What John McCain Can Still Do For His Country

Watching McCain slip further and further in the polls and public esteem makes me just a little sad. I didn't support him, but the McCain of 2000 was an impressive man. Everything about this John McCain is tired and stale, his ideas most of all. If he weren't so wrong about the issues that matter most, I could almost feel sorry for him. He is a leader whose time has passed. With his wheedling voice and queasy smile, he reminds me of nothing so much as a creepy undertaker, my friends.

The reek of desperation and decay extends to Sarah Palin. Although I don't agree with her politics, I believe we need more women leaders at all levels of government and in both parties. As Alaska's governor, she was clearly a rising star with the guts and charm to become a national political figure.

Instead, she's nothing but a shrill mouthpiece for her feeble boss, doing all she can to stoke the fires of hate and xenophobic fear that still flicker in the Republican Party. Her vicious attacks -- designed to incite racial enmity at best and violence at worst -- will haunt her for the rest of her political career, if she has one. In the coming climate of hope and interdependence, her shameful performance in the last weeks of this campaign will be hard to forget or forgive.

It's clear that McCain should and will lose this election. He doesn't have the answers to our enormous problems and he's not up to the job. The only questions are whether he will reign in his running mate before she does more damage, and whether he is able to be gracious in defeat on November 4. If he still has a shred of his old decency, he'll do what he has consistently failed to do in this campaign: put country first.

Comments

[zedthewizard]

apparently, he is back. is it the polls? is it feedback from congressional races? is it republican writers?

whatever it is, i don't think he's going to try and stoke the fires as he did this week. even palin may back down with the ethics charge. however, she's got stubborn, uncaring, and myopic balls.

mccain may be mad that he is forced into the entirety of his situation. even an external event may not save him now. unless, he dumped palin and some staff and took on ridge or perhps, lieberman. only an external event coupled with this would work though.

it would be nice for him to say something at the debate. it will be interesting how things play out. perhaps, ridge and experience was the winning ticket, only it didn't seem so at the time.

[Heather Frank - Huffpost Blogger]

I did have the narcissistic thought that maybe McCain was listening to me, but there's been such an outcry. Clearly he sees that this isn't the way to win or to retain his position if he loses. The debate should be very interesting -- I am wondering if he will make more of an effort to be friendly to Obama.

[blaqntelligence]

I remember when gwb was running for president in 2000, I whenever I saw him I got physically ill.
The first time I saw sarah palin, I felt the exact same, vicseral, nauseated reaction.
And it has not faded.
Oddly, I do not have that same reaction to john mccain.

[mikee59]

I couldn't agree more. Who is this John McCain? He appears to have made some weird Faustian deal with the far right to satisfy his gnawing lust for the white House. When I see, hear, and read of Palin I think of Hunter Thompson's description of Richard Nixon from his book "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." Thompson wrote that Nixon represented everything dark and evil with America (pardon my poor paraphrase). I would say that same thing about Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd. When I see her I see darkness and fear.