Thread: Born-again 'border hawk': Will the new McCain fly?

Born-again 'border hawk': Will the new McCain fly?

By Valerie Richardson
Monday, May 3, 2010

Sen. John McCain of Arizona has been called many things during his lengthy political career: maverick, straight-talker, the White Tornado. But "border hawk" isn't one of them. Until now.

Facing the toughest primary challenge of his 24-year Senate tenure, Mr. McCain has shelved his advocacy of a pathway to citizenship, denounced by its critics as amnesty, and embraced a crackdown on border security that includes the state's new immigration law.

The law allows police to question people who they suspect are not citizens and requires them to carry proof of their status.

Mr. McCain announced his support for the legislation shortly after the governor signed it. His Republican primary opponent, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, was an early backer of the legislation, known as Senate Bill 1070.

"We do have an obligation to secure our borders so that our citizens are not threatened," Mr. McCain said in an interview last week on KTAR-AM in Phoenix, although he has expressed reservations about portions of the new law.

"Now our job is to make sure that no citizen, under any circumstances, will have their rights threatened, no matter what their ethnic background is," he said.

Mr. McCain is airing ads on Arizona television touting the new border security plan that he co-sponsored. It calls for deploying an additional 3,000 National Guard troops and 3,000 more Border Patrol agents in Arizona, increased funding for border security, and finishing the 700-mile border fence, with reinforcements along the Arizona sector.

The Hayworth campaign shot back by accusing Mr. McCain of undergoing an "election-year conversion" while adopting Mr. Hayworth's long-held positions on immigration.

"This is a guy who five years ago was saying, 'We've gotta have amnesty,' " said Hayworth spokesman Mark Sanders. "Now he's saying, 'Build a fence and put troops on the border.' He's done a total turnaround on the issue."

Whether Mr. McCain's move to the right will save his political career remains unclear.

The senator has led the race consistently since January, although poll numbers have swung wildly. An April 16 Rasmussen Reports survey showed Mr. McCain leading among primary voters by five percentage points, while a Behavior Research Center poll released Wednesday found the incumbent with a 26-point lead. On Thursday, a Public Policy Polling survey found Mr. McCain ahead by 11 percentage points - 46 percent to 35 percent.

More worrisome for the McCain campaign is his favorability rating, which remains consistently low. About 34 percent of Arizona voters surveyed approve of his job performance, while 55 percent disapprove, according to the Public Policy Polling results. Even among Republican voters, 44 percent approved of Mr. McCain's job performance, while 45 percent said they disapproved.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers called the senator's position "fully consistent" with his previous work on immigration. While Mr. McCain was a prime mover on the 2007 immigration legislation that would have streamlined the citizenship process for illegal immigrants, Mr. Rogers said, the senator has since called for tightening border security.

"Since the last effort failed in 2007, he's said the border has to be secured first before we address anything else," said Mr. Rogers. "They say deploying the National Guard is an election-year conversion, but McCain's been calling for troops since March 2009, before the election was a glint in J.D. Hayworth's eye."

Dee Dee Blase, founder of Somos Republicans, an Arizona Hispanic Republican group, chalked up Mr. McCain's hard-line stance to his need to defend himself against the Hayworth campaign's attacks. Mr. Hayworth has made border security, and Mr. McCain's perceived support for amnesty, the centerpiece of his primary challenge.

Somos Republicans opposed Senate Bill 1070. Some said it would lead to racial profiling of Hispanic citizens. Even so, she said, she doubted Mr. McCain's support for the measure would cost him votes among the state's Hispanic Republicans.

"McCain, even though he said what he said, he's still 10,000 times better than Hayworth," said Ms. Blase. "He hurt us, but we'll hold our nose and vote for him."

Meanwhile, the Hayworth campaign is running at least two YouTube videos splicing Mr. McCain's previous televised remarks opposing a border fence with his current tough talk on immigration.

"One senator. One man. So many different positions," Mr. Hayworth says in a video released last week. "What a difference a campaign makes."

The Hayworth campaign is confident that the challenger's poll numbers will rise once his television ads air, slated for early summer. The primary election is Aug. 24.

"Sen. McCain has spent $2.5 million on TV ads attacking J.D. Hayworth, whereas we haven't spent a penny," said Mr. Sanders. "These numbers are going to change once we go on TV."

He also dismissed the impact of Mr. McCain's immigration migration, saying most Arizona voters won't be fooled.

"It's gone from skepticism to cynicism in the minds of the voters, and it's hurt him," said Mr. Sanders. "Voters are smart. They know when they're being pandered to."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ccain-fly/

"It's gone from skepticism to cynicism in the minds of the voters, and it's hurt him," said Mr. Sanders. "Voters are smart. They know when they're being pandered to."

You can BET that if McCain were to win he would step up on the pulpit at his victory speach and proclaim the NEED for immigration reform and a path to citizenship. He will do another 180 the moment he is in there...No thanks McLame as we have seen your true colors...They are progressive-red.

What happened to the lettuce picking jobs he was offering 3 years ago?

We did our best to warn the people of Arizona that McCain was a liar and would promise them he would oppose Amnesty just to be reelected. He sure screwed all those suckers in AZ dumb enough to reelect this POS.

W

Most people are uncomfortable calling someone a liar. Patriots might get further by labeling McCain "unstable." He certainly is completely without conscience, so it wouldn't be too much of a reach.

He could also be challenged to save taxpayers billions of dollar by implementing Universal E-Verify
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John McCain: The MOST Reliable Senator.

Posted by Michael Becker on Oct 23, 2013

On Monday, Joe took my senior Senator to task. Joe was pretty hard on Senator McCain with comments like this:

I hold you in utter contempt, as do a great many Americans; you have made a mockery of your service to this great nation, getting far more mileage out of our pity than our embrace, and I call on every Veteran to stand against you and stand against your next election campaign. It’s clear that you would stop at nothing to help Obama and his regime, and your actions in recent years have given me, and many like me, no choice but to revoke my respect for you and for your so-called “service” to our country.

Being the good and fair guy that Joe is, he asked me if I’d like to respond on behalf of conservatives in Arizona. Well, even though I do have an outsized ego, I really don’t speak on behalf of all the conservatives in my beautiful home state, but I do speak for a couple. I really think Joe is getting old and soft, or maybe it’s just because he lives a long way away, but I really think he was way too kind to my senior Senator. He probably paid more attention to his mom than I paid to mine when we were both told, “If you can’t say something nice…” Anyway, about Senator McCain.
In memory of my mom telling me that, let me note that John McCain has never met a constitutional amendment he liked or a TV camera he didn’t. Or, a position he wasn’t willing to sell out. There, that takes care of saying nice things.
I’m not going into lots of detail because I’d be writing until well into next year with a documentation of ever instance of McCain’s two faced behavior. I’m just going to note a couple things that are near and dear to my dart board.
First, there’s “immigration reform”. During the Bush years Senator McCain was the lead guy working with that paragon of Senatorial virtue, Teddy Kennedy, on granting amnesty to 15 million or so illegal aliens who he prefers to refer to as “undocumented workers” doing jobs Americans won’t do. McCain was unabashed in his promotion of amnesty for illegals and resisted any efforts to secure the border in any kind of real terms. His best statements were documented by ABC News.

In a 2007 Vanity Fair interview, McCain said, “I think the fence is least effective. But I’ll build the g..damned fence if they want it.”
A year later in September 2008, on the eve of the presidential election, McCain told the Spanish-language station Univision that his plan did not include “walls and fences.”

Then his 2010 election rolled around and he made this commercial.



“Build the dang fence.” Right. In a series on illegal immigration, I documented the conditions on the Arizona border with Mexico. They’re not quite as bad as the South Side of Chicago, but they’re close. The most apt comparison is that nobody in power – including and especially John McCain – gives a damn about either Chicago or southern Arizona.
And the proof of that is that soon after his 2010 reelection McCain morphed right back to “Fence? What fence?” He headed up the Gang of Eight, working with Dick Durbin to insure amnesty for 15 million illegal aliens and now we’re adding in fast track amnesty for about 35 million of their families too.
John McCain never met an undocumented Democrat he didn’t like.
Second, and last, there’s ObamaCare. Here’s what my senior Senator had to say about ObamaCare in 2010. When he was running for reelection.


“ObamaCare will not stand…” Got it? Build the dang fence. Got it.
Well, here’s what Senator McCain had to say about Ted Cruz’ marathon speech against ObamaCare earlier this summer.

Soon after Cruz finished his 21-hour marathon speech on defunding the Affordable Care Act Wednesday, McCain rebutted portions of the Republican Texas senator’s comments, which McCain said didn’t recognize that “elections have consequences,” ABC News said.

As with illegal immigration, John McCain can be counted on to voice his support for his position of the moment, a position that will paint him in the best light with the people he most wants to impress. Unfortunately, he’s only interested in impressing his Arizona constituents for about six months every six years. The rest of the time he’s pandering to the press.
McCain is increasingly going out of his way to attack conservative Republicans at every opportunity. He’s also going out of his way to pander to President Obama. NY Magazine nailed it here.

Yesterday he lauded Obama’s foreign policy address, promising to support a rewriting of the 2001 authorization of military force. “Such legislation would be a fitting legacy for this Congress — and for President Obama,” he said. Perhaps McCain has gotten past his bitterness from 2008. Or maybe he’s just found different people to be bitter about.

And now, he’s talking about running for reelection in 2016.
Senator McCain, on behalf of me and my sweet wife, you can rot in hell. You’ve consistently lied to Arizona voters for at least the last 20+ years, you are not a “conservative” in any way, shape, or form. You’re a disgusting, two-face, senile, son-of-a-bitch who can be reliably counted on to change your tune with the change of the crowd. You’re a pathological liar and a media whore. I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire let alone vote for you, and on your best day you don’t rise to level of mere “contempt”.
So, in closing, Senator McCain please move your belongings out of your Arizona residence – you’re only here to campaign anyway, you’ve probably forgotten what Cindy looks like – and park them in your Washington DC condo. That’s where you belong and those are the people you represent. You sure as hell don’t represent the people of Arizona.

Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2013/10/joh...sokCpIKe9ds.99

PLEASE HELP TO SUPPORT THE GROUND TEAM IN DC TODAY! WE NEED EVERYONE TO PICK UP THE PHONE AND TAKE ACTION!


TARGETS

Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA) 202-225-3201

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) 202-225-1956

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) 202-225-4876

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) 202-225-2331

Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) 202-225-6511

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) 202-225-2002

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) 202-225-5755

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) 202-225-0453

Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) 202-225-4231

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) 202-225-2811

http://www.alipac.us/f8/3-day-blitz-...ivists-292326/