Free Republic

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Cindy McCain, wife of Republican U.S. Senator John McCain, says she doesn't know if Sarah Palin is capable of running the country should she run for president.

Meghan McCain had a few choice words for Christine O'Donnell on 'The Talk' (weekdays, syndicated), questioning the GOP Senate candidate's state of mind, but declining to comment specifically on Sarah Palin. "I ... called her a nutjob," McCain said tersely of O'Donnell. "I feel the same way right now." When asked by Julie Chen whether she thought Palin was unfair to father John McCain's campaign team after the 2008 Presidential election, McCain was cagey and instead mentioned who she plans to support in 2012. "It's irrelevant at this point. I've so moved on," she said. "I'm looking at 2012. I've...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain expects many U.S. Republicans to seek the party's presidential nomination in 2012. "I think there's going to be 1,000 flowers bloom," he said Monday at the annual Washington Reuters Summit. McCain, who won the nomination in 2008 and went on to lose to Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election, did not predict who he thought might run. "I think it's too early," he said. (snip) McCain's advice to Republicans: Keep your eye on New Hampshire. (snip) "For Republicans it seems to me that New Hampshire is still the very key place," McCain...

Republican Senator John McCain warned on Monday that U.S. lawmakers should respond to the concerns of the conservative Tea Party movement or else its supporters could give rise to a third political party. In an interview at the Reuters Washington Summit, McCain also said Republicans need a "positive agenda" in campaigning for the November 2 congressional election rather than simply saying no to Democratic policies. McCain, who earned a reputation as a political maverick for bucking his party, has recently swung to the right on some issues to beat back a conservative challenger in his re-election bid in Arizona. He...

John McCain shocked voters and pundits alike by picking Sarah Palin as a running mate in 2008, and McCain's daughter reveals the choice caused plenty of behind-the-scenes drama too. In her new book "Dirty Sexy Politics," Meghan McCain says Palin brought "stress, drama, complications, panic and loads of uncertainty" to the campaign. "She was not just an overnight success or even a political Cinderella story," McCain writes in an excerpt obtained by ABC News. "She was a sudden, freakishly huge, full-fledged phenomenon. It seemed too much. And it seemed too easy." Speaking out about the former Alaska Gov. for the...

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain's daughter says in a new book released Tuesday that Sarah Palin brought drama, stress and uncertainty to her father's failed bid for the presidency in 2008, but she doesn't blame the vice presidential nominee for losing the race. (snip) In her book, released by Hyperion, Meghan McCain shows an itch to adopt her father's persona as a "maverick" delivering "straight talk."She calls religious conservatives the "intolerant far right," evoking her father's famous remark a decade ago that GOP religious leaders were "agents of intolerance." The elder McCain has since backed off from those statements. (snip)...

Richard Viguerie comments on Senator John McCain’s re-nomination in the Arizona Republican Primary: The John McCain of 2009-10 was a McCain we had not seen since the mid-1990s. The Senator owes his victory to the pressure he received from conservatives and Tea Partiers. To receive that support, he had to give up his maverick positions that have sometimes given aid and comfort to the liberals. I’m sure Senator McCain knows very well that he would not have won if he had continued his reputation as the Democrats’ favorite Republican. McCain ran an aggressive, hard-hitting campaign against former Congressman J. D....

GREEN VALLEY, Ariz. — Times are strange for a recovering maverick. "You've been the first one who's run across the aisle," a woman seated in front of Sen. John McCain said accusingly. "Do you have a question?" he snapped. "Do you have a question, really?" "How can we believe you now if in the past you were so different?" The question could have come from any of the 150 people who filled a rec center in this retirement community 30 minutes south of Tucson. Even among loyalists, it looms. Who is the real John McCain? The 2008 Republican presidential nominee...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Senator John McCain said Tuesday that the Vietnam visit paid by the US warship named for his father and grandfather was a "historic and hopeful" sign for ties between the former foes. "Today's port call of the USS John McCain into Vietnam is a historic and hopeful occasion," the Arizona Republican said in a statement as the destroyer USS John S. McCain stopped in Vietnam's central port city of Danang. "Vietnam has become one of America's most important and most promising emerging partners in the Asia-Pacific region," McCain said. (snip) "Today's port call is certainly rich...

There goes Senator John McCain, battling mightily for re-election in Arizona, buzzing off into the desert heat to another rally, another news conference, another television sound bite. Wait, you forgot your principles! He’s telling the world he’ll never support immigration reform until the border is sealed. Now he’s praising Arizona’s Legislature for passing a bill that makes every Latino — citizen or not — a potential criminal defendant. It obligates the police to stop people who look like illegal immigrants and arrest them if they don’t have papers on them. And here he is warning Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has finally turned his back on immigration reform. He told a press conference on Monday that his only priority now was to have federal troops try and seal the border. It should come as no real surprise, as he faces a tough challenge in September in the Republican primary, but nonetheless there is something very sad about his utter capitulation. No one spoke out more forcefully about what had to be done to stop the trafficking of illegals and especially the deaths of so many as they attempted to cross over from Mexico. In an interview...

As we reported earlier, Senate hopeful J.D. Hayworth released his much-anticipated list of donors to his Freedom in Truth trust -- something John McCain has been requesting for months -- but the McCain campaign says the list only contains half of the information it requested. "We appreciate the fact that after 45 days and constant pressure, Congressman Hayworth has finally taken one step toward disclosing the activities of his FIT Trust," says McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers. "However, Congressman Hayworth has only revealed half of the pertinent information -- the money coming into the trust, but not the money going...

Leading senators expressed concern Sunday about a report that the CIA has secretly moved as many as a dozen unidentified prisoners out of Iraq in the past six months, a possible violation of international treaties. Sen. John McCain said interrogations can help extract crucial information from detainees on plans for attacks against Americans. But international law, including the Geneva Conventions, must be followed, he said. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., called for new leadership at the Justice Department. The detainees were removed without notification to the International Red Cross, congressional oversight committees, the Defense Department or CIA investigators, The Washington Post...