WASHINGTON -- John McCain made a quick stop at the Capitol one day last spring to sit in on Senate negotiations on the big immigration bill, and John Cornyn was not pleased. Cornyn, a mild-mannered Texas Republican, saw a loophole in the bill that he thought would allow felons to pursue a path to citizenship.
McCain called Cornyn's claim "chicken-s---," according to people familiar with the meeting, and charged that the Texan was looking for an excuse to scuttle the bill. Cornyn grimly told McCain he had a lot of nerve to suddenly show up and inject himself into the sensitive negotiations.
"F--- you," McCain told Cornyn, in front of about 40 witnesses.
It was another instance of the Republican presidential candidate losing his temper, another instance where, as POW-MIA activist Carol Hrdlicka put it, "It's his way or no way."
There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: McCain pushing a woman in a wheelchair, trying to get an Arizona Republican aide fired from three different jobs, berating a young GOP activist on the night of his own 1986 Senate election and many more.
McCain observers say the incidents have been blown out of proportion. "I've never seen anything in the way of an outburst of temper that struck me as anything out of the ordinary," said McCain biographer Robert Timberg . "Those reports are overstated," said Rives Richey, who attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va ., with McCain in the early 1950s.
Historians point out that it's not unusual for a president to have a fierce temper, but most knew how to keep it under control. "Harry Truman wrote scathing letters, but he almost never sent them," said author Robert Dallek . "George Washington spent a lifetime trying to control his temper," added historian Richard Norton Smith . But Washington didn't have YouTube replaying videos of his tantrums, nor did he have to make decisions about nuclear weapons.
HE WAS FEISTY
At age 2, McCain's tantrums were so intense that he'd hold his breath for a few minutes and pass out. His parents would dunk him in cold water to "cure" him, he wrote in his memoir, "Faith of My Fathers ." "I have spent much of my life choosing my own attitude, often carelessly, often for no better reason than to indulge a conceit," he wrote. He conceded that some of his actions have been embarrassing, and "others I deeply regret."
He was a tough little guy. At Episcopal High , he was a 114-pound wrestler classmates called "Punk" and "McNasty." Richey, though, noted that such monikers weren't unusual in those days. "There was a tremendous amount of sarcasm in the way we talked to each other at Episcopal," he recalled. "That's the way we all talked to each other." McCain, Richey said, "was not looking for a fight. He was feisty."
McCain entered the Naval Academy in 1954, and he was popular, the leader of a group that Timberg described as the Bad Bunch, known largely for its ability to have a good time. Malcolm Matheson , who knew McCain at Episcopal High and stayed friendly with him in college, said his buddy had no trouble controlling his temper in those days. "He was a little guy, but he was tough, and no bully ever got in his face," Matheson said.
But as McCain ascended in politics, he began to acquire a reputation for hotheadedness. On election night 1986, then- Arizona Republican Party executive director Jon Hinz recalled, McCain was unhappy, even angry, even though he'd just won a U.S. Senate seat and his party had just made a virtually unprecedented sweep of state offices.
McCain had hoped that night would help launch him as a national figure. Instead, when the 5-foot-9 senator-elect spoke at the Phoenix victory party, the podium was too tall. "You couldn't see his mouth," Hinz said.
A furious McCain sought out Robert Wexler , the Young Republican head in charge of arrangements. "McCain kept pointing his finger in Wexler's chest, berating him," Hinz recalled. The 6-foot-6 Hinz stepped between them and told McCain to cut it out. "I told him I'll make sure there's an egg crate around next time," he said. McCain walked away angrily.
About a year later, McCain reportedly erupted again, this time at a meeting with Arizona's then-Gov. Evan Mecham , who was about to be impeached after being indicted on felony charges. Karen Johnson , then Mecham's secretary and now an Arizona state senator, recalled how McCain told Mecham that he was "causing the party a lot of problems" and was an embarrassment to the party.
"Sen. McCain got very angry," Johnson recalled, "and I said, 'Why are you talking to the governor like this? You're causing problems yourself. You're an embarrassment.' " Johnson would go on to work at three different jobs over the next five years, and she said that each time, McCain would contact her boss and try to get her removed.
The McCain campaign didn't respond to repeated requests for comment.
LOSING HIS COOL
When John McCain came to the Senate in 1987, he quickly got two reputations: a Republican who'd do business with Democrats on tough issues and an impatient senator who was often gruff and temperamental.
In January, Sen. Thad Cochran , R-Miss., told The Boston Globe that, "the thought of (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." (Cochran has since endorsed McCain.) Added Sen. Christopher Bond , R-Mo., who has a long list of vociferous, sometimes personal disagreements with McCain, "His charm takes a little getting used to." (Bond, too, supports him.)
Democrats are less guarded. "There have been times when he's just exploded, " said Sen. Tom Harkin , D- Iowa . "Look, around here, people lose their tempers once in a while. But it doesn't happen very often, and it usually happens in some contextual framework. A lot of times there's just not much of a contextual framework for his blowing up."
John Raidt worked for McCain more than 15 years. "Yeah, he could get prickly," he said. "Sometimes that's exactly what's needed to move an issue or get attention. I think he uses it as a tool."
Stories abound on Capitol Hill: How McCain told Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici , R-N.M., how "only an a-hole" would craft a budget like he did. Or the time in 1989 when he confronted Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama , then a Democrat and now a Republican, because Shelby had promised to vote for McCain friend John Tower as secretary of defense, and then Shelby voted against Tower.
McCain later wrote how, after the vote, he approached Shelby "to bring my nose within an inch of his as I screamed out my intense displeasure over his deceit . . . the incident is one of the occasions when my temper lived up to its exaggerated legend."
Cochran recalled earlier this summer that he saw McCain manhandle a Sandinista official during a 1987 diplomatic mission in Nicaragua . Cochran told the Biloxi Sun Herald that McCain was talking, and, "I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever."
McCain said the incident never took place. "I must say, I did not admire the Sandinistas much," he told a news conference. "But there was never anything of that nature. It just didn't happen." Former Kansas Sen. Robert Dole , who led the mission, couldn't be reached to comment.
Back in Washington, families of POW-MIAs said they have seen McCain's wrath repeatedly. Some families charged that McCain hadn't been aggressive enough about pursuing their lost relatives and has been reluctant to release relevant documents. McCain himself was a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years during the Vietnam War.
In 1992, McCain sparred with Dolores Alfond , the chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen and Women, at a Senate hearing. McCain's prosecutor-like questioning of Alfond -- available on YouTube -- left her in tears.
Four years later, at her group's Washington conference, about 25 members went to a Senate office building, hoping to meet with McCain. As they stood in the hall, McCain and an aide walked by. Six people present have written statements describing what they saw. According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away Jeannette Jenkins , whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in 1970, causing her to hit a wall.
As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor , the mother of another missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain. "McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him," according to Eleanor Apodaca , the sister of an Air Force captain missing since 1967.
McCain's staff wouldn't respond to requests for comment about specific incidents. But Mark Salter , a longtime McCain aide who functions as the senator's alter ego and the co-author of his books, said that, "McCain gets intense, and intent on his argument." His blowups with senators often result from colleagues being accustomed to deference, he said. "A lot of these guys aren't used to that," Salter said, so they get annoyed when a peer gets emotional.
McCain's presidential campaign has tried to use his reputation to its advantage; in an early television ad, McCain said: "I didn't go to Washington to win the Mr. Congeniality award . . . . I love America. I love her enough to make some people angry."
CAN HE CONTROL IT?
There's no easy way to judge whether McCain's temper would make him a risky president. "Yeah, he has a temper," said Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden , the Democratic vice-presidential nominee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman. "It's obvious. You've seen it. But is John whatever his opposition painted him to be, this unstable guy who came out of a prisoner or war camp not capable of (acting rationally)? I don't buy that at all."
Independent experts have some concerns about McCain's irascibility. "Diplomacy is not often dealing with reasonable people," said Steve Clemons , an analyst at the New America Foundation , a centrist public policy group. "In the nuclear age, you don't want someone flying off the handle, so it's a critical question: Can McCain control his temper?" asked Thomas De Luca , professor of political science at Fordham University in New York .
History is an inexact guide, because little evidence is available tying temper to action. Richard Norton Smith has found that according to Tobias Lear , George Washington's secretary, "few sounds on earth could compare with that of George Washington swearing a blue streak." On the other hand, Smith said, Washington could control himself. "One reason George Washington is this cold-blooded marble figure is that he became expert in controlling his temper," he said.
Other presidents have similar histories. Thomas Jefferson, Smith said, could be a "red-faced chief executive throwing his hat on the floor before stomping on it." Truman had his angry letters, and one that got out showed quite a temper. "It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful," Truman wrote Washington Post music critic Paul Hume in 1950, after Hume had panned first daughter Margaret Truman's singing performance. Added the angry father, "Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes and perhaps a supporter below!" Bill Clinton's infamous red-faced tirades tended to be endured by staffers in the privacy of the White House rather than public displays.
The important question, Dallek said, is whether and how McCain controls his outbursts. Though his aides insist that his temper is simply a way of expressing passion -- and that he sometimes uses it for effect -- some observers remain concerned. "It seems the only way to deal with John McCain is to think the way he does," said Hinz, the former Arizona GOP official who now runs an insurance reform advocacy group in Phoenix . "If he gets more power, what's going to make him suddenly become a fuzzy, nice guy?"
How the Democrats Can Blow It ... in Six Easy Steps
By Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com
For years now, nearly every poll has shown that the American people are right in sync with the platform of the Democratic Party. They are pro-environment, pro-women's rights and pro-choice. They don't like war. They want the minimum wage raised, and they want a single-payer universal health-care system. The American public agrees with the Republican Party on only one major issue: They support the death penalty. So you would think the Democrats would be cleaning up, election after election. Obviously not. The Democrats appear to be professional losers. They are so pathetic in their ability to win elections, they even lose when they win! So when you hear Democrats and liberals and supporters of Barack Obama say they are worried that John McCain has a good chance of winning, they ain't a-kidding. Who would know better than the very people who have handed the Republicans one election after another on a silver platter? Yes, be afraid, be very afraid. In an effort to help the party doofuses and pundits -- and the candidate himself -- spare all of us another suicide-inducing election night, as the results giving the election to the Republican pour in, here is the blueprint from the Democrats' past losing campaigns. Just follow each of these steps and you, the Democratic Party establishment, can help elect John Sidney McCain III to a four-year extension of the Bush Era:
1. Keep saying nice things about McCain. Like how he's been "good on global warming" and campaign finance. Keep reminding a country at war that he and he alone is a war hero. Not to mention an all-round good guy. Say that enough and what happens? The same thing that happens when you repeat over and over, "Apply directly to the forehead" - people start to believe it! You've sold them on the idea that McCain isn't a bad egg, and they do not hear the rest of what you have to say: "But John McCain is four more years of George W Bush." If you keep saying he used to be a "maverick", our less-attention-span citizens hear only the "maverick" part, not the past tense verb included in that sentence. This is not to say you should in any way demean John McCain as a human being or as an American. Disagreeing strongly with his policies or the direction he would lead the country is not the same as denigrating him as a person. This particular style of politics is the cesspool that the Right and the Republican Party apparatus swim in. We do not further our agenda by imitating them. Fight, fight back, and fight hard - but fight clean. It's ultimately what I believe the majority of Americans would like to see. There is also nothing wrong with saying nice things about McCain's constituency, and you should. We want to hold out our hand to people who have voted for Republicans in the past. Many of them are tired, a good number are disgusted. They won't agree with a lot of what we stand for, but they've had it up to here with the Republicans and we should make sure our tent is big enough to welcome them in. So if you want to help elect McCain, keep blessing him as if he were the white knight who accidentally hopped on the wrong horse. Forget to continually point out that he is truly up to no good. Keep pulling your punches. Don't remind people McCain wants to help the oil companies even more than Bush did. Don't bring up that he wants to outlaw all abortion. Back away from painting McCain as the guy who thinks it's a good idea to stay in Iraq until pigs fly. That way, if you keep praising him, you can send a mixed message to the less-informed who are simply not going to figure it out. When they walk into a voting booth, they will see two names on the ballot: � Barack Obama � War Hero Trust me, this ain't Sweden. War Hero wins every time.
2. Have Obama pick a vice-presidential candidate who is a conservative white guy, or a general, or a Republican. Yes, it will seem like smart politics at first. Shore up Obama's lack of military experience with a hawk. Be true to Obama's message that he'll be a president for everybody by having him run with a Republican. Make a pitch to the purple states of Virginia and Indiana to vote Democratic this time by putting one of their own on the ticket. Or swing for the fences and make the red state of Ohio happy by handing the vice-presidential slot to its governor. But by doing any of this, you will upset the base that not only must come out on election day, it must also be active and work dozens of hours during the campaign. They have to personally bring 10 people each to the polls with them if we are to avoid the disasters of the past two elections. Many won't do this extra work if Obama picks the wrong Veep. It will suck the air out of the balloon in a big way. Obama electrified the nation on the notion of change and hope and a fresh direction in Washington. If he picks a running mate who screams "Same old same old", it will make it harder for him to attract all the new voters he needs to bring to the polls to win. Remember there are nearly 100 million adults who choose not to vote. That is a large base from which to draw millions of new votes. Obama should not desert a strategy that has worked well for him. There is nothing wrong with picking someone who can help him win a swing state or someone who has more experience than he does in certain areas. But when I hear pundits say, "He has to pick a Catholic", well, John Kerry was a total Catholic and the Catholic vote went to Mr W. I mean, here's one of the largest groups in the country - 66 million Catholics - and they/we have allowed only one Catholic to be president in 208 years. You would think they would have been flocking to Kerry in 2004. That is not the way people think. It is the way pundits think. Keep listening to them and you can help elect John McCain the next president of the United States.
3. Keep writing speeches for Obama like the one in front of the American Israeli lobbying group the day after the final primaries. Here's what he said: "The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat." And: "Let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel. Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation." Sounds like a speech McCain would give. Sounds like he's ready to invade Iran. He staked out an even worse position for the Palestinians vis-a-vis Jerusalem than the one held by George W Bush. Keep that up and more and more supporters will be less and less enthused. It will be harder to keep the base motivated if they continue to hear how Obama wants to expand Bush's "faith-based" initiatives, doesn't have a health plan that covers everyone, and wants to send more troops to Afghanistan. The implied message of this is that the Republican plan is a good plan. So why would voters want to elect the candidate imitating the Republican when they can get the real thing? Talk like this gets McCain elected.
4. Forget that this was a historic year for women. Obama should be making a speech about gender like the brilliant one he gave on race back in March. Millions of people, especially women, had high hopes for the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Attention must be paid. And you don't pay attention to it by having your advisers run your wife through the makeover machine, trying to soften her up and pipe her down. Michelle Obama has been one of the most refreshing things about this election year. But within weeks of the end of the primary season, the handlers stepped in to deal with the "Michelle problem." What problem? She speaks her mind? She wears what she wants? Her biggest sin, according to the punditocracy, was to say that, as a black woman, this may be the first time in her adult life she's been really proud of her country. Shock! Surprise! Outrage! But not from any of the black women I know. You have to be white and stupid to not know what she was really saying. If you don't understand, let me ask you this: Have you been proud of what this country has been doing in the past few years? Are you proud your neighbors had their house taken from them? Are you proud to be sending a good chunk of your paycheck to the oil companies so they can post record profits? Are you proud to know your vice president outed one of our spies and put her life and the lives of others at risk? That's all she was saying -- what we are all feeling. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both lost the white-male vote but won the White House. They did so by winning the black, Hispanic and female vote. That HAS to be Obama's strategy to win. Otherwise, Cindy McCain will be our new First Lady.
5. Show up to a gunfight with a peashooter. Convince yourself that the Republicans are just going to roll over and play dead because there is simply no life left in their party. Convince yourself this one is in the bag! Convince yourself that if you play by the rules, the Republicans will too. And when McCain and his people roll out their nuclear arsenal on you, just go all sweet and sensitive and logical. Believe that the truth shall prevail, that good people will see what the Republicans are up to. As they smear you, your family, your religious beliefs -- cower, back down, go on the defensive. If they say you should quit your church, quit your church! If they explode over your speaking the truth about the anger and despair of the white working class, take it all back! If they ask you to stand on your head and do the hokeypokey, snap to it and do it with a smile on your face -- and don't forget to apologize for not doing the hokeypokey earlier; you meant no disrespect, and please don't take it as any indication that you do not love your country, your flag and your Christian God. Do all of that and then listen for that sound -- the sound of your supporters shuffling away in silence. They'll stop showing up at campaign headquarters. They'll say they're too busy to go on another door-to-door literature drop. On Election Day, they'll do their duty and vote, but they will not be up at 6 a.m. driving around the city's neighborhoods, picking up strangers who need a ride to the polls. And on the way to the polls, some of them might just come to a stoplight, turn around and go home. Maybe they'll pick up a six-pack on the way. Maybe there's a new episode of Deal or No Deal on tonight. That would be nice. The girls are pretty, especially the blonde in the third row. Wait, they're all blond. No, not that one -- THAT one! Oh yes, I see her. She is pretty. But the Man in the Booth has picked up the phone! He's calling down to you. Deal? Or no deal? No deal! No deal! Don't do it! Hey, I'm outta beer! Why didn't I pick up a case? Now I gotta spend eight bucks on gas to go buy more beer! Aaaaarrrggggghhhhhh!!!! HOWIE MANDEL ISN'T WEARING A FLAG PIN!! U-S-A! U-S-A!
6. Denounce me! Obama, at some point, might be asked this question: "Michael Moore has endorsed you. But he recently said (fill in the blank with some outrageously offensive line taken out of context). Will you still accept his endorsement, or do you denounce him?" And he better denounce me, or they will tear him to shreds. He had better back away not only from me but from anyone and everyone who veers a bit too far to the left of where his advisers have told him is the sweet spot for all those red-state voters. I won't take it personally. After all, I'm not the guy who married him or baptized his kids. I'm just the idiot who went to the same terrorist, Muslim school of flag-pin desecrators he went to. I remember poor John Kerry not even being able to admit, when asked by Larry King, if he had seen Fahrenheit 9/11. "No," he said, "I haven't. . . . I don't plan to, right now." But he had indeed seen it. I sat there watching him say this, and I just felt sorry for him and for the election he was about to lose. We can't take four more years of this madness, Barack. We need you to be a candidate who will fight back every time they attack you. Actually, don't even wait till you have to fight back. Fight first! Show some vision and courage and smoke them out. Keep asking why these lobbyists are McCain's best friends. Let's finally have a Democrat who's got the balls to fire first. So Barack, by denouncing me, you can help McCain get elected. Because when you denounce me, it's not really me you're distancing yourself from -- it's the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way about things as I do. And many of them are the kind of crazy voters who have no problem voting for a Nader just to prove a point. Elections have been lost by just 537 votes. I don't want that to happen to you.
From the forthcoming book "Mike's Election Guide," by Michael Moore. Copyright � 2008 by Michael Moore. Michael Moore is an Academy award-winning filmmaker and author of "Mike's Election Guide." � 2008 MichaelMoore.com All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/94843/
ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports from Capitol Hill: The McCain campaign criticism of Sen. Barack Obama's hearing record on Capitol Hill led us to put the shoe on the other foot.
It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama's one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee's six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years.
Meanwhile, Obama attended the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Afghanistan in March 2007, although he used the opportunity to ask Gen. James L. Jones, then the commander of NATO, about Pakistan.
Jones also came before the Senate Armed Services Committee that week. But McCain was a no-show.
The findings are surprising given the fact that the McCain campaign loudly criticized Obama this week for failing to schedule any hearings on Afghanistan in the last year and a half. Obama chairs the European Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has oversight of military operations in Afghanistan.
"As the situation in Afghanistan grows more tense, it is time for us to hold a hearing on the mission there," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a McCain surrogate and ranking member of Obama's subcommittee wrote in a letter to the Illinois senator. "The success of Afghanistan is critical to the future of NATO and vital to our efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban."
Of the three Afghanistan-related hearings that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has had over the past 22 months, Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate, has only attended one.
Meanwhile, DeMint, who most recently attacked Obama over Afghanistan, didn't attend any. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, missed one of the Afghanistan hearings too -- while he was in the midst of his own presidential campaign.
A review of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings as listed on the committee Web site for the past two years reveals that McCain's committee has held six hearings that included the word "Afghanistan" in the title or Central Command -- which overseas U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
McCain missed them all.
He missed the hearings with Adm. William Fallon, then the CentCom commander, with authority over Afghanistan, on March 4, 2008, and May 3, 2007.
There was also hearing on June 7, 2007, on the nomination of Gen. Douglas Lute to be the White House war czar with oversight over Afghanistan.
Gen. Jones testified before the Armed Services Committee on Sept. 6, 2007, but that hearing was on Iraq and while McCain showed up late for his opening statement, he was there.
But he missed the hearing on Afghanistan strategy Feb. 14 with representatives from the State Department and Marine Lt. Gen. John Sattler.
He also missed the hearing April, 10, 2008 on the war in Iraq and the "situation in Afghanistan" where Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen both testified.
McCain also missed the Feb. 6, 2008 hearing where the committee considered the fiscal year request for authorizations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But McCain gets a pass for the most egregious Afghanistan-related hearing we could find. In February, 2006 when Republicans were in charge of Congress, Gen. Jones testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and only two senators -- both Republicans -- showed up.
Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., were the only senators who spoke at the hearing. No Biden. No Dodd. No Obama. No DeMint, although to be fair he was not on the committee at that time.
The finger pointing about who attended what hearing when seems besides the point anyways.
Both men have been AWOL from their day jobs for most of the past two years while they are running for president.
Update: McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers, in a statement to ABC News, argued that McCain's years of previous foreign policy experience make up for his recent lack of attendance at hearings.
"The point is that Obama claims to be a leader on Afghanistan, but had the power to hold hearings on our NATO operations there and failed to do so," wrote Rogers in an e-mail, although he did not say why McCain missed his own Armed Services Committee hearings over the past two years.
"John McCain has visited Afghanistan four times, spent 22 years in the military, served for years on the Armed Services Committee, and is a recognized international leader on national security policy," he said. "Obama has never visited Afghanistan once before this week and has no other foreign policy or national security experience to speak of. It isn't even close."
The training will be conducted by Paul Scully, a national expert on leadership development and organizing who works with the Gamaliel Foundation. The Gamaliel Foundation is the organizing institute with which Barack Obama got his start in Chicago , and our training will be an adaptation of the " Camp Obama " trainings that Mr. Scully conducted in New York , New Jersey and Chicago for the Obama campaign. The training will focus on two key areas. The first area of focus is leadership perspectives. The training will challenge attendees to be clear about their self-interest and to value relationships as a means to build power and live their values. The second area of focus is how to organize. Attendees will learn how to recruit people to participate in activities by recognizing other peoples' self-interest and building public relationships through an organizing technique called the "one-to-one." The training will also discuss the elements of a powerful organization, emphasizing planning, reflection and effective meetings.
The training session will be held at Cheney University's Harris Turner Amphitheater. The Amphitheater is located at 1837 University Circle , Cheney , PA 19319 . Lunch will be provided, and the session will start promptly at 9am. Jonathan Schmidt, the Volunteer Coordinator for the Delaware County Democratic Party, is organizing the training.
On Monday, John McCain's campaign released a statement signed by 300 economists who "enthusiastically support" his "Jobs for America" economic plan. There's just one problem.
Politico reports, "Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don't actually support the whole of McCain's economic agenda. And at least one doesn't even support McCain for president."
In interviews with several signatories, Politico found that, "far from embracing McCain's economic plan, many were unfamiliar with—or downright opposed to—key details. While most of those contacted by Politico had warm feelings about McCain, many did not want to associate themselves too closely with his campaign and its policy prescriptions."
"Because in the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk. It's a matter of gauging your opponents, and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility."
General Clark- CBS 'Face the Nation'- Sunday, June 30, 2008
We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.
"Fear is the reason this country is where it is today. Fear is a useless emotion. Don't ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility. Make decisions based on what should happen, not what shouldn't. Don't ever make decisions based on fear."
Well, I’ll tell you that John McCain then would be pretty disappointed with John McCain now, because he hired some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run his campaign. And when he was called on it, his top lobbyists actually had the nerve to say, ‘The American people won't care about this.’ Well, I think the American people do care about it and I know they have a clear choice in this election: we can either have a election in which we are taking on the root causes of special interests dominated politics in Washington or we can ignore the problem and we can wake up four years from now and still be talking about an energy crisis and still be talking about a health care crisis and still be talking about a tax code that's not fair to you. I don't want to wake up that way, neither do you. That’s a choice we’ve got in this election. We’re going to change how politics is done in Washington.
Yes, we know what’s coming. We’ve seen it already. The same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn’t agree with all their ideas. The same efforts to distract us from the issues th at affect our lives by pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy in the hope that the media will play along. The attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences to turn us against each other for pure political gain " to slice and dice this country into Red States and Blue States; blue-collar and white-collar; white and black, and brown.
This is what they will do " no matter which one of us is the nominee. The question, then, is not what kind of campaign they’ll run, it’s what kind of campaign we will run. It’s what we wil l do to make this year different. I didn’t get into race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for President because this is the time to end it.
We will end it this time not because I’m perfect " I think by now this campaign has reminded all of us of that. We will end it not by duplicating the same tactics and the same strategies as the other side, because that will just lead us down the same path of polarization and gridlock.
We will end it by telling the truth " forcefully, repeatedly, confidently" and by trusting that the American people will embrace the need for change.
Because that’s how we’ve always changed this country " not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up; when you " the American people " decide that the stakes are too high and the challenges are too great.
-Barack Obama, Raleigh NC, May 6, 2008
Posted May 5, 2008 | 08:52 PM (EST)
Lawrence O’Donnell
Bill Clinton raised the gas tax and no one in the political press seems to remember that, including George Stephanopoulos, who helped him do it.
Most political reporters obviously have no idea that in his first year in office President Bill Clinton raised the gas tax. He did it in a package of tax increases that amounted to the biggest tax increase in history, and after a presidential campaign whose centerpiece was a middle class tax cut that he forgot about once in office.
If reporters knew that President Clinton raised gas taxes by 4.3 cents, they would be peppering Hillary and Bill with questions about the Clinton gas tax hike like, if you think gas taxes are too high now, are you in favor of repealing the Clinton nickel?
Bill Clinton actually wanted a much higher gas tax within the structure of a new BTU tax on every form of energy we use, but a 4.3 cent increase in the gas tax was all that we could squeeze out of Congress. I say we because I was the chief of staff of the Senate Finance Committee where I helped strategize its passage by one vote. It passed the House and Senate by one vote. Many Democrats in Congress lost their jobs in the next election because of that vote -- a vote Bill Clinton begged them to cast.
I was sure that when Stephanopoulos got his chance to grill Hillary about her proposed temporary cut in gas taxes, he would bring up the Clinton nickel. But, no, not a word about it. And, of course, Barack Obama's lame TV commercial responding to Hillary's TV commercial attacking his elitist position on the gas tax does not mention the Clinton nickel. Hillary says she wants to give drivers a three month 18 cent a gallon cut in the gas tax after her husband forced drivers to pay an extra nickel per gallon for fifteen years and gets away with it because no one remembers the Clinton nickel. Anyone who votes for Clinton in order to save 18 cents per gallon for 3 months should not let her stop there; they should demand that she repeal the Clinton nickel. And then we'll find out if her pandering knows no bounds.
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Will_Hillary_Repeal_the_Clinton_Gas_Tax
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/will-hillary-repeal-the-c_b_100261.html
