Reassessing John McCain

Peggy Noonan has a column today discussing Tuesday's election results. In between touching on Warren Beatty, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jon Corzine and Mike Bloomberg she fit in a couple notes about John McCain. One item jumped out and made me do a little thinking:

I have been thinking lately, by the way, of this: When they ran against each other for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, George W. Bush was the conservative and McCain the moderate maverick. Now, five years later, who looks more conservative? McCain, who worries about spending, regulation and immigration, or Bush? Funny how things change.

To me John McCain is really the story of two men. The first followed his father and grandfather into the Navy, served in a very dangerous assignment as a pilot flying missions over North Vietnam, and most honorably he refused special treatment as a Prisoner of War based on having a famous father when offered by his captors. I honor that man and as a sailor would have unquestioningly followed his lead. However and unfortunately, the second half of John McCain's life has been spent in Congress. He has mastered the actions and behaviors a politician must use to garner national name recognition and friendly press. He has gained the adultation of the media to the detriment of his reputation in his own party. His penchant for going on the Sunday morning talk shows and saying things critical of his party has lead many conservatives to say they would never vote for McCain.

Having said all that, I had to stop and consider Noonan's contention that Senator McCain now looks more conservative than President Bush. The flaw in her assessment is there is a big difference between being a candidate or one of a hundred senators and being the chief executive who has deal with the realities of a situation. It is one thing for candidate George Bush to sound much more conservative than President Bush is able to be in office. For example a conservative talk show host or a Republican senator can say "We need to close our borders." Sounds great in theory and people love it. However, once in office, actually securing the entire border is a whole lot harder than it sounds in a five second sound bite on the campaign trail. Controlling spending is an even better example. Everyone in the Republican party says they want to reduce government spending but it turns out they all want spending reduced in someone else's state. To me the jury is out on John McCain. I need more than Sunday morning sound bites to convince me he is right for the job.