Maverick outsider

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

    John McCain is the "maverick outsider."  George W. Bush is the one from Texas.  Go figure.
    "Maverick outsider" sounds to me a little like other  labels such as "lunatic fringe."  Is there ever a "maverick insider" or a "lunatic center"?

Autumn 1962, PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY (JSTOR), pg. 400--Banfield presents himself as a maverick, an outsider...

16 April 1980, TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL (Dow Jones), pg. P3--His (Jean-Paul Sartre's--ed.) points of view were heeded less in the 1970s as he became a maverick outsider on the extreme left.

9 June 1984, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE (Dow Jones), pg. A1--Mondale, the establishment pro, and Hart, the maverick outsider...

25 February 1988, BATON ROUGE STATE TIMES, pg. 11A--...the image of maverick, outsider, loner, and underdog.  (Gary Hart--ed.)

18 November 1991, ASSOCIATED PRESS--"Maverick outsider" Metcalf leaps into race for governor.  (Headline--ed.)  State Sen. Jack Metcalf kicked off his campaign for governor yesterday, calling himself "a maverick and an outsider" who will fight taxes and be an advocate for the middle class.  (...) "I'm a maverick and an outsider...I'm a country boy."

4 February 2000, ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, "Maverick tradition," pg. A18--A utility executive, Willkie ran for the 1940 Republican presidential nomination as a maverick outsider, a swashbuckling candidate who dared to tell people the truth.  And people adored him for it.

     The Dow Jones database shows 169 hits for "maverick outsider."  The phrase has been used all over the place--politics, art, and business.
     I suppose that you'll want a "Maverick" etymology right about now.