I’m going to try to remain as objective as I can in this post. After all, I’m only reporting what happened over the last 24 hours when our good friend, Senator John McCain, went all mavericky on the floor of the Senate by endorsing a Wall Street Journal article ridiculing the Tea party. Here is the video clip that caused war to break out between Middle Earth and the “City of Satan.”
McCain’s remarks brought the conservative side of the GOP (isn’t that the majority?) to arms prompting swift responses from the likes of Sean Hannity who called McCain out on his remarks. McCain attempted to explain it away as follows:
From Glenn Beck:
And from former Tea Party Republican Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle:
One man in Washington, who chose Sarah Palin to be his VP running-mate and came to Nevada to campaign for me last year in the Senate race against Harry Reid, is now promoting attacks against Tea Party activists, ordinary American citizens, and fiscally conservative members of Congress — all of whom are adamantly opposed to continuing the deficit-spending strategies proposed by some congressional members and the president.
Ironically, this man campaigned for Tea Party support in his last re-election, but now throws Christine O’Donnell and I into the harbor with Sarah Palin. As in the fable, it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land. This Lord of the TARP actually ought to read to the end of the story and join forces with the Tea Party, not criticize it.
Former Tea Party Republican Maryland Senate candidate, Christine O’Donnell, also let loose on our senior Senator when she posted on her Facebook page:
I think that it is inappropriate to insult the judgment of the majority of Republicans in Nevada and Delaware and that the implication that nominating RINOs somehow means we win was irrefutably disproven by McCain’s own presidential candidacy debacle. After that nightmare, McCain had to veer right so fast he almost got whiplash from all his flip-flopping just to keep his Senate seat. It doesn’t help him to attack those conservatives and Tea Partiers who graciously gave him another chance to keep his job.
But perhaps everyone is wanting to know what McCain’s former running mate, Governor Sarah Palin, is thinking about the Senator’s remarks attacking the Tea Party, which is her strongest base.
Without injecting my own opinion – I’m only reading from the news accounts – I’d like to know what our readers are thinking.
Mayor Scott Smith and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (viva la raza) were on the front page of the Tribune yesterday cheering for an increase in the debt limit just like McCain.
I guess they all are supporting Matt Salmon so he can go to congress and keep producing pork and excuses like he did last time he was in congress.
Salmon and the amnesty crowd at the chamber of commerce (his handpicked Director Glen Hamer) will keep pushing for ways to waste tax payer money and find more ways to hire illegals.
Funny how Salmon puts out a press release bragging about non existent polls and then gets some criticism and the post get pushed off the Sonoran Alliance page in a couple hours. Highly unusual, I guess the condemnations and criticism were too much truth for Salmon to handle.
I am disgusted with McCain.
I am tired of hearing about “his good friend”, Grant Woods.
I am tired of hearing calling for “civility” and being far more civil to Democrats than to his own party.
I remember the old McCain, who sabotaged the Democrat Rose Mofford on a truly bipartisan issue – insuring continued water rights for Arizona – and I don’t buy his newfound “I’m a gentleman” act.
I am appalled that the man who has NEVER had serious Democrat challenges in ANY election except the Presidency dares to lecture the Tea Party – which HAS made some dumb mistakes but also is just starting out – about political strategy.
I am LAUGHING that the man who ran arguably the absolute worst Republican Presidential campaign in EIGHTY YEARS – an amateurish, pathetic, and ineffective joke – is trying to give advice to ANYONE about partisan political strategy. Think about it. Not since Herbert Hoover has a GOP Presidential campaign floundered so limply. Even the ’06 Bob Dole campaign had more professionalism, skill and soul.
For 70 years, “compromise” and “reasonableness” have been the code word for “we are negotiating to either increase government a little bit or a lot”. NEVER “we’re trying to see how much we can reduce government”….business as usual is done. We’re out of money.
Everyone tells me McCain is not going to run again. But, he’s sure acting like a candidate.
JD Hayworth was the wrong man to take McCain on. A neo-con in the Bush mold, who voted repeatedly to expand government and had his own baggage was the wrong man to knock McCain off his perch. I pray to God a serious contender shuts down McCain’s Senatorial career in 2016 in the Republican primary.
“Even the ’06 Bob Dole campaign had more professionalism, skill and soul.”
I think you don’t remember the Dole campaign very well. Whether it was falling off the dais, or the “72 Hours to Victory” final push, or the posing on the treadmill in an oxford shirt with cufflinks, Dole/Kemp was a hilarious bit of performance art.
Not saying to be contrary, just if we were ranking, that’d be my “Most Inept Campaign EVAR” award. McCain had to somehow pull off “Bush didn’t suck so bad for the last eight year/Just so you know, I don’t suck as bad as Bush” manuever, and I don’t think anyone could have done.
Bovine Scatology, I worked for Dole -Kemp, it was one disasterous misstep after another.
I think you might be referring to Steve, I’m in complete agreement with you on Dole/Kemp. My personal favorite was the tobacco/milk controversy, or the speech to the Perotistas that included the line “I’m not perfect. Maybe everyone else here is.”
The Dole campaign did not allow a candidate to deliver the “four more years of the failed policies of George Bush” without challenge in the first debate, like McCain did.
The Dole campaign didn’t see it’s candidate vote for TARP.
The Dole campaign didn’t see it’s candidate “suspend his campaign” to “go work on the budget”.
The Dole campaign faced an incumbent Bill Clinton, who was a better candidate (and, I am embarrassed to say, a better President) than Obama.
The Dole campaign’s stupidity didn’t outlast the election, unlike the McCain campaign’s zombie-like missteps where they did things like sell the campaign Blackberries, full of confidential info, without bothering to erase them, or start immediately slamming their own vice-presidential nominee before the corpse of McCain’s presidential ambitions was cold.
No, while hardly a shining moment in the annals of campaign strategy, the Dole campaign was NOT as bad as McCain’s.
See, this is where we’re going to run into a problem. Your first two statements:
“The Dole campaign did not allow a candidate to deliver the “four more years of the failed policies of George Bush” without challenge in the first debate, like McCain did.
“The Dole campaign didn’t see it’s candidate vote for TARP.”
This is emblemic of the problem McCain face. You want McCain to defend Bush against “failed policies”, but TARP, which you think is a failed policy (but was actually successful in as much as the large banks didn’t collapse) was a Bush policy.
I could use this to disable a robot if I wanted to. “DOES NOT COMPUTE! ERROR! ERROR!”
“The Dole campaign didn’t see it’s candidate “suspend his campaign” to “go work on the budget”.
No, but Dole said things like “Some day milk is addictive” (when trying to defend tobacco subsidies). I can see the logic behind McCain “suspending” his campaign at least.
“…start immediately slamming their own vice-presidential nominee before the corpse of McCain’s presidential ambitions was cold.”
Well, that’s just your standard horror story trope, like the end of “Pickman’s Model”, where the artist has to try to kill the monster he unleashed before it gets out of control. And like most Lovecraftian tales, the monster wins at the end and humanity is defeated. Palin 2012!
Of course there were differences between the Dole and McCain campaigns but they had
one thing in common i.e. they reflected a GOP Senate Establishment which ideiologically
accepts the Liberas/Democratic template and only seeks to modify it.
This attitude also permeated post Reagan G.O.P administrations and bears a huge share of
the blame for the current situation we face at home and abroad.
Fortunately, the party has sent some fresh blood to the Senate from Kentucky, Wisconsin and Utah and hopefully it can seize the reings of leadership from the dead withered hands
of the Dole/McCain/McConnell mode of leadership.
“This attitude also permeated post Reagan G.O.P administrations and bears a huge share of
the blame for the current situation we face at home and abroad.”
Whoa now. That’s RINO-Squish-Rockerfeller talk there.
If McCain had quickly and decisively distanced himself from Bush, while simultaneously correctly stating to conservatives that Bush was not, in fact, a conservative, he would have won.
Obama did not run against McCain. Obama ran against Bush, and McCain let him get away with it.
John McCain surrounds himself with the wrong people. His closest advisers come from the blue-blooded, country-club, kacki-oxford-blazer-wearing wing of the party. These snooty Republicans look down their noses on the hard-working class wing of the GOP who work hard for everything they own instead of marrying into niceties or having everything handed to them. McCain has over five years left to serve this state and then he’ll get his name engraved on hundreds of buildings across the state while everyone puts their best fake smile on and remark what a great senator he was. Shame on John McCain for using and fooling the Tea Party to get re-elected to a 5th term. And shame on all his staffers who whisper sweet little machinations in his ear.
Shane,
“Without injecting my own opinion – I’m only reading from the news accounts – I’d like to know what our readers are thinking.”
I guess I’d say: “What’d you expect?”
And not about the McCain thing – you all knew the fix was in when people like wanumba were on record as saying her endorsement of him was OK because she owed his career to him so don’t be all shocked about this – but about about the schism between the establishment and the Tea Party.
The Tea Party got played. They’ll throw you sops like holding meaningless votes on repealing Health Care Reform or trying to gut the EPA, but when it comes time to do what the establishment wants, they’ll line up like lambs. Which AZ Republic Congressmen are voting for the Boehner plan? Quayle, Schweikert, Gosar – all new people swept in ’10. Only ones who aren’t? Franks and Flake.
Who’s trying to protect their seats? Who’s getting what from Boehner? The Tea Party from Arizona went Washington in less than a year. All that talk about revolution. Give them a comfy office and a staff and fawing press releases, and they’ll slap their fins together like a bunch of trained seals.
You actually have to ask what I think?
I think Arizona voters better start paying attention to what is going on; what HAS been going on, and what will continue to happen as long as McAmnesty and his ilk have ANY say in what direction this country goes.
We are all now paying for those who voted for this person………elections DO have consequences.
Not a defense of McCain, who once again has found a way to not only vote the wrong way but to pour salt on the wound, but does anyone here think Hayworth would have bucked the party leadership? He sure didn’t have a record of doing so. The only reason he may have is if he had his finger in the wind and felt it would have hurt more than helped him.
I am pretty upset with every politician who voted for the Boehner plan. It is a compromise we don’t need. But I am not sure Hayworth would have done any different given his record.
The Good News: from many comments that McCain has made I doubt he is running again. 5 years is a long time but sounds like his comments are from a man who does not care about re-election
Maybe it’s time for McCain Protest #3???
“What some PC’s did tonight…”
http://www.gilacourier.com/?p=5647
“Protesters! Quick someone call the cops”
http://sonoranalliance.com/2010/03/08/protesters-quick-someone-call-the-cops/
I discern a “deafening silence” from the list’s “McCainiacs”
Where are the supportive posts from Travis, Ann and above all LD17?
Have they encountered real life after the election cycle?
It would be also nice to hear from some of the boobs who have foisted
this P.O.S. on Arizona for the past thirty years!
And please spare us the “War Hero/P.O.W. bs!
That gruel has worn mighty thin.
There are no such thing as McCainiacs.
There are a few people, like myself, who have reluctantly voted for McCain for lack of a better alternative.
There are more people who don’t read anything deeper than mainstream news.
There are a few people who owe him favors or are scared of him.
But, really, I don’t know anyone who gets EXCITED about John McCain.
There are a lot of Republicans who treated him with a base amount of respect due to his position of being a senior GOP Senator who has done a few good things in the past (stand up to the prescription drug plan, block some bad legislation). But, his goodwill amongst the Republican party is pretty much exhausted.
His appearance on Hannity was even worse, I think, he simply denied what he said. No my friends I wasn’t attacking the Tea Party I’m a tea party supporter……I found his bs breathtaking . He should resign if he’s that dishonest.
How hilarious and knuckleheaded of McCain to invoke the Hobbits who just wanted to mind their own business, work enough to keep themselves well-fed, well-housed and to have a jolly time at the pub, with a good beer and a smoke, whose unassuming world-saving characteristic was that they had absolutely zero inclination to rule the world, so the Ring couldn’t get them to go all meglomaniac like ALL the OTHER humans and elves. Their weakness was selfishness, so when the Ring tried to work on them, all it achieved was to be hidden away under a mountain, in a drawer.
Worse, when it comes to evoking Middle Earth characters, John McCain would be GOLLUM.
Senator Gollum McCain. Too true. Bad move, Senator! My preciousssssss! Sssssst!
Who was the ding-a-ling staffer who thunked THAT up?
Gads, does anyone over McCain’s office understand that Lord of the Rings is about Satan playing off fallen humans, inticing them with “good power” and playing off their self-deluding egos that they won’t make the same mistakes everyone ELSE made and use it for good, but once they got it, it ruthlessly consumes and destroys them and everyone they imagined they’d be “helping?”
And that the unseen mystery is GOD invisibly working to undermine the grand evil schemes? “The weak make fools of the strong?”
Just classic.
Going viral? Gollum McCain …”Stupid Hobbitiss, spoiling everything!!”
http://www.redstate.com/absentee/files/2011/07/mcollum.jpg