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
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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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.
Posted by: dave | June 25, 2008 at 03:24 AM
I smell a Pulitzer Mr Malcolm
/sarc
Posted by: terribly smart | June 25, 2008 at 05:47 AM
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.
Posted by: Tominellay | June 25, 2008 at 01:41 PM