Pakistan would be better, being just across the border. 
Can you point to an election where that wasn’t the case with all of the candidates? Why is it all of a sudden a big deal when there’s a segment of the voting population who follow a candidate blindly? It happens every election.
I’m not talking about a discussion between the candidates although I’m not opposed to that.
Unfortunately I don’t see that long record reflected in his current positions. I don’t see the McCain of 2000 in the candidate running today. I’m talking about one specific comparison. Bush talked a good talk before he was elected and then did a horrendous job in office. As McCain keeps shifting positions to align himself with this admin I worry about a repeat.
It has been one of the qualities I liked about him. I just don’t see him as the same man.
Again I’m comparing one aspect only.
I expect political spin and jockeying from any candidate. I also think we’ve accepted far too much that has crossed the line from spin to outright dishonest malicious bullshit. I think the public financing thing has already been discussed enough in other threads.
I agree he was incorrect to say McCain wanted 100 years of war.
I’m well aware that Bush isn’t running. I’m not so sure a Bush clone isn’t running, and it’s measuring McCain that has led me there. Who should I measure Obama against, the McCain who’s running now or the McCain who ran in 2000?
Another post that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy over having paid the $15 USD to be here.
Thanx, ever so. 
I’d say that there are on the board - in proportion though not in numbers - the same amount of knee-jerk McCain supporters. It’s standard and everyday politics. There are always those who pay no mind to anything except the R or the D after the name.
I dunno. The other messageboard I’m on with political discussions has some real idiots when it comes to McCain supporters, far beyond the silliness in support of McCain that I’ve seen here.
Daniel
Glad to hear it. I guess the rest of our potential disagreement goes to “who is John McCain” today? In assessing that, I think it very beneficial that he has such a long record. I’d ask you, do you really think that McCain, someone who (his time as a POW aside) has so often and so brazenly carved his own course—dangerously at times—suddenly abandoned all the principles that dictated the life he’s led and that he’s turned into GWB? I think it’s pretty hard to get there. You’d have to also believe that he’s a complete idiot, IMO, to believe that he’d abandon his principles to become more like a President with less than a 30% approval record.
Just look at his stance on the war. He was one of the first prominent pols to speak up that it was being grossly mismanaged. He criticized the President severely for his ineptitude. I could go on, but you know his history. The question is whether you want to—or can—believe that he has morphed into a different man, shucking his morals and principles in the process. I’ve got plenty of disagreement with McCain, and he is not who I hoped to be the Rep candidate, but even when I vehemently disagreed with him, I viewed him, as a man, as being above reproach. Obviously, YMDV.
The problem is, GWB didn’t have a less than 30% approval rating when McCain abandoned his principles. McCain bet wrong in 2004. Admittedly, he had little choice; he would not have gotten the Republican nomination had he not, and had he not continued to support most of the Bush policies throughout these past four years. It’s a fundamental flaw in the two party nomination/general election process. The positions that you need to win in the primary are not those that will necessarily allow you to win in the election. On the plus side, it’s an equal problem for both sides.
Either he abandoned his principles or he never had them to begim with. I would rather believe the former – that he’s just saying whatever he has to say to get elected and that he would immediately revert back to the guy he was a year ago once he got into the White House. I think his ego is getting the better of him. Obama’s popularity is obviously eating him up with jealousy. That’s so cleary the guy that hewants to be and now he can’t stop carping about it.
Yes indeed I can believe he is a different man. Unless you are suggesting he is secretly harboring the old McCain from 2000 inside and is just cowtowing to the Bushites and will spring the real McCain back on us if he wins the election. While I would prefer that McCain that has its own deeply disturbing issues to contend with.
But don’t take my word for it. Take McCain’s own word and record for it:
You can also look at the rather shocking list of where McCain has flip-flopped. While that is not all about cozying up with Bush & Co. a lot on there does point to precisely that and I am hard pressed to see anywhere where the opposite is true.
And now of course we get the following:
Considering McCain was on the receiving end of Rovian tactics in 1999 makes this even more repugnant.
So absolutely, without a doubt, I think McCain has sold out on values and positions he once held. I respected the McCain of the 90’s. I have little respect left for him now.
You think still supporting the war while playing to its increasing unpopularity by recognizing the obvious mismanagement is brave? As for him being first, maybe you mean first Republican pol. (Not even sure about that.)
I could tell he abandoned his principles at the 2004 convention. During the primaries the support for Bush among the voters he was going for was way above 30%.
If he did become president, don’t you think he’s going to need every Republican vote in Congress he can get? Do you think he will all of a sudden be against the Bush tax cuts, the way he was originally? How do you think he’d get anything done? Maybe you think it best that he doesn’t accomplish anything - that would be a good reason to support him, I’ll agree.
I see that others have responded better than I could.
What they said, and I’ll add that I see it as pretty strange that as McCain tries to distance himself from Bush the man he tends to mimic his policies and positions as others have pointed out.
Although I don’t appreciate Obama mischaracterizing McCain’s 100 year comment I have a bigger problem with McCain being unwilling to give details of his plan for us to get out which Obama has done. He keeps saying it depends on the conditions on the ground which I understand but at some point you have to say enough, I won’t commit more American lives and more billions to this war. How many American deaths per month or year are acceptable and for how long?
His changing his position on several issues, even more than I thought after looking at the link, makes me believe very much that he has indeed abandoned his morals and principles for reasons I can’t explain. Ego? The desire to wear the title of president? I don’t know. I do know I now feel that I can’t trust him to do what is really in the best interest of most American citizens.
I must admit, that even given the natural inclination for people to see their guy in a more positive light and the person he’s running against in a more negative light, I am surprised and disappointed how McCain is being viewed here. Here is a guy that has served his country honorably for decades. When he was offered a release as a POW, he declined, saying that those who were there longer should be released first. Throughout his career in the senate he has handled himself honorably. He was known to to be his own man. In the war, he said the President’s strategy was wrong and was vociferous about it. He advocated a surge strategy. He was right. Barack wanted us to leave. He was wrong. But that issue aside, this scheme to strip the man of the reputation he deserves—and maybe even give him a tiny benefit of the doubt (which I think he has earned from us)—truly saddens me. And I’m not any huge fan of McCain. But that man has served in a way that I wish others would serve. You don’t have to agree with a man to think him honorable. One can simply disagree with him and leave it at that. One can attack his positions without questioning his character, especially when he has such a long, stellar, honorable history.
I’ll leave it there. I’m quite disappointed and a little disgusted by what I see happening.
::Playing violin for John McCain::
He was wrong about the “surge” by the way. Despite McCain’s attempts at revisionism, the escalation of troops in Iraq has failed to achieve its goal, but even if it had achieved it, the goal itself is a complete waste of time, money and blood. Obama was absolutely right that we should have just fucked off from Iraq a long time ago. We had no right to go in and we have no right to stay. The fact that McCain is either unable or unwilling to acknowledge that makes him unfit to serve in the highest office.
I was once willing to give John McCain fair consideration. Even as recently as a year ago, I would have voted for him over some Democrats. He is no longer that person. He has abandoned all principle for personal ambition. You say you’re disappointed and disgusted. That’s exactly how I feel about what McCain has become in the last few months.
magellan01, doing something right doesn’t prevent you from doing other things wrong. Look at John Glenn. He was an enormous hero to all of us alive in the early '60s. But he was one of the Keating Five.
No one, but no one, suggests that McCain didn’t serve his country well during his years held captive in Viet Nam, that he wasn’t, in fact, that rare thing: a true American Hero. And you’re right; for many years, he was perceived to be an honest man, a very conservative, yet nonetheless independent senator willing to state outright that the Emperor had no clothes. He was also willing to work across the aisle, which Bush doesn’t seem to be too keen on. Practically everyone admits this. He’s also a funny guy, and apparently charming as all get-out.
But (and this is a huge but), some time between 2000 and now, he realized that he could never win the Republican primary without supporting GWB and the then pretty rigidly controlled Republican party. So, for the most part he started toeing the party line, and kissing up to Bush. He went from being the liberals’ darling (undeserved, since for the most part he was still ultra-conservative) in 2000 to being a fairly standard Republican at this time. The only significant differences I see between McCain and the majority of Republicans these days is that McCain seems to be sincerely interested in environmental concerns, and he apparently dislikes the idea of Gitmo. On the rest, he’s practically in lock-step with Bush. This forces people to question the integrity that used to seem so solid, especially when we look back and see that maybe he wasn’t quite as straightforward as he seemed. After all, we’re talking about a man who came back from his war, found his wife seriously injured, and in a few months dumped her for a considerably younger, more beautiful, and far wealthier woman; a man who despite his claims of being the friend of the military, votes far more often against veterans’ benefits than for them, and whom a large Verterans’ group give a mark of 20 out of 100 as far as his support for their issues (Obama gets an 80, btw).
Obama is quite different. He has always been a somewhat leftist centrist and a horse-trader. Clinton tried (and to a fair degree succeeded) in painting him as ultra-left during the primaries, when in fact he was usually ever-so-slightly to the right of her (Edwards was actually the most leftish of the serious candidates as far as I can tell). Obama may be a little at fault for not coming flat out and saying that this was incorrect, but he kept on making the same policy speeches. Yes, he once filled out a questionaire saying that he would go for public financing, but the fact of the matter is, “Duh!” Given his incredible fundraising success, it would have been downright insane not to do so. And a good two thirds of the private donations he’s getting are coming from donors giving less than $1000, so I’d have to say his private fund raising is pretty clean.
But the question remains: who is the real McCain? If elected, would he revert to the McCain of 2000 and earlier? Per Voyager, I’d guess not; he needs the support of the Repulicans in Congress, and if he wants to be reelected, he’s got to get nominated again. First term incumbents have dropped out of the race before, you know. He needs that Republican base. Even if he doesn’t care about a second term, I don’t think he would bother cleaning up much of the Bush mess. For example, the Justice department has already been pretty completely “cleansed,” and I don’t see McCain bothering to do anything about it.
I guess what I’m saying is that your disgust is a bit misplaced. Being a war hero forty years ago or even something of a maverick almost ten years ago does not mean that your integrity is unimpeachable today. As I said earlier in this thread, in 2000, I would not have voted for McCain because we differ on the issues too much. But I wouldn’t have been scared of a McCain presidency. Today I am, because this McCain is simply not the same guy.
John Kerry served in Vietnam too, incidentally. Were you disgusted by the way his service was attacked, or does military service only count if you’re a Republican?
Of course, your comment makes no sense. My respect for McCain is due only in part to his military service. More specifically, how he conducted himself when serving. Comparing Kerry to him is beyond laughable. McCain was handed an opportunity to escape torture and a ticket home and chose to stay. Kerry gamed the system and fabricated an exit after a few months in combat by trying to turn bad-aids into Purple Hearts. Ha! The only justice is that he did it all as a road to the presidency (mistaking himself for the real JFK), an office he will never ever hold. He is history. “Reporting for duty”? No, I don’t think so. By the way, when is he going to release is full military medical records, like he said he would?
But, please, keep bringing the band-aid warrior. I love being able to piss on him again and again and again.
Clean or not, he staked out the moral high ground on the issue then ceded it. He claimed a principled stance and abandoned it for money. Wise move or not, that’s what he did. It all depends on what you value.
The change of heart, I think, you and others feel is due not to any change in the man, it’s his stance on an issue that wasn’t around in 2000: the war. For some it is taboo, there is no valid argument either for going in or for not wanting to yank our troops out yesterday. Both positions are childish. and he was 100% right about the surge. It has worked. Those who continue to deny this make themselves look foolish. We are unquestionable better having gone through it.
And no, I think my disgust is not at all misplaced, but thanks just the same.
But your disgust seems to be based on the idea that he was a war hero, and the very symbol of integrity for quite a few years, so how dare we question his integrity now? And I’m saying, because he’s changed so many of the positions he held since that time, in a quite obvious bid to win over the base of his party, so sorry, but he gave up that claim to integrity. And my position disgusts you? That just doesn’t make sense. I respect and honor him, both for his earlier heroism, and for his apparent earlier integrity. But that doesn’t mean that I have to turn a blind eye to what he has done over these most recent several years.
I don’t love and admire every single thing Obama has done either, btw. I just think that on the whole, he’s a better candidate.
I can understand it too. You’re willing to condemn Obama for the public financing issue but you haven’t addressed the long list of current changes by McCain that was linked to earlier.
I honor McCain’s military service and acknowledge him as a hero in that regard. I don’t diminish that one bit. I do, as a responsible;e citizen, feel that something that happened 40 years ago shouldn’t have too much weight in this election. I have had a lot of respect for McCain’s record as a senator and public servant. Still, I feel I have to give a higher regard and priority to the man I see running today. I have every right as a citizen and even a duty, to examine any man running for president and question his character and compare the man running today with the man I remember from 2000.
It appears that the surge has helped to reduce the violence in Iraq but your statement here is a non sequitur. I’d say McCain was wrong in supporting any Invasion of Iraq and taking our attention off Afghanistan. The rise in violence in Afghanistan seems to show that’s true, so, on that larger issue Obama was right and McCain was wrong. We also have no way of knowing the long term results of an immediate pull out would be so you have no way of saying with any evidence that Obama was wrong in that respect.
I’d agree that he has earned the benefit of doubt from us but to what degree? Do we excuse away everything he says? Every reversal of position? I’m not willing to condemn him for a few repeated gaffes about what country borders Iraq or the names of different Arab groups. Reversal of position on key issues does bother me as it should any voter. It saddens me as well to see a public servant I admire choose that path for himself but as a voter I can’t ignore it based on his past record.
It truly saddens me to see a man who was himself a prisoner and tortured reverse his principles about Gitmo and torture as well as several other issues that are important to me. I see that as a conservative he could have run for president and still stood up to defend his positions on those issues but instead chose to side with what I see as horrible, dishonorable, Bush policies. Should I ignore that because of his past service? You’ve offered no defense of those ideological changes that McCain has made and instead bring up the past as if we should ignore the man running now based on his past record, THAT HE HIMSELF IS REVERSING!! As Oy! has clearly stated. That makes no sense to me either. If you want to still feel disgust that’s your prerogative but I feel able to judge it accordingly.
The very real fact, revealed by evidence form McCain’s own mouth is that it is he who has changed his principled positions in favor of others that I can’t support. If that isn’t a revelation about his character today then what is it? Humanity is complex and multifaceted and it’s not wise to ignore that people can and do change. Even men of character can succumb to temptation or make grave errors. That includes both presidential candidates. I don’t take away anything form McCain’s past service. I just can’t support the man I see now.
I know what you mean. John McCain…it’s too bad really.