The Huffington-McCain Grudge Match

U.S. News 7 World Report ^ | 5/7/8 | Lucia Graves

[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.

[tlb]

>>>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

“Reports” suddenly remembered during the political races in 2008 by sources such as Huffington and the like who hope to discredit the man who seems on track to otherwise clean their clock in November, aided and abetted on boards such as FR by DU trolls, Paulites, and the like all who have their own agendas for mischief.

The report I posted was published days after the 2004 election, when people had no need to lie or distort what happened. This was the description of what transpired re the 2004 VP slot for four years until a wedge was needed to manipulate the crackpot right. Then out of nowhere a new storyline is made.

Going by the best evidence rule, I tend not to buy the new story.

[Biblebelter]

The worry for McCain is that Huffington's claim will alienate him from core Republican voters

No need to worry about this Republican core voter. Whatever, Huffington said would have no bearing on alienating me. I was alienated a long time ago from the babble come out of both sides of the RINO relic's mouth. In fact, the words coming out of the Keating Five Guy's mouth do not amount to as much, as the fact that he gave La Raza the respect of a speaking appearance last week. The fact that McCain's campaign would worry more about the harm Huffington could do to his base, than the effects of a LaRaza appearance, speaks volumes about how out of touch the dislikable old geezer and his staff are with core of the party he claims to represent.

[penowa]

I don't intend to plow through every McCain thread on FR to find which magazines or newspapers published the reports I read on here in 2004, and again were referenced on FR since McCain became the nominee, but there was NO mention of Ariana Huffington in any of them until this thread. The articles posted on here that I read were based on reports from the 2004 election cycle when all the buzz was about McCain as a possible VP for Kerry, and McCain's being asked on the stump by a reporter since he became the putative nominee about approaching and asking to be Kerry's VP.

IMO Ariana Huffington is just about as trustworthy as McCain is. I wouldn't turn my back on either one and I don't believe anything either one says, birds of a feather, etc.