McCain runs into trouble in the Sunshine State

June 6, 2008

By any reasonable measure, Florida and its 27 electoral votes are going to be pretty important on Election Day, and some of the early polling shows John McCain with an edge in the state over Barack Obama.

I can’t help but wonder, though, how much that will change once Floridians get to know McCain a little better.

Florida, for example, has been especially hard hit by the mortgage crisis, and McCain’s housing policy is a bit of a joke. After McCain unveiled his proposal in a high-profile speech in April, Sen. Mel Martinez (R) of Florida — a major McCain backer and the former chairman of the RNC — immediately distanced himself from the McCain plan and criticized his colleague for pushing it.

Florida also is very anxious to see the creation of a National Catastrophic Insurance Fund, which McCain opposes. The position puts him at odds with Gov. Charlie Crist (R), rumored to be on McCain’s VP short-list, and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a conservative Republican who recently blasted McCain for his policy: “On the issue of catastrophic insurance, John McCain is out of touch with the needs of Florida voters. He doesn’t understand one of the most important economic issues to this state’s revitalization. John McCain is out of touch.”

And then, of course, there’s Florida’s ecological treasure, the Everglades.

John McCain on Thursday defended his opposition to spending $2 billion on restoring the Everglades, an effort supported by two of his biggest Republican supporters in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez.

“I am committed to saving the Everglades,” said McCain, appearing before a gathering of newspaper editors at Walt Disney World. But he added: “I will not vote for out-of-control spending.”

Yep, McCain wants to help the Everglades, but he won’t support a $2-billion clean-up project supported by Florida Dems and Republicans.

Worse, McCain is confused about exactly what it is he opposes.

Just yesterday, McCain spoke to the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors and the Florida Press Association Convention. His opposition to the Everglades clean-up bill came up.

Q: Last year you opposed a $2 billion Everglades restoration plan despite support of it from Gov. Crist., Sen. Martinez and the rest of Florida’s congressional delegation. Why do you–

McCain: –and that bill was, tell me what that bill was? Was it part of an omnibus appropriations bill?

Q: It was–

McCain: It was … so you just answered your own question, sir. Which is I will do everything. I will let you finish your question.

Q: The bill was seven years in the making considered critical legislation to address the everglades, supported by all the Republicans in the Florida delegation.

McCain: If it’s a stand-alone bill and it’s authorized to fix the Everglades I will be one of the first, I would like to know how to pay for it. I am committed to the preservation of the Everglades. I will do that. I do not and will not and am proud not to have voted for omnibus spending bills for which in many cases there are no authorization nor is there hearings or scrutiny.

As it turns out, it wasn’t an omnibus spending bill, but a more specific one. McCain opposed the Water Resources Development Act, described this way by the Miami Herald:

It took seven years after the state and federal governments closed a sweeping Everglades cleanup deal for Congress to authorize spending in 2007…The $2 billion in the 2007 legislation was intended for three phases of the comprehensive Everglades plan: plugging canals and removing roads to replenish Picayune Strand State Forest, restoring the Indian River Lagoon watershed, and raising Tamiami Trail to allow natural water flow. Now, the Army Corps of Engineers has to appropriate money for each project into the budget.

As Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said yesterday, “When it’s clear you don’t even know what you’re objecting to, it’s simply unbelievable to claim that your objection was based on principle. John McCain has not only demonstrated his complete lack of understanding of the issue, but has also made clear that his support for President Bush’s veto of critical funding for the Everglades had much more to do with partisan politics than principle. That’s not change, it’s more of the same.”

Obama, by the way, supported the funding for the Everglades that McCain opposed.

McCain may be poised to do well in the Sunshine State, but he’ll really have to hope that Floridians pay no attention to his record.

Mel Martinez (R) was a “major Clinton backer”?
I assume that is a typo. Or a Freudian slip.

  • It seems almost impossible for McCain to win without winning Florida.

    I suppose he could win Michigan or Pennsylvania but Florida will be so much easier for McCain.

    If Crist is the choice for VP then McCain will win Florida but realistically, McCain needs Florida without having to waste his VP pick to get it for him

  • Reporter: “What are you going to do about the Everglades”
    Grampa Abraham McCain: “I once wore an onion on my belt as it was the style at the time.”


  • McCain may be poised to do well in the Sunshine State, but he’ll really have to hope that Floridians pay no attention to his record.

    That’s McCain’s “50 State Strategy” in a nutshell.

  • Transcripts are just scary.

    McCan’t either is an idiot or remarkably rude.

    Or maybe a little of both.

    Four more years of Boy George II?

  • McCain may be poised to do well in the Sunshine State, but he’ll really have to hope that Floridians pay no attention to his record.
    Were talking Florida here, do they pay attention to anything?

  • Quite a few people in Florida will be able to relate to the fact that every day’s a new day when you’re John McCain.

    I love how adamant he can sound when it’s plainly obvious that he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. I think the hardest thing Obama will have to do is to keep from laughing at the old codger as he yells at America to get off his lawn.

    He’s beginning to make Bob Dole look electable.

  • When it’s clear you don’t even know what you’re objecting to, it’s simply unbelievable to claim that your objection was based on principle.

    Ouch! Taken out of context, he might have been referring to McCain’s AUMF vote, his economic policies, his plan to help the unemployed by extending tax cuts, his vetting of pastors and lobbyists, or his positions on the housing crisis. And to think Republicans couldn’t find anyone better.

  • As a soon-to-be ex-Floridian, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, takes McCain seriously here in the southern half of the state. There was an article on the Everglades flap in this morning’s paper, but I didn’t have time to read it thoroughly. I’ll try to see if I can find it online and post a link.

  • My good friends, you can count on me to protect the Everglades in Louisiana….hmmm…Florida…hmmm…where am I?

    Methinks dementia has set in. I don’t say this to be facetious…my dad (90 years old) and mom (83 years old) are sharp as tacks and definitely know what’s going on in the world. McCain is an embarrassment to all senior citizens. Come to think of it, he’s an embarrassment to all of us….

  • But how does McCain’s core incompetency hurt OBAMA?

    Mary? The floor is yours.

  • Johnny McCain, not a very good student, not a very good pilot, not a very good officer, not a very good husband, not a very good congressman, not a very good senator…

    At least he’ll be as consistent as Georgie-Porgie, should we be unfortunate enough to see him make it to the White House.

  • How can you expect McCain to bone-up on this kind of issue just because he knows it’s an important issue in a very important political state? I myself try to stay as ignorant as possible about any topic I might need to know lots about, which makes it easier for me to bullshit and get all the facts wrong. I admire McCain for having the balls to be on the wrong side of all the issues and to be too ignorant to realize he needs better spin.

  • “I am committed to saving the Everglades,” said McCain, “as long as they are committed to saving themselves!”

  • Mary? The floor is yours.

    Mary Mary Quite Contrary has moved through the five stages of grief and gone off and died. I doubt we will see her here again.

  • If Crist is the choice for VP then McCain will win Florida but realistically, McCain needs Florida without having to waste his VP pick to get it for him – Neil Wilson

    I think Governor Crist is a very likable fellow whose appeal would certainly do more for the ticket than deliver Florida, but it seems likely Florida will be a red state again regardless of McCain’s VP choice, too much animosity towards Obama and the DNC and not enough time for the golden child to magically fix things down here.

    If Obama is going to win in November, he had better be able to deliver on his promise to expand the electoral map.

  • Maybe, maybe not…

    As always, the Corporate News Media will play a big role by how much they focus on ‘character issues’ and ‘gotcha politics’ and how much they ignore facts and issues and policies.

    As joe likes to say on the Mouring JoKe show, “It may be bad policy, but it is good politics.” If any working person understands McCain’s policies and votes for him, they are already part of Bush’s 25% and are not saveable.

    Obama has the organization and it is up to us to make sure he has the financial resources to continue to be owned by the people and not by the corporations. If he does, he will be able to ‘shape the message’ the way that the Rethugs historically have.

  • Or, as the Mourning JoKe says regularly in coded words, “Ain’t no self respecting white person in my neighborhood gonna vote for no n*gg*r!” Joe, of course, is the former rethug congressman from Northern Florida Cracker Country.

  • Michael W (9): NOBODY, takes McCain seriously here in the southern half of the state.

    Since he won Florida, I’m curious whether people changed their minds, or was he just more popular in the Northern half.

  • 15. On June 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm, Tom Cleaver said:

    Mary Mary Quite Contrary has moved through the five stages of grief and gone off and died. I doubt we will see her here again.
    ___________________

    I woulda thought the same thing, too, but shoe showed up yesterday to defend the Clintons’ honor after someone had the AUDACITY to mention that Bill f***ed around on Hillary a few times dot dot dot THAT WE KNOW OF. Apparently, in Black Hole Mary’s World, if that’s akin to bringing up the rumor that Obama had gay sex, even though that IS just a rumor whereas Bill admitted to f***ing around on Hillary a few times dot dot dot THAT WE KNOW OF. In BlackHole mary’s World, if you’re suspected of one crime that’s not proven true, you are acquitted of ALL crimes, even the ones that you’ve admitted to. Wherever her mind lives, I hope the rent is cheap, because that dolt can’t possibly hold down a job.

  • McCain shamelessly changes positions on issue after issue. I think that the democratic party should start running adds showing how much he “flip flops” on the issues important to Floridians mentioned above. They should also focus on his flip flop on immigration and how much he differs on policy issues with Charlie Crist. I think that when Obama starts to move to the center and clarify his position on Iran the Jewish voters will come home for the democrats in Florida.

    Obama needs to move quickly to get his organization on the ground and live up to his promise for aggressive voter registration in Florida in a major way.

  • I’m very sad to see people here beating up on Mary, her zeal in supporting Clinton is no different than many of yours towards Obama, and in some cases her arguments were much more grounded in reality.

    That said, don’t you think it’s about time to stop bashing Clinton supporters in general?

  • Yeah, and there is the Phil Gramm issue that is breaking over at TPM.

    How much longer is former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) going to be John McCain’s top economics advisor? He’s already brought his ties to the mortgage crisis into McCain’s campaign. But this latest development could prove considerably more damaging.

    Gramm is Vice Chairman of UBS Securities, the investment banking division of the Swiss uber-bank UBS. And UBS private banking arm is now the target of a major and wide-ranging criminal investigation into the bank’s efforts to help “high net worth individuals” evade hundreds of millions of dollars of US taxes.

    You know that the whole reason Gramm even took the job at UBS Securities Swiss bank division is because when he retired from the Senate, right as his wife Wendy Gramm sat on the board of Enron, and was just finished up selling her Enron stock in the nick-of-time exactly like Ken Lay did – so that NOBODY in Texas would hire Phil Gramm. Gramm applied for a position at at Texas Univeristy – but Enron was such a hot and nasty issue, that Gramm quickly was denied employment by the TX University and had to seek an out-state employer.

    Anyway, lets hope that McCain, “the leader you can believe in” holds on to that jewel Mr. Phil Gramm for awhile – just like Bush held on to “heckava job” Brownie, “heckava job” Gonzales and “heckava Job” Rumsfeld. As if anyone needs evidence that McCain realy isn’t just another non-leader, loyalist above all else loser like Bush. As if all the simularities are not really quite hard to distinguish already.

  • The bottom line is that McCain opposed spending $2 billion to save the Everglades (which is crucially important to the entire water system of Florida), but has no difficulty in supporting the FACT of spending $9 million PER WEEK in Iraq. My grandmother would have said he’s “penny wise and pound foolish.” I think he’s just plain stupid.

  • Off topic but does anyone notice the McCain ad on this page?

    Why are they using a photo of McCain from like 20 years ago?

  • You know, age maybe a discriminatory issue, but NOT mentioning it is simply irresponsible since it is becoming obvious. Would we give McCain the codes to the “football” since evidence is emerging that McCain has a severe memory problem?

    People, McCain cannot remember shit.

  • With President McOldGuy, every day will be a new day.

    Someone you know who had a home yesterday—will lose it today, because of the profitmongering subprime debacle, and how it’s wrecked the home industry.

    Someone you know who had a job yesterday—will lose it today, because of the profitmongering of international outsourcing of American jobs and a worthless dollar.

    Someone you know who had a soldier yesterday—will lose him or her today, because of the profitmongering of illegal, aggressive war.

    Someone you know who had a child yesterday—will lose that child today, because there’s no profit in hunting down the crack dealers, while there is profit in manufacturing cheap handguns, importing poisoned toys, and allowing tainted food to go into our grocery stores.

    Yes—every day will be a NEW day, under President McOldGuy. They won’t be better, but they will be NEW.

  • On June 6th, 2008 at 2:53 pm, Greg said:
    I’m very sad to see people here beating up on Mary, her zeal in supporting Clinton is no different than many of yours towards Obama, and in some cases her arguments were much more grounded in
    ___________________

    Name one.

  • The Florida problem is a symptom of McCain’s two biggest (political) problems. First, he has no upside. (I know I am getting repetitious, but it needs to be realized.) He doesn’t have a pool of undecided voters that he can appeal to — barring some major problem for Obama that has yet to surface — and I don’t expect any such problem.

    The polls right now mark the height of his support, and he can only lose people. The only people that, theoretically he could bring out is that proportion of his most conservative base that are still wavering — but to get them, he’d have to take positions that would drive away any chance of winning independents — and which still might not work.

    I ran some numbers for a piece last night that Mark might run, dealing with the last 9 Republican primaries, from Pennsylvania on. Now remember, McCain had the nomination sewn up long before these primaries, he had no active opposition except for Ron Paul, and because these primaries were winner take all, there was little chance that a vote against McCain could influence delegate selection. They weren’t even ways of making public protests, since the Democratic primaries were getting so much attention that people didn’t even realize there were still Republican primaries going on — except in states like NM which had down-ticket races.

    Remember also that most of these were in rural states, where people have to use precious $4.00 gas to get to the polls. And many of them were closed (or semi-open, meaning Independents could vote but not someone enrolled in another party) so there can be no argument that democrats were trying to hurt McCain’s numbers. So a vote against McCain is a pretty strong inclination that the voter is not going to come back to McCain.

    So how did McCain do — and yes, the anti-McCain percentages might be inflated because pro-McCain voters did stay home, but they are still pretty powerful. (The numbers voting were not that small.)

    The highest percentages McCain got were 86% in Oregon and 85% in NM — both primaries that limited the choices to McCain and Ron Paul. In any primary which gave voters a third choicem whether it was Huckabee or ‘uncommitted’ or both, McCain failed to get as much as 80% of the vote. And the numbers didn’t get better over time. His two worst showings, where he got only 70% were in two of the last three primaries, SD on June 3rd and Idaho on May 27.

    In fact, to cover something that’s been in the news, Obama’s ‘Appalachian problem.’ All those Hillary supporters who supposedly won’t vote for Obama. Well, a lot will come back, those who favored Hillary on the issues, and even some of the racists who get a chance to know Obama — who does have an immense upside.

    But will the 28% of Kentucky Republicans, or the 24% of West Virginia Republicans who cast votes against the already crowned nominee, McCain, that can only be described as coming from either principles or extreme personal dislike, find reasons to change that will bring them to the polls to vote for him?

    Nope, don’t think so.

  • Then there is the Crist question. There is no question that Crist has been a relatively good Governor, one who has always appealed to Democrats going back to his Congessional days. He’d bring Florida along — probably — and might help with other states — were it not for one problem.

    Charlie Crist is gay. Not “Larry Craig’ style gay, hiding in the closet and getting his sex in anonymous encounters. He was in a long-term relationship, and he used to bring his partner with him to state functions. (I’ve heard they may have split up, but I’m not sure of this.) As somebody has said, this is known pretty well in Florida and it hasn’t hurt him. (Florida has had a number of openly gay judges — including tv’s ‘gay judge,’ David Young and his partner, Scott.)

    Now McCain may not know this — and, to be fair, even if he does, it might not be a problem for him personally. (I don’t believe he is personally a homophobe, despite his voting record. Arizona doesn’t tend to be, Goldwater made some of the strongest possible pro-gay statements, and they repeatedly re-elected Jim Kolbe, who was out –or ‘outed’ like Steve Gunderson.)

    But if Crist is his running mate, this is going to come out, and he is going to have to come out, either before the nomination — which would be interesting to watch — or afterwards — which could lead to something like the Eagleton Affair.

    Want to figure out the possible plusses and minuses to this one, for McCain — even though neither or Obama or Barr is likely to use it in a scurrilous way.

  • One of the reasons why they use a Vietnam-era photo of McPasty in his ad on this page is that he currently looks like a shorter version of Skeletor. His new tv ad is careful not to show the left side of his face so that voters won’t think that he is ill. I don’t think we’ll see the left side until he is defeated in November, or as he terms it, January.

  • prup, crooks & liars brought up the fact that, out of all the primaries that occurred AFTER McCain became the Republican nominee, he stll has only rec’d about 3/4 of the total vote. In fact, I think one of those primaries was win by Romney. Those people might vote for McCain with ease in November, but thus far, it doesn’t bode well.

  • ***Greg #23***Don’t waste your time. Used to be these personalities had to have themselves a nigger or a faggot every 15min but that ain’t socially accepted anymore so nows that they old they just attack and threaten bloggers they disagree with till they chases them off, not by talking issues but by insults, smears and threats. Now I’m as cute as they are huh?

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