John McCain - Media and Articles 11/16/07

LOVE AMERICA ENOUGH TV AD
http://www.johnmccain.com/tvads/

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ABC News: Back From Iraq, McCain Focuses On New Hampshire
Republican Contender Attempts to Set Himself Apart From Pack in New Hampshire
By Ron Claiborne
http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=3905857

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Washington Post: Decency On Immigration
Apart from John McCain, it's hard to find that quality in the Republican presidential contest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/23/AR2007112301493_pf.html

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Union Leader: Tom Kean: John McCain Is Best Prepared To Defend And Protect America
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Tom+Kean%3a+John+McCain+is+best+prepared+to+defend+and+protect+America&articleId=ff2d68e4-1808-4137-88e9-c0d369312eef

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Nashua Telegraph: McCain Looks To Rekindle '00 Vibe

By Kevin Landrigan

CONCORD – Republican presidential hopeful John McCain hopes to complete the resurrection of his 2008 candidacy in New Hampshire by starring in a new TV ad cast in an old role – fiery maverick.

The commercial is clearly meant to assure Republican primary voters that even after campaign stumbles, a messy fight over immigration and an unpopular war in Iraq, he remains the same patriot who makes the establishment angry.

McCain, Arizona's senior senator, speaks to the camera during the entire, 60-second ad scheduled to air today on New Hampshire television stations.

"I might not like the business-as-usual crowd in Washington. But I love America. I love her enough to make some people angry," McCain concludes.

The ad highlights McCain's unapologetic support for campaign finance reform and the latest troop surge in Iraq, while railing against pork-barrel spending and the Pentagon's early strategy in the war.

"I didn't go to Washington to win the Mr. Congeniality award," McCain said in the ad. "I went to Washington to serve my country."

McCain produced a similar commercial that aired about the same time as this one eight years ago during his first White House run.

"Sen. McCain is very comfortable communicating directly to the voters, whether it's in his town hall meetings or broadcast messages like this one," said Michael Dennehy, McCain's political director.

"He wants the citizens of New Hampshire to know he's the same guy they saw in 2000, someone who will stand up to the special interests and is no friend of the status quo."

In that 1999 commercial, McCain vowed to fight the special interests, reform campaign finance laws, cut taxes, reduce the federal deficit and save Social Security.

Today, McCain's critics publicly condemn him for joining liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and President Bush to propose a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 12 million illegal aliens.

Those critics also privately question if McCain, 71, can offer a fresh change most voters say they want and if he can defeat a better-financed Democratic nominee in November 2008.

On one level, McCain's ranting at "business as usual" could be seen as a shot at an unpopular president who ignored his sharp criticism and his pleas for more American combat troops early on in Iraq.

"I made the Pentagon angry when I criticized Rumsfeld's Iraq strategy, and I upset the media when I supported the strategy that's now succeeding," McCain declared in the ad.

For McCain, the spot tries to bring him full circle back to the underdog role he played seven years ago against then-candidate George W. Bush and parlayed into a crowning victory in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary.

Three weeks after the New Hampshire vote in 2000, Bush routed McCain in South Carolina and coasted to the Republican nomination.

This nostalgic ad ignores the reality that McCain was the early, wealthy front-runner through all of 2006 and nearly half of this year.

By June, however, that had all vanished, thanks to his campaign's own runaway spending, his unpopular stance on immigration with the conservative base and, at times, a more cautious candidate on the stump.

McCain nosed past former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani into second place in the latest independent poll of likely GOP primary voters from CNN/WMUR.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney still holds onto a healthy lead in the survey, though, 33 percent to 18 percent for McCain.