Is McCain Returning to His "Mavericky" Roots?

December 19, 2008 2:56 PM

ABC News' David Chalian Reports: Is John McCain returning to his "mavericky" roots?  No longer a presidential candidate, Sen. McCain (R-AZ) expressed disappointment in President Bush's decision to help bailout the auto industry.

“I regret the President’s decision to give away over $17 billion to the domestic automakers," McCain said in a statement. "I find it unacceptable that we would leave the American taxpayer with a tab of tens of billions of dollars while failing to receive any serious concessions from the industry," he added.

In many of the post-mortems of the 2008 campaign, the decision for Sen. McCain to suspend his campaign, head to Washington, and back the Bush administration's (along with the bipartisan/bicameral congressional leadership) financial bailout plan in September inevitably gets debated. (Clearly, it would not have likely altered the outcome of the election if McCain had opposed the plan.)

McCain's decision to buck the Bush administration's auto bailout plan is in clear contrast to what we saw him do with the financial markets issue in the midst of his presidential campaign.

The statement from Sen. McCain today is not likely to surprise his campaign team. Just yesterday, McCain adviser and pollster Bill McInturff told a group of reporters at breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that McCain's support for that financial bailout in the fall was against his nature. McInturff claimed McCain would likely have opposed the deal if he was just performing his U.S. Senator role. McInturff went on to say that when McCain was running for president and had Secretary Paulson calling him regularly telling him his support for the financial bailout was a necessity, McCain was perceiving that through -- in McInturff's words -- a "very different filter."  A filter, he described, that was largely about national responsibility rather than one he would have used simply as the senior Senator from Arizona.

Four days before the election, Sen. McCain appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and told Robin Roberts that he would not let the auto industry fail. "I would do whatever I -- think needs to be done to help our automotive industry," McCain said. 

Sen. McCain often pointed to the previously appropriated $25 billion for the auto industry aimed at making more fuel efficient vehicles. Speaker Pelosi was long opposed to tapping that money for the auto industry, but finally backed down in a last ditch effort to get a bailout plan through Congress. That plan ultimately failed which forced President Bush's hand to use some of the funds from the financial bailout to help the auto companies in the plan he announced this morning.

"We've got to keep this industry alive," candidate McCain told ABC's Roberts.

What a difference a couple of months can make.

ABC News' Jonathan Greenberger contributed to this report.