{"id":15805,"date":"2008-06-08T13:15:55","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T17:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15805.html"},"modified":"2008-06-08T13:15:55","modified_gmt":"2008-06-08T17:15:55","slug":"leading-surrogate-mccain-absolutely-wants-to-continue-bush-domestic-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/leading-surrogate-mccain-absolutely-wants-to-continue-bush-domestic-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading surrogate: McCain &#8216;absolutely&#8217; wants to continue Bush domestic policies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John McCain and his campaign have been working diligently to reject any suggestion that he&#8217;d offer another Bush term if elected. Given this, I&#8217;m surprised his campaign surrogates haven&#8217;t been prepped with better responses to questions like these.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"250\" height=\"185\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/sKm87MV_u_4&#038;hl=en\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/sKm87MV_u_4&#038;hl=en\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"250\" height=\"185\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>The clip shows Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), arguably McCain&#8217;s most sycophantic toady, on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week&#8221; earlier today. When George Stephanopoulos asked whether McCain&#8217;s tax and health care policies were not only an extension of Bush&#8217;s policies, but also an &#8220;enhancement,&#8221; Graham responds, &#8220;Yeah, absolutely.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not usually inclined to agree with Lindsey Graham, but on this one, he&#8217;s quite right &#8212; McCain&#8217;s policies <i>would<\/i> be an extension of the status quo. As <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2008\/06\/08\/graham-mccain-bush\/\">Ben at TP explained<\/a>, &#8220;McCain is proposing massive tax cuts that primarily benefit higher-income households, ignore other priorities and drive up the national debt by trillions. And McCain&#8217;s health care policy would raise costs and abandon the uninsured. That sure sounds like an &#8216;extension&#8217; and &#8216;enhancement&#8217; of Bush&#8217;s policies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Leading Republicans do realize they&#8217;re supposed to argue the opposite, don&#8217;t they?<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThis came up a month ago, when Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the second highest-ranking Republican in the House, told CNN that McCain &#8220;would be&#8221; a third Bush term on the economy.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"250\" height=\"185\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/p-45xFxeZbA\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/p-45xFxeZbA\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"250\" height=\"185\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>As a rule, Republicans are supposed to disagree with the Democrats&#8217; central criticism of the GOP presidential candidate. But if Graham, Blunt, &#038; Co. want to tell national television audiences that we&#8217;re right, I couldn&#8217;t be more pleased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John McCain and his campaign have been working diligently to reject any suggestion that he&#8217;d offer another Bush term if elected. Given this, I&#8217;m surprised his campaign surrogates haven&#8217;t been prepped with better responses to questions like these. The clip shows Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), arguably McCain&#8217;s most sycophantic toady, on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week&#8221; earlier [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}