“Well, hopefully, that Hamas now that they are going to govern, will be motivated to renounce this commitment to the extinction of the state of Israel. Then we can do business again ..."



Update:  McCain's comments at the NRA meeting today:

"Earlier today, Senator Obama made a few remarks I would like to respond to. I welcome a debate about protecting America. No issue is more important. Senator Obama claimed all I had to offer was the 'naive and irresponsible belief' that tough talk would cause Iran to give up its nuclear program. He should know better. I have some news for Senator

Obama: Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric, in unconditional meetings with the man who calls Israel a 'stinking corpse' and arms terrorist who kill Americans will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program. It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests.

"It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don't have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment, and determination to keep us safe."

Think Senate races don't matter this year?  These are the folks who would be voting on judicial nominations.  In light of the California Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage, here's a quick run-down some of the Democratic Senate candidates up for election this year ...

Al Franken (MN) – Franken has stated he wouldn't have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  (CNBC’s “Tim Russert,” April 1, 2006).

Rick Noriega (TX) – Noriega was one of only nine Representatives to vote against banning gay marriage and civil unions in Texas.  (Dallas Morning News, May 1, 2003).

Mark Udall (CO) – Voted against a ban on same-sex marriage in the Colorado House -- and in the U.S. House, he twice voted against a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Tom Udall (NM) – An advocate of domestic partnership who has said the issue of same-sex marriage does not belong in the Constitution. Udall twice voted against a Constitutional amendment defining marriage between a man and a woman in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mark Warner (VA) – Attempted to block a legislative ban on all legal recognition of gay relationships.  He also recommended striking partnership contract provisions from the Affirmation of Marriage Act for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

“It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned. These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama. Senator Obama has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons. What would Senator Obama talk about with such a man? It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Senator Obama understands that, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe.” ---Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008

“There should be no confusion, John McCain has always believed that serious engagement would require mandatory conditions and Hamas must change itself fundamentally – renounce violence, abandon its goal of eradicating Israel and accept a two state solution.  John McCain’s position is clear and has always been clear, the President of the United States should not unconditionally meet with leaders of Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah.  Barack Obama has made his position equally clear, and has pledged to meet unconditionally with Iran’s leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leaders of other rogue regimes, which shows incredibly dangerous and weak judgment.” ---Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008.

John McCain's campaign asked a prominent Republican consultant, Craig Shirley, to leave his official campaign role Thursday after a Politico inquiry about Shirley's dual role consulting for the campaign and for an independent "527" group opposing the Democratic presidential candidates.

"We haven't been on a retainer with McCain for two months, which begs the question -- how could we be asked to be a part of something we hadn't been involved in for two months?"

“I won’t spend one hour of my presidency worrying more about my re-election than keeping my promises to the American people."

"... I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office--the Presidency of your country."

"John McCain’s emergence is testimony to the shattering of Bush’s presidency. Without the fracturing of conservatism, McCain would never have become the Republican nominee. It is not an accident, as the Marxists might say, that McCain was Bush’s rival in 2000, a bitterly fought contest that resulted in wounds that are still fresh to McCain. Regardless of McCain’s need to consolidate and conciliate the Republican base–and despite some Democrats’ insistence that McCain is little more than a party line reactionary–he remains an utterly singular figure in the individualistic tradition of Goldwater but lacking Goldwater’s early (at least) extremism. Ironically, at the end of the current Republican era, McCain is the last important Republican whose career stretches back to the Reagan period–and even to the Nixon years as an icon of the Vietnam War. McCain represents continuity and a break with it. His reliance on neoconservatives for foreign policy advice is his most important connection to the Bush legacy.

For McCain to win in the Electoral College, of course, he would have to reassemble the Republican coalition. But he might well have greater appeal and put into play states that dropped out of the G.O.P. alliance under George W. Bush, from New Jersey to California. If McCain did so the result would not be a restoration of Reaganism, but the basis of a post-Bush Republicanism."