PHOENIX - “He’s a maverick.” “He’s the consummate maverick.” “We’re a team of mavericks.” - You’ve all heard it time and again in recent weeks as Republican John McCain and fresh-faced running mate Gov. Sarah Palin slap on the maverick label to differentiate themselves from the GOP herd corralled inside the beltway in Washington.
But the New York Times reported on Sunday that the real Mavericks - a storied south Texas family with a long tradition in progressive politics - are not too happy about what they say is the misappropriation of their family name.
“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” the Times reported Terrellita Maverick, 82, saying. The San Antonio resident is the scion of a family which has been outspoken about liberal causes for generations, and has otherwise bucked conventions.
The family’s name crept into the language for Samuel Augustus Maverick, a rancher who became known for not branding his cattle in the 1800s. Any unbranded cows found out on the range were simply known as “Maverick’s.”
Ranching aside, the Times reported that members of the Maverick family also have a long history championing often unpopular civil libertarian causes — from the rights of indentured servants in long ago New England to defending the cause of “draft resisters, atheists and others scorned by society” more recently in Texas.
Aside from an unbranded calf, the word maverick has come to mean a lone dissenter who takes an independent stand from his or her associates - a label handy for McCain, who has tried to distance his campaign from eight years of rule by the increasingly unpopular President George W. Bush. Nevertheless, the veteran Republican Arizona senator’s appropriation of the word still grates on the original Mavericks.
He “is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase,” the Times reported Terrellitta, 82, as saying.
“It’s just incredible - the nerve! - to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’ ”
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage
Photo credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder (McCain greets people in Sedona, Arizona)
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Terrellitta is old money Texas Yellow Dog Democrat liberal elite. Never worked a day in her life and has never been face to face with her principles to see if they can really walk on their hind legs. They just “know” better than the rest of us, like the Kennedy Family.
- Posted by JohnAccording to the washington post, McCain has voted along party lines 88% of the time. He was also accused of corruption in the keating five scandal in 1989. He then claimed that he would not align himself with “agents of intolerance” who were “pandering to the outer reaches of American politics.” That didn’t stop him from giving the commencement speech at Jerry Fallwell’s Liberty University six years later. He is against gay rights. He is against abortion. He is for expanded government wiretapping. He believes the 10 commandments “would bring virtue to our schools”. That sounds like GOP politics to me.
Besides, it’s the Mavericks name. If they say he doesn’t represent the values they hold dear, then he doesn’t.
- Posted by HelfrickIn today’s loose usages of words, McCain qualifies as a maverick because of his many divisions with the Republican Party. Most notably, his refusal to use the earmark system that is popular with both parties (It’s how they buy support back home). Then there is campaign finance reform, that Republicans did not support it. He voted to give President Clinton the authority to veto by line item. On the Iraq War, he voted along with Harry Reid, H. Clinton, Joe Bidden, and 27 other Senate Democrats. He went against President Bush on “the Surge” in Iraq. He went against the Republicans to form the “Gang of 14″ to prevent the Senate from losing the filibuster when considering nominated judges.
BTW, he’s been referred to, in admiring terms, as maverick by both Democrats and the legacy media since at least 1993. That is 15 years now.
Why is it all of a sudden not a true characterization?
Election year politics, eh?
- Posted by MoverI know the Mavericks. One of them is a neighbor here in San Antonio. She lives in a streetcar on the remains of the Sunshine Ranch.
John McCain and Sarah Palin are NO Mavericks.
- Posted by Jim NewmanEven the KSAT news in San Antonio said at the end of their piece (where they interview my grandmother) they say” Now the Maverick family is NOT non partisan. They have a long history of voting Democratic.”. Maudie and Houston… stop acting like you represent anywhere near the majority in this family. You know very well that we ARE the MAJORITY and liberal ideas have all ways been at the cornerstone of our tradition.
- Posted by Maury Maverick HarmsSo amusing to see conservatives bring up Clinton here for the umpteenth time. Let us remember that under Clinton, World Trade Center terrorists of 1993 were arrested, tried and convicted. Bin Laden, whom the Bush administration ignored when a report on him was shown to them, is still at large seven years after 9/11/01, still releasing tapes taunting the US and reminding all of GOP incompetence. As for the Maverick family name, I appreciate knowing that it has a PROGRESSIVE history in Texas and admire the family for standing up for their family ideals. McCain-Palin regularly steal from progressives, even trying to appropriate the “change” label from Obama. Now that their ideas are shown to be empty and the deregulated economy McCain advocated is tanking, they are reduced to attacking Obama personally. I don’t think mudslinging is working well, though.
- Posted by Anaishmmmm, hasn’t anyone noticed that Mcain acts like he is out of his friken mind? Come-on, is this the both the parties have to offer? i voted for bush in 2000… that was a big mistake..
- Posted by steveAll of the vilification, personal attacks, outright lies, and character asasisanation (rats! forgot how to spell that word)from both the candidates for our nation’s highest office leave me a little disturbed. Neither candidate can guarantee that his legislative proposals will be enacted, it takes a congress to do that! Whatever your beliefs,in the goodness of either of them, or their qualifications, exercise your right to vote. I spent over twenty years of my life trying to protect that right for you. Use it wisely, please.
- Posted by kyleMcCain got the moniker “Maverick” because he voted with the Democrats against his own party. However he hasn’t done that in a while because he votes 90%+ of the time with Bush. McCain - A failure at the Naval Academy, a “crash” pilot, a cheater on his first wife, and the gigolo to his second wife…a man who spent most of his life living off someone…either the goverment or a woman…boy that’s some “maverick”
- Posted by nanabelleThis family needs to get off it, I’m sorry their family name has become a generic term but is nobody allowed to use this word if they do not follow the moral path of this family? It is ridiculous that subjects like this even come up in an election. “Oh my goodness he says Maverick, oh and Obama smokes, and McCain has foreign cars, and Obama’s pastor said….” Let’s focus on the real issues, we don’t want an election decided on a catch phrase, smoking preferences, or brand choices.
- Posted by MarkJames Garner = Maverick
Tom Cruise = Maverick
The Maverick Family = A whole herd of Mavericks
John McCain = George W.
Sarah Palin = Mini Me
- Posted by ShelleyWay to go Maudie! I’m right there with ya!
- Posted by Maverick N. HoustonWell…dont’ mean any disrespect to cousin Terrellita Maverick, but there are a lot of Maverick family members and she doesn’t speak for ALL of the “family”…some of us have had the good sense to become Republicans…so sorry…but not ALL Mavericks are upset that McCain calls himself a Maverick…VOTE MCCAIN/PALAN…but thanks for the publicity for the family…even though it was negative!
McCain is a Maverick in that sense of that piece of junk car of the 70’s, the Maverick.
- Posted by Joe Momma