Senator John McCain is being remembered by many, in the political world, as a man who put the people of his country above the interests of his own political party. After all, it was for this reason that the senator often referred to himself as a political maverick.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Jon Maclean spoke with Larry Sabato, New York Times best-selling author and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, about what made McCain stand out among Washington politicians.
Of his long-tenured political career, Sabato chose to use McCain’s interaction with President Donald Trump to illustrate what he felt made the senator different from the overwhelming majority.
“We live in a very polarized era and it’s also extremely controversial, mainly because of President Trump,” Sabato said. “The fact is that John McCain is one of only a handful of Republicans who was willing to challenge Trump when he disagreed with him.”
“Most of the Republicans are simply too afraid to stand up to Trump,” Sabato said. “John McCain wasn’t afraid at all and it was precisely, for that reason, that McCain was called ‘not a hero,’ because he was captured during Vietnam, by none other than President Trump.”
According to Sabato, with McCain’s passing, our country lost one of a small, dwindling group of politicians that put the interests of the people over that of their own political group.
“John McCain was, as he often said, a maverick. Now, he was heavily tilted toward the Republican point of view and he, almost always, voted with Republicans, but he was willing to stand up to powers in the Republican party, from president on down and, occasionally, on big issues, to vote against the Republican position, if he believed his own party was wrong. That’s why he often summarized himself as saying ‘country over party.’ There aren’t many people who can claim that today. Fewer and fewer of them.”
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