Harold Lippes: The Maverick is Gone

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Harold Lippes

After 8 years of frustration, moderate Americans were starving for an intellectually honest presidential debate without the divisive campaign tactics that have polarized us for so long and contributed to our stagnation. In America, we're supposed to respect opposing views and use healthy debates to resolve issues and move us forward. The prospect of an Obama-McCain race was exciting to many because both candidates pledged to debate the issues on the merits and both refused to engage in negative campaign attacks. Sadly, negative attacks are often effective so we will always have to tolerate them to some extent during campaigns but we could ignore them and focus on the honest debates.
 
The candidates have compelling and impressive personal stories. John McCain was a fresh, brash, maverick fighter pilot who, as a POW, rejected an offer of freedom because so many other POWs had been imprisoned long before he had. Maverick McCain heroically gave their freedom priority over his own. Throughout his political career, he has defined himself as a maverick and a person of conviction. Virtually everyone admired him for that and did not care if his views were sometimes different from their own. They respected him. In the recent past, many Americans were willing to support and reward almost any politician if they were people of conviction because it seemed those people had almost vanished from politics. Unfortunately the maverick is gone.
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