More McCain

In his NY Times column yesterday Paul Krugman succinctly explains that John McCain is not a moderate, is not a maverick, and is not a straight-talker. The Republican National Committe knows it must sell it's 2008 candidate much the same way it did in 2000: by lying about him.

Krugman points out that McCain recentlly voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains which will increase the budget deficit and benefit the rich; McCain's 2000 presidential campaign called for "rogue state rollback" ("pre-emptive war in Bushspeak), making him the darling of neoconservatives like William Kristol; recently McCain's spokesperson said that he would have signed South Dakota's cases of rape and incest-included extremist anti-abortion law -- still sound like a moderate to you?

According to VoteView.com McCain's voting record is the third most conservative in the entire Senate...in a time when conservatives dominate the Senate!

You should read the whole Krugman piece, The Right Man (NYT 3/12/06), if you can find a way around paying the TimeSelect poll tax. In the meantime, here is Krugman's concluding statements about John McCain:

He isn't a straight talker. His flip-flopping on tax cuts, his call to send troops we don't have to Iraq and his endorsement of the South Dakota anti-abortion legislation even while claiming that he would find a way around that legislation's central provision show that he's a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush.

He isn't a moderate. Mr. McCain's policy positions and Senate votes don't just place him at the right end of America's political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party.

And he isn't a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration's ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.

It's worth recalling that during the 2000 election campaign George W. Bush was widely portrayed by the news media both as a moderate and as a straight-shooter. As Mr. Bush has said, ''Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.''

Reading this Krugman column put me in awe of the power of the Republican marketing spin machine -- they had me, and other people that I know who actually pay attention, believing that McCain was a straight-talking, moderate, part-time maverick.