Posted by jdhayworth1 (Profile)
Wednesday, February 3rd at 2:30PM EST
60 Comments
In 2000, Senator John McCain asked me to campaign on his behalf for president. I was honored to do so. I remember traveling to South Carolina to act as a one-man truth squad and doing countless television interviews for John. It was a tremendous experience and, as we all know, John came up short. But as always, he fought hard for what he thought was right.
But the John McCain I supported for president in 2000 is not the same John McCain I’ve watched frustrate conservatives time and again as our senator. He still fights hard, all right, but too often for the wrong causes.
It is said that all good humor has a grain of truth in it. So when John McCain jokingly referred to the media as “my base,” we all laughed because we knew how true it was. But the media doesn’t need another senator – Arizona does. And Arizonans want a senator who will listen to them all the time, not just when there’s an election. So I will soon formally announce that I will challenge John McCain in the Republican primary for senator.
I have the utmost respect and admiration for what John McCain has given to our country over the years. And this election will be about serious policy differences, not personalities. Let me begin by detailing where I think John McCain has gone wrong. For starters, John:
Voted against the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 (which I helped write), echoing liberal Democratic arguments that they were tax cuts for the rich;
Voted for an $850 billion bailout for banks and car companies, which was loaded with special interest earmarks totaling $150 billion;
Proposed spending $300 billion to buy up every bad mortgage in America, which National Review called a “full bailout for lenders” (McCain said he got the idea from Hillary Clinton!);
Supports a cap and trade scheme that the Wall Street Journal called “an expensive, invasive government bureaucracy” - indeed, McCain once proclaimed, “I don’t know how any conservative cannot support cap and trade;”
Wrote the campaign finance law just struck down by the Supreme Court that denied free speech rights to groups like the National Rifle Association while carving out an exception for media corporations like the New York Times;
Opposes drilling in ANWR;
Opposes the use of the enhanced interrogation techniques that we know prevented at least 4 major terrorist attacks; and
Helped write an amnesty plan that would let illegal aliens qualify for Social Security and Medicare, and which the Heritage Foundation estimates would cost taxpayers “at least $2.6 trillion.”
More at Redstate.
