Just when you thought you’d heard it all, John McCain launches a radio spot announcing that “John McCain is leading the fight against President Obama every day.” The radio spot is part of McCain’s campaign against GOP primary opponent J.D. Hayworth. How to respond? On the one hand, taking ownership of the GOP’s leadership failure is nothing to brag about. On the other hand, his claims seem utterly ridiculous given his track record. In any case, his 2010 reelection bid begins to look as “desperate and nuts” as his 2008 presidential campaign.
McCain’s track record shows him to be a statist who is (at best) Obama Lite. He protects insolvent entitlement programs. McCain has supported cap-and-trade. He has advocated his own government healthcare takeover (of Medicaid). McCain has proposed massive federal bailouts (and federal purchases of toxic mortgages). He voted for the TARP financial bailout. McCain supported the AIG bailout. The list goes on and on. And, of course McCain is father of the McCain-Feingold (incumbency protection) restrictions on political speech.
McCain is the very poster boy for the GOP’s failed Senate leadership. Even as the center-right mobilizes against federal profligacy (prompting the retirement of various Washington politicians in the face of voter outrage), McCain and his ilk cluelessly muddle about like the upper middle class twit of the year. Thus, it seems only fitting that McCain takes ownership of their epic failure.
It remains to be seen whether Arizona’s GOP primary voters will respond to McCain’s radio campaign against Obama’s “left wing crusade to bankrupt America”. Hayworth will easily get the nod if voters recall McCain’s right wing crusade to do the same.
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