McCain Spends MLK Holiday Pandering to the Far Right

Nearly 24 years after voting against creating a holiday honoring Martin Luther King, John McCain is spending today at the inauguration of Alabama Governor Bob Riley who is a member of an organization that has been criticized for excluding African Americans. The "Grand Master" of the Grand Lodge of Alabama admits he knows of no African American members among the groups 30,000 plus membership. [AP, 9/30/2006]

McCain's push to cozy up to far right extremists is not surprising, given his contradictions in the past. In the 2000 presidential campaign, McCain reversed himself on the confederate flag first calling it "a symbol of racism and slavery" but then pandering the very next day by calling it a "symbol of heritage." In past efforts to pander to a far right base that doesn’t trust him, McCain campaigned in Alabama for George Wallace Jr., a popular speaker at a white supremacist hate group, continues to employ a strategist who denounced the creation of a Federal holiday honoring Dr. King as "vicious" and "profane," and even hired the man responsible for the racist ads against Harold Ford in the Senate race in Tennessee in 2006. [New York Times, 4/20/00, San Diego Union Tribune, 1/18/00; Associated Press, 11/17/05, Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, Summer 2005; AP, 6/6/05; New York Times, 10/27/06; New York Times, 10/26/06; Union Leader, 12/8/06]

"John McCain's record speaks for itself," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda, "his oppostion to the Martin Luther King holiday, his willingness to look the other way for Bob Riley, and his eagerness to employ advisors who use tactics of the southern strategy are evidence that he will do anything to win. McCain's pandering to the far right doesn't bode well for his ability to represent or unite all Americans, and embodies the politics of division that the American people have already rejected."

1983: McCain Voted Against Creating Martin Luther King Holiday. McCain voted against the Hall (D-IN) motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill to designate the third Monday of every January as a federal holiday in honor of the late civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [Vote 289, HR 3706, Motion agreed to 89-77, D 249-13, 8/2/83; CQ 1983]

McCain Flip Flopped On The Confederate Flag, First Calling It Offensive And Then Calling It A Symbol Of Heritage. In 2000, during the debate over the Confederate flag in South Carolina, McCain in January called the flag "a symbol of racism and slavery", and the next day said that the flag was a "symbol of heritage." McCain “initially called the flag 'offensive,' but then quickly added that he understood the sentiments of 'both sides' in the debate. 'Some view it as a symbol of slavery...others view it as a symbol of heritage. Personally, I see the battle flag as a symbol of heritage,'" McCain said. [New York Times, 4/20/00, San Diego Union Tribune, 1/18/00]

McCain Endorsed George Wallace Jr., Called Him A "Committed Conservative Reformer," Despite Speeches to Hate Group. In November 2005, McCain visited three Alabama cities to endorse George Wallace Jr. for lieutenant governor. McCain said, "I'm proud to offer my support to this committed conservative reformer. George will bring great leadership and integrity to the lieutenant governor's office." [Associated Press, 11/17/05] Wallace had spoken on numerous occasions to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist hate group. The Council of Conservative Citizens says it opposes interracial marriage, massive immigration of non-European and non-Western peoples, hate crime legislation, and multicultural and “Afrocentric” curricula in schools. Wallace spoke to the Council once in 1998, twice during 1999, and gave the opening remarks to their national meeting in June of 2005. The audience for his speech included Don Black, proprietor of Stormfront.org, the most influential hate site on the Internet, and former Alabama grand dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; Jamie Kelso, right-hand man and Louisiana roommate of former Klan leader David Duke; Jared Taylor, editor of the neo-eugenicist American Renaissance magazine; and Alabama CCC leader Leonard "Flagpole" Wilson, who got his nickname shouting "Keep Bama white!" from atop a flagpole during the University of Alabama race riots in 1956. [Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, Summer 2005; AP, 6/6/05]

Racist Ad Against Harold Ford Approved By Terry Nelson, Senior McCain Strategist. Terry Nelson, a senior strategist for McCain (now campaign manager), was the head of the independent expenditures operation for the RNC responsible for the content of the advertisements run against African American Senate candidate Harold Ford that experts said played on fears of interracial dating and made "the Willie Horton ad look like child's play." Despite Nelson's role in approving the ad, McCain strategist John Weaver said that Straight Talk America had no intention of firing him. [New York Times, 10/27/06; New York Times, 10/26/06; Union Leader, 12/8/06]

Richard Quinn, McCain's South Carolina Spokesman, Criticized the MLK Holiday as "Vitriolic and Profane.". Richard Quinn, identified as "McCain's South Carolina spokesman" as recently as December of 2005, was also a South Carolina "strategist" for McCain in the 2000 campaign. [Spartanburg Herald-Journal, 12/23/05; Vanity Fair, 11/04] McCain has defended Quinn as being "highly respected" and a "fine man." . [Associated Press, 2/18/00; New York Times, 2/8/00] In a 1983 column Quinn wrote, "King Day should have been rejected because its purpose is vitriolic and profane. By celebrating King as the incarnation of all they admire, they [black leaders] have chosen to glorify the histrionic rather than the heroic and by inference they spurned the brightest and the best among their own race.Ignoring the real heroes in our nation's life, the blacks have chosen a man who represents not their emancipation, not their sacrifices and bravery in service to their country; rather, they have chosen a man whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul. [Partisan View, Southern Partisan, Fall, 1983] Quinn has also advocated electing David Duke, and sold T-Shirts through his magazine celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. [Partisan View, Southern Partisan, Winter, 1989, PFAW Release, 2/17/00]