I would like to start out my column today by addressing the accusations directed at the Alligator and its staff by some readers. I will be the first to admit I lean to the left in my political opinions, but there’s not much I can change about that. This isn’t anyone’s fault. And if people from the other side of the political spectrum want to have their voices heard, I’m sure they can go to the Alligator’s open houses, just as I did, and get a weekly column. I honestly thought I was being closer to center than I actually was, so I will make a better effort to be a bit more neutral.
That being said, I would like to discuss John McCain, a Republican I respect and one who I liked until this past election. Sen. McCain has been in the news a lot recently because of his U.S. Senate primary election battle against J.D. Hayworth, a conservative talk show host in Arizona. McCain has been shifting his views further and further to the right so he can cinch the conservative vote in the election, a group of people who seem to back Hayworth.
If John McCain ran his 2008 presidential campaign under the same political opinions he had in the primaries against Bush in 2000, he would be our president. I actually might have voted for him as well in the last presidential election. Looking back at his previous political stances, he seemed to have had the best shot at leading this country by being able to draw from both political parties.
McCain is the quintessential bipartisan politician in Washington D.C. when he wants to be. To get the chance to be on the Republican ticket for president he had to pander to the right wing to prove he was ultra-conservative enough to be nominated for president. He had to get rid of any centrist or left-of-center or not-far-enough-in-right-wing-land ideas in favor of things he hasn’t believed in in the past. Specific examples of this are approving then criticizing the stimulus and changing his opinion on the closing of Guantanamo Bay, having gays in the military and offering little opposition to the Supreme Court decision that would allow corporations to fund campaigns. In fact, McCain pretty much ran his 2000 primary on getting big businesses out of Washington, but now he has had little to say about the Supreme Court decision.
All these changes are coming in the wake of a potentially difficult primary for his Senate seat against Hayworth. I understand McCain has changed his political opinions to more popular views in the past but never to the extent that he is doing so today. At least in the past he was still a “maverick,” willing to go against his party in Congress when necessary. Now he simply falls in line with the other 40 obstructionists in the Senate rather than working with the Democrats and the president, like the old John McCain would.
I’m disappointed in McCain because he has the potential to be such an important figure in American politics. If there’s one thing the Senate and the country need, it’s a voice that can speak to both sides. This past week, as liberals like Keith Olbermann made fun of Sarah Palin for writing notes on her hand during her Tea Party speech, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs joined in the fun and wrote “hope” and “change” on his hand during a press conference. This came right after President Obama spoke about bipartisanship, and it was a slap in the president’s face.
The problems are on both sides of the aisle. America needs a voice for the center so meaningful legislation can actually be passed in the next three years, and it has to start in November. I’ll never understand why politicians don’t keep themselves open to ideas from both sides. In the age of rhetoric, the loudest are the most important. And that tends to be the wingers.
