McCain: The campaign vs. the press
Posted: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 9:12 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
2008, McCain
Early this afternoon at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, Biden will give yet another speech criticizing McCain on foreign policy.
The Washington Post's Kurtz profiles Mark Salter and Steve Schmidt in their roles as rapid-responders against the press. "While McCain enjoys an image as a media darling, based largely on his bantering relationship with reporters on his bus, he and his presidential campaign aides have been hitting back hard against high-profile news reports they regard as inaccurate or unfair. The result is a more contentious relationship between the presumed Republican nominee and major news organizations than is publicly apparent. ‘If stories are wrong, we have an absolute obligation to say so, and to say so as loudly as we can,’ said Mark Salter, McCain's longtime confidant, who writes the rebuttal letters. ‘It's not working the refs. It's just correcting things when the refs blow a call.’”
Per excerpts of the speech he will give in Miami today, McCain goes after Obama on the issue of Cuba. “Just a few years ago, Senator Obama had a very clear view on Cuba,” the Arizona senator is expected to say. “When asked in a questionnaire about his policy toward Cuba, he answered: ‘I believe that normalization of relations with Cuba would help the oppressed and poverty-stricken Cuban people while setting the stage for a more democratic government once Castro inevitably leaves the scene.’ Now Senator Obama has shifted positions and says he only favors easing the embargo, not lifting it. He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro.”
“These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba’s dictators -- there is no need to undertake fundamental reforms, they can simply wait for a unilateral change in US policy. I believe we should give hope to the Cuban people, not to the Castro regime. My administration will press the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions, and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections. The embargo must stay in place until these basic elements of democratic society are met.”
In an effort to pre-but McCain’s speech, the Florida Democratic Party held a conference call yesterday afternoon to discuss what it said was McCain’s ever-evolving record on Cuba, NBC's Caroline Gransee reports. Leading the call was congressional candidate Joe Garcia, who began by pointing out that McCain has taken an “interesting departure” from his previous stance on Cuba. In 2000, he said, McCain use to support family travel to Cuba but now opposes it. Garcia believes this change shows McCain’s “expediency for election.”
Garcia also argued that if McCain becomes president, the US would inherit a “third term of George Bush” and his foreign policy toward Cuba -- a policy that has been “inefficient” and “immoral, Garcia said.
