The McCain campaign recently released a new ad titled "Original Mavericks." The word "Original" may be in the title, but the ad features some oft-repeated, pretty tired distortions of history.
The ad claims, for instance, that Sarah Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere." Sarah Palin also made this claim during her announcement speech in Ohio, and she made it again several days ago during her RNC acceptance speech, saying, "I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
But in fact, as several mainstream news organizations have already reported, Sarah Palin actually vocally supported Alaska's now-infamous Gravina Island bridge project in 2006, during her gubernatorial campaign. She only came out against the bridge project after it became extremely unpopular as a national symbol of wasteful government spending.
Palin and the McCain campaign also fail to mention that Palin never actually refused the funding that the federal government had set aside for the project; after the bridge was nixed due to public outcry, she kept the money and redirected the funds to other state projects.
In fact, under Governor Palin, Alaska has continues its pattern of asking for more earmarks per capita than any other state.
The ad also touts John McCain's "maverick" record, saying that "He
battled Republicans and reformed Washington." But this is hardly a
reasonable statement to make about a man who has voted with the Bush
administration 90% of the time.
Well, you can agree with someone 90% of the time and still battle them on the remaining topics. In fact if you follow your own 90% link (btw, thanks I've been looking for that) there are only 11 Senators from either party with lower Party Unity scores than McCain. Granted his 80% is not what any normal person would call "Maverick". But then again, that's really what political parties are for. Making some compromises and teaming together to get more accomplished. And in some warped way, 80% is more "Maverick" than Mr Obama's 96% Party Unity rating, or Mr Biden's 93%
Posted by: Sean | September 08, 2008 at 11:03 PM
Don't try to confuse the picture here, Sean. The Party Unity rating is a totally different statistic from the Presidential Support rating. I was referring to McCain's Presidential Support rating, which is 90%.
McCain is trying to portray himself as someone who will bring change to the White House. He is using that maverick label in the context of this Presidential race. Frankly, George W. Bush has broken with the Republican Party himself on a number of occasions. McCain is more aligned with Bush than he is with traditional Republicans. I don't see how you can argue that this is a good thing.
Posted by: jaelithe | September 09, 2008 at 06:27 AM
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, Barack Obama has voted in opposition to Bush policies 60% of the time.
Posted by: jaelithe | September 09, 2008 at 06:32 AM
i'm thinks , i'm vote for Obama
Posted by: John Terry | September 10, 2008 at 11:08 PM