Free Republic

(snip) MCCAIN: ... just wants to spend money. Hello? He just wants to spend more money. You and I are -- remember when Ronald Reagan said the worst deal he ever made was when he sat down with the Democrats and said they would cut spending $3 and raise taxes for every $1. Guess what? They raised taxes and they didn’t cut spending. That’s why the Tea Partiers and others would – I’m not a Tea Partier -- but the fact is, we need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We couldn’t get it through the Senate as the...

With last week's debate behind them, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, and others have officially kicked off the race for the GOP presidential nomination. But do any of them have the chops to topple Obama in 2012? Meghan McCain offers seven tips on what they should do between now and then. Dear Republican candidates running for president in 2012: You are up against one of the most media-beloved presidents in history, one journalists will do almost anything to protect. You are running against a man who has created a cult following and a narrative that transcends popular culture. How...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said he met in recent weeks with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as Giuliani mulls a second run for president. Giuliani said on conservative talker Sean Hannity's radio show that he'd met recently with McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee, and come away with the conclusion that it'd be better to focus on primary states if he were to run again.Giuliani's campaign is widely seen to have stumbled because of his focus on the Republican primary in Florida, at the expense of earlier, traditional contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. By the...

Tell us what you really think, Meghan. Meghan McCain took aim at Rep. Michele Bachmann's State of the Union rebuttal on Wednesday night, insisting the Minnesota congresswoman is "a poor man's Sarah Palin." The 26-year-old Daily Beast columnist and daughter of former GOP vice presidential candidate John McCain, made the cutting remarks when MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell asked what she thought of the "second response to the speech." Bachmann gave her rebuttal on behalf of the Tea Party after the designated Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address had already aired. Critics charged Bachmann was giving the...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was clear Sunday on what he wants in a 2012 GOP presidential nominee: "the most electable conservative." But the senator was pressed on NBC's "Meet the Press" on specifically which of the current names believed to be in the ring would deliver. "Probably [Mitt] Romney," Graham said. "He's got his problems as a candidate, but so does everyone else," he said.

Meghan McCain said Sunday that she is prepared to “kick Obama’s ass the next election.” Speaking at the Miami Book Fair International to promote her book, “Dirty Sexy Politics,” the daughter of Sen. John McCain expressed an interest in working as a Republican “strategist.” “I've already had people interested in me working, which is unbelievably flattering,” McCain said. “I want to go out and do it all over again with somebody else -- I want to go get a Republican elected. I want to kick Obama’s ass the next election and get a Republican elected.” She added that she will...

California GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina is skipping a chance to appear with Sarah Palin at a major Republican National Committee fundraiser so she can campaign with Sen. John McCain instead. Fiorina has not yet announced the Saturday campaign appearances with McCain, but a campaign source tells POLITICO that she will be spending her time on the stump with the 2008 GOP presidential nominee rather than his running mate, the former Alaska governor. POLITICO reported last week that both Fiorina and GOP gubernatorial Meg Whitman would be skipping the RNC fundraiser in Anaheim, citing scheduling conflicts. The RNC is heavily...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) weighed in on the competition on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" Monday night after contestant Kurt Warner appealed to the senator to tweet his hotline number for the show "1 Cards fan 2 another..Vote 4 me 2nite!" Warner tweeted at McCain. The former NFL quarterback and Phoenix resident included instructions on how to vote and added "Pls RT!," prompting McCain to later tweet "Vote for @kurt13warner!!" Warner and partner Anna Trebunskaya earned a standing ovation for their foxtrot and a score of 23. The endorsement is particularly noteworthy given Warner's competition on the show: Bristol Palin,...

Her father's surprise pick of Sarah Palin to be his running mate so shocked Meghan McCain that she became hysterical and "panicked," the Arizona senator's daughter told Jay Leno Wednesday. "I found out an hour before I went on stage with her. I think they were scared I would say something or whatever. Like the rest of the country, I had no idea who she was and I was actually crying on the bus on the way to the rally," said McCain, who is promoting her new book, "Dirty, Sexy, Politics." "And then I found out who she was, and...

John McCain shocked voters and pundits alike by picking Sarah Palin as a running mate in 2008, and McCain's daughter reveals the choice caused plenty of behind-the-scenes drama too. In her new book "Dirty Sexy Politics," Meghan McCain says Palin brought "stress, drama, complications, panic and loads of uncertainty" to the campaign. "She was not just an overnight success or even a political Cinderella story," McCain writes in an excerpt obtained by ABC News. "She was a sudden, freakishly huge, full-fledged phenomenon. It seemed too much. And it seemed too easy." Speaking out about the former Alaska Gov. for the...

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain's daughter says in a new book released Tuesday that Sarah Palin brought drama, stress and uncertainty to her father's failed bid for the presidency in 2008, but she doesn't blame the vice presidential nominee for losing the race. (snip) In her book, released by Hyperion, Meghan McCain shows an itch to adopt her father's persona as a "maverick" delivering "straight talk."She calls religious conservatives the "intolerant far right," evoking her father's famous remark a decade ago that GOP religious leaders were "agents of intolerance." The elder McCain has since backed off from those statements. (snip)...

WASHINGTON -- On the day her father won the New Hampshire primary in 2008, Meghan McCain feared she would be arrested for removing Mitt Romney campaign signs from a Nashua street corner. "Stealing campaign signs is technically illegal, but I never thought anyone would enforce this. Nor did I expect we'd get caught," McCain confesses in her memoir, "Dirty Sexy Politics," which is released today. McCain writes that she "had gotten pretty sick" of seeing Romney's signs, particularly a cluster she and friends suspected had been strategically placed outside the McCain campaign's hotel. After stashing several of them in a...

Now that John McCain has taken care of his political business in Arizona, it is time for him to return to Washington and the responsibilities he bears as a leader of the Republican Party and the nation. (snip) One of the conspicuous failings in the past few years has been the absence of a second party making principled decisions on when to support and when to oppose the president. McCain has the best opportunity -- and the best credentials -- to restore this. (snip) It is up to McCain to choose when and how to exert the influence he commands......

Please help. I plan to keep this thread alive until McCain loses the primary. Let's NAIL THAT RINO! Please help scout for headlines to bring here. I will ping people here once a week with choice headlines and links. [Since it's the OPPOSITE of high volume, several have already signed on.] If you would like to be on this once-a-week ping list, please let me know. Any helpful links will be appreciated. "The most recent online scores from the American Conservative Union are from 2008. In that year, John McCain scored 63 and had a lifetime average of 81.43. ......

When we conceived the RINO FREE AMERICA PROJECT ON FREE REPUBLIC, we envisioned Conservative activism that would send RINOs packing and replacing them with true Conservatives worthy of our support. NOW we need your help to defeat the biggest RINO of all. Many of us here on Free Republic have been cheering JD Hayworth on because John McCain is possibly the worst, (and most powerful,) RINO serving in the Senate today and he simply MUST be defeated lest he betray us again as he has so many times throughout his less than stellar tenure. While "the force" might be...

(CNN) – Sen. John McCain's daughter called into question the political stature of the Tea Party movement Monday and sharply criticized a former congressman for his controversial comments at a recent major gathering of these conservative activists. Former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, slammed President Obama on the first night of the Tea Party convention last week in Nashville. Tancredo, known for his outspoken views on illegal immigration and his disdain for Sen. McCain, charged during his speech that "People who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White...

Barack Obama began his presidency with an open hand toward the man he had just defeated in a race that was at times bitter. "There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain," said Obama at an inauguration-eve tribute dinner to his former foe. But in the year since that evening of comity and collegiality, McCain has emerged as one of the leading critics of the new president. On foreign policy, his traditional area of expertise, and domestic affairs, where McCain has shown new passion, the 72-year-old Arizonan is making it...

Arizona Sen. John McCain came to the defense of his former GOP running mate Sarah Palin on Sunday. But in doing so, he used an adjective that some might not consider such a compliment. McCain was responding to a question from NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press,” about whether Palin’s brand of conservatism is “what the Republican Party needs to regain power in the midterms and ultimately in 2012.” McCain responded that the former Alaska governor has “earned herself a very big place in the Republican political scene” and that he was “proud of her.” Then came this: “I...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday night that the attacks on Sarah Palin, his former vice presidential running mate, are unlike anything he has ever seen. “I’m entertained and sometimes a little angry when I see this constant, vicious attacks by people on the left,” McCain said of Palin during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years that I’ve been in politics,” McCain continued, “the viciousness and the personalization of the attacks on Sarah Palin.”

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday strongly defended the top advisers from his 2008 presidential campaign in the face of sharp criticism from his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin. McCain, in a telephone interview with Reuters, singled out campaign manager Steve Schmidt and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace for praise after Palin blasted the pair in her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." "There's been a lot of dust flying around in the last few days and I just wanted to mention that I have the highest regard for Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace...