After Defeat, Which McCain Will Return to Senate?

After Defeat, Which McCain Will Return to Senate?

By CARL HULSE
Published: November 8, 2008


John McCain has been here before, coming up short in a presidential race like so many senators before him and staring at a less than triumphant return to the Senate.

But the circumstances this time are vastly different. In 2000, Mr. McCain was welcomed back almost as a hero after he ended his primary campaign against George W. Bush. He was prized for his openness, sought out by fellow Republicans for his endorsement and respected for the national following he had built in his gutsy effort against the future president. There was a sense that he had been wronged, dragged down by scurrilous attacks when he had reached for a higher tone in politics.

Now it is Mr. McCain and his campaign who have been criticized as trying to paint President-elect Barack Obama as a pal to terrorists and a socialist in Democratic clothing. In this campaign, Mr. McCain’s free-wheeling relationship with the press was badly strained, he was accused of pandering to conservatives, and party strategists said he damaged the prospects of other Republicans on the ballot.

As a result, his colleagues are wondering which John McCain will be returning to the Senate for a term that runs two more years.

Will it be the John McCain who was an enthusiastic coalition builder, deal maker and central figure in Congress, one as apt to tweak Republicans as much as Democrats? Or the John McCain who seemed so dismissive of Mr. Obama, who spent considerable time assailing the opposition rather than making his own case and who to many seemed to become what he had once disdained?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/washington/09hill.html?ref=us

Expect him to bend over backwards for any of Lieberman's pet projects

Expect him to diss the entire religious right

GOP played a trick on him and convinced him he was no good at economics thus should change his position on tax cuts...which he did...to favor what the GOP is all about (TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH AT ALL COST). I hope McCain goes back to thinking for himself.