Good one for the tech crowd found via Senate 2008 Guru:

Maine Coast Now has a really interesting story up about Senator Susan Collins who is crying fowl of her opposition’s tactics. Apparently the opposing political party is following her around and videotaping her appearances. A practice that of course has lead to interesting revelations in the past, think George Allen, and is becoming pretty standard on the campaign trail.

Collins doesn’t like being on the record in this way and so her campaign leaked a letter she sent to Democratic challenger Tom Allen expressing her discontent and asking that the practice be stopped. Interestingly enough though Maine Coast Now sees political maneuvering on Collins part pointing out that she did something similar in her last bid.

Apparently Collins at the time floated a story very close to the election which made it seem like her previous opponent was up to dirty tricks. His crime? Doing opposition research, pretty standard in a campaign. Because of the way a slew of articles were written and because it was so close to the election an impression was given that her opponent had hired some kind of political “hit-man”.

Those article of course were written by a journalist who was later linked to the campaign. How? Through e-mail which detailed the close relationship.

The joy of tech!

Found via Roadto2008 columnist Robert Novak is reporting that Clinton may be thinking about Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner for her Vice President if she gets the nomination.

My take? I actually think Evan Bayh is the more likely pick. Bayh seemed poised to run for president back in November before ending all rumors. The two took a highly publicized trip together to Iraq & Afghanistan and have been working hard to get to know the in’s and out’s of the military. He is a good midwestern pick who could play well in the North & South and of course, not to sound like this, he is a white male which would make some moderates and independents more comfortable with her ticket.

Still I don’t see Bayh has officially endorsed anyone and at this points its PURE speculation.

A good deal has been made about Karl Rove’s assertion that Senator Clinton’s negatives are too high and would be easily beatable. So much so that George Stephanopoulos brought it up during yesterdays ABC debate posing it as a question to the other candidates. Their response? Not that groundbreaking. Clinton’s response was right on point “you don’t fight them for as long as I have without raking up high negative numbers” which she said to applause. Frankly this was a missed opportunity for Obama, Edwards & the others for a massive applause line themselves. Why?

First lets get to the heart of the matter. Karl Rove isn’t going to tell everyone who he does or doesn’t want to see Republicans run against. He wouldn’t be much of a strategist if he did. Yet for the last eight years every time Rove has opened his mouth the media seem to take it as gospel. After Al Gore lost the election but started building up popularity again Rove had every Republican echoing the same theme “We would love to run against him! This will be a landslide.”

Was it true? Heck no. Gore won the popular vote in 2000, put himself into a state best described as a mess and then pulled himself out of it by being the first and most vocal dissenting voice on Iraq and eventually a Hollywood star. Not to mention if Gore had learned from his 2000 mistakes he would have probably been a powerful force. Democrats, however, ran scared and ran to John Kerry.

Rove won’t tell you what he wants but I will. He wants to run against a “liberal” candidate who is soft on crime/defense, looks like they will raise taxes, supports gay-marriage and won’t fight back. The Republican strategy for the 2008 election looks the same as 2006, 2004, 2002 & 2000. Fear, division, & attack, attack, attack.

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One of the interesting things about this campaign is watching the evolution of Senator Hillary Clinton as a speaker. I’ve actually had the pleasure to hear Clinton speak in person. I was excited to have her in our little town and I have to say I was won over after her speech as were many others I talked to in our conservative section of Upstate, NY. Hillary used to come across pretty bad on television and the general consensus was in person she came off an entirely different way. That was displayed during her speech.

During the debates Clinton has, up until now, come across as surprisingly warm. She has been speaking in a very personal and conversation-driven style and has kept the right balance between sounding stern and sounding folksy. It is a very hard combination for any president, you have to be all things to all people.

There is of course a “but” here.

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Yesterday I took a day trip to Niagara Falls, one of the benefits of living close to the Canadian border. For those of you who don’t get the chance to jaunt over and see one of the great sights of the world on a regular basis, I wanted to highlight something that you may not be aware of.

There are two sides to the falls, an American side and a Canadian side, both of which have wonderful views of natures beauty but both of which have distinctly different views of man’s nature. The American side is a desolate, rotting and poor oasis of the worst aspects of our country. The streets are falling apart, the neighborhoods are best described as slums and aside from a few hundred feet of development which includes a beautiful new casino, a Hard Rock theme restaurant and some attractions, the place is littered with slum bars, low-rent strip clubs and people that, being non-politically correct here, are scary. VERY scary.

If you drive down the Niagara Falls section of route 104 at one in the morning you will seriously pray for your life for five minutes.

There is of course the other side, the Canadian side.

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