General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Who is the Democratic Party's version of John McCain? [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)from the 1990s when he was head of the judiciary committee and trying to function in a new conservative climate by supporting things like the three strikes law?
Let's take a clear look at Senator McCain, Oberliner: John McCain was a very strong economic conservative who spent his 35 years in congress working for the economic rights of the wealthy against ordinary Americans and attempting to eliminate most of the New Deal, employee and labor laws, and so on.
We think he's a good guy mostly because he was not a nasty, bigoted social conservative, and yes, that part of him was good, even though he also supported devastating Republican laws as required.
But half a man does not make the person a liberal fit to be a Democrat. It didn't make him someone who left an increasingly corrupt and extreme Republican Party to work for what he believed in through the Democratic Party -- as Elizabeth Warren did. He did not.
And imo, comparing Joe Biden with him, even with his blemished record, is to denigrate Senator Biden and all that he stands for that McCain did not. I would also, of course, strongly object to insulting Elizabeth Warren with that comparison, although she is economically fairly conservative. If McCain had her character and principles, he might have changed parties with her and spent these past 20 years serving the people genuinely honorably as she has.