TW: John McCain, previous to the past six months (since gaining the Republican nomination), was known with some (although certainly not complete) validity as a maverick who bucked his own party at times in deference to "doing the right thing" as opposed to bowing to mere political realities. This maverick brand has been deeply sullied with his strong tack to the right including his reckless appointment of the Fembot as his VP nominee. Certainly McCain tacked right in order to secure his right-wing nut base but what if he had instead tacked to the center, embracing a true maverick mentality chasing independents and shaky Democrats while dragging his right-wing nut base along with him kicking and screaming.
From Alter at Newsweek:
"In a season of ironies, the greatest of all might be that John McCain lacks the toughness to get elected president. During the summer, when he had his best chance, he wasn't tough enough to remake the Republican Party in his own image; instead, he surrendered to a cynical assortment of lobbyists and right-wingers who insisted on a strategic blunder that McCain would recognize from his reading of military history—fighting the last war. In 2004 President Bush won by rallying the base and destroying the Democrat as unpatriotic. They would try to do it again...But the free-market party of Reagan is dead (thanks to the financial crisis) and the resentment party of Nixon (in the form of the ugly attacks unleashed by McCain and Sarah Palin) may find that its best days are behind it. Where is the party of McCain?
If McCain were truly the independent hard-ass he claims to be, he would have courted the GOP conservative base right up to the moment he clinched the nomination, then galloped to the middle, which is where most American voters live..."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163457
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