Jan. 14, 2008
GOP Foes Mobilize Against McCain
Washington Post: Some Members Of Republican Establishment Are Trying To Keep Arizona Senator From Getting The Nomination
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GOPs In 3-Way For Michigan
Michigan voters, saddled with the U.S.'s highest unemployment rate, have made the economy a top issue. Chip Reid reports on the GOP primary race facing Sen. John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
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McCain Roars Into Michigan
With one big win under his belt, a confident John McCain brought his momentum and message to Michigan where he hopes to make it a streak. Kelly Cobiella reports.
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Republican presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks at a town hall style campaign rally in Howell, Mich., Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008. (AP)
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Photo Essay
John McCain
Some call him a hero, some a maverick. Will Americans call him Mr. President?
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The latest list of primary and caucus dates as states continue jockeying for position.
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Over the past decade, Sen. John McCain has annoyed, aggravated and nearly destroyed some of the most powerful members of Washington's Republican establishment, creating a list of antagonists including anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and the vehement Gun Owners of America.
Now, with his victory in the New Hampshire primary putting the Arizonan's quest for the GOP presidential nomination back on track, his old adversaries are mobilizing to keep him out of the White House.
"It is conceivable that he can be nominated because of the [primary] system we developed," said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a longtime McCain foe. "It's not conceivable that he could come out of this nomination fight or the national convention with the kind of enthusiastic support he is going to need for the general election."
For at least eight years, official Republican Washington has been dominated by what McCain advocates have called President Bush's "Death Star" -- an array of advocacy groups and lobbyists that backed Bush in 2000 and have remained the city's conservative power brokers. Republican politicians with national ambitions genuflect to Keene at his Conservative Political Action Conference. They sign Norquist's pledge not to raise taxes and attend the weekly conservative conclaves over which he presides as the head of Americans for Tax Reform. And they curry favor with religious conservatives such as Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition.
McCain has not only declined to offer such gestures -- he's stomped on them.
Last year, he snubbed Keene and his conference, choosing to appear on David Letterman's show instead. In a nationally televised debate in November, he dismissed Norquist's pledge on taxes, declaring, "My record is up to the American people, not up to any other organization." He starred in advertisements on behalf of mandatory gun-trigger locks. And his investigation of felonious lobbyist Jack Abramoff in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee wound up painting Norquist and Reed as cash conduits who enabled Abramoff's predations, charges they have said are unfair and vindictive.
On top of that, his famous temper and expletive-laden tirades against fellow Republicans have long led opponents to question his suitability for the White House. One congressional GOP leadership aide said he could accept some of McCain's iconoclasm, but when the senator introduced legislation in 2004 to create a federal boxing commission, the aide began wondering why McCain thought he belonged in the party of small government.
"He almost seems to delight in going out of his way to stick his fingers in folks' eyes," said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.
Far from shying from the fight, McCain supporters seem to relish it. John Weaver, a longtime McCain adviser, said the senator's opponents long ago lost their power and influence, even if they don't realize it.
"Here's who John McCain has angered: self-described conservative lobbyists who basically represent special interests," Weaver said. "They're angry at him because he has put the national interest in front of their special interests."
And without doubt, McCain has split the Republican establishment. While some in Bush's 2000 campaign orbit actively oppose him, others, such as GOP lobbyist Charles Black, are major figures in his campaign. Victory, Black said, has a way of bringing people around.
"In three or four weeks, everybody will be for McCain," he said.
Opponents concede the point. "In the Republican Party, there is an anybody-but-McCain group. And in South Carolina that vote is divided," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a Mitt Romney supporter. "Anything can happen now because the votes are split so many ways."
Over most of his time in the Senate, McCain, now in his fourth term, has compiled a reliably conservative record, winning him supporters among social and economic conservatives. But in his White House bid in 2000 and the few years afterward, McCain managed to anger just about everyone in the GOP establishment that developed around Bush.
His battle to overhaul the way political campaigns are paid for and fought infuriated an array of interest groups that believed he was trying to muzzle them, especially with a provision that outlawed "issue" advertisements in the last days of campaign seasons.
His February 2000 speech calling Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance" and comparing them to Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton earned the enmity of some religious conservatives.
His votes in 2001 against Bush's first major tax cut, then in 2003 against Bush's second, made economic conservatives leery.
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
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See all 74 CommentsNo one else running has the knowledge or experience that''s needed in Washington DC today
then Mitt Romney...........................GO MITT !
We are already reeling under the Bush/Bush tax cuts for the rich. And I''m glad to hear of a republican who opposed it.
Fight on Mr. McCain!
9-11 was an inside job...Let''s not forget this false flag attack that murdered 3,000 Americans...the standdown of NORAD...the training of the patsies at US military facilities...the links to the ISI...the orders from the White House for FBI agents to stand down from investigating the bin Ladens...The CIA links to the Venice Florida flight schools where M. Atta and others trained...and the Hamburg connections...etc, etc, etc,
http://www.rense.com/general80/testi.htm
He may be old but he still beats Hillary in the polls, so don''t count him out.
The Neocons are hell bent on creating a two class system in the US...elite and poverty (slaves, serfs, peons, whatever). This process included outsource most middle class jobs to foreign countries and allowing the hispanics from the southern region to immigrate illegally and to make us compete with them for whatever jobs are left.
Unless we can find somebody that will agree to round them up and send them home...what are we going to do?
Frankly, I have no clue. My first thought is that if they allow them to stay here and allow them to have citizenship and paying a fine, etc., then we need to do two things:
Teach them English, and teach them collective bargaining. Every category of job should unite together and say no, we are not going to live in poverty and be exploited. We also need to teach them that if they cannot demand a higher standard of living in the US, that they will be just trading the poverty of one country, for poverty in another. It is their clear intention to kill the very programs these immigrants are coming here to get.
We''re going to have to form our own journalism to spread the word and we''re going to have to get out on the streets and teach.
For the good of this country, this Republican infighting needs to stop.
It''s becoming obvious that Republicans just don''t like competent, accomplished, smart leaders. They would prefer Chickehawk, Religous, social conservative pandering blowhards. McCain would attract the best talented rational people the Republicans have. Which is not saying much but worlds better than our current administration, but still woeful. That being said McCain/Huckabee is you only chance.
Obama 08
Rowdy: Many of them are already learning English, just like generations of immigrants from the past. I can almost always tell who is legal and who isn''t by the level of English they speak. However, if someone has been raised here as a child, even though he/she is illegal, they are of course quite fluent. I would agree though if illegals were to be given some fast track to living here, requiring them to learn the dominant language is the best for all concerned.
With regards to standards of living, many immigrants have a zest for moving ahead that often doesn''t exist in natural citizens. Moving ahead is why they are here.
Eventually the majority of the undocumented will be here legally one way or another. Most of them are people who have alreadly lived here for many years and their children don''t know any other place. As these children grow and marry, many will become legal as a result. Many members of the armed forces are children of illegals. The flow of illegals that we saw during the 80s and 90s has been considerably reduced. There will be no more cheap labor, and that may be good or bad depending on where you find yourself in the near future: outsourcing of farms or higher prices for produce that is already going sky high.
that the neo-cons have taken over the country. Ron Paul has come out and said that numerous time and much more. People need to start researching these candidates. McCain is a war pig and pro-amnesty. McCain will do and say anything to win. I wonder why McCain''s Arizona constituents are trying to RECALL him. They say McCain sold out the american people, that''s why.
Watch them swift boat Mcain. Todays Republican party are a bunch of corrupt, greedy, corporate criminals who care nothing about America.
However - I lost all respect for him when he bowed and scraped for Bush even after Bush used that horrible rumor campaign against him - the racist push-polling - to beat McCain. No one with any respect for themselves would bow down to a person who did that.
To bad Darth Cheney doesn''''t have the heart (literally) to enter the race hisself! Talk about a feeding frenzy...yeeee Hah!
Posted by ozilot at 04:48 PM : Jan 14, 2008--------------Huh? This is nothing to what''s going on over on the dumberncraptic racistacide free for all. LOL!
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Well, good for him. I wouldn''t set at the same lunch counter with that bunch of scum bags. I doubt I will vote for McCain, but he is the only viable candidate that the Republicans have. The rest of the bunch are just plain goofy. Poor Republicans.
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LOL. Thompson???? If that is the best the Republican''s can do, a comotose actor with a trophy wife, then they are in real trouble. What a joke. Poor Republicans.
We can not fight another land war for several years.
For a politician, that is a pretty honest statement like many of his statements.
Sounds surrounded.
Are you spreading falsehoods?
He has tried to sell out our country by granting amnesty to over 20 million ILLEGAL aliens in the U.S. right now.
Luckily he didn''t have the votes to do it.
He refused to push to secure our borders.
Now he wants to do it through administrative orders i elected president.
NO Amnesty.
NO mccain.
Why would anyove vote for mccain?
Thank You,
A FORMER mccain supporter.
Sounds nearly surrounded to me....
Huckabee: (in harmony)
Romney:
Giuliani: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran
They all sing in the same boy band. What difference does it make ? McCain wants to be in Iraq for 100 years. Sound good to you ?
John McCain may not be as liberal as many claim but he is also not a loyal ally to the conservative cause.
He provided a life preserver to the Democrat congress with his gang of 14. He made inferences suggesting those opposing his amnesty bill were racists.
How people can be so blind. Thank God Thompson is surging in South Carolina (up 7 points over the weekend for a tie for second) and Romney is moving up in Michigan.
The McCain monster must be slain.
As I remember (before my time) it was mostly the uneducated that supported Hitler and became his Brown Shirts. The academics and successful were somewhat persecuted possibly because they were Jews or supported the Jews.
I personally am surprised at McCain''s success.
%u201CBut I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators.%u201D [NBC, 3/20/03]
%u201CIt%u2019s clear that the end is very much in sight.%u201D [ABC, 4/9/03]
%u201CThere%u2019s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shiahs. So I think they can probably get along.%u201D [MSNBC, 4/23/03]
%u201CThis is a mission accomplished. They know how much influence Saddam Hussein had on the Iraqi people, how much more difficult it made to get their cooperation.%u201D [This Week, ABC, 12/14/03]
%u201CI%u2019m confident we%u2019re on the right course.%u201D [ABC News, 3/7/04]
%u201CI think the initial phases of it were so spectacularly successful that it took us all by surprise.%u201D [CBS, 10/31/04]
%u201CI do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren%u2019t making progress, I%u2019d be despondent.%u201D [The Hill, 12/8/05]
%u201CBecause I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women.%u201D [CNN, 9/24/02]
%u201CWe%u2019re not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we%u2019re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.%u201D [CNN, 9/29/02]
%u201CBut the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily.%u201D [MSNBC, 1/22/03]
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