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PHOENIX, Ariz. — U.S. Sen. John McCain today kept an unfortunate promise to stand against equality and in favor of discrimination, proving he is devoted to the past and not a future where “squared away” gay and lesbian troops don’t have to lie about themselves to carry out their work vital to our national security.
Despite declaring that he would follow the advice of senior military leaders when it came to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” McCain threw a tantrum when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen testified that it was time to let gay and lesbian soldiers serve openly.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a serious national security issue. On Sept. 11, 2001, our country was hit by 19 Arabic-speaking terrorists. Since 1994, 59 Gay and Lesbian Arabic linguists have been dismissed from the armed services. Yet Arabic linguists with skills deemed “mission critical” have chronically been in short supply in the military, as well as in the intelligence services and the diplomatic corps.
McCain’s bizarre reversal on this issue stands in stark contrast to public opinion, which shows more than 70 percent of Americans want to see the ban lifted. Clearly, the 28-year Beltway insider is living in a bygone era of bigotry and ignorance, before America began working to end discrimination. It is outrageous for McCain to impose his outdated views on a military mostly composed of soldiers, sailors and marines two generations younger than himself.
McCain’s U.S. Senate challenger Rodney Glassman noted that pop star Lady Gaga is more in touch with the American people than the man who was the Republican candidate for president just two years ago.
“Lady Gaga may challenge convention in any number of ways, but she is closer to mainstream American values on this issue than John McCain and the woman he would have put a heartbeat from the presidency, Sarah Palin,” Glassman said. “John McCain is a prejudiced relic of the past who is blatantly pandering to his conservative base. He would put his own views and his own career ahead of basic civil rights as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. I will always stand for equality and opportunity, regardless of the shifting political winds.”
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PHOENIX, Ariz.–International pop star Lady Gaga is attacking U.S. Sen. John McCain, who plans to filibuster against legislation paying and provisioning U.S. troops just because the bill in question includes a popular provision to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
The discriminatory practice is a relic of the early 1990s and a peacetime army. Now that the U.S. military is at war, investigators continue to hunt for gay and lesbian soldiers whose jobs are vital to America’s national security. McCain has vowed to protect the discriminatory practice and Lady Gaga, a.k.a., Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, sent a message to her 6.3 million Twitter followers.
“Senators, when you are sending our men and women into war, when you are sending our wives, husbands, sons and daughters into combat, will you honor their service?” Lady Gaga asked simply. “Will you support repealing this law on Tuesday and pledge [to our troops] that no American’s life is no more valuable than another?”
U.S. Senate candidate Rodney Glassman applauded Lady Gaga’s plea that McCain be reasonable on behalf of the servicemembers doing such important work.
“It is not surprising that Lady Gaga would lash out against this ban; she’s been a more consistent advocate against discrimination than McCain ever was,” Glassman said. “It is surprising that John McCain would stand in the way of a stronger military that doesn’t drum out heroes because of who they are. In the words of Barry Goldwater, it doesn’t matter if a soldier is straight. It matters if they can shoot straight.”
In 2006, McCain pledged to consider changing this policy should U.S. military leaders suggest it. This year, McCain blasted Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen for suggesting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell needed to be shelved, a position polls show more than 70 percent of Americans support.
“John McCain was right the first time, but now he is just standing in the way of the U.S. military marching into a future that doesn’t discriminate,” said Glassman campaign manager Bill Romjue. “Arizona voters have a choice to make between McCain’s devotion to past prejudices and Rodney Glassman’s drive to get us moving forward into the 21st century.”
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PHOENIX – Yesterday, Sen. John McCain voted against a small business jobs plan. His opposition nearly derailed any work to put Americans back to work.
The U.S. Senate passed legislation yesterday that will expand small business lending by $42 billion, but it took two Republicans. both of whom are leaving the senate next January, to cross party lines and do right by American workers. McCain and the party he helps lead tried to stop the bill in hopes that gridlock would strangle hope and put Republicans back in power.
Today, Rodney Glassman, McCain’s 2010 Democratic challenger, challenged McCain to come up with a plan of his own to shrink the ranks of the jobless.
“It’s one thing to oppose a bill on principle,” Glassman said. “It’s the height of cynicism to block action to address a crisis, without a plan of your own. It’s sad that John McCain would simply allow Americans to go through the holidays and deep into next year without any leadership from Washington to address the jobs crisis. So I challenge John McCain to present his own plan to get America working.”
Since the start of the recession, nearly 300,000 Arizonans have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. It will be interesting to see whether McCain has the guts to present a plan and even more interesting to see if it’s anything other than the tired old policies that got us into this mess in the first place.
“John McCain is facing the voters and the biggest issue on their minds is jobs,” said Glassman campaign manager Bill Romjue. “He ought to have the gumption to tell Arizonans what he would do to put Arizona back to work.”
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PHOENIX, Ariz. — U.S. Sen. John McCain’s vote today against a small-business jobs bill is a prime example of his failure as a national leader. He continues to play the petty politics of sour grapes after losing the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama.
America has a storied tradition of failed presidential candidates putting politics aside and standing tall as statesmen in times of crisis. Republican Bob Dole supported then-President Bill Clinton’s military efforts in Kosovo. Former vice president Al Gore stood with then-President George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.
But McCain’s petty approach to politics looks out for only one person–himself.
McCain, operating from the same political playbook he has followed since his bitter defeat in 2008, followed 37 other Republicans in filibustering H.R. 5297, which will extend $42 billion in credit to small businesses to help get America back to work. It only passed the Senate because two outgoing Republicans gave in to their consciences and supported the measure. Ohio’s George Voinovich, one of the Republicans who voted for the measure, appropriately summed up the obstruction by his GOP brethren as political posturing the country can’t afford.
McCain’s Republican colleagues only offered amendments to the bill that had nothing to do with its substance, Voinovich told the Washington Post.
“We don’t have time for messaging,” Voinovich said. “We don’t have time anymore. The country is really hurting.”
McCain, totally insulated from the effects of the recession in any of his eight houses, continues to show his willingness to let the economy wither just to improve his party’s political standing in the upcoming mid-term elections.
“So much for ‘Country First,’ ” said Bill Romjue, campaign manager for Rodney Glassman, who is challenging McCain in the U.S. Senate race. “His strategy is simply to bet that if America fails, voters will blame the president and not the right-wing Senate minority, which has used its power to block all efforts to come to the rescue of the American worker. The economic crisis facing American families is real and severe. Yet John McCain appears not to care.”
McCain’s vote against the bill also demonstrates that Arizona needs a U.S. senator who will serve the people of Arizona, not his own partisan goals.
Since the beginning of the recession, nearly 300,000 Arizonans have lost their jobs.
“Every single day I hear from voters who are either desperately looking for work or know someone who wants a job that doesn’t exist,” Glassman said. “Members of John McCain’s party are cynically using America’s pain to get back into power, just so they can pursue the same policies that caused the Great Recession. My first order of business in Washington is going to be putting Arizona and America back to work, so that not even John McCain will have to wait too long to find a new line of work.”
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“This is a day for us to remember what was lost. Nine years ago, 19 terrorists armed with box-cutters struck the American homeland, taking nearly 3,000 lives. People lost mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. Most of the victims left for work on Sept. 11 and never came home. This despicable attack was meant to shatter our way of life, but instead it drew from us a conviction to hold fast to the ideals on which America was founded. Those foundations can never be knocked down.
Today our thoughts and prayers go out to the memories of the dead and the families who have lived on without them. And we salute all our troops, who work tirelessly to prevent further terrorist attacks.”
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PHOENIX, Ariz. – U.S. Senate candidate Rodney Glassman is gaining ground on opponent John McCain, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, demonstrating that after more than 28 years in office Arizonans still aren’t sold on the incumbent.
In fact, McCain’s numbers seem to have an inverse relationship to his massive spending in last month’s primary, during which he spent $21 million to defeat J.D. Hayworth for the GOP nomination.
Perhaps the most revealing statistic in Rasmussen’s poll is that McCain’s unfavorable rating of 55 percent among Arizona voters is significantly higher than any other Republican incumbent in the country.
In his best showing to date, Democrat Glassman earned 37 percent of the vote compared with McCain’s 51 percent. Late last month, after Glassman and McCain won their respective party primaries, the tally was 53 percent for McCain to 31 percent for Glassman.
“With each passing day it becomes more obvious that Arizona voters are ready to make a change,” said Bill Romjue, Glassman campaign manager. “The senator is an incumbent’s incumbent and has been on so many sides of so many issues that the John McCain of 2000 wouldn’t recognize the John McCain of today. Arizona voters don’t really know where he stands in 2010 and have no idea where he’ll be in 2011 and beyond. What they are looking for is fresh ideas and fresh approaches from someone they can trust. That is why with each passing day the race is moving in our direction.”
According to the poll, seven percent of voters preferred some other candidate, while six percent were undecided.
The margin of error in the poll, conducted Sept. 7 by telephone of 500 likely voters in Arizona, was +/- 4.5 percentage points.
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Rodney Glassman’s U.S. Senate campaign today officially unveiled John McCain’s “Daiy Flip Flop” on the campaign’s official web site.
Between now and the election, the web site will point out a different McCain flip-flop, revealing McCain’s style of switching positions as he switches audiences. McCain has flip-flopped on more than enough issues to provide a daily tally, like immigration, ear mark spending, climate change, “maverickyness” and even torture.
“John McCain’s been on so many sides of so many issues that it defies geometry,” said Blake Morlock, Communications Director for the Glassman campaign. “It’s done nothing to help create Arizona jobs or help under water homeowners.”
McCain’s brand may change again as he heads into the general election, while Glassman’s campaign will focus on a single theme: “What’s best for Arizona.”
“My focus is squarely on the people who will send me to the U.S. Senate,” Glassman said. “We do that by bringing people together to move Arizona forward.”
SEE JOHN MCCAIN’S FLIP-FLOPS HERE
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PHOENIX, Ariz. — U.S. Senate candidate Rodney Glassman today challenged four-term incumbent John McCain to a series of debates across Arizona.
Glassman proposes debates in Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Green Valley and Casa Grande between now and Election Day to give voters a chance to decide whether McCain deserves a fifth term or if they would prefer to hire a new U.S. senator.
“Since the start of the Great Recession, 300,000 Arizonans have lost their jobs, half of the state’s homeowners are under water on their mortgages and Arizona has slipped to dead last in classroom spending,” Glassman said. “America is clearly in a crisis, and under the circumstances John McCain should be more than willing to defend his long record in Washington and clearly articulate his vision for rebuilding Arizona’s beleaguered economy.”
Debates give voters a good opportunity to see and hear candidates in person to help them decide who they want to represent them in Washington for the next six years, Glassman said. He emphasized that McCain debated his primary opponent J.D. Hayworth three times during that race.
“Senator McCain certainly understands the importance of debates; he willingly participated in 17 debates during the primaries in 2008 and challenged his opponent to 10 more in the general election,” Glassman said. “It shouldn’t be too much to ask for him to agree to debate his Democratic opponent in six locations around the state.”
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PHOENIX, Ariz. — John McCain entered the political history books over the weekend, actually attacking himself as a purveyor of “class warfare.”
McCain made the comments on Fox News Sunday, dismissing senators who oppose extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy for the exact reason he opposed enacting those cuts in the first place.
In 2001, after failing to gain support for an amendment that would make the wealthy pay a higher tax rate than they do now, McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts. In his floor speech he explained why: “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief.”
SEE THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD HERE
This past weekend, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked McCain if he would support extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle-class while allowing tax cuts for the wealthy few to expire in order to pay for small business tax relief. McCain mocked the idea as “class warfare.”
SEE THE VIDEO HERE
“John McCain actually threw himself under the proverbial bus,” said Blake Morlock, Communications Director for the Rodney Glassman for U.S. Senate campaign. “It makes one wonder what positions he will take the next time political winds change. He’s apparently capable of shape-shifting at will.”
Glassman, a Democrat running against McCain in the general election, opposes allowing the Bush tax cuts on the middle-class to expire. This would constitute the largest middle-class tax increase in U.S. history — a tax increase McCain apparently would let happen.
“I oppose John McCain’s tax hike on struggling middle-class families,” Glassman said. “I would like to see all the tax cuts extended until the economy recovers, but if I have to choose between people like John McCain and me keeping our tax cuts or middle-class families keeping theirs? I choose the middle class.”
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PHOENIX, Ariz. – Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rodney Glassman has agreed to debate John McCain later this month on KTVK-3TV in Phoenix.
The hour-long, formal debate is set for Sunday, Sept. 26. It will air live on KTVK and be streamed to the station’s website, azfamily.com. The station is also seen in Yuma on cable, and station officials hope to set up a feed for one of Channel 3′s sister stations in Tucson.
“We’re happy that for one hour, every six years, John McCain seems to care about the issues important to Arizona, including jobs, securing the border and improving public schools,” said Glassman campaign Communications Director Blake Morlock. “If he really cares about these issues, he will work constructively right now to create jobs, secure the border and fix Arizona public schools, rather than simply obstruct until later.”
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