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Washington - Senator John McCain says the United States has been backing away from a brewing fight with Iran, while that country moves ever closer to having nuclear weapons.McCain opened a Senate hearing Wednesday by saying that Iran will get the bomb unless the United States acts more boldly. Speaking figuratively, the Arizona Republican says the U.S. keeps pointing a loaded gun at Iran but failing to "pull the trigger."

John McCain — who built his political persona and his 2008 presidential campaign around the claim that he’s a “maverick” — told Newsweek recently: “I never considered myself a maverick.” When POLITICO asked McCain about the contradiction at the Capitol this week, the Arizona Republican grew visibly irritated and snapped: “I’ve been called a thousand things. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”He said 48 percent of the homeowners in his state are underwater on their mortgages. He said he’s always “done what’s best for my state and the nation.” Then he said it again, adding, “People can consider me whatever they want.” And...

PHOENIX - Arizona Senator John McCain is getting some heat because of video made by his campaign. A Web video just released by the McCain campaign is under the guise of being a message from his U.S. Senate race opponent former Congressman J.D. Hayworth. "I've stood up against the grave threat of man-horse marriage," the announcer says on the video, followed by Hayworth's own comments, "if you really had affection for your horse, you could marry your horse." CNN's Anderson Cooper says the video attacks Hayworth on things that some Republicans take seriously. Republican strategist Ed Rollins says McCain should...

John McCain's campaign is having a great deal more fun this year than in 2008, relentlessly attacking a primary rival who could be a real threat. See video at link

(snip) The Tucson paper's editorial board noted that he represents a border state affected by Washington's inaction. "Yes. Yes. I do. But so does the senator from New Mexico and the senators from California and all the border states all along. But it seems to me that the proposal should come, it's the obligation of the president of the United States to come forward with what he thinks is a proposal and then maybe we can all work together and get it resolved," he said. "So what have I done?" he added. "Not enough."Still, McCain said he expects to hold...

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...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican Senator John McCain, whose "maverick" breaks with his party won him media acclaim and powered his 2008 White House run, now rejects the moniker, according to Newsweek magazine. The Arizona lawmaker, looking to thwart a primary challenge from a conservative Republican former congressman, played down his history of working with Democrats on issues like overhauling US immigration policy, curbing big money influence in politics, or fighting climate change. "I never considered myself a maverick," Newsweek quoted him as saying. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities."

SPRINGERVILLE - Hundreds of people packed the American Legion in Springerville Monday, March 29, to see Sen. John McCain. McCain told the standing-room only crowd that he was not campaigning. The town hall meeting was about the issues concerning most people in the country and locally: health care, immigration, the Travel Management Rule, jobs, the economy and support for veterans.

Campaign staff and volunteers of Sen. John McCain and his former vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin are preparing for the pair’s appearance at Mesa’s Dobson High School on Saturday. A spokesman for the camp offered a bit of advice for those wanting to get in: “Folks should get there early,” said Brian Rogers, McCain’s communications director.The event is free, on a first-come, first-served basis and does not require a ticket. (snip) Also speaking at a rally in Tucson on Friday, the appearances are McCain and Palin’s first ones together at a public event since their concession speech in the...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will host an event for Rhode Island state Rep. John Loughlin in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The event will be at the National Republican Club, with a suggested contribution of $750. Loughlin has also secured commitments from two other 2008 presidential hopefuls -- Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney -- to campaign for him.

Longtime incumbent John McCain now leads conservative challenger J.D. Hayworth by just seven points in Arizona’s hotly contested Republican Senate Primary race. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Arizona GOP Primary voters shows McCain ahead 48% to 41%. Three percent (3%) favor another candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided. Following the announcement that Sarah Palin would campaign for his reelection, McCain opened up a 53% to 31% lead over Hayworth in January. The two men were in a near tie in November. But now Hayworth, a former congressman turned popular local talk radio host, is a formal...

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain and Sarah Palin are scheduled to campaign together in Arizona next week for the first time since they conceded the presidential election in Phoenix in 2008. Palin and McCain will be at a rally and picnic in Tucson on March 26, followed the next day by a rally in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.

Senator Lindsey Graham, ever the faithful follower of uber-RINO John McCain, scored three RINO initiatives in just one week. Reminiscent of the "the band's getting back together" scenes from the movie "Blues Brothers", Graham and McCain reached back to the good old days of bipartisan shafting of conservative judicial nominees and offered the Democrats another "Gang of Fourteen"--this time to shaft the public with a bipartisan Obamacare bill. The offer must have been tempting to the Democrats who remember how "bipartisan leadership" from Graham and McCain spiked conservative guns when the Republicans were in the majority in the Senate. But...

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past....

VAN SUSTEREN: One of your colleagues in the Senate, your co-Arizonan, Senator Kyle, and you have asked for an apology from your opponent, J.D. Hayworth, for an ad that he has put out. What's the ad and what's your objection? MCCAIN: Well, it's really childish and tasteless. It has a picture of me. Later, they darkened in my face, but the original one was my face with blue paint on it, with, like, war paint. And I don't know what the attempt at humor was. But that is not the way Senate races should be conducted. And it was also...

Joe Lieberman is once again endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama – this time on a critical national security issue. Lieberman and McCain have introduced a bill that would deny Miranda rights to terrorist suspects and block them from the U.S. civil court system. The bill could interfere with the Obama administration’s efforts to cut a deal with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to develop a comprehensive system to deal with detainees—an effort that would include some role for federal courts. Graham, a military lawyer and currently serves a colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves, has been negotiating with White...

Over the past week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has rolled out a list of blue-chip GOP political endorsements in his primary contest against challenger J.D. Hayworth — and his campaign said more are on the way. It’s part of a concerted effort to remind primary voters of his stature, as well as an attempt to undercut Hayworth’s claim to be the conservative candidate in the Aug. 24 primary before his challenger can gain any traction. To neutralize Hayworth’s claim on tea party movement voters, McCain has unveiled his backing from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and newly minted Sen. Scott...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Thursday derided as "a joke" a bipartisan proposal being crafted by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and John Kerry (D-Mass.) to address climate change since it does not spell out what to do with toxic waste that would be generated by proposed new nuclear plants. "There's no nuclear power, there's no recycling, there's no storage," McCain said. "It's a joke when there's no site recycling and there's no storage. Nuclear power is not viable without recycling and without storage. Period."

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) – Arizona Senator John McCain wants President Obama to start health care reform all over again. He argues polls suggest Americans want a clean start and he says it needs more bipartisan support. "This bill was written by Democrats for Democrats and then they tried and I understand power. What they try to do is peel off a couple of Republicans as they did with the stimulus bill and call it bipartisan," McCain said.

President Barack Obama's savvy use of technology during the 2008 campaign helped pave the way to the White House, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) acknowledged during an interview with The Hill. When asked what Obama did right on the campaign trail that he wished he had done, McCain said, "I think President Obama did many things right. I think one was that he's an incredibly articulate speaker, and motivational, and I think that was extremely helpful to him, not only in the general election but in his primary."