The deeper history of United States policy in the Middle East was almost completely ignored in favor of this simplistic view that lent itself as a justification for what has become the “War on Terror”.  Repeated claims that we were attacked because of who we are instead of for our foreign policy made manufacturing consent for the Bush Doctrine possible.

The fact that they both generally avoid simplistic and blatantly false ‘feel good’ answers was what first drew me to Senator Kerry in 2004 and then Senator Obama in this election.   In 2004 it seems that a good portion of the US voting population was not ready for nuanced and complex explanations of world events.  This year, it seems more and more people are ready to sit down and listen to explanations that are longer than a sound bite.

The McCain campaign is suffering all across the country because the more details Americans hear from Obama and Biden the more they see their world view and governing philosophies as relevant to their lives.  At the same time, it seems that the more people hear McCain and Palin try to explain the core tenets of their policies (Drill Baby Drill!) the more likely to see these simplistic and superficial solutions for what they are – emotional Bandaids for people hurting economically.

Last night I received an e-mail from John McCain that opened with this:

My Friends,

Millions of Americans on Main Street are feeling the effects of our current economic crisis largely brought on by corruption and greed at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Wall Street. Our next president must come into office with a plan to address the very root the failing housing market. (emphasis mine – full letter below)

When I read that line condemning two mortgage company and an entire segment of the economy I couldn’t help thinking back about 9/11 and how the terrorists “hate our freedom”.  McCain seems – from the first paragraph – eager to redirect the anger that Americans justifiably feel towards his party’s policies onto two companies and a geographical spot in lower Manhattan. Of course, there had to be three entities since politicians love their trinities.  I guess we can all be grateful he hasn’t actually called them the Economic Axis of Evil.

To be generous to McCain I have to state that I doubt he really believes this himself and that he is just using this as a political tool to deflect attention from the relationship between core GOP policies of ‘free’ markets and deregulation and the current economic mess we are in right now.

Even if McCain knows better himself, as a candidate who is not willing to face up to reality both publicly and privately, he is no position to lead us out of this mess.  This problem with the MCCain camp and reality is not new.

As long as Palin has been running for VP, she has been repeating her position on climate change. “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made,” Palin was quoted in a Newsmax interview.

McCain’s e-mail blaming the economic woes on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Wall Street fits nicely with McCain’s answers about climate change.  Both are designed to sooth troubled voters and stop further conversation on the topic.  The problem with those kinds of answers is that they preclude real issues discussion about real issues.  Without those kinds of in-depth examinations there is no way to build a consensus on how to move forward.

If the economic crisis is a result of such a simplistic cause as McCain claims then the solution must involve simply attacking those villainous entities.  If climate change should not be attributed to people, then ‘people’ will not necessarily need to be part of the solution. As long as the McCain campaign keeps up this propaganda campaign aimed at providing simple causes for complex problems, the American people should continue to expect massive shocks to the financial system as reality ‘rears its head’.

Senator McCain, my friend, you are doing a major disservice to the people of America by not opening up and admitting that the current economic ‘perfect storm’ is the result of years of policy changes that have led to people gaming the financial system across the board.  Blaming this on a few bad apples the way Bush did when Enron’s and other corporate accounting abuses came to light instead of publicly acknowledging that this problem is systemic seems anathema to the idea of you as a Maverick and a Straight Talker.

My Friends,

Millions of Americans on Main Street are feeling the effects of our current economic crisis largely brought on by corruption and greed at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Wall Street. Our next president must come into office with a plan to address the very root the failing housing market.

Last night, during my debate with Senator Obama, I announced my plan to fix the root of our problem and I’d like to share a little more with you today.

If elected president, I will direct my Treasury Secretary to implement an American Homeownership Resurgence Plan to keep families in their homes, avoid foreclosures, save failing neighborhoods, stabilize the housing market and attack the roots of our financial crisis.

America’s families are bearing a heavy burden from falling housing prices, mortgage delinquencies, foreclosures, and a weak economy. It is important that those families who have worked hard enough to finance homeownership not have that dream crushed under the weight of the wrong mortgage.

For those that cannot make inflated payments or their mortgage exceeds the value of their home, mortgages must be re-structured to put losses on the books and put homeowners in manageable mortgages.

This Resurgence Plan would purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers, and replace them with manageable, fixed-rate mortgages that will keep families in their homes.

By purchasing the existing, failing mortgages the resurgence plan will eliminate uncertainty over defaults, support the value of mortgage-backed derivatives and alleviate risks that are freezing financial markets.

I am ready to lead our country out of this financial crisis and I am ready to work with anyone and everyone who will help. Together, I know we can work together to find solutions for these challenging times. Please do your part today and spread the word about my new plan by forwarding this email on to your neighbors, friends, family and coworkers. Thank you for your time and support.

Sincerely,

John McCain

P.S. Homeownership represents the very core of our American economic system. This is not the time for politics. We must move aggressively to provide relief and stability for all Americans.

FactCheck.org

The two reports were summed up this was:

FactCheck.org checked the accuracy of McCain’s speech accepting the Republican nomination and noted the following:

• McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would “force small businesses to cut jobs” and would put “a bureaucrat … between you and your doctor.” In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
• McCain attacked Obama for voting for “corporate welfare” for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
• McCain said oil imports send “$700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much.” But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
• He promised to increase use of “wind, tide [and] solar” energy, though his actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.
• He called for “reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs,” but as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.
• He said Obama would “close” markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to “renegotiate” the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it.

The full analysis is available at FactChecking McCain.

Hat Tip to MoveOn.org for starting the list.

Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:

• She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.
• Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
• She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.
• Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.
• She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.
• She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.
• How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.
• She is under investigation for misuser of power in the firing of an Alaska state official – costing the state of Alaska $100,000.
• Like in many traditional marriages, when Palin agreed to become John McCain’s runningmate she gave up her prior existence and her domain name.  Yesterday palinforgovernor.com was her gubernatorial campaign site.  Today it points to johnmccain.com.

I normally wouldn’t have clicked an ad like that, but having just written in the BC political forums about my disappointment in the McCain campaigns focus on everything except John McCain I decided that an invitation to “Learn More About John McCain” was worth accepting.  The link in the ad – after passing through Google’s click tracking system – points to http://www.johnmccain.com/videolanding/biden1.htm?sid=google&t=obama-biden.

As much as I dislike websites that send you into a video immediately I let it play out.  Twice. Interestingly, it didn’t tell anything about McCain directly.

The video featured Hillary Clinton,

Barack Obama,

Antoin Rezko, (Be sure to check out The RNC’s Secret Rezko Connection where we learn that Rezko, while an Obama supporter, also donated thousands of dollars to George W. Bush during the 2000 and 2004 elections.)

and Joseph Biden.

You have to sit through the whole ad and listen to the McCain campaign try to spin everything that Clinton or Biden said about Obama throughout the Primary season before you finally get to learn about McCain.  At the very end you see this:

John McCain’s disembodied head shows up to tell you that he is John McCain and he approved the message.

To be fair, you can click on past the video to get to the McCain website proper – to the homepage with the somewhat creepy URL of http://www.johnmccain.com/HomeLogged.aspx.

At first I was annoyed that once again, learning about McCain has come to mean learning about everyone involved in this campaign except for John McCain.  After I thouht about it, I realize that inadvertently, the campaign had done as promised and if people are paying attention they will indeed learn a lot about McCain.

The lesson to be learned is that John McCain, having sat out eight votes for subsidies for the wind farms he features in so many ads, has nothing new to offer Americans.  He has allowed his campaign staff to build an entirely negative campaign around the tearing down ideas that even his own donors and supporters say are good idea.

The McCain campaign tried to make obama look like a fool for suggesting that Americans should maintain the proper air pressure levels in their car tires to conserve fuel.  They did their very best to make it appear that making sure car tire inflation levels are right is his entire energy policy.  Most Americans I know, including many of my Republican friends, shook their heads and wondered exactly how stupid the McCain camp thinks Americans are.

While McCain’s campaign was deriding Obama’s suggestion, one of the American Petroleum Institute’s websites – EnergyTomorrow.org includes Obama’s tip to improve gas mileage in the prominent #2 spot on their list of ways to save fuel.

Home > Oil & Gas 101 > Tips for Living > Fuel Saving Tips

These simple facts can help you save fuel and get more miles out of each tank of gas:

1. Have your car tuned regularly. An engine tune-up can improve car fuel economy by an average of 1 mile per gallon.
2. Keep your tires properly inflated. Underinflated tires can decrease fuel economy by up to 1 mile per gallon.

Continued here…

So, instead of coming up with his own suggestions to help Americans conserve gasoline and save money today, the McCain campaign offered supporters Obama tire pressure gauges as a joke and kept beating the offshore drilling drums.

That pretty much sums up the McCain campaign so far.  They don’t have anything useful to say about their candidate so they spend all their time and money talking about Barack Obama right down to buying Google ads to try to interject themselves into conversations on blogs.

Earlier tonight in the BC Political Forums Mark posted a link to an article about an anti-Obama ad that American Issues Project, a nonprofit 501(c)4 organization, is running. Fox News refused to run the radical ad without saying specifically why they refused the $2.8 million dollar ad buy.

In the original article, the American Issues Project spokesman promised to identify the contributions used to pay for the ad. They did that today. It turns out that there was only one donor. You may have heard of the organization, Billionaires for Bush, and seen some of their oh so stylish rallies and events, but in this case, the anti-Obama ad is funded by a real Billionaire for Bush – Dallas billionaire Harrold Simmons, who made his first fortune in chain pharmacies and is now listed as the 73rd richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $2.1 billion.

A quick check on OpenSecrets.org shows that the Simmons family has given $50,600 to the RNC and a variety of Republican candidates so far this year. It gets a little more interesting when you go back to last year during the Republican primary. The Simmons clan, including Harrold Simmons, his wife Annette, his brother Glenn and Glenn’s wife spread their money across all the main GOP primary contenders. Between February 21st and March 23rd of 2007 they gave $4,600 to Mitt Romney, $6,900 to Rudy Giuliani, and $9,200 to John McCain.

Harrold Simmons is also listed as a major fund raiser on the McCain website in the $50,000 – $100,000 range. Harrold Simmons also donated $100,000 to George W. Bush’s 2004 inaugural ball. Luckily he could afford easily. In 1997 Simmons made a $5 million investment in T. Boone Pickens, Jr. first fund BP Capital Energy Commodity Fund, by 2005 this had grown to $150 million.

Harrold Simmons has a long history of over-the-top campaign donation problems. About ten years ago, Mr. Simmons had to fend off a lawsuit brought by his own daughters. This brought to light techniques that Harrold Simmons used to get around the weaker campaign contribution limits in place back then.

Daughters Do Battle With a Corporate King Lear

… The daughters, one from each of his first two marriages, present themselves in court papers and in interviews as victims of a tyrannical father who set up their trusts solely to fend off creditors, tax collectors and ex-wives, and who now use their inheritance for contributions, some of them illegal, to Republican dinosaurs they would never go near.

As an example of what Andrea calls her father’s coerciveness, she said in an interview that he gave her $1,000 for each of at least 10 blank political donation forms she signed a few years ago. Mr. Simmons confirms this account, , while calling it not a quid pro quo, but fatherly affection. ”When she would sign forms for me,” he said, ”I would feel loving toward her and kind and I would give her extra money.”

Mr. Simmons was fined $19,800 by the Federal Election Commission in 1993 for breaking campaign donation limits, and already, disclosures demanded by the daughters have pushed him into another retreat. Each, he says, will receive $15,000 from his many political action committees to correct what he now says was a tactic that ran afoul of the $5,000 limit on individual contributions.

---

NOTE: Harrold Simmons pathological hatred of taxes was tearing his family apart as shown in the info below.

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That almost all his wealth accumulated in his daughters’ trusts passed with little notice until about 1991, when the Internal Revenue Service began asking questions. Why were his homes, his jet, even the jewelry his wife wore, accounted for as corporate purchases or expenses? How could he say that all his holdings formed one huge tax-exempt trust when he treated them as properties he still owned, managed and enjoyed?

The I.R.S. wanted to tax the trust’s past and future payouts to his daughters at 73 percent, including estate and income taxes, he said. Mr. Simmons agreed to pay more than $600,000 to settle back taxes for five years, then hit on a novel strategy to preserve his tax advantages.

UNDER a recent Texas law, he split the trust evenly in two. He counted one as his contribution, the other as that of his former wife, Sandra, but remained the trustee in charge of both. Sandra’s trust could then still make payouts tax-free.

But he had solved only half his problem. The I.R.S. wanted to treat the Harrold trust as no trust at all, taxable upon his death at 55 percent. Paying the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes would have forced a broader and ruinous liquidation of his investments, he said.

By early 1996, he and his advisers had a solution: dissolve the Harrold fund and put the proceeds in a charitable trust. He and his wife could enjoy the proceeds while they lived and then his children could parcel out the money after the parents died. But this plan required a court filing — a lawsuit, really — against his children and grandchildren, and then his children’s signed agreements.

New York Times: Daughters Do Battle With a Corporate King Lear

The lawsuit mentioned above was eventually settled with Simmons paying his daughters $50,000 each. In the news coverage of the lawsuit it came out that Simmons filed what he had hoped would be procedural, uncontested lawsuits against his daughters two years ago to dissolve one of his two trusts for tax purposes.

They said they had never known that virtually all his companies, his homes and his $18 million Falcon 2000 jet were owned by the trusts, and that his charitable and political contributions were made from the trusts. They demanded his removal as trustee, an event that Mr. Simmons said would cause the liquidation of his holdings and tax bills high enough to ruin him.

On the defensive over the extent of multiple McCain homes, the GOP candidate strikes back. But his TV spot gives an oversimplified and misleading account of how Obama bought his own $1.6 million house in Chicago.

• The ad says Chicago power broker Tony Rezko got “political favors” including “$14 million from taxpayers.” But there’s no evidence of any connection to the Obama home purchase. The $14 million was to build apartments for low-income seniors.
• Obama wrote a letter supporting the “worthy” project, but both men say Rezko didn’t ask for the letter. It says Rezko “purchased part of the property [Obama] couldn’t afford.” Rezko’s wife did buy an adjoining tract but later sold the land at a profit. Obama paid market price for his home.

McCain launched the attack after Obama ran one capitalizing on McCain’s inability to recall for an interviewer how many homes the McCains own. Obama’s ad says it’s seven. The best tally we’ve seen puts the figure at eight, counting all the apartments and homes owned by McCain’s wife, Cindy, and various family trusts, for themselves and their children.

Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on the FactCheck.org Website.

McCain makes a use of wind turbines, solar panels, and soundbites about how the Us needs to focus on energy independence in several of his ads (all photos in this post are from his current and recent ads) but he is sticking with the majority Republican party line and letting his absenteeism act as Nay votes for legislation that would further the goals he espouses in his TV and web based ads.  If you feel a tickling sensation in your nether regions while watching his ads, its nothing to be concerned about.  It’s just John McCain blowing smoke up your ass.

US Senate Votes on S. 3335

As Thomas L. Friedman pointed out in The New York Times, McCain has missed every single one of the votes on this bill. Sometimes he was out campaigning, but on at least one occasion he was in his Senate office and just could not be bothered to go vote. A no show like that counts as a Nay and McCain clearly knows that.

Eight Strikes and You’re Out

Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn’t leave his office to vote.

“McCain did not show up on any votes,” said Scott Sklar, president of The Stella Group, which tracks clean-technology legislation. Despite that, McCain’s campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines — the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize, even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power.

Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either — which is equally inexcusable in my book — but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits.

The fact that Congress has failed eight times to renew them is largely because of a hard core of Republican senators who either don’t want to give Democrats such a victory in an election year or simply don’t believe in renewable energy.

This bill is crucially important for anyone who feels we need to transition our energy needs away from fossil fuels and over to cleaner, more sustainable sources of power.

In addition to addressing alternative energy issues the bill also makes permanent the authority for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disclosure of tax information relating to terrorist activities and IRS undercover operations. McCain also claims to be the best candidate when it comes to the War on Terror so you’d think he’d show up to vote on that aspect of the bill at least.

The bulk of the bill extends the tax credit for producing electricity from wind facilities through 2009 and the tax credit for closed and open-loop biomass, geothermal, small irrigation, hydropower, landfill gas, and trash combustion facilities through 2011.

It includes marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy as a renewable resource for purposes of tax credits. It also extends the energy tax credit for solar energy and the residential energy efficient property tax credit through 2016 and extends the energy tax credits for fuel cell and microturbine property through 2017. The bill creates a new investment tax credit for combined heat and power system property. In addition, the bill provides funding for new clean renewable energy bonds to finance electricity production from certain renewable resources and for qualified energy conservation bonds.

I really just don’t get it. McCain, from what I can see, still desperately needs to win over a big chunk of the social conservative segment of his party. How that is going to happen when one of his top advisors was Al Gore’s running mate?

Lieberman felt comfortable enough with Mr. Gore’s platform to accept the vice presidential spot on the ticket. If conservative Republicans are a group that John McCain wants to court and cement their support, should he be campaigning with someone who ran for Vice President of the United States on a platform that included:

• Support for a woman’s right to choose on the issue of abortion.
• Ensuring that new U.S. trade agreements to protect workers and the environment.
• Changing the political culture in Washington that puts the interests of the gun lobby ahead of the needs of American families.
• Expand access to high quality, affordable health care to all Americans, focusing first on our seniors and our children.
• Devote $115 billion of the budget surplus to create an Education Reform Trust Fund which will fund new education investments: including universal preschool.
• Commitment to never privatize social security or destroy it by diverting funds intended for social security. I will strengthen social security, not undermine social security.
• To raise the minimum wage – as much as needed, so work always pays more than welfare.
• Keep affirmative action; while rejecting numerical quotas.
• Eliminate ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’; let gays serve in army.

I know Joe Lieberman did not agree with everything Gore proposed but he agreed with enough of it to share a national campaign and ticket with Al Gore.

Foreign policy pulls in ‘Obamacans’

By Edward Luce by Washington
Published: August 12 2008 20:08 | Last updated: August 12 2008 21:17

Barack Obama on Tuesday netted the endorsement of three prominent Republicans, including Jim Leach and Lincoln Chafee, both of whom lost their congressional seats to Democratic opponents in the 2006 mid-term elections.

The announcement boosts the ranks of so-called “Obamacans” and is likely to fuel speculation about the possibility of bigger names – such as Colin Powell, former secretary of state, and Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska – also endorsing the Democratic nominee.

Describing Mr Obama’s call for change as “more renewal than departure” and thus in line with traditional conservative principles, Mr Leach said: “This is simply not a time for politics as usual . . . I have no doubt that a lot of Republicans will be attracted to Obama in spite of the flaws in this year’s primary process.”

The two Republicans, along with Rita Hauser, a former White House intelligence adviser, stressed foreign policy as their principal motivation for endorsing Mr Obama.

Ms Hauser described as “bellicose” the response of John McCain, the Republican nominee, to Russia’s conflict with Georgia.

Most “Obamacans” come from the so-called realist wing of the Republican party which has fallen into deep disenchantment with president George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

Some have also stressed their hope that Mr Obama would take a more aggressive approach to solving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis even though the Democrat has taken a strongly pro-Israel line. All said they supported Mr Obama’s pledge to talk to US adversaries, including Iran.

“There is a deepening split between the traditional Nixonian realist wing of the Republican party and the neo-conservatives that has become more pronounced with John McCain’s hardline anti-Russia rhetoric,” said Steve Clemons at the New America Foundation.

“I have good reason to believe that there will be other Republicans, such as James Baker [the former secretary of state], who may withhold endorsement from McCain rather than endorse Obama directly.”

Electoral analysts say there is unlikely to be a large switch of Republican voters, although Mr Obama’s endorsement by prominent Republicans could help sway independents into the Democratic column or encourage others to stay at home.

Mr McCain is working hard to win over hawkish Democrats to his camp, following his endorsement by Joe Lieberman, the former vice-presidential candidate, earlier this year.

There is a possibility that both Mr McCain and Mr Obama could choose running mates from opposition ranks in a bid for centrist voters. Mr Hagel is thought to be an outside choice for Mr Obama’s ticket and Mr Lieberman is on Mr McCain’s shortlist.

John McCain thinks George W. Bush did the right thing in invading Iraq and lifting the executive order on offshore drilling put in place by Bush’s clearly smarter father. So nobody should be surprised when the GOP’s favorite “Maverick” is willing to buck the system on the issue of spamming by giving people the e-mail (he feels) they need and not just the email they want. His generous nature shows through in the way his team has made it possible to open up the spamming world to all his supporters.

After years of work on the part of ISPs in the United States it has become virtually impossible for Americans to break into spamming. Most spam now comes from China, India, South Korea, or former Soviet Bloc nations in Eastern Europe. This kind of outsourcing doesn’t seem to draw the same ire as Dell’s hiring call centers in Bangalore to handle their tech support.

John McCain has changed all that! I was going through my email earlier tonight and came across this missive from Mr. McCain with the subject “The McCain Update – August 9, 2008″. The top section looks like this.

Not only is McCain opening up the world of spamming to all his supporters, he is giving away a special limited edition red McCain campaign hat to his ten “recruiters”. Maybe one of your friends can be one of those top ten – all they have to do is show a willingness to give John McCain your email address as well as the email addresses of all their other friends, family, and colleagues.

The e-mail does not lie – it is very easy to use their “Recruit Your Friends” tool (powered by Plaxo) to hand over all your friend’s email addresses to the McCain campaign.

I played around with it using my old GMail account and the system was more than willing to let me use the McCain servers to send out an identical bulk mailing to the 485 people in my address book. I decided to give it a try using just my own address. I was curious to see what exactly would be in the email that JohnMcCain.com was going to send in my name.

Within a few minutes the message arrived in my inbox.

I know thats a big screenshot, but I wanted to include the section I circled in red. What that link tells me is that JohnMcCain.com is allowing people to opt-in to a mailing list on someone else’s behalf.

This is just wrong. At no time is it OK to allow an individual to sign up someone else for recurrent mailings. I get the John McCain mailings because I signed myself up so I could watch the kinds of information being disseminated by his campaign. I knew when I signed up that I would need to contend with the near daily requests for money or suggestions that I go view his latest campaign ads. I do not have the right to sign someone else up for that.

The e-mail does provide the opt-out link circled in red, but what it should be providing is an OPT-IN Link. I have no problem with the McCain or Obama campaign making it easy for people to share information with friends. Anyone into blogging is all about sharing and spreading information far and wide. Allowing someone to send me a single e-mail is great, allowing someone to sign me up for a series of mailings is wrong.

The McCain system should include a link that says something along the lines of “If you would like to receive additional information from John McCain, please click here.” That way people could easily decide for themselves if they would like to continue to receive campaign messages.

And about that unsubscribe link – it’s not a simple single click style unsubscribe link. It looks like this:

The e-mail is a customized message, so it would have been considerate and relatively easy to include a personalized link that would completely unsubscribe the recipient with a single click. At the very least, it could fill in your e-mail address so that people, like me, with many e-mail addresses can easily remove themselves. An easy unsubscribe method would also thrill mail administrator who are sometimes responsible for unsubscribing former employees from mailing lists.

So, if you do know which address your friend gave the campaign, you must type it in and then you must – in order to unsubscribe – provide one of four prepared reasons for wanting to get off their mailing list.

If you read those choices carefully, you can see that the first two: “I am a McCain Supporter but don’t wish to be contacted until closer to the election.” and “I am a McCain Supporter but I am receiving too many emails. Please only send me newsletters and urgent alerts.” are not actually unsubscribes at all. The first just says you don’t want mail until closer to the election and the second one says you are agreeing to get newsletters and ‘urgent alerts’.

The third choice, “I am a McCain Supporter but do not wish to receive email any longer.” sounds like it will actually unsubscribe you but you have to claim to be a ‘McCain Supporter’ in the process.

The fourth choice, “I am no longer a McCain Supporter and want to be taken off the email list.” is just plain offensive to me. This option, while better than #3 for someone like me, still asks me to claim that I DID support John McCain at some point. I did have some respect for Mr. McCain back in 2000 when he ran against G.W. Bush, and yes, I have lost all that respect since he started cozying up to the Religious Right, so it appears I can use that option and not lie but it feels like I’m squeaking out on a technicality.

Spamhaus, a leading anti-spamming organization provides this Technical Definition of Spam.

An electronic message is “spam” IF:

1. The recipient’s personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients;

AND

2. The recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent.

By that definition, this whole process is spam since the Recruit a Friend program does not ask permission of the recipient before adding them to McCain email system and the system permits you to send an identical message to your entire address book.

I will assume that the unsubscribe system does actually work, but I have no doubt that any email address belonging to an unsubscriber will remain in the system forever.

If you are considering using this new JohnMcCain.com website feature to share your McCain love with your friends, please think carefully before you hand over your entire address book to a man who doesn’t know how to use a computer.

According to Newsweek, the RNC spent about three million dollars to air a thirty second TV spot in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The advertisement is (ironically) titled “Balance”.

The announcer speaks over a series of images and has this to say:

Announcer: “Record gas prices. A climate in crisis. John McCain says solve it now with a balanced plan: Alternative energy, conservation, suspending the gas tax, and more production here at home. He’s pushing his own party to face climate change. But Barack Obama? For conservation, but he just says no to lower gas taxes, no to nuclear, no to more production. No new solutions. Barack Obama: Just the party line. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.”

The Newsweek story takes a little time to explore the misleading claim about Obama’s position on nuclear energy and goes on to point out that while Barack Obama does tend to vote with his party (97% in 2007), John McCain voted for President Bush’s position on Senate matters 95% of the time in 2007.

The people at FactCheck.org at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania go further and analyze the ad’s content line by line and claim by claim.

No to Lower Gas Taxes

Yes, its true that Obama, like many independent energy analysts, opposed the Memorial Day to Labor Day “Gas Tax Holiday” that McCain supports. Obama looked to the experts who pointed out that this “solution” would not do much to help American consumers in the near future and could quite likely create higher prices down the road as a result of the increased consumption and demand that typically accompanies reduced prices. The ad fails to mention that McCain’s “lower gas taxes” credentials are based on a three month period and will probably leave some less news junkie viewers feeling that McCain’s proposal to reduce gasoline taxes are meant to be permanent.

No to Nuclear

This claim by McCain and the RNC was already debunked in Distorting Obama but FactCheck goes into more detail in this analysis. Obama has clearly stated supports nuclear energy as long as its safe and clean and the industry addresses the long term storage of its waste products. In his comprehensive Energy plan he says “it is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table.” McCain is more aggressive about building nuclear power plants but does not address the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency that show that the price of uranium has also increased fivefold since 2001 and will continue to increase with increased demand for nuclear energy. The IAEA does expect that supply will be able to keep up with demand for the next seventeen years, but there is a lot of doubt beyond that point.

No to More Production

While it is true that Obama opposes new drilling Outer Continental Shelf the ad does not mention that both McCain and Obama oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The offshore drilling debate is a HUGE red herring in this debate. FactCheck and other sites have pointed out that lifting the ban put in place by Presidents Reagan and Bush would not help American consumers. The potential harm – both economically in terms of tourism money and environmentally – to coastal communities aside, any new drilling would not bring more oil to market before 2017.

The Department of Energy itself says:

The The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. Total domestic production of crude oil from 2012 through 2030 in the OCS access case is projected to be 1.6 percent higher than in the reference case, and 3 percent higher in 2030 alone, at 5.6 million barrels per day. For the lower 48 OCS, annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher—2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case. Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.

Ignoring all that, the fact is we couldn’t drill for oil off shore right now even if 100% of American citizens and 100% of American politicians and 100% of American oil companies wanted to begin immediately. The NY Times reported last month that a Dearth of Ships Delays Drilling of Offshore Oil and says “Demand is so high that shipbuilders, the biggest of whom are in Asia, have raised prices since last year by as much as $100 million a vessel to about half a billion dollars.” This increased demand is spurring shipbuilders to construct more drilling ships but thats not going to solve the problem.

The NY Times article says: “Robert L. Long, the chief executive office of Transocean, the world’s largest drilling company, said he has nine deepwater rigs under construction, eight of which are already under contract for periods ranging from four to seven years once they leave the shipyards. He expects to receive the ships between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2010.”

No New Solutions

The claim that Barack Obama has “no new solutions” for energy is an attempt to keep the Republican spun taking point alive that claims that Obama’s call for change is all frosting and no cake. This has been a central theme of the RNC ads and press releases since it became clear that Senator Obama would get the Democratic party nomination.

The FactCheck.org analysts saw this as the most misleading claim in the entire ad, saying:

The ad’s most misleading claim is that Obama proposes “no new solutions” to the intertwined climate change and energy crises. In fact, Obama has an entire Web page dedicated to his proposals for the future of energy policy. One is a 10-year, $150 billion spending plan that would go toward clean coal technology; further development of plug-in hybrid cars; and commercialization of wind, solar and other renewable fuels. The RNC and McCain may not like all of Obama’s ideas, just as Obama may not support all of McCain’s, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. While McCain recently proposed The Lexington Project, which includes spending $2 billion annually toward clean coal technology advancement, McCain doesn’t have a plan comparable to Obama’s in scale of spending. In addition, Obama’s spending proposal predates McCain’s Lexington Project by over six months.

One of the most depressing aspects of American politics for me is the basic fact that many people assume that campaign ads on TV must have some basis in fact. There are laws preventing Johnson & Johnson from claiming that, in addition to not causing tears, their baby shampoo can also cure cancer and reduce your home heating bills. The Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc. has a team of lawyers who will keep thier marketing department from stepping over the line and making the company vulnerable to lawsuits.

When it comes to political ads, like this one from the the Republican National Committee under the leadership of President George W. Bush, there is no such team to slow things up when the truth gets thrown out the window. Unlike J&J, with a brand name and reputation to maintain to guarantee future earnings, the twin brands of “George W. Bush” and “Republican party” have been so devalued over the last 7 years that there is no real incentive for the RNC and other party bodies from throwing bull manure in every direction and hoping some sticks.

John McCain may like to talk tough on the campaign trail, but for over two decades he has failed to deliver for the law enforcement community.

MCCAIN VS. THE COPS PROGRAM:

2005: McCain Voted For Corporate Tax Breaks Instead of $1 Billion for COPS. In 2005, McCain voted against providing $1 billion for the COPS program, offset by closing corporate tax loopholes. [2005 Senate Vote #70, 3/17/2005]

2003: McCain Voted Against $500 Million For Local Law Enforcement To Help Fight Drug-Related Crime. McCain voted against providing $500 million for local law enforcement grants that provide money to rural law enforcement agencies to fight violent and drug-related crime. [2003 Senate Vote #6, 1/17/2003]

1995: McCain Voted To Eliminate the Successful COPS Program. In 1995, McCain voted for the Republican Commerce-Justice spending bill which included a plan “to dismantle [the] cops-on-the-beat program” [COPS] and replace it with a “block grant program giving local governments control over how to spend crime-fighting money.” [1995 Senate Vote #591, 12/7/1995; Chicago Tribune, 12/8/1995]

MCCAIN VS. FIRST RESPONDERS AND HOMELAND SECURITY:

McCain Voted To Eliminate A $100 Million Fund For Emergency Communications Equipment. McCain voted to support an amendment that eliminates $1 billion Commerce Department interoperability grant program and transfers funds to Department of Homeland Security for an uncreated interoperability grant program; and eliminates $100 million fund for strategic reserves of communications equipment designed for deployment in event of major disaster. [2007 Senate Vote #66, 3/7/2007]

MCCAIN VS. 1994 CRIME BILL:

McCain Voted Against the Landmark $30.2 Billion 1994 Crime Bill. In 1994, McCain voted against the Crime Bill which has authorized $30.2 billion over six years for crime related programs, including the hiring of additional police officers, prison building, helping communities prevent crime, and an assault weapons ban. [1994 Senate Vote #295, 8/25/1994]

McCain Said The Crime Bill Was “Ineffective” and “Ill-Conceived.” McCain repeatedly criticized the 1994 crime bill, calling it “an ineffective, ill conceived and pork laden piece of legislation.” He said he voted against final passage of the bill because of “the unfair allocation formulas and excessive spending that were added to the bill in conference and the weakening in conference of the tough law enforcement provisions that were included in the original bill adopted by the Senate.” [Arizona Republic, 8/26/1994]

After casting himself as a “Maverick” in 2000, the new John McCain is walking in lockstep with President Bush, pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party, and embracing the ideology he once denounced. On the campaign trail McCain has callously abandoned many of his previously held positions, even contradicted himself, in a blatant attempt to remake himself into a candidate Republicans can accept in 2008. So just who is the real John McCain? The Democratic National Committee will present a daily fact aimed at exposing the man behind the myth.

You can find the other McCain Mythbusters at the DNC’s press release archive.

While it was in exceedingly bad taste and showed a lack of judgment on the part of Charlie Black, I suspect Mr. Black was dead on target when he said another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be provide “big advantage to him” (him being Candidate McCain).

Polling data and the narrative coming out of the main stream media throughout the this election has left everyone, myself included, with the feeling that the Republican candidate would be a shoe in this fall if voters focused on nothing but national security and terrorism. It’s been hammered into the American consciousness to the point where we don’t even think about it anymore.

We know that Bush’s top approval ratings came immediately after the September 11th attacks in Washington and New York and part of that approval rating stemmed from his hard line stance on Islamic extremism and his promises to bring the perpetrators to justice.

It’s going on seven years now and Osama Bin Laden is still at large and even Bush and House and Senate Republicans accept that Iraq has become a magnet and prime recruiting ground for al-Qaeda and similar idealogical militant groups.

This all brings me back to the idea behind Charlie Black’s quote:

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black. (From the current

From The evolution of John McCain in Fortune Magazine

President Bush and members of his party controlled virtually the entire Federal government for the five years following the attacks of 9/11. Ordinary citizens accepted changes to their personal liberty in the passage of the Patriot Act and many people accepted the Bush administrations contention that deposing Saddam Hussein in Iraq was an integral part of making Americans safe in their homes.

So my question is, WHY would another attack be good for McCain’s candidacy?  A Republican president with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress could not bring the leader of the terrorist group that killed Americans to justice in the five years they were in charge.  Why do we accept the idea that  a new Republican president with a Democratic house and senate would make us safer?

I admit I have thought the same thing Charlie Black said.  I’m a cynic and I think September 11th was used by some people to further political goals.  I do not think that the events of 9/11 were planned and condoned by people in our government, but I do think people in office exploited the fears and confusion of millions of Americans in order to advance policies and agendas that would not have been possible just a few weeks before.

I am a bit relieved to see that someone so involved in the McCain campaign recognizes that when people are afraid and looking for security they will make choices that are not in their best interest.

Earlier tonight, the Financial Times reported this story: McCain aide hits nerve with remarks on terror by Edward Luce and Andrew Ward in Washington

John McCain’s right-hand man hit a raw nerve on Monday when he said another terrorist attack on US soil would prove a “big advantage” to the Republican nominee’s general election chances.

The comments by Charlie Black, who is arguably Mr McCain’s most experienced adviser, put into words what many Republicans and Democrats have privately been stating for months.

Mr Black, 60, who is a veteran of every Republican presidential campaign since the 1980s and served in the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations, immediately apologised for his remarks, which were published in an interview with Fortune Magazine.

Mr McCain, whom opinion polls show is trailing Barack Obama, his Democratic rival, by between six and 15 points, said: “I cannot imagine why he would say it. I strenuously disagree . . . It’s not true. I have worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another terrorist attack on America.”

The Obama campaign said: “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.”

FactCheck.org

I wonder if that inclusion has anything to do with the fact that Gamesa Corp. is creating jobs and tax revenue here in Pennsylvania.  This Spanish wind energy company is investing $84 million to locate its U.S. headquarters and four manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania.

These facilities are going to make Pennsylvania the top wind power generation region in the United States.

Contradictions and misstatements short-circuit McCain’s energy policy pronouncements.

Summary

McCain has spent the week focusing on energy policy, making some surprising, and inaccurate, statements.

Among them:

• He said that ending a moratorium on offshore oil drilling “would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis.” But according to a government report, offshore oil wouldn’t have much of an impact on supply or prices until 2030.
• McCain tried to paint Obama as an opponent of nuclear power, yet Obama has said he is open to nuclear energy being part of the solution and has supported bills that contained nuclear subsidies.
• He has soft-pedaled the “cap” portion of his cap-and-trade proposal for greenhouse gases, even denying that it would be a mandate. The cap is a mandatory limit, however, and McCain even says so on his Web site.
• McCain’s new ad, running this week, rightly says that he bucked his party in supporting action on climate change years ago. But its images of windmills and solar panels are misleading in that he supports subsidies for nuclear power, which isn’t pictured, and opposes them for wind and solar energy.
• McCain continues to say that a suspension of the federal gas tax will lower prices for consumers, though hundreds of economists say he is wrong.

To read the full analysis visit the FactCheck.org report.

It took only one day. The DNC released a press statement this morning directing people to the this Youtube video. The video contains some overgeneralized and superficial factoids designed to link john McCain and ‘evil lobbyists’ who have represented the interests of America’s enemies.

This is not news. John McCain’s campaign staff being heavy with lobbyists is old news. A month ago, I wrote a post called “GOP Human Landmine” about the problems McCain and the Republican parties problems finding high level party members without ties to the K Street lobbying firms. I’m not a big fan of what lobbying has become in Washington. The K Street Project phenomenon, frankly, scares the hell out of me.

The problem I have with this aspect of both party’s national committee’s efforts to use the Internet and sites like YouTube to tear down each other’s candidates are two fold.

First, like Aesop’s fable, The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf, all this superficial soundbite noise will result in people just shutting down. This kind of broadside attack, without real details or context, make it almost impossible for individuals to understand its relative importance in the grand scheme of things. Are these factoids a last jab at a problem that McCain’s campaign is already addressing or is this new information that has far reaching implications for the future? It’s impossible to tell from the context of a YouTube.com video’s page. The more this tactic is used, the more inured voters will become and when the RNC or DNC want to communicate something of real relevance the voters will give it a glance and move on.

Secondly, this kind of generalized video cuts both ways. It’s not a well researched piece of journalism or even a detailed glimpse of the inner workings of a campaign. Its a trigger word heavy collection of short sharp sentences without context. I am not going to debate the individual merits of these online campaign ads but just watching this one raises questions in my mind.

Here is the script:

John McCain says he’ll take on lobbyists.
But, his inner circle is full of lobbyists:
Charlie Black, Chief Campaign Advisor
Doug Goodyear, Convention CEO
Tom Loeffler, National Co-Chair
Rick Davis, Campaign Manager
Randy Scheunemann, Top Foreign Policy Advisor
And who have they represented?
Anti-Western Political Parties…
Mob-Connected Russian Oligarchs…
The Saudi Royal Family…
Companies doing business in Iran…
The Brutal Myanmar Junta…
…and some of history’s Most Brutal Tyrants.

John McCain and His Lobbyist Friends: The Wrong Choice for America’s Future

This reminds me of those elementary school tests with two columns of words or names and the student must draw lines connecting each word on the left with its mate on the right. The YouTube page does not contain anything to help the viewer establish a context such as the fact that it was Doug Goodyear’s firm that represented Myanmar’s government.

The DNC’s press statement does include more context information but 99.9% of the voting population will never see that. As of noon today, June 6th, the DNC website has yet to include this press release. If you have a PR Newswire account you can see it there.

The main thing that bothers me about this ad is that it fails to point out that these people mentioned are individuals but the criticism is aimed at the companies for which they work. I don’t think any of these lobbyists are Boy Scouts, thats not how people rise to the top of their profession in that industry. But I also don’t think its fair to imply that these guys all were involved in the domestic activities of their foreign customers. If what they have done is so horrible then it behooves the Democratic leadership in Congress to use its regulatory and legislative power to make those activities illegal.

Despite the fact that John McCain has made 26 individual campaign speeches, townhall meetings, and fund raisers in the month of May so far, the RNC only found 5 1/2 things to say about their presumed candidate. However, they did find the time to create forty-eight press releases discussing Barak Obama.

I find it very disturbing that the Republican National Committee did not learn from the trouncing they took in the 2006 midterm elections and recognize that people want to vote for a candidate and not against one. I understand that John McCain is no where near as exciting of a candidate as Barak Obama, but there must be more information about him that the GOP wants people to know about.

Here are the May 2008 Press Releases from the Republican National Committee up through May 25th. I have color coded them for easy reading. The titles in bold red are about John McCain, the titles in bold blue are about Barak Obama, the bold black entries are not about any candidate, and the lone bold purple item is about both McCain and Obama.

• Thursday, May 01, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: The Right Rx (op-ed by McCain)
• Thursday, May 01, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: RNC Victory Chairwoman Carly Fiorina On Obama’s Opposition To Gas Tax Relief (PR/Advisor and Former CEO of HP who left with a $21 million in cash gets snarky while confusing State and Federal politics on CNN)
• Friday, May 02, 2008 - Reap the Windfall? (The RNC trashes Obama’s support of a Windfall profit tax on the record profits by the Oil Industry.)
• Friday, May 02, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: RNC Victory Chairwoman Carly Fiorina On Sen.McCain’s Plan For Gas Tax Relief (Ms. Fiorina, head of echoes her early comment about Obama’s position on a gas tax holiday when he was a Illinois state Senator.)
• Sunday, May 04, 2008 – RNC Chairman Responds to Howard Dean’s Appearance on FOX News Sunday (Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan trashes Clinton and Obama’s understanding of economics while ignoring his own candidate’s self admitted lack of economic knowledge: “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.”)
• Sunday, May 04, 2008 – Obama: Wrong on Foreign Policy (The RNC continues its normal oversimplification of foriegn policy and creates a strawman argument to insist that Obama’s views will get us all killed.)
• Monday, May 05, 2008 – RNC Statement on Cinco de Mayo (Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan “With Senator John McCain as our presumptive presidential nominee, our Party will continue to support the American Dream and offer opportunities to make it a reality.”- because, ya know, Democrats want to kill the American Dream and eliminate opportuinities.)
• Monday, May 05, 2008 - In Case You Missed It: Obama Says Teamsters Need Less Oversight (The RNC criticizes Obama’s position on phasing out union oversight thats been in place for 16 years and giving the Teamsters a chance to stand on their own two feet and fight corruption from within. The press release implies that Obama wants to remove all oversight as opposed to reducing it over time.)
• Monday, May 05, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: One CEO’s View: Why McCain’s Health Plan Is Better (Ms. Fiorina talks up McCain’s health care policy while obliquely pointing out that so many years of Republican control of the federal government has resulted in a situation where the “government is demonstrably inefficient, ineffective, and in some cases corrupt.”)
• Monday, May 05, 2008 – Senator McCain – The Right Choice For Hispanics (Another Carly Fiorina op-ed piece – this time it lays claim to support for McCain by the “Latino community.”)
• Tuesday, May 06, 2008 – RNC Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan On Gas Tax Relief And Judicial Appointments (More promotion of McCain’s call for “gas tax relief” and a ‘coded’ promise that McCain will continue to appoint the same kinds of judges that G.W. Bush has been selecting.)
• Tuesday, May 06, 2008 – RNC Victory Chairwoman Carly Fiorina On Judicial Appointments And Gas Tax Relief (Ms. Fiorina echoes Mr. Duncan on judicial appointments and “Gas Tax Relief”, but in the opposite order. She says McCain will focus on judicial experience but use the two newest Supreme Court justices as templates in selecting his appointments.)
• Wednesday, May 07, 2008 – Ringing Endorsement (This is a sound-bite ready press release designed to devalue the endorsements Obama has received from George McGovern and Moveon.org.)
• Thursday, May 08, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: Iraqi Army: Al Qaeda In Iraq Leader Nabbed (The RNC claims that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, had been captured and that this would be a major blow against al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, two days later CBC reported “The U.S. military is denying claims by the Iraqi government that the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq has been captured, saying it was someone else with a similar name.” but the RNC had moved on by then and did not issue a retraction.)
• Friday, May 09, 2008 – Obama’s Faulty Tax Argument (This is a WSJ op-ed piece by Andrew G. Biggs in which he seems to claim that since letting the Bush tax cuts expire would not completely solve the Social Security shortfalls that we should leave them in place.)
• Friday, May 09, 2008 – Obama Uninformed on Oregon (Another sound-bite kit with no real substance in which Obama is chastised for listening to advice on capital gains tax rates from billionaire Warren Buffet.)
• Saturday, May 10, 2008 – Obama’s New Hamas Standard (Yet another sound-bite kit, this one on Obama’s dismissal of an advisor who met with Hamas before tailing off to once again conflates the idea of ‘talks’ and ‘appease’ regarding Obama’s willingness to speak with our enemies.)
• Sunday, May 11, 2008 – Obama’s Nonsensical Foreign Policy (Obama, after saying he would not meet with Hamas because they are not a state and do not recognize Israel, is somehow blamed for a statement by a Hamas political advisor in which he says “”We don’t mind-actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance…”)
  

  You get the idea. If you want to read the rest of the RNC statements they can be found in their May 2008 News Archive.

• Monday, May 12, 2008 – Obama’s Inability To Hire Good Help Rears Its Head … Again
• Tuesday, May 13, 2008 – Obama: Show-Me Higher Taxes
• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 – Obama’s Power Shifting
• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 – RNC Response to Obama Comments on Medical Marijuana Laws
• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 – NARAL’S Choice
• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 – RNC Statement in Response to Court’s Ruling Against Frivolous DNC Lawsuit
• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 – RNC Statement on Edwards’ Endorsement of Obama
• Thursday, May 15, 2008 – RNC Statement in Israel’s 60th Anniversary
• Thursday, May 15, 2008 – Obama V. Advisor
• Friday, May 16, 2008 – Obama Misfires on Guns
• Friday, May 16, 2008 – Obama’s Puzzling Policy
• Friday, May 16, 2008 – Ringing Endorsement (This is a repeat of the earlier release of the same name.)
  
• Saturday, May 17, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: How To Enrage A Democrat
• Sunday, May 18, 2008 – Biden: Obama’s “Wrong Answer” on Hostile Leaders
• Monday, May 19, 2008 – Obama’s Ill-Timed Tax Increases
• Monday, May 19, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: Bring On The Foreign Policy Debate
• Monday, May 19, 2008 – Obama’s Mistaken Security
• Monday, May 19, 2008 – RNC Response to Daschle Statement on Obama’s Pledge to Negotiate Without Preconditions
• Tuesday, May 20, 2008 – Obama: Weak in Cuba
• Tuesday, May 20, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: Obama’s Vulnerable On National Security
• Tuesday, May 20, 2008 – RNC Statement on Cuban Independence Day
• Tuesday, May 20, 2008 – Obama’s Special Interest Hypocrisy
• Wednesday, May 21, 2008 – Obama: Wrong for Florida
• Wednesday, May 21, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: Obama Needs A Quick Refresher Course In Cold War History
• Wednesday, May 21, 2008 – They Said It!: Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) On Not Talking To Ahmadinejad
• Wednesday, May 21, 2008 – Obama’s Precondition Confusion?
• Wednesday, May 21, 2008 – Obama’s Lobbyist Hypocrisy
• Thursday, May 22, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: Obama’s Troubling Instincts
• Thursday, May 22, 2008 – Obama’s Foreign Policy Primer
• Thursday, May 22, 2008 – Obama’s Lobbyist Exam
• Thursday, May 22, 2008 – Obama’s Lobbyist Denial
• Thursday, May 22, 2008 – Obama Fact Check on Israel
• Friday, May 23, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: The Obama Learning Curve
• Friday, May 23, 2008 – Obama: Weak on Cuba
• Friday, May 23, 2008 – Obama’s Cuba Conversion
• Friday, May 23, 2008 – Obama’s Bad Week on Preconditions
• Friday, May 23, 2008 – RNC Statement on Memorial Day
• Saturday, May 24, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: Obama Qualifies Stance On Iran Diplomacy
• Saturday, May 24, 2008 – Obama’s FARC Faux Pas
• Sunday, May 25, 2008 – In Case You Missed It: What The FARC Was Obama Talking About?

McCain’s campaign has been working hard to make McCain the candidate appear independent from influence by the lobbyist, PR, and special interests groups that have sullied the reputation of the GOP over the last decade. That was one of the main reasons they took a pass on Manafort, but they did not apply the same standards in selecting Goodyear. His leadership of the DCI Group should have been enough to convince the campaign that they had not found their man. Sourcewatch has a great article on the DCI Group. If you scroll down to the section marked “What the Burmese Junta and the Drug Industry Have In Common” you will find lots of information about the DCI Group’s work for the military junta in Myanmar. This would be the same military leadership that has been dragging its heels and preventing international humanitarian aid from reaching the million Burmese folks displaced by Cyclone Nargis earlier this month.

In 2002, the DCI Group received $340,000 for eight months of work for the Union of Myanmar (Burma) State Peace & Development Council.

The Washington Post’s Al Kamen wrote, “DCI’s filings with the Justice Department offer an unusual glimpse into the efforts by the Rangoon junta. DCI lobbyists, featuring Charles Francis, a longtime family friend of the Bushes, ran a sophisticated campaign to improve the regime’s image—and steer the conversation away from its rampant human rights abuses and such.”

Francis “even set up two meetings with White House National Security Council Southeast Asia director Karen B. Brooks,” Kamen continued, “—an unusual feat given that Burma is under U.S. sanctions and its top officials are barred from coming here—to tout Burma’s cooperation on anti-drug, HIV/AIDs and anti-terrorism efforts and in finding the remains of U.S. soldiers from World War II.” After lobbying congressional officials, the Defense Department, and well connected think tanks, the “campaign was on the verge of success—the State Department was about to certify the regime—but the administration backed off amid pressure from the Hill, human rights groups and the media.”

The DCI Group calls itself a “strategic public affairs consulting firm” and boasts that it handles corporate issues like political campaigns. “We are a political firm and all of our partners have political campaign experience. We thrive in competitive circumstances, and are used to fluid situations and tight deadlines,” their website claims. DCI Group offers services that include national, state and local lobbying; coalition building; and generating “grasstops” and constituent support for issues. The firm has been linked to several industry-funded coalitions that pose as grassroots organizations. Perhaps it comes as no surprise as DCI advertises its ability to provide “third party support” to clients. “Corporations seldom win alone,” the group’s website says. “Whatever the issue, whatever the target—elected officials, regulators or public opinion—you need reliable third party allies to advocate your cause. We can help you recruit credible coalition partners and engage them for maximum impact. It’s what we do best.” (view on WayBack Machine)

It did not take long for Goodyear’s appointment to draw more attention from the mainstream press and bloggers alike. During a time when McCain is championing a “Gas Tax Holiday” (along with Senator Clinton) it’s probably not the best idea to appoint the CEO of a public relations firm who has had ExxonMobil as a client.

(Did you know that the ExxonMobil political action committee (PAC) contributed $698,450 to federal candidates in the 05/06 election cycle – 7% to Democrats and 93% to Republicans?)

Unlike the lingering pain of Senator Obama’s slow-motion dissolution of his relationship with his former pastor, this “scandal” may pass quickly. Taking a page from the Bush Administration’s playbook, the Republican National Convention – at 4:06 PM Eastern Time – on a SATURDAY – filed a Press Release announcing that Doug Goodyear is stepping down from his role as convention coordinator.

May 10, 2008 16:06 ET
GOP Convention Coordinator Resigns

SAINT PAUL, Minn., May 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The 2008 Republican National Convention today accepted the resignation of convention coordinator Doug Goodyear. Mr. Goodyear issued the following statement on his resignation:

“Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign.”

Paid for by the Committee on Arrangements for the 2008 Republican National
Convention
www.GOPConvention2008.com
Phone: (651) 467-2008

Source: Republican National Convention

CONTACT: Matt Burns, Republican National Convention, +1-651-925-7208, or
mburns@gopconvention2008.com

Web site: http://www.gopconvention2008.com/

If anyone writes to Matt Burns at that email address above and finds out how they plan to find some who is both a DC based Republican & unrelated to the lobbying industry I’d love to hear about it.