Thursday’s campaign round-up

July 24, 2008

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) came pretty close to ruling himself out as John McCain’s running mate yesterday. “I’m not going to be the vice presidential nominee or vice president,” Jindal told reporters. “I’m going to help Senator McCain get elected, as governor of Louisiana…. Let me be clear: I have said in every private and public conversation, I’ve got the job that I want.”

* On the heels of Nouri al-Maliki’s endorsement of Barack Obama’s withdrawal policy, VoteVets has a powerful new ad, featuring an Iraq war vet. “Senator McCain would occupy Iraq indefinitely, against their wishes,” the U.S. veteran says in the ad. “That’s not what freedom means. That’s not what we fought for. Senator, I thought you would know better.”

* Speaking of interesting advertising moves, this is pretty unusual: “Senator Barack Obama’s campaign will spend $5 million on advertisements during NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympic Games next month, an NBC spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday.”

* The White House announced yesterday that George W. Bush will speak at the Republican National Convention, on Sept. 1, the opening night of the gathering. No word on whether we’ll see Bush and McCain together at any moment during the convention.

* About that Hispanic problem: “Hispanic registered voters support Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66% to 23%, according to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, from June 9 through July 13, 2008.”

* Obama, speaking in Israel yesterday, told reporters, “Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon.” This was a gaffe; Obama doesn’t actually serve on the Banking Committee. He was referring to a bill with provisions he cosponsored.

* There’s been some buzz this week about a new, coordinated “Republicans for Obama” effort. There was apparently a conference call this week, featuring former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island (who left the GOP last year).

* Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain in Florida, 49% to 47%.

* Quinnipiac/WaPo shows McCain leading Obama in Colorado, 46% to 44% — a seven point swing in McCain’s favor over the last month.

* Quinnipiac/WaPo shows Obama leading McCain in Michigan, 46% to 42%.

* Quinnipiac/WaPo shows Obama leading McCain in Minnesota, 46% to 44% — a 15 point swing in McCain’s favor over the last month.

* Quinnipiac/WaPo shows Obama leading McCain in Wisconsin by 11, 50% to 39%.

* A Monmouth University poll shows Obama leading McCain in New Jersey, 50% to 36%.

* Newt Gingrich hopes McCain doesn’t pick a running mate who is a “boring, normal, mainstream Republican white guy.”

* Has everyone seen the new McCain campaign poster?

* Arizona donors prefer Obama to McCain.

* Obama will deliver his convention speech on the 45th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. McCain will deliver his convention speech on the opening night of the NFL season.

* I thought James Gilmore’s Senate campaign in Virginia couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong.

The White House announced yesterday that George W. Bush will speak at the Republican National Convention, on Sept. 1, the opening night of the gathering.

Thank. You. Jebus.

  • * Has everyone seen the new McCain campaign poster?

    I think the caption we should put on it is this:

    “Peace is born of wisdom… John McCain still thinks invading Iraq was a good idea, and he likes to joke about bombing Iran, so I guess he’s not really much on peace or wisdom.”

  • I keep getting the feeling that everything is being made close on purpose by the media, does anybody else having the feeling that this will be more of a landslide, and MSM will act surprised? I mean 15 point swings, when all he has been doing is making mistake after mistake? I really hope that this is all the doing of the MSM, and that the people will have enough sense to see what is happening, and what the true differences are between Obama and McCain.

  • Regarding McCain’s convention speech competing with the NFL, Republicans really seem to have lost the art of stagecraft, which was one of the few things the Bushies excelled in. It’s like they want to lose.

  • Newt Gingrich hopes McCain doesn’t pick a running mate who is a “boring, normal, mainstream Republican white guy.”

    Besides Jindal, is there any other choice for a republican running mate?

  • McCain will deliver his convention speech on the opening night of the NFL season.

    which pretty well summarises his campaign efforts to date.

    Are the Republicans serious? Do they have a plan B to dump this noddie at the convention and spontaneously nominate Ron Paul or someone from the floor?

  • * Speaking of interesting advertising moves, this is pretty unusual: “Senator Barack Obama’s campaign will spend $5 million on advertisements during NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympic Games next month, an NBC spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday.”

    This kinda makes sense. Obama is the Macintosh of candidates.

  • *** McCain will deliver his convention speech on the opening night of the NFL season. ***

    Bad decision. NFL football or a GOP acceptance speech. I think we know what Americans will be watching that night.

  • It’s like they want to lose.

    I sometimes think the Republicans are planning to tank in 2008. They know just how deep Bush dug the hole. They know just how ugly the economy is, how bad we are screwed on foreign policy. And they know that it will be very painful over the next couple of years. They know fixing some of these problems will require tax increases.

    I think they want all that pain to be associated with Obama and a Democratic congress. They hope American’s will forget it was Republican policies that led to the recessions of 2009 and 2010 and blame the Dems in office at the time. Then they can ride back to power in 2012.

  • McCain’s speech is carefully timed.

    Remember that people who saw the Bush-Gore debates scored them for Gore, but people who only saw the coverage of the Bush-Gore debates scored them for Bush.

    McCain’s people are counting on the coverage of the speech to be better than the speech itself.

    This is not an accident.

  • Elvis Elvisberg said:
    What’s the matter with Minnesota?

    Minnesota isn’t nearly as liberal a state as people think it is. It’s just that it’s pretty easy to be act like you’re tolerant when you live in a monochromatic society.

    Minnesota has had exactly one Democratic governor since 1979. One of their current senators is Norm “corporate welfare” Coleman. From 1995 to 2001 their Senator was Rod Grams, a guy who was to the right of Jesse Helms on some issues.

    But having said all that, a 15 point swing should be taken with a grain of (road) salt.

  • Speaking of ads, I saw an Obama ad on a Red Sox game last night that was very good — DirecTV gives a free week of MLB Extra Innings twice a year. Obama has made a LOT of smart decisions, but hiring Axelrod was one of his best.

  • Davis X. Machina and thorin-1 make interesting points. If Obama wins, how many young voters will be permanently “turned off” of politics once the CHANGE does not materialize? That may indeed be the GOP Plan B.

    Also, I’ve been wondering about the strange silence from Rev. Jeremiah Wright — has he really not been talking anymore — perhaps that National Press Club appearance was contrived by Obama’s campaign in order to finally give the candidate a chance to distance himself from the controversial pastor?

  • * Has everyone seen the new McCain campaign poster

    God of War

    Hey, Elegabalus McCainius, if you really want to be apotheosized, you have to die first.

  • thorin-1,

    Yup. I’ve been thinking the same thing. There is NO WAY this is incompetence. There is a plan.

  • * On the heels of Nouri al-Maliki’s endorsement of Barack Obama’s withdrawal policy, VoteVets has a powerful new ad, featuring an Iraq war vet. “Senator McCain would occupy Iraq indefinitely, against their wishes,” the U.S. veteran says in the ad. “That’s not what freedom means. That’s not what we fought for. Senator, I thought you would know better.”

    An enterprising news organization should do some in-depth reporting on the bases the U.S. has built in Iraq and contrast them with the reconstruction efforts for Iraqi civilians. The scale of the bases and the amenities offered, vs power plants, schools, housing urgently needed for Iraqi families should be exposed. And the obvious plans of U.S. Republicans for a very long military occupation in Iraq, as well as the fortune we’ve spent to set up for it should also be prominently exposed tot he American public, now that the iraqis are making it clear that they won’t tolerate a continued occupation.

    And considering what the money spent on the American infrastructure in Iraq could be doing for Americans in America as we are starting into the Next Great Depression, those 15-point swings towards McCain might start back in the other direction with just a decent media look at this aspect of the U’S’ invasion and occupation of Iraq.

    Frontline? McClatchy? Anyone?

  • I think it’s the Dobson endorsement. Colo. and Minnesota are big fundie states. Can’t figure out what else could have happened recently to give McCain the big shove. Either that or it’s the backlash against the pinko commo EU and Maliki giving Obama a big thumbs up. Maliki should know better, we expect him to be GRATEFUL (to the GOP/neocons), dammit!

  • I think that the acceptance speech/NFL confluence might be a feature, considering how well he usually does in these Big Speech settings.

  • McCain will deliver his convention speech on the opening night of the NFL season.

    I think I’ll watch the ‘Skins and the Giants, like everyone else in the country. I’m really missing football, a feeling which is only compounded by the fact that the two local professional baseball teams are doing so well that I have to hear about it ad nauseum.

  • What happened to , “Money trumps..er…a…peace sometimes heheheh”.

    “Peace” & “Wisdom” are two terms that should never be associated with bomb bomb Iran McCain.

  • joey:

    Just liked Ronald Reagan “joked” about bombing the Soviet Union before the end of the Cold War?

  • Gridlock:

    At least he wasn’t like JFK crashing a whole PT boat full of seamen, killing two of them.

  • Hispanic registered voters support Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66% to 23%

    That’s a fairly pathetic showing when you consider that Senator Clinton would have wrapped up 100 percent of the Hispanic vote.

    And, now that Senator See Me Feel Me is planning on doing his best Tommy-in-the-stadium impression on a day best remembered for an overrated speech by one of the original black radical militants, he’ll be losing a good chunk of the vote of hardworking Hispanics who don’t care to be lumped in with other ethnic groups associated most closely with freeloading and freebasing. Not all minorities are created alike, as women well know.

  • Newt Gingrich hopes McCain doesn’t pick a running mate who is a “boring, normal, mainstream Republican white guy.”

    Like, say, Gingrich? Who do they have after all?

    And would Alan Keyes agree to run with a unreliable Republican’t like JSMcC*nt?

  • Of course, much later, Marilyn Monroe’s hole was full of JFK’s semen too — see what happens after prolonged exposure to ads by Pamela Anderson — seriously, for more on PT 109: “A few in the military, including Andrew Fitzgerald, thought he should have faced a court-martial instead for losing his boat in such a manner. It was thought by many such a quick and maneuverable craft should have been able to escape a collision with a slower enemy craft, though fellow skippers would point out a PT, especially those with tired engines that had spent significant time in the combat zone (like PT 109), could not accelerate quickly enough under such circumstances. During his presidency, Kennedy privately admitted to friends he didn’t feel he deserved the medals he had received, because the PT 109 incident had been the result of a botched military operation that had cost the lives of two members of his crew. When asked by interviewers how he became a war hero, Kennedy’s grim reply was, “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT-109#Aftermath

  • “At least he wasn’t like JFK crashing a whole PT boat full of seamen, killing two of them.”

    ahhh! The historical version of “Clinton did it too!”

    sweet!

  • JakeD, translated for parents of young children: “LOOKIT ME! LOOKIT MEEEEE!!!!! MOMMMMMMMEEEEE, WHYYY WON’T YOU LOOOKIT MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”

    Problem is, the fool can’t even break stuff. As trolls go, he’s one of those effeminate little ones with the crazy hair.

  • The “surge” was an incompetent answer to an even more extreme incompetent decision of dismantling the Iraqi army which began the insurgency. Proof to support that statement comes from the fact that violence went down immediately when the US began re-hiring and paying the unemployed Iraq (Sunni) army.

    McCain and his group of surge buffoons fail to mention that their glorious “surge” was completely uncalled for and that it did not succeed in bringing about what it was created to accomplish…political reconciliation. It did manage to provide ethnic cleansing, segregation and massive displacement of Iraq’s citizens. It also managed to protect and enable contract profiteering for so called “reconstruction”.

    If McCain would have been wise enough to see there was another less violent means to end the insurgency and the violence, smart enough to see what caused the internal strife to begin with then all the death and destruction from utilizing more failed policy to corect failed policy could have been avoided and he would have something to brag about.

    But once again that authoritarian “I know better than the American people or any of the experts who disagree with me” attitude shines through and the condemning “dissent = traitor” dictatorial stance prevails.

    To actually say Obama would rather lose a war than lose a campaign, which insinuates that Obama would rather see American soldiers killed than not become president should CLEARLY demonstrate that this is exactly what McCain would do…that McCain would be willing to lose a war just to be president, that American lives are secondary to his becoming president. After all, it is McCain who is the war cheerleader, who thinks military action can solve everything. Just pathetic to even have a canidate who would make such claims. McCain is insane. A tortured mind in a 100% disabled tortured body.

    McCain…wrong on everything should never be allowed close to military buttons.

  • Newt’z choice 4 McStain’s VP: First : Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Runner-up: Alasaka Gov. Sarah Palin.

    Yea Palin would be great. I’d enjoy watching them scrubbing the shit off her for the next 3 months.
    …and Jindal? ROFLMFAO

  • Help me!
    1. Why did Lanny Davis just admit that he was wrong about Iraq in Foxnews?
    2. Why Obama wants to send such a clear message to Syria and Iran to get ready and make a coordinated move into Iraq?

  • Sad to say that Senator McCain does not get it at all together with other Republicas on the issue of the so called “Surge”. This in no way denegrets our valued soliders.
    But this is the point. Stollen property is stollen property. No matter how you treat it. Whether you decide to pay for the stollen property, it does not vindicate you from the fact that the property is stollen. So, no matter how big the surge you may want, you had no right to be in Iraq and the surge does not make it right either. Why sould Obama adimit to anything? Its like saying since you paid for the stollen property, it is now okay. No and definately NO. The only right thing is to retun the goods where they belong. Therefore the soliders simply have to come home surge or no surge.

  • * The White House announced yesterday that George W. Bush will speak at the Republican National Convention, on Sept. 1, the opening night of the gathering. — CB

    Also the day when most of Europe commemorates the opening salvos of WWII. Too bad for GOP that it won”t be a “round” anniversary (70th is next year), because then there’d be enough hoopla to take the media attention away from the lame duck’s quacking.

  • CB, I *LOVE* that you called out Obama on a gaffe.

    It does wonders for your credibility even as it highlights the magnitude of his opponent’s flubs.

    I really don’t care for either friends or enemies that think their candidate can do no wrong.

  • What many people do not realize is that Hillary and McCain are actually good friends. I ran into them having dinner together one evening in summer 06 up in Alaska. I speculate that whatever Hillary does on behalf of Obama is mostly for her own benefit, and not his. She still needs to retire her campaign debt, and wants to remain in good stead with the DNC for the sake of her own career at the moment. But when it comes to casting ballots, I bet you she casts her own anonymous vote for McCain in November. I’d be really surprised if she accepted an offer for Obama’s VP. Wow, wouldn’t it be really something great if McCain had the courage to invite her onto HIS ballot!

  • What a perplexing position citizens of these United States find ourselves. We have reached a cross-road as a nation. These are perilous times at home and abroad. Economic uncertainties abound and our fast eroding moral standing in the world threatens to place at risk our role as the world’s most powerful influencer. Before us stand two starkly different choices whom, depending on our choice, may lead us into another “American Century” or may lead us further down the road to a permanent erosion of power and influence.

    Essentially we are asked to vote for either of two approaches to moving forward. One approach seeks to harness American power and influence in order to rule the world; the other approach realizes that rather than American power, it is American principles and core values which must be harnessed that we might lead (not rule) the world.

    We all know in our hearts that the right and just perspective to adopt is to “…harness American principles…that we might lead the world.” For this is and has been the decidedly American root of our world perspective as a nation. This is our American way…our ethic. But there is one problem that causes us great consternation. The leader who most effectively espouses (and seems to most passionately believe in) the “decidedly American root of our world perspective…” is born the son of a minority group – the fruit of a relationship that in years past (and perhaps even now, if we be truthful with ourselves) was taboo.

    The white guy, we know in our hearts is dangerous and wrong on almost every substantive issue affecting our welfare at home and abroad; yet we struggle to bring ourselves to truly embrace the other guy who espouses the most American of American ideals with enough eloquence and passion to ignite and capture the imagination of an entire next generation of Americans.

    And so we vacillate and try to find ways to justify our guttural instinct to choose the guy who represents the past, though we yearn to step into the promise of the future. We whisper within the shadows of our body politic about “…is he Muslim…his middle name is Hussein…he’s part Black…etc.” We know within our hearts that Senator Barack Obama is the product of a conflagration of conspiring American ideals: freedom, justice, equality, meritocracy, our American melting pot. He is, as much as anything, one of our own.

    My fear is that when we as a nation are on the other side of this decision…when we, in the end, vote our fears and forsake our promise; when we hold our heads down in shame as we watch John McCain’s inauguration on our TVs; I fear that the Great Scribe of History will be left with no choice but to pen within our national epitaph, “…He came unto his own; and his own received him not.”

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