John McCain
Town Hall
Pemberton, NJ 06/13/08
TRANSCRIPT:
JOHN MCCAIN: "I'd like to begin by saying, these town halls meetings are the most important part, in my view, of the process. Because it not only gives you a chance to hear from you, and I'll try not to make you hear from me for very long, but it gives me an opportunity to hear from you. It gives us a glimpse and an idea of your hopes and your dreams and your aspirations, and your frustrations today and the challenges you face. And better sets our priorities. And it helps me enormously. I'd just like to give you one small example. When I ran in 2000, young people came to town hall meetings all over New Hampshire and America and said what are you going to do about climate change, I didn't know anything about climate change. I went back to, after I loss, I went back to the United States Senate and began to look into this issue and it became a very high priority to me. Thanks to the interface that I had with young men and women. But town hall meetings are important. I think a good thing about town hall meetings is you don't have the spin, you don't have the sound bites, you don't have the got you questions, you just get to hear from ordinary people, the citizens of this country, the greatest nation in the world. And that's why I've asked Barack Obama; I've asked him to engage in town hall meetings with me. Won't you come with me around this country the way that Barry Goldwater and President Kennedy had committed to do before the tragedy of Dallas intervened. They were going to fly around the country, and they were going to go to cities around the country and debate on the issues so the American people unfiltered, not grabbing a sound bite or a phrase and then making a big deal about it and sending it around to the pundits who need to fill air time, but a direct contact with the American people. Unfortunately Senator Obama has not agreed, I have set aside one day a week for ten weeks so that we could go to a different city for ten weeks and talk to the American people and have them talk to us. I hope that he will accept. And by the way I have already accepted invitations from the LBJ library and the Reagan Library to do town hall meetings. I hope that he will agree also to do that."
LABEL: JM NJ 6-13 (GR#89) XYKFCS - Clip A
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