Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has come out guns blazing on the campaign trail against Democrats who serve with him on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
With Election Day just days away, the former presidential nominee is delivering a series of jabs against vulnerable Democrats who serve on the panel that he is expected to lead as chairman if Republicans win back the majority.
{mosads}The first round was fired on Monday, when McCain criticized Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) for not being a “serious member” of the committee.
“I don’t see her at very many of the hearings,” McCain said while stumping for GOP Senate hopeful Scott Brown. “I have not seen her really active in the committee.”
The remarks elicited a sharp response from Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), a retiring Democrat who now helms the Armed Services panel.
In a statement, Levin called Shaheen “an outstanding member of the Armed Services Committee,” saying she is “fully engaged in the committee’s responsibilities and making important contributions to the America’s national security.”
The day after hitting Shaheen, McCain chided Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) for missing a briefing on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to attend a fundraiser in New York.
“Here we are with Americans being beheaded, and Sen. Hagan doesn’t even show up for the briefing,” McCain said after an event in North Carolina for Republican Thom Tillis. “She goes to a fundraiser instead.”
McCain’s remark brought a swift response from Hagan’s campaign.
Hagan “has a 98 percent voting attendance record” on the committee and has chaired “more than 20 hearings on counterterrorism,” according to spokesman Chris Hayden.
Both Hagan and Shaheen are locked in tight reelection fights that could decide which party controls the upper chamber — and whether McCain gets his hands on the gavel come January.
In another midterm move, McCain has tried to give a boost to Iowa Senate candidate Joni Ernst (R), a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard.
“I can’t tell you how happy I will be to have someone on the Armed Services Committee with her background and knowledge and experience that she has,” McCain told a crowd during a campaign event in the Hawkeye State.
McCain has refrained from attacking another vulnerable Democrat, Sen. Mark Udall (Colo.), citing his long-standing relationship with the Udall family.
Still, his decision to openly campaign against two members of the Armed Services committee is unusual, given that the panel has had a long tradition of bipartisanship.
“Under most chairmen there’s been a self-conscious, very explicit, nonpartisan norm,” said Steven Smith, a congressional expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
Levin has praised members of the committee for rising above Washington’s polarization.
“There’s been too much partisanship in security, much too much, in recent years,” Levin said last month during a Defense Writers Group breakfast. But “not on our committee. I think you all have witness on our committee we truly have a wonderful, bipartisan spirit.”
A spokesman for McCain said he is fired up on the campaign trail because of the move Democrats made last year to change the Senate’s filibuster rules.
“Sen. McCain deeply resents that the Democrats blew up the Senate with the nuclear option, and took away the minority’s Constitutional rights of advice and consent,” Communications Director Brian Rogers said in an email.
He said McCain “is confident that all members of the Armed Service Committee will continue to work in a bipartisan manner, given its importance to our nation’s security and the well-being of the men and women serving in our military.”
Smith said he was “surprised” by McCain’s remarks, not only because they were made against sitting colleagues but also they could “weaken his hand a little bit” should he become chairman.
When you do “political harm to one of your colleagues, they’re going to notice, and they’re going to care about it,” Smith said. “This is a dangerous game.”
Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said McCain was merely “ringing alarm bells that these two senators … aren’t participating in important national security issues, and that should be very concerning to voters in these states.”
Bonjean said the five-term lawmaker boasts a “tremendous amount of credibility with the American people” and that his comments “can move voters in places where national security may matter on a campaign and where every vote counts.”
Bonjean predicted there would be some “hard feelings” after the campaign is over, but added, “this is the election season, and after the election, it will be time for governing.”
Smith predicted that if Shaheen and Hagan hold their seats on Election Day, they will say there are no hurt feelings with McCain.
“And I won’t believe them,” he joked.