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President Joe Biden’s mediocre polling numbers and a difficult Senate map contribute to a somber mood for Democrats less than six months before Election Day. But there’s reason for Democratic optimism in one key Senate race, even as legal issues make one House member look more vulnerable while a GOP member’s status is in flux. With the complexities of a potential independent run for reelection by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Arizona emerging as one of the country’s top battlegrounds, the Arizona Senate race had been rated as a Toss-up for months. But Inside Elections has now changed the rating of...

In retrospect, wrote former GOP strategist Tim Miller for The Bulwark, it was inevitable that Republicans would go down this path. "For about a decade and a half now the governing wing of the party has attempted every strategy imaginable to delay handing congressional leadership power to the group of lawmakers who better represent the desires of today’s GOP voters — the erstwhile renegades the late John McCain dubbed 'wacko birds,'" wrote Miller. "That group has grown from only a handful of troublemakers to a significant bloc of Congress that’s bolstered by an additional group of 'closet normals' who dress...

John McCain was in a reflective, wisecracking mood Wednesday morning in Washington, but even in his most upbeat moments, he couldn’t find much kind to say about Senate colleague Ted Cruz. The GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee told reporters at a press breakfast that he wanted to “accentuate the positive” in the 2016 race. He tiptoed around real estate tycoon Donald Trump’s steely grip on the Republican presidential primary. When asked about the possibility of Trump becoming the party’s nominee, he emphasized that he’s a loyal Republican. McCain did point out that he had disagreements with Trump. But then, unbidden, he...

Republicans: Political purges may work in totalitarian states, but in a democracy they can be self-defeating. The senator who called the Tea Party "wacko birds" should realize the GOP's real enemies are called Democrats. It's been said that all politics is local, and normally a state party's internal squabbles would not be national news. But when they involve a former presidential candidate on an issue that will affect the selection of the GOP's 2016 presidential nominee and chances, we sit up and take notice. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost the 2008 election to Barack Obama and who is running...

Conservatives were “embarrassed” to vote in the 2006 and 2008 midterm and presidential elections, even when Sen. John McCain was seeking the presidency, Sen. Ted Cruz says in a wide-ranging interview in October’s GQ Magazine. “I don’t know a conservative who didn’t feel embarrassed voting in 2006 or 2008,” the Texas Republican said. “I think the Republican Party lost its way. We didn’t stand for the principles we’re supposed to believe in.” Cruz and McCain have been butting heads almost from the first moment the tea party-backed freshman senator was sworn into office earlier this year, and his comments in...

There is rebellion afoot in the United States Senate. A new breed of conservatives and libertarians are loosed, unconcerned with The New York Times, unfettered by back-bench rank and unintimidated by Washington politics. Elected over the past three years, Republican Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz have had a meteoric impact in Washington, soaring to grassroots stardom, crashing into the Democratic majority and raining down on the old bulls of the Republican Party. Ads by GoogleDubbed “Wacko Birds” by top Republican John McCain, these three wear the senior Arizona senator’s scorn as a badge of honor. The Democrats...

The debate was over, but John McCain wasn’t done. After he threw down with a trio of younger Republican colleagues he has dubbed the “wacko birds,” McCain proceeded to walk around the Senate floor, ranting about the interchange to individual senators. McCain was incensed that Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee have been blocking Democratic majority leader Harry Reid from appointing Senate members to a conference committee for the budget resolution. During the debate, McCain “basically accused Lee of being an idiot,” as one aide put it. Lee was either being “directly misleading or has no knowledge of...

A long-simmering feud between establishment Republicans and tea partyers is in full view again with Sen. John McCain accusing younger colleagues of using tactics that might tempt Democrats to change Senate rules that now protect the minority party. How to deal with the government’s debt and spending became the latest quarrel between the GOP’s 2008 presidential candidate and tea party champions such as Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. …

-and stop the wackobirds when we still had the chance! YouTube   Daily Caller

Honestly I wonder if John McCain with his "wacko birds" outburst sometimes sets out to prove the country was right to not make him a one-term president.

Elder Sen. John McCain, who this week engaged in friendly fire when he launched his "maverick" missiles at fellow Republicans seeking clarification on the administration's drone policies, has upped the ante, deriding Tea Party-backed GOP lawmakers as "wacko birds." McCain, who hit the Senate floor Thursday to belittle Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster, which succeeded in getting an answer from President Obama that drones won't be used to kill Americans on U.S. soil, even suggested that the Kentucky senator and his allies, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, don't represent the GOP mainstream. "It's always the wacko...