Highlights of John McCain’s Latest Conference Call With Bloggers

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

JOHN MCCAIN

A few moments ago, John McCain completed another conference call with bloggers. Selected highlights:

“We’re pleased with the results last night… we won Maryland by 20, and we still won by 9 despite bad weather in Northern Virginia. I see we won the majority of “conservatives,” but not “very conservatives.” But a nine point win is quite good. Governor Huckabee and I had a nice conversation; he’s staying in the race, and I respect that decision.”

“I had a good meeting with Republican members of the House today – the leadership endorsed my candidacy. I pledged to contest every state, all 50 of them. I pledged to help them regain the majority. It’s another step in the process, like the Senate lunch yesterday, it’s another step in uniting the party… I realize I have work to do. Sometimes it takes us a while to unite, but I’m confident that we will.”

“There will be stark differences between myself and Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, and I began to talk about that last night. They want government to run health care, I want families ot make choices on health care.

“Yesterday got a call from [South Carolina Sen.] Lindsey Graham in Baghdad – the parliament achieved three goals yesterday – they passed $48 billion budget, passed a provincial election law, and passed a limited amnesty* bill. We’ve been asking the Iraqi government to do that. The same people who saidteh surge wouldn’t work said the Iraqi government would never do this. Harry Reid declared the war lost, and obviously we’re winning. We are defeating al-Qaeda, but they are not completely defeated yet.”

“We’re heading to Vermont and Wisconsin, and will be campaigning through March 4 states.”

*Baathist amnesty, not illegal immigrant amnesty.

Jen Rubin: FISA vote, and Obama’s judgment?

McCain: I can tell you there are dramatic differences in our views. He’s been endorsed by MoveOn.org, same organization that ran the Petraeus ad. It indicated where he is. He was wrong when he called for immediate withdrawal and timetable for Iraq. He was wrong when he said we could not win militarily.**

(** Somewhere, Mitt Romney is saying, ‘Barack, you’re in trouble. That’s his signature move, and in your case, its actually true.’)

According to National Journal he’s the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate.

I won’t make a comment on whether he has the judgment to be president. I’ll just say that if you had any expectation to get cooperation, you had to give them… when the government goes to private enterprise and says, ‘we want you to help us in the war on terror,’ should it astonish anyone that they cooperated?

Matt Lewis: Is it fair to say to Huckabee at this point, if you want to be in this administration, it’s time to leave the race?

McCain: I respect him, I like him, and if he wants to continue, I won’t say anything but that I will treat you with respect. The tenor of the campaign I think we can both be proud of. I will not try to dissuade him.

Sanford or Coburn for veep?

McCain: I’d like to start a process. I have greatest respect for those men. both of whom I’ve had the honor of knowing for many years, two great conservatives. It's hard to say who would be in the mix.

Robert Bluey: Waxman has sworn off earmarks. What will you do?

McCain: I will veto any bill that has earmarks. We had that discussion this morning. I’ll be happy towork with people on how to eliminate them. They have a task force, headed by Jeb Hensarling working on some recommendations. At the end of the day, I will veto those earmarks.

Responding to an earlier comment about continuing to do the blogger calls, even now that he’s the presumptive nominee: “I’ll never forget you guys were the only ones who would listen to me. You think I’m going to bail on you now?”

Me: Senator, congratulations on your recent wins. I realize you’ll probably say it’s early to think about running mates, but have you or your campaign staff put any thought into how you want the search process to work? Have you thought about how you want to go about winnowing the candidates?

McCain: I have not, we’ve been so busy. I think what I will do if I get the nomination — I’m a superstitious guy, so I don’t want to refer to something that hasn’t happened yet - I would look at the processes used in other campaigns, and look at ones that made good selections that ones that made bad selections. You and I know the basic outlines of this - you get the list together, and talk to the people – it’s a pretty standard process. I haven’t gotten into it yet — not only because I’m superstitious, but because there’s no reason to start that process yet. And if we got into conversation about vice presidential selection, that would be disrespectful to Governor Huckabee.

Ed Morrissey: If anyone makes a film of your campaign, it should be George Romero, because you’re back from the dead... What’s the response from CPAC?

McCain: Gary Bauer came on two days ago… People get passionate in primaries and it takes a while for people to recover.

I fully understand unless we have a united party, we’re not going to win this election.

Michael Goldfarb: Prosecution of detainees at Gitmo? if they’re sentenced to death, would you have any concerns?

McCain: I would not have concerns. I rely to a large degree on my firend Lindsey Graham, who is a JAG lawyer, who has been intensely involved in this process. These individuals do not deserve the process that a citizen of the United States would have. We didn’t have them in Nurmberg trials, or in trials of Japanese war crimes, either.

The sooner I can start defining the differences between the Democratic candidates and me, the better.

Several times McCain lamented candidates who talk in ‘platitudes,’ (never mentioning Obama, but we can draw our own conclusions) and quickly contrasted it with his own ‘straight talk.’

02/13 12:08 PM Share