In an article on John McCain, former TAP bigwig Michael Tomasky reminds us of uncomfortable facts from McCain's run for the presidency in 1999 and 2000.
[McCain's call for national sacrifice] was something that I think many journalists and liberals and especially young people found appealing. David Foster Wallace certainly loved it, and he points out in his essay that the idea was part-and-parcel of the whole McCain package—the straight talk and the POW years conferred upon McCain a legitimacy to demand sacrifice of citizens, and his credentials made the call real and not "just one more piece of the carefully scripted bullshit that presidential candidates hand us as they go about the self-interested business of trying to become" president...McCain says he believes in the "beautiful fatalism" of noble lost causes, and he confounded reporters in 2000 by exhibiting apprehension after his New Hampshire win and relief after his South Carolina defeat. Such responses captivated many people.
Indeed, there were many liberals who liked McCain. It was not just the press and independents who fell in love with the guy. So here's the question: did liberals change, or did McCain?
I think both are true. Foreign policy was not a big issue in the 2000 election, so McCain's calls for "rogue state rollback" didn't attract a lot of attention or seem worrisome. Since then, however, we've seen the consequences of McCain's ideas in Iraq. As a result, many liberals have become much more averse to the use of force abroad. On the other hand, McCain has just abandoned his once-cherished position on a host of issues: the danger of the religious right, campaign finance reform, tax cuts, even torture. So it's only natural that liberals see McCain as something worse than a genuine conservative: they see him as a sellout. There's no denying, however, that many of us really did once have a thing for the Arizona senator.
--Jordan Michael Smith
