Quote :

"WASHINGTON (AP) — John McCain has called off a fundraiser at the home of a Texas oilman who joked about rape during a 1990 gubernatorial run in the state. The Texan, Republican Clayton Williams, made the joke during his failed campaign against Democrat Ann Richards. Williams compared rape to the weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." He also compared Richards to the cattle on his ranch, saying he would "head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt." Williams' comments made national news at the time and remain easy to find on the Internet. Even so, McCain's campaign said it hadn't known about the remarks. "These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time it was scheduled," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. "It's positive that he did apologize at the time, but the comments are nonetheless offensive." The campaign said it would not return money Williams had raised for McCain because the contributions came from other individuals supporting McCain and not from Williams. Williams told his hometown newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram, that he had raised more than $300,000 for McCain. Democrats said McCain should give back the money: "Senator McCain's claim of ignorance is no excuse for refusing to do the right thing now. Offensive, disgusting comments like these cannot be tolerated," Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said. The flap comes as McCain's campaign reaches out to women and to backers of Democrat Hillary Clinton. McCain began a women-focused outreach effort in recent days, sending a well-known female supporter, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, to campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Washington Post said the campaign, when it initially was contacted by the Post and ABC News, questioned why the story was newsworthy; later in the day, the campaign canceled the fundraiser, which had been scheduled for Monday. Republicans also have criticized McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, for failing to vet an adviser, Jim Johnson, who resigned when questions about his home mortgage deals involving Countrywide Financial Corp. became a distraction for Obama. McCain had accused Obama of hypocrisy for speaking out against Countrywide's role in the subprime mortgage crisis. Richards defeated Williams to serve one term as Texas governor; she lost re-election in 1994 to George W. Bush. Richards died in 2006 after a battle with esophageal cancer."

6/15/2008 9:43:07 AM

Give the guy a break, he's got at least $100,000 of credit card debt.

But seriously, I doubt this will have any negative effects on the McCain campaign. Any McCain supporters that have any respect for women to begin with would have to be so ill-informed or willfully ignorant of the realities of his platform that this won't even reach their woefully underpowered radars.

6/15/2008 9:57:19 AM

^LOL. Wow

6/15/2008 10:01:55 AM

Let me see if I understand this correctly:

McCain should give back the money other people gave the Texas scumbag, such that they can then turn around and give it right back to McCain?

Yeah. Talk about political theatre.

6/15/2008 11:06:24 AM

I think people are up in arms because the scumbag raised the money for mccain with the understanding he'd come to this function, its not like people just sent him checks themselves. Then McCain bailed when he "realized" what a scumbag he was, but kept the money the guy raised for him.

6/15/2008 11:59:18 AM

Well, again - what the hell is McCain supposed to do - give it back such that the donors can send it in again?

Again - total political theatre. You can bitch about McCain's lack of discretion for not vetting the scumbag first, but at some point, what's done is done. Giving back the donation is a useless bit of political stagecraft.

6/15/2008 12:06:55 PM

6/15/2008 12:11:45 PM