(POLITICO 44).Barack Obama began his presidency with an open hand toward the man he had just defeated in a race that was at times bitter.
"There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain," said Obama at an inauguration-eve tribute dinner to his former foe.
But in the year since that evening of comity and collegiality, McCain has emerged as one of the leading critics of the new president. On foreign policy, his traditional area of expertise, and domestic affairs, where McCain has shown new passion, the 73-year-old Arizonan is making it plain that he has no plans to serve out his years in the rank-and-file, as a politician known more for what he lost than what he will yet accomplish.
For years, McCain relished being an outsider and a maverick, a style that often led to battles with his own party's leadership. Today, for reasons that friends and McCain observers say could range from unresolved anger to concern for his right flank as he seeks re-election to genuine dismay about Obama's agenda, he is helping lead a fiery crusade of GOP loyalists against Democratic priorities - and irked some of his Democratic colleagues in the process.
“The same ferocity he had about beating on Republicans ... is now being focused on people on the other side whose agenda is really overreaching,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate. “He has every reason to be upset. There’s no change there. What would have been a change was if he wasn’t pissed off.”
“He is now the de facto leader of the Republican Party.”
Because of his Senate platform, longtime fame and a relative dearth of high-wattage Republicans, McCain has become something close to an opposition leader in the Obama era: There he is on the Senate floor denouncing Democrats’ health care plans; there he is on “Meet the Press,” offering the GOP response to the administration’s Afghanistan policy; and there he is back down in South Carolina, holding another town hall meeting with Graham as though the race never ended and the Straight Talk Express is still gassed up and ready to go.
“The first year has been like an extension of the presidential campaign in many ways,” said John Weaver, formerly one of McCain’s closest advisers.
Some of the senator’s oldest and closest friends say he is being true to an innate sense of public spiritedness.
“His motivation — and he wears it on his sleeve — is that he loves this country and wants to leave it a better place than he found it,” said Orson Swindle, a fellow Vietnam prisoner of war and longtime friend.
Mark Salter, McCain’s former Senate chief of staff, ghostwriter and close confidant, said McCain may have responded differently if Obama had governed more from the center.
“You can’t expect him to do things that are antithetical to his beliefs,” said Salter, who still talks to the senator multiple times each week.
Discussing Obama’s first big initiative, the stimulus, Salter said that his old boss could not get behind what was mostly an infrastructure spending bill.
“If [Obama] had said we’re going to do this half my way and half your way, guys like John McCain and others would have been all over it,” he said.
"There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain," said Obama at an inauguration-eve tribute dinner to his former foe.
But in the year since that evening of comity and collegiality, McCain has emerged as one of the leading critics of the new president. On foreign policy, his traditional area of expertise, and domestic affairs, where McCain has shown new passion, the 73-year-old Arizonan is making it plain that he has no plans to serve out his years in the rank-and-file, as a politician known more for what he lost than what he will yet accomplish.
For years, McCain relished being an outsider and a maverick, a style that often led to battles with his own party's leadership. Today, for reasons that friends and McCain observers say could range from unresolved anger to concern for his right flank as he seeks re-election to genuine dismay about Obama's agenda, he is helping lead a fiery crusade of GOP loyalists against Democratic priorities - and irked some of his Democratic colleagues in the process.
“The same ferocity he had about beating on Republicans ... is now being focused on people on the other side whose agenda is really overreaching,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate. “He has every reason to be upset. There’s no change there. What would have been a change was if he wasn’t pissed off.”
“He is now the de facto leader of the Republican Party.”
Because of his Senate platform, longtime fame and a relative dearth of high-wattage Republicans, McCain has become something close to an opposition leader in the Obama era: There he is on the Senate floor denouncing Democrats’ health care plans; there he is on “Meet the Press,” offering the GOP response to the administration’s Afghanistan policy; and there he is back down in South Carolina, holding another town hall meeting with Graham as though the race never ended and the Straight Talk Express is still gassed up and ready to go.
“The first year has been like an extension of the presidential campaign in many ways,” said John Weaver, formerly one of McCain’s closest advisers.
Some of the senator’s oldest and closest friends say he is being true to an innate sense of public spiritedness.
“His motivation — and he wears it on his sleeve — is that he loves this country and wants to leave it a better place than he found it,” said Orson Swindle, a fellow Vietnam prisoner of war and longtime friend.
Mark Salter, McCain’s former Senate chief of staff, ghostwriter and close confidant, said McCain may have responded differently if Obama had governed more from the center.
“You can’t expect him to do things that are antithetical to his beliefs,” said Salter, who still talks to the senator multiple times each week.
Discussing Obama’s first big initiative, the stimulus, Salter said that his old boss could not get behind what was mostly an infrastructure spending bill.
“If [Obama] had said we’re going to do this half my way and half your way, guys like John McCain and others would have been all over it,” he said.
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