The memo is after the jump. Its author, Dana Singiser, did several women’s outreach events for the Obama campaign in Iowa last week. I attended one of those and will write it up when I have the chance. She was very impressive.
Singiser thoroughly documents the gender gap revealed by recent opinion polls on the presidential race. Her memo also gives several reasons why John McCain’s stand on the issues would not appeal to women voters.
The just-released University of Iowa Hawkeye poll showed Barack Obama leading McCain by five or six points overall (depending on which voter screen you use) but by 12 points among Iowa women voters.
“I’ve gotten a lot of questions the last few weeks asking if Obama is the antichrist,” says novelist Jenkins. “I tell everyone that I don’t think the antichrist will come out of politics, especially American politics.”
“I can see by the language he uses why people think he could be the antichrist,” adds LaHaye, “but from my reading of scripture, he doesn’t meet the criteria. There is no indication in the Bible that the antichrist will be an American.”
John McCain’s commercials seek to plant doubt about whether Barack Obama is “ready to lead,” but some seasoned moderate Republicans aren’t fooled. Former Congressman Jim Leach was among the prominent figures who formed “Republicans for Obama” today. A press release from the Obama campaign in Iowa is after the jump. Key excerpt:
“I have no doubt that Barack Obama’s leadership is the leadership we need and that the world is crying out for,” said Leach. “Barack Obama’s platform is a call for change, but the change that he is so gracefully articulating is more renewal than departure. It is rooted in very old American values that are as much a part of the Republican as the Democratic tradition. There’s an emphasis on individual rights, fairness and balance at home and progressive internationalism.”
You can download the Republicans for Obama conference call here.
Leach predicted that many Republicans and independents would be attracted by Obama’s campaign but said his decision to endorse a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time wasn’t easy. […]
“For me, the national interest comes before party concerns, particularly internationally,” said Leach, who has long been an opponent of the war in Iraq.
“We do need a new direction in American policy, and Obama has a sense of that,” he said. “He recognizes that a long-term occupation of Iraq is not only expensive, it’s extremely dangerous to the American interests.”
[…]
Many Republicans argue that GOP candidate John McCain has an edge when the debate turns to foreign policy because of his long experience in dealing with such issues and his record as a career military officer and prisoner of war.
“There’s a distinction between trumpeting issues and realistically looking at effectiveness,” Leach said. “I have never known a time period where the American brand has been in less repair.”
None of the states viewed early this year as competitive in the presidential campaign has swung more decisively than Iowa since Bush’s re-election, based on a comparison of voter registration statistics. […]
In Iowa, the number of registered Democrats has increased 16 percent since mid-2004, according to statistics from the Iowa secretary of state.
Trailing Republicans by roughly 8,000 in the summer before the 2004 election, registered Democrats now outnumber them by more than 90,000, according to statistics reflecting changes in July.
GOP leaders would do well to ask themselves why they have lost so much ground to Democrats. But if they’d rather discount Leach as less than a real Republican, that’s fine with me.
The Register’s write-up is here. McCain threw in a dishonest line with a talking point he and other Republicans have been using this week:
He criticized Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s recent comments about the need for Americans to properly inflate their tires to get the best gas mileage.
“I’m all in favor of inflating our tires, don’t get me wrong. But that’s a public service announcement. It’s not an energy policy,” McCain said to a cheering crowd at The Des Moines Register’s soap box.
But never let the truth get in the way of a Republican one-liner.
I’ve been meaning to write a post about the various dishonest television commercials McCain has produced during the past week. It’s hard to keep up with the man’s mendacity.
This website will be strictly issues-focused and will be updated regularly with Iowa-specific information to be used by Iowans as they make their decision come November. Today’s rollout focuses on Senator McCain’s attacks on Iowa biofuels and the Farm Bill. Future rollouts will include issues such as renewable energy, health care, and taxes, to name a few.
Click the link to read the rest of the press release announcing the IDP’s new site.
Meanwhile, Neil Sinhababu, who has also blogged under the name Neil the Ethical Werewolf at Ezra Klein’s place and Kevin Drum’s Political Animal blog, launched a fabulous new blog this week called War or Car? Neil explains the concept:
Welcome to War or Car !
According to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard public finance professor Linda Bilmes, the total cost of the Iraq War will be over $3 trillion. That’s enough to buy a new Toyota Prius for every household in America. Here are some other things we could’ve done for the price of the Iraq War.
You’ll want to bookmark this one, because Neil will be updating it every day between now and the November election. So far, the posts explain how for the cost of the Iraq War, we could have
Neil is a great blogger, and this will be a fun site to watch.
I’ve been enjoying La Vida Locavore, the community blog for people interested in food and agriculture issues launched by orangeclouds115 last month. You can find good recipes and advice on kitchen gear as well as the latest news related to salmonella outbreaks, genetically-modified foods, growth hormones in meat and dairy products, etc. I highly recommend you check in from time to time.
The EENR progressive blog, founded by a bunch of Edwards supporters several months ago, is going strong. It’s a good blog to check to keep up with news on some good progressive candidates for Congress, as well as substantive issues that got crowded out on other blogs during the presidential primaries.
The State Fair opens on Thursday morning and runs through Sunday, August 17.
This is an open thread for sharing any advice or memories related to the Iowa State Fair. What’s your favorite thing to do at the fair? What food can’t you resist at the fair?
As I wrote earlier this week, my number one tip is to buy lemonade from the Iowa honey producers on the second level of the ag building. They usually charge about half of what the kiosks around the fair charge.
For ice cream at the fair, hit the Bauder’s truck that is parked near the ag building.
I also like the popcorn with real butter. Food on a stick is not my thing.
Second, you won’t have to worry about animal excrement getting on your stroller wheels if you take your kids to the animal barns (always a highlight of the fair for my family).
Third, you won’t have to worry about your preschooler stepping in poop when you’re in the barns. Just bring a soft carrier (like an Ergo or an Asian carrier) in your bag. It doesn’t take up much space. Your child can walk around the fair for most of the day and just ride on your back while you’re in the barns. A lot of young kids get tired anyway and appreciate the break from walking.
Speaking of the fair, I got this e-mail from the Polk County Democrats today:
A group of Democrats are informally organizing a protest for the McCain event at the state fair and asked that we send this out:
Sen. John McCain will be speaking at the Iowa State Fair on Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. He will no doubt proclaim that he is a friend of rural Iowans in spite of his opposition to the farm bill that Sen. Harkin recently worked so hard to pass in addition to his well-known opposition to ethanol production, which has become a major Iowa industry.
If you’re planning to attend the fair on Friday, or are able to do so, we’d like to invite you to show up at the Des Moines Register’s “Soapbox,” located at the Northeast corner of the Varied Industries Building, with an appropriate sign.
A few ideas:
McCain Rejects Farmers, Iowa Rejects McCain
McCain is No Friend of Iowa’s Farmers
We Don’t Need A Third Bush Term
John McCain — Just Like Bush, But Older and Shorter
Either Barack Obama or John McCain may pick a running mate this week, before the Olympics start.
I haven’t heard much buzz lately about McCain’s choice. My money’s still on Mitt Romney, who has a relatively coherent message on economic policy (for a Republican) and can raise a lot of cash.
Word is that Hillary Clinton will address the Democratic National Convention in Denver on the Tuesday night. Since Obama’s running mate is expected to speak on Wednesday night, it seems that Hillary is not under serious consideration for VP.
Matt Stoller is still pushing for Wes Clark, and he and other bloggers have started a draft Clark for VP site, but I see no evidence that Clark is even being vetted by Obama’s team. They seem to want to avoid picking someone who will be seen as “balancing” any weakness in Obama’s resume.
My gut tells me a couple of things. First of all, Barack is not going to pick someone who needs to be introduced to the country. He has enough of an uphill climb introducing himself to the nation, is he really going to pick another unknown quantity for the ticket? So that leaves us with a different list, which, let’s say for argument, looks like this: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Wesley Clark, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Sam Nunn.
Among these possible picks, some are known thanks to their extensive Washington, DC resumes (Clinton, Biden, Nunn, Dodd), some are not (Clark, Edwards, Richardson.) So, which list will Obama pick from? You’ll recall that in the primary, Barack ran against Washington experience and turned what Hillary thought would be her top selling point into an albatross around her neck with one very effective line: “are we just going to keep sending the same people to Washington and expect a different result?” In other words, if you’ve spent a lot of time in DC then how can you expect to change it? He could and should be using the same line against McCain, but he’s not. The other day I noticed him almost say it at one of his townhalls, but he caught himself. Why? My gut is that he’s leaning toward picking a Washington insider for his VP. My guess is it’s Biden.
Biden wouldn’t be my first choice for VP, but he would be a good fit for Obama in many ways. He’s a strong campaigner and could be an effective attack dog. Also, I think he would help Obama with the over-60 voters, where he is relatively weak.
Like Biden, Bayh is a Washington insider, but he’s also a former governor of a red state. He endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, so that might be a gesture toward uniting the party.
Then again, Obama may just be planning to hold a few campaign events in Indiana because that state could be competitive this year.
Bayh is way too conservative for my taste; for instance, he voted for Bush’s tax cuts in 2001. More worrying, we would likely lose his Senate seat if he became vice president, unless Jill Long Thompson pulls off an upset in the Indiana gubernatorial race this year. If Obama wants a Washington insider, I’d prefer Biden.
Many people still expect Obama to choose a different red state governor, either Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas or Tim Kaine of Virginia.
For whatever reason, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson doesn’t seem to be on Obama’s short list. That’s too bad, because I like him a lot more than Kaine, and I think he brings more to the table than Sebelius.
OK, I admit to being creeped out when the Obama campaign website put a white glow around the candidate and the states that voted for him in the primaries.
But this new ad from John McCain is ridiculous:
I’m a little surprised this ad didn’t quote Oprah, who really did call Obama “the one.”
It’s not clear whether this ad is running anywhere on television or just on the web for now. They may be banking on getting news and analysis programs to run it for free.
Note that this comes directly from the McCain campaign and not from the Republican National Committee or some 527 group. Normally the presidential campaign runs positive commercials, while outside groups do the dirty work.
They have realized that McCain is a poor candidate, so they need to focus all their resources on shoring up the conservative base and making Obama unacceptable to the swing voters.
The Daily Show did a great segment on this “Obama is arrogant” meme last night and how absurd it is, given how McCain makes all kinds of grandiose statements and promises on the campaign trail. Watch the clip here, or catch the rerun of the Daily Show on Monday.
Washington, D.C.–In Florida today, Senator John McCain said he was
convinced offshore drilling would yield immediate oil-despite hard data to
the contrary from experts like the federal government’s Energy Information
Administration.
According to the EIA, it would take 7-10 years for oil to come online from
new drilling, and twenty years to reach peak production. And, as the New
York Times recently noted, because of a recent shortage in drilling
equipment, it could likely take even longer.
But McCain said:
“…So I disagree with those experts and I’ve talked to the actual people
that do the work, that are in the business that say within months and
certainly within a very short time, we could have additional oil supply for
this nation. So we ought to drill now.” (Video HERE)
Statement of Sierra Club Political Director Cathy Duvall
“Senator McCain may ‘disagree with the experts,’ but that doesn’t make the
facts go away. New offshore drilling simply won’t provide any oil for
roughly a decade. And even then, the Bush administration itself admits that
drilling will do absolutely nothing to lower gas prices today, tomorrow, or
even two decades from now.
“Oil companies aren’t interested in lowering gas prices. Keeping supply
tight and oil prices high keeps Big Oil rolling in record profits. The oil
companies are spending almost ten times more-a full 55 percent of their
record profits-on stock buybacks and dividends than they are on
exploration. This drives up the price of their shares, their profits, and
the paychecks of their executives.
“This episode is eerily reminiscent of Senator McCain’s insistence that his
misguided ‘gas tax holiday’ would benefit consumers and not simply add to
Big Oil’s record profits. McCain and his aides continue to insist that the
230 leading economists — including 4 Nobel Prize winners — who denounced
his plan are simply wrong.
“We’re in an energy crisis. Americans do need short-term help to offset
the cost of gas, and Senator Obama has a plan to give it to them. He has
proposed a $1,000 refund check paid for by taxing Big Oil’s record profits
that would offer us immediate relief. That’s something new drilling won’t
do, no matter what John McCain says.”
# # #
I like this better than the MoveOn “gimmick” ad (which you can view in the earlier post). In addition to pointing out why McCain is wrong on this issue, it links his proposal to what big oil companies want and profit from. Also, the Sierra Club statement has a healthy dose of ridicule, which McCain deserves.
Meanwhile, Obama took several steps in the right direction at a town hall meeting in Florida today. He is calling for a $1,000 tax rebate for low and middle-income families. A windfall profits tax on oil companies would pay for the rebates.
The Illinois senator also revamped his proposal for a $50 billion economic stimulus plan to include $25 billion to replenish the highway trust fund and pay for infrastructure improvements that he said could save up to 1 million endangered jobs.
“With job losses mounting, prices rising, increased turbulence in our financial system, a growing credit crunch, we need to do more,” Obama said at a town hall meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The proposals came as the government announced the U.S. unemployment rate hit its highest level in four years with another 51,000 non-farm jobs lost in July, bringing job losses for the year to 463,000.
“Do you think you can afford another four years of the same failed economic policies?” Obama asked, accusing McCain of embracing President George W. Bush’s economic approach.
Let McCain explain why he and the Republican Party refuse to consider a windfall tax on oil companies that are reporting record profits this year.
John McCain has been blaming Barack Obama for high gas prices because Obama opposes more offshore oil drilling. Here’s the response from MoveOn.org:
It’s a simple message: we expected more from McCain than misleading gimmicks.
The Obama campaign has taken this approach a step further by launching a new website: lowroadexpress.com. You can watch Obama’s tv commercial that portrays McCain as practicing the politics of the past and clinging to failed policies. You can read newspaper editorials criticizing McCain’s tactics. The main message of the site is this:
Welcome to the Low Road Express.
John McCain used to stand for “straight talk.” Not anymore.
These days John McCain doesn’t seem to stand for anything but negative attacks and false charges against Barack Obama. This isn’t the John McCain we used to know.
I see the point of hitting McCain on his supposed strength as a straight talker, and I see the point of working the refs in the media by calling out McCain for his negative campaigning.
However, I wonder whether going after McCain’s campaign tactics should be the main thrust of the Democratic response.
I agree with David Mizner, who wrote yesterday, “Good populist rhetoric, and linking McCain to corporate greed, is the way to beat not only McCain’s drilling nonsense, but the Brittany-Spears smear campaign.”
Perhaps the only thing more outrageous than Exxon Mobil making record profits while Americans are paying record prices at the pump is the fact that Senator McCain has proposed giving them an additional $1.2 billion tax break. While Senator McCain’s plan has succeeded in helping his campaign raise over $1 million from oil and gas company executives and employees just last month, it won’t lower gas prices or end our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. Instead of an energy policy that reads like an oil-company wish list, it’s time to create a new American energy economy by investing in alternative energy, creating millions of new jobs, increasing fuel efficiency standards, and ending the tyranny of oil once and for all.
Now the focus is on McCain as a typical corrupt Republican who takes money from corporate executives and supports big tax breaks for profitable companies.
That seems more damaging than saying he runs mean television commercials.
You might think, of course desmoinesdem wants Obama to talk more about Republicans being bought and paid for by powerful corporations–she was an Edwards supporter!
Get scrappy Obama, no more worrying about “looking Presidential.” The high road is for suckers and we thought you knew this. Winning is really quite simple:
“John McCain is Bush’s 3rd Term” and “John McCain is Completely Out of Touch and Knows Nothing about the Economy”
Repeat it over and over. Not just Obama, but a coordinated surrogate strategy with really tough talking points. Call his ads “pathetic” and what you’d expect from someone “who has nothing to offer but a 3rd Bush term and knows nothing about the economy.”
Frame HIM instead of allowing yourself to be framed. Because don’t be fooled Obama folks or Kossacks, that’s what’s starting to happen.
Victory may still be ours, but a landslide is increasingly unlikely and victory will be tougher to achieve. We have a very small window, a VERY small window to start pushing back aggressively. And accusing McCain of taking the “low road” won’t do it. We need to get in the muck and define him.
What do you think is the right approach for Obama? Chiding McCain for using the politics of the past? Accusing McCain of doing the oil companies’ bidding? Branding McCain as Bush’s third term?
disingenuously claimed that Barack Obama had “canceled a visit with wounded troops” because “the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.” By Sunday, even Republicans were panning the ad as being inappropriate.
Representative Bruce Braley, who has been working hard to promote passenger rail service to Iowa, has been named to the conference committee on the 2008 Amtrak Reauthorization Bill. A press release quotes Braley as saying, “I’m excited by the opportunity to continue working on the Amtrak bill and to support Iowa’s passenger rail needs.” The full text of that release is after the jump.
Matt Stoller wonders why national polls are basically static even though journalists covering both campaigns agree that “McCain’s campaign is widely considered to be a disaster and Obama’s is considered to be excellent if a bit cold.”
Paul Rosenberg notes that “the overall Obama vs. McCain numbers are far behind the generic Dem vs. Rep numbers, which means that overall Obama is not leading the charge, he’s surfing the wave.”
Obama is a black man with a funny name who just got out of the most bruising primary we’ve seen in decades, running against a popular war hero who’s worshiped by the media. Frankly, it’s a miracle that he has even a slim lead at this point.
If you’re one of those people who thinks everything happening now is irrelevant, because voters won’t start paying attention until after Labor Day, I encourage you to read this piece by fladem on how polling numbers from July related to presidential election outcomes in past years. He concludes, “most Presidential races are decided in the summer, not the fall.”
How do you see the race shaping up? I am cautiously optimistic, in that I see several plausible scenarios for Obama getting to 270 electoral votes without Ohio or Florida.
There’s a lot of chatter about John McCain picking a running mate very soon to redirect the media’s attention from Barack Obama’s foreign trip.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s star has fallen because of revelations that she used the levers of state power to try to punish a former brother-in-law. Why do elected officials think they can get away with stuff like this? I suppose the answer is that many do get away with it, but it’s still bizarre that she would abuse the power of her office with so much on the line for her.
If McCain wants to pick a woman, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison seems like the most logical choice.
Earlier this year there was some buzz about former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as a possible VP choice for McCain, but that must be out of the question now. It was Fiorina’s comment about insurance companies covering Viagra but not birth control pills that led to a embarrassing exchange between a reporter and McCain on the same subject. Planned Parenthood Action Fund is using part of that footage in a television ad aimed at women in six states and the Washington, DC area:
If McCain wants a governor, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana or Charlie Crist of Florida seem like the leading options. (UPDATE: Jindal took himself out of the running today.) For reasons I don’t understand, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota doesn’t seem to be mentioned often anymore.
I find it interesting that I haven’t ever seen any suggestion that Mike Huckabee is being considered. He was in Des Moines ten days ago for the Iowa GOP state convention and acted like a team player, urging support for McCain in his speech to Republican delegates. It would seem wise for McCain to at least pretend that he is taking Huckabee seriously, although maybe that would just give Huck’s supporters false hopes.
Some pundits are betting on Mitt Romney because of the money his people can raise. Also, his own presidential run makes him more of a seasoned campaigner and known quantity than some of the governors being mentioned.
Not much news on Obama’s search for a running mate has emerged lately. It seems prudent for him to wait to see what McCain does and how the public and media react before making a decision.
I still find it weird that there’s no sign Wes Clark or Joe Biden were even asked to submit information to the committee that is vetting Obama’s options.
I would be shocked if Obama were seriously considering Hillary Clinton at this point. I still think she wouldn’t be a bad choice for him, but given his small lead over McCain in national tracking polls and some of the key states he lost to Hillary Clinton in the primaries, Obama probably believes he doesn’t need her on the ticket. It’s obvious he would prefer not to have to deal with the Clintons.
UPDATE: Al Rodgers has lots of video and photos of the reception Obama got from American soldiers in Baghdad. Think these people want to be home with their families?
A staple of John McCain’s stump speech has been to play up his military experience and to claim that he, unlike Barack Obama, will be able to win the war in Iraq.
It wasn’t the strongest hand to begin with, because polls show that a clear majority of Americans would rather bring our troops home from Iraq than keep them there indefinitely. Nevertheless, it made sense for McCain, an outspoken supporter of this unpopular war, to try to depict Obama’s plan for Iraq as irresponsible.
Trouble is, earlier this month Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki called for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops. Obama quickly published this New York Times editorial laying out his plan:
Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition – despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.
But this is not a strategy for success – it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.
As Obama pointed out, President Bush and McCain have repeatedly said they would respect the wishes of the sovereign Iraqi government. Well, Al-Maliki told the German magazine Der Spiegel last week that he supports the timetable laid out by Obama.
Couldn’t Al-Maliki have been mistranslated? It doesn’t look that way. NBC’s First Read had this to say on Monday about John McCain’s “rough weekend”:
You know you had a problematic weekend when: 1) one of your top economic advisers/surrogates finally steps down from the campaign after his “nation of whiners” remark; 2) you get panned for breaking CODEL protocol/etiquette by announcing (incorrectly) at a fundraiser that your opponent is headed to Iraq on Friday or Saturday; 3) the prime minister of Iraq tells a German magazine that he backs your opponent’s plan for withdrawing troops from that country; and 4) when the Iraqi government tries to walk back that support, it does so unconvincingly. On the bright side for McCain, his campaign seized on remarks from Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen that withdrawing US troops over the next two years would be “dangerous.”
[…]
Per NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Obama has arrived in Baghdad and he spoke with Maliki. The headline after their photo-op: Maliki’s spokesman said afterwards (in English) that the Iraqi vision is for all US troops to be out of Iraq by 2010. And with this news — as well as the Der Spiegel interview, in which Maliki seemed to back Obama’s withdrawal plan — the trip seems like it has already been a PR success for the Illinois senator.
Memo to political journalists: this trip is a lot more than a PR success. McCain simply doesn’t have anything left supporting his determination to keep us in Iraq long-term. Why should Americans hire him as our commander-in-chief?
Now Republicans are trying to change the subject. Talking heads claim recent events in Iraq prove that McCain was right to support the “surge” in U.S. troops (which Obama opposed but voted to fund).
It doesn’t look like McCain believes he can win the election on the Iraq issue, though. I say that because his paid advertising is not using his own campaign’s talking points on Iraq, such as how Obama never talks about winning the war, only about ending the war.
ANNCR: Gas prices – $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America.
No to independence from foreign oil.
Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?
CHANT: Obama, Obama
ANNCR: One man knows we must now drill more in America and rescue our family budgets.
Don’t hope for more energy, vote for it. McCain.
JOHN MCCAIN: I’m John McCain and I approve this message.
On substance, this ad is absurd. Drilling for more oil in the U.S. wouldn’t come close to replacing the oil we purchase from foreign countries. Oil companies aren’t even leasing all the currently available fields for offshore drilling. Opening up new drilling sites wouldn’t bring any new oil onto U.S. markets for years.
And anyway, who’s been running the country for the last seven and a half years? Obama’s just one senator out of 100, and he’s only been in Washington since 2005. But suddenly he’s to blame for rising gas prices?
At the same time, this commercial may be effective spin for McCain. To the average person, drilling for more oil here in America may sound like a good way to bring down prices and help us be independent from foreign oil. I also think the crowd chanting Obama’s name will be a turnoff for many viewers. If you don’t already support Obama, that probably sounds creepy.
An earlier McCain ad sought to tie Obama’s “hope and change” message to 1960s hippie culture, but I suspect this new approach has more potential for McCain. It suggests Obama only offers empty hope for more energy, while McCain has a plan. (Never mind that Obama has a much better plan for producing clean energy in the U.S.)
When Obama returns from his trip to the Middle East and Europe, he better have a good response ready on offshore drilling and energy independence.
Sources close to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign are suggesting he will reveal the name of his vice presidential selection this week while Sen. Barack Obama is getting the headlines on his foreign trip.
If McCain does name his running mate early, I doubt he will choose a dark horse. My money would be on Mitt Romney.
Final note: I don’t have satellite radio, but Keith Nichols mentioned that The Bill Press Show on Sirius 146 is doing a countdown of 101 reasons to vote against John McCain. They give a new reason every morning at 7:25 am (central time). The list of reasons 63 through 101 can be found here. The page is updated daily.
The Nevada Republican Party didn’t want to take that chance. They canceled their state convention, set for next Saturday, because the number of RSVPs from delegates was well below the level needed for a quorum.
Nevada is in my opinion the state most likely to go Democratic thanks to Libertarian presidential candidate and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. Not only are there huge numbers of Ron Paul supporters who don’t back McCain, there is a relevant history. The Libertarian vote in the 1998 Senate race was large enough to hand a narrow victory to Democrat Harry Reid.
John McCain raised about $22 million in June, but the Republican National Committee has crushed the DNC in fundraising this year, so if you combine the RNC and McCain numbers, their side has slightly more cash on hand.
But guess what? The average donation for Obama in June was $68. That means he has a ton of small donors who are not maxed out. In fact, only $2 million of the $52 million he raised is for the general election (in other words, came from people who had already maxed out at $2,300 for the primary).
I believe that Obama could have raised $100M in June if that’s what they wanted to do. In fact, there may have been plans to do just that too, but they changed. Notice that just $2M was raised for the GE by Obama, they certainly could have raised a ton more money there if they had wanted, for the GE, at least $20-30M, and combined with the $74M that was raised between Obama and DNC, over $100M.
So, either the Obama camp isn’t as committed to self-funding for the GE, and might still go the route of taking the $84M in public financing (unlikely); or they are holding off their donors to give for the GE later (there are accounts of projecting a $100M month in Sept); or the Obama camp will use July and August to raise big numbers for the GE, as the decision to opt-out was made on June 19th, late in the month for fundraising plans. It could be either of these last two it seems.
Certainly Obama will not take public financing for the general. But could his campaign be deliberately holding big general-election donations off until later this summer?
Reporting a $100 million haul this fall, at the height of the campaign, could hurt Republican morale and drive a lot of media coverage about the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans.
On Tuesday the House overrode George Bush’s veto of a bill that stopped planned cuts in the Medicare reimbursement rate for doctors. It’s the fourth time Congress has voted to override Bush’s vetoes. This is the bill that just barely cleared the Senate because of Ted Kennedy’s return.
The House vote was 383-41. In the Iowa delegation, Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Tom Latham voted yes on the override. Steve King voted no. Leonard Boswell was among the 11 representatives who missed the vote.
The Senate vote was 70-26, with Tom Harkin voting yes and Chuck Grassley voting no. Barack Obama and John McCain were among the four senators who missed the vote.
As I wrote yesterday, Obama has opened 15 field offices in Iowa, with two more planned.
McCain’s state headquarters in Urbandale is the GOP nominee’s only Iowa office so far, and according to Beaumont, the campaign is still trying to figure out where to locate about half as many field offices as Obama has up and running.
This passage is particularly telling:
Obama spent almost a year campaigning in Iowa before January, building up a staff of more than 150 and a volunteer network of about 3,500. That network had little time to rest after the caucuses.
Obama’s campaign aides have remained in touch with his Iowa supporters, as they worked to turn out delegates to county and district conventions in their battle with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York for national delegates.
Obama’s general election campaign plan in Iowa follows the template that helped him win the caucuses, and which proved effective in his success in many states during the grueling nomination fight with Clinton.
That strategy focuses on having a local presence in as many places as the campaign can support and on keeping an army of 3,500 volunteers engaged, said Jack[ie] Norris, Obama’s Iowa campaign director.
“So much of what we were doing before the county conventions … was bringing up to speed again the Obama network in each of those counties,” said Norris, who was a top adviser to Obama’s caucus campaign.
Here’s hoping that army of volunteers gets deployed in the down-ticket races. They would be a huge asset to Rob Hubler, Becky Greenwald, and our House and Senate candidates all over the state.
Barack Obama’s campaign held kickoff events in 15 Iowa field offices on Saturday, coinciding with the first statewide canvass of the general election campaign. In addition, the Obama campaign plans to open at least two more field offices in Iowa.
Obama’s statement begins by briefly explaining why he is right and McCain is wrong:
“Today, the U.S. Senate took a major step forward in addressing the needs of seniors and military families all across this nation. At a time when doctors are facing double digit increases in the costs of providing care, I am proud to have joined with my colleagues to stop a devastating cut in physician reimbursement that would have caused them to shut the door to many Medicare and Tricare beneficiaries. John McCain has said that he would have opposed this bill, demonstrating yet again that he’s more than willing to put the interests of the health insurance industry over our nation’s 44 million seniors and 9 million uniformed service members,” said Senator Barack Obama.
The release then cites numbers calculated by the American Medical Association on the impact of this bill in 19 states (which just happen to be states contested in the presidential race). For each state, five numbers are given:
-the dollar amount in Medicare payments that would have been lost by December 2009 if the bill had not passed
-the average dollar amount each physician would have lost in reimbursements
-the number of employees who would have been affected
-the number of Medicare patients who would have been affected
-the number of TRICARE patients who would have been affected
For instance,
Iowa:
Payments Lost by Dec. 2009: $110 million
Average Physician’s Loss: $17,000
People Affected: 27,095 employees,
468,637 Medicare patients
41,891 TRICARE patients
The format makes it quick and easy for a newspaper editor or broadcast news producer in any of these 19 states to cast this story in a favorable light for Obama and an unfavorable light for McCain.
The full text of the press release is after the jump.
Kennedy’s vote was needed to break a Republican filibuster. Once it was clear Democrats had the 60 votes for cloture, a bunch of Republican senators flipped and voted with Democrats, so the final vote was 69-30.
This ad will run on national cable networks and in Colorado, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Did you catch that?
McCain is paying for television time in Mississippi, a state where George Bush beat John Kerry by 59 percent to 40 percent.
John McCain’s campaign doesn’t have enough money to spend in places he’s “not worried.”
In terms of content, this ad is mostly a standard introductory biographical piece. It presents McCain as a war hero in Vietnam and a maverick in the Senate, where he isn’t guided by polls and isn’t afraid to take on presidents and partisans, including in his own party.
The 60-second commercial takes a few not-so-subtle swipes at Obama. It opens with visuals of hippies as the voice-over says:
It was a time of uncertainty, hope and change. The Summer of Love. Half a world away, another kind of love–of country. John McCain.
Get it? “Hope and change” = dirty hippies. I doubt connecting those images with Obama is going to work, though. He was what, seven years old at the time? Anyway, he explicitly rejects the politics of the 1960s in his speeches.
Toward the end of the ad, the voice-over says:
John McCain doesn’t always tell us what we hope to hear. Beautiful words cannot make our lives better, but a man who has always put his country and her people before self, before politics, can.
Don’t hope for a better life. Vote for one. McCain.
I bolded the words that the voice-over speaks with special emphasis.
Can a commercial like this neutralize Obama’s message of “Yes we can” and the “politics of hope”? I didn’t find it convincing, but I’m obviously not the target audience.
This Associated Press story has the worst analysis of a poll I’ve seen in a while (which is saying something): Pet owners prefer McCain over Obama
Click the link to read about an AP-Yahoo! poll that showed pet owners prefer McCain, 42 percent to 37 percent, while people who don’t have a pet prefer Obama 48 percent to 34 percent.
Associated Press writer Randolph E. Schmid asserts that the “pet-owning public seems to have noticed the difference” between McCain, who has many pets, and Obama, who has none. There are some silly quotes from pet owners about the fine characteristics of people who have pets at home.
I’m not a pollster or a statistician, but without even trying hard I can think of five confounding variables that may have more to do with the results than pet owners identifying with McCain because he also has animals at home.
1. Are wealthier people more likely to have a pet? Because that group would skew more Republican than the population at large.
2. The same goes for people who own their own homes, who are probably more likely to own pets than people who are homeless or live in apartments. Remember, many landlords don’t allow pets in apartments.
3. Are married people more likely to keep a pet than single people? Republicans tend to do better among married voters than single voters.
4. The AP piece mentions that dog owners are particularly slanted toward McCain. Well, most hunters own at least one dog, and people who keep a gun at home are more likely to vote Republican than people who live in a home with no guns.
5. Are men more likely to be dog owners than cat owners? The gender gap in voting behavior has been documented for decades.
The AP article doesn’t bring up any most of these potential confounding variables. [CORRECTION: Buried down at the bottom of the piece, the AP article does mention that a higher proportion of dog owners are married, compared to the population at large, and that white people are more likely than black people to own dogs.]
Despite being a dog-lover myself, I didn’t even know that Obama had no pets, and I’m well-informed politically. I doubt that even 1 percent of Americans will make up their minds based on whether a presidential candidate has a pet.
Via Jeralyn at TalkLeft, I saw this video from Progress Now. Today in Denver, McCain campaign staff got the police to escort a 61-year-old librarian from a public town-hall meeting on public property. She was issued a ticket for trespassing as well. Her offense was to stand there with a sign that said, “McCain = Bush”:
If you watch the video, you’ll see a man dressed up as a peapod with photos of Bush and McCain. It looks like he was also forced to leave the venue.
I don’t think it’s consistent with the First Amendment for the police or the Secret Service to remove Democrats from McCain’s public appearances.
But I’m gratified to know how worried they are about a “McCain = Bush” sign. At the end of that video clip, the librarian asks rhetorically why any Republican who voted for Bush would find her sign offensive. The obvious answer is that Bush is the most unpopular president in history.
McCain’s message focus for over a week now has been on how we need progressive change on energy and global warming. Even if his policies don’t match, he is at least running on a progressive, Democratic message. Not only does this imply that Democrats have the right ideas on energy, global warming and other ideas, McCain’s ad explicitly says that he stood up to other Republicans on this issue. In other words, McCain is bluntly saying that Democrats are right, and Republicans are wrong.
I don’t know how you win an election by making “the other guys were right [all] along” the focus of your message. Seems to me that it will only reinforce the growing notion that Democrats were right all along, and result in more people voting for Democrats.
Josh Orton notes the irony of the RNC paying to run ads that brag about how McCain pushed his own party to act on climate change.
As I mentioned a few days ago, the National Republican Congressional Committee is advising candidates to make their campaigns about personal and local issues.
Republican strategists know which way the wind is blowing, and it’s not at their backs.
A Democrat close to Webb confirms that a request for documents preceded his declaration to the Obama campaign. The Democrat said that Webb did not want to relive the vigors of a campaign so soon after his election to the Senate.
Like I’ve been saying, Webb does not like campaigning enough to be a good running mate.
Meanwhile, John Edwards will debate “Bush’s brain” Karl Rove on September 26. Some people have interpreted the scheduling of that event as a sign Edwards knows he will not be Obama’s running mate.
Some smart people think he will pick Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, but I still think that it would be a mistake for Obama to choose a woman other than Hillary Clinton.
VP search teams for Obama and McCain have both begun vetting candidates. McCain is said to be considering Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
I tend to agree with Douglas Burns, who wrote that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be a good running mate for McCain.
If McCain is feeling pressure in Florida (a state he must win in order to get 270 electoral votes), he might consider selecting Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Rumors that Crist is gay could be a problem with that scenario. Crist was married to a woman in his early 20s and just got engaged to his current girlfriend.
Put your predictions or opinions about either candidate’s VP choice in the comment section.
How great will it be to have the Democratic nominee speak in a packed football stadium, while John McCain (not the darling of any GOP base constituency) gives a ho-hum speech in St. Paul? It will force the media to dwell endlessly on the enthusiasm gap between the Democrats and Republicans and on the charisma gap between Obama and McCain.
Unfortunately, John McCain’s hostility to Amtrak over the years blew any chance of building a modern, effective passenger rail system before the price of oil hit record highs:
In 2000, when he was chairman of the Senate Science, Commerce and Transportation committee, McCain killed $10 billion in capital funding for Amtrak. He denounced Amtrak as a symbol of government waste, claiming, “There’s only two parts of the country that can support a viable rail system – the Northeast and the far West.”
He made these claims though Amtrak investment had the support of several notable Republicans. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi warned that Amtrak “is guaranteed and doomed to failure if we don’t give it an opportunity to succeed. If you don’t have modern equipment, if you don’t have the new fast trains, if you don’t have a rapid rail system, it will not work.”
Tommy Thompson, the secretary of Health and Human Services during President Bush’s first term, was Amtrak chairman when McCain blocked the funding. Thompson said, “The traveling public are sending a distress call to escape our nation’s endless traffic jams and airport gridlock.”
How much better off would we be if we had invested $10 billion in upgrading Amtrak’s equipment eight years ago?
Click the link to read the whole column by Derrick Jackson. While Barack Obama has co-sponsored a Senate bill to increase investment in passenger rail, McCain’s website has no mention of rail in the transportation section.
We can’t afford to let McCain screw up our transportation policy any more than he already has.
If you are interested in passenger rail, I highly recommend these diaries by Daily Kos user BruceMcF:
The TPM Veracifier team put together a tremendous collection of clips on how pundits have distorted what Clark said on Face the Nation this Sunday:
Media Matters points out the obvious: the manufactured outrage over Clark’s so-called attack obscures the fact that Clark praised McCain’s military service, while noting that military service alone does not qualify him to be commander-in-chief.
Mark your calendar for July 9: Moveon.org is organizing events at gas stations around the country in a “National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President.” The main goal is to inform voters that
John McCain’s campaign is run by oil lobbyists,1 it’s funded by oil companies,2 his policies are straight out of Big Oil’s playbook,3 and he won’t solve our energy crisis.
After the jump you can read the full text of the e-mail I received from Moveon.org. It includes footnotes supporting the assertions in that quote.
No one in the entire country is more important to Democratic credibility on foreign policy than Wesley Clark. No one. And this isn’t just my opinion, it is the opinion of Democratic congressional candidates who requested him.
There are those who think that Obama is being super secret strategic on this one, and playing both the McCain campaign and the media for a fiddle. However, if you really want to be strategic, you need to see the whole board. Going well beyond this media cycle, and even going beyond this presidential election, Republicans score a huge strategic victory if they are able to permanently damage the credibility of the leading Democratic spokesperson on national security.
Paul Rosenberg had a priceless comment in that thread:
Incompetent is you think tactically instead of strategically.
Idiotic is you think tactically instead of strategically about the strongest surrogate you have on your weakest suit in the game.
Getting back to the main point of this post, Moveon.org is right to hit McCain campaign over energy policy. He is worse than Obama on that issue, and the price of gas is at the forefront of voters’ minds this summer.
If you attend or help organize one of the July 9 events, please put up a diary here to let us know how it went.
He didn’t lose to McCain in Florida and California by much, and Mike Huckabee didn’t lose to McCain in South Carolina by much either. With most GOP primaries being winner-take-all, McCain would probably have been out of the running if primary voters had known about his tax problems.
Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King said a lack of enthusiasm in the Republican Party will make it difficult for the GOP to regain control of the U.S. House.
Democrats wrested control from Republicans in November 2006, putting lawmakers who had only known serving in the majority into the minority. King said Monday he’s doubtful the House, which now has 236 Democrats and 199 Republicans, can swing back.
“The math doesn’t look good,” King said.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Republican turnout in King’s own district this November is substantially down on 2004 levels, because John McCain has never been popular with hard-core conservatives.
Less than a week remains in the second fundraising quarter–go give some cash to Rob Hubler, who is challenging King.
So the U.S. House races don’t look great for Republicans. What about the Senate?
Well, Senator John Ensign of Nevada chairs the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, and he said two weeks ago that losing only three Senate seats “would be a terrific night for us, absolutely.” He added that Barack Obama is likely to help Democratic challengers in some states, such as Oregon.
Apparently Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon agrees. This commercial tells you a lot about how Smith views the political climate:
Keep in mind that Smith endorsed John McCain early in the presidential contest. Yet clearly Smith believes that in Oregon, the less said about McCain, the better for his own re-election prospects.
It’s not the first time Smith has tried to run away from the Republican Party in this campaign. This earlier tv ad portrayed him as someone who has stood up to President George Bush. I don’t think voters are going to buy this makeover.
Getting back to our state, leading Iowa Republicans have been pessimistic about the coming election for months. The low turnout in the GOP primary races on June 3 can’t be encouraging for them.
Find a few statehouse candidates you believe in and give them money before June 30. Strong fundraising in the second quarter will help the candidates both directly and indirectly (by driving the media narrative about greater Democratic enthusiasm this year).
The Arizona senator proposed a $300 million prize for whoever can develop a better automobile battery, and $5,000 tax credits for consumers who buy new zero-emission vehicles. The latest proposal is in addition to his support for overturning the federal ban on offshore oil drilling.
There was a rapid response from Sierra Club, which along with the United Steelworkers jointly endorsed Barack Obama a few days ago. I received this statement on the Iowa Sierra Club e-mail loop:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 23, 2008
CONTACT: Josh Dorner, 202.675.2384
McCain Falls Short on Fuel Economy, Gas Prices
America Needs Obama’s 50 MPG, $150 Billion Energy Plan
Washington, D.C.–The Sierra Club issued the following response to John
McCain’s speech on fuel economy and cars delivered today in Fresno,
California.
Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director
“Senator Obama has demonstrated the real leadership America needs to
address both our energy and economic crises. He understands that the
long-term solution to high gas prices is making our cars get better gas
mileage. He pushed hard last year to raise fuel economy standards to 35
miles per gallon and wants to give the American auto industry the help it
needs to hit 50 miles per gallon within two decades.
“By contrast, John McCain has a spotty record when it comes to fuel economy
and seems more interested in offering up a $300 million gimmick rather than
exercising the kind of bold leadership America needs. He has repeatedly
failed to embrace what America really needs — a vehicle fleet that gets to
50 mpg on a predictable and aggressive schedule, and then keeps on getting
better. Instead of a $300 million giveaway, Barack Obama has proposed to
do what is really needed. He has a plan that calls for a $150 billion
investment in the technologies we need to fight global warming and end Big
Oil’s chokehold on our economy once and for all. Senator Obama also wants
to end taxpayer-funded giveaways to the oil industry, wants the industry to
pay its fair share on its record profits, and will crack down on the Wall
Street speculators gaming the system at the expense of hardworking
Americans. Meanwhile, Senator McCain continues to oppose the key
incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency that we need to make
the clean energy future a reality.”
In other recent McCain campaign news, Fortune magazine quoted the candidate’s adviser Charlie Black as saying a terrorist attack inside the U.S. “certainly would be a big advantage” to McCain.
If you’re wondering why the name Charlie Black sounds familiar, he’s a lobbyist who has represented heinous foreign dictators, and I mentioned him in this post a while back.
According to Hotline, AFSCME and MoveOn.org Political Action are spending $543,000 to run this ad in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and on CNN and MSNBC for a week, beginning on Wednesday:
What do you think?
McCain’s campaign will claim that he’s been taken out of context, and that he doesn’t want us to be at war in Iraq for 100 years. The bottom line, though, is that most Americans don’t want our troops bogged down in Iraq forever, staffing permanent bases, even if casualty rates declined considerably.
UPDATE: An e-mail I received from Moveon.Org says this ad is “the most effective TV ad we’ve ever created.” It says Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research surveyed viewers of this ad and found that a “61 percent majority describe the ad as convincing.”
The full text of the Moveon.Org e-mail is after the jump.
Over at Iowa Independent, Jason Hancock published this story about a handful of college activists for Hillary Clinton who have either endorsed John McCain or are considering voting for him.
As regular readers of this blog know, I am the last person to sing Barack Obama’s praises. I have deep concerns about him as a candidate and as a potential president.
I am also very familiar with the feeling that the Democrats nominated the “wrong” person. I have been politically aware for eight presidential cycles, and the candidate of my choice has won the nomination exactly once.
I would encourage any Democrat who strongly opposes Obama not to box yourself in by declaring now that you’ll never vote for him.
I also hope that Obama supporters will back off and give their fellow Democrats some space. This passage in Hancock’s article seemed particularly important to me:
Jordan Levine, who served as co-president of the Grinnell College Students for Hillary, said he, too, may support McCain in the fall, but has not made up his mind. In addition to not liking where Obama stands on the issues, he also said the actions of his fellow Democrats are turning him off to their nominee.
“They are being belligerent and trying to push me into supporting Obama,” he said. “That should be a serious concern. I have every right to vote how I want.”
If nothing else, I hope you will keep the Supreme Court in mind when you vote for president. Making the case for John McCain earlier this year, former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer noted that six of the nine Supreme Court justices will be at least 70 years old on Inauguration Day 2009. If that’s not a reason to be a yellow dog Democrat this year, I don’t know what is.
Press to Digitate’s diary on “Why Have All the Republicans Gone?” is a useful backgrounder that may give you some ideas for talking to disaffected Republicans.
Religious conservatives, led by Iowa Christian Alliance president Steve Scheffler, are unhappy that more mainline party leaders, led by state GOP chairman Stewart Iverson, want to install some moderates and big donors, such as Marvin Pomerantz, as delegates to the national convention.
The social conservatives, who have never been very happy with McCain, want delegates to make sure that he selects a vice president who is acceptable to them and that the platform reflects their views on abortion, gay rights and immigration. […]
“If he doesn’t get a huge percentage of our people, John McCain can’t win,” Scheffler said. “It’s simple arithmetic.” In a letter to fellow religious conservatives, Scheffler wrote “there is a very serious threat to our issues and the pro-family agenda. The country club Republicans, which involves some of those in Republican Party leadership positions, are making a concentrated effort to dilute and rid the Republican Party of individuals like you who consider themselves social conservatives.”
His group held a meeting Tuesday night at a Windsor Heights church to plot strategy, and some party leaders showed up uninvited. Some spirited shouting matches ensued, according to several in attendance who said they were surprised at the profanity that got used inside a church building.
I don’t envy McCain the task of choosing a running mate. He needs to pick someone to shore up his support from conservatives, but which conservatives? In last week’s South Dakota primary, McCain only got 70 percent of the GOP vote, with 17 percent favoring Ron Paul and 7 percent favoring Mike Huckabee.
A running mate with a more libertarian bent might prevent Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr from taking a lot of votes from McCain in swing states like Nevada. But that wouldn’t help McCain with the religious conservatives who want one of their own on the ticket.
I think McCain can’t choose Huckabee, who is hated by business conservatives and joked at the recent National Rifle Association convention about someone pointing a gun at Barack Obama.
But if McCain chooses some other white southern evangelical as his VP candidate, he may alienate the Ron Paul wing of the party as well as some suburban swing voters.
Some have suggested he should choose a woman, like Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, or a person of color, like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.
Use this as an open thread to discuss which VP candidate would give McCain the best chance of winning, and which VP candidate you’d most like to see him choose.
P.S.- An interesting tidbit from Yepsen’s column is that one of the names being floated as a possible replacement for Iverson is the Iowa blogosphere’s own Real Sporer, aka Polk County Republican chairman Ted Sporer.
UPDATE: At least 14 Republican members of Congress have so far refused to endorse McCain:
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I have been deeply concerned about Barack Obama’s ability to beat John McCain. I’ve been worried about his weakness in key battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. I still think the electoral college nightmare scenario outlined by David Yepsen is possible if McCain squeaks by in a few large battleground while Obama runs up a popular vote lead in Democratic strongholds.
But if the last few days are anything to go on, Obama is going to be the favorite this November.
Obama has picked up a decent bounce in tracking polls against McCain since Clinton ended her campaign, and it looks like he is increasing his lead among women. State polls indicate that he is ahead in electoral votes as well as in nationwide polls.
He has taken an important step toward uniting the party by promising to work with Elizabeth Edwards on health care reform. Not only will this excite the Democrats who supported John Edwards, it is a gesture toward Hillary Clinton’s supporters as well. The Clinton and Edwards health care plans were very similar, and this spring Elizabeth Edwards made clear that she preferred Clinton’s plan to Obama’s.
I still think Obama should pick a Clinton loyalist to be his running mate (if not Clinton herself). But if these reports are accurate, it sounds like his VP vetting team is casting a wide net, including some former military leaders.
What has John McCain been doing? Saying on the Today Show that the timing for bringing American troops home from Iraq is “not too important”:
Slinkerwink summarizes the reaction from various prominent Democrats here. The defense coming from the McCain camp is that he didn’t say bringing troops home from Iraq was “not too important,” he said the timeline for bringing them home was “not too important.”
I’ll be sure to mention to other moms of young kids that McCain doesn’t mind leaving our troops in Iraq indefinitely, as long as U.S. casualties come down. I doubt many mothers relish the thought of their kids growing up to staff permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.
Also for your reading pleasure, Daily Kos user timran brings you McCain’s top ten blow-ups. This is not the temperament you want in your president.
Chris Bowers thinks the “McCain campaign is clearly trying to push the age card,” emphasizing his age in order to gain advantage with the huge senior voting bloc in states like Florida and Pennsylvania. Bowers and Marc Ambinder call attention to the visuals in the ad, especially the closing profile photograph, which clearly shows the lines in McCain’s face.
Although McCain may be hoping for a “senior backlash” against Obama, I don’t think that’s what he’s getting at in this ad. Close your eyes and listen to what he is saying, especially the first lines in the ad:
Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war. When I was five years old, my father left for war. My grandfather came home from war and died the next day. I was shot down over Vietnam and spent five years as a POW. Some of the friends I served with never came home.
I hate war, and I know how terrible its costs are. I’m running for president to keep the country I love safe. I’m John McCain, and I approved this message.
Gee, who do you think he’s referring to when he says only a fool or a fraud talks tough about war?
The subtext of this ad is clear: McCain is telling us that he understands what war means (unlike Bush), that he has lost family members and close friends in war (unlike Bush), and he is not going to swagger around as president, excited by the prospect of starting more wars.
It sounds as if McCain’s campaign is worried about the public taking him at his word when he said staying in Iraq for 50 to 100 years would be fine by him.
We need to keep reminding Americans that McCain wants permanent U.S. bases in Iraq and has no problem with our troops staying there forever. It also wouldn’t hurt to show clips of his comment from last year: “I’m sorry to tell you, there’s gonna be other wars.”
This You Tube parody from a few months back made the point effectively. Pass it around:
The tag line at the end is classic: McCain 08–Like Hope, but Different.
I don’t watch television, other than the Daily Show and Colbert Report, so I hadn’t realized that John McCain started running ads in Iowa a couple of weeks ago.
As for McCain’s ads, they focus on domestic issues: tax reform, cheaper energy, affordable and portable health care, and holding “corporate CEOs accountable.”
It shouldn’t be too hard for Obama to make the case that he would do much better on all of those issues than a conservative Republican like McCain.
