Issue of similarities between Bush and McCain being overblown

Before I dive into an issue, I’d like to let you know that I have decided to change the political blog I am going to follow from Ben Allen’s Politco blog to Daily Kos. Allen’s blog is informative; however all of the posts are way too short and basically just news pieces without any substantive opinions. Even though I agree with very few of the things on Daily Kos, at least the blog has issues to comment on, unlike Allen’s where the only comments I would have been able to make would be about the issues he brings up, but I wouldn’t be able to have any arguments about the content on the blog itself. So, for better or worse, it will be the Daily Kos for the rest of the semester.

A recent issue about the 2008 Presidential election that has been bothering me is the insistence by Democratic leaders, talking heads, and candidates that John McCain is somehow the second coming of George W. Bush. I believe this characterization is deceiving and is completely overblown.

The following post from Daily Kos that really does a good job of expressing the extreme left’s view that McCain is Bush, is the following entry taken from the post “Liveblogging at the Convention” by a writer named “MissLaura”. She writes:

“Hey, I believe in recycling, but that's ridiculous. With John McCain's support, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have led our nation into one calamity after another because of their indifference to fact; their readiness to sacrifice the long term to the short term, subordinate the general good to the benefit of the few and short-circuit the rule of law.

If you like the Bush-Cheney approach, John McCain's your man. If you want change, then vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.”

This point was also expressed several times during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver.

“But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time. Sen. McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than 90 percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives -- on health care and education and the economy -- Sen. McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this president. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisers -- the man who wrote his economic plan -- was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

Ever since he was selected as the Republican nominee Democrats have tried to portray McCain as being politically to the right of Strom Thrumond in an attempt to tie him to the hip of many of the failed policies of the Bush administration. In reality, over the past eight years, McCain has broken away from his party more than almost any other Republican Congressman and has been a constant independent thinking thorn in the side of the Bush White House political machine. McCain has formed alliances with the likes of Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold and has differed with the party on many issues from illegal immigration to tax cuts. Dan Nowicki in the Arizona Republic does a strong job of chronicling many of the issues that McCain differed with the administration on. Some of his examples include: the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which conservatives hate. McCain’s criticisms over the Bush Administration’s policies on climate change, as well as how McCain was one of only two Republicans to vote against Bush’s 1 trillion dollar tax cut in 2001. (Nowicki)

If John McCain was really a Bush clone, does it seem logical that in 2004 then Democratic Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle would have flown to Arizona in an effort to recruit McCain to the Democratic Party? (Cusack). Obviously Daschle saw something there that convinced him there was a chance of being able to McCain into a Democrat. He wouldn't have tried that with just any Republican Senator. That conversation would have never happened with Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Tom Tancredo or any of the other Republicans who sought the Republican nomination back in the winter. John McCain was also seriously considered by John Kerry as a potential running mate in 2004, before selecting John Edwards. (Bumiller) Once again I am pretty sure that McCain was the only Republican that Kerry would have ever thought about selecting, due to McCain's oftten independent thinking.

The dirty truth that Democrat talking heads and candidates don't want you to here is that McCain has based his Congressional career on his willingness to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats. The campaign rhetoric about change is nice; however the next President is going to have to deal with a severely divided Congress in terms of trying to pass any meaningful legislation. The Democrats will likely retain the majority in both houses, but realistically the margins will be so close that the Republicans will have be able to filibuster and block many of the things Democrats try to pass, much like Democrats themselves did to Republicans the first six years of Bush's administration. The only way things will actually get done in Congress is if the President is willing to compromise. John McCain's record has proven time and time again that he will. Up to this point in his legislative career Barack Obama hasn't really proven anything at all to preview whether he will be willing to compromise at all. Unless the President is willing to swallow his ego and accept some of the things the other side is willing to offer nothing meaningful will get done in the next four or eight years. The Maverick John McCain is the real thing, not the Bush following conservative monster that people are trying to make him out to be. His record reveals the real truth, not the capaign rhetoric.

References:

Bumiller, Elizabeth. "McCain asked about Kerry's VP Offer."

The New York Times. 7 March 2008. 12 September 2008.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/mccain-asked-about-kerrys-vp-offer/

Cusack, Bob. "Democrats say McCain nearly abandoned GOP."

The Hill. 28 March 2007. 11 September 2008.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-say-mccain-nearly-abandoned-gop-2007-03-28.html

Nowicki, Dan. "The 'Maverick' and President Bush."

The Arizona Central. 1 March 2007. 14 September 2008.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter11.html