From this point on I won’t be reporting on polling data on this site, not until after both conventions are done. While polling data makes for interesting fodder for television news, the opinions of three hundred to a thousand surveyed previous voters across the nation in July is a very worthless indicator of how over 100 Million eligible voters will cast their ballots come November.

If you must watch polling data here is my advice, simply focus on state-by-state polls. While the sample sizes are still way too small to be representative you are at least looking at a smaller target population to begin with. Beyond the pure numbers though, look to see what people are thinking and saying, what they feel is important because those are the indicators the campaigns will use to shape their policies in the coming months.

Try and hold off until AFTER the conventions. This is going to be an election the media is going to try a billion times over to call but it is unique in many ways. No incumbent, no VP, an aging Senator, a black Senator, two Wars being fought, economic distress, a Congress with a lower approval rating than a very unpopular president, we just don’t know.

In addition the issues discussed over the summer are almost never the issues covered in October. While everyone is declaring “economy, economy, economy, Iraq” it is typically gay marriage, flag burning, Elian Gonzalez, Confederate flag, infidelity charge issues that drive people to polls. So as you watch polling and you watch candidates know that a lot changes.

Most Americans, those in the center and the suburbs and rural parts of this nation, don’t make their minds up until after the conventions, the debates and the bulk of the coverage is over. They decide in the final weeks and days and they do it with a gut feeling of whom they “like” more or which candidate shares their values or their vision for that time and place.

So in short not one bit of the polling matters. All we know is that the president is unpopular, the World is moving rapidly and everything we think we know will change.

The Obama campaign is calling the latest cover of the New Yorker “tasteless and offensive”. The cover takes all of the right wing Internet smear campaigns and combines them in an image depicting Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden giving a high five to a black militant Michelle Obama in the oval office as a flag burns in the fireplace.

Official Statement:

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign.”

Huffington Post has more on the image by Barry Blitt called ‘the Politics of Fear’

Last week McCain top economic adviser Phil Gramm made some comments that did not sit too well with observers. He basically said that the recession is a state-of-mind and the American people had become “a nation of whiners”. They were comments that McCain eventually disavowed and Obama jumped on.

This morning when asked McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina made it pretty clear Phil Gramm would not have a position in the Senator’s White House. Now news from the campaign that Gramm has been releaved of his duties and is no longer a part of the team.

I just watched a half an hour of campaign surrogates Carly Fiorina and Senator Claire McCaskill debating their candidates plans on Meet the Press. After a half an hour the final conclusions I came to were these:

1) Neither candidate is willing to come out on a firm position on almost anything.
2) Neither candidate has an economic plan that adds up to solving our problems.
3) This election looks and sounds almost exactly like every other one for the past few cycles.

Call me a curmudgeon but for over a year I have been skeptical about this tidal wave of “change” and “reform” that has been touted by both of these candidates but especially Obama. Through the sheer for of their wills is how we are told they will change the system. Yet here we are in what is obviously the general election campaign, forget waiting until the conventions, and I see two candidates and their surrogates who look, sound and feel just like any other.

John McCain echoes the weekly Presidential Radio addresses with his first address today (click link to hear it) detailing his positions on energy.

Good morning. I’m John McCain, and this week I’ve been on the road in Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. I’ve been holding town hall meetings to talk over the subject on most everyone’s minds these days — our slowing economy.

More than 400,000 Americans have lost their jobs since December, and the rate of new job creation has fallen sharply. Americans are worried about the security of their current job, and they’re worried that they, their kids and their neighbors may not find good jobs and new opportunities in the future. It’s a big problem when gasoline, food, and other necessities of life carry the price tag of luxury goods, and that’s what it feels like to millions of Americans.

I have a plan to grow this economy, and it starts with getting a handle on the cost of gasoline and regaining America’s energy security. I believe we should immediately suspend the federal gas tax for the remainder of the summer driving season. We also have billions of dollars of oil in the United States, and vast reserves of natural gas as well. So we must commit to producing more of both, to send a message to the market and trigger lower prices for oil and gas.

We will develop more clean energy, and especially zero-emission nuclear energy. We will build at least 45 nuclear plants that will create over 700,000 good jobs to construct and operate them. At the same time, we will develop clean coal technology — which alone will create tens of thousands of jobs in some of America’s most hard-pressed areas.

Under my energy plan — the Lexington Project — we will also accelerate the development of wind and solar power and other renewable technologies. And we will help automakers design and sell cars that don’t depend on gasoline. Production of hybrid, flex-fuel, and electric cars will bring America closer to energy independence. And it will bring jobs to auto plants, parts manufacturers, and the communities that support them.

My opponent has an answer to the Lexington Project, and it’s “no”: No to more drilling, no to more nuclear power, no to more use of coal. For a guy whose “official seal” carried the motto, “Yes, we can,” Senator Obama’s agenda sure has a whole lot of “No, we can’t.”

We need to think as well about small businesses and the jobs they create. Small businesses are the job engine of America, and I will make it easier for them to grow and hire more workers.
My opponent would make it harder by imposing a healthcare mandate that will add a crushing $12,000 to the cost of employing anyone with a family. My plan attacks the real problems of health care — cost, availability and portability.

In an economic downturn, the worst of all ideas is to raise taxes. And Senator Obama will do just that. If you are one of the 23 million small business owners who files as an individual rate payer, watch out — because as your business grows, my opponent proposes to raise your taxes. If you have an investment for your child’s education or own a mutual fund or a stock in a retirement plan, watch out — because Senator Obama intends to nearly double the taxes on capital gains. He will raise estate taxes to 45 percent. I propose to cut them to 15 percent. For those of you with children, I will double the child deduction from $3,500 to $7,000 for every dependent, in every family in America.

To promote job creation, we must also get government’s fiscal house in order. Government has grown by 60 percent in the last eight years, because this Congress and this Administration have failed to meet their responsibilities. When I’m president, I will order a stem to stern review of government, and I will veto every single bill with wasteful spending.

For his part, Senator Obama proposes to create sprawling new federal programs that will increase government spending even more. As for earmark spending, I have never asked for a single earmark in my entire career. In his Senate career, Senator Obama has requested some $930 million for earmark projects. That comes to more than a million dollars in pork for every working day since he became a United States Senator.

In America, the most important measure of the economy is the opportunity — the chance for every man and woman to find a better life, and to make one better still for their children. That is all a part of the promise of our country. And if I am elected president, I will see that promise kept.
We’re passing through a very tough time, my fellow Americans. But we’ve been through worse, and beaten longer odds. And very soon, we’re going to get this economy running again at full strength.

Jesse Jackson Jackson was caught on tape saying he would like to “cut [Barack Obama’s] nuts out” because Jackson believe Obama is “talking down to black folks” by giving them moral lessons. Yesterday Obama sent a message to black youth encouraging them not to pursue dreams of basketball or rap stardom and instead rely on an education to succeed.

According to Bill O’Reilly who aired the tape on his show (via Drudge): ‘We held back some of this conversation… we didn’t feel it had any relevance to the conversation this evening. We are not out to get Jesse Jackson. We are not out to embarrass him and we are not out to make him look bad. If we were, we would have used what we had, which is more damaging than what you have heard’…

Jackson apologized for the comments and there is currently no word from the Obama campaign.

Senator Jim Webb who was heavily rumored (media wished for?) on the Obama Vice Presidential list has taken his name off the list saying, “Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country. Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for Vice President.”

Marc Ambinder shed some light saying that last week reporting that Webb communicated his intentions after Obama’s VP search committee asked for information to begin the vetting process. Sources reportedly say Webb did not want to relive the process so soon after getting elected.

Read the rest of this entry »

As noted previously the Democrats have been running into fundraising problems for their Convention. The New York Times reports “problems range from the serious — upwardly spiraling costs on key contracts still being negotiated — to the mundane, like the reluctance of local caterers to participate because of stringent rules on what delegates will be eating, down to the color of the food.”

Reportedly costs to renovate the Pepsi Center in Denver are now running $6 Million over budget. Massive costs for lavish officespace and “overly ambitious environmental goals — to turn the event into a “green” convention — have backfired as only three states’ full delegations have so far agreed to participate in the program” have been cited.

Meanwhile the LA Times has confirmed that Obama will move his acceptance speech from the Pepsi Center to nvesco Field at Mile High, a move that will echo John F. Kennedy’s acceptance speech in 1960.

Is it just me or has the general election campaign thus far been, well, rather boring? All that has come out are two candidates with no amazing policy ideas bickering. We’ve had no debates, no real discussion, no clear vision, nothing but back and forth charges that end every day with no real resolutions and no actual conception of how this country is going to move forward.

For well over a year now I have been warning people who have jumped aboard the “change” bandwagon on both sides that I this election was going to look no different than any other. From the beginning neither party or candidate had present a radical thought about how they would alter the country. Aside from the marketing slogans and constant promises from both that they would “work across the aisle” every idea presented by the Democrats came straight out of the 1970’s and every idea from the Republicans straight from the 1980’s.

Now, here we are. Already in July, the race determined on both sides, ample opportunity for either candidate to look or act or sound different than every other candidate we’ve had over the last twenty years and…. nothing! Nothing at all.

So when is the change going to come? After the conventions? I doubt it. Sometime in October? No probably not then either. Please, either candidate, anyone, give me some hope that in a time when our nation faces grave challenges one of you will present us with something unique, something no one has thought of before that just might work! Otherwise, this is going to be a very boring few months ahead.

Examples

Energy
Obama in pure 1970’s Liberal vision wants no domestic drilling, no real development in nuclear energy and lots of investment in solar, wind and “green” technology.

McCain in pure 1980’s wants drilling in ANWR, drilling off coasts, moderate expansion in alternative energy.

Neither will budge until their own priorities are met. So, deadlock.

War
Obama wants and end to war, to talk to dictators, bring an end to the CIA/Military Industrial complex vision of the world that was prevelent in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

McCain like Ronald Reagan wants to talk tuff and send a clear bomb ready message to our enemies that only involves talking when our enemies are ready to submit.

Outcome? Neither policy keeps all the bad guys in play or can be used in every situation. A 3D vision of the world is lacking with Liberals denying there is right and wrong in the world and Conservatives unable to see areas of gray.

Health Care & Social Welfare
Obama is proposing massive expansions of government assistance programs while also claiming he is working toward reforming Welfare. While his words sound moderate his plans will cost billions, expand the role of government into Americans lives (even now by supporting faith-based charitable/welfare programs) and result in higher taxes. Meanwhile he is putting forward a universal health care plan believing the federal government has a role in that. However, like Dem ideas tried before, it really isn’t universal.

McCain on the other hand wants to cut the living daylights out of the federal government in true 1980’s spirit, deregulating business while removing government assistance for everything from welfare to agriculture subsidies while raising military spending instead.

The outcome? Neither vision of the world has worked in the last fifty years with our nation swinging back and forth between these extremes toward the ultimate insult of our bureaucracy, eight years of both parties spending every dime of the peoples money and then some on every plan available.

New Ideas?
None.

In a move distancing himself from many Democratic abortion groups, Senator Barack Obama says that “mental distress” should not be a qualifying reason for a woman to receive a late-term abortion. In an interview with the Christian magazine “Relevant”, Obama said any limitation on late-term abortion should contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother” but added “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

This position puts him at odds with NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group that endorsed Obama. NARAL released the following statement reaffirming their support of Obama:

“Sen. Obama has consistently said he supports the tenets set forth by Roe, and has made strong statements against President Bush’s Federal Abortion Ban, which does not have an exception to protect a woman’s health,” the organization’s statement said.