News Stories

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

    Last week, McCain was endorsed by former right-wing presidential candidate Gary Bauer, a man best known for trying to build a bridge to the 19th century. So how has the senator managed to charm Republicans, independents, even Democrats who believe in centrist positions and personal freedom? Partly it is because his much-ballyhooed embrace of campaign-finance reform has been a convenient cloak of progressive politics. Partly it is because of his life story. During the Vietnam War, McCain was a prisoner for 51/2 years, an ordeal that is especially compelling for middle-aged men who went to college instead of Southeast Asia and who still privately suspect they lack the right stuff.
    It is a harrowing story: horribly broken bones, the abusive Viet Cong, starvation, beatings, humiliations. The portrait of McCain that emerges is of a brave man, certainly, but also one who is unyielding, combative and profane, a temperment invaluable for a POW but significantly less useful as a head of state. Early in the campaign, this becane a considerable issue when elected officials in McCains home state of Arizona, including the gonernor, went on record talking about his volcanic temper and his habit of browbeating opponents. Mccain has massaged this into a virtue, insisting that he is angry because he is impatient with business as usual and passionate about change.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

    Voters and journalists have expressed admiration for McCain's candor, an imagined virtue that is also at odds with the actual record. One day he tells a newspapre editorial board that he wouldn't support the repeal of Roe vs. Wade; later he backpedals and says he would. He describes the confederate flag flying above the South Carolina capitol as a "symbol of racism;" after the outcry he calls it "a symbol of heritage." During last weeks debate, he flatly denied that his campaign had produced a flier attacking his opponent; the next day he admitted it had.
    There is nothing new in that sort of campaign back and fill. There is nothing new in the press leaping on the next big thing, embracing underdogs, insurgents, upsets. (However, if Bill Clinton had been cozy with corrupt savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating, as Mccain was, the incident likely would have been programmed into newsroom software to pop up in every story instead of conveniently evaporating.) And there is nothing new in wishful projection. There was a time when we assumed that a peanut farmer must be a happy populist, an avuncular older actor an empathetic father figure. In 1992, Clinton ran as a new Democrat, a consensus-building moderate. Liberals convinced themselves that Clinton was only bluffing until victory would make deception unnecessary. He wasn't. This is still counted as a great betrayl instead of a group delusion.
    Quietly,  some moderates say the same thing about McCain, that he will move to the center if elected. This is not unlike the scenario in which a woman believes a man will change once married. Who McCain is, and who he will be, is amply detailed in his legislative record; this, more than his time at the Hanoi Hilton, or his campaign bravado, would indicate how he would behave as president. Many voters, uninspired by his opponents, have extrapolated war heroism and a sharp tongue into something more, into leadership and a willingness to attack the status quo. But behind the curtain of the campaign is the real man.