McCain has problems with his pastor too

McCain today distanced himself Rev. John Hagee's remarks that hurricane Katrina was punishment to New Orleans for the "sins" of New Orleans (such as accepting homosexuality).

This is much worse than the "god damn america" that Wright said, this is a preacher who is buddies with John McCain saying that tolerant Americans deserved to be killed by nature's fury.  

What a loon.  McCain needs to distance himself.  

McCain is as trustworthy as Clinton

In this relatively critical article over at the WaPo, they note that hypocrisy that is John McCain.  Once opposed to the Bush tax cuts on the grounds that they only really benefited the ultra wealthy and were quite fiscally irresponsible, McCain has now said that making them permanent is a cornerstone to his economic policy.

Both of the democratic candidates favor raising taxes on those making over 250,000 per year.  

Whenever Hillary switches positions on an issue, pundits are quick to criticize her waffling.  But not with McCain.  He is seen as the Vietnam hero / grandpa / maverick who would never do anything wrong.  

I think we should start seeing him as he is: a cross between Bush and Cheney.

Jon Stewart on Hillary

This video is pretty funny.  He sure tells it like it is.  She's gone in so many different directions, it proves what we've all known for a while.  She will do anything, including destroying her own party, her integrity (whatever was left), and breaking any rule she can find.

Calling IN could be tough for Clinton

In the democratic primary battle, one weapon of choice is the phone calls.  

For Barack Obama, this means having thousands of people who visit his website make calls from their own phones to voters in places like Indiana, North Carolina, and Oregon to help them learn about voter registration, find their polling place, and even arrange transportation to their polling location.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, does not have even close to as many volunteers so she is forced to resort to the old robocall, an automated phone recording.  Just as you'd expect, these do not generally go over as well with voters compared to a real live person.  And guess what?

Robocalls are illegal in Indiana.  So how's she going to get out the vote in the last "battleground state?"

When a win isn't a win

Our good pal Hillary Clinton "won" Pennsylvania.  By a win, I mean that she has more popular vote in the state than Barack Obama.  Too bad for her the delegate math in PA isn't that simple, so it is likely she will only gain a marginal number of them.

Hillary now has a few immediate problems:

1. Superdelegates: Her margin of victory wasn't decisive.  Right now she is up 54% to 46%; this 8% is nowhere close to the 20%+ that she was polling just several weeks ago.  She is claiming victory in a state where she lost a huge amount of ground in a short amount of time.

2. Money: Simply put, she's close to broke.  Her campaign website is re-directing straight to her fundraising page and they are asking for donations of $5.  That's not much money, no matter how many people visit her website tonight.  

3. Delegate math: she hasn't made up the grounds that she's lost.  Her campaign keeps moving the goalpost.

The Audacity of Hope

I picked up Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope this weekend, while shopping at Wal-Mart.  I've been meaning to read it for a while, as the general consensus is that it is one of the most important political books in years.  The consensus is right.

The book covers many separate issues, including our current political system, the Constitution, race, and general American values.  Reading the book gives you a good insight into Obama's thought process.  He is a very intelligent man.  He has a deep understanding of the issues, whether it is poverty, opportunity, health care, etc.  What gives his understanding more credit than others is his ability to logically present both sides of the issue and give due respect to the other side and to those with whom he disagrees.

His proposed solutions generally come across as do-able, and also worth trying if certain conditions are met.  Compared to George W. Bush and John McCain, Obama is a fiscal conservative.  Like Bill Clinton, he believes in having a pay-as-you-go system that makes sure that additional spending does not increase our debt.  Bush has basically taken a cash advance on our future with Iraq.  

Just like his speech on race, there aren't many quotations to pull from the book, it needs to be read in full to appreciate it.  I've also seen "scare quotes" floating around the internet, purporting that between the covers of this book, Obama talks about black power, or holding Muslims above Christians, or strengthening outdated models of affirmative action.

He does none of that.  

The solutions that he proposes are mostly common sense, and if he can really get us out of this war and save us a few trillion dollars, I don't see too much harm in letting him attempt certain solutions, such as giving healthcare to the poor, job re-training to laid off workers, and other somewhat social programs that could pay dividends in the future.  I am confident that if Obama was able to get most of his programs passed, it would represent far less spending that the bloat of the Bush years.  And when you take a look at it, its almost a given that politicians will spend money.  I'd rather it be spent here than in Iraq and I'm sure most would agree.

The central theme to the book is that we as Americans need to come together with sensible solutions to our problems if we want to keep up with powerhouses of India and China.  The "old politics" of back-room deals, no-bid contracts, pork-barreling, and a culture of non-transparency are hopefully on the way out.  I don't think many will miss them.

Bring back the daisy ad...

Today on Keith Olbermann's show, Hillary Clinton said that if Iran used nuclear weapons against Israel that she would order their use against Iran.  

This statement is scary for many reasons.

1. Nuclear weapons should only be used as a last resort, against a direct attack on a country.  This does not include attacks on an ally, no matter who that ally should be.
   
2. Previously, she had mentioned that "massive retaliation" on the part of the US should not only extend to Israel but to our other allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.  Tonight's comment on singling out Israel was her attempt to score the Jewish vote.
   
3. Israel has its own nuclear weapons (yes, that secret is out) and I'm sure the Israelis can handle themselves.
4. Threatening a country, even a country like Iran, with the nuclear option is just the type of thing that may escalate the problem instead of solving it.  There are groups within Iran who are sympathetic to the USA; the last thing we need is for Ahmadinejad to have a new rallying cry for his people. 

Unfit to balance a checkbook

Clinton's campaign has a negative net worth.  They started April with $10M of debt and around $9M in cash.  Meaning one thing: she is unfit for leadership.

 

Additionally, her once 20 point lead in PA is probably going to end in a 5 point win.  Of course, the Clintons will spin this and say it is because Obama outspent her 4:1 on TV advertisements.  But she probably won't get into "how" he could outspend her by so much.

 

She's broke.