John McCain has been touring the United States while the democrats have been locked in a fight to the death. We posted earlier about McCain’s visit with the staff and residents of Hope Village for Children.

I thought you might enjoy seeing the video of his visit there.

John McCain has been touring the country as part of his Service to America Tour. Today he was at Hope Village which is a home for children who have had to be removed from the homes of their primary caretakers. It is a place of safety and … well … hope. A place where the children can grow and learn in safety when other alternatives are not available to them. The home was started in 2000 by actress Sela Ward.

John McCain speaks at Hope Village about the importance of public service

Actress Sela Ward listens

In this one, Sen. McCain is cracking, “c’mon, granny” to which Mrs. McCain cracked back,
“I’m fine, it’s the girls who are slowing me down”

crossposted at Blue Star Chronicles

Well, I don’t think she intended to, but that was the end result ….

ARLINGTON, VA – U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today released the following statement by Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker in response to the assertion by Susan Rice, Senator Obama’s foreign policy advisor, that neither democratic candidate is ready for the 3:00 a.m. call:

“At a time when our country faces an unprecedented range of international challenges and opportunities, the American people want a president who is prepared to lead our country in a dangerous world. Senator Obama’s foreign policy adviser said today that neither Senator Clinton nor Senator Obama is ready to answer a 3:00 a.m. phone call during an international crisis. We agree wholeheartedly that neither Senator Clinton nor Senator Obama have the experience or judgment necessary to lead the United States in the struggle against violent Islamic extremists who seek our destruction, or to address the complex global environment that our next president will face. Only Senator McCain is ready to serve as commander in chief from day one.”

Don’t you hate when that happens!

h/t The Pirate’s Cove

Also at Patterico.

With the great news that John McCain is the official nominee of the Republican Party I thought it was appropriate to do a round-up of Blogs blogging about McCain.

We have just launched our blogroll so we are venturing out and included blogs that haven’t joined the blogroll yet. I know you are anxious to get on the blogroll so just check out the how to page and drop us a note. We’ll get you added asap. You can be a part of a growing and dynamic online presence in support of John McCain for President. Its not hard to do, trust me!

Meanwhile, here’s just a little of what’s being posted on pro-McCain blogs.

McCain Victory 2008 - McCain - A Win In November

Hot Air - Video: McCain clinches, takes it to the Democrats on Iraq

Pal2Pal - McCain’s Citizenship is Not in Doubt

The Median Sib - Barack Obama (or B.O.) His middle name isn’t what should concern voters

Blogs for John McCain - John McCain Calls Americans to Stand Up and Fight For America - Video 3/4/08

Born Again Redneck - Republican actresses (the guys will like this one!)

Right Wing Sparkle - Hillary takes a bit of revenge

The Pirate’s Cove - Obamessiah’s Wife Says America is Just Mean

McCain Blogette- “Sunday in Sedona” (See how the McCain family and friends spent his day off from his daughter’s point of view. Looks like fun!)

Armchair Everything - Now Its Official at Least for the GOP

Basil’s Blog - Hussein in the membrane

Politico - Chelsea and Meghan: A tale of two daughters

My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - Another Reason to vote McCain over the democrat

My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - McCain Officially Gets the Nomination! (yes, I know that’s two for MVRWC - but they are both good so deal with it! )

Chas’ Compilations - What does the term “Conservative Republican” mean anymore? Can we all get along? SOON?

The Pink Flamingo - THE AUDACITY OF CRAPOLA

Right Wing Nation - A Quandry

Leaning Up Straight - Hillary: In for the long haul

Blue Star Chronicles - Michelle Obama to Poor Working Women: Don’t Cry For Me

Photo credit: John McCain 2008 - www.JohnMcCain.com

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McCain Blogs is not responsible for the content of blogs that link back to this or any other post in this blog. We are not officially connected to the John McCain campaign, but are an independent group of bloggers with a variety of opinions and points of view. Our common thread is that we support the candidacy of John McCain for President of the United States.

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John McCain laid out his campaign strategy and his pledge to America in response to his securing the Republican nomination for the Presidency. His words were inspirational and his delivery was passionate.

From the John McCain website.

ARLINGTON, VA — U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today released the following remarks by John McCain as prepared for delivery tonight in Dallas, Texas:

Thank you. Thank you, Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island. I am very grateful for the broad support you have given our campaign. And I am very pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a sense of great responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.

I want to thank all of you here and all the Republicans, Independents, and independent thinking Democrats, in all parts of this great country, who supported our campaign for the nomination, and have brought us across the finish line first, an accomplishment that once seemed to more than a few doubters unlikely.

I want to commend again, my friend, Governor Mike Huckabee, and his supporters, for their passionate commitment to their campaign that Governor Huckabee so ably represented. And I want to thank all my former rivals for the nomination and their supporters for their steadfast dedication to keeping America free, safe, prosperous, and proud.

And, of course, I want to thank my family: my wife, Cindy; my children, and our dear friends who have been throughout this campaign, and will remain in the challenging months ahead, an unwavering source of support and love.

Now, we begin the most important part of our campaign: to make a respectful, determined and convincing case to the American people that our campaign and my election as President, given the alternatives presented by our friends in the other party, are in the best interests of the country we love. I have never believed I was destined be President. I don’t believe anyone is pre-destined to lead America. But I do believe we are born with responsibilities to the country that has protected our God-given rights, and the opportunities they afford us. I did not grow up with the expectation that my country owed me more than the rights owed every American. On the contrary, I owe my country every opportunity I have ever had. I owe her the meaning that service to America has given my life, and the sense that I am part of something greater than myself, part of a kinship of ideals that have always represented the last, best hope of mankind.

I understand the responsibilities I incur with this nomination, and I give you my word, I will not evade or slight a single one. Our campaign must be, and will be more than another tired debate of false promises, empty sound-bites, or useless arguments from the past that address not a single American’s concerns for their family’s security. Presidential candidates are judged on their records, their character and the whole of their life experiences. But we are also expected to concentrate our efforts on the challenges that will confront America on our watch and explain how we intend to address them.

America is at war in two countries, and involved in a long and difficult fight with violent extremists who despise us, our values and modernity itself. It is of little use to Americans for their candidates to avoid the many complex challenges of these struggles by re-litigating decisions of the past. I will defend the decision to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime as I criticized the failed tactics that were employed for too long to establish the conditions that will allow us to leave that country with our country’s interests secure and our honor intact. But Americans know that the next President doesn’t get to re-make that decision. We are in Iraq and our most vital security interests are clearly involved there. The next President must explain how he or she intends to bring that war to the swiftest possible conclusion without exacerbating a sectarian conflict that could quickly descend into genocide; destabilizing the entire Middle East; enabling our adversaries in the region to extend their influence and undermine our security there; and emboldening terrorists to attack us elsewhere with weapons we dare not allow them to possess.

The next President must encourage the greater participation and cooperation of our allies in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The next President must lead an effort to restructure our military, our intelligence, our diplomacy and all relevant branches of government to combat Islamic extremism, encourage the vast majority of moderates to win the battle for the soul of Islam, and meet the many other rising challenges in this changing world.

I will leave it to my opponent to argue that we should abrogate trade treaties, and pretend the global economy will go away and Americans can secure our future by trading and investing only among ourselves. We will campaign in favor of seizing the opportunities presented by the growth of free markets throughout the world, helping displaced workers acquire new and lasting employment and educating our children to prepare them for the new economic realities by giving parents choices about their children’s education they do not have now.

I will leave it to my opponent to claim that they can keep companies and jobs from going overseas by making it harder for them to do business here at home. We will campaign to strengthen job growth in America by helping businesses become more competitive with lower taxes and less regulation.

I will leave it to my opponent to propose returning to the failed, big government mandates of the sixties and seventies to address problems such as the lack of health care insurance for some Americans. I will campaign to make health care more accessible to more Americans with reforms that will bring down costs in the health care industry down without ruining the quality of the world’s best medical care.

And I will campaign to reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil with an energy policy that encourages American industry and technology to make our country safer, cleaner and more prosperous by leading the world in the use, development and discovery of alternative sources of energy.

These are some of the challenges that confront us. There are others just as urgent, and during this campaign I’ll travel across the country in cities and rural areas, in communities of all ethnic backgrounds and income levels, offering my ideas and listening to the concerns and advice of Americans. Americans aren’t interested in an election where they are just talked to and not listened to; an election that offers platitudes instead of principles and insults instead of ideas; an election that results — no matter who wins — in four years of unkept promises and a government that is just a battleground for the next election. Their patience is at an end for politicians who value ambition over principle, and for partisanship that is less a contest of ideas than an uncivil brawl over the spoils of power.

Nothing is inevitable in America. We are the captains of our fate. We’re not a country that prefers nostalgia to optimism; a country that would rather go back than forward. We’re the world’s leader, and leaders don’t pine for the past and dread the future. We make the future better than the past. We don’t hide from history. We make history. That, my friends, is the essence of hope in America, hope built on courage, and faith in the values and principles that have made us great. I intend to make my stand on those principles and chart a course for our future greatness, and trust in the judgment of the people I have served all my life. So stand up with me, my friends, stand up and fight for America — for her strength, her ideals, and her future. The contest begins tonight. It will have its ups and downs. But we will fight every minute of every day to make certain we have a government that is as capable, wise, brave and decent as the great people we serve. That is our responsibility and I will not let you down.

Thank you.

…. guess who took which side ….

Wouldn’t it be great if we really could have everything the democrats are promising us in their campaigns? Free college tuition for everyone. Free health care for everyone. Tax Cuts! Help with your mortgage. They might even come out and mow your lawn for you!

The list of promises from both democratic candidates is very long. The National Taxpayers Union has a very rough estimate of $287 billion for Obama’s promises and $218 billion for Clinton’s promises. Even at those staggering costs, neither candidate have much to say about how they will fund this utopia they promise. They say something about repealing Bush’s tax cuts (note that to them this isn’t the same thing as raising taxes because they are simultaneously promising tax cuts) and they say that ending the war in Iraq will help pay for it. As USA Today these vague statements about how to pay for billions of dollars of new and improved social services just isn’t going to cut it.

A rollback of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans could generate perhaps $75 billion next year. The Iraq war savings are much harder to figure. The war has been costing about $100 billion per year. But a Democratic president, once in office, might decide that national security demands a gradual withdrawal, or a redeployment to Afghanistan. Health care for Iraq war veterans will run into the billions for decades. It’s unlikely that winding down the war will produce a large, quick peace dividend capable of supporting a host of new programs.

To make matters worse, any tax increases and military reductions might be needed just to cover the government’s existing shortfalls caused principally by rising health care costs and the pending baby boomer retirement.

The two democratic candidates don’t seem too concerned about benefiting in the short run from enticing votes by promising almost limitless gifts from the government to everyone. The thing is, I’m worried about the long run and I’m not the only one.

With the exception of the limp wristed sushi and latte learjet liberal set, most tax payers look at the promises made by these two with a suspicious eye. Most of us see our paychecks flying out the window in upwards of 50% taxes on our incomes and everything we buy. People start losing their incentive to work when their income is taken to pay for everything for people who don’t work. Most people in our society feel responsible for and don’t mind paying for people who can’t take care of themselves. Most people mind very much paying for people who can and just don’t or won’t pay for themselves. When the money is redistributed people start to give up hope knowing they can never get ahead of what is allotted them by a government out of control.

Its not that this form of government is something new that Clinton and Obama thought up. Its been tried before. I really don’t know why Clinton and Obama are so far behind the curb because it was tried a generation ago by other governments. Russia, Cuba, Venezuela have all tried socialism and/or communism. Its bankrupted and corrupted every society it has been tried in. We’d have to suspend disbelief to think it’d be any different here than it has been in every other government that has tried it.

I was interested in reading about John McCain’s views of sending his own son to war. I have lived through watching and waiting while my son served 15 months in a violent, savage neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq and will probably have to do it again some time down the road. Since John McCain is, in all likelihood, the next Commander in Chief of the military, I want to know how he views sending our young men and women to war.

One of the reasons I’m excited about McCain’s candidacy is that I know he supports our military and will make sure our men and women do not go into battle without proper cause, support and supplies. Regardless of the politics of it, he has been willing to be open about his views of the necessity of defeating islamofascists ‘over there’ instead of waiting for another attack here with our heads in the sand.

Then there are the politics of an unpopular war, which seem to many observers to be hobbling his campaign. As a result, McCain has taken pains to give reporters at every stop his very specific assessment of the conduct of the war, which he authorized and continues to endorse. “The Bush administration made every conceivable mistake you could have made—military, political, even economic. [I would have done] the opposite of what they did, particularly having more boots on the ground, not allowing the looting, setting up a de-Baathification program immediately, and moving more quickly to form a government.”

Since almost no one in the top echelon of the Bush administration had any active military experience, I ask McCain if the president—who is commander-in-chief, after all—should be required to have some active service, perhaps even combat duty. “It would be helpful,” he says, “but I have to hasten to add that some of our great presidents did not have a wealth of military experience. Look at Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. What would be helpful is if more members of Congress served in the military so they would understand the challenges that the young men and women are facing.”

McCain’s sons are both serving the country. His older son, Jack, is currently at the Naval Academy. His younger son, Jimmy, is a Marine deployed to Iraq. McCain’s entire life has been a testament to duty. Duty and service are not about pretty words and theories, but are about action and sacrifice. Its about serving a cause bigger than yourself.

John McCain has taught his sons that duty “is serving a cause greater than you,” honor “is the ability to do the right thing when nobody else knows,” and “serving a cause greater than yourself is the most ennobling of all avocations.” And now his sons are men. Cindy McCain says: “Both of my boys are grown up, and now one is really doing what a man does—and that is going off to war.”

Its understandable that McCain is reluctant to talk about his son, Jimmy, who is currently deployed in Iraq. Considering what happened to McCain as the son of the Chief of Naval Operations while he was held in the Hanoi Hilton, I’m sure he doesn’t want his own son to be put in the position of a being a prized target for the enemy.

Still, it’s clear from watching McCain that Jimmy—and what may lie in store for him during his deployment in Iraq—weighs heavily on his mind. McCain says he won’t discuss Jimmy’s deployment, but it also seems he can’t not talk about him. So sometimes McCain will bring up his son unexpectedly, out of the blue. “You know,” McCain says, greeting the limo driver, a man he has known from past campaign trips, “my son Jimmy is in the Marines now. He’s doing great. Yes, sir, Jimmy’s doing great. Just great.”

Yeah, I understand that.

Read the article, it gives a lot of insight into the man who will be President.

A segment of Conservatives are agonizing about whether or not John McCain is conservative enough to be supported as the Republican nominee for the presidency. He is repeatedly compared to Ronald Reagan. I find that odd seeing as Ronald Reagan’s record was not as conservative as conservatives want to remember it to have been. Still, Ronald Reagan is the standard bearer by which ‘true conservatism’ is determined. While many still cast about looking for the perfect ‘conservative’ candidate, I submit that there is no such creature.

I ran across an article today that compared John McCain’s conservative credentials to those of Winston Churchill. Michael Makovsky states in his article The Model for McCain? Not Reagan, but Churchill, “McCain certainly has not achieved Churchill’s heights, but he can legitimately claim to be the most Churchillian among the Republicans of his day.”

Makovsky’s points out that the similarities between McCain and Churchill are striking and instructive. Both men are thought to be/have been mavericks who were/are distrusted by their Conservatives peers.

Both grew up as underachievers in the shadow of prominent fathers and ancestors and then surpassed them in renown. Churchill’s father was chancellor of the Exchequer, a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough who defeated the armies of Louis XIV, while McCain’s father and grandfather were prominent admirals. Both McCain and Churchill were fearless soldiers and prisoners of war, although Churchill escaped Boer captivity after mere weeks while McCain endured more than five grueling years at the Hanoi Hilton. Both have felt most at home in battle, whether in war or political chambers, and have shared a restlessness to advance their own careers and the cause of their countries.

Neither Churchill nor McCain was ever liked much by his colleagues. Perhaps early on Churchill was more liked and his brilliance more respected, but he switched from the Conservatives in 1904 to the Liberals with much newfound partisan fervor, and the Conservatives never forgave him even after he returned to the fold in 1924–even after he won WWII. Churchill’s dispute with the party leadership over control of India (he favored it), Nazi Germany (he was against it), Zionism (he was for it), and other divisive issues, as well as his occasional outreach to Labourites–indeed, he headed a wartime coalition government–did not help his popularity among the party faithful. McCain has always been a Republican, but, without being the partisan warrior Churchill was, he has never been personally popular with his party colleagues. He further alienated the party faithful and establishment by co-sponsoring legislation with Democrats. Both have been perceived by colleagues as erratic, and occasionally harsh in personal relations.

Fundamental to Churchill’s worldview was the belief that priorities had to be rigidly ranked and that the supreme interests need to be vigorously and single-mindedly pursued. Chief among those interests was national security. McCain has suggested a similar approach. Indeed, McCain and Churchill lived and breathed national security issues, and it is in this policy field that their similarities are most pronounced. They both strongly believed in their countries, considering them the chief champions of civilization, and they have been rarities in usually putting national security interests ahead of their political fortunes.

Read the rest of the story …..

*emphasis mine.