NPR: McCain Launches First TV Ad of Fall Campaign

McCain Launches First TV Ad of Fall Campaign

OK, the Democrats don't have a nominee yet, and the media are focused on their battle to the exclusion of almost everything else. It's hard for a Republican presidential nominee to get any attention. But Sen. John McCain doesn't seem to care. He's ready to campaign for president now, so he's launched the first TV ad of the "fall" campaign.

You can see it here:

Meanwhile, Time magazine "puts McCain to the ethics test" and finds that he isn't quite as pure as the driven snow.

"In some cases, McCain's intervention on causes that favored donors appeared to be exceptional. Consider the committee meeting that McCain led on June 23, 1999. The topic of the day was a proposal to require access to 911 emergency services for cellular phones. But McCain scrambled the script with just a few hours' notice. He introduced an unrelated amendment that would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow companies to own two television stations in the same market. Democrats were outraged by the move, since it violated McCain's own rule requiring Senators to give a full day's notice before introducing amendments, a practice he put in place to prevent under-the-radar legislative tampering."

On the other hand ...

" ... McCain has some surprising character witnesses. 'He has always done the right thing, as far as I know, on the legislation I have worked on with him,' says Joan Claybrook, president of the liberal group Public Citizen, an organization that disagrees with most of McCain's votes on key issues. 'He will listen to the merits and make a decision.' "

As Time notes, this complex legacy may be difficult to explain to voters in the fall. " ...McCain is now in the awkward position of hoping voters will give him the benefit of the doubt that he has denied to others."

8:00 AM ET | 03-28-2008 | permalink

Comments

This Guy is the biggest joke in this race right now. Although I find HRC to be very prone to corruption and sometimes despicable, I don't think this guy can see past the war. And he really can't see much there. He has repeatedly shown how out of touch he is whith the majority opinon of the American people and he doesn't represent any change from the way things are going now. He has agreed with GWB on many of those flawed policy views. he would have the middly classes wich are already reeling from the mortgage crisis and economic recession contiue to shoulder the brunt of the cost for the expensive war. We keep taking out loans from other countries that still have to be paid back and the tax cuts for the top 1 percent insres that the rich will only get richer wile the weakening dollar insures that the poor will contiue to get poorer. This is not the way to ensure that are children can enjoy a happy life.

Sent by J.A. WILSON | 10:56 AM ET | 03-28-2008

Hear, hear.

We seem to have an example of doublespeak from Ms Claybrook whose organization "disagrees with most of McCain's votes on key issues."

A brief perusal of the voting records on votesmart.org website clearly defines the gulf between McCain and the democratic candidates, no matter what he says to get elected.

Sent by Chester | 11:50 AM ET | 03-28-2008

"...the gulf between McCain and the democratic candidates..."
Chester you say that as if it's a bad thing.

Sent by deek | 3:54 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Well, I think we need to refocus our fiscal policy. You can't cut taxes and spend it's a recipe for disaster, as we are finding out. Senator McCain is a proponent of extending the Bush tax cuts in toto and proposes even broader tax breaks for corporations. Therefore he would have to continue to slice away at HEW and other non-defense spending. You can see this pattern in his voting record. I'm no big government fan but you have a huge industry based on defense trying to sustain itself at any cost and financial markets who will gamble pension funds against bets on the weather (Enron), so we need some regulation. I just dont think McCain is up to it.

And fighting the GWOT doesn't call for the next generation airframe or ship, it calls for better detection capabilites at ports. We are nation building in Iraq, something GWB said we would not be doing and the return on every dollar spent over there is disproportional to the overall GWOT. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni orgainization not a Shia. What everyone ignores is the key to the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestian issue. You can hunt terrorists till doomsday, but you wont stop the underlying cause until you solve this seminal issue.

Can a democratic president take us in the direction we need to go? Hard to say, but I see a better chance with them than McCain, based solely on his voting record in the Senate.

Sent by Chester | 10:42 AM ET | 03-29-2008

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