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July 5, 2008

Exclusive: Saturday, July 5

Presidential Watch

To stay informed on Barack Obama's "Global Poverty Act" - GO HERE.

Virtual "Global Poverty Act" Tea Party - Taxation without Representation

Conservablogs.com

Barack Obama one righteous dude when it comes to your hard earned money. It is diplomatic dontcha know. We can trust the UN to handle our funding. It is not as if they have ever mishandled monies before now have they. [roll eyes]

Obama will embrace the (U.N.) Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and he will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal. Read article.

NRA plans $40M fall blitz targeting Obama

Jonathan Martin, Politico.com

The National Rifle Association plans to spend about $40 million on this year's campaign, with $15 million of that devoted to portraying Barack Obama as a threat to the Second Amendment rights upheld last week by the Supreme Court.

"Our members understand that if Barack Obama is elected president, and he has support in the Senate to confirm anti-gun Supreme Court nominees, [the District of Columbia v. Heller decision] could be taken away from us in the future," Chris Cox, head of the NRA's political arm, told Politico.

The politically powerful gun rights group will split its message efforts between communicating with its 4 million members and the tens of millions more firearms owners across the country.

This fall, NRA members will get automated phone calls, mail pieces and pre-election editions of the group's three magazines making the case against Obama. Read article.

Of saints and smears

Chad Groening, OneNewsNow

A media watchdog organization contends the mainstream media has already given a preview of the kind of biased coverage it's going to give to the fall election campaign.

The Media Research Center (MRC) has found that the media elite's approach to the general election has come into sharper focus as the journalists have provided what it calls People magazine-style puffery in covering Barack and Michelle Obama. Tim Graham, director of media analysis at MRC, offers an example.

"We have news people whose idea of hard-hitting coverage is to talk about how Barack Obama doesn't like ice cream because he worked at a Baskin Robbins, but he loves to play scrabble," Graham contends. (oh puh-leeze...) Read article.

Michelle Obama's Inferiority Complex

Dinesh D'Souza, Townhall.com

Now that Barack Obama has pretty much wrapped up the nomination, it's time to raise a question that lots of people have been talking about privately but not publicly. Is it possible that Michelle Obama is the force behind Barack Obama's refusal to embrace traditional patriotic symbols? Could Obama's wife be largely responsible for the candidate's damaging associations with crackpot race-baiters like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Reverend Michael Pfleger? In sum, could Obama's wife be a large part of his political problem?

Obama himself seems, at least on the surface, relatively free of the kind of corrosive racial resentment that is so common among African American activists of our day. This resentment is especially puzzling as it often comes from people who, far from being victims, have actually enjoyed benefits and privileges that they would probably never get if they happened to be white.

Michelle notes that she graduated with honors in her major. Again, the problem is that her undergraduate thesis is on the web.

Here is a typical passage: "By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desparation of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight."

Alas, the grammar is all wrong here. More than once, the tenses are garbled. People are ignorant "of" the plight of the lower class, not ignorant "to" their plight. And"desparation" should be spelled "desperation." To wreak so much havoc on the English language in one sentence, without conveying anything of substance, is perhaps deserving of a prize. Is this what her professors were thinking when they granted her honors? Read article.

Anyone who thinks candidates' wives were once spared the scathing attacks of political campaigns needs to read some history

Cokie and Steve Roberts, JWR.com

When Martha Washington arrived in the temporary capital of New York as the original first lady, she knew from experience that anything she said, did or wore could make headlines. A lover of fine silks, she had the public-relations sense to make her inaugural appearance in simple homespun, a precursor to Pat Nixon's plain cloth coat.

Voters figured then, as they do now, that the woman sharing the president's bed can exert great influence - something Abigail Adams took no pains to hide. Her Federalist ardor was so public that a member of the Republican opposition groused she was, "Mrs. President, not of the United States but of a faction." And when, with Abigail off in Quincy, Mass., John Adams surprised and dismayed war hawks in his own party by appointing a peace commission to France, the consensus was that he never would have dared do it if "the old woman had been there."

When James Madison ran for president, his wife was judged "overly sexed" and said to have "unsexed" him because he had no children. The wildly partisan and unscrupulous newspapers accused Thomas Jefferson of "pimping" Dolley Madison and her sisters in exchange for votes in Congress. Talk about nasty!

But Dolley Madison was considered fair game because she was such a public woman, the person who brought men of both parties together to promote her husband's political career. Read article.

Obama's Boys of Summer: A Who's Who of 1968 radicals supports the candidate.

Daniel Flynn, City-Journal.org

Backing a major-party candidate for president would have been anathema to Michael Klonsky 40 summers ago, when the organization he led, Students for a Democratic Society, urged young people to spurn elections. "By '68, our line was ‘Vote in the Streets,'" Klonsky told me last spring. "We thought we had to fight with Eugene McCarthy and those people." In August 1968, protesters clashed with police outside the Democratic Party's national convention in Chicago-but far from being political innocents who took to the streets to protest Vietnam War hawks' capture of the Democratic presidential nomination, many of them never supported antiwar candidates McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.

"Those of us who have been in the streets for the past five days didn't give a flying fuck whether McCarthy would win or lose," SDS declared in posters around Chicago, "and now that he's lost, still don't." On the eve of the general election of that year-in which less than 1 percentage point would separate the popular-vote totals of Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey-Klonsky's SDS bluntly proclaimed: "The elections don't mean shit."

Klonsky, whose disgust for mainstream politics led him to launch a new, Maoist Communist Party in the 1970s, today supports Barack Obama so enthusiastically that until recently he was blogging on the Illinois senator's campaign website. And boycotting this November's election, Klonsky maintains, would be a "tragic mistake." Read article.

When Obama Is Off the Teleprompter

John Podhoretz, Commentary Magazine.com

The November election is, and remains, Barack Obama's to lose. Usually, candidates whose victories are entirely in their own hands make it through. It is clear Obama's path to victory is through the teleprompter. Let him give a big speech and he drives it like Tiger Woods hitting a fairway, as he did Sunday with his stunning sermon about the importance of fathers.

But let him sit for an interview with a well-prepared reporter who isn't interested in shilling for him and Obama makes mistake after mistake. This is what happened the other day with ABC's Jake Tapper, who got Obama to talk about how we need to treat terrorism as a law-enforcement matter - which is exactly what he should not be saying if he wants to solidify those less-liberal Democratic votes in the states where he was shellacked by Hillary Clinton - and how he opposes all forms of school choice - which works against his vague message that he is a vague agent of vague change.

I suspect this is why John McCain is so eager to get Obama into those town-hall meetings Obama seems intent on avoiding. McCain has been doing them for 25 years and is very good at them; it's a mark of how good he is at them that he doesn't make career-threatening gaffes during them. McCain wants Obama off that teleprompter, which is sound strategy. But he can't make Obama go anywhere Obama doesn't want to. The media pose a different challenge for Obama. Read article.

An Un-Beautiful Mind

John J. Pitney,Jr., Political Mavens.com

Last week, Barack Obama said: "They're going to to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?" He and his supporters have been building up to this point for some time. And now another major Democrat has stepped up the attack. According to a Kansas City Star political blog:

Echoing comments by Barack Obama, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius predicted that Republicans would undertake "a major effort to try and frighten people about him" because of his race. "That has been the Republican playbook for the last eight years," said Sebelius, an Obama ally. ‘"He's not qualified, he's somebody who should scare you. He's too liberal.'" The Kansas Democrat, often mentioned as a possible running mate for Obama, said those were all "code words" to try and make voters "uncomfortable."

So Sebelius sees racial code in practically every criticism of Obama's qualifications or issue positions. In this respect, she resembles the mad John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, who analyzed magazines for encrypted Soviet messages. Such thinking would almost be funny if it were not part of a concerted effort to smear opposition to Obama. McCain should fight back, but probably won't. Read article.

Democrats in Wonderland

Kenneth Blackwell, NY Sun.com

Some Democrat leaders are advancing the "dream ticket" scenario. "Put them together and they cannot lose," they say. "I'm open to it," she says.

This is the Obama dilemma. Having clinched the Democratic nomination, Senator Obama must now decide whether to invite Senator Clinton to join his ticket. Rejecting her will almost certainly alienate Mrs. Clinton's most dedicated supporters who feel cheated by a convoluted nominating process. Ironically, if the Democrats employed the same straightforward nominating process as the Republicans, Mrs. Clinton would have clinched the nomination long ago.

Conversely, selecting Mrs. Clinton would almost certainly alienate the enthusiastic legions attracted to Mr. Obama as a new political leader who promised a break from old-style politics. It would be hard to select a running mate more representative of the old-style politics of division than Mrs. Clinton. Read article.

In This Year's VP Search, Boring Is Better

Roger Simon, JWR.com

I do not know exactly whom Barack Obama and John McCain will select as their running mates, but I do know this: They will be dull.

They will be safe choices, and not just because of the old rule that the person in the second spot should never overshadow the nominee.

That is not the problem this year. The presumptive nominees of both parties are so high profile that they cannot be overshadowed.

But this also means they do not have to pick a running mate that will add "excitement" to the ticket.

As hard as it is to believe now, in 1996 Bob Dole chose Jack Kemp because Kemp was supposed to add "pizzazz" to the ticket. (By the time it was over, I don't think even Jack Kemp thought Jack Kemp had added pizzazz to the ticket.)

And in 2000, Al Gore thought Joe Lieberman, the first Jewish vice presidential nominee, would be an exciting choice. (Go figure.) Read article.

Why we remain safe

Jack Kelly, JWR.com

Liberal pundit Michael Kinsley once defined a "gaffe" as a politician inadvertently blurting out the truth. By that standard, Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, committed a gaffe in an interview June 23 with Fortune magazine. Mr. Black was asked by Fortune editor David Whitford what the impact on the presidential election campaign would be if there were another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

"Certainly it would be a big advantage to (McCain)," Mr. Black responded. There followed a hypocritical minuet with which we've become too familiar. First, the faux angry response from the Obama campaign: "The fact that John McCain's top adviser says that a terrorist attack on American soil would be a 'big advantage' for their political campaign is a complete disgrace, and is exactly the kind of politics that needs to change," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

Then, the distancing from Sen. McCain: "I can't imagine why he would say it. It's not true."

Finally, the groveling apology from Mr. Black: "I deeply regret the comments - they were inappropriate."

Mr. Black had said nothing that wasn't true, or that Democratic political consultants don't say in private. When voter attention is focused on national security, Sen. McCain benefits. A terrorist attack would focus voter attention on national security. Read article.

Bush's Third Term

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of "George Bush's third term." Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.

Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely "running to the center." He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?

All of which prompts a couple of thoughts. The first is that Mr. Obama doesn't seem to think American political sentiment has moved as far left as most of the media claim. Another is that the next President, whether Democrat or Republican, is going to embrace much of Mr. Bush's foreign and antiterror policy whether he admits it or not. Think Eisenhower endorsing Truman's Cold War architecture.

Most important is the matter of Mr. Obama's political character - and how honest he is being about what he truly believes. His voting record in the Senate and in Illinois, as well as his primary positions, would make him the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972. But he clearly doesn't want voters to believe that in November. He's still the Obama Americans don't know. Read article.

Drill Now as the conservative MoveOn?

Avi Zenilman, Politico.com

For years John McCain's environmental agenda highlighted his independent streak, and angered conservatives in the process. Yet the right showed little ire when he aired an ad last month touting his environmentalist bona fides: "John McCain stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming five years ago."

That's because the day before that ad went up, McCain offered an energy plan that called, among other things, for a repeal of the federal moratorium on off-shore drilling-a reversal of his previous position on the subject. It's an idea that big oil companies eager to gain access to new potential reserves have backed for years and that had emerged over the preceding weeks as a cause célèbre for conservative activists and bloggers.

For now, at least, his support for off-shore drilling has papered over the divide on environmental issues between the party and its candidate.

It's also inspired hope among the "rightroots," the undersized kid brother of the left's far more robust political Web presence, that this could be the moment and the issue that catalyze the emergence of online conservatism as a force in its own right.

"The left has been blocking domestic energy production for decades (drilling, refineries, nuclear, etc), so Newt Gingrich's ‘Drill here. Drill now. Pay less' message tapped into a very simple frustration around which the right could rally," said Jon Henke, a strategic manager of New Media Strategies and co-founder of The Next Right in an e-mail. "When you can tell a story about a unifying grievance, you can galvanize people online." Read article.

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