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McCain's Crystal Ball: Osama Caught, No More Pork Barrel, Flat Tax

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May 15, 2008 5:39 AM

ABC News’s Bret Hovell reports: Sen. John McCain is scheduled deliver a speech from the not-to-distant future Thursday morning – a speech that will chronicle what he hopes his first term in the White House will look like.

“The Iraq War has been won,” McCain will say, according to excerpts of the remarks released Wednesday night by his campaign. “Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension.”

The style of the speech – in which the presumptive Republican nominee will list the things he hopes to have accomplished at the end of his first term – reads like his current stump speech, but with verbs in the past tense.

Osama bin Laden will have been captured or killed, McCain will say, because of closer cooperation with the government of Pakistan and better intelligence gathering in the region.

“There still has not been another terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001,” McCain will say.

Other accomplishments he hopes to achieve include the formation of a League of Democracies to bring to bear pressure on governments that do not share democratic values. He will say that that group will use economic pressure to encourage the government of Sudan to allow a peacekeeping force into Darfur which will stop the genocide there.

McCain will talk about his economic plans, including lowering the corporate tax rate, and creating a new flatter tax code. In his remarks, he’ll say that he will have been able to eliminate pork barrel earmark spending as well.

“After exercising my veto several times in my first year in office, Congress has not sent me an appropriations bill containing earmarks for the last three years,” McCain will say.

McCain will also list improvements to education and health care, progress towards energy independence and security along the United States's southern border. He says he’ll have press conferences once a week, and will even submit to questioning from a joint session of Congress, “to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.”

The speech is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. eastern time in Columbus, Ohio.

May 15, 2008 in Hunter, Duncan | Permalink | User Comments (50)

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Sure...ok, dreamer. The only thing that I see happening is the tax breaks for corporations. Yeah, Exxon needs more tax breaks and subsidies as an incentive to "find" oil. Like making a profit isn't an incentive enough. I'm sure beer distributors will get a nice tax break. Nothing like enriching your own pockets as this current administration has done. Well at least we'll only have 96 more years to go in Iraq after his first term. Something to look forward to. Same junk politics and policies that don't work for real people.

Posted by: Jake | May 15, 2008 5:57:21 AM

McCain had better be VERY SPECIFIC about any tax breaks he wants to give corporations. These corporations should have to meet certain guidelines: No exorbitant pay for corporate officers, no outsourcing of higher paid jobs to foreign nationals, no windfall profits being made (such as by Exxon).
_______________________________________
If McCain wants to lose the support of working people who believe Obama is too far left, all he has to do is start pandering to corporations as we've seen done for the past eight years.

Posted by: Kate | May 15, 2008 6:17:24 AM

This guy is dreaming.... sadly for us, it is a real nightmare. OBAMA!

Posted by: Mrs. Tiggywinkle | May 15, 2008 6:18:52 AM

The fact is that Barack is defeating Hillary becuase of the support of the radical left and because Barack is one of them.
Hillary is our only choice as moderates.
The second choice is McCain, not radical Barack.

Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 6:29:43 AM

If the democratic superdelegates are foolish enough to choose Brarck we will vote for McCain and wait 4 years to vote for a decent democrat, Hillary or someone else. We will not not accept a candidate like Barack who is too leftist and the more we learn about him the more scared we are.

Posted by: edruardo | May 15, 2008 6:34:56 AM

From McCain record in the senate it could be argued that his views are very different from Busch/Cheney, that he is more of a centrist, perhaps with a high variance but a small mean. I would place him in the midle point between Busch and Hillary and I would place Brack in the far left Oposite to Busch.
Busch====McCain====Hillary====Barack

For moderates the choices are clear Hillary or McCain, for radicals the choice is clear too: Barack


Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 6:45:44 AM

Can we throw all three of these clowns out and get a real presidential candidate?

Posted by: C. P. Heath | May 15, 2008 7:05:12 AM

The political class of the democratic party has decided that their pockets could be hurt and that Barck is sinking and they want to save the ship with foolish endorsments like the idiot Eduards that cant get more than 3 votes. What they dont know is that people like me who suported the democrats but who dont have radical views are not going to vote for Barack ever. Never and ever and ever. So think careful about this superdelegates (superdelegate = corrupt politician that overturns popular votes for self interest).
You may think you are helping your pocket by choosing Barack over Hillary but think well because we will ruin you out of office.In the political map Barack is too far to the left

Busch=========McCain===Hillary========Barack

So if you choose Barack be prepared about large defections to the republican party. Hillary will win the popular vote when all votes are counted!! Hillary is our nominee, not "Brack the Usurper".

Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 7:10:14 AM

All this negativity... Obama is the real deal. Why do you think so many people have funded his campaign, average people giving 10 or 20 dollars. Most candidates get most of their money only from very large donors. Smart people can see this man is sincere and will put this country back on track and begin to clean up the mess of the whole bush-league. Obama 2008!

Posted by: pt | May 15, 2008 7:12:00 AM

dennis... what did bush & cheney rate? maybe 99, and everyone with a brain can see where they took us. These so called conservatives are only looking out for themselves and the very wealthy. Obama 2008!!

Posted by: pt | May 15, 2008 7:15:11 AM

s4bo:

You are wrong, Barack = 5 , Hillary=40
McCain= 60 , Busch= 95. This is why.

1. Barck was ranked the most liberal in congress.

2. His support base in Chicago is extremist.

3. Barack is not been honest. When the cameras are off (like in SF) he says very radical things. When the cameras are on he pretends he is moderate. He is just another politician. That's why the radicals support him.

Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 7:17:34 AM

DennisNC:

Yes we supported him until we found out who he realy was.

The negativity is about the people choice been subverted by the radiucals.
ONE PERSON ONE VOTE. COUNT THE VOTES.
Hillary president.

Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 7:22:48 AM

DennisNC:
You are another radical crook that is stealing the election. Go to hell!!

Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 7:25:14 AM

DennisNC:

Explain to me why your candidate Barack sabotaged the revote of Florida and Michigan?

Because his is a demagogue and he cares just about wining and not about democracy. He is a total liard, another crooked politician worried about himself.

Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 7:31:14 AM

GWP:

I agree that McCain is not the ideal candidate, I would prefer if Hillary was ranning as the democratic candidate.
I would even vote for her as a 3rd party candidate.
But this Barack is looking relay bad. Look at all his associations, look at the tactics they used at the Caucuses to win this election. This is Chicago politics at his worse. The fact is we will never find out who this Barck guy is. It is all show, bull. He seems to change his views depending on the audience and the cameras. If the litle we know today was known a few months ago he would not be the nominee.
The fact is that if Barack is the nominee we are been left out without any good choices. I will either vote for McCain or stay home.

Posted by: eduardo | May 15, 2008 7:42:32 AM

Again, what does McCain talk about? The Iraq war won. He isn't listening to 60+% of the American public wanting out of that war. We are suffering big time here at home and he wants to continue a war where Iraqis are now earning windfall profits on their oil. Improvements on healthcare? I don't think so. He wants the free market to work. Insurance in this "free market" is unaffordable for millions of Americans. Without universal healthcare, millions more will be "on the streets" when it comes to McCain's healthcare plan

Posted by: Bob | May 15, 2008 8:04:42 AM

McCain and Lieberman were the honorary co-chairs back in 2002-2003 of the Committee to Liberate Iraq.

You want to blame Bush for this war.

Take a look at who has been the leader of this tight wing group who pushed it.

The man who ran this group with the two chairs...is now McCain's leading foreign policty adviser.

This is not made up...and no one knows this because of this stupid long primary.

Posted by: dl | May 15, 2008 8:08:55 AM

Time to head to Florida dude..
try a little shuffle board or bingo...

Posted by: zorar | May 15, 2008 9:05:57 AM

McCain has missed his calling. He should open a fortune telling shop since he can see into the future and leave running our government to someone who cares about the American people. McCain just cares about the Bush policy and his own ego. Granted, he is a war hero but there are a lot of war heroes out there - some of the unfortunate ones dead because of Bush, and McCain is willing to carry on the ego-inflated GWB Iraqi war and make more "war heroes". I would vote for anyone but a republican at this point - they have morhphed into wide-stanced, child molesting, war mongers since GWB stole office.

Posted by: Ron | May 15, 2008 9:07:46 AM

A first McCain term would in reality be Bush III. Since Reagan, a GOP president has never been anything but the front-man for a shadow government executing on an agenda to transform the U.S. into an ultra-right-wing authoritarian police state, the government of which is above and beyond the law and to whom the Constitution is "only a god-damed piece of paper." They have so many people completely snowed. If we don't soundly trounce them at the polls in November, they WILL steal this election, too. The Democrats must win by a landslide in order to prevent this. Unfortunately, as we've seen in Hillary Clinton's behavior, the Democrats have been watching and learning. Who's to say that they, too, won't begin using shadow governments that only have the appearance of democracy.

Posted by: Reality In America | May 15, 2008 9:12:41 AM

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