"Hey! I resemble that remark!"
Posted on 07/14/2011 4:06:35 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
As rain splatters the windows of Sen. John McCain’s second-floor office on Capitol Hill, the 74-year-old Arizona Republican leans back, clasps his hands, and recalls the Nineties. Brinksmanship, he says, cost the party then, and it could cripple Republicans this summer — especially if Rep. Michele Bachmann gets her way.
Over in the House, “I am told that it is very difficult,” McCain says. “There are Republicans who are committed, like Michele Bachmann, to vote against raising the debt limit under any circumstances.” Bachmann, he warns, is acting “sort of like Senator Obama did.”
(snip)
Yet as poorly as Obama has handled the negotiations, anger with the president, McCain says, may be clouding the party’s judgment at a time when its political fortunes are improving. “If I were Boehner and Cantor, I’d get one of our highly respected Republican pollsters to come over and brief them,” he says. “Right now, we’re not winning the battle.”
Fifteen years ago, President Clinton blamed Republicans for the 1995 government shutdown and won reelection. In similar fashion, McCain argues that a debt default would give President Obama “total victory” in 2012, “just like it was total victory for Clinton when Dole and Gingrich had to cave in 1995.”
“I appreciate the zeal and fervor of my colleagues; I want us to get an agreement,” McCain says, but with the financial markets uneasy and Obama intent on raising taxes, it is time for Republicans to continue the debate on a fresh front.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
"Hey! I resemble that remark!"
It doesn't matter what McCain says...he's wrong.
A white Obama!
True. But Rush says we can change the GOP. Do you think there is time?
I like to express it this way: I don’t wish McCain any bad luck, but if he had some I wouldn’t mind hearing about it.
It depends on how effective the TEApublicans are at commandeering the caucus. Of course that is only the House, and the Senate is a whole ‘nuther bunch of you-know-whats.
At least the House could hold the line. Like Bastogne. We await the 3rd Army and clear sky. This ain’t gonna be easy.
“McCain on the Debt Limit (McCain stabs Bachmann, calls on GOP to surrender to Dems)”
Yeah, McLame is someone I want to take strategy from.
Gang this and that, demonizing conservatives who opposed amnesty, booster for Obummer during the 2008 election.
What could go wrong from listening to this hack?
“...I don’t want a repeat of 1996,” McCain says. “But if we ignore the lessons of history, we will be doomed to repeat them.” In the Nineties, he reminds me, “President Clinton, the most adroit politician I’ve ever encountered, painted Republicans into a corner and the repercussions reverberated.”
How about learning from the lessons of today? A Blue State governor just caved in to united Republicans in MN- of all places- and this guy’s still wandering around thinking it’s 1995.
I cancelled my GOP membership awhile back.
I do, however, want to thank McCain, Graham, Scott Browne, Snowe, and Collins for helping me make that decision easier. =.=
Your Grandfather never waived the white flag when he was winning...Why do you?
The Senate is notorious for looking down its nose at House members and McCain is one of the oldest of the old-boy Senators.
I’m sure he finds it quite galling that a relatively young Congresswoman is getting more buzz in the primaries than he did.
So, McCain, as he often does, when he thinks we are “not winning the battle” thinks it’s time to NOT fight to defend what he thinks we are losing on.
If we are “losing” is it because we are wrong, or because those like McCain would rather capitulate to the media-inspired poll numbers than fight to change the perceptions of people. Typical McPain.
GOP did not lose the House or Senate after the Shutdown?
McCain bears a great amount of responsibility for the current financial disaster.
He should have the decency to sit back and shut up while his betters do the hard and unforgiving work of trying to repair the damage he and other professional pols have done to the nation.
Because real leaders always do what the polls say. /s
What a pathetic excuse for a Senator.
OK, McCain is addled in some ways, but he has some good points:
1. Typical of him to bash GOP more than the Democrats (sigh) but he is right that the Bachmann position is conveniently purist and a non-solution. Does Bachmann really want default, shutdown etc.?
2. “ with the financial markets uneasy and Obama intent on raising taxes, it is time for Republicans to continue the debate on a fresh front.” - That’s the problem here. We have GOP folks like McCain pre-caving, signalling weakness.
We need instead of signalling throwing-in-the-towel, to change the game by:
(1) Taking default OFF the table with Full Faith and Credit clause in WHATEVER debt ceiling add-on if put in place so it NEVER becomes questioned again.
(2) McConnell’s deal should NOT extend for more than 3 months. Too short? Tell Obama he has a choice - ‘a 1-for-1 deal at whatever level you want, spending cuts only; or 3 month extension mcconnell deal.’
3. The most important point - PASS A DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN THE HOUSE AND CHALLENGE THE SENATE TO DO THE SAME. The WH theatre is a bunch of nonsense.
Its worse than that ... McCain was there in 1995 and got his history wrong.
The media did a number on Gingrich and the PR war was lost, but Gingrich did NOT cave. Most of the Kasich-Gingrich budget was intact by the end of negotiations, and it was that budget that ended the deficits in 5 years!
And so today Liberals give credit to Clinton for balancing the budget, which ONLY HAPPENED BECAUSE THE GOP CONGRESS FORCED CLINTON TO COME TO TERMS THROUGH A SHUTDOWN!
And we forget this history and allow the liberal rewrite to become the ‘truth’.
“How about learning from the lessons of today? A Blue State governor just caved in to united Republicans in MN- of all places- and this guy’s still wandering around thinking it’s 1995.”
Good point.
Consistency, firmness and a strong, unified team wins policy battles, then and now.
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