Since finishing in second place for president in 2008, John McCain has gone to great lengths to distance himself from, well, himself. He’s ditched his past compassion for immigration reform, and even gone so far as to disavow the nickname “maverick”—his epithet of choice for much of his political career. So it’s only fitting, I guess, that McCain’s fabled Straight Talk Express campaign bus (shown here, getting the full Cribs treatment) has gone through something of a makeover as well. As Lloyd Grove at the Daily Beast reports, McCain’s 2008 wheels are experiencing a second life in an environmental advocacy campaign spearheaded by Alexandra Cousteau, the granddaughter of underwater explorer Jacques:
With the defunct McCain logo now painted over in drab purple, the 45-foot biodiesel tour bus is outfitted with Internet access, state-of-the-art editing suites and other multimedia equipment that will accommodate Cousteau’s international production crew of 15… Cousteau’s journey, starting from the nation’s capital, will take in water spots in the United States and Canada, including the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, the headwaters of the Colorado River, the Florida Keys, and the Kingston, Tennessee, coal ash sludge spill that, when a dam broke on a containment pool at a coal-fired electricity plant, dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic waste into the surrounding area.
I’ve always wondered (probably too much) what happens to campaign buses after their candidates crash and burn. I guess now we have our answer. Now if only someone can figure out what happened to the Ron Paul blimp.
