Hours after clinching his Party’s nomination, the one-time “maverick” completed his transformation into a full-fledged Bush Republican by heading to the White House this afternoon to receive President Bush’s formal endorsement.

In his desperation to cozy up to the right wing of the Republican Party, McCain has endorsed President Bush’s decision to deny health care for 116,000 North Carolina children by vetoing SCHIP expansion, threatened the retirement security of North Carolina seniors by promising to privatize Social Security, further strained North Carolina’s reserve and national guard units by promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years, and promised more of the same on everything from ethics to the economy.

In fact, despite widespread economic anxieties facing working families in North Carolina and across America, McCain said he thinks the economy is strong and refuses to say whether he supports President Bush’s threat to veto a Democratic bill to help struggling homeowners fighting to avoid foreclosure. Instead, McCain’s idea of short-term economic stimulus for working families is making President Bush’s tax cuts for the rich permanent… in 2010.

“By rushing to President Bush’s side, McCain is showing North Carolina’s working families that a vote for John McCain is a vote for a third Bush term,” said NCDP Chair Jerry Meek.

"North Carolina’s working families already understand that John McCain is out of touch with the issues they are confronting each day,” Meek said. “The closer voters look at the real McCain record, the more they will realize he cannot be trusted to deliver the change America wants."