McCain 2008

John McCain has already unveiled his campaign plan over the past few weeks, Michael Scherer reports in Time . Here's how it looks on paper: Pull Obama off his pedestal. Mac is not “blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country," he has said—unlike, no doubt, a certain someone. More »

John McCain might trumpet his climate-change bona fides—and voters might be giving him credit—but the Republican candidate's true green colors are far more mixed, the Washington Post finds in a look at how he treats environmental issues. McCain wants a federal limit on greenhouse-gas emissions, but voted against higher fuel-efficiency standards and requiring public utilities to boost output from renewable sources. More »

John McCain is prepping for a smear campaign this summer while camp Obama, ever cool and controlled, awaits the first strike. "It's going to be Swift Boat times five on both sides," said one McCain adviser who expects Obama to return fire. McCain's challenge is to hit above the belt and not seem racist, while Obama needs to react fast without sparking endless fights, Newsweek reports. More »

Though he hasn’t yet clinched the nomination, Barack Obama indicated yesterday he was eager to campaign with John McCain and to hold joint town hall meetings with his Republican rival in the run-up to the election, Reuters reports. “I think that's a great idea," said Obama, referring to joint appearances. "Should I be the nominee, if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues with John McCain, that's something I'm going to welcome.” More »

While Democrats sparkle in the media glare, the Republican Party is quietly crumbling off-stage, Politico reports. President Bush’s numbers are lower than Richard Nixon’s before he resigned, and the GOP is losing House seats that it has held for 20 or 30 years. “The anti-Republican mood is fairly big, and it has been overwhelming,” said Michigan's GOP chairman. More »

Two actors from TV’s “West Wing” say John McCain did indeed claim at a party that he didn't vote for George Bush in 2000. The candidate angrily denied the charge when Arianna Huffington made it earlier this week, but now Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff are adding their voices to the mix. Days before Bush’s first inauguration, they say, the senator told a group of Hollywood liberals he’d bucked the GOP, the Washington Post reports. More »

John McCain fought successfully for a bill to swap an Arizona rancher’s remote forest holdings for expensive, development-ready federal land in a deal that benefits one of Mac’s biggest campaign fundraisers, the Washington Post reports. The 55,000-acre swap, said to be Arizona's biggest ever, led to a deal for Steve Betts, the McCain donor, to build 12,000 homes on the site. More »

John McCain has had the Republican nomination locked up for three months, and while the Democrats were busily duking it out, the Arizona senator was laying the groundwork for this fall's campaign—hiring new staff and stuffing the piggybank of a once-broke candidacy. As the Wall Street Journal writes, he has also tried to define his ideological stance: a reliable conservative, but at a distance from George W. Bush. More »

John McCain may be heading for his own preacher problems, but at least one of his problematic pastors is clamming up for now, Newsweek reports. John Hagee, who called Hurricane Katrina “the judgment of God,” and Catholicism a “false cult system,” recently answered a request for comment by saying, “It's better that I don't.” More »

Just about every political bigwig is calling the race for Barack Obama—but not the Democrat himself. "We've still got some work to do," he told CNN today, making sure to heap praise on Hillary Clinton. Asked whether she could be his running mate, he said it would be "presumptuous" to answer but noted, "Obviously, she'd be on anybody's short list." More »

After a career of sober-minded policy politics, Hillary Clinton let loose her inner populist pol in Indiana and North Carolina, Joe Klein writes, and, like much of the media, he thought the showmanship-over-substance (along with Obama's pastor problem) might pull it out for her. But that "shameless populism" proved not to be a game-changer after all. She lost the contest—and the race, he concludes in a Time cover story anointing Obama as the nominee. More »

Barack Obama is now the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination, writes Karl Rove, analyzing the presidential race for the Wall Street Journal. Clinton may still battle on, but there’s nothing Obama can or should do to stop her. Instead, he should focus on the general election where, by Rove’s count, he trails McCain in electoral votes 241-217. More »

John McCain did his best to catch Jon Stewart's curveballs on his 13th Daily Show appearance last night, Political Radar reports. In his first visit since the GOP field narrowed to one, McCain quickly quashed Stewart's suggestion of a McCain-Clinton ticket, but drew big applause when he announced his "real" choice for veep—uptight nut Dwight Schrute from The Office. More »

A "democratic recession" is threatening to roll back freedom around the globe, Thomas Friedman writes today in the New York Times. The high price of oil—which facilitates authoritarian rule—combined with the loss of US ability to effectively promote democracy means dictators have freer reign and freedom suffers, Friedman writes. More »

John McCain said after the 2000 election he hadn’t voted for George Bush, Arianna Huffington wrote yesterday, and the bombshell has provoked angry denials from the camp of the future GOP nominee, whom she once "admired and even loved." Firing back, the Huffington Post founder further details McCain’s “Shakespearean” fall from maverick status. More »

John McCain reached out to conservatives today, saying he would follow George Bush's lead in appointing judges, CNN reports. McCain drew sharp contrasts between his legal philosophy and that of both Democratic hopefuls before an audience in North Carolina. He specifically criticized Obama for voting against the confirmation of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, saying Obama favored "activist" judges who do not respect the constitution. More »

The so-called new GI bill, which would update the famed original to fund education for veterans, should be an obvious ‘Yea’ vote for any legislator, but, the New York Times ' Bob Herbert points out, John McCain and President Bush are fighting it. The bipartisan bill is “an investment” in the lives of veterans, and Herbert is flabbergasted the former POW is against it. More »

John McCain says he favors expelling Russia from the G8 and forming a "league of democracies" to confront Moscow about rights abuses. The Republican candidate has fallen in with hard-line advisers, spurning pragmatists who favor dialogue and taking a tougher approach than his Democratic rivals. As Dmitry Medvedev prepares to become president tomorrow, Bloomberg looks at what Russia can expect from a new American administration. More »

A New Hampshire man pushing for a federal-court ruling that John McCain isn't eligible to be president will have trouble making his case—but the question of McCain's status as a "natural born citizen" is uncharted legal territory, the Washington Post reports. The Senate voted this week to declare the Panama Canal Zone native eligible, but the measure was a nonbinding resolution. More »

The gas tax holiday backed by Hillary Clinton and John McCain will be DOA in the House, lawmakers have warned, reports the Hill . The measure has been left off House energy proposals that could be tacked onto the Iraq spending bill because "there’s no reason to believe that any moratorium on the gas tax would be passed on to the consumer," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. More »