Politico

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.”

Apparently John McCain’s campaign is so crappy compared to Barack Obama’s that the media has resorted to finding obscure, tiny groups of people that favor McCain so that they can write a big article about them.  The Politico informs us that Sports Team Owners overwhelmingly favor John McCain; even the sport team owners in Chicago!

Sports team owners may not be John McCain’s answer to the Hollywood elite, but they’re overwhelmingly supporting his presidential campaign over Barack Obama’s.

Through the end of June, team owners in the four major sports and their families have given to or raised more than $3.2 million for McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, compared with only $615,000 for his Democratic rival Obama, according to a Politico analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission, the campaigns and interviews.

Is there really nothing better to write about?

Barack Obama, in a statement Monday, said that Georgia should be admitted to NATO:

“I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship,” Obama says.

I’m glad to hear him taking a strong position on this.  Had Georgia been admitted to NATO earlier, Russia would never have invaded.  It would have pissed the Russians off, but they wouldn’t have invaded.

In other Georgia and Russia related news, Russia today ordered a ceasefire.  What this actually means is yet to be seen.  Russian troops are still in Georgia and show no signs of leaving, they just aren’t actively attacking at the moment.

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.

Condi is bringing up Iran again, I’m sure to convince us all that we need another war.

“They should have felt like time is running out quite a long time ago,” she said in an elegant reception room near her private suite. “When you are having trouble getting banks to come in, getting investment, when export credits are going down from around the world, when you have inflation roaring, time is running out.”

The six-nation group – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany - contends that Iran is building nuclear warheads under the guise of a civilian power program. Rice said the dictatorship will have to “make a tough decision” to avoid a further financial squeeze from the Security Council, which she believes is likely to act this fall.

“What is happening to Iran is that its isolation is costing them,” she said. “It’s having an effect. I think that’s one reason that you’re seeing them trying to give half-answers rather than simply saying no. But the fact is we won’t accept half-answers, either.”

You get that?  Sanctions are working; the Iranians are struggling now.  But we will still probably have to attack them!

I can’t wait until these clowns are out of office.

Go read the whole thing and watch the video over at The Politico.

The media loves to keep coming back to the idea that somehow Barack Obama is failing because he’s not way ahead in the polls.  Today’s example is The Politico’s front-page article titled Obama Stalls in Public Polling.  Yes, this is a close election.  But to suggest that Barack Obama is somehow a failed candidate because he has not pulled away is misleading and, frankly, incredibly biased.

While Obama still leads in most matchups with John McCain, the Illinois senator’s apparent stall in the polls is a sobering reminder to Democrats intoxicated with his campaign’s promises to expand the electoral map beyond the boundaries that have constrained other recent party nominees. 

That gap between expectations and reality comes as Democrats enjoy the most favorable political winds since at least 1976. At least eight in ten Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. The Republican president is historically unpopular. From stunning Democratic gains in party registration to the high levels of economic anxiety, Obama should have a healthy lead by almost every measure. Yet, in poll after poll, Obama conspicuously fails to cross the 50 percent threshold. 

But there is a major problem with this analysis.  The most glaringly obvious problem is that Obama is leading and has been leading consistently for some time now.  Furthermore, McCain is losing, and has been for some time now, but there is not a plethora of articles about how McCain should be doing so much better than he is.

The other problem is with national polling both in terms of accuracy and as an indicator electoral outcomes.  Polling is not an exact science; in fact it can be incredibly imprecise and is dependent on what the individual pollster decides is the proper formula for weighting.  In an election year such as this, we should expect higher Democratic turnout than Republican turnout, which will tilt the party identification numbers (which are already in favor of Democrats) even further into the Democratic column.

Then there is the Electoral College.  Our president is not selected by the popular vote (as much as I might wish it was).  If you take a look at the electoral map, the picture is very different.  Here are some current electoral college projections from a few different websites:

Five Thirty Eight: Obama 297.8; McCain 240.2

Real Clear Politics: Obama 238; McCain 163; Toss Ups 137
Without Toss Ups: Obama 322; McCain 216

Pollster: Obama 284; McCain 157; Toss Ups 97

CNN: Obama 221; McCain 189; Toss Ups 128

One thing seems clear in those projections: Obama has a strong lead.  In terms of Electoral Votes, safe Obama states outnumber safe McCain states by anyone’s count.  Furthermore, there aren’t many states in the Obama column that have potential to flip to McCain.  On the other hand, Obama does have an outside shot at a few states (North Carolina, Montana, Georgia) that McCain should have no worries about.

The important thing here is to fight back against this meme.  Barack Obama is doing just fine, and will continue to stay in the lead until he wins the election.  National Polling may fluctuate, but it shows him with a consistent lead; furthermore, the electoral map favors Obama much more than McCain.

Maybe the next time a journalist decides to write one of these nonsense stories they will examine the facts first, and then write about how things don’t look good for John McCain.

In the event of a tie in the Electoral College, Barack Obama will be our next President, according to the Politico’s David Mark.  Although not too likely, there is a plausible scenario this year in which both Barack Obama and John McCain end up with 269 Electoral Votes.  In this situation, the House of Representatives decides who will become President.

Here’s the most likely scenario for a tie: Give Obama the 252 electoral votes John Kerry won for the Democrats in 2004, and add to those New Mexico (5) and Iowa (7), which narrowly went for President Bush in 2004 after backing Al Gore in 2000, and traditionally Republican Colorado (9), where changing demographics favor Obama. Subtract New Hampshire(4), renowned for its independent streak and where voters in Republican primaries have twice favored McCain over establishment-backed and better-funded candidates, and it amounts to 269-269.

But the House doesn’t simply take an up or down vote.  Instead, each state delegation gets one vote.  Democrats hold a majority in most state delegations, and will likely increase their holdings this year (it is the incoming House of Representatives that selects the President).

But no matter the breakdown, it’s a good bet that a 269-269 tie would result in an Obama victory in the House, where the Constitution gives each state’s delegation one vote. The vote of California’s 53 members, for example, could be canceled out by North Dakota’s one-member delegation. In the current 110th Congress, Democrats control 26 state delegations to the Republicans’ 22, while two are tied. And with Democrats poised to pick up seats in the fall elections, that margin is likely to increase.

What the article didn’t mention is perhaps the most interesting outcome.  If the House of Representatives cannot select the President (if there is a 25-25 tie) then the Presidency goes to the Speaker of the House.  We would have President Nancy Pelosi.  A liberal Democrat from San Francisco would be President.  How do you think Republicans would feel about that result?

Barack Obama’s well known campaign message is “Yes We Can.”  John McCain, however, seems to be saying “No We Can’t.”  Why can’t we?  Well, because McCain has no plans.  The McCain campaign is seriously lacking in the planning department.

Analysts caution that both McCain and Barack Obama have produced policy pronouncements that are just as much election documents as workable proposals; after all, that is what presidential candidates do. But when it comes to the metric of paper produced, McCain trails Obama in spelling out the nitty-gritty.

“The Obama people are much more detailed,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan advocacy group dedicated to balancing the budget.

That’s just what we need, a president with no plan.  Let’s say, for example that you want to know McCain’s plan for Social Security.  Good luck figuring that out.  The Wall Street Journal noticed that John McCain himself doesn’t seem to be quite sure:

On Sunday, he said on national television that to solve Social Security “everything’s on the table,” which of course means raising payroll taxes. On July 7 in Denver he said: “Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won’t.”

This isn’t a flip-flop. It’s a sex-change operation.

He got back to the subject Tuesday in Reno, Nev. Reporters asked about the Sunday tax comments. Mr. McCain replied, “The worst thing you could do is raise people’s payroll taxes, my God!” Then he was asked about working with Democrats to fix Social Security, and he repeated, “everything has to be on the table.” But how can . . .? Oh never mind.

Yesterday he was in Aurora, Colo., to wit: “On Social Security, he [Sen. Obama] wants to raise Social Security taxes. I am opposed to raising taxes on Social Security. I want to fix the system without raising taxes.”

Great, let’s elect the guy who has no idea what he’s going to do when he gets into office.

Oh but I forgot!  McCain does have a plan for our energy crisis.  He’s going to make sure we drill offshore.  What are economists saying about that plan?

When McCain has focused on domestic policy, it has generally been to offer headline-grabbing plans, such as his proposal for a gas tax holiday and his claim that allowing offshore drilling could have an immediate effect on gas prices, both of which were almost universally derided by economists across the ideological spectrum. [The Politico]

And Paul Krugman says:

Most criticism of John McCain’s decision to follow the Bush administration’s lead and embrace offshore drilling as the answer to high gas prices has focused on the accusation that it’s junk economics — which it is.

A McCain campaign ad says that gas prices are high right now because “some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America.” That’s just plain dishonest: the U.S. government’s own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn’t lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an “insignificant” impact on oil prices.

What’s even more important than Mr. McCain’s bad economics, however, is what his reversal on this issue — he was against offshore drilling before he was for it — says about his priorities.

How are so many people even considering voting for this guy?