John McCain, the Maverick, Wants You (according to the media)

The secretly a liberal view and the blatantly a nanny-statist view... two sides of the same "Ann Coulter view" as far as I'm concerned.  The first one wasn't a bad read even though I disagreed with the conclusions.  The 2nd one drug out his one and only vote for a tax increase ever, on cigarettes, as further evidence of  disturbing support of empowering the executive branch!  A prime example of throwing everything at somebody and hoping at least some of it sticks.  The first one seemed to note actual interactions with the man that were interesting even if some odd conclusions were drawn from it.  The second one took every complaint Ruch Limbaugh ever made about him and tried to turn it into a sensical narrative... and failed miserably.

It's even difficult to take the first one seriously about the love affair the media has with McCain after all the nonsense of trying to equate a 20 year relationship with a racist goon to a guy who endorsed McCain and got denounced within 24 hours, or the endorsement of the same paper he's contributing too endorsing him with so much love they depicted him as the best among primordial soup and immediately fabricated a Lewinski scandal to destroy him a shorty while later.  Does he even read the paper he's contributing to?  Criminey.

Whatever they're smoking, they should be sharing.  Must be some potent herb.

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Glock21 Op/Ed

From that NYT piece:

Mr. McCain is often mischaracterized as a politician without any identifiable ideology. But all of his actions can be seen as an attempt to use the federal government to restore your faith in ... the federal government. Once we all put our shoulder on the same wheel, there’s nothing this country can’t do.

It can be a bracing approach when his issues line up with yours — I, for one, would welcome President McCain’s unilateral wars on pork-barrel spending and waterboarding — but it’s treacherous territory for those of us who consider “the pursuit of happiness” as something best defined by individuals, not crusading presidents-to-be.

Emphasis added.

IP... McCain's apparent view of the extent of federal power is certainly beyond my own personal beliefs, but I think it'd be an exaggeration to imply that he doesn't respect the limits on government power to protect liberty as much as what I'd consider a more accurate complaint: being a bit too loose in his interpretation of where those limits are, especially when it suits his agenda.  When he talks about restoring faith in the government it is typically part of a legitimate government function under the Constitution, or at least what he believes is one.  It's the latter that irks me, and obviously others, where we disagree with his relatively expansive view compared to our ideal.  I think there are plenty of legitimate complaints about McCain, CFR included, but my complaint about these articles is that they seemed to draw even more dramatic conclusions than even their own examples could substantiate.

Oil Man... I agree that he's still too big government, and while I wouldn't say either "likes the Iraq war," both are committed to ensuring it reaches a much more stable state prior to any significant reduction of our forces due to the negative consquences they believe would result otherwise, and while I wouldn't say either "supports going into Iran" as much both believe that declaring there would be no military repurcussions to Iran's actions or "taking military options off the table" would be a grave mistake since worries about intervention seem to be at least part of what motivated them to put the breaks on (or possibly abandon) their weapons program years back.  I don't think anyone looking for a dramatic shift in our foreign policy will be considering McCain as much as those who support similar goals/objectives but carried out by someone who'd be a bit smarter about it.  On domestic policy he's far less adamant on the christian coalition issues and leans stronger towards non-federal ways of handling them.  He's also a far more believable figure when it comes to reducing spending as he actually has a record to back his image on the matter.  Basically the big change domestically would be leaning a bit more fiscon and a bit less socon.  For someone who may be hoping for a libertarian leaning GOP candidate, he unfortunately is not.  How one weighs the significance of those otherwise small differences on paper could either be a good selling point, or just another lesser evil candidate.

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Glock21 Op/Ed

It appears to me too many of the voters currently see McCain as minimally changing the current White House policies/programs in areas of interest like Iraq, the economy, education, immigration reform, social security/medicare issues, taxes/debt, citizen rights infringement, presidental powers.  Unless he changes his image and clearly answers Oil Man's question on differences, I do not see him becoming the next President.

IP... unfortunately only in speeches and in comparison to Democrats.  Which isn't saying a whole lot. 

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Glock21 Op/Ed