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.

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.

By the way, ObamaForMcCain.com is also registered but it was done via a Domain Proxy service so the actual owners are hidden.  Since there is just a GoDaddy.com placeholder page there now it may have just been a whim purchase for someone.

But after RezkoJudgement.com and MeetBarackObama.com and DemocratsvsObama.com – all RNC owned sites – this new domain is just par for the course.

When exactly did it become a acceptable for a national party to ignore issues and focus instead on the kind of work normally left to special interest groups like 2004′s Swiftboat Veterans for Truth?

Well, maybe the Republican poorer half’s opposition to outsourcing jobs has really hit home.

People have often wondered where the idea that the Democrat party is somehow damaged and divided after a long primary season where more people were engaged and more people paid attention to election issues than any other time in my voting life. The idea that more people paying attention to the issues at stake in this election is only bad for one party. The Republicans cannot truly fight Obama on the issues. He is painted as a liberal by the right wing pundits but only with superficial strokes of the brush.

You can see that both the RNC and conservative commentators stick to a few simplistic ideas like the idiotic one that Obama will sit down with terrorists without ‘preconditions’. This is a vague enough thing that it allows people who are frightened to fill in all kinds of horrible ideas about what would happen at those talks. If they get into the details of exactly what Obama has in mind, when hes been given the opportunity to speak and write about his foreign policy ideas in depth, this issue disappears along with most others.

When a man’s choice of church and the business practices of one campaign donor was really a reasonable basis on which to select a person to hold the most powerful elected position in the USA are totally lost and may as well just pack it all in now.

The fact is, Democratic party voters and activists are more engaged and more excited about November 4th than was the case in 2004 – and this scares the hell out of the RNC. Can anyone else remember a time when two candidates ran neck and neck through the entire primary season? Usually the candidate has the nomination well wrapped up soon after Super Tuesday. This year primary voters were a part of the process right through the very end.

The RNC spin machine wants to take all that energy that voters displayed in the primaries and corrupt it for their own benefit. This is why they spend so much effort talking about Obama and Clinton and so little talking about McCain. They will do anything they can to drain that energy away and make people honestly believe that the majority of Clinton supporters would consider McCain a decent choice in the light of Clinton’s loss.

The sad thing is that the Senator Clinton, and her campaign, have made things easy on the Republicans. In this digital age they have access to all kinds of material to work with to use Clinton as a foil to fence against Obama. Clinton is a far better speaker than is John McCain so it only makes sense that would use her words to debate Obama instead of their own candidates.

When you don’t care about context, thats an easy scheme to implement. This RNC press release came across my desk today and I wanted to share it.

I did a full capture so you can see the whole thing. In this one they reach way way back to a Clinton appearance on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club” in late February at the peak of the primary season when both candidates were scrambling for delegates.

Mr. Rezko is not in the same league as Republican lobbyist and Tom Delay’s pal Jack Abramoff, but when the Republican National Committee can’t find anything good to say about their candidate they have to take what they can get.

Unlike Abramoff’s patrons who are under investigation or indictment, Barak Obama is NOT under investigation or being charged with anything related to the Rezko crimes.

This new RNC site contains a YouTube hosted video with lots one lovely photoshopped picture of Rezko & Obama and a second mashup of two different photos designed to make it look like they are pals.

The photos have been masked to remove any possible context from the picture and are used to zoom around the screen and make the two look joined at the hip as well as a little news feed to keep you up to date on the latest “Headlines” about Rezko. In this context Headlines refers to RNC press releases as opposed to … ya know.. NEWS headlines.

The whole aim is to cast doubts on Obama’s judgement and fitness to serve in office. The fun part of all this is that it took less than five minutes over on OpenSecrets.org to discover that Mr. Rezko was an equal opportunity donor.

He donated money to over two dozen candidates and issue groups over the period for which there are electronic, searchable records. Those candidates are of both parties, but one two time recipient of Mr. Rezko’s largess jumped out at me.

To the best of my recollection, George W. Bush was running for President in October of 1999 and December of 2003. During those campaigns Mr. Rezko donated $5,000 to Mr. Bush.

This is the same George W. Bush who, according to the RNC’s Party Leadership page, heads the very organization that has created and promoted RezkoJudgement.com. Now that takes REAL balls.

When I see such stunning hypocrisy right there out in the open I can understand why Blanca DeBree loves her Republicans. If the National Democratic party tried something like this they’d be flayed alive on Fox News and the rest of the TV news channels, but the thing is, the RNC will get away with it.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Republican “viral” ad without the requisite “Angry Black Man” shot included for good measure.

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?

I decided to take a step back from candidate quotes today to look at the bigger picture. 

Most people now recognize that many of our problems in the U.S. stem from over a decade of extreme partisanship in Congress that has its roots in 1994′s so called  "Republican Revolution".  Two centuries of members of both parties sharing social events and the rest of the things that go with living with their families in the same communities in Washington D.C. for part of the year helped create the bonds across party lines that were needed to make congress work.   Over a decade of commuter representation with members of Congress flying home most weekends created an environment where those bonds and relationships atrophied and died.  

In our very wired world, candidates have to be extremely careful about what words come out of their mouths.   After the debunked accusations of Al Gore had to deal with when he was accused of telling lies or otherwise "padding his record", the current crop of candidates are being especially careful.  The Bush years and the implosion of the Republican House under Delay have also created a climate where people are sick of direct attacks.   The extreme partisanship that defined the last decade has no place on the campaign trail.  All the candidates seem to recognize this and are leaving partisan attacks in the hands of proxies or political pundits on both sides.

Now that step back…  Both the Republican and Democratic national parties have been playing an active, but less visible, role in the primary season.  The word "tone" has been mentioned a lot this campaign season for good reasons.  The candidates are doing everything they can not to alienate voters from the other party for fear that it will come back to bite them in the general election.  That has also been true to a large degree for the DNC.   The Republican’s, on the other hand, are featuring the kind of petty, sound bite driven content on their website  that the rest of the nation seems to be rejecting.

Hale Stewart, in a post featured on The Huffington Post today concludes that "Only the hard-core 30% Republican supporters are hanging on right now" to the brand of conservativism that the Republican party has embraced for the last decade.  His post has some good points, even if its overall tone is a bit shrill and divisive itself.  It has to be those 30% that are being catered to on the RNC site.  I went over to http://www.gop.com this morning to look for something, but what I saw there knocked that right out of my mind.  If you head over there now you can see it for yourself, but what you will see as of February 11, 2008 is this:

The Valentines featured seem more appropriate to issue oriented sites that have a stated purpose and a well defined ax to grind.  Finding them on the website for a national party that is trying to compete in the current political climate struck me as bizarre.  I’m sure they will not be around for long so I sent them ALL to myself and I will feature them here. 

I’ve already said that the Republicans do not actually want to win this election.  They do not want to lose even more ground by having a Republican President in office as the war in Iraq drags on longer the economic fallout from a decade of deregulation mania.  This RNC tactic seems to confirm that in my mind.  It’s all a joke to them now.  They do not want their party to win.  They want a democrat in the highest office so they can play Monday mornign quarterback and criticize any failures in cleaning up their mess.  It’s pretty smart of them really.

Here are the Valentines.  There are three each for Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.

Ladies First… 

And Candidate Obama’s three: 

This one struck me and especially bizarre because the current head of the party, George W. Bush had exactly zero national experience when he ran for the Presidency.   Bush had been governor of a state with one of the nation’s weakest governorships.

On a side note, on the GOP Leadership page, I find it interesting what is not said:  "George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn into office January 20, 2001, after a campaign in which he outlined sweeping proposals to reform America’s public schools, transform our national defense, provide tax relief, modernize Social Security and Medicare, and encourage faith-based and community organizations to work with government to help Americans in need. "

Some how, I seem to remember his taking office having been a little more complicated than that.  I seem to remember some guy named Chad and the Supreme Court being involved.  Doesn’t matter, it could never happen again, right?

 

 The U.S. needs to unite behind a President and Congress that can work together to address the serious problems facing Americans.  Does anyone think that bullshit like this RNC Valentine e-card campaign will help that along?  If the head of the GOP says he’s a "uniter not a divider" where can we see that in action?