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As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics. In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.

In an EXCLUSIVE interview on “This Week,” Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., invited President Obama to the Arizona border. “[Sen.] Jon Kyl and I invite the President to come to the Arizona Sonora border. The violence is incredibly high,” McCain said. “The human smuggling and drug cartels are at a level of violence where 23,000 Mexican citizens have been murdered in the last few years. … There is a level of violence which has increased to a significant degree which makes the situation far different than it was in 2007,” he said. “We have to secure the borders,” McCain said. “We...

Lindsey Graham was sitting in a sedan early one morning and contentedly discussing the various fellow S.C. conservatives who dislike him — Tea Partiers, Constitutionalists, immigration hardliners — when Van Cato, his Upstate regional director, lifted a hand from the steering wheel and said: “That’s the leader of them right there. There’s his sign. He’s running for Greenville County Council.” “Harry Kibler,” Graham, South Carolina’s senior U.S. senator, murmured as he read the campaign poster. “He’s the one that has that prop of your legs sticking out of a toilet in the back of his truck,” Cato added helpfully. Graham...

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will host his first fundraiser for Arizona Sen. John McCain, facing a tough primary battle against former congressman J.D. Hayworth, at a McLean home later this month, advisers to the governor say. The June 14 fundraiser will be at the home of Bobbie Kilberg, president and chief executive of the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Kilberg, an adviser to McDonnell, is a member of McDonnell's new government reform commission. Other hosts include businessman Fred Malek, the commission chairman who has been under fire in recent weeks because of questions that have been raised about his past, former...

Here's a political story that really couldn't have gone better for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Today, President Obama joined Senate Republicans for their weekly luncheon, and according to people who were in attendance, McCain used his time to inform the president that the National Guard needed to head to the U.S.-Mexico border in order to control crime and make it at least possible to begin a discussion on comprehensive immigration reform. According to Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), who backed up McCain, the senator even informed the president that he was doing a disservice by mischaracterizing what was in Arizona's new...

Though he withheld comment on whether he will ultimately support her Supreme Court nomination, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham gave Elena Kagan generally positive reviews following their meeting today. "I think she's done a pretty good job" in her current position as U.S. solicitor general, Graham told reporters. He specifically cited her work on issues pertaining to the laws of war -- a topic he described as "something that's near and dear to my heart." "For the most part, I think she's taken pretty well-reasoned positions about legal rights of detainees," he said. But he quickly added, "I really don't know...

A top Senate negotiator on climate change believes that a sudden turn by Senate Democrats to immigration could “destroy” any hope of a major climate and energy bill this year. “This comes out of left field,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), after hearing that Democratic leaders may now push immigration reform ahead of a climate bill. “I’m working as earnestly as I can to craft climate and energy independence, clean air and jobs, and now we’re being told that we’re going to immigration. We haven’t done anything to prepare the body of the country for immigration.” “This destroys the ability...

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled their bipartisan blueprint for comprehensive immigration reform Thursday, a move hailed by President Barack Obama as progress on an issue for which he has been criticized for ignoring. “The American people deserve more than empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation. We urge the public and our colleagues to join our bipartisan efforts in enacting these reforms,” the Senators said in a Washington Post editorial posted online Thursday. The Schumer-Graham outline entails four key components: a biometric Social Security identification card for employment verification; strengthened border security and interior law...

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain and Sarah Palin are scheduled to campaign together in Arizona next week for the first time since they conceded the presidential election in Phoenix in 2008. Palin and McCain will be at a rally and picnic in Tucson on March 26, followed the next day by a rally in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.

Jeb Bush is finally endorsing in the big GOP primary, but it's not the primary we've been waiting for. Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) reelection campaign announced Wednesday that Bush will back him over former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.). We'll continue to wait and see whether Bush feels the need to weigh into the GOP primary in his home state. At this point, though, he'd really just be piling on by endorsing Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist. Here's Bush's statement: "As we continue to face tough challenges both at home and abroad, America needs leaders like Senator John McCain in the...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is warning the tea party activists to not run third party candidates that would “divide” Republican voters and waste opportunities for the GOP. Romney said in an interview with Newsmax posted on the conservative outlet’s website Monday night that he was pleased the conservative grassroots movement is “silent no longer.” The likely 2012 GOP presidential candidate cautioned though that while he supports the idea of conservative challenges in GOP primaries, third party tea party-backed candidates in the general election could be disastrous. “Divide and fail is the result,” Romney said of third party challenges. “That...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) on Tuesday defended his decision to change his mind on abortion when he was governor. Romney campaigned as a pro-abortion rights candidate and maintained that position throughout much of his governorship. But the 2008 GOP presidential candidate said that he had a change of heart because of a bill that was considered that would have allowed human embryo research. Republican and Democratic opponents of Romney used his switch on the campaign trail to paint him as a flip-flopper who has no core principles. But Romney, who is presumed to be a 2012 presidential hopeful,...

It is early evening on Capitol Hill, and I am sitting with Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, who, along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, is trying to craft a new energy bill — one that could actually win 60 votes. What is interesting about Graham is that he has been willing — courageously in my view — to depart from the prevailing G.O.P. consensus that the only energy policy we need is “drill, baby, drill.” What brought you around, I ask? Graham’s short answer: politics, jobs and legacy. We start with politics. The Republican Party today has...

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) will endorse Arizona Sen. John McCain in his GOP primary battle with former congressman J.D. Hayworth, advisers to the governor say. McCain asked McDonnell for his backing after having campaigned for the Virginian last year. The 2008 presidential nominee, who is being portrayed by some critics as too moderate, undoubtedly hopes McDonnell can help him in conservative circles.

New Hampshire would seem to be surprise proof when it comes to visits from prominent people urging support for various causes, but it was something of an eyebrow raiser a when a former policy adviser for John McCain’s presidential campaign went before business folks Tuesday to say that federal oversight is needed to control greenhouse gases.“I won’t pretend that I get standing ovations,” joked Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was a staff economist for President George H.W. Bush and served as chief economic adviser to McCain’s campaign. He spoke Tuesday to a gathering of New Hampshire businesspeople at the New Hampshire Institute...

In the wake of a political setback for national health care legislation, Senator John McCain, the losing candidate in the last presidential election, advised his victorious 2008 adversary on Sunday that the way to get meaningful changes passed is to “start from the beginning” by meeting with Republicans. Mr. McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said on the CBS news program “Face the Nation” that President Obama should sit down with Republican leaders and begin adopting some of their ideas for improving the nation’s health care system such as overhauling medical malpractice lawsuits, allowing residents of one state to buy health...

(snip) VAN SUSTEREN: Would you be willing, and this is maybe a given, but let me ask you anyway. Would you be willing to sit down with the president? Are Republicans willing to? Democrats say you Republicans are obstructionists, that you won't talk you and are just trying to abort the whole process. What are you willing to do? MCCAIN: We are willing to sit down. He wanted to be in on the takeoff. If you want us in on the landing, let us in on the takeoff. The fact is this process was partisan totally throughout. I've been a...

Sen. Lindsey Graham is ready to be the 60th Senate vote to get the climate change and energy bill passed, he told a Midlands audience Tuesday at Harbison State Forest. “Since they’ve got no Republicans but me, business is open,” Graham said. Graham has been criticized by his own party for pursuing bipartisan resolutions on such issues as illegal immigration and possible filibusters of judicial nominees. And he believes that the cap-and-trade bills being debated this year are another occasion to do so, he told the audience at a forestry conference hosted by the S.C. Wildlife Federation. He said he...

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(CNN) - The Lexington County Republican Party in South Carolina voted late Monday to censure Sen. Lindsey Graham for his positions on several controversial issues, including his recent support for a compromise on cap-and-trade legislation. The Lexington GOP is now the second county party organization in a matter of months to censure Graham after Charleston County leaders approved a similar resolution in November. But unlike Charleston County, Lexington is one of the most conservative counties in South Carolina and is considered a bellwether of Republican sentiment in the state. The measure passed by a 13-7 vote after more than an...