Who Is This John McCain?
Jan 8, 2010 Political
John McCain is running for reelection in Arizona and his campaign ads are already out. I have seen the transcripts of several of them and I am having a hard time figuring out who the McCain the ads talk about is. John McCain, the Senator from Arizona, has ads telling the people of the great state of Arizona that he bumps heads everyday with Barack Obama and that if he gets a bruise or two along the way, that is fine.
“I stand in his way every day,” McCain says. “If I get a bruise or two knocking some sense into heads in Washington, so be it.”
John McCain refused to bump heads with Obama in any meaningful way in the past election. Obama won that battle and, with majorities in both chambers, he is winning most other battles as well regardless of the bruises McCain gets. Another ad discusses McCain’s time as a POW and then goes on to say:
“But perhaps no battle in our lifetime is more vital than the one John McCain fights now… a battle to save America, save our jobs…
The ad discusses McCain and slashing spending as well as bloated government programs. For the most part McCain has been true to this with regard to his own actions. I have heard that he does not put earmarks in bills (though I also heard he has put small ones in). When he was running for president he said that he would veto bills with earmarks and name names of those who inserted them.
But he votes for them. When the Republicans were in power they controlled the legislation and they loaded bills with earmarks just like the Democrats did then and both parties do now. Pork projects are not party specific. If McCain is serious about no earmarks then he should not vote for any legislation that contains earmarks no matter who inserted them.
This bluster comes when his party is not in power and when he is running for reelection and, oh by the way, has a primary challenger. John, you cannot have it both ways. You were not this blusterous when your party was in control and spending like there was no tomorrow. You were not this blusterous when you supported the Bush TARP. You might claim to bump heads with Obama but you both voted for the TARP and that was the wrong thing to do.
The folks in Arizona might believe that you are going to save America and that is for them to decide on election day but the country decided that you were not that person in 2008. While you might have been better than Obama many folks believe there is not much difference between the two of you.
Claiming to be a conservative and then working with Ted Kennedy on things like amnesty for illegals does not send a very good message. Your primary opponent is very much against immigration reform and that puts him higher on the scale than you. In the overall scheme of things you are with Obama on this issue as both of you supported the last attempt at amnesty.
John, I have no doubt you are an honorable man and I admire your service to this country. You went through things many of us could not endure but you have allowed your years in the Senate to change you into a go along to get along guy until it is inconvenient.
You were not the choice of most Republicans in the last election. You were the choice of the media and you were pushed on us. If it had not been for Sarah Palin being your running mate I believe that Obama would have nearly run the table on you. People voted for her, not for you because she holds conservative values and she walks the walk.
And keep in mind John, you were a darling of the left as well. They liked the way you worked with their politicians, the papers loved you, and you were seen as a guy who they could work with which is why they pushed you. They felt that you were the lesser of all evils if their guy lost. But look at how they threw you to the wolves during the last election. I would have thought you might have learned from this but you have this history of talking tough (that “straight talk”) about things and then compromising when it is convenient.
So I ask; Who is this John McCain that has ads in Arizona? It is not the guy who ran for the presidency a year ago.
Not even close.
And it is not the guy Arizona will get if he wins reelection.
Source:
The Swamp
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Tags: ads, election, McCain, Obama, tough talk
Florida Senate Race Gets Interesting
Dec 17, 2009 Political
Marco Rubio, who was trailing badly in the polls, has now pulled even with Florida Governor Charlie Crist in their bid for the US Senate. Rubio is a true conservative while Crist is not quite so. Crist supported the stimulus bill and was at events with Barack Obama, facts that Rubio has used to tie Crist to the Democrat leader.
This will be interesting and many Republicans will be watching closely to see how this turns out because it might portend the future for many of them.
Democrats have to be interested as well because if Crist’s ties to Obama turn out to hurt him then many Democrats will be less inclined to believe they can use Obama’s coattails to remain in office.
They should already know that he is not as powerful as he once was by the Virgina and New Jersey Gubernatorial elections. Obama campaigned hard for both Democrats who lost miserably.
Political season is just around the corner and it is going to be quite interesting indeed.
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Obama To Abandon Cap And Trade?
Nov 13, 2009 Political
Politico reports that in Obama’s next State of the Union Address he will indicate that he will focus on cutting the federal deficit (now that he ran it up) and will pay less attention to other issues except job creation. The thought is that this will put Cap and Trade on hold.
What Obama wants to do is give Democrats cover for the 2010 election. Cap and Trade is unpopular and Obama does not want to have the record show that Democrats voted for this unpopular legislation though we already have the names of those in the House who voted for it.
The recent elections have driven home a few points, one of which is that Democrats could be vulnerable in 2010 because of the spending spree they have been on. This is a political move designed to lessen damage from the midterm election.
Make no mistake, Cap and Trade will be back if Obama maintains majorities in both chambers of Congress. He knows that if he puts the Democrats out there on this issue, whether it passes before the next election or not, he is likely to lose a lot of seats. If Cap and Trade has not passed and he loses the Senate, it never will and even if it does pass and he loses one chamber, his legislative agenda will be dead. He will also have a harder time being reelected.
This is a stalling tactic. Obama wants people to forget about the Cap and Trade issue so he can keep both chambers. If he is successful, Cap and Trade will be back and a number of other liberal/socialist items will be introduced.
Regardless of what he does next year we need to vote as many of them out of office as possible.
We saw what a mess was created when Republicans held all the power and now we are seeing it to an even greater degree with the Democrats.
We need to bring some sort of sanity back to DC and we can do that by shaking up the Congress.
Vote them all out in 2010.
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Tags: cap and trade, election, Obama, stalling, state of the union
Democrats Blame Palin And Others
Nov 4, 2009 Political
Democrats are giddy at the pick up of the New York Congressional seat in the 23rd District. The talking heads last night blamed it on Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Tim Pawlenty and other conservatives who endorsed the Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
The blame is going around and is discussed as evidence that the Republican Party is in disarray but that is not the case. Conservatives (not necessarily Republicans) are tired of RINOs who go to Congress and side with Democrats on the issues. If a person is going to side with them it might as well be a Democrat. The endorsements were from conservatives for a conservative and it was based on ideology over party which for conservatives is country over party.
But that has not stopped the talking heads from claiming that people like Palin endorsing Hoffman hurt him and the right.
This is a lot of bunk. The disarray on the right in the New York race came from the Republicans who shoved a liberal who happens to be registered as a Republican down our throats (actually the throats of the people in the District). Since there is no primary for these kinds of special elections in New York, the party is stuck with whom other politicians select and not necessarily who the people want. The Republicans pumped money in for Scozzafava instead of backing the conservative and then were rewarded when she dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. If the Republican Party had practiced values instead of the party first mentality then Hoffman might have won.
The fact that an unknown with no political experience and who is not particularly dynamic almost won should give pause to both parties.
Interestingly, the Democrats are dismissing the losses of the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey as having nothing to do with Obama. Today they actually threw Corzine under the bus as they trashed him in order to deflect the blame.
But, if the Democrats are going to say that Palin endorsing Hoffman hurt the party then they must apply the same standard to Obama.
Obama not only endorsed the Democrats, he went to New Jersey three times and held five campaign events for Corzine in a dark blue state and the result was a loss. Obama went to Virginia to campaign for Deeds and he lost. If Palin hurt the Right by endorsing Hoffman then Obama certainly hurt the governors by campaigning for them.
The next year is going to be interesting. The Republicans need to embrace their core values and stop being Democrats lite or they will be replaced with conservatives. Democrats need to stop their abuse of government or they will lose Independents.
For Republicans it will mean a shake up of party and for Democrats it might make for a long night during the next election. There are a lot of seats in red states that are held by Democrats who won office in the anti Bush sentiment of the last two elections. They might be in real trouble if they continue taking their marching orders from Pelosi instead of their bosses.
The next twelve months are going to be very interesting.
Related:
NY Daily News
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Tags: corzine, deeds, election, hoffman, Limbaugh, palin, pawlenty, Pelosi, scozzafava
Pelosi Says The Democrats Won Last Night
Nov 4, 2009 Political
Last night was a bad night for Democrats. After storming in and taking Virginia last November, they lost the state by a huge margin. In New Jersey, where being a Democrat is a birthright, Corzine lost pretty big to Chris Christie.
In New York’s 23rd District, the Democrat beat the Conservative party candidate and this has Pelosi happy. She even used a little revisionist history to express her glee:
“From our perspective, we won last night,” the California Democrat told reporters during a Wednesday photo op. “We had one race that we were engaged in, it was in northern New York, it was a race where a Republican has held the seat since the Civil War. And we won that seat. So, from our standpoint, no, a candidate was victorious who supports health care reform, and his remarks last night said this was a victory for health care reform and other initiatives for the American people.” Politico [emphasis mine]
Maybe I am not that familiar with US History but I am sure that the Civil War took place from 1861-1865. So, according to the Facelift Queen, no Democrat has held the seat Democrats just won since then. The problem with that is that a number of Democrats have held the seat there since 1945 or 80 years after the Civil War ended.
- Walther Lynch 1945-1951
- Sidney Fine 1951–1953
- Peter Peyser 1973-1977
- Samuel Stratton 1983-1989
- Michael McNulty 1989-1993
There were other Democrats who held the seat during this time.
It was a good win for the Democrats but it is not relevant. They already have more than enough votes to pass what they want and the guy who won is reportedly a fiscal conservative (or Blue Dog) so he might not vote the way she wants. In addition, he has to run for reelection in a year so he can’t afford to tick off his new bosses (his constituents for you liberals). I am not worried about him winning. If a liberal is going to win then I would prefer it be a real Democrat and not a RINO like Scozzafava who was more liberal than the Democrat. Ideology over party.
Pelosi can be happy but the bigger picture is the loss if Independents in Virgina and New Jersey. If this trend continues then Democrats in red states are going to have a tough time next year.
They have to be nervous right now so will they be willing to walk the plank for Pelosi and risk their jobs?
We will know in the next few weeks and in less than a year we will know how their decisions affected them.
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Tags: blue dog, civil war, election, Pelosi, revisionist history, worry