Last week, David Brooks did a piece worth reading that addressed something I tried to capture in this column — that it’s hard to write about John McCain the way one does about other candidates, because the quality of his character lifts him so far above what we usually encounter in this business:
About six months ago, I was having lunch with a political consultant and we were having a smart-alecky conversation about the presidential race. All of sudden, my friend interrupted the flow of gossip and said: “You know, there’s really only one great man running for president this year, and that’s McCain.” The comment cut through the way we pundits normally talk about presidential candidates. We tend to view them like products and base our verdicts on their market share at the moment. We don’t so much evaluate their character; we analyze how effectively they are manipulating their image to appeal to voters, and in this way we buy into the artificiality of modern campaigning. My friend’s remark pierced all that, and it had the added weight of truth.
Somehow, we never got around to running that last week in our limited op-ed space, so I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it. It seems a fitting antidote to the kind of superficial junk of the last few days. We should all remember that McCain is a guy who, after all is said and done, "still fights a daily battle against the soul-destroying forms of modern politics."
He won’t tell you everything, but there will never be a moment as
the hours stretch by when you feel that he is spinning you, lying to
himself or insulting your intelligence. Telling the truth is a
skill. Those who don’t do it habitually lose the ability, but McCain is
well-practiced and has the capacity to face unpleasant truths. While
other conservatives failed to see how corporations were insinuating
themselves into their movement, McCain went after Boeing contracts.
While others failed to see the rising tide of corruption around them,
McCain led the charge against Jack Abramoff. While others ignored the
spending binge, McCain was among the fiscal hawks.
I like that part because it sounds like the John McCain I know.
Whit Ayres has some figures he’s releasing today from a poll he did for tourism interests. A side finding of the poll — which talked to 300 likely voters each in the S.C. Democratic and Republican primaries — is that the horse race has shifted.
Romney and McCain are within the margin of error (which is large — 5.6 percent — for a sample that small) of each other, with Giuliani between them. Essentially, they’re in a tie for first.
I heard about this from someone with the McCain campaign, who was justifiably pleased, as it showed his candidate doing better than in recent polls. He neglected to mention that McCain’s lead over Thompson is also within the margin. But if the poll is accurate, we’re looking at the post-announcement bounce for Thompson wearing off, and McCain apparently being the main beneficiary.
I hear our newsroom will have a story on this, so I await the details from that.
Normally, I just delete comment-spam and notify Typepad — there’s a button to click on that does both at the same time, not that it does any good in the long run, because the stuff keeps coming.
But this one is so timely, so relevant, so enterprising, so egregious, so offensive that I just have to take note of it.
Someone reacted to this post with a comment steering us to this site — to save you from clicking on it, I’ll just tell you that the site features T-shirts in various styles, all bearing the offensive question spoken by the woman (the obnoxious woman, the woman that I struggle to find a word to describe) in the video.
This is a specimen of the disease eating away at our body politic. This slimeball might actually make some money off of this. Meanwhile, people who care about this country worry that if Mrs. Clinton (or anyone else with the name "Clinton" or "Bush") is elected, we might actually see an escalation of the virulent partisanship of the past 15 years, if that is possible — all because of the kind of people who would ask this question, or have such T-shirts printed up, or, worse, buy the damned things.
Looking at that Web site makes me want to reach through my laptop and give somebody a good slap up ‘side the head. I wanna go all ad hominem on ’em. But I don’t know how.
Here’s audio of John McCain’s conference call with bloggers today at noon. The subject that B.J. was concerned about only came up briefly — when the candidate himself mentioned it.
Topics that were discussed included Pakistan, Iraq, "medical marijuana," health care, the need for a larger military, and the gang of 14.
I basically just wanted to listen in, although I did put myself in the queue for a question. I guess all the others were more eager and got theirs in more quickly, since my turn never came up.
If it had, I would have asked why he seems settled on sticking with Musharraf, when a case can be made that he has delegitimized himself with moderate, anti-Taliban elements in the society — might we not be at a point where Mrs. Bhutto is the only workable option?
I would also have asked jokingly whether he really meant to say Gen. Musharraf is an "ethical type of individual," rather than "aesthetic type of individual."
But no big loss. Here is the audio, if you want to listen to it. It begins in the middle of Sen. McCain explaining that he is in Phoenix because his wife (shown below at an event in Aiken in September) is undergoing surgery for her knee problem…
Just got this from B.J. over at the McCain campaign:
Hey Mr. Warthen – I think you might be interested in this. Here’s the deal: On Monday in Hilton Head at a Meet & Greet, some lady asked McCain, “How do we beat the bitch?” He responded. (See Video 1) Last night, CNN’s Rick Sanchez stooped to new levels of sensationalism in reporting the incident. (See Video 2). This morning, we released a statement from Buzz Jacobs, SC Campaign Manager. (See Below) Today at noon, McCain is holding a national blogger call and this is sure to be the hot topic. I thought you might want to get on that call, so if you’re interested, please let me know ASAP and I will send you the call info.
Thanks, BJ
I told him, yeah, I might want to listen in on that. Anything y’all want to share prior to that? Personally, my immediate reaction is that I have but one complaint about the way Sen. McCain handled it: he spoke of the nomination of the "Democrat Party," not the Democratic Party. And I think the guy on CNN talking about it makes an ass of himself.
Also, here’s the release to which B.J. referred:
STATEMENT FROM SC CAMPAIGN MANAGER ON CNN REPORT For Immediate Release Contact: SC Press Office Wednesday, November 14, 2007 COLUMBIA, SC — U.S. Senator John McCain’s South Carolina campaign manager Buzz Jacobs issued the following statement in response to a report aired last evening by CNN’s Rick Sanchez:
"It is disappointing that Mr. Sanchez would choose to engage in sensationalism in the hopes of generating a story. It not only reflects poorly on him, but on CNN. If Mr. Sanchez had even the faintest perspective on the race for the White House, he would know that Senator McCain has expressed his utmost respect for Senator Clinton numerous times on the campaign trail as he did at Monday’s event in Hilton Head."
By BRAD WARTHEN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Areader recently told me she enjoys my columns because she likes to follow my “soul-searching” as I try to work through an issue. I suggested she keep reading — who knows; someday I might actually find something. But I knew what she meant, and took it kindly. That’s the kind of commentary I value, too. That’s why I called Hal Stevenson on Friday to talk about the upcoming presidential primaries. Hal is a political activist of the Christian conservative variety. He’s a board member and former chairman of the Palmetto Family Council, which has its offices in a building he owns on Gervais Street. He’s also one of the most soberly thoughtful and fair-minded people I know, which to the national media probably constitutes an oxymoron: The thoughtful Christian conservative. When last I saw Hal, he had brought Sen. Sam Brownback in for an editorial board interview regarding his quest for the GOP presidential nomination. Since then, several things have happened:
Sen. Brownback dropped out.
Mitt Romney made a splash by lining up the support of Bob Jones III, he of the fundamentalist Upstate university of the same name (without the III, of course).
Of all those, the nod I would have valued the most was that of Sen. Brownback — like me, a convert to Catholicism. When he spoke of the impact of faith on his approach to leadership, it actually seemed to have something to do with Judeo-Christian beliefs: He spoke of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly. By contrast, Pat Robertson’s explanation as to why he was endorsing the one Republican least in tune with religious conservatives seemed to have little to do with spiritual matters, and everything to do with secular ideology and partisan strategy: He spoke of defeating terrorism, fiscal discipline and the selection of federal judges. The first two concerns are secular; the third seemed the least likely of reasons for him to back Mr. Giuliani. The ways in which “values voters” interact with the sin-stained realities of power politics have long mystified me, and I wondered: Does a guy like Pat Robertson, with all his baggage (wanting to whack Hugo Chavez, suggesting 9/11 happened because America had it coming), actually deliver more votes than he chases away? So I called Hal to help me sort it out. As of lunchtime Friday, when we spoke, he was up in the air about the presidential contest himself, now that his man Brownback was out of it. But he’s sorting through it, and has had face-to-face talks with the candidates he considers most likely. “My heart says Huckabee,” he said. “He’s much more like me, I suppose, than the other guys.” But that’s not his final answer. He said when he asked Sen. Brownback why he didn’t get behind Gov. Huckabee, he said “it’d be like endorsing himself, so he might as well stay in himself.” He was looking for someone who offered what he couldn’t, and chose McCain. As for Hal, “I did meet with McCain,” who is “certainly a real patriot,” but he’s trying to decide whether the Arizonan’s position on stem cell research — he charts a middle course — “is going to be a deal-killer for me.” (Brownback has told him that McCain says he wouldn’t make such research a high priority as president.) He hasn’t decided yet about Mitt Romney. He’s talked with him, and sees him as “a very capable executive… he’s proven that.” But he cites “Sam’s words” about the former Massachusetts governor: “He’s a technocrat, running as an ideologue.” While noting that “we don’t look to Bob Jones III for a lot of stuff,” there are “some very credible Christian activists out there supporting Romney.” He mentions state lawmakers Nathan Ballentine and Kevin Bryant, and cites his respect for U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint. He says he’s not bothered by Mr. Romney’s flip-flopping on abortion, since he “takes the right position now.” But he worries it could hurt him in the general election, when Democrats could use old video clips to great effect. “I am going through a methodical process,” he said, “and I have been impressed with McCain, Huckabee, Romney….” He has not, however, met with Fred Thompson, “and I probably wouldn’t waste Giuliani’s time.” “I respect him for being straightforward and not trying to B.S. us,” he said of the former mayor, but he does not relish having to choose between two pro-choice candidates next November. As for the host of “The 700 Club,” “I really don’t much care what Pat Robertson does.” “Robertson lost credibility with most thinking evangelicals a long time ago.” Hal said he was turned off back during Mr. Robertson’s own run for the presidency in 1988: “It was all about acquiring political power in the Republican Party,” and that “wasn’t what many of us thought the Christian Coalition was about.” While Hal himself is still seeking the answer, “I’ve got good evangelical friends who are working for every campaign.” Every Republican campaign, that is. Nothing against Democrats per se, Hal says; it’s just that “A pro-life Democrat doesn’t have a chance in the Democratic primary,” and that is a deal-killer. Hal still doesn’t know which of the candidates that leaves please him the most, but in the end, that’s not the point: “The only person ultimately I’m trying to please is the Lord.”
Here is something I meant to post yesterday, but didn’t have time after I finally got the info I needed.
Friday morning, I was reading up on Mukasey’s confirmation the night before, when I noticed that not one of the senators running for president had recorded a vote. Since I still needed a topic for my Sunday column, I thought this might be it. I decided to put each of their campaigns on the spot, and write on the basis of the responses I got.
So I e-mailed contacts at each of the five campaigns. Under the heading, "Where was Sen. (blank)?" I wrote:
(contact name),
Why was Sen. (blank) (along with all the other presidential contenders)
recorded as "not-voting" on the Mukasey nomination last night? What was
more important? And what was the senator’s position on the question of
whether he should have been nominated?
— Brad
Unfortunately, the replies were slow coming in. The first was from B.J. Boling with John McCain at 11:51 a.m.:
Hi Mr. Warthen-
Senator McCain’s policy is to be present when his vote would affect the
outcome. When Sen. Feinstein and Schumer decided to confirm Mukasey it
became clear McCain’s vote wouldn’t change the outcome. He has clearly
supported Mukasey’s nomination. (Please see Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham’s letter below.) Senator McCain was receiving the endorsement of
Sen. Brownback in IA.
Thanks
BJ
I think BJ was confused; the Brownback endorsement was the day before. Anyway, I didn’t hear from the next campaign — Joe Biden’s — until 2:47 p.m.:
Brad:
Tried to reach you by phone to discuss but got your voice mail so thought I would respond my e-mail.
Don’t know exactly where Senator Biden was late yesterday when the
Mukasey nomination came up on the Senate floor. However, Senator
Biden had expressed his strong opposition to Judge Mukasey’s
confirmation (link to his statement…) and voted against
reporting the nomination out of the Judiciary Committee. Further,
Senator Biden has previously indicated that he would not miss a vote in
which his vote would determine the outcome. Obviously, the Mukasey
vote was not close giving the fact that six Democrats had announced
their support for Judge Mukasey well in advance of the actual vote
taking place. Call me if you have any further questions.
Trip King
It should be noted that because I was swamped — it being Friday, and my having to switch gears and pursue a completely different column idea — I wasn’t answering my phone, which presented an obstacle to the campaigns. Amaya Smith kept trying to call me, mentioned that she was doing so in an e-mail. I explained that I’d rather have e-mail because I didn’t have time to talk, so she wrote:
That was at 3:06. At 3:50, I heard from Michelle Macrina with Chris Dodd. She wrote,
Brad, At a time when the confirmation seemed assured, Senator Dodd was the first Democrat to voice his opposition to Judge Mukasey’s nomination based on his position on the Rule of Law. He registered his opposition repeatedly and urged his colleagues to do the same.
Zac Wright with the Hillary Clinton campaign was apparently having a bad day, and missed my first e-mail. After I e-mail him again, he responded at 6:14 p.m. with:
She’s made every effort to make her votes, as evidenced by having the best attendance record of the candidates running. But she’s running for President and was campaigning in NH. Had this been a close vote, she would have been there.
She’s already spoken out about her views. This is her statement from the Senate yesterday.
So those are their stories, and I suppose they’re sticking to them. If I’d had time to chat, I would have pursued the matter further with each, but I was multitasking, and this was a lower priority than cranking out pages. I’m just getting to this now.
As I quoted Hal Stevenson of the Palmetto Family Council as saying of Brownback in my August column, "I was looking for someone who exhibits, and walks the walk that they talk, and that’s a rare thing in politics."
Judge Michael Mukasey seems uncertain on the point of whether "waterboarding" is torture. Others who have tried it seem a bit more decisive. (Both of the following links were brought to my attention by Samuel Tenenbaum, who in real life
thinks about lots of things besides his 55-mph proposal.)
Here’s a video of a guy undergoing the treatment. He gets through it OK — but remember, he knew the guys doing this to him were friendlies, and would eventually stop.
Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia — meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells. The lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again. Call it "Chinese water torture," "the barrel," or "the waterfall." It is all the same.
After reading that, and watching the video, I believe I’d agree with John McCain that this constitutes torture. (Of course, I would be loathe to argue the point in any case with the one presidential candidate who truly knows exactly what he’s talking about when it comes to torture.)
But here’s another question: If you were actually racing against the clock to prevent a terrorist attack that could kill hundreds or thousands, would you do it anyway? Or would you allow others to do it in your behalf? Or would you simply look the other way if they did?
I’ll tell you what got me thinking along those lines. It was the interview with Alan Dershowitz on the above-linked video. He didn’t seem to mind the use of the technique to stop terrorism, as long as there is "accountability." He would want the president of the United States to specifically permit it, in writing. That’s a lawyer for you. Strain at a gnat, miss the camel — or the beam, or whatever.
Personally, I wouldn’t want anybody I’d ever vote for to give permission for such a thing. Nor would I want him to give a nod and a wink, either. If some Jack Bauer-like subordinate did such a thing, without authorization, and did indeed save many lives doing so, I’d be inclined to thank him on behalf of a grateful nation, then prosecute him to the full extent of the law. Unlike Mr. Dershowitz, I think under the circumstances I could live with the inherent contradiction.
My man McCain keeps going on about this proposal Hillary had for a Woodstock museum, and I can’t help that the old dude’s missing the real problem here. I keep thinking: a museum? For Woodstock?
There’s something extremely uncool about that. Museums are where established, older-generation culture is stored and entombed in cold marble, right? It’s where the Man puts his stuff.
Wasn’t Woodstock — to the extent that it was about anything other than being a rip-roarin’, get-high-and-get-nekkid sort of party — sort of about the opposite of that?
Where was Hillary’s head at?
Oh — and in case you’re not digging where my headline is at, here’s a link.
As tends to happen on a blog, this post about one subject rapidly degenerated into a spitting match about something else altogether. This time, the digression was led by two of our resident cynics, "bud" and Doug.
bud mentions a tale about something unsavory John McCain once said (at least, I guess he said it) at some obscure, non-televised event. Weldon expressed incredulity that it had ever happened, and Doug provided a link to a 1998 piece on Salon.com that says it did happen, and what’s more, the MSM is wicked for not having repeated the horrible thing Sen. McCain is supposed to have said.
To which I can only say yeah, Doug, I found the same story when I went looking to see if Weldon was right — and I practically laughed out loud at its premise.
Since I don’t know this David Corn guy, I’ll ask bud — What’s it like to feel so put-upon by the world that you will believe the most implausible explanations, as long as they involve deviousness and conspiracy?
I was never in a position to make the decision about the Chelsea "joke" — I had been out of newsrooms for years then, and I don’t recall it coming up in handling op-ed stuff — but from years and years of making such decisions and working with others who made the same decisions, I suspect I understand why those two lines were not repeated.
One reason I do what I do — writing columns, doing this blog, doing pretty much anything and everything I can think of to be transparent short of walking down Gervais Street naked (and believe me; you don’t want to see that) — is to help people understand what we (newspaper editors) do and why we do it. I think that’s important for a number of reasons, not least the fact that people seem to go out of their way to ascribe devious motives to newspaper people (I refer you to this distraught lady). They’ll believe anything other than that we do what we do for the reasons we say we do them. That’s just beyond possibility to them.
bud responds to all this introspection by doing his best to seize upon the unlikeliest explanation — and preferably, the one that would insult me the most. After a year or two of blogging, I had succeeded in communicating to bud that the polarization of our society into left and right, Democrat and Republican, was repugnant in the extreme (the very post of which we speak was related to this concern). So what was his response? It was as follows: "You’re a partisan, Brad! A big, fat partisan! You’re the worst of them all, you lousy hypocrite! Hey, everybody, look over here! Check out the partisan!," etc.
And now this. For the record, here’s what I think about the Chelsea "joke" story:
When bud mentioned it, I assumed it was true. It even sounded vaguely familiar, like maybe I heard it second-hand somewhere.
I believed it because one of McCain’s character flaws — big shock, folks, he’s got ’em like everybody else — is a disturbing taste for the really inappropriate joke. Remember "Bomb, Bomb Iran?" I don’t know if it’s an old sailor’s thing, or what. I do know that he has a rather twisted bemusement, arising from his personal experience, that causes him to smile at what some people think is "horrible." You can see him thinking, "You call THAT horrible? You don’t know anything." But whatever the explanation, there’s no excuse for it. Not for a joke like this.
I wondered whether the Republicans he told it to laughed. They probably did. There’s something about the mob mentality, when they gather for these partisan functions, that makes Democrats and Republicans laugh at pretty much anything that’s cruel or demeaning to someone on the "other side."
Of course no reputable news source printed it. You know why? Because I can’t think of a single legitimate journalistic reason to repeat something that cruel about a kid who is in the public eye through no fault of her own. If it were just a grossly inappropriate joke about Janet Reno, that’s one thing. But Janet’s a big girl (no joke intended), and someone who has agreed to be a public figure. No, Janet Reno shouldn’t have to take that, either. But she’s not the one editors would worry about. Note that the fact that he’d said something awful was reported, and enough about it was said to make any sensible person not want to hear more. All the wicked MSM did was fail to repeat the joke itself.
Yes, the press has always liked McCain. You know why? He’s so accessible. He puts up no barriers. He makes himself completely, absurdly accessible to us. (If anything, telling a joke like this, making a jerk of himself, is a twisted manifestation of this.) You just can’t imagine how sick we get of the ramparts most public figures erect. When we run into a guy like McCain — and it’s a rare thing, especially at this level of politics — there’s a natural tendency to like the guy. It’s a basic reflex on our part, sort of like a man automatically liking a good-looking woman who takes her clothes off. You may not agree with her politics, but you can’t help but take it kindly.
People who think that liking McCain equates to covering up his flaws are totally out to lunch. Remember, what is it we like about the guy (and I’m using "we" in a broad sense to include the press at large; I have additional reasons why I like him as a candidate)? His openness. The fact that we get to show him with all his scars and warts and wrinkles and bad skin and mean temper and horrible, horrible, and even dangerous jokes. But that’s still no reason to join him in being mean to a poor kid.
What do people think it means for the press to "like" McCain? I’ll tell you what it means to me — they like having the guy around. That does not necessarily translate into wanting to see him achieve his goals. How many reporters or editors (besides me) do you think actually voted for McCain when given a chance, or will vote for him this time around? I’d be surprised if the number was large. And if they wouldn’t even vote for him (again, just my supposition here), how stupid would they have to be to compromise their integrity and self-respect (we do have such qualities, you know, despite what you seem to think) to help him succeed?
What is wrong with people who get all huffy and make accusations of malfeasance when someone uses good judgment and doesn’t repeat something that would do no good for anyone, and would harm innocents? Has their value system been so distorted by the partisan, tit-for-tat madness we see on 24/7 TV "news" that they would do anything, no matter who gets splashed, to reflect discredit upon someone of whom they disapprove? How sick is that?
I probably thought some other stuff, too, but I’d forgotten it by the time I got to the bottom of that list. That’s one reason I blog — a desperate attempt to keep up with stream of consciousness. My stream may not be deep, but it’s pretty wide.
Please join Senator John McCain at 5:00pm on Friday, November
2nd, 2007 in honoring the memory of Lance Corporal Joshua L. Torrence, USMC.
Joshua graduated from White Knoll High School in Lexington, SC where he made a
name for himself both in the classroom and on the football field. He was the
epitome of a leader and a true team player. Following his graduation in 2003,
Joshua selflessly answered the call to duty. He enlisted in the United States
Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq. As those who knew Joshua will tell you,
it was no surprise that he volunteered to be transferred to Fallujah, where some
of the fiercest fighting of the war was taking place. Sadly, he lost his life
while on patrol on March 14, 2005.
Because of their love of Joshua and their gratitude for his
service and sacrifice, members of the White Knoll High School community have
united in a remarkable way. They have organized a massive grassroots campaign
in order to raise the $150,000 necessary to name the high school’s new field
house in Joshua’s honor. Senator McCain will be attending the November 2nd
ceremony which will take place prior to the White Knoll vs. Lexington football
game. Additionally, four of the 9/11 FDNY firefighters, who also play on the
FDNY football team, are flying to South Carolina to help honor Joshua’s
service.
Please join Senator McCain in supporting this
wonderful cause. Your financial support is much appreciated. This
event is non-political and 100% of the proceeds will go directly towards the
memorial field house. To learn more about Joshua and how to help the community
accomplish their goal, please visit the following:
News coverage about the effort: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9AshUXXQoQw
Which reminds me that I had meant to bring your attention to this editorial in the WSJ yesterday. It
was an editorial about the awarding of the third Medal of Honor in the war. It was presented to the family of Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy, a Navy SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. An excerpt:
The SEALs were at a tactical disadvantage and became pinned down in a ravine. Lt. Murphy, already wounded, moved out from behind cover, seeking open air for a radio signal to place a rescue call. He was shot several more times in the back. He dropped the transmitter, picked it back up and completed the call, and then rejoined the fight.
Only one of the four SEALS in the team would get out alive. Lt. Murphy was not one of them. The Journal’s conclusion:
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is almost spoiled for choice when it comes to such instances of heroism and sacrifice. It is regrettable that these volunteers are too often rewarded with indifference by the U.S. political culture, where "supporting the troops" becomes nothing more than a slogan when there is a score to settle. The representative men in this war are soldiers like Lt. Murphy.
Thank God for Lt. Murphy and those like him. And may God send solace and strength to his family. Those are his parents, Maureen and Daniel, below, with Navy Secretary Donald Winter at left.
Seems like I’ll stoop to anything to get you to click on a blog post, doesn’t it? Sorry about the headline. Tacky. I would never encourage you to hate anyone.
But my point was to share with you the results of this Zogby poll, which found that half the electorate says it would never vote for Hillary Clinton. She has the highest negatives, and Mike Huckabee and Bill Richardson have the lowest, going by that standard. (You may have already read about this, as it came out Saturday, but I’m just now getting around to checking the e-mail account the release came to). An excerpt from the report:
While she is winning wide support in nationwide samples among Democrats in the race for their party’s presidential nomination, half of likely voters nationwide said they would never vote for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows. The online survey of 9,718 likely voters nationwide showed that 50% said Clinton would never get their presidential vote. This is up from 46% who said they could never vote for Clinton in a Zogby International telephone survey conducted in early March. Older voters are most resistant to Clinton – 59% of those age 65 and older said they would never vote for the New York senator, but she is much more acceptable to younger voters: 42% of those age 18–29 said they would never vote for Clinton for President. At the other end of the scale, Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrats Bill Richardson and Barack Obama faired best, as they were least objectionable to likely voters. Richardson was forever objectionable as President to 34%, while 35% said they could never vote for Huckabee and 37% said they would never cast a presidential ballot for Obama, the survey showed….
Here’s the full list:
Whom would you NEVER vote for for President of the U.S.?
%
Clinton (D)
50%
Kucinich (D)
49%
Gravel (D)
47%
Paul (R)
47%
Brownback (R)
47%
Tancredo (R)
46%
McCain (R)
45%
Hunter (R)
44%
Giuliani (R)
43%
Romney (R)
42%
Edwards (D)
42%
Thompson (R)
41%
Dodd (D)
41%
Biden (D)
40%
Obama (D)
37%
Huckabee (R)
35%
Richardson (D)
34%
Not sure
4%
I got to thinking about it just now, and wondered for the first time which, of all the candidates, would I be least likely to choose at this point? Here’s how I would rank them personally:
Gravel — I’m 99.44 percent sure I would never vote for this guy.
Mind you, that’s just off the top of my head, based on what I know now, without any of my editorial board colleagues setting me straight on any of the calls. And I’ll admit I cheated on one — I can’t even picture "Hunter," much left summon up any relevant impressions, so I just sort of buried him in the pack toward the "less likely" end, hoping no one would notice.
Proving once again the truism that no candidate is right about everything, John McCain is talking about a health care "plan" that sounds an awful lot like the standard GOP laissez-faire approach, which is, "Let’s help them that has put away money to pay for their own health care, and forget (to use the euphemism) everybody else."
This is further evidence supporting Mike Huckabee‘s observation that most Republicans don’t have a clue how regular folks who don’t have a bunch of money live.
I offer a genuinely conservative vision for health-care reform, which
preserves the most essential value of American lives — freedom.
That’s libertarianese for "The last thing in the world we would want government to do is help anybody. (After all, if it did that, you might stop hating it.) Remember, we stand up for your freedom to suffer and die from lack of affordable health care."
John McCain was midway through his "No Surrender" bus tour last Sunday when he entered territory both familiar and friendly, that of yet another military veterans’ group. The tour was named for his position on Iraq, one mirroring that of the Bush White House: No withdrawal, at least not in any numbers and not now. It also could have been named for his second Republican presidential run. The Arizona senator is hanging in there, something many thought unlikely after six months of disastrously low fundraising for a major candidate by 2007 standards…. Now the leaves are beginning to turn, there’s a chill in the morning air, donations have improved, the private jet’s back on call, and, like Mark Twain, rumors of McCain’s political death proved premature. His Iraq-centered performance in the recent New Hampshire Republican debate won favorable coverage. He’s staking his final presidential run on being the candidate most vocally supportive of an unpopular war, a guy who wanted a troop surge before the administration thought of it. McCain has used Gen. David Petraeus’ report on Iraq in a sort of "I told you so" context to reinvigorate his campaign, combining it with sharper criticism of the Bush administration’s initial policies. A reference to an America in dire need of leadership is the closest McCain comes to even hinting he’s running for president….
We were driving out of Lexington and about to get on the highway for Aiken, with B.J. Boling at the wheel, when it occurred to me that I was in a situation that felt familiar, though I had not encountered it for a long time. I thought back, and it was even longer than it felt:
1980 — that was the last time I found myself riding around with a candidate for public office, or his campaign. That last time was with Howard Baker (see photo at bottom), who was also running for the GOP nomination for president, and we were in Iowa in January of that year. It was the last year that I was a reporter. Before that, most of my experience along this line had been traveling with the candidates for governor of Tennessee, 24 hours a day, in the last weeks of the 1978 general election. In those days, we did things like that — travel, live, eat with the candidates. Few journalists do it to that extent today.
B.J. had asked if I wanted to ride along with John McCain on the famous bus, and I said sure, after a glance at my calendar. It would take me away from the office for half a day, which seemed doable. He was driving me and some colleagues to Aiken, and we were riding the bus back.
The ride to Aiken had been pretty much as I expected, as had the event at the VFW hall there. Things shifted a bit when I got onto the bus.
There were, of course, two buses. One held most of the media herd, the other held the candidate and his inner circle — in this case the candidates’ wife, his press secretary, a camera crew, and several of his old buddies from Vietnam War days. There were only about eight seats in the main compartment — those big, plush captain’s chairs that turn around. But we were put in the little room at the back, with one continuous, curved seat that shaped itself around a table, perfect for private meetings — or interviews.
I had not counted on an interview. I had just interviewed John McCain. I had no new questions to ask. I
thought being "on the bus" would be a matter of passively soaking up the ambience, collecting some color, and maybe exchanging a word or two with the candidate as he walked up and down the aisle. (Truth be told, this is my main reporting technique, when out in the field — the fly on the wall. I like to go into a situation, look and listen, and then write about what I saw and heard. I don’t like interacting with the subject out in the field, because it changes the reality of what I’m there to write about. In the office, that’s cool. I expect to conduct an interview in the office. But in the field, I like to blend into the woodwork.) I figured a guy running for president had stuff to do other than talk yet again to me.
But it wasn’t like that. I was to be jammed into that little room with the main guy, with him expecting questions, and a press secretary standing in the door as a witness. I had the feeling that the press secretary would crack me on the head if I didn’t keep coming up with questions: "Bradley, don’t be such a dunce! Ask a question!" And for all I know, she might have.
Worse, if you admit to being at a loss for questions when you have a golden opportunity like this — an hour with a guy who might become president, just waiting for your questions — you draw the ire and disgust of your friends and your readers (especially your blog readers; just watch the way I get nailed for this). To increase the pressure, I had a bad record pitching to this guy. That’s why most journalists just go ahead and ask questions, any damn questions, even foolish ones, in an effort to provoke the guy to say something, anything that you can write about.
So I asked questions. In fact, I probably asked the most questions, despite two reporters being in there with us, because that’s my habit in interview mode: I’m accustomed to directing the conversation when I preside over editorial board meetings, acting as a sort of host. One must keep the guest entertained. So I tried, lamely.
At one point I was tempted — and I’m very embarrassed to admit this — to ask him the Spin Cycle Question of the Day, which that day happened to be the "controversy" over whether he was an Episcopalian or a Baptist. But the veterans at the front of the bus had specifically razzed me in advance on that — You’re not going to ask him about that Baptist stuff, are you? — and that helped keep me in line. The thing is, I hate the Buzz Question of the Day; it’s one of the most idiotic things about modern political reporting. In fact, I avoid such things so assiduously that I didn’t even know about "the Baptist stuff" until they mentioned it and I looked it up on my Treo. (Even as I was looking it up, poor Jim Davenport was having to ask him about it. That’s the curse of being the AP guy on the spot — you have to ask the Question of the Day while your local colleagues are able to cover the actual event. I’ve written about this before.)
But in my desperation not to ask him some variant of a question I had asked him before, I almost stooped to ask about that one, and for once I had sympathy for the desperation of the traveling press corps, who grab desperately at any new wrinkle, however inane or irrelevant.
Fortunately, I was NOT in the traveling corp. I was Local Media, which means I was not expected to be hip to the latest. I could ask about anything in my ignorance, and it would be forgiven. At one point the candidate misunderstood me and thought I had asked a question that — coming from me and directed at John McCain — would have been particularly idiotic. I asked him whether he thought the U.S. had made a mistake in not going in and toppling Saddam in 1991. He thought I had asked whether we had made a mistake to go in and topple Saddam in 2003. (It was noisy, as you can see on the video.) So he started patiently offering his boilerplate defense of that, before I corrected him and gave him another chance at it.
Several thoughts ran through my head: Does he think I would ask that, when I have written in defense of our going into Iraq so many times? But he doesn’t know that… but he is aware that I’m the guy from The State, and he always seems to remember my name, and … oh, man! I hope he doesn’t think that I’m doing the reporter thing of getting him to say what I want to say, so I can quote it — editorialists don’t have to do that; we just say what we think…
In any case, it was disorienting, and I didn’t do a very good job. So I think I went away with John McCain thinking I’m an idiot who can’t come to an interview with some good questions. And I guess he’s right. But at least he probably didn’t expect any better. After all, I’m just Local Media.
Aw, geez, I just remembered — I went blank almost exactly that same way (worse, even, since I was a rookie then) during an interview op with Howard Baker on his campaign plane over frozen Iowa, the last time I was in this situation. I should just leave the campaign trail to the reporters.
Today, I was "on the bus," as Ken Kesey would put it, with John McCain, attending events in Aiken and Lexington, and riding with the senator on his "No Surrender Tour" bus in between.
I have a lot more material than I can go through today, but in order not to keep my readers waiting entirely, here’s some fairly representative footage from the Lexington event — formally, the "Veterans Appreciation Lunch and No Surrender Rally," at 11:45 a.m. at the American Legion Post 7, just off just off Harmon Street.
The theme for the tour, which ends tonight in Charleston, was the war in Iraq, with McCain presenting points he’s been stressing — well, forever, really, but particularly since the Petraeus testimony last week. His message was pitched as an advance of what’s likely to happen next in the Senate, with Democrats and the president resuming the monotony of putting up an amendment with a withdrawal date, having it knocked down, putting up another one, etc.
Turnout was good at both events. You can see the SRO crowd at this one; the one in Aiken was much the same.
Exactly. I often make the mistake of expecting politics to be too logical, but if there is any logic at all in the GOP primary in this state, John McCain will be the winner. He has the organization, he still raises more money (or did as of the last deadline), and with the exception of immigration (which for whatever reason drives some self-described "conservatives" bonkers), he’s the best on the issues that matter to that base.
But everyone seems to have agreed to push him to a back burner for now. Note this post over on Anthony Palmer’s 7-10 blog. He runs down the list of Republicans, saving McCain almost as an afterthought, then he says:
What about John McCain? John McCain does not really
occupy the same niche that Huckabee, Romney, and Thompson are trying to
fill. McCain is generally a conservative, but he is positioning himself
as something of an elder statesman. Fred Thompson is the outsider, Mitt
Romney is the executive, and Mike Huckabee is often considered more as
being a strong pick for the VP slot than at the top of the ticket.
Think of John McCain as the grownup in the room. He has the experience,
he has the record, and he knows Washington. Conservatives have been
really hard on him because of his views on illegal immigration.
However, if conservatives remain restless and dissatisfied with their
current choices, they may think of McCain as the battle-tested warhorse
candidate. And his military and national security credentials would
allow him to neutralize Rudy Giuliani as well. McCain doesn’t really
need to engage the other candidates as much as they need to engage each
other. Pundits have written McCain off as a result of his sagging poll
numbers and fundraising problems, but I would not count him out just
yet because he has the most extensive record of all the GOP candidates
and cannot be attacked as inexperienced or not sufficiently
conservative. I like to think of McCain as the Joe Biden of the
Republicans.
That’s right — he IS the grownup in the room — and the only one. And as to why Joe Biden isn’t getting any respect — well, that’s a topic for another day.
But what I think is happening is this: What we laughingly call "reality" is shaped by what is said on national TV news. What is said on the 24/7 news channels may bear little resemblance to what is happening on the ground when it is reported, but people believe it, and it then supplants the pre-existing truth.
There is no other possible explanation for Giuliani polling better in S.C. than the fact that he’s been polling well nationally.
This is something that drives me as crazy as the right-wingers get over Mexicans: There is no logical reason for conducting, or reporting, NATIONAL polls on candidate preferences when (HELLO!) they are not nominated nationally! But then, this irrelevant information gets reported as though it means something, and the folks in the early states who ought to know better jump aboard this imaginary bandwagon, and by so doing TRANSFORM the nonsense into reality.
This is also the explanation of why Clinton and Obama came into South Carolina as the front-runners, when a far more experienced and qualified senator such as Joe Biden (OK, I didn’t save it for another day) has been working his butt off here for YEARS, and has been well-received. This happens because the NATIONAL media covering this NON-national story (it’s only national AFTER the primaries have sorted things out) have the memory and imagination of goldfish, and can only think of a couple of politicians at a time.
And yet they say it, and it becomes so. We have arrived at a very dangerous pass in the evolution of our political system, folks.
So I receive a nice bit of fan mail from a nice young man named Boling, and far too late, I realize that he has subliminally forced me to watch a video about John McCain…
Hey Mr. Warthen –
What is it about British accents that make the English sound
so smart? I liked the video on her Majesty’s General Consul. Speaking of videos,
I thought you might find the new McCain video particularly interesting. Here’s
the link: http://www.johnmccain.com/courageous/
Thanks,
B.J. Boling
Communications Director (S.C.)
John McCain 2008
And next thing you know, I’m a McCainiac Zombie, shambling about muttering in a monotone, "mccain is a hero. mccain epitomizes courage…"
By BRAD WARTHEN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR HOW ARE YOU supposed to do your job with professional detachment when every time you see one of the main guys running for president, every time you read about him, every time he opens his mouth or takes an action in public, you think, “Hero”? How are you supposed to keep your rep when you keep thinking, I admire this guy? Of all things, admire! It’s embarrassing. On top of that, how do you do it when so many of the smart, hip, unfettered, scalpel-minded professionals around you snort when the hero’s name is mentioned, and use terms like “has-been” and “loser” and “that poor old guy”? It’s not easy. Maybe it’s not even possible. It wasn’t possible on Monday, when John McCain visited our editorial board. I presided as usual, asking most of the questions and so forth. But I never quite hit my stride. I was uneasy; I stumbled in bringing forth the simplest questions. It was weird. I’d pitched to this guy a number of times before with no trouble, even in post-season play. And here he was stepping up to bat in my ball park, where the rubber on the mound has molded itself to my cleats, and I can’t put a simple fastball over the plate, much less a curve. I kept remembering our last formal meeting with him, in 2000, on the day that we would decide whom
to endorse in a GOP primary that would either slingshot him onward toward victory, or enable George W. Bush to stop his insurgency cold. I wasn’t out of sorts like this. I had stated my case — my strong belief that we should endorse Sen. McCain — several days before in a 4,000-word memo to my then-publisher, a committed Bush man. I was fully prepared to make it again to the full board once the candidate left the room. And I was ready to lose like a pro if it came to that. Which it did. But now, 9/11 has happened. The nation is at war, and bitterly divided, even over whether we’re “at war.” And I keep thinking — as I sit a couple of feet from the candidate, aiming my digital camera with my left hand, scribbling the occasional haphazard note with my right, glancing from time to time at the audio recorder on the table to note how many minutes into the interview he said such-and-such, so busy recording the event that I don’t really have time to be there — this is the guy who should have been president for the past seven years. The odd thing is, a lot of people who now dismiss the McCain candidacy also believe he should have been president — that we’d be less divided at home, more admired abroad, more successful at war. But they talk like the poor old guy missed his chance. It’s like candidates have “sell by” dates stamped on them like bacon, and his was several years back. Too bad for him, they say. But I think, too bad for the nation — if they’re right. The best thing for me, as a professional critic, as a jaded observer, would be for those people to be right. I have no trouble assessing the relative merits of the other candidates in either major party. I even like some of them. Life could be good, professionally speaking, if that old “hero” guy really did just fade away. But he doesn’t. There he is, sitting there, being all honest and straightforward and fair-minded and brave and admirable. Dang. Go ahead, get mad at him. He’s let the moment get away from him. You can’t take a man seriously as a leader when he’s blown all that money only to lose ground, when he can’t stop his hired rats from diving overboard. Focus on his mottled scars. Murmur about how even the best of men slow down with age. But then you think about how this guy aged early. You look at his awkwardness as he holds his coffee cup, and you think about how the North Vietnamese strung him up by his broken arms, and all he had to do to end it was agree to go home. But he wouldn’t. That was then, of course, but it’s just as bad now. Think about how you asked him several months ago why he thought he had to do something about immigration now, when the only people who cared passionately about the issue and would vote on the basis of that one thing were the ones who would hate him forever for being sensible about it. He had no excuse; he just thought it was the right thing to do.
You think of all the Democrats and “moderates” who egged him on when he was Bush’s No. 1 critic (which he still is, if you actually listen), but who now dismiss him as the president’s “lapdog” because he (gasp!) — supports the surge and actually, if you can stand it, thinks it’s working! These political goldfish forget that their favorite maverick criticized Bush for not sending enough troops, so of course he supports a “surge” when the president knuckles under and implements one. Oh, but don’t speak of such people dismissively. This ridiculously admirable guy at the end of the table, who long ago forgave both his communist torturers and the protesters at home who would have spit on him given the chance, won’t have it. When I speak less than flatteringly of the impatience of Americans on Iraq, he corrects me, and relates a list of perfectly good reasons for them to be fed up. So when it’s over, you try to produce a McCain column for Wednesday, but you can’t. Wednesday, Sam Brownback steps to the same plate, and your arm is fine. You interrogate the guy, assess him, reach a conclusion, and slap a column on the Thursday page. Three up, three down. You’ve got your stuff back. But Sunday’s deadline draws nearer, and it’s gone again. Desperate, you think: How about a bulleted list of what he said Monday? There’s plenty of it. Naw, that’s a news story, not an opinion column. And you know, you just know, that the one thing you can’t write is the truth, which is that you just admire the hell out of this infuriating old guy. The fans won’t stand for it. You can hear the beer bottles clattering around you on the mound already. But it’s no use. You just can’t get the ball across today.
For actual information regarding the McCain interview, and more, go to http://blogs. thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.
"NEVER? Whaddaya mean, ‘never?’"
