John McCain: Arizona’s best democrat

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Written By Dorothy Anne Seese

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Image courtesy of Zach Frailey under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Flying in the face of Senate propriety, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) has faced off with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss) over the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, fueling some fires in the Senate among Republicans at the very time unity is needed in the evenly divided Senate.  Of course, the co-sponsor of the campaign finance reform bill is Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis).

A brief review on the internet of Senator McCain’s co-sponsored bills finds that many if not most of them are co-sponsored with Democrats.

The next one up is the gun control legislation McCain co-sponsors with Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) of Election 2000 vice-presidential aspirations.

Can John McCain really believe that his campaign finance reform and gag-law bill (no advertising by opponents in the 60 days prior to the election) is anywhere near comparable to the need for a national energy policy, and that rather than pushing his ego-pumping bills, he should be putting his support and influence behind President Bush and the energy policy?

McCain has been referred to as a “maverick” by many Republicans, who wish he wasn’t.  If all he proposes and does indicates what he is, “subversive” would be a better term.

A maverick merely refuses to conform.  Senator McCain conforms, but it’s to the Democratic agenda rather than the Republican platform.  That doesn’t sound like a person who merely refuses to conform, it sounds like a person bent on undoing a party of which he is a member strictly for his own selfish ambitions and long-held grudges.

Doubtless McCain, who had high hopes for being the Republican candidate in Election 2000 is still stinging from his defeat by President Bush.  In fact, enough Americans would have been sufficiently fearful of McCain’s notorious temper and erratic tactics to have given the election to Al Gore, with or without Florida.

When we observe what he is presently doing in the Senate, and what he is not doing to support his party and the energy crisis proposals, it is obvious that McCain’s ego is something to be feared.

Thus McCain, having disputes among his fellow Republicans in the Senate and a grudge against the president, is grabbing all the press he can in behalf of himself.   (Should I have capitalized the “Him” in himself to accommodate the senator’s ego?)

It would be well if John McCain would switch parties and openly declare himself a Democrat.  That way, he would make room for a truly conservative Republican to take his place in the next senatorial election in Arizona.  Or perhaps by the time 2006 rolls around, McCain will have alienated enough Arizona voters that he will see some wisdom in not running again.  It may be wishful thinking, but it’s a hope well grounded from his behavior.

In the meantime, we in Arizona can look upon John McCain as Arizona’s finest Democrat, but not with pride.

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