“He may not be a maverick any more but John McCain is a political survivor, winning the Republican Senate primary in Arizona,” Politics Daily reports today. Quite a few news outlets have stressed the maverick-no-more theme in reporting on McCain’s primary campaign to retain his senate seat.  


This raises an interesting question: How do you get to be a maverick?


If you are a Republican, ironically, you get to be a maverick by agreeing with somebody-namely the liberal establishment, the legacy media. You cannot win the coveted M title by disagreeing with mainstream opinion-makers.  


It’s true that McCain, who in flush seasons, when he is not fighting a tough battle for re-election, puckishly enjoys sticking it to his own party. But then he got all those maverick accolades for that, didn’t he?