by Charley James
Over the past two weeks, we’ve witnessed the coming apart of a once-proud man. Whether in his rambling, often incoherent answers during Wednesday night’s debate or his stump speeches that seem to be little more than words dashing around in search of a thought, John McCain is coming unglued, to a trained professional eye and to a casual observer alike.
For whatever reason, as the campaign dwindles to a few remaining days, McCain is in more than political trouble: He is in serious psychological trouble.
A psychiatrist friend noticed it during the second debate.
If he didn’t end up practicing psychiatry, he wanted to be Flapping Lips Wolkowitz, a drummer who is the last living exponent of Chicago Ashkenazi Klezmer blues music. So, he sometimes calls himself Flapping Lips when not treating patients.
“There’s something wrong with McCain,” Flapping Lips tells me after the town hall. “Did you see how he just wandered around the stage? That’s a common sign of confusion in the elderly, usually when they know where they are but aren’t sure why they’re there. ”
In Florida, another friend who’s not a medical professional spots the same problem in McCain. Pete is a decorated Viet Nam vet who now lives in Florida. I find an e-mail from him in my mailbox this morning where he speculates on what McCain has become – and why.
“Maybe it’s the dragons still haunting his psyche from 66-months of North Vietnamese captivity. Or it’s the ghosts of a revered military father and grandfather whose accomplishments he could never quite match. Perhaps his cold-hearted abandonment of his first wife and children still disturb him. It might even the demons of his unbridled ambition – remember that he first ran for president in 1992 – that are driving him mad.
“Whatever the causes of the ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in his night, one thing is certain: They all showed up at Wednesday’s debate and keep reappearing every time he stands up before a campaign crowd.
“I no longer loathe the man; I pity him. He has become a sad final chapter in his own life. I hope in retirement he finds some peace. Thursday night he convinced an entire world that he is completely unfit for the office he seeks.”
Frustratingly Stable Race
It’s easy to understand how McCain may have become unhinged. Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll today shows Obama attracting 50% of the vote while McCain is stuck at 46%. These figures reflect a remarkably stable race where, for 22 straight days, Obama is enjoying a four-to-eight point advantage.
The same tracking poll reveals that voters trust Obama more than McCain on seven of 10 key issues, most notably the economy which outweighs all other concerns this election by a wide margin. McCain is more trusted only on abortion, immigration and Iraq – and then by percentage points that are within the margin of error.
More critical to McCain is that he cannot seem to shake Obama’s commanding lead in the Electoral College, with most state-by-state estimates putting Obama comfortably over 300 votes; 270 are needed to be elected president.
This also explains two things.
First, it is why Obama spent much of yesterday cautioning supporters against complacency, reminding them of what happened in the New Hampshire primary and that the only poll that counts is the one Nov. 4. Second, it explains why McCain is sounding increasingly like a desperate man trying to hang on to the last lifeboat rowing away from a sinking ship.
Discombobulated Party
McCain became the candidate more by default than by being the champion of Republican values and beliefs; no one knows what those are any more anyway. While a powerful, well organized block in the GOP, the evangelical right isn’t large enough to nominate a Mike Huckabee, but it is just large enough to block Mitt Romney with his demon Mormon beliefs from winning. Rudy Guiliani spent his entire, brief primary campaign as a punch line, thanks to Joe Biden. Fred Thompson was the Great White Hope until he actually entered the race and turned out to be a dud.
So, a discombobulated party ended up nominating McCain because he was the last one standing, not because anyone really thought he’d be a great candidate let alone a great president.
Besides, the party figured it was John’s turn; the GOP is notorious for picking presidential candidates from the first in line of waiting possibilities.
It would be a shame if finally getting his turn means John McCain has been pushed over the edge entirely, ending his career unbalanced, unglued and unfit.
Could be that he’s coming apart at the seems. Maybe he just realised that he was the GOPs sacrficial lamb in an election no Republican could possibly win.
Scary thought, or frightening reality?
I’ll go with the latter. And this is why:
My father was a POW of the Germans during WW2. As an American fighter pilot over France following D-Day, his P-47 Thunderbolt was shot down while he was strafing an armored brigade. He was severely brutalized, and would have been executed, if not for a Jewish doctor who said he must be turned over to the Gestapo in Paris for interrogation.
He was tortured by the Gestapo for two weeks and left for dead one night as they fled Paris to avoid Patton’s forces and the free French troops with Patton who were extracting their full measure of revenge.
He was never really in charge of his anger the rest of his life, and was declared 50%disabled by PTSD by the VA. His behavior for most of my memory hinged between totally inexplicably erratic actions or a detachment from reality that could only be described as “other-worldly”.
But he came across to almost everyone outside his immediate family as controlled, fun, warm, and with a fair degree of charm - but it was all an act of extraordinary scope. His saving grace was his very large inheritance.
When he died he virtually left my Mother penniless. It was a very sad story.
And nobody reminds me more of him than John McCain.
Maybe it is part and parcel of the fighter pilot mentality, or the mistreatment at capture, but I’d prefer not to find out the hard way…. so we damn sure better keep old John out of the White House.
The failure to heed a clear warning often has dire consequenceses for all.