This week's "campaign suspension" and trip to the White House (a non-political trip to the White House?) isn't the first time John McCain has reminded me of Bart Simpson during his terrible twos (chanting "I am so great, I am so great" while marching around beating pots and pans). But there's a bit of different spin on it now in that he's now, ostensibly, the leader of his party, and was jetting down to Washington (home of his supposed day job) to bring about some major policy change. In his own words, he said he thought it was a time for bipartisanship, and clearly he felt he needed to be there to lead that bipartisanship (or at least to preen for the cameras and tell the press DC press corps that was what he was doing).
Which leads me to think about any history he has at achieving such a thing on any policy, much less a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry. He's been in Congress for over a quarter century, but his substantive accomplishments there are famously slight. And to the degree he has them, well, have they been the result of him leading the Congress in a bipartisan way? Sure, on a couple things like McCain-Feingold he was willing to support proposals also supported by Democrats. But on such measures where he "worked across the aisle" he did so without much Republican backing at all. To the extent he has a "bipartisan" record has he ever really successfully bridged the partisan gap? Or is it that once in a blue moon he'll happily vote with the Democrats when it suits his own purposes? I'm trying to think of any issue on which he brought the parties together. Is there one? Maybe some of the POW/MIA stuff, or normalizing ties with Vietnam, or some of his regulations on pro sports? Has he ever actually brought about bipartisanship beyond personally siding with Democrats on one of his own pet projects?
Posted by armand at September 26, 2008 09:51 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics