McCain Moves Back to the Middle

Arizona Republic: “More than two years after winning his fifth Senate term and nearly five years after an unsuccessful presidential bid, Sen. John McCain is settling into an influential role as a Senate power broker and bipartisan coalition builder who has the ear of President Barack Obama.”

“The Washington, D.C., punditocracy has heralded it as a return of the ‘maverick’ — the label applied to McCain in the 1990s and early 2000s that the Arizona Republican disavowed in 2010 and of which he is still not fond. But other longtime observers of McCain’s 30-year career say he is merely returning to his traditional comfort zone of the political middle ground for what could be his swan song on Capitol Hill.”