Politics & Power Quote by John McCain

McCain is praising the Tea Party the way a seasoned manager praises a disruptive new hire: enough to keep them on the team, not enough to hand them the keys. Calling them a "great addition" and saying they have "invigorated a base" frames the movement as an energy source, not a governing philosophy. That word choice is surgical. It flatters activists by validating their role while quietly reducing them to fuel for an engine McCain still imagines himself helping to steer.

The real tell is "dormant". It casts the pre-Tea Party Republican base as asleep, implying a need for awakening, but it also suggests volatility: dormant things can flare up, not just stand up. McCain is signaling to donors and institutional Republicans that this insurgency can be harnessed. To the insurgents, he's offering recognition without surrendering ideological control.

"Broad array of different views" is classic conference-management language, the kind used when unity is no longer a given. He avoids naming the fractures - primaries, purity tests, the party's drift away from his brand of national-security-focused conservatism - by rebranding conflict as "interesting". It's a subtle act of political jiu-jitsu: turn the threat of internal civil war into the promise of a lively caucus.

Context matters: McCain, fresh off a 2008 campaign that pulled him rightward, is trying to stay relevant in a party rapidly rewarding absolutism. The line is diplomacy as survival tactic: welcome the revolution, but describe it in terms that keep the establishment's vocabulary - and legitimacy - intact.