A Blue View

Finally. Gallup Shows Obama Ahead Of McCain.

After more than a week of Barack Obama and John McCain being tied in Gallup Poll Daily tracking, Obama now holds a statistically significant five percentage point lead in the preferences of national registered voters, 47% to 42%, slightly larger than Sunday's 46% to 42% lead for Obama.

This is according to Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviews from June 26 through June 29, with no surveys conducted June 27. (Complete trend here.)

Obama previously led McCain by a statistically significant margin -- peaking at seven points -- right after Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination in early June. However, this lasted for only three days -- a mini-bounce -- after which the margin narrowed to three points, and more recently to an exact tie, before expanding in Sunday's report to a 4-point lead for Obama.

While the race has been consistently competitive for most of the past two months, McCain has not led Obama by a significant margin since early May.

A Message From Dave Henry

Many A Blue View readers in the MetroWest area of Boston will remember Dave Henry as the Obama campaign rep we successfully worked with during the Mass primary.  Turns out he's returned home to New Hampshire and is now working on Jeanne Shaheen's senate campaign.  Here's a note from him:

As some of you know I am now working for former Governor Jeanne Shaheen in race against Republican incumbent Senator John Sununu. I am the Regional Field Director for Central and Southwest New Hampshire. I am really enjoying working in New Hampshire and I am very excited to work on Governor Shaheen's campaign.

Governor Shaheen is one of our best hopes for picking up a seat in the Senate. Today is the last day for the quarter filing. If you would like to support Governor Shaheen and our campaign, please make a contribution at https://jeanneshaheen.org/contribute/henry

TV Viewers' Average Age Hits 50

Fox News' median age viewer is above 65.  That and other tidbits proving the young have abandoned TV from Variety:

According to a study released by Magna Global's Steve Sternberg, the five broadcast nets' average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season. That's the oldest ever since Sternberg started analyzing median age more than a decade ago -- and the first time the nets' median age was outside of the vaunted 18-49 demo ...

For the just-completed 2007-08 TV season, CBS was oldest in live viewing with a median age of 54. ABC clocked in at 50, followed by NBC (49), Fox (44), CW (34) and Univision (34).

When live-plus-7 DVR viewing is factored in, the nets (except CW and Univision) drop by a year -- which still reps the oldest median age ever for the nets ...

Among ad-supported cable nets, the news nets .. sport the most gray, with Fox News Channel's daytime and primetime skeds the absolute oldest, clocking in with a median age above 65. Youngest nets are the daytime skeds for Noggin and Nickelodeon, with a median age under 10.

At ABC, youngest series was "Supernanny" (with a median age of 41), while oldest was "Women's Murder Club" (57). At CBS, youngest was "How I Met Your Mother," "Kid Nation" and the Tuesday edition of "Big Brother," tied at 45; oldest was "60 Minutes" (60). NBC's youngest show was "Scrubs" (34), and oldest was "Monk" (58).

At Fox, the youngest shows were "American Dad" and "Family Guy" (29), while the oldest was "Canterbury's Law" (55). At CW, "One Tree Hill" was youngest (26), while "Life Is Wild" was oldest (45).

Among latenight gabbers, "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" is oldest, with a median age of 54, followed by "Late Show With David Letterman" at 53. Interestingly, "Nightline" -- which should conceivably be older than those talkers, is younger, at 52. ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," meanwhile, passed the 18-49 threshold for the first time, clocking in with a median of 50. "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" is getting closer at 46.

John McCain Is Personally Fiscally Dumb

I know McCain said economics is not his strong suit, but carrying all this high-interest credit card debt when you have the cast to pay them off is fiscally very stupid.  This insight into his private finances certainly is not a great portend for how he'd handle the national economy. From TPM:

In an interesting peek into John McCain's personal finances, it turns out that John and Cindy McCain -- in spite of their personal wealth -- are carrying well over $100,000 in credit card debt.

The Hill took a look at the latest Senate financial disclosure forms and found that a joint card held by the two has between $10,000 and $15,000 in charges, while a card that is solely in Cindy's name has between $100,000 and $250,000 in debt. Another card for a dependent child has between $15,000 and $50,000 in charges.

This is despite Cindy McCain having sold a property in California for a profit of more than $1 million.

Barack Obama, who has become wealthy in recent years thanks to book royalties, did not report any financial liabilities.

Karl Rove Thinks Barack Obama Is Arrogant

As posted in Karl Rove's Country Club View of Obama, Rove thinks Obama is arrogant.  And he said it with a straight face too.

Can EMILY's List Get Its Mojo Back In The Facebook Age?

From the National Journal:

Although EMILY's List is not to blame for Clinton's narrow loss to Barack Obama, the group had a lot riding on her candidacy--politically and psychologically. Her defeat calls into question the very core of EMILY's List's strategy--that women will back female candidates in the interest of equality, and that gender and identity politics can trump issues, message, and personality. Clinton's failure, in many ways, is also a reflection of the divide between Baby Boomer women (the foundation of EMILY's List) and their daughters, who, according to exit poll data, came out in force in the primaries for Obama. Among women age 29 and younger, Obama routinely defeated Clinton in key primary states, even in contests that Clinton won, while Clinton overwhelmingly beat Obama among women age 45 and older. 

Clinton's fall from front-runner to runner-up capped a challenging few years for EMILY's List, which pioneered the use of direct mail and donor bundling to raise early money for Democratic women candidates. In the 2006 election, Democrats triumphed mightily, yet EMILY's List faltered, as 74 percent of the challengers it backed lost their general election contests.

In the current campaign cycle, meanwhile, the group has drawn fire from other Democrats for employing divisive tactics--from pitting abortion-rights Democratic women against Democratic congressmen who also favor abortion rights, to feuding publicly with another high-profile abortion-rights group about its decision to endorse Obama.

The "Center," Generic Democrats & Flip-Flopping

This has been a challenging week for me.  When Obama announced his understandable but still worry-inducing "centrist" positions on FISA and gun rights my stomach started to flutter. Then I posted Glenn Greenwald's piece (The Danger For Obama As He Moves To The CW's "Center") on the danger of being perceived as a flip-flopper and my neboulous concerns found words and began the process of gelling into a potential argument.  Now I read Nate Sliver's post and that potential argument is still born and I'm back to not being sure what I think about Obama's purity / practicality / progressiveness / generic democraticness.

What do you think?  Here's Nate Silver's argument:

John McCain's best strategy for winning this election was and possibly remains the following: seize the center, while simultaneously portraying Barack Obama as an agent of the radical left. This was not necessarily going to be easy to do, since some of the right's favorite critiques of Democrats were likely to fall on deaf ears in the context of a poor economy and an unpopular war. Nevertheless, among a number of relatively weak strategies that McCain had to pick from, this was probably his best. Democrats have something like a 4:3 edge in party identification and they are going to turn out in November; the number of Democrats with an unfavorable opinion of Obama is no longer especially high and is likely to continue declining. That means that McCain is going to need to dominate among independent voters, something which might become more difficult now that Obama has preempted his move to the center.

Secondly, as Hannity and Krugman reveal, Obama was going to be criticized either way. Are there greater risks in being labeled a radical liberal or a flip-flopper? There are greater risks to Obama in the former. The 'radical liberal' caricature is more likely to bring things like Jeremiah Wright, flag pins and Obama's race into play, whereas the caricature of the pandering politician is familiar -- depressingly so to some voters, but perhaps reassuringly so to others. Moreover, John McCain is on relatively shaky ground to criticize Obama as a flip-flopper. As Obama surrogates have eagerly begun to point out, McCain's own flip-flops have been considerable. One of the benefits to being as wrongheadedly stubborn a man as George W. Bush was is that you rarely have problems with consistency. McCain does not have that luxury, if you can call it that.

In short, Obama does not mind so much being labeled a 'Generic Democrat', in an election where a Generic Democrat might beat a Generic Republican by 10-15 points.

Obama's decisions can perhaps be thought of as risk-averse. To extend Krugman's analogy, perhaps he is less likely now to win a Reagenesque 489 electoral votes and more likely to win a Clintonesque total somewhere in the low-to-mid 300s. But whereas Clinton pulled significantly ahead of George H. W. Bush in the summer and essentially never looked back, Reagan's move came at the last minute. He was probably inherently more likely to lose the 1980 election than Clinton was in 1992, even though he wound up winning bigger.

That does not mean that there are no risks to Obama. The flip-flopper label remains among the more damaging ones in American politics, and if Obama is not careful, it too might be used as a vehicle to bring in excess baggage: Who is this guy? What does he really stand for? So it will be up to Obama to bring the 'change' brand full-circle by denoting exactly what kind of change he intends to deliver. Instead of the compassionate conservative, Obama can portray himself as the principled pragmatist. Pick at least three of the four core issues I outlined the other day -- health care, the economy, the environment, and Iraq -- argue that they are at crisis point and that others must take a back seat, make clear that you aren't prepared to compromise on those, and put forward some policy specifics. Public sentiment on all four issues significantly favors the Democratic position, and if Obama does not waver on those, the electorate should have no trouble perceiving his consistency.

What's Happening Below the MSM's Radar

Colorado Unites for Change on June 28th, 2008:

It Might Be Tuff To Fight The Rumors

A sobering story from the Wash Post on how resistant to truth some of those rumors are:

Here in Findlay, a Rust Belt town of 40,000, false rumors about Obama have built enough word-of-mouth credibility to harden into an alternative biography. Born on the Internet, the rumors now meander freely across the flatlands of northwest Ohio -- through bars and baseball fields, retirement homes and restaurants ...

A swing voter who entered this election leaning Democratic, Peterson faces a decision that is no longer so simple as a choice between Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain, he said. First, he must pick the version of Obama on which he will stake his vote.

Does he choose to trust a TV commercial in which Obama talks about his "love of country"? Or his neighbor of 40 years, Don LeMaster, a Navy veteran who heard from a friend in Toledo that Obama refuses to wear an American-flag pin?

Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama's Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?

"I'll admit that I probably don't follow all of the election news like maybe I should," Peterman said. "I haven't read his books or studied up more than a little bit. But it's hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it. These are good people, smart people, so can they really all be wrong?"

The More Things Change ...

Sunday Afternoon Relaxation

From the Onion:

The Supreme Court: The Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

4 Hispanic Myths

From Arian Campo-Flores:

Latinos could prove pivotal come November, but they're frequently mischaracterized. Four myths:

1. All they care about is immigration. In fact, immigration typically ranks far down the list of the most important issues for them—No. 5, for instance, in a 2007 Pew Hispanic Center survey (after education, health care, the economy and crime). Those who care most about the issue—recently arrived immigrants—are the least likely to be eligible to vote.

2. They want political advertisements en español. Among Latino voters, only 11 percent live in Spanish-only households; 74 percent were U.S.-born.

3. They are swing voters. Though Hispanics have sometimes migrated in large numbers to Republicans—President Bush won roughly 40 percent of their votes in 2004—the extent to which they're "up for grabs" is often exaggerated. For the most part, Latinos vote Democratic; Republicans can only hope to chip away at the margins.

4. They won't vote for African-Americans. Polls show Obama leading McCain 2-1 among Latinos. Hillary Clinton beat Obama with Hispanics mainly because her name was associated with economic growth and she had better Latino surrogates.

Dueling Campaign Manager Strategy Briefings

On June 7th, McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis posted this online:

Twenty days later, Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe posted this pretty casual video from his laptop:

Plan Summary here

Which do you think is more credible and likely to succeed?

Obama Goes After McCain's Immigration Flip-Flop

From Jonathan Martin:

Barack Obama, who has been taking heat over the past couple of weeks for a series of flip-flops, uses the friendly forum before Latino officials to go after McCain for a shift of his own.

The Democratic nominee recalled that both had backed an immigration bill that included a pathway to citizenship.

"He was a champion of comprehensive reform, and I admired him for it," Obama said.  "But what he didn’t mention is that when he was running for his party’s nomination, he walked away from that commitment."
 
After receiving a round of applause, Obama reached into his campaign oppo file and noted that McCain "said he wouldn’t even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote

Obama Carded At The Gym

From TheHill.com:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may have one of the best-known faces in the world, but that doesn’t mean he is recognized everywhere, even in Washington.

Washington Sports Club employee Takehia Wheeler was manning the front desk to scan members’ identification cards Friday morning when the presidential candidate walked in with his entourage. The gym opened a month ago in the Columbia Heights district.

“He came in and walked past me,” Wheeler told In The Know. “I was like, ‘Sir, you need to come back.’ ”

Wheeler said Obama looked familiar, but she didn’t recognize him. So she asked for his ID card.

“I said, ‘What’s your last name?’ He said ‘Obama,’ ” Wheeler explained. “I said, ‘So what’s your first name?”

Then she laughed because it was at that point that Wheeler realized who she was talking to. How did she make amends? By saying, “Sorry, Mr. Future President!”

The Danger For Obama As He Moves To The CW's "Center"

A thought-provking piece from Glenn Greenwald on Obama's "move to the center" and why it could seriously hurt him.  What do you think?

What is the basis for the almost-unanimously held Beltway conventional view that Democrats generally, and Barack Obama particularly, will be politically endangered unless they adopt the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism and National Security, which -- for some reason -- is called "moving to the Center"? There doesn't appear to be any basis for that view. It's just an unexamined relic from past times, the immovable, uncritical assumption of Beltway strategists and pundits who can't accept that it isn't 1972 anymore -- or even 2002.

Beyond its obsolescence, this "move-to-the-center" cliché ignores the extraordinary political climate prevailing in this country, in which more than 8 out of 10 Americans believe the Government is fundamentally on the wrong track and the current President is one of the most unpopular in American history, if not the most unpopular. The very idea that Bush/Cheney policies are the "center," or that one must move towards their approach in order to succeed, ignores the extreme shifts in public opinion generally regarding how our country has been governed over the last seven years.

One could argue that national security plays a larger role in presidential elections than in Congressional races, and that very well may be. But was John Kerry's narrow 2004 loss to George Bush due to the perception that Kerry -- who ran as fast as he could towards the mythical Center -- was Soft on Terrorism? Or was it due to the understandable belief that his rush to the Center meant that he stood for nothing, that he was afraid of his own views -- the real hallmark, the very definition, of weakness? ...

For that reason, isn't the perception that Obama is abandoning his own core beliefs -- or, worse, that he has none -- a much greater political danger than a failure to move to the so-called "Center" by suddenly adopting Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies? As a result of Obama's reversal on FISA, his very noticeable change in approach regarding Israel, his conspicuous embrace of the Scalia/Thomas view in recent Supreme Court cases, and a general shift in tone, a very strong media narrative is arising that Obama is abandoning his core beliefs for political gain. That narrative -- that he's afraid to stand by his own beliefs -- appears far more likely to result in a perception that Obama is "Weak" than a refusal to embrace Bush/Cheney national security positions.

The New Educational/Political Geography

From the Wash Post:

As the gap grows between places that are prospering and those that are not, Democrats are strengthening their hold in major metropolitan areas, particularly in places faring well in the technology-driven economy ... Republicans, meanwhile, are consolidating their hold in rural areas and small cities, while making inroads in struggling Appalachian and Rust Belt regions that were a core of the Democratic base.

The trend generally bodes well for Democrats. Major metro areas are growing faster than the country as a whole, the party's strength with young voters promises a lasting edge, and well-off, highly educated urban voters are valuable campaign contributors in the Internet age. The weak economy and soaring gas prices could accelerate the shift if more Americans move closer to urban hubs in search of good jobs and shorter commutes.

But the Democrats' ascendance in prosperous areas leaves them with weak spots in key swing states such as Ohio. And it presents questions about their identity: The party that fought for the little guy against the party of the wealthy has, while still representing racial minorities, increasingly become defined by the metropolitan middle and upper-middle class ...

What Would You Do? Watch This Video.

ABC recently ran a controlled experiment using actors to see what Americans would do if they personally saw a Muslim being discriminated against.  The results  (13, 6 and 22) are both encouraging and sobering:

This is why Obama needs to visit a mosque and push back on the perception that calling him a Muslim is a smear ... being a Muslim in America today is like partly (6) being black in the 1950's and partly (13 & 22) being black in the 2000's.

McCain Doesn't Need The Presidency. He's Got What He Wanted.

Peggy Noonan explores a new, developing meme--a meme we should all do our best to set firmly in the public consciousness--John McCain either doesn't really want to win, or he's too old to do what it takes to win (see John McCain Doesn't Work Weekends!):

And there is another problem that is bigger than all of that, and he is going to have to think himself through it. And that is that there is a sense about his campaign that . . . John McCain has already got what he wanted, he got what he needed, which was to be top dog in the Republican Party, the party that had abused him in 2000 and cast him aside. They all bow to him now, and he doesn't need anything else. He doesn't need the presidency. He got what he wanted. So now he can coast. This is, in the deepest way, unserious. JFK had to have the presidency—he wanted that thing. Nixon had to have it too, and Reagan had to have it to institute his new way. Clinton had to have it—it was his destiny, the thing he'd wanted since he was a teenager.

The last person I can think of who gave off the vibe that he didn't have to have it was Bob Dole. Who didn't get it. And who had a similar lack of engagement in terms of policy, and philosophy, and meaning.

She goes on to predict how the general campaign will unfold:

The campaign will grind along until a series of sharp moments. Maybe they will come in the debates. Things will move along, Mr. Obama in the lead. And then, just a few weeks out from the election, something will happen: America will look up and see the inevitability of Mr. Obama, that Mr. Obama has already been "elected," in a way, and America will say, Hey, wait a second, are we sure we want that? And it will tighten indeed.

The race has a subtext, a historic encounter between the Old America and the New, and suddenly the Old America—those who are literally old, who married a guy who fought at the Chosin Reservoir, and those not so old who yet remember, and cherish, the special glories of the Old—will rise, and join in, and make themselves heard. They will not leave without a fight.

And on that day John McCain will suddenly make it a race, as if moved by them and wanting to come through for them one last time. And then on down to the wire. And then . . .

Watch The Complete Unity NH Event

NRCC: "There are no safe Republican seats ... Traditional GOP Messages Dont Work"

An AP story on a new National Republican Congressional Committee report:

... the move also serves as a reminder of the Democrats' enormous financial advantage over Republicans little more than four months before elections with all 435 House seats on the ballot. The National Republican Congressional Committee had $6.7 million in its bank account at the end of May, while the Democrats reported $47.2 million.

While defeats in special elections in Illinois and Louisiana troubled Republicans, the loss of a Mississippi House seat on May 13 led to appointment of a six-member group to review the NRCC's performance. Key lawmakers met Thursday to review the findings, some of which were obtained by The Associated Press ...

Karen Hanretty, communications director for the NRCC, reacted to the private report by acknowledging the difficulties confronting her party.

"This is a challenging environment," she said. "Any Republican running for office has to run basically on an independent platform, localize the race and not take anything for granted. There are no safe Republican seats in this election."

The report ...added that traditional Republican messages "essentially did not work," and that framing the elections as a choice between a traditional Republican and a traditional Democrat failed.

Unbelievable! McCain Now Takes Credit for GI Bill He Opposed

From SusanG:

Not only did John McCain miss the vote on Webb's GI bill, he actively opposed it as overly generous.

But little things like facts don't get in the way of McCain.

Today [27 Jun], in Ohio:

I'm happy to tell you that we probably agreed to an increase in educational benefits for our veterans that not only gives them  increase in their educational benefits, but if they stay in for a certain period of time than they can transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and or children. That's a very important aspect I think of incentivizing people of staying in the military.

Then again, maybe he just forgot his previous stand.

New Site: James Dobson Doesn't Speak for Me

A group of ministers has launched a new Web site defending Barack Obama against Dr. James Dobson's recent attacks. It's called James Dobson Doesn't Speak for Me:

James Dobson doesn't speak for me.

He doesn't speak for me when he uses religion as a wedge to divide;

He doesn't speak for me when he speaks as the final arbiter on the meaning of the Bible;

James Dobson doesn't speak for me when he uses the beliefs of others as a line of attack;

He doesn't speak for me when he denigrates his neighbor's views when they don't line up with his;

He doesn't speak for me when he seeks to confine the values of my faith to two or three issues alone;

What does speak for me is David's psalm celebrating how good and pleasant it is when we come together in unity;

Micah speaks for me in reminding us that the Lord requires us to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him;

The prophet Isaiah speaks for me in his call for all to come and reason together and also to seek justice, encourage the oppressed and to defend the cause of the vulnerable;

The book of Nehemiah speaks for me in its example to work with our neighbors, not against them, to restore what was broken in our communities;

The book of Matthew speaks for me in saying to bless those that curse you and pray for those who persecute you;

The words of the apostle Paul speak for me in saying that words spoken and deeds done without love amount to nothing.

The apostle John speaks for me in reminding us of Jesus' command to love one another. The world will know His disciples by that love.

These words speak for me. But when James Dobson attacks Barack Obama, James Dobson doesn't speak for me.

The site goes on to list Dobson's attacks side-by-side with what Obama actually said.

{1:15 UPDATE} There's an Op-Ed piece in the Wash Post from Peter Wehner, a conservative evangelical who defends Obama as being good (for a Democrat) & criticizes Dobson (for mischaracterizing what Obama has said).  If you're interested in the topic, it's worth reading.

McCain Opposes Equal Marriage in Calif

Just in case you thought McCain's federalist approach to gay marriage (the Feds shouldn't be involved, it's up to each state) means he supports equal marriage rights, according to The Brady Files, John McCain has sent the following statement to Protect Marriage, the group trying to re-ban gay marriage in Calif:

I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions.

Brady goes on to say:

The Brody File has learned that the McCain camp wanted to be of help to the California traditional marriage group in their efforts to get the constitutional amendment passed. The group of supporters thought a McCain statement that made clear he was FOR the constitutional amendment would help ...

This is a good move by McCain. It's not a pander at all. McCain may be AGAINST a federal marriage amendment but by issuing a declarative statement FOR a state constitutional amendment he stays consistent with his principles.

What the Evangelical community wants to see out of McCain is some passion for these hot button social issues. They want to see him fight for traditional marriage and against abortion. The "judges" line isn't enough. The soapbox is an extremely important tool at his disposal. The more he uses it, the more traction he'll get with Evangelicals. A statement like this to the California group is an important step in the right direction.

2 Obama Foreign Trips Announced

From the NY Times:

Senator Barack Obama will make his first foreign trip as a presidential candidate next month when he travels to the Middle East and Europe, his campaign announced today. Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will visit Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. On a separate trip, he is also planning to visit American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but aides declined to disclose those details for security reasons. It will be Mr. Obama’s second tour of Iraq and his fourth international trip since being elected to the United States Senate four years ago.

Unity New Hampshire

Mars Soil 'Friendly' To Life, Tests Show

From the Wash Post:

Early results from the first-ever "wet" chemical analysis of the surface soil of Mars show the planet harbors many of the nutrients needed for life and none of the acidity that some feared would make life highly unlikely.

"There's nothing about it that would preclude life. In fact, it seems very friendly," said mission scientist Samuel P. Kounaves of Tufts University. "We were flabbergasted."

Kounaves said that the soil was similar to what people would find in their back yards on Earth and that if organic material was added, "you could probably grow asparagus, but not strawberries."

Carbon-based organic material, however, has not been found and may be impossible to detect with the equipment now on Mars. The Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s failed to find evidence of carbon.

The Daily Show On Bush & McCain's Addictions

John Hodgman addresses President Bush's addiction to oil and John McCain's addiction to being president:

McCain Attacks Obama Using Hip Film Reference...from 1962

First he starts referring to Obama as running for Jimmy Carter's second term (a reference the  millions of Americans under 50 have no understanding of) now he's referring to hip 1962 films.  As Jake Tapper pointed out:

unless one is over a certain age, a Sean Connery fan, or a member of Ian Fleming's immediate family, is the first James Bond film -- one that then-President John F. Kennedy heralded as a fave -- really the best reference for a 71-year-old candidate to be making?

On the plus side, at least it's a talkie.

Here's the ad:

John McCain Doesn't Work Weekends!

From Politico:

Since effectively capturing the Republican nomination when Mitt Romney dropped out of the race on Feb. 7, John McCain has held just one public campaign event on a weekend.

Instead, after workweeks full of fundraisers, town hall meetings and interviews, McCain has been, in campaign parlance, “down” on nearly every Saturday or Sunday for 20 weeks, largely sequestered away from the news media ...

McCain aides say that they made a conscious decision after it became clear that they had won the nomination to use weekends primarily to return their candidate to his preferred surroundings in Arizona and to have him rest, bone up on policy, and meet privately with aides, advisers, contributors and other prominent officials ...

“I don’t think [voters] are going to be logging the hours,” the aide said ... As with so many issues surrounding his bid, McCain’s schedule is a sensitive topic because it is unavoidably suffused with the looming question of his age.

In trying to answer skeptics who ask whether a 72-year-old has the vigor to hold the presidency, McCain points to his indisputably packed calendar — on weekdays, that is ... Yet at the same time, his aides don’t want to wear him out and risk raising fears about his age by pushing him so much so that he gets sick.

Last month, campaign staffers at his headquarters sought to give him an entire Friday free of public events, citing a cold as the reasoning for scrapping the day’s schedule. But when McCain got wind of the plan, he rebelled and forced his aides to schedule a news conference ...

But Rollins said McCain had missed an opportunity by not getting on the trail on weekends since February. First, he pointed out, it’s easier to draw a larger crowd when people aren’t at work ... Given the lack of intensity of support for McCain in the Republican base, Rollins said weekends could have been an optimal time “to rejuvenate them.” ...

“It does no good to run the guy into the dirt,” Reed said. “He’s already faced with the age and health issue, and the last thing they need to do is have him catch a cold.”

Changeable On The DC Ban, Consistent On The Core Issue

Marc Ambinder provides some useful analysis that:

1. acknowledges Obama has changed his position on the DC gun ban (the one that was just struck down by the Supreme Court)
2. but on the fundamental issue the court ruled on--how to interpret the Second Amendment--he has been consistent and his position is in agreement with their ruling: he interprets the 2nd amendment to hold secure an individual's right to bear arms while being constrained by the rights of the community to "maintain public safety,"

The Colbert Report's McCain Green Screen Challenge

The Colbert Report has asked viewers to use a recent, widely panned John McCain speech and creatively edit it to make McCain more interesting.  Here, Stephen explains the Green Screen Challenge and then presents some finalists:

For your amusement, there are more entries after the jump ...

Obama's Campaign To Lessen The Opposition

Jeff Greenfield has an interesting article that has helped me to understand the wisdom of some of Barack's recent actions. Greenfield writes about "one of the least appreciated but most effective of political techniques: the art not so much of winning over voters as of lessening the intensity of their opposition":

Earlier this month, Sen. Obama met privately with some 30 religious leaders for a no-holds-barred conversation. Participants were Catholic and Protestant, mainline and evangelical, black, white, and Hispanic. ... How did the meeting go? Here's what Steve Strang, a former Mike Huckabee and current John McCain supporter, wrote in describing Obama's answer to a question on abortion: "The time he took to answer was probably 15 minutes. He came across as thoughtful and much more of a 'centrist' than what I would have expected. He did not appear to be the crazy leftist that is being supported by George Soros and his radical leftist friends. Sen. Obama looked me in the eye as he answered my question, almost as if it were a one-on-one interview."

Will Strang vote for Obama? Almost certainly not. But will he regard an Obama presidency as a mortal threat to his most deeply held beliefs? Almost certainly not. Strang reflects the same attitude that Stephen Mansfield presents in his forthcoming book, The Faith of Barack Obama [also discussed in Obama's Appeal To Some Evangelical Voters]. Mansfield, who has published a similar book about President Bush, writes: "Obama's faith infuses his public policy, so that his faith is not just limited to the personal realms of his life, it also informs his leadership." Mansfield can't bring himself to support Obama because the candidate is pro-choice, but it hardly sounds as if Mansfield will be trying to shepherd hordes of voters to the polls on Election Day to defeat him.

And that's the point. Sometimes, the most effective approach for a candidate is to lower the temperature of the opposition—to say, in effect, "OK, don't vote for me; but you have nothing to fear from me." In other words, to reassure them that you're not so bad ...

The reassurance strategy ... takes the opposition as a given and then tries to lower its intensity. To oppose a candidate, after all, isn't the same as actually giving money or pulling the lever for the other guy. White evangelicals in Ohio may well support John McCain by margins of 2-1—but if they're not out on Election Day with car pools and massive door-to-door vote pulling, that's a major victory for Obama.

And this may explain why James Dobson, the head of the Christian group Focus on the Family and one of the most influential voices in the evangelical community, took to the airwaves this week to denounce Obama for his "fruitcake" interpretation of the Constitution [see Obama on the Importance of Faith, Politics and Reaching Out]. If Obama succeeds in providing blessed reassurance to the white evangelicals, he'll significantly neutralize a major weapon in the Republican arsenal.

Obama's Lead In The Polls Isn't As Large As You Think, But It's Large Enough To Win

The wizards over at 538.com offer a word of caution about polling leads and how races historically tighten as election day nears ... nevertheless, based on this they predict Obama will win in November by 3.8 percent:

There is a fairly strong tendency for national polling to tighten as one approaches election day. National polls are not equally likely to move upward or downward at any given time. Rather, they are more likely to move in the direction of the candidate who is trailing in the race ...

we still find a fairly robust tendency for a lead in the national polling to diminish by election day. The extent to which it diminishes is a function of two things: the magnitude of the lead -- the larger the lead, the more it needs to be discounted -- and the number of days until the election. We can specify a regression equation to project the November outcome based on a candidate's present polling lead ... Visually, that looks about like this:



This chart is perhaps a little confusing, but it's exhibiting the two essential features that I talked about before: the larger the lead, the more it needs to be discounted (both proportionately and absolutely), and the closer we get to election day, the less it needs to be discounted. Particularly, a lead starts to become significantly more meaningful once we get within about 30 days of the election, although it's also the case that presidential elections have tended to tighten within the last 30 days ...

As for Barack Obama's lead right now, the correction required is not quite as dramatic. The regression equation specifies that a 5.9-point lead held 130 days before the election should be discounted by about one-third -- to 3.8 points to be exact. That is our new projection for Obama's margin of victory.

McCain Had A Bad Day Yesterday

The GOP is in really bad shape and this does not bode well for McCain.  In May, the GOP lost 3 elections they should have won in a row to the Dems (The Democratic Trifecta - A Bellweather?).  Yesterday, a long serving, very conservative Representative from Utah lost because he wasn't conservative enough ... particularly on immigration. If McCain's immigration position casts even the smallest doubt on his ability to win Utah, he is really in deep doo doo. From the NY Times:

Representative Chris Cannon, one of the most conservative members of Congress, has lost his bid for a seventh term, defeated in a Republican primary that focused on whether he was conservative enough for Utah’s Third District.

Mr. Cannon was beaten Tuesday by a first-time candidate, Jason Chaffetz, a former Brigham Young University football player who served as chief of staff to the state’s popular Republican governor, Jon Huntsman Jr ...

Mr. Chaffetz easily carried the district, which covers all or parts of seven counties in central and western Utah, including southern suburbs of Salt Lake City. With almost 99 percent of the ballots counted, he had nearly 60 percent of the votes, leading Mr. Cannon by 27,266 to 18,208 ...

“I’m actually pretty happy about last night’s results,” Mr. Cannon said in an interview Wednesday. “I think I’ll be able to do many of the things I would ordinarily do in Congress on the outside without having to suffer the sort of difficulties that come with that job.” ...

The American Conservative Union had said that Mr. Cannon was nearly perfect on its issues in 2007, scoring 96 percent. But Mr. Chaffetz repeatedly attacked him as insufficiently conservative, especially on immigration.

Obama Likes Heller Decision

From Marc Ambinder:

“I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe. Today’s ruling, the first clear statement on this issue in 127 years, will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.

“As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Today's decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe.

And a word of caution from Adam at the DailyKos before folks go nuts about the decision and Obama's support for it.

I encourage you to read this fully before rendering your opinions, because, well, it's a Constitution we're expounding here, and this comes up in other contexts as well.  Sometimes in life (and in law), there are things that we might desire from a policy standpoint -- like certain forms of gun control, or restrictions on some election-related speech -- which are nevertheless forbidden by the Constitution.  And as liberals -- unlike the other guys -- we ought not try to pretend that the Constitution doesn't exist when it gets in the way of our policy preferences.

Oral argument transcript here.

Obama Leads McCain in Four Key Battleground States

From the Wash Post:

Democrat Barack Obama holds narrow leads over GOP rival John McCain in Colorado and Michigan, two of the most competitive states in two of the most competitive regions of the country heading into the general-election campaign, according to surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University for washingtonpost.com and the Wall Street Journal.

In two other states that were closely contested in the 2004 presidential election -- Wisconsin and Minnesota -- Obama holds double-digit edges among likely voters, an indication that these states may not be in the swing category this election. The Democratic Party's presidential nominee carried both Wisconsin and Minnesota in each of the last four elections, although Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) won each by slim margins in 2004.

The four surveys are the kickoff of a four-month effort to measure voter sentiment in key battleground states. They echo several recent national polls -- including surveys conducted for Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg -- showing Obama with a double-digit lead over McCain, the GOP candidate. However, other national surveys -- including the Gallup daily tracking poll -- show the race to be much closer.

Fascinating Focus Group

Here is FirstRead's initial report:

A focus group conducted last night here in a county that Hillary Clinton carried in April showed that her supporters are coming around to Obama. But the group -- 12 likely voters, all white, and all of whom didn't back either Obama or McCain in the primary -- also demonstrated that both candidates have plenty of work to do between now and November. The good news for Obama: Of the seven Clinton supporters, all of whom backed her strongly, five were solidly behind the Illinois senator, one was fiercely opposed (“I don’t trust Obama,” he said), and one was undecided (but noted that Clinton's support of Obama would influence her vote). The bad news: On some questions of character, patriotism, and values (who would you rather carry the American flag at the Olympics, who would you rather carpool with), the focus group overwhelmingly picked McCain. While Jeremiah Wright barely came up and “bitter” didn’t at all, two of the respondents -- the Clinton supporter and a female Bush voter -- had very negative opinions of him. “I don’t trust Osama … Obama. It’s only a letter difference,” said Charles, the Hillary backer. “His middle name is Hussein.” Observed Terry, the female Bush voter: “I don’t feel he’s a true American.”

Views of Obama: Overall, however, Obama fared pretty well in this focus group, which was striking given that it was all white, that not a single person voted for him in the primary, and that it took place in a region not considered a strength for him. Five said they would vote for him, four backed McCain, and three said they were undecided. Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the focus group for the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania, said Obama benefited from a room wanting change and to move beyond Bush. What skeptics were looking for, he added, was some “meat on the bone.” The five who said they would vote for him cited his fresh ideas, intelligence, grasp of the issues, and excitement and energy. The four who opposed him -- all Bush voters, save Charles, the Hillary supporter -- stressed his inexperience and their fears of him being commander-in-chief. And of the three who were undecided, one said they wanted to know more about his health-care plans; another wanted to know more about the kind of change he would bring; and the third said she was considering Obama because of change.

Views of McCain: As for McCain, many of the focus group participants cited his experience, his POW past, and his love of the country. But it was noteworthy that of the three undecideds, all of them voted for Bush in 2004 -- but they were unwilling to announce their support for McCain. One of them, Kim, expressed concern about the Arizona senator’s age. Another, Janell, even recalled him saying at a GOP debate that the economy wasn’t in that bad of shape, and she said that McCain must chose a running mate “I have absolute confidence in” to win her vote. Hart said the fact that a GOP voter like Janell wasn’t supporting McCain right now was telling. “If [she] isn’t a locked-in vote for John McCain, that is bad news.” What’s more, except for only the strongest Republicans in the group, the opinions of President Bush were unflattering. “Ineffective,” “deceptive,” and “disgusted” were some of the words they said to describe him. Also in the focus group, the economy was the top concern (only one said Iraq), and all of them were critical of the way the media have covered the presidential contest.  We’ll have more about the focus group later today.

Why Gay Marriage Is Important

From 365gay.com:

A lawsuit will be filed in Miami Wednesday against a hospital that refused to allow the partner of a dying lesbian to see her because they were not considered family. The suit will be filed by Lambda Legal which is representing Janice Langbehn.

Langbehn and Lisa Pond had planned to take their three children on a family cruise. The Olympia, Washington couple had been together 18 years and with their children were looking forward to the holiday.

But just as they were about to depart on the cruise from Miami, Florida. Pond, a healthy 39-year-old, suddenly collapsed. She was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami with Langbehn and the children following close behind.

Once Langbehn and the children arrived at the hospital the hospital refused to accept information from her about Ponds’s medical history. 

Langbehn says she was informed that she was in an antigay city and state, and she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as family. 

A doctor finally spoke with Janice telling her that there was no chance of recovery.

Other than one five minute visit, which was orchestrated by a Catholic priest at Langbehn’s request to perform last rites, and despite the doctor’s acknowledgement that no medical reason existed to prevent visitation, neither she nor her children were allowed to see Pond until nearly eight hours after their arrival. 

Soon after Pond'’s death, Langbehn tried to get her death certificate in order to get life insurance and Social Security benefits for their children. She was denied both by the State of Florida and the Dade County Medical Examiner.

Obama on the Importance of Faith, Politics and Reaching Out

James Dobson attack on Obama for "distorting" the Bible (here) made me curious.  I started thinking that any speech that pissed Dobson off had to be interesting.  Boy, was I right.

Here's the first part of Obama's June 28, 2006 revealing speech on faith and politics. If you're interested in why he thinks this is critically important for progressives and want to understand why he's been reaching out to evangelicals (here, here and here) you should watch or read this speech.

 

Parts 2 thru 5 plus the transcript, can be found here.  Some excerpts:

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith ...

I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy ...

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends ...

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix.

A Way to Increase His Lead With Those Who Rock the Vote

MTV, for the first time in its 27 year history, will join siblings VH1 and Comedy Central and accept political ads (but not from third parties).  From Advertising Age:

Politicians can finally get their MTV. After declining political advertising since its inception in 1981, MTV is reversing course. The Viacom MTV Networks channel .. says it will now take political ads, though only from political candidates and party political committees, not from third parties.

As recently as the presidential primaries this year, MTV had refused all political ads, even as it has heavily promoted its "Choose or Lose" get-out-the-vote effort ... Now all the MTV Networks that aren't aimed at children will accept political ads ...

Jeannie Kedas, exec VP-communications for MTV's music networks, said the change is effective immediately and reflects the importance of the youth vote. "Given where we are in the election cycle, and how the youth vote has increasingly engaged and played a crucial role in past presidential elections, we re-evaluated the MTV policy and decided that campaign-approved ads would be a good fit for our audience, and would complement our 'Choose or Lose' campaign efforts," she said. "It's a good thing when candidates want to reach out to young people, and the best way to do that is through MTV."

She declined to say how much advertising MTV expects to obtain from the switch, but suggested that for politicians who want to reach the youth vote, "in the most effective way possible, many of the MTV Networks are the most meaningful way to do just that."

MTV's announcement of the switch follows a report in the New York Times on June 22 that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's campaign wanted to do an MTV buy. It's also probably not a coincidence that Mr. Obama, who is opting out of public funding, will likely have plenty of money to spend on youth-directed ads. A political expert said the most immediate beneficiary of the switch is the Obama campaign.

Obama Disagrees With Outlawing Execution of Child Rapists

From the NY Times:

Senator Barack Obama told a press conference today that he disagreed with a Supreme Court decision outlawing the execution of child rapists.

Mr. Obama, whose position on the death penalty has changed over the years (his staff prefers the verb “evolved”), said that child rape qualifies as “heinous” and therefore as subject to the death penalty.

“I disagree with the decision; I have said repeatedly that I think the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstance for the most egregious of crimes.” Obama told forty or so reporters. “I think that the rape of a small child, six or eight years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision under narrow limited well defined circumstance the death penalty is at least potentially applicable,

In 1996, Mr. Obama went on the record opposing the death penalty and he wrote in his most recent memoir, “The Audacity of Hope” that the penalty “does little to deter crime.” By the time he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, he had come out in favor of the death penalty, saying that society has the right to express its outrage at heinous crimes.

At the same time, he said the system of death penalty justice was so flawed that the nation should declare a moratorium on executions, such as that imposed in Illinois by Republican Gov. George Ryan.

Coal-based Electricity Bigger Problem Than Gas Cars

If James Hansen, as reported by Dana Milbank, is correct, nuclear power plants are going to play a bigger role in our future than many progressives now realize.  What do you think?

... a visit to Washington by James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute and one of the first to sound the alarm about global warming in a congressional hearing 20 years ago yesterday ... he made a point of saying the biggest worry isn't what we put in our cars, but what we put in our power plants.

"Practically, I don't see how we can stop putting the oil in the atmosphere, because that's owned by Russia and Saudi Arabia," he advised the House committee on global warming. "We can make our vehicles more efficient, but that oil is going to get used and it's going to get in the atmosphere ...  "you're not going to be able to tell Saudi Arabia and Russia, the countries that have oil, not to sell their oil." Hansen's solution: "Phase out coal as promptly as is practical."

The message from the celebrated scientist was somewhat at odds with a popular culture that has equated global warming with miles per gallon. And while Hansen wasn't discouraging fuel economy ... he said there's hope of preventing the world from burning through the rest of the world's major oil reserves. If we don't put it in our Hummers, the Chinese will eventually put it in theirs. "We can't prevent [using] the big, easily available oil in these superdeposits that Saudi Arabia have," he said. "That's going to end up in the atmosphere. I don't see any way to avoid it."

Want A Job Helping Barack Win In New Hampshire?

I've been asked to get the word out about part-time and full-time job opportunities with the Obama campagin in New Hampshire.  Right now, they're hiring paid canvassers to work between 20-40 hours a week out of their Salem/Derry and Nashua offices.  If you know anyone who would be interested, they would appreciate if you could pass this description on to them.  You also can contact them f you have any questions.

Help Keep New Hampshire Blue!

The New Hampshire Democratic Party seeks paid canvassers to start IMMEDIATELY.

Join our team and work to strengthen the NH Democratic Party for upcoming competitive races from the White House to the State House.  Gain valuable skills through on-the-ground experiences; leadership opportunities available. 

Contact Summerjobs@nhdp.org for an application or with questions.

Tom Toles On Torture

Kristol: If Obama Wins, Bush More Likely To Attack Iran

From ThinkProgress:

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is going to be elected.

However, "if the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out," Kristol said, reinforcing the fact that McCain is offering a third Bush term on Iran.

"I do wonder with Senator Obama, if President Bush thinks Senator Obama's going to win, does he somehow think -- does he worry that Obama won't follow through on that policy," Kristol added. Host Chris Wallace then asked if Kristol was suggesting that Bush might "launch a military strike" before or after the election:

McCain = Bush: "It's All In Your Head"

Obama's Different Vision For Energy

From FirstRead:

Obama kept the focus on energy at an event with green technology workers at Springs Preserve ... arguing he offered a different vision for America’s energy future than his Republican rival ...  He said making progress toward energy independence and encouraging clean energy was one of the top three goals of an Obama administration -- along with ending the war in Iraq and reforming the health care system.

“I have a very different vision of what this country can and should achieve on energy in the next four years -- and in the next 10 years,” he said. “My entire energy plan will produce three times the oil savings that John McCain’s ever could -- and what’s more, it will actually decrease our dependence on oil while his will only grow our addiction further.” ...
 
He slammed McCain again for proposing a gas tax holiday and for his opposition to the 2005 energy bill that increased investment in renewable energy, saying the Arizona senator had voted against biofuels, solar power, wind power -- “some of the very same projects and businesses he’s highlighting in his campaign.” He seemed to mock McCain for saying yesterday that lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling would have a mainly “psychological impact.”
 
“A psychological impact. In case you were wondering, that’s Washington-speak for, “It polls well.” Obama said to laughter in the crowd. “The American people don’t need psychological relief or meaningless gimmicks to get politicians through the next election cycle, they need real relief that will help them fill up their tanks and put food on their table.  They need a long-term energy strategy that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil by investing in the renewable sources of energy that represent the future.  That’s what the American people need.”
 
Obama talked about his own plans to invest $150 billion over ten years to develop alternative energy sources and his plans to raise vehicle fuel standards and help car companies make the transition to more fuel efficient cars. He said McCain’s offer of a $300 million reward for the developer of a better car battery was too small-scale, suggesting it was another example of Washington’s failed approach to the issue.
 
“After all those years in Washington, John McCain still doesn’t get it,” he said. “I commend him for his desire to accelerate the search for a battery that can power the cars of the future.  I’ve been talking about this myself for the last few years.  But I don’t think that a $300 million prize is the way to go. When John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to put a man on the moon, he didn’t put a bounty out for some rocket scientist to win – he put the full resources of the United States government behind the project and called on the ingenuity and innovation of the American people, not just in the private sector but also in the public sector.”
 
Obama also said McCain’s proposal to build 45 new nuclear reactors did not make sense because he had no plan to store the was in any place other than at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.

Well, He's Finally Done It

Obama has asked his donors to help retire Clinton's debt to vendors. From Swampland:

Barack Obama asked his finance committee this afternoon to help Senator Hillary Clinton retire her debt. On a conference call ... Obama made a personal plea to his top donors, telling them he considered it a personal imperative now that Democrats are all “one big family,” ... No amount was mentioned on the call, though Clinton has an estimated $11.4 million in personal debts to the campaign and more than $10 million in outstanding vendor debts.*

Obama Finance Committee Chairwoman Penny Pritzker ended the call by noting that this kind of coming together as a party is the beauty of democracy. For many donors a few weeks ago it would have been hard to imagine helping Clinton essentially finance her final months of campaigning against Obama. But, in a testament to how far Democrats have come in uniting their party since Clinton suspended her campaign June 7, none of the four questions asked at the end of the call were acrimonious ...

One of the questions asked on the call was about Hillary's debt. It was made clear that Obama is only asking his donors to help with her vendor debts, not her personal debt to her campaign.

An Iraq Speech Barack Should Give

Fareed Zakaria is one smart guy.  His recent advice to Obama on Iraq is worth reading:

Barack Obama needs to give a speech about Iraq. Otherwise he will find himself in the unusual position of having being prescient about the war in 2002 and yet being overtaken by events in 2008. The most important reason to do this is not political. Iraq is fading in importance for the public and, to the extent that it matters as an electoral issue, most people agree with Obama's judgment that the war was not worth fighting.

The reason to lay out his approach to Iraq is that, were he elected, the war would be his biggest and most immediate problem. He will need to implement a serious policy on Iraq, one that is consistent with his long-held views but is also informed by the conditions on the ground today. This is what he should say:

"In six months, on Jan. 20, 2009, we will have a new president. But it is not clear that we will chart a new course in the ongoing war in Iraq. Senator McCain has promised a continuation of the Bush strategy—to stay in Iraq with no horizon in sight, with no benchmarks or metrics that would tell us when American troops can come home. In 2006, when levels of violence were horrifyingly high, President Bush and Senator McCain said that things were going so badly that if we left, the consequences would be tragic. Today they say that things are going so well that if we leave, the consequences would be tragic. Whatever the conditions, the answer is the same—keep doing what we're doing. How does one say 'Catch-22' in Arabic?

"I start from a different premise. I believe that the Iraq War was a major strategic blunder. It diverted us from the battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan—the people who launched the attacks of 9/11 and who remain powerful and active today. We face threats in Iraq, but the two greatest ones, as General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have testified, are Al Qaeda (which is wounded but not dead) and Iran. Both are a direct consequence of the invasion. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before 2003, and Iran's influence has expanded massively since then.