McCain in Annapolis minus the straight talk, Again

Welcome Back to Annapolis Senator McCain

“Would a return to straight talk have been so difficult while you were here, Senator?”

Annapolis, MD - Holding a campaign rally on the campus of the United States Naval Academy may be cause for celebration for Republican Senator John McCain and his supporters. After all, his service to America which began here in Annapolis has been as honorable as it has been remarkable. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute today is the so-called “straight talk” aura that is quickly fading as McCain seeks to appease his party’s radical elements with promises of four more years of George Bush’s war, George Bush’s economy and George Bush’s health care policies.

“That straight talking candidate is gone. It would be a welcome departure from the Bush Republican norm he has embraced and become,” says Quincey Gamble, Executive Director of the Maryland Democratic Party. “We’ve watched in amazement as an honorable man now twists his own words, attempts to clarify his ‘straight talk’ and justify his campaign’s more unsavory elements. Would a return to straight talk have been so difficult while you were here, Senator?”

In recent months we’ve seen John McCain weaken his approach to the political ideals that once earned him the label of “maverick.” Now it looks more like a facade than a reality. Sen. McCain once claimed he disliked the DC lobbyist culture. Now his campaign is controlled by those very same Republican K Street power-brokers who’ve fought to send American jobs overseas. We now know McCain insiders helped “Airbus” take a multi-billion dollar defense contract away from American workers. His campaign is being run by the very lobbyists who fought to weaken controls over the mortgage industry that gave us the foreclosure crisis facing thousands of Maryland homeowners today.

“John McCain can’t dismiss his campaign’s shortcomings or his own flip-flops with a nostalgic campaign tour designed primarily to reconnect himself to his own party,” says Gamble. “John McCain is on the record saying America will stay in Iraq for a hundred more years in necessary. He’s intent on continuing the Bush status quo with no credible ideas on how to address our plundered economy or the crisis for 800,000 Marylanders who have no health care. Where’s the straight talk now that Marylanders and America need it?”