The McCain Trainwreck

I think that the relentless negativity and cynical tactics are catching up with John McCain. Their strategy to paint Obama as "the other" and also to subtly push the racial message is drawing condemnation from all sides. Even Jake Tapper is counting all the white women praising Obama in his latest dogwhistle Web ad. The attacks are coming up short and leaving people discouraged about how this man with 26 years in the Congress has nothing to say about his own record.

Other veterans, such as James Jewett and Jay Johnson of Texas, expressed misgivings about McCain using the occasion to attack his opponent so fiercely.

Duke Hendershot, a double amputee retired Marine who served in Vietnam, supported McCain’s run for president in 2000 but is undecided this year.

“John just isn’t the same as he used to be. He’s not his own man,” said Hendershot, who lives in San Antonio, Texas. “A lot of that has to do with how he’s wanted this job so bad for so long that he’s tied himself to President Bush.”

And the negative tone is inviting other attacks. Many are honing in on all the lobbyist ties inside the campaign. But more than just convenient attack ad fodder, these have real consequences. McCain championed stronger regulatory oversight for the tobacco industry for almost ten years, and this year he changed his position on his own bill.

The campaign of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is declining to embrace McCain’s own 1998 tobacco bill, legislation that would have raised taxes to the tune of $516 billion over 25 years. … Asked repeatedly last week whether McCain still backs the bill and if he thought it was a good idea, senior adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin declined to answer directly.

But he noted that some of the aims of the legislation did not pan out as hoped for after the tobacco industry and the states settled on their own. … And McCain today does not support raising taxes on cigarettes, his adviser said.

Hosting fundraisers with the likes of Ralph Reed, he of the ties to convicted felon Jack Abramoff, is also crushing the maverick brand.

And if this article about the real McCain ever got traction, voters would view him in a whole new light. There's a wealth of new information in here, about his relationship to Charles Keating, his hypocrisy on campaign finance reform and earmarks, but most damning is his cruelty:

In the spring of 1988, things were a mess. Governor Evan Mecham had just been impeached, and everyone was busy licking wounds [...]

In Arizona, when a governor leaves office early, the secretary of state ascends. In this case, that was Rose Mofford, an old-school Democrat from the small mining town of Globe, a lady with a bright white beehive that Arizona Republic cartoonist Steve Benson once famously drew as a cone-full of Dairy Queen.

Mofford had served as secretary of state for decades. She'd never aspired to the state's top spot. But she accepted graciously and agreed to serve out the remaining 2 1/2 years of Mecham's term. She never showed interest in running for another term after that, although she was enormously popular.

As the story goes, John McCain and his friends wanted her out immediately. And, they figured, they had the mechanism in place to do it. Mecham was gone, but the recall effort was still in place. Why not shift gears and target Mofford instead?

The Democrats didn't like that one bit and asked the Arizona Supreme Court to consider the legality.

In mid-April 1988, Mofford and some staff flew to Washington for, as one former aide puts it, the "perfunctory wet kiss" meeting with the Arizona congressional delegation. Even in mean old D.C., there's such a thing as protocol, and the tour was expected to go along without incident.

At 10 in the morning on April 12, Mofford testified before the Senate Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on Appropriations on the topic of the Central Arizona Project.

Now, Mofford had been governor for only eight days. Before that, her main task had been running the state's elections department. This appearance (there was a similar one, later that day, before the House) had been billed as ceremonial. She was not familiar with the particulars of federal water law. Nor did her staff think she'd be expected to be — just then.

But, apparently, Senator James McClure, a Republican from Idaho, did. After a lot of looking, that librarian and I (actually, it took three librarians) tracked down the testimony from that day. McClure asked Mofford a series of questions that would leave any water expert's mouth dry. Her staff jumped in to try to answer, but even so, ultimately they had to file an addendum to the testimony.

Word spread quickly about what had happened [...]

"During lunch, McCain said, almost with mischievous glee, that he had slipped some highly technical questions to [James McClure] to ask Mofford — questions she wouldn't be prepared to answer or expected to answer.

"Flabbergasted, I asked McCain why would he want to sabotage Mofford's testimony, when in fact the CAP was the nonpartisan pet of Republicans and Democrats — such as far-left Udall and far-right Goldwater — since its inception.

"His reply, as near as I remember, was, 'I'll embarrass a Democrat any time I get the chance.'

I'm not convinced this all plays nationally - the lobbyist love, the nastiness, the outbursts, the hypocrisy, the campaign of hate and not hope - but there's a cumulative effect. In the end, I believe voters will reject it if they know the facts.