• McCain calls for airstrikes in Syria

    By NBC's Frank Thorp

     

    Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called for U.S.-led airstrikes against government forces in Syria on Monday, the first such call from the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

    "The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad's forces," McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor this afternoon.

    According to McCain, the US-led airstrikes would be done with the goal of establishing and defending safe havens in the north of Syria, which would provide opposition forces a base to plan further military operations.

    The call from McCain comes just a day after Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney said he was "not anxious to employ military action" involving Syria, but said the country should "keep our options open."

    McCain admitted that public sentiment in the country is against more foreign military involvement after two exhausting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but says that the US has a responsibility to step in to lead international opposition to the Assad regime.

    "If Assad manages to cling to power -- or even if he manages to sustain his slaughter for months to come, with all of the human and geopolitical costs that entails -- it would be a strategic and moral defeat for the United States. We cannot, we must not, allow this to happen," McCain said.

  • Romney, McCain rally vets in Pensacola, Fla.

    Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images

    Mitt Romney greets supporters after holding a veterans rally in Pensacola, Fla., on Saturday.

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

    PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Flanked by a pair of prominent Republican veterans and one sinister television villain, Mitt Romney on Saturday morning promised this heavily military community that he would keep the armed forces strong and stop planned reductions in military spending.

    "So much is at stake, so much is at stake. How can you possibly imagine cutting back the scale and the capacity of America's military? I can't imagine it. Look around the world," Romney said. "The world is not a more safe place. How in the world can you justify reducing the military at a time like this? Only from hiding from reality."

    Romney was joined on stage by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, himself an Army veteran, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who earned his aviator's wings here in Pensacola. McCain joked about blowing many a paycheck at "cultural institutions" like the Fish House bar and restaurant, where Saturday morning's rally took place, and where several hundred supporters packed into balconies to catch a glimpse of the action.

    Also joining Romney was actor Jon Voight, whose turn as the villain Jonas Hodges on "24" prompted McCain to joke, "wasn't he a threat to America and the world?" and to thank God for Jack Bauer (the main protagonist), who he said killed Voight's character "three or four times."

    In backing Romney, Voight called him a "man of faith, honor, love and truth," who could bring the country back after President Obama "decided to follow his father's footsteps and take us to socialism." Voight also offered his assessment that "Speaker Gingrich may fall short in many ways."

    It was only one of two explicit mentions of Gingrich, with Romney and company focusing instead on attacking President Obama. When Romney did mention the former speaker, who recent polls show Romney has passed in the last few days, it was to repeat a mocking line he first delivered at Friday night's rally in Orlando.

    "We've had about 18 debates so far. They're getting more and more fun as time goes on. This last one Speaker Gingrich said he didn't do so well because the audience was so loud. The one before he said he didn't do so well because the audience was too quiet," Romney said. "This is like Goldilocks, you know, gotta have it just right. When I debate the president I'm not going to worry about the audience, I gotta make sure that we take down Barack Obama and take back the White House."

    But it was McCain, who carried this county by 11 points in 2008, who made the strongest case for Romney, aggressively defending Romney's private sector experience.

    "My friends I know of no one who is more qualified in the private sector in the public sector and as governor he had to work with Democrats and he did effectively and led and achieved his goals. You know, I do not understand," McCain said. "I do not understand... why anyone would attack a person who is successful in business in the free enterprise system. That is a sign of desperation. A desperate candidate is a candidate who attacks someone who succeeds in the free enterprise system."

    McCain closed with an appeal to voters to get out and vote early, and joked that if they didn't, he'd find out about it.

    "If you haven't voted yet go out and get it done. And call your friends, call your friends. The Panhandle will probably have a big effect on how this election turns out. Don't let me hear on Wednesday morning that you forgot to vote," McCain said. "We have surveillance cameras." 

  • McCain hits Santorum, as Romney campaign flies south

    With five days until New Hampshire voters go to the polls, Mitt Romney had just one brief morning event in the state before heading to South Carolina, leaving his other closest rivals with a captive audience. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

    CHARLESTON, S.C.-- Mitt Romney almost never names his GOP rivals on the stump, even when drawing implicit contrasts with them, and today's rally with some 500 supporters in Charleston was no exception. With friends like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who endorsed the Massachusetts governor Wednesday, he doesn't have to. 

    "Senator Santorum and I have a strong disagreement. A strong disagreement; that he believed that earmark and pork barrel projects were good for America. I think it's wrong for America," McCain said, to rising applause from the crowd. "And so does Sen. DeMint, and so does Sen. Lindsey Graham, who have been staunch fighters against earmark and pork barrel spending, and I know you're proud of them."

    McCain's criticism followed the same line of attack deployed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who tried unsuccessfully to blunt Santorum's surge in Iowa by labeling the former Pennsylvania senator a "prolific earmarker" and condemning him for loading up senate bills with "Pennsylvania pork." Both McCain and Perry referred to earmarks as a "gateway drug," to corruption.  

    McCain joined Romney, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for the first time Thursday in the Palmetto state, after a trio of appearances together in New Hampshire yesterday and earlier today. The 2008 primary winner was warmly received here -- and his support could help Romney in the state, where many analysts believe Romney would need to follow a similar approach to McCain's four years ago: hope the social conservative vote splinters, and claim victory with a plurality in the center.

    Romney and McCain will campaign together Friday in two counties McCain carried in 2008 -- Charleston and Horry -- and where his brand is likely to remain strong. Both counties have heavily military presence, and plenty of retirees and transplants.

    Voters like Barbara Johnson, a retired former health department worker, represent that sweet spot for Romney. A registered Democrat and a transplanted New Yorker, Johnson said she and her husband both voted for McCain in 2008, and would support Romney this cycle because she felt he was fiscally conservative, but socially more moderate than the other contenders.

    "I voted for McCain last time. I think we need more conservative views fiscally, and we need, we need someone who knows how to cut the deficit and cut the budget and make it run within means, the same way that we do with our family," Johnson told NBC News. "We need jobs and smaller government."

    But to win here, Romney will still have to make deeper inroads with Tea Party supporters, whom a recent NBC poll found overwhelmingly supported Gingrich instead of him, or find many more voters like Mrs. Johnson. In the December NBC/Marist poll of likely South Carolina voters -- after the Haley endorsement, but before McCain signed on -- Romney trailed Gingrich here by 19 points.

     

  • McCain: New Hampshire will 'catapult' Romney to victory

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    MANCHESTER, NH -- Returning to the spotlight in the state that launched his successful bid for the GOP nomination four years ago, 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain endorsed Mitt Romney in New Hampshire today, calling for the state to "catapult" Romney to the nomination.

    "I am really here for one reason and one reason only -- and that is to make sure that we make Mitt Romney the next president of the United States of America," McCain said, admitting to a bit of nostalgia for the Granite State. "New Hampshire is the state that will catapult him on to victory in a very short period of time."

    Romney arrived in the Granite State energized by his eight-vote win in last night's Iowa caucus, which McCain jokingly referred to as his "landslide" victory. But the energy level faded at the town event here this afternoon after the laudatory introductions had faded.

    Long the state's dominant front-runner, Romney faced a series of awkward questions in the town hall portion of the event, including one from a Chinese-American woman who accused Romney of "putting down" Asians; a 31-year old self-identified "Occupy Boston" member who asked Romney if corporations are "abusive people"; and a grade-school-aged boy, who asked Romney for his position on avoiding future conflicts in the Middle East.

    While Romney largely handled the questions with aplomb, the atmosphere at the town hall was hardly that of a victory rally of a favorite son come home from the front. Mark Provost, the Occupy protestor, later told NBC News his group intends to make sure Romney faces tough questions all across the country.

  • Perry takes page from McCain playbook to hammer Santorum for earmarks

    Every longshot presidential candidate comes to Iowa hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. Most never come close, but GOP hopeful Rick Santorum hopes he can buck the odds. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

    By NBC's Carrie Dann

     

    WATERLOO, Iowa -- This tune might sound familiar to John McCain.

    Gov. Rick Perry continued to hammer rival Rick Santorum over his past support for earmarks Friday, taking a page from the 2008 GOP nominee's playbook by ridiculing individual pork barrel projects of dubious-sounding value.

    "Just yesterday, once again, he defended his prolific pork barrel spending," Perry told over a hundred Iowans at Doughy Joey's pizza parlor in Waterloo. "So, Sen. Santorum, just to get a little more specific here, please tell me why you asked taxpayers to support the bridge to nowhere in Alaska.  Why did you ask the taxpayers of Iowa to support a teapot museum in North Carolina, an indoor rainforest in Iowa, and the Montana sheep institute?  Why were those important enough for you to vote for?"

    Earmarks for seemingly trivial projects -- notably the $400 million Ketchikan bridge and the $50 million rainforest center in Coralville, IA (less than 100 miles from Perry's morning visit today) -- were frequent fodder for the anti-spending rhetoric that launched McCain to the 2008 Republican nomination.

    Perry's attack continues the volley first deployed by the campaign yesterday in the candidate's appearances and in a new radio ad. In response, Santorum, who has surged above Perry in two recently released polls, defended his past earmarks but said that he would uphold the temporary moratorium placed on the practice in late 2010.

    On Friday, Perry also slammed his rival for supporting debt ceiling increases during his time in Congress.

    "You voted to raise the debt ceiling 8 times while he was in the United States Senate -- more than doubling the debt in this country from 4.1 trillion to 9 trillion dollars," he said of Santorum.  "And I got to ask you, how is that fiscally conservative?"

    "Asking a Washington insider to stop runaway spending is like asking a bank robber to guard the vault," he added.

    Perry's visit marked a return to the city where he launched his Iowa campaign in August, receiving a raucous welcome at a GOP dinner marked by a comparatively lukewarm reception for Ames Straw Poll winner and Waterloo native Michele Bachmann.

    Standing virtually ignored at the back of the event as Perry was mobbed by crowds back then?

    Rick Santorum.

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