To Senators McCain and Cornyn: President Barack Obama was correct in saying, “I won!”

By Mary MacElveen
January 26, 2009

Now that the inaugural ceremonies are over with where 1.8 million braved the cold to be a part of history to see President Barack Obama sworn in as this country’s 44th President of the United States, what is left is the cold and some ‘rivals’ showing their true colors. The rivals I speak of are the obstructionists in Senator John McCain and Senator John Cornyn.

As many opined that Senator John McCain would be President Barack Obama’s Republican go-to-guy in the senate where President Obama hosted a dinner in his honor the night before being sworn in, he must remember this is the man who ran against him. President Barack Obama must remember this quote coming from then GOP candidate, Senator John McCain, “This is not change we can believe in.” One can say there are many things stated in a campaign and at the end the victor may forget in a state of amnesia remarks such as that. But, we who monitor campaigns and their messages must revisit them to remind the victor who they ran against.

After the momentous election of President Barack Obama, we witnessed him surround himself with people of opposing views where Doris Kearns-Goodwin’s book “A Team of Rivals” became a best seller. While it may be good for the governance of we the people, the message directed at Republicans is that the ultimate decision lies with the Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama. I would like to remind President Barack Obama that instead of McCain being said go-to-guy, he was and is his rival first and foremost.

Why am I zeroing in on McCain? On Fox News Sunday which aired yesterday, McCain said this of the Obama stimulus plan, “The plan was written by the Democratic majority in the House, primarily, and so, yeah, I think there has to be major rewrite," He went onto say, “I am opposed to most of the provisions in the bill; as it stands now, I would not support it." It was reported last week of Obama where he cited in a meeting between House and Senate Republicans and Democrats, “I won!” and that is what he must take away from all of this. It was President Barack Obama who placed his hand on that ‘Lincoln Bible’ and not John McCain.

It was reported that 58% of those who voted for McCain supported President Obama as he neared Inauguration Day and if he is looking for bipartisan support, reach out to those voters instead of people like McCain. To his credit, President Obama has as he gave his first Saturday morning chat both on radio and the Internet. These are the ones who matter most and President Obama must call upon them to contact their elected officials to support of his plan. Ask them to light up the switch boards as was done during the immigration reform vote which went down in flames. In fact, the senate switch board crashed with so many voters calling into their respective senators.

In his call where he stated he would not support President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, all I would say is to remember that Senator John McCain was caught up in the Keating-Five scandal. That is what we must remember as it was brought up in the campaign. At the very heart of this economic meltdown is greed and at one time, McCain was the picture of greed.

Now we come to obstructionists’ like Senator John Cornyn who are making noise concerning Eric Holder who is President Obama’s pick to fill the Attorney General spot and remind him too, “I won!” Cornyn and others are fearful he may launch investigations into those who committed torture where Holder even stated that water boarding is torture which is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. To them, I say, let the chips fall where they may. If any of them are fearful of investigations, perhaps the lesson to be learned is, acts such as water boarding should never have taken place to begin with.

My message to the Republican Party is that elections do matter, they do have consequences and at the end the Democrats did win. You witnessed how many of your elected officials and candidates got picked off one-by-one and this is where the people spoke in great numbers. President Barack Obama’s victory was not a fifty-fifty split, but where he won a decisive victory. Just look at how many red-states flipped to blue and there in lies a resounding message to all of you. This was not only the success of the fifty-state strategy, but a signal of disgust and anger towards Republicans.

What continues to be lost as one reads any business section are jobs and those losing their homes and they are the ones who matter most. Those suffering from these events are Democrats, Republicans, Independents and non-voters alike.

It is time for these Republicans to get on board, lose whatever selfish pride they may have and get to work on behalf of we the people who handed your party a resounding defeat. After all, our memories are as long as an elephant and we do remember how devastating the Bush administration was along with the Republican Party who led this country with such brute force during the first six years of it. By forgetting all of that, the symbol of your party is not one of an elephant, but of those three monkeys who hold their hands over their mouths, ears and eyes. The reason is, that we were forced to speak no evil, hear no evil and see no evil when it came to your party.

Author’s email address is, xmjmac@optonline.net Print Article
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