Stop John McCain

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The McCain Mutiny

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My Friends, I Believe Climate Change Is Real.

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I'm OK ... I'm Softening Him Up For November..

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McCain

McCain: Why don't you like me?

Ann Coulter: I'm a Hillary Girl

By: Philip V. Brennan

Because Republicans are nominating what she calls an "open-borders, anti-tax cut, anti-free speech, global-warming hysteric, pro-human experimentation 'Republican' — which is to say a Democrat," Ann Coulter's alternative to John McCain is either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

While the onetime "Goldwater girl" says she's deserting the GOP this time around, she doesn't exactly swoon over Hillary, warning that "If Hillary is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster," which is what Coulter wants because it would revive the GOP and win back the White House four years later.

"With Republicans ferociously opposing her," Ann says, it would bring "Republicans zooming back into power, as we did in 1980 and 1994, and 2000. I also predict more Oval Office incidents with female interns."

Hillary, however, is not the target of her newest column — It is John McCain she's after:

"As the expression goes, given a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat, voters will always choose the Democrat. The only question remaining is: Hillary or Obama?"

"On the litmus test issues of our time, only partially excluding Iraq, McCain is a liberal."

"He excoriated Samuel Alito as too 'conservative.'"

"He promoted amnesty for 20 million illegal immigrants."

"He abridged citizens' free speech (in favor of the media) with McCain-Feingold."

"He hysterically opposes waterboarding terrorists and wants to shut down Guantanamo."

"He denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."

"He opposes ANWR and supports the global warming cult, even posturing with fellow mountebank Arnold Schwarzenegger in front of solar panels."

"The only site that would have been more appropriate for Schwarzenegger in endorsing McCain would have been in front of an abortion clinic," she added.

There was lots more but the above suffices to suggest that Ann doesn't think all that highly of John McCain.

Electing Hillary she suggests would result in the GOP coming back in 2012. Electing McCain on the other hand would ruin the Republican Party.

"If McCain is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with the Republicans in Congress co-opted by 'our' president, followed by 30 years of Democratic rule," Ann concludes.

"There's your choice, America, " she wrote.

McCain Sends Chill Down Spine

By: Josiah Ryan

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the possibility of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., becoming president "sends a cold chill down my spine."

Reid made his remarks Tuesday outside the Senate chambers when a reporter asked him about McCain, who is running for the Republican Party nomination for president.

Pulling out his wallet and removing a white piece of paper, Reid told the reporter: "All I have to say about that is this. I have it right here, and you can put it in your little recording devices."

Then, reading aloud, and quoting Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) from an interview last Friday, Reid said: "The thought of him [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me." Listen to Audio

Reid then placed the piece of paper back in his wallet and continued taking reporter's questions.

Late Nite Jokes

Late Show Top Ten

Top Ten Signs John McCain Is Getting Too Cocky

10. Canceled tomorrow's campaign appearances so he doesn't miss "Lost"

9. Spent the afternoon roughing up Romney supporters

8. Last night, he blew half campaign war chest playing Internet poker

7. Already working on his 2012 re-election strategy

6. Plans to campaign for the next three days in "Vodkachusetts"

5. Recently told voter "Keep that ugly ass baby away from me"

4. Now refers to Mike Huckabee as "Mike Suckabee"

3. Has started yelling, "Bingo!" when he doesn't even have bingo (come on, folks, he's old!)

3. Has started yelling

2. Renamed his campaign bus the "Bite Me Express"

1. Went to Mexico with Jessica Simpson

Jay Leno

John McCain was the big Republican winner. One pundit said McCain’s lucky nickel was working. He carries a lucky nickel. It must be lucky — six months ago, that was his campaing war chest.

Hillary Clinton also carries around a lucky nickel. Not for superstitious reasons — she just flips it when she needs a position on Iraq.

Why They Hate McCain

John Podhoretz

The snowballing anger among conservative opinion leaders toward John McCain — an anger that is not mirrored among Republican rank-and-file, whose approval-disapproval rating for McCain is 72-19, according to the Pew Poll, fifteen points higher than Mitt Romney’s in both categories — suggests they are confusing ideological convictions with political tactics, and infusing a disagreement on how to approach problems with a moral edge it does not deserve.

Whatever John McCain is, he is not a liberal. But he disappoints conservatives because, astonishingly enough, he lacks the Right’s partisan combativeness — which seems surprising, given his background as a warrior and his stiff-necked heroism in staring down his North Vietnamese torturer-jailers. He may be a military man through and through, but he is not a team player, to put it mildly. In partisan terms, he often seems determined not to march in lockstep simply because others expect it of him. That’s why, among other things, he has been so wildly incompetent at using his own perfect pro-life record iin the House and Senate to his own benefit in seeking support from Republicans who share his anti-abortion views. Such a thing would require him to fall in line, and McCain does not fall in line.

These are not words of praise, merely of description. The truth is that this flinty individualism has a profoundly self-destructive aspect to it. He has made his own pathway to the top of his party extremely difficult because he does not wish to play the game the way it needs to be played. He offends people he need not offend, and acts in ways that are considered disrespectful by people who only need him to show them a little kavod. If he becomes the nominee of the GOP, he will be required to mend fences he need not have broken down in the first place.

But his opponents are engaging in a terrible mistake as well. McCain likes to make common cause with politicians across the aisle from him. They can’t stand this. They prefer someone who fights Democrats to someone who makes deals with Democrats. Fair enough. But this is a difference of degree, not of essence. McCain is a deal-maker. Perhaps, having engaged with a real enemy who broke his arms and tortured him and sought to destroy him body and mind and soul, he doesn’t see an enemy when he sees a Democrat but rather just another American whose ideas on many things differ from his but with whom he might share some common ground.

McCain would, there is no question, be a lousy leader of an ideological movement. But the Republican party is not an ideological movement. It is a political vehicle for the American right-of-center. Those who confuse the Republican party with the conservative movement are indulging in a fantasy — that there is purity in politics and that there is something immoral about ideological impurity.

Don't Like McCain? Vote Hillary

By:Philip V. Brennan

John McCain is running on a platform that says your jobs are not coming back, the illegals are not going home, and we are going to have more wars, writes Pat Buchanan.

Buchanan advises, "If you don’t like it, vote for Hillary."

In an American Conservative column entitled "The Great Betrayal," Buchanan examines McCain's record on a host of issues, and to most conservatives, it's not a pretty sight.

He finds McCain's "arresting prediction" that we will face more wars scary, quoting the Arizona senator as saying “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars. I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender, but there will be other wars.”

He compares Eisenhower's and Nixon's successful efforts to end the wars in Korea and Vietnam with honor to McCain's warning that we may be in Iraq a hundred years and that, “there’s going to be other wars.”

Says Buchanan, "Take the man at his word."

McCain, he writes, "has joked about 'bomb, bomb, bomb — bomb, bomb Iran' and urged the expulsion of Russia from the G8 . . . wants to expand NATO to bring in Georgia and the Ukraine" creating "confrontation between Russia and the United States over whether South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be free of Georgia or ruled by Tbilisi, a matter of zero vital interest to this country."

All this, Buchanan says, is a forewarning that John McCain intends to be a war president, and forecasts that "if Bibi Netanyahu again becomes prime minister of Israel, he and a President McCain will find a pretext for war on Iran."

On many of the great issues, he adds, "McCain has sided as often with the Left and the Big Media as he has with the Right."

His indictment of McCain outlines his offenses:

he voted twice against the Bush tax cuts.

He "colluded to sell out the most conservative of Bush’s judges, and in 1993, voted to confirm the pro-abortion liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

He formed the "gang of 14," seven senators from each party, when Bush set out to restore constitutionalism. All agreed to vote to block the GOP Senate from invoking the “nuclear option”— i.e., empowering the GOP to break a filibuster of judicial nominees by majority vote — unless the seven Democrats agreed.

With that record of voting for Clinton justices and joining with Democrats anxious to kill the most conservative Bush’s nominees, Buchanan asks "what guarantee is there a President McCain would nominate and fight for the fifth jurist who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?"

He colluded with liberals to pass McCain-Feingold, "a law that denies to Second Amendment folks and right-to-lifers their First Amendment right to identify friends and foes in TV ads before national elections."

On condemning drilling for oil in Alaska's ANWAR he sides with the liberals, and has moved toward Gore on global warming.

He collaborated with Senate liberals in the McCain-Kennedy amnesty, which was rejected only after a national uprising, failing to do what is needed to control America’s borders and halt the invasion through Mexico.

Buchanan concluded that "on the two issues where Bush has been at his best, taxes and judges, McCain has sided against him. On the three issues that have ravaged the Bush presidency — the misbegotten war in Iraq, the failure to secure America’s borders, and the trade policy that has destroyed the dollar, de-industrialized the country, and left foreigners with $5 trillion to buy up America — McCain has sided with Bush."

McCain Always a Democratic Ally

By: Phil Brennan

Sen. John McCain has made a career of siding with Democrats, says former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. And he blames McCain's frequent forays across the aisle for the Arizona senator's involvement in a notorious scandal.

McCain was always known among Republicans as “the undependable vote” in the Senate and always “allied with Democrats,” Hastert told the Chicago Tribune.

In a conference call with reporters, Haster said McCain had changed “after the Keating Five scandal.”

The Tribune recalled that McCain was one of five U.S. senators implicated in the 1989 Keating Five scandal, when the lawmakers allegedly pressured federal regulators against pursuing an investigation of Charles Keating, the former chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and a McCain close friend and contributor.

McCain and Democratic Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, and John Glenn of Ohio met with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) in April 1989. They met a second time, along with a fifth senator, Don Riegle.

The FHLBB then waited a full two years to seize Lincoln Savings, and the subsequent bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the biggest of the era's savings and loan scandals. Lincoln investors lost almost $200 million in the debacle.

In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the meetings between the regulators and senators, who became known as the Keating Five.

McCain was cited by the Senate Ethics Committee for showing “poor judgment” in the matter. B the panel recommended no further action against him.

As a result of McCain’s involvement in the scandal, said Hastert, McCain changed and became “more of a populist.”

“He was gearing up for a run for the presidency in 2000, so he had to change track and clean up his image, from my point of view,” explained Hastert, a Mitt Romney supporter.

According to the Tribune, Hastert has not had a lot of good to say about McCain in recent years. Hastert also insisted that on agenda items under the Republican-controlled Congress, “it just seems like everything we did, John was someplace else.”

“It was McCain-Kennedy, it was McCain-Lieberman, it was McCain-Feingold on campaign finance reform,” Hastert told the Tribune, noting McCain's Democratic co-sponsors on legislation. “He was against us on tax cuts, and his form of immigration reform was to open the gates and let everybody in.”

Asked if he considered McCain a conservative, Hastert said, “In my opinion, he is not. He is a moderate. In almost everything he’s done, he’s done [things] against what mainstream Republicans thought and he’s allied with Democrats. He was always the undependable vote in the Senate.”

Why McCain Needs to Be Stopped

By Robert Tracinski

Will John McCain save Republicans?

McCain's South Carolina victory raises the possibility that he could save Republicans from a drawn-out primary battle by giving them a clear front-runner to rally behind, unifying the party well in advance of this summer's convention. And although it's still a bit early for these polls to mean very much, McCain does well in match-ups against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, so he offers Republicans the possibility that he could save them from defeat in November by attracting independents and winning against the Democratic nominee.

Many voters seem to be attracted to McCain because of his strong stance on the War on Terrorism, reinforced by his war-hero biography. This is part of the reason, for example, that Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers have declined precisely as McCain's have risen: both candidates are competing for the support of pro-war voters.

But that raises another, far more important question: if John McCain saves Republicans, who will save Republicans from John McCain?

The voters who support McCain over Giuliani are making a dangerously short-sighted trade. McCain is a suicidal choice for Republicans, because on every issue other than the war, he stands for capitulation to the left.

There are three big domestic issues that will be decided by the 2008 election: socialized medicine, higher taxes, and global warming regulations. The Democrats are in favor of all three--and John McCain won't stop them.

On health care, McCain has attacked pharmaceutical companies as "bad guys" who are using corrupt political influence to profit at the expense of the little guy--campaign rhetoric borrowed straight from one of John Edwards's "two Americas" tirades. McCain uses this rhetoric to support the re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada. The drugs are cheaper in Canada, but that's because Canada has a system of socialized medicine that imposes price controls. So importing drugs from Canada is just an indirect way of importing socialist price controls.

But every student of economics knows that price controls tend to choke off the supply of new drugs. Why should pharmaceutical companies invest billions of dollars in research and testing over a period of decades, if the government is going to steal their profits by dictating arbitrary prices?

Apparently, John McCain doesn't understand free-market economics and won't stand up for the principle of economic freedom. So how is he supposed to stand up to the Democrats on any part of their socialized medicine agenda?

In addition to fighting the Democrats on socialized medicine, a Republican president would also have to fight in Congress for the extension of President Bush's tax cuts, which are set to begin expiring in 2009 and 2010. A failure to extend these tax cuts (or to make them permanent) would mean a massive de facto tax increase. Yet McCain was opposed to the Bush tax cuts when they were first passed.

But the biggest problem for Republicans with McCain's candidacy is his stance on global warming. McCain has been an active promoter of the global warming hysteria--for which he has been lauded by radical environmentalists--and he is a co-sponsor of a leftist scheme for energy rationing. The McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act would impose an arbitrary cap on America's main sources of energy production, to be enforced by a huge network of federal taxes and regulations.

The irony is that McCain won in South Carolina among voters whose top concern is the economy. Don't these voters realize what a whole new regime of energy taxes and regulations would do to the economy?

No matter what happens, there is likely to be a huge debate in the coming years over global warming--whether it's really happening, whether it's actually caused by human beings, and what to do about it. But if the Republicans nominate McCain, that political debate will be over, and Al Gore and the left will have won it--thanks to John McCain.

And speaking of political debate, McCain is against it. The most notorious piece of legislation McCain has co-sponsored with the left is McCain-Feingold, which has the evil distinction of being the nation's first direct attack on the freedom of political speech during an election campaign, precisely when such speech is most important.

For Republicans, there is one form of suicide worse than losing the 2008 presidential election--and that is winning it with a candidate who will put the pro-welfare-state, pro-regulation left in the driver's seat of American politics. Yet that is precisely what Republican primary voters are unwittingly supporting when they vote for McCain.

So who will save Republicans from John McCain? In the early primaries, he has already shown he can beat Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, and--at least some of the time--Mitt Romney. And there's good reason why none of these candidates has been successful against McCain. None of them can match his appeal on foreign policy, and most of them offer their own major examples of capitulation to the left.

No, the best hope to save Republicans from McCain is the one candidate who hasn't yet fully entered the race--but who will finally have his chance against McCain in Florida: Rudy Giuliani.

As the one Republican running on both a strong foreign policy and a staunch pro-free-market platform, Giuliani may be the last hope to prevent a Republican suicide in 2008.

McCain Presidency Very Dangerous

Former Senator and leading conservative Rick Santorum says a John McCain presidency would be “very, very dangerous for Republicans.”

Santorum — who was defeated in 2006 after two terms as a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania — was sharply critical of fellow Republican McCain in an interview that aired last week on syndicated talk radio host Mark Levin’s show.

Responding to Levin’s observation that McCain is trying to recast himself as more conservative now that he is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, Santorum said:

“It’s amazing to hear what John McCain is trying to convince the voters he is all about. The bottom line is, I served 12 years with him, six years in the Senate as one of the leaders of the Senate, trying to put together the conservative agenda, and almost at every turn, on domestic policy, John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side.”

Santorum cited the campaign finance reform bill sponsored by McCain, the McCain-Feingold Act, which limits campaign contributions and has been called by some an “incumbent protection act.”

Santorum called the act “an affront to personal freedom and liberty in this country, and what we’ve seen as a result of this misguided attempt to placate the New York Times and to help his stature within that community … is that special interests have absolutely taken over the political process, and individual candidates, unless you’re a billionaire, and parties have very little voice in the process.

“It’s a shame, but he was obviously out front on that.”

The former Senator also criticized McCain for voting against the Bush Tax cuts — he was one of only two Republicans to do so.

“The reduction in [tax] rates and lowering the rates on capital gains and dividends … did so much to get this economy up and going. [But] we would have had a much bigger tax cut if it were not for John McCain.”

Santorum pointed to McCain’s opposition to conservative positions on drug re-importation, federally funded embryonic stem cell research, immigration, the questioning of terror detainees and other issues, and said he has a “big fear” of a McCain presidency.

He asserted it would create a “huge rift” in the Republican Party, and told Levin’s listeners:

“I think he’s been solid in the war on terror … but on domestic policy, he’s very, very dangerous for Republicans.

“There’s nothing worse than having a Democratic Congress and a Republican president who would act like a Democrat in matters that are important to conservatives.”

Santorum also claimed that McCain was a leader of Senate moderates that often stopped Republicans from pushing strong pro-life legislation.

Santorum said he had not decided which candidate he will vote for in the upcoming GOP primary, but ruled out voting for McCain.

Santorum expressed the same sentiment back in March, saying he would support whoever wins the Republican nomination for president in 2008, with the exception of John McCain.

As Newsmax reported at the time, Santorum said in an interview: "I don’t agree with him on hardly any issues. I don’t think he has the temperament and leadership ability to move the country in the right direction.”

The Real McCain Record

Obstacles in the way of conservative support.

By Mark R. Levin

There’s a reason some of John McCain's conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks.

The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider:

McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

McCain-Reimportantion of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).

And McCain’s stated opposition to the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was largely based on socialist, class-warfare rhetoric — tax cuts for the rich, not for the middle class. The public record is full of these statements. Today, he recalls only his insistence on accompanying spending cuts.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.

McCain also led the Gang of 14, which prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.

And then there’s the McCain defense record.

His supporters point to essentially one policy strength, McCain’s early support for a surge and counterinsurgency. It has now evolved into McCain taking credit for forcing the president to adopt General David Petreaus’s strategy. Where’s the evidence to support such a claim?

Moreover, Iraq is an important battle in our war against the Islamo-fascist threat. But the war is a global war, and it most certainly includes the continental United States, which, after all, was struck on 9/11. How does McCain fare in that regard?

McCain-ACLU — the unprecedented granting of due-process rights to unlawful enemy combatants (terrorists).

McCain has repeatedly called for the immediate closing of Guantanamo Bay and the introduction of al-Qaeda terrorists into our own prisons — despite the legal rights they would immediately gain and the burdens of managing such a dangerous population.

While McCain proudly and repeatedly points to his battles with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had to rebuild the U.S. military and fight a complex war, where was McCain in the lead-up to the war — when the military was being dangerously downsized by the Clinton administration and McCain’s friend, former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen? Where was McCain when the CIA was in desperate need of attention? Also, McCain was apparently in the dark about al-Qaeda like most of Washington, despite a decade of warnings.

My fingers are crossed that at the next debate, either Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney will find a way to address McCain’s record. (Mike Huckabee won’t, as he is apparently in the tank for him.)

Your Speech or Your Life!

Why does McCain get a pass on stifling the pro-life message in the service of suppressing free speech … for the benefit of pro-abortion Democrats?

By Andrew C. McCarthy

As a Giuliani supporter, it hasn’t been much fun to watch my fellow conservatives tear into my guy over abortion. Such was the ardor that the 30-year-old Hyde amendment was invoked to stoke fears that the mayor would reverse its long-standing ban on federal-funding for abortion — notwithstanding that he is the GOP candidate most credible on what used to be the plinth of conservative theology: shrinking government and its role in our lives.

Giuliani is committed to leaving the Hyde amendment intact. More significantly, he has pledged to appoint judges in the mold of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and John Roberts. As a practical matter, a president cannot do more than that to support life — or, for that matter, to affect many issues conservatives care about.

Still, the scrutiny of the pro-life movement has been understandably intense, and the mayor has not been the only candidate under the microscope. Fred Thompson, who had a relatively strong record on life while serving as a senator, was lashed over consulting work his law firm did on behalf of a pro-choice group nearly 20 years ago. It doesn’t appear that Thompson did much, if anything, to lobby the Bush-41 administration to ease the “gag rule” against abortion-counseling at federally-funded clinics. Still, that didn’t prevent a spike of pro-life angst that knocked the candidate off his stride just as he was moving off the starting block.

This is as it should be. In the conservative firmament, the centrality of life’s sanctity endures. But it’s got me wondering: There is only one candidate on the GOP side who has, in just the last few months and years, vigorously worked to defeat pro-life forces and frustrate the only policies that have a chance to reduce abortions; yet, conservatives have given him a total pass.

His name is John McCain.

Senator McCain has engaged in a years-long campaign against Wisconsin Right to Life, an organization dedicated to advancing the pro-life agenda. Conservatives, one might have thought, would be stunned by a grand-slam only the modern Left could love: McCain has (a) urged the courts to judicially legislate a (b) suppression of free-speech rights (c) against an anti-abortion group which was (d) trying to urge the confirmation of conservative Bush judicial nominees.

And the cherry on top? McCain’s exertions were singularly designed to protect one of the Senate’s most liberal incumbents: Russ Feingold (D., Wis.), McCain’s soul-mate in the evisceration of First Amendment rights (also known as the McCain/Feingold “campaign finance reform” law). A pro-abortion stalwart who scores a whopping 93 percent on NARAL’s pro-choice report card, Feingold has also opposed the Patriot Act and every sensible national security measure taken after 9/11 … in addition to seeking President Bush’s censure over the effort to penetrate al-Qaeda communications during wartime.

McCain believes political speech is bad for democracy — as long, of course, as there is an exemption for mainstream media speech that swoons over “mavericks” who break with conservatives over immigration, global warming, the Bush tax cuts, etc. The Senator, however, is astute enough to know his assault on the First Amendment is wildly unpopular with the people whose nomination he seeks. So, to put their minds at ease, he told National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru last year that he was satisfied by President Bush’s 2002 decision to sign McCain/Feingold into law. He would, he assured, seek no further “legislation” to ban political speech.

Turns out the captain of the “Straight-Talk Express” left out one itsy-bitsy detail. Even as he spoke those words, he was — as an influential senator — exhorting the United States Supreme Court to tack a sweeping judicial ban onto the already extensive McCain/Feingold restrictions.

The target was Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL). This pro-life group well understood that when it comes to abortion, the action is in the federal courts. In 2004, the president was working to put his pro-life stamp on those courts by appointing conservative judges. He was being blocked by Democrats, who, though in the minority, were capitalizing on the chamber’s procedural rules to filibuster nominees for the all-important federal appellate courts. One of those Democrats was none other than Sen. Feingold. So WRTL decided to run issue ads, urging Feingold to do his constitutional duty and give the Bush nominees an up-or-down vote.

Feingold, however, was up for reelection. In the Alice in Wonderland world of McCain/Feingold, that meant it was ostensibly against the law for an interest group in our democracy to utter his name in “electioneering statements” on a matter of vital public policy 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election — that is, in the 90 days when public attention is at its height and political speech matters most. As the First Amendment ensures that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” WRTL had this crazy notion that McCain/Feingold violated its fundamental rights.

Obviously, McCain is all for “straight talk” as long as it is he — or the New York Times — doing the talking. The last thing we need, though, is straight-talk from a pro-life group exerting pressure on a pro-abortion incumbent. So the maverick swung into action, pursuing WRTL in the courts for three years. Just as he was preparing for his presidential run — and telling conservatives he certainly didn’t support any further campaign finance legislation — he was doing exactly what the Left always does when its unpopular positions hit the democratic wall of the ballot box: namely, asking the courts to do his bidding.

Indicative of the effort is the amicus brief McCain filed in the Supreme Court in 2007. Here is a representative sample of what the senator found so outrageous:

All of WRTL’s ads denounced a “group of Senators” for filibustering judicial nominees and “causing gridlock” …; two of the ads emphasized that the Senators were “backing up some of our courts to a state of emergency[.]” … The ads then urged the audience to contact Senator Feingold — then a candidate for federal office — and Senator [Herb] Kohl [another Wisconsin Democrat] to tell them to oppose the filibusters. … It was public knowledge that Feingold was one of the “group of Senators” to whom the ads referred. Indeed, WRTL itself had publicized Senator Feingold’s involvement in the filibusters (an important issue in the election) and called for his defeat on that ground. Although the ads asked the audience to contact Senators Feingold and Kohl, they provided no contact information for them, instead directing viewers to a website criticizing them for their role in the filibusters. WRTL sought to run its ads immediately before the 2004 election (while Congress was in recess and no vote on the filibuster was imminent) and did not run them after the election (when the filibuster controversy came to a head)….

Can you imagine? A group of Feingold’s pro-life constituents, opposed to his policies, had the temerity to urge other constituents to contact him, while he was very busy running for another six years as their representative. And they had the audacity to suggest that Feingold should stop filibustering eminently qualified judges — right before an election. I mean, what on earth is America coming too?

Fortunately, McCain lost. Despite the best efforts of Feingold and many of his fellow Democrats, by 2007, President Bush had managed to get two of his appointees on the Supreme Court. The tribunal thus shifted, becoming less hospitable to McCain/Feingold than it had been in 2003 when, remarkably, the statute’s gutting of political speech was tenuously upheld. But even in ruling against McCain, the Court left open the door to reconsidering the issue — and that’s why a happy result is not a happy ending.

For in the interim, while Republicans still controlled the Senate in 2006, McCain led a bipartisan “Gang of 14” which, at the eleventh hour, prevented the Senate from repealing its filibuster rule in the confirmation context. As a result, many of the conservative Bush appointees never got confirmed.

Worse still, in the subsequent midterm election, control of the Senate shifted to the Democrats — with whom McCain constantly brags of his willingness to collaborate. With the Judiciary Committee now in Democrat hands, Bush judicial nominations have stalled. Vacancies on the top courts mount. Largely thanks to McCain, the Left now has its ideal scenario: the ability to drag its feet until after the 2008 election, after which a President Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can fill those openings and dramatically move the federal courts in the direction of abortion rights and sundry “progressive” pieties.

This is not something that happened 10, 20 or 30 years ago. It reflects who the Senator is today. For another Republican presidential candidate, such a performance would be disqualifying. Why has McCain gotten away with it?

John McCain’s Sweet Spot

Will it last?

By Rich Lowry

Ever since Huckabee won Iowa, everything has lined up perfectly in this process for John McCain. It must be the lucky nickel. There were only four days between Iowa and New Hampshire, not enough time for Romney to recover there and not enough time for conservative talk radio, which is really kicking in now against McCain, to have any real effect. One moment McCain was the war hero whose campaign had imploded and no one thought about, except to say nice things about him during the debates; the next moment he was back on top in New Hampshire. The timing was perfect.

Then, on to Michigan. McCain now is taking more fire from the Right, but McCain has a base in Michigan and independents and Democrats can vote for him (is that why he went out of his way to mention global warming tonight?). He’s going to be hard to stop there and his main rival in Michigan, Romney, was stomped on by everyone in the New Hampshire debates. Thanks, guys!

After that: South Carolina. Let’s assume that McCain wins Michigan. Who is going to stop him in South Carolina? I assume it’s not going to happen by inertia. He’s going to have momentum and he’s already pretty strong in South Carolina. Someone’s going to have to affirmatively try to deny him victory, and there are only two guys to do it: Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

Huckabee has spoken nary a discouraging word about McCain. In fact, he has teamed up with him. He worked in tandem with him during the New Hampshire debates, and practically gave his own victory speech after McCain won the primary. Is he going to pivot to hit McCain? So far in Michigan he’s still implicitly shooting at Romney for looking too corporate. Maybe he’s waiting until South Carolina. But there’s only four days between Michigan and South Carolina — not enough time (see Iowa-New Hampshire above). Huckabee may never go after McCain, because he criticized Romney earlier for attacking McCain, or because he doesn’t feel comfortable attacking a war hero, or he’s simply committed to staying positive (despite Rollins), or because he has it in the back of his mind that he can be McCain’s vice-presidential pick.

Then, there’s Fred. He took a gentle swipe at McCain on immigration Thursday night, but reserved most of his fire for Huck. Attacking Huck in South Carolina probably helps McCain because so far Huck has been McCain’s main competition there. Let’s say that Fred supplants Huck in the hearts of true conservatives. Unless he skyrockets, McCain will still be in his way. Will he then go after the Arizona senator? He may never do it, because McCain is his friend, or because he’s uncomfortable attacking a war hero, or because he knows that he’ll eventually endorse McCain, or because in the back of his mind he thinks he could be McCain’s VP pick.

If McCain wins Michigan and if he wins South Carolina — I know the “if’s” are piling up here — it’s on to Florida. That’s where Rudy awaits. You can see Rudy forcefully taking on McCain. But he hasn’t done it so far because he has an incentive to sit back and let everyone else fight over the early states. (It should also be noted that Rudy has said that if he weren’t running, he’d be supporting McCain.) Maybe Rudy is just waiting until the race makes it down to Florida. But by then it could be too late. Rudy will be taking on McCain after his momentum has had plenty of time to build, and when he may have established himself as the frontrunner that the party won’t want to have scuffed up too badly, especially by a candidate who will have even more problems with the Right.

The upshot: McCain is in a sweet spot. Will it last? Will something happen to knock him out of it — a loss in Michigan, a gaffe, a swoon among conservatives in South Carolina? There’s no way to know. But there’s nothing like being the candidate who is probably the frontrunner, but is not targeted by most of his opponents. Keep rubbing the lucky nickel, senator. You want to stay in this sweet spot as long as possible.

McCain Mulled Leaving GOP

Sen. John McCain, frustrated after his loss to George Bush in the 2000 Republican primary, came close to leaving the GOP in 2001, according to Democrats involved in the discussions.

Before talking to the Arizona Republican, Democrats had contacted then-Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont and then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island about possibly leaving the Republican Party, the influential publication The Hill reports.

In late March 2001, weeks before Jeffords did leave the GOP and became an Independent, former Democratic Rep. Tom Downey of New York met with John Weaver, McCain’s chief political strategist, over lunch in Bethesda, Md.

According to Downey, Weaver asked why Democrats hadn’t asked McCain to switch parties.

Downey, then a well-connected lobbyist, said he told Weaver: "You’re really wondering?”

"Well, if the right people asked him,” Weaver said, according to Downey, who responded: "The calls will be made. Who do you want?” Immediately following the lunch, Downey called several powerful Democrats, including then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

In an interview with The Hill, Daschle said that throughout April and May of 2001, he and McCain "had meetings and conversations on the floor and in his office, I think in mine as well, about how we would do it, what the conditions would be. We talked about committees and his seniority.”

At the time, soon after Bush’ inauguration, McCain was working with the Democrats on many issues, from gun control to healthcare to campaign-finance reform, and some Republicans publicly criticized him, The Hill notes.

Downey said that at one point he thought McCain’s departure from the GOP "was almost a certain deal.”

Daschle stressed that McCain never considered becoming a Democrat, only an Independent.

But after Jeffords announced his departure from the Republican Party, turning over control of the Senate to the Democrats, McCain and Chafee broke off talks with Democratic leaders, sources told The Hill.

McCain, in a statement released by his 2008 presidential campaign, flatly denied that he nearly left the GOP. "As I said in 2001, I never considered leaving the Republican Party, period.”

And Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a longtime friend of McCain, said on Wednesday: "I have never heard one word from John’s mouth to suggest he was going to leave the Republican Party. These are political-intrigue stories that have no basis in fact.”

Rick Santorum: Anybody But McCain in 2008

Former Sen. Rick Santorum said he would support whoever wins the Republican nomination for president in 2008, with one exception: John McCain.

Santorum, who lost his Senate seat to Democrat Bob Casey in Pennsylvania’s November election, said it’s too early for him to endorse any GOP candidate. But he told politico.com: "The only one I wouldn’t endorse is McCain. I don’t agree with him on hardly any issues. I don’t think he has the temperament and leadership ability to move the country in the right direction.”

Over the years, Santorum said he and McCain have disagreed on campaign finance reform, environmental policy, tax cuts, immigration and other issues, and he feels the Arizona Senator isn’t as strongly anti-abortion as he would like.

Conservative stalwart Santorum’s negative stance on McCain’s White House candidacy is one more blow to his floundering campaign. As NewsMax revealed earlier this week, political strategist Dick Morris observed that McCain’s campaign is "fading badly” and "may be dying before our eyes.”

Santorum, for his part, has signed a contract as a Fox News contributor and is writing a book and producing a movie about the threat of radical Islam.

McCain would lose to Hillary

A new poll from Newsweek has some interesting data on Hillary Clinton’s electability. According to the poll, Hillary beats John McCain 50 to 43 percent, squeaks by Rudy Giuliani 48 to 47 percent and trounces Mitt Romney, 58 to 32 percent. Her presumptive rival, Barack Obama, narrowly loses to McCain and Giuliani but thumps Romney as well, 55 to 25 percent.
That said, Hillary’s lead over McCain is interesting because of what it says about him. In previous polls the Senator from Arizona has handily defeated his Democratic opponents. But in recent months his numbers have begun to fall. Among independent voters, he’s slipped 15 points since March.

GOP Blog Incensed at McCain Net Bill

Further fallout from the story mentioned here the other day about John McCain and Internet regulation…

RedState is angry at a new bill the Senator John McCain is pushing. While the left and the right blogospheres disagree on almost anything, one thing that binds them together is a hatred of ill-informed internet regulation. McCain’s bill simply does not make sense from a small-blog owner’s perspective. RedState reports:

Through a vaguely written last-minute piece of legislation, scrawled on a napkin by a staffer who could’ve used an extra Red Bull, McCain would solve the problem of online child pornography by regulating the heck out of the internet in the form of massive fines for sites that allow any obscenity to slip through. The target area includes everything from message boards to MySpace to (if the smart lawyers who don’t work for McCain are right) Redstate and other membership-based blogs.

The more you dig out of this piece of legislation, the more frightening it becomes. Bloggers could be forced to pay fines for not regulating the amount of spam on their blog – any links that make it through the obscenity filters could spark regulation and punishment – and in addition, according to the smart folks at the Center for Democracy & Technology, any membership-based site that allowed a sexual predator to register could be subject to penalties:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with protecting children from predators. This bill, however, does nothing substantive to reduce that risk and poses a threat to small blogs and websites.
The real question here is whether McCain knows anything at all about the ramifications of the bill. In other words: Is McCain just senile, or is he blatantly malicious towards the internet?

Karen Tumulty, Time

John McCain was a straight-talking upstart in the 2000 presidential election. Now he's poised to be the G.O.P. favorite for 2008, but at what cost?

As a rallying cry. "Common sense conservatism" doesn't have quite the ring of "Straight Talk Express." But the new slogan on the website of John McCain's presidential exploratory committee--a slogan he manages to repeat at least three times in every speech he gives these days--tells you all you need to know about how different this presidential campaign will be from his last one. McCain '08 will be a bigger, more conventional operation--a tank, not a slingshot. The prevailing wisdom about McCain used to be that his bipartisan appeal would make him a sure bet in a presidential race--if only he could get past the Republican primary. But as more and more of the party establishment climb aboard a campaign that McCain has not yet even formally launched, it's starting to look as if the opposite may be true. By trying to become the perfect candidate for the primaries, McCain could be creating difficulties for himself in a general election.

His hard-line position on Iraq is a perfect case in point. McCain has continued to press for more troops there, and spent last week dismissing the Iraq Study Group recommendation to bring them home as nothing short of a recipe for defeat. That's the kind of strong, consistent hawkishness that G.O.P. primary voters look for. "Besides," says McCain strategist Mark Salter, "it's what he believes." The problem is that exit polls in last month's election said only 17% of voters overall share that view, which could leave the other 83% wondering whether McCain's famous independent streak, so appealing on most issues, would be such a good thing to have in a Commander in Chief who has the power to take the country to war. Already there are signs that his image is taking a hit. In the CBS/New York Times poll, McCain's favorability rating slid 6 points, to 28%, between January and September.

McCain insists that he has always been more conservative than many of his fans believe him to be. But the most important perception people have about McCain is not about ideology; it's about integrity. After staking his reputation on the moral high ground by speaking truth to power on issues ranging from deficits to torture, McCain is uniquely vulnerable to anything that hints of hypocrisy--even on questions that ordinary politicians would get a pass on. To have a shot at winning a presidential election these days, for instance, it is nearly a requirement that candidates opt out of the federal finance system, forgoing its matching funds because it's too difficult to mount a credible campaign within the law's spending caps. But that move, however pragmatic, would look bad coming from an author of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform law.

Also, it's harder for McCain than most to explain away inconsistencies. How, for example, could a deficit hawk vote to make President Bush's tax credits permanent after opposing their passage in the first place as fiscally irresponsible? Or why, after declaring Jerry Falwell to be an agent of intolerance during the brutal 2000 primary campaign, did McCain deliver the commencement speech last May at Falwell's Liberty University in Virginia?

More (Click Here)

The Conservative Case Against John McCain In 2008

There is no Republican up on Capitol Hill more disliked by his own GOP brethren than John McCain. That's why, despite the size of his fan club in the mainstream media, McCain seems rather unlikely to capture the party's nomination for President in 2008.

Here's a short, but sweet primer that may help explain why so many conservatives believe John McCain would be a very poor choice as the Republican nominee in 2008.

The Age Issue

John McCain will be 72 years old in 2008, which will make him 3 years older than Ronald Reagan was when he became the oldest man to ever be inaugurated as president back in 1981. In the Senate, where doddering fossils like Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd can be elected over and over, McCain looks like a spring chicken in comparison. But, Reagan's age turned out to be a campaign issue and McCain, who would be 80 years old at the end of his 2nd term, would certainly have a lot of people questioning --with good reason -- whether he's up to the job. Were McCain to be the nominee, his age could be the deciding factor that puts a Democrat in office.

How Electable Is McCain Really?

The mainstream media loves John McCain and they regularly write fawning articles referring to him as a "maverick" and a "straight-talker." Because of this, McCain polls well among Democrats and Independents.

However, the reason McCain is so well liked by the media is because they're liberals and they love it when he trashes other Republicans. But, what would happen if John McCain actually became the Republican nominee? The same members of the mainstream media who gush over him today would turn on him in a Minnesota minute and once his great press ended, his poll numbers with Independents and Democrats would start to drop precipitously.

Moreover, it's no big secret that McCain is roundly despised by more than a few conservatives. The thinking there usually goes, "Well, what are they going to do, vote for Hillary?" No, they won't, "vote for Hillary," but will they contribute money to McCain, volunteer for his campaign, or defend him from attacks made by Democrats or the press? No, they won't.

More importantly, they may throw their votes away by voting Libertarian or for the Constitution Party in 2008. Given that the outcome of three of the last four elections may have been decided by these sorts of protest votes (for Perot in '92 and '96 and Nader in 2000), this is not an issue that should be taken lightly.

What's Wrong With Actually Having A Loyal Republican As The Republican Nominee?

One of the most galling things about the idea of having John McCain as the Republican nominee in 2008 is that whether he's a loyal Republican or not is a question that can't truly be answered. Back in 2001, there were rumors that McCain might, depending on how the election turned out, switch parties in order to help the Democrats retain the Senate. In 2002, there were rumors that McCain was considering switching parties and running for President as a Democrat. In 2004, "on several occasions," McCain talked with John Kerry about becoming his vice-president. Obviously McCain hasn't pulled a Jim Jeffords yet, but you have to wonder about where he really stands.

How Can You Be Pro-Life And Pro-Roe v. Wade At The Same Time?

Overall, John McCain does have a fairly solid pro-life voting record (The glaring exception is that he has gone off the reservation on embryonic stem cell research). However, McCain has specifically said, on more than one occasion, back in August of 1999, that he opposes overturning Roe v. Wade:

"I'd love to see a point where (Roe v. Wade) is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even-the long-term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

"I would not seek to overturn Roe v. Wade tomorrow, because doing so would endanger the lives of women."

Has McCain also said he wants to repeal Roe v. Wade on many occasions? Yes. But, how can pro-lifers trust a man who has flip-flopped like John Kerry on Roe v. Wade to appoint the Supreme Court Justices who may end up deciding the issue? Simply put, we can't.

Kyoto By Any Other Name Would Still Smell As Rotten

John McCain has proposed a radical bill, the McCain-Lieberman Stewardship Act, that is not all that different from the Kyoto Protocol. McCain's bill would do cataclysmic damage to our economy. In the name of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by an insignificant percentage, that not even the biggest proponents of Kyoto believe would have a significant impact on the weather, here's the damage John McCain would be willing to do to our economy (from an article by Marlo Lewis in National Review):

"Proponents will undoubtedly argue, as they did last fall, that we need not worry about the bill's economic impact because Phase I (of McCain's bill) is just a "modest" first step in addressing global climate change. A recent Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis suggests otherwise. According to EIA, Phase I would increase: gasoline prices by 9 percent in 2010 and 19 percent in 2025; natural-gas prices in the industrial and electric-power sectors by 21 percent in 2010 and 58 percent in 2025; and electricity prices by 35 percent in 2025."

Would you support a Republican candidate for President who pledged to sign America on to Kyoto Protocol? If not, then why support John McCain, who wants to do almost the same thing under a different name?

McCain Vs. The Bush Tax Cuts

Most conservatives believe the biggest domestic success of George Bush's first term were his tax cuts. John McCain voted against them, more than once, before finally flip-flopping and voting for them this year. Enough said.

McCain May Not Like Bush's Tax Cuts, But He Loves Illegal Immigration

McCain has teamed up with Ted Kennedy to propose a bill that rewards illegal aliens by allowing them to stay in the US permanently after they pay a modest fine, brings in hundreds of thousands of new guest workers as well, and does almost nothing to enforce immigration law or prevent new illegal aliens from entering the country. In other words, if you love George Bush's illegal immigration policy, John McCain is offering more of the same. On the other hand, if you believe we need to clamp down on illegal immigration, John McCain is not a candidate you should support.

The Gang-Of-14 Disaster

Just as Republicans in Congress were about to step in and put an end to the Democratic filibusters of judges once and for all, John McCain and the rest of the "Gang-Of-14" stepped in with a deal that kept the filibuster alive. This got John McCain and the other participants in the deal lots of favorable press, but the GOP paid a real price so that the "Maverick" could be in the spotlight again. Several GOP judges were thrown over the side and have, as of yet, never been allowed to get a vote.

Furthermore, the Gang-of-14 deal explicitly no long applies after the 2006 elections occur. So, if the Democrats gain seats in the Senate and decide to start filibustering again, it's entirely possible that this time, the GOP won't be able to muster the votes to stop them. That means that if a liberal Supreme Court Justice steps down during the last two years of Bush's term, because of John McCain and Company, it may not be possible to replace them with another Alito or Roberts. That's the price the party may have to pay so that John McCain can continue to be the New York Times' favorite Republican.

The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Debacle

John McCain's signature piece of legislation is the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, which was one of the worst pieces of legislation to make it through Congress in the last decade. The idea behind this nightmare, which was a failure on every level, was that it was going to, "take the money out of politics." Well, not only did McCain-Feingold fail to, "take the money out of politics," more money was spent than ever before during the 2004 elections. Moreover, the bill unconstitutionally curbed free speech, protected incumbents, gave a fund raising edge to the Democrats, and opened up the door to regulating bloggers. If McCain says that he'll do for America what he did for campaign finance reform, it should be taken as a threat.

Conclusion

That should give you a pretty good idea of what some of McCain's biggest flaws are, but what you've seen so far is by no means a comprehensive list. Keep in mind that McCain opposed Bush's attempt to protect marriage by enshrining it in the Constitution, committed adultery in his first marriage, attacked the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, endangered the lives of all Americans by handcuffing our military interrogators, had a meltdown over a boxing commission...you can go on and on like this.

The long and short of it is that John McCain is a deeply flawed candidate who's unlikely to capture the Republican nomination, unlikely to win the presidency, and is unlikely to be a good President even if he somehow makes it to the White House.

Daniel J. Rabil

Back in its grander colonial days, Great Britain's ruling class had a term for the type of fellow who, when dispatched to some remote corner of the globe, repudiated his home civilization and zealously adopted the ways and customs of the non-Western locals. Such a person had "gone native."

Culturally, Washington is as remote from Arizonan ideals as Pakistan was to Mother England. And like those earlier colonists, Arizona Sen. John McCain has smoked Washington's political opium and "gone native." In fact, the word "McCain" is now so often paired with Rust Belt Democrats, you'd swear it was the maiden name of a liberal newlywed: McCain-Feingold; McCain-Kennedy; McCain-Lieberman.

First, Mr. McCain hogged the stage to push for the colossal tobacco tax grab in 1998. Then he slapped together a campaign-finance "reform" bill that spits on the First Amendment and squashes the only means conservatives have for getting their message across in a Democrat-controlled media. This year, he spitefully voted against America's first income tax relief since the Reagan years, despite Arizona's support for the tax-cutting president.

Arizona has a long history of supporting individual liberty, and I twice voted for Mr. McCain based on his dull but conservative record. But these are strange times indeed, with disputed presidential elections and a Senate that features party-switchers and jilted first ladies. And zinging around through it all, like a random enemy spaceship in a video game, is Mr. McCain blasting this, disrupting that, curbing this freedom, shafting that taxpayer. Since 1998 the "maverick" Republican has lurched from one left-wing cause to the next.

Now, in a continuing quest to become the senator from the New York Times, Mr. McCain has joined Sen. Joe Lieberman to co-sponsor the dangerous McCain-Lieberman gun-control bill. (You remember Joe, that "moral" guy who trashed all those absentee votes cast by sailors in Mr. McCain's old outfit, the U.S. Navy.)

Some perspective on Mr. McCain's priorities: Republican President George W. Bush squeaked into office thanks to Second Amendment voters in Al Gore's Tennessee and in normally Democrat West Virginia. Yet Mr. McCain has resurrected gun-control for the Democrats by pushing to close a so-called gun show loophole that would instead shut down or greatly hinder legal gun shows. Of course, less than two percent of guns used in crimes come from gun shows, and gun shows are particularly popular in Arizona. Mr. McCain's press materials claim that states without gun show background checks are "flooding the rest of the nation with crime guns." Yet Washington, which outlaws virtually all private guns, has 3.8 times the murder rate of Phoenix, where residents can buy a gun in minutes and huge gun shows appear regularly. Why does the senator insult his own state, when by his own hyperbole it's really the "crime states" that are flooding the "gun show states" with criminals?

Worse, laws like McCain-Lieberman are often deliberately used to persecute honest citizens. Ask Jerry Michel of Mesa, Arizona. Last fall the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms used the excuse of a trivial (and probably inapplicable) city pawnshop permit to invade and destroy Mr. Michel's federally licensed gun business. With tactics perfected at Waco, about 30 federal and local agents in macho SWAT gear used a trick to gain entrance to Mr. Michel's tiny showroom. Holding him at gunpoint, they then ransacked his shop and his home behind it. Eight months later the ATF still has Mr. Michel's property, though no charges have been filed against him. He is now broke and out of business.

That a rogue paramilitary force like the ATF not only still exists but is also today trampling on the rights of Americans should certainly rile an Arizona senator. After all, Mr. McCain's predecessor was the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, who was both tireless and courageous in his defense of liberty. But Mr. McCain has no time for protecting our freedom or serving his constituents. He's too busy boosting the ATF's budget and setting new legal tripwires to persecute honest Arizonans like Jerry Michel.

The talk around Washington is that Mr. McCain may jump to the Democrats or run as an independent for president in 2004 to help Democrats retake the White House. Whichever, The Washington Times reported recently that Arizona's Manchurian Republican is even using Democrat materials for his latest assault on his party's president. Regarding a Democrat health care bill he was co-sponsoring, Mr. McCain denied being spoon-fed by the left for his Senate attacks on Mr. Bush. "I have not coordinated with on anything," he said. When shown copies of his own press release and Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle's talking points issued the day before – identical in wording and sequence, Mr. McCain became flustered. "I had nothing to do with that," snapped Sen. Straight Talk. "I have no clue who did it."

What do you say about such a politician? Mr. McCain has betrayed his voters for personal power and the thrill of a liberal media buzz. So bizarre is the senator's unprincipled turnaround that an Arizona group has even launched an effort to recall him (recallmccain.org). Here's hoping they're successful.

Daniel J. Rabil is a former Arizonan who now writes from Washington D.C.

The Recall John McCain Committee Web Site (Click Here)

This committee was formed on June 5, 2001 for the purpose of recalling Arizona's United States Senator, John McCain. The grounds for recall as they appear on the petition are as follows:

John McCain has become increasingly obsessed with advancing his own personal agenda contrary to President Bush, party leaders and rank and file Republicans. In his insatiable desire for massive national media attention, he has all but forgotten the people of Arizona who elected him. The last straw was his vote against final passage of President Bush’s tax cut plan, the very centerpiece of George W. Bush’s successful presidential campaign. John McCain’s legislative judgment is no longer acceptable. He is continually sponsoring or cosponsoring legislation that will weaken the civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”

Besides Senator McCain's recent no vote on the tax rebate check that you will receive in the mail, here are some other examples of poor legislative judgment:

McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform will directly violate First Amendment Rights to free speech by prohibiting issue/candidate advertising by non-candidate groups (like this one), 30 or 60 days before an election. This is precisely when the majority of voters are seeking information about the candidates! Imagine the AARP being unable to inform its members on the principles promoted by each candidate before the election.

McCain-Lieberman Gun Show bill (S. 890) will infringe upon Second Amendment Rights to keep and bear arms by restricting the ability of law abiding citizens to freely assemble at gun shows and similar events. Gun shows would be outlawed without prior federal approval. It will require centralized registration of all vendors and attendees with the threat of imprisonment for the non-registered. "May I see your papers please?" We don't need more gun control we need more criminal control.

McCain-Kennedy Patient's Bill of Rights will result in further increases in the amount we pay and our employers pay for already too expensive healthcare insurance. The plan here is to promote the Nationalization of healthcare insurance, a step closer to Hillary Care. What small business owner that provides a healthcare benefit to employees can afford to be covered for $5,000,000.00 of liability when the trial lawyers get involved? With legislation like this, there would soon be no freedom of choice for healthcare.

John McCain does not represent the values that he claims - he is not anything like a Reagan or Goldwater Republican. None of the bills mentioned above do anything to reduce the size of the federal government, in fact, they would do just the opposite.

For more information please call The Recall John McCain headquarters at 602-234-5757.

The Recall John McCain Committee
8900 N. Central Avenue - Suite 206
Phoenix, Arizona 85020

James Barnes, National Journal

When the young Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the early 19th century, he made an observation about presidential elections that still rings true: "For a long while before the appointed time has come, the election becomes the important and, so to speak, all-engrossing topic of discussion."

National Journal's latest survey of Democratic and Republican Insiders -- members of Congress, party activists, fundraisers, consultants, lobbyists, and interest-group leaders for whom presidential politics is an "all-engrossing topic" -- finds that Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican John McCain continue to be viewed as the candidates most likely to clinch the major parties' 2008 presidential nominations.

The Insiders' assessments of the 2008 contests have changed considerably since May [PDF]. Back then, Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia was ranked second by his party's Insiders, after having been in first place throughout 2005. But on his way to losing his bid for a second term, Allen tripped repeatedly over his own feet -- and has now vanished from the top 10. Another Democrat, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, ran second in May but disappeared from the Insiders' top 10 after formally announcing that he will not run. Meanwhile, political phenomenon Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who in May made his first appearance on his party's top-10 list by grabbing the lowest rung, has rocketed to the No. 2 spot -- putting him just ahead of former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina but still well behind Clinton.

Insiders were asked to list and rank the top five contenders for their party's 2008 presidential nomination. In tallying scores, a first-place vote was worth 5 points; a second-place score, 4 points; and so on. National Journal's top 10 rankings are based on each candidate's overall score. In all, 220 Insiders participated in this survey: 70 Congressional Insiders (36 Democratic lawmakers, 34 Republican ones) and 150 Political Insiders (73 Democrats, 77 Republicans).

GOP front-runner McCain, who at 70 has taken to joking that he's "older than dirt," contrasts starkly with the trio of Democrats viewed as having the best chances of winning their party's nomination. Not only is he considerably older than any of them, the Arizonan also has 20 years' experience in the Senate -- more than Clinton, Obama, and Edwards combined. Sen. Clinton, her party's solid front-runner, is hot off a landslide re-election in New York to a second term. Obama has been in the Senate only since January 2005. He was an Illinois state senator for eight years. Edwards served a single Senate term. Likewise, Warner is relatively inexperienced: He had one four-year term in Richmond.

Inexperience isn't limited to the Democratic field, however. The No. 2 ranking Republican, Mitt Romney, has been in elected office only four years -- as governor of Massachusetts. "Experience," observed Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, "is something that is overvalued by people who have it and undervalued by people who don't."

McCAIN, John Sidney, III, a Representative and a Senator from Arizona; born in Panama Canal Zone, August 29, 1936; attended schools in Alexandria, Va.; graduated, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md. 1958, and the National War College, Washington, D.C. 1973; pilot, United States Navy 1958-1981, prisoner of war in Vietnam 1967-1973; received numerous awards, including the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and Distinguished Flying Cross; elected as a Republican in 1982 to the Ninety-eighth Congress; reelected to the Ninety-ninth Congress in 1984 and served from January 3, 1983, to January 3, 1987; elected to the United States Senate in 1986; reelected in 1992, 1998 and in 2004 for the term ending January 3, 2011; chair, Committee on Indian Affairs (One Hundred Fourth Congress; One Hundred Ninth Congress), Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (One Hundred Fourth through One Hundred Sixth Congresses, One Hundred Seventh Congress [January 20, 2001-June 6, 2001], One Hundred Eighth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000.

See how John McCain voted on key votes -- the most important bills, nominations and resolutions that have come before Congress, as determined by washingtonpost.com.

Full list of votes by John McCain (Click Here)

Analysis: In accusing the White House of misleading America, the Senator is flashing his independent credentials

JAMES CARNEY/WASHINGTON

John McCain has been President Bush's indispensable political ally on the war in Iraq. So what was the Arizona Senator and top-shelf 2008 presidential contender up to yesterday in Ohio when he unloaded on the Bush Administration's handling of the war in a speech that, with a few tweaks, could have been delivered by an anti-war Democrat? "I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required," McCain said. "Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders," he went on, citing some of the, ah, less-than-accurate assessments of the Iraq venture made over the years by the President, Vice President and secretary of defense. That kind of overly optimistic talk, McCain said, "has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking."

Several factors are at work here. First, McCain was speaking at a campaign event for fellow Senator Mike DeWine, who needs all the help he can get in his uphill re-election battle. DeWine is the perfect example of the kind of incumbent Republican who would win in a normal mid-term election year but will likely be swept away if anti-Bush, anti-GOP, anti-war sentiment turns voters towards Democrats this fall. Republicans are in trouble for a lot of reasons this year, but Iraq is the biggest. By criticizing Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld on Iraq, McCain was trying to help DeWine, who desperately needs to distance himself from an unpopular President and unpopular war.

But McCain had another, more personal agenda. His bid to transform himself from the insurgent challenger of the 2000 campaign into the establishment front-runner in the 2008 field has led him into some unlikely alliances — including the one formed by his peace-making visit earlier this year to see Jerry Fallwell at Liberty University. And it has led to charges, from Democrats and the camps of some presidential rivals, that McCain is sacrificing his straight-talk reputation for the support of big GOP donors and power-brokers.

McCain's aides know the Senator's reputation for independence and integrity is his most valuable political asset. They monitor its health closely. They knew that McCain's efforts to ingratiate himself with the party establishment would lead to stories suggesting the Senator had compromised his principles in order to appease conservatives. They counter those stories by citing the number of times McCain has opposed the President and what it has cost him politically with conservatives. But sometimes McCain himself has to do the reminding, as he did in Ohio. "John didn't say anything he hasn't said before — he's always been critical of the way the war's been handled even though he supports the war and thinks we have to win," an adviser told TIME.com this morning. "But sometimes it's a good idea to remind people that he's still John McCain, telling it like it is. "

Big John

In 2000, John McCain's top advisers could fit in the back cabin of the Straight Talk Express. They often did. For his 2008 presidential race, there will be enough of them that they'll need their own bus, or maybe two. McCain's 2000 campaign Web site was colorful and displayed photos from his flyboy days; now it's black and white, sober and presidential.

These changes are just some of the small ones that come with being at the top of the list of men hoping to win the Republican Party's presidential nomination. McCain may not top every early poll, but he is the front-runner. No other candidate has his organization, experience, fan base, and staff talent. To cement his standing, he delivered two speeches after Election Day to conservative organizations GOPAC and the Federalist Society. Why is he hustling so hard? Because he will be far more closely scrutinized and tested than he was last time. Here are five reasons he'll maybe wish he could go back to being an insurgent:

1. Managing the Iraq decline.

McCain has better military and national security credentials than any of his likely opponents in either party. As ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, he'll have a chance to demonstrate his experience in every news cycle if he wants to. That's not all good. So far, McCain has been able both to support the war and criticize its execution. He's been spared the public disapproval that has hurt President Bush. But as voters and the press start to look at him as a president-in-waiting, will they start to penalize him for the failed Iraq policies? His political salvation may be his repeated call for more troops. However unpopular that position, McCain has advocated it for so long he can claim consistency, as well as validation in recent remarks by field commanders admitting that more troops were needed. Now that a small troop increase seems a possibility, McCain is likely to argue that it's too little too late, which means that his position won't be undermined if the bump doesn't help in Iraq.

2. YouTube is watching.

In 2000, John McCain had a YouTube moment before the video network existed. On a bus rolling through California in March 2000, he called televangelist Pat Robertson "evil." For the next several days, he both distanced himself from those remarks and embraced them, launching a failed attack on the agents of intolerance in the Republican Party. The mixed message was a disaster that helped end his campaign.

Now McCain will have to run in the real YouTube era, in which he won't be able play a round of craps without being photographed. Fortunately for him, he gets a lot of leeway—anything short of criminal activity will rightly be seen by voters and the press corps as more signs of his storied authenticity.

But he does have one authentic characteristic that won't play well on the continuous feedback loop: anger. The problem for McCain is not the anger itself—the stories of Bill Clinton's rage are far more legendary and numerous—but the perception pushed, over the years, by his opponents, including George Bush in 2000, that McCain doesn't have the cool head needed for the job. Though he's been under considerable strain in his public career, McCain has never had a real moment of purple rage in front of the cameras (a brusque word to a reporter at the end of the 2000 campaign doesn't count). If caught on camera, his straightest talk might not play well given the whispering campaign. That means that when opponents bait him, he'll mostly have to smile, particularly when some crank confronts him in a parking lot at midnight in Decorah, Iowa, with a video camera. What's so tricky about this, of course, is that maintaining such a constant act of sustained civility is enough to drive even the most docile politician into batty fits of rage.

3. More in sorrow than in anger.

When an adviser to Hillary Clinton made a crack about McCain's behavior during his time as a POW, the senator's advisers knew what to do. They took showy umbrage and Sen. Clinton apologized immediately. It was a political boon. Fights with Hillary help when you're trying to court conservatives: They ratify your front-runner position, and plus, conservatives think she's just awful. A fight that reminds everyone you're a tough former POW is as good as it gets. But most of the time, McCain's campaign needs to ignore its opponents. If McCain wants to look presidential, he has to stay above the fray, busying himself with affairs of the country or preparing to meet some foreign dignitary. To respond to every dart makes a candidate look thin-skinned and touchy, and elevates the attacker to parallel status. (Which is not to say that any candidate should make John Kerry's mistake of failing to battle against attacks that undermine his or her entire candidacy.) Mitt Romney has now called McCain "disingenuous" for saying that states should decide the gay-marriage question and not the courts. It's a risky gambit for the Massachusetts governor, whose position on abortion has evolved over the years, but one the McCain camp should probably ignore. There will be time for squabbling later at the Iowa debates.

4. Do your homework.

In 2000, the McCain campaign approached matters of policy in two ways. The first was to find a way to tie any issue to the corrupting influence of money in the political system, the senator's signature crusade. If reporters wanted a more substantive answer about health care or education policy, they were directed to call John Raidt, McCain's one-man policy shop. When the campaign survived longer than McCain staffers had imagined or prepared for, it seemed as if McCain's policy papers had been photocopied from the back of the envelopes on which they'd been scratched that morning.

Now McCain must have a detailed policy position for everything. So, his campaign is building a serious, front-runner's policy shop that will produce lots of laminated booklets with complicated-looking charts. Former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick will run the shop, and it will house big names like former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, who will give economic advice. The McCain team recently also hired Brett O'Donnell, the winning debate-team coach from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, to help with debates and communication.

5. Culture club.

There is a tight little band of aides at the center of the McCain operation and they will have to get used to ceding control over some of the operation (after they teach the candidate to do the same). Every campaign has this problem when it gets big. The work often requires anticipating the needs of the candidate and the veterans think they're the only ones who can do that. Newcomers have their own hangups. They have to relax and not mope that they're being shut out. They can mistakenly convince themselves that their beloved policy suggestion was ignored for turf reasons rather than because it was unworkable. Such aides complain to reporters, who happily write stories of praetorian guards and disarray.

Big campaigns also have to put up with fund-raisers and party bosses who have an endless supply of bad ideas, but of course can't be dismissed immediately. McCain's entertaining streak is also a liability in that staffers will fight for face time with him. And then there's the yen to re-create the past glory of the 2000 campaign.

In the end, if the McCain campaign can meet all these challenges, it will be because of that trial by fire. The staff is tested and emotionally the wiser for it. In 2000, they would have driven the bus straight to Massachusetts to attack Romney on his front lawn for his recent disingenuity charge. This time, they haven't said a word.

McCain Tries to Pick Up Republican Pieces

Andrew Ferguson, Bloomberg

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The other day on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' -- where he appears with the routine frequency of Topo Gigio popping up on the old Ed Sullivan show -- John McCain contemplated this month's Republican defeat and made sure to bring up the name Ronald Reagan.

``I am a conservative Republican,'' McCain said, ``in the school of Ronald Reagan -- who, by the way, brought our party back after a defeat in 1976 and gave us hope and optimism.''

These days Republicans repeat Reagan's name the way a parched castaway gasps out the word ``Water!'' But McCain's drop of the name had a special resonance.

He is by every measure the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, as Reagan was immediately after the 1976 Republican debacle that brought down incumbent Gerald Ford. Then out of office, Reagan moved quickly to solidify his position.

He did it, in large part, with words. Reagan gave a series of speeches in 1977 that were notable for their criticism, gentle but unmistakable, of his party's establishment -- particularly on the way Republicans had betrayed their commitments to low taxes and smaller government.

With Reagan on his mind, McCain did something similar last week. In a pair of speeches to conservative audiences, he asked, in effect: ``What went wrong for Republicans in 2006, and how do they make it right?''

No Easy Questions

Only for pundits and other numinous beings are these easy questions to answer. Ordinary mortals will find the job frustrating. The results of Nov. 7 were a jumble, yielding no clear, definable course of action for a party groping to regain its majority.

Moderates as well as right-wingers lost their seats two weeks ago. Foes of immigration went down and so did immigration boosters, sometimes in the same state. Voters -- in Michigan and Arizona, for example -- who re-elected liberal Democrats simultaneously approved ballot initiatives that were so conservative the state Republican Party was reluctant to endorse them.

The only thing the losers had in common was that they were Republicans. No incumbent Democrats lost their seats in Congress on election night. The repudiation of the Republican majority was comprehensive -- but why?

Conservative Country

Reagan claimed in 1977 that the U.S. was essentially a conservative country, and McCain worked from the same premise last week.

``I am convinced that a majority of Americans still consider themselves conservative or right of center,'' he told a meeting of the Republican group GOPAC. Americans want fiscal restraint and a balanced budget from their government; they want room for individual initiative and freedom to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

It was to further or guarantee these objectives that voters made Republicans a majority, McCain said, and Republicans let them down.

``We were elected to reduce the size of government and enlarge the sphere of free enterprise and private initiative,'' McCain said, ``and then we lavished money, in a time of war, on thousands of projects of dubious, if any, public value.''

Congress's increase in domestic discretionary spending was a crude attempt, according to McCain, ``to bribe the people into keeping us in office.'' The bribery went beyond the petty projects -- the ``bridge to nowhere'' in Alaska -- that made the term ``earmarks'' a common coinage.

Lavish Entitlement

Much worse, McCain said, was the vast expansion of the Medicare entitlement with the prescription-drug benefit. The program, which President George W. Bush proudly considers a landmark, addressed a relatively limited problem facing some older Americans by lavishing all older Americans with an entitlement that will cost a trillion dollars a decade.

In foreign policy too, the government of the Republican majority failed to meet its principles by miscalculating what it would take to win the war in Iraq, and the voters repudiated the Republicans for this as well.

Conceding that ``Americans are tired of Iraq,'' McCain nevertheless repeated a point he's been making since the summer of 2003: ``Without additional combat forces, we will not win this war.''

In plotting a Republican comeback, some of what McCain recommends will sound programmatically popular: enacting a line- item veto, banning earmarks, regulating lobbyists more closely and making the budget less susceptible to accounting tricks.

Voters, according to polls, approve each of these -- at least in the abstract.

Unpopular Positions

Whether they will approve the drying up of federal money that would result is a more difficult question. Indeed, McCain seems to be staking out positions that, taken together, might make him one of the most unpopular politicians in the U.S.

Exit polls on Election Day showed that only one in five voters favored sending more U.S. troops to Iraq. That percentage would fall more if the higher troop levels brought a higher number of U.S. casualties.

It is also unlikely that older Americans, rich or poor, would feel friendly toward a politician who took away their new subsidy to buy otherwise expensive medicine.

McCain has built his career on being a ``conviction politician,'' and now he wants his party to follow his lead by standing by its principles. ``Do the right thing,'' he said last week, ``and the politics will take care of itself.''

It's a brave and admirable strategy for Republicans and Democrats alike, and it seemed to work for Reagan a quarter of a century ago. But what happens if your principles aren't what the public wants?

McCain: Americans 'Rejected Us'

On the heels of devastating GOP losses, Sen. John McCain said "no defeat is permanent" as he called for the Republican Party to return to its common-sense conservatism - and implicitly cast himself as the one who can lead the party's rebirth.

"We lost our principles and our majority. And there is no way to recover our majority without recovering our principles first," the Arizona Republican said Thursday in the first of two speeches that could set the tone for a potential presidential campaign.

On the same day he launched a presidential exploratory committee, McCain said voters felt that Republicans valued their incumbency over their beliefs on such conservative standards as limited and efficient government - and he urged a return to those tenets.

"Americans had elected us to change government, and they rejected us because they believed government had changed us," the four-term senator said. "We must spend the next two years reacquainting the public and ourselves with the reason we came to office in the first place: to serve a cause greater than our self-interest."

He spoke before members of the Federalist Society, the organization of more than 25,000 conservatives and libertarians including high-profile members of the Bush administration, the federal judiciary and Congress. Later Thursday, he was delivering a broader speech about the future of the Republican Party to another conservative pillar, GOPAC.