Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was confronted at a town hall meeting Monday over comments he made from the Senate floor last month in which he used the term “Tea Party hobbits.” “What apology is in order?” McCain responded when asked if he would apologize for the remark, as reported by the East Valley Tribune. “What was wrong that I said?” In his floor speech on June 28, McCain read from a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial that drew a parallel between some Tea Party members and characters in the epic The Lord of the Rings/Josiah Ryan, The Hill's Floor Action Blog. (AP photo)

Question: Aren't hobbits cute & courageous? Would you be offended if someone referred to you as a hobbit?

U.S. Sen. John McCain tried to give a boost to Republican Dino Rossi’s chances of joining him in the Senate by saying Democrat Patty Murray “engages in a corrput practice.”

McCain stepped an inch back from calling Murray, a three-term incumbent with whom he’s had significant disagreements, corrupt.

“I think (use of earmarks) is a corrupt practice. She engages in that corrupt practice. Whether she is corrupt or not, I’ll let others decide,” McCain said in a telephonic press conference arranged by the Rossi campaign Monday morning.

The Murray campaign was quick to label McCain as “anti-Boeing”, noting the long-running fight over awarding the bids for a new Air Force tanker in which the Arizona senator pushed to open the bidding, which resulted in European-based Airbus briefly getting the nod for the plane to replace the KC-135 tanker. That was later pulled back because of contract irregularities, and Boeing and Airbus are again vying for the contract. Murray says the Pentagon shouldn’t award the contract without taking into account the subsidies Airbus gets, and is criticizing McCain for protesting that stance and Rossi for campaigning with someone who “worked against Washington state’s interests at every turn.”

Monday’s teleconference was designed to highlight earmarks, federal spending directed by members of Congress which are a key element of Rossi’s campaign against Murray, on a day when First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, are in Bellevue campaigning for Murray. It was supposed to have two GOP heavy hitters, McCain and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, but Coburn didn’t get connected to the call and McCain was cut off before the last question could be asked.

Rossi wasn’t on the call, although his staff quickly arranged another teleconference for him to reiterate his opposition to earmarks, although he declined to say whether he was in the state.

McCain blasted earmarks as “the gateway to corruption” and “a disgraceful process.” He said Congress should do away with them permanently. This is slightly different from Rossi’s position that he will not seek earmarks until the federal budget is balanced, and at that point might consider them along with changes in the budgeting process.

“I don’t know why that should be a criteria,” McCain said. “I respectfully disagree with my friend Dino on that.”

In his later press conference, Rossi indicated that he and McCain have further disagreements on earmarks as well. McCain said such locally directed spending should only come from the Administration or the authorizing committees in Congress. Members of the Appropriations Committees shouldn’t be adding things into their bills, he said. States and districts aren’t really helped by earmarks, he added: “It’s like welfare.”

Rossi said that while he’d be happy with eliminating earmarks altogether, he thinks the executive branch has too much power in deciding where the money goes right now.

That seems to put him somewhere between McCain and Murray, who has said that it’s better for members of Congress to direct money to worthy projects supported by people in their states than leave the decisions up to unelected “bureaucrats.”

 

There once was a time when Arizona Sen. John McCain warmly embraced the label “maverick.” He seemed to delight in taking positions at odds with his party - or even his state’s - orthodoxy. He had established himself firmly in the tradition of some of the great Senate mavericks of the past - LaFollette, Borah, even Goldwater. But just as BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” brand washed away in the Gulf oil spill, so has McCain’s maverick brand forever vanished thanks to his presidential election run and his ugly, but still decisive, victory yesterday in the GOP primary in Arizona. McCain, by all odds, will be back in the Senate post-November, but not as a maverick and likely not ever again as an interesting, important American political player/Marc Johnson, The Johnson Post. More here. (AP file photo)

• With a name like ‘Huck,’ he has to be good/Dennis Mansfield
• Ken Mehlman’s gay? Meh/Fort Boise
• Crapo unwittingly publicizes contradiction in GOP strategy/Sisyphus, 43rdSB
• Beginning of the end for UIdaho law school?/IdaBlue
• 90 years ago, a woman’s vote/Rick Johnson, Idaho Conservation League
• A shift from Labrador elseshere, and: How many ‘opposers’?/Randy Stapilus
  

Question: Which national politician today best exemplifies the label “maverick”?

U.S. Sen.  John  McCain, R-AZ., leaves his polling station earlier today in Phoenix after casting his vote in the Arizona primary election.  McCain is being challenged by former Congressman J.D. Hayworth. An AP story reports that McCain and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, are poised to win bitter primary fights against Tea Party opponents today here. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Question: Any predictions re: surprises in primary elections around the nation today?

China Gum, a spokeswoman for Labrador, did little to walk back the candidate’s remarks, noting only that Labrador had voted for the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 while Minnick has supported Democrats for president, including Barack Obama. “Raul Labrador has voted for all Republican presidential candidates as did the overwhelming majority of Idaho voters in the 1st Congressional District,” said Gum. “So who best represents the 1st CD? The conservative Raul Labrador or the smooth Walt Minnick?” Minnick campaign manager John Foster fired back at Labrador’s camp, taking McCain’s side. “Walt would never, as Labrador has done, question the ethics and principles of an American hero who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war,” Foster said/Politico. More here. (AP photo: John McCain in Mesa, Ariz., earlier this month)

Question: Will Raul Labrador’s lack of enthusiasm for former Republican presidential candidate John McCain haunt him in his congressional race?