But Kennedy and Feingold never cross the aisle to work with Republicans. They both have 100% leftist voting records, as does Obama. They never “reach out” to the GOP and go along with an occasional conservative proposal in the spirit of bipartisanship.
McCain's desire to be bipartisan is based on a desire to be liked by his enemies. Maybe it's a psychological quirk dating back to being tortured by his enemies in Vietnam. In his old age, he feels a need to submit to the other side since he's no longer a young man capable of withstanding punishment. It gets reinforced by the media, who praise him and elevate him every time he does it.
So when the financial collapse occurred, McCain had two choices. He could be partisan and side with his GOP base and a majority of the public and say “hell no” to the bailout. Or he could cross the aisle, reach out to his opponents, and do exactly what the media wanted him to do, namely side with Obama and support the bailout. Naturally, he did the latter.
This is why Obama walked away from the debacle unscathed, while McCain probably sank his campaign. Obama’s voters are either the ultra-rich, who supported the bailout, assorted groups who don't pay taxes and therefore don't care if there's a bailout (welfare bums, college brats, etc.), minorities who would vote for him no matter what just for being black, or morons who sit around watching Oprah & Jerry Springer all day and were generally clueless about the bailout.
But McCain's core constituents were white, middle and working class folks who were outraged about the bailout and were sick of hearing McCain brag about “crossing the aisle”, especially when the rabidly partisan Democrats never reciprocate.
McCain's doom was sealed when, at the first debate, he let Obama blame the meltdown of GOP policies. In response, McCain blamed it on “Wall Street greed” since he didn't want to blame it on his “friends” Chris Dodd & Chuck Schumer, even though they were in fact responsible for it (along with Barney Frank and Obama advisers Franklin Raines & Joe Johnson). Obama saw McCain's weakness and upped the ante, claiming that he had warned against Fannie Mae excesses two years ago, which was a flat out lie. Not only did he not do that, but he was the number two recipient of Fannie Mae cash out of the 535 members of Congress, exceeded only by Dodd, chairman of the Senate committee overseeing Fannie Mae. Ironically, McCain actually had warned against Fannie Mae excesses a few years ago, and introduced a bill to reign things in (which the Democrats killed), but he didn't mention this.
And so McCain proved once again that moderate, bipartisan Republicanism is a loser.
I think it’s a problem with all war heroes. They fought hard in the past, they did their duty and they don’t want to do it again.
Very well said. Straight to the point. With your permission, I would like to use this in my blog.