Should John McCain's temper be a campaign issue?

The Associated Press

Cranky? Or assertive? McCain argues with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller.

Featured Topic | Posted 2 years 21 weeks ago

Should John McCain's temper be a campaign issue?

One of John McCain's favorite retorts to a challenging question is this: "You little jerk." Though he has famously good relations with the press, the stories of McCain's hot temper are legendary. He has had to apologize to Republican colleagues after cursing them during Senate negotiations. But McCain portrays his anger as a good thing: "When I see corruption in Washington, when I see wasting needlessly of their tax dollars, when I see people behaving badly—they expect me to get angry, and I will get angry," he said. Should McCain's temper be a campaign issue?

Ben likes: Honor politics

Yuval Levin/National Review Online

Conservatives fear John McCain because they assume he approaches politics the way most people do, and so take his substantive views to express an underlying liberalism. That is certainly mistaken. McCain is neither a liberal nor quite a conservative. Even if his actions do not always live up to his own standards, McCain is an honor politician — aggressive in opposing corruption, hypersensitive to inauthenticity or dishonesty, addicted to big causes, essentially uninterested in what most conservatives take to be the substance of politics, and, lest we forget, supremely vain. This is not a wonderful combination, but it is not a terrible one, and it could well be a winning one in November. Conservatives should view McCain not as a hostile force, but as a foreign and unfamiliar presence, bearing real potential as well as real risk.

To make the most of McCain’s potential -- his appeal to voters, his personality and force of character, his immensely impressive personal history, his patriotism and devotion to America -- conservatives should seek ways to make their causes his, and so to focus on the elements of honor and of greatness in the defense of the American family and the country’s freedom and prosperity. They should emphasize the elements of their worldview that speak to honor, just as McCain should emphasize the elements of his that speak to freedom, family, and limited government.

Joel likes: Senator Hothead

The Carpetbagger Report

To be sure, McCain has every right to be a jerk. We’ve had presidents who were jerks before; I’m sure we’ll have many more in the future. Chief executives do not have to have class and treat people with dignity in order to get elected. McCain is free to be as cantankerous as he wants to be.

My concern here is one of hypocrisy. If he wants to be taken seriously, McCain shouldn’t shout “F**k you!” at fellow senators one day, and then promise voters that he’s going to “raise the level of political dialog in America” the next. He can’t call his colleagues “f**ing jerks” and then turn around and promise to deliver “respectful” debate.