My first memories of John McCain were on the Late Show with David Letterman. He always had a strong personality and when news snippets came through of the outspoken McCain condemning Bush policy I was impressed by the ‘Maverick’ who stood for his own convictions. He even announced his campaign to be the Republican nominee on the Late Show.
Fast forward to the campaign and he has chosen a Vice President based mainly on political issues and his ‘straight talk express’ has twisted Obama’s words completely out of context. Click below to see more.
So what has happened?
Maybe The West Wing can fill us in. The last season of the show focused on the campaigns of a young, Hispanic Democrat named Matt Santos played by Jimmy Smits and a ‘senior maverick’ Republican named Arnold Vinick played by Alan Alda. Santos was a strong orator and Vinick was always outspoken and unpredictable. Starting to sound familiar?
While a Hispanic candidate is not a black candidate, it’s interesting that the writers chose a minority group with strong ties to the Democrats.
Life continues to imitate art. Santos chose a much older running mate, while Vinick chose a younger socially conservative Governor.
So what can The West Wing tell us about the result? Originally the writers wrote a narrow Republican win. After the real life death of the actor who played the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate, the writers changed the script. The Democratic VP candidate dies on election night, which is followed by a narrow Democrat win.
The Republican Vinick is left shattered by the result and is adamant to contest the next election in 4 years time. He is convinced by his aides that he will be too old at 70 to contest the election and would be better to be the “last honorable Senator and a great Secretary of State” when it is offered by Santos.
Does Barrack Obama need Joe Biden to have a heart attack to win the election? Will McCain be a part of Obama’s White House staff? Probably not. The animosity between Obama and McCain seems to grow each day, as the election gets dirtier and dirtier. It is interesting that the writers thought 70 was too old for a Presidential candidate, when McCain is 72.
Which brings up an interesting commentary by Matt Damon on the situation.
In another journey through pop culture a similar scenario was explored in Commander in Chief. Gena Davis played a female Vice-President who becomes the Commander in chief after the Republican President dies. The characters around her were often hostile to her and in the end so was the audience, the show was cancelled after barely running a season. Is America really ready for a female head of state?
Pop culture has treated black presidents a little more kindly. Over the last decade if writers wanted to base their movie in the near future, a black actor was cast as president. 1998’s Deep Impact cast Morgan Freeman and more recently 24 has cast Dennis Haysbert as President David Palmer. Both were seen in positive lights.
So where does that leave the old white guy?
In an interesting twist McCain recently cancelled an appearance on the Late Show to ‘suspend’ his campaign. He then did an interview with CBS news at the same time he was supposed to attend the Late Show. Click the image to watch Letterman’s reaction.
It is almost a metaphor of how McCain has changed, completely turning his back on what he used to be.
I always thought of him as a strong, witty man, who regardless of what others thought, would stand up for his convictions. The pressure seems to have gotten to him, he resembles a bitter, twisted man, who knows this is his last shot at the White House and he will do anything to get it.
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