Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that right-wing radio talker Laura Ingraham attacked Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) daughter, Meghan, by mocking her as “plus-sized.” McCain responded yesterday on Twitter, telling Ingraham to “stop talking about my body“:

In a follow-up tweet, McCain wrote: “To all my girls out there. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about your body! I love my curves and you should love yours too!.”

Last night, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) daughter, Meghan McCain, appeared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, where she continued to criticize Ann Coulter. On her radio show today, Laura Ingraham responded to McCain’s critique of far right conservatives, saying that she is “just another Valley Girl gone awry.” In a mocking faux-Valley Girl voice, Ingraham made fun of McCain’s body, joking that she didn’t get a “role in the Real World” because “they don’t like plus-sized models”:

MCCAIN (on MSNBC): And I think there’s an extreme on both parties and I hate extreme. I don’t understand. I have friends that are the most radically conservative and radically liberal people possibly ever and we all get along. We can find a middle ground.

INGRAHAM (mocking): Ok, I was really hoping that I was going to get that role in the Real World, but then I realized that, well, they don’t like plus-sized models. They only like the women who look a certain way. And on this 50th anniversary of Barbie, I really have something to say.

Listen here:

In the past, McCain has said that she is “proud” of her body. Last summer, she told Glamour, “I got to a point where I was like, I just don’t care. You think I’m fat? Fine. I don’t care how much you weigh.”

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This morning on Fox & Friends, John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain railed against President Obama for signing the omnibus spending bill yesterday. “I think it’s so disappointing and it’s scary,” McCain said, referencing the earmarks in the bill. “Hope and change – what’s going on?” She added, “This second stimulus package that Nancy Pelosi’s talking about I think doesn’t make sense.”

Meghan McCain’s comments this morning are surprising, given that last night she was telling MSNBC host Rachel Maddow that she doesn’t know much about the economy. Here’s how McCain responded when Maddow asked her whether she agrees with her father’s call for a spending freeze:

McCAIN: Spending freeze? You know, econ – economic things, I said this last night on Hannity, I said is my — I didn’t even take econ in college. I don’t completely understand it so I’d hate to make a comment one way or the other. That’s – truly of all the things – I keep reading and I just don’t understand it.

Watch a compilation of the clips:

McCain should have stuck with her concession that she doesn’t know much about the economy. Instead, by coming out against a second stimulus, Meghan is contradicting the advice of Nobel Prize winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman. “We need a larger and better designed stimulus,” Stiglitz said yesterday. Krugman adds, “It’s rapidly becoming clear that yes, the [first stimulus] was too small.”

The McCain family appears to enjoy commenting on economic matters without knowledge. Despite conceding early on that economics was “not something I’ve understood as well I should,” John McCain ran a presidential campaign trying to convince voters that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

In a column for the Daily Beast today, Meghan McCain, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) daughter, attacks Ann Coulter as a potent symbol for why the Republican Party struggles to attract younger voters, slamming her for “perpetuat[ing] negative stereotypes about Republicans”:

To make matters worse, certain individuals continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Republicans. Especially Republican women. Who do I feel is the biggest culprit? Ann Coulter. I straight up don’t understand this woman or her popularity. I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time. [...]

More so than my ideological differences with Ann Coulter, I don’t like her demeanor. I have never been a person who was attracted to hate or negativity. … Everything about her is extreme: her voice, her interview tactics, and especially the public statements she makes about liberals. Maybe her popularity stems from the fact that watching her is sometimes like watching a train wreck.

McCain writes, “[I]f figureheads like Ann Coulter are turning me off, then they are definitely turning off other members of my generation as well.”

Last night on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) daughter Meghan explained that she could never bring herself to “get behind Pesident Bush” because of “what happened in 2000.” She was referring to a racist smear campaign run by Bush supporters in the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary.

Meghan McCain recalled, “It had to do with my little sister … And there are things that I don’t know if I’ll ever completely get over.” Watch it:

In 2004, Sen. McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis wrote an article in which he explained the smear campaign that turned Meghan McCain against Bush:

John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh. … Bridget has dark skin. … Anonymous opponents used “push polling” to suggest that McCain’s Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child.

In 2000, Sen. McCain held that those “anonymous opponents” were Bush adviser Tucker Eskew and Bush political strategist Karl Rove. McCain accused them of negative campaigning, saying that they had “unleashed the dogs of war.” Today, however, Eskew is Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) chief of staff and Karl Rove is an informal McCain campaign adviser.

Eskew has been instrumental in pushing the McCain-Palin campaign to adopt a Lee Atwater-style playbook. Independent organizations have debunked numerous McCain campaign smears. Still, Meghan McCain yesterday said, “[O]f course, I’m supporting my father.” She further claimed that the attacks in this election have “been particularly harsh on my family.”

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