Finding this article in the Yuma Sun, I was heartened to recognize the old John McCain being described. I am hopeful that he and Obama will be able to create the immigration reform this country desperately needs.
Remember the John McCain that many Arizonans grew to like over the years – the one who stuck by his principles but was not politically dogmatic or doctrinaire, and instead tried to represent the interests of people in general?
Well, that John McCain seems to be back after a long journey into the dark jungle of presidential politics where he seemed to veer from his familiar middle-of-the-road approach to politics – an approach that a lot of Arizonans prefer, based on their long support for him.
While here in Yuma he praised the work done on border security and fencing along the border, acknowledging the desire of many Arizonans and other Americans to have a secure, safe border as the top priority.
Yet he has not reduced his support for humane changes in our nation’s immigration policies. He wants reforms and better foreign worker programs so workers from Mexico and elsewhere who want to fill needed jobs in America can do so.
“These are God’s children, and there has to be a humane and compassionate approach to this issue (illegal immigration),” McCain told a Tucson newspaper.
Those words represent the McCain we have known for years, the one who could upset not only Democrats but also Republicans because he set his own agenda. The word “maverick” when it comes to politicians is probably over-used, but in the case of John McCain it fits.
I have noticed the change in a number of instances. He has been on a few entertainment and news shows recently and he seems much more relaxed and less angry than in the closing weeks of his campaign for president.
Although I doubt he would ever be called a jokester, he does have a definite sense of humor and it is showing again. He is able to kid around about his race for the White House after a period of contemplation and perhaps resignation to his fate.
He has said when asked about it that he has given up his quest for the highest office and simply wants to be a good Senate representative for the people of our state. He plans to run for his seat again in 2010.
That means Arizonans will continue to have a powerful ally in Washington, one who has influence at many levels of power – at least until 2010, and perhaps beyond.
Of course his influence could be less than in the past. Although a senior member of the Senate, the Republican Party will no longer be in the majority in Congress and no longer will be in the White House.
Still even President-elect Barack Obama recognizes the importance of having McCain on his side. Obama met recently with his former opponent to discuss mutual interests for the country. There has even been speculation Obama would like McCain to have a special role in his administration.
For his part, McCain says he’d be glad to work with Obama on programs that are for the good of the nation. That represents the bipartisan approach McCain has demonstrated in the past, and it is good to see he still has it.
One bipartisan issue could be what to do about illegal immigration. Although there was very little focus on this issue during the election, it is bound to resurface. McCain has demonstrated a middle-of-the-road approach on this issue, one that has gotten him in trouble in his own party. He still seems committed to this approach.
So that’s the view from the elitist with 7 houses. F HIM.
Rick,
What is it about this statement you find so offensive?
“While here in Yuma he praised the work done on border security and fencing along the border, acknowledging the desire of many Arizonans and other Americans to have a secure, safe border as the top priority.
Yet he has not reduced his support for humane changes in our nation’s immigration policies. He wants reforms and better foreign worker programs so workers from Mexico and elsewhere who want to fill needed jobs in America can do so.
“These are God’s children, and there has to be a humane and compassionate approach to this issue (illegal immigration),” McCain told a Tucson newspaper.”
I’m glad that the national party failed to drag him down. It’s too bad they felt it was necessary in the first place. I think he would have stood a better chance of winning if he ran as himself and didn’t choose a hateful demagogue as a running mate.
Rick Bentley,
Why are you so angry?
Elena; Marie – Haven’t we covered that before?
McCain is intellectually dishonest and uses his position to fight for the right of employers to lower US wages via he and other elitists circumventing enforcement of the laws they are sworn to uphold. If he were not such a liar, I would not dislike him so much.
“These are God’s children, and there has to be a humane and compassionate approach to this issue (illegal immigration),” McCain told a Tucson newspaper.”
Complete crock of crap. Phony rhetoric designed to imply that we should undertake another Amnesty.
There is little doubt that Juan McAmnesty will fight hard to take revenge on the nation that didn’t elect him by pushing for amnesty for all illegal invaders. It was his position on this issue that best exemplified his close ties to the policies of the Bush administration and why any idiot could see that Joan McAmnesty would be another Bush administration….something only a small portion of the Republican party really wanted to see. McCain’s contempt for his nation is difficult to come to terms with given his previous “heroic” POW deeds. Bottom line, McCain no longer speaks for the Republican party, and if the Republicans wish to make any sort of comeback to power, they must marginalize the Bush/McCain types and get back to their principles. But you can expect McCain not to go away without another push to do as much harm to the country as he can.
“… I am hopeful that he and Obama will be able to create the immigration reform this country desperately needs.”
This Country DOES NOT need another AMNESTY! What is it the Government doesn’t understand about this?
I can’t say the ILLEGAL ALIENS are completely to blame for the shape of our economy, but they are a BIG part of the problem. The ILLEGAL ALIENS send BILLIONS upon BILLIONS out of this Country every year, money we will NEVER see again. Does this help our economy?
How about the BILLIONS the American taxpayers fork out for the ANCHOR BABIES, the schooling of them, the medical care and the list goes on, and on, and on.
How about the MILLIONS upon MILLIONS paid to jail ILLEGAL ALIENS for the crimes, then the cost to deport them. Does this help our economy?
Then you have these so called activist groups that want AMNESTY for these ILLEGAL ALIENS. It would be absolute suicide for this Country if AMNESTY were granted to the 20 million or so ILLEGAL ALIENS. We have more and more people out of work everyday and they want to add another 20 million to this Country? I say, “NO”!
If AMNESTY were ever granted to these 20 million ILLEGAL ALIENS, you can bet big money that 3 years from now, there would be ANOTHER 3-5 million ILLEGAL ALIENS demonstrating on our soil for AMNESTY. I don’t wish to lose my privilege on this site, so I will refrain from using the words that fit here.
An end MUST come to this illegal immigration. The perfect tool we have so far is E-Verify. It MUST be used on ALL businesses and Government Social Services. EVERY employee must be checked! If they are illegal, they are to be dismissed and deported!
I believe it is time for all 50 States to pass a State law, like Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina and a few others. It is time for these ILLEGAL ALIENS to go back to their home Country and get out of this Country. The problems they are causing will not go away until the ILLEGAL ALIENS are out of this Country. I think that is plain to see.
“These are God’s children, and there has to be a humane and compassionate approach to this issue (illegal immigration),” McCain told a Tucson newspaper.
May I have one more comment?
How about these ANCHOR BABIES go back with their parents? Keep in mind, the parents put their children in this position…..
And…..
One more thing I could NEVER understand. How is it you can enter this Country ILLEGALLY and be rewarded with U.S. citizenship for the baby? IF indeed this is true, it definately needs changed!
If he can stay away from the polarizing folks in the party he will be able to contribute. Honestly, does anyone see the irony in these folks de-regulating financial controls while stepping up regulation of bedroom controls while hiding what they do on the side??? How stupid do they think we are out here beyond the beltway???!!!!!
Juturna, that certainly nails the problem: deregulating financial controls while stepping up bedroom controls. That certainly says it all, doesn’t it?
Wish I had thought of that one!
Slow and Rick, couldn’t it be that McCain, like Bush, Obama and the majority of elected officials who have experience with federal government simply understand immigration issues, the national economy, and our national security better than the average xenophobe?
Sorry. Don’t want to say that you guys are xenophobes. Rick in particular has effectively layered a thinking man’s rationale over a xenophobe’s argument. But now that PWC has demonstrated the economic folly of this school of thought, and now that the rest of the nation has joined us in an economic crisis, and now that a wave election has removed 20 of the most extreme anti-immigrant opportunist Congressmen, don’t you think it’s time to use your considerable powers of self-persuasion to reassess the current reality and adjust your positions on what policy direction we should choose?
In short: your option is no longer an option. Any other ideas?
NGL,
Could it be that Bush is the most unpopular President in American History, and McCain lost the election because they strayed so far from the principles of their party to have made both sides angry at them? Obama? Well, destruction is all any smart person expects from his Chicago Political Machine Thug policies, so that’s no surprise. Xenophobe? Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, you left out all the other names, racist, hate-monger, Nazi, etc, etc. How very original.
NGL : Whatever. Anyone who doesn’t want Amnesty is a “xenophobe”. Well leave me and my neighbors to our “xenophobic” ways. I do not and will not accept that I should live a less safe and less peaceful existence so that lettuce can cost a little bit less. And I do not accept that we need to let the wealthy degrade wages and revert conditions in America to what they were generations ago just because John McCain and barack Obama have sold you on the idea that it is charitable behavior to reward lawlessness.
And that’s reality here, and get used to it. Perhaps Corey Stewart understands things (things to do with extreme anger of the populace) that you don’t.
“couldn’t it be that McCain, like Bush, Obama and the majority of elected officials who have experience with federal government simply understand immigration issues, the national economy, and our national security better than the average xenophobe?”
You are a pretty naive person.
I guess you trusted them on economic matters too. You probably thought George Bush, Barney Frank, and the lot of these crooks had a good eye on things for the past many years.
You trusted them on Homeland Security while Rice had a report sitting in her desk entitled “Bin Laden determined to Attack Inside the U.S.” which mentioned they might use planes as weapons, unread.
So it makes sense to take their word on Amnesty 2009 as well. Makes perfect sense to reward lawlessness while polls in Mexico show roughly 40% of their remaining populace thinks of coming here – http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/52.pdf
Bush and McCain understand more than we do. They understand to insist on bailing out Wall St. so the execs can go to luxury vacation retreats. They bail out the auto company execs who show up in their corporate jets. All against the taxpayer’s clearly expressed wishes. The politicians understand more than we do. I’ll say this much, NGL, the politicians are sure glad to have folks like you around. Just out of curiosity, if Bush or McCain said that little green men from Mars are going to arrive on Earth tomorrow to unveil a new type of media format…would you believe them because they “understand” more about things than we do?
Slow, what do you think would have happened if the original 800 billion had not been allocated?
I sure do think Warren Buffett and Hank Paulson know more about finances and economics than the average tax payer. Sometimes capitalism needs to be tweaked and gotten back on course.
I would prefer to skip the depression if at all possible.
As for the auto industry, I think 1 in 10 people out of work on top of those already out of work sounds depression- like.
“I sure do think Warren Buffett and Hank Paulson know more about finances and economics than the average tax payer. ”
And so does Bernard Madoff. That’s why they’re rich. They are their political cronies in both parties are expert at effecting wealth transfer to themselves, friends, and family.
“Sometimes capitalism needs to be tweaked and gotten back on course. ”
The whole point driving capitalism is that some things have to fail. What we have has tilted towards socialism, with the help of both political parties.
Another driving point behind capitalism is that there are times it needs to be gotten back on course or it will fail.
If we take the point of view that Buffett and Paulson are rich and therefore not in the position to evaluate capitalism, we should hang it up. I have never heard that either one of those men were particularly political animals and I have never heard their integrity questioned.
I would trust someone like that before I trusted someone who wasn’t rich and who didn’t have the credentials both of them have. In other words, if you are so smart, why aren’t you rich? (no YOU in particular)
It is the government’s job to keep up out of depression. If government weren’t involved, only a few would own all the wealth and sort of like the last 8 years, where the disparity between haves and have nots grew the most. Humans are greedy.
But it’s not the government’s job to reward speculators who lost money, with more money. That’s the type of society we’re creating – abject greed, irresponsibility, detachment from reality.
Rick, I don’t want the speculators rewarded or bailed out either. I want the middle income man protected. I want people to be able to get credit if deserved, I don’t want the auto workers jobless and I don’t want people losing their investments.
Perhaps another way of saying it would be to protect the man on the street from the fat cats. If they have to do what is being done to keep us from going in to a depression, then so be it.
Moon – Howler,
True free market capitalism corrects itself. It requires not one second or calorie burned of energy from the federal government to thrive, grow, and succeed. Most of the problems we’re having stem from government intervention in the free market. Funny, Paulson will be the FIRST to tell you he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Oh, and the money that the banks got? They’re SITTING on it! Dude! That worked sooooo gooood! Let’s do that dumb stuff some more!
“If they have to do what is being done to keep us from going in to a depression, then so be it.”
I believe that’s an exaggeration. The real fear is that would be wider open to being bought up by the Chinese and other nations at bargain prices, without a huge influx of government money. This “depression” arguement is a phony line.
When the dust clears the wealthy will still be rich from their great-great-great-great grandfathers planting flags in the soil and claiming they owned it, and most of us will still be funding them in one way or another.
Every initiative they undertake in the “public interest” – Homeland Security, Health Care Reform, Revitalizing Urban Areas – they each just open up a market for those with wealth to speculate and purchase things like Haliburton, various Medical Companies’ stocks, and to buy and sell land knowing their political tools will see to it who gets what deal for it. Don’t take these crooks seriously.
Life gets better for most of us, because science and inventions make it so. But the dirty crooked game of politics that our two parties play does us no favors.
The middle class just bailed out the wealthy, ensuring for us an even great degree of being unable to ever get ahead and out of debt.
The statement by John McCain is the precise reason that he had no chance of winning the election. Conservatives did not (and do not) trust him, because he is more interested in “humane” treatment of illegals, McCain-Feingold, etc. than in upholding the laws and the constitution of the United States.
And liberals are more likely to vote for a real liberal than a pseudo-liberal like McCain.