Why Lieberman Endorses McCain

This is an interview with Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator McCain from Fox News. It is from when Senator Lieberman came out to endorse Senator John McCain for President and explains why he chose to cross party lines and what it can do for the American people. Very positive message about bringing the nation together and getting things done!

Boston's Other Newspaper Endorses McCain, not Romney!

The Boston Herald's editorial staff has now endorsed Senator McCain! See "Choice is clear McCain's the one".

“There are times in this nation’s history so perilous that they cry out for a steady, experienced leader, a person so trusted that we would put the fate of this country in his hands. This is one of those times, and Sen. John McCain is that person.

In an age when too many candidates are driven by polls and focus groups, fashioning and re-fashioning their “core” beliefs, McCain is a man of unwavering conviction and integrity. His values, his beliefs, his goals are what they were when he first entered public life, what they were in 2000 and what they will be a decade from now

On immigration reform, on tax reform, on campaign reform McCain has proven time and time again that he has the ability to reach across that increasingly wide partisan divide and make things happen."

Debate Tonight!!

Make sure to watch Senator John McCain defend his title from the first GOP debate this evening at 9pm EST.

Go McCain!

Not afraid to debate

Solving our illegal immigration problem is controversial. McCain and President Bush have proposed, along with other Democratic and Republican Senators, a comprehensive immigration reform that will secure our borders and protect our values. The reform includes a guest worker program.

Some will say that this is amnesty for the illegals that are already here but isn't doing nothing amnesty also? As John McCain said on the O'Reilly Factor, "Right now it's de facto amnesty because we have 12 million people here illegally." Many want to criticize the bill but none offer alternatives. Gov. Romney has been a vocal opponent, however, we all continue to wait for his policy recommendation.

Not only is McCain leading the immigration reform, he is not afraid to debate the issue. According the the Washington Post, he's been on "The Mike Gallagher Show," Sean Hannity's radio show," The Michael Medved Show," "Captain's Quarters Blog Radio", and entered the No Spin Zone with Bill O'Reilly (see video below). Truly, this is a presidential quality - to be able to take a stand on a policy that you feel in your heart is the best for the American people and also be open to stumping for the policy (Not unlike Pres. George W. Bush and his social security privatization plan).

McCain wins GOP Bloggers Poll in Michigan for the 2nd month in a row!!!

For the second month in a row John McCain has show himself to be the candidate to beat in Michigan.

This victory comes on the heels of new poll numbers that show McCain leading the pack in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Here are the GOP Blogger numbers for Michigan:

McCain 202 (36.1%)
F. Thompson 174 (31.1%)
Romney 45 (8.1%)
Giuliani 43 (7.7%)
Gingrich 35 (6.3%)
(none) 17 (3%)
Hunter 16 (2.9%)
Brownback 11 (2%)
Tancredo 10 (1.8%)
Huckabee 3 (0.5%)
T. Thompson 2 (0.4%)
Pataki 1 (0.2%

Will the real Romney please stand up?

In 2002, Mitt Romney was not only for campaign finance reform - he was a radical reformist. According to The Hill, in 2002:

“Mr. Romney campaigned in favor of clean elections, which provides public money to candidates for state office who meet strict fundraising requirements,” the Telegram & Gazette reported. “But he suggested an alternative funding method. Instead of providing campaign funds from state coffers, his plan would tap 10 percent of the fundraising of candidates who choose to raise money privately.”

Not radical enough for you? How about banning evil PACS? In 1994, Romney's "advocated on publicly advocated placing spending limits on congressional campaigns and abolishing political action committees (PACs)."

Fast foward to 2007 in South Carolina

Romney attacks McCain-Feingold and campaign finance reform at the debate hoping to score political points. Which led to this exchange:

Love for McCain continues

Article
If you have a few minutes, check out the debate recap by Liz Mair from GOPProgress.com. I was planning on doing a thorough analysis of the debate but Liz hit the nail on the head in so many ways. Here are some excerpts but I really do recommend that you read the whole thing:



"But here's where McCain's point comes into play. Ultimately, the reality of the situation in Iraq is that if we haven't seen substantial progress by September, we're going to have a lot of options on the table to assess, and none of them will be good. As McCain implicitly acknowledged, if this situation came to pass, you can bet there would be vastly diminished political will for keeping the troops in Iraq. The flipside of course is that if we just withdraw, we risk leaving Iraq in an incredibly dangerous situation-- both for its citizens, and for ourselves, both in terms of the potential terrorist-haven scenario and (more importantly, in my view) in terms of the spiraling-out-of-control regional hotbed scenario-- and in all of those cases, there is a great likelihood that in due course, we would find ourselves right back fighting the same people, in the same place, months or years down the road, regardless of any withdrawal right here, and right now."


"Ultimately, McCain earned credit from me for not running the tired and rather simplistic and therefore only half-accurate line that "we have to win because if we don't beat them there, we'll have to fight them here." That may be true on one level, but as I've said before, it's not the best argument to make in relation to staying in Iraq (or, rather, against the pursuit of other options) and frankly, it sounds desperate, pathetic, fear-mongering and propagandist to most people now. Instead of falling for the simple talking point, McCain actually offered some thoughts, some rationale and some logic-- all of which are in desperately short supply in politics these days."


"McCain was also brilliant, as pretty much all the major pundits have noted, in responding to the young woman whose brother died in Iraq. He was genuine, heartfelt, sympathetic, compassionate and honest. His response to her was perhaps the finest moment of the entire debate, and he absolutely shone. If there is any argument for a McCain presidency, it is essentially the character and personality that was demonstrated by his response to her question."

McCain continues to lead in IA, NH, and SC

Despite being in the middle of the heated immigration debate (will post on this later this week) that has divided the party, McCain's numbers in the Big 3 remain solid according to the latest ARG poll on May 29. What's even better is that John McCain continues to receive support from independents who are likely Republican primary voters/caucus goers in Iowa (48%), New Hampshire (40%), and South Carolina (41%).

Let's break down the numbers for the top 3 vote-getters in each state (and yes, Fred Thompson is included in each poll).

Iowa: McCain 25%, Giuliani 23%, Romney 16%
New Hampshire: McCain 30%, Romney 23%, Giuliani 21%
South Carolina: McCain 32%, Giuliani 23%, Thompson 13%, Romney 10%

And in graph form...

Maverick Unleashed

Sorry for the lack of postings. We are trying to get into the swing of things for summer. With '08 officially underway, MFM promises more regular postings in June.

In case you missed it, John McCain has come out swinging in the last few weeks at opponents from both sides of the aisle.....

On a blogger conference call last week, McCain blasted Romney for his attacks on the guest worker immigration plan. Agree or disagree on the contentious issue of immigration (I'll post this later), it is important for Republicans to debate issues and policies. Unfortunately, Mitt Romney has no immigration policy so he has resorted to attacks on McCain in order to score political points.

When asked on how he felt about Romney's criticisms towards his guest worker program, McCain told reporters, "In the case of Governor Romney, you know, maybe I should wait a couple of weeks and see if it changes, because it's changed in less than a year from his position before. And maybe his solution will be to get out his small-varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn. I don't know," McCain said.

Ouch.

Then, on May 25, McCain chided Senator Clinton and Obama for there "No" votes on the Iraq War funding bill: "This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it's the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda."

Senator Obama didn't take too kindly to the truth. Obama reiterated his disagreement with Republicans on the Iraq War and supported his claim by mocking McCain's recent trip to Iraq: "And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago."

So what's a Maverick to do? Reload and fire away..

McCain:
"While Senator Obama's two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security. ""By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."


Zing! Some may dislike McCain's style and approach but I for one enjoy his candor and no-holds-bar approach. Keep it coming Johnny!

Debate Highlights

Pundits and political experts seem to give John McCain very high grades for his debate last night in New Hampshire. For your reading pleasure, I included links on post-debate analysis.

The most talked about segment was when McCain stood up to address a lady who recently lost her brother in the Iraq War. It was very touching and showed a level of empathy that is simply not found on the "other" side of the aisle.......



Even more symbolic is how up until that point in the debate (the second half) all the candidates were sitting down. McCain, being the leader that he is, began a trend of standing up to answer questions, which was followed by every other candidate. Maybe I'm reading into it too much but, yet, this appears to be another example of McCain leading and everyone else following.


Debate analysis:

Jonathan Martin from the Politico: "John McCain turned in a strong and steady performance. He was clearly prepared for the immigration question, and offered an effective defense of his position."

Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "As we said above, this debate was all about moments. And to our mind, McCain had two of the best in the two-hour scrum."

Marc Ambinder from the Atlantic: "McCain's easy command on national security issues drew the evening's first applause when he criticized Hillary Clinton for calling Iraq "Bush's war.........A very good night for him, too. At times, he was noticeably in a league of his own."


After the debate, a slew of McCain supporters celebrated with the Senator for a masterful performance:



"Character, integrity, vision, straight talk, compassion, and leadership...."

McCain pulls even in National Polling

Soaring Since California

With the second debate just hours away, let us take a moment to reflect on what has happened since the last debate.

Two weeks ago, John McCain gave an impressive performance in California at the first Republican debate. He declared that he would "follow Osama to the gates of hell" and would veto pork-laden legislation and "make its authors famous". Pundits took notice. The National Review asserted that "McCain has stolen Rudy's fire" and a CEO of Red State, Erick Erickson, would "vote for John McCain, if the primary was today."

But the pundits weren't the only people to take notice. May polls showed an increase in support for McCain among Republicans and a decrease in support for his opponents. Want proof?


A Mason-Dixon poll now has McCain leading Nevada, the state that may go before Super Super Tuesday and after the Big 3. McCain leads with 19%.


In California, a state that has so far been a Giuliani stronghold, McCain has dramatically edged Giuliani's lead down to a mere 3% or a statistical tie.


In a national primary, among Republican primary voters, McCain stays within 4% of Giuliani and both increase their leads over Mitt Romney, who is stuck at single digits. Without Fred Thompson, McCain and Giuliani both garner over 30% of the vote. Most importantly, the ARG poll has McCain reclaiming the support of independent conservatives (support among indep. McCain: 46% Giuliani: 21%).

Another CNN poll, with Fred Thompson, has McCain within 2% of the leader, Giuliani.



And who can forget these numbers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina (click to enlarge):

So what's the point? We may look back to the first debate in California to the time that John McCain first began close in on Giuliani........and with a strong showing tonight, we may be looking back to May 15, 2007 as the date that John McCain "won" the nomination.