I ran into the senator in an air port about four years ago, and I was quit impressed by the events that happened between the two of us that day. The first thing that impressed me was he was traveling on commerical air, and alone, I mean no body guards, no "people", no media.
I was about to purchase a book in the air port gift shop, and when I looked up he was standing at the register making a purchase with a few people standing around him looking just as shocked as I was. When I approched the register to pay for the book, (about FDR and others in the theator of WWII) he smiled at me and I said some weired thing like "you are who you are", (I felt like an awkword kid trying to impress a girl for the first time), however he kept his smile and just noded his head.
I started to walk away after my purchase, then abruptly I turned and came back to him hoping he won't think I was a threat to him, or a stalker, and ask if he would sign the book cover for me. The Senator looked at the title of the book and gave his approval of it by saying "this is good reading", he then took the book opened the cover and signed "John McCain senator from Arizona". This made my day, and even though I am not associated with either of the major polictial parties, I thought on that day I would consider voting for the senator from Arizona if he ever ran for President of the United States. Today after four years I still would consider voting for the senator for that act of kindness to someone he did not know, his war history, and his wholesome although more conservitive views (than I hold).

Signed:
Ordinary Average Afro-America Citizen.

I never did get the whole "straight talk express" McCain thing. He had the media wrapped around his finger because he was a gruff challenge to the media's conventional wisdom regarding the low-grade GOP front runner in 2000. That same media annointed Dubya as the "guy you'd most want to have a beer with", so now we're drunk on war.
McCain has always been a far right winger, and while not one to wear his religion on his sleeve, his positions have always been compatible with the Religious Right. And having been one of the Keating 5 (or was it 7), his efforts at a Constitutionally questionable campaign finance reform should be seen in that light, i.e., atonement rather than conviction.
His so-called pandering to the Religious Right is no surprise, as Mr. Berlinerblau points out. The shock is the result of people having bought into the shallow presentation by the media of electable candidates as fun guys, whose stands on issues are only incidental.

If McCain's statements are disturbing (and I agree that there is no basis for them constitutionally), we need only look to the history of presidential elections to understand their truth. Puritan America was in an uproar when a Catholic ran for president. Gore's selection of Leiberman was probably as culpable as Florida in his loss, and just as societally disturbing.

It is not simply the religious right (though they are McCains target) who want to know the spirituality of the candidates. That spirituality is a binding element between the public office and its constituants. I dare any candidate to stand at the podium and declare his or her Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or atheism; then, expect to win. It is naive to expect this from any country that claims an historical identity through specific thoughts and religious doctrines.

What? Being an Episcopalian wasn't good enough anymore? A simple belief in the moral precepts of the Ten Commandments and the teaching's of Jesus, such as "Blessed are the peace makers", can no longer cut it for the born again crowd? If you profess a religious belief in any way, being born once isn't good enough?

What is going here and across the board in politics, repub. and dem. is PANDERING. Yes but then politicians always pander for votes. However, the problem here is that they are pandering to those who hold that they have access to the ultimate truth, a truth that they have only on faith. You can't smell their truth, taste their truth, hear their truth, see their truth or touch their truth but the holding of their views is a prerequisite for doing the people's business in a country where the plethora of religious expression is as vast as the ethnic make up of the nation.

Bottom line, while morality has a place in politics, religion does not. I point you to Socrates as an example. Socrates was not a Christian. Socrates was not born again. We hold Socrates to be an exemplar of right thinking. Socrates was executed for being impious. The moral man was executed because his thoughts did not conform the religious usage of his day. Fascinating isn't it?

Keep your religions in your churches and out of the political discourse. Then maybe Rudi Giulliani can go on receiving communion and John McCain can go back to the church of the upper class, instead of having to muck it up with the hoi poloi.

Republican Senator John Mc Cain who at one time seemed to embody honesty and non-partisanship, rare qualities amongst most of today's congressional members, has sold his soul to the devil. His pandering to any group who will listen to him has the stench of desperation about it. No one GOP presidential candidate I think with the possible exception of Mitt Romney has sunk so low in order to win the dubious prize of GOP front runner for the 2008 presidential election.

Sad how the former "straight-talking" decent and seemingly honest senator in his pursuit of the extreme right wing conservative "ring" has trtansformed himself into the Gollum of American politics. Unrecognizable from the former decent man he once appeared to be. And now he thinks Bush is right to veto health insurance for kids....the bowing down is over, now he's just crawling on his belly to the right wing....a shame.

McCain’s day-after spin is also illuminating. McCain clarified that he believes the Constitution offers equal rights to members of all faiths, and that all he meant was that the values protected by the Constitution--respect for human life and dignity--are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. But that was not the question he was asked, nor the answer that he gave. The term “Christian Nation” means a lot more than some overlap in Constitutional and Christian values.

The Republican candidates for president are a sad lot. McCain isn't even the worst at pandering to the Christian Right, though he is the most disappointing in his pandering.

I'd like to thank John McCain for this lurch to the right. All the republican candidates who are already fawning over this voting block will have to go even farther to ensure their slice of this diminishing pie.

We will no longer be able to hide from what the republicans truly are, and those of us who have never registered for either party will be running from them just as fast as they run towards the right-wing wackos.

The republicans have made conservative a dirty word by their actions, just as they and their toadies have made liberal a dirty word (help, there's a liberal under my bed).

John McCain, you have gone from being someone I once greatly admired to someone I can only despise. You have not only sold your soul to the devil, you are now trying to sell our souls as well.

If this is the best you can do, if this is an example of the kind of desperate politics you feel helps our country, then you are not the kind of person I want to be president.