Maverickiness and presumption

For the last seven years or so, the Maverick and Commander's reputation for being a maverick has saved him from the trouble of actually having to be a maverick.  Mostly John McCain's maverickiness has been a matter of his bad-mouthing other Republicans just before voting along with them and sounding all worried and doubtful about various policies proposed by George Bush up until the moment he decided he was wrong and Bush was right and tax cuts for the rich and torture and other things were just what the doctor ordered.

Back in the 90s, though, McCain really was enough of a maverick that President Clinton could count on him to buck the Republican leadership and refuse to follow the party line from time to time, right up until the day McCain voted to convict on both articles of Impeachment.

Clinton probably wasn't surprised.

The only thing you can count on with mavericks is that you can't count on them.

Mavericks don't want to be part of the herd.  They can't make themselves be part of the herd, not for long, at any rate.  A maverick isn't a type of rogue or rebel or renegade, all of whom need the herd to define themselves at least in rejecting it.  A maverick simply doesn't care what the herd is doing.

You can say that mavericks are types who go their own way or play by their own rules and you'd only have part of the definition.  You should say that mavericks are people who can't help going their own way or playing by their own rules.  Mavericks don't decide to be mavericks.  That's why there's no verb for it.  Rebels can rebel, renegades can turn renegade, rouges can become rogues, but someone who decides to play by his own rules or go his own way, on a whim or a principle, is not mavericking or becoming a maverick, he is rebelling or turning renegade or becoming a rogue.  Mavericks just are.  A maverick is all noun.

As it happens, the way the maverick wants to go, the rules he wants to play by might be the way the herd is going and the rules the herd is playing by.  You can't always tell at a glance that you're dealing with a maverick, the way you can with rebels, rogues, renegades, and, a related type, contrarians. 

If any of those types happen to be going the same direction the herd is headed or following the rules the herd's alpha males and females have set, they're going to be fairly noisy about why they are doing it and why they don't like it and why the course ought to be re-set and the rules changed.

The world is full of secret mavericks who appear content to conform, follow, and obey, but they are doing it for reasons of their own, motivated by their own inclinations, and there will always come a time when their friends and family turn around and suddenly say to each other, "Hey, where's Bob?  What happened to Betty?  They were right here a minute ago."  And then somebody will spot Bob disappearing beyond the horizon to the east and Betty climbing the hill over in the west.

When next Bob and Betty are heard from---if they're ever heard from again---and they're asked where they ran off to, their first response is likely to be a baffled, "What do you mean 'ran off?'  I just went where I was headed all along."  Asked why they were headed there and not where everybody else was headed, they're likely to shrug and say, as if it explains everything, "I just liked the look of things over there."

Parents of young unsuspected mavericks probably spend a lot of time looking around in a sudden panic in shopping malls and at county fairs.

But, generally, mavericks are always off in another direction, up ahead when the herd's back there, over here when the herd's way over there, and for no other reason than they just liked the look of things that way, whichever way their mood or inclinations or interests drew them.

Because we value independence of spirit and at least pay lip service to the idea that conformity is contemptible, we usually use the word as a compliment, as if there is some principle involved.  In fact, the only principle at work is whatever is principled about being true to your own nature.  Which means that calling someone a maverick is actually a neutral description.  There can be evil mavericks as well as good mavericks, although since being a maverick is more of temperamental tic than a conscious plan of action, most good mavericks are only coincidentally or contingently good.

The defining trait of a maverick, then, is standing apart from the crowd.  Which would make politics, particularly democratic politics, a poor career choice for a true maverick.  There's just no getting away from the crowd in a democracy because you need them to vote for you every so often.  Someone who doesn't like being part of the crowd isn't going to have an easy time of it trying to please the crowd.

If John McCain is a true maverick, this would explain why he's so ornery.

The question is why would a true maverick have gone into politics to begin with?

The answer could be that something about the political landscape looks like a place the maverick wants or needs to be.  Something there appeals to his nature or sense of self-interest.

And for a true maverick that's not going to be a desire to serve the common good.

The best you can hope for out of a maverick in politics is that he's attracted to the opportunity to put his own skills at problem-solving to work.

Otherwise, what's probably drawing him to the job something less than noble---money, power, glory. the admiration of pretty young women (or pretty young men).

What I'm suggesting here is that if you've identified a politician as a true maverick you've probably just given yourself a good reason not to vote for him.  Even if the maverick is just a problem-solver type, the odds are he's not going to be good at the kinds of compromises necessary to solving problems politically or at seeing the other person's side of things or at putting the people's interests ahead of his own.  At best, if you've got a true maverick representing you in Congress, you could have a Congresswoman from Platte County, Nebraska with a passion for urban planning.

So, if a politician is a true maverick, if that isn't a reason not to vote for him at all, it's a definitely a disqualification for positions of leadership.  Your average maverick wouldn't want the job anyway, but the only sort of maverick who could handle it would have to be the very rare one who could make himself stop being a maverick and make himself enough of a part of the crowd to know where it wants and needs to go and help guide it in that direction or the unforutnately probably not rare enough one who can or who will try to force the crowd to go where he happens to want to go.  In other words, the maverick who offers himself up as a possible leader is either promising to be one of the most self-abnegating and self-disciplined people alive or he's warning you he's going to be a tyrant.

So which do I think is John McCain doing, promising to submit his will and vanity to us or warning us he's going to be a tyrant?

Neither.

Obviously, I don't think McCain is any kind of a maverick at all.

If the Media understood the word they wouldn't use it to describe him.  They wouldn't use it as a compliment either.  Except about the likes of Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Paul.  And they're all only relative mavericks anyway.

John McCain isn't a maverick.  He's a bit of a rebel, a bit of a rogue, a sunshine renegade, and a damned cussed contrarian, sometimes.  But the defining characteristic of a maverick, standing apart from the crowd, does not define John McCain.

McCain doesn't want to stand apart from the crowd.  He wants to stand above it.

Over the course of his twenty-six year political career, McCain has gone through periods during which he's appeared to act somewhat maverickishly.  This has mainly been a matter of his voting against the Republican leadership's position on a few glamorous but not really controversial issues.  Considering how insanely ideological the Republicans have become over the same time, refusing to toe the Party line should get you a reputation for being only ordinarily intelligent, decent, and independent-minded.

McCain holds, or has professed to hold, some opinions that differ from those of your run of the mill Right Wing Republican Party hack.  Some of those views are to the right of your run of the mill Right wing Republican Party hack.  There is nothing about being a maverick, though, that means you can't also be a Right Wing loon and, like I said, a maverick's interest and nature can cause him to follow the herd, or appear to be following it, for a long time before the distant horizon calls and he has to see what's on the far side of that hill.

But this is just it.  John McCain has never left the herd for any significant length of time.

It hasn't been the case that McCain just happens to be going in the same direction as the Republican Party and has opportunistically hitched a ride.  He wants to go where they're going.  He is happy with the destination they're headed for, he just thinks a lot of the company he has to share along the way is stupid and boring and annoying and not worth his precious time or attention.

But he doesn't get out and walk.

What he does is complain loudly as he rides comfortably aboard the Party bus where he's been nothing more than a backbench driver.   He hasn't liked the way the leadership parallel parks, he doesn't like it that they obey the speed limit when he's in a hurry, he doesn't like how they take turns too wide, and he hates it, just hates it, when they don't listen to his advice on what shortcuts save the most time and which roads are going to be busy at this hour of day.

When you get right down to it, what he wants, and has always wanted, is for the Party to let him drive.

McCain hasn't ever been content to wander far from the madding crowd.  When he's appeared to be off wandering through the heather all alone it's only because he hasn't convinced anyone (except his fanboys and fangirls in the Media) to come with him.

John McCain doesn't want to be a maverick.  He wants to be the alpha male.

His problem has been that he's never been able to figure out how to take over.  He's just expected everyone to hand him the job.

Actually, to give him the respect and deference that is due the job and when they don't he blows his stack.

And this is why he's running for President.

There's nothing he particularly wants to do if he wins, except be known as the guy who whipped the bad guys in Iraq.

To tell you the truth, I don't think the Maverick and Commander is even all that interested in the power that comes with the office.   As far as I can tell, he doesn't care about any issues deeply enough to want that power.  (One of the reasons the Beltway Insider Journalists and Pundits love him so much is that he doesn't seem to care about any issues deeply.  They think it's all bullshit and they're glad that he seems to think it's all bullshit too.)  What he wants is to be the Commander because that will prove...that he is the Commander.

It will prove the thing John McCain believes in most, that he is right.  Right about what?  Everything.  But mainly about John McCain.  It will prove what he's believed ever since he was a kid, back when he earned his nickname of John McNasty, that John McCain is the better man.

Better than whom?

Everyone in the room.

All Presidential candidates since the beginning of the Republic, have been motivated to a degree by vanity and ego.  It is presumptuous of anyone to think he or she can handle the job, let alone that he or she is the best person for it.  What sets John McCain apart is that when pressed he can offer no other reason for why he should be President except that he should be President.

John McCain wants John McCain for President because John McCain is John McCain, goddammit, and why can't the rest of you assholes see the logic of that?

And they say Barack Obama is the presumptuous one.

_____________________________

Much of this post was influenced by Cliff Schecter's The Real McCain and Matt Welch's McCain: The Myth of a Maverick and by Billmon's great post at RawStory, McCain, the Great White Hope.

Comments

[actor212]

Nicely put, sir.

[apostate]

Lance, you are some kind of genius. I don't know what kind, because you are sometimes wrong, but when you're right, you're so right.

You are more right than anyone else on the definition of a maverick. You are right about John McCain.

But you are wrong about what mavericks can and cannot do (for instance, entering politics) and you are wrong about it being presumptuous, at all, ever, to want to be president.

[actor212]

Apostate,

Doesn't the mere fact of wanting to be President imply that presumptuousness *has* to be part of the formula?

[Rana]

Declaring that oneself is better suited than an entire planet to be the leader of one of the world's last superpowers isn't presumptuous? Those are some pretty high standards.

And I didn't read this as being about what a maverick CANNOT do, but rather what it is unlikely for such a person to do. Politics in a democracy is at least nominally about enacting the will of the group, and Lance has very clearly laid out that mavericks in their essence aren't interested in the group except when its direction coincides with their own.

In any case, I think Lance's overall point stands.

Either McCain IS a maverick, in which case he's picked the wrong career, and the media is stupid to think that mavericky-ness is a virtue in a politician in a democracy; or he is not, and is only labeled so because the media is stupid enough to mistake self-importance and arrogance for solipsism.

Either way, McCain is ill-suited for the requirements of the job to which he aspires, and the media are a bunch of shallow-thinking idiots. Sounds reasonable to me.

[Chris the cop]

"McCain has gone through periods during which he's appeared to act somewhat maverickishly." (Lance)

"the media is stupid to think that mavericky-ness is a virtue." (Rana)

I can't believe either of you didn't know the correct form is maverickeousness(ly). What school did you go to?

[Bill Altreuter]

McCain's no maverick. He's just another cowboy with a chip on his shoulder. His wife-- that is to say, his first wife-- seems to understand him: "My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25." He has probably grown up a little in the past 20 years, but he is still a spoiled man-child, and we've spent the last eight years witnessing what a spoiled man-child can do with unlimited power and only modest impulse control. If McCain were a maverick he wouldn't be in politics-- it is not a job mavericks want, and mavericks aren't the sort of people that get elected to things, either. He's a smartass, and I think you have it right when you say he doesn't stand for anything. His signature issue is campaign finance reform, because he got caught and embarrassed once. There are few things more obnoxious than a reformed anything, of course. George W. Bush is a dry drunk, John McCain wants to clean up politics. Don't you wish that they'd both been cigarette smokers? Life would be so much better for us all if they'd just turned into the kind of people who give speeches to people about the evils of tobacco, instead of what they are.

Mavericks are independent thinkers, sort of. I see no evidence that McCain has ever held a thought in his head for longer than it took him to say something flip about it. It would be a better thing for us all if he were a maverick, because then we wouldn't have to deal with him. He'd be making a nuisance of himself in the private sector, spending his wife's money, and being rude to waiters and salespeople.

[Linkmeister]

"What he wants is to be the Commander because that will prove...that he is the Commander."

You forgot the final two words that ought to be there: "in Chief."

He wants to be the great military leader.

I think he feels like he lost 5+ years and the opportunity to become an Admiral, and that bugs him (as the son and grandson of Admirals). So he's decided he'll go one better; instead of being CNO he wants to be C-in-C.

[apostate]

Declaring that oneself is better suited than an entire planet to be the leader of one of the world's last superpowers isn't presumptuous? Those are some pretty high standards.

So are standards for most jobs that are complex, and there are many many complex jobs. Yet, people aspire to them every day and nobody calls them presumptuous for doing so if they're qualified and appear to be up to the task.

I don't think aspiring to complex jobs, if one is qualified, is presumptuous, and I don't see why one need make an exception for the presidency of the U.S. Sure, it's a tough job, but it's also not beyond the capabilities of most people of sufficient intelligence and some appropriate experience and judgment. As long as they meet those requirements and the requirements stated in the constitution, why call it presumption? Remember, the more complex a job gets, the more diffused the responsibility of performing that job is. That's why presidents have cabinets.

If it ever is presumptuous to wish to take on a complex job, it's not when someone seeks it through a competitive process, based on evaluation of their suitability; it's when someone feels *entitled* to it without going through the competitive process while lacking what it takes.

To say, without qualification, that it is always presumptuous to seek the highest office in a superpower no matter who seeks it, is to say that nobody could possibly be good enough for this job. That's simply not the case.

I KNOW people who could be president. If they desired it, it would be *appropriate* for them to seek the office, not presumptuous in the least.

As for the other question - of how a maverick is likely going to act and what a maverick is likely to do - Lance gets so much wrong, I don't even want to get into it.

[Chris the cop]

I think Apostate is attaching too much of a negative connotation to 'presumptuous.' It's a necessary component to running for President. To be presumptuous enough to want to the job doesn't make you wrong. I mean, Obama is the presumptive nominee, right?

But Lance, I think the notion that McCain's motives for running are shallow (doesen't care about issues deeply, just wants to prove he's right about everything, wants to win just to whip the bad guys in Iraq) is just bilge. There are lots of good reasons to be against McCain - him being shallow isn't one of them because it isn't accurate.

As for the notion that "his problem has been that he's never been able to figure out how to take over. He's just expected everyone to hand him the job." - I don't see how-- after all the crap McCain (or Obama)has to go through in order to run for President--anyone can conclude McCain expected the job to be handed to him. One thing I'll say of both Obama and McCain is that no matter which one wins the election, they both earned it.

[Apostate]

I think Apostate is attaching too much of a negative connotation to 'presumptuous.' It's a necessary component to running for President.

No. Perhaps arrogance. A justifiable arrogance.

Not presumption. That implies unworthiness.

There is no escaping the pejorative connotation of the word.

[actor212]

"McCain has gone through periods during which he's appeared to act somewhat maverickishly." (Lance)

"the media is stupid to think that mavericky-ness is a virtue." (Rana)

I can't believe either of you didn't know the correct form is maverickeousness(ly). What school did you go to?

I thought it was maveriquity?

[actor212]

Apostate, are you suggesting, then, that everyone who runs for office suffers not from ambition and presumptuousness, but the hubris of believing they are qualified, as opposed to knowing they are?

That seems an awful fine distinction to be cutting, unless I'm misreading you.

And I take (mild) exception to the point that somehow any job prepares you for the Presidency. Arguably, one of the most qualified men to run for President in the past thirty years was George Bush: two-term governor of Texas, one of the largest states in the Union, and yet no one here would dispute the man was totally lost in the White House, except for his pigheadedness regarding warmongering.

I can't imagine a job that would more qualify you to be President than to administer to a large, diverse state. Can you?

[apostate]

Actor, all qualifications aren't created equal. There are bad CEOs who looked qualified when they were chosen for the job.

Bush ran a large state, but badly, and he ran companies into the ground. That's not qualifications that should count - they're warnings.

I'm thinking of two people in particular that I personally know who would make great presidents and both are lawyers. Neither has "run" anything on his/her own. But they're decision-makers and whip-smart and they can master details of any subject they're briefed on and do a better job of tackling the subject than the person who briefed them.

And they have tons and tons of charm. They are alpha people and nobody else leads when they're in the room, no matter what the situation is. And they create loyalty without actively seeking followers.

Not ANY job prepares you - but not all resume bullet points are equal either (i.e. governorships are not automatic indications of anything).

And I never said people who run for president don't "suffer" from ambition. Now that is certainly a prerequisite for the job.

That seems an awful fine distinction to be cutting, unless I'm misreading you.

I think you might be misreading and that's my fault - I'm so long-winded.

It's not really a fine distinction. Being justifiably arrogant: knowing you are damned good and can prove it (Bill Clinton). Being presumptuous? Unworthy of what you're seeking. Big difference.

[Chris the Cop]

212 - maveriquity is the Old English form. This is 2008: it's time you let go of the ancient ways...

[tdraicer]

From where I stand neither McCain or Obama belongs anywhere near the White House. So given the choice of two failed presidents, the question becomes, "Would you rather the Dems or the GOP gets the blame?"