What McCain Hasn't Tried

 

John McCain likes Barack Obama. He admires and respects Obama. He believes Obama is "very impressive, he's thoughtful, he's centrist." Obama has "probably got a great future." He is "a very honest and fine person" -- "absolutely" qualified to be president.

How do we know McCain feels this way? Because he said so, in public comments ranging from 2005 to as recently as May. And as the McCain campaign grew uglier last week -- casting Obama as dangerous, dishonest and un-American -- it was tempting to imagine the campaign McCain might have waged if he had based it on the respect for his opponent, and for the process, that he had long professed.

Last week, for example, McCain was angrily promising to "name the names" of those who caused the nation's worst financial crisis in decades. He was blaming Obama and his "cronies," and the "corruption" that Obama had "abetted" in Washington. Meanwhile, almost as if there were no meltdown, his running mate remained stuck on attacking Obama for "palling around with terrorists."

But imagine if McCain had selected for his running mate not a partisan attack dog but someone with deep knowledge of the economy and a record of reaching across the aisle.

Imagine if McCain himself had decided to respond to this crisis as an American first, a candidate second. "Yes," he might have said, "Democrats contributed to our problems with their lobbyist-fueled defense of Fannie and Freddie. But let's not pretend that Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm, George W. Bush -- and John McCain -- weren't part of this, too. Warren Buffett saw this coming, but not many of the rest of us did. Let's postpone the recriminations and work together to fix this thing."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/12/AR2008101201632.html