McCain foes play up, backers play down temperament

[azmouse]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/mccain/articles/2008/04/07/20080407mccain-grudges0407.html


Four years ago, the Federal Election Commission chairman tried to shake John McCain's hand at a Senate hearing. McCain defiantly and publicly refused to do so.
Bradley Smith was a philosophical foe of campaign-finance reform, long one of McCain's top public-policy priorities.
"It's true," an unrepentant McCain acknowledged after a political blogger asked about the 2004 incident during a recent conference call. "This individual had savaged me, my character and my integrity, on many written and spoken occasions. There was no reason for me to shake his hand."

The episode suggests a side of McCain long claimed by his detractors: that McCain is the kind of person who never forgets a slight or insult and nurses grudges against those who impugn his honor. The four-term senator from Arizona and presumptive Republican presidential nominee has been dogged by questions about his temperament for more than 20 years.

*snip*


McCain's critics, who include past and present Senate colleagues, maintain that his occasional flashes of anger and reputation for compiling grievances should give voters pause about installing him in the White House. Still, others who either have firsthand experience with McCain or have followed his career closely maintain that he really isn't much different from other driven politicians.

[mwb970]

1. I wonder if his experience in Viet Nam affected his sanity. (I'm serious.)

Kind of like I wonder whether bush being drunk on his butt every day for 20 years did anything to his brain. Jeez, between these guys and Reagan with his Alzheimer's, what gives? Do Republicans prefer candidates with mental defects?

[Vinca]

2. All it's going to take is one reporter or one voter asking the wrong question

that makes him go snakeshit on camera. I bet somewhere there's a pool to guess the date and time. Anyone who has a chance to go to one of his town hall meetings, try to ask him if he really called his wife a c**t. That ought to do it.

[azmouse]

3. That is exactly what needs to be done.

Get under McCain's skin and make him lose control. If he does that during the debates it's all over for him.
Of course, McCain knows his temper is his weak spot and he knows it will be gone after.