John McCain is lucky. The defeated presidential candidate has another opportunity to, indeed, put “Country First.”
The last time, candidly, was a sham – and it was apparent as soon as Sarah Palin was announced as his running mate. It amounted to dereliction of duty for the former fighter pilot. It wasn’t “Country First” – but “(My Last Shot At The) Presidential Brass Ring First.”
All but the hardcore fundamentalists could see a blatant pander fest for what it was. Hillary’s harridans were insulted, not impressed.
Old-school, political ticket-balancing never looked so pristinely pragmatic.
The United States deserved better – and so did, quite candidly, McCain.
The Arizona senator had earned his widely recognized “maverick” status the old-fashioned way — by following his conscience instead of partisan, Congressional marching orders. He was a coalition builder and a deal maker. He had a temper and wasn’t universally liked. But he was respected on both sides of the aisle.
He was, as we know, done unconscionably wrong in the 2000 Republican presidential primary by Karl Rove & Co. Notably, the character assassination that passed for the South Carolina campaign. He exited the GOP race shortly thereafter – seething, but with his honor intact.
Unfortunately, McCain learned the wrong lesson: Integrity, he surely surmised, wasn’t his ticket to the Oval Office. It was, instead, a governor on his presidential ambition. He would consequently kiss up to Jerry Falwell and the “agents of intolerance.” The cynical choice of Palin and the hiring of Rove acolytes to run an ad hominem, scorched-earth campaign against Obama were Faustian gambits. Seemingly, he had become what he had once disdained.
But now with the U.S. seeking bipartisan solutions to problems of seeming apocalyptic proportion – and McCain beyond any more presidential aspirations – the erstwhile “maverick” can truly put “Country First.” Although some Republicans are still smarting from down-ballot defeats, McCain still retains Congressional clout.
He can be a major player in helping to end Washington’s Uncivil War. And he can start with putting high-profile distance between himself — as the 2008 Republican standard-bearer — and the backbench obstructionists: the Fox-Palin-Limbaugh-Hannity wing of the GOP.
The four-term senator can become America’s Linchpin – helping the Obama Administration broker deals at a time when there’s no time for Beltway business as usual. We now know that neither gridlock nor greed is good.
McCain, still an apostle for accountability in government, can become the Senate go-to guy, especially with the Democrats close to a filibuster-proof majority. He can help expedite what Sen. John Kerry has called the “85-vote majorities” – consensus outcomes that marginalize the extreme conservative and liberal senators.
McCain is already on board on immigration reform, stem-cell research, global warming, alternative energy, economic stimulation and Guantanamo detainees.
He knows partisan posturing won’t help America solve a once-in-a-century economic crisis. He knows a stimulus package must be as imminent as it is necessary. He knows a status quo energy policy is not acceptable. He also knows that even the Iraqis want the U.S. out of Iraq – and that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is not dismissing a 16-month timetable.
Forget Joe the Plummer. America needs John the Patriot.
To that end, McCain sat down with President-elect Obama last week to publicly bury their bitter campaign. They agreed to work together to “change the bad habits of Washington.”
One, of course, is that of politicians sitting down together, smiling for cameras, mouthing a few platitudes, and then resuming those “bad habits.”
If Obama makes good on his word to reach across the aisle — and making the case for Joe Lieberman remaining in the Democratic caucus is a positive sign — there’s every expectation that foremost among the proffered GOP hands will be one belonging to John McCain. Taking another one for Team American and reclaiming that legacy of service to country.
Senator McCain: John the Patriot when we really need him. After, ironically, the election of “that one.”