From the cowards at the AP, which still hasn't sued me for pasting portions of their articles:
Obama reported spending $55 million in July, his highest in a single month, spending about $33 million on producing and airing commercials. McCain reported spending $32 million in July, with nearly $2 of every $3 devoted to advertising.
Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission Wednesday show Obama raised $50 million and had about $66 million in the bank at the start of August. McCain reported raising more than $26 million during the month. He began August with more than $21 million in the bank.
The two candidates spent aggressively on advertising. McCain targeted about 11 traditional battleground states and Obama ran ads in 18 states, expanding his sights to states that have voted Republican in the past.
$55 million in one month ... that was more than John Edwards would've been allowed to spend entirely between January 2007 through the convention. Regardless of how efficiently Obama may or may not be spending that money, fact is that without dramatic changes in the law, no presidential candidate can take public financing in the primary and hope to be competitive in this day and age.
My oh my, how quickly things can change. From the handwringing of yesterday to the buttkicking of today. It started with the news that he couldn't keep track of how many homes he owns:
You remember how McCain was saying that all of his questioning of Obama's motives in ending the Iraq war wasn't questioning his patriotism, but instead his JUDGMENT? Well Obama saw through that BS. Sounds to me like Obama's gloves have also come off on Iraq. First Obama called him the liar that he is.
On Thursday, Obama took umbrage with this interpretation of events. "I expect [John McCain] to show me the same courtesy that I showed him," said the presumptive Democratic nominee. "Then yesterday he tried to say he wasn't challenging my patriotism, he was challenging my judgment. What does it say when you say someone would rather lose a war than lose an election? Of course he was challenging my patriotism."
"If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.
[snip]
But Obama repeated that he rejects an immediate shift to a single-payer system. "Given that a lot of people work for insurance companies, a lot of people work for HMOs. You’ve got a whole system of institutions that have been set up," he said at a roundtable discussion with women Monday morning after a voter asked, "Why not single payer?"
In a very defensive response to the fusillade of attacks from Barack Obama's campaign with their "McCain McMansions" ad, the surrogate attacks, and the press releases, the McCain campaign had this as their response. Let's all guess what it is below.
I outlined some of my criticism of the Obama press strategy yesterday, and with McCain making a huge blunder, the Obama camp senses a huge opening. And like a lion catching a zebra, it looks like Obama is poised to go for the jugular.
I got inspiration from one of the comment that I found on politicalwire about super rich confused McCain not remembering how many houses he owns. I modified it to this new version of "There are some things that money can't buy" ad.
$100 for a makeover to look young
$520 for black leather Ferragamo Italian shoes
$28,500 in campaign donations from Hess Oil executives after changing mind to allow oil drilling
$50,000 for speechwriter who can attack 'hope'
$58,000 per year of taxpayers money in disability payments
As a religious minority (I am an atheist - Spider Grandmotherist. I do my best to live by the two rules given tp the Hopi Indians by their Spider Grandmother: "Don't go around hurting folks. Try to learn about things.") I am sick of political candidates pandering to religious testing by fundamentalist preachers posturing in their megachurchs like modern day Elmer Gantrys and mainly questioning the candidates beliefs about Jesus, abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage and euthanasia.
Come to think of it, I think there used to be something in our U.S. Constitution banning this, but I suppose after almost 8 years of the Bush II presidency, and a majority of Democratic cowards and Republican crooks in our Congress and a criminal majority in the SCOTUS, that, like so many things in our constitution, the ban on religious testing no longer applies.
Well, now we can OFFICIALLY say that Will Bower was FULL OF IT! How can pumas sit back and allow this man to lie while they kiss his feet?! Ugh, I suppose when you're buds with Andy Martin and Jerome Corsi there is no level of stooping that you won't go to.
In an interview to be published in The New York Times this Sunday, Rep. Dennis Kusinich continues to make the case for impeachment – especially amid the Russia/Georgia crisis – as well as arguing for Democrats to come together to back Obama.
Asked why he continues calling for impeachment, Kucinich responds, "This president is capable of taking us into war, in October, on the eve of an election, to try to change the outcome of the election...
"The events in Georgia are a premonition...of an attack on Iran. When Georgia moved against South Ossetia as the Olympics are starting, the Bush administration begins its own Olympics – the war Olympics."
NOTE: Please don't take this as my advocacy for Tim Kaine. I have great hesitation about his record as Governor of Virginia. And I certainly don't want to make this another stupid speculation diary. But I thought it should be said.
I didn't think I would catch myself saying this even a few days ago.
But I think Tim Kaine might be absolutely perfect for VP.
When he was first mentioned as a possibility, I though, BOR-RING. Another pandering LieberDem.
But he has some formidable skills and a common-guy demeanor that could bring this whole shebang home.
People feel uncomfortable about their economic situation, and they need a guy who will reassure them about Barack Obama and convince them that he will help them in our troubled economy.
There've been diaries on this, but piling on is the point.
McCain's two gaffes in the last week--his inability to remember how many homes he owns and his expressed belief that people worth 4.9 million are middle class--are an enormous gift to Obama. And Dems, for a change, seem to smell blood.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.
"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."
Granted, McCain has a lot of houses, but even the highest estimates are like a dozen. That's not some ten-digit number like 1,537,993,625 (which anyone would have trouble remembering) where if you transpose the five and the three it's a major misrepresentation.
Is McCain's memory really that poor, and if so, what does it say about his ability to be president? Or is the number of houses he has such an unimportant question to him that it's not worth remembering? That he has a house everywhere he goes, so why bother singling them out to remember?
Or maybe it's a politically inconvenient question and he knows most reporters will give him a pass.
When one of your homes is really a combination of two different luxury condos the metaphysical status of your property comes into question. You’d really need to ask a trained professional mereologist to resolve the issue and can’t expect McCain to speak to it personally.
Dude, I just wanted to get this out there. I'll add more. It was uploaded to youtube 7 minutes ago, I stumbled on it by accident.
Script via FleetAdmiralJ
Maybe you're struggling just to pay the mortgage on your home, but recently John McCain said that the fundamentals of our economy are strong.
Hmm. Then again, that same day, when asked how many houses he owns, McCain lost track. He couldn't remember. Well, it's seven. Seven houses. (show White House on screen) And here's one house America can't afford to let John McCain move into.
And now for some good news: Barack Obama and the Democrats are taking their gloves off.
This morning on CNN, Paul Begala of all people made a good point, that nothing unites a group like the definition of a common enemy. That enemy is John McCain and the Republicans, and it looks as though the Democrats are waking up to how much fodder this guy keeps giving us. As Tom cataloged today, Obama's language is getting tougher and more progressive. He was asked about this by Time Magazine:
TIME: Your speeches seem to be getting far tougher.
In a 3 hour marathon last night, CNN devoted an hour and a half to each of the life stories of the two major candidates for President.
The Obama segment featured clips we have all seen, along with some new, and flattering information. The only thing they could find to say that smacked of "negative" was a comment from a Chicago print reporter, and Obama biographer, that his initial foray into politics was "cut throat". That was followed by 3 different people saying "That's the way politics is played".
