McCain told me: "I may have changed some of my views. You learn over 24 years." Explaining then as he does not now that he opposed Bush's tax cuts because there was "no commensurate restraint in spending," he said, "I am glad the tax cuts had the effect they did." Why he did not leave it at that goes to the nature of John McCain that makes him both frustrating and magnetic.
So, did McCain regret his "no" votes? He replied, "I can't tell you that I cast exactly right votes over the years." Based on more than half a century talking to politicians, I took that as a "yes." He also advocates making the tax cuts permanent because letting them lapse would constitute a tax increase that he opposes.
Shortly after New Hampshire voted, a national leader of the Democratic Party telephoned me. Asking that our conversation remain confidential, he said he considers McCain the only electable Republican in what looms as a Democratic 2008 and indeed capable of defeating either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But, this Democrat asks, how can McCain explain and defend his votes against tax cuts that the Republican president and Republicans in Congress are trying to make permanent?
The answer to that would be for McCain to publicly repeat what he had told me over breakfast a year ago. But that probably would not be John McCain.