The Lonely Stand

David Brooks rightly lauds John McCain's opposition to the bad farm bill wending its way through congress is equally correct to note that Barack Obama's stance on this leaves something to be desired. The selfish, curious-journalist side of me would like to see McCain become president precisely because of his penchant for taking on these kind of doomed battles.

As a Senator, he gets to play the lonely crank with ease -- sometimes for good, as with farm bills, sometimes for ill as with his quixotic effort to ban mixed-martial arts competition -- just voting "no" and stuff and giving speeches that denounce it. As President, though, a lonely stand wouldn't just be a lonely stand -- he could veto stuff. Would he really do it? Really pick cataclysmic, likely unwinnable fights with congress over farm bills and earmarks and ethanol? A president Obama would, I assume, pragmatically bend to the immovable forces and try to find allies to pass his agenda on key issues like health care and climate change. That'd be one part cowardly and one part sensible. But you could totally imagine McCain deciding that he doesn't care if his entire domestic agenda turns into a trainwreck (he'd still have a free hand in national security policy) so he'd pick fights to his heart's content.

At the end of the day, I think that's probably a better model for how a pundit should behave than how a politician ought to behave (politics, after all, is the art of the possible) which probably explains why so many journalists love McCain. But qua pundit, if I got to vote purely based on the most entertaining possible outcome I do think a McCain presidency has some appeal.