John McCain

In perhaps the most pathetically desperate move of any presidential campaign ever, John McCain has selected Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate.  Apparently he is so desperate to attract some attention (and some Hillary votes? hahaha, not with this one John) that he picked the beauty queen governor.  So, who is this Palin person?  Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson can’t help us out:

I really don’t know that much about her.

Palin, before her whole year and a half as governor, was mayor of a town of 7,000 people.  WOW!  Talk about experience.  So if McCain, who readily admits he’s old and jokes about his own age, were to die in 2010, then suddenly Palin would be President?  Really?  Can we really put our country in the hands of someone with absolutely zero experience?

It gets better though!  Palin was also a pander to the wackjob religious right.  She’s pro-life, anti-gay rights, and a creationist.

Brilliant move McCain.

Mark Halperin writes that two sources are saying that McCain will pick Mitt Romney as his Vice President:

Two Republicans close to the situation say McCain has apparently settled on Mitt Romney as his running mate.

Two additional GOP sources say McCain had not offered the slot to anyone as of Thursday night, and that he could still change his mind

I hope so.  Romney simply reinforces the rich and out of touch image, and he doesn’t really appeal all that much to the voters in the middle.  Will he energize the conservative base?  I doubt it.  Half the conservative base isn’t comfortable with his religion, and the rest just wanted him during the primary because he was the only guy left that might have stopped John McCain.

Adding credibility to the Romney rumor, the NYTimes says that McCain will pick a pro-life VP:

Senator John McCain has narrowed his list of potential running mates to a handful of candidates and appears unlikely to select anyone who supports abortion rights, several advisers close to his campaign said on Thursday.

Makes sense after the very unhappy reaction from conservatives when Ridge and Lieberman were floated as possibilities.

But Mitt Romney is a lame pick.  McCain needs someone interesting (and surprising) if he’s going to expect his VP pick to help him.

If you vote for John McCain, don’t complain when he drafts you:

As President, John McCain will reinstate the draft.  He will force you (or your loved ones) to go to war against your will.

Either John McCain is an elitist or he is senile.  I really can’t see how there could be any other explanation to the fact that he does not even know how many houses he owns.  Is this really the guy we want running the government?  He can’t remember how many houses he owns!  That’s so incredibly absurd…

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

“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M.

Like I said, either that’s the epitome of elitism, or McCain is going so senile that he can’t even remember how many houses he owns.  Either way, it’s pretty sad.  This man should never be elected to anything.

CNN has Obama’s reaction:

“Somebody asked John McCain, ‘how many houses do you have?’ and he said, ‘I’m not sure, I’ll have to check with my staff,’” said Obama at a Thursday morning campaign stop. “True quote! ‘I’m not sure, I’ll have to check with my staff.’ So they asked his staff and he said, ‘at least four.’ ‘At least four.’”

“Now think about that — I guess if you think that being rich means you gotta make five million dollars, and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy is fundamentally strong,” he continued. “But if you’re like me and you’ve got one house — or you were like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so that they don’t lose their home — you might have a different perspective.”

According to the Politico, the McCain Campaign will announce McCain’s Vice Presidential choice on August 29th.  It’s an interesting day to pick, since it’s the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, as slinkerwink pointed out over at DailyKos.  Why does this matter?  Well, on August 29th, 2005 John McCain and George W. Bush were together in Arizona, happily celebrating John’s Birthday.  They joked, and laughed, and had a wonderful time; and they ate lots of cake.  In New Orleans people were dying.

John McCain was complicit in the tragic lack of response to the worst natural disaster in our nation’s history.  He was too busy eating cake with his pal George W. Bush to care about the people of New Orleans.

That’s not really news, we all know John McCain cheated on his first wife.  But Alan Colmes actually had some fun with that fact on Hannity & Colmes.  Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for pointing out this hilarious video:

I was all set to start researching the numbers to prove why John McCain’s big ground game push:

A month ago, McCain’s campaign made a combined 20,000 phone calls and door-knocks. Last week, they made 324,000 — a sixteen-fold increase.

…is really just kind of sad compared to Obama’s, but then I saw Sean over at Five Thirty Eight already did that.  So, read his analysis:

Let’s do some quick math. Martin’s reporting suggests to us based on that ratio that nationwide, in one week, the McCain campaign talked to approximately 81,000 voters. The Obama campaign talked to about 27,000 in one state in one night. If we make a reasonable guess that Ohio has something like one-fifteenth of Obama organizers and volunteers, that’d be 405,000 voters contacted in one night nationwide. In 7 days, that’s 2,835,000 voters contacted, compared to the McCain 81,000, a thirty-five-fold edge.

HAHA!  McCain’s ground game is quite pathetic.

(Thanks Sean!)

John McCain has a problem on his hands.  His campaign manager Rick Davis was a well known, prominent lobbyist.  McCain apparently thought that there wouldn’t be a problem having this lobbyist in charge of his campaign.  Turns out he was wrong.

Rick Davis lobbied on behalf of the German owned shipping company DHL in its efforts to buy Airborne Express five years ago.  Because of Davis’ fine work, the deal succeeded.  Airborne Express is based in Wilmington, Ohio.  But now DHL wants to move operations out of Ohio and to Kentucky, which will result in the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in Ohio.

So John McCain has quite the problem.  The man responsible for more than 8,000 lost jobs in the most crucial of swing states is his campaign manager.

McCain is scrambling to address the problem:

In Wilmington on Thursday, McCain promised to hold congressional hearings and send a letter to the CEO of DHL’s parent company, Deutsche Post AG, asking him to meet with the affected workers. 

“I’m deeply troubled by the specter of job loss confronting the town of Wilmington and this entire area, nine counties,” said McCain. “My concerns are being reinforced in my meeting today with those facing the most personal consequences.”

Jobs are a critical issue in economically-struggling Ohio, a swing state that awarded George W. Bush the 2004 election. Wilmington, located in the southwest part of the state, is traditionally a Republican stronghold.

Perhaps it won’t be such a “Republican stronghold” this year.