Tag Archives | New Hampshire Presidential Primary

ThoughtCast Reflects on the Legacy of John McCain

John McCain’s final battle – this time with an aggressive form of brain cancer – is now over, and the debates over his legacy have yet to begin in earnest. Instead, we are awash in adulatory news coverage, which highlights McCain the icon, but obscures the man. Perhaps his performance in a pivotal New Hampshire Presidential Primary Debate, held in January 2000, just weeks before he defeated George W. Bush in that state’s primary – the first in the nation – is worth reviewing.

In this excerpt from the hour-long debate, moderated by NBC’s Tim Russert, McCain, the campaign finance reform candidate and rider of the Straight Talk Express, responds to breaking news regarding his lobbying the FCC on behalf of Paxson Communications, a campaign contributor. Let’s not forget that McCain’s reformist tendencies developed after he was criticized for exercising “poor judgment” by the Senate Ethics Committee for his role as one of the Keating Five Senators accused of corruption in 1989.
Although my follow-up question was admittedly intended to bridle him, McCain (in my view) comes across as brittle. Where is his famous sense of humor? Where the politician’s gift of deflection? McCain’s “brittle temper” was hardly a secret, but compared to other candidates on that stage, his smile is steely, his manner tense.
A self-described maverick and patriot, might McCain have been a touch too proud? Did his confidence in his own integrity, as the New York Times phrased it, “blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest”? McCain of course went on to lose the primary to George W. Bush, and perhaps self-love, rather than love of country, got in the way.
The intention here is not to dump on McCain – what would be the point? But — if he had been just a bit less attentive to his own honor, might we have avoided 8 years of George W. Bush? Think about that for a minute. That would indeed have been a legacy.

Click here: to listen (6:14 mins).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted on September 3, 2018 in a new podcast, Biography, Front Page, History, Politics, Psychology
Continue Reading

John McCain’s Last Stand – on ThoughtCast!

John McCain, the maverick Republican Senator from Arizona, was diagnosed with brain cancer a year ago now, so there’s not much time left for this remarkably resilient politician to take a final stand. Will McCain live long enough to vote for — or against — Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee? He did vote to confirm Neil Gorsuch, but will he return to the Capitol to help overthrow Roe V. Wade?

Who is McCain really — is he the independent spirit who rode the Straight Talk Express campaign bus during the 1999/2000 Presidential Primary?

Or is he the far more conventional conservative who surrendered to the right wing and selected Sarah Palin the second time he ran for the presidency? Clearly, he’s all of the above, which makes it difficult to anticipate his actions.

Jenny Attiyeh interviewed McCain during the New Hampshire Presidential Primary in 1999, when he was still the front runner. Back then he was the darling of the media, and was portrayed as a forthright, reformist candidate. He went on to defeat George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary, only to fall victim to a smear campaign in South Carolina — he’d fathered a black child, was a traitor to his country — from which he never recovered.

Recently, of course, McCain’s been subjected to the taunts of President Trump. He’s endured far worse — try five years as a prisoner of war, tortured by the North Vietnamese. But now that the end is very nearly here, will he figure out what it is he really stands for?

In his latest book, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations, McCain expresses regret over his VP pick in 2008. Perhaps as the clock ticks out his final hours, he’ll reach beyond words, to something more like action. Or, as this book review states, will he continue to try to have it both ways?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted on July 15, 2018 in a new podcast, Ideas, Politics
Continue Reading

A Prior Republican Presidential Debate

There was a time when Donald Trump, and the less sensational but still controversial Ted Cruz, did not dominate the discourse and depress the hopes of the Republican Party establishment. Back in 2000, there were 6 candidates to pick from, and none of them prompted calls for a contested convention. Even so, these six seemed like quite an odd bunch at the time, and they took their place on stage in Durham, New Hampshire for an influential Republican Presidential Debate only weeks before the first-in-the-nation primary on February 1st. This was the first time citizens cast their votes in a primary for the future President George W. Bush.
Let’s rewind the tape, and take another look. (NB: click on the link just provided, NOT on the images.)
This January 6th debate was moderated by Tim Russert, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, and featured Arizona Senator John McCain, conservative political activist Alan Keyes, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, publisher Steve Forbes, Christian pro-life spokesman Gary Bauer and George W. Bush. As things turned out, Bush fared poorly in New Hampshire, and lost the primary to the “straight talk express” candidate John McCain, who pushed for campaign finance reform.
I participated in the debate as a correspondent for New Hampshire Public TV, and was able to ask McCain, who was campaigning to clean up Washington, a question about his influence as chairman of the FCC.
So — let me ask the same questions I posed in my Democratic Presidential Debate post: In taking a look 16 years after the fact, how does it seem to you now? Quaint and out of date? Does it hold hints of what was to come? What should we have done differently that might have made the future a better place?

Posted on March 18, 2016 in a new podcast, History, Politics
Continue Reading

A Prior Democratic Presidential Debate

Back in 2000, before we’d ever heard of Al Quaeda, Abu Ghraib or ISIS, we somehow managed to survive a Presidential Primary season with our national dignity relatively intact. Those were however less traumatic times. Do you know what we were worried about back then? Whether or not our computers would implode when their 1s and 0s flipped over to face the new century. Good old Y2K. How innocent we were back then.
But — it could be argued that this same Presidential race and its hotly contested aftermath, oh so indelicately umpired by the Supreme Court, was the spark which lit the fuse that hurtled us down the path to our current predicament.
So let’s rewind the tape, and take another look. (NB: click on the link just provided, NOT on the images.)
New Hampshire is always the first state to vote in the primaries, and the millennial year was no exception. It was scheduled for February 1st, 2000, and was less than a month away when a Democratic Presidential Primary Debate took place in Durham, New Hampshire, pitting Vice President Al Gore against former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. The January 5th debate was moderated by ABC TV’s Peter Jennings. I too was a participant, as a correspondent for New Hampshire Public TV.

So — in taking a look 16 years after the fact, how does it seem to you now? Quaint and out of date? Does it hold hints of what was to come? What should we have done differently that might have made the future a better place?

Posted on February 25, 2016 in Politics
Continue Reading

George W. Bush, Beforehand

I interviewed George W. Bush during his first New Hampshire Presidential Primary, when he was still a newcomer to the country at large, just the free and easy – and sober – Governor of Texas, the oldest son of the former President, George Herbert Walker Bush.
Here he is, “W”, buoyant, almost boyish, back in January 2000, before he was defeated in the United States’ earliest primary by John McCain on February 1st.

That was back when we too were innocent of what was to come… before this nation changed irrevocably. I asked Bush about our national interests, and when – if ever – the U.S. should intervene in foreign conflicts.
Let us know what you think of his perspective, and whether it evolved…