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McCain in New Hampshire

Whew!  Living in Massachusetts is wonderful because I can zip up Route 93 to New Hampshire to political events.  It’s an amazing opportunity, so carpe’d the diem and attended the McCain event in Salem at Woodberry Middle School earlier today and had an opportunity to hear McCain first-hand.  I called into the Todd Feinburg Show at 2:30 to report on what I had seen.  Then I zoomed back to WMFO 91.5FM in Medford, MA to tell everyone about it on the air.  In the meantime, Tony Schinella kindly edited and emailed me some audio of the event which I was able to download and play on the air by 4pm.  Don’t you love technology?!  Love it!

Addressing an audience of about a thousand people, McCain struck the following themes:

• Pork barrel spending is out of control.  Examples he mentioned were a multi-million dollar project to study the dna of the bear in Montana and the infamous bridge to nowhere in Alaska.  I was struck that both of McCain’s examples were in Republican states (I guess it’s still the primary).  He said he’ll be asking for the line-item veto.
• We have to fix healthcare.  McCain was at his best in talking about the healthcare needs that veterans will have.  He said they will have PSTD and they will have wounds from IED’s (improvised explosive device).  We will have to expand the VA and he wants vets to have a plastic card that will help them get routine medical care conveniently rather than drive to the facility as is currently required. 
• We are still in a war in Iraq.  McCain mentioned the doctors in Glasgow, Scotland who were willing to blow themselves up to attack us.  The surge, which he claims as his plan, is working, and General Petraeus should have been Time magazine’s Man of the Year.  McCain is saying that he is the only candidate on either side with the knowledge and experience to deal with Iraq and that Al Quada, while not as strong as before, is not defeated.

McCain ended by saying “I believe that I can make this world safe” and that he has “the experience, knowledge, and background to do so.”

Questions included the following issues:

• Why did you vote to decrease tax rates to below spending levels when this actually increases taxes by incurring interest on the debt?  McCain’s response was primarily focused on his intent to not increase taxes and to fund increased spending with reductions other spending.
• Does McCain view the loss of a manufacturing base as a security issue because it causes us to be dependent on the finished goods of many countries who are not democracies?  McCain said that we have moved from a manufacturing economy to an information and services economy and that is something that people may not want to hear, but it is the reality.  However, he said we must do something about the displaced worker, including retraining through the community college system and assistance during the transition.  McCain said he would even consider providing compensation for a limited period of time for displaced workers.  (Wonder what spending he’s willing to cut to pay for that?)  McCain said it’s going to be ‘a tough time we’re going through.’
• Genocide in Darfur - McCain said he would intervene in some way – unfortunately I missed the moment…
• Armenian genocide/Turkey - when asked about recognition of the Armenian genocide, McCain said this would be another issue that people may not like what he has to say.  He began by saying that genocide occurred and what the Armenian people went through was horrible.  However, the genocide took place at the beginning of the last century, the current government is not the same as caused the genocide, and Turkey is not only a strong ally of the United States, but as the leading Muslim country which is a democracy, it is important that we not do something that is going to do something that the Turkish people feel is an insult.
• The surge appears to be working – why was McCain smarter than everybody else about the best military strategy in Iraq?  McCain’s initial response to this was “knowledge and experience, knowledge and experience.”  He went on to say that 1) Rumsfeld’s strategy seemed familiar – it seemed much like the ‘search and destroy’ missions in Vietnam, and 2) that he had received much correspondence from military people saying it simply wasn’t working.
• Climate change – McCain said that climate change is real.  He went on to say that to those who do not believe it is real, consider the following:  suppose that ‘we’ are wrong and it isn’t real.  If we invest in green technologies and industries, we will be better off.  And, suppose that ‘we’ are right and it is real, and we’ve done nothing.  What kind of world will we be leaving for our children?  Finally, McCain said there is a ‘nexus’ between dealing with climate change and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
• Young people – McCain said he does everything he can to reach out to young people – he goes on Jon Stewart’s show, Letterman, Jay Leno, and any other show where he can reach out to young people.  He believes that the two most relevant to young people are:
• Climate change
• Social security/Medicare – McCain said that SS and Medicare are going to be there for young people, so he wants to do something to make sure that young people have access to the same things that we do now.

What was striking about this event is the two topics that didn’t come up.  

1. Illegal Immigration
2. Religion

Didn’t come up.  Wow.  I think New Hampshire IS different from Iowa, and this is where it is different.  I can’t imagine that these two topics wouldn’t have ‘come up’ in Iowa.  One women did ask about visas and legal immigration – how is it that companies have jobs for which there aren’t any qualified Americans.  But, no one asked about fences, deportation, or amnesty.  And, no one asked about religion.  I like that. 

Finally, McCain was heckled by people concerned about $50 billion for AIDS prevention within the US and internationally.  I have to say that their signs didn’t say where anyone could find out about their concerns.  Given the effort they put into getting the choice seats in the front and the number of people, it seems that they could have been more effective getting their message out.  And, since they were unlikely to change anyone’s mind, I was trying to figure out what they were hoping to accomplish.  Publicity?  Maybe.  Didn’t work for me.

Check out Tony Schinella’s post on his blog Politizine.com with video of the event.