McCain pisses off Hilton family

Note to John McCain:  When you are going to mock a celebrity on national television, try to make sure that person is not the daughter of two of your big supporters.  As has been reported earlier, Rich and Kathy Hilton together donated $4,600 to Senator McCain’s campaign, the maximum allowed by law.

Now it appears that Senator McCain has angered the Hilton family, especially Paris’s mother, Kathy.  When asked her comment on McCains’ ad, she responded with this scathing comment:

I’ve been asked again and again for my response to the now infamous McCain celebrity ad. I actually have three responses. It is a complete waste of the money John McCain’s contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country’s time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States.

Her response is not surprising.  Jon Stewart put it best when he said that the John McCain essentially said to the Hilton’s: “I thank you kindly for your support, now if you’ll excuse me, I got to go take a nationally televised dump on your daughter.”

The last thing John McCain needs to do right now is piss off his top donors.  Besides having a very large fortune, the Hilton’s are also a well connected enough family that they could help dry off funds to McCain from big donors if they are angry enough.

John McCain may try to explain the advertisement as a joke, but count Kathy Hilton as at least one McCain supporter who is not amused

I just got back from the Obama town hall in St. Petersburg

I just got back home from Obama’s town hall at Gibbs High School today.  I was one of the 1500 who was lucky enough to get a ticket to see him speak (the demand for the tickets was enormous).  This town hall turned out not just to be another town hall, but quite a memorable one.  It included new major policy proposals, protests from an African socialist group, and a wide ranging Q&A session.  And most important of all, it had Senator Obama on the top of his game.

I have to say that IMO, Senator Obama is even better in town hall format than he is giving big speeches.  I got to see him live when he came to Tampa in May to deliver a speech to 15,000 people, and it wasn’t nearly as good as this town hall.  This event reaffirmed everything I believe about Senator Obama’s candidacy, and why I think he is the best presidential candidate the Democratic party has had in a long time.

Join me below the fold for the full (and fairly lengthy) recap of the event and all of the madness that ensued.

Pardon the Interruption

Today is the last day that any contributions can be counted towards the July fundraising numbers.  You can donate here.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

It’s time to start calling John McCain an elitist

I want to start off by saying that I am very happy to see Senator Obama finally hit back hard at Senator McCain for his ridiculous attacks. His new response ad is very effective, and his comment about John McCain needing “to talk more about what he is for and not just what he’s against” was the kind of effective soundbite we need to hear from the Obama campaign more often.  I hope that this is the start of a more aggressive response by the Obama camp to John McCain’s ridiculous behavior.

In the spirit of being more aggressive, the Obama camp needs to start hitting back at the notion being spread around that he is somehow an elitist.  Ever since Senator Obama’s “bitter” remarks were taken out of context during the primary, the media and Senator Obama’s opponents have been trying to paint him as some sort of elitist who is out of touch with the working man.  They are continuing this attack lately, by constantly questioning if Senator Obama’s trip overseas makes him seem “arrogant” or “presumptuous”.  When they lack real facts to attack with, media organizations have taken to blatantly doctoring quotes to misrepresent Senator Obama’s remarks.   Senator McCain’s campaign has jumped into the fray, putting out a truly deranged memo to try to paint Senator Obama as an elitist.  I couldn’t make this up if I tried:

Only a celebrity of Barack Obama’s magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand “MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea” and worry about the price of arugula.

So Senator Obama is the elitist, while Senator McCain is the down to earth candidate that Americans want to have a beer with?   To see who the true elitist is, all we need to do is to compare the background of the two candidates.  Let’s Start with Senator Obama.

John McCain flip flops on taxes, feels heat from the right

Another day, another John McCain flip flop.  But unlike the others, this one is actually getting media coverage, and drawing him a sharp rebuke from his conservative allies.

On Sunday, John McCain told reporters on his campaign bus that he would keep all options on the table when it comes to social security, including raising taxes.

“There is nothing that’s off the table. I have my positions, and I’ll articulate them. But nothing’s off the table,” McCain said. “I don’t want tax increases. But that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table.”

This is a complete flip flop from Senator McCain’s previous tax position, and is a similar position to the one his campaign criticized Senator Obama for holding.

Senator McCain has tried to follow the Bush talking point of “no matter how much the government is in debt, I’ll never raise your taxes” talking point in the past. Several times in the past, he has explicitly say he will never raise taxes, and has criticized Senator Obama for suggesting that more income be eligible under the payroll tax.

Obama in Germany (video)

Here’s the full video of Obama’s speech in Germany for those who haven’t seen it yet, or for those who have but want to watch it again.

The full text remarks are available below the fold.

Poll: Israelis prefer Obama over McCain

In news that is sure to make Joe Lieberman’s head explode, a new poll came out today that shows more Israeli’s would rather see Obama elected president than John McCain.  The poll, which I found on the Huffington Post, shows that Israeli’s favor Obama by a 37-28 margin.

Even more positive news from Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East: a new poll by Israel Radio shows, for perhaps the first time, Israelis preferring Obama to John McCain.

When asked “who would you rather see elected as the next president of the United States,” Obama bested John McCain by a 37-28 margin. While far from a decisive advantage — 35 percent of Israelis chose “no preference” or some other answer — the poll reflects a notably different state of affairs from previous surveys, which generally showed McCain with a large advantage over Obama.

Focus on Florida: Winning the I-4 corridor

This is the first part of a new semi-regular series I will be doing called Focus on Florida.  The purpose of this series is to give people insight into the politics of Florida and how Obama will make a play for Florida’s 27 electoral votes.  Despite Obama’s poor showing in the delegate-less Florida primary, Florida is definitely a state than can go blue this year with enough effort from the Obama campaign.  So far, the Obama campaign has risen to the challenge, and shown that they intend to make Florida a top priority this year.

The first diary in this series will be about winning in the I-4 corridor.  For those of you unfamiliar with Florida geography, the I-4 corridor refers to the area in Florida that borders the 132 mile stretch of the I-4 highway, which runs spans central Florida from Tampa in the West to Daytona Beach in the East.  For those of you familiar with Florida politics, you already know that the I-4 corridor is considered the holy grail of Florida politics.  Win the I-4 corridor, and you’re almost guaranteed to win the state. With North Florida and South Florida usually cancelling each other out (North Florida going Republican, South Florida going Democratic), Central Florida is the key battleground area up for grabs in the state.

The Washington Times profiled the I-4 corridor in January in the run up to the primary election.

“We kind of laughingly call it the highway of heaven for the candidates, because if they win I-4, they win Florida,” said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “The I-4 corridor is the new growth part of the state, and the most politically competitive part of the state.”

More than 40 percent of Florida’s registered voters live in counties straddling the interstate, which includes the burgeoning Orlando area and popular retirement centers like Lakeland and Winter Haven, while in between are millions of acres of citrus groves and scrub pine woods.

Competing in the I-4 corridor is no easy feat.  The corridor is diverse racially and geographically, with a mix of white, African American, and Hispanic voters, and mix of cities such as Orlando, Tampa, and Daytona, and the wide areas of rural land that connect those cities.  It is home to two major media markets, the Orlando and Tampa media market, the latter of which is the most expensive in the state (it is also the 2nd largest in the state, and 13th largest in the nation).

Be careful what you wish for…

Frustrated that his dare to Barack Obama has backfired badly on him and has caused Barack to ride a wave a great press, the McCain campaign has been striking back at the media.  The McCain campaign has released a pair of web videos (yes, apparently someone on his staff has learned how use the youtubes) mocking what they see as a media bias towards Senator Obama.  The McCain campaign seems to be goading the media, hoping that they will finally focus more on him than they have Senator Obama.  Well Senator McCain, it appears you may be getting your wish, although not quite in the way you would have hoped.

Tonight the Politico went live with a hard hitting piece that draws attention to all of McCain’s recent “gaffes”.  And by “gaffes” they are really referring to major screwups that Senator McCain has made that shows he lacks even a basic level of foreign policy understanding.  This piece has been picked up by other news outlets, including CBSnews and Yahoo news, where it was earlier one of the top viewed stories.

The Politico piece starts off with a bang, highlighting some of his most recent gaffes:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said “Iraq” on Monday when he apparently meant “Afghanistan”, adding to a string of mixed-up word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition.

Just in the past three weeks, McCain has also mistaken “Somalia” for ”Sudan,” and even football’s Green Bay Packers for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The piece then goes on to opine on whether or not these mistakes are a result of his age.  Whether or not they are a result of his age, they raise serious questions about John McCain’s fitness to be commander in chief.