I just got an email from John McCain, asking for a $25 campaign contribution. In another time, McCain was about as close as you could come in the Senate to a campaign finance reform zealot, railing against the politicians who collect campaign money and then carry out the will of their donors. In the email [...]
This theme—the government is broken, frozen, incapacitated, petty, pathetic—is everywhere. TIME and CNN have even made it a week-long theme. Newsweek’s Jon Meacham, in typical mahogany-paneled erudition, devotes his weekly column to assuring his readers that history has seen even worse. A new poll shows that 86 percent of Americans think the thesis “government is [...]
Sure, McCain’s had two primary opponents for months, but this one is so big that one of those original challengers — Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. founder Chris Simcox — actually stepped down and endorsed the new challenger. The newcomer isn’t really all that new, former Arizona Rep. J. D. Hayworth, who lost his seat in [...]
Lately, there has been no shortage of criticism that the Democratic health care bill doesn’t do enough to cut health care spending. My colleague Karen Tumulty had a great story in the magazine recently about how cost-containment provisions in health reform legislation have been whittled down. Right now, on the Senate floor, a group of [...]
John McCain returned to the Senate in 2000 a virtual liberal: throwing bombs at his Republican leaders (and especially George W. Bush). John McCain returned to the Senate in 2009 a virtual conservative: a model Republican and leading critic of President Obama – especially, these days, on the war in Afghanistan. McCain’s favorite role in [...]
