If John McCain left the GOP in 2001, what would have happened?

[Suburbia]

In mid-2001, before the September 11, 2001 attacks, Sen. John McCain was alarmed by President Dubya's reversals of compassionate conservatism and Sen. Jim Jeffords' switch to the Democratic Party......McCain felt Bush was too rightwing and proved him right in the '00 primaries.....

If McCain left the GOP in June 2001, what would have happened? Would Colin Powell have left the Bush White House and joined McCain on a unity ticket in 2004? Would Zell Miller have joined?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/06/02/mccain-is-considering-leaving-gop/454e70ae-6aa9-4cfa-8891-4f2a17ef8203/

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Absent some additional impetus, I don't see McCain leaving the GOP. As the article indicates, in June 2001, he was unhappy with the direction the party was taking, but not ready to leave it. The likeliest PODs that could happen after June 2001 that might lead to McCain departing the GOP would be either 9/11 doesn't happen or the Bush Administration responds to it differently. Even then, I don't see him leaving until after the 2002 midterms, and maybe running as an independent for reelection to his Senate seat in 2004.

So before one can answer the question of what would happen if John McCain left the GOP, you first have to answer why he would leave the GOP.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

McCain was still too conservative to ever be a Democrat unless he was in a state redder than Arizona.

[NewYorkExpress]

If McCain runs as a Democrat in 2004, he loses in the primary, possibly to Janet Napolitano or Ed Pastor.

If McCain runs as an Independent in 2004, he finishes second in a three-way race, but draws most of his vote from the Democratic nominee, losing to someone like Jeff Flake.

If McCain decides to run as a Democrat for President in 2004, he probably makes it to Iowa on name recognition alone, but he'd have trouble raising money and attracting support because of how conservative he is. A close comparison in the IRL 2004 race might actually be Howard Dean, who was relatively moderate and had to dramatically move to the left to be competitive.

If McCain runs for President as an Independent, he finishes third, but does well enough in both the both the popular vote and in key battleground states to tip the election to Kerry. His running mate is probably a high-profile moderate like Angus King, or someone who gets along with him personally, like Joe Lieberman.

[Utah Neolib]

Absent some additional impetus, I don't see McCain leaving the GOP. As the article indicates, in June 2001, he was unhappy with the direction the party was taking, but not ready to leave it. The likeliest PODs that could happen after June 2001 that might lead to McCain departing the GOP would be either 9/11 doesn't happen or the Bush Administration responds to it differently. Even then, I don't see him leaving until after the 2002 midterms, and maybe running as an independent for reelection to his Senate seat in 2004.

So before one can answer the question of what would happen if John McCain left the GOP, you first have to answer why he would leave the GOP.

I entirely agree, I think it’s too unrealistic of a question. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ponder it

[Vice President Christian Man]

He'd fit in as a Blue Dog Dem. While politicians like Richard Shelby and Nathan Deal were conservative Democrats before they switched, they were still able to find a place within the party. McCain was to the left of Ralph Hall who was still a Dem at that time as well.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Absent some additional impetus, I don't see McCain leaving the GOP. As the article indicates, in June 2001, he was unhappy with the direction the party was taking, but not ready to leave it. The likeliest PODs that could happen after June 2001 that might lead to McCain departing the GOP would be either 9/11 doesn't happen or the Bush Administration responds to it differently. Even then, I don't see him leaving until after the 2002 midterms, and maybe running as an independent for reelection to his Senate seat in 2004.

So before one can answer the question of what would happen if John McCain left the GOP, you first have to answer why he would leave the GOP.

I entirely agree, I think it’s too unrealistic of a question. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ponder it

I wasn't saying that it shouldn't be pondered, but that in order to ponder it, we'd need to consider why he left , as that would affect what would happen.

[dw93]

He loses his Senate seat in 2004 and Romney or Huckabee goes on to be the GOP nominee for President in 2008, and they do even worse against Obama (or Hillary) than McCain did.

[Agonized-Statism]

Would he have been on Kerry's VP shortlist?

[Mr. Morden]

If McCain decides to run as a Democrat for President in 2004, he probably makes it to Iowa on name recognition alone, but he'd have trouble raising money and attracting support because of how conservative he is.

The thing that many have forgotten over the years is that yes, there were in fact a couple of years in the early 2000s in which McCain was actually siding with Democrats in almost every domestic political fight that was happening at that moment in time, from climate change to campaign finance reform to taxes.  He even voted against Bush’s tax cuts, and opposed them not just on grounds of fiscal discipline, but he actually said that they unfairly distributed money to the rich….something that basically no other Republicans of the era would dare say out loud.  He frequently mouthed conservative platitudes in abstract terms, but in terms of actual policy substance, he was constantly siding with Democrats on the high profile issues.  Even on abortion, while claiming that he was pro-life, he actually said during the 2000 campaign "certainly in the short term or even the long term I would not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade."

This is covered pretty well in this New Republic piece by Jonathan Chait written in 2002, but is also discussed in other accounts from the time:

https://newrepublic.com/article/60779/whats-name

So I’d say he pretty easily could have switched parties at that point in time, and would not have actually had to move that far on substance to fit in with the Democratic Party.  With things like abortion, he’d just drop labels like “pro-life”, but otherwise wouldn’t really be moving much substantively.  And as for foreign policy in the post-9/11 world, there were lots of Democratic hawks  at that time as well.

In any case, there’s some speculation that the main reason he *didn’t* switch parties is because he thought he’d have a better chance of (eventually) getting the Republican nomination for president than the Democratic one.  So by 2004-ish, he started swinging back to the right in order to set himself up for a GOP run for president in 2008.