Maverick - Noun

The word maverick is being thrown around quite a bit, and I feel that it is important to look at the origination and evolution of the word.  

Dictionary.com defines a maverick as 1) an unbranded calf, cow, or steer, especially an unbranded calf that is separated from its owner. 2) a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates.

A maverick is someone or something that runs away and is difficult to reign in.  Now being a political blog we all know who I am talking about when I bring this topic up.

John McCain has done a fantastic job of (excuse the pun) branding himself as a maverick. Now I am not going to spend my time talking about how McCain has voted for Bush and the Republican party nine times out of ten, nor am I going to discuss that he has been an outsider for over 25 years, nor am I going to discuss the fact that McCain has become more of the same.  No I simply want to discuss the idea of a maverick and if this is truly a good thing.

Why would someone want to run away from something and be difficult to reign in? Well I would argue that it is due to the fact that they fundamentally do not like the situation they are in.  Rather than dealing with issues within a particular system or group, they simply choose to run away and make their own path.  In the arts and sciences this can be a good thing.  Numerous new lines of thought and culture have been created because someone said no to the system they were working in.  These innovations move a society forward and make us all think differently about the world around us and reject the old way of thinking.

Now what is a maverick in the political world?  Again this is someone who does not like the situation they are in and attempt to change it from the outside.  

What makes politics so fundamentally different to the arts and sciences is that the effects of good or bad government are immediate and intense. If a government becomes less corrupt, the system improves almost immediately and the citizens benefit.  Likewise if a government becomes more bloated and inefficient the effects become dramatic to the people living under that system.  A maverick, in a position of power, would have a massive destabilizing effect on the government they are running (either good or bad).  

Think about this, however.  If you have ever worked in any sort of organization, I would be willing to bet that there were people within the group who always agreed with whomever was in charge, people who almost always disagreed with whomever was in charge, and those who worked almost entirely outside of the system and left you wondering why they were there in the first place.   I would argue that this third type of person, this maverick, if you will, is the most problematic to the group.  Dissenters force supporters to justify, strengthen, and compromise on their issues, all in an attempt to make the group stronger; mavericks have no particular regard for the system and would not care if it went away.  This rejection can cause anarchy within the system and will fundamentally change the group if it survives.

Do we want a president who views our current government and the way it is run as something we should just crumple up and throw away? 

Don’t get me wrong – reform needs to happen, but it needs to come from within the system.  The foundation of our government, the people, must rise up and elect their representatives and push for the system to be changed.  One person, no matter how good their intentions may be, should not have the power to change or government simply because they feel like they don’t want to be part of the group.  

Remember, this is a democracy and it is our job to mould it in a way we see fit.