USA/ McCain's secret army to defeat Obama

This is being written about one week from the elections here in the USA. According to most polls, an Obama victory seems inevitable. The outcome of the election for President, however, does not depend on the number of votes received by Obama and McCain in the entire nation, but on the number of votes in five or so States whose electoral votes can make the difference between winner or loser regardless of the national results. From this perspective, a McCain victory cannot be entirely ruled out. Indeed, McCain is famous for these last minute victories, and he is counting on being able to do it again.

The election of a new President, however, is not the only important result of this contest. In fact, the election of a new national legislature is just as important, because a President that cannot count on sufficient support from the House of Representatives and the Senate will not be able to do much to implement his political agenda. On the other hand, a President that can count on sufficient support in the House and Senate will have a great power to shape American life in the next four years. For that reason, one of the strongest arguments of the McCain campaign these last days is that the likely control of the legislature by the Democrats will allow a President Obama and his Party to move the country much farther to the left of where most of the American people are. This is why the McCain campaign has promoted the view that Obama is a socialist, and that his victory would amount to a socialist revolution.

But it is not only the area of economic policy that worries those inclined to vote for Obama, but who are not sure even now that they know enough about him to trust him with such powers. This is also the fear of the “cultural conservatives” (especially pro-life voters). It seems that the Democratic leaders have finally realized that the total identification of the Party with the pro-abortion agenda hurts them, and probably explains why they have lost so many elections in the past decades. For the first time, the Party leaders have actually recruited candidates to run as pro-life candidates in areas that have been taken for granted by the Republicans. This year there are at least 12 such candidates whose campaign is entirely financed by the Democratic Party. Obama himself has insisted that he has softened the pro-abortion position of the Party and made space for pro-life candidates to run as Democrats. Whoever wins the election to the presidency, it will be interesting to see whether this new tactic of the Democratic Party succeeds. If it does, it is bound to begin to detach the Party from its nearly total dependence on the pro-abortion activists and financial supporters.

A campaign of living history

A campaign of living history

The 2008 presidential contest will go down as one of the most interesting, and most important, races of at least the past half-century. Why? Major crises, compelling debates and strong — indeed, historic — candidates.

Whether it was the hard times, serious national mood or a superb cast, 2008 will go down as a year of great political theater.

At this stage in past elections, we've all heard pseudo sophisticates gripe, "This is so endless and boring; wake me when it's over." Or jaded malcontents grumble, "Out of 300 million people, couldn't we get better candidates than these bums?"

(Less than a week to go: Barack Obama and John McCain race to Nov. 4 /
Gary Hershorn, Reuters)

Not this time.

As someone who covered presidential campaigns for three decades, traveling with candidates and interviewing voters, the 2008 election has crackled with the highest level of intensity in my memory.

Whether Republican nominee John McCain will defy the doomsday pollsters or Democratic candidate Barack Obama will launch a historic landslide win, the political season that began in Iowa and New Hampshire has been a vivid show diverse actors, weird plots, dumbfounded pundits. Only hindsight will tell whether 2008 was a game-changing election in the way that Roosevelt-Hoover in 1932 led to the New Deal, Kennedy-Nixon in 1960 intensified the Cold War, or Reagan-Carter in 1980 began a Republican dominance.

But there's no doubt that millions have felt a heightened sense of importance: This time it really matters. One clear reason is the gloom of impending crisis two wars, the global economy and U.S. stock market in belly-churning tumble, and 85% of Americans saying we're on the "wrong track."

Voters are energized

You only have to look around to see the evidence. Early voters swarming in lines as though free Super Bowl tickets were being dished out. New voter registrations in record numbers. In states I visited this fall, I saw a back-to-the-old-days array of yard signs and car stickers for Obama and McCain. It looked like the '60s. And campaign rallies are drawing monster 100,000-people crowds.

Another yardstick of 2008's political intensity is the way the campaign has infiltrated pop culture. Saturday Night Live skits are a hot item (who was real, Sarah Palin or Tina Fey?), Oprah, Comedy Central, David Letterman and Jay Leno are thriving on political hijinks. CNN, Fox and MSNBC are politics 24/7. And, of course, the Internet has become a Babble Machine for argument and money raising.

Sure, it's an American art form to sneer at politicians, their hypocrisy and cupidity. But even at the beginning of the 2008 campaign, the level of competitors was exceptionally high Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Obama for the Democrats; Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and McCain for the Republicans.

When McCain and Obama fought their way through that maze, the skepticism that we didn't get the best two Oval Office candidates quickly faded.

But a word here for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Her admirable, up-and-down persistence in the primaries and debates against Obama was to my mind the most stirring drama of 2008. The topsy-turvy narrative of Obama vs. Clinton was more fierce than most recent general elections.

A historic year for women

Give Clinton credit for lighting fires, especially among women, that have endured through the fall campaigns. And far beyond.

Nor should we ignore the cultural force of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who spiraled from "who?" to "wow!" to "whoa!" in public view. Whether she turns out to be a disaster or bonus for McCain, Palin has been a shot of Tabasco to 2008 politics.

Happily, this has been a chaotic election year when conventional wisdom and print and television pundits and polls got blindsided. Remember when McCain was too old, too broke and too disorganized to become the nominee? Or when Obama was too inexperienced, just a showboat orator, sure to be doomed by secretly racist voters?

Voters kept shoving the professionals aside and taking over the election.

Sure, there is a queasy excess too much campaign money sloshing around, too many TV ads, too many polls constantly taking temperatures in every state. But by the standards of other years the Willie Horton ad in 1988, Swift-Boating in 2004 it wasn't an excessively dirty campaign. For that we could partially thank McCain, whose sense of honor forbade employing racial overtones against Obama.

Nor can we complain that we haven't gotten enough policy detail. We were inundated by "my plan and his plan" in three presidential debates. Never mind that Congress will decide the surviving plan. What we really gauged on TV was the candidates' personas McCain aggressive behind the smiling mask, Obama quick-witted and unflappable.

When all the bluster and bloviating fade, maybe we'll remember only snippets from the TV blur: "Lipstick on a pig," "Joe the plumber," "terrorist," "socialist," "the real America," "that one," "I am not George Bush." But I hope we'll remember 2008 for an electric, engaged election, to me the most dynamic campaign in a half-century.

In a perilous year, people took charge and made their own history.

Why do citizens in 70 countries prefer Obama to McCain?

Senator John McCain says when it comes to foreign policy he’s light years ahead of Barack Obama. Over and over again, McCain has insisted Obama lacks the necessary experience to conduct business with foreign countries on behalf of the United States.

So how do you explain this?

Citizens of dozens of foreign countries prefer Barack Obama over John McCain as our next president by a margin of almost 4 to 1, according to a massive poll conducted by the Gallup Organization. About 30 percent of those surveyed prefer Obama, while just 8 percent favor McCain.

This was no daily tracking poll either. Gallup polled people in 70 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and North and South America, representing nearly half the world’s population, between May and September of this year.

Citizens of the Philippines and Georgia were the only ones who preferred McCain to Obama. Not exactly the super-powers we’re looking to mend fences with.

Here’s my question to you: Why do citizens in 70 foreign countries prefer Barack Obama to John McCain by a margin of nearly 4-1?

Interested to know which ones made it on air?

Justin from North Carolina writes:
Barack Obama is the candidate of reason. Only a fool would think of supporting the ticket with the oldest presidential nominee and a woefully inept vice presidential candidate are in the best interest of America or the world especially when the current disaster of a president proves to be more coherent than the both of them.

Kevin writes:
They prefer him because he’s a patsy and they know he’s going to pander to them. Kennedy was on medication during meetings with Khrushchev and Khrushchev called him a pygmy. No fear whatsoever. Good thing Kennedy did stand up to him during the Cuban missile crisis. Obama needs some testosterone shots. Putin, Chavez, the Castro’s, the Girl Scouts of China…anybody could chew him up, push him around, and spit him out.

F.S. from Rollinsford, N.H. writes:
Jack, just to let you know that from my wife’s and my visit to Europe for 3 weeks just recently, we couldn’t find anyone in 4 countries that wanted McCain for President. They all think he is warmonger and that Palin is a joke. Do they know something we don’t?

Jackie writes:
To be fair, I think McCain’s negativity rests with the “R” after his name. He is a decent man who, because of his age and knowing this is his last chance, sold his soul to the Republican National Committee.

Mike writes:
It’s simple. It may sound racist, but it’s really not. Foreign countries are tired of old white men bossing them around and looking down on them. They finally see someone who will respect & approach them as equals.

Zach writes:
Let’s see, Jack…where to begin…They don’t want to get bombed? They want to work with a well-spoken, even-keel U.S. President for a change? They’re smarter than almost half of the people in our own country?

Cindy McCain defends her blasphemous past and habits not to forget devious self

Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, decried the "viciousness of the media" Monday, days after the New York Times ran a front page story detailing her troubled history with prescription drugs and difficulty fitting into Washington social circles.

In an interview with Fox news that aired Monday night, Mrs. McCain said she thought the biggest difference between her husband's first presidential run eight years ago and his campaign this year was the media's attitude toward the Arizona senator's candidacy.

"What has really stunned me is the — quite honestly, is the kind of viciousness of the media on occasion," Mrs. McCain said. "In 2000 — there's certainly always been, you know, differences, and the — you know, the things that occur. But this has taken on a different tenor. And I don't know why and what's caused that, and I'm sorry for it because I think it turns a lot of young people off."

Cindy McCain's comments come a week after she accused Obama of waging the "dirtiest campaign" in U.S. history. On Monday, she also addressed the lengthy New York Times story directly, saying she has no plans to read it and has since received several messages of support.

"I did not read it, no. I did not read it, and I have no intention of reading it," she said. "My BlackBerry was loaded with friends the next morning saying, ‘I cannot believe this, you know? I'm sorry for you and all this.’"

The article drew a sharp response from the McCain campaign, which called it a "barrage of petty and personal attacks," and said the New York Times reporters "employed tactics that are obviously unprofessional and almost certainly unethical" in researching the story.

McCain attorney John Dowd also scolded the paper for rehashing a series of facts that he said have been long reported, and said they had failed to do similar investigative pieces into either Michelle or Barack Obama.

"It is worth noting that you have not employed your investigative assets looking into Michelle Obama. You have not tried to find Barack Obama's drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father," Dowd wrote in a letter to the paper.

Colin Powell endorses Obama, breaks ranks with the GOP

Powell served three Republican presidents and was once seen as the party's likely presidential candidate. Some critics, including Rush Limbaugh, say race is a factor.
WASHINGTON -- In 1996, the political world was buzzing about the intentions of a possible presidential contender -- one who could make history.In the end, Colin L. Powell, four-star American icon, proclaimed that he would not run after all, disappointing millions of supporters but generating sighs of relief at the Clinton White House.

Powell showed over the weekend that he could still affect presidential politics, declaring his support for Democrat Barack Obama.The prospect of Obama becoming the first African American president, Powell said, would "electrify the world," and the endorsement is already reverberating.Given his decades as a professional soldier and high-ranking official in three Republican administrations, Powell carries weight with the military and moderate voters. Now, more of them could swing to Obama.
Even before Obama was first elected to public office as a state senator in Illinois, Powell was considered the odds-on favorite to become the first African American to head a major-party presidential ticket.He looked to be a formidable candidate in the 1996 race: a black centrist, long an independent, who had led the victorious U.S. military during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But he declined to run, citing concerns about his privacy and a lack of passion for political combat. There were also reports that his wife, Alma, feared for his safety.Instead, Powell said, he would join the Republican Party, hoping that his involvement would broaden the GOP's appeal and humanize its attempts to reform social welfare programs."I believe I can help the party of Lincoln move once again close to the spirit of Lincoln," he said.With his embrace of Obama, Powell, 71, has broken ranks.The decision led to debate over his motives. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh suggested Powell's endorsement was rooted in race and the hope that Obama would become the first black president."I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed," Limbaugh said in an e-mail. "I'll let you know what I come up with."Powell, in his appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," denied that race was the motivating factor. He said he had pondered a decision for months, and that he had told Obama, "I'll give you all the advice I can, but I'm not going to vote for you just because you're black."Powell's decision to cross party lines, former associates said, is far more complicated than black and white."It was a painful thing for him to do, for sure," Larry Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who was Powell's chief of staff at the State Department, said in an interview Sunday. "One of the principal parts of his character is defined by loyalty."The Republican Party and Republican presidents "have done a lot for his career," Wilkerson said. Powell was President Reagan's national security advisor, then served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush before he became President George W. Bush's first secretary of State.Wilkerson said that Powell ultimately was distressed over what he saw as growing divisiveness in the country and a return to "the vitriol and bigotry and prejudice" of the 1960s.Adm. Henry Ulrich, the former commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe, said he thought Powell's decision was not easy."Colin Powell is a very, very, very bright, thoughtful person, and I can assure you that he did not enter into this endorsement without giving it lots and lots of thought and give it all the due process it deserved," Ulrich said. "I think it is remarkable that he has endorsed a Democrat, and so I am sure he didn't do it lightly."Sen. Obama is quite lucky and fortunate," he added. "It should have made his Sunday."

Waging the image campaign overseas

Barack Obama has packed his overseas trip with presidential images: a helicopter ride over Iraq with the U.S. military commander; a visit to a Holocaust memorial; a meeting at Afghan President Hamid Karzai's palace.
He even found time to sink a three-point basketball shot before cheering U.S. soldiers.
John McCain?
His most memorable picture of the week was riding a golf cart with former President George Bush at Bush's Kennebunkport vacation home in Maine.
If the image campaign means anything, it's been a tough week for the Republican presidential candidate.
"It's not even a close call," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "This week at least, it looks like incumbent President Obama running against challenger Bob Dole. That's exactly what it looks like, the future versus the past."
CNN cut away Wednesday from live coverage of McCain's town meeting in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to cover Obama's news conference in Israel (although it later showed McCain highlights). MSNBC and Fox News Channel briefly showed pictures of McCain's meeting but didn't stay to hear what he had to say, and covered Obama in full.
The TV executives made that decision even though Obama's trip has raised the issue of whether the news media is giving a disproportionate amount of attention to the Democrat. McCain's campaign on Tuesday released a video mocking a media love-in with Obama.
Obama has traveled like a president, ferrying aides and reporters to the Middle East in a white 757 charter plane that displays the motto "Change We Can Believe In." He brought along a large group of aides, including campaign strategist David Axelrod.
The overseas trip was designed to hold meetings with people "who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years," said Obama.
Every stop seemed designed with symbolism in mind. He lit a memorial flame at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and stopped at a house under reconstruction after it was hit by Hamas rockets. He met with both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and heard Israeli President Shimon Peres say "God bless you."
"If it continues to go well, Obama has passed a certain presidential threshold," Sabato said. "It's just been perfect. He's even been in Oval Office-like chairs. It has helped him. I think that image will linger."
This week it's simply impossible for McCain to compete, he said.
But Sabato noted the calendar — it's still July. There are many more campaign images to come. CBS News' Jeff Greenfield said he "has a certain skepticism about whether these pictures in July are going to mean much in November."
Obama's confident basketball shot — the only real image that couldn't be planned ahead — may be nice, but will it be forgotten as quickly as his sorry attempts at bowling?
A week like this is probably most important in the eyes of each campaign's supporters, particularly for McCain, Greenfield said.
"It can encourage grumbling, it can encourage backbiting and it could have an effect on fundraising," he said.

Is media playing fair in campaign coverage?

Is media playing fair in campaign coverage?
July 21, 2008, 7:46 AM EST
Television news' royalty will fly in to meet Barack Obama during this week's overseas trip: CBS chief anchor Katie Couric in Jordan on Tuesday, ABC's Charles Gibson in Israel on Wednesday and NBC's Brian Williams in Germany on Thursday.
The anchor blessing defines the trip as a Major Event and — much like a "Saturday Night Live" skit in February that depicted a press corps fawning over Obama — raises anew the issue of fairness in campaign coverage.
The news media have devoted significantly more attention to the Democrat since Hillary Rodham Clinton suspended her campaign and left a two-person contest for the presidency between Obama and Republican John McCain, according to research conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
News executives say there are reasons for the disparity, such as the continuing story about whether Clinton's and Obama's supporters can reconcile. They even partly blame McCain. By criticizing Obama for a lack of foreign policy experience, McCain raised the stakes for Obama's trip, "especially if he winds up going into two war zones," said Paul Friedman, senior vice president of CBS News.
Obama has traveled to Afghanistan and is expected to go to Iraq. He is also scheduled to visit Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England. Network anchors stayed home during McCain's recent foreign excursions.
"The question really needs to be posed: Is this type of coverage fair?" said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. "This is nothing but a political stunt."
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh said none of this should be a surprise.
"My prediction is that the coverage of Obama on this trip will be oriented toward countering the notion he has no idea what he is talking about on foreign policy and defense issues and instead will prop him up as a qualified statesman," Limbaugh told The Associated Press. "McCain, on the other hand, is a known quantity on these issues and his position does not excite nor fit the mainstream media's narrative on Iraq and Afghanistan, so they simply ignore it and him."
Along with newsworthiness, the question of fairness was discussed within ABC News before it was agreed Gibson would travel, said Jon Banner, executive producer of "World News." Also, if one network anchor decides to hit the road for a big event, chances are the others will follow.
"We have already been in discussions with the McCain campaign to try to afford them the same or a similar opportunity," Banner said. "We have gone to great lengths to be fair and provide equal time to both campaigns."
Shortly after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, Gibson flew to Miami for a McCain interview, he said.
For each of the weeks between June 9 and July 13, Obama had a much more significant media presence. The Project for Excellence in Journalism evaluates more than 300 political stories each week in newspapers, magazines and television to measure whether each candidate is talked about in more than 25 percent of the stories.
Every week, Obama played an important role in more than two-thirds of the stories. For July 7-13, for example, Obama was a significant presence in 77 percent of the stories, while McCain was in 48 percent, the PEJ said.
Sure, there are some weeks Obama's going to make more news, said Tom Rosenstiel, the project's director.
But every week?
"No matter how understandable it is given the newness of the candidate and the historical nature of Obama's candidacy, in the end it's probably not fair to McCain," he said.
The Democrat has proven an attractive commodity; TV debates involving Democrats this campaign consistently drew more viewers than the Republicans. A Time magazine cover with Obama in 2006 was the second-best-selling of the year, and a Men's Vogue cover outsold every issue but the debut, according to circulation figures reported by Portfolio.com. Newsweek has done six covers with Obama over the past year, two with McCain. A Rolling Stone cover with Obama stopped just short of adding a halo.
If the attention gap continues, the campaign will essentially become a referendum on Obama, Rosenstiel said. While that may serve McCain's purpose — it beats a referendum on President Bush — it could leave the nation electing a president while the media are paying attention to someone else. Past press infatuations, like Howard Dean in 2004 and McCain in 2000, didn't turn into long-term affairs.
TV executives noted that Obama has courted attention, particularly for the overseas trip, more so than McCain. There's some danger involved, too. One Obama gaffe while overseas, or the appearance that he's not ready for an international spotlight, and the media's elite will be there to judge him, said Bob Zelnick, Boston University journalism professor.
Friedman cautioned against reading too much into things like PEJ's coverage index, noting that it's a long campaign. Yet it's an open question about whether Obama is simply a more interesting candidate at this point, partly because McCain has been on the scene longer.
While fairness is the goal, "what are we supposed to do, go gin up some story about McCain to get some rough equality of airtime?" he said. "I don't think so."
NBC News President Steve Capus said he finds it funny this is an issue, considering how much people have accused the press corps — and still do — of being too cozy with McCain. The Arizona senator had been a frequent guest of "Meet the Press."
"We're just trying to do our jobs," Capus said. "There's no question that there's great news value in Sen. Obama's trip overseas. That's why we are doing this."

McCain camp compares Obama to Spears, Hilton

John McCain's presidential campaign has released a withering television ad comparing Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, suggesting the Democratic contender is little more than a vapid but widely recognized media concoction.
Obama's campaign quickly responded with a commercial of its own, dismissing McCain's complaints as "baloney" and "baseless."
McCain's ad, titled "Celeb" and set to air in 11 battleground states, intercuts images of Obama on his trip to Europe last week with video of twenty-something pop stars Spears and Hilton — both better known for their childish off-screen antics.
"He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?" the voiceover asks, noting the Illinois senator's opposition to offshore oil drilling and suggesting he would raise taxes if elected.
It was the latest effort by the GOP hopeful to cast Obama as a lightweight with little experience in leadership or governing. It also was risky for McCain's campaign to both acknowledge Obama's worldwide fame and depict it as a weakness rather than a strength.
Campaigning in Missouri, Obama said the ad, released Wednesday, was the latest example of McCain's negativity — a theme his campaign has tried to stress lately.
"He doesn't seem to have anything positive to say about me, does he?" Obama said. "You need to ask John McCain what he's for, not just what he's against."
The Obama campaign ad, released hours after McCain's, shows images of the Arizona senator with President Bush and accuses McCain of practicing "the politics of the past." The campaign said it could air as soon as Thursday.