{"id":1116,"date":"2008-11-02T10:11:01","date_gmt":"2008-11-02T17:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2008-11-02T10:11:29","modified_gmt":"2008-11-02T17:11:29","slug":"john-mccain-pulls-a-double-maverick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1116","title":{"rendered":"John McCain Pulls A Double, Reverse Maverick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night John McCain appeared on Saturday Night Live. He follows his running mate&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1098\" target=\"_blank\">inexplicably lame guest shot<\/a> on the program two weeks ago. The best that can be said is that he didn&#8217;t bomb as thoroughly as Sarah Palin. At least he participated in the sketches and had a few punch lines.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it is a bit surprising that the jokes primarily centered on his being a cash-strapped also ran. That is generally not a theme that a candidate wants to present two days before an election. Neither is it advisable to reveal your campaign&#8217;s closing strategy, which McCain did when discussing the matter on the <em>Weekend Update<\/em> segment. Asked what he would do if his present strategy were to fail, he offered a couple of notable alternatives:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Reverse Maverick:<\/strong> That&#8217;s where I do whatever anybody tells me.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Double Maverick<\/strong>: I&#8217;d just go totally berserk and freak everybody out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In reality, he has already resorted to both of these tactics.<\/p>\n<p>He began his campaign two years ago with the <em>Reverse Maverick<\/em> as he abandoned many of his long-held positions to suck up to the Bush loyalists and the Christian right. Examples include advocating the Bush tax cuts that he had voted against in the Senate, adopting the Bush position on torture that he had previously opposed, and embracing evangelicals like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who he once called <em>&#8220;agents of intolerance.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>He rushed headlong into the <em>Double Maverick<\/em> with his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. That certainly freaked everybody out. In addition, his behavior in response to the Wall Street meltdown when he promised to suspend his campaign and postpone a debate (neither of which he did), was nothing if not berserk.<\/p>\n<p>A third strategy mentioned on SNL was <em>&#8220;The Sad Grandpa.&#8221;<\/em> I can&#8217;t say that we&#8217;ve witnessed bona fide examples of that, but we have seen verified examples of a close off-shoot, <em>&#8220;The Grandpa Simpson.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night John McCain appeared on Saturday Night Live. He follows his running mate&#8217;s inexplicably lame guest shot on the program two weeks ago. The best that can be said is that he didn&#8217;t bomb as thoroughly as Sarah Palin. At least he participated in the sketches and had a few punch lines. Still, it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[152,1,15],"tags":[103,381],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election","category-general","category-humor","tag-john-mccain","tag-sarah-palin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-i0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1115,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1115","url_meta":{"origin":1116,"position":0},"title":"A McCain\/Palin Halloween","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/31\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Boo! John McCain and Sarah Palin celebrating Halloween as Joe the Plumber and Rev. Wright.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1066,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1066","url_meta":{"origin":1116,"position":1},"title":"Free Sarah Palin From Rupert Murdoch!","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/25\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"While John McCain is consumed with personally resolving the nation's financial crisis, Sarah Palin is cavorting with the glamor set (elitist?) and the uber-conservative media barons who are propping up the Republican ticket: \"Sarah Palin schmoozed with controversial media tycoon Rupert Murdoch at a swanky charity gala here Wednesday night.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art\/Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art\/Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1070,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1070","url_meta":{"origin":1116,"position":2},"title":"Random Thoughts: McCain, Palin And Olbermann","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/27\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a few things that are running through my idle mind: On John McCain: In last night's debate, McCain suggested that folks check the website of Citizens Against Government Waste to confirm his allegations about Obama's congressional earmarks. What he didn't say is that CAGW is a McCain front group\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1055,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1055","url_meta":{"origin":1116,"position":3},"title":"No One Wants To Play With John McCain","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/15\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As an illustration of how shallow the media analysis is of the so-called \"Palin Effect.\" a picture is indeed worth a thousand words: Here are 68 words from the Washington Post: Republican presidential nominee John McCain held his first rally without running mate Sarah Palin today, and let's just say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1064","url_meta":{"origin":1116,"position":4},"title":"CNN&#8217;s Campbell Brown: Free Sarah Palin","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/24\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It would be a mistake to get too bogged down on the Republican spokesmodel for vice-president, Sarah Palin, but this commentary by CNN's Campbell Brown is notable for diving straight to the point: This is also notable because Brown herself has not been a particularly bright light in the media\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1052,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1052","url_meta":{"origin":1116,"position":5},"title":"Palin Boots McCain From Top Of The Ticket","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/11\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Judging by the treatment Sarah Palin is receiving from the media, a casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that she is the candidate for president and John McCain is her running mate. Wednesday evening she arrived back in her home state of Alaska and all three cable news networks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}