McCain Watch: Yes Please, No Please
On the McCain news, a few interesting tidbits:
The Maverick thumbed his nose at the FEC when his latest campaign finance report showed that he blew past the public financing spending limit. He had agreed to take public financing when his campaign was in the crapper and he needed the matching funds. Once his political fortunes turned around, he decided that he wanted to withdraw from the system, and take private money. There’s also the possibility that he used public money to obtain a loan. The AP shows why he’s in trouble (or at least he should be . . .
Since the presidential campaign began last year, no remaining candidate has been more absent from their day job than Sen. John McCain. The Arizona Republican has missed more than half of the votes in the Senate since January 2007. One MSNBC host is wondering whether the media-friendly GOP presidential candidate isn’t getting a pass from the national press and if McCain would have a better grasp on the issues if he had bothered to show up more often.
The Senate voted today to ban the CIA from using torture on suspected terrorists and the most famous POW in the Senate voted against the bill. The Maverick is now most assuredly dead and the betrayal is complete. The blogosphere was all over this issue, and thankfully the measure passed, but for McCain, it was a show of pure cowardice. In other words, the Senator who himself was tortured for years and has previously spoken out against it, voted to allow the use of torture on others to save his political hide and pander to a party base that despises him. Is this the sort of weakness you want from your Commander in Chief?
McCain TODAY: Complained About Wait Times at VA Hospitals. [Town Hall in Springfield, PA, 3/14/08] McCain LAST NIGHT: Skipped Vote to Help Veterans Get Veterans the Care They Need. McCain skips vote on amendment “To provide the Veterans Benefits Administration with additional resources to more effectively meet their increasing workload and to better address the unacceptably large claims backlog.” [2008 Senate Amendment 4194 to S.Con.Res.70, agreed to in Senate by Voice Vote; Thomas.loc.gov]
There are, by some poll or other, an estimated 28% of Clinton supporters who would vote for McCain over Obama. I imagine that they are those Democrats who are anti-abortion, pro-torture, and don’t care about campaign finance reform (McCain-Feingold what?) or our Veterans, and are eager to start a war with Iran, support the telco’s in gaining immunity for breaking the law, and are pro-business and pro-lobby. They must be that group of Democrats who believe that abstinence only sex education is a good thing, no matter the statistics that point to it’s failure, believe that Catholic’s are evil and that Hurricane Katrina was punishment delivered upon New Orleans for its sins (God Damn America – which is only ok for white preachers to preach), and believe that we live in a fundamentally religious and and Christian country rather than a secular republic. (For more on McCain and religious issues, follow this link.)
Those 28% must be awfully confused.