Major reports on Obama’s aggressive linking of McCain to the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Carl is with Republican hopeful, John McCain as he addresses the NRA convention in Louisville, Ky.
As McCain campaign manager, Rick Davis, collects questionaires from campaign staffers about their past lobbying and political activity it’s important to remember what happened to the McCain campaign last year.
McCain’s bloated 2007 campaign imploded after spending huge amounts of money and nose-diving in the polls.
Davis, last June and July, cut most people loose and put a skeleton crew together of people willing and able to work for free. This meant he needed volunteers with separate incomes- some were lobbyists and political professionals with histories.
Campaigns routinely let people go when their outside pursuits conflict with the candidate’s desired image.
That is what the McCain camp is checking for now.
The revelation that two McCain aides had ties to the military Junta in Myanmar sparked this house cleaning; they are no longer with the campaign. A third aide, Craig Shirley, who’d been involved in an anti-Obama 527 has now also been moved on.
It was overdue, not so much for any one individual to go, but for the campaign to KNOW what they had been involved in.
There is still a haphazard feel to much of what the McCain campaign does.
While they have plans, tactics and a strategy, there are bugs in the system that often complicate the message.
Two weeks ago McCain was planning a theme of courting conservatives and intended to highlight judicial conservatism.
The week started with Cinco de Mayo, so he instead found himself starting a “conservative week” pitching comprehensive immigration reform, opposed by most conservatives as amnesty for illegal aliens.
This week was supposed to court independents and moderates with his anti-global warming agenda…he ends the week at the NRA convention talking gun rights, a conservative favorite.
The conflicting messages and events are a temporary glitch of the last 2 weeks which illustrates how some events and devlopments are reacted to by the McCain campaign rather than managed and massaged.
The staff housecleaning is not a big deal – beyond it’s timing.
It should have happened a long time ago.
The McCain campaign needs to tighten up fast.
Obama is gonna come out of his corner in top flight fighting condition with a battle tested and fleet-of-foot team.
McCain’s got a strong team and strong campaign plan. But this type of inside baseball staff problem illustrates that it is not yet exactly firing on all 12 cylinders.
He has had more than two months without a GOP rival, to get things in order…crunch time has arrived.
Major reports on top Dems coming out in support of Obama after President Bush suggested he was an “appeaser”. Carl Cameron outlines John McCain’s expansive vision of American after four years of a McCain presidency.
Columbus, Ohio:
John McCain came to Columbus, Ohio to outline his vision of America and the world after four years of his presidency. His campaign also launched a new web ad highlighting that expansive vision of:
The Middle East stabilized.
Nuclear terror threat reduced.
Border security strengthened.
Energy independence advanced.
Wasteful spending reformed.
Health care choice delivered.
Economic confidence restored.
In his speech in Columbus, Ohio, JSM plans to go back to the future laying out his vision – or at least what he VERY OPTIMISTICALLY envisions the nation and world will be like AFTER what he anticipates will have been a TREMENDOUSLY successful 1st term as president. (The speech comes a few days after a comic six minute video from UBCComedy where a man wakes from a coma after seven years to see the new and improved world after Barack Obama)
“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won.”
Internationally, McCain boldly predicts Al Qaeda in Iraq will have been defeated, Afghanistan will ALSO be stabilized and NO Major attack will have occured in the US since 9-11. He forecasts stunning diplomatic successes negotiating the elimination of stubborn rogue nuclear threats that have for yrs been unresolvable.
“Concerted action by the great democracies of the world has persuaded a reluctant Russia and China to cooperate in pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and North Korea to discontinue its own.”
McCains economic forecast is all sunny skies too. He assumes implementation of aggressive tax and spending cuts and that congress will have adopted his domestic agenda.
“The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth, and Americans again have confidence in their economic future.”
While Obama advocates hope, McCain predicts triumph: ever expanding global free trade will have made up for US job losses in manufacturing and other sectors
“New free trade agreements have been ratified and led to substantial increases in both exports and imports.”
McCain assumes cooperation with congress…on a host of long deadlocked issues, energy independence, revamping the tax code, public education, healthcare, medicare, even Social security.
“The reforms include some form of personal retirement accounts in safe and reliable index funds, such as have been available to government employees since their retirement plans were made solvent a quarter century ago.
Despite ardent opposition from his own party NOW to what many call amnesty for illegal immigrants McCain anticipates victory on comprehensive immigration reform which would include provisions for a guest worker program.
“the American people accepted the practical necessity to institute a temporary worker program and deal humanely with the millions of immigrants who have been in this country illegally. “
Only toward the end of his remarks does McCain acknowledge political opposition and how unlikely such wholesale success will be…he blames it on partisanship and the seemingly unending election cycle.
“This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end. We belong to different parties, not different countries. We are rivals for the same power. But we are also compatriots. “
This almost idealistic and hopeful tone is sure to draw sharp reaction from the Dems!
Major Garrett reports on the Democratic race on the day of the W.Va primary, Carl is in North Bend, Wa and follows McCain’s second day of the “global climate change” tour.
Major is in West Virginia following the Dem’s race on the eve of the primary there and Carl is in Portland, Oregon as McCain unveils his plan to tackle Global Climate Change.
Portland, Oregan:
Today, John McCain stakes out the greenest position of any Republican presidential candidate in decades. He’ll visit a wind turbine manufacturer in Portland, Oregon… and put his money where his mouth is with a new ad signaling a new direction on the environment for his party.
“I believe that climate change is real. It’s not just a greenhouse gas issue. It’s a national security issue. We have an obligation to future generations to take action and fix it.”
McCain’s climate change ad highlights his courtship of independents & moderates. He chastises the far left for overreacting to the problem & the far right for being too dismissive of it.
“One extreme thinks high taxes and crippling regulation is the solution. Another denies the problem even exists. There’s a better way.”
In his prepared remarks the Republican party’s fall standard-bearer pronounces the debate over the existence of global warming and mankind’s responsibility…over!
“We know that greenhouse gasses are heavily implicated as a cause of climate change. And we know that among all greenhouse gasses, the worst by far is the carbon-dioxide that results from fossil-fuel combustion.”
In an interview with Fox News he said that it is better to accept that climate change exists and take steps to address it:
doneMcCain will lay out specific goals for reducing greenhouse gasses -with a cap & trade program. Industries would be given emission targets (caps.) If they produce less than the targets, they could sell (trade) their surplus polluting capacity to those industries and firms unable to meet their targets.
“By the year 2012, we will seek a return to 2005 levels of emission, by 2020, a return to 1990 levels, and so on until we have achieved at least a reduction of sixty percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. “
McCain will criticize former President Bill Clinton and current President George W Bush for failing to broker an international climate change agreement years ago.
“I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach – an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation.”
He specifically hits China and India, two leading polluters for not doing their part.
“No nation should be exempted from its obligations. And least of all should we make exceptions for the very countries that are accelerating carbon emissions while the rest of us seek to reduce emissions.”
But McCain promises to move the U.S. forward with or without others.
“If the efforts to negotiate an international solution that includes China and India do not succeed, we still have an obligation to act.”
Though the GOP has been turning greener in recent years and President Bush acknowledged man’s role in climate change years ago, skeptics of global climate change remain. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, last year said:
“the man-made global warming fear machine crossed the ‘tipping point’ in 2007. I am convinced that future climate historians will look back at 2007 as the year the global warming fears began crumbling. The situation we are in now is very similar to where we were in the late 1970’s when coming ice age fears began to dismantle. We are currently witnessing an international awakening of scientists who are speaking out in opposition to former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, the Hollywood elitists and the media-driven ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming.”
[source: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “INHOFE FLOOR SPEECH ON GLOBAL WARMING: 2007 – GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM REACHES A TIPPING POINT,” October 26, 2007
McCain has his work cut out for him.
Hillary Clinton vows to stay in the race even as political pundits call it all but over. Major takes a look at that story but first Carl sat down with Col. Bud Day and talked about his time sharing a cell with Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Like John McCain, Col. George E. “Bud” Day spent over 5 yrs in Vietnamese POW camps. Day and John McCain were cell-mates for about 2 and a half years. Day is a legendary military hero with more medals and ribbons than anyone since General Douglas MacArthur.
doneJohn McCain seldom discusses a defining aspect of his life: being a POW.
Colonel George E. “Bud” Day is the most decorated service man since General Douglas MacArthur.
Day has been awarded the Medal of Honor, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Hearts, in fact, more than 70 medals and awards. He calls John McCain a hero, and thinks voters deserve to know more about his Hanoi Hilton cell mate.
alt=”Carl Cameron Interviews Bud Day” width=”300″ height=”270″ /> Col. Day, went under the call sign “Misty.” He was the first jet pilot to fly into North Vietnam and after more than 175 sorties he was shot down in August of ‘67, exactly 2 months before McCain was.“I took one look at him and my brain instantly said they dropped this guy off on me to claim that we let him die. He was just emaciated, very, very skinny, in this awful body cast.”
The colonel and John McCain were cell-mates in that tiny cell for two of their more than 5 yrs of torture in captivity. Day’s broken arm was re-broken during torture and healed in such a way he would not be able to fly again. McCain, broken and injured himself, helped his fellow cell-mates rehabilitate their ravaged bodies.
“so I got some strips of bamboo, smuggled em into the room, John put his foot in my arm pit and pulled on my wrist until we could get the bone forced back down.”
McCain himself today continues to suffer the injuries of torture. He still cannot raise his arms above his shoulders. But he does not like to talk about his time as a prisoner of war.
“he just doesn’t trade on that. I think he feels that it’s wrong to trade on being a hero, but he is.”
Check back here for Carl Cameron’s interview with Col. Bud Day and tonight on Special Report with Brit Hume we will have the complete story.
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