No matter how well John McCain does (or doesn’t) do in debates, no matter what level of intelligence (or not) his running mate has, no matter how much respect you can show to a true War hero who gave it all for his country and then some. No matter what his position on the issues, the economy and education. One singular incident will prevent me from voting for John McCain.

It was in 2007, on the escalator at the Capital Hilton (actual escalator NOT pictured, right), that changed my view on Senator John McCain.

As some background, I’ve seen McCain many times over the years including several speeches at the annual Congressional Fire Services dinner in Washington, I knew his personal story backwards and forwards by this point, long before the rest of the country got to know his Mavericky style. Before Joe Six Pack. Before Vice President/Hockey Mom Sarah Palin. (by the way, check out this site for some funny Palin stuff…)

It was at the fire services dinner a year and a half ago, just as the presidential campaign was prepping to ramp up, I was heading from the lobby of the Hilton to a reception o the lower level.

Just two steps ahead of me was John McCain. Maverick, Goose, whatever you want to call him. We turned the corner and got on the escalator, he just two steps ahead of me. He had one secret service agent ahead of him, otherwise he was solo.

Then comes into a view a firefighter from North Carolina in his full dress uniform. His FIRE department uniform, clearly not military. We are after all, at a fire service dinner that McCain himself has been personally involved in and probably attended for 20 years.

So the firefighter runs up to the escalator as we’re just a few steps down and says ‘Hey Senator!’ That’s it, just a simple hello.

McCain looks up. Raises his right fist in the air and says very loudly “We’ll get those bastards!!”

What the …

The firefighter just kinda looked at McCain and did a half wave, with quite the confused look upon his face. McCain continued on his way.

I don’t know who the bastards were. I thought he meant terrorists, which was fine but still made no freakin’ sense to yell out just because someone says hello to you. But in retrospect and following last night’s debate, I think he probably meant Democrats.

Hopefully he didn’t mean Joe the Plumber! Because without his plumber’s license, he may in fact be a bastard plumber.