Either Condi or Rudy will kick this guy's ass, and he'll go off and sulk again. Soooo predictable.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Posted on 09/19/2005 2:19:08 PM PDT by gobucks
U.S. Sen. John McCain knows why he wants to be president.
He isn't running for the job - officially. That won't happen, if it happens at all, until after next year's midterm elections.
McCain, who turns 69 on Monday, said "there's no point" in formally announcing his candidacy until after the 2006 congressional elections.
But the Arizona Republican didn't skip a beat Tuesday when asked why he would want to run for the White House in 2008.
"Because we live in a time of great challenges," McCain said in an interview with Arizona Daily Star editors and reporters.
Chief among them is the war on terror, a "transcendent issue" likely to last for years, he said. But there is "a broad variety of domestic challenges" as well.
Sounding much like a candidate ticking off the priorities of his platform, McCain said they include immigration, Social Security, global warming, rising health-care costs and the "obscene" spending practices of Washington.
"My ego is sufficient to say that I think I have the background and experience to take on these challenges," he said.
Asked about possible opposition to his candidacy from conservatives, McCain cited polls that show he and ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani are "the two most popular" members of the Republican Party.
That, he indicated, is a crucial factor in deciding whether he'll seek the presidency.
"As long as I have strong approval and support from most of the Republican Party, then running is a viable option," he said.
A recent poll by the Gallup Organization found that McCain's favorable ratings have consistently hovered above 50 percent since 2002, two years after he ran for the Republican nomination for president against George W. Bush.
But while the four-term senator is thought of highly across party and ideological lines, Gallup found a potential weak spot among conservatives - a key constituency to prevailing in Republican primaries.
The problem McCain could face with conservatives became evident earlier this month when the Arizona Republican Assembly, a conservative Mesa-based group, voted to censure him for what it called "dereliction of his duties and responsibilities as a representative of the citizens of Arizona."
The group unanimously passed a resolution critical of, among other things, the guest-worker legislation he's sponsoring with the man they called "his Democrat soulmate, Senator Ted Kennedy."
McCain didn't comment on the resolution but vowed to continue speaking his mind.
As the Gallup Poll noted, McCain has a generally consistent conservative voting record but forged a national reputation after a series of notable breaks with fellow Republicans.
On Tuesday, though, he sided with the president on two issues that have made headlines recently: teaching intelligent design in schools and Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who has come to personify the anti-war movement.
McCain told the Star that, like Bush, he believes "all points of view" should be available to students studying the origins of mankind.
The theory of intelligent design says life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and that a higher power must have had a hand in guiding it.
At a breakfast meeting Tuesday with the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, McCain said Sheehan is probably being used by organizations opposed to the U.S. mission in Iraq. But, he added, she is "a symptom, not a cause" of growing public discontent with the war.
One appearance on ABC does not make anybody a "go to" guy.
Perhaps Pence will catch on, but I don't see it.
And, thanks for answering. No House Rep in over 130 years has won the presidency. That's way longer than for a Senator.
you need to do more research
Even most Republicans won't know who he is.
"I would hold my nose and vote for Rudy, but I don't think I could make my legs walk in the polling place to cast a vote for McCain. McCain is a Nixon, Clinton demogogue if I ever saw one."
Me too! If push comes to shove I can stomach a vote for Rudy.... but never that Rat B@$t@rd betrayer, McLame!
Klintoon had very little name recognition when he started as well in '90 leading up to '92. Name recognition will come when conservatives get energized behind a good conservative candidate ( and yes, that could be Pence) who doesn't give the shaft to the conservative majority voters who put him into office.
That's actually not true. Clinton had been the head of the DLC, and he had given a nationwide address at the Democrat Convention in 1988.
We'll have to see how well Pence raises his image.
"McCain is the Senator from the New York Times."
I will never, ever, forget all those columns of glowing praise and adulation they heaped upon him when they did that huge profile. I nearly gagged, and from that point forward, this man was flat out impossible to trust. Anyone who gets their rear end kissed that much by THAT newspaper? It can only mean one thing: he is one of THEM.
And Zell Miller is the most popular Democrat...
McCain/Guliani
Guliani/McCain
Now there is a ticket I could and would pass on.
"But who cares? The election is three years off. Can we concentrate on diminishing the current influence of Democrats in Congress first?? :)"
I'm visualizing whirlled peas..... :)
I will NEVER EVER vote for McCaine. Maybe I will get my car washed that day.
I believe that we will have an outstanding Republican Presidential ticket in 2008. Senator John McCain will run as the Pres and either Rudy Giuliani or Lindsey Graham as the VP.
http://www.friendsofmccain.com
~Scott~
*sounds of deep chuckling*
I would vote for either of them. I don't like McCain, but I would vote for him.
our party stands for NOTHING if it allows the Clintons to walk back into the white house in 2008.
Either Condi or Rudy will kick this guy's ass, and he'll go off and sulk again. Soooo predictable.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
One of the worst slaps in the face our nation could have given to it's Vietnam Veterans was by electing Bill "Slick Willy" Clinton for Prez in 1992. Nothing could be worst for anyone if Hillary gets in in 2008.
You are a mental patient. I can't stand McCain, he is a slime ball twofaced backstabing POS. And I think more of Hillery than him, and I can';t stand her, if I were in the same room with her I'd vomit.
McCain should give back his Medal of Honor, because I don't know anything he stands for that if the leftist media would give him tim eon TV he wounldn't change.
Well, maybe I just wouldn't vote for her but the thrid party. Any way it isn't an issue I have a better chance as a mental patient to get the nomination than that POS.
Mental patient been a while since someone called that, tell where do you live, I mean the ............LOL
Have a good day, as you can tell jellyfish McCain is not my favorite person, heck not even second.
As I said, you're a mental patient.
My vote is with McCain and I'm a fellow veteran of the armed forces. You should take back that comment about McCain returning his Medal of Honor. He was tortured as a POW you know.
~Scott~
He earned hi MOH, but has disgraced himself as a US Senator, he's a nutcase.....IMHO.
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