What has happened to McCain since he lost the election? He seems to have become a very bitter old man. I wonder if he still feels screwed over by the Republican party from the 2000 election. He got to run in 2008 but he had to know that was a losing battle after the economy tanked and the country turned against Bush.
He’s always been quite vain and loved the Sunday morning news shows, but now it seems like he can’t stand to not have the camera in front of him as he rants against just about everything and everyone.
He was brutalized by his own party in the 2000 campaign, which could make anybody bitter. But I think the self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2008 of picking a horrible running mate, combined with buying into the whole hate campaign against Obama and then losing badly, has left him bitter and frustrated. He’ll likely never get over losing that election and now takes any opportunity to flail uselessly at the wind as his life closes out.
I have a cousin (a couple times removed) who over the years sat in in a couple meetings where McCain was also present. He never talked to the man one-on-one, but he says his impression was that McCain was a stubborn hot-head, and his personal opinion was that he wasn’t someone who he’d trust to be president. This was pre-2000. So it’s not new; what’s new is that he’s now old to go with cranky.
McCain spent a lot of years being a “uniter” figure. But as the GOP changed to a reactionary party, he had to see the writing on the wall. Being 2008 presidential nominee couldn’t have hurt, and the pressure from party leadership can’t have let up.
Look at his cross-examination of Chuck Hagel recently. He demanded Hagel make a simple yes-no statement about the Iraq surge in order to cast him as Strong Pro-War or Weak Anti-War. Hagel didn’t back down and McCain got outright indignant.
Let me add that I think anyone who went through what McCain went through has a damn good reason to be angry. I understand his behavior, but I cannot excuse it. There’s no good reason to go into public life and be so abusive to others.
I assumed a big part was that he felt Obama was an usurper who was too flashy to deserve to be president. But I’ve heard as others have said that McCain has had anger issues for years. That is understandable considering his POW experiences, but it makes you question his fitness for president.
Which 2008 election were you watching? Don’t you remember him awkwardly trying to defend Obama as “A good man” in the face of his own party base labeling him as a Muslim, as though that were an insult? In watching the 2008 race, I never saw McCain fall into the sort of hateful, nasty stuff that we saw from a lot of the rest of the party.
Like many others, I cut a lot of slack for a former POW. But he was also a guy with a bad attitude before he got captured by the North Vietnamese, and many have questioned his attitude about fellow prisoners who did things to avoid getting tortured the way he did. It’s clear the experience scarred him in more than just physical ways. Anyone without that mitigating factor would never have enjoyed his success as a politician. A substantial number of his fellow senators and representatives were a bit worried about him becoming president because of his history of holding, and publicly airing grudges. His unsuccesful run against Obama simply brought the spotlight closer and more directly on him.
Yep, I do think the most telling moment was when he took he mike away from a sweet looking old lady that was beginning to ramble against the “Muslim” that was running against McCain.
I however do see that as also a reason why he is bitter, he tried to sound reasonable as the independent and middle of the road voters were not as loopy as the republican base ; that was a failure, but I think that now that he no longer has to appeal to moderates, he has to revert to his local base, whatever good manners he had are disappearing as he has to get feedback from the people he represents, that is the land of Joe Arpaio, lawmakers that are cranky, and the even more loopier tea partiers.
McCain was a young douchebag, entitled jock. He was the bad guy from every '80s college movie. His dad the Admiral made his life pretty plush.
Then he got captured, tortured, released and grew old. I don’t doubt that being in those conditions added a twist of humility and perspective. But inside, he’s still a piece of shit. Look at his questioning of Hagel, his friend. Think about his months long tantrum about Rice and Benghazi.
I edited my post for brevity’s sake. He remained silent on the hate attack (tacit approval, in other words) up until public opinion started to turn against his campaign and against him for failing to shut down the vitriol and racist comments coming from the right. It was a shameful performance and it took a crazy old lady for him to finally say something.
There are plenty of cases where McCain has acted admirably. He seems to mostly act on principle, it’s just hard to figure out where these principles come from. They certainly don’t seem connected by a single coherent philosophy.
I think his cranky temperament and some lingering bitterness from 2008 are both factors, but let’s not forget the fact that the Republican party has turned to the right since 2008 and McCain received a relatively serious primary challenge from the right in 2010.