Projo Politics Blog

Now is the time that all good surrogates come out to rally the troops -- and nurture the most tenuous connections to far-flung delegations such as Rhode Island's.

For Navy lifers like John McCain and his stand-ins, that isn't too much of a stretch.

So the local delegation hosted a cavalcade of McCain associates at the daily organizing meeting today, with Governor Carcieri as host. There was the candidate's brother Joe -- born into their Navy family just over the border in New London. Joe McCain, a onetime petty officer, drew some happy duty in Newport. "There is nobody in the Navy who doesn't spend some time in Newport,'' he said.

The younger McCain brother displayed the vintage Navy flight jacket -- brown leather with fur collar -- the one that John hung on a hook one day before flying a mission off the deck of the USS Oriskany and would not see again until five-and-a-half years later, the time he spent in a Hanoi prison.

Carcieri recalled a visit from Roberta McCain, the mother of the brothers, to Rhode Island, including a sail on Narragansett Bay. Confession from Joe McCain: "We were both terrified of our mother.''

Carcieri introduced formmer Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi in terms that any employment-minded Rhode Island pol could understand -- as chairman of the federal panel that presided over the last round of military base closings, from which the state emerged with a net increase of several hundred Navy jobs.

Principi, a fellow Annapolis graduate of McCain's and a onetime counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he had no first-hand knowledge of a long-running McCain campaign that did not sit so well with the Naval community in Southeastern New England.

Year after year, at the height of President Ronald Reagan's military buildup in the 1980s, McCain tried to whack the Seawolf submarine with the budget axe, arguing that the Electric Boat-designed attack sub was too costly and perhaps not necessary for the Navy of the future.

During the last months of the first Bush administration, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney finished the job that McCain had started. He halted the Seawolf class well short of its originally contemplated production run -- at a cost of thousands of jobs and over the strenuous objections of such McCain friends as Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Sen. John H. Chafee of Rhode Island.

Some military analysts have argued in the years since, however, that the cancellation of the Seawolf -- tough a decision as it was -- turned out to be the right thing for the country, saving billions of dollars that had been aimed at countering a Soviet threat that diminished after the Cold War.

 Tags  Carcieri Joe McCain McCain Republican Convention Seawolf

Comments

trudy said:

Amazing number of whoppers coming out of the Republican Convention.

The AP does a fact check at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_fact_check

Just a sample -

Claim: PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

Fact: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town (pop. 6000) totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

Claim: Obama will raise taxes.

Fact: Middle and working class Americans will see substantial tax cuts from Obama. He'll raises taxes only on those making over $225,000 a year. McCain's tax breaks go primarily to the wealthy. Middle and working class Americans will be $1000 or so better off each year with Obama than McCain. Obama's plan includes making the first $50,000 in income for the elderly income tax free.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/

Link | September 4, 2008 7:38 AM
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