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McCain Keeps Advantage Over Hillary for 2008
Angus Reid Global Scan/Zogby ^ | January 1, 2006

Posted on 01/01/2006 10:22:42 PM PST by presidio9

Arizona senator John McCain could win the 2008 presidential election in the United States, according to a poll by Zogby International. 52 per cent of respondents would vote for the Republican in a head-to-head contest against Democratic New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In 2000, McCain won seven GOP presidential primaries in the U.S., but retired from the race after eventual nominee George W. Bush became the frontrunner.

Rodham Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, defeating Republican Rick Lazio by 12 per cent. She ruled out a presidential bid in 2004. 37 per cent of respondents would vote for the Democrat, while 11 per cent would back other candidates or remain undecided.

Bush is ineligible for a third term in office. The next presidential election is scheduled for November 2008.

Polling Data

Who would you vote for in a presidential election pitting Republican John McCain versus Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton?

John McCain (R) 52%

Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) 37%

Not sure / Other 11%


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008polls; hillary2008; mccain; mccain2008; mcstain; zogby
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To: Soul Seeker

No you misunderstand what I am saying. I am saying that if you are conservative and still see Hillary as the better choice or if you HATE McCain so much that you say I don't care who wins between Hillary and McCain. I am saying that is foolish and that DU is a fool's paradise. Enjoy.


161 posted on 01/02/2006 2:22:59 PM PST by Garry Boldwater
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To: presidio9

You can bet that the shrillary/zogby cabal would love for insane to be their opponent because they know he won't have the support of the right.

The left will support him until the day he is nominated and then cut him off at the knees, leaving a clear field for shrillary.


162 posted on 01/02/2006 2:33:06 PM PST by Let's Roll ( "Congressmen who ... undermine the military ... should be arrested, exiled or hanged" - A. Lincoln)
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To: Justanobody
The thread is about Hillary vs. McCain based on some fantasy poll that was taken. This all may never come to pass, but politics has a funny way sometimes of creating a lesser of two evils situation. Anyway, assuming this fantasy (at this point) situation what do people think? Well it seems that many here on FR either can't see a difference between the two or simply don't care.

If anyone here takes the time to look at voting records and histories of these two people and you cannot come to the conclusion that for a conservative McCain is a better choice than Hillary, then I don't know what to say for you except that Hillary has apparently accomplished exactly what she wanted as Senator. She has duped people into thinking she is not the leftist wacko that she is. Apparently it has worked if this forum is any indication.

Now on your last point. I do not believe I said anything about SENDING people to DU. I think I said you should check it out. Because if Hillary looks the same as McCain to you, you have been duped and that makes you a dupe. And DU is a dupe's paradise. Enjoy.
163 posted on 01/02/2006 2:34:24 PM PST by Garry Boldwater
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To: concretebob

Stick around to FR for a while and you'll be exposed to a wealth of other sources.


164 posted on 01/02/2006 2:35:12 PM PST by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does)
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To: presidio9
Who would you vote for in a presidential election pitting Republican John McCain versus Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Neither. I'll sit that one out.

165 posted on 01/02/2006 2:36:14 PM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all.)
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To: presidio9
No, what is happening here is that you are confusing a discussion on FR with RNC guidance. Just because most people here understand that the dynamics of a two-party system demands that you vote for whatever candidate your own party presents you with (like him or not) does not mean it works that way in the real world. The last two presidential elections have proven that the Conservative vote is critical to Republican candidates.

No confusion here. And I agree with your entire comment, but if the choice comes down to McCain vs. Hillary (the orginal discussion thread) and Conservatives think that either staying home (Hillary by default) or it doesn't matter (Hillary and McCain are the same despite voting records) then it is not McCain that loses but the Conservatives because they have let their dislike for someone overcome the logic of the choice. And this may be the real world situation, but it is foolish. It is what the left does now against President Bush. It would be a shame if the right falls into the exact same trap. We had better prey that it does not come down to Hillary vs. McCain, because it looks like many will fall into that trap and by doing so elect Hillary.
166 posted on 01/02/2006 2:44:51 PM PST by Garry Boldwater
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To: Garry Boldwater

Actually, I think I was a bit cautious in my observation. It seems from this thread that there ARE plenty of freepers who would sit out a McCain candidacy.


167 posted on 01/02/2006 2:47:37 PM PST by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does)
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To: presidio9
Actually, I think I was a bit cautious in my observation. It seems from this thread that there ARE plenty of freepers who would sit out a McCain candidacy.

I think there are two issues at play here. One is that Repubs have been winning so much lately that parties get complacent until they start losing. Maybe the Republican Party is a victim of its own success and needs some losses in order to get people focused on voting records more and personalities less.

Second, it is early and most on this forum have clearly forgotten the lunacy that is Hillary Clinton. Once they hear Hillary barking out in one of her speeches and the choice really is Hillary vs. McCain people will come to their senses. Without the fever pitch of a campaign or the constant reminding of how bad Hillary is, it is easy to say, "who cares I will stay home."

We will see.
168 posted on 01/02/2006 2:57:54 PM PST by Garry Boldwater
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To: GraniteStateConservative

"He's the only Republican senator who has a national following," says Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., one of the few senators to endorse McCain's presidential bid, and a close friend. "That gives him a tremendous amount of new leverage and power as a United States senator."

McCain's role in the Senate "is almost undefinable," Hagel says. "This guy's a different cat. Nobody knows how to handle him. He's got this amazing rapport with the press and the people, especially young people. You can't not deal with it."

Since the beginning of this Congress, McCain has used this leverage -- rooted far more in the power of his own fiefdom than in his relationships with other senators, especially those in his own party


snip


When it's all over, what's at stake is not just his pride, but his influence on Capitol Hill.



http://tinyurl.com/cpun9



******

John Weaver


snip


He was working for John McCain and for Democrats. The trial lawyer association and others. The reason he's working for Democrats and only McCain is because he can't get a job otherwise. Karl Rove is effectively destroyed him. In his ability to get work.

He was one of the shining lights in the Republican Party in Texas, back in the 1980's. There were two of them. Young Karl Rove, young John Weaver. For reasons that are complicated. But reasons that laid themselves out over the years, that followed, John Weaver found himself on the wrong side of Karl Rove. And Rove's M.O. Is not simply to defeat someone, but to destroy them. If you're not on my side, you're against me.

And over the years, he's basically damaged Weaver, has denied him any kind of clients in the Republican party, as Rove has ascended to power. And with George Bush as his candidate. And so Weaver's only opportunity really was to attach himself to John McCain.

It was a sort of a Greek drama four years ago, where you had McCain and the man who was the enemy of Karl Rove, the President's advisor on one side, and Karl Rove is arguably evil force and brain of George Bush, on the other. And in the end, again, George Bush won and Karl Rove was triumphant.


http://tinyurl.com/aurma


******


"I’ve talked to people who have been in this business a long time and they don’t recall any political figure being in this position in modern politics," said John Weaver, McCain’s chief strategist during his failed bid for the Republican nomination in 2000. "The magic of John McCain is that he is not a phony, he speaks his mind."

So McCain walks the political Middle Way.


snip


Weaver characterized McCain’s relationship with President Bush as "an evolving one," gradually becoming a "friendly relationship." He said McCain’s relationship with Kerry is "that they are genuine friends." But then again, McCain told The Washington Post this week that, "I’ve never socialized with him [Kerry]."


snip


http://tinyurl.com/amdbb


******


Mark Slater, the campaign speechwriter who helped write McCain's autobiography, left Jeane Kirkpatrick's staff to work on McCain's Senate staff, according to The New York Times.

snip


Gramm's field director who dreamed up the McCain presidential campaign. John Weaver is the San Antonio political consultant who ran Gramm's presidential campaign


snip


Weaver, who once served as executive director of the Texas Republican Party, was also responsible for the costly and failed effort to bring the Republican National Convention to San Antonio in 1996. Weaver was also Gramm's field director during the Iowa caucus, when corporate chartered buses -- including charters paid for by Iowa Beef Packers, where Gramm's wife Wendy serves on the board of directors -- ferried Gramm supporters to the caucus to cast their votes.


snip


http://tinyurl.com/7b2fx


******


Ultimately Bush may pay a high price in the general election. One McCain volunteer turned to me while watching the results and said, “You might as well start calling him President Al Gore,” signaling that Bush’s win came on the strength of the religious right. McCain’s political director John Weaver said, “Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are to be congratulated.”


http://tinyurl.com/coq32


******


I asked John Weaver, McCain's political director, what he planned to do in the event his candidate won the South Carolina primary. "Get drunk," was his succinct reply.


http://tinyurl.com/892gw



******



McCain's campaign is just about to reach the federally mandated spending limit in South Carolina. McCain's political director, John Weaver, says, "It's like we are handcuffed to a certain degree and they are free to fire at will.

Speaking of Weaver, the Washington Post's profile reveals him to be the "mini-John," temper and all, of the Straight Talk Express.


http://tinyurl.com/buecw



******


July 8, 2002

McCain's top political strategist, John Weaver, recently tendered his formal resignation from the Republican party, and has announced that he will work, in the future, only for Democrats.



http://tinyurl.com/7lzg5


******



McCain has a reputation for an explosive temper, and he apparently likes to hire campaign staff that go ape as well. The Washington Post reported recently that McCain campaign political director and confidant John Weaver makes a habit of screaming at underlings, throwing things through walls and out of windows, and enjoys demolishing cell phones in fits of rage. Just the kind of people you want running the country.

Four years ago, this Weaver guy was field director for the now forgotten presidential campaign of Texas Senator Phil Gramm. Gramm was the guy who announced during his "I’m running for president" speech that he had the biggest qualification of all — "ready money." But I’m sure that Weaver is all for campaign finance reform now, just like McCain.


http://tinyurl.com/cmgsl


******


Squeeze on ex-senator alleged

November 16, 2005

BY MIKE ROBINSON ASSOCIATED PRESS

A political consultant testified Wednesday that while George Ryan was publicly endorsing Sen. Phil Gramm for the Republican presidential nomination in early 1995, his aides were quietly pressing the Texas senator's campaign for $103,000 in consulting fees.

"This is the way we do things in Chicago," political consultant John Weaver quoted Ryan chief of staff Scott Fawell as saying when asked about the fees.


snip


Weaver, now a senior strategist for Arizona Sen. John McCain's political action committee, testified that Gramm needed the help of a powerful Republican organization to win in Illinois.


http://tinyurl.com/827rn


******


John Weaver, McCain's Guru -- Joins the Democrats
13-May-02


Ethan Wallison and Paul Kane write in Roll Call, "House Democrats have hired Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) former top political adviser to spearhead efforts to attract Republican and independent voters in the run-up to the November elections. While details of his day-to-day work have yet to be ironed out, John Weaver, the architect of McCain's strong insurgent bid for president in 2000, acknowledged Friday that he signed on as a consultant to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, effective May 1. 'I'll do everything and anything they ask of me,' said Weaver, the newly registered Democrat who is already being wooed by 2004 presidential aspirants... He indicated that the bulk of his work will focus on 'communications and strategy,' with a line of attack on House Republicans that will peg them as extremists who don't tolerate moderate views -- something he says he experienced firsthand. 'I didn't change philosophies. I changed parties,' he said."


http://tinyurl.com/anq62


******


THE RIGHT EMBRACES MCCAIN.
Fortunate Son
by Byron York

Post date 12.07.05 | Issue date 12.12.05


It has never been entirely clear just who makes up the Republican establishment--businessmen? evangelicals? freepers?--but it is clear that they've never liked John McCain.


snip


With his war hero credibility, McCain is able to dismiss the calls of some of his fellow lawmakers--and fellow veterans--who want to get out of Iraq. John Kerry, McCain says, doesn't have "the strength to see it through." And John Murtha is "a lovable guy," but "he's never been a big thinker; he's an appropriator." Using language that Bush never could, McCain tells me that Murtha has become too emotional about the human cost of the war. "As we get older, we get more sentimental," McCain says. "And [Murtha] has been very, very affected by the funerals and the families. But you cannot let that affect the way you decide policy."

A statement like that--sad, but, at the same time, coldly determined--would not be made by a man worried about how the war will affect his political fortunes. And McCain isn't. "We don't ever even talk about [the war] in political terms," McCain's longtime top strategist, John Weaver, tells me. "If John McCain and George W. Bush are the last two men standing advocating the exportation of democracy and the protection of democracy in Iraq, so be it. It's absolutely the right thing to do." There's no doubt McCain believes that, but it also happens to be, at least at this moment, the kind of buck-up certitude the Republican base, struggling with its own doubts about the war, wants to hear.


snip


http://tinyurl.com/dwcqg



******


Giuliani in '08 might be an uphill battle against McCain


BY GLENN THRUSH
WASHINGTON BUREAU

December 10, 2005, 10:26 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are the top-polling Republican rivals for the White House in 2008, but the two dinner buddies avoid talking about that topic when sharing tortellini and bresaola at Giuliani's favorite Manhattan bistros.

Their latest get-together took place on Nov. 1 at Elio's, an Upper East Side eatery known for its $30 veal chops. They shared a table with McCain confidante Mark Salter, Giuliani's wife Judith and his aide-de-camp Tony Carbonetti. McCain and Giuliani reportedly chatted about the food, sports and Iraq -- everything but 2008.


snip


No hostility

There's no schism between the two men, who bonded in 2000, when Giuliani supported McCain's presidential bid and McCain backed Giuliani's abortive Senate run against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many top advisers to both, including Carbonetti and McCain's New York-based political guru John Weaver, maintain friendly personal relationships.

Still, McCain's camp has good reason to set its sights on the former mayor: He's currently the senator's most serious threat in the 2008 primaries.


http://tinyurl.com/835kv


******


February 22, 2002 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
McCain-Lieberman `Bull Moose'
Duo Destabilize the President
by Jeffrey Steinberg and Anton Chaitkin

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the man widely referred to by professional Senate staffers as "the real Manchurian Candidate for 2004," has forged an unholy political alliance with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) "New Democrats" apparatus. Their purpose is to destabilize the Bush Presidency, and drive the United States toward policies certain to provoke the "Clash of Civilizations" new Thirty Years' War of Samuel Huntington, Zbigniew Brzezinski, et al.


snip


On Feb. 14, 2002, Gore's 2000 campaign manager, Donna Brazile, told the Washington Times that she had established a liaison with McCain's campaign adviser John Weaver, during the South Carolina primary campaign. It appears that, in return for McCain's support for the fight to banish the Confederate battle flag from the state Capitol in Columbia, S.C., the Gore campaign cancelled the Democratic primary altogether, allowing Democratic voters to cross over and cast their ballots in the Republican primary election for McCain. While this Gore dirty trick, repeated in Michigan, was not sufficient to allow McCain to defeat George W. Bush, the dirty collusion between the "New Democrats" and McCain continued.


http://tinyurl.com/ex9tf


******


On May 30, 2001, Senator Daschle signed a petition, circulated by LaRouche campaign organizers, demanding that D.C. General Hospital not be shut down.

However, two days later, Daschle, along with DLC president Bruce Reed, arrived at McCain's home in Sidona, Arizona, to spend the weekend. Daschle was hoping to convince McCain to switch parties, and add to the new, one-vote Democratic majority in the Senate. In hindsight, McCain never had any intentions of throwing away his political leverage over President Bush by switching parties.

While in Arizona with McCain and Reed, Daschle sent a fax to the LaRouche campaign office, removing his signature from the D.C. General petition.

It was a month later that the real deal was hatched between McCain and the "New Democrats." That deal was not forged with Daschle; he, instead, was drawn into the McCain-Lieberman game by agreeing to co-sponsor the campaign finance reform bill—along with McCain and Lieberman. On the July 4th weekend, Lieberman travelled out to the McCain ranch for several days of secret talks. Unlike the high-profile McCain-Daschle soirée, the "summit" with Lieberman grabbed no national attention, its subject never made public.

However, shortly after that get-together, McCain gave the green light to his 2000 campaign policy adviser Marshall Whitmann, to launch an online political newsletter, "The Bull Moose." Another 2000 adviser—McCain's liaison to the Gore camp—John Weaver, was recently identified by syndicated columnist Robert Novak as the source of a leak to the New York Times, charging that, during the South Carolina primaries, George W. Bush arranged for Enron Corp. to "hire" his campaign operative, Ralph Reed, for a $20,000 a month no-show job—so Reed could work full-time for the Bush campaign.


http://tinyurl.com/ex9tf


169 posted on 01/02/2006 3:12:33 PM PST by kcvl
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To: concretebob

Hey, I don't have anything against NewsMax. ;*)


170 posted on 01/02/2006 3:18:02 PM PST by Just A Nobody (I - LOVE - my attitude problem! WBB lives on. Beware the Enemedia.)
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To: Garry Boldwater

Hitlery has not deceived me, nor has mcInsane.


171 posted on 01/02/2006 3:23:43 PM PST by Just A Nobody (I - LOVE - my attitude problem! WBB lives on. Beware the Enemedia.)
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To: Garry Boldwater

If you got that impression from what I ssid you are sadly mistaken.


172 posted on 01/02/2006 3:28:44 PM PST by Coldwater Creek ("Over there, over there, We won't be back 'til it's over Over there.")
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To: Justanobody
Just keeping you in the loop, Sweetie.
I keep everyone in the loop.
The loop is your friend,
love the loop,
live the loop,
be the loop.
173 posted on 01/02/2006 3:31:59 PM PST by concretebob (Which part of "National Security" does the press find confusing?)
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To: All


174 posted on 01/02/2006 3:32:56 PM PST by Just A Nobody (I - LOVE - my attitude problem! WBB lives on. Beware the Enemedia.)
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To: presidio9

Been here since 98, in one name or another.


175 posted on 01/02/2006 3:34:37 PM PST by concretebob (Which part of "National Security" does the press find confusing?)
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To: presidio9

Sign up dates are deceiving..


176 posted on 01/02/2006 3:35:12 PM PST by concretebob (Which part of "National Security" does the press find confusing?)
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To: concretebob

Trust me, I know. This is my 9th screen name. But you don't want to go telling the world that you've been here forever and Newsmax is the most trustworthy source you could come up with.


177 posted on 01/02/2006 3:37:24 PM PST by presidio9 (Imagine you are a congressman. Now, imagine you are an idiot.)
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To: presidio9

Since neither one of these idiots will win their party's nomination. This article is utterly unnecessary.


178 posted on 01/02/2006 3:37:42 PM PST by Poser (Willing to fight for oil)
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To: Poser

My original point in posting this article was to demonstrate how the MSM perpetuates its own fantasies.


179 posted on 01/02/2006 3:39:34 PM PST by presidio9 (Imagine you are a congressman. Now, imagine you are an idiot.)
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To: Garry Boldwater
McClown and Hitlery are fooling no one but themselves, especially if they think they can fool the Conservative base.
The Witch already has too much baggage, and the Clown is steadily packing his full of BS amendments to give Constitutional protections to non-citizens outside the US.
That amendment will be a major political anchor which will stop his campaign.
It's time for new blood, young guns, who walk the walk.
180 posted on 01/02/2006 3:40:12 PM PST by concretebob (Which part of "National Security" does the press find confusing?)
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