Media Views

While the press has devoted countless stories to dissecting Obama's basketball game, all the cocktail parties he ever graced in Hyde Park, and every vote he cast as a state senator, large tracts of McCain's record have been untouched by reporters. There have been stunningly few stories revisiting the wild vicissitudes of McCain's recent political career. Less than five years ago, McCain was basically spearheading the Democratic agenda in the Senate—from taxes to government reform—and then, in a flash, he abandoned most of these progressive positions when he decided to run for the Republican nomination in 2008. What does that say about the man? Most voters don't know, because most voters haven't read about this period in the newspaper or heard about it on television.