The Maverick Playing Leader

I must say I was surprised by McCain's speech.  

He championed education as the most important civil rights issue of this century; he told the otherwise happy-to-be-divisive-Republicans that they would have to reach out in a bipartisan way;  and he even complimented Barack Obama.  

But I was also confused.  All of this diplomacy came after two days of a traditional Republican divide-and-conquer convention.  Guiliani lambasted the Democrats for forgetting about 9/11, Romney warned of the liberal "Eastern elites," and the Palin pit bull was let out of its cage.   McCain's progressive tone just didn't fit with everything else McCain has said and done in the rest of his campaign.  

And last night, before falling asleep, I found myself asking myself, What does McCain really believe?  I don't think I know anymore.

At the Democratic Convention, Kerry talked about the division between Senator McCain and Candidate McCain.  That Senator McCain was the progressive Republican maverick that the Democrats could accept - even work with - while Candidate McCain reversed all his progressive principles to become George W. Bush redux.   

Last night, Senator McCain showed up at Candidate McCain's rally.

More than anything, I just felt bad for McCain last night because he seemed like a lost boy out of place.  Senator McCain was trying to lead a crowd that Candidate McCain had made.  The Palin Republicans were ambivalent at best toward Senator McCain's message.  They were more interested in booing a liberal protester than listening to McCain speak.  John McCain couldn't command presence.

I think John McCain really is a maverick.  But he's a lone maverick - not a leader maverick.  He wants to be able to tell the Republican's exactly how it is, but he's so afraid of losing the election that he retreats to a  hardline right wing agenda.  He realizes he's not the leader of the Republican party that Reagan and the Bushs created, and he's certainly not the leader of the Democrats.  

So who is McCain leading?  I'm not sure.  He's a maverick trying to play leader.  He didn't really have any new policies or ideas that he was passionately pushing forward.  He seemed more like an old man with a personal story of courage that he wanted to share with the world.  

I like Senator McCain, the maverick, but he is a maverick in all the lonliness that that entails.  He's a leader without followers and a leader without a clear agenda, which doesn't really make him a leader at all.  I think Senator McCain would be best suited to return to the Senate where he can again be the maverick that he really is.