The Left Anchor

Here’s a nice contrast between McCain’s words two weeks ago, and an appearance on Meet the Press from 2005.

The reason Obama says John McCain is running for Bush’s third term is because — as Sen. McCain himself put it — “on the transcendent issues, the most important issues” McCain is in “total agreement” with the President’s policies. Good luck winning with that message, Maverick.

The New Republic has a short but convincing piece up on just how favorable the landscape looks for Barack Obama right now. This chart is the basic meat of it:

Just look at the massive gains we’ve made since 2004. Among the late Boomers, we’ve seen an insane fifteen point swing to the Democrats. We’ve also gained eleven points among young voters. While it’s the gain in late Boomers that will put us over the top, it’s the gain in young voters that shows which direction this country will be headed for the conceivable future.
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Now that Obama is the nominee, there will be far fewer opportunities for me to bash Clinton strategist Mark Penn. Luckily, he gave an interview to the GQ blog. I recommend reading the whole thing just because I think it’s important to provide Mark Penn an opportunity to tell his side of the story (though his basic point seems to be he didn’t have enough supporters within the campaign, and pretty much everything was someone else’s fault). Of the whole thing, what struck me most was this:
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…who McCain or Obama selects to help vet their vice-presidential candidates. What does this have to do with anything? Policy advisers are one thing, the choice for vice presidents yet another, but the choice for the individual who is going to help vet the choices for vice president is completely inconsequential. I don’t have television, so I don’t know how much play this story is getting, but the fact that this kind of non-sense has trickled its way down to me is rather disturbing.
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Gov. Tim Kaine, a possible VP candidate (profiled here), made a gutsy decision yesterday. He commuted the punishment of Percy Walton from death to life without parole.

There have been several issues regarding Walton’s competency, or lack thereof, and Kaine decided that Walton was just too impaired to be executed. The Constitution requires that a person understand why he is being executed and the nature of the punishment itself; Kaine concluded that Walton did not meet that standard.
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Obama has pledged to keep the tax cuts in place for everyone except those making roughly $250,000 and up. He has also made proposals to cut taxes further for the middle class, some of which he reiterated in his speech: exempt seniors making less than $50,000 from having to pay income tax; give a tax credit worth up to $500 per working person ($1,000 per family) to offset the Social Security tax on the first $8,100 of earnings; and expand the earned income tax credit.
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I believe we can all be very pleased with Senator Clinton’s speech today. She did an excellent job of highlighting her own accomplishments, while still undeniably throwing her full support behind our nominee. I believed she did a great job of demonstrating the collective goals we all share, and helped to salve the bruises many of her supporters are probably nursing at the end of this hard-fought primary season. In fact, I believe this is one of her best speeches of the season (and not just because she’s endorsing Obama). I hope she can keep up the energy over the rest of this campaign season. Thank you, Senator. Today, we are no longer Clintonistas and Obamatons; we are all again Democrats.

I’ll give Mr. 100 Years this: he’s got balls the size of pumpkins. He’s actually released the first anti-war ad of the general election:

UPDATE: Ooh, it looks like they’ve made a sequel! Here’s “The Real McCain 2.”

Let me preface this by saying I do not intend this to be a slam against Hillary Clinton, but it is hard to get to the heart of what’s wrong with Mark Penn without talking a little bit about Sen. Clinton’s approach to the campaign. I believe Hillary Clinton is a consummate politician, but that Penn reinforced her worst instincts. I’m attacking him because I believe he is a poisonous force, and must be ejected from Democratic politics.

The Wall Street Journal did a fine piece on what went wrong with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The short answer? Two words: Mark Penn.
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McCain’s camp sent Obama’s a letter requesting ten joint town hall meetings to occur between June 12th and the Democratic Convention on August 25th. I love this idea. I wonder if it would be back to back town hall meetings, or if the two candidates would share the same stage at the same time. The sheer physical contrast wouldn’t be helpful to McCain. He’s relatively short (5′9″), while Obama’s quite tall (6′1″). He’s very old, whereas Obama looks youthful. And finally, he’s not a great public speaker, while Obama is one of our best. Admittedly, the pre-written speech is Obama’s greatest strength, but his endless debates with Clinton have helped to sharpen his skills in straight forward Q & As.
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