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DerailAmnesty.com
08-23-2010, 07:17 AM
GILBERT, Ariz. – The cast of "Survivor" has nothing on Sen. John McCain. Once labeled a vulnerable incumbent, the four-term Arizona Republican is the clear front-runner against challenger J.D. Hayworth after spending some $20 million and casting his GOP opponent as a late-night infomercial huckster in a series of devastating ads. The primary is Tuesday.

McCain, who turns 74 on Aug. 29, has survived the deadly 1967 explosion on the USS Forrestal, 5 1/2 years in a Vietnam POW camp after being shot down near Hanoi and skin cancer. Politically, he has persisted through the Keating Five savings and loan scandal, and two failed bids for the White House.

"I have stood up and led the fight as a fiscal conservative and a leader on national defense and a strong supporter of the men and women who are fighting and sacrificing for this nation," McCain told a woman who questioned his record at a town-hall meeting last Thursday. Long unpopular with some home-state conservatives, McCain immediately recognized the threat posed by Hayworth, a talk-radio host and former six-term congressman from Scottsdale. And he set out to neutralize it.
He tossed aside his self-described "maverick" label and adopted a hard-line stand on immigration just a few years after working with Democrats on a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally. "Complete the danged fence," he says in a campaign ad, three years after dismissing the effectiveness of building a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.

A series of McCain ads called Hayworth a "huckster," showing clips of him in an infomercial telling viewers they can get free government money. It was an embarrassment for a candidate running as a fiscal conservative, and it caught Hayworth flat-footed. At first he defended it, then apologized as the story lived on for weeks.

"I think McCain's truthful. J.D. Hayworth sure isn't. He's a liar," said Martha Moloney, a 72-year-old church worker from Mesa.
One poll last month showed McCain with a lead of as much as 45 percentage points.

"J.D. Hayworth is deader than Elvis," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. Hayworth is undaunted. He has had an exhausting series of campaign events throughout Arizona, mostly in rural areas away from Phoenix. On a remote stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border, he criticized McCain for not supporting a change in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to eliminate the automatic grant of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

"In the final analysis, it ain't me, it's John McCain and his record that will be held to account," Hayworth told The Associated Press.

Hayworth aides argue that McCain is vulnerable on immigration in a state that has adopted the nation's toughest law cracking down on illegal immigrants. A Hayworth ad accused the incumbent of lying about his stand on the issue — a charge the McCain campaign denies, but which resonates with voters supporting the challenger.

"We need someone in the Senate who's going to think about Arizona. McCain just doesn't care about the constituents. He doesn't care about Arizona," said Judy Howard, a 51-year-old retired federal probation official who said she'll probably vote for Hayworth.

Hayworth has an enthusiastic crowd of supporters, but his challenge grows larger every day as the number of potential voters dwindles. In Maricopa County, where a majority of Arizonans live, more than half of 350,000 Republican early ballots had already been returned by Friday.

Jim Deakin, a contractor and Navy veteran, is pursuing the same tea party activists Hayworth is courting. Deakin's throw-the-bums-out message combined with an everyman charm and no elective office experience could siphon anti-McCain votes from Hayworth.

Despite polls showing a likely win, McCain isn't letting up. He spent $3.5 million on the race in July, most of it from the legal fund of his 2008 presidential campaign. By Aug. 4, McCain had spent $19.6 million to Hayworth's $2.6 million — a "lie and buy" strategy, Hayworth says. But Hayworth hasn't helped his cause. He incorrectly said the United State never declared war on Nazi Germany in World War II, and suggested that a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage might allow a man to marry his horse. "I don't think J.D.'s got the analytical ability to come up with the decisions that need to be made in this environment," said Al Sondergaard, a 79-year-old retired Caterpillar manufacturing supervisor.

The winner of the GOP primary will face one of four Democrats: retired investigative journalist John Dougherty, former state administrator Cathy Eden, former Tucson City Councilman Rodney Glassman or political activist Randy Parraz. Glassman, who has loaned his campaign $500,000 and raised as much from others, is the front-runner who would face a tough time trying to beat McCain.

Twoller
08-23-2010, 08:35 AM
We need term limits for all federal positions and a single term only.

Imagine if the Obamination could only look forward to one term.

DerailAmnesty.com
08-23-2010, 01:00 PM
We need term limits for all federal positions and a single term only.

Imagine if the Obamination could only look forward to one term.


One term limits would make elected politicians immediate lame-ducks. Why would they worry about reelection consequences for their unpopular actions?

Further, I don't think our current president is the greatest example to illustrate your point. Has Obama seemed overly concerned about doing unpopular things during his stay in the White House? Do you think he would be less inclined to act in such a fashion if he knew he'd only have the job until 2012?

Twoller
08-23-2010, 02:30 PM
One term limits would make elected politicians immediate lame-ducks. Why would they worry about reelection consequences for their unpopular actions?

Further, I don't think our current president is the greatest example to illustrate your point. Has Obama seemed overly concerned about doing unpopular things during his stay in the White House? Do you think he would be less inclined to act in such a fashion if he knew he'd only have the job until 2012?

The idea that elected officials need the prospect of a second term to keep them in good behavior is a popular canard. Actually, it is the quest for the second term that has got a lot of our presidents in trouble. Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy in Houston.

Everyone agrees that limiting the presidency to two terms is a good idea. Limiting it to a single term is even better.

The longer an elected official stays in power, the less good behavior they need because the longer they stay, the more they entrench themselves in the office. Their behavior becomes less and less visible and it becomes easier and easier for them to re-elect themselves.

We really have a rich supply of real citizens that are just as capable and just as interested in making some short contribution to the office. Four years or so is plenty of time for somebody to make a contribution if they want to do more than get elected another term. And a steady stream of new faces in the office and looking at the office lowers the learning curve for the US public in trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

How can people worry about the power of politicians and then argue that they need an endless future of more opportunities to squat in the office screwing the public?

Federal term limits and the criminalization of asking party affiliation for purposes of voter registration. These are two things that would revolutionize politics in the US. For the better.

Twoller
08-23-2010, 02:41 PM
...

Further, I don't think our current president is the greatest example to illustrate your point. Has Obama seemed overly concerned about doing unpopular things during his stay in the White House? Do you think he would be less inclined to act in such a fashion if he knew he'd only have the job until 2012?

Look again at what you are saying. Would he be less inclined? Or more inclined? What's the big deal over a little less or a little more? He still doesn't belong there. What more would he be inclined to do in four years that would be worse than what he will do with eight? And since his presidency is already as sadistic as it is, where is your argument that a second term is important for enticing "popular actions"?

DerailAmnesty.com
08-23-2010, 05:11 PM
Look again at what you are saying. Would he be less inclined? Or more inclined? What's the big deal over a little less or a little more? He still doesn't belong there. What more would he be inclined to do in four years that would be worse than what he will do with eight? And since his presidency is already as sadistic as it is, where is your argument that a second term is important for enticing "popular actions"?



You said Imagine if the Obamination could only look forward to one term.

How would term limits impact his conduct? How do you think things would be better, in regards to our current president? You clearly think it would be an improvement, regarding this particular individual, b/c you wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise.

What have I missed here?

Twoller
08-23-2010, 07:41 PM
We need term limits for all federal positions and a single term only.

Imagine if the Obamination could only look forward to one term.

You said Imagine if the Obamination could only look forward to one term.

How would term limits impact his conduct? How do you think things would be better, in regards to our current president? You clearly think it would be an improvement, regarding this particular individual, b/c you wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise.

What have I missed here?

I guess what I should have said was "Imagine if we could look forward to only one term for the Obamination."

The way I see it, the prospect of another term does little to nothing to the behavior of an elected official who actually cares about the office. Of course it doesn't make that much difference for somebody with complete contempt for the office either. Obama is not going alter his behavior too much one way or the other if he couldn't look forward to a second term.

DerailAmnesty.com
08-23-2010, 07:53 PM
OK, thanks for the clarification. That makes sense. We're on the same page.

Listen, if it makes you feel any better, I think Obama will turn out to be a one-term president. He simply doesn't have much feel or concern for where the thoughts/priorities of the governed are.

The problem, however, is that I think the long-term damage is already done and will be next to impossible to undo. To his "credit," he promised change and, boy, has he delivered.

Twoller
08-24-2010, 07:42 AM
OK, thanks for the clarification. That makes sense. We're on the same page.

Listen, if it makes you feel any better, I think Obama will turn out to be a one-term president. He simply doesn't have much feel or concern for where the thoughts/priorities of the governed are.

The problem, however, is that I think the long-term damage is already done and will be next to impossible to undo. To his "credit," he promised change and, boy, has he delivered.

Do you then support term limits? How do you feel about removing party affiliation from voter registration?

Where do you see long term damage from Obama's term so far?

DerailAmnesty.com
08-24-2010, 08:05 AM
No, I don't support term limits and I've never really given the issue of stated/public party affiliation any consideration.

Insofar as our president, the real damage he's done has been the nationl debt he's accrued and the healthcare overhaul.