Andrew Romano from Newsweek explains why he thinks calling John McCain “McBush” or “McSame” just ain’t right:
And as any objective observer will admit, there’s simply no way McCain would ever “carry out a third Bush term.”
Fact is, he couldn’t–even if he wanted to. According to the Cook Political Report, the Democratic Party is poised to pick up 10 to 20 seats in the House of Representatives and four to seven seats in the Senate. At best, that would give the Dems voting majorities of 77 and 16, respectively–margins much larger than any enjoyed by the GOP during Bush’s tenure in the White House. So just as running for the Republican nomination has forced candidate McCain to emphasize his conservative bona fides, facing off against a heavily Democratic Congress would force President McCain to make compromises–if, that is, he hoped to accomplish anything in office.
At this point, McCain would undoubtedly deviate from Bush’s divide-and-conquer playbook. Whereas Bush and Co. arrived in Washington, D.C. “believing that the intensity of Republican support was more important than the breadth of his appeal”–Karl Rove, for example, advocated a “50 percent plus one” approach to governing–McCain has a long record of working with Democrats when necessary. Without a majority, it would be necessary. As president, then, McCain would likely do what he has plenty of practice doing in the past–partnering with Dems on immigration (McCain-Kennedy), campaign finance (McCain-Feingold), climate change (McCain-Lieberman) and even education–while skipping the stuff he’s never been particularly enthusiastic about, like pushing for conservative social policies to please right-wing Republicans. On Iraq, the economy and even Supreme Court justices, he would have to find common ground or risk gridlock. As president, McCain would have a pretty clear-cut choice: either a) bend or b) get nothing done. Not much room for Bush-like behavior.
