On the Shoulders of Giants
Why McCain’s Return to Washington Should Be To Vote “No.”
These last two weeks have no doubt been a trying time for the senior Senator from Arizona. And I am not surprised that this fighter-for-the-ages is defying odds, and probably a few doctors, to head to Washington to uphold his senatorial duties on a critical vote in the Senate, despite the fact that it is procedural.
I am a big fan of Senator John McCain. Despite many times I disagree with his policy points of view or his votes, he is an American hero who has done more for this country than most could ever imagine, and to me, he represents the old school Senate where disagreements morphed into better policy and people could show respect for alternative points of view.
I am pleased his fighting spirit is stronger than ever. I am pleased to hear he has not abandoned responsibility for the job he was elected to do.
And I am pleased he feels he is up to going to D.C. To vote.
But he should vote a large and resounding NO on the healthcare repeal.

The ACA repeal vote — which is what this really is — brings to the forefront the most difficult choice the Senator has ever faced. Senator McCain is the last of the giants of the Senate — he communed with Ted Kennedy and so many other courageous leaders who disagreed but debated. In the days of Kennedy and Connie Mack and Paul Simon and Pat Moynihan, the procedural vote he is about to cast would have made sense. It made sense because there was such a thing as real debate. But in Mitch McConnell’s Senate this vote is far different, and far more than a procedural vote. In Mitch McConnell’s Senate there has been such a bastardization of the rules of the chamber of those who are supposed to be our wisest and most responsible leaders that this vote does not mean what it would have in the Senate John McCain went to serve. Instead it may mean the future of the most irresponsible and mean-spirited bills in Senate history, to take away access to healthcare for more than thirty million Americans without a plan to replace it.
This vote is not to “open debate.”
It is purely intended to pretend that there is some kind of plan to improve healthcare in this country. There is not. If there were, we would have seen it already.
This vote is an exercise in ego. This vote is a childish and selfish attempt to continue to erase the legacy of Barack Obama.
For John McCain, of all people, to vote “yes” on a bill that no one has seen? For John McCain, who fought to protect our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? For John McCain, who loves the Senate and feels duty-bound to protect its rules and its place as the might chamber of democracy? For John McCain to be held hostage once again, not by a foreign enemy but by the president from his own party?
Senator, how can you possibly vote yes? This goes against everything you ever stood for and ever fought for. And it reinforces the McConnell-Trump strategy of bullying to get short-term wins at any cost.
A vote to “open debate?” Come on.
Debate is open. It always is. It’s called a democracy.
Someone needs to write a real plan with a lot of responsibility and a little heart. Instead, we have this.
This vote is an abomination, an abdication of responsibility. Your Republican president, the one who disrespected you personally and all the things you almost gave your life to protect, wants something, anything to sign. He doesn’t care what it says. He’s proven for the last six months that he doesn’t even know what is in the bill. He thinks Americans pay $1 a month for their healthcare. He lives in a land of delusion.
He just wants to sit at the big desk and sign something so he can get more cameras to take more pictures and he can spew more lies to the people to whom promised better lives. He wants photo opportunities and publicity. He doesn’t care about debate, about good legislation or about responsibility.
Thirty million. That’s how many people stand to lose.
So many of them are Republicans.
Think about that, Senator.
Please do not forget that it might just be that someday it might be that someone without access to care might be diagnosed with a brain tumor. They are willing to do whatever it takes to get back to a job the love, to which they feel an extreme sense of responsibility. Because maybe lives hang in the balance. But they can’t get back. They are not the 51st vote. They’re just an average American, trying to do the job they came to do. But they have no help in their fight.
Why? Because some “procedural” vote allowed the U.S. Senate to move forward on a heartless, selfish “healthcare” “bill” that is either something no one has had the chance to review or remains just a tax cut for the rich in disguise; we knew from the CBO that millions would lose coverage and millions more would see massive rate increases.
We knew it. We knew it before the Senate cast that “procedural” vote. We told our elected representatives we didn’t like it. They did their own polling and they knew we didn’t want it.
Thirty million. Thirty million people could lose their care. And the rest of us will pay more.
Ironic, isn’t it?
Please do the right thing and vote no to this sham of a process. You should make your legacy be the Senate you joined, not as part of Mitch McConnell’s heartless band of yes men.
