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WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senators and former presidential candidates say Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating speaks to the need for more bipartisan compromise — but they also say the blame lay with the other party.

(snip) MCCAIN: ... just wants to spend money. Hello? He just wants to spend more money. You and I are -- remember when Ronald Reagan said the worst deal he ever made was when he sat down with the Democrats and said they would cut spending $3 and raise taxes for every $1. Guess what? They raised taxes and they didn’t cut spending. That’s why the Tea Partiers and others would – I’m not a Tea Partier -- but the fact is, we need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We couldn’t get it through the Senate as the...

Veteran Sen. John McCain has had enough with tea-party-aligned lawmakers who have vowed not to vote to raise the debt ceiling before passage of a constitutional balanced budget amendment. The Arizona Republican, the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee, described their position as “foolish,” “deceiving, even bizarro,” given Americans’ anxiety about the sliding stock market, a halt on hiring and the possibility of higher interest rates related to the looming default.

(snip) "I reminded them that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia reimbursed us after Operation Desert Storm," McCain says. "They said they'd be glad to discuss that.(snip) "They're very good people," he says. "Mainly well-educated, a number of women in the [Transitional National Council] -- very normal, dedicated people." (snip) McCain dismissed concerns that rebel forces include some veterans of al Qaeda. "I'm sure that there may be some element there, but I guarantee you that they didn't rise up because they wanted to be al Qaeda fighters," McCain says. "They rose up because they wanted to throw off the yoke of...

Arizona's stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border is still not secure despite improvements, and ending the National Guard mission there is ill-advised, Sen. John McCain said Thursday. (snip) McCain spoke to reporters after a border tour he took alongside four fellow Republican lawmakers from Arizona: Rep. Jeff Flake, Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Ben Quayle and Rep. David Schweikert. The group toured the border near Nogales and Douglas and met in Tucson with officials from the Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA. While in Douglas, they met with the widow of rancher Robert Krentz who was killed a year ago...

WASHINGTON -- Two years after running against President Barack Obama, Senator John McCain says he sees a change. Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," McCain expressed optimism that Obama will lead Democrats and Republicans to find common ground on key issues.(snip) Asked if the push to repeal health care reform is a waste of time -- because Senate Democrats will block repeal and, should it pass, the president would veto it -- McCain said, "We need to have a vote on it because we promised the people we would. We campaigned that we would `repeal and replace'. We have to...

Could the long-icy relationship between President Obama and his 2008 presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain, be thawing? McCain (R-Ariz.) took a significant step toward reconciling with the president in a graceful op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post. If that article marks a genuine fresh beginning, it would be one positive thing to come out of the horrific shooting spree in Tucson eight days ago. McCain and Obama will never be comrades in arms. They have too much history, too much mutual ill will and too many philosophical differences for that. In the two years since McCain went down in defeat against...

Congress should take up work on comprehensive immigration reform once the U.S. borders are secure, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday. McCain, a longtime proponent of comprehensive reform who had tacked right in his race for reelection last year, said that an immigration deal could be an area of compromise between Republicans and Democrats. "Once we get the border secured — and we can get the border secured — I would look forward to working on comprehensive immigration reform," the 2008 Republican presidential nominee said on NBC's "Today" show. The Arizona senator had in the past favored legislation that would...

What does he want? Revenge. For what? Being born. This is the way famous gunslinger Doc Holliday answers equally famous lawman and good friend Wyatt Earp’s inquiry - in their depiction in the movie Tombstone - into why their sworn enemy, Johnny Ringo, is such a misanthrope. Sadly, this description would be equally accurate in explaining the actions of another Arizona transplant filled with endless rage: Senator John McCain. I first encountered the seething side of McCain when I was writing my 2008 book, The Real McCain, which was critical of him while pointing out a then-controversial fact, one no...

(snip) Woods said McCain would be more helpful if the White House reached out to him, but "they haven't talked to him at all."McCain also voted no Saturday on the Dream Act, which would have granted citizenship to thousands of foreign-born college students. He initially sponsored the legislation. Gullett said McCain constantly faced voters on the campaign trail last year asking about border security and that affected his stance. His communications director, Brooke Buchanan, explained that on immigration, McCain believes the border needs to be secured above all else, citing the increasing border violence over the last four years. "His...

...my nutshell case for why McCain was functionally a Democrat: As a war hero who's hawkish on foreign policy, he more than matches Bush on the military front. As a reform-minded foe of corporate welfare, Big Tobacco, and the Republican right, he is peerless. McCain is Bush's most vociferous critic, voted against the president's tax cut, forced his hand on campaign finance reform, and federalized airport security in the face of White House opposition. He has co-sponsored numerous bills with Democrats--many of them in the presidential-aspirant class--requiring background checks at gun shows (Lieberman), a patients' bill of rights (Edwards), better...

With most predicting he will go down in defeat, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold earned compliments from his former GOP ally, Sen. John McCain, on Monday. The Arizona senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee has campaigned hard for Republican Senate candidates this cycle while sharply criticizing their Democratic rivals, such as Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) But McCain saved kind words for Feingold (Wis.), with whom he worked on landmark campaign finance reform legislation eight years ago.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain expects many U.S. Republicans to seek the party's presidential nomination in 2012. "I think there's going to be 1,000 flowers bloom," he said Monday at the annual Washington Reuters Summit. McCain, who won the nomination in 2008 and went on to lose to Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election, did not predict who he thought might run. "I think it's too early," he said. (snip) McCain's advice to Republicans: Keep your eye on New Hampshire. (snip) "For Republicans it seems to me that New Hampshire is still the very key place," McCain...

Sen. John McCain on Tuesday became one of the highest-profile Senate Republicans to say that his party could take control of the upper chamber in the midterm elections. In an interview on the "Imus in the Morning" show, McCain (Ariz.) criticized President Obama on national security issues and said that if Republicans win the Senate, he would become chairman of the Armed Services Committee and could further influence the debate. "I thought the important thing is, particularly on national security issues, but other issues — I think I have a lot to contribute. If we, and I think we can,...

(snip) Aid to the housing market should have been included with the plan to bail out the banks, McCain said. But several in Congress felt that once the banks were bailed out, the banks would turn around and offer loans and other help to the real estate market. That didn't happen, McCain said. The real problem is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he said. The federal government has dumped $45 billion into the two programs, the same outfits that caused the housing crisis by giving out loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them back, he said."I want everyone...

John McCain holds a comfortable lead in the contentious Arizona Republican Senate primary, according to the most recent public polling, making him the strong favorite against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth on Tuesday. But it’s been a costly road to a fifth term for the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, and the experience is likely to leave a lasting and unsightly stain on his legacy. It’s not just the $20 million he’s spent already this election or the scorched earth campaign that he’s run. Rather, it’s the choices he’s made and the positions he’s embraced — and what it reveals about him...

GREEN VALLEY, Ariz. — Times are strange for a recovering maverick. "You've been the first one who's run across the aisle," a woman seated in front of Sen. John McCain said accusingly. "Do you have a question?" he snapped. "Do you have a question, really?" "How can we believe you now if in the past you were so different?" The question could have come from any of the 150 people who filled a rec center in this retirement community 30 minutes south of Tucson. Even among loyalists, it looms. Who is the real John McCain? The 2008 Republican presidential nominee...

<p>PHOENIX (AP) - Both were once considered vulnerable but recently have found stronger footing in their Republican primary races.</p> <p>Now, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer will campaign together at six events in five communities on Friday and Saturday.</p>

PHOENIX (AP) - John McCain's Republican primary challenger suggests the country would be worse off had McCain won the 2008 presidential election. (snip) Responding to a question from the audience at a Phoenix tea party meeting Monday, Hayworth says he doesn't like President Barack Obama, but a moderate Republican would be even worse than the Democrat. Speaking of the Arizona senator, Hayworth says: "I think the last thing we needed was a progressive trying to wear a Republican cloth coat as president of the United States."

PHOENIX (AP) — Sen. John McCain's Republican primary challenger has released a new ad using McCain's own voice admitting to lying in the past. Former congressman J.D. Hayworth's campaign released the commercial Thursday. It uses McCain's voice from the recording of his 2002 book, in which McCain recalls publicly supporting South Carolina's right to fly the Confederate flag, even though he personally opposed it. McCain says on the recording: " ... it could come down to lying or losing. I chose lying." The ad suggests McCain is again lying about his record on illegal immigration.