Keeping track of John McCain’s ever-changing views on the major issues is a bit like watching a U.S. Open tennis match- at the end of the day your neck just hurts from so much back and forth.
From a progressive standpoint, four to eight more years of Republican rule would be a nightmare but for many conservatives, it might not be such a party either. McCain has the un-enviable task of needing to woo the party faithful while trying to separate himself from a President with one of the lowest approval ratings of any President before him. Al Gore learned the hard way that deciding whether or not to closely align with the lame duck President could be one of the most decisions of the campaign. That said, McCain arguably has not shown great political agility or skill when undertaking this balancing act.
Here is what McCain said recently (via HuffPo) when trying to distance himself from George W. Bush:
“You will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term,” McCain said recently in a speech in New Orleans. “You will hear every policy of the president described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it’s so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it’s very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false.”
One McCain advisor earlier in the week even went so far as to claim that it was Obama, and not his candidate, who was most likely to be Bush III. No one, liberal or conservative, could really wrap their minds around that logic.
But here is McCain on Meet the Press prior to officially announcing his candidacy:
RUSSERT: The fact is you are different than George Bush.
SEN. McCAIN: No. No. I-the fact is that I’m different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush.
A couple of things- first, why is Russert helping McCain distance himself from Bush. We know Russert was a McCain fan, but the above is such a biased, leading question that it makes McCain’s response seem all the more off-kilter. I mean, Russert was trying to help the guy but McCain just blathered on. So the question is, if asked that same leading question today, would John McCain still respond as he did then? I really don’t think so.
Stumble It!
1 response so far ↓
1 tehehehe // Jun 16, 2008 at 8:33 am
Russert wasn’t being “soft” in asking that question. He was doing what he did all the time. He walked McCain into a definitive statement, and they would use that to attack another point. Which is what Russert did later in that same interview when he asked McCain how then he would separate himself from Bush during the election.
Russert merely got McCain on record as saying that, in large part and on the major issues, he agreed with the President more often than not.
The Pres and McCain were promoting a “comprehensive reform for immigration” that would have given illegal aliens citizenship. The Pres and McCain agreed that we should win in Iraq, not surrender. The Pres and McCain agreed that Education was important and that they US should hold schools accountable. The Pres. And McCain support AIDS/HIV research and assistance to local programs in Africa to relieve that part of the world of the scourge that is ruining their economy and culture. The Pres. and McCain agree that we cannot let Iran have nuclear weapons, and that we should have multi-lateral negotiatiations with them and N. Korea. The Pres. and McCain agree that we should grow our way out of economic and budget woes by strengthening businesses, not by price controls and additional regulations. McCain and the Pres agree that we need to produce more energy thru nuclear development and thru more drilling to tap our own oil reserves.
McCain has differences with the Pres on “harsh interogation techniques”. He wants GITMO closed. He wants us to work closer with allies and not operate as “independently” (and the President has already adjusted his foreign policy in that direction). He wants to work more closely with Democrats to establish compromises. He wants to reform Social Security, but is not pushing “independent accounts”.
So McCain has similarities and differences with the Pres. Just like he says he does!
Leave a Comment