Posts Tagged → John McCain
Full of sound and fury
John McCain wants to label it “a tale told by an idiot,” but whether that’s true or not, GOP US Senate challengers in Arizona J.D. Hayworth is certainly “full of sound and fury,” though it remains to be seen if his latest ad campaign in his challenge of McCain for the GOP nod is “signifying nothing” or not.
Hayworth, a one-time talk radio host, launched an ad critical of McCain’s conservative credentials, using an ad that paints McCain’s face blue, as in the movie Avatar. It’s a shiny, glitzy, with-it ad with a biting sense of humor and savvy pop-culture IQ filling the screens of netbooks nation-wide.
So of course, McCain and crew are demanding an apology for Hayworth calling McCain a “nominee for best conservative actor.” And here I thought it was that “sound like Reagan, govern like Carter” fellow currently in the White House.
Huh…
McCain flirting with pro-choice Veep
Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain is floating the idea that he may pick a pro-choice Republican or even a Democrat as his running mate in his bid for the White House. Either choice would be the final slap in the face to the party’s conservative wing, and might well trigger a conservative revolt within the GOP, including a possible challenge on the convention floor. Such a move would be like weight loss pills in a voter and support sense of the word.
In spite of conventional wisdom, this is a very winnable year for the GOP, if they focus on energy policy and its linchpin role in affecting the economy. Not only could the party retain the White House, but if energy policy and the economy are the top focal issues, with foreign policy a strong third issue, the GOP could not only stave off predicted seat losses in the House and Senate, but potentially even post gains in both houses.
The key, however, is whether the party has learned that its losses of two years ago were caused by abandoning the GOP’s conservative core values, not by being too conservative.
Time will tell the tale on this one.
Gov. T-Paw appears on Face the Nation
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty appeared yesterday on CBS’ Face the Nation and stumped in favor of Sen. John McCain’s foreign policy experience, as Pawlenty continues to preen and pose for the position of McCain’s number two.
“One of the questions this crisis raises is: Who do you want sitting across the table from Vladimir Putin and people like him, John McCain or Sen. Obama? I think the answer is Sen. McCain, and that’s for obvious reasons, whether its his experience in national security, military affairs, his clarity, his strength and his judgment in these matters,” Gov. T-Paw said.
Let’s hope our big government RINO Republican governor can stop and smell the roses while sporting such a brown nose before he runs out of acne cream.
McCain to balance budget by 2012?
GOP presidential hopeful John McCain will promise today that he will balance the federal budget within four years – by the end of his presumptive first term in office. He plans to do this by eliminating wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs – including Social Security. So much for those retirement Hilton Head rentals we were all hoping for!
“In the long-term, the only way to keep the budget balanced is successful reform of the large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” the McCain campaign says in a policy paper to be released Monday. “The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.”
It’s a step in the right direction, but WonderfulPessimsit.com speculates he’ll make more headway with voters by keeping the “drill here, drill now, pay less” bandwagon issue front and center throughout the election season and into election day in November.
New phase, new campaign manager for McCain
Today, Senator John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, announced he’d appointed a new head of his campaign, Steve Schmidt. Schmidt, who replaces Rick Davis (who’ll stay on in a diminished role), joins a campaign that has been dormant while waiting for the Democrats to settle on who they would run against McCain.
The McCain campaign has been lax on fundraising, headline-making, organization and direction under Davis, and it’s hoped that Schmidt, who served in George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, will be able to bring new energy and vision to the McCain camp, making the letheragy of recent months a mere memory.
One thing’s certain: McCain’s VP choice is the easiest way to get him back in the headlines; let’s hope Schmidt is up to the task of helping McCain settle on a running mate who’ll engage the party’s conservative wing, which would go a long way toward re-energizing the McCain campaign.
Palin for Veep?
While Hillary may have dashed the hopes of liberal women for a female in the White House, the GOP still has a legitimate – if somewhat longshot – contender to be John McCain’s running mate, a heartbeat away from the presidency if he wins in November.
Sarah Palin, the current GOP governor of Alaska, is hardly of the shrill, Hillary-like, progesterone-ingesting style of female politicians. For one, she is ardently pro-life and recently gave birth to a fifth child she knew would be born with Downs Syndrome. She has maverick credentials, going up against incumbant GOP governor Frank Murkowski, who she accused of impropriety, a charge that ultimately proved true.
Furthermore, she is a fiscal conservative. The problem for conservatives with Palin is that she buys into the Al Gore line on global warming, an important battle line in US energy reform; her views on domestic drilling, especially in her state’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, have been kept under wraps since emerging as a potential running mate for McCain.
Palin has potential, but comes from a state too small in electrol votes to be considered a lock; also, while she adds youth to the ticket, Palin has only been governor of Alaska for two years, lacks foreign policy experience and could be seen as underqualified for the second-in-command role.
We’ll see what McCain thinks soon, I’m sure.
McCain’s electric car contest
Hoping to put a shine on his environmental suit of armor while not completely abandoning free-market solutions, GOP Presidential nominee John McCain on Monday proposed a $300 million award for the first person to, “an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology.” To claim the prize, the car model would have to “deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”
It’s a unique idea that depends both on the capitalistic drive toward innovation and American ingenuity. The prize would equate to $1 from every American, and would result in a new generation of automobiles that would divorce America from its dependance on fossil fuels, not for reasons of so-called “global warming,” but as a way to save people money, an everyday pocketbook concern.
The foundations of such a solution have already been laid; the Science Channel recently aired a Mythbusters Young Scientists Challenge that featured electric cars that are equal or superior in speed and power to gas models. If such designs can be refined and made economically viable for commercial use without the long recharge times or the severely limited travel radiuses, it would certainly be an economic boon to the US economy, currently weighed down by gasoline costs.
Who would have thought that some of the most innovative ideas on energy reform would come from one of the oldest men to ever run for president?
