Daddy’s little liability?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Frances Tobin writes Is Meghan McCain, Miss Maverick, Undermining Her Daddy? — Politics Daily

Though Sarah Palin was the belle of the ball, it was former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) who really made some news with his absurd and racist screed about "the cult of multiculturalism," claiming that President Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics/literacy test before people can vote in this country." His speech even included a jab at his own party: "Thank God John McCain lost the election," Tancredo declared. (ABC News reported that Tancredo's beef with McCain is that he "would have presided over big budgets and lacked a tough stand against immigration.")

McCain's daughter, Meghan, God love her, has entered into the Tea Party fray, too. Sure, Tancredo dissed her daddy, but given her history as "Miss Independent," far from being her father's political puppet, I wouldn't be too quick to assume her latest comments are mere posturing.

As a guest-host on ABC's "The View" on Monday, Meghan had some choice words for Tancredo and the Tea Party movement. As Salon.com's Tracy Clark-Flory reports, she referenced Tancredo's suggestion to bring back literacy tests and said it was no different from the literacy tests that prevented some African-Americans from voting up until the 1960s. Meghan continued:

"It's innate racism and I think it's why young people are turned off by this movement. And I'm sorry, but revolutions start with young people, not with 65-year-old people talking about literacy tests and people who can't say the word 'vote' in English."

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I think Clark-Flory is on to something: Her blog post is titled, "Meghan McCain, daddy's little liability: The senator's daughter, and wife, could be getting him in trouble." (Recall that Cindy McCain publicly announced her support for same-sex marriage. Though Meghan has been a staunch gay rights advocate for some time now, it was a bit surprising to see McCain's wife so publicly reject one of his political platforms.)

Are Meghan and Cindy McCain's statements undermining him in an election year?

Sen. McCain already faces a formidable challenger in the 2010 primary. Tea Party darlings Scott Brown and Sarah Palin have endorsed McCain and could well stump for him, so Meghan's bold language concerning Tea Partiers surely raised her father's blood pressure.

On "The View," Barbara Walters said she couldn't help but wonder what Meghan's father thought of the Tea Party movement and Palin's connection to it, because, said Walters, "we wouldn't have known about Sarah Palin" if it wasn't for him. Meghan avoided the question, but teased, "I've got a book coming out in August. I'll be happy to come back and tell you everything in August."

Is it just me, or does August (three months away from November) seem like a bad time to be discussing dad's failed [presidential] campaign?