Presumably, this has been covered by someone, but I was wondering when John McCain was first called a maverick. I searched the NYT archives and put in "John McCain" and "maverick", and the first article of this type I could find is April 3, 1998:
Others were called a maverick before this--including Don Reigle and Russ Feingold, just not John McCain. His historical ADA ratings also call into question him a maverick and moderate.
4 comments:
yeah, didn't he vote with bush like 90% of the time? some maverick. though i recall when i was at uwa in dc that we worked with his office on something and really liked him. i don't know if he was ever a true maverick, but he certainly had no problem speaking up and speaking his mind. which is refreshing. now, he's just making political decisions and i don't think he has the best political instincts.
Now he's not just a maverick, but the "original maverick." More original that Samuel A. Maverick (1803-70), after whom the word gained it's current meaning.
He's always been a calculating politician. He embraced "reform" to clean up his image after the Keating Five, he was a "maverick" when he was the outsider candidate in 2000, he plans his inaccurate and misleading commericals from his "Straight Talk Express," and now he's welcoming the religious right, members of which he once called "agents of intolerance."
George:
We were listening to "McCain Revealed" on CNN. This is from Tom Daschle:
DASCHLE: I think that John McCain is being what John McCain thinks he has to be now. I don't consider that necessarily a fault.
KING (on camera): This is the race I'm in, so this is who I have to be?
DASCHLE: Yes.
KING: You think it's just pure cynical calculation?
DASCHLE: I don't think it's cynical. I think he is accommodating his political needs at the time. Some might call that cynical. I'd say that's John McCain.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/20/se.01.html
My translation: "He was never a maverick."
From Garrison Keilor, on The Maverick (and his poker playing, kind of):
The Republicans are meeting down the hill from my house, helicopters are pounding the air, and there are more suits on the streets and big black SUVs and a brownish cloud venting from the hockey arena where the convention is assembled. A large moment for little old St. Paul, which is more accustomed to visitations by conventions of morticians and foundation garment salesmen and the Sons of the Desert, and so we are thrilled. It makes no difference that the city is Democratic. What matters is that, for a few days, TV will show a few pictures of the big bend in the Mississippi, the limestone bluffs, the Capitol and cathedral, and a tree-shaded avenue or two, and some of the world will know that we exist.
Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain has posed a stark question for voters to ponder: How much would you like to see Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska, as the next president of the United States? And what does the question say about McCain's love of the country that she might suddenly need to lead? No need to discuss these things at length, really. The gentleman played his card, a two of hearts. Make of it what you will.
The challenge for Republicans is how to change the subject from the dismal story of Republican triumph the last eight years and get voters to focus on, say, the old man's war record or Palin's perkiness or the oddity of the skinny guy's last name. If they can succeed there, they can win this thing.
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