Against the wind

The stars of my childhood, aside from Robert Conrad in Wild Wild West, don't come any more handsome than James Garner. He was Maverick.

And, they don't come much more liberal than him.

I have to admit, this whole "Mavericky" course that the McCain-Palin ticket is pushing makes me nervous. McCain was never my first choice for the Republican nomination. Although his record on abortion seems to be consistent, which you can't say was the case with Romney, I would prefer my candidate to be a true conservative instead of a RINO.

Being a maverick is kind of a two-edged sword. Surgeons have to be mavericks to do their job, so do military pilots. It's a god-complex that provides them the confidence to perform at the level necessary to save lives or fight a battle. Mavericks in business are willing to take on a good deal of risk in order to reap the rewards. Entrepreneurs are mavericks, possessing the belief that they can do it, their ideas are better than the rest and will succeed, and they have what it takes.

At the college I worked at in Seattle, the president was hailed as a maverick, the pride of staff, students and faculty. He opened a branch campus in Japan and numerous international programs thrived under his tenure...until he was arrested for bribery and extortion. A similar thing is currently happening with home-town maverick, Tom Petters, who is chilling in jail while federal investigators gather what they can about how Petters managed to bilk investors and non-profits out of hundreds of millions.

It does take a healthy dose of confidence to be a maverick, probably even a good dab of arrogance. I don't know where McCain or Palin fall on that scale. Maybe I'd be more comfortable if they called themselves contrarians, "against the grainers", or "out-of-the-box-thinkers" (I won't mention what we wanted to do the "teachers" at Boeing who were brought in to show us all how to think outside the box.) I just hope they keep their noses clean and remember the Hebrew proverb, "Pride goeth before the fall."