Even though their dad is running for President of the United States, Malia and Sasha Obama have a remarkably normal daily life. Household rules include no teasing or fighting, making their beds every morning, and getting themselves up and dressed for school. And each week, their dad pays them $1 in allowance.

Allowance is an interesting issue. Do children need an allowance? If you give them one, do you do so as “payment” for chores or simply for spending money? Do parents get a say in how kids spend their allowance? Even if they want to buy, say, a guinea pig? Or their 100th Polly Pocket for you to step on in the middle of the night?

One dollar per week certainly isn’t much, but it’s just another indication that the Obama’s are firmly rooted in the notion of raising their girls in as normal and down-to-Earth environment as possible, even if their childhood ends up being spent in the White House.

Something finally occurred to me this weekend as I was perusing the Sunday morning talk shows.

On Whatever Fox New’s Show With Chris Wallace Is Called, they spent 55 minutes talking smack about Barack Obama and how his trip to Europe was arrogant[1], premature, patronizing and a threat to American security. They called his historic speech in Berlin a massive photo-op, and even made a point that the last person to pull those sorts of crowds in Germany was a pretty sinister guy himself. Oh, and they capped the show off by spending 5 minutes grovelling about how John McCain didn’t get any press all week and how the media was in the tank for Obama.

Ditto on The Chris Matthews Show, which was one big Obama lovefest. Same for Meet The Press, which actually had Obama as a guest. I didn’t even bother watching The McLaughlin Group.

The past couple of months have taught me something about John McCain. Nobody is talking about him, because nobody cares about him. He brings no new ideas to the table. He is not exciting. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that he’s going to change my life for the better in any significant fashion.

Besides, the guy flips more than Dominique Dawes. There was affirmative action. The King holiday. FISA. Courting evangelicals. Privatization of Social Security. Bush’s tax cuts. Offshore drilling. Abortion. Campaign finance reform. Gay adoption. Torture. Bob Jones University. Ethanol. The Confederate flag. Defense spending. The estate tax.

But this guy’s supposed to be a firm, disciplined leader, huh? I dunno, but he sorta kinda seems like an empty-suited opportunist to me.

Dirk Nowitzki is a Maverick. Jerry Stackhouse is a Maverick. Jason Kidd is a Maverick.

John McCain ain’t no Maverick.

That said, it’s clear from anyone listening to talk radio, watching the news, or simply overhearing any level of Conservative discourse that this year’s race isn’t about getting their guy into office, it’s about keeping that potentially evil Beige Negro out.

That’s right folks. Barack Hussein Obama II[2] ain’t running against John Sidney McCain III.

Nope, Barack Hussein Obama II is running against the United States Of America.

He’s running against Ron Artest. Bobby Brown. Terrell Owens. Sharpe James. Malcolm X. DMX. Louis Farrakhan. Latrell Sprewell. Willie Horton. Eldridge Cleaver. Rae Carruth. John Brown. Nat Turner. Dennis Rodman. Ray Lewis. Bobby Cutts. William Jefferson. John Allen Muhammad. Marion Barry. Ray Nagin. Bill Campbell. Kimbo Slice. Bigger Thomas. Isaiah Thomas. Larry Davis. Wayne Williams. Robert Kelly. Marcus Garvey. Jesse Jackson. Clifford Harris. Stokley Carmichael. Jeremiah Wright. Chad Johnson. OJ Simpson. Al Sharpton. Mike Tyson. Darryl Strawberry. Michael Vick. The random mailroom Negro who stole that iPod. That random Negro suspect on last night’s 6 o’clock news.[3]

In short, he’s running against America’s preconceived notions of what and who a black man should, and should not be.

I firmly do not believe that this is a country full of racists. I just don’t. Have I experienced racist treatment in my thirtysome years? Absolutely. But more often than not, I’ve simply experienced cultural ignorance. The sort of cultural ignorance that makes others skeptical of you the moment they see your face. The sort of cultural ignorance that follows you around the store. The sort of cultural ignorance that makes you have to work twice as hard to get half as far. The sort of cultural ignorance that assumes you got where you did in life simply because you’re Black, which as any Black person knows, is the dumbest sh*t ever uttered.

Are some people withholding their support from Obama because they’re racist? Sure, but these folks are likely in a very small minority. Many of them simply can’t wrap their minds around giving a Black man The Most Important Gig Evar™ because of the same cultural ignorance. The sort of cultural ignorance that assumes a Black man with a funny name must be secretly evil. The sort of cultural ignorance that takes an educated Black man who came from humble beginnings and somehow reduces him to a stereotypical elitist. The sort of cultural ignorance that assumes a Black man can’t possibly be smart enough for such a gig. The sort of cultural ignorance that somehow paints this Black man as a racist by proxy because of something his pastor said out of context a decade ago. The sort of cultural ignorance that will emphatically not disappear between now and November 4th.

This is all very true, and all very sad.

I wish Barack Obama the best. I have, and will continue to support him financially, on this blog, and as a volunteer. But until we as a country can be honest and forthright about our history of skepticism towards people of color in general, and Black people specifically, even an Obama victory won’t mean anything symbolically.

It will simply mean America made the right choice on November 4th. Not that we’re somehow beyond the wrong choices of the past.

Question: Do you agree that Obama is more or less running against the historical stereotypes of Black men? Is there any single thing he can do between now and November to minimize the effect of this?

[1] Could someone please explain to White America the difference between arrogance and swagger?!? Arrogance in smug condescension that screams “I’m better than you!”. Swagger is simply the quiet inner belief that you’re the sh*t, despite what dem’ haters might say. A Black man in America can’t survive without some healthy level of swag, and I don’t mean the kind that comes wrapped in pink furs and crispy Air Force Ones. Obama isn’t arrogant. Obama drips swagger. Arrogance = Bad. Swag = Good. Nuff’ said.

[2] I thought the general rules of naming ettiquette said you could only become a II once you had a boy child who was a III. Otherwise, you’re just a Jr. for life. At least that’s what I was told/read. I didn’t formally become a II until AverageToddler (a III) was born. I was a Jr. till that point. What’s with Obama just discarding decorum like that? Is this a Kenyan thing? Anyone care to explain?

[3] Did I forget anyone? You tell me and I’ll add em’. AverageSis gets props for half of that list.

Source: AverageBro.com

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz sends letter to US Democratic presidential candidate expressing his regret for extraction of Obama’s private note from wall, says it has been returned to its rightful place.

By Neta Sela
Published: 07.29.08, 19:36 / Israel News

The rabbi overseeing the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, sent a letter on Tuesday to US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, in which he expressed his sorrow over the removal of the note written by Obama from the wall and its subsequent publication in local media.

In addition, the Yeshiva student who removed Obama’s note from the Wall also apologized and asked for Obama’s forgiveness. He said the note had been returned to its place with Rabinowitz’s help.

In the letter, Rabinowitz wrote that as the Western Wall and Holy Sites Rabbi he deeply regrets the aberrant act.

He also said that many people visit the Western Wall; Jews and non-Jews alike and their honor and the honor of their prayers are top priority.

Expressing regret over the “sacrilegious” actions of the young man, the rabbi said that it is unfortunate that the Wall’s sacred atmosphere did not touch the young man’s heart as it touched Obama’s.

Rabinowitz reassured the Democratic senator that his prayer has not been harmed and is not damaged by the publication. He also wished Obama that all his prayers come true.

The rabbi signed the letter with a blessing that Obama may be a loyal representative of the Creator of the universe and for those who work for and see to Jerusalem’s wellbeing.

The note that Senator Obama put in the Kotel said, “Lord - protect my family and me. Forgive my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”

Thank you to the citizens of Berlin and to the people of Germany. Let me thank Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier for welcoming me earlier today. Thank you Mayor Wowereit, the Berlin Senate, the police, and most of all thank you for this welcome.

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father - my grandfather - was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning - his dream - required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.

That is why I’m here. And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.

Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof.

On that day, much of this continent still lay in ruin. The rubble of this city had yet to be built into a wall. The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe, while in the West, America, Britain, and France took stock of their losses, and pondered how the world might be remade.

This is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off food and supplies to more than two million Germans in an effort to extinguish the last flame of freedom in Berlin.

The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe. Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin.

And that’s when the airlift began - when the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope to the people of this city.

The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families who had no comfort from the cold.

But in the darkest hours, the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. “There is only one possibility,” he said. “For us to stand together united until this battle is won…The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty…People of the world, look at Berlin!”

People of the world - look at Berlin!

Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.

Look at Berlin, where the determination of a people met the generosity of the Marshall Plan and created a German miracle; where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security.

Look at Berlin, where the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate insist that we never forget our common humanity.

People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.

Sixty years after the airlift, we are called upon again. History has led us to a new crossroad, with new promise and new peril. When you, the German people, tore down that wall - a wall that divided East and West; freedom and tyranny; fear and hope - walls came tumbling down around the world. From Kiev to Cape Town, prison camps were closed, and the doors of democracy were opened. Markets opened too, and the spread of information and technology reduced barriers to opportunity and prosperity. While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history.

The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope. But that very closeness has given rise to new dangers - dangers that cannot be contained within the borders of a country or by the distance of an ocean.

The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.

As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.

Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all.

In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. Yet, in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth. And if we’re honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny.

In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe’s role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth - that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.

Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more - not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.

So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.

That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads, and people to assemble where we stand today. And this is the moment when our nations - and all nations - must summon that spirit anew.

This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.

This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.

This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love. With that wall gone, we need not stand idly by and watch the further spread of the deadly atom. It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.

This is the moment when every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday. In this century, we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad. In this century - in this city of all cities - we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.

This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many. Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth, with meaningful protections for our people and our planet. This is the moment for trade that is free and fair for all.

This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East. My country must stand with yours and with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions. We must support the Lebanese who have marched and bled for democracy, and the Israelis and Palestinians who seek a secure and lasting peace. And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close.

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one.

And this is the moment when we must give hope to those left behind in a globalized world. We must remember that the Cold War born in this city was not a battle for land or treasure. Sixty years ago, the planes that flew over Berlin did not drop bombs; instead they delivered food, and coal, and candy to grateful children. And in that show of solidarity, those pilots won more than a military victory. They won hearts and minds; love and loyalty and trust - not just from the people in this city, but from all those who heard the story of what they did here.

Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?

Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words “never again” in Darfur?

Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don’t look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?

People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived - at great cost and great sacrifice - to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom - indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us - what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores - is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.

These are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. These aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart. It is because of these aspirations that the airlift began. It is because of these aspirations that all free people - everywhere - became citizens of Berlin. It is in pursuit of these aspirations that a new generation - our generation - must make our mark on the world.

People of Berlin - and people of the world - the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.

by Associated Press
Friday, July 25, 2008

LONDON — Barack Obama’s campaign has received roughly 10 times more money from declared U.S. donors living in Germany, France and Britain than his Republican rival, reflecting his popularity in Europe as he makes his first tour of the continent as the presumed Democratic nominee.

Federal Election Commission reports show Obama has raised at least $1 million from donors who identify themselves as Americans living in Great Britain, Germany and France, while John McCain has taken in at least $150,000.

Some donors say the huge disparity, which also exists in overall funding raising in which Obama has raked in $338 million to $126.3 million for McCain, is more about disliking Bush and the prospect of another Republican succeeding him than it is an affection for Obama.

“I contributed because of the absolutely appalling performance of the Bush administration during the last eight years,” said Eileen Taylor, a chief operating officer for Deutsche Bank in London.

She made two $2,300 donations, the maximum allowed, and is also working on a voter registration drive to make it easier for Americans abroad to cast ballots in the November election.

“We’re actively signing people up to vote,” she said. “Democrats Abroad is working with a lot of companies to set up voter registration and absentee ballots. The key message is that it’s not about the money. A lot of people are putting emotional energy into this campaign.”

Only U.S. citizens are permitted to contribute to presidential campaigns. The European totals include contributions of $200 or more from each individual as election laws do not require campaigns to itemize lesser amounts. So it’s possible Obama has received additional money from smaller donors. McCain, however, publishes all contributions, even amounts smaller than $200.

While Bush is unpopular at home, hostility to the outgoing president appears to be much deeper among expatriate donors than the general population in the United States. Obama’s many backers in Europe say they are motivated by a yearning for America to once again be viewed with respect by the rest of the world.

Gerald Wood, an American living in Germany, said he contributed $1,000 to Obama because he wants to see America’s reputation restored after it “worsened” during the Bush years.

“For me Barack Obama is the one who can improve America’s image,” he said, comparing the youthful candidate to John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. “I want more bipartisanship, to give the land a vision.”

The amounts raised in Europe are not terribly significant in the costly White House race, but the disparity between the two candidates underscores the Democratic candidate’s appeal on a continent where Obamamania seems to have taken hold of expatriates and Europeans alike.

It also may reflect the Obama campaign’s adroit use of the Internet as a prime fundraising tool while the McCain camp was for a long time saddled with a Web site that made it difficult for Americans abroad to contribute.

Patricia Toner, a retired IBM employee who lives in southern France, said she gave a total of $2,000 to Obama’s campaign after receiving a mass e-mail from a friend during the primary season that contained a link to the candidate’s Web site.

“I’m a retired information technology professional and I found their Web site so well crafted,” she said.

Mary Jo Jacobi, a Republican who was an adviser to President Reagan and the first President Bush, conceded that Obama had a big advantage over McCain in Internet campaigning.

“A lot of McCain backers were saying it was very hard or impossible to donate over the Web site,” she said. “Obama made it easy. Obama has been much more sophisticated about Internet usage, and when you live overseas that’s the easiest way to contribute.”

She also acknowledged Obama’s message of change had drawn a positive response among Americans abroad, pointing out that people who uproot themselves to work overseas are by nature receptive to change. An estimated quarter of a million Americans live in Britain alone.

In London, many of Obama’s donors are members of London’s high-flying financial and legal elite, and also include information technology executives, architects and a celebrity restaurateur.

It has become fashionable to support him ever since Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch, hosted a high profile fundraiser for Obama in April.

The occupations listed on the FEC reports are impressive: lawyers, corporate vice presidents and chief executives are common.

The Obama list includes corporate luminaries like Joanna Shields, the chief executive officer of the popular Bebo social networking site; Ruth Rogers, co-founder of the exclusive River Cafe and wife of celebrated architect Richard Rogers; David Giampaolo, chief executive officer of the private equity investment company Pi Capital; John Graham, a director of the investment firm Rogge Global Partners; and Cheryl Solomon, general counsel for The Gucci Group.

Each donor is permitted to give a maximum of $2,300 for each election, but since the primaries are regarded as a separate election, a person can make two separate donations of $2,300 before the general election in November. While some gave the maximum, others made contributions in the $10 and $25 range.

McCain also enjoyed support from a number of investment bankers and international banking executives, but he received donations from only 63 individuals in Britain while Obama has about 600 donors.

McCain did receive money from Charles Thompson, with Saudi Petroleum Overseas, and Tom Fenton, a former CBS News correspondent who has long been a fixture on the London journalistic scene.

Thompson refused to discuss his contribution. Fenton, an independent, paid $1,000 to attend a McCain lunch in London so he could sit with the candidate and judge him up close. He said he may also contribute to the Obama campaign as well.

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama has picked up support from nearly all the Hispanic voters who voted for rival Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, giving him a nearly three-to-one lead over Republican John McCain among Hispanics, a poll released Thursday shows.

The Pew Hispanic Center survey found Obama with 66 percent of the Hispanic vote to McCain’s 23 percent.

The results represent a “sharp reversal” in Obama’s fortunes from the primaries, when he lost the Latino vote to Clinton by nearly two-to-one, prompting speculation that Hispanics were leery of voting for a black candidate, said Susan Minushkin, the center’s deputy director.

Instead, the survey found that three times as many respondents said that being black would help Obama with Latino voters. A majority – 53 percent – said his race would make no difference to Latino voters.

More than 76 percent of Hispanics who said they voted for Clinton now say they’re leaning toward voting for Obama, while just 8 percent said they were leaning toward McCain.

The poll by the nonpartisan research organization is based on a telephone survey of 2,015 Hispanics, 892 of whom were registered voters. Interviews in either English or Spanish were conducted June 9 through July 13. The survey carries a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

The poll comes as both campaigns seek to woo Hispanic voters. McCain has been advertising for six weeks on Spanish radio in Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, four battleground states with sizeable Hispanic populations. Obama’s campaign Wednesday unveiled its first Spanish-language ad in Florida.

Both candidates also have appeared before Hispanic groups to pledge support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But McCain has faced a steep climb: Critics have accused him of softening his support for his own immigration legislation during the GOP primaries, when his support for immigration reform threatened to derail his candidacy.

The poll suggests that the GOP brand is sinking with Latinos, even as it suggests that immigration isn’t a driving factor for the Hispanic electorate.

Perhaps most troubling for the GOP, the center said it found that since 2006 Latino voters have moved “sharply” into the Democratic column, “reversing a pro-GOP tide that had been evident among Latinos earlier in the decade.”

“More than half all Latino voters say that Obama is better for Hispanics,” Minushkin said.

According to the poll, 65 percent of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with 26 percent who identify or lean toward the Republican Party.

The center said the shift “appears driven in part by an overall dissatisfaction with the state of the country – 70 percent of Latino registered voters say the country is going in the wrong direction.”

According to the poll, top issues were education, the cost of living, jobs and health care. Fewer Hispanics rated crime, the war in Iraq or immigration as priorities.

The row over US inaction on carbon emissions reached new heights yesterday after the White House allowed Congress to look at last year’s government proposal to officially deem climate change a threat to public health – a plan that aides to George Bush refused to acknowledge or read.

The climate plan was finished in December by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to a supreme court ruling that required the Bush administration to state whether carbon emissions should be regulated to protect public health.

The EPA concluded that regulation was needed, but whistleblowers have revealed that the White House ordered the agency to scrap its proposal. Democratic attempts to investigate the backroom dealings were stymied until this week, when senators were finally permitted a look at the plan.

The chairman of the Senate environment committee, California Democrat Barbara Boxer, released a summary of the proposal to reporters. Boxer was allowed to take notes on the plan but not given a copy.

“Based on the evidence before him, the [EPA] administrator believes it is reasonable to conclude current and future emissions of greenhouse gases will contribute to future climate change,” the proposal stated.

“The US has a long and populous coastline,” the EPA continued. “Sea level rise will continue and exacerbate storm surge flooding and coastline erosion … in areas where heat waves already occur, they are expected to be more intense, more frequent, and longer-lasting.”

The EPA proposal also predicted that warming temperatures would lead to more wildfires in western US states and “additional strain” on already overtaxed water resources in the dry south-east and western regions.

Democrats asked the EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, to testify next week at a hearing exploring allegations of White House obstruction on climate change. But Johnson refused, citing executive privilege and forcing the cancellation of the hearing.

“The American people are poorly served by an administration whose head of environmental protection cannot appear before a Senate committee and honestly discuss what he did and why he did it,” senior Democrat Patrick Leahy said.

The next step may be holding Johnson in contempt of Congress, which would effectively move the dispute into the judicial system. White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former Bush counsellor Karl Rove were found in contempt last year after refusing to cooperate with a different investigation, but their case has yet to move forward.

Boxer decried the White House’s decision not to release the full EPA proposal to the public.

“It is clear. It is chilling. It is detailed,” she said to colleagues yesterday. “That information belongs to the American people and we must get it to them. Then they will decide whether we should act to prevent this coming crisis or sit on our hands.”

The EPA attempted to downplay the controversy in a statement to the Washington Post that called the proposal “a pre-decisional draft document” and “nothing new”.

‘Southern Illinois is the South,’ the Democratic presidential candidate has often said — a nod to his belief that gains made here can help him prosper elsewhere among rural and blue-collar voters.

By Stephen Braun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 2, 2008

MOUNT VERNON, ILL. — Barack Obama’s gamble to compete against John McCain this fall across rural white strongholds in Republican-dominated swing states has delicate roots in the vast corn and soybean fields and small towns of southern Illinois.

Obama won most of his home state’s southern counties in his 2004 Senate election and again in this year’s Democratic presidential primary against Hillary Rodham Clinton — strong signs, his advisors believe, that he can break through to heartland voters in battleground states such as Missouri and Ohio, and even in traditional GOP territories such as Montana and North Carolina.

“Southern Illinois is the South,” Obama repeated during his primary campaign, a nod to its close proximity to Southern border states and also to his belief that gains made here could help him prosper elsewhere among rural and blue-collar voters.

David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, said the campaign planned to feature some of the candidate’s southern Illinois supporters in media advertising and to dispatch them to neighboring states to press the case for Obama among independents and fence-sitters in both parties.

But Obama’s electoral fortune in southern Illinois is an uncertain template for winning over white Democrats and independents who have gravitated toward GOP presidential candidates in recent years.

The risk of that strategy took center stage in the campaign this week, when Obama probed for support in Republican-dominated rural Missouri, but ended up accused by McCain of playing the race card.

The peril of calling attention to race in an effort to disarm its potency has emerged even in Obama’s stronghold here. Despite his well-connected network of supporters and adroit moves to co-opt the region’s leanings on coal, ethanol and guns, doubts still shadow his success.

Internet-stoked rumors about Obama’s religion, patriotism and liberal tilt on social issues have seeped into the area’s political discourse. They echo the hard-edged suspicions that turned white voters away from him in late-stage Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky.

“I’ve got good Democrats coming up to me saying, ‘Bill, we’ve got problems with your friend,’ ” said Bill O’Daniel, 84, a retired state senator from Jefferson County who befriended Obama in the Legislature and backs him for president.

They waylay O’Daniel at Mount Vernon’s restaurants and even at his doctor’s office with false claims that Obama is secretly a Muslim and refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. O’Daniel dismisses such rumors about Obama, who is Christian, but admits he worries about “how well Barack will go over here in the fall.”

Axelrod said he was aware that rural battlegrounds beyond southern Illinois would be “tougher terrain.” But hard-core skeptics are unlikely to be Democratic voters, he said, adding: “Does he have the capacity to do well compared to the historical marker for past Democratic candidates in those areas? We think so.”

The tough terrain extends to Effingham County, where retired businessman William Broom hears even more toxic chatter from acquaintances. Broom, 83, is an Obama supporter — a rarity in Effingham, which Obama’s Republican Senate opponent, Alan Keyes, carried easily in 2004.

Keyes is also black, but many of Broom’s neighbors cite race as a reason they cannot support Obama for president.

“They think I’m like-minded like them, and they’ll just volunteer straight-out how they can’t see voting for a black man,” Broom said.

One local source of Obama’s problems is Beverly McDowell, a social conservative and abortion opponent who was Keyes’ 2004 coordinator in nearby Richland County. In recent months, McDowell has churned out letters and e-mail broadsides warning of Obama’s supposed Muslim and Arab roots and “promotion of gay marriage.”

People are excited about Obama, McDowell says, because they don’t know what she calls “the true Obama.”

She acknowledges that most of the anti-Obama diatribes she has relayed didn’t surface until he became a serious presidential candidate. “People are looking at him more closely now.”

But Democratic Party strategists say there may be a way that Obama can blunt the political effect of such prejudices.

The nation’s faltering economy could provide Obama the best antidote to counteract racial unease among wary rural voters, they say. Southern Illinois’ waning coal industry is a stark example. Mines have shut down across the region, and several counties have unemployment rates approaching 30%.

“A Democrat can’t write off that segment of the population and expect to be successful,” said pollster Mark Mellman. “The economic squeeze these voters face is so powerful that it has the potential to overwhelm concerns about race. He has a chance to exploit that.”

The coal industry, once called king here, is dying. Although the state sits on huge reserves, much of the coal has a high sulfur content, which means that when burned it produces significant air pollutants. As Illinois’ senator, Obama voted both for and against versions of bills that would have boosted the mining industry by providing subsidies to develop the use of liquefied coal for transportation fuel.

“He’s made a show of his support for the coal industry,” said John S. Jackson, a political science professor at Southern Illinois University. Obama’s gestures to industry officials and environmentalists did not endear him to either faction, Jackson said.

At the same time, Obama worked to build a network of rural supporters.

During his 2004 Senate race, Obama crisscrossed the state’s southern counties, trying to find common ground. At fundraisers crowded with curious farmers and union men, he made light of his Chicago political base and African name, charming skeptics and cobbling together a sturdy political base of farmland progressives and conservatives.

Good luck aided Obama as much as his diligence in trying to win hearts and minds: two rivals were dogged by marital woes.

But Obama struggled in southern Illinois during the primary, winning only a single county there. He ran third behind two better-funded white Democrats, but carried the state with a huge Chicago turnout. He then swept much of southern Illinois in the general election — aided by the foundering campaign of his weak GOP Senate rival, Keyes, a social conservative.

Obama arrived in southern Illinois as a shiny new phenomenon: a black Chicago politician who professed interest in the lives of farmers and miners remote from his own experience.

“He wanted to come down here and learn more,” said Stephen J. Scates, a former Clinton agriculture official and a member of a prominent farming clan in Gallatin County on the Kentucky border. “People appreciated that.”

In his political autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope,” a bemused Obama recounted how a state Senate aide told him to dress casually to fit in during a 1997 visit. But in the same book, Obama admitted he “didn’t know what to expect” on a tense 2004 campaign visit to Cairo, a southern Illinois river city shaken by racial conflicts in the 1960s, until he was reassured by a multiracial crowd that greeted him at a barbecue.

Settled by Kentucky and Tennessee farmers and North Carolina loggers in the early 1800s, southern Illinois is still steeped in border-state culture. Gun rights and antiabortion forces remain strong influences on voters, said O’Daniel, who held those views through 18 years in the state Senate.

Obama backed a state Senate bill that gave off-duty police the right to carry concealed weapons — a position that foreshadowed his recent assertion that he supported 2nd Amendment rights to carry arms. But Obama hurt himself in southern Illinois during the presidential primary, GOP veterans say, by his comment suggesting that small-town residents are bitter and cling to guns and religion.

“People down here don’t want to be told what to do on the issues of guns and abortion rights,” said David Luechtefeld, a state senator from Washington County.

Despite the whispers and Obama’s own gaffes, his backers fanned out to Iowa and other adjacent primary states early this year to advertise the candidate’s empathy on rural issues, including his careful tactical support for the use of corn in ethanol biofuel.

Buddy Maupin, a regional director of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, said a group of Illinois prison guards would be traveling to Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and southern Ohio to tout Obama to fellow workers.

Maupin was won over four years ago after the state’s Democratic governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, moved to close a medium-security prison in the southern Illinois town of Vandalia. Union officials appealed to Obama, who agreed to fight for the prison and its 380 guards even though it put him at odds with the governor. The prison still operates.

“Most of the guys whose jobs he saved were Republicans,” Maupin said. “One of the traditions in rural culture is to look a guy in the eye and tell him the truth. We can do that for Sen. Obama.”

Ludacris (Photo: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Ludacris has a crush on Obama, and all would be well today if he had created a song as inviting as some other musically-inclined supporters.

Instead, in the song, “Politics,” he did what he does best when matched with a booming bassline — rapping without regard for anyone who might be offended.

Offended, as it turns out, is precisely how many people should feel, according to a wide range of commentators — including Senator Obama’s spokesman.

“This song is not only outrageously offensive to Senator Clinton, Reverend Jackson, Senator McCain, and President Bush,” a spokesman, Bill Burton, said in a statement. “It is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear.”

At a time in the presidential campaign when both sides stand accused of going too negative, Ludacris — who once bragged in a song that he was “from the school of hard knocks, sneak peeks and low blows” — most certainly did.

Senator Clinton was called “irrelevant” and also a nasty name common in hip-hop lyrics but not in the remarks of presidential candidates. Senator McCain was the recipient of something that could be a schoolyard joke or an especially repulsive malediction, depending on the audience: “McCain don’t belong in any chair unless he’s paralyzed.”

President Bush was also declared irrelevant, as well as “the worst of all 43 presidents” and “mentally handicapped.” Reverend Jackson got off relatively easy as a “slick” politician.

Of course, this is precisely the kind of performance that won Ludacris fans around the world, three Grammy awards and Hollywood appeal. It also earned him a place on Senator Obama’s iPod, a detail reported in June that Ludacris bragged about in the song:

With a slot in the president’s iPod, Obama shouted him
Said I handle my biz and I’m one of his favorite rappers

He was referring to a Rolling Stone interview in which Mr. Obama mentioned Ludacris, Jay-Z and Russell Simmons as “great talents and great businessmen.” He also said that “it would be nice if I could have my daughters listen to their music without me worrying that they were getting bad images of themselves.”

Both points were reiterated today by Mr. Burton, “While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics.” But the campaign was apparently referring to the misogyny and materialism, and not Ludacris’ bold prediction that would suit it just fine: “The first black president is destined and it’s meant to be.”

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing U.S. store managers to lobby against Democrats in November’s presidential election, fearing they will make it easier for workers to unionize, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if store workers unionize, the paper said.

About a dozen employees who attended meetings in seven states said executives stressed employees would have to pay hefty union dues and get nothing in return, and might have to go on strike without compensation, and warned that unionization could force the company to cut jobs as labour costs rise, the Journal reported.

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who have run the meetings didn’t tell those attending how to vote in the November elections, but made it clear that voting for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, would be tantamount to inviting unions in, the Journal said.

Wal-Mart (WMT/NYSE) could not be reached immediately for a comment.

© Thomson Reuters 2008

Although the House Judiciary Committee is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within federal law enforcement entities, Democrat members are demanding that the Homeland Security agency in charge of immigration enforcement (Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE) stop doing its job.

In fact, at a recent hearing the California Democrat (Zoe Lofgren) who chairs the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration panel, blasted the Bush Administration for conducting what her entire party describes as harsh and punitive immigration raids. The Democrats called special attention to a recent raid at an Iowa meatpacking plant where nearly 400 illegal workers were arrested.

More than 300 illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, were eventually charged with Social Security fraud for using illegal Social Security numbers as well as aggravated identity theft. Representative Lofgren complained at the hearing that federal agents rounded up the workers and they were “herded into a cattle arena and prodded down a cattle chute, coerced into guilty pleas and then to federal prison.”

One prominent member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Democrat Luis Gutierrez of Chicago, called the raid “pandering” to “anti-immigrant extremists and conservative pundits.” He added that an immigration system predicated on fear tactics and piecemeal deportation-only policy only worsens the immigration crisis by tearing the fabric of our society.

The fact is that aggressive workplace raids have busted large rings of criminal illegal immigrants throughout the country, many of whom stole the identities of unsuspecting Americans to get their job. The crackdown has also led to a marked decline in the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S., according to a report published this week by a renowned research organization that studies the impact of immigration in the United States.

Source: Corruption Chronicles - A Judicial Watch Blog

In the latest salvo over John McCain’s much-dissected TV ad comparing Barack Obama to such lightweight celebrities as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the Democratic National Committee posted a web ad today that suggests McCain is violating a pledge to run a civil race.

The ad uses footage of McCain at a town hall meeting in Wisconsin on Thursday being asked about his past pledge to run a respectful campaign — then repeats him saying he is “proud of that commercial” with shots of Spears and Hilton.

“It’s disappointing that John McCain is proud to engage in the dishonorable politics of the low road rather than talk about the serious issues the American people care about. Clearly McCain and his campaign don’t understand that voters want to hear big ideas about the big challenges our country faces, not more of the same old politics that do nothing to create jobs or provide tax relief for middle class families, DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said in a statement.

The celebrity ad, which has been panned in many quarters, is the latest in a string of negative ads from McCain against Obama questioning his stands on Iraq and his readiness to be president.

Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, sent out a compilation of fellow Republicans criticizing McCain over the ad.

“Senator McCain decided this week to steer his campaign down the low road, launching a daily litany of false, negative attacks — culminating in an ad comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. But as Senator McCain goes farther and farther negative, fellow Republicans are beginning to speak out,” the campaign statement said. “Allies and supporters from Karl Rove to Pat Buchanan and former McCain strategist John Weaver are criticizing McCain’s low-road ads and tactics, worrying that his new negativity undercuts his credibility and his core appeal.”

UPDATE: The Republican National Committee today launched the latest missive on Obama’s celebrity status — an interactive website.

“There, users can participate in a multiple-choice game in which they must identify who said it: Barack Obama, or one of his fellow celebrities,” the RNC announcement said.

The website includes such Hollywood stars as Matt Damon, Jessica Biel, and Cameron Diaz.

“Users will be surprised to find out who said what. Think you know who said, ‘I didn’t expect it to come so quickly. It’s been hard to keep up with. There’s been articles in the papers that say I’ve got too big for my boots but people who know me say I’m just the same’? Or how about this gem: ‘Anybody gone into a Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?’ Celebrities say the darndest things.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched a Web site attacking a conservative political group backed by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

The site, launched Thursday, calls Freedom’s Watch — a nonprofit aimed at defeating Democrats in House races — the “biggest threat” to congressional candidates this election season. It labels the organization a “shady soft money group” funded by Bush administration donors and connected to John McCain.

Adelson and other prominent Republican donors launched the group in August 2007 with a $15 million ad campaign supporting the troop surge in Iraq. Freedom’s Watch has since focused on more than 30 key congressional districts and shifted its critique to Democrats’ energy policies.

Adelson is the chief executive and founder of Las Vegas Sands Corp., a casino company that operates megaresorts in Las Vegas and Macau.

As a nonprofit, Freedom’s Watch does not have to disclose its donors or follow contributions limits applied to traditional campaign committees. It can participate in races as long as it focuses on issues, and does not advocate for or against specific candidates.

On its site — http://www.therealfreedomswatch.org — and in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission filed in April, the DCCC accuses the group of improperly coordinating its advertising with the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Freedom’s Watch spokesman Ed Patru said the group has not violated any federal campaign rules and does not coordinate with parties.

Patru said voters would pay little attention to the Democrats’ critique on the Web site.

“Most people don’t care who we get our funding from, whether its Sheldon Adelson, Steve Wynn or Wayne Newton. They just want the Democrats who run Congress to do something to lower their gas prices,” Patru said.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–While new U.S. unemployment figures were not as grim as many economists expected, Democratic lawmakers insisted the figures show a need for a new fiscal measure to revive the flagging economy.

The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage point to 5.7% in July, the highest level since March 2004. House Financial Service Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said analysts’ statements that the numbers were not as bad as feared was “a sign of how troubled our economy is.

“This reaction is a discouraging confirmation of the gap that exists between many establishment figures and the reality of life for the great majority of working American men and women,” Frank said in a statement.

Frank, like many other Democrats, used the new job numbers to push for a second economic stimulus package. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., echoing statements she made Thursday, called for “another economic recovery package to get our economy growing again.”

The stimulus talk has hit the campaign trail as well. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., on Friday proposed a $50 billion package, dedicated largely to state funding of home heating projects and health and education programs, as well as a federal funding program for highway and school construction.

Obama’s proposed package - which he said would be financed with a windfall profits tax on oil companies - amounts to more than double the stimulus proposed earlier this week by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., responded by suggesting that Obama is pushing for higher taxes rather than supporting Republican-pushed energy measures, such as new domestic drilling, that would help revive the economy.

“The higher taxes that Barack Obama supports are one of the surest ways to kill jobs and exactly the wrong approach to a slowing economy,” McCain said in a statement.

Republican lawmakers also used the new jobs figures as an opportunity to offer a fresh round of criticism of Democrats for not passing energy legislation before they leave for a month-long recess in August. Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., the top Republican on the House Education and Workforce Committee, pointed to a “continued burden of high energy costs” on the economy and a lack of new job-training measures to bring those unemployed back into the workforce.

But despite Republican criticism over energy and signals from the White House that it is not interested in contemplating such a measure just yet, Democrats seem intent upon pushing a new stimulus when they return in September.

Pelosi said Thursday that a new stimulus should include disaster assistance, but offered few other details.

Byrd’s proposed $24.1 billion package includes funding for an array of government programs, including infrastructure and energy projects, and natural disaster assistance. Senate Democratic leaders have yet to throw their support behind that plan, however.

Chad Stone, chief economist for the liberal-leaning Center for Budget and Policy and Priorities, said Friday that second stimulus should focus on areas not addressed in the first stimulus - chiefly, aid to state governments and a temporary increase in food stamp benefits, as well as home energy assistance for low-income households.

-By Patrick Yoest, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-3554; patrick.yoest@dowjones.com

August 01, 2008 5:37 PM

The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has a message for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, and his newly aggressive tactics: you’re being juvenile, and all you’re doing is helping us raise money.

McCain has this week issued a TV ad comparing Obama to an Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, which McCain-backing Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said was to show that Obama-mania is “hysteria around a personality that’s attractive, but when you look under the hood there’s not a whole lot there.”

Today McCain issued a web video insinuating that Obama — called “The One” — is a false messiah, perhaps not unlike Shabbatai Tvi, or that dude that owns The Washington Times.

Of McCain’s new messiah web video, released today, Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan says, “it’s downright sad that on a day when we learned that 51,000 Americans lost their jobs, a candidate for the presidency is spending all of his time and the powerful platform he has on these sorts of juvenile antics. Senator McCain can keep telling everyone how ‘proud’ he is of these political stunts which even his Republican friends and advisors have called ‘childish’, but Barack Obama will continue talking about his plan to jumpstart our economy by giving working families $1,000 of immediate relief.”

The Obama campaign also claims that yesterday more than 100,000 donors — more than a third of them first-time contributors — contributed to Obama’s campaign on the internet, prompted — they believe — by McCain’s newly aggressive and negative approach, “taking this campaign into the gutter,” according Obama campaign manager David Plouffe .

“You responded this week” to McCain’s attacks, Plouffe says in a new web video emailed to contributors, because “you want a different kind of politics…You’re not going to allow these attacks from John McCain to dominate this campaign.”

“I think John McCain has harmed himself in the last week, really eroding any capital he had built up in terms of the kind of politician he is,” Plouffe says, “but he’s really helped our campaign. Because so many of you now have contributed in the last week, our field offices across the country had people pouring into them yesterday. Because while John McCain may want to make this campaign about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, you want to make it about our future and the change we all need to make.”

“‘If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage - I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done,’ Obama said.”

More: “[H]e told the Post he would be open to expanding the current drilling boundaries if it meant winning approval for more fuel-efficient cars, developing alternative energy sources and making the country more ‘energy independent.’”

“‘I think it’s important for the American people to understand we’re not going to drill our way out of this problem,’ he said. ‘It’s also important to recognize if you start drilling now you won’t see a drop of oil for ten years, which means its not going to have a significant impact on short-term prices. Every expert agrees on that.’”

In looking at John McCain’s latest attack ad against Barack Obama that childishly tries to equate him with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, let’s ignore both that and the questionable judgment used in calling attention to Barack Obama’s popularity at home and abroad, and instead focus on the ad’s claim that Obama will raise taxes on electricity. According to factcheck.org:

McCain’s new ad claims that Obama “says he’ll raise taxes on electricity.” That’s false. Obama says no such thing.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? Just put it down to, another day and another lie from the McCain campaign. Par for the course. But there are two positive things happening here. First, more and more the media is calling McCain out for his decision to take the low road…via Americablog

The Straight Talk Express has taken a nasty turn into the gutter. Sen. John McCain has resorted to lies and distortions in what sounds like an increasingly desperate attempt to slow down Sen. Barack Obama by raising questions about his patriotism. Instead of taking the Democrat down a few notches, these baseless attacks are raising more questions about the Republican’s campaign and his ability to control his temper. [...]

Virtually all candidates, including Obama, distort their opponent’s record. But McCain has gone beyond reasonable bounds. The self-described “happy warrior” in the 2000 presidential campaign has turned sour in 2008, and the candor and straight talk that once made him such an attractive candidate are rapidly disappearing.

And second, the Obama campaign isn’t sitting around waiting for Swiftboat ‘08.

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) — Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama called today for the government to give consumers an immediate $500 rebate to offset the rise in energy costs.

The checks would be accompanied by a revamped $50 billion plan to boost the slumping economy. Congress should act quickly on the rebates, not wait for the next president, he said.

“You need immediate relief,” Obama said today in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Illinois senator proposed paying for the energy assistance by taxing oil companies on their “windfall” profits.

The plan, which includes $25 billion to repair schools and to replenish the highway trust fund to repair roads and bridges, is largely a repackaging of initiatives Obama announced earlier.

The rebate initiative is “pandering,” said Lee Sheppard, a tax attorney with Tax Analysts in Falls Church, Virginia.

“Politicians are desperate to be seen to be doing something,” Sheppard said. “Sad that it has to involve tax law, but that is the main way government communicates with the middle class.”

White House spokeswomen Dana Perino said talk of a second economic stimulus package is “premature.”

“We believe we should let the first stimulus package work first before trying to get a second,” Perino said.

Tax Rebates

The IRS starting in April mailed tax rebate checks of at least $300 to taxpayers who earn less than $150,000 as part of an effort to spur consumer spending.

Obama’s economic adviser, Jason Furman, said the proposed windfall profits tax would not raise the price of oil because “oil companies are already charging as much as the market can bear.”

Furman said the proposal is the opposite of the gas-tax holiday proposed by Obama’s Republican rival, John McCain, because it would boost taxes on oil company profits to benefit consumers while McCain’s plan would give the oil companies a tax cut.

Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York, said “It’s nice that the plan won’t add to the deficit. But if I was an Exxon-Mobil shareholder, I’d be pretty ticked off that he’s making me pay the bill for this.”

`Are You Better off?’

Obama sought to connect his opponent John McCain to the ailing U.S. economy. Using a line former President Ronald Reagan used against President Jimmy Carter in 1980, he asked the crowd today in St. Petersburg: “Do you think that you are better off now than you were four years ago or eight years ago?

“If you don’t think you’re better off, do you think you can afford another four years of the same failed economic policies that we’ve had under George W. Bush?,” Obama said.

The Commerce Department today said the unemployment rate climbed to 5.7 percent, the highest level in four years.

Demonstrators interrupted Obama by shouting and holding up a sign reading, “What about the black community, Obama?”

Last month, the Reverend Jesse Jackson was recorded on an open microphone during an appearance on Fox News complaining that Obama was “talking down to black people.”

Protester `Misinformed’

One protester asked the Illinois senator, “Why is it you have not had ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited black community in this country?”

Obama told the protester he was “misinformed” and said he has spoken out on many issues that concern blacks.

The demonstration came a day after McCain accused him of playing “the race card.” Obama today repeated his claim that McCain and Republicans in general have run out of ideas and therefore are focusing on attacking him.

McCain, addressing the annual convention of the National Urban League today in Orlando, said Obama’s “ideas are not always as impressive as his rhetoric.”

McCain made a pitch for education reform, touting his school-choice agenda that he said would help disadvantaged children.

“You understand that persistent problems of failing schools and economic stagnation cannot be solved with the same tired ideas and pandering to special interests that have failed us time and again,” McCain said. He said Obama is too tied to the teacher unions to make substantive change in public schools.

Obama is scheduled to speak to the group tomorrow.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in St. Petersburg, Florida, at kchipman@bloomerg.netAlison Fitzgerald in Washington at Afitzgerald2@bloomberg.net

Source: Bloomberg.com

If he won’t refute McCain’s attacks, does he look stronger or weaker?

The Obama campaign is almost Zen-like in its serenity, brushing aside a series of negative attacks as outmoded expressions of old politics, charting its own timetable in choosing a running mate, dismissing worries about being overshadowed by the Olympics as outmoded. Delaying the vice presidential announcement doesn’t matter except to political reporters planning their vacations, but the eerie calm emanating from Chicago about the story line advanced by the McCain campaign has Democrats worried that once again their candidate will be stereotyped as a self-absorbed elitist.

The same people who brought you the windsurfing, French-speaking John Kerry are likening Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, so taken with his celebrity that he declined to visit wounded American soldiers recuperating at an Army hospital in Germany when he couldn’t bring along his media entourage. The story is untrue as is the ad the McCain campaign quickly whipped up. The Washington Post found “no evidence at all” for the accusation.

Facts won’t stop the McCain people any more than they stopped Karl Rove and the Bush crowd in 2004. The Swift Boat attacks showed it doesn’t take facts to get a negative message into the political bloodstream. You can have a huge impact with relatively little money. The more ridiculous the charge–Obama is to blame for high gas prices, Obama is Paris Hilton in drag, Obama disses troops to go to the gym–the more free air time you get from a toothless media watchdog. Republicans worried that their September convention would look pale, male and stale after Obama’s rock-star performance in Denver decided to do a Rove–go straight at your opponent’s strength and turn his rock-star status into a negative.

The combination of huge adoring crowds in Berlin, a missed visit to the troops and a truncated quote taken out of context form the lethal weapon. “This is the moment … that the world is waiting for,” adding “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.” Republicans jumped on the remark as presumptuous. The McCain campaign calls him “The One,” and comic Jon Stewart said when Obama was in the Mideast he stopped by the manger in Bethlehem to visit his birthplace. Similarly mocking characterizations helped do in Kerry–and before him, Al Gore, who never said he invented the Internet or discovered Love Canal–but the images stuck because they fit the easy caricature. And the caricature is starting to put a frame on Obama–the biggest celebrity in the world, an out-of-touch elitist who thinks he’s already won the election. Earlier attacks that Obama was really a darling of lobbyists or that he was borrowing speeches from campaign co-chair Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick didn’t stick because they didn’t fit what voters think they know about Obama, that he raises money by the fistfuls over the Internet and he’s an accomplished orator and writer.

McCain has zeroed in on the one kernel of truth that can support a web of lies. The Obama people can say they’re a transformative campaign, but at some point they have to deal with reality, however distasteful. The old politics is alive and well. If Obama acts like he’s above it, he fuels the fire. If he answers in kind, he risks damaging his brand as a new kind of politician. It’s the same box he was in during the primaries with Hillary Clinton. Saying this is a new era, that it’s not your grandfather’s electorate, that the issues of war and energy independence and economic stress trump the old-guard tactic of character destruction may be true–but why take the chance? “There are lots of ways these things become viral, and this is the Ebola virus of 2008,” warns Matt Bennett, cofounder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “I think his guys are brilliant; they’d better take steps to inoculate him.”

The campaign fell into a similar trap when Obama made his triumphal march from the Iowa caucuses to New Hampshire. Thousands crowded into his big iconic rallies while Hillary held town meetings, taking questions and engaging the voters. The polls showed Obama with a big lead, but the voters didn’t like being told the race was over. The pattern repeated itself in other primary contests. Every time Obama acted like the presumptive nominee, Hillary would rear up and reassert herself.

Moving his acceptance speech into the stadium where the Denver Broncos play will be the high point of the Democratic National Convention. But once the fall campaign unfolds, there will likely be fewer stadium blowouts. As one Democratic strategist put it, “When you’re swimming with sharks, you don’t cut your finger.” Obama has signaled outside groups on the progressive side to stand down, that he wants to control the message, and he has the money to fight on all fronts. Democrats are nervous that the Zen-like demeanor of the campaign is naive, but maybe it’s just a way of calming everybody down. By not reacting to every groundless attack, Obama could be leading us into the new politics he promised. Or he could just be a easier target to hit.

Mon Jul 28, 2008 at 05:39:57 PM PDT

I’ve been arguing for months and months that something has been afoot in Idaho. Further evidence of that comes from FEC filings by the presidential campaigns. Via New West, the Statesman’s editorial page editor Kevin Richert blogs about the numbers.

Through June 30, Idahoans gave $375,586 to Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee. Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain received $228,938.

Statewide, Mitt Romney — the preferred candidate of most leading Idaho Republicans — raised more than Obama and McCain combined. But the fact remains that Obama has raised 64 percent more than McCain in Idaho, with four months left in the election.

For the month of June, Obama raised $57,880 in Idaho. McCain raised $40,995. Even with Romney out of the picture as a presidential candidate, McCain trailed in fundraising in one of America’s most Republican states.

Here’s the tidbit most interesting for Idaho politics-watchers:

In the “836″ zip codes — including heavily Republican Nampa, Meridian and Eagle — Obama has raised $43,156 to McCain’s $29,947. Among GOP candidates, McCain trailed not only Romney but Ron Paul.

This is the fastest growing part of the state and the most politically frustrating. As the population from bluing Boise expands west to these suburbs, Dems have been hoping that it would mean a breakdown in the Republican stranglehold on the area. That hasn’t happened yet, but the Ron Paul factor and the fracturing of the state Republican party that I’ve been writing about for the last eight months, and that Richert blogs about in his post, seems to be centered in this part of the state.

Which holds some encouragement for both Democrats running here: Walt Minnick in ID-01, which encompasses this part of the state, and Larry LaRocco for Senate. First, the simple that Obama is leading in fundraising in the whole state shows that the part of the population that’s engaged and paying attention right now is much more motivated for change in the form of the Democratic ticket. The enthusiasm in the state right now is all on the Democrats’ side.

Minnick has the added benefit of a Sali financial meltdown. The latest is that Sali filed his FEC report 10 days late, shows anemic numbers, an existing and ongoing substantial debt, and some very funny numbers, including a $2,000 contribution from a PAC that apparently doesn’t exist. The Sali campaign can definitely be put in the “struggling” column.

On the Senate front, the Paul factor plays out in the candidacy of Independent Rex Rammell, the elk rancher who has an eduring hate-on for Republican candidate Risch and a personal fortune to propel his run. Given the disaffection so many Idaho Republicans are having with their state party and the candidate at the top of their ticket, another third party candidate in the form of an ultra-conservative Mormon like Rammell could pull a sizable margin from Risch.

While, as Richert points out, Obama is pretty unlikely to win the state’s four electoral votes in November, the impact of his run and the internal divisions in the Republican party could make this the year the stars weirdly align for Idaho’s Democrats. All this should be enough to make Obama consider another stop in the Gem State–preferably in that core Republican part of the state that’s behind him financially–on one of his Western states swings.

Source: Daily Kos

There is something downright sinful to me about the act of swiping a private prayer and taking it public. That’s what happened to Barack Obama left behind last week at Jerusalem’s Western Prayer Wall. Presidential candidate or not, isn’t the man entitled to talk to God in peace, in privacy?

If you’re not familiar with the ancient wall, the tradition there is to write your prayer on a small piece of paper, fold it up and jam it into one of the cracks in the stone, as Obama did.

A newspaper in Israel got hold of his prayer and made the call to publish
“Lord - Protect my family and me,” reads the note, as reported by the Maariv daily. “Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”

Maybe the prayer was supposed to provide a window into Obama’s thinking and the lingering questions over which God he serves. But what an affront to the sacredness of the 2,000 year old Wall, considered Judaism’s holiest place.

So what do you think, was this prayer worth swiping? I think the theft of it says more about the low road this campaign is already hitting than it does about candidate Obama. Should we all pray for the person who swiped Obama’s private prayer?

WASHINGTON (AFP) — White House hopeful Barack Obama is close to picking a running mate with Timothy Kaine, the one-term governor of the pivotal state of Virginia, a prime contender, reports said Tuesday.

Kaine, 50, has told close associates that he has had “very serious” conversations with the Democratic senator about running as his vice presidential nominee, the Washington Post reported.

The Obama campaign has been closely vetting Kaine’s background, but is also taking a serious look at senators Evan Bayh and Joseph Biden, the newspaper said.

As the Democratic VP stakes heated up ahead of the party’s late-August convention, Obama and Republican rival John McCain traded blows on the economy at a time of rising job losses, home seizures and fuel prices.

The Illinois senator held telephone talks with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and met in person with Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke, an Obama aide said, with US authorities stepping up action to bail out the economy.

The contacts came a day after Obama, in a meeting with top economic advisers, said the US economy was now in the grip of an “emergency” that required intensified intervention from federal leaders.

Campaigning in Nevada Tuesday, McCain hit out at Obama on the economy, Iraq and offshore oil drilling.

“Senator Obama says he’s going to change Washington but his solution is to simply make government bigger and raise your taxes to pay for it,” the Arizona senator said.

“We’ve been doing that for years, my friends, and it hasn’t worked.”

Like Obama, Kaine was in Washington Tuesday and told local radio station WTOP: “I have been on board with the campaign since February of ‘07 but I don’t talk about my conversations with the campaign.

“It’s flattering to be mentioned. My mom loves it. But that’s for the campaign to decide… and however they decide, they’re going to make a very good decision as Senator Obama chooses his running mate,” he said.

One politician not considered to be a front-runner for the VP slot is Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama’s defeated rival for the Democratic nomination, both the Post and New York Times reported.

The relatively inexperienced Obama, 46, must take several factors into account, including a potential VP’s pedigree as an office-holder and his or her expertise in national security.

Kaine, an early supporter of Obama when much of the Democratic establishment was lining up behind Clinton, has only served as Virginia’s chief executive since 2006 and lacks a background in federal politics.

But the governor, a devout Roman Catholic, is a business-friendly moderate with appeal to working-class voters, and hails from a southern state that has not elected a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.

The Politico website Monday cited one source as saying that Kaine, who like Obama has roots in Kansas, “ranks very, very high on the shortlist” for VP nominee.

Obama himself is staying coy about the selection process, but wants a running mate who shares his political outlook and will be a partner in government.

“I’m not interested in a vice president who I send off to go to funerals,” he told NBC television on Sunday. “I want somebody who is going to roll up their sleeves and be willing to work.”

Obama reaffirmed that Clinton “would be on anybody’s shortlist.” But the newspaper reports said this appeared to be lip-service to supporters of the former first lady still smarting from her primary defeat.

Unlike the tight-lipped Kaine, both Bayh and Biden have said they would serve as Obama’s running mate if asked.

Bayh, another centrist Democrat, was a Clinton backer whose state of Indiana has normally trended Republican. Biden, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, is one of the party’s top voices on national security.

Other names touted for Obama’s VP pick include Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

McCain is being as coy as Obama about his VP selection. Names often floated include Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, McCain’s erstwhile rival for the Republican nomination.

WASHINGTON - All eyes in the nation’s capital are on the veepstakes as Barack Obama navigates a packed schedule.

This morning after a workout at the Washington Sports Club, Obama met with all of the Democratic women seators, including his former rival Hillary Clinton. Is she a possible running mate? The New York Times doesn’t think so.

Meantime, across town, another possible running mate, Gov. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was being interviewed on WTOP radio, where he wouldn’t commit to serving out his term as governor. After the interview, he tried to knock down speculation, even going so far as to say, in Spanish, “no soy un candidato por nada” (”I’m not a candidate for anything”).

Obama has a full day here in Washington, although none of it will be before television cameras. He is scheduled to speak with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on the phone while on his way to a meeting with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Yousuf Raza Gilliani.

He’ll then have lunch at the Mayflower Hotel for a fundraiser with Asian Americans. Following that, he will hold a closed meeting with Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke.

There is a big hole on Obama’s schedule today that only lists “private meetings.” And any time there is no information, it is hard not to fill it with speculation. Yesterday, Obama had a meeting with his vice presidential search team that lasted almost three hours, so the safe bet is he’ll be havig more running mate planning.

Following his “private meetings,” Obama will make a quick visit to Capitol Hill, not to work on his day job of being as a U.S. Senator, but instead Obama will speak to the House Democratic Caucus which meets every week when Congress is in session.

He wraps up his long day with a fundraiser in Springfield, Missouri. fundraiser. Just to add another potential running mate into the mix, it’s worth noting that Springfield is near the border of Kansas, whose governor, Kathleen Sebelius, is being mentioned as a possible Obama sidekick.

Jul 29, 2008

(The Politico) Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign launched a massive $20 million effort to attract Latino voters on Tuesday, hoping to erase the inroads the Republican Party has made with the key demographic group in the last two presidential elections.

Frank Sanchez, the chairman of the Obama for America National Hispanic Leadership Council, said the unprecedented effort will focus on paid advertising, online organizing, increased staffing in Latino communities and organizing surrogates to hit the campaign trail.

Sanchez said efforts will be particularly focused in the key swing states of Nevada, Florida, New Mexico and Colorado, where Latino voters could make up the margin of victory.

Obama advisers launched the effort at the Democratic National Committee along with Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar and a handful of other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

One of the fastest growing demographic groups in the country, Latinos are being courted aggressively by both campaigns.

According to a new poll conducted by The Pew Hispanic Center, Obama leads McCain among Latinos 66 percent to McCain’s 23 percent.

“The giant has woken up and we are being prodded by the Obama campaign,” said Rep. Hilda Solis, an early supporter of Obama’s primary opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who now says she is firmly in the Obama camp.

Copyright 2008 POLITICO

The Oracle of Omaha is shining a light on the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.

According to media reports, Warren Buffett is participating with Obama in a meeting about the economy along with Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Chairman Eric Schmidt, former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and former Labor Secretary Bob Reich, according to CNBC. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) co-chairman, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker also will be at the meeting of the wisemen tomorrow. Buffett will be participating via telephone hook-up.

There is plenty to talk about given the current state of the economy and the housing market which the International Monetary Fund says shows no signs of recovery. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, is clearly signaling not to expect much from the meeting.

“I expect some further fine-tuning of short-term policies based on what’s happened over the last several months,” Obama said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

What that means is not clear. It should surprise no one that Buffett is backing Obama. The investor has been critical of President Bush’s economic policies including the repeal of the estate tax which he said would be a “terrible mistake.” But that doesn’t mean he agrees with all of Obama’s policies either.

As CNBC notes, Buffett supported Hillary Clinton while she was running for president and disagrees with Obama’s call to tax the windfall profits of oil companies and his decision to forgo public financing of his campaign. I guess the Omaha investor considers Obama to be a significant improvement over Republican John McCain.

Interesting how the greatest investor in history who Republicans tout as a champion of capitalism is as big of a Democrat as Barbra Streisand.