did Mccain really have illeals doing contruction on his new Sedona home?
June 4th, 2007
did Mccain really have illeals doing contruction on his new Sedona home?
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Spotlite on Senator John Mccain home in Sedona in 2001?
June 4th, 2007
Spotlite on Senator John Mccain home in Sedona in 2001?
Spotlight on McCain
By RICHARD L. BERKE
Published: June 3, 2001
For the second time in about a week, Senator John McCain asserted today that he had no intention to bolt the Republican Party and run for president as an independent. All the while, some of his closest advisers floated that he, indeed, was mulling a third-party bid.
And they were hardly bashful about stoking speculation by spreading the word that Mr. McCain was playing host today to Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, at his cabin in Sedona, Ariz.
So what is Mr. McCain really up to?
Even President Bush wanted to know. He was so curious that knowledgeable Republicans said he called Mr. McCain today, presumably seeking reassurances that he was staying put.
Reached by telephone in Sedona, Mr. McCain said: ”I’ve said repeatedly that I have no intention of running for president nor do I have any intention or cause to leave the Republican Party. I hope this will put an end to further speculation.”
To the contrary, the speculation is only intensifying, and many Republicans say that is just what Mr. McCain wants.
Few Republicans expect Mr. McCain to defect, at least any time soon. But many think that at this precarious moment for Mr. Bush and for his party, which is still reeling from its loss of control of the Senate, Mr. McCain is doing his best to thrust himself onto center stage.
For all his denials, many Republicans argue that the whispers about Mr. McCain toying with an independent bid are intended to enhance the senator’s growing influence in the Senate and draw more attention to issues he is pushing, like the tightening of regulations for sales at gun shows and regulation of managed health care. He also could be trying to put Mr. Bush on notice that he had better sign his signature bill on campaign finance.
Marshall Wittmann, a scholar at the Hudson Institute who met with other McCain loyalists this week to discuss an independent bid, said he had not raised the possibility with Mr. McCain. But he noted that the senator has not told him or others to stop talking about the prospect.
And, he said, it can only help Mr. McCain politically to keep the threat alive. ”It makes both Republicans and Democrats feel that they have to pay attention to him,” Mr. Wittmann said. ”It may force Bush or the people around him to reconsider their neglect of the McCainiacs and the McCain phenomenon.”
After Senator James M. Jeffords caught his fellow Republicans off guard a week ago by deserting the party, Senate Republicans are extrasensitive to restless nonconformists.
”The Jim Jeffords move has caused a lot of discussion within the Senate that we need to encourage people to be willing to work and stay within the party,” said Senator Sam Brownback, a conservative from Kansas.
Beyond drawing more attention to his issues, many Republicans say Mr. McCain is trying to draw attention to himself. They argue that despite all the attention for his campaign finance package and the stroking he has received from Mr. Daschle and other Democrats, Mr. McCain has tense relations with many fellow Republicans and has felt incidental in a city that is dominated by Mr. Bush, the man who defeated him after a bitter struggle in last year’s primaries. Mr. McCain is finding that even the campaign finance legislation is now stalled in the House.
It is hardly a secret in the capital that Mr. McCain thrives on press attention and, in fact, built his presidential campaign on favorable publicity from the news media. When he identifies Mr. McCain, Paul Gigot, a conservative columnist for The Wall Street Journal, puts the word ”media” beside his name instead of ”Arizona.”
Mocking Mr. McCain, Alex Castellanos, a media consultant who is close to the White House, said: ”Last week there was another senator who was in the news more than John McCain, and we certainly can’t have that. He certainly doesn’t turn down opportunities to stand in front of the cameras and make news.”
Told of Republicans who grouse that he is a publicity hound, Mr. McCain said, ”I cannot respond.”
Yet there is a danger that Mr. McCain’s thirst for more respect will only further strain his relationships in the Republican Party.
”A number of people get quite irritable about discussions taking place,” Mr. Brownback said. ”We’re trying to work together cohesively, and some might think that this is pulling us apart rather than pulling us together.”
For all their talk, Mr. McCain’s aides and closest advisers are sharply divided over whether a third-party candidacy is even mechanically feasible because of the complexities of fund-raising and ballot access.
One McCain confidant noted that the senator was not a long-range planner but tended to be reactive and impulsive. ”I don’t think he’s going to leave the party imminently,” he said. But the adviser left open the prospect that Mr. McCain could become disaffected, and said his loyalists wanted to make sure that no options were prematurely closed.
William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard who promoted Mr. McCain during the primaries, said the viability of a third-party bid depended on how events unfold over the next few years.
”The truth is everything depends on the objective circumstances and the conditions that would make an independent candidacy possible,” he said. ”There would have to be an obviously failed Bush presidency and a liberal Congressional Democratic Party and a general sense that the two party agendas are exhausted and we need something new.”
Whatever his career trajectory, this much is assured about Mr. McCain: The speculation about his future is not about to simmer down. His loyalists will see to that.
