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PHOENIX (AP) — Republican Sen. John McCain framed the porousness of America's borders as both a national security concern and a human rights issue Sunday in the only scheduled general election debate in Arizona's U.S. Senate race. McCain noted politicians in Mexico have been targeted by the cartels that are smuggling drugs into the United States and that hundreds of illegal immigrants die in the desert every year trying to sneak into the country. "The brutality and the human rights abuses are beyond horrendous," McCain said.

Senator John McCain's record as a staunch conservative came under fire during his Yuma town hall meeting Friday evening at Booth Machinery, prompting the senator to fire back in his own defense with a level of fiery passion reminiscent of his younger days. “It seems to me that every time you run for election you tack very much to the right…” Steve Replogle, a member of the Colorado River Tea Party, told McCain during the town hall. “I have personal questions in regards to your positions. You have at times advocated cap and trade… amnesty, and the McCain-Feingold Bill made...

Sen. John McCain will debate GOP rival J.D. Hayworth this summer, his campaign spokesman said Wednesday. Brian Rogers, McCain’s campaign communications director, said a newspaper report indicating McCain was “busy with his job as a senator” and would not debate Hayworth was “not accurate.” “What we said all along is that Sen. McCain will obviously debate — he’s always debated,” Rogers said, adding, but “he has a day job. Folks want him doing his job during the week, so he doesn’t have, unlike Congressman Hayworth, unlimited time on his hands.” Hayworth, who served 12 years in the House before he...

TUCSON, AZ (KGUN - TV) - Arizona Senator John McCain now says soldiers sent to the border should be armed. This revelation comes one day after Senate democrats shot down McCain's border plan to send 6,000 soldiers to the border. At a town hall meeting in Tucson, McCain first told 60 of his supporters in attendance that President Obama's plan to send 1,200 soldiers would not work because the soldiers would only be assigned to "desk jobs." (snip) Nunez asked: "What do you say to the those who accuse you of throwing out numbers, sending 6,000 troops to the border,...

McCAIN: My view is you need a physical fence. But we all know that unless physical fences are surveilled, and then people just punch holes in them. And so I saw in Iraq on my visit there that their ability to serveil areas is that we have the technology now. (snip) McCAIN: After the border is secured, then obviously we have to address the issue of the 12 million people who are still in this country illegally. I don't know what ... American public opinion will take. But one of the key elements, as was in our previous legislation, is...

The opening minutes of “The Senators’ Bargain,” a documentary film appearing tonight on HBO2, show Senator John McCain at a congressional hearing in 2006, reading out loud from a newspaper article describing the death from desert broiling that befalls many immigrants trying to cross the border illegally. “The brain cooks and the delirium starts,” the Republican senator from Arizona reads somberly, explaining why he will join Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal Democrats, to sponsor a bill to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. The documentary, directed by Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini,...

<p>When I asked John McCain what he would say to his old friend Ted Kennedy this morning, he smiled and said "Congratulations."</p>

It's a question often asked about the senator once known for working with Democrats and driving his own party crazy, who is now seen as a party-line conservative. In an exclusive ABC News Subway Series interview, McCain asked, and answered, the question himself. "I heard that during the presidential campaign, too. 'What happened to the old John McCain?' Then I heard it in the primary: 'What happened to the old John McCain?' Who was the old John McCain?" McCain said. "The old John McCain and the new John -- the present John McCain -- I fight for what I believe...

Paul Streitz has decided to call Sarah Palin by her real name, because she endorsed John McCain (who is trying to win a fifth term as Senator) and said she will campaign for him. Fanatic Palinites, such as the editors of the misnamed „conservatives4palin.com” website (they should rename it „liberals4palin.com”), lambasted him and called him a “backstabber”. “If Paul Streitz’s support of Governor Palin is contingent upon his agreeing with every decision she makes or her selling out her deeply-held values, that’s unfortunate. While all support is appreciated, the governor has never been for sale. Ask the Alaska establishment, who...

"I worked with him on many issues across party lines. There has never a major reform accomplished in the history of this country that hasn't been bipartisan, and he certainly, uh...all of the negotiations and efforts that I made with him, we never engaged in this kind of unsavory process of offering people different deals, which in the end cost people from other states lots of money and put burdens on them."

Maria Shriver and Meghan McCain come from different generations and different political backgrounds, but both agree that women in America still face huge challenges trying to balance work and family and to find their own voices.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) late Tuesday told reporters on his first day back in the Senate that the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) last month will affect him and the Senate deeply. The 2008 GOP presidential hopeful, who attended Kennedy's funeral in Boston on his Aug. 29 birthday, "I miss him every day," McCain said."We had a very, very congenial and enjoyable relationship. He had a great sense of humor. Obviously there's no one else like him."

(snip) Listening to Sen. McCain's elegy, however, I found myself increasingly bothered. "We disagreed on most issues," McCain said at one point, "but I admired his passion for his convictions ... ." Really? Kennedy was the farthest-left liberal during nearly five decades in the U.S. Senate. McCain, just one year ago, campaigned for president, proclaiming his conservative convictions. And without doubt, Kennedy's wholehearted support of Barack Obama helped to torpedo McCain's campaign. Perhaps one moment disturbed me most: "When we worked together on the immigration issue," McCain recalled, "we had a daily morning meeting with other interested senators. He and...

The senator's partial term was marked by frustration and failure, experts say. BY WILLIAM MARCH TAMPA - Mel Martinez may go down in Florida history as the reluctant senator. During his short Senate career, from 2005 until this week, Martinez took stands on principle and stuck loyally by his friends, particularly President George W. Bush, even when it hurt him politically. But circumstances and his own mistakes conspired to mark his partial term with much frustration and little accomplishment, experts in Congress say. In an interview last week, Martinez acknowledged that frustration. "It is true," he said. "The Senate works...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — An odd couple of Republican senators have hit the road, arguing for a go-slow approach to President Barack Obama's push to revamp health care. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and 2008 presidential nominee John McCain are headlining the GOP's answer to the raucous town hall meetings of August in which congressional Democrats had to shout over angry constituents about health care, growing deficits and the increasing role of the federal government. . . . . . Political recovery is an issue for McCain, too. . . . . . Health care also offers McCain a...

(snip) “The people of Illinois deserve a senator who will restore honest government, strengthen our national security, fight for veterans and bring fiscal discipline to Washington,” McCain, an Arizona senator, said in a statement. “Mark Kirk has my strongest endorsement.”(snip)

(NECN: Dorchester, Mass.) - The reigning Republican leader as the party's 2008 presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), joined those speaking at the memorial service for Senator Edward M. Kennedy -- a Democrat. Sen. McCain has lauded Kennedy's bipartisan efforts and, in death, labeled him as "irreplacable" in the United States Senate. "He was the most reliable, the most prepared and the most persistent member of the Senate. He took the long view -- he never gave up," Sen. McCain said. "He taught me to be a better senator."When the Senate resumes following its summer recess on after Labor Day,...

On Sunday, John McCain told George Stephanopoulos that “health care reform might be in a very different place today” if Teddy Kennedy were well enough to participate in the negotiations. “He had a unique way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations, so it’s huge that he’s absent,” McCain said on “This Week,” mentioning his “personal affection” for Kennedy. Over the last 24 hours, many other observers have noted Kennedy’s reputation for reaching across the aisle. Interestingly, the same used to be said about McCain....

RUSH: Move on to Senator McCain and his town hall yesterday. You know, President Obama is preparing to pass an extinguished torch to future generations of Americans. Remember President Kennedy? (JFK impression) "The torch has been passed to a new generation." Obama is going to pass a torch only the torch he passes is going to be extinguished. The torch he's going to pass is one of fascism. And this health care debacle. So McCain has a town hall yesterday -- and, folks, it's worse than I thought it was going to be. My reaction to it was negative. It...