wanted it. the stereotype fo the mainstream of the republican party is just a rhetorical ploy used by the left in campaign literacture in my opinion.

Hey Misha that’s an interesting poll number. I googled around a little and could only find polls that favored Powell by 25% for Pres. in 1996 and 37% for VP in 2000. Do you remember where you saw the 80% number?

hmm… i remember it back from 1996… its been a long time ago and I couldnt find it on google either. I could be wrong, but thats the number I recall, and then I remember lots of republicans being upsett cause they knew that was the only real chance to beat Clinton. Then they picked dole as a sacrifical lamb after powell wouldnt run- although Dole did try to get Powell as V.P, but that didnt work out either.

Mark my words…..McCain will NOT run as a VP candidate for Kerry. While he personally may like Kerry more than he likes Bush (and since he hates Bush, this isnt necessarily saying a lot), he is neither willing to sacrifice his political career, nor sacrifice the Republican party.

I think McCain and Kerry share Viet Nam in common, and have been allies in some areas. And we know that Bush and McCain had a bloody primary fight in ‘00. But, McCain will sit on the sidelines, and will speak his mind somewhat, and feel some glee at throwing barbs at Bush, while still supporting him.

Speaking of McCain, I just picked up a book by James Carville and Jeff Nussbaum called “Had Enough?”. Mostly because it had a section on campaign finance reform (a personal pet peeve that McCain & I have in common).

Carville’s idea is simple, once elected, no Congressperson can solicit anything of value from anyone. Period.

Any nonmembers of Congress who want to be members can raise as much money as they want, provided they make an immediate full disclosure.

The moment that the money is deposited into the challenger’s account, the incumbent is credited with 85% of that amount from a publicly guaranteed fund (equal amount minus 15% for the challenger’s fund raising expenses).

I think it’s an interesting idea and it has the virtue of being the simplest plan I’ve seen to date.

This is a completely bizarre debate from start to finish - what in the world makes anybody here think for a half a second that Kerry would consider McCain? Kerry made it where he is as a fairly mainstream Democrat, and Lieberman already tried the whole “appeal to McCain voters” thing anyway, which by the by McCain ridiculed. Several authentic Democratic mavericks already lost the primaries. As for Colin Powell, he might one day be a Republican nominee, but he is kneedeep in the lies surrounding the war in Iraq and has lost the crossover appeal he used to have.

Another time I will disagree with Martin. McCain would not have to change, modify or compromise any of his long held views by accepting the VP spot. He’s just a little to the Right of Joe Lieberman.

Of course, the Republicans will make hay of the stark contrasts with the Dems party line. Who wants to bet a Nexus search will find few GOP detractors bashing candidate Ahnold?

Oh by the way…

-McCain is co-chair the Bush/Cheney Arizona re-elect campaign.

-Did anyone else know that Dick Cheney’s approval rating is 33%?

If the Kerry campaign is smart, they would run those McCain interviews in commercials…now!

>I think Colin Powell has it if he wants it (just like he had it in 2000 if he wanted it).

Colin Powell doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of in you-know-what of getting the GOP nomination, but the problems have nothing to do with being African-American. The first problem is that he is pro-choice. The second problem is that the neocons don’t trust him on foreign affairs, because is an internationalist. After his deceitful (or misinformed, if you prefer) presentation at the UN, Democrats who might have crossed over in 1996 or 2000 don’t trust him either.

> If the Kerry campaign is smart, they
> would run those McCain interviews in
> commercials…now!

Yes. And John McCain knew full well that his words could very well prove to be a powerful weapon against the Bush campaign’s most powerful smear tactics.

-Cf

> I think if McCain had decided to run against Bush > for the Republican nomination, surprising things
> would have happened.

Why do you think McCain lost the primary bid in 2000 then?

You know, that’s a good question. The usual answer is that Bush’s viscious personal attacks starting with the South Carolina primaries, including “push polls” describing McCain as “a cheat, a liar, and a fraud” did the trick.