Tuesday, April 10th, 2007...7:08 am
Where’s Johnny?
The Democratic Party is pointing out that John McCain was absent from George Bush’s visit to Arizona, despite the fact that Bush was touting immigration measures not so far from what McCain was touting only a few months back.
I understand why McCain might not want to participate in a photo op for an unpopular president, but this is a pattern for him. You can see it in missed votes, as well as in the lack of visits outside of the Phoenix area.
The Tucson Citizen reported a couple of weeks back that McCain has missed a third of roll call votes. This is far more than the other Senators who are running for President have missed. The only Senator who has missed more votes is Tim Johnson, who isn’t running for President, but has some darned good excuses for not showing up.
I’d blame the skewed structure of our primaries, but Hillary Clinton has somehow only managed to miss three votes in that same period of time.
His absence from most of Arizona seems to have started before his run. He seems to value his “rock star” status nationwide over serving large swaths of people in his own state.
I heard a story on NPR recently about a town in New Hampshire where McCain has visited six times this year. Six times. My immediate thought after hearing this was, “How many times has McCain visited Tucson in that time?” I can think of few times, even before he was running, where he visited us down here, aside from editorial board meetings. Yeah, I know the rest of y’all in the state complain about us whining down here, but this is the second largest city in the state that he represents. It shouldn’t be crazy to ask that our Senator visit us at least as often as a dying mill town whose population would barely fill Arizona Stadium.
If he has no time for a metro area quickly approaching a million people, what chance does Safford or Kingman have?
Maybe McCain has heard stories about crime rates in Tucson. Maybe we should offer him, I dunno, a couple of hundred troops to escort him. He’ll go anywhere with an armed escort.
NB - On that armed escort thing, Mike Pence said that the market was just as safe as shopping in Indiana. Hmm. Given this fact, I’m willing to take back all the barbs thrown at Dan Quayle for his Viet-Nam era service in the Indiana National Guard. Obviously, the place is very dangerous.
7 Comments
April 10th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Indiana Must be a dangerous place to live… it is right next to Ohio, and as many a native Tucsonan can attest, People with Ohio plates do not know how to drive!
As for McCain’s absence from the senate, maybe it is not such a bad thing……..
April 10th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Tedski,
Just as I was reading this post I got an e-mail titled “McCain is coming to Tucson!”
What timing. Any way for a cool $250 you and your friends can have lunch with the good senator at La Paloma. For a mere $2,300 you can attend a pre-event roundtable.
Hope you enjoy the senator’s visit.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Now, Ted, don’t you know that Saint John is the only one entitled to make with the “straight talk?”
How can he possibly be expected to make time for us in Tucson when he is busy showing the rest of the nation his “true colors” as a:
(choose from the list below)
-conservative
-maverick reformer
-”Friend O’ Falwell”
-environmentalist
-Iraq War apologist
-Roosevelt Republican
-Reagan Republican
-ethanol foe
-ethanol supporter
-anger addict loathed by his colleagues
-sagacious, temperate statesman beloved by all
It takes time to practice the ways of the chameleon while also trying to keep Rudy and Mitt at bay. Shame on you, Ted, for your lack of sympathy for John McCain. Hasn’t his “record” since 2000 been enough to convince you of his sincerity?
April 10th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Recall John McCain !
Leonard Clark
Chair
William Crum
Treasurer
of the John McCain Recall Committee
April 11th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
The Straitjacket Express in Tucson! Yay! Will he wear a bulletproof vest and bring the Apache helicoptors?
April 12th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
you cannot recall a United States senator, Leonard. You’re better off spending that energy on Renzi’s seat or perhaps getting Dems elected to the legislature. But, whatever floats your boat.
February 7th, 2008 at 10:23 am
[…] has been a pattern. As I’ve written about here, he has consistently missed far more votes than his colleagues, even the ones that are running for president. Not only that, he wasn’t even off campaigning […]
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