Ticket video chat: Matt Welch on 'McCain Myth of a Maverick' -- VII

This is the seventh and second to last chapter in our video conversation with former Times writer, Matt Welch, who's written a new examination of the personal and political personnas of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

In this episode Welch discusses what he calls "McCain's Ron Paul problem," a smallish but very dedicated splinter group of libertarian Republicans who back the 10-term congressman from Texas. Paul captured about 1.1 million GOP primary votes this season while collecting nearly $35 million, more than McCain had for a while.

Welch sees McCain's policies of a strong federal government, though with curbed spending, combined with McCain's enduring support for the Iraq war and Paul's antipathy to what he sees as empire-building as prohibiting any kind of real rapprochement between the two camps for the Nov. 4 election.

Also McCain could risk loss of support among independents and moderates if he was to taxi too far to the right to accommodate Paulites. In a close election the Paul group's votes or their absence could make the difference between a McCain or Barack Obama presidency, as some of them are likely to drift over to Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party, although that too is split.

Part I of our conversation with Welch is available here, Part II is available here, Part III is here, Part IV is here, Part V is here, Part VI is here. Part VIII will be published on The Ticket Wednesday.

Samples of Welch's writing as a Times staffer are available here.

--Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[dave]

your decision to now even take off your short list of presidential candidates to the right hand side of this page the name of the only legitimate, constitutional republican candidate for PRESIDENT, RON PAUL as the convention and the elections approach, is a move that was to be expected; the media hired to push the extremely unpopular john mccain as the next presidential puppet has been extremely busy to downplay RON PAUL's popular message and movement all along.

[terribly smart]

I smell a Pulitzer Mr Malcolm

/sarc

[Tominellay]

Matt Welch has a whole lot more respect for the ideals of Paul and his supporters than you have, Andrew. You're surprised, I guess, that people will vote on principle.