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 McCain Campaign: Not Dead YetPosted on Jul 17, 2007
Even though Sen. John McCain is still walking and talking like a candidate, the nation’s political writers and pundits are hammering the final nails in his presidential campaign coffin and preparing to bury it in his Arizona desert. “They never come back,” Robert Novak said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “I think there is a 40 percent chance he gets out of this thing in the fall,” said fellow panelist Al Hunt. Host Tim Russert quoted this devastating comment from political analyst Charlie Cook: “Let’s have a moment of silence. The physicians have left the room and now it’s the executors of the will taking over.” In New York magazine, John Heilemann outdid Cook, writing, “Though it’s not impossible to conjure a narrative in which McCain wins the nomination, doing so requires half a bottle of Maker’s Mark, followed by a nitrous-oxide chaser.” Not that a burial of McCain’s campaign is a bad idea. It’s appalling to contemplate McCain as president in view of his unstinting support of President Bush’s Iraq war and his pledge to increase the Army and Marines from the presently contemplated 750,000 to 900,000. We don’t need a president who believes: “Democratic candidates for president will argue for the course of cutting our losses and walking away from the threat in the vain hope it will not follow us here. I cannot join in such wishful and very dangerous thinking.” But don’t dismiss him. McCain remains the greatest threat to a Democratic victory next year. Believing the media analyses and writing McCain off now could be a big mistake. Advertisement Another favorite example eerily parallels the McCain situation. In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign was spending too much. The staff was in turmoil. It’s hard to believe now, when the late president is so lionized, but the press was writing him off, especially after George H.W. Bush’s win in the Iowa caucuses. But Reagan brought in people who imposed tight fiscal control, smashed Bush in a New Hampshire debate and went on from there. Amid the turmoil of his campaign, McCain has a few things going for him. The most important, ironically, is his support of the unpopular war. Neither Bush nor his cheerleaders have McCain’s military record or his stature in that area. Nor do they have his ability to articulate their beliefs. As his campaign organization was falling apart, McCain headed to Concord, N.H., where he gave an unrelentingly pro-war speech. “Defeatism will not buy peace in our time,” he told the Concord Chamber of Commerce. “It will only lead to more bloodshed, to more American casualties in the future. If we choose to lose in Iraq, our enemies will hit us harder in Afghanistan hoping to erode our political will and encourage calls in Western capitals for withdrawal and accommodation with our enemy there as well.” He concluded by saying, “Peace at any price is an illusion and its costs are always more tragic than the sacrifices victory requires.” In the real world, this is craziness. But in the Republican world, it makes sense. Just 38 percent of Republicans polled by CNN in June opposed the war. While the number of opponents is increasing, the figure still means the great majority of Republicans are in favor. For them, McCain is sounding the right note. It’s also the right note for his old foe, President Bush. Unless Bush is a total ingrate for McCain’s support for the war (and maybe he is) he could be a great help to McCain in raising money. He wouldn’t openly intervene. But one of his infamous winks or a message sent by a circuitous route would put McCain back in the game. The senator is not that far out of it. Despite his troubles, some polls have McCain competitive in South Carolina and New Hampshire. If he survives and even comes close to winning in such states, the reporters writing McCain’s obituary would switch to a fresh story, his comeback. The comeback story would hurt even McCain’s strongest competitors, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the undeclared Fred Thompson, both of whom have enormous weaknesses. I don’t want McCain to win the Republican nomination. He’s a wild card. I don’t know how well he would campaign in the fall. Logic says there is no chance of him or any other Republican winning. But McCain is unorthodox, always on the edge, a mixture of anger and affability, and a famous ex-POW. He’s capable of shifting his positions, as he did earlier in the year to get in the good graces of the religious right. All that, plus Republican money, would be a dangerous combination in fall 2008.
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America Performs Its Familiar Role of Propping Up a Dictator
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By Anne Dowie, July 19, 2007 at 3:40 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
McCain’s aura of invincibleness has been an assumption untethered to reality for some time. Early in the 2000 campaign he came across as an unflinchingly principled guy—the kind John Steinbeck wrote about this country hungering for in “Travels with Charlie” in the 60s. Then came the unseemly spectacle of him sucking up to Bush after the appallingly underhanded way Bush beat him back in North Carolina, bringing his credibility and sincerity into question. And then continue to cling to Bush and some thin promise of anointment even as Bush cratered on every front shows a stunning lack of integrity and street smarts. Sounds like the guy we’re desperate to see exit the White House in 08
Report thisBy Expat, July 19, 2007 at 10:36 am #
Not dead yet? Are you serious? His corpse is rotting and smells to the heavens. The guy I would have voted for in 2000 is long dead and gone to hell. There is nothing worse than a zombie! There so,so ugly!
Report thisBy cyrena, July 19, 2007 at 4:30 am #
Comment#87731 by THOMAS BILLIS on 7/18 at 11:22 am
This is funny….
Mccain is done stick a fork in him.There is a better chance Bush will be asked to join mensa than Mccains campaign will turn around.
Especially the part about Bush joining the Mensa. But here’s the deat, He’s managed to be the president of the country for 7 years, so how the hell do we explain THOSE odds?
This is all part of the Era of the Rabbit Hole, and absolutely ANYTHING could happen down there, where they manufacture this stuff.
Still, I’m thinking it’s just not happenin’ for bother John.
I’m with Skruff…he should find a life support care center, since I’m sure he can afford the best.
Report thisBy Emil Lawton, July 19, 2007 at 12:37 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Don’t sell Boyarsky short. I have followed his work for years. He may have his biases, but I have never seen them influence his reporting of the facts as he sees them. Consequently, I will not writeoff McCain just yet. Just consider him badly wounded.
Report thisBy 911truthdotorg, July 19, 2007 at 12:04 am #
Put a fork in Johnny Boy….he’s done.
Ron Paul emerges as GOP’s unlikely rock-star candidate
Long-shot libertarian iconoclast pulls in surprising cash totals, eclectic young crowds
Michael J. Mishak
Las Vegas Sun
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
LAS VEGAS—The punk-band members, with spiked hair, tattooed arms and piercings, stood with a crowd of more than 300 and cheered at the rock star on stage, especially when he called for abolishing the Federal Reserve—you know, the banking system that for nearly a century has helped stabilize the U.S. economy, give or take a Great Depression.
Presidential candidate Ron Paul didn’t stop with the Fed. The devout and suddenly popular libertarian-running-as-a-Republican also wants to repeal the Patriot Act. (More cheering.) And the IRS and NAFTA-like trade deals. (Loud applause.) And bring home American troops, all of them, from Iraq and from every last spot on the globe. (Standing ovation.) And that national ID card, forget about it.
What the crowd heard was the testimony of a carved-in-granite libertarian who disdains the a la carte politics and deal-making of mainstream candidates, a physician whose political beliefs exist at that whiplash point on the political spectrum where the far right meets the far left.
Abolish the IRS, the Fed, the Patriot Act? Is that libertarian or a lefty anarchist?
The crowds he’s drawing across the country are often an unusual mix of 20- and 30-something lefties and righties. Some are drawn to his beliefs. But many said that they admire him most for sticking to a clear set of principles, even if they disagree on some issues.
“He’s consistent,” said Jennifer Reilly, a 23-year-old student at the College of Southern Nevada who attended a recent rally here. “I actually believe everything he says.”
Thus Paul has become the early surprise of the 2008 campaign.
Beyond the consistency, he is filling a void in a Republican field dominated by mainstream candidates who are reluctant to break ranks with President Bush. He’s the only Republican who opposes the war in Iraq. (“We just marched in. We can just march out.”)
Paul describes himself as a strict constitutionalist, but his views can be traced to the late Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP presidential nominee and father of the modern conservative movement.
As Paul puts it: “Freedom is popular.”
“I agree with his message of freedom and limited government,” said Jennifer Terhune, a 22-year-old dental-hygiene student in Reno. “People are dependent on the government for everything, and they need to start standing up for themselves. The country is getting so far away from that.”
Paul raised $640,000 in the first quarter of the year, a paltry sum compared with his party’s front-runners. But when the second quarter closed last month, Paul had $2.4 million cash on hand, besting Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Google videos: 9/11 Press for Truth, Loose Change 2nd Edition, America: Freedom to Fascism
Report thisBy Jessica, July 18, 2007 at 9:42 pm #
McCain’s campaign, along with the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, has failed, and I personally don’t see any comeback within sight. Regardless of the reasons why the United States chose to invade Iraq or even why a US presence remains there today, it is clear that the Bush Administration is putting too many of its resourcesOUR resources into remaining there. To date, the war has cost over $340 billion dollarsmoney which could have been spent much more wisely and with better end results. It is estimated, for example, that the expenditure of a mere $19 billion would eliminate starvation and malnutrition worldwide. In a time when the current defense budget is $522 billion, the goal of eradicating world hunger is clearly well within reach. Thus, it is clear that the occupation of Iraq needs to end, and it needs to end now without regard to what this will do to United States interest in Iraqs oil. There are simply much more important issues that need to be addressed.
Report thisBy john crandell, July 18, 2007 at 8:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Why all of the head scratching? Psychologists
are having a field day charting McCain’s obeisance.
Instead of scratching, why don’t we simply ask:
what does the candidate know that we DON’T?
As reward for his brown nose, perhaps the candidate will be anointed from on high. Perhaps it was all arranged years ago.
If Big Dick should abdicate during the next nine months, who would Shrub nominate as replacement?
Report thisHow else can you explain: “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb
Iran?”
By politicalbrew.org, July 18, 2007 at 6:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The country should know that Arizonan’s don’t see McCain as fit to be senator. A recall campaign is being led against him currently.
Report thisBy Chaseme, July 18, 2007 at 4:58 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Don’t worry John, bush and cheney doesn’t plan to leave office…I’m sure they can continue to use your “dementia praecox” approach to politics during their next term in office.
Report thisBy Paul O'Curry, July 18, 2007 at 3:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Sadly ..McCain is a coward. Anyone who let Rove smear his family (bastard black child..drug addicted wife.. ) and watched as Max Cleland was compared to Osama Bin Laden and John Kerry was smeared by Republithugs .. deserves no sympathy. Good riddance.
Report thisBy THOMAS BILLIS, July 18, 2007 at 3:22 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Mccain is done stick a fork in him.There is a better chance Bush will be asked to join mensa than Mccains campaign will turn around.
Report thisBy Skruff, July 18, 2007 at 2:05 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
It’s kinda sad in a way. The only person who thinks McCain has a chance is McCain. Media loves a good fight and they hate technical KO’s so they prop up the quixotic campaings in hopes that there will be a more colorful end>but> they know he’s toast.
McCain’s time passed in the Carolina’s when he allowed the Bush spin machine to push-poll him out of that race.
Get yourself a room in a life-care center John.
Report thisBy John C. Bonser, July 18, 2007 at 11:37 am #
The “straight talk express” ran off the road on the way to Lynchburg when McCain kissed the famous Falwell’s - um - ring. jb
Report thisBy DennisD, July 17, 2007 at 11:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Bill - enough of this crap, McCain is a political corpse. If these are the only type of articles you can “dig” up put your shovel away and spare us all any more future non-stories. Thanks in advance.
Report thisBy Hammo, July 17, 2007 at 8:03 pm #
A significant part of McCain’s failing campaign is surely his support for escalation of the combat in Iraq.
People are also scared of what he might do if he were president in terms of conducting military operations.
His connection to Vietnam might now be working against him.
Food for thought in the article:
Americans felt turning points on Vietnam, Iraq wars in 70, 07
American Chronicle
July 11, 2007
http://americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=31984
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, July 17, 2007 at 6:23 pm #
I can’t believe he still thinks he has a chance.
Denial.
Report thisBy QuyTran, July 17, 2007 at 6:13 pm #
His fate was completely closed as soon as he walked out of the Hanoi Hilton !
Report thisBy Quy Tran, July 17, 2007 at 6:02 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Dear Sen. McCain,
You should give in your ambition to become the next candidate for presidency so you could save a lot of money. The senatorial status was a little bit overqualified.
Report thisBy jsep, July 17, 2007 at 5:52 pm #
An admirable Presidential candidate is one concerned with foreign affairs. There are policies in place to help end global poverty. The 191 UN member nations agreed to the Millennium Development Goals. One of the eight goals is the eradication of poverty and includes cutting hunger in half by 2015. These issues need to be further addressed by the presidential candidates in order for them to have a successful platform
Report thisBy tyler, July 17, 2007 at 4:09 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The further mccain gets from the whitehouse, the better. He’s even scarrier than bush to me, because at least bush has a team of ‘handlers’. Mccain just seems like he doesn’t have much of a clue about anything. To be able to jest about bombing iran should be a pretty good sign of that. I think he should just ‘go, go, go… go, go, away!’
Report thisBy GodSend, July 17, 2007 at 2:13 pm #
After you read the Paul Craig Roberts article, study this (and get the whole story):
http://novalight.org
Report thisBy 911truthdotorg, July 17, 2007 at 2:01 pm #
Off topic, but very important!
I urge you all to read Paul Craig Roberts article.
He was Asst Sec of the Treasury under Reagan
http://theprogressivemind.info/2007/07/paul-craig-robe rts-impeach-now-or-face.html
Google videos: 9/11 Press for Truth, Loose Change 2nd Edition, America: Freedom to Fascism
Report thisBy GodSend, July 17, 2007 at 1:54 pm #
The McCain candidacy is ‘dead as a doornail’ and so is the candidacy of any other Zionist stooge. That only leaves Ron Paul!
Report this