{"id":16552,"date":"2008-08-11T13:25:35","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T17:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16518.html"},"modified":"2008-08-11T13:25:35","modified_gmt":"2008-08-11T17:25:35","slug":"watching-mccains-credibility-go-up-in-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/watching-mccains-credibility-go-up-in-smoke\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching McCain’s credibility go up in smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McCain’s efforts in opposition to the tobacco industry have come up quite a bit lately. A McCain campaign ad unveiled last week noted that he “has taken on big tobacco<\/a>.” A few days later, the campaign released another ad<\/a>, featuring Democratic praise for McCain’s work against Big Tobacco. McCain even boasted<\/a> of his efforts at Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Summit two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

The media has bought this line completely. The AP praised<\/a> McCain’s work against the tobacco industry as evidence of his independence, and the WaPo’s Jonathan Weisman offered the tobacco issue as the best example of McCain being “an independent maverick<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

McCain’s claims and the media’s praise hasn’t made sense for quite some time. McCain fought for years in support of legislation — that he co-sponsored — that would regulate the tobacco industry and impose a $1.10-per-pack tax on cigarettes to fund programs to cut underage smoking. Earlier this year, McCain quietly began moving away from<\/a> the bill he’d championed.<\/p>\n

Now the McCain campaign doesn’t want to talk about the senator’s bill<\/a> at all.<\/p>\n

The campaign of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is declining to embrace McCain’s own 1998 tobacco bill, legislation that would have raised taxes to the tune of $516 billion over 25 years. […]<\/p>\n

The bill would have forced tobacco companies to pay for a host of anti-smoking initiatives and fork over huge sums to the states in return for settling a lawsuit by the states. Cigarette makers would have been required to raise prices by about $1.10 per pack to come up with the money, according to a Congressional Research Service report from the time. <\/p>\n

Asked repeatedly last week whether McCain still backs the bill and if he thought it was a good idea, senior adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin declined to answer directly…. McCain today does not support raising taxes on cigarettes, his adviser said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And given that the tax increase on cigarettes is a key feature of McCain’s legislation, it means McCain now opposes his own bill.<\/p>\n

When McCain first began championing this legislation, he vowed to “never<\/a>” give up on the issue. Like most of McCain’s promises, the vow had a shelf life.
\n
\nA few months ago, I started coming up with a list of bill that McCain personally co-sponsored, but now opposes.<\/p>\n

* He said in February that he’d vote against his own immigration bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now, if the treaty comes to the Senate floor, he’s vowed to vote against it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act <\/p>\n

kupbezrecepty.com<\/a><\/p>\n

, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. In 2007, to make the far-right base happy, he announced his opposition<\/a> to the bill he had taken the lead on.<\/p>\n

* In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he now opposes<\/a> the measure he’d helped write.<\/p>\n

Flip-flops<\/a> are one thing, but these aren’t just random bills that McCain voted on — these are bills that he personally championed<\/i> — recently<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And even that<\/i> wouldn’t be entirely beyond the pale, except one of McCain’s principal selling points is his alleged consistency and willingness to take politically unpopular decisions.<\/p>\n

We’re talking about a senator taking firm stands against his own bills. “Maverick,” indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McCain’s efforts in opposition to the tobacco industry have come up quite a bit lately. A McCain campaign ad unveiled last week noted that he “has taken on big tobacco.” A few days later, the campaign released another ad, featuring Democratic praise for McCain’s work against Big Tobacco. McCain even boasted of his efforts […]<\/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-16552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16552","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=16552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}