Brand loyalty
It was a TV show in the fifties and sixties, it was a Ford car in the seventies, it was Tom “Top Gun” Cruise in the eighties, and for months now, John McCain has made it his presidential nickname: maverick.
We all know the word’s meaning as an independent person who does not follow the pack, but upon learning the history of the word, the McCain camp may want to reconsider their usage.
The word maverick traces to the Maverick family of Texas, who are something of a Texas Democrat’s version of the Kennedys. Yeas & Nays spoke with Julia Maverick, widow to Maury Maverick, Jr., and found the family is not happy with the campaign’s “incorrect” usage of the name. “I don’t think he’s a maverick,” Mrs. Maverick said. “I don’t think he deserves the title because he’s conformed to Bush’s ideals. A maverick is a nonconformist.” And she should know — it was her husband’s great-grandfather for whom the word was coined.
In the 1860s, Samuel Maverick was an indifferent herder who refused to brand his cattle. When cowboys would see his unmarked cows wondering the countryside, they’d say, “Oh that’s a Maverick.” For generations following, the men of the Maverick family became the most well-known liberal activists in Texas politics. What would McCain say if he knew fellow “Maverick” Maury Sr. allowed the Communist Party to hold a speech at the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium that started a riot, or that “Maverick” Maury Jr., worked for the ACLU and as a lawyer represented conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War? According to Mrs. Maverick, these are the kinds of actions that “define a maverick.”
It seems the family’s biggest confusion is not that McCain links himself to a liberal family (“We have some Republicans in the family now” admits Mrs. Maverick) but that he hasn’t done anything very “mavericky.”
“What has McCain done to call himself maverick? I want to know why he calls himself a maverick,” Mrs. Maverick asked. “Because he talks to Democrats? In that case, everyone’s a maverick.”
And it doesn’t stop at McCain. His partner on the “Maverick Squared” ticket gets the same treatment from the family. In fact, Mrs. Maverick was ready with a knock-knock joke:
Knock, knock?
Who’s there?
Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin who?
Exactly.
