McCain almost left Republican party in 2001

In 2001, with the U.S. Senate tied 50-50, and with John McCain deeply embittered over George W. Bush’s supposed terrible treatment of him in the South Carolina primary the previous year (the terrible treatment consisting of “negative ads,” i.e., criticism of his record, which is not supposed to happen to John McCain because he is a former naval officer and prisoner of war and therefore his person is sacred), McCain entered into long negotiations with Senate Democrats about the possibility of McCain leaving the Republican party and becoming an Independent caucusing with the Democrats. The negotiations only stopped when Republican senator Jim Jeffords beat McCain to the punch and became an Independent, throwing majority control of the Senate to the Democrats and making a similar move by McCain unnecessary. As The Hill makes clear, the story is corroborated by many of the participants, including then Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and McCain’s top aid John Weaver, and there is no doubt that it happened.

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Tim W. writes:

Here is the somewhat famous interview Michael Reagan did with John McCain in 2000, which ended with Reagan hanging up on McCain. The background to the interview was this. McCain was seeking the GOP nomination, and his campaign chairman was Senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire. Rudman was a “moderate” Republican who generally disliked social conservatives. He was the man who convinced the elder George Bush to name David Souter to the Supreme Court. He reportedly assured Bush that Souter was a rock-solid conservative. Social conservatives have long believed that Rudman deliberately misled Bush on the Souter nomination (not that this totally absolves Bush, as he should have done more research).

Anyway, Pat Robertson was furious that Rudman was chairing the McCain campaign. He blasted Rudman pretty hard and encouraged his followers to support Bush in the 2000 primaries, which they did. No doubt Robertson was pretty harsh in his rhetoric (a bit ironic, considering who Robertson endorsed this year). McCain, however, took it quite personally, and as you can see in the interview, he obsessed on it to a ridiculous degree. I was actually listening to Reagan’s radio show that day and heard this live. The transcript doesn’t do justice to how truly creepy McCain sounded, which led to Reagan hanging up on him.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 01, 2008 11:10 AM | Send