From Vietnam Cell, McCain Mused On Future

Washington Post: In Hanoi Prison, McCain Had Resolved To Fulfill Ideals About Leadership And Character In Public Office

(Washingtonpost.com) 
As his liaison days wound down, McCain spent more time with Tower and Cohen, plotting strategy for a 1982 House race. But where should McCain run? "We discussed Florida, because he'd been a resident there," Cohen remembers. "But the thinking became that he should run in Arizona. . . . His wife was from there. And Arizona was conservative."

Arizona also appeared attractive for reasons that had nothing to do with ideology: Its population was booming, which meant it would receive one new congressional seat in time for the 1982 elections. Equally important, its explosive growth rate -- behind only Nevada's and Alaska's -- meant that more than 950,000 residents would be moving to Arizona during the 1980s, a whole new bloc of voters that McCain and his allies believed would be unmoved by charges that a political upstart from out of state was a carpetbagger.

In early 1981, a recommendation from Cohen led to the first meeting between McCain and political strategist Jay Smith, whose firm had orchestrated several winning congressional and gubernatorial campaigns for Republicans. As a past press secretary to a revered Arizona congressman, former Republican House leader John Rhodes, Smith knew the key Arizonans in need of wooing.

But Smith was skeptical about an outsider moving to Arizona and running for a congressional seat that didn't yet exist. "Where in Arizona are you going to do this?" Smith asked him, as the strategist recalls.

" 'We'll figure that out,' " McCain answered.

McCain hoped Arizona's new congressional seat would be placed in especially conservative Maricopa County, which included the Phoenix area. His father-in-law's beer distributorship was there, which meant his campaign could tap into Jim Hensley's extensive business and political contacts. But Smith already suspected the new district would be created around more moderate Tucson, where McCain's chances of winning wouldn't be nearly as good.

Smith and McCain settled on a plan that would have him make use of his wife's and father-in-law's contacts, and to speak about his military experiences and war years to as many civic organizations as possible, while being careful not to betray his political aspirations too early. "I said that Cindy and her father would know a lot of people, and that he should do Rotary, Kiwanis, VFWs, places like that," Smith says. "And he did. But I kept getting reports from the field that he was telling people he wanted to run for Congress. He knew he was torturing me."

Long before McCain could commit to a race, he needed to formally resign from the Navy, a ritual that included breaking the news to his pained father, who had long dreamed of his son's ascension to admiral. His mother expressed disdain for his decision, friends recall. She had known congressmen for years, she told him. She had hosted them in her home. And while she liked a great many of the men, few of them could compare, in stature or accomplishment, to extraordinary naval officers, she said.

Her indignation was yet another reminder of McCain's burdens. The shadows of his father and grandfather, which had loomed so large over him all his life, would not recede simply because he was leaving the Navy.

In March 1981, his father died. That same week, at his naval retirement party, a misty McCain paused from talking about his own career to wish aloud that his father could be there with him. He swallowed hard, attendees remember. It was a jarring few days. He spoke at his father's funeral and, on the same afternoon, had to drive to the Pentagon to turn over his naval ID, his retirement by then official, the day marking the first time in anyone's memory that a McCain was not serving somewhere in the armed forces.

With his dad laid to rest, his mother held a reception that afternoon for close friends and family members at their Washington home. Several guests asked to see John, to which his mother said that he and Cindy were already gone. John had needed to fly back to Arizona to take care of some political business, she added.

A Future in Politics

Jay Smith and other friends remember that McCain's entry into politics preceded his discovery of a complete set of policy positions, particularly on social and economic matters. While laying the groundwork for the 1982 congressional race, he told Smith that he didn't have a stance on abortion. When Smith responded that he needed to have one, McCain said he could see both sides. "He wasn't an issues guy," Smith recalls. "Abortion wasn't an issue that he cared about or had thought much about. . . . We went through that on a lot of different things."

Friends dating to his days as a midshipman at the Naval Academy can't remember McCain ever espousing a political philosophy, so it wasn't a surprise that ideology played almost no role in propelling him into politics.

As he formulated strategy, he went to work for his father-in-law's company as a public relations man, talking about the virtues of a good beer and his career in the military. He spent many of his lunch hours during late 1981 at his father-in-law's country club, meeting Arizona Republican businessmen and building his contact list, just as Smith had recommended. Still, Smith thought he was talking far too much and too soon about his ambitions, and remembers wincing when he heard that a state Republican Party leader had introduced McCain to Vice President George H.W. Bush as "one of our upcoming congressional candidates."

There was a bigger worry. In a blow to McCain's grand plan, Arizona's new congressional seat had been placed in the Tucson area rather than Phoenix. But McCain and Smith still entertained a last hope. For a year, Arizona political observers had speculated that John Rhodes, the dean of the state's House delegation, might be close to retiring from Congress. If Rhodes were to step aside, his solidly Republican 1st District seat in Maricopa County would be ideal turf for McCain.

In January 1982, with the Rhodes retirement rumors at their peak, Smith was monitoring a Rhodes news conference while talking on the phone with McCain. Learning that Rhodes would not be seeking reelection, the two men shouted excitedly. Later that same day, during another phone conversation, Smith could hear McCain talking to his wife in the background. "Did you buy the house?" McCain asked her.

In the next instant, McCain told Smith, "Cindy just bought us a house in the 1st District."

Eager to pay a courtesy visit to Rhodes before announcing his candidacy, McCain traveled back to Washington. Rhodes was a Washington anomaly: an unflashy workhorse who resisted Sunday-morning TV appearances in favor of policy study and family time. His mastery of the legislative labyrinth had made Rhodes a devout believer in the benefits of experience -- and patience.
Rhodes shook McCain's hand and told him that he had a promising future in Arizona politics. But, just as a few Florida Republicans had done in 1976 when McCain pondered a run there, Rhodes raised the subject of McCain's lack of political seasoning. "Have you considered running for the state legislature, so you can get a little more experience?" Rhodes asked.

At the meeting's end, as soon as he made it out of Rhodes's office, McCain leaned over to a companion, Rep. Robin Beard of Tennessee, and delivered his response to Rhodes's suggestion: "No way." He was running for Congress, whether the legend approved or not.

McCain ended up having three primary-election opponents, but he enjoyed the advantages that counted most in the race: the largest campaign war chest; support from his father-in-law's and wife's well-heeled friends and associates, including a Phoenix real estate developer named Charles Keating, who would help to raise more than $100,000; a skillful TV ad campaign from Jay Smith that featured a clip of a limping McCain taking his first steps on American soil after his release from Hanoi; glowing video testimonials from national figures such as Cohen and Tower, the latter of whom came into the 1st District to campaign for McCain; and flattering media attention.

In an irony for the man whose future presidential campaigns would cast him as a Washington outsider dedicated to slashing pork-barrel spending, McCain asserted that his Capitol connections had already been put to good use in protecting the flow of federal money into the 1st District. Alluding to his work as naval liaison and his influence since with powerful Washington lawmakers, he said he had already helped to preserve defense-related jobs for the district.

"The campaign didn't really have a big issue dividing the candidates," Smith recalls. "Everyone was kind of running as a Reagan Republican. So the question became who was best qualified. John made a big deal of the point that he was the only one with Washington experience."

But problems arose. Detractors began privately raising questions about his personal life. Quietly contemptuous about McCain's candidacy, an aide to a prominent Arizona Republican contacted a McCain primary opponent, state Sen. Jim Mack, and said that Carol McCain wanted to speak to Mack about what it had been like to be married to John McCain.

As Mack remembers, he called Carol McCain one evening at the Reagan White House, where she worked as the director of the visitors' office. When Mack broached the subject of her former spouse and their marriage, an outraged Carol McCain asked him what kind of man would stoop so low as to try drawing a woman into such a conversation. "As soon as I heard her voice, I knew something was wrong," Mack recalls. "John got upset. I don't blame him."

Any public discussion of Carol McCain carried the potential of a costly political embarrassment for McCain. He responded to the news of Mack's call in the same style that he had often employed during high school and college confrontations, delivering a private warning to the rival. "If you ever do that again, or contact any other member of my family, I'll beat the [expletive] out of you," Mack recalls McCain saying to him.

Reports of Mack's call to Carol McCain, and an oblique reference to McCain's subsequent threat, made it into a local paper. "I think it might have helped John, actually," Smith recalls. "He looked like a strong family guy."

A pleased McCain casually mentioned to aides that Mack had failed to show at some subsequent candidate forums. Privately, McCain scorned Mack, viewing the rival's political credentials as sparse when measured against his own experiences on Capitol Hill and in the Navy, a former aide remembers.

Already, McCain had come to see political races, like politics itself, in terms of virtue vs. vice -- virtue deriving from what he regarded as his demonstrable background of leadership vs. the vice of opponents' political expediency and their paucity of meaningful experience. He viewed the 1982 campaign less as an ideological battle than a test of which candidate was most worthy of command. "He needs to make enemies of the people he's going against in order to get fired up," says Jon Hinz, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party.

As the campaign neared its end, McCain appeared to be a slight favorite. Then real trouble struck. Critics charged that he had taken credit for the legislative accomplishments of others, particularly Barry Goldwater, the state's iconic senior senator who had remained neutral in the 1st District race. His foes cited the McCain campaign's assertion that, with the use of his Washington connections, he had helped to save hundreds of job at the Hughes Helicopters facility in the 1st District city of Mesa, by protecting a lucrative Army contract from a congressional budgetary ax.

Reports began circulating that Goldwater and several of his aides thought that McCain had grossly exaggerated his role in protecting the key helicopter project at Hughes. During the last weekend before the September primary, the senator's office sent out a telegram to McCain's three opponents that detailed Goldwater's efforts on behalf of the helicopter contract while dismissing McCain's influence. The telegram betrayed Goldwater's mixed feelings about McCain, whose military service he deeply admired but whose overnight leap into a campaign for the 1st District seat offended him as undeserved, friends say. "Goldwater said privately that McCain was a carpetbagger," recalls Nixon White House counsel John Dean, a close family friend of the Goldwaters.

On the eve of the 1982 primary, the Goldwater telegram had the makings of a crisis, testing McCain's ability to make effective use of his political connections and defuse a political bomb. As Smith remembers, after Goldwater's office released the telegram, McCain called Tower, who happened to be in Europe with Goldwater and other members of a congressional delegation. Tower, who already had credited McCain with helping to save the helicopter project, now came to his friend's rescue.

"Tower got to Goldwater, and Goldwater said that he had authorized the telegram, though not personally drafted it," Smith recounts. "Tower extracted a promise from Goldwater that he would not make himself available for any discussion with Arizona media."

Catastrophe was averted. On primary day, McCain won with just 32 percent in the crowded Republican field. Victory over the Democratic nominee in November would be a mere formality. Grant Woods, a key aide who had already been selected as McCain's chief congressional aide for Arizona, reminded McCain of the latest political scuttlebutt: Goldwater was virtually certain to retire from his Senate seat at the end of his term in 1986. "We ought to be thinking of that race," Woods told his new boss, and McCain heartily agreed.

Four years later, enjoying a big lead in the polls on the eve of that Senate election, McCain turned to an aide who had asked whether, all things being equal, he'd rather be the commander of a naval fleet squadron than a senator. "Well, all things aren't equal," McCain began. "But if I keep this lead, win and become senator, maybe my mother will finally get off my back for leaving the Navy."

Ahead was something he couldn't see, the crucible of his life, a brush with a political nightmare that would come to be known as the Keating Five scandal. For the moment he could envision nothing but a shimmering future. He had already permitted himself to dream aloud to aides about the possibility of being tapped as a vice presidential nominee in 1988, if his winning margin in the 1986 Senate race were large enough. If he became vice president, a presidential race would certainly be in the offing. And if he lost at any point, they would all simply keep moving forward, doggedly. The pursuit of command had just begun.

[dante805]

No good American will actually VOTE for Obama. The Chavez loving castro apologist is DANGEROUS to this country''s future. Look at his associates; ACORN, AYERS, WRIGHT, FARAKHAN, Pelosi, Reid. Do you really want Obama appointing 3 supreme court justices just like Ruth Ginsburg? Scary. think twice before voting for a Marxist.

[tigerrram9]

I commend John McCain for his service to his country, but I don''t agree with hime giving interview while a prisoner of war. He should have followed the Code of Conduct to give only Name Rank and Serial Number. How many viet nam prisoners of war failed to receive medical aid and died in captivity because they abided by the code of conduct. I served 21 year and I still remember the past of the code.."When questioned should I become a prisoner of war, I am bound to give only name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.
John, Why didn''t you abide by our code of conduct? Why give information and grant interviews? Many prisoners died because they wouldn''t cooperate with the enemy. Why? My friend and neighbor came home paralyzed for life from viet nam..he also served honorably.
God Bless America and our brave servicemen and service women.
America when you vote in November vote with your heart and good judgement. Don''t vote because you fear another human being another American.
VOTE YOUR HEART NOT YOUR FEARS..

[ioweign]

McCain attended ACORN rally

The very same ACORN his campaign now rails against and is accusing of trying to "steal" the election for Obama:

Miami Dade College press release:

Miami, Florida - February 20, 2006 - Leaders from a diverse array of sectors will hold a rally in Miami on Thursday, February 23, 2006, in support of comprehensive immigration reform in an effort to keep immigration reform at the forefront of the public debate. Leaders from both political parties, immigrant communities, labor, business, and religious organizations will gather to call on Washington to enact workable reform.

The rally will feature Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as the headline speaker along with elected officials, immigrants and key local and national leaders. Sen. McCain is one of the chief sponsors of the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act; bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform legislation introduced last Congress and scheduled for consideration by the Senate in the coming weeks. A similar rally with Sen. McCain is planned for New York City on February 27.

[abbe91]

"In 1976, despite the grumblings of some officers who believed that his family name had won him what his qualifications could not," ...

See, for example,
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-aviator6-2008oct06,0,7633315.story

[jimesmith2]

I think this is a legitimate question: What about all the propaganda films he made for the Communist Vietnamese? Is there a film fest we can attend to see our brave hero resist his captures? There were plenty of prisoners who bravely did not make or succumb to making anti-American films.

[shingles1]

This Washington Post piece sounds like it was written by the McCain campaign.

For a slice of the real McCain, in which he comes across as a completely selfish and dishonest sc*mbag, who has always put McCain First, read this:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

[ubrew12]

Carter wisely understood that when Iran fell to Islamism, it was just the culmination of 40 years of Republican destruction of the democracy in Iran, that occurred when Eisenhower deposed the duly-elected Prime Minister of Iran and installed the dictator Shah in his place. (Republicans and democracy have always had a loose association, at best.) Carter patiently waited them out... your hero Reagan actually sold the Iranians weapons systems (under the table for which he was almost impeached).

Learn a little history before you bring up the Carter years: you embarrass yourself and your cause.

[ubrew12]

Logansprings said: "many of us do remember the Carter years -- double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, gas lines, our citizens being terrorized and taken hostages in Iran."

Unlike predecessors Nixon and Ford, Carter chose to pay for the Vietnam War AND deal with oil shortages directly, without ballooning the Federal Debt. This led to high inflation, so Carter appointed Paul Volcker to the Fed to tame the inflation beast, which he did (too late to help Carter politically, of course, but Carter was more about the nation than his political career, unlike most Republicans).

And when Russia invaded Afghanistan to control future oil pipelines from Central Asia to Saudi Arabia, Carter armed the mujahadeen, who embroiled the Soviets in their own private Vietnam. Historians believe that Carters action in Afghanistan did as much to end the Soviet Empire as Reagan''s bluster did (and, of usual, Carters actions was incredibly cheap compared to Reagans, which helped bankrupt America 30 years later).

[Torilin]

herald the economic leadership of a man who just voted for a $700,000,000,000.00 Wall Street bailout on credit?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Posted by Logansprings

That bailout is one of those things that''s needed but no one wants to do it. If we allow all these banks to bite dust what happen is that the FDIC will still have to dish out the cash to each single account up to $100,000/each individual....the price could be much higher than 700 billion.

[dburfears]

DISHONOR AND INFIDELITY OF CINDY & JOHN

Cindy CHEATED with JOHN McSHAME while JOHN WAS STILL MARRIED TO HIS FIRST (and FAITHFUL) WIFE. Cindy is a CHEAP HOME WRECKER.

Every American needs to know the story of McSHAME''s REPEATED infidelities against his first wife. AFTER his first wife was MILDLY DISABLED IN A CAR ACCIDENT, McSHAME treated her like cr*p, having adulterous affairs with multiple women. Then Cindy became his adulterous lover while John McSHAME was still married. McShame married this rich money-pump- a perfect match for his political ambitions.

This happened in McSHAME''s 30''s, when he had a 10 YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER with his first wife. McSHAME is a fraud. He cannot take care of his own family, let alone our country. Cindy is an adulterer and home wrecker.

McSHAME''s SLEAZE is a horrible indictment against his judgment and ability to lead this country.

Every woman and responsible man should know the REAL McSHAME STORY: Poor Officer, despicable husband, absentee father, Navy troublemaker, and liar.

This couple is certainly no "FAMILY VALUES" example. Just hypocrites being supported by hypocrites who claim they are the "family values" party.

[wogerwabbit]

The Republicans can rationalize as much as they like, but the last 4 years of hate and fear have been a freakin disaster and the blame has settled squarely on your shoulders. Blame Carter, blame Clinton, blame Obama, blame anybody you want, but first blame yourselves because everybody else is. You won''t even own up to the mess you''ve made and expect us to trust you to fix what you don''t even see.

[logansprings]

I guess that as long as this blog is going to devolve into a biography on G. Gordon Liddy, we might as well make it interesting:

G. Gordon Liddy has done it and speaks from personal experience. Who else has been a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, an Army artillery officer, and the youngest Bureau Supervisor in the FBI who out drew and captured a man twice on the Ten Most Wanted list?

The G-Man has also been a high Treasury official, a White House aide and a maximum security prisoner. He wrote the memo that led to the creation of the DEA, helped start the first Sky Marshal program and selected their weapons, is the author of three best-sellers and has acted in numerous television shows and movies.

An Israeli trained paratrooper who has jumped with the elite Israeli army, Liddy has the NEED FOR SPEED. He drives a 200mph sports car and rides two Harley Davidsons, has piloted a Soviet aerobatic plane and World War II allied and Luftwaffe aircraft.

The G-Man has been there, done that, and taken home the Tee shirt. That''s the difference. What other men can only fantasize and dream about, G. Gordon Liddy has done and still does!

At least he has experience, which is more than can be said for Barack Obama...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The G-man is the real thing!

[logansprings]

"You are right and every other American who disagrees with you is wrong. You are the only one who accurately remembers what happened in the lead up to the Carter Administration and during the Carter Administration. You are the one with all the answers. All hail Logansprings."

--posted by buffalonyusa--

With just a few corrections, buffalohead, you have just posted the mantra of the Obamabots for their Lord and Messiah:

Lord Obama, you are all knowing and wise. Your wisdom is righteous and every other American who disagrees with you will be assailed by the Truth Squads, William Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, and Jeremiah Wright!

Lord Obama, you are the one and the only one who can lead us to the promised land of wealth redistribution and national socialism that tried and failed during the Carter Administration!

Lord Obama, you are the one and the only one with all knowledge and the kool-aid!

All hail Lord Obama!

[ioweign]

Liddy''s "continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great:" Did McCain mean to include Liddy''s instructions to listeners of his radio show in 1994 (around the time Ayres and Obama were on a board together discussing education programs and other plots) on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents (aim for the head)?

If ATF agents attempt to curtail a citizen''s gun ownership, Liddy counseled, "Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they''re going to be wearing bulletproof vests."

More recently, Liddy explained making the Clintons objects of shooting practice: "I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we - I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn''t. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House."

[ioweign]

In 1998, Liddy gave a fundraiser in his Scottsdale, Arizona home for McCain''s senatorial re-election campaign -- the two posed for photographs together; and as recently as May, 2007, as a presidential candidate, McCain was a guest on Liddy''s syndicated radio show. Inexplicably, McCain heaped praise on his host''s values. During the segment, McCain said he was "proud" of Liddy, and praised Liddy''s "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

[logansprings]

So, if we are comparing Palin to Obama while using the word inexperience, that would imply that the Democrats have their ticket upside down, which I would agree with.

While I don''t agree with the politics of Biden as he is the 3rd most liberal voting member of the Senate (Obama is 1st most liberal voting Senator during his 143 days of actual work in the Senate), I would agree that Joe Biden has the most experience, or as buffalonyusa puts it, Biden is "quite old now"

By the way, I was 18 when Carter ran for President and cast my first Presidential vote for him. But, some mistakes you just have to own up to and live with.

Unless you are Barack Obama.

[ioweign]

During the same period that Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Gordon Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg''s psychiatrist, and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.

Certainly McCain''s continuing "association" and relationship with the convicted Watergate burglar and domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy might suggest that is the case, if we are to apply the standards drawn by the McCain campaign.

[logansprings]

How is it, Peanuthead, that you can decry Nixon as a fool for going off the gold standard and then herald the economic leadership of a man who just voted for a $700,000,000,000.00 Wall Street bailout on credit?

[logansprings]

Well, in case you missed this one too, the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center was not the first one. The only reason that the World Trade Center wasn''t taken down during the Clinton Administration is that the terrorists botched the job. So while Clinton fiddled, the terrorist fires burned.

As such, the failed military and foreign policy of the Clinton administration (and the luck of a botched terrorist attack) set the groundwork and the stage for a successful attack.

But, don''t misunderstand. Such assertions do not suggest commendations for the failures of the Bush administration. By being inexperienced in leadership and handling important issues in intelligence, military matters, and terrorism, the Bush administration failed to make the correct decisions and misled or was misled or both. But, that doesn''t change what Obama can''t do.

As for the War in Iraq, apparently you have missed the fact that our troops are not coming home to stop the bloodshed (as earlier promised by Barack Obama). They will simply be "redeployed" to another arena of human sacrifice where the Soviet Union failed earlier. So, the Obama plan is to not learn from another''s failure but to follow in the path of failure by full deployment in Afghanistan (kind of like the way we followed the French into Viet Nam under Kennedy and Johnson).

There''s some more "Change" we can believe in...

[ioweign]

Operation Eagle Claw failure actually falls on the military under Carter''s watch.