Senator McCain’s Bad Week
This has been an interesting and downright confusing week for Senator John McCain’s political campaign. I’m not sure that there was any good news that came out of his camp this week. As a matter of fact, this week reminded me of Rudy Giuliani’s worst week from a political campaign that I have ever seen.
- Reverend Rod Parsley, a television evangelist, endorsed McCain several months ago. McCain sought out the endorsement of Reverend John Hagee. Both of these men, who are known to say some very outlandish things, were jettisoned by the McCain campaign this week. It is funny and interesting that McCain embraced these religious leaders during the Republican primary but is now rejecting them before the general election.
- McCain’s medical records were almost released. Over a thousand pages were given to a selected group of reporters to review for three hours. I don’t think that anyone should have been surprised when the verdict was McCain is in good health. In a 71 year-old man who’s had malignant melanoma lesions removed from three areas of his body, I would need further evidence that he is truly good health.
- Earlier in the week, McCain painted a picture for us of what the year 2013 might look like in Iraq: “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. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is sporadic and much reduced.” Reporters, and everyone in the world, thought that McCain was setting a deadline. He spent the next 24 hours explaining why his speech did not really set a deadline. Let’s not be fooled, this speech was given to combat his earlier statement that we should be there or could be there for a hundred years.
- Several lobbyists in McCain’s campaign “resigned” this week. It seemed like a routine ‘another day and another lobbyist hits the bricks’ kind of thing. It hard to rail against lobbyists and Washington Insiders when your campaign staff is packed with lobbyists.
- Finally, the GI Bill easily passed the House and Senate. McCain somehow couldn’t support this bill. McCain’s friend and chief mouth-piece on Capital Hill, Lindsey Graham, argued against passage of the bill stating that the bill was “too generous.”
Now, that’s my definition of a bad week.
