Tag Archives: John McCain

John McCain to Visit Washington State Tomorrow

The phone rang. It was one of those automated calls – from the John McCain campaign saying he’s going to come visit the State of Washington tomorrow. It was a “chance for Republicans to meet McCain before the Saturday caucuses.”

I hope he’s making calls to others like me, because I’m a Democrat and he’s wasting his time and money on me if he thinks I’m going to vote for him. But I’m a blogger and I might go to see him after I’ve seen Hillary tonight at Pier 30, 2431 E Marginal Way S on the Seattle Waterfront -South of Pioneer Square at 8:00 PM and Barack tomorrow at 11:00 AM at the Seattle Key Arena, 305 Harrison St.

I wonder if George is coming with John to the “Meet and Greet” as the McCain website calls the event. By the way McCain will be at the Westin Hotel, 1900 5th Ave in Seattle at 6 P.M. Friday Feb 8, 2007 in case anyone wants to see the Republican that Democrats are going to trounce in November.

McCain Closes in on Nomination as Romney Suspends Campaign

CNN reports that three separate Republican sources say that Mitt Romney will announce this afternoon that he is suspending his campaign for President. Despite protests from some conservatives that McCain is no conservative, he has just received a giant boost in his bid to be the Republican nominee for President.

What some of these conservatives don’t seem to realize is that the county and many voters have moved beyond the divisive and self righteous conservatism of Bush and Rove that emphasized issues like abortion, religion and morality while taking us to war in Iraq, putting the economy in a tailspin and producing a divided America that isn’t solving its problems.

Unfortunately McCain sees us in Iraq for the next 100 years and now says that he wants to make the Bush temporary “tax cuts” permanent so that the more wealthy in our country can continue to not pay their fair share. Obviously many Republicans see McCain as conservative enough and have more faith in him than people like Huckabee or Romney.

Poor Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson and others on the ultra right fringe are losing some of their clout and some of their credibility as they are crying over losing their so called influence over Republican voters. To me it seems fairly ludricious, since McCain’s positions on most issues are very conservative.

McCain and Clinton Win Florida Primary

The big loser in the Florida Primary Vote is Rudy Giuliani who is coming in a tepid third place in the Republican Primary. McCain is receiving 36% of the vote to Romney at 31% to Giuliani at 15% and Huckabee at 13%. Florida is a winner take all state for the Republicans and McCain is picking up 57 delegates. This is with 94% of the vote counted.

Because Florida moved it’s Primary early against the Democratic Party rules no delegates are being awarded now although that could change at the convention. Meanwhile, despite the Democratic candidates pledge to not campaign in Florida, their names were still on the ballot and Hillary Clinton is decisively beating Obama and Edwards. She has 49.5% of the votes to Obama’s 32.9% to Edwards 14.4%.

So what does Clinton’s win in Florida mean?

Now the Democratic politically correct thing to say is that Clinton’s win doesn’t count but Obama assumes that at his peril. The media likewise discounts it. While the delegates aren’t there now, Clinton still won the vote and I believe the win is as significant as Obama’s win in South Carolina.

Voters turned out and made a choice. With national media attention and coverage of the campaigns these days, voters were well aware of who they were voting for, whether the candidates physically campaigned in the state or not.

The same goes for the Michigan Primary. Clinton’s name was on the ballot there, while Obama and Edwards were not. The national party withdrew the delegates from Michigan because they went early like Florida did. But voters had a choice and they voted. If they choose Obama or Edwards instead of Clinton, they had to vote uncommitted. Clinton won 55.3% of the Michigan Democratic vote while uncommitted received 40%.

So by my calculation, Clinton has won the vote in four states – New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada and Florida. Obama has won the vote in Iowa and South Carolina. Collectively Clinton has garnered more votes than Obama in total. A rough estimate is that Clinton has received about 1.54 million votes total to Obama’s 1.25 million votes. This is a ballpark figure only – an estimate based on a couple of extrapolations from delegate counts in Iowa and Nevada and giving Obama 2/3 of the uncommitted vote in Michigan.

All this is to say that its a close race and if votes split similarly on February 5th, and delegates likewise, we’re in for the long haul. Both candidates are running hard and no one has scored a knockout punch yet in the Democrat’s race. February 5th could change all that since Super Tuesday has over 20 states voting and over 40% of the total delegates at stake for both parties.

Clinton Leading Obama in Early New Hampshire Results

With 39% of the votes being reported, the New York Times reports that Senator Clinton is leading Senator Obama by 39% to 36%. Clinton has 37,037 votes to Obama’s 34,196. John Edwards is in third with 17% (15,715 votes). Richardson has 5% (4,399 votes).

It is still too early to call what has become a tight race and a potential comeback for Hillary Clinton. These results are as reported at 9:23 PM ET or 6:23 PM Pacific Time.

Senator John McCain has been called the winner over Mitt Romney. McCain has 37% (26,158 votes) to Romney’s 30% (20,792). Huckabee has 12%, Giuliani 9%, and Paul 8%.

See more complete results at NY Times as they are updated.

McGavick, McCain, Mc????

Senator John McCain is a conservative Republican running for President of the United States in 2008. He is doing what any potential candidate for President must do if he wants to win. He must build up debts that others owe him that he can call in later.

Mike McGavick is running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate seat in Washington state that is currently held by Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell. McCain was the star attraction at a McGavick fundraiser held Tuesday night at a hotel in Seattle, WA. McGavick hopes to emulate McCain.

However, nationally there is a debate emerging as to just who is John McCain. See Daily Koz’s blog, Bushier Than Thou! as one example. See also the article in The Nation entitled, The Real McCain. That same debate needs to occur for McGavick.

McGavick has not run for office before in Washington state. He is hoping that he can appear to be all things to all people just like Dino Rossi did in his run for Governor of Washington state. And he is hoping for a little of Senator McCain’s overrated independent status in the media.

I don’t think that Democrats can let that happen. McGavick needs to be asked now what he stands for. For instance, what is his position on proposed Initiative 933? I-933 is the initiative being pushed by the Washington State Farm Bureau. It is an attempt to end zoning laws in Washington state by requiring that developers and others receive tax dollars from the state if the state won’t let them build whatever they want, where ever they want.

Initiative 933 is being opposed by the Community Protection Coalition.

If McGavick positions are vague then one needs to look at things like his cozying up to McCain. What is McCain’s record on so called property rights issues?

Well one place you can look is at his voting record. And actually that voting record has been tallied up by none other than a national organization based here in Washington state.

Chuck Cushman, who was involved with the infamous so called Wise Use Movement that attacked environmental regulations in the past, now runs an organization called the American Land Rights Association. They recently changed their name from the “League of Private Property Voters”. Cushman is based in Battleground, Washington.

Their “mission” is “dealing with private property issues including government land use controls, federal and state growth management, wetlands and the Endangered Species Act.”

Their 2003 Private Property Congressional Vote Index is the last one listed. Rating issues such as repeal of the Estate Tax, reducing legal barriers to timber sales and cutting environmental and conservation program funding it gives McCain a positive rating of 67% in 2003. In 2001-2002 he received a rating of 70%, in 2001 a rating of 86%, and a 62% rating in 2000.

By way of contrast Senator Maria Cantwell and Senator Patty Murray in 2003 both scored “0”‘s . On the House side Jay Inslee scored “0”, Brian Baird “8” Rick Larsen “25”, Norm Dicks “8”, Jim McDermott “0”, Adam Smith “8” and Doc Hastings “100”.If McGavick does not like this associating and guessing where he is on issues, then he needs to clearly state his positions. If you go to his website and check on environmental issues it sounds just like what Cushman and the private use people would say because it is so vague. It sounds like something Chuck Cushman would write frankly. I have taken the liberty of making bold those words and sentences that in particular raise a red flag.

Environmental conservation and productive development are not mutually exclusive. We can protect and improve our environment while at the same time allowing responsible human development.
In Eastern Washington especially, the choice to save the salmon or keep the dams has been presented as an either/or issue. This simply isn’t the case.
Washingtonians know what’s best for their communities and its time the federal government let us solve our own problems.
The environment can be protected while allowing for development such as the dams that make Eastern Washington a bread basket rather than a dust bowl.
The federal government must step aside and allow us Northwesterners to deal with the problem as we see fit for we have the greatest at stake when it comes to keeping our state beautiful and our economies strong.

This “environmental statement” does not say where McGavick is on the Endangered Species Act, on protecting Federal Regulations on Air and Water Pollution, on cleaning up Puget Sound, on making polluters pay for cleaning up their toxic waste, protecting wilderness areas, or global warming or much else. It’s emphasis seems to be on his saying we should get the Federal Government out of our state and let us develop whatever we want. This sounds like an appeal to the Chuck Cushman’s of the world, not to most of Washington’s voters who love Washington State because of it’s environmental qualities. These people do not want to trade for the sake of some dollars in developers’ pockets the quality of life we now enjoy.