John McCain and the Far Right

It's only April 2006, but John McCain isn't wasting any time in the 2008 presidential sweepstakes. For months, the Republican from Arizona has been blitzing the country, meeting with donors, lending his star power to Republican candidates, building his political team, and courting constituencies who spurned him in 2000. And as a sitting senator with his name on controversial immigration legislation, he's faced some boos.
As the early front-runner for the GOP nomination, Senator McCain is no longer the outsider, nipping at the heels of his party's anointed presidential successor. He's the main show. The question is, can he maintain his image as a straight-talking maverick, with broad appeal to independents and some Democrats, even as he reaches out to religious conservatives and raises hackles on both the left and right with moves that his critics call "unprincipled"?
His speech on May 12 at Liberty University, at the behest of religious leader Jerry Falwell, whom McCain once called one of the "agents of intolerance," has raised eyebrows.
"It seems what McCain is doing is the classic move that Richard Nixon patented, run right during the primaries, then run center for the general," says Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. "He's doing what he has to do. To a purist it doesn't smell right, but find me someone who hasn't done that who won."
Source: CBSNews.com
There's a name for people like this: liars, and greedy assholes. McCain is no maverick, that's for sure.