McCain: From Maverick to Monotony

Here's a political confession, if you like such dirty things: Eight years ago, during the Republican primary race, I donated money to a political candidate. It was and still is the only time I've ever given my hard-won dollars to a campaign. My thirty bucks went to John McCain, through his innovative "web site" that took donations through, I think, "PayPal."

Heading home to Washington from an assignment in Belize, I got stuck in the Chetumal airport for most of a day. In that weird era before you could get online anywhere, I was stuck with a bunch of day-old newspapers. The Miami Herald had a grinning, tough-looking McCain on the front page. He'd slaughtered George Bush Junior in New Hampshire by a ridiculous 18 points. McCain's promise and threat on that victory night?

"We have sent a powerful message to Washington: Change is coming."


I finally got home to D.C. and sent McCain a little money. Why not?

A lot of voters wanted "change" in 2000. None of us had any clue just how deep and terrible the cesspool of "change" would be, once Bush and Cheney squirmed into office with the help of the Supreme Court and the Devil. But you don't need to read a blog to know gas costs $4 a gallon today and your house is worth half what you bought it for and every American is a terrorist until proven guilty..

Anyway, back in 2000, McCain appealed to lots of people who were generally disgusted with national politics.

Even though he was a Washington insider and born to one of the nation's most elite military families, little was made of his (then) quarter century on Capitol Hill as a Senate liaison, U.S. representative and U.S. senator. Memories got shorter as America grew dumber -- in 2000, few could recall the circumstances behind the Savings & Loan collapse, which featured Neil Bush and John McCain as central figures in this immense financial scandal. (Today, you'd be lucky to find someone who can identify the Keating Five at the Washington Post or New York Times.)

McCain seemed refreshing compared to his rivals in 2000: wonky Al Gore carrying the weight of Clinton's sleaze, dumb George Bush Junior chosen by RNC committee a year before the race, pretentious Bill Bradley with his Mario Cuomo "I'm better than this" act, and the usual bunch of populist bottom feeders.

Sitting on his dumb bus, thrilling dumb reporters with dumb stories while he ate donuts, John McCain at least seemed human.

He still seems human, of course. But he's an old, tired human, with a long list of weaknesses, failures and sellouts that are easily available to anyone with a bit of curiosity and the ability to type something into Google.

John McCain's speech last week was one of the crappiest things ever witnessed in modern politics. A confused old man who can't read off a teleprompter just listed a bunch of things -- Iraq, mortgages, socks, ice cream, stuff we lost in the garage, etc. -- and punctuated the incoherent jabbering mess with the worst catch phrase since humans learned to speak: "Th-a-at's not ch-ch-ange we can b-believe in."

"Maverick" McCain may be a beer baron multi-millionaire, thanks to his latest wife, and he may have dramatic stories to tell from his days as a bomber pilot who got shot down by the people he was bombing. But his story is stale and lame today. It's no good angering your GOP conservative base when you don't have any independent or Democrat support.

How bad are things for John McCain's campaign? One of my editors, at "another" website, asked me last week to not write about John McCain ... because nobody reads anything about John McCain.

Ken Layne is editor of Wonkette.