Posted on 03/24/2008 8:15:56 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
WASHINGTON - Senator John McCain never fails to call himself a conservative Republican as he campaigns as his party’s presumptive presidential nominee. He often adds that he was a “foot soldier” in the Reagan revolution and that he believes in the bedrock conservative principles of small government, low taxes and the rights of the unborn.
What Mr. McCain almost never mentions are two extraordinary moments in his political past that are at odds with the candidate of the present: His discussions in 2001 with Democrats about leaving the Republican Party , and his conversations in 2004 with Senator John Kerry about becoming Mr. Kerry’s running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.
There are wildly divergent versions of both episodes, depending on whether Democrats or Mr. McCain and his advisers are telling the story. The Democrats, including Mr. Kerry, say that not only did Mr. McCain express interest but that it was his camp that initially reached out to them. Mr. McCain and his aides counter that in both cases the Democrats were the suitors and Mr. McCain the unwilling bride.
Either way, the episodes shed light on a bitter period in Mr. McCain’s life after the 2000 presidential election, when he was, at least in policy terms, drifting away from his own party. They also offer a glimpse into his psychological makeup and the difficulties in putting a label on his political ideology over many years in the Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
If I am defensive, maybe I love my country more than you do.
I’ll tell YOU why...because I love my country more than I hate my party...and I will do what I have to in order to make sure I do not hand it over completely to the Dems. You can huff and puff all you want, but McCain is NOT the same as Obama....and if you knowingly can cast a vote that might mean that the men and women in the military are forced to salute a Hillary Clinton or a Barack Obama as their Commander in Chief than shame on you. SHAME ON YOU.
So you’d vote for a man who fiercely opposes all the freedoms that our military men and women put their lives on the line to preserve... out of love of country?
If you really love your country, why don’t you put your efforts into stopping McCain from getting the nomination or promoting the candidacy of a patriot?
You either have a serious case of battered wife syndrome going on, or you actually support the abomination being foisted upon us. Which is it?
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? IT’S OVER...he’s the candidate. Do you know the date and year? I’m serious..there’s something wrong with you and I do believe McCain is a patriot.. I think you’re obsessing.
He’s simply a candidate, and he won’t be the best one on the ballot as long as there are other right-wing parties fielding candidates.
As far as him being a patriot... that’s simply insane, sorry. No elected official has worked harder in recent years to undermine the security and sovereignty of the United States. And for what? Cheap lettuce? Media approbation?
Re: our discussion the other day—some additional information.
From back when nobody had axes to grind, when the Times wasn’t in panic trying to derail McCain to save the floundering Obama, and when DU trolls who enrolled in January weren’t spending every post to undercut McCain with FR. When Kerry Offered McCain Co-Presidency. Kerry begged, and McCain laughed at him.
Newsweek via Outside the Beltway November 5, 2004
James Joyner
Kerry’s courtship of Senator John McCain to be his running mate was longer-standing and more intense than previously reported. As far back as August 2003, Kerry had taken McCain to breakfast to sound him out to run on a unity ticket. McCain batted away the idea as not serious, but Kerry, after he wrapped up the nomination in March, went back after McCain a half-dozen more times.
“To show just how sincere he was, he made an outlandish offer,” Newsweek’s Thomas reports. “If McCain said yes he would expand the role of vice president to include secretary of Defense and the overall control of foreign policy. McCain exclaimed, ‘You’re out of your mind. I don’t even know if it’s constitutional, and it certainly wouldn’t sell.’”
Kerry was thwarted and furious. “Why the f— didn’t he take it? After what the Bush people did to him…’”
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2004/11/newsweek_election_issue_how_he_did_it/
It is no surprise the Senator has so few defenders here on FR.
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