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John McCain, on the virtues of presiding while seated:

Offshore drilling:

“I’m sorry Congress is gridlocked again on offshore drilling,” McCain said. “When I’m president, we’ll all sit down together and work this out.” [Schmidt’s Sausage Haus und Restaurant, Columbus, OH, Jul ’08]

Palin:

“She stands up for what’s right, and she doesn’t let anyone tell her to sit down.” McCain said in introducing her to an Ohio rally. “She’s exactly who I need.” [AP, Ohio, Aug ’08]

Financing his campaign:

McCain: Right now I’m saying, though, we examine all the options all the time. Every few days we sit down—where are we going, what are we doing, like every campaign I’ve ever been in, what are all the options. [Fox, 21 Oct ’07]

Bipartisanship:

McCain: I know these people very well. I’ve worked with them for years. I’ve reached across the aisle to my favorite Democrat, Joe Lieberman, Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, I know these people and I’ve worked with them. Bryron Dorgan on the Indian Affairs Committee, Carl Levin on the Arms Services Committee. I know how to work with them. I know how to sit down with them and get things done. And that’s been my practice and that’s—as long as there are 60 votes required in the Senate that’s what you have to do. I mean there’s no choice. So it makes for a lot of collegiality that otherwise wouldn’t exist. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Jul ’08]

The surge:

“Senator Obama continues to deny the surge has succeeded in Iraq. I think this is the 788th day since he was last in Iraq. He has never requested a sit down briefing from General Petraeus.” [June ’08]

Shia–Sunni “bullshit”:

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’” said Mr. McCain. [Foreign Affairs, Jul ’06]

The future of the US military presence in Iraq:

McCain: I think that’s a relationship between the United States Government and Iraq. In Kuwait after the first Gulf War, we established a base there. They thought it was in their national security interests, we decided it was in our national security interests. In the case of Saudi Arabia, they decided that we should leave because of their internal political situation in Saudi Arabia. So what will be done is two sovereign nations will sit down together and decide what is in the best national security interests of both nations. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Jul ’08]

Immigration amnesty:

Q: Will you pledge to veto any immigration bill that involves amnesty?

A: Yes, of course, and we never proposed amnesty. But then you’ve still got two other aspects of this issue that have to be resolved as well. We need to sit down as Americans and recognize these are God’s children as well. And they need some protection under the law; they need some of our love and compassion. I want to assure you that I’ll enforce the borders first. We’ll solve this immigration problem. [GOP YouTube debate, St. Petersburg, FL, 28 Nov ’07]

McCain: I have never supported amnesty and never would. But the American people expect us to sit down and work this issue out together. That’s what I’ve been doing for a couple of years now. We are very close to an agreement, led by our president and his Cabinet, that will first secure our borders. Then we would have a temporary worker program that could only be valid through a tamper-proof biometric document. And then we would address the issue of the 12 million people who are already here. [Republican Debate, SC, 15 May ’07]

Immigration and security:

McCain: Our legislation does account for people who are here illegally, it does have an employment verification system, and it weeds out those who shouldn’t be here, and it gives others a chance to remain in this country. Look, this is a national security issue first and foremost. What we have done is come together with the president, and the leaders of both parties, and sit down and figure out an approach to this problem. It is a serious national security problem. We need to act, and if someone else has a better idea, I’d love to have them give it to us. [GOP debate, Saint Anselm College, Goffstown, NH, 3 Jun ’07]

Iran:

“And let me just point out one other aspect of this to you. Senator Obama has said, as you know, that he wants to sit down without any preconditions with the President of Iran, Ahmadinejad. He has said that he wants to sit down with a leader of a country that a few days ago called Israel a quote, ‘stinking corpse’. He wants to sit down with a leader of a country that—as recent news reports indicate clearly—is moving towards the acquisition of nuclear weapons which could destabilize the entire region, obviously. Not to mention the direct threat to the existence of the state of Israel.

“More importantly perhaps, to many families and to you and to me, this is the leader of a country that is sending the most explosive devices, the most lethal explosive devices into Iraq and killing young Americans. Now, why is it that Senator Obama wants to sit down with the President of Iran, but hasn’t yet sat down with General Petraeus—the leader of our troops in Iraq? So I look forward to continuing this debate with Senator Obama and Senator Clinton as well. I look forward to continuing this debate, and I want you to know that my dedication to this nation is one that I’m not going to worry about the political consequences.” [Reno, 28 May ’08—“ICYMI”]

McCain: Well, you know, the problem with sitting down with someone like Ahmadinejad is you then give that individual legitimacy. Now when Nixon went to China, it was after every “t” was crossed and every “I” was dotted. Whenever we have sat down with leaders there is a predetermined outcome. If you sat down with Ahmadinejad today, all he would do is go through a rant, which would be anti-Israeli, anti-American, etc. And that would then somehow in his view anyway enhance his role in the world—on the world stage. Now if Ahmadinejad said at the end of this meeting, this debate we are having I’m then going to declare that we will respect the right of the state of Israel to exist, I’ll sit down with him tomorrow. OK? But there’s a huge difference there. And there’s not—and by the way we have communications. Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad has met with the Iranian ambassador, there’s plenty of ways to communicate nowadays, my dear friends. But you’ve got to be careful, legitimacy you give people who state that their policy is the extermination of one of their neighbors. You see what I mean? So yes, I only have one precondition to sit down with Ahmadinejad and that is at the end of the meeting he will say my country will recognize and take no steps to harm the state of Israel, which is a freely democratic, freely elected government and nation. And I’ll respect its right to exist, and I’ll negotiate with them. That’s when I do that. But that’s interesting, I didn’t know he had—he had issued that challenge. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Jul ’08]

Social Security:

“The way I would fix Social Security is to sit down with Republicans and Democrats together at a table, voicing my opposition to tax increases, and sitting down and negotiating a fix to Social Security, which is the only way that Social Security is going to be fixed.” [WSJ, Mar ’08]

McCain: I am a supporter of sitting down together and putting everything on the table and coming up with an answer. So, there is nothing I would take off the table. There was nothing I would demand. I think that’s the way that Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill did it. And that’s what we have to do again. [ABC interview, Jul ’08]

McCain: Thank you very much. I’d like to start out by giving you a little straight talk. Under the present set-up, because we’ve mortgaged the—your—our children’s futures, you will not have Social Security benefits that present-day retirees have unless we fix it, and Americans have got to understand that. Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace, and it’s got to be fixed. Now, how do you fix it? Now, how do you fix it? You fix it by reaching across the aisle, and you say to the Democrats: “Sit down with me at the table. Sit down with me the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill did the last time that Social Security was in deep trouble.” And that was way back in 1983. [Denver, 7 Jul ’08]

McCain: I think you have to do two things. One, do a better job than has been done in the past of convincing people that it’s broken. I think you can do that with one chart that shows how much money is going out and how much is coming in, and when there’s more going out than coming in and when there’s no money left. And so you have to get that sense of urgency to the American people. And the second thing, you’ve got to say, ‘Look, everything is on the table, let’s sit down at the table.’ That’s what Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill did in 1983. They sat down, they put everything on the table. A lot of people didn’t like the solution they came up with, but when the liberal Democrat from Massachusetts and the conservative president from California said this is the fix for Social Security, it went through. So you’ve got to put everything on the table. And for me to stand here and say we’ve got to have this, this and this, all that does is set things up for a confrontation. What I’m saying is I’ll sit down at a table with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, and we’ll sit down and we’ll work it out, and we’ll walk out and I’ll give them all the credit. I’ll give them all the credit because we’ve got to fix it. But first—so that’s my plan for fixing it. [...] Everything has got to be on the table. And let me just say again, I believe that young people ought to be able to invest money in accounts with their names on it. And that means young people voluntarily. Now it got all hung up the last time with all kinds of allegations and that became the focus of the debate, rather than the crisis that Social Security is in. So I’m saying everything is on the table. I favor the ability of young Americans to put money into, on a voluntary basis, into an account with their name on it. That’s what I favor. Other people favor different things. You’ve got to sit down at the table and you’ve got to hammer it out. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Jul ’08]