Joe Klein has written a short piece today where he states:
A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong. I used to think, as David Ignatius does, that McCain's true voice was humble and moderate, but now I'm beginning to think his Senate colleagues may be right about his temperament.
Could the mavericky shine finally be coming off of the image of John McC[ompl]ain?
Jump. . .
Klein is not the only one questioning the maverickyness of McC[ompl]ain. Last night on his show, Dan Abrams pointed out that McC[ompl]ain throughout the campaign, while the Dems were still duking it out, that McC[ompl]ain repeatedly said he was going to run a clean campaign, even his wife Cindy got in on it saying that they would rather lose honorably than win nastily, and yet McC[ompl]ain has been running an increasingly negative campaign that is centered on PERSONAL ATTACKS rather than policy differences. I can't embed MSNBC video, so click here to watch.
The Huffington Post also has an article up about the John McCain of 2000 vs the John McC[ompl]ain of 2008. Admittedly, the article is written by a liberal, but that doesn't make his point any less relevant:
It's time that McCain's acolytes and the mainstream media stopped assuming that his extraordinary military service nearly 40 years ago gives him immunity to questions about being President today in a different century.
[snip]
[T]his line of personal attack is one of numerous examples of McCain's Zig-Zag Express. When it comes to flip-flopping, McCain recently has made John Kerry (falsely accused of this) look like the Rock of Gibraltar.
[snip]
McCain said two months ago that he wanted to run a "civil campaign" free of personal attacks. Now he all but accuses Obama of being unpatriotic, nearly treasonous. His recent ad asserting that Obama refused to visit troops because he couldn't bring cameras along and chose to go to the gym instead is, well, a lie. Factcheck.org, the Washington Post and the New York Times have analyzed the facts and said as much. But it plays into McCain's strategy that he's a "real American President," as one of his first ads unsubtly put it.
He's basically making the same point that Gen. Clark was making a couple of weeks ago as well as pointing out the hypocrisy of the McC[ompl]ain campaign. The blowback on the latest tactics of the McC[ompl]ain camp is only going to get worse as they go more negative.
His mavericky halo has tilted and fallen off, and it looks like the media is finally waking up.
I opened with the Klein piece, in that short piece he points out McNasty's temperament. It's only July and he's running around doing things like completely disrespecting journalists who don't simply sing his praises and talk about what a good maverick he is:
Looks like a change is coming, and the more McC[ompl]ain tries to define Obama negatively, the less mavericky and the more like a status quo Republican he's going to look.
Mark Green's Closer says it all:
Start with the truth that a maverick has morphed into a McCarthy -- and that the honorable McCain of 2000 wouldn't vote for the angry McCain of 2008.
Obama could really play on this, the more McC[ompl]ain tries to paint him in a negative light, the harder he needs to work to show the REAL Barack Obama. Negativity works sometimes, but McC[ompl]ain may be jumping the shark considering the fact that now his "base" seems to be less willing to cover for him.
UPDATE New MoveOn Ad hit's McCain's Maverickyness: