McCain out of presidential race by September?

Robert Bluey reports on the speculation about Senator McCain possibly stepping out of the presidential race by September of this year, and notes a petition started by AZ Republicans urging him to go ahead and withdraw.

While it would be easy to blame this solely on his stance on illegal immigration – as some surely are or will – as a reminder, McCain has been wildly unpopular with conservatives for quite some time now, and the ‘amnesty’ bill is just one of many issues that have rankled conservatives about McCain (think McCain Feingold, for starters).

As to the likelihood of McCain dropping out by September, Captain Ed replies to that: “Don’t bet on it.” I agree. McCain will stick around until the first few primaries make it clear that he doesn’t stand a chance in you know where of getting the nomination.

Meanwhile, Fred Thompson continues to soar in the polls.

On the Dem side of the presidential race, in addition to Hillary’s continued 1st place position in the Dem polls – as noted in the link above, the mediots are making a big deal out of the fact that Elizabeth Edwards differs with her husband on the issue of gay marriage (she’s ok with gay marriage, he supports civil unions). This story gets a big yawn from me, because I’m more concerned with what the candidate thinks than what his/her spouse does (unless we’re talking Hillary …).

And speaking of the Edwards’, thanks to Howard Kurtz for the brief mention in his Media Notes column today of my post on Edwards being the main beneficiary of a poverty center he set up supposedly to benefit the poor. To that post, Kurtz responded:

I don’t see where it’s all that different than politicians forming these Committee to Pontificate on America’s Future groups.

I can see that to a point, but the difference is that Edwards is making ‘fighting poverty’ the centerpiece of his campaign, promoting the idea of doing more for others – specifically the poor – than we do for ourselves, while at the same time using his poverty center in an attempt to help himself more than help others. The blatant hypocrisy of his position is worthy of extensive commentary.

Edwards doing this is not unlike Al Gore’s travelling around the world getting paid big bucks to preach the benefit of self-sacrifice in order to ‘save the planet,’ while at the same time virtually exempting himself from that which he implores others to do. Gore’s and Edwards’ stances are not just part of their campaigns, they are the focal points of their campaigns. As much as Gore and Edwards both tout the virtue of self-sacrifice in order to ‘save the poor and the planet – for our children,’ when they’re not doing it, it deserves as much response as they would give on the other end of the debate.

Hat tip for the Kurtz link: ST reader Leslie

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