Word: evening
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...treat it like one. Home-state politicians complain that as he rose to power, McCain worked to turn the Arizona Republican Party into his personal fleet, tacking to his orders and subject to his discipline. Anyone who stepped out of line would find McCain out recruiting primary challengers, even down to the city-council races. "You are either with him," says a local politician who supports McCain, "or you're wearing the black hat." Says his former administrative assistant Grant Woods, with whom relations have gone sour: "As a maverick McCain doesn't tolerate mavericks well...
...retrospect, McCain claims that the lesson he learned from the Keating scandal was that in politics, appearances matter. Even if he hadn't done anything wrong, guilt by association was enough to ruin even his image. But it's hard to see that as the main lesson, given how careless he still is about appearances. He denounces big-spending special interests and yet accepts flights on corporate jets; he puts the speaker of the Arizona house of representatives on his campaign payroll despite a flurry of ethics charges around him; he neglects to recuse himself from debates about measures that...
...advisers justify their early emphasis on biography by noting that George W. Bush entered the race with 100% name recognition, even if some folks still get him confused with his father. McCain came in a relative unknown, and so has had to introduce himself. Only by telling his story will he have any credibility when he starts saying what he would fight for, given the chance...
This is a much harder story to tell, not just for McCain but for all the candidates trying to capture voters' attention in a campaign season in which the markets are up and the world is peaceful and folks have so many other things on their mind. Even for a man with a great story, it's a hard sell. Maybe McCain is right to try to capture their imagination instead...
...must be some Oval Office envy, given that one of their own had left them in the presidential dust. Stare in the mirror now, and at best there's a Vice President staring back. I was certain there would be some hurt feelings when Bush dissed the meeting entirely, even though he was only 15 minutes away in San Diego raising money...