BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Perhaps no one really cares who is on John McCain’s long list of VP possibilities.  He said there were about 20 names he is considering.  That’s too many for me to hazard a guess. 

“It’s every name imaginable” he said Wednesday of his list-in-the-making, about 20 in all.

He disclosed none of them and declined even to identify the individuals he has approached to supervise the vetting that will inevitably winnow the field.

So, if the list contains about 20 names and McCain claims it to be “every name imaginable” we know one thing for sure.  He doesn’t have much of an imagination.  Or, maybe he knows the Republican Party is short on capabilities at this time.

McCain added

“I’m aware of enhanced importance of this issue because of my age.”

That statement tells us something else.  McCain knows he is too old for the office and the responsibility.  He must be at the age when one’s mortality plays heavily on the mind.

Following the admission of his age as a factor, I have but one comment.  If McCain is so aware of his age and the importance it plays in his selection of a Vice Presidential candidate, why would we risk voting for him?  I’m not saying that John McCain has nothing to bring to the table… I just can’t think of much at this time.  However, with the quagmire the Bush administration will leave for the next Commander in Chief why would our country risk electing someone whose age is a factor? 

We don’t know how close we were to having a president who was incapable when Reagan left office.  Had the early indications of Alzheimer’s already set in?  Needless to say, I’m not willing to go so far as to make a diagnosis of Reagan before he left office.  And, I don’t presume to make any predictions as to Senator McCain’s health.  He may be as healthy as a man can be.  I don’t know.  I only present the possibility that when a person reaches the septuagenarian senior citizen status it is reasonable to expect some health failings.  Granted Senator McCain has used his mother as the poster geriatric of good health and longevity, but that guarantees nothing.

We are in a situation as a nation that needs clarity and consistency.  Having viewed some of Senator McCain’s latest speeches and comments, I’m not sure he is not occasionally lapsing into flashes of senior moments.  He claims to know the difference between al-Qaeda and the Iranian extremists but he “misspoke” on that issue several times, a few after having been corrected by his back-up team. 

For all his heroism and newly discovered “rambunctious” behavior as a youth, McCain’s “biography tour” is more like an episode of This is Your Life, a slow moving retracing of the path down memory lane.  So far, the senator has surrounded himself with seniors (look at any recent picture) and rather than being on the campaign trail with vim and vigor and showing us enthusiasm for the future, he seems to be reminiscing of days gone by.

Perhaps, McCain recognizes this.

“We’ve done a pretty good job of unifying our party,” he told reporters as his campaign bus pulled away from the football stadium at the Naval Academy, where he had issued a call for citizen involvement. “Now we’ve got to energize our party.”

Well, according to James Dobson…. you know, that right wing ultra-conservative Christian… in a piece in the Wall Street Journal:

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, wrote he had seen no evidence that McCain “is successfully unifying the Republican Party or drawing conservatives into his fold.”

“To the contrary, he seems intent on driving them away,” Dobson added.

McCain said he has never spoken with Dobson but would be willing to do so.

In his statement, Dobson said McCain had not reached out to “pro-family leaders” or changed his views on positions that “trouble” social conservatives, pointing to the candidate’s support for embryonic stem cell research and stance to allow states to set their own definitions of marriage.

So, to use a more recently overworked phrase, “at the end of the day”, Dobson and the far right wing conservative Christians aren’t unified with McCain, McCain is too old for the office regardless of his present health or capabilities, and as slow as he moves and speaks these days, it could take between now and the September convention for him to get through that list of “everyone imaginable”.  Let’s just hope he selects a VP running mate that is half his age.