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From ABC News... (snip) "McCain was supportive of the Dream Act in the past... we saw him as a champion in some ways, and we hope that comes back," said Abdollahi. Now the next paragraph is the money paragraph and I certainly hope Arizona voters are paying attention. McCain has been on all sides of this issue and now that he is facing reelection he is trying to convince voters that he will protect the borders. Let's see what he says when under pressure from the left. A McCain spokesperson told ABC News the senator will support the so-called "Dream...

Sen. John McCain continues to lead Arizona’s hotly contested Republican Senate primary contest, with challenger J.D. Hayworth trailing him by 12 points. McCain has 52 percent of the vote, compared with Hayworth’s 40 percent, according to the new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters in Arizona. Two percent prefer some other candidate, and 6 percent are undecided. Despite the lead, Rasmussen notes that any incumbent who earns less than 50 percent support is considered potentially vulnerable, and McCain has been hovering around that mark all year.

Arizona Republicans say GOP Sen. John McCain’s recent staff shake-up is an acknowledgment of the seriousness of his Aug. 24 primary challenge — a contest in which he remains a clear — but nervous — front-runner. While recent polls have shown McCain with a double-digit lead over former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, in an election year in which one Senate incumbent has already been taken down and several others are facing stiff primary opposition, the departure of two top campaign officials — campaign manager Shiree Verdone and deputy manager Mike Hellon — is being viewed as proof that McCain recognizes that...

PHOENIX - The "danged fence" ad is giving John McCain some danged problems. Senator McCain made the ad to tout his border security plan but instead, it has forced him to defend himself against accusations of flip-flopping on the issue. Seeking a 5th term in the U.S. Senate, McCain has made immigration the core of his re-election campaign. "The whole issue can be resolved by securing the border and then moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform. But if you don't secure the border then you just have continuous flow," McCain told FOX 10. But in 2006, McCain took a much...

It almost seems like a political tradition: the great John McCain campaign-staff shake-up. As the Arizona Republic's Dan Nowicki first reported Sunday, the top two staffers in McCain's Senate re-election effort — campaign manager Shiree Verdone and her deputy, Mike Hellon — have decamped. The two will work for the Arizona Republican Party, overseeing strategy for a "victory" fundraising effort for statewide candidates, including McCain. The move comes on the heels of a recent TV ad meant to tout McCain's border security credentials, including a push for a stronger fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. "Complete the danged fence," McCain says...

PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona Sen. John McCain is holding town hall meetings in the West Valley this weekend. The first town hall will be at the Goodyear Justice Center at 10 a.m. on Saturday. The second will be at Sun City West at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

(snip) MCCAIN: Look, Arizona is under siege in many respects. We have broken borders. We have people flooding across. We have drug cartels inflicting incredible damage. We have — Phoenix, Arizona is the kidnapping capital of the world, second only to Mexico City. And the legislature and the governor acted out of frustration because the federal government will not fulfill its responsibilities. I have said for years we have to secure the borders. We have to get the National Guard down there. We have to build a fence which I've said for years. We have to use surveillance and we...

John McCain is everywhere now preaching the gospel of secure borders. He’s inescapable. And shameless. And desperate. Yesterday, readers forwarded his latest spam e-mail: Where do you stand on border security? My Friend, One of the fundamental responsibilities of our government is to secure our borders so that our citizens, no matter where they live in our country, can be safe and secure. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress have not lived up to the federal government’s constitutional responsibility to secure our borders. So my Arizona colleague, Senator Jon Kyl and I introduced a 10-Point Border Security Plan...

For the last month, Arizona Sen. John McCain has been running his primary campaign against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth as if it was the final weekend of the 2008 presidential campaign. On a daily basis, McCain's team bashes Hayworth while simultaneously working to shore up the Senator's right flank through a series of symbolic acts ranging from the rejection of the "maverick" title he wore proudly during both of his presidential campaigns to his forceful support of Arizona's controversial new immigration law. (McCain released an ad recently in which he urges the federal government to "complete the danged fence", a...

Sen. John McCain has released a tough-talking television ad that blames illegal immigrants for "home invasions [and] murders" and calls for the completion of the "danged fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, reversing years of criticizing such a barrier. Facing the most difficult primary challenge he has seen in years, the ad is the most recent in a series of measures McCain, R-Ariz., has taken which play to the far right of his party, including endorsing a controversial new law that allows police to stop people they suspect are illegal immigrants and demand identification. The senator's office said the campaign ad...

Sen. John McCain of Arizona has been called many things during his lengthy political career: maverick, straight-talker, the White Tornado. But "border hawk" isn't one of them. Until now. Facing the toughest primary challenge of his 24-year Senate tenure, Mr. McCain has shelved his advocacy of a pathway to citizenship, denounced by its critics as amnesty, and embraced a crackdown on border security that includes the state's new immigration law. The law allows police to question people who they suspect are not citizens and requires them to carry proof of their status. Mr. McCain announced his support for the legislation...

PHOENIX, April 30 (UPI) -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., trails among conservative voters in his re-election bid but holds the overall edge over his opponent, a new poll indicates. McCain holds a 46 percent-to-36 percent advantage over primary challenger J.D. Hayworth, a former U.S. representative who has challenged McCain's conservative credentials, the Public Policy Polling released Thursday indicated. Hayworth has a 46 percent-to-38 percent edge over McCain among conservatives, but his advantage is offset by McCain's 60 percent-to-15 percent lead among GOP moderates, the poll indicated.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. John McCain says Arizona had to pass a tough immigration law because the Obama administration has failed to "secure our borders." The Arizona Republican called the situation in his state "the worst I've ever seen," saying ineffective border enforcement has resulted in drugs pouring into the southwestern United States from Mexico.

President Barack Obama should dispatch National Guard troops to the border if he doesn’t like Arizona’s new immigration law, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Friday. McCain, who endorsed the tough new Arizona law earlier this week, defended it as necessary because of the federal government’s inability to secure the border. “If the president doesn’t like what the Arizona Legislature and governor may be doing, then I call on the president to immediately call for the dispatch of 3,000 National Guard troops to our border and mandate that 3,000 additional Border Patrol [officers] be sent to our border as well,” McCain...

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...

Text of S. 3081: Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010 (McCain's bill, excerpts) SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS. An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported,...

Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl have joined with others requesting troops on the border by unveiling a security plan that calls for more soldiers, federal agents, fencing and funding to help Arizona combat illegal immigration and drug smuggling. The Republican lawmakers called for the deployment of 3,000 National Guard soldiers to Arizona's international border as part of their 10-step border plan unveiled Monday in Washington, D.C. The senators also asked for troops in April 2009. The March 27 killing of Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz has set off a flurry of requests for troops to the border, from the...

When Arizona's bitter Republican primary election arrives in August, it is likely to be 102 degrees in the shade, of which there is little. It is the kind of weather in which only the hearty and highly motivated venture outdoors -- Gila monsters and Tea Party activists. Which may not be good news for Sen. John McCain, who is generally disliked by the latter. A recent poll puts McCain just five points ahead of J.D. Hayworth, a former congressman and radio talk show host who aspires to be Arizona's Samuel Adams. McCain operatives dispute that the race is this close,...

(snip) Elias and other observers say that the day of reckoning for possible McCain support is Aug. 24, when Arizona voters take to the polls to decide the 2008 GOP presidential nominee’s fate against his primary opponent, GOP former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. Many observers speculate that after the primary, McCain may pivot toward the middle and could ultimately back a Schumer-Van Hollen bill.“Perhaps he’s planning on voting for it, but because of political considerations or other things he just doesn’t want to be out front,” Elias said. “At the end of the day, it may very well be that he...

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on Thursday the operations of drug cartels along the U.S.-Mexico border are tantamount to war and urged a top military commander to deploy high-tech military systems to monitor activities in the area. "I can make an argument that we are [engaged] in combat on the border," McCain said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which was considering the nomination of Vice Adm. James "Sandy" Winnefeld Jr. to head U.S. Northern Command. He called the $65 billion-per-year drug trade in that region, which has resulted in murders on both sides of the border,...