BBC NEWS | The Reporters

McCain's state - voting begins

Matthew Price
4 Nov 08, 04:26 PM GMT

Voting has started in John McCain's home state, a state which has not been kind to previous presidential candidates with Arizona links.

"Tomorrow, we're going to reverse that unhappy tradition and I'm going to be the president of the United States," he said at his final rally, which was actually held just after midnight in Prescott, Arizona.

McCain's going to hold one final rally today, in Colorado, and then he'll pop in to visit staffers in New Mexico. Then he'll come back to Phoenix, and, like the rest of his nation, wait.

Update, 17:36 GMT:

"I've just spoken to the co chair of the republican party in John McCain's home state of Arizona. A man called Wes Gullett who told me that the republican party is in a dreadful mess. He said the republican party of Abraham Lincoln had a soul but that the republican party today had lost that and that they need to find it again.

He did insist as most republicans in his position will on a day like this, that he genuinely believes John McCain can still win this election. He said if the republicans had had any other presidential candidate than John McCain it would be "a massacre". They would be at least 20 percentage points down in his opinion.

So he said John McCain can still win this election but the look in his eyes also suggested that he believes the republicans could be in for a rough night."

Comments

1. At 5:47pm on 04 Nov 2008, NikaoD wrote:
I guess we all have dreams...

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2. At 5:59pm on 04 Nov 2008, xth wrote:
You are doing the right thing Matthew, wringing every last bit out of this election... next week everyone will have forgotten about you. :-)

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3. At 6:19pm on 04 Nov 2008, OldSouth wrote:
Insightful. I disagree with Wes Gullet, however. Had Republicans been more prescient in the primaries, there would not be a centrist such as McCain at the top of the ticket. The GOP melted down in 2007, when McCain and Bush attempted to ram through that dreadful immigration bill (sans debate) just before Memorial Day. The reaction among rank-and-file Republicans was scathing, to put it mildly. The RNC had to lay off staff, I heard, because donors closed their checkbooks.

Even if and when McCain wins, the Republicans are in for a long night, as seats will likely be lost in House and Senate.

He will govern with a Democrat majority in Congress, which I think he will be able to manage. Reagan did quite well under that circumstance.

He will have a large (and very vocal) conservative base who will not hesitate to remind him that they got him into office, and he best not sell them out, as did his predecessor.

Whoever wins, though, we are in for interesting times. I predict a one-term Presidency.

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4. At 6:24pm on 04 Nov 2008, CBF wrote:
"Man From Milan"

do you have some sort of extreme personality disorder?!

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5. At 6:50pm on 04 Nov 2008, Gary_A_Hill wrote:
The Republicans haven't been the "Party of Lincoln" since the nineteenth century. I wonder what Lincoln, or any republican president of that century, would think about the level of political discourse in vogue today.

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6. At 7:05pm on 04 Nov 2008, b3n87_ wrote:
Did you know that some of McCains "Volunteers" are paid?

http://vodpod.com/politics/watch/9085

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7. At 7:19pm on 04 Nov 2008, matthewprice_us wrote:
Thank you CBF!

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8. At 7:30pm on 04 Nov 2008, AndyW35 wrote:
I think people mix up these Blogs that give an appreciation of the "feel in the air" with straight news stories, hence ManfromMilan's ignorant post.

Both this blog and the one following McCain give the reader of the BBC a sense of the atmosphere to put meat on the bones of the straight news story that can be found elsewhere on thisa site. Both commentators have done an excellent job, you can sense the excitement with Obama and the rather lack of with McCain.

Don't shoot the messenger. Both are excellent writers who have given a taste of the USA voting process to us somewhat apathetic voters on this side of the Atlantic.

Having said that I'd rather Matthew be back in the UK being paid £18m for doing prank calls with my tax payers money.

Cough.

Keep up the good work, I will remember you guys tomorrow and look forward to 4 years hence if you are still around for the Obama / Palin battle then .. golly !

Regards

Andy

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9. At 7:45pm on 04 Nov 2008, xth wrote:
#4

"Man From Milan"

do you have some sort of extreme personality disorder?!

-------------------------------------

why, are you looking for new friends?

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10. At 8:27pm on 04 Nov 2008, Ashill wrote:
I am a Brit, living in England, who has never visited the USA. Even so, previously I used to feel that US citizens and UK citizens viewed the world and society in a similar way. Perhaps this feeling was based upon our common language and the role of British ex-pats in the founding of the USA.

Perhaps it was influenced by US TV and films.

That feeling was unspoken and uncritical and, I now see, illogical and just plain wrong.

There is a huge gulf between US and UK attitudes - a gulf as wide the the Atlantic Ocean!

I would be ashamed, were I an American, of the lack of compassion shown by so many US citizens to the less wealthy and their apparent readiness to exclude someone whom they perceive to be "un-American" in attitude, religion, or accident of birth (place of birth or skin colour).

I am alarmed by their attitude to guns and to warfare and their pledges of allegiance to the US flag (even in schools!).

Even if Obama wins I no longer believe there should be a 'special relationship' between the US and the UK. We should regard the US as toxic!

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11. At 12:24pm on 05 Nov 2008, kbwong wrote:
Well, that's funny, Ashill -- I'm an American in the UK, and previous to living here, I always thought that British were all fair, honest, slender, non-violent, stiff-upper-lip people. I thought all the news would be non-prejudicial and non-partisan, and all the people would be well-educated. I thought that the nation that been an empire would be a melting pot similar to the US, with all of their prejudices out of the way because, after all, the UK was so much older than the US. I thought there wouldn't be so many idiots in the general populace as there would be in the US. I thought people in the UK would pretty much largely be *better* than the people in the US.

Romantic of me, wasn't it?

I'd be careful about getting your prejudices of a nation from the television and other news media. And try visiting the US and getting to know the people before you make statements or come to conclusions like these. We're not all gun-toting, moose-killing, illogical and apparently willfully ignorant as the Sarah Palin Fringe.

There are people in every nation that are appalling. My fav so far here in the UK was the woman who boasted to me that she wouldn't ever set one foot in the US because of a minor diplomatic incident that involved a UK politician waiting on the tarmac for 45 minutes over paperwork, but really wanted to go live in China, that well-known bastion of civil rights. Go figure.

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