A couple of things here...

I was pointing out that Cindy's drug "problem" is pretty common knowledge to most folks with any interest in politics. If things get ugly, it will get hammered. I think some of the things that make her "elite" could also get a lot of play -- the fact that she bought a plane and took flying lessons without her husband knowing (an anecdote she tells that, to me, reinforces how much more money they have than common Americans AND how out of touch they may be with one another), the fact that she essentially adopted a child without consulting her husband, the fact that she and John had an affair while he was previously married, that her teenage children have credit cards with limits in the 10s of thousands, etc. Things like these are not necessarily secret or can/have kind of slide/slid under the radar while things remain civil.

The stuff about McCain using her private plane and violating campaign laws should be getting a lot more play right now, especially in light of his mock outrage over Obama declining funds, but it is the type of thing that is too complex for most voters to follow or care about and is the type of thing that makes Dems look too eggheaded if they harp on it too much. McCain is a hypocrite when it comes to campaign finance laws and lobbyists, but understanding those types of "issues" AND caring about them is outside the range of the common voter.

At least Cindy McCain never killed anyone(that we know of)

Another trusty poll shows

Obama 69%
McCain 29%

134 persons polled.

Swaggs' post reminds me that I read the McCain's have credit card debt (on AMEX, no less) of over $100,000, that AMEX inexplicably allows them to carry over.

Well, maybe not inexplicably since I assume AMEX knows Cindy has money to cover it. Still, as others have said, some of this may eventually come out (and I'd expect 527s at least to use it).

Why doesn't she just have a black card? Maybe they do and just don't talk about it?

I'm assuming they have a black card, and also assuming that they don't have to pay it off each month.

Kay Bailey Hutchison was hilarious on CNBC this morning. 'McCain's flip-flop is a good thing, they show thoughtfulness' (I immediately looked for any comments she may have made on Kerry regarding flipfloppedness but ran out of time). She than said we should be drilling in ANWAR....because there are no trees there, no forest. I find that hard to believe Kay. Then when Joe asked her if they patch the AMT tax how will they pay for the things in Bush's budget because he cites that money in his budget. She said "We dont need to pay for it." AHHHHHH, business as usual.

I'm a bit curious about all of the ranting recently in the media about how Obama can't be president because he will refuse to allow for more oil drilling at home and we should elect McCain because he will allow it. If this drilling is so important to Republicans, why haven't we been doing more of it with a Republican president? It isn't like rising gas prices has been a surprise. We aren't just now figuring out that adding oil to the supply might drop prices and scare away speculators...

I am not much of a Republican lover but this post makes no sense. The republicans have for the most part suppoted drilling and have been blocked by the democrats. And the gas crisis (at least the $4 a gallon crisis) is fairly recent. So it is a huge story.

Of course, maybe the oil companies should start drilling on many of the leases they already have.

You'll have to ask the Democrat-controlled Congress. Certainly, the Republicans would have had us drilling long ago if they had the option.

It's silly that the U.S. continues to follow this policy. The technology is there to drill for oil both in the sea and up north with minimal impact on the environment. Meanwhile, countries like Cuba are allowing the Chinese to drain these oil reserves not more than 150 miles from our coast with far less concern for their impact on the environment.

I find the argument that 'drilling won't have any impact for 8-10 years' to be pretty weak. There's no real downside to drilling. Worst case, we have an increase in oil production down the road that will assist in our supply issue. Best case, we already have alternatives up and running and the extra oil provides a cushion that will further reduce our need for foreign fuel or hopefully remove it altogether.

Nah. She's perceived as too close to big oil. Wrong year for that.

We've had a Democrat controlled Congress recently, but didn't we have a Republican controlled Congress during Bush's first term? I just don't remember hearing much talk about drilling locally before it became a campaign point. I've also heard predictions for quite a while that gas would hit $4/gallon. It seems rather silly that nobody really planned for it until it actually happened.

I'd love to see the decision to drill happen just to make all of the speculators scatter. People keep saying that just the threat of drilling will cause prices to drop, so I say start threatening and see what happens.

The Republicans controlled the White House and Congress for six years between 2000 and 2006 and did virtually nothing. GWB was even opposed to offshore drilling off of Florida (largely because of brother Jeb's anti-drilling stance).

The prices weren't as much of an issue during the first term. People didn't truly reach a pain threshold in regards to prices until his second term.

This NewsHour transcript is pretty telling to me in regards to the arguments for/against the drilling. While one person is dramatizing the 'permanant scarring of the land', a Native Alaskan who lives in the area notes that, despite the native population's initial concerns in the early 1970s, the footprint of the oil drills has decreased ten-fold since the 1970s and that the caribou population is thriving with very little impact taking place at this point.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/envir...anwr_11-2.html

Florida has changed quite a bit in that regard. I think we'll see a lot more of this in the days to come.......

http://www.miamiherald.com/campaign08/story/573350.html

but apparently there's not one tree in ANWAR cuz I was concerned that it was, y'know, wilderness and all.

---based on what KB Hutchison said today.

Like between 2000 and 2006?


O RLY?

Senator Mel Martinez (R-Fla):


Vice President Richard Cheney (R-Pure Evil):



Aside from the release of contaminants (planned or accidental) into the environment, of course.

I'll never forget Cheney lying in the debate and John Edwards hammering him repeatedly on it. Over and over and over. The questioner had moved on to something less important and Edwards would go, "Ill answer your question in a second but first....Dick, you said, not 30 seconds ago...." too funny, had me on my feet.

Here's another example since I obviously missed the correction on that example. No drilling on the Great Lakes on the U.S. side while Canada has over 1,000 rigs in Lake Erie alone.

http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/z...reat_lakes.htm



Great. Let's assume you're right in this point. What would be the alternative? I have no political preference in this fight as I just want cheaper prices. I could blame both parties as they've both had full power at some point since the Carter administration. But that doesn't do a lick of good. Are we arguing who the bigger morons are or what is the best way to resolve the issue?

I would put a ton of money on Obama to win this thing - I wonder where the weird internet gambling sites put the odds (can't check at work).

And I think we need a little more pain to get off oil, it'll be worth it in the long run. Environmentally, politically, security-wise. I would be all for drilling if our consumption could continue to go down.

Absolutely. Politicians need their feet to the fire. One of the quickest ways for that to happen is for economic forces to push those buttons to the point where the public starts to push for change.

As I stated before, though, there are a lot of unused drilling leases currently held by oil companies on U.S. soil. As such, the absence of rigs on U.S. soil may not necessarily indicate that the oil companies don't have permission to drill, but that they haven't bothered to. In this light, their lobbying to get yet more regions opened up for drilling is merely a land grab.

Not that I blame them. They are businesses, after all. They should be looking to acquire as many leases as possible, as it helps their business in the long term. However we, as the landowners, have the right and responsibility to ask them why they aren't developing the land we already leased to them.


On the pollution front I'm arguing that the short-term relief (which is not guaranteed anyway) we'd get on petroleum prices from expanded drilling is not worth the long-term price in environmental damage.

This is my opinion, based on my own personal values. You or many other people may not agree with my judgment, and I accept that.

On the issue of the high price of oil, I'm arguing that the remedies being offered by the oil companies, their lobbyists and their surrogates in Congress and the White House are demonstrably ephemeral at best, and possibly counter-productive at worst. It is long past time we started looking seriously at conservation and alternative sources of energy, and if this is the kick in the pants we need to get really moving on those, then so be it. I also don't buy the counter-argument that it'll put us as at a competitive disadvantage largely because it puts pretty much everyone as the same competitive disadvantage.

Well, wouldn't this be an argument against drilling?

That would be a sucker bet, because Obama is about a 2 to 1 favorite right now. The true value right now should be about 5 to 4. I think QuikSand bought a bunch of McCain stock a couple of months ago at about .30, which has a huge amount of value. Unless McCain dies before the election, Quik will be able to sell that off for a decent profit later this fall.

^^ Right around the Republican Convention, I should think.

Not necessarily. We still need something to hold us over until the new technologies are in place. Just because we don't want to be dependent on oil, especially foreign oil, in the future doesn't mean you abandon it as a fuel source over the next 10-20 years. That need still must be met.

Definitely. You can't replace foreign oil with domestic drilling obviously, but maybe you could come closer if people consumed WAY less, and the technology was WAY better. And the former would happen because gas would cost way more.

But just drilling more domestically now with no other changes, for possible minor relief, is just silly and short-sighted. It's just a way to pander to the masses.

So my guess is that you'd be in support of the "Energy X-Prize" idea that McCain proposed that offers incentive to private companies/individuals to essentially expedite a move to a more energy efficient engine in a timely manner that would not occur in the conventional setup that we currently have? Similar prizes have done wonders in the flight and space industries to boost innovative ideas.

Actually, I find it ironic that McCain, of the supposedly free-market GOP, feels that it's necessary to have government subsidize the development of a technology that, if created, would certainly reap its creator billions of dollars in revenue. ;)

I'm generally in favor of "X-Prizes" for technological developments that won't necessarily have an immediate payback for their creators (like the Spaceflight one, for instance). This creates an incentive, as you say, for such developments.

I guess I don't see why we should need to do an X-Prize-style award for a considerably more energy efficient engine when there's plenty of demand for such an engine already and the market would certainly reward anyone who brought one to market.

Sounds like a typical liberal big-government, loose-spending, Democratic ploy to me. :D

This seems like a no-brainer idea. What is the normal payout for something like this...1 million? 10 million? Whatever it is, we get the private sector to spend way more doing their own research and development. Tap the experts that are out there and offer a big payday for their work. Everybody wins.

I'm definitely going to point back to this page in this thread the next time JiMGA or Arles calls me a big-government Socialist. :D

In my mind, the x-prize would have to be for some sort of alternate-fuel engine, not just a more efficient gas-run engine. Market rewards for this wouldn't necessarily be immediate because of the infrastructure required to deliver this fuel. Seems like a good way to give some an immediate pay-off while they wait years for the alternative to go mainstream.

electoral-vote.com has lots of polls for today...

CO: Obama 49-44 (Quinnipiac)
MI: Obama 48-42 (Quinnipiac)
MN: Obama 54-37 (Quinnipiac)
MS: McCain 50-44 (Rasmussen)
TN: McCain 51-36 (Rasmussen)
TX: McCain 43-38 (Texas Lyceum)
WI: Obama 52-39 (Quinnipiac)

Also, some Senate polls:

CO: Udall (D) 48, Schaffer (R) 38 (Quinnipiac)
MN: Coleman (R) 51, Franken (D) 41 (Quinnipiac)
MS: Wicker (R) 48, Musgrove (D) 47 (Rasmussen)
NJ: Lautenberh (D) 45, Zimmer (R) 28



*Obama is only down by 6 in Mississippi? (Bush won by 20 and 17). He's only down by 5 in Texas? Wow.

*Bad news for Franken as his numbers have been dropping and he's running 13 points behind Obama.

*Lautenberg looked in trouble in earlier polls, but looks like he's sailing now.

Huh? Udall is running for Senate in New Mexico, his opponent is Pearce.

Bush was a South governor running against a white guy from New England. McCain is running against a black candidate. I'm surprised that you're surprised at those numbers. I'd be surprised if Obama wasn't closer. No one should be surprised that he's closed in where large black populations exist.

Udall's cousin.

Especially since McCain is an Arizonian and the base is already skeptical of his conservatism.

Ah. I had no idea. That would be confusing, two Udall (D) Senators. Luckily they'll be from different states, but still.

Still, a 14 point swing is pretty big. And I figured race would hurt Obama in Mississippi as much as it would help him. Obama's numbers are about even to Clinton's 92 and 96 numbers here.

Whether it should be a surprise or not, the fact that McCain has to pay attention to states like Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia is a pretty serious problem for the GOP.

That would make sense if there were alot of undecideds in the poll, but that's not the case. They may be skeptical, but do you really think the conservative southern base disikes him so much that they're willing to switch to Obama? If so, then McCain should just quit now.

Let's not go crazy here. He's still ahead in those states and there's 5 months before the election with basically no campaigning\debates\dirt throwing. This race is just starting up.

Your Udall Primer:
Tom Udall = NM
Mark Udall = Colorado
Stewart Udall = AZ
Mo Udall = AZ/RIP

I'm just saying that if the GOP candidate can't hold on to conservative southern whites against a liberal African-American candidate, that's pretty sad. I'm not saying that's the case here. I was just responding to someone else's scenario.

Really? What previous precedent do we have involving an African-American candidate to compare it to? You can be sure that there are going to be plenty of surprising results/exchanges during this campaign and you can also be sure that both sides are going to take some hits that they don't expect due to the unusual nature of this race (older, moderate Republican candidate vs. an African-American liberal candidate).

More polls today from electoral-vote.com

Kentucky: McCain 51-35
New Jersey: Obama 49-33
Ohio: Obama 48-46
Texas: Mccain 48-39

Senate

Kentucky: McConnell (R) 48, Lunsford (D) 39
Texas: Cornyn (R) 49, Noriega (D) 35

McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek Reports


Don't know if the story has legs, but it's certainly not good press.

So far, the press has all but ignored the ever-growing list of issues McCain changes sides on (often from day to day), so I'd be shocked if this minor indiscretion raises a peep.

This was my thinking.

An OpEd article today from our libertarian-leaning paper (referencing Obama's stop here locally):

LET'S WELCOME BARACK OBAMA

Barack Obama, welcome to Colorado Springs. As the man who stands a good chance of becoming the next president of the United States, please set your heart and mind on no other goal than great and sophisticated leadership of what's supposed to serve as the freest country on earth. You stand not only a good chance of getting elected, but you have the intellect, the personality and oratory skills to serve as one of our gifted leaders, in league with Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan.

You promise change. So please take to heart the fact that more growth of federal services and powers would be the farthest thing from change. George Bush has spent eight years giving us big government, all intended to change and enhance the American experience.

Under the leadership of Bush, federal education spending increased by three-fifths in just his first term - to change things for children. He federalized an education system that had been localized throughout our nation's history. He created a prescription drug benefit, the first new entitlement program since Medicare - to change things for seniors. With the Department of Homeland Security, he created the largest federal bureaucracy in history - a change to make us safer. He proposed the first $2 trillion and $3 trillion budgets in history, changing our government's debt load. He seldom said "no, that's not the proper role of federal government." Bush was five years into his presidency before he vetoed a bill. He outspent any other president in history, trying to use government as a tool to change the world. The only visible move Bush made in the direction of a smaller, less intrusive government involved his nominations of strict, limitedgovernment, constructionist jurists to the federal bench.

"Government is not the solution," President Ronald Reagan said in 1981, after Americans had grown tired of a post-New Deal/Great Society big government economy in shambles.

In a 1996 State of the Union Address, President Bill Clinton agreed. He declared: "the era of big government is over."

By the time Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton were done, government spending had dipped to 18.4 percent of the gross domestic product - its lowest level since 1966. America thrived. During the Bush II presidency, government grew to consume 20 percent of the GDP in 2007, and the 2008 figure is certain to be higher.

Give us change, Mr. Obama, by giving us less. Don't tell states what their abortion laws should be. Don't try to give all Americans health care, a feat government can't possibly achieve without wreaking havoc. Don't increase overhead for businesses by imposing enhancements of the Family Medical Leave Act. Don't try to solve global warming by capping emissions.

Your goals are extraordinary. Nobody wants children to go without health care. Nobody wants Greenland to melt. But a president can't just give us better lives. Craft the country you envision not by force, but by leadership. Use your gift for communication, and your obvious love for this country, to urge people to greatness. Inspire and motivate, rather than promise dictates and mandates, and you may land in the White House. Anyone can dictate and impose. Only a genuine leader can inspire, motivate and lead. You could be that man. But tired old talk of government fixes won't get the job done. It didn't work for Bush II, and it won't work for you.