McCain, a Carpetbagger?
John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States senator from Arizona and a candidate for the Republican Party nomination in the 2008 presidential election.
When John Jacob Rhodes, Jr., the longtime Republican congressman from Arizona's 1st congressional district, announced his retirement, McCain ran for the seat as a Republican in 1982. McCain faced two experienced state legislators in the Republican nomination process, and as a newcomer to the state was hit with repeated charges of being a carpetbagger. Finally, at a candidates’ forum, he gave a famous refutation to a voter making the charge:
“Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.”
A Phoenix Gazette columnist would later label this "the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I've ever heard." McCain won the highly contested primary election in September 1982. By comparison, the general election two months later became an easy lopsided victory for him in the heavily Republican district.
(SOURCE: Wikipedia)
Fact-O-Rama
Archives
