[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/davi...
[0]: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/code_of_conduct...
Of course there are way more variable involved, but I think his refusal was mostly on the basis of maintaining solidarity with the other POWs. In that situation, I could imagine that one of the few things that would keep me going was knowing that the thing i was fighting for back home wasn't just a delusion.
If the other POWs saw Mccain released for on political reasons, then who is to say that the POWs loyalty to their nation wouldn't have been compromised?
It's not really how we should be deciding the presidency, but Kerry put off a strong vibe that he's not one of "us". The democrats need to embrace the actual people in their popularity.
How do you think an average middle-of-the-road person would feel if an 'average joe' was promoted to be their boss? I'd guess probably not great...
The irony is that most successful people in the world were rarely ever born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Kerry was actually one of those few candidates that I wished got their shot because his war record wasn't anything less but admirable. John Mccain's war record was far and beyond even his considering his many years being a POW.
They sacrificed so much for this country and yet the people only resonate with the candidates that seem hip nowadays.
I think someone who’s truly extraordinary shouldn’t have to try very hard to look “relatable”. JFK comes to mind immediately— he didn’t dress or act like a man of the people, but you still got the sense that his family life was like what your family life would be like if you had a lot more money.
Kerry in jeans simply felt inauthentic. Nobody had any idea what his life was actually like behind closed doors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville#On_major...
The 'elites' underestimate the middle-of-the-road at their political peril.
The experiences of the elites are typically very different from that of the Average Joe. As such, they are frequently wholly unqualified to understand the needs of the people.
The people want someone capable of relating to them at least a little.
Unlike 2016 which was a complete horror show all around.
Given how much of a disaster Bush's 8 years were (and we shouldn't let the colossal disaster we're currently experiencing shift our perception of those years), it's a real shame that McCain didn't get his chance then instead of Bush.
Unrelated to Mr McCain, but living in California during the Clinton/Trump election, this struck me as extremely odd.
With California being essentially pre-decided due to the majority vote system, I saw zero campaign ads. Except for the news papers, the election simply didn't happen in California. What a weird system, where huge parts of the population get no representation.
He gave in to the RNC advisors and others around him that time around. Palin obviously turned out to be awful (maybe not strong enough a word) and he didn't care for her very much either, but I imagine he just wanted to get into office so that he could institute what he felt were good policies.
I think he was fundamentally a good person and would have been a good leader, though of course we can debate the merits of his policies. Everything being equal, I'll vote for the person I believe has the interests of the populace at heart.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_presidential_candidacy_of...
Whomever made the decision, it was a rash move that proved that a low caliber, not so smart, but media savvy national candidate could win the support needed to be president. It led to 2016.
Having a gun toting female vp on the republican ticket would have been a strategic move had she not been such a dumpster fire, so I see where he was going with it. Unfortunately for America it propelled her into the national spotlight and we were subjected to her idiotic rambling for years.
I remember reading an AskReddit thread about "have you ever met Trump, what was he like?", it was nothing but amazing stories about his incredible gifts of memory, his intelligence, and his generosity. This of course was back when Trump was still a Democrat. After becoming a Republican he's suddenly a bumbling senile fool who just stumbled into the Presidency over someone who raised 3x the money and had all the establishment support. An amazing example of the Dunning Kruger effect.
You might want to take a look at what ”cum hoc ergo propter hoc” means.
> An amazing example of the Dunning Kruger effect.
That’s... not how the Dunning Kruger effect works.
I’m in no way giving Democrats a pass, they have to appeal to the “tax the rich”, we can give everything to everyone and they stay in the mushy middle not really standing for anything.
"People are idiots" is a known fault with democracies, but it's a known fault with all governments or, indeed, all human endeavors.
I know it seems like I’m giving Democrats a pass, but living in a southern state, I don’t see Democrats veer to far to the left on the state level. They can’t and still have any chance.
"She was a popular, energetic and accomplished reformer as mayor, governor and as a campaigner," McCain writes. He also thought she would appeal to Democrats who had preferred Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama in that year's primaries. McCain notes her knockout speech at the party convention, but he admits it was downhill thereafter.
"She stumbled in some interviews," McCain relates, "and had a few misjudgments in the glare of the ceaseless spotlight. Those missteps too are on me. She didn't put herself on the ticket. I did."
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/03/607403619/exclusive-audio-in-...
At the time, she was one of the most popular governors in the US. She was young (44), female and in charge of the largest state in the country by landmass. She was a rising star in the Republican party and on the short list for the next opening for the US Senate.
She was also a Westerner like McCain, at a time where the Republican party wanted to make sure it didn't become the party of just the Southern US and voters were sick and tired of the Bush administration and the career Republicans running the place.
McCain was losing, and losing momentum. People were scared, companies were going bankrupt, and the stock market crash was imminent.
His top choice was Lieberman, but he couldn't choose him. Republicans would hate to see one of the Senate's most senior Democrats (who was pro-choice) as VP. Many Democrats really disliked him too for his support for the Iraq War and opposition to Obama. He lost his primary seat in 2006 and ran as an Independent against the Democrat, basically winning by consolidating the Connecticut Republican vote.
The others on the short list were Governor Pawlenty (MN), Governor Jindal (LA), Governor Romney (MA) and Former Governor Ridge (PA). All governors. Pawlenty and Romney were the safe choices, but I don't think they would've been able to turn the tide and shift attention away from the Obama campaign.
I was a strong supporter of Obama, and I remember getting worried when McCain chose her. I was really disappointed to hear her first speech - it was patronizing and vindictive, but red meat to the Republican base. I think she basically was told what she needed to do -- i.e. serve as the attack dog and rile up the Republican base and fuel get out the vote efforts in those last two months. And she did a pretty good job at it. She did fine in the VP debate, though Biden did as well, and she looked very comfortable on the national stage.
I think the Democrats ran a great campaign, and were able to define her as a political neophyte that was unqualified to serve as President. I also think that McCain personally wanted to run an ethical campaign focusing on the issues, and her full embrace of the red meat partisan issues undermined his campaign. But if he had chosen someone else I don't think there would've been a different outcome. Republican strategists would still have come up with 'death panels' and trying to tie Obama to Bill Ayers and all that other conspiratorial nonsense, it just would've been a different politician saying it.
Who do you think is going to get that vote bank post Trump?
Someone even more ridiculous unless a better McCain-Palin type arrangement happens.
We are just one Wall Street/Silicon Valley/Pentagon created fiasco away from Alex Jones being president given the current "us VS them" narratives 24*7 news, social media keep amplifying.
I remember the energy of the room when Obama came in. The crowd was young and loud. Obama got up and gave his usual stump speech and then went around to shake hands. I shook his hand and got a word or two in but I could tell he wasn't really interested in talking to me and moved on.
I went to a McCain rally a couple weeks later. A much older crowd and a little more subdued. This was around the time MoveOn was criticizing General Petraeus over his surge in Iraq policy. McCain was upset about this so the mood at the venue, which was a VFW, was a little more bitter. McCain gave a speech which was different than Obama's, a little more off-the-cuff and a little more angry. I remember him talking with the audience rather than to the audience like Obama.
Afterwards, he shook hands with everyone and paused for a conversation. I remember talking to him about STEM programs and the importance of producing more engineers here in the U.S. He looked me in the eyes the whole time, was genuinely curious about my background, and wished me good luck at the end [0].
I ended up voting and working for Obama but I'll never forget that day and how genuine and down-to-earth McCain was with me.
[0] - https://twitter.com/manishsinhaha/status/1033516157343387648