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The (Spiegel) article ("No. 44 has spoken")'s premise was that an Obama victory is a foregone conclusion: "Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin's Siegessaule on Thursday could recognize that this man will become the 44th president of the United States." Later that day, I read a report of a fund-raising letter from Obama on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, arguing that "We must have a deadlock-proof Democratic majority." Yikes. But then it occurred to me that one man's "deadlock-proof" Democratic majority is another's unchecked Democratic majority. And McCain will then assert that if you don't like the...

I have been in sackloth and ashes ever since the end of the Republican primary season dwelling on the mess we find ourselves in. Conservatives have watched the Republican nomination process get hijacked from them while they were debating whether our candidate should be socially conservative (Huckabee) vs economically conservative (Romney). Now we have McCain, who has historically proven to be mediocre at best on both sets of issues. His only strength was his view on the Iraq war. Now that we appear to have turned the corner in Iraq, the whole withdrawal argument may be moot. If things continue...

Senator John McCain was all but a sworn enemy of Senator Trent Lott, the former Republican leader. Mr. Lott had quashed Mr. McCain’s most cherished legislative goals. And, worse, Mr. McCain believed that in the 2000 Republican primaries, Mr. Lott had spread rumors about his colleague’s mental stability on behalf of his rival for the nomination, George W. Bush. --snip-- Over the next eight years, he mastered the art of political triangulation — variously teaming up with Mr. Lott against the president or the new Republican leaders, with Democrats against Republicans, and with the president against the Democrats — to...

<p>Could 2008 Be a McCain Landslide? American Thinker, WA - Jul 12, 2008 Ah yes, dear readers, this title has nailed me. I'm an unconventional thinker, a woman who is wont to go madly against the grain, in nearly all matters. I'm usually in the unpopular camp, the one who disdains conventional wisdom and consensus science. I'm just too darned independent-minded for my own good sometimes.</p>

Have you noticed that Barack Obama is actually running unopposed for the Presidency? Not since 1996 has it been this dispiriting, this embarrassing to be on the right. A dozen years ago, we all knew Bob Dole didn’t stand the proverbial snowball’s chance of becoming President, since the conservative base loathed the former Kansas Senator and independent voters regarded the veteran as too old for the job. Now, twelve years later, we’re in the exact same spot with John McCain. I hate to say this, but I have abandoned all hope for a McCain victory in November. The candidate is...

July 14, 2008 ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery to the 2008 National Council of La Raza Convention in San Diego, CA, today at 12:45 p.m. PT (3:45 p.m. ET): Thank you, Jane, for that kind introduction. Thank you, also to the leadership of the National Council of La Raza, and its board of directors. I'm very pleased to be with you again to discuss some of the issues in this campaign that most concern you. As you know, this isn't my first address to La Raza. I'm proud to...

John McCain today is poised to make the biggest mistake of his 2008 presidential run. The presumptive Republican nominee will address the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza in San Diego. La Raza is billed by too many as simply "the nation's largest Hispanic rights group." But this is perhaps the most radical apologist group for illegal immigration and the "rights" of illegal aliens -- and worse.

Stop sending me stuff. It's because of your "maverick" behavior that we are in the condition we are in. You stabbed a great President in the back on numerous occassions. You, and the gang of 14 rendered our congressional majority into a bunch of eunuchs, singing soprano for the media and the beltway crowd. I'll probably be forced to vote for you, given the alternatives, however, just barely and only because you may not totally screw us on judges. Meanwhile, leave me alone.

Sen. John McCain is making surprising headway with religious conservatives - that part of the Republican electoral coalition he was expected to find the most resistant. For a campaign that Republican critics have called ill-managed, disorganized and message-challenged, the Arizona senator's organization has, from all outward appearances, been doing things right in its appeals to evangelicals and other religious conservatives. In the past week, Mr. McCain won over a major group of social conservatives, thanks to personal appeals, and the campaign has made personnel moves appealing to religious voters. In Denver last week, a meeting of nearly 100 religious conservative...

A good sign for the McCain camp from an absolutely essential constituency. It's not so much that these leaders can move thousands of votes, but to have them off the reservation and teeing up unhelpful quotes for the next four months would have been a huge problem for the GOP. Reports Michael Scherer: At a meeting Tuesday in Denver, about 100 conservative Christian leaders from around the country agreed to unite behind the candidacy of John McCain, a politician they have long distrusted, marking the latest in a string of movement that bodes well for McCain's general election prospects among...

shotgun e-mail sent out by Moveon...you can't make this stuff up... Dear MoveOn member, It's become pretty clear that pundits love John McCain. "We're his base," MSNBC host Chris Matthews famously said. So if you're looking for some, er, straight talk on Senator McCain—where's a person to go? That's why we're launching McCain Watch—a zippy email with the presidential news you most need to know (but won't hear elsewhere) about Senator McCain. The good folks at The Huffington Post will publish it and we'll deliver it to your inbox. It'll be fair, clear, and tough—the way news is supposed to...

Unconfirmed as yet by the campaign, but the LCRs say it’s so: A source with close ties to the Log Cabin Board of Directors provided information about the meeting to GayPatriot earlier this week. This source disclosed that the Log Cabin meeting was not reflected on Senator McCain’s published schedule in advance and the meeting…Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon confirmed the meeting with Senator McCain in email correspondence with GayPatriot earlier today…Based on published news reports, the meeting with Senator McCain would be the first between any national-level gay Republicans and a Republican Presidental nominee since “The Texas 12″ met...

Ben Smith has good detail on a post-conference call powwow between McCain and some Hillary backers yesterday: "He stayed for a good almost half hour afterwards shaking hands, listening to our concerns, talking to us," said PUMA founder Will Bower, who said he thought many of the people there would vote for McCain. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina stayed to mingle with the crowd, whose members also included Clinton backer Harriet Christian, made momentarily famous on YouTube for getting ejected from the Rules & Bylaws press area. Bower said he'd liked McCain's answer on judges, in which he "pointed out...

John McCain's short list for VP assumedly still includes one name that should be scrubbed immediately. Florida Governor Charlie Crist is not worthy of the honor and McCain would be wise to drop him hard and fast. Crist knowingly and deliberately violated the rules and bylaws of both the RNC and the DNC by holding Florida's presidential primary prior to February 5th, 2008. He is guilty of stealing votes from the citizens of Florida and needs to be held accountable, not rewarded. It should not matter if you are a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent. Americans cannot allow our state...

John McCain is clearly the preferable option for conservative voters come November. Although liberal in his views toward immigration, government intrusion in free speech, environmental issues, campaign finance reform, health care, education mandates, and a host of other issues that run contrary to conservative orthodoxy, McCain is solid on two (alas, two) vital issues that make the difference; spending and judges. From the frustration of eight years of a Republican Administration that began with so much hope and promise it pains one to say it, but there it is. Against the prospects of a President Obama, McCain wins. A victim...

The price of everything, not just driving, is going up in the era of $130-a-barrel oil, but our presidential candidates have a hopelessly thumbless grasp of pocketbook politics. Their mutual slogan could be "Let them eat abstractions." Barack Obama famously couldn't connect with working-class voters in the primaries, offering them an airy diet of hope and change. John McCain rose on his personal honor, which is why on energy he's fumbling away the GOP's best domestic political opening in years. For a politician whose forte has never been domestic policy, McCain has a peculiar taste for complex, verging on unworkable,...

"McCain is not the stranger to technology some think him to be. McCain is now asking supporters to stump for him on blogs. Republican Web 2.0 consultant David All was effluent with praise for this outreach, calling it 'smart' and 'unique.' McCain's blogger outreach section has a handy list of political blogs which might be interested in hearing about McCain, such as the DailyKos, Crooks and Liars, and Think Progress. You can even report your posts to the campaign and 'receive points for your success,' though the page doesn't say what exactly the points are good for." Slashdot is not...

CINCINNATI -- As the architect of Ohio's ballot measure against gay marriage, Phil Burress helped draw thousands of conservative voters to the polls in 2004, most of whom also cast ballots to reelect President Bush. So Burress was not surprised when two high-level staffers from John McCain's campaign dropped by his office, asking for his help this fall. What surprised Burress was how badly the meeting went. He says he tried but failed to make the McCain team understand how much work remained to overcome the skepticism of social conservatives. Burress ended up cutting off the campaign officials as they...

Few things are more troubling than the notion that the conservative movement and the Republican Party will somehow magically come back to life after four years of a Barack Obama presidency. Some folks on the right are being willfully naïve by embracing the idea that a President Obama will fail on such a spectacular level that the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan will emerge in four years, trounce Mr. Chump Change and restore order and morality to the United States. While Obama’s failure is certainly likely, it is not guaranteed. If Obama actually exhibits common sense and governs from the...

It's been 24 years since a Republican candidate for president came out on top in Washington state. Given our longtime blue-state status, what chance does John McCain have of beating Barack Obama here? For that matter, will he even try? So far, the McCain campaign has sent mixed signals. When McCain held a fundraiser in Bellevue — including a $31,000 per person "Victory Dinner" — none of the money raised that evening went to the Washington State Republican Party. Instead, it was divided among the McCain campaign, the national GOP and the state parties in places that both sides view...

Fellow Republicans in the Senate on Friday issued a stern message — a rebuke, really — to the man who will lead the party in November, by blocking a bill that sought to establish a noxious cap-and-trade system to combat “global warming.” Sen. John McCain went on record last month in support of such a program that would, in the long run, force Americans to pay for the simple act of emitting carbon dioxide. To their credit, foes of this measure, the handiwork of Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Democrat Barbara Boxer of California and outgoing Republican John Warner...

John McCain is great in town hall meetings. He is not so good at giving major speeches. As I like to say, he can hit a curveball, but he can’t hit one off the tee. Barack Obama, on the other hand, hits a 350-yard drive every time he steps to the microphone, but has shown some vulnerability in debates. It follows, then, that if McCain is to be successful this fall against Obama, he must play baseball and not golf. McCain's latest proposal, challenging Obama to a series of town hall forums, is smart strategy. That Obama didn’t immediately agree...

It has been a refrain during the exhausting battle for the Democratic presidential nomination that once Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama emerged as the party's choice, we could finally dispense with the personality battles and get down to nitty-gritty policy differences. Indeed, now that Obama seems to have the position locked up, he and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain will have plenty to argue about. But some might be surprised at the breadth of issues on which they largely agree. On McCain's side, this is understandable. With a Republican president experiencing some of the worst approval ratings ever, it's...

Why McCain Would Make a Better President by Aaron Goldstein McCain knows what government can and cannot do. More importantly, he knows what government should and should not do. Should Barack Obama be elected President of the United States this November his chances for a successful term in office are slim to none. As the candidate who extols the virtue of hope and change and whose audience chants in unison, "Yes we can!," Obama has set expectations so high that he is bound to fall short of lofty expectations. After all, Obama has said this election is not so much...

SANTA ANNA PUEBLO, N.M.— Advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential bid say he will not try to "soften" the Republican party's platform on abortion and same-sex marriage to appeal to more voters. McCain associates told The Washington Times that his operatives are not going to work behind the scenes to eliminate the party's calls for constitutional bans on abortion and homosexual marriage before the GOP convention in September. Previous Republican nominees, such as former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, have sought to alter the party's positions, which are honed and released in the platform immediately before the nominating convention. Mr. McCain,...

<p>But he's still a constitution trampling RINO and unless he repeals McCain-Feingold, repudiates amnesty and global warming, drops all support for embryonic stem cell research and stops talking about partnering up with the Democrats and instead swears to fight the evil bastards he won't be getting my support.</p>

By now, most McCain haters will have already skipped down to the comments section to post their expletives and tell me how it’s a free country and they have a 1st Amendment right, etc. to yammer on and on about how bad McCain sucks, totally missing the point of my post, again. But I’m here to tell you, in this free country, that in my opinion, you should SHUT YOUR STINKIN TRAP! To all you ingrates, rageaholics, and self-absorbed punks, WE KNOW YOU HATE MCCAIN. You can give yourself a rest now and stop posting on every single thread the...

John McCain's unconservativism was on display this past Wednesday in Los Angeles.  Perhaps not in all ways, but in one telling way.  Before a gathering of the World Affairs Council, the Arizona senator outlined his thinking on national security and foreign policy.  The speech's larger elements have received plenty of coverage.  One element did not.   McCain made a stalwart's argument for finishing the job in Iraq.  That's a good thing, and expected.  He made a case for greater collaboration with America's allies.  That's a nod to the prevailing sentiment that Cowboy America needs to become Settler America-you know, an America...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain launched his first television ad of the general election on Friday.It portrays the 71-year-old Arizona senator as a courageous leader with the knowledge and experience to keep the country safe as a wartime commander in chief.For now, the ad will run only at a strong level throughout the swing state of New Mexico.Other states will follow in the coming weeks.McCain has lagged far behind his Democratic rivals in fundraising -- and that money would finance ads.In February, Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton raised more than $80 million. McCain raised $11 million and...

McCain is right on Free Trade.Conservatives rightly have many fears over John McCain. However, it is noteworthy that on certain issues — health care, earmarks, agricultural subsidies, and the subprime situation ("no bailouts!") to name a few — he is notably superior to our current president.The Club for Growth today released this statement on his free trade policy, which is also meritorious:  Washington – The Club for Growth commends Senator John McCain for calling for a new free trade agreement with the European Union. Currently, the United States and the European Union have low tariffs on most manufactured goods traded between...

If the media are on the lookout for gaffes by the presidential campaigns, they missed a big one on Wednesday, when Cindy McCain met with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in Kosovo’s capital Pristina, while her husband was giving a major foreign policy speech calling for “new foundations for a stable and enduring peace.” Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which McCain accepts and was implicitly recognized by Cindy McCain’s visit to Pristina, is a major threat to global peace and security. It could spark a U.S. war with Russia. It may be asking too much, however, for the media to cover...

Raleigh, N.C. — If the presidential election were held this week, Sen. John McCain would easily carry North Carolina, according to a poll released Monday. Rasmussen Reports surveyed 500 likely North Carolina voters last Thursday and found McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, holds commanding leads over the two Democratic candidates. The poll has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. McCain leads Sen. Hillary Clinton 50 to 34 percent, and he leads Sen. Barack Obama 51 to 42 percent, according to the poll. In both match-ups, McCain is essentially even with either Clinton or Obama among women, but holds...

At a time when the GOP presidential nominee will need more assistance than ever, a number of state Republican parties are struggling through troubled times, suffering from internal strife, poor fundraising, onerous debt, scandal or voting trends that are conspiring to relegate the local branches of the party to near-irrelevance. In some of the largest, smallest, reddest and bluest states in the nation, many state Republican organizations are still reeling in the aftermath of the devastating 2006 election cycle, raising questions about how much grassroots help the state parties will be able to deliver to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain....

In a recent WND column, Janet Folger begs social conservatives to vote for John McCain. She believes McCain will rescue "most everyone" from our political "burning building" – when in fact McCain has already locked arms with the Kennedys, Feingolds and liberal Democrats to keep social conservatives "out" of politics while they burn our constitutional republic to the ground. Like our mutual friend Alan Keyes, I've been a lifelong Republican and never voted third party, but this time I've had enough

Robert Novak: "John McCain's team that is taking over the Republican Party has decided on Bobbie Greene Kilberg, a liberal Republican from Virginia long detested by conservatives, to run the party's national convention in St. Paul, Minn., in August." - UPDATE: "Politico.com" - "A McCain aide says that Kilberg has not been tapped to run the convention and is only serving as a liasion with the RNC. McCain has not decided yet on who will run the convention, said this source." http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0308/This_will_get_GOP_insiders_a_buzzin.html

Making the Case for McCain By Burt Prelutsky Friday, March 21, 2008 A while back, I admitted that John McCain was not among my three favorite candidates for the Republican nomination. But I went on to say that if he emerged as the standard bearer for the GOP, he would get my vote. And to tell you the truth, I don’t feel I’ll have to bite the bullet in November so much as maybe gum it a little bit. Needless to say, I have been hearing from a great many conservative hardliners. Among the things they’ve called me are sell-out,...

John McCain’s campaign got its first opportunity to show how seriously it wants to avoid getting into the identity-politics meltdown in the Democratic primary. The campaign suspended Soren Dayton, a former blogger now working for McCain, for sending the link to a YouTube regarding Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright over a Twitter message: An aide to John McCain was suspended from the campaign today for blasting out an inflammatory video that raises questions about Barack Obama’s patriotism.Soren Dayton, who works in McCain’s political department, sent out the YouTube link of “Is Obama Wright?” on twitter at 12:31 today with the...

McCain is no better than Hillary? These people disagree . . .

There has been much speculation about what Tom Tancredo said on the now famous interview last Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. From what I am reading here on FR, much of that speculation is wrong. Tancredo was, in fact, suggesting that we consider (not implement, just consider implementing) a strategy similar to the strategy that Reagan used to win the Cold War. Listen for yourself. HERE If you think Tancredo is a nut case, and you don't want to change your thinking, move along, this clip isn't for you. Just post your thoughts without listening.