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Sen. John McCain is talking with Democrats about a joint effort to require outside groups that have spent millions of dollars on this year’s elections to disclose their donors. McCain (R-Ariz.), once Congress’s leading champion of campaign finance reform, has kept a low profile on the issue in recent years. He raised the ire of many Republicans a decade ago for pushing comprehensive reform, and many Republicans still held it against him during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Sen. John McCain was put on the defensive Sunday for comparing some of his GOP colleagues to hobbits during the debt ceiling debate. The Arizona Republican had taken to the Senate floor in July to admonish conservatives for “unrealistic” expectations and quoted a Wall Street Journal editorial that compared them to the characters from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” “What I was talking about, quoting from a Wall Street Journal editorial, was that there was a segment of the Republicans in the Senate — Republican Senators — that said we cannot raise the debt limit until we pass...

Sen. John McCain to hold town hall Tuesday in Goodyear Tuesday, August 23, 2011 3 pm Goodyear Justice Center 185 North 145th Avenue, Goodyear, Ariz. McCain town hall here Monday Monday, August 22, 2011 Noon First Congregational Church 216 East Gurley Street, Prescott, Ariz.

U.S. John McCain, R-Ari, who's faced much tougher challenges than the current one, is striking back at Tea Party critics -- McCain refused to apologize for calling the Tea Party lawmakers "hobbits" in a speech in July. When asked by angry constituents in his home starte to apologize for remarks he made during the U.S. debt deal debate in July, McCain refused, nydailynews.com Tuesday. "I am sorry if it was misunderstood. I am not sorry for what I said," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Gilbert, Ariz., thehill.com reported Tuesday. McCain added, "Why should I when it's the...

"...I'm sorry if it was misunderstood, I'm not sorry for what I said."

GILBERT - Arizona Sen. John McCain held a town hall in Gilbert this morning and the economy took center stage. The town hall was focused on the nations' economic troubles and McCain said the on-going financial problems would be much greater had Congress not passed a bill to keep the country from defaulting on its debt. McCain said he is very concerned with the recent S&P downgrade of the United States' credit rating and views it as a wake-up call to the nation. "It will cost more to borrow money and it is a very serious situation," McCain said. McCain...

Local tea party activists felt that Sen. John McCain had some explaining to do. As a result, McCain, R-Ariz., spent some of a town hall meeting at Gilbert Municipal Center on Monday defending his comments last week in the U.S. Senate, where he read from a Wall Street Journal editorial referring to "tea party hobbits." McCain said he quoted the editorial to make a point about some Republicans' insisting on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution in exchange for agreeing to raise the nation's debt limit. "What apology is in order?" McCain responded when asked if he would apologize. "What...

On the same day that House Speaker John Boehner told Republicans to "Get your asses in line" and support his debt ceiling proposal, Sen. John McCain also blasted fellow Republicans. In a Senate floor speech laced with sarcasm and stings, the Arizona Republican aimed especially harsh fire at the tea party Wednesday.

BARAD-DUR, MORDOR (HA) — The Wall Street Journal offered this, er, interesting assessment of Tea Party opposition to the John Boehner plan: But what none of these critics have is an alternative strategy for achieving anything nearly as fiscally or politically beneficial as Mr. Boehner’s plan. The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then...

The fiery, independent version of the Republican senator from Arizona took to the floor of the Senate Wednesday morning. Demanding “straight talk,” Mr. McCain accused conservatives of abandoning reason by opposing the House Republican leader’s plan to resolve the debt crisis. Mr. McCain mocked Tea Party-allied Republicans in the House for believing — wrongly, he said — that President Obama and Democrats will get the blame for a default if Republicans refuse to increase the nation’s debt ceiling. By that flawed logic, “Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced budget amendment and reform entitlements and the...

John McCain & the Wall Street Journal attacked the tea party and Christine O'Donnell as HOBBITS, who think they are going to vanquish "Mordor" (the evil kingdom) and return to the Shire. McCain (quoting from the Wall Street Journal) went out of his way to target Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle as the examples of the tea party movement that veteran Senator John McCain was criticizing. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/28/angle-odonnell-slam-mccain-over-tea-party-hobbits-speech/?test=latestnewsBut apparently this national political uproar of insiders viewing tea party political activists as "the little people" who are like "Hobbits" was no accident. Christine O'Donnell's academic interest in Tolkien's use of imagery from...

Sen. John McCain defended the Tea Party against Sen. John Kerry’s “tea party downgrade” remark on Meet the Press this morning. “We could have reached an agreement a lot earlier, but the members of the House of Representatives had a mandate last November, and it was jobs and the economy and it was spending. And for them to then agree to tax increases and spending increases was obviously a repudiation of the mandate they felt they had from last November,” McCain said. He said that much of the “dysfunction” in the current political system could be attributed to “the failure...

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), a Republican presidential candidate, called Saturday morning for Republicans and the Tea Party to stop fighting and work together to help save the country, presumably from Democratic policies, although he was not specific. "On the right, take note," McCotter said on the House floor. "It is as unwarranted and injurious for a Republican to call a Tea Partier a hobbit as it is for a Tea Partier to call a Republican a RINO."McCotter was referring to a comment earlier this month from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who compared Tea Partiers to hobbits. That sparked rebukes from...