Democratic National Committee Targets McCain

This morning, the Democratic National Committee sent out an email targeting "Panderer in Chief" John McCain. The email offers a preview of some of the attacks we can expect to see in the general election should the GOP frontrunner become his party's nominee.

In the email, the DNC suggests that McCain "has cast aside his principles by flip-flopping on signature issues like campaign finance and immigration reform, and embracing the very same 'agents of intolerance' and shady campaign tactics he once denounced."

It also criticizes the Arizona senator for giving a speech today at the Conservative Political Action Committee, a yearly conference hosted by the American Conservative Union. (He will be speaking at 3:00 pm.) ACU chairman Davis Keene is one of McCain's many critics on the right.

"Desperate to lock up the right wing of his party," the email says, "McCain is heading to the annual Conservative Political Action Committee he skipped last year to give a speech sandwiched between Vice President Dick Cheney today and President Bush tomorrow."

More from the email:

Campaign McCain's "extreme makeover" may help him pander to the right wing, but the rest of America has figured out that a vote for John McCain is a vote for a third Bush term. Whether he is pining for a 100 year war in Iraq, calling for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, supporting efforts to make the same Bush tax cuts he once opposed permanent, supporting President Bush's veto of health care for 10 million children, or applauding the President's decision to commute Scooter Libby's sentence, John McCain has promised four more years of the same failed Bush policies that have undermined our economy and made America less secure.

"The more people watch John McCain desperately cast aside his principles to pander to the right wing of his Party, the less they will trust him to provide the change America's working families want," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera. "The last thing our country needs is four more years of disastrous Republican leadership on everything from Iraq to the economy to health care, but McCain doesn't have anything else to offer."