You know, that would be an awfully bold move, but it would certainly signal to a lot of people that “change” and “bipartisanship” really mean things to the new President, and it would certainly be the buzz everywhere. He’d probably be awfully good at the job.
Just a thought.
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Hillary Clinton would be more likely to get it.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Al Gore and the cooling earth?
"He’d probably be awfully good at the job."
Ah yes, because the guy who just ran one of the most inept and poorly managed political campaigns in recent memory would be just perfect for running our foreign policy shop.
Why would the new Prez do this? He and McCain have some real philosophical differences on how we relate to world.
HB
Hank has nailed it. Obama has to have people with the same ideology and foreign policy philosophy in place or he’s just going to be creating problems for governing. It’s tough enough to fight all the enemies he’s going to have, without creating dissension in his own cabinet. It would be as big a mistake for Obama to put McCain as Sec of State as it would have been for Bush to put John Kerry there.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Al Gore and the cooling earth?
I think he would be about the same as Colin Powell. If you like Powell as SoS you would like McCain.
I think I would have to stop voting if McCain became the Sec of State for Obama.
jodyneel’s last blog post..Obama wins
Bad, you drank so much Kool-Aid that your memory is shot. If you think McCain’s campaign was even nearly as inept as Kerry’s. The only reason Kerry managed as well as he did was because the media covered for him even more than they did for Obama.
Arizona has a Democratic governor who would presumably appoint a Democratic senator. Given the status of the senate, this would be be McCain’s ultimate betrayal (in both the figurative and literal senses of ultimate) of his party.  OTOH, she (the governor) is also rumored to be getting a cabinet appointment herself
Maybe they could cut a deal to have a Republican replacement.
I think Arizona’s law on Senate replacements says the Governor has to pick the replacement from a list submitted by the previous Senator’s party.
Actually he ran a very good campaign, and most observers I’ve seen (left and right, Dem and Repub) agree that what killed him was the sudden economic crisis and not some great ineptitude on his part that caused him to lose the election, even though he still got a quite respectable number of votes–it was certainly no landslide he lost by, even though he was FAR less well funded, didn’t have the love of his party base, and had many other obstacles outside his control (like the “he’s too old” stuff).
He ran a quite respectable campaign to most intelligent and experienced observers (who aren’t rabid McCain-haters or ridiculous Obama-worshipers, anyway).
And, on foreign policy McCain is not all that different from McCain. Oh sure, the hard left that obsessed over Iraq would have their heads explode, but that’s already happening to them and is likely to only get worse in the coming months anyway as Obama refuses to do what they want anyway. Which he probably will (he just can’t possibly be that dumb, and what’s been on his campaign web site on the subject has been pretty sane). It would send a clear message of bipartisanship that would benefit him and would send a clear message that he really meant all that stuff that sounded like crap about bridging the partisan divide and such.
Of course, since I think he basically WAS completely full of crap on every word of that, I don’t think he’d be smart enough to make a move like that, even though he could clearly benefit from McCain’s experience and insights–and would still ultimately be calling the shots.
I just don’t see him as the kind of bold and innovative leader who would ever actually DO something like that, so, y’know, don’t hold your breath or anything. But it would be a historic, and wise, move, and would really impress a LOT of centrists. (It would also frustrate right-wingers who always hated McCain, but hey, they’ll never be happy any more than the hard left doves will be.)
Dean,
I did not think McCain ran much of a campaign. It was civil and safe, and did nothing to put the blame for the financial crisis on those responsible which is (particularly given the final score) probably the reason McCain lost. Democratic rabble rousing against businesses carrying out thier wishes, against insuring against mortgage failures (Wall Street greed, predatory lending) was a red herring. The party that crippled America’s financial system benefitted from the action.
I was prepared to vote a 3rd party (waste a vote), not vote, or even vote for the big O until Palin. I wondered at the time if this selection was just a bone for the "conservative base" (which BTW I am not) and the susbequent over-handling of Palin indicated to me that McCain was just trying to recover votes and doesn’t care about the base.Â
       She made a couple of mistakes, but…. I don’t know the right answer to Couric’s question the way it was phrased — I don’t get my world view from magazines, and US News & World Report & Time Mag is not a good answer, less so Redbook. I wonder of the waffling was not overthinking consequences of an answer, and defensive.  I wonder if Obama, Biden or McCain has been asked a similar question — I think it was reasonable question but actually pretty weird.  The crap coming out over the last couple of days/week feels like the non-conservative Rep branch trying to hammer nails in the coffin. The failure of McCain to defend seems to reinforce the idea that he was only trying to use Palin to fish in conservatives, and he has no compelling need to defend what was actually his choice, and no committment to anything approaching the traditional Republican party. I used to think McCain had integrity (even if I don’t have his perspective), but I’m pretty sure now he is just a politician.
"but it would certainly signal to a lot of people that ‘change’ and ‘bipartisanship’ really mean things to the new President"
First, it certainly wouldn’t signal change to the people who want Obama to make the military sell its guns and buy (sugar-free, organic) candy canes.
Second, why on earth would you think that ‘change’ and ‘bipartisanship’ really mean anything to the president-elect? Bipartisanship is just another word for "not getting what I want", which directly contradicts change, and it’s not a policy based on hope.
And why on earth would you think that the change he was offering is a change in how washington politics are run, rather than a change in what policies we have?
And besides all this, you’re not really be taking a politician’s campaign rhetoric seriously, are you?
"He ran a quite respectable campaign to most intelligent and experienced observers"
I would guess that in your mind, this group includes yourself and only those who agree with you?
Myself, I’ve been working campaigns for many years now, and the thing stunk. It had no consistent message, negative or positive. Can you honestly tell me what the core message for McCain or against Obama was? It was different nearly every other week. In fact, the campaign itself basically internally decided that there was no clear message anyone could agree on with which to sell McCain’s positives, and it showed. Good campaigns have a single theme which they keep on message throughout, developing, but never really deviating from. Both of George Bush’s campaigns did this quite well, as an example of what steady, solid messaging and campaigning looks like.Â
An economic crisis is not something that magically can only hurt Republicans or ruling parties. It didn’t just fall out of the sky on McCain, uh oh, so sorry. McCain badly, badly botched his response to the crisis, looking like a cheap and knee-jerk showman with his nonsensical "suspension" and the bizarre fallout from that. Given that Obama had nearly nothing of substance to say on the crisis, no real policy solutions or even positions of note, there was plenty of opportunity here.Â
Sarah Palin was a train wreck. She was nabbed at the last minute with very little prep and thought, and thrust onto a harsh public stage that she had little preparation or knowledge to handle. She was pathetically unqualified to be a national candidate, let alone a potential President.Â
And McCain’s field and targeting efforts were a complete mess: a giant step backwards from past Republican efforts. I have a lot of technical problems with the organization of Obama’s field efforts and his campaign had some problems as well, but their problems mostly stemmed from them underestimating their contact capacity, which is, I suppose still sloppy, but a good problem to have.
And sorry JonD, but I don’t have a lot of time for "the media conspiracy is to blame for everything!" insanity.
Bad: Well it wouldn’t include a lot of people, but as I’ve mentioned already, QUITE a few Democratic and generally left-ish observers agree that McCain ran a quite respectable campaign and that the main reason Obama won was the economy. I am FAR from the only one who said so. But hey, since you were an obsessive McCain and Palin-hater, I wouldn’t put you in that group, sorry. Those of you on the left and right who hated them don’t really count in the group of observers I was talking about, as I already stated.
And the fact is that he hardly lost by a landslide. The fact also is that he had a LOT less funding. The fact is that he also had an incredible come-from-behind win in the primaries when no one gave him a shot. McCain was also doing respectably in the polls and sharply climbing until the big Wall Street crash, as many many many Democratic observers noted at the time and many still admit.
Those are all, y’know, FACTS. But if you’ve got some more facts besides "I didn’t think much of McCain’s message," please share ‘em with us.
But anyway, hey, let’s go with your thesis based on your own "I’ve watched a lot of campaigns and I therefore conclude McCain had no message": well, sure, he was nothing but an incompetent boob, then. So let’s stipulate that you’re right: I guess we can conclude that Obama won purely because he ran against a boob and not because voters really supported Obama, huh? I mean, I guess that must be your position, what other conclusion could one reach? McCain was a terribly incompetent campaigner, otherwise he would have won? Because he surely didn’t lose by much, a swing of less than 5% of voters would have won him the election despite being MASSIVELY outspent and having lost his status as Media Darling to Obama.
McCain’s message was on character and experience and honesty. Those messages actually sell to other voters. Just not to voters like you, as you’ve admitted. Indeed, to those for those like you, who consider issues like character and experience to be "irrational" (your exact term in other threads) of course McCain "had no message." Which to more objective observers looks a lot more like "had no message I much cared for, even though mysteriously he only lost by a few percent and not by any electoral landslide. Those irrational stupid voters!"
Thanks for more of your Palin-hatred though. It’s still refreshing after all these months. It makes me think I truly understand where you’re coming from.
Oh, and by the way: what do "run a good campaign" and "being competent for a non-elected position" have to do with each other? Even if we stipulate your "he ran a lousy campaign" reasoning, what do they have to do with each other? Have past Secretaries of State (or other Cabinet secretaries) been poor at their jobs because they didn’t do well when they ran for public office? Does a losing candidate have nothing to offer us in public service anymore? Would a man of McCain’s stature and experience have nothing to offer our new President? Please explain, because you’ve lost me on that one as well.
Everybody hug it out.
Pointing out that the media is highly biased and not nearly as impartial as they claim to be is hardly claiming that they are ‘to blame for everything’.
Actually, here’s what’s much more likely: I’ve tried to be tolerant and rational, and figured that for all “Bad’s” irrationality and hyperpartisan kneejerk buffoonery, he/she helped balance out some of the more extreme views on the other side found in the comments here now and then. If I put up with them when I disagree with them, why not put up with someone like him?
The problem with “Bad” is that he/she can’t get over this habit of personally attacking the host of this site with vicious ad hominem and, sometimes, outright lies. About not just fellow guests, but, THE HOST.
In other words, acting like a vicious little troll who’s adding nothing of value to any discussion at all for months now except kneejerk paint-by-numbers garbage, and worse, has decided that I’m his/her favorite target.
So, here’s my little set of choices for “Bad” (whom I begin to suspect is a particular person that I have banned from this blog before). Please chose one of the three:
A) Stop attacking the host, period, and start acting more rational even to people you disagree with.
B) Get out of this blog comment’s section voluntarily. You can leave like an adult with some class, or, by sulking, whining, childish garbage about "free speech", a "goodbye cruel world" drama queen exit, or whatever else you feel is appropriate, but if you can’t do A then please leave voluntarily, now, and don’t come back.
C) Get thrown out the window forcibly the next time I see one of your snotty bigoted ignorant ad hominem attacks thrown at me.
Bad, please choose A, B, or C, and please do it the next time you log in here. If anyone has his/her email address, be sure to let him/her know this is here. If I get one more snide, nasty personal attack on my person, there will be NO further warnings.
Thank you and good night.
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