 
Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, left, and Democratic Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, right, deliver university commencement addresses earlier this month. The Kerry-McCain ticket being bandied about most likely would trounce the Bush-Cheney ticket in November, but should President Kerry for some reason become incapacitated, the new president would be a Republican. (Associated Press photos)
Kerry-McCain 2004?
The more people say that it could never happen, the more I tend to believe that it will.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry wouldn't pick John McCain as his running mate because McCain is a Republican, conventional "wisdom" goes.
But months ago, I noted, while reading Kerry's 2003 book, A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America, that he talks mostly about McCain in his seven-page preface. (Admittedly, I found the book a bit dull and I didn't finish it. But I did finish the preface and several pages beyond it.) True, Kerry was talking about how he and McCain worked together in the early 1990s to investigate the possibility that American POWs were still being held in Vietnam or elsewhere in Southeast Asia. (They concluded that there wasn't any evidence of POWs still being held in Vietnam or elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but as a result of their work with the Vietnamese, the United States and Vietnam normalized relations.)
But Kerry writes so glowingly of and so much about McCain that you wonder whether you are reading -- or at least I wondered whether I was reading -- a book about Kerry or McCain. And passages easily could be interpreted as Kerry having known, when he wrote the book, that McCain would be or could be his running mate. For example:
My friendship with John McCain has continued and even strengthened after our last Vietnam mission, and neither of us has much use for those in either party who complain that we should keep to our own partisan interests. In fact, we have discovered that we share something far more precious than party: a common call to service. (Page xv)
I'm pretty sure that our mutual experience in transcending the Vietnam trauma was one important factor that led John McCain to run for president in 2000 as a serious reformer, a "straight talker," and a patriot who believes our willingness to meet domestic challenges is as important a test of national will as our willingness to engage in warfare. He did his best to summon his party to rise to such values, and had he succeeded, the country would be in much better hands today. (Page xvi)
It's time for a new call to service. It's time to rally Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike to face the common challenges of this generation. (Page xvi)
Kerry gushes about McCain and talks about nonpartisanship. Hmmm...
The love hasn't been just one-sided. In March, when Republican assholes (that's redundant) were attacking Kerry as being weak on defense, McCain came to Kerry's defense. (The link to The Associated Press story is no longer active, so I have cut and pasted the AP story, which I saved, below.)
The New York Times noted Wednesday that "John Kerry just cannot get enough of dropping John McCain's name," adding that while Kerry says he might pick McCain as his secretary of defense, "McCain, who is supporting President Bush in the election, is constantly being asked if he would consider joining Kerry as his running mate and he has said repeatedly that he would not."
Now, prominent Democratic leaders are talking about a Kerry-McCain ticket. Reuters reports today:
Sen. Joseph Biden, a senior Democrat, [today] urged Republican Sen. John McCain to run for vice president with the Democratic hopeful, Sen. John Kerry, in order to heal the "vicious rift" dividing America.
McCain, of Arizona, "categorically" ruled out standing with Kerry, but Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had no second choice.
"I'm sticking with McCain," Biden said.
"I think John McCain would be a great candidate for vice president," Biden, from Delaware, said on NBC's "Meet the Press," where the two senators appeared together to take questions on Iraq and other subjects.
"Do I think it's going to happen? No," he said. "But I think it is a reflection of the desire of this country and the desire of people in both parties to want to see this God-awful, vicious rift that exists in the nation healed, and John and John could go a long way to heal in that rift."
McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and in line to take over the Senate Armed Services panel in two years, endorsed Biden's call for bridging the political gap between Democrats and Republicans.
"There's too much partisanship in America, and there's too much partisanship in the Senate," he said. "And we're not doing our job as our constituents expect us to do."
"I will always take anyone's phone calls," McCain said of any call he might get from Kerry, a fellow decorated Vietnam War veteran. "But I will not, I categorically will not do it."
Kerry said on Wednesday that McCain would be his first choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush's secretary of defense now wrestling with the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
In politics, does "never" mean never?
I suspect that for political reasons, right now both McCain and Kerry would deny that they plan to be running mates even if they already agreed to be running mates long ago. If Kerry and McCain indeed already made such a pact, I surmise that they wouldn't announce it until June or July, probably in July, right before or even during the Democratic National Convention.
The Boston Globe reported last month that Kerry's aides are giddy over the idea of having McCain as Kerry's running mate. The Globe reported:
If there is a consensus among Kerry aides about who would be the boldest and most potent pick [of running mate], it is Sen. John S. McCain of Arizona -- a Republican.
While Kerry has talked about his search with few people other than his wife, campaign manager, and the head of his search committee, Washington power broker James A. Johnson, many high-level staff members believe -- based on Kerry's past and recent comments -- that McCain will get serious consideration.
The other name heard most frequently is that of Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who offered a staunch defense of Kerry last week during a CNN interview. During the primaries, however, Kerry publicly questioned Edwards's ability to deliver Southern votes in a general election.
Not only could McCain help Kerry pick up crucial Electoral College votes in a pivotal Southwestern battleground state, but the former Vietnam prisoner of war would also be a staunch ally for what is expected to be a fierce battle with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. In addition, his selection would provide powerful thematic lines both for the fall campaign and the potential Kerry presidency.
The union of a Democrat and a Republican "would make good on the president's promise to be a uniter, not a divider," said one Kerry aide, who like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity. Such a ticket could offer Americans the prospect of a reduction in the partisanship that has increasingly gripped Capitol Hill during the past decade, as well as a return to the national unity experienced in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.
Above all, the aides hypothesize that by choosing McCain as a running mate, Kerry would energize the election, create a weeks-long buzz in the media, and, perhaps most importantly, attract the support of swing and independent voters from both parties.
From all of the love that's been exchanged publicly between Kerry and McCain, I think that minimally, McCain will be President Kerry's secretary of defense.
Would McCain be a good choice of running mate for Kerry?
Well, it certainly would be thinking outside of the box, having a Democrat and a Republican on the ticket. As the Globe noted, it certainly would shake up the presidential race; it would instantly crown Kerry as the real "uniter, not a divider"; and it would deliver crucial swing and independent votes to Kerry.
Regardless of what I think about McCain, a Kerry-McCain ticket most likely would crush the Bush-Cheney ticket. Two Vietnam veterans against two chickenhawks who have overseen an economic backslide and a debacle in Iraq that has no end in sight? Pretty much no contest.
OK, I have to say what I think about McCain: As Republicans go, he's OK. He isn't shy about bucking the Bush regime, which is probably due, in no small part, to the fact that Team Bush is said to have smeared McCain during the primary race for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, starting the rumor, completely untrue, that McCain had fathered an illegitimate child with a black woman. (Bush puppeteer Karl Rove, whose very name is Nazi-like, wouldn't do that! Why, that would be pandering to racists!)
McCain probably is the closest thing that the Democrats have to the Republican Party's Zell Miller. (Miller is much more of a turncoat than McCain ever could be said to be, however.)
I probably could accept McCain as Kerry's running mate, especially as it would practically ensure the Bush removal process in November.
But the biggest drawback to a Kerry-McCain ticket -- a point I've yet to see anyone raise -- is that should anything happen to President Kerry and Vice President McCain have to take over, we'd have a Republican president, and I don't think that many or most of Kerry's Democratic supporters would be very happy about that, voting for a Democratic president and then getting a Republican president, even a Republican Lite president. I am not keen on that idea right now.
I'd definitely want to see how Vice President McCain does before I could accept him as president -- I've never voted for a Republican presidential candidate in my life and I can't see myself doing it any presidential election soon -- but should anything unexpected happen to President Kerry early in his presidency, we wouldn't get the chance to see what kind of president McCain would make; he would be our president.
I'm going to have to think about this for a while: A Kerry-McCain ticket would be an almost sure win, but do I want the possibility of a President McCain?
Stay tuned.
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McCain Says Kerry Not Weak on Defense
Thursday, March 18, 2004
By Nancy Benac, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON -- Arizona Sen. John McCain, arguably the Democrats' favorite Republican, managed to step all over the GOP's carefully honed message of the week Thursday by rejecting the notion that John Kerry is weak on defense.
President Bush and his campaign apparatus have gone to great effort to suggest the Democratic presidential contender would be an unfit commander in chief, picking apart his Senate voting record on weapons and defense spending.
"The senator from Massachusetts has given us ample doubts about his judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security," Vice President Dick Cheney declared Wednesday. A day earlier, the Bush campaign released an ad arguing Kerry had turned his back on U.S. soldiers by voting against an $87 billion aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan last year. On Thursday, the campaign put out yet another ad accusing Kerry of waffling on military issues.
Enter McCain.
Asked on two morning TV shows Thursday whether he thought Kerry was weak on defense, the Arizona senator was quick to bat down the suggestion. Furthermore, he chided both parties for waging such a "bitter and partisan" campaign.
"This kind of rhetoric, I think, is not helpful in educating and helping the American people make a choice," he said on "The Early Show" on CBS.
As for Kerry, McCain said the senator would have to explain his voting record but he also told NBC's "Today" show: "No, I do not believe that he is necessarily weak on defense. I don't agree with him on some issues clearly. But I decry this negativism that's going on on both sides."
It's not first time the independent-minded McCain has strayed from the Republican line.
"He doesn't usually pick up the president's talking points and amplify them," said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University. "He speaks his mind."
That's just the quality that Democrats find so endearing.
In fact, when the Democratic presidential contenders were asked earlier this year to name their favorite Republican, four of the nine — including Kerry — selected McCain. He was the only one to be named more than once.
For McCain, talking about Kerry is not just business, it's also personal.
The two are good friends, a somewhat unlikely destination given their histories.
McCain, a Navy bomber pilot, spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Kerry, who also served in the Navy during Vietnam, came home with three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star and became a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. At one protest in 1971, he threw away war medals belonging to other veterans and cast his own military ribbons over a fence. McCain heard about it while he was still being held captive in the Hanoi Hilton.
After McCain was elected to the U.S. House, he campaigned against Kerry in his first Senate race, faulting him for tossing away those medals and ribbons. But the two came to terms after they got to the Senate, and began working together. It was McCain and Kerry, for example, who pushed to end the trade embargo on Vietnam and to establish diplomatic relations with the country.
McCain has described their current relationship as "easy."
"I think it's still possible to have a friend if they're in another party," he said Thursday.
The Kerry campaign welcomed McCain's comments, noting that the Arizona senator has been a leader on defense issues for decades.
"It's helpful to our campaign, but it's also helpful because it speaks the truth," said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.
Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt said McCain was right — at least when he said Kerry would have to explain his voting record.
"As John McCain indicated, the record is appropriate to discuss and the record clearly suggests that John Kerry is weak on national defense," Holt said.
McCain has campaigned for Bush this year, but the two are not considered close, especially since the 2000 presidential race, when McCain and Bush competed for the GOP nomination. Bush's supporters waged a particularly negative campaign against the senator.
McCain "hasn't forgotten that," said Thurber. "But I don't think he's out to get him. He's just an independent-thinking Republican."
McCain said last week he would consider an offer from Kerry to be his running mate, but his office later issued a statement reversing course.
On Thursday, McCain said he didn't want to be vice president on either party's ticket.
"N-O," he said.
12:46:22 AM 
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