Jon Has Nothing To Say

Christie-Guadagno Campaign Manager Bill Stepien released the following statement regarding Jon Corzine's release of his first positive television ad of the general election:
"Since the start of the general election, it's been nothing but negative ad, after negative ad from Jon Corzine. Now after four misleading, attack ads in a row, Jon Corzine finally launches his first positive ad of the campaign and he doesn't say a word. Considering nearly 200,000 New Jerseyans have lost their job in the last year, unemployment keeps rising and we still have the highest tax burden in the country, it's no surprise Jon Corzine is at a loss for words."

Trail Of Broken Promises

David Sirota writing in Salon on Obama's lengthening trail of broken campaign promises:
Behavior by President Obama suggests a more systemic assault on the campaign promise is underway.
It started in December when he was asked why he was making Hillary Clinton his chief diplomat after criticizing her qualifications and promising Democratic primary voters that his views on international relations were different than hers. He responded by telling the questioner "you're having fun" trying "to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign." The implicit assertion was that anyone expecting him to answer for campaign statements must just be "having fun" -- and certainly can't be serious.
A few months later, in reversing a five-year-old commitment to support ending the Cuban embargo, Obama offered no rationale for the U-turn other than saying he was "running for Senate" at a time that "seems just eons ago" -- again, as if everyone should know that previous campaign promises mean nothing.
At least that was a response. After the New York Times recently reported that "the administration has no present plans to reopen negotiations on NAFTA" as "Obama vowed to do during his campaign," there was no explanation offered whatsoever. We were left to recall Obama previously telling Fortune magazine that his NAFTA promises were too "overheated and amplified" to be taken literally.
It's true that politicians have always broken promises, but rarely so proudly and with such impunity.
We once respected democracy by at least demanding explanations -- however weak -- for unfulfilled promises. Then we became a country whose scorched-earth campaigns against flip-flopping desensitized us to reversals. Now, we don't flinch when our president appears tickled that a few poor souls still expect politicians to fulfill promises and justify broken ones.
The worst part of this devolution is the centrality of Obama, the prophet of “hope” and “change” who once said that "cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom." If that's true, then he has become America's wisest man -- the guy who seems to know my kids will laugh when I tell them politicians and voters once believed in democracy and took campaign promises seriously.

Edwards: Phony From Start

From Marie Cocco at Newsweek:
I never understood John Edwards' appeal. I therefore do not expect that Elizabeth Edwards' new book, or the tiresome media blitz accompanying its publication, will bring a sudden change in my thinking.
I first saw Edwards at one of his early presidential campaign events in New Hampshire during the summer of 2003, and was mystified. He'd pulled up to a small brick plaza in his campaign bus, adorable children in tow, and, as I recall, with John Mellencamp's "Small Town" playing as theme music. The song was meant to resonate with rural voters and it was odd to hear an ode to country life at lunchtime in downtown Manchester, which is not particularly small, nor rural nor Southern. But son-of-a-poor-millworker was Edwards' shtick for the 2004 campaign, and he was sticking to it.

Not much distinguished Edwards from the rest of the Democratic pack, except that he had less experience in office than did his chief rivals, John Kerry and Howard Dean. He wasn't associated with a cause, as was Dean with opposition to the Iraq War, or Kerry, who started his political career as a military man who opposed the Vietnam conflict. Edwards hadn't authored an important piece of legislation, and he didn't push a campaign proposal that was anything but generically Democratic.
Edwards hadn't finished his single term as North Carolina's senator when he ran for president, so he had a slim public record. Much of what was known about him came from his own account of his passionate representation of wronged families he'd represented as a trial lawyer, a calling that made him rich.
No one could predict that Edwards' political life would end in such a spectacular flameout, with the disclosure that he'd had an affair -- and possibly a child -- with a campaign videographer. He and his outwardly noble spouse Elizabeth hid this from voters, campaign staffers and contributors even as he was campaigning in 2008 as a family values man who valued, in particular, his relationship with his cancer-stricken wife. Now we learn that Edwards is under investigation for possibly funneling campaign funds to the mistress, and he has released a perfectly parsed statement that says "no funds from my campaign" were used improperly. That pointedly leaves out money that could flow from the labyrinth of his other political organizations. I am sure federal prosecutors can sort all this out.
Still we should not be so concerned with Edwards as another self-absorbed politician who engages in self-destructive behavior. I worry more that Edwards became a two-time presidential contender and the 2004 vice presidential nominee based on little but his own preening.
This was enough to set the media-political complex agog, not once but twice. . . .
That Edwards was considered in the "top tier" of 2008 candidates was always a bad joke.
All campaigns are about imagery and manipulation. But stripping away this gloss is supposed to be one of the media's jobs, or at least it used to be. That we helped create Edwards as a national figure and now cover his wife's book promotion as a worthy story is a measure of not just what's gone wrong for them, but what's wrong with us.

Kind Words For Barack

Some people seem to feel I haven't always been fair (or even nice) to Barack Obama.
And maybe I haven't.
But from time to time I have given him credit.
In fact, just about a year ago (January 26, 2007) on this blog I called Obama a "helluva fighter" and all but predicted he would win the nomination and implied he might win the the election as well. Here's what I said:
Barack Obama's victory in the South Carolina Democrat primary can only be described as devastating. It was a crushing triumph: two-to-one; a huge mandate.
In his victory speech Obama never mentioned the Clintons by name but his shots at the Clintons were clear as he declared the election a contest between "the past and the future" and said the real test was not about "how much time you've spent in Washington or your proximity to the White House" but whether you could bring people together and provide real hope for the future. And then Obama added that we must turn away from the politics that tells us that "you can't even admit that a Republican had an idea, even if it was an idea you never believed in."
Even though Obama used a teleprompter to make his remarks, it must be noted that we haven't heard oratory like this in a long time. Quite impressive.
Tomorrow's endorsement of Obama by Caroline Kennedy in a New York Times op-ed (where she says he will be "a President like my father") will add another boost to his campaign.
Be sure of it: This is a helluva fight and - this is one helluva fighter.
So, there you are.
Don't think I don't recognize and respect this man's talents and abilities. I do.

Don't Worry, Be Happy!

A lot of us are still recovering from the presidential election. OK, so we supported U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. And we were prepared for a long, tough campaign. We didn't mind that.
But what a lot of us did mind was the "inevitable" thing -- this notion that there was some sort of bigger destiny, some sort of larger plan that would propel The One into the White House no matter what. I have to admit it really started to get to me.
In denial
Even before the election was over, people were accusing me of being in denial. For whatever reason, they wanted me to recognize the reality of the situation. Friends urged me to "get real" and prepare myself so that I'd be OK "after the fall." Some of them even spoke in hushed tones, telling me they were "worried about me.". . .
To read the rest of my column from today's Courier-Post click here.

Road To Victory, 2

If the battleground states are tipped to McC (and some think they are) here is another possible Road to Victory for Big Mac. Note this scenario reaches the magic number without Pennsylvania. This path actually gives McC a cushion of 15 votes.

Big Shifts To McC!

From an internal campaign memo written by Big Mac's pollster, Bill McInturff:
The McCain campaign has made impressive strides over the last week of tracking.
The campaign is functionally tied across the battleground states with our numbers IMPROVING sharply over the last four tracks. . . . all signs say we are headed to an election that may easily be too close to call by next Tuesday.
The race has moved significantly over the past week, closing to essentially tied on the last two-day roll. These gains are coming from sub-groups it should be possible to sustain over the next week, including:
- Non-college men;
- Rural voters, both men and women;
- Right-to-life voters; and most encouragingly;
- We are beginning to once again get over a 20% chunk of the vote among soft Democrats.
Importantly as well, our long identified target of Walmart women - those women without a college degree in households under $60,000 a year in income are also swinging back solidly in our direction.
Finally, in terms of critical improvement, even as this track shows more Republicans voting for us than Democrats supporting Obama, we are witnessing an impressive pop with Independent voters. . . .
This has been the week where Joe the Plumber has literally become a household name. An astounding 59% of voters in these battleground states have heard a lot about this story, 83% have heard a lot or some about this episode.
The 59% dwarfs the other stories/thematic elements we are tracking this week.
The campaigns relentless focus has helped strengthen our margins on the issue of taxes and broadened as well to the attribute of handling the economy and jobs. . . .
In our tracking, now 59% of battleground voters describe Senator Obama as being a liberal, a percentage that is higher than previous Democrat losers Gore/Kerry, and significantly higher than for President Clinton and President Carter.
A majority (54%) of voters profile as saying Senator Obama is more liberal than they see themselves politically.
As Senator Obamas profile as a liberal increases, it has helped further erode his support among key sub-groups.

'Stop' Tour Kicks Off

The mother of a U.S. Marine who has served in Iraq, and a black singer will lead a national bus tour rallying Americans to reject the Obama/Biden ticket and instead support the McCain/Palin campaign. The "Stop Obama Tour: will launch this Wednesday, October 15th rallying Americans at 35 cities in swing states across the nation. The tour will take place from October 15th – 29th.
Military Mom Deborah Johns' son is a United States Marine who has served several tours of duty in the War on Terror, including three tours of duty in Iraq. Lloyd Marcus, has already attracted attention in the 2008 presidential campaign with his song "Sarah Smile" -- a tribute to Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. (You can see the video to "Sarah Smile" - HERE).

Also leading the "Stop Obama Tour" will be radio talk show host and television news & politics analyst, Mark Williams, who will be blogging and podcasting on the events taking place throughout the tour.

“The Stop Obama Tour” is a project of the “Our Country Deserves Better” committee an independent federal political action committee that has already raised several hundred thousand dollars from everyday Americans in the effort to support the McCain/Palin campaign.Local elected officials and community leaders will also speak at the rallies which will take place in: California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Nine rallies alone will take place in Michigan, as the Our Country Deserves Better Committee has stepped in to fill the void created by the decision of the McCain campaign to pull its own resources out of Michigan, and focus their staffing and ad spending in other states. The national tour will be supported by an extensive television advertising campaign with commercials having already begun across Nevada, then to begin in Colorado, and a heavy media buy to begin later this week in Michigan. Again, the committee’s determination to step in and wage an aggressive campaign to defeat Obama in the Great Lake State comes in the wake of the McCain campaign’s drawdown of resources from the state.

"Palin's a C_ _ T!"

Friends of ours who live in center city say that these fourescent tee-shirts declaring "PALIN IS A C _ _ T!" are frequently sighted on Philly sidewalks.
This photo shows four of the Palin haters outside the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue where Palin made a recent fund-raising apperance. These four were part of a group of hundreds of leftist thugs who showed up to jeer and disrupt the event. Like their counterparts in Manhattan, they are loud, crude, and grossly intolerant. Their chants could be heard blocks away even in the upper reaches of a residential high rise.
These are the same people who preach to others about tolerance. But these people are also the same ones who want to eliminate all opposition speech. To them, tolerance means one thing: "Agree with us, or shut up!"
By comparison, that woman in Naples with the "We R So Screwed . . . " sign seems tame, indeed. Warning to Naples lady: Be careful. The speech thugs may be on their way.
Photo provided by HillBuzz.com

Yeah, Let's Fight!

Tomorrow all of the Sunday talk shows and all of the "elite" big city dailies will be leading with stories about the "anger" of John McCain's supporters and the chattering class will declare that outright "hatred" seems to have infected the McCain campaign. Don't be fooled.
Yes -- McCain's Army is Angry. Very angry.
And yes, a lot of the anger is close to (or could turn into) hatred.
But it's not Obama that the McCain troops are angry at.
And it's not Joe Biden or Michelle Obama that are the targets of the anger -- even though Obama, Biden and Michelle are hardly favorites among McCain loyalists.
No, the McCain crowd isn't really angry at any of them.
It's John McCain who has aroused the anger of McCainiacs. It's McCain that they're angry with.
They're angry because McCain isn't honing his messages clearly enough, isn't touching on the right issues, isn't perfecting his attack, isn't pounding away, isn't fighting hard enough.
These people know McCain is a warrior who fights for what he believes in and they want to see him fight, really fight. They want to see the fight in his eyes and hear it in his words and understand it in his actions. They know that time is short and if the battle is to be brought to the fore then it must happen now - because they know they can win.
McCain raised their expectation before the last debate by indicated he would lead the charge. Then, when he climbed into the ring, he delivered a tepid performance at best.
Yes, there are others who are sources of frustration and anger -- most notably the media. Still, McCain's people understand that they don't have a helluva lot of control over the mainstream media.
But they do like to think that they might have some sway over McCain.
In politics you simply don't get to win the top prize without fighting like hell, especially if you're not an incumbent.
So, don't buy all that nonsense about hatred and vitriol. There's more than enough frustration to go around.
But, it's a renewed fighting spirit that the McCain people are interested in -- what FDR used to call "a good fight." It's the type of spirit Truman used to relish and Reagan used to excel at.
That's what the crowd wants: Stand up, lead the charge, fight, win!

Like 1980, Again?

On Saturday, I joined Adam Cirucci and his fellow Vanderbilt University alums at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center where we heard a talk by Dr. Bruce Oppenheimer on the 2008 presidential election.
Dr. Oppenheimer is a professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt and the author of numerous books and articles on the U. S. Congress and the democratic system. He's well versed on American political history. Here is some of what Dr. Oppenheimer said:

• Barack Obama is to Jesse Jackson as John F. Kennedy is to Al Smith (the Democratic presidential candidate in 1928 and the first Catholic to be nominated for the presidency). In other words, if Obama wins, he will complete the journey begun by Jackson just as JFK completed the journey begun by Smith.
• By any historical measuring rod, the odds favor the Democrats this year: bad economy, war, unpopular president, and people feeling the nation is headed in the "wrong direction."
• In the modern era, it's very hard for one party to maintain control of the White House for more than two terms. Since 1952, this has only happened once: in 1988 when Bush succeeded Reagan.
• Most polls nowadays are notoriously unreliable because people don't answer their phones (caller ID, etc.) or they have cell phones or the polls are automated ("robocalls"). State polls are even more unreliable and subsets of polls cover such a small sampling that they are unreliable as well.
• Presidential elections are decided by a preponderance of events and impressions accumulated over a long period of time -- not by any one single event unless the event is so cataclysmic (like 9/11) that it proves to be a real "game changer."
• Vice Presidential choices rarely make a huge difference in the outcome of the election.
• This election may turn out to be very much like to election of 1980 where the race seemed close until the final couple of weeks. In the end, people were satisfied in their own minds that Reagan could be president. They reached a level of comfort with Reagan and embraced change. The result was that he won handily. Once again, the new guy, the challenger, may prevail -- if he can finally close the deal with the American people, if they reach a level of comfort with him.

Having said all this, Dr. Oppenheimer would not flat out predict an Obama victory. But he invited the audience to "consider all the factors and come to your own conclusions. You don't need talking heads to illuminate you. You can read, pay attention, consider the facts and figure it out for yourself," the professor said.

Option: Dump Biden?

Democrats are increasingly jittery about their prospects today as the Obama campaign unleashes a September offensive full of new ads mocking McCain as out of touch and tieing him to lobbyists and special interests. At the same time, there are new concerns that Obama & Co. may not be able to reach fund rasing targets and that Democrats could even lose their control of Congress.

On top of all this, Senator Joe Biden has now pretty much admitted that perhaps Obama should have chosen Hillary Clinton as his running mate after all. Biden has been even more gaff prone that usual of late and there's little doubt that he's off his game. He seems uneasy in this new climate, surrounded by yuppy handlers and Obamaniacs.

Is it too late to dump Joe?

Is that even a possibility at this point?

In politics, never say never.

Democrats have proven themselves to be remarkably adept at making last-minute switches (think Torricelli et. al.) and one has to wonder what Obama and Bill Clinton were chatting about yesterday. At the same time, Hillary's been quietly helpful of late - as if she's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That shoe could be Biden.

I'm not saying it's going to happen but if it does happen, it could happen like this: Biden withdraws (maybe for "health" or "personal" reasons or simply for "the good of the party") and the DNC quickly replaces him with Hillary.

Obviously, Hillary would need no training for this role. She's ready to go IF she's agreeable.

That's a big IF. Does Hillary really want to be Obama's second choice for second place?

Still, it can be done.

And don't forget: 50+ days is an eternity in politics.

In a year filled with twists and turns, don't rule anything out.

How Many Houses?

Obama wants to know: How many houses does McCain own?
Oh, so now Obama has decided to enter into class warfare.
Response from the McCain camp:
"Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people 'cling' to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?
“The reality is that Barack Obama’s plans to raise taxes and opposition to producing more energy here at home as gas prices skyrocket show he’s completely out of touch with the concerns of average Americans.”
And since we're asking questions, here's what I want to know:
How many houses does Jay Rockefeller own?
How many houses does Nancy Pelosi own?
How many houses does Jon Corzine own?
How many houses do John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry own?
How many houses does Dianne Feinstein own?
How many houses do the Kennedys own?
How many houses does John Edwards own and who's living in them?
If this is where the campaign is going, let's find out.

Unprecedented!

Today, for the first time in American history a presidential candidate will deliver a campaign speech in Europe.
And today Europeans will weigh in on their choice for President of the United States.
And today, Barack Obama will visit Germany - his first visit to that country, ever.
This is Barack Obama: a person who never really held a full-time job until he became a United States Senator two years ago; a man who announced his presidential bid after he had served in the U. S. Senate for just 143 days.

Flippity, Floppity TIE!

From Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:
After almost six weeks of a constant Obama lead, generally in the five to seven-point range, Scott Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll records two consecutive days of a tie race (July 12-13) and a one-point Obama lead on July 14. What happened to the Democrat’s lead?
Part of the slippage is Obama’s fault and part is McCain’s gain.
Obama has carried flip-flopping to new heights. In the space of a month and a half, this candidate — who we don’t really yet know very well — reversed or sharply modified his positions on at least nine key issues. . . .
Obama’s breathtaking flips and flops are materially different from McCain’s. While McCain had opposed offshore oil drilling and now supports it, the facts have obviously changed. Obama’s shifts have nothing to do with altered circumstances, just a change in the political calendar.
As a candidate who was nominated to be a different kind of politician, Obama has set the bar pretty high. And, with his flipping and flopping, he is falling short, to the disillusionment of his more naïve supporters. One wag even called him the "black Bill Clinton," a turnaround of the "first black president" moniker that had been pinned on Bill.
Meanwhile, McCain and the Republicans have finally found an issue, oil drilling, exposing how the Democrats oppose drilling virtually anywhere that there might be recoverable oil. Not in Alaska. Not offshore. Not in shale deposits in the West. . . .
The truth is that the Democrats put the need to mitigate climate change ahead of the imperative of holding down gasoline prices at the pump. If there was ever a fault line between elitist and populist approaches to a problem, this is it. In fact, liberals basically don’t see much wrong with $5 gas. Many have been urging a tax to achieve precisely this level, just like Europe has done for decades.

Dems Want Joe Out

From Rick Pedraza at Newsmax:
Several Democratic insiders are now saying Sen. Joe Lieberman, D- Conn., will be kicked out of the party's caucus and lose his Senate chairmanship next year if he addresses the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., as planned.
Lieberman, the four-term senator from Connecticut who was elected as an independent in 2006 after losing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 because of his support for the Iraq war, is supporting Republican nominee John McCain for president.
According to The New York Times, Lieberman's Democratic colleagues are upset over his openly campaigning and traveling with the senator from Arizona during this election season and are fuming over his refusal to tone down his rhetoric against Obama. Some in his party are advising him that speaking to the GOP convention in September will be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. . . . .
Lieberman has reportedly not ruled out switching parties, but has not to this point thought that he should, which is increasingly becoming an intolerable embarrassment to Democrats.
"I don't have any line that I have in my mind," Lieberman says about reaching the point of no return with the Democratic Party for speaking out on behalf of McCain. "If it happened, I'd know it when I saw it."

All About The Brand

Quick, what do you think when I mention Coca-Cola?
Maybe you think "soft drink." Or maybe "refreshment."
But maybe you also think of hydration, harmony and happiness. Perhaps visions of America come to mind, or thoughts of an earlier, simpler time. A longing for Santa and an old-fashioned Christmas with the family might even pop into your head.
To read the rest of my column from today's Philadelphia Daily News, click here.