Here's an excellent article from The Hill which has been supressed for years:
Democrats say McCain nearly abandoned GOP
By Bob Cusack
March 29, 2007
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was close to leaving the Republican Party in 2001, weeks before then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) famously announced his decision to become an Independent, according to former Democratic lawmakers who say they were involved in the discussions.
In interviews with The Hill this month, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and ex-Rep. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) said there were nearly two months of talks with the maverick lawmaker following an approach by John Weaver, McCain’s chief political strategist.
Democrats had contacted Jeffords and then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) in the early months of 2001 about switching parties, but in McCain’s case, they said, it was McCain’s top strategist who came to them.
At the end of their March 31, 2001 lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Bethesda, Md., Downey said Weaver asked why Democrats hadn’t asked McCain to switch parties.
Downey said Weaver is well aware that their discussion was much more than typical Washington chit-chat.
“Within seconds” of arriving home from his lunch with Weaver, Downey said he was on the phone to the most powerful Democrats in town. One of the first calls he made was to then-Senate Minority Leader Daschle.
“I did take the call from Tom [Downey],” Daschle said in an interview. “It was Weaver’s comment” to Downey that started the McCain talks, he added.
Daschle noted that McCain at that time was frustrated with the Bush administration as a result of his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 Republican primary.
Daschle said that throughout April and May of 2001, he and McCain “had meetings and conversations on the floor and in his office, I think in mine as well, about how we would do it, what the conditions would be. We talked about committees and his seniority … [A lot of issues] were on the table.”
Some of the meetings Daschle referred to are detailed in the former senator’s 2003 book.
Other senators who played major roles in the intense recruiting effort, according to Democrats, were then-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) as well as Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
“John [Edwards] at that time was working with McCain on a couple things and there was a sense that because of his relationship that he might be a good person to talk to him,” Daschle said. “He was clearly one of those that we thought could be helpful.”
A source close to Edwards said Daschle’s comments are accurate.
Daschle also said, “Both Sen. Reid and I talked to [McCain] both individually and together.”
Several former McCain aides who worked for the senator in 2001 and are now in the private sector did not return phone calls seeking comment.
In one article, Marshall Wittman, a McCain loyalist and strategist six years ago, put the odds of McCain leaving the Republican Party at “50-50.” Wittman, who now works for Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), declined to comment for this article. A source said that Wittman’s comment at that time was “completely based on speculation.”
Daschle, however, said the talks went much further, claiming that there were times that he and Democratic leaders thought McCain “might be our best opportunity.” Daschle stressed that McCain never considered becoming a Democrat, but was close to becoming an Independent.
Downey said, “I actually thought during the initial stages of this that [McCain leaving the Republican Party] was almost a certain deal.”
Weaver, who changed his party affiliation to “Democrat” several years ago, said he respects Daschle and Downey, but added, “They’re partisan Democrats and we’re in the political season.”
Daschle first made some of these assertions in little-noticed parts of his book, titled Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever.
The book states that in 2001, Daschle and other Democrats were attempting to persuade three Republicans to leave their party: Jeffords, Chafee, and McCain.
On page 62, Daschle wrote that McCain and Chafee “seemed like real possibilities” to bolt their party. He pointed out that few, if any, of McCain’s people were hired by the Bush administration.
Chafee confirmed to The Hill this week that he had meetings with Democrats about changing parties in 2001 because he was “alarmed” at the differences between President Bush’s campaign promises and the policies coming out of his administration.
Soon after Bush was inaugurated as the nation’s 43rd president, McCain was working with Democrats on many issues, ranging from gun control to healthcare to campaign-finance reform.
McCain’s links to Democrats were so clear that Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) — now a close ally of McCain — publicly criticized him in the early part of 2001 for keeping “unusual company.”
Jeffords pulled the trigger on May 24, 2001, throwing control of the Senate to Democrats. Chafee and McCain then broke off their discussions with Democratic leaders, according to Democrats.
Asked why this news hasn’t come out before, Downey said, “It’s a mystery to me. And in fact, the last time Weaver and I had dinner together [on April 26, 2006], we laughed about this … It’s never been written about, never got in the paper.”
Downey added, “It’s my hope that John McCain is the Republican nominee because from my perspective, although I think Democrats are going to win, if they don’t, McCain is the sort of man I would feel comfortable [with] as the president of the United States. I’m not trying to hurt him.”
Daschle said he doesn’t believe the new revelations will hurt McCain. “Everyone has known John McCain to be independent, to take his own course. That was a time in his life when he at least weighed the possibility of becoming an independent, but he rejected it, so I can’t imagine that can ever be used as a political liability.”
On June 2, 2001, The Washington Post ran a front-page story with the headline “McCain is Considering Leaving GOP; Arizona Senator Might Launch a Third-Party Challenge to Bush in 2004.”
The article, written in the wake of the Jeffords’s announcement, noted that Daschle and his wife were visiting the McCains at the senator’s home in Arizona for what was billed by McCain’s office as a social event. But by that time, McCain had decided to stay a Republican, according to Daschle.
In his book, Daschle wrote that plans for the June weekend getaway were made months earlier when McCain was mulling changing his party affiliation.
As the media camped outside the senator’s vacation house in Sedona, Ariz., Daschle and McCain discussed “what an incredible piece of history Jim Jeffords had just written,” Daschle wrote. “Nothing was said about John doing the same thing. I think we both knew that wasn’t going to happen, not now.”
Oh, and for those with the url fetish:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-say-mccain-nearly-abandoned-gop-2007-03-28.html
