I'm wary that this may not entirely be a debate, so be ready for some carefully worded statement.

As everyone should know, Senator McCain is the Republican Candidate for the 2008 President Race. However, it seems as though McCain, for the past eight years, has been confronted by a very difficult predicament: his relationship with his former rival, now-President Bush. While this was originally just an uncomfortable awkwardness between the two men, it's now been brought to the center light: many young Republicans hope or even demand that he cut his ties with President Bush, and the DNC has been awarded with another campaign point: a vote for McCain is essentially a vote for a third Bush Term (whether this is true or untrue is another matter all together, but it makes a persuasive argument for many Democrats and Republicans that were upset with some of Bush's policy choices and appointments in the past eight years.

It's not just a recent development either. The further back you go, the ugly it gets. The two men share similar backgrounds, despite McCain being a decade older, but split at Vietnam--McCain served at Annapolis and ended up North Vietnamese POW, while Bush won a coveted spot in the Texas National Guard.

Before the 2000 election, early in the Republican convention, it didn't seem initially clear which of the two men would become the Republican candidate. This, as I remember it, is when things got ugly--the Bush Campaign decided it had to hit McCain hard if it was going to win.

And they certainly seemed to --accusations of being a double-talking Washington insider, a closet liberal, that Cindy McCain was a drug addict and calls to southern voters that John had fathered a black child at of wedlock (obviously false--the child in question was adopted from an orphange in Bangladesh). "Even by GOP standards, unusually foul stuff".



The rest is history--McCain lost South Carolina and the nomination. To me, it looked like he gave a rather bitter concession to support Bush: "I endorse George Bush, I endorse George Bush, I endorse George Bush".

Fast forward eight years. McCain made his reputation as a maverick, and earned a soft-spot in the hearts of many moderate democrats and even a few, I dare say, "liberals". Of course, both of those have come and gone--I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who considered him still a Maverick or many sympathetic democrats by 2007, even before the battle lines were drawn.

But here's the real spot: can Senator McCain afford to separate himself from the Bush Legacy? Can he afford not to? I'm not sure on the exact details, but it seems like he needed to appear as a Bush-man to secure the initial nomination, and I think that need hasn't exactly disappeared. It's not uncommon for both candidates to drift towards the center once they've been selected for the Presidential race--Senator Obama seems to be doing just that, and alienating more than a few people along the way (though it still seems that he's too black, too foreign, and too liberal for the tastes of many--perhaps there is no pleasing everyone?).

But what about McCain? What do you think would be his wisest choice to select, what would give him the best chance for the seat in the Oval Office. His own reputation by itself isn't enough--he must come to a decision as to where he stood on the past eight years. If Democrats controlled the white house for the past eight years, this would be a non-issue, but as it stands, in pure numbers, even the Democratic holding on Congress is slim (Hell, one Democratic member of the Senate, I believe, was undergoing cancer treatment during all this.)

Now, I think he should distance himself further from Bush...but then again, can he afford to? I dunno. What do you folks think?

Bush made a mess of America in his time as president, and I can picture many voters being wary of electing another republican for fear of history repeating itself. If McCain continues to throw his lot in with Bush, citizens with associate him with the negativity and failure of Bush's presidency, which will cause him to lose the election. I think that if he wants to win, he needs to distance himself from Bush and prove that they have different opinions and strategies. Because Obama is so different from Bush and promises so much change, I think he'll have a leg up in the race. I personally don't want to see a republican in office, but if McCain wants to get there, he needs to prove that he's not going to make the same colossal mistakes that Bush did.

I still can’t get the picture out of my head where Bush and McCain was having cake in celebration of McCain’s birthday while people were dying by the thousand in Louisiana. Anything McCain, trigger a “no good thing” response from my ability to be open minded on his behalf. With me, he is annoying no matter what he do or for what reason.

As an outsider, I can only really give my opinion from what the outsider's view of America, and quite frankly I can't see how McCain can afford not to separate himself from Bush. Right now, non-US opinion of America is based upon Bush and what he did during his term in office. One aspect that a public leader must understand is that they represent their country, because that is what people focus on in world relations. If you have a man who is perceived to be an idiot or oppressive or lacking awareness of protocols, then people assume that must be the view of America as a whole.

America is currently going through a period of change. I cannot say which candidate I would want to win, because I'm not fully informed upon their policies. What I can say is, whoever does win needs to separate themselves from the image that Bush has left in order to get people to actually understand that not all Americans are idiots and can be as competant as other people.

The only people who genuinely believe that John McCain is George Bush reincarnated are those who haven't been paying any attention whatsoever to McCain for the last 20 years. John McCain has always been a bit of a maverick, he has gone against the Republican party numerous times, isn't afraid to speak his mind about anything, and his best friend ran for VP in 2000...you may remember him...his name is Joe Lieberman, and he ran along side Al Gore. McCain is anything but a cookie cutter Republican. The only people who think he needs to separate himself from Bush are those that don't understand him well enough to know he was never fully joined at the hip with Bush in the first place.

An interesting statement, davious, and perhaps a true one--but I don't think it acknowledges the reality that, within his own party, McCain is caught between two pulling forces--the Pro-Bush and the Anti-Bush, to put it simply.

I personally don't think he's a maverick, and never did, simply because he's been a consistent conservative in most regards for as long as I've heard of him. His "best friend", a statement I've never heard, Joe Lieberman, is well known for being an archconservative for his entire career--it's a mystery that Lieberman was ever a Democrat in the first place. Then again, Zell Miller was also a Democrat, so stranger things have happened. I always thought he was just a Republican who'd come to conflict with another Republican, and lost.

The point being, I don't see how his "BFF" status with Lieberman makes him any more of a maverick. But this isn't just about liberal perceptions of him. Within his own party, I think it's very much the case that he must make the decision whether or not he's firm advocate of his former rival (or one might even say enemy), or rejects his decisions. Perhaps it's more symbolic than anything, but politics is about symbols.

He has gone against the Republican party on illegal immigration reform, spoke out against certain pastors in the religious right, and if he has been a consistent conservative, why is he having so much trouble gaining their support? Rush Limbaugh, the conservative's conservative, absolutely lambasted John McCain for not being a conservative, as have other well known conservatives.

If Joe Lieberman were truly a Republican in Democrat's clothing, he never would have made it on the Al Gore ticket in 2000. C'mon, that's just common sense. He is however, like McCain, in that he will cross party lines when he believes the other side is right.

Not necessarily. Acknowledging that Democrats (and Republicans) aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, there's a long-standing tradition of having at least one moderate on a Democratic ticket. In 1992, it was a young Bill Clinton (and it worked too, considering the outcome). In 2000, it was Lieberman, who'd made his reputation in a variety of conservative causes (a lot of them tied to groups like 'Focus on the Family', if I remember correctly). Hell, this can go back to Kennedy, who ran alongside Johnson, a Texan who was at least perceived to be sympathetic to many Republican causes.

Republicans, on the other hand, seem to just run one conservative, and than someone more conservative (Bush and Cheney are a recent example). Of course, part of that comes from perception--people I see as conservative might strike others as moderate.

Mccain cannot, and will not, win the election. This is common sense. He is old, republican, and has a very nasty temper- or so he is percieved as such in the eys of the public- as opposed to Obama who is younger, represents the progression of the nation, and equality for all. He has won the hearts of many younger people who are sometimes over-zealous in their support of him.
McCain won't win. It just isn't going to happen. And hey, I'm not complaining, lol.

I don't have a magical window into the future, but I can't say I agree with this--I think it's entirely possible that McCain will win the election (hence, me posing this question in the first place...if McCain was doomed, period, it wouldn't really matter now would it?).

I don't know I dont life there. but i think maccain should win. i dont like obama. he is black and all that my dad says he is no good.

Your father sounds like a lovely human being, do you look up to him?

Tell your father if he ever decide to come here to live, he will fit right in with a certain sect of the American population. After all, this may be the only country where you can earn a social security check, a military retirement check and a federal government paycheck all at once (at the same time) and still decry how social security is a terribly bad idea, while you make (spent) your whole entire life leeching off the tax payers and yet conclude that the average American is unworthy.:Slap: God Bless America and all the black no good people that also died for this country to make it all that it is! :howdy:

1. McCain can't separate himself from Bush. He isn't secure enough with the base of his party enough to do that without losing the little support he has. He can't run against Bush. In a way, he has the worst of both worlds: the Republican wingnuts hate him and don't trust him, and yet to the rest of us, he seems to be too close to Bush, too much of a hawk on a war that most of us hate.

2. I can't see him winning, but there are always imponderables. The biggest one is the possibility that George W. Bush will start another war (third time is the charm!), this time with Iran, and there have been ample indications that they have planned for this kind of October Surprise for some time. An air raid strike against Iran by Bush, or by Israel with the Bush's tacit approval, in the two month period before the election, would shake the chess board up and down. The Iranians would either mount vigorous anti-American protests, with much hyperventilation and fist-shaking, or they might even retaliate with terrorist attacks against Israeli or American interests. Either way, any anger that the American public would have at the cynicism of such a ploy might be trumped by the American public's anger at Iranian reaction. It would be a very risky thing to do, but if you think you have lost the election anyway, it makes sense to do it, in a sociopathic way that we have come to expect from the Bush administration.

3. I used to admire McCain. Still do. The man is a real hero, and I don't want to ever see him ever get anything like the Swiftboat type treatment that Kerry got. And he was very outspoken and principled at one time. But it seems that he *learned the wrong lessons* from his failure in 2000. He learned that to win the nomination, you have to associate yourself with the lunatic fringe of your party, the neocon types like Perle and Wolfowitz and Kristal and Podhoretz, the only part of the Republican base that seems to be truly loyal to him. Rush Limbaugh and the other right-wing talk radio nutcases don't seem to care for him at all, and neither do the evangelicals.

Our country is in a mess, no matter who takes over, but that mess was created by the Republicans. They exploited 9/11 for political purposes and used the opportunity to damage our country in long-lasting ways that may end up making us no longer the predominant power in the world. This kind of stupid, impulsive, and belligerent strategy has to stop before it's too late. Personally, I think it already is too late. We're going to suffer from this administration for at least a generation, both in terms of loss of foreign policy stature, world influence, and economic world clout. The bad times are just starting.

Well said. If we had never gone to war with Iraq in the first place and tried to be a bit more diplomatic rather than going in there with guns blazing, the country would be in a much better state. I don't understand why U.S. politicians feel some sort of need to "fix" other countries- it's not our problem that Iraq doesn't have a democracy and it's none of our business to force one upon them. The Bush Administration has poured an exorbitant amount of money into this war and has failed to see the problems arising in its own country because of their cavalier attitude- I seem to remember reading an article about America being in the top five countries that spend the most on their military. I gather that Obama (because there's no way McCain can win if he doesn't seperate himself from Bush) will focus on fixing the country's problems first before he goes out to save the world, and I like that about him. If the U.S. government could learn to stop being such do-gooders and look after their own problems first, we wouldn't be in even half of the mess we are now.

I didnt rly undastand most part of yur posts but yeah I oook up to me dad because hes awesome. and it wud be a dream come true if we went to the usa to live there.

xotoothfairyPIINKox - This is a serious political debate. Unless you have any actual useful, insightful remarks to make besides the rather racist and inane comments made above, please remove yourself from this debate.

Why was this racist what I said I just stated my opinion so why is this so bad now? I think YOU did a very racist comment on me as I said, again it was just my opinion!!!
I am very fed up now.
I thought I could come here to a nice place like this and state my opinions but nooo dis seems not to be allowed here!!!
You should update your point of view hystericlpasoxism

Do you even know what the word 'racism' means? And you can state you opinion here, just as long as it's on-topic.

xotoothfairyPIINKox - You clearly have nothing insightful to add to this topic. Do not post on this thread again.

Seeing as how I'm ambivalent about the War and Bush in general, it wouldn't really matter to me how McCain decides to roll his dye, as it were. The only part I hope McCain differs from Bush substantially is in support of the sciences. I really hope we can keep American scientists in America and open up resources to BETTER our country as well as our people. McCain already seems at least 5x more coherent than Bush, so that is a start. But he needs to open up more and try to put a little charisma into his speeches. Because the majority of people will just look at him and think: Bleh, too old. That is the product of our media, like it or not.

Honestly, I think McCain should try to distance himself from Bush. I think it's even possible that he can. However, I do not think it is very likely that he will.

For the comments above, saying that he's not ever been joined at the hip with Bush, that's partially true. Up until about 4 years ago, McCain was his own man. However, afterwards, he's practically announced that he was a "lil' Bush" in his own right. He'd continue the "War on Terror", he'd have continued the war in Iraq, he'd continue with most of the ridiculous programs set up by the current administration. But if you're looking at it as "he hasn't truly joined Bush", viewed from the side of conservatives, you are not looking at it from the proper prospective. Democrats and Republicans, they don't elect presidents. Undecided voters elect presidents. And from an undecided voter's perspective, McCain is just another Bush.

McCain has all the republican votes, simply because they won't vote for Obama. Obama has all the democratic votes because they won't vote for McCain. However, while McCain is still trying to win over his own party, the undecideds are seeing someone that his own party doesn't support, who is promising a 4-8 year continuation of the 8 year hell we just went through, and the Undecideds will NOT want that (At least, I sincerely hope they won't).

In 2000, I'd have voted for him. In 2008, not a chance.

One specific facet of the "problem"--maybe the biggest--is McCain's foreign policy angle. Now, I'm not going to say Senator McCain lacks foreign policy experience, especially compared to Senator Obama. But I fail to see how it could be said that he has a great deal of it either. Being a navy fighter pilot, running bombing missions over Hanoi, and surviving as a POW is certainly heroic (at least, from an American standpoint), but it does NOT make you a foreign policy expert. It seems pretty obvious that being a junior senator for Illinois means you're not going to have much expertise in that field, but I fail to see how being a downed pilot suddenly makes you the Protestant Henry Kissinger. And even Kissinger made mistakes, and big ones.

People like Madeline Albright, or military commanders like General Wesley Clark or David Petraeus--THEY have serious foreign policy experience. Not a junior senator, and not someone who was unfortunate enough to be shot down and held as a POW. Personally, given the choice between Obama and McCain, I think the foreign policy edge goes to whoever can surround himself with the most minds like those. A President can't cover all the bases, so he might as well have a staff that can.

The point of all of this? I wonder if McCain must rely on the established Bush position to give the impression of foreign policy (good or bad, it depends on your opinion of Bush's policies, really). Still, at the same time, he seems to be breaking with Bush slightly...President Bush has been quietly opening talks with Iran, something McCain seemed so adamantly opposed to before.

Any takes on this development?

Synthesis, [Delusions of Grandeur: Does McCain Think He Won Vietnam?]
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on July 25, 2008 at 12:22 PM.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/election08/#92787



I am reading everything I can get my hands on McCain, and he is one angry scary/creepy person.:trix:

That does address what I was speaking about--while I would never question McCain's service as a pilot in the naval aviation service (that was it, right?), I seriously question whether that makes him a genuine war leader. I'm probably going to regret drawing the analogy, but a certain Austrian corporal in the German Imperial Army, twenty years after the fact, was understood by his own generals not to be a brilliant military mind of any sort.

Then again, Churchill was an officer in the British Army decades before becoming Prime Minister, and he's heralded as one of the major leaders in history--but I don't think anyone would dispute that Churchill was surrounded by a variety fo generals and advisers, both brilliant and fool-hearted. The same could be said about Stalin.

Of course, Obama has none of that--but I wonder if that makes any difference. If we wanted an actual war leader, we should have elected a General, like Clark or Petraeus (if he ever ran).

I'm beginning to diverge. Back on topic....

i think its true that McCain has more forgein policy experience than Obama does but its not really doing him one bit of good at the moment.Obama on the other hand is doing very well overseas, US media makes jokes waiting for him to slip or commit some terrible faux-pas (which hasnt happened). Not only is it important for a nominee to have the ability to rally the american public but the leaders and general population of other countries. Under Bush's eight yrs. we have come to be laughingstock when we are supposed to be an example to other developing countries. I dont think that McCain will be able to distance himself from Bush enough to het himself to the White House this Nov.