Virginia Governor, Bob McDonnell, has endorsed Republican veteran John McCain in the Senator’s primary bid in a high profile GOP battle with former congressman J.D. Hayworth for re-election.
McDonnell said that he was “proud” support the former Presidential candidate calling him a “leader of character, courage and principle.”
"Over the last year, the American people have taken a firm stand for smaller government and new pro-growth policies to create the jobs we so desperately need. These are the principles that Senator McCain fights for every day, and we need him now more than ever in the United States Senate," McDonnell said in a statement provided to the McCain campaign.
Senator McCain campaigned for then candidate McDonnell across Virginia last year and helped him raise money at fundraisers across the Commonwealth including the home of McCain’s Virginia finance chairman in McLean.
The Arizona Senator also campaigned successfully for McDonnell amongst veterans energizing over 300 supporters packed into the ‘Veterans of Foreign Wars’ post. A navy veteran, the Senator was once based nearby at Naval Air Station Oceana and he can be expected to ask veterans for their support in his home state though there are grumblings amongst many on the Right that “McCain is not conservative enough”. The Senator and the Governor have both served in the military with McCain captured after being shot down over Hanoi and spent over five years as a POW. McDonnell, who was chosen to give the high profile Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, is known throughout Republican circles nation-wide as a fiscal conservative. McCain, who is increasingly portrayed as too liberal and a ‘moderate’ is hoping that Governor McDonnell’s budgetary approach and support can help him overcome these labels.
McDonnell’s endorsement along with that of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his Vice Presidential running mate and that of former Presidential rival Mitt Romney will undoubtedly assist the Senator in the primary with the Palin endorsement in particular helping him as she appeals deeply to J.D. Hayworth supporters and the Tea Party movement.
The four-term Senator is under fire from Hayworth supporters and ‘tea partiers’ and is having to defend his record of supporting the federal government’s massive bailout of the nation’s financial system. McCain says that he was “misled” by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke.
McDonnell obviously does not have a vote in the Arizona Senate Primary on August 24 but his early endorsement is boon to Senator McCain’s gravitas and credibility. If McCain is successful in his primary bid it may be the Senator’s turn to further endorse the Virginia Governor despite McDonnell’s protestations earlier this week that he was not seeking higher office.
Comments
That rat bastard RINO McCain should be put out to pasture. He wasn't a good pilot, he got better treatment because of his father, he ditched his sick wife and married a rich one, he flips and flops as the wind blows, he wants the illegals to run the country, and he always wants to give a reach around to the socialists. ANYONE but McCain!
Endorsing McCain is a clue to McDonnell's cluelessness and poverty of principles. If he were truly interested in individual rights, private property, and getting the government out of citizens' pockets and lives, he'd have proposed reversing every one of Kaine's statist, Nanny State laws, beginning with the last, the smoking ban enacted in December to please hordes of pampered and sanctimonious hypochondriacs, not to mention Kaine's own petit-tyrant vanity. Wel, he's a Republican.
Let’s parse this McDonnell statement: Over the last year, the American people have taken a firm stand for smaller government and new pro-growth policies to create the jobs we so desperately need. These are the principles that Senator McCain fights for every day, and we need him now more than ever in the United States Senate," McDonnell said.
Yes, Americans have taken a stand for “smaller government,” but you don’t need to be a “fiscal conservative” to be for it. Smaller government means: protecting individual rights. That means about 95% of federal and state employees are redundant, because they’re hired to violate them. The “pro-growth policies to create new jobs” means, to Tea Partiers, laissez-faire capitalism, that is, banning government from all realms of the economy. No, Senator McCain doesn’t fight every day for individual rights. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, recently gutted by the Supreme Court at long last, was a form of censorship. Religious conservatives like
Wow, Rob, for someone who's served for our country for so long, those are really awful things to say. What has McCain done to you to make you hate him so much? I mean, agree to disagree - but show some respect!
McCain's been racking up the endorsements! He's definitely got this election in the bag - no one even comes close to the amount of support he has. Go McCain!
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