It’s summertime and the season is silly.
A new Associated Press poll released Wednesday finds that more Americans would rather have Barack Obama than John McCain come to their Independence Day barbecue:
While many are still deciding who should be president, by 52 percent to 45 percent they would prefer having Obama than McCain to their summer cookout, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Wednesday.
Men are about evenly divided between the two while women prefer Obama by 11 percentage points. Whites prefer McCain, minorities Obama. And Obama is a more popular guest with younger voters while McCain does best with the oldest.
Having Obama to a barbecue would be like a relaxed family gathering, while inviting McCain “would be more like a retirement party than something fun,” said Wesley Welbourne, 38, a systems engineer from Washington, D.C.
Party label means a lot, with three-quarters of Democrats picking the Democrat Obama and the same number of Republicans picking McCain, a Republican. Independents are about evenly split.
“John and I would probably have a lot to talk about,” said Republican Michael Mullen, 53, of Merrimac, Mass., like McCain a Navy veteran.
One in six people saying they’d vote for McCain prefer Obama as their barbecue guest; just one in 20 Obama backers would invite McCain.
Is retired Gen. Wesley Clark going to go to hell for trashing John McCain’s military record on TV?
Martial Problems
Dear Martial:
This controversy is not about what Clark said. It’s really about polls showing Obama ahead of McCain by double digits. Those numbers put the McCain team on the offensive, seeking out an opening, any opening, that would enable them to change the subject from gas prices to security and McCain’s military creds.
What really happened was:
SCHIEFFER: Well, General… I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either. Nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.
WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification for being president.
The fact is, only one U.S. president has been shot down in a plane during wartime — Poppy Bush. Since the other 42 weren’t shot down, being shot down is clearly not a requirement to be president.
Of course, facts don’t matter to Republicans. The McCain campaign responded to Clark’s statement with unbridled outrage: “Stop trashing McCain’s military record!”
Faced with this, Team Obama unfortunately did a full John Kerry: The senator “regrets” that Gen. Clark trashed McCain’s military record. Sen. Obama admires John McCain’s record, no — he worships McCain’s record. Senator Obama would never besmirch McCain’s patriotism.
Obama revealed a weak spot and the McCain team has been exploiting it ever since.
Monday night, in an interview with Keith Olbermann on “Countdown,” Sen. Jim Webb said something like, “John McCain is a friend of mine but I wish he’d dial back on the politicization of the military. Not everyone in the military agrees with his political views.”
The McCain team responded with more manufactured outrage, accusing Webb is participating in a concerted effort with the Obama campaign, Wes Clark and Keith Olbermann to trash Sen. McCain’s military record.
Last night, McCain demanded that Obama “cut loose” Wes Clark, even though McCain has not cut loose Charlie Black who recently said a 9/11 style attack on American soil would probably help McCain get elected. Plus, Clark is not officially tied to the Obama campaign. (However, he was spotted in D.C. going into a building a few minutes after Caroline Kennedy, who is vetting Obama’s vice presidential picks, went into the same building.)
Obama could have stopped this on Monday by pushing back. Instead, he laid down and let the GOP run over him.
The Obama campaign needs to change the subject in the media — today. Where is the war room? Where is the rapid response?
This Q&A on “Face the Nation” on Sunday between retired Gen. Wesley Clark and host Bob Shieffer has caused quite a stir: Much to the dismay of Democrats who took Obama at his word that he would bring a gun to the Republicans’ knife fight, less than 24 hours after Clark’s appearance on “Face the Nation,” Obama unceremoniously threw Gen. Clark under the bus. SCHIEFFER: You went so far as to say that you thought, and these are your words, that John McCain was “untested and untried.” And I have to say I had to read that twice because you’re talking about someone who who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He’s been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for many years. How can you say that John McCain is untested and untried?
WESLEY CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war.
He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron … in the Navy he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, “I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. You want to take the risk? How are we going to handle it? What about your reputation…” He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.
SCHIEFFER: Well, General… I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either. Nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.
WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification for being president.
SCHIEFFER: REALLY?
*
In an article about the controversy published on the CBS News website, Ben Smith, the reporter who covers the Democrats for right-leaning Politico.com, laid out a key element in the conservatives’ strategy for delivering a win for John McCain this year. “The highest voltage third rail of this presidential campaign may not be race, sex, or age,” Smith wrote, “but Senator John McCain’s military service.”
It’s no wonder America’s mayors feel their cities have been discarded by the federal government under the Bush administration. As one source earlier this week put it, things seem to be falling apart, whether you’re a home owner, a driver, a polar bear, or a Midwesterner living near a levee.*
As Miami’s mayor Manny Diaz told the U.S. Conference of Mayors after he was sworn in as organization president, the lack of federal leadership is crippling.
Look for more “undeclared” disasters, calamities the federal government will decline to declare as such, leaving it to local officials, and increasingly, to local volunteers to fund and handle.
”It’s plain and simple — they have abandoned us,” Diaz said to the hundreds of mayors gathered for his induction ceremony.
…Diaz cited federal budget cuts in housing, education, and crime-fighting as proof of Washington’s failure to invest in cities.
It’s only going to get worse, Manny, according to a friend of mine of who works for an area non-profit. He said his agency and many others were summoned by county emergency managers for a presentation on the coming hard times. Look for more “undeclared” disasters, they were told, calamities that the federal government will decline to declare as such, leaving it up to local officials, and increasingly, to local volunteers to fund and handle.
Or maybe not. A lot depends on who is the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Barack Obama addressed the mayors, listening to their concerns and pledging his support as president.
John McCain…didn’t attend the conference.
* I would quote from the story but it’s by AP so I’ll skip it.
“I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”
— Barack Obama on Oct. 2, 2002 quoted by The New Yorker
“I don’t exactly approve of a lot of the things [Barack Obama] stands for and I’m not sure we know enough about him … He’s got some bad connections, and he may be terrorist connected for all I can tell. It sounds kind of like he may be.”
Who said this? Was it a) Tom DeLay, b) Karl Rove, c) Dick Cheney or c) a member of the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party? “So, yeah, Nation, please believe that there are some people down here in Tennessee who would like to elect progressive, smart, transformative leaders. It just seems to be a Sisyphean battle at times. But we’ll keep at it.” — Alice at 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera
Sadly, the answer is d, Fred Hobbs, who in addition to sitting on the party’s executive committee is a supporter and constituent of Rep. Lincoln Davis, a “Blue Dog” Democrat, who represents Tennessee’s 4th District, which is mostly rural and white, and which Obama lost to Hillary Clinton 23 percent to 68 percent, according to Nashville City Paper.
Hobbs made this outrageous statement when asked why Rep. Davis, who reportedly hopes (hoped?) to run for governor in 2010, had not yet endorsed Obama.
These goomers dug their hole deeper when Rep. Davis’ chief of staff Beecher Frasier was asked for a response by City Paper and said that he didn’t know for sure if Obama is “terrorist connected” but assumed he was not.
Later, the Tennessee Democratic Party issued a clarification in which it attempted to blame Hobbs’ outrageous remarks on the fact that he is so stupid he actually believed Republican smears about Obama:
“The Tennessee Democratic Party is united behind our party’s nominee, Senator Barack Obama. Mr. Hobbs is obviously misinformed, and his statement highlights the perpetual efforts of the Republican Party, especially here in Tennessee, to turn Internet smears and highly offensive gossip into their party’s message against Senator Barack Obama as we head into the general election.
Instead of debating the issues, the Tennessee Republican Party continues to rely upon slanderous and salacious tall tales. They are borrowing from the playbook first written by Richard Nixon and employed in the race against Congressman Harold Ford Jr. Tennesseans of every political persuasion are tired of these tactics.”
This was followed by a clarification from Beecher Frasier, the chief of staff for Rep. Davis:
“No one in their right mind, including me, believes Senator Obama has ties to terrorism. It is truly ridiculous for anyone to try to make hay out of these comments.”
Alice at Chattanooga-based 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera spoke for thousands of sane Tennesseans when she wrote:
Has … Fred Hobbs gone completely around the bend? I have no idea what he could have been thinking when he made comments implying that Barack Obama is “terrorist-connected,” but he’s certainly an embarrassment to our state and should resign from the committee. I wish I knew why only our state’s idiots manage to get national attention.
This controversy has been roiling for a week now, and I’m not seeing anyone attempt to contain the damage that’s being done to our state’s and party’s reputation. Hobbs has since apologized, but he won’t go away, and Lincoln Davis has been annoyingly quiet through it all — if he really wants us to elect him to lead this state, it would have been a good idea for him to get out in front of this and act like a leader.
Alice followed up with a note that Rep. Davis finally condemned Hobb’s comments — even though Davis has still not endorsed Obama!
“I have no idea what happened to the state Democratic Party’s leadership on this — they seem to be satisfied to quietly sit back and watch this performance of the Keystone Cops,” Alice wrote. “Anyway, with Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?!? We’re really going to need a lot of help come November.
“So, yeah, Nation, please believe that there are some people down here in Tennessee who would like to elect progressive, smart, transformative leaders. It just seems to be a Sisyphean battle at times. But we’ll keep at it.”
Updating Trish’s story from Thursday, “The Hot Item at the Texas Republican Convention,” the Texas Republican Party has moved to distance itself from a vendor who sold buttons at the party’s state convention that bore a racist message about Barack Obama: “If Obama is president … will we still call it The White House?”
According to The Conservative Voice, the Texas GOP says it will donate $1,500 in rent paid by the vendor, Republicanmarket.com, to victims of the flooding in the Midwest.
Said Texas GOP spokesman Hans Klingle, “This vendor need not apply to another Texas GOP state convention. We will neither tolerate nor profit from bigotry.”
How conservative is the Texas GOP? The Conservative Voice notes that in “1998, the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest organization of gay Republicans, was denied a booth at the GOP state convention in Fort Worth and likened to the Ku Klux Klan by a Texas Republican Party spokesman. “We don’t allow pedophiles, transvestites or cross-dressers, either,” then-GOP spokesman Robert Black said at the time.
The fact that the Texas GOP has shifted to the left on an issue like this backs up assertions by Arianna Huffington and others that liberal positions are increasingly becoming mainstream.
Barack Obama’s Facebook profile hit the one million mark on supporters tonight, and then blew past it. As of this writing, there are 1,007,643 members in his group, and by hitting the reload button, you can add to that total with each passing minute. The campaign claims this number makes it the most popular place on Facebook.
The Obama page has by far more supporters than any other page – whether it’s a politician, celebrity, or band – on all of Facebook.
While Obama’s group is considerably bigger than John McCain’s, which claims only 147,666 supporters, it’s not the biggest ever — or even recently. That honor would go to another.
The first million-strong group to actually reach its goal was the anti-Hillary Facebook group One Million Against Hillary Clinton, which crossed one million two months ago.
The amazing part isn’t that the recent Texas Republican Convention featured a vendor selling a pin that said, “If Obama is President…will we still call it The White House?” No, the amazing thing is that someone had to explain to them why this wasn’t a good idea.
“It’s just been crazy,” said Jonathan Alcox, who runs republicanmarket.com and had buttons and other items for sale at the GOP gathering. “The point is we made a mistake. I realize that now. And I apologize.”
Well alrighty then. As long as he didn’t mean any harm, what’s the problem?
In a telephone interview from Florida, Mr. Alcox acknowledged the controversy but said it was unintentional…
Mr. Alcox said he made 12 of the pins after seeing a comic strip where Barack Obama was standing in front of a sign saying “The White House,†with the building behind him. Mr. Obama is depicted thinking, “That’s the first thing we’ll change.â€
“We just changed it around a little bit and everyone went crazy. I was shocked,†Mr. Alcox said.
He said after having a conversation with a black man who called him about the blog post, he came to understand more about the nerve he had hit.
I’m glad Alcox was able to find an actual black person who could explain to him what the possible problem might be. Big “Oh-ey” there, Jonathan.
The Dallas Morning News, which broke the story and whose reporter bought the pin so the world would know, also has a blog. One commenter said, “If I were a republican I would be ashamed. As it is I am merely disgusted.”
A recent move shows how breathtakingly different a Pres. Obama would be from the Current Occupant, or even the Current Occupant Wannabe. Obama is reorganizing the DNC. Hello, Chicago!
This is partly about ensuring that the Illinois Senator avoids the fate of John Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was hampered by behind-the-scenes battles with the DNC
In a major shakeup at the Democratic National Committee — and a departure from tradition — large parts of the committee’s operations are relocating to Chicago to be fully integrated with the Obama campaign.
The DNC’s political department, housed in Washington, D.C., will be dramatically rebuilt, with staffers offered a choice of moving to Chicago, joining state operations, or staying in Washington, DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said…
The move reflects Obama’s desire to maintain an unusually streamlined campaign, as well as his swift and complete takeover of a Democratic Party that isn’t always known for its unity. The move may also save the campaign money, as the Obama campaign can use DNC salaries and staff to pay for elements of its organizing campaign and avoid some of the duplication that has often dogged presidential efforts.
…this is partly about ensuring that the Illinois Senator avoids the fate of John Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was hampered by behind-the-scenes battles with the DNC.
You may recall that the DNC chair in 2004 was one Terry McAuliffe, and in his book, McAuliffe wrote about the back-stage infighting between the DNC and Kerry camps. McAuliffe said that Kerry’s aides had wanted to oust him; that relations were chilly throughout the campaign; and that the Kerry camp muzzled him when he wanted to assail George W. Bush’s military record.
By contrast, upon securing the nomination, Obama very quickly put out a statement showering praise on Howard Dean; is now moving to put staff in all 50-states, in concert with Dean’s approach; and is quite literally moving swaths of the DNC to Chicago to create a unified organization with the sort of party-wide message discipline that has eluded Dems in the past.
In the primary, the Obama campaign was famously devoid of (publicly visible) infighting and/or leaking, and clearly, he’s taking aggressive steps right now to ensure that this success is duplicated in the general.
If Obama can run a government the way he’s running his campaign, America’s future is looking better already.
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
“If you are committing fraud against the American people, all of us in public leadership should be trying to stop it and throw you in prison for enriching yourself off the American taxpayer.”
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
“The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas during President Donald Trump’s administration so far,” Fox News reports.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
Dear Martial:
Updating Trish’s story from Thursday, “
