Creep of the Year: Sen. John McCain

To borrow from Julie Andrews, if I may: "How do you solve a problem like [McCain]?"
You kick his ass in a national election, that's how. It feels good to know that I speak for the majority of America when I say, "Thank [insert your choice of deity/higher power/superlative here] McCain isn't our president."
He is, however, Between The Line's Creep of the Year – a dubious honor, to be sure, but an honor just the same. So while McCain works on his memoir, tentatively titled "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," let us count the ways in which he was oh-so-creepy in 2008.
Because the campaign lasted the entire freaking year, there were plenty of chances for McCain to be a creep – and he wasted no time getting started. Back in February during the GOP primary, the McCain campaign robo-called Florida households warning them that Mitt Romney, one of McCain's more formidable competitors, was a gay-loving liberal.
"It's ironic that Sen. John McCain is using the same tactics that George Bush used against him in 2000, surreptitiously trying to exploit anti-gay prejudice for voters," HRC President Joe Solomonese said of the calls. "So much for John McCain being above that."
Above that? Hell, the year was young and McCain was just getting started. Later in February, McCain sought and got the endorsement of John Hagee, the leader of a San Antonio megachurch.
"When he endorses me, it does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes," McCain said.
Trouble is, some of what Hagee stood for was bat-shit crazy. This is a guy who said "the Holocaust was God's will," called Catholicism "the great whore of Babylon" and "a cult," once held a "slave sale" as a fundraiser at his church, and blamed gays for Hurricane Katrina.
In 2006 on NPR's Fresh Air, Hagee said, "The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing."
The Hagee endorsement was just the tip of McCain's anti-gay pandering iceberg. In March he spoke to the Council for National Policy, a right-wing cabal, if you will, and pledged to be the anti-gay marriage amendment president.
When an attendee asked if he'd support the ballot initiatives likely to be put before voters in several states, including his home state of Arizona, McCain replied, "Yes, sir. And as I say, I am proud to have been the honorary chairman of our effort last time (in Arizona), which was narrowly defeated, as you know, because there was a misinterpretation of the language, and we are going to clear that up. I think we can win it this time."
In July McCain had a schizophrenic moment about gays adopting. He told the New York Times that gays were unfit parents ("I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don't believe in gay adoption," he said). Two days later, realizing that such a position might not play well with voters that don't hate gay people, he told Andrew Sullivan that maybe gay parents were better than no parents at all. Nice save, John. Nice save.
In August McCain was sitting across from Pastor Rick Warren at the presidential debate forum pledging to keep marriage safe from the queers.
"I strongly support preserving the unique status of marriage between man and woman," McCain said. "And I'm a federalist. I believe in that states should make those decisions. In my state, I hope we will make that decision and in other states they have, to recognize the unique status of marriage between man and woman. And that doesn't mean that people can't enter into legal agreements, that doesn't mean that they don't have the rights of all citizens. I'm not saying that. I am saying we should preserve the unique status of marriage between one man and one woman and if a federal court decided that my state of Arizona had to observe what the state of Massachusetts decided, then I would favor a constitutional amendment. Until then, I believe the states should make the decisions within their own states."
Keep in mind that up until this point McCain had opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment. In his response to Warren, however, he put forth a much different, and a much more convenient, position than the one the Log Cabin Republicans touted as part of why they endorsed McCain.
Of course, the cherry on top of McCain's pandering sundae was his VP pick. Sarah Palin was not only anti-gay, she was also anti-qualified. Keep in mind that LCR endorsed McCain after this pick, going so far as to say the choice was all mavericky and stuff. LCR, it seems, was in deep denial about who McCain had become in the eight years since 2000.
It's important to remember that there was a time when gays didn't seem to bother McCain much. Back in the day, he even called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." But eight years is a lifetime in politics. And if there is a such a thing as an anti-gay devil, McCain sold his soul to him.
McCain's transformation from semi-moderate to semi-crazy was not a winning strategy, it turns out. Not for elections, anyway. For Creep of the Year, however, McCain is a clear and decisive winner. Congrats, McCain. You worked hard for this. You deserve it. And you have only yourself to blame.