John McCain loves to claim to be a "Maverick". It along with his POW status represent the foundation of his campaign.
He loves to talk about how he reaches across the aisle, how he has worked with Kennedy, Feingold and other democrats.
He loves to talk about how he "bucks" his own party (despite the whole voting 90% with Bush thing) usually pointing to his stances on torture and pork barrel spending.
But is John McCain really capable of doing real bipartisan work after the campaign he has run?
McCain is proving he will try anything if it helps him win, including burning his bridges to the democratic party. He hires the same people who put together the robocalls against him in 2000 to trash Obama in 2008, with the focus being on Ayers even though McCain constantly mentions how he "does not care about an old washed up terrorist" (which he always says before talking about how the people need to know the full extent of that relationship).
Months ago McCain said topics like Rev. Wright were "off limits," now his campaign manager said they "might be reconsidering" that idea.
His running mate Sarah Palin is following the Rove tactics of attempting to split the country in half and hoping to squeak by to victory, at the expense of the unity of his own country (so much for "Country First")and promoting fear and hate among their own supporters which has the potential to carry over beyond the election with possible violent consequences. We already hear the results at McCain and Palin rallies where in reference to Obama one can hear cries of "terrorist," "traitor," and "kill him."
McCain supporters such as Michele Bachmann pose a neo-McCarthyist view of essentially all democrats in the congress of the United States, calling for them to be investigated for "anti-American" views, an idea that borders and the foundations of a fascist movement dependent on "the enemy within" (democrats), or as Sarah Palin would say, those who do not live in the "pro-American" parts of America.
After McCain and his supporters have behaved and trashed half the country, how does he expect a democratic congress to react under his administration? Instead of "shakin and fixin up Washington" he and Palin will most likely have to scrap the majority of their programs.
Bush followed a similar path using many of the same campaign managers and analysts. He was supposed to be a "uniter not a divider," remember that? How did that work out? Our country is as polarized as it has ever been in recent memory.
McCain has destroyed any goodwill be had built up with democrats, independents and even some moderate republicans due to the campaign he is running, and the worse may be yet to come.
Conversely, Obama already has the support of multiple moderate republican politicians, newspapers, commentators and obviously Colin Powell over the weekend.
So who is really capable of reaching across the aisle in 2009?