Romney and McCain: The GOP Frenemies’ Club
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

Michael Corleone said to “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” But what, pray tell, do we do with our frenemies? This is the awful, election-year quandary of movement conservatives. And everything you need to know about our heartache can be summed up in one image:

2008 presidential election loser John McCain and Mitt Romney together on the campaign trail.

When they’re together, they look like they’re holding each other (and the rest of us) hostage. Their toxic chemistry makes seething, ex-newlyweds Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries look like Fred and Ginger. In New Hampshire last week after Romney’s Iowa caucus squeaker, an overly giddy McCain mocked his endorsee for his “landslide victory.” Awkward.

Then in South Carolina on Friday, McCain mistakenly referred to Romney as “President Obama” – as Romney and South Carolina GOP governor Nikki Haley rushed to correct the gaffe. Freudian slip? Senior moment? Sabotage? All of the above?

Of course, if you choose to pal around with a double-talking, big government barnacle, you get what you deserve.

McCain is the entrenched incumbent Arizona senator/war hero who lost to a neophyte, radical leftist community organizer from Chicago. The “straight-talk” GOP candidate flip-flopped on everything from illegal immigration to global warming to offshore drilling to closing Gitmo. He pandered to minority grievance-mongers and the liberal media. He proposed massive government interventions bigger than Obama’s.

This Beltway fossil who now poses as a Tea Party hero proudly teamed with Big Government liberals Teddy Kennedy and Russ Feingold. He’s the “maverick” who supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, the $25 billion auto bailout, the first $85 billion AIG bailout, and a $300 billion mortgage bailout – yet, who now carps about “record deficits and debt.”

A career politician for the past 30 years, McCain set the stage for the suicidal anti-capitalist rhetoric now polluting the GOP primary. Four years ago this month during a GOP primary debate held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, it was McCain up on stage denigrating Romney’s private-sector experience. Asked whether he thought Romney’s record as CEO made him qualified to lead, McCain snarked: “I know how to lead. I led the largest squadron in the United States Navy. And I did it out of patriotism, not for profit.”

Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman have all followed suit, bashing Romney’s venture-capitalist past at Bain Capital with Occupy Wall Street-style zeal.

It’s one thing to carefully dissect Romney’s investments, as the Wall Street Journal did, and weigh his wins against his losses. (The paper found that “in total, Bain produced about $2.5 billion in gains for its investors in the 77 deals, on about $1.1 billion invested. Overall, Bain recorded roughly 50% to 80% annual gains in this period, which experts said was among the best track records for buyout firms in that era.”)

It’s quite another to shamelessly disparage those who work in private equities as immoral corporate raiders and avaricious job-killers, as the three aforementioned GOP Occupiers have done. If they keep it up, they’ll soon be chaining themselves together with bike locks performing “mic checks” and “down twinkles” at the next GOP debate.

Gingrich has pushed McCain’s profit-bashing line the furthest. Backed by a super PAC (the very campaign finance vehicle he was whining about last week) flush with $5 million from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the vendetta-driven former House Speaker accused Romney and a “handful of rich people” of “looting” companies. Channeling left-wing propagandist Michael Moore, Gingrich railed that Bain “manipulate[d] the lives of thousands of other people.” Gingrich – who raked in millions consulting for the taxpayer-subsidized Freddie Mac racket — also served on the advisory board of private equities firm and leveraged buyout experts Forstmann Little.

But, hey, it’s only “looting” if it doesn’t line your own pockets.

Mitt Romney’s chronic flip-flopping political career is teeming with reasons for grass-roots conservatives to oppose his nomination — from his support for racial preferences and government funding of abortion, liberal judges, global warming enviro-nitwittery, TARP, auto bailouts, the Obama stimulus, gun control, and of course, the Massachusetts individual health insurance mandates that presaged Obamacare. But instead of focusing on his long political record of expedience, incompetent non-Romneys have borrowed from McCain’s 2008 playbook and thrown wealth creators of all kinds who take risks in the private marketplace under the bus.

With frenemies like these, who needs Democrats?

These guys deserve each other.

Shaking my head…

Watch how Romney and Nikki Haley rush to correct the bumbling McCain as the crowd begins to murmur and boo after his flub.

Romney’s thinking: Mother fudge biscuits, someone get a cane and yank this saboteur off the stage.

You want to parade Big Government/Tea Party-trashing Tea Party poseur/loser McCain around on your campaign trail? You get what you deserve.

Freudian slip? Senior moment? Sabotage? Or, as someone on Twitter suggested, maybe a bit of “In vino, veritas?” You decide.

Via The Right Scoop:

Actress Julianne Moore, who happens to be of Hollywood liberal pedigree, is playing the part of Sarah Palin in “Game Change,” an HBO movie from a screenplay adapted by a liberal and directed by a liberal. But that’s balanced out because the part of John McCain is being played by an actor who is a liberal, and the role of McCain’s advisor Steve Schmidt will be handled by Woody Harrelson, who is — you guessed it — a noted lefty (Richard Dreyfuss and Josh Brolin must have had other obligations).

No matter what level of objectivity, or lack thereof, “Game Change” displays, after these last three years, the movie might accomplish little except to make people wonder what might have been. In other words, the producers might end up with a sinking feeling that they released this flick two and a half years too late.

I’m told the movie is rated PG-13, and that’s due mostly to a fairly torrid love scene between McCain and Russ Feingold. Here’s a preview:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Yes, I’m still struggling. Like many of you, I am still carefully weighing all the costs and benefits of each declared GOP candidate. As the candidates continue highlighting each other’s unsavory left-wing alliances, I thought it might be helpful to compile a Hold Your Nose Tracker of the current top four front-runners. I’m just giving it to you straight. One way or the other, the plugs will come in handy. This is the hand we’ve been dealt, alas. Same as it ever was. (Flashback February 2008: The John McCain Nose Plugs.)

Update: Latest Rasmussen numbers are out. Cain: 43. Obama: 41. “Cain is tied with Romney for the lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. Nobody else is even close at the moment.”

***

Newt Gingrich. This weekend, Gingrich called out Mitt Romney’s liberal Northeast Republican record. All well and good. But let’s not pretend away Newt’s own very recent strayings from mainstream conservatism. He snuggled up to Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore in 2008 (and laughably tried to spin the humiliating lovefest as a “debate”).

He went on tour with Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan and race hustler Al Sharpton in September 2009 and again in November 2009:

He endorsed ACORN-friendly, Big Labor-backing, tax-and-spend abortion radical Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 debacle in October 2009, prompting rank-and-file conservatives to send back his book and GOP solicitations like this one from reader Barnaby, who sent back his crossed-out Republican solicitation forms with a “NO RINOS” sticky note for Newt Gingrich:

He’s played footsie with Hillary Clinton on health care, backed an individual health care mandate and aspects of Romneycare, and vigorously attacked Paul Ryan’s free-market-based Medicare reform plan.

And a friendly reminder for grass-roots Tea Party activists who were against the government bailouts before it was cool: When push came to shove, Gingrich supported TARP.

***

Herman Cain. His endorsement of pal Alan Greenspan’s Fed tenure shows too much trust for the central banking bureaucrats who helped inflate the housing bubble and who, like Naked Emperor Henry Paulson, engineered the era of endless bailouts.

For all his Tea Party cred and outside-the-Beltway status, Cain fell for the gun-to-our-heads, Chicken Little propaganda and supported TARP — vigorously — when America needed every consistent fiscal conservative voice possible to try and stop the predictable, all-purpose morphing of the bank bailout before it started.

***

Rick Perry. He tried to embarrass rival GOP gubernatorial candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison in September 2009 by painting her as soft on radical community organizing/fraud outfit ACORN — only to watch the attack wither after conservative opponents found him championing the group’s government shakedowns at a pro-ACORN bill-signing in 2005.

He has adopted the illegal alien DREAM Act agenda and echoed their attacks on opponents as “heartless:”

(Texans, by the way, are revolting against Perry’s lax attitude. Texas A&M students are petitioning Perry to call a special session to repeal the DREAM Act. Texas Tea Party leaders want Perry to come home and address illegal alien sanctuary cities now.)

He’s knee-deep in crony Merck lobbying ties and cash, a pair of massive government subsidy slush funds for friends and donors, and his own Solyndra-style penchant for picking taxpayer “investment” winners and losers.

And yes, he was for, then against, the government-knows-best TARP intervention. This weaseling about his position on a core Tea Party issue is typical Beltway behavior:

***

Mitt Romney . He embraced Nanny State Sen. Edward Kennedy and the federal dollars Uncle Teddy brought to the table to help subsidize Romneycare.

He put Romneycare/Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber on the map.

He took environmental advice from global warming zealot, eugenics/population control freak John Holdren, among other eco-command-and-controllers.

He stood by and watched NJ GOP Gov. Chris Christie smear Romneycare critics as “intellectually dishonest.”

Oh, and yeah: He supported TARP, too. And defends it today.

***

Gah.

***

As all of these candidates’ campaigns remind us — endlessly — there’s no such thing as a perfect candidate.

Yep, don’t we all know it? Politics is the Pageant of the Imperfects.

Every single one of these front-runners is a pro-TARP interventionist with a variety of problematic Big Biz/Big Government impulses and alliances.

Which one will do the least worst job against Obama in the debates, on the campaign trail, and ultimately in the White House? Which one will insult the base the least? Which one will actually have the energy, competence, and credibility to directly challenge Obama’s corruption, profligacy, class-warfare demagoguery, progressive pandering, and epidemic failures?

Watching, waiting, hoping, praying. And yes, preparing the nose plugs however this race turns out…

***

GOP debate viewership is nearly double the last presidential cycle’s.

The next one’s on Tuesday in Las Vegas, organized again by CNN.

Would be nice to get more conservatives to Occupy GOP Debates next time around.

I dream.

When it comes to political menopause, John McCain leads the pack in hot flash mood swings. He’s drafted amnesty bills with Ted Kennedy; chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate; insulted the Tea Party; done 180 degree election year turnarounds to appease conservatives; and now he’s kinda-sorta down with Occupy Wall Street:

The 2008 GOP presidential nominee said he understands the growing protest movement’s concerns over Washington bailouts of major financial institutions.

“Down in Arizona today, Maricopa County has the highest number of homes underwater of any place in this country,” he told reporters Wednesday. “And it’s disgraceful that we took care of the financial institutions, and we did nothing about the housing crisis. So I understand their frustration.”

He later quipped that he may be the “only” Republican does.

So what’s McCain saying? That he’s partly responsible for Occupy Wall Street because of his vote for TARP, or because he’s part of the one percent?

I’ve seen plenty of interviews with the Occupiers, and I’m not sure I’ve heard any of the “Birkenstocks on the ground” foot soldiers mention the subprime crisis as being what motivated them to show up.

Sister Toldjah has a little more on the kind of frustration that McCain understands. This guy didn’t mention the housing crisis as being a motivator either.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If John McCain were in the midst of a campaign to retain his seat, he’d have arrived at this townhall meeting dressed as Bilbo Baggins and sported a “Taxed Enough Already” t-shirt and a hat with teabags dangling from it, but McCain isn’t running for anything for quite a while, and it shows:

A member of The Greater Phoenix Tea Party politely [asked] Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to apologize for calling Tea Party members in the House and Senate “hobbits.” McCain, who was quoting the Wall Street Journal, made his comments on the Senate floor.

“I am sorry if it was misunderstood. I am not sorry for what I said,” McCain said to a heated audience.

“I mean, why should I when it’s the facts,” Senator McCain added.

On the Senate floor, McCain read from a Wall Street Journal editorial which contained the “Tea Party hobbits” line, but he didn’t exactly sound like he had an aversion to the description.

Click the pic of a Senator who definitely knows he’s not up for re-election any time in the near future for the video:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

This will be a rare treat. It isn’t every day that we get a chance to see a movie partly about the political right from the perspective of the Hollywood left:

Four-time Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore has been cast as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin in HBO’s upcoming film, Game Change.

HBO Films and Everyman Pictures’ Game Change follows John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, from his controversial selection of Palin as his running mate to their ultimate defeat in the general election.

Based on the bestselling book of the same name by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the film will be directed by Jay Roach, with a script by Danny Strong.

There hasn’t been a more daring casting stretch since Oliver Stone cast Josh Brolin to play Bush in the slapstick comedy W.

Surprisingly, the script writer is a conservative. Just kidding, he’s an Obama man (I guess Aaron Sorkin was busy). Julianne Moore’s a Democrat too, as is Director Jay Roach.

I can see a hatchet job from my house. Okay, maybe that’s not fair to just assume… but here’s one possible exchange from the book that is a safe bet to make the cut:

The Huffington Post quotes one story from the book [...]: “McCain adviser Steve Schmidt was quoted as telling Palin’s foreign policy advisers that, after testing the candidate before a debate, ‘You guys have a lot of work to do. She doesn’t know anything.’”

According to HBO, the parts of Obama, the Clintons and McCain haven’t been decided.

I heard that the role of McCain was offered to a Hollywood Republican, but in the spirit of bipartisanship he insisted that a Democrat take the part instead. Darned method actors.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Not that any more evidence that Sen. John McCain’s “move to the right” just before the election was more fake than Meg Ryan’s orgasm in When Harry Met Sally is necessary, but…

…McCain has been so impressed with President Obama’s move to the center that he’s working to help him out as best he can:

A bipartisan group of senators said Tuesday that they expect President Obama to back their bill granting him a watered down version of the line-item veto.

The senators expect Obama to reiterate his support for “enhanced rescission” as the power is officially known in his 2012 budget request due out Feb. 14.

Bill sponsors Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) said they have discussed their the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act with the administration and noted that last May, Obama expressed support for this type of power. It would enable him to eliminate earmarks and other wasteful spending from appropriations bills.
[...]
An actual line-item veto, with which the president can selectively strike provisions from a bill without vetoing it entirely, has been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Under “enhanced rescission,” the president would be able to specify wasteful spending items he wants cut from a recently passed spending bill. His rescission package would be given a fast-tracked up-or-down vote in Congress under the new legislation.

Earlier in Obama’s presidency John McCain and his eHarmony.com soul-mate Russ Feingold tried to give Obama the same thing. Frankly it’s a little surprising that McCain hasn’t tried to figure out a way to allow Obama to add things to bills that hit his desk instead of just the ability to cross things off.

A few days ago, John McCain said that he wouldn’t endorse any candidates in the 2012 presidential election, but he’s endorsing one every day without perhaps even knowing it.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Do you think he actually wonders why he lost in 2008?

The president has become more centrist, which makes him easier to work with, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday.

Speaking with Bloomberg Television a day after a private meeting with President Obama, McCain said he could picture working with Obama on several issues going forward.

“I think there’s a number of issues we could work on together, and I think it’s pretty clear that the president has really pivoted to a much more centrist position, which I think makes it much more for us easier to work with him,” McCain said.

John McCain often reminds me of a trout that just got hooked and is thrilled that the fisherman has agreed to meet him halfway.

(h/t Cubachi)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

I’m reminded yet again about why I plugged my nose when I voted for John McCain in 2008.

McCain’s emotional goodbye to liberal Democrat Russ Feingold played out like an over-lengthy eHarmony.com ad. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a RINO giving a farewell smooch to a liberal he vehemently disagreed with a full 19% of the time (an unresearched wild guess on my part), but a show of tongues ruins the occasion.

True, the duo’s McCain/Feingold law helped take the money out of politics (only a record-setting $5.3 billion spent in the 2008 cycle), but this occasion was about more than just celebrating their successes.

McCain: “Without intending it as a commentary on his successor, I have to confess, I think the Senate will be a much poorer place without Russ Feingold in it… I don’t think he is replaceable.”

Of course Feingold’s replaceable. Ron Johnson will be sworn in next month. I think that’s the problem with politicians in general — they fool themselves into thinking they’re not replaceable. The problem is, sometimes they’re right:

At some point I’ll do the math as to how much money John McCain’s “friendships” with Senators on the other side of the aisle have cost taxpayers, but I’m not sure my calculator has enough available digits on it.

(h/t to HAP for the video)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

This week’s JKFFotW award goes to somebody who isn’t a politician, but who isn’t far removed from Washington politics.

First the flip:

Cindy McCain, the wife of 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, is making waves in a new video about the bullying of gay youth.

The Arizona senator’s wife criticizes unnamed “political and religious leaders” who tell lesbian, gay, bisexual and trangender youth “they have no future” and “can’t serve our country openly” in the video for the NOH8 campaign, which opposes California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage.

Here’s the video. Cindy McCain appears twice starting at about the 48 second mark sandwiched somewhere in between Slash, Tom Bergeron and Gene Simmons — an area usually reserved for groupies and/or funny videos of little kids hitting their dads in the crotch with a baseball bat:

Now the flop. After the “gays should serve openly” video came out, on Friday, Cindy McCain tweeted the following:

So gays should be able to serve openly just as long as nobody finds out?

Cindy must have gotten those mad flip-flop skills from watching her husband talk about border fences.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Up to now we’ve heard plenty of Democrats say they didn’t support the Obamacare bill (to the point that they’ve spent more money on anti-Obamacare ads than pro-Obamacare ads), or bragging that they didn’t vote with Nancy Pelosi X-amount of the time, but this is the first time I can recall that a Democrat candidate is admitting to voting for John McCain in 2008:

Conservative Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) said he voted for GOP Sen. John McCain for president in 2008, not Barack Obama.

The revelation by Taylor, an 11-term incumbent facing a tough reelection battle, is one of the most extreme examples yet of a Democrat distancing himself from his party’s unpopular leaders.

Taylor, who has been taking step after to step to highlight his independence from Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), told a reporter for The Sun Herald of South Mississippi about his secret ballot two years ago.

“I did not vote for Obama. I voted for Sen. McCain,” Taylor told reporter Maria Recio, she said in an interview with The Hill. “Better the devil you know.”

Now desperate Dems are referring to Obama as a “devil”? How far Hope has fallen.

Taylor voted against the stimulus boondoggle and against the health care double-boondoggle, so at least he’s earned his distance a little more than some of the others.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The open-borders lobby is out in full force, launching a week-long campaign yesterday to pass another illegal alien amnesty-by-another-name. DREAM Act activists and Hispanic lawmakers strategized with President Obama at the White House. The “undocumented students action and resource network” has been activated. How about you?

Keep track of where your lawmakers stand at NumbersUSA. As I noted the other day, several open-borders Republicans have supported the DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout in the past. Make sure they know where you stand.

Related: Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle roasts Reid’s illegal immigration lies.

***

Harry Reid’s illegal alien student bailout
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

The so-called DREAM Act would create an official path to Democrat voter registration for an estimated 2 million, college-age illegal aliens. Look past the public relations-savvy stories of “undocumented” valedictorians left out in the cold. This is not about protecting “children.” It’s about preserving electoral power through cap-and-gown
amnesty.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this week that he’s attaching the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill. With ethnic activists breathing down his neck and President Obama pushing to fulfill his campaign promise to Hispanics, Reid wants his queasy colleagues to vote on the legislation next week. Open-borders lawmakers have tried and failed to pass the DREAM ACT through regular channels for the last decade. That’s because informed voters know giving green cards to illegal alien students undermines the rule of law, creates more illegal immigration incentives, and grants preferential treatment to illegal alien students over law-abiding native and naturalized American students struggling to get an education in tough economic times. This bad idea is compounded by a companion proposal to recruit more illegal aliens into the military with the lure of citizenship (a fraud-ridden and reckless practice countenanced under the Bush administration).

DREAM Act lobbyists are spotlighting heart-wrenching stories of high-achieving teens brought to this country when they were toddlers. But instead of arguing for case-by-case dispensations, the protesters want blanket pardons. The broadly-drafted Senate bill would confer benefits on applicants up to age 35 and the House bill contains no age
ceiling at all. The academic achievement requirements are minimal. Moreover, illegal aliens who didn’t arrive in the country until they turned 15 – after they laid down significant roots in their home country – would be eligible for DREAM Act benefits and eventual U.S. citizenship. And like past amnesty packages, the Democrat plan is devoid of any concrete eligibility and enforcement mechanisms to deter already-rampant immigration benefit fraud.

The DREAM Act sponsors have long fought to sabotage a clearly worded provision in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) that states:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.” Ten states defied that federal law and offered DREAM Act-style tuition preference to illegal aliens: California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington. The last time the DREAM Act champions tried to tack their scheme onto a larger
immigration proposal, they snuck in language that would absolve those ten states of their law-breaking by repealing the 1996 law retroactively–and also offering the special path to green cards and citizenship for illegal alien students.

Despite the obvious electoral advantage this plan would give Democrats, several pro-illegal alien amnesty Republicans crossed the aisle to support the DREAM Act, including double-talking Sens. John McCain, Richard Lugar, Bob Bennett, Sam Brownback, Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, Larry Craig, Chuck Hagel, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Mel Martinez,
Olympia Snowe, and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (who champions even greater illegal alien student benefits than those proposed by Democrats). After paying lip service to securing the borders, McCain promised DREAM Act demonstrators this week that he supported the bill and would work to “resolve their issues.”

Out-of-touch pols might want to pay attention to the world outside their bubble. A recent Quinipiac University poll shows that Americans across the political spectrum favor tougher enforcement of existing immigration laws over rolling out the amnesty welcome wagon. When asked “Do you think immigration reform should primarily move in the
direction of integrating illegal immigrants into American society or in the direction of stricter enforcement of laws against illegal immigration?”, solid majorities of registered Republicans, Democrats and independents chose stricter enforcement over greater integration of the illegal alien population.

Democrats outside the Beltway have grown increasingly averse to signing on to illegal alien incentives — especially as the Obama jobs death toll mounts and economic confidence plummets. Here in Colorado, a handful of Democrats joined Republican lawyers to kill a state-level DREAM Act amid massive higher ed budget cuts and a bipartisan voter
backlash. Asked why she opposed the illegal alien student bailout, one Democrat lawmaker said quite simply: “I listened to my constituents.”

An alien concept in Washington, to be sure.

I have watched and listened to many establishment Republicans and TV talking heads deride GOP Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth as a “clown,” “charlatan,” and a “huckster.”

I have watched and listened to many purported “Tea Party” spokespeople and limited-government lobbyists defend entrenched GOP Senate incumbent John McCain as a “conservative” “hero” who will shrink government and defend our borders.

Hayworth was far from a perfect candidate. But there is no bigger clown, charlatan, and huckster Republican serving on Capitol Hill than four-term, 24-year Big Government fixture John McCain.

After burning through a whopping $21 million in campaign funds to hold on to his seat, McCain is poised to claim a primary election victory over Hayworth tonight.

Some victory.

To stave off Hayworth, the reborn conservative McCain not only had to throw $21 million down the drain. He had to thrown his own old “maverick” self off the bus, start talking like Tom Tancredo, appear on cable news non-stop, disavow all his good friends in the “Eastern press” whose approbation he thrives on in off-election years, and pander shamelessly to the grass-roots conservative base that he has despised, undermined, and spurned for more than two decades.

McLame stubbornly refused to admit his own individual responsibility for supporting the pre-socialization of the economy started under George W. Bush and continued under Obama. Fellow Republicans whitewashed McCain’s fiscal irresponsibility record, including his support for:

*The $700 billion all-purpose, earmark-stuffed TARP bailout;

*The $25 billion auto bailout;

*The $300 billion mortgage entitlement bailout; and

*The $85 billion AIG bailout; and

*The costly, intrusive, junk science-fueled Climate Change agenda.

McNasty attacked Hayworth with more verve and vitriol than he ever could muster up for that “decent man” that “you don’t have to be scared of” — Barack Obama.

The most notorious Johnny-come-lately on border security in Washington, McAmnesty couldn’t get enough of the very same fences he openly cursed in front of open-borders crowds.

His cynical embrace of Arizona’s SB1070 enforcement law fooled no one who is fully informed about his radical, sovereignty-sabotaging ties.

Flashback January 2008: Remember?

Shamnesty peddler John McCain taps former Mexican government official/shamnesty advocate Juan Hernandez as his presidential campaign Hispanic Outreach Director.

Hernandez is a fellow at McCain’s “Reform Institute.” What has he been working on there for the past year?

“Dr. Juan Hernandez serves as a Senior Fellow of the Institute’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform Initiative.”

That is: Shamnesty.

Among the immigration projects at McCain’s Reform Institute: An art contest in which students depicted their protests against a southern border fence.

The winner on the American side of the border?

Here:

The grand prize winner incorporated the specious open-borders propaganda comparing our fence to keep trespassers out to the Berlin Wall designed to wall people in:

Is this what McCain believes in his heart, too? No wonder he cursed the “goddamned fence.”

The Reform Institute is a tax-exempt, supposedly independent 501(c)(3) group, as Ed Morrissey noted two years ago, “that employs Rick Davis, who also works on McCain’s staff as his chief political advisor, and they pay him $110,000 per year. The Reform Institute has often supported McCain, paid for events highlighting him and his agenda, presumably including campaign finance reform.” The Reform Institute received $200,000 in donations from Cablevision…and McCain basically tried to intervene on Cablevision’s behalf by writing a letter to the FCC supporting its regulatory agenda. Morrissey noted at the time: “[T]he Reform Institute helps keep McCain’s staff gainfully employed between campaigns, allowing McCain to do less fundraising while retaining the best of the available talent. For instance, Carl Hulse and Ann Kornblut note that Rick Davis managed McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000 before founding Reform Institute. Now its president, he gets over $100,000 a year from RI for “consulting services”. That money allows Davis to remain available for McCain’s future campaigns, and the funding he raises for RI gives him inroads for building support.”

Yep. Which is exactly how it worked out. Davis is now McCain’s campaign manager.

Here’s the 990 form for the Reform Institute, filed in 2003, listing Davis and his “consulting fees:”

Who funded the Reform Institute, which boasts Juan “Think Mexico First” Hernandez as its resident amnesty fellow? The donor list is a who’s who of ultra left-wing, open borders elites. Again, via Ed Morrissey’s research:

* The Tides Foundation, which heavily promotes “reproductive justice”, giving over $500,000 to pro-abortion efforts. They also actively oppose the death penalty (so do I, FYI). John McCain opposes abortion and supports the death penalty, so why is his chief political advisor getting so much support from those who ostensibly oppose him?

* Educational Foundation Of America, which also supports abortion. EFA also opposes drilling in ANWR, an issue on which McCain has an ambivalent record. It also supports euthanasia and assisted suicide through the Death With Dignity National Center, a group which it gave $45,000. It gave $100,000 to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, which opposed the Yucca Mountain nuclear depository (McCain supported it), and opposes development of low-yield nuclear “bunker buster” bombs, which McCain supports.

In fact, EFA appears to contribute to just about every left-wing cause imaginable, as well as a number of noncontriversial charities and outreach efforts.

* The Proteus Fund, which also opposed the Yucca Mountain repository, spending $75K to stop it. That pales in comparison to the $935K they spent on supporting gay marriage initiatives, which McCain strongly opposes. They have also spent over $800,000 funding nuclear-disarmament and antiwar causes in each of the last two years. Their Security Policy Working Group contains nothing but left-of-center groups like Project on Defense Alternatives, which calls the Iraqi elections “faulty” and predicted disaster for the Bush administration’s “program of coercive transformation throughout the region.”

* OSI (Open Society Institute), founded and funded by George Soros. Among a litany of left-wing causes supported by OSI are People For The American Way, to support their Supreme Court Project. (Hint: It isn’t intended on assisting Bush get his nominees confirmed.) They also gave $150,000 to the Campaign Legal Center, which will be important shortly.

* David Geffen Foundation also shows up on the list, although not in the top tier. David Geffen is an entertainment-industry mogul who supports Democrats and left-wing causes. They do not have a website I could find, but Activistcash.com notes that in 2002, most of the grants Geffen gave went to environmental activists and the Tides Foundation and Tides Center.

Via Discover the Networks, you’ll see that Soros’s OSI is a key open borders funder–providing support to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; the National Immigration Law Center; the National Immigration Forum; the National Council of La Raza; and the American Immigration Law Foundation.

Remind me again which party’s presidential nomination John McCain is running for?

Alas, after years of McCain’s progressive Left dalliances, the Republican Party is still in the throes of McCain Regression Syndrome.

If there is any silver lining at all, it is that somewhere out there in Arizona are dissatisfied non-politicians — business owners, school board moms, taxpayer activists — who will jump into the public arena at the local and state level for the first time to fill the limited government leadership vacuum that has produced the GOP’s McCain Muddle.

Hurry, please.

***

Update: Big turnout in Florida. Hot Air has election night results.

Update: Turnout in Arizona is light. Voters are depressed by bad choices and political posturing.

Sigh. Indeed.

Update: Rick Scott wins GOP gubernatorial nomination. Rep. Kendrick Meek wins Democrat senate nomination. Marco Rubio clinches GOP senate nomination. More:

Nominating contests in five states — Vermont also was voting, and Oklahoma held GOP runoffs — highlighted dominant themes of this unpredictable election year, including anti-establishment anger and tea party challenges from the right. But the early results indicated that if there was a single pattern to the night, it was the lack of one.

…In big-name races elsewhere, Sens. John McCain and Lisa Murkowski counted on voters to reward political experience as they faced spirited Republican primary challenges in Arizona and Alaska 10 weeks before the general election.

Nominating contests in five states — Vermont also was voting, and Oklahoma held GOP runoffs — highlighted dominant themes of this unpredictable election year, including anti-establishment anger and tea party challenges from the right.

As the first polls of the night closed, Meek toppled Greene, a big-spending real estate tycoon whose links to boxer Mike Tyson and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss drew headlines, in the Democratic Senate nomination fight. The four-term congressman will compete against Republican Marco Rubio, who easily secured the GOP nod, and Gov. Charlie Crist, a former Republican who is running as an independent, in November.

Update 11:24pm Eastern McCain declared winner by AP, CNN — 30 point lead over Hayworth and Deakin. Won’t be long now before he starts trashing the Right again. 3, 2, 1…

Lovely: Meghan McCain taunts Hayworth…

Blogger Cubachi has the perfect comeback: “Meghan taunting JD. Funny how her dad lost to a community organizer in 2008. How ’bout them apples?”

Here is your emetic of the day, via The Hill:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday blamed the “Eastern press” for planting the idea he has changed his positions on key issues in recent months.

McCain dismissed the notion that he has tacked to the right on matters such as immigration and climate change in order to beat back a primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.

Asked by Politics Daily about comments his close friend and colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made about his move away from edgy past positions because “John’s got a primary. He’s got to focus on getting reelected,” McCain responded, “Lindsey knows that I don’t change in my positions.

“I have not changed in my positions. I know how popular it is for the Eastern press to paint me as having changed positions,” he said. “That’s not true. I know they’re going to continue to say it. It’s fundamentally false. Not only am I sure that they’ll say it, you’ll say it. You’ll write it. And I’ve just grown to accept that.”

Funny. McCain sure didn’t have a problem sucking up to the “Eastern press” — his real base — at his cozy backyard “thank you” barbecue for the elite media just a few short years ago.

Remember?

Straight talk from my non-Eastern blog about McCain’s motion sickness-inducing, election-year lurches on immigration and climate change speaks for itself:

Flashback: John McCain: Unrepentant Climate Change Republican

Flashback: Ugh: McCain & Company melting on cap-and-tax

Flashback: McCain’s “climate change” tour bypasses cooler heads

Flashback: McCain on offshore drilling: For it before he was against it before he was for it again; Update: McCain’s astounding flip-flop on windfall profits tax, plus a new global warming alarmist ad

Flashback: McCain and La Raza/The Race: A “serious lapse of judgment”

Flashback: John McCain gets away with his slippery, open-borders talk again

Flashback: The McCain camp sticks with Juan Hernandez, denies it torpedoed immigration enforcement bill

Flashback: John McCain: La Raza’s voice in Washington

Flashback: Meet the open borders family: McCain, Hernandez, Soros, and the “Reform Institute”

Flashback: McLame: All for his own maaaaaaverick-iness before he was against it

Flashback: Attention, GOP: John McCain is the problem

McCain has never admitted he was wrong about his support of:

*The $700 billion all-purpose, earmark-stuffed TARP bailout;

*The $25 billion auto bailout;

*The $300 billion mortgage entitlement bailout; and

*The first $85 billion AIG bailout.

His latest McLame-est excuse for supporting TARP? He was “misled.” Via the Arizona Republic:

Under growing pressure from conservatives and “tea party” activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government’s massive bailout of the financial system.

In response to criticism from opponents seeking to defeat him in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, the four-term senator says he was misled by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. McCain said the pair assured him that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would focus on what was seen as the cause of the financial crisis, the housing meltdown.

“Obviously, that didn’t happen,” McCain said in a meeting Thursday with The Republic’s Editorial Board, recounting his decision-making during the critical initial days of the fiscal crisis. “They decided to stabilize the Wall Street institutions, bail out (insurance giant) AIG, bail out Chrysler, bail out General Motors. . . . What they figured was that if they stabilized Wall Street – I guess it was trickle-down economics – that therefore Main Street would be fine.”

Nearly 15 months later, commercial lenders still are in shaky condition and the commercial real-estate industry is in trouble, he said. On Friday, President Barack Obama announced $1.5 billion in funding for new measures to help Arizona and four other states hit hard by the tanked housing market and by joblessness.

But McCain stopped short of calling the TARP a mistake.

“Something had to be done because the world’s financial system was on the verge of collapse,” he said. “Any economist, liberal or conservative, would agree with that. The action they took, I don’t agree with.”

All the warning signs and red flags about Henry Paulson’s incompetence and untrustworthiness were there before McCain joined the Chicken Little crowd. (See September 22, 2008, “Why Henry Paulson must be contained.”) Stalwart fiscal conservatives like GOP Rep. Mike Pence saw through the smokescreen and kept their heads. McCain’s trying to have it both ways — refusing to admit he was wrong, blaming crapweasel Paulson for duping him, and creating the illusion that he’ll be competent enough to resist the next inevitable bailout temptation when White House, Treasury, and Fed officials hit the panic button.

He blew it on TARP.

Blew it on the auto bailout.

Blew it on the mortgage entitlement bailout.

Blew it on the AIG bailout.

Blew it on amnesty.

Blew it on campaign finance.

Blew it on global warming.

In short: McCain blows.

I’ve already warned about McCain Regression Syndrome. The GOP hasn’t even begun to cure itself.

Flashback: John S. McCain, Will You Please Go Now?

Asked by a conservative constituent at a recent town hall meeting why the four-term senator deserved to be elected, McCain stammered before giving his best argument: He had more “standing” than anyone else. Entrenched incumbency is not an argument for more entrenched incumbency. Stop this ride. It’s time for McCain to get off.