McCain's Poll Blues Continue

For all the fretting over Obama's position in the election, it must be maddening to Republicans that McCain has only led in maybe 4 or 5 national polls since Hillary dropped out of the race three months ago. If I had watched McCain lead Obama for three months straight, even if it was a consistent single digit lead, I'd be worried.

And of course, you'd think that after three months in which Obama consistently leads McCain, the TV pundits would stop asking why Obama can't do better. Maybe they should ask why McCain can't break 45% in any of these polls?

Anyway, McCain's poll blues continue in this new ABC/WaPo poll:

Obama: 49%
McCain: 43%

Not bad after three or four weeks in which Obama has been turned into an empty suit celebrity in the mold of Britney Spears.

In addition, Obama is up two points in both the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, continuing the trend in which standalone polls are more favorable to Obama than the tracking polls.

I am curious to know how much of that ABC poll took place after McCain's embarrassing house gaffe. It may be that none of it was, which would make the poll even worse for McCain. The political impact of that gaffe cannot be underestimated. It accomplishes two things: destroys the "elitist" charge that Republicans are trying to hang on Obama, and instead transfers it to McCain.

I mean, think about it. How can you not know how many houses you own? I know this is a genuinely difficult question for folks with so many properties that they just don't keep track anymore, but for 99.9% of Americans this is an easy question. It's like asking how many children you have -- if you can't answer the question, something is wrong.

If Biden's speech today is any indication, the Democrats are ready to hit McCain over this gaffe again and again at the convention.



I think that's a winning strategy, much like the Republicans' decision to hit the flip-flop button repeatedly against Kerry four years ago. Of course, they should discuss McCain's "100 years" comment, his confusion about Sunnis and Shiites, his "$5 million" income comment, and his many, many other gaffes. But there is something about the housing gaffe that people get, and I have yet to see a single Republican provide a good response to this attack.

Privately, Republicans are probably pissed off that McCain is so out of touch that he couldn't answer a predictable question about his wealth. It's one thing to not know your own record on Viagra and birth control, or whether condoms prevent AIDS. We know he was trying not to offend the Christian right in those answers. But there is no political upside to being ignorant about how many homes you own. It's a gaffe that can't be spun; the best they can do is change the subject to Rezko or some other nonsense.

McCain really stepped in it. We'll see how he spins it when he comes out of his spider hole.

Grassroots Fundraising

So the Obama campaign has enlisted supporters to become grassroots fundraisers. Sounds like fun, and I've got all of these blog readers with money burning through their pockets, so why not?

I set it up earlier this week, so if you'd like to contribute to the Obama campaign click here.

The 3 AM Text Message

Apparently folks on the east coast have received the confirmation text message that Obama has picked Joe Biden to be his VP. This is at about 3:00 AM eastern time.

I live on the west coast, and still no text message. Maybe they will text me at 3:00 AM Pacific time? Pretty funny.

So it is confirmed. Joe Biden is the VP choice. This is a clear indication that Obama is going to go after McCain hard. I like it.

Biden Smacks Down Rudy

Watch his facial expression at the end:



Now if Biden can go after McCain the way he went after Rudy Giuliani, this will be a very fun election.

Obama/Biden

Most of the news orgs are saying that it's Joe Biden. I haven't received my text message yet, and we won't until tomorrow morning, so no firm confirmation.

That said ... this would be a pretty good pick if true. I'd have loved to see a woman like Sebelius or McCaskill, but they don't have the combo of attack dog and proven experience that Biden brings. I was warming up to Hillary, but you can't undo her terrible behavior during the primary. Saying that McCain would be a better Commander-in-Chief pretty much destroyed her chances. Bill's sore loser behavior hasn't helped heal the rift with Obama supporters. Obama has been a class act but they haven't returned the favor.

I am delighted that Obama didn't pick Bayh, Webb, Kaine, Nunn or a few other right-leaning folks who would have been problematic to the left wing base. Biden isn't perfect either, but he's definitely a mainstream Democrat who won't diverge from Obama on key issues. Very pro-choice (100% from Planned Parenthood), a strong critic of Bush's execution of the war, a great debater, voted against FISA. And he seems like a good guy. I've heard his wife is fantastic, and his son is about to be deployed to Iraq.

If I was McCain, I'd be a bit worried. Obama now has a new partner who has more foreign policy heft than McCain, and a much better track record. And I can easily imagine their new-and-improved slogan:

"Change We Can Believe In. Experience You Can Count On. Obama/Biden '08"

Game on.

No One Knows Anything

The secrecy is fairly impressive on this whole VP rollout. No one knows anything.

I had a dream last night that Biden was the pick. Hope it turns out to be true. But who knows, maybe we'll be surprised by someone we hadn't been thinking of.

I do think the Obama campaign should release the name sooner rather than later, so they can get some Friday afternoon coverage. But I guess we'll wait and see. Obama always has a method behind his madness, and his track record has been fairly good so far.

Kicking Him While He's Down

The only reason Obama hasn't revealed his VP choice yet is because he's having too much fun exploiting McCain's mega-gaffe on how many houses he owns.

Yesterday's ad on the subject was thrown together in record time, just a few hours. Today they've gone back and made an even more polished one:

Anti-McCain Ads By Regular Folks

Hilarious stuff. Expect LOTS more as the fall arrives and the Obamabots get into gear.



This second one is mixed louder, so watch your volume control:

The Keating 5 Scandal

Sounds to me like CNN did a pretty good job of exploring some of McCain's scandals in their "Revealed" show last night.

Another clip, this one about the Keating 5 scandal. McCain defends himself by bringing up a guy named Bob Bennett, who just happens to be McCain's personal lawyer.

CNN Explores McCain's Infidelity

Like Jed Report, I'm actually rather shocked that CNN would tell the truth about McCain's infidelity towards his loyal, crippled first wife. Not only that, he basically abandoned his first wife while their daughter was only 12 years old. Powerful stuff.



Obviously the Obama campaign cannot and should not touch this. But that doesn't limit any of us from forwarding this to our friends and family members who still think of John McCain as an "honorable" guy.

Obama Campaign Takes Advantage

In addition to the new ad they are running, they are also seeking to send housing-related talking points to all of their surrogates.

Barack Obama's campaign, moving rapidly to exploit what they see as a major opportunity, is deploying high-profile surrogates in 16 states across the country today to highlight John McCain's uncertainty yesterday about how many houses he owns, the Democrat's campaign tells Politico.

Governors, members of Congress and state legislators will hold conference calls and press conferences in front of homes to draw attention to the issue. Party leaders such as Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, on the stump in Ohio and Iowa respectively, wil move to incorporate the matter into their remarks on the campaign trail today in an effort to draw local media attention to the story.

Further, some state parties will hold contests in which Democrats seek out real voters who don't know how many houses they own.

And in other states, ordinary citizens who have been victim of the mortgage crunch will hold press availabilities to contrast their plight with McCain's wealth.

And Obama himself is going after this with relish:



I've said it before and I'll say it again. This election will be ugly, so Obama needs a fighter by his side. A vicious attack dog who has the standing to call bullshit on McCain's attacks. I think that person is Joe Biden. I guess we'll find out tomorrow what Obama has up his sleeve.

McCain Campaign: Unhinged

The McCain campaign is claiming that Obama's new attacks are a low blow, that they are somehow an attack on Cindy McCain because she is the moneybags in the relationship:

Though McCain is widely perceived to to drawn first blood by attacking Obama's character, the official said that the difference between Obama's mocking McCain for his wealth and his shaky answer on the number of homes he owns was that McCain's charge "reflects an existential reality," where Obama's charges "attack Cindy. She owns the homes. I thought he said the wives were off-limits."

Dear John McCain: we are not attacking you because Cindy McCain is wealthy, we are attacking you because you are so rich and out of touch that you don't remember how many houses you own. And we just don't think someone like you should be president of the United States.

The Big Question: How Many Houses Does John McCain Own?

Believe it or not, it's not a simple question. The McCain campaign is claiming he has only four, but this is bullshit because I can name at least six off the top of my head. He has three condos in California, a condo near Washington D.C., a ranch in Sedona, and a luxurious home in Phoenix.

One estimate put it at 9 homes. The Obama campaign, in their newest ad on this subject, is claiming seven:



This must include the six I mentioned above, plus a Phoenix loft they bought for Meghan McCain. Since the loft is owned by John and Cindy, it counts. Now Politico is saying that the real answer is 8.

We already see the McCain campaign flipping out, because they know how devastating this gaffe can be. Their first response was to call Obama an arugula-eating elitist even though he makes a middle-class income (by McCain's standards) of $4 million. Then they pulled the old POW card, which is just getting laughable at this point. And now they are going the smear route, ready to trot out Rezko and maybe even Wright.

Clearly the McCain campaign is in full-on panic mode.

McCain's Mega-Gaffe: He Doesn't Know How Many Houses He Owns

Today has been a wonderful day for the Obama campaign. First they nail down a podium debate, then they get a fabulous gift from John McCain. The kind of gaffe that can really destroy a candidate's image with the public, making them appear (dare we say it?) elitist and out of touch.

In an interview with Politico, McCain stumbled on the question of how many houses he owns:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

What the F is this? How do you not know how many houses you own? I know how many I own -- zero. Because houses in L.A. have become too damn expensive for even a young urban professional with higher-than-average income to afford one.

The McCain's have put more debt on just one of their credit cards in a single month, $500,000, than the average American takes home in ten years. We already know they own a private jet, that Cindy McCain bought Fast & the Furious-style drift cars while living in Japan, that John McCain wears $500 shoes. We also know that they have so many houses, they forgot to pay the property taxes on one of them.

But it really comes as a shock that neither John McCain nor his wife know how many houses they own. Cindy McCain once said that they owned 8 or 9 houses. And now, months later, after labeling Mr. One House Obama as an elitist, John McCain says he'll have to check with his staff to pin down how many homes he owns.

Listen to the audio:



No wonder this guy would be such great buddies with Phil "Nation of Whiners" Gramm. Or that he would claim some billionaires are "poor", or that someone making only $4.9 million per year is middle class.

John McCain really is out of touch. And with this huge gaffe, expect the American people to know it.

Hell Yes: Obama Lands A Podium Debate

For months I've been railing against the decision by the Commission on Presidential Debates to hold table-only debates this fall. Here was my justification:

Sorry, but this isn't the Late Show with David Letterman. This isn't the View. Give us a goddamn real debate with podiums. I don't want to see John McCain and Barack Obama sitting next to each other at a table, patting each other on the back, talking about how much they agree.

I want a real old school debate. I want sparks flying. It was bad enough that Dick Cheney got to sit down at his lame debates; please don't do it with the presidential candidates too.

So it was with great relief today that I learned the campaigns have come to a compromise...and the first debate will be at podiums.

This isn't going to be news anywhere else, I believe there is a certain scandal going on regarding how many houses McCain actually owns, but I think this is fairly important news.

Obama is much taller than John McCain, so the height advantage will work in his favor both at this debate and during the town hall debate. Maybe McCain will stand on a phone book, or wear some sort of cowboy boots with a 4-inch lift, but his short arms still make him look like a Munchkin no matter what he does to compensate.

Second, a podium makes a candidate look presidential. Obama needs that image of him standing across from McCain, looking commanding and in control. You can't really "own" a table, but you can own a stage when you are at podiums.

I do wish that the third debate was also at podiums, but the McCain campaign probably objected strenuously to it. It's a compromise. But I'm glad Obama got at least one podium debate in the mix.

McCain's Wars Will Require Draft

This is probably just an example of McCain being "confused" again and not knowing what he was saying, but it does speak to a greater truth. Where will McCain get the troops he needs for his wars against Iraq, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Hamas, Al Qaeda, North Korea, Russia and China?

Answer: the draft.

QUESTIONER: If we don’t reenact the draft, I don’t think we’ll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

MCCAIN: Ma’am, let me say that I don’t disagree with anything you said.

By the way, how frustrating is it to see people complain about the miserable conditions at VA hospitals and ask John McCain to fix it, when in fact John McCain has voted time and again against increased funding for veterans?

The Republican party is the worst enemy our veterans have. Getting them out of power would be the best first step to improving health care for vets and all Americans.

Dear Pro-Choice Community

You want Barack Obama to stand up for you once he is elected?

Well now is the time to stand up for him. He shouldn't have to fight these battles alone.

Obama Attacks McCain On Corruption

Good, now more like this.

Question of the Day II

Why are so many people making a fuss about Hillary and Bill Clinton speaking at the Democratic convention? Yet you hear almost nothing about the fact that the horribly unpopular and divisive war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are speaking at McCain's convention.

And is it true that the networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) aren't going to broadcast Bush's speech? Perhaps not, unless the night's other headliner Schwarzenegger is unable to attend due to CA budget issues.

Question of the Day

Would the Bush administration start a war with Russia (hot war, cold war, whatever) in order to ensure that McCain wins the election?

Trigger Happy McCain

Although Americans want to be safe, they are really damn tired of war. Who wants more wars, other than Dick Cheney and John McCain?

So I'm really intrigued by the new Obama line of attack: calling out McCain for being a reckless, hot-headed trigger happy warmonger.

Now let's see this move from a mere conference call sound bite to a series of ads. It's not like we don't have killer footage of McCain agitating for more wars, 100 years in Iraq, bombing Iran, etc.



If the McCain campaign wants to run ads asking if Obama is "ready to lead", why not run ads asking how many wars McCain wants to start?

9

Today marks 9 days until John McCain turns 72 years old.

He is hoping to be the oldest first term president in American history. He is already two years older than our second oldest president Eisenhower was at the end of his two terms.

Rare Video: Barack Obama Circa 1995

Curious to see what Barack Obama was like before he got into politics?

This rare TV interview from 1995 will give you some insight. One thing is clear - the guy is consistent. He's been talking about post-racial, non-polarized politics for over a decade now.

These clips are from the television show "Connie Martinson Talks Books", and in them Obama discusses his newly published "Dreams From My Father". Obama must have been only 33 or 34 years old at the time, but he was already a thoughtful and eloquent conversationalist. His manner of speaking hasn't changed much over the past thirteen years. Having read Obama's book and heard many of those same stories become fodder in this election, I thought it was great to take a time machine back to 1995 and hear Obama expand upon them outside of a campaign setting.

One can see that Barack Obama was already starting to think about issues of poverty and race in a political context. He mentions the "race card", Rev. Wright, his absent father, and his white grandmother -- all issues that would become oh so relevant here in 2008.

It was also rather tragic to hear him mention his mother, since we know she would succumb to ovarian cancer later that year.

I have decided against providing a synopsis of each portion so that you can be surprised by what you discover. Enjoy!

Part I



Part II



Part III

VP Timing

As I predicted a while back, Barack Obama is waiting until just a few days before the convention to announce his VP pick. I'm guessing Wednesday or Thursday. I hope the pick will be Joe Biden, but I guess we'll wait and see.

John McCain has revealed that he will announce his VP pick on August 29th, his 72nd birthday. This is the Friday right after Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I wouldn't be surprised if the McCain camp leaks the info during Obama's actual speech, hoping to steal some of his thunder. That would be a shitty thing to do, but would come at great cost because you only get to announce your VP once. Even if they wait until Friday, that is news dump day and would not get them as much play as they would hope. Plus, three days after the VP announcement, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will speak at McCain's convention. If anything can throw a wet blanket on things, the Bush/Cheney double feature is it.

Clearly McCain is waiting until after Obama makes his pick to decide on his choice. This is a risky move, because McCain could wind up panicking and picking the wrong person. Should be an interesting week.

McCain's "Cross in Dirt" Fabrication Is Being Exposed

At this point I'm pretty well convinced that McCain simply made up his "cross in the dirt" story, stealing it from Solzhenitsen in order to firm up his faith credentials during his first run for the presidency.



For more background, read here, here, and here.

As usual, McCain will try to weasel out of this by doubling-down on his lies. So it's only a matter of time before Swift Boat liar and longtime McCain POW friend Bud Day comes out to say that McCain told him this story while they were still in 'Nam.

In 2004 we saw plenty of veterans willing to lie to get Bush into office, including Day. The same will be done for McCain.

[UPDATE]: And, as predicted, Bud Day crawls out of his hole to back up McCain's bogus story. Big surprise.

McCain Cheats At Saddleback Forum

There was a story last night on DailyKos, suggesting that McCain sounded like he knew some of the questions in advance. I was skeptical, because McCain's answers just weren't that good. But I do have to admit that McCain was a bit more on-point than he usually is during these Q&A sessions.

But we were assured by Rich Warren that McCain was in a "cone of silence" during Obama's portion of the debate, so there is little chance he could have heard the questions in advance - right?

Wrong. It turns out that McCain didn't even arrive at Saddleback until 30 minutes into Obama's interview. He could have easily listened/watched the first half of the debate, giving him a key advantage because he could prepare answers ahead of time.

Here is a video of Pastor Warren admitting that McCain arrived late, even though the nation was told that McCain was in a "cone of silence":



This is fairly scandalous. Maybe McCain didn't listen to the first half, but that really doesn't matter. This is a presidential election, this is big time stuff, McCain shouldn't have even been in a position to cheat. Rick Warren should have not started the forum until after McCain was properly sequestered.

Nate Silver:

Sanchez has now suggested that Warren implied to him that he (Warren) thought McCain was in the "cone of silence" when he told the audience as much, but later learned that McCain was not.

This is highly despicable behavior, folks, on the part of McCain, Warren or possibly both. There's simply no way around it....

Whether Warren actually believes that McCain heard the questions or not is immaterial. Warren, evidently, considers both McCain and Obama to be friends, and he takes them at their word.

But the point is, there were supposed to be controls in place that prevented this situation from arising -- a situation where McCain was in a position to cheat without any consequence for having done so. Those controls broke down. We need to learn more about what those controls were, and why they broke down.

Jed Report:

But I will again make this simple point: the issue isn't whether or not McCain broke the rules so he could cheat, it's that by breaking the rules he cast a shadow over the whole process.

It's just like his relationship with his top foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann. Scheunemann has received $800,000 from the government of Georgia, and until March worked for them. Because of that, whether or not his advice is right, there is a cloud of suspicion over the McCain campaign.

What we're now learning is that the McCain campaign thinks they play by different rules than anybody else.

They don't have that right. Nobody does.

And of course, the McCain campaign is once again exploiting McCain's POW history to shield him from any insinuation that he would cheat. Pathetic.

VP Talk

Obama will announce his VP sometime between Monday and next Tuesday, the second day of the convention. I have no clue who it will be. Nobody does.

The blogs are worried that Evan Bayh might be the pick. Some are less worried than others, claiming that Bayh is actually more liberal than his voting record might indicate. I should assert that I think Bayh would be one of the worst possible picks, merely because his judgment on Iraq was so bad AND because he won't inspire anybody or add any fire to the ticket.

My favorite? Surprisingly, I've come to view Joe Biden as the best possible choice. He's an attack dog, he has more experience than McCain, his vote for the Iraq war is ameliorated somewhat by his work in 2002 to restrict Bush's options, and "Obama/Biden" has a nice ring to it. He'd win his debate against anyone McCain could pick.

Tim Kaine is a good pick, but not a great one. As governor of Virginia he hasn't been as progressive as he could have been, and he seems a bit too "nice" to be a good attack dog. He's not very photogenic, but he is a good speaker. I'd be okay with Kaine mainly because he isn't Bayh. As a bonus, Kaine might help Obama win Virginia.

Kathleen Sebelius is a fantastic VP candidate, but I think the political environment isn't quite right. And no, I don't buy into any of that PUMA crap about Hillary being the only viable female VP candidate. That is an insult to every hard-working woman in politics. My problem with Sebelius is that, like Kaine and Bayh, she seems a bit too nice to be an attack dog. She has zero foreign policy experience and her name value is near zero. I fear she might lose her debate to McCain's VP pick, but I'd love to be pleasantly surprised. Electing a black man and a female in the same election would be a truly grand day in American history.

I'm not going to discuss the other candidates. I will say that the VP choice isn't a make-or-break issue for me. I'll be working hard no matter who Obama picks, my main goal is defeating old man McCain. So even if it turns out to be Bayh, I'll get over it. I'll simply expect Bayh to come alive and kick ass and advocate some liberal ideas to prove us all wrong.

Saddleback Sum-Up

I watched all of Obama's interview with Pastor Rick Warren, and about half of McCain's. My impression was that Obama was exceedingly comfortable in the setting, and he didn't try to go mealy-mouthed on his views just because he was before an evangelical audience. He declared he was pro-choice, he made a case for stem cell research and civil unions, he singled out Clarence Thomas and Scalia as the two worst judges on the Supreme Court, and advocated family planning assistance to address poverty.

He was obviously at ease discussing his faith, even though Warren didn't really ask many specific questions about it. I was expecting a more theological discussion, to get a sense of the candidates' philosophy and authenticity on faith issues. But instead Warren offered up Oprah-like questions about personal moral failings and hot-button issues.

Because there weren't any specific faith questions, the forum turned out to be tailor made for McCain. He established his faith cred by telling a "cross in the dirt" story that may have been stolen from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, then he scored easy points by agreeing with the evangelical audience on abortion, defeating "evil", keeping taxes low despite record deficits, and saying he would never approve the liberal judges on the Supreme Court. Warren didn't seem to have done any research on the candidates and failed to ask follow-up questions, making McCain's task even easier.

Warren never dug into McCain's infidelity, even though Obama was quite forthcoming about his past drug use and the lessons he learned from it. McCain cheated on his first wife and dumped her, yet he is claiming that the institution of marriage is so sacred that gay folks shouldn't have access to it. Heck, it sounded like he doesn't believe in civil unions either. Seems relevant to me.

Warren never asked McCain why he voted to approve justices Breyer, Ginsberg, and Souter if he dislikes judges with that philosophy. Warren never challenged McCain's assertion that people making $4.9 million per year are not rich. Warren never asked him about torture, or McCain's flip-flops on that issue. Nor did he ask McCain to clarify his sudden shift last year from Episcopalian to Baptist.

Plenty of folks are fretting that McCain "won" because the crowd enjoyed his George W. Bush impression more than Barack Obama's Obama impression. What a crock. I'm sure if this forum were hosted by Oprah Winfrey in front of a liberal Planned Parenthood audience, with the same exact questions and answers, it would be Obama who was declared the "winner" because of the ecstatic cheers for his answers. Like Norm Scheiber, I think you have to grade this one on the curve.

Using the curve, both men helped themselves but Obama probably helped himself more. Yes, McCain gave some assurance to evangelicals that he is anti-choice and anti-gays and anti-taxes and all those other b.s. issues that have come to define Christianity for too many in this country. But I find it hard to believe that anyone who watched that still thinks Obama is a scary Muslim; his Biblical knowledge was better than McCain's, and his professions of faith were not boiled down to canned stump speech anecdotes. Warren may be a more progressive evangelical leader (if only in comparison to the real phonies like Hagee and Parsley), but this was still McCain's crowd and McCain's preferred set of questions. Obama stood his ground and showed himself to be quite thoughtful. And McCain delivered some nice footage to his opponent's ad factory, both with his clear anti-choice statements and his declarations that $5,000,000/year is the threshold for being rich.

I'd also challenge anyone who thinks this is how the upcoming debates will go down. Unless Obama wants to lose the election, he will challenge McCain's b.s. Remember in the first 2004 debate, when Bush lost his mojo because Kerry was there to actually challenge him? I'm guessing the same will happen here. McCain has underestimated Obama's intelligence for so long that he now feels free to call him an empty suit, a traitor, a friend to Iran and Hamas and the Kremlin. That shit ends on September 26th, when Obama steps into the ring. Both men will likely become angry in the debates -- Obama because of McCain's insinuations and lies, McCain because Obama will puncture his sphere of delusion. We've all seen which candidate is cooler under pressure. And it ain't McCain.

Game on.

12

Today marks just 12 days until John McCain turns 72 years old.

I've read somewhere that not only would he be our oldest first term president, but he'd also be our shortest. And judging from McCain's grandstanding on every foreign policy issue out there, he has more than his fair share of "short man's syndrome".

Not a good trait for a U.S. president.