"If you are not tough enough to repudiate a scurrilous attack, I don’t know how you are tough enough to be President." Matt Lewis. He asks about where the other GOP candidates are on the surge. "I don’t pay that much attention to the other campaigns. The reason that I Read more…
John McCain did well with the national security focus. Mitt Romney always does best with a domestic security focus. I suspect that the commenters will say that McCain won. I was going to say that I am not sure that his position on Iraq was going to resonate with voters. Read more…
Granite Grok has an important corrective to the discussion about Ames: I recognize that Mitt Romney gobbled up a lot of the hardcore GOP stalwarts early in the game. I have seen this for myself here in the Granite State. In an independently-orientating state like ours where more and more people are less Read more…
Here’s a piece of clarity for the morning. The guys at Granite Grok caught up with Senator John McCain in New Hampshire. They asked him a question about earmarks, and they recorded the answer. Transcribed: Transparency and knowledge are the only antidote to the corruption that is bred by earmarks, Read more…
McCain calls the ethics bill a "sham and a joke". "It is just the same as it was before." "There are some good things it" but "it was an opportunity because of the dissatisfaction of the American people… and I’m sorry that we have failed. … it will further contribute Read more…
Yesterday, Bob Novak said about the ethics bill: Because their leadership has not cared for this struggle from the start, Senate Republicans will likely be forced to vote for this weak bill simply because they will otherwise look like they are obstructing reform. There was however, one alternative, John McCain, Read more…
But what the opening paragraph will be will depend on the Senate Republican Leadership and John McCain. You see, no story about the Senate will be complete without mentioning that Senator Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) home was raided by the FBI and IRS. But Harry Reid has been kind enough to Read more…
I missed the opening comments. Rob Bluey asks about last night’s Democratic debate. Barack Obama said he would meet with leaders of bad countries. McCain called that perspective "naive". When we sit down with the Iranians, what’s the first topic? Israel? Nuclear weapons? Or IEDs that they export to Iraq? Read more…
Hillary Zogby Fox Giuliani Hillary +5 Hillary +5 McCain Hillary +3 Hillary +2 Now, normally, I don’t blog about day to do day polls. But … Is John McCain going up in general election polls against Hillary, compared to Giuliani? In both of these, McCain is within the Read more…
Getting in at the tail end of McCain’s opening. He sounds very, very tired. Jennifer Rubin asks about Sens. Lugar and Warner re-authorizing the war under different conditions. McCain says that once you authorize a war, you either win the war or lose it. Says we can still win. James Read more…