John McCain is a victim of the American political system. He is too level headed to be a committed Democrat, and he is too intelligent to be a fanatical Republican. The man is exactly what the United States needs: a rational, experienced, patriotic centrist who has America's best interests at heart. Unfortunately he has two major problems.

1) He is twenty years too late. Johnny Come Lately is over 70, he has lost a lot of his maverick energy, his charisma has faded with age. He has the ideas and the thinking but he doesn't have the oratory ability or razzle dazzle of Obama.

2) There are only two relevant political parties. One has a core of religious, social conservative whack jobs and the other has a core of progressive, liberal whack jobs. If you could combine the enlightened social policies of the Democrats with a more focussed and toned down version of Republican foreign policy you would have a winning combination. Unfortunately a lot of liberals are turned off by McCain because he is forced to modify his true politics to please the more low brow wing of the Republican Party (think Huckabee, Thompson, Brownback). Only, the Republicans don't trust McCain because he is too liberal. Its a Catch-22, he is too moderate for both parties so he must do a balancing act between promoting the right policy and espousing the necessary policy to win. McCain's choice is to raise a Confederate flag and get his party to vote for him, or stick to his principles and lose. Unfortunately in politics, no matter who or where you are, the end justifies the means.

There are certain candidates who are perfect for their parties. Reagen and George W. Bush both won because they represented the core values of the Republican Party and their parties could rally around them 100%.

Clinton and Obama are the same for the Democrats. They represent the Democratic ideal and it is easy to rally around either of them for Democrats.

John McCain fits neither of those molds. He is more along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt or LBJ. He is not quite a conservative, not quite a liberal, but either or depending on what he believes the situation warrants.

Is John McCain the best all around candidate? Yes. Does John McCain have the best chance of winning? No. Democrats are ready to back Obama 100%, many Republicans will not back McCain. The unfortunate thing is that for the same reasons he is the best choice he is also the worst candidate.

I supported McCain in 2000 and left the republican party because of how he was treated by Rove and the party.

He has decided to adapt to the realities of the republican party and as a result stands for nothing. He is dishonest and has attempted to mislead us on so many issues, especially Iraq, that his experience counts for very little.

In short, he has proven to have the worst judgement of the two candidates.

Damn, that's a good post, msummo! Good insights.

Wish I'd written it.

He (McCain) is dishonest and has attempted to mislead us on so many issues, especially Iraq,

You're talking crap. McCain has been the only candidate that has had the guts to tell the unpleasant truth: We must leave troops in Iraq, lest it become West Iran. History shows that in conflicts, winners must occupy losers to prevent chaos (Japan, Germany, Korea: We still have troops in all these nations.) You can't let go when you have the tiger by the tail. I'm not sure if Obama isn't smart enough to grasp this, or if affirmative action got him a free pass in American History after he learned nothing, or if he's the one who is too dishonest to tell the painful truth. Whichever way, he's a joke on the Iraq topic, telling the drooling morons what they want to hear, and he would be a total disaster in the Oval Office.

McCain saw what happened when he didn't play by party rules in 2000 and he has had to adapt. A perfect example is what happened during the primary with Romney. Romney went to Michigan and told everyone he would do everything he could to bring the manufacturing jobs back. They cheered him. McCain went to Michigan and said sorry folks, the jobs are gone for good, but new service and technology jobs are taking their place. You'll have to retrain or take a lower paying job in the service industry. They rode McCain out on a rail. He lost the Michigan primary. And why? Because he told the hard truth. For every politician that is willing to tell the truth there are ten that are willing to lie. No one wants to hear bad news and will vote for the man who tells them what they want to hear whether its true or not.

So McCain is forced to do things like what he has just done on immigration. He tells the hardcore Republicans that he is as anti-immigrant as them. Then he goes in private and assures Hispanics that if he is elected he will be a fair man, not the man he must pretend to be to get his party behind him 100% Yes, its McCain's fault for playing politics, but what choice does he have? He can tell the truth like he did in Michigan, while his opponent lies, and lose. Or he can play politics. Like I said, McCain is a victim of the system. But, like the Confederate flag incident, he will always do the right thing in the end. For what little that is worth.

One question, what would a "toned down and focused version of GOP Foreign Policy" look like.

My biggest problem with both parties is that they bot lack any reasonable semblance of a Foreign Policy.I would love to see a Foreign Policy white paper from both parties.

SoS seem to make it up as we go,witness Bush's Roadmap and his Afghan policy which can be summed up as "The Taliban are not nice while Kharzai is pretty nice and we wish they would stop growing poppies in Afghanistan"

Leo Harold

msummo:

So McCain is forced to do things like what he has just done on immigration. He tells the hardcore Republicans that he is as anti-immigrant as them. Then he goes in private and assures Hispanics that if he is elected he will be a fair man, not the man he must pretend to be to get his party behind him 100% Yes, its McCain's fault for playing politics, but what choice does he have?

That's all well and good... but if I were to consider voting for McCain (I was a Clinton supporter), how am I to know which McCain I'm going to get as president? The "agents of intolerance" McCain, or the "happy to have Hagee's endorsement" McCain? The pro-immigrant McCain, or the anti-immigrant McCain? The 'let's stay in Iraq to finish the job' McCain, or the "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain?

You'd have me believe he's just pandering to rightwing nutjobs to get party support, how do I know he's not just pandering to me? Who is he winking to?? He's all over the map, I don't really know what he stands for now.

John McCain is "Maverick" no more. I can't take the chance. I can't trust him.

You know so little of history I don't know where to begin....

The troops in Japan, Germany and South Korea are there to maintain peace between groups of militia? The troops stayed in Germany and Japan because we suspected the Soviets would attempt an invasion of the western part of Germany or the islands off of Japan. In fact there was no resistance movement in either country after the end of the war. Don't bother with the werewolves crap, those guys comitted no acts of resistance after June of 1945......Have you heard of the Berlin Air Lift?

Our troops stayed in South Korea because there was never a peace treaty with North Korea.

In Iraq we are an occupying power and we are stuck in a fight between several groups who are fighting for control of the oil. The fighting in Basra was between the Mahdi militia and the Badr brigade. They are both Shiite groups, putting the lie to the claim that it is a religious fight. The prime minister belongs to the same tribe as the Badr people. Neither side is right, they are both just common crooks, but our guys are getting killed supporting Badr and the government.

McCain lied about how safe he was walking through the Bagdad market.....he was surrounded by troops. His excuse was that he didn't ask for the troops, which, of course, isn't the point. He lied about troop levels. He was wrong about Al Qaeda fighters being trained in Iran. I'm not sure if he was lying or just having a senior moment. He spouts gibberish about staying in Iraq for 100 years if none of our soldiers are being killed.....What the fuck does that mean? They are being killed. Is he saying we'd stay a hundred years until they aren't being killed and then stay another hundred years or what? He says that the surge was a success. Sadr told his fighters to lie low. As soon as there are fewer troops, we will know the truth. Nothing has changed. The fact of the fighting in Basra shows that the mehdi army still has it's weapons and is powerful enough that Iraqi politicians had to fly to Iran to beg for a ceasefire.

If we leave Iraq, the republicans say they will follow us home and we'll be fighting them here. That is bull shit. Which of the Iraqi groups do you think would conduct terrorist operations against the US? Get McCain to answer that question, as soon as he figures out the difference between Sunni and Shiia.

Joe Biden was the candidate that I thought would have the most coherent policies.

I heard him speak for 3 or 4 hours one day at a meeting of maybe 30 people. He could tell you the names of tribal leaders in Iraq who were the real power brokers. He could tell you why Sadr was getting support from them and they were committing their own private militias to help him.

McCain doesn't even know the difference (or care that there is one) between Sunni and Shiia.

middleview,

Of course Biden knows all the minor details of Iraq. He is chairman of the foreign relations committee. It is his job to know all the power brokers in the region. He has been told ad nauseam in commitee hearings. McCain is only on the armed forces and commerce committees. It is not his job (unless he is elected President) to know the ins and outs of Iraqi politics. He has other things to worry about. When dealing with Iraq McCain is a numbers cruncher, not a policy hack. He approves funding and that sort of thing on his committee. Like all politicians he relies on situational briefs written by staffers and State officials for information out of his job description. The chair of the foreign relations committee having a detailed knowledge of America's most pressing foreign policy concern is no more impressive than the chair of the judicial committee having a tight hold on the national crime rate. A Senator can't be expected to know the ins and outs of EVERYTHING on the spot, they are only human.

bugger,

Its very easy to find the real McCain by looking at his voting record. i believe his record for the last two recorded years was something like 50s-40s Conservative-Liberal in most categories. With a man like McCain its easy to see how he will act on an issue by how he has acted in the past. He has shown he is not one to waver.

Leo,

A toned down foreign policy would be one that is (a) more focussed than Bush's democratic globalism. America's power must be focussed on specific targets, not used to blanket all of Asia. (b) more selective. Why is everyone talking about how Iran and Syria are prolonging the conflict in Iraq, yet neglect to mention that the majority of suicide bombers, funding, equipment, and foreign fighters are coming out of Saudi Arabia? The Saudi export of Wahhabism and money is the reason a lot of these people in places like Pakistan and Somalia have been radicalized.

Your comparisons of Iraq with Japan, Germany and South Korea are incorrect.

The station of American troops at various countries or use of other country’s bases are covered by treaties negotiated by the US and the host countries. These treaties are negotiated on the basis of benefits to both countries. In the case of Iraq, if it comes time for the Iraq government to make a decision as what to do with the US troops within their country. The leaders of Iraq, have to decide what benefits they can gain by inviting the US to station troops in Iraq, just as the Japanese, South Koreans or the German have been doing for over 40 years. In the case of Iraq, the reasons will be different from that of Japan, South Korea and Germany.

Let us put ourselves in the shoe of the Iraq leaders. Their country is still divided by factions and presence of militias and al Qaeda insurgents. Their government is still in its infancy and unstable, and they are still learning the ropes of democracy. They are in the middle of chaos of the middle-east and vulnerable to foreign infiltration and attacks. They are constantly under the threat from Iran, with who they had been at war for over 8 years in the 1980’s. They need stability to redevelop their country infrastructure and their major oil industry.

On the other hand, they are an Arab nation, who is very suspicious of any Western power and they do not like the idea of US military presence in their country.

Torn between these conflicting interests, they have a very difficult decision to make.

For the US, their interests would be: a military presence in the middle-east to a show of force and to provide a swift response to any emergency situations; to protect any disruptions to oil flow from the middle-east; to counter balance Iran’s belligerency towards the West and its neighbours, so on and on.

US military presence in Iraq is similar to Japan, South Korea and Germany, but for different geopolitical reasons. It was containment of communism and now it is containment of radical Muslim terrorism and security of oil supply to the West. No one can predict how long the US will stay in Iraq, it will purely speculative.

Our presence in Iraq is not at all similar to our presence in South Korea, Germany and Japan.

I think you missed my point. We kept troops in Germany because of the Soviet Union. We negotiated the continuing bases, not as an occupation, but in the role of defending the host. Very few citizens of West Germany would have argued that our troops should leave.

It was much the same in Japan and South Korea. The citizens of those countries saw the US as an ally. Not as an occupation. That might have taken a while with the Japanese, but certainly by 1950 we were seen as a benefit to their nation.

The current number of American military in Japan itself is very small. A few thousand at Sasebo navy base. The rest on the island of Saipan. We do not patrol their streets.

A swift response? Would it be faster from a base in Iraq than from a base in Kuwait?

We gain nothing by maintaining bases in Iraq. They aren't even paying their own bills now and they have billions in the bank from the increase in oil prices.

What radical terrorists are we containing in Iraq? Sadr? The Badr corps? Sorry, these groups have never been involved in international terrorism and are only fighting now to control their own oil.

are you kidding? McCain won't waver? You mean like he would never change his mind on taxes, how easy or how hard the invasion and occupation of Iraq will be, how divisive the "agents of intolerance" are, the value of offshore drilling?

He has a 0 rating on women's issues. Good luck.

There are two types of changes in decisions that a candidate can make:

1) The "Romney Flip-Flop" where as Governor you support abortion rights and gay marriage, then when you decide to run for President and all of a sudden you support fetus rights and oppose gays all together. That is going from one side of the spectrum to the other, with the only explanation being "I thought about it and changed my mind". Thats not a legitimate change of mind, thats pure political opportunism.

2) A "Hillary Clinton Flip-Flop" where you vote for the war in Iraq, but then decide later on that things are not going as you would have hoped so it may be more prudent change your mind. Thats adapting to political realities, its hard to be a relevant pro-war Democrat.

Now with McCain you generally have the second kind in most instances of change. In 2000 when oil was exponentially less drilling was unnecessary. Now that its skyrocketing and a huge issue McCain must be seen trying to do something about it.

The point is that McCain may switch positions as the situation develops, but he will not jump the spectrum whenever it suits him. McCain is not a politician who will support abortion one day and oppose it the next. A good politician is not someone who sticks to their original position even when the situation has completely changed. Anyone who does not have the intelligence to adapt to changing realities is not fit to hold office.