McCain Sounds Confident On The Trail

GOP Front-Runner Is Talking More Like A General Election Candidate In Runup to Super Tuesday

(CBS/AP)  To hear John McCain talk, you'd think he already was the Republican nominee.

"The first thing we've got to do after Tuesday is unite this party," he says repeatedly these days - as if the 21 states holding caucuses and primaries this week are simply a formality.

CBS News' Dante Higgins reports that at a rally Saturday in Nashville, McCain was exuding confidence, saying, "I assume that I will get the nomination of the party."

"I know that I can win the presidency once I win your nomination," he told the audience. (Read more in the From The Road blog)

He's eager to lead the GOP against Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling them liberals who would surrender in Iraq. It's a surefire way to rally Republicans and get skeptical conservatives on board with his candidacy.

McCain's ability to beat the eventual Democratic nominee was one of his arguments as he fought his way back into the race after his campaign's summertime unraveling. As he rose, he spent much of January mixing it up with chief GOP rival Mitt Romney - particularly before the Florida primary.

But rarely, now, after victories in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, does the Arizona senator even mention Romney.

Instead, with strong leads in many of the states that vote Tuesday, McCain is back to hammering the Democrats. He's sounding more like a general election candidate and less like a primary candidate in a dogfight for the Republican nod.

"There's no politician in Washington, particularly those that are seeking another office, that should decide when we withdraw" from Iraq, McCain said Saturday while campaigning across Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.

"Senator Obama and Senator Clinton want to surrender. They want to wave the white flag. They want to set a date for withdrawal. My friends, that means surrender and I will never surrender as president of the United States!" McCain cried - eliciting cheers and hollers every place he went.

Gone was a mention of Romney, who McCain recently has lumped in with the Democrats on the question of when U.S. troops should leave Iraq.

McCain's restraint, remarkable for a man who rarely holds his tongue, is by design.

In the runup to Super Tuesday, his advisers decided that McCain should stop snipping with Romney. Instead, McCain is trying to appear more presidential - and as the Republican most able to take on Democrats in the fall.

Thus, on Saturday, McCain essentially ignored his GOP rival and only mentioned Romney's name when directly asked about him. Even then, he coupled his criticism with words of praise.

"I think it's very clear that Governor Romney has changed his positions on some major issues but I respect Governor Romney and I know that he is a good family man and a good person," McCain said in Nashville, Tenn. - and stopped there.

A day later, when McCain appeared on Sunday talk shows, he didn't bring up Romney - and was reserved when a questioner mentioned him, simply saying: "If you look at my record and you look at Governor Romney's record, particularly as governor of the state of Massachusetts, it's very different. And I'm far more conservative."

Those are the same charges McCain has made since the year began - but he voiced them in even tones and without the hostility that punctuated his comments in the week before Florida voted and, at times, during a debate Thursday.

In Simi Valley, Calif., McCain took a couple of potshots at Romney that made some supporters wince.

When Romney noted that McCain was endorsed by The New York Times, McCain shot back: "Let me note that I was endorsed by your two hometown newspapers who know you best, including the very conservative Boston Herald, who know you, well, better than anybody. So I'll guarantee the Arizona Republic will be endorsing me, my friend."

Accusing Romney of raising taxes as Massachusetts governor, McCain said sarcastically: "He called them 'fees.' I'm sure the people that had to pay it, whether they called them bananas, they still had to pay $730 million extra."

At another point, McCain noted that Romney has run millions of dollars of negative ads against him and said: "A lot of it is your own money. You're free to do with it what you want to. You can spend it all."

He also mentioned Romney's business consultant background and tightly said: "He managed companies, and he bought, and he sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs. That's the nature of that business." And, he assailed Romney for his equivocations, saying, "Ronald Reagan would not approve of someone who changes their positions depending on what the year is."

But all that seemed to be behind McCain over the weekend.

In the South on Saturday, he passed up opportunities to talk about Romney - and instead focused on Obama and Clinton.

"We have profound philosophical differences. They are liberal Democrats and I am a conservative Republican, and that's why I'm sure I can unite our party," he told reporters. "My philosophy and my views and my record are more in tune with the American people than Senator Obama and Senator Clinton."

He also sounded sure about his prospects Tuesday.

When a reporter noted his air of confidence, particularly for someone who is openly superstitious, McCain laughed.

"I hope I'm not too confident about Tuesday," he said. "I'm guardedly optimistic. I think we're doing well. I think I sense a feeling of momentum. But we're not taking anything for granted. That's why we're campaigning literally 24/7 between now and Tuesday."

Still, he added, "I assume that I will get the nomination of the party."

[chrisl45]

Those John McCain baseballs are getting expensive on EBay! It must mean something! I already have one.

[fettkonserv]

Cult Member Romney is the choice of Southern Baptists.
LMAO

[fettkonserv]

Three words describe Republicans.
Ku Klux Klan

[fettkonserv]

One word can describe McCain.
Alzheimer''s!

[cfin5]

Ron Paul''s Straw Poll Results
Updated on February 1, 2008
Ron Paul''s Head-to-Head Records (Win-Lose-Tie):
Ron Paul v. Mitt Romney 47-20-0
Ron Paul v. John McCain 60-7-0
Ron Paul v. Mike Huckabee 58-7-1----------And Ron Paul just beat Senator McPlain in Maine by taking 2nd. Place!

[ontheleft]

Actually, I want Romney to win just as much as you nutty right wingers want him to win. The Democrats would have the best chance against him.

It''s not going to happen. McCain is gonna win big tomorrow night. All the polls point to it. Romney will face reality and drop out because he''s out of money.

Since Huckabee and Paul are basically running on air, I see them hanging on a while longer. What do they have to lose? Heck, I see Ron Paul continuing to fight for the nomination until September...of 2009. He''s that insane.

[mrunpc1]

VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY ON TUESDAY

Now the media successfully fragmented the Republican vote and pumped their favorite (and our enemy) RINO McCain. It''s a win win for the Liberal Socialists who are in the process of hijacking the Republican Party AND the country.

Here%u2019s a link to an article that really exposes John McCain for who he is:
http://www.alipac.us/article2920.html

Put some links in your emails to this ad from Citizen''s United: http://media.citizensunited.org/Surprisingly.htm. It''s a killer for McCain.

There is still time to give Romney enough of a push to keep the race competitive after Tuesday. The power of the internet is incredible. Please make use of it! Email ANY and EVERYONE you know who will be voting on Tuesday and let them know just how disastrous it would be to vote for McCain. Educate them as to why and turn them on to Mitt Romney.

I''ve met him on several occasions and was at the MA Rep. convention when we nominated him for Governor there. Tell them to get on the Romney bandwagon and help the guy out at: http://www.mittromney.com.

Besides emails, you can make phone calls AND write/submit letters to editors online and at major metropolitan newspapers http://www.newslink.org/news.html around the country.

HELP STOP RINO JOHN MCCAIN AND HIS SECRET PARTNER, HUCKABEE!!

GO MITT.

[mrunpc1]

A vote for RINO (Republican In Name Only) John McCain is a vote for the following:

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: he wrote the bill granting amnesty to illegal immigrants (co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy).

RHETORIC: he routinely engages in Democratic class warfare against big companies in America, particularly the %u201Cevil%u201D drug companies who research cures to debilitating diseases for a profit.

ECONOMY: as recently as December 2007 he admitted %u201Che does not know the economy very well%u201D and needed to get better at it.

1ST AMENDMENT: he wrote the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that was declared to be an unconstitutional infringement of the 1st Amendment (co-sponsored by ultra-liberal Democrat Russ Feingold).

2ND AMENDMENT: he was called the %u201Cworst 2nd amendment candidate%u201D by the president of the NRA.

GLOBAL WARMING: supports radical global warming legislation which involved him voting with every Democrat; think only America is responsible to take action, not other superpowers.

JUDGES: he joined forces with Democrats (Gang of 14) to block the Senate Republican%u2019s attempt to confirm conservative, strict constructionist judges; also said Alito was too conservative for his liking.

WAR ON TERROR: fought with Hillary Clinton to demand that terrorists be given a full AMERICAN trial.
It%u2019s NOT too late to STOP MCCAIN!

A VOTE FOR HUCKABEE IS A VOTE FOR MCCAIN
VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY ON FEB 5TH.

[news4all]

The best thing Huckabee could do for his country right now is to drop out of the race and endorse Romney!

Both Huckabee and McCain lack qualities of great leadership. They both shoot off their mouths, throw out cute little phrases when they are caught in a lie (or want to attack a rival without appearing negative), and neither of them are willing to take responsibility for their mistakes etc%u2026

Romney always shows great leadership ability, self-control, education, experience and vision. He also proves he is willing to listen to and learn from those around him, take responsibility for his mistakes and continually improve for the better.

Romney has every quality of a good leader and would make an excellent president!

[starleo146]

This means that Democrats are not so much running against McCain, the candidate, as McCain, the myth. The Republican Party will be a serious obstacle for the Democratic nominee, but ultimately election 2008 will be as much a battle to overturn the conventional wisdom as it will be a fight with the senator from Arizona. It should be a source of some encouragement then that the progressive movement, with its blogs, social-networking space and alternative media outlets, is far better prepared to fight and win that kind of battle than it has been at any other time in recent memory.

[starleo146]

And McCain''s problems run far deeper than his irascibility and some gaffes on the stump. His real challenge is that his popularity -- his viability -- rests almost entirely on two narratives that have absolutely no connection with reality: his reputation as a straight-talking "maverick" and a moderate, and his "brave" support for Bush''s troop escalation, a policy that''s led to the widely-embraced but wholly false idea that "the surge is working."

These narratives have only gone unchallenged thanks to a compliant press; the commercial media are McCain''s most dedicated constituents, and he''s spent a career fostering that country-before-party image, even while walking in lock-step with Republicans on all but a few over-reported issues.

[starleo146]

The affable and avuncular image McCain''s worked so hard to cultivate may also be difficult to maintain as voters focus more attention on the candidate. As Sidney Blumenthal wrote for Salon:

McCain''s political colleagues %u2026 know another side of the action hero -- a volatile man with a hair-trigger temper, who shouted at Sen. Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor to "shut up," called his fellow Republican senators "shhead," "******** jerk," "arseshole," and joked in 1998 at a Republican fundraiser about the teenage daughter of President Clinton, "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father." [In 2006], McCain suddenly rushed up to a friend of mine, a prominent Washington attorney, at a social event, and threatened to beat him up because he represented a client McCain happened to dislike, and then, just as suddenly, profusely and tearfully apologized.

An

[starleo146]

cCain is, however, an extremely weak candidate. The senator''s been showing his age throughout the primaries, and there is still a long and exhausting slog ahead. His wooden delivery of stump speeches -- sometimes offered while staring at his notes -- and some incidents in which he''s appeared "confused" -- he referred to Vladimir Putin as the president of Germany -- are vulnerabilities for a 71 year-old candidate. Most people still haven''t had a chance to see and hear from these candidates at length this cycle, and while we all decry the fact that people often make political decisions based on the candidates'' mannerisms or appearances rather than on the issues, in a race against a cranky, old-looking and somewhat out-of-it McCain, the War of Appearances is likely to be won handily by either of the potential Dem nominees.

[starleo146]

McCain is also the candidate most Democrats and progressives have feared facing in the general election. According to RealClearPolitics'' rolling average of head-to-head polls, McCain would beat Clinton today by a slim margin of just under 2 percent and would edge out Obama by a razor-thin half-point. Eight months out -- and months before the first debate between the nominees -- these data mean little, but they are causing some concern on the left.

[starleo146]

According to the latest Washington Post poll, there''s been a dramatic shift towards John McCain following his victory in the Florida GOP primary, and he now leads Mitt Romney by 24 points nationwide. With a number of winner-take all primaries on the Republican side, he has a very good shot at wrapping up the nomination on February 5. It looks like conservatives -- with a few raving-mad, mouth-breathing exceptions -- have gone through denial, anger, bargaining and depression and come finally to accept their insubordinate nominee. Modern conservatives are the philosophical heirs of the monarchists of a previous era; despite months of grumbling, most will, ultimately, rally around the king come November.

[starleo146]

John McCain the GOP Nominee? Bring Him On!

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted February 4, 2008.

Once you crack the media myths surrounding him, it''s unlikely voters are going to go for an angry, unstable, hypocritical warmonger.

[pacific_c]

Dare to compare the current congress for voting records.....

Senator Clinton has missed 105 votes (23.5%) during the current Congress. ....
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c001041/....

Senator Obama has missed 168 votes (37.7%) during the current Congress. ....
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/
.....
Senator McCain has missed 251 votes (56.3%) during the current Congress. ....
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/