Posted on 05/07/2008 6:39:32 PM PDT by presidio9
Arianna Huffington's statement that John McCain did not vote for Bush in 2000 has kicked up a fuss, with McCain putting out a statement denying her account. "It's not true," McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds, told the Washington Post, adding, "I ask you to consider the source." Huffington replied, "By all means!"
Huffington is standing by her story, which she says she kept confidential for nearly eight years. At a reading and book-signing event Monday night at Washington's Politics & Prose Bookstore, Huffington told her audience that Senator McCain and his wife, Cindy, "divulged" their voting decision to her at a Los Angeles dinner party in 2000. Further, Cindy McCain said she cast a write-in vote for her husband, claims Huffington.
"For me, there's a lot of heartbreak involved," Huffington told the packed bookstore, quipping that McCain is "not your run-of-the-mill political flip-flopper, because what did Mitt Romney really care about anyway?" She emphasized that "only when a noble man falls is it a tragedy."
Recall the context: Back in 2000, when the McCains allegedly confided in her, Huffington was a still a Republican with a good relationship with McCain. Now, Huffington, who has since migrated leftward, says McCain has changed fundamentally, abandoning his core principles to embrace Bush in what last night she called a "classic Faustian bargain."
But what looked to be an embarrassment for John McCain may turn out to be an embarrassment of riches. With Bush suffering from rock-bottom job approval ratings and low popularity, McCain's strategists have been looking for a way to distance the presumptive GOP presidential nominee from the Republican White House incumbent.
The worry for McCain is that Huffington's claim will alienate him from core Republican voters and make him look hypocritical with his earlier public embrace of Bush. The McCain camp is well aware of the peril and has already moved from defense to offense. "She's a flake, and a poser, and an attention-seeking diva. And that's on the record," said longtime McCain aide Mark Salter, when asked by the Washington Post why Huffington would make something up about McCain.
Huffington responded by posting an inventory of everything John McCain, over the course of his political tenure, has reportedly denied but which later turned out to be true.
Smiling gleefully at the bookstore crowd, Huffington apologized for arriving late to her own book talk, explaining that she was dealing with the "fallout" from her blog entry.
But if all the kerfuffle ends up helping, and not hurting John McCain, she may feel differently. McCain may just get to have it both ways: Those who want to believe he did vote for Bush in 2000 can accept his denial, and for those who don't want to believe it, this can reinforce their image of him as a maverick.
I’m not really sure what the attack was supposed to accomplish. Republicans don’t care because they don’t trust the source of the information. Independents don’t like Bush, so this probably makes them more likely to vote for McCain. And liberals weren’t going to vote for him anyways.
On one side, we have a woman that said she was a conservative when it fit her needs and then changed teams, her husband also switched teams.
On the other side we have a Senator that has always said he was a conservative but his record was hit and miss.
Ariana?
I would not believe a word out of that opportunistic bitch’s mouth.
I still contend that her husband was straight until he married her..
Good question, I know some bimbos are celebrities because of movies, songs, etc., but Huffington? just a blank. I thought maybe she screwed her way into the limelight, but yeesch...
He was straight after he married with her. It took spending some time with her to turn him gay.
Being married to Arianna Huffington could make any sane man consider alternative lifestyles.
"On the other side we have a Senator that has always said he was a conservative but his record was hit and miss."
You left out the part about McCain WANTING to switch teams just like the Huffingtons, but Jeffords beat him to it and the Democrats no longer wanted him. I really can't decide who I find more despicable, Huffington or McCain. I guess it's a draw.
I plan to do to McCain in November exactly what Huffington says the McCains did to Bush - write in someone's name for President that I think is more deserving of holding the office, and I suspect I won't be alone.
“The Huffington-McCain Grudge Match”
Ooh fun, I love it when liberals fight.
Huffington is nothing but a drama queen and a liar.
I think she and Bill Maher had something going at one time. Not a pretty thought.
>>>”we have a Senator that has always said he was a conservative but his record was hit and miss.”
American Conservative Union Ratings for the Likely 2008 Presidential Candidates
Senator John McCain (AZ)
83 Lifetime
80 2005
Senator Hillary Clinton (NY)
9 Lifetime
12 2005
Former Vice President Al Gore (TN)
9 Lifetime
N/A
Senator Barack Obama (IL)
8 Lifetime
8 2005
Senator John Kerry (MA)
5 Lifetime
8 2005
http://www.conservative.org/archive2/2008potus.asp
Looks like he hit a bit more then he missed.
>>>You left out the part about McCain WANTING to switch teams just like the Huffingtons, but Jeffords beat him to it and the Democrats no longer wanted him.
They “no longer wanted him” so much they begged him to become Kerry’s VP, offering him the sun and moon if would say “yes”.
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/
but whatever.
What was Johnny Mac’s 2006 rating?
I’ll vote McCain. Either he or Obama will be president. McCain will at least fight the WOT.
He’s old, cranky and a little crazy, the Muzzies may be afraid of him.
There are reports that this worked the other way around - McCain approaching Kerry, wanting Kerry to put him on the ticket, trying to convince Kerry how he could help him get elected, not Kerry "begging" McCain to become his VP. When asked by a reporter while campaigning recently about whether he asked Kerry, McCain did not deny it, and would only say that he was "too conservative" for Kerry, NOT who did the asking.
The Muzzies aren't the only ones who may be "afraid of him." He scares me as much as Obama does so I'll be voting for neither. I have believed for a LONG time that McCain is not only unstable, but a crook as well, not to mention just another sock puppet of Soros, et.al.
Some sweetheart of a blogger mentioned he can't wait until the general campaign starts so people can see the real John McCain. Who the blogger claims was not tortured while in the hands of the NV. The blogger also said the McCain worked openly with the North Vietnamese.
I think the blogger is confused with John Kerry and his 3 purple hearts, and meetings with the North Vietnamese in Paris.
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