Obama will not rule out easing Clinton campaign debt

This is from The New York Times:

Updated WOODBURN, Ore. – Senator Barack Obama said today that he would not rule out the possibility of helping Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton retire her campaign debt to bring her into the fold and unify Democrats. But he said no discussions have taken place yet.

“Obviously, I’d want to have a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward,” Mr. Obama said. “But as I said, it’s premature right now. she’s still actively running and we’ve still got business to do right here in Oregon and in other states.”

Mr. Obama stressed that it was premature to talk about lending aid to his rival, declaring: “That’s not a conversation that we’ve had because our working assumption right now is that we’re still in the middle of a race.”

To keep her campaign afloat, Mrs. Clinton has lent herself money several times in recent weeks, amounting to about $6 million within a month or so. The debt that her campaign has accumulated has become a focal point of questions surrounding the future of her candidacy. Speculation has spread – by supporters of both candidates – about whether Mr. Obama throwing a financial lifeline would help bridge the divide between the partisans and offer Mrs. Clinton an exit strategy.

Mr. Obama suggested today that there would be some precedent for helping erase her debt.

“I think historically after a campaign is done and you want to unify the party – particularly when you’ve had a strong opponent,” Mr. Obama said, “you want to make sure that you’re putting that opponent in a strong position so that they can work to win an election in November.”

Update on Debt: If Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton would happen to broker a deal to help pay off her campaign debts – this remains a big if, aides said, because nothing has been formally discussed – the money would not be taken from Mr. Obama’s campaign account. Instead, he would have to make a fund-raising appeal on her behalf, asking people to contribute.

The remarks by Mr. Obama earlier today stirred alarm among several contributors. They said they did not give money to him simply so he could turn it over to Mrs. Clinton.

Advisers to Mr. Obama sought to tamp down concern over the discussion. On one hand, they are trying to extend an olive branch to Mrs. Clinton and her supporters, whom they will need if Mr. Obama becomes the nominee. On the other hand, they do not want to alienate loyal contributors who were responsible for Mr. Obama’s fund-raising prowess.

For now at least, the latter hand – not helping pay off the debt – seems to be the most likely course of action.

What we're probably seeing here is the beginnings of a negotiated settlement between the Clinton and Obama campaigns to bring Hillary Clinton out of the race. Clinton could continue to campaign in West Virginia, and in Kentucky, where Clinton has scheduled a May 9th fund-raising event in Louisville. Kentucky is holding its primary on May 20th--the same day that Oregon is holding its primary. And while the Kentucky polls are showing Clinton well ahead of Obama, averaging 62 percent to 28 percent, the Oregon polls are showing Clinton's lead eroding quickly, averaging 36 percent to 28 percent. In fact, both Rasmussen and Survey USA are showing Obama leading Clinton by 51-39, and 50-44 percent. So the question becomes how long will Hillary Clinton campaign before she runs out of money? Because if Clinton is planning to suspend, or withdraw, from the race, the best time will be after she wins a victory and gracefully concedes the nomination to Obama. And while all this latest campaigning is taking place for the media publicity, both campaigns could be negotiating the deal for Clinton's exit strategy.

Of course, this is all speculation.

Obama picks up 9 super-delegates, erases Clinton's lead in the supers

From MSNBC News:

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.

Obama picked up the backing of nine superdelegates, including Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who had been a Clinton supporter.

In addition, the American Federation of Government Employees announced its support for Obama. The union claims about 600,000 members who work in the federal and Washington, D.C., governments.

Obama, who won a convincing victory in the North Carolina primary and lost Indiana narrowly on Tuesday, has been steadily gaining strength in the days since.

Clinton also gained two superdelegates.

The developments left the former first lady with 271.5 superdelegates, to 271 for Obama, according to an Associated Press count. Little more than four months ago, on the eve of the primary season, she held a lead of 169-63.

In the overall race for the nomination, Obama leads with 1,859.5 delegates, to 1,697 for Clinton. Obama is just 165.5 delegates short of the 2,025 delegates needed to win it.

NBC's national delegate count currently stands at 1426 for Clinton and 1590 for Obama. NBC’s estimated superdelegate count stands at 277.5 for Clinton and 269 for Obama.

[There are differences in how news organizations count delegates, how they award superdelegates, how they account for states that have held caucuses but have not yet chosen their delegates, and how they project the apportionment of delegates within Congressional districts where the vote was close. The Associated Press and NBC news conduct separate delegate counts.]

The question now becomes how can Clinton bow out of the race with some form of dignity and tact. Her campaign is already running on fumes, with Clinton lending another $6.4 million last month, on top of the $5 million she lent to herself last year. There have even been some rumors of Obama bailing Clinton out of her presidential campaign debts. I can't say what Hillary Clinton wants now--either still the big nominee prize, or enough political influence to negotiate a deal with Obama in return for her support. We're getting close to the end of the Democratic primary, and this latest news of Obama erasing Clinton's lead with the super-delegates only reinforces this eventual ending, and the need for both candidates to make the deal.

McCain likely to be outspent in general election

There is not much for me to comment on this MSNBC story:

WASHINGTON - He backs an unpopular war in Iraq, represents an unpopular political party and is endorsed by an unpopular president in the midst of an economic downturn.

As if that's not enough, Republican John McCain could be heavily outspent by his Democratic rival in the U.S. election in November to succeed President George W. Bush.

For every $1 the Arizona senator has raised, Democrat Barack Obama has raised $3. Hillary Clinton, unlikely at this point to beat Obama for the Democratic nomination, has raised two and a half times as much as McCain.

McCain is likely to have enough to compete with either Obama or Clinton, his campaign and Republican strategists say. But several acknowledged that the yawning money gap is another sign of the uphill battle any Republican would face this year.

"I can't emphasize enough how terrible the political environment is for Republicans," said one Republican strategist who requested anonymity to speak candidly. "It is dreadful."

McCain raised $77 million through the end of March, campaign finance records show. Obama raised $235 million by that point, while Clinton raised $189 million.

The money game here is just incredible. While McCain has raised $77 million through the end of March, the combined Barack Obama / Hillary Clinton total raised is around $424 million--which is five times more than what McCain has raised. Granted, Obama and Clinton are still fighting over the Democratic nomination, but the huge imbalance between the GOP's McCain and the Democrat's Obama and Clinton is just astounding. It is no wonder that McCain is demanding the potential Democratic leader, Barack Obama, to go into the $84 million public financing (Just as McCain preparing to do in September), even though Obama could raise another $200 million before November. In other words, McCain wants to reduce Obama's money advantage down to McCain's level in the general election.

McCain's involvement in land swap deals

I found this Washington Post story through The Carpetbagger Report, which brings up some serious questions about Arizona Senator John McCain's involvement into several land-swap deals. First, the Washington Post story, titled McCain pushed land swap that benefits backer:

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].

Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.

When McCain's legislation passed in November 2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Ariz., run by Steven A. Betts, a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never discussed the deal.

The Audubon Society described the exchange as the largest in Arizona history. The swap involved more than 55,000 acres of land in all, including rare expanses of desert woodland and pronghorn antelope habitat. The deal had support from many local officials and the Arizona Republic newspaper for its expansion of the Prescott National Forest. But it brought an outcry from some Arizona environmentalists when it was proposed in 2002, partly because it went through Congress rather than a process that allowed more citizen input.

Although the bill called for the two parcels to be of equal value, a federal forestry official told a congressional committee that he was concerned that "the public would not receive fair value" for its land. A formal appraisal has not yet begun. A town official opposed to the swap said other Yavapai Ranch land sold nine years ago for about $2,000 per acre, while some of the prime commercial land near a parcel that the developers will get has brought as much as $120,000 per acre.

In an interview, Betts said there is "absolutely no" connection between his contributions to McCain's presidential bids and the deal involving rancher Fred Ruskin and the Yavapai Ranch Limited Partnership. While his company's possible involvement was discussed casually before the bill's passage, Betts said SunCor did not sign on to the project until afterward. "At no time during the consideration of this legislation was there any involvement by officials of SunCor," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in a written response to questions [read the campaign's full answers].

Betts is among a string of donors who have benefited from McCain-engineered land swaps. In 1994, the senator helped a lobbyist for land developer Del Webb Corp. pursue an exchange in the Las Vegas area, according to the Center for Public Integrity. McCain sponsored two bills, in 1991 and 1994, sought by donor Donald R. Diamond that yielded the developer thousands of acres in trade for national parkland.

In the late 1990s, McCain promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates.

So Senator John McCain pushes legislation through Congress to help an Arizona rancher, Fred Ruskin, swap 55,000 acres of land to help develop a huge housing tract of 12,000 homes. Ruskin gives the job of developing these homes to SunCor, which is run by longtime McCain supporter Steven A. Betts. In exchange, Ruskin and the Yavapai Ranch Limited Partnership hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager and two of his former staff members, while Betts has gone on to raised $100,000 to the McCain presidential campaign.

This deal stinks.

And this is not the only foul-smelling land-swap that McCain has been involved in. Consider this April 22, 2008 New York Times story, titled A developer, his deals and his ties to McCain:

Donald R. Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer, was racing to snap up a stretch of virgin California coast freed by the closing of an Army base a decade ago when he turned to an old friend, Senator John McCain.

When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as “a close personal friend.”

Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, “You will find him as honorable and committed as I have.”

Courting local officials and potential partners, Mr. Diamond’s team promised that he could “help get through some of the red tape in dealing with the Department of the Army” because Mr. Diamond “has been very active with Senator McCain,” a partner said in a deposition.

For Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican who has staked two presidential campaigns on pledges to avoid even the appearance of dispensing an official favor for a donor, Mr. Diamond is the kind of friend who can pose a test.

A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr. Diamond is sometimes referred to as “The Donald,” Arizona’s answer to Donald Trump — an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds), specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.

Mr. McCain has occasionally rebuffed Mr. Diamond’s entreaties as inappropriate, but he has also taken steps that benefited his friend’s real estate empire. Their 26-year relationship illuminates how Mr. McCain weighs requests from a benefactor against his vows, adopted after a brush with scandal two decades ago, not to intercede with government authorities on behalf of a donor or take other official action that serves no clear public interest.

In California, the McCain aide’s assistance with the Army helped Mr. Diamond complete a purchase in 1999 that he soon turned over for a $20 million profit. And Mr. McCain’s letter of recommendation reinforced Mr. Diamond’s selling point about his McCain connections as he pursued — and won in 2005 — a potentially much more lucrative deal to develop a resort hotel and luxury housing.

In Arizona, Mr. McCain has helped Mr. Diamond with matters as small as forwarding a complaint in a regulatory skirmish over the endangered pygmy owl, and as large as introducing legislation remapping public lands. In 1991 and 1994, Mr. McCain sponsored two laws sought by Mr. Diamond that resulted in providing him millions of dollars and thousands of acres in exchange for adding some of his properties to national parks. The Arizona senator co-sponsored a third similar bill now before the Senate.

Again, we have the Straight Talk Express McCain handing out land-swap deals to big developer friends in exchange for big political campaign contributions. In this case, Diamond had given McCain's presidential campaign $250,000 in return for McCain's assistance in providing Diamond the ability to speculate on prime Fort Ord beachfront property that netted Diamond a hefty $20 million profit. And this close relationship between Diamond and McCain is continuing even now. From The NY Times:

Over the years, Mr. Diamond and his wife, Joan, visited the McCains at their ranch in Sedona, Ariz., and entertained them in their Tucson home and in the Bahamas, where Mr. Diamond sometimes keeps his 134-foot yacht, the Queen of Diamonds. In 2001, the two men attended a Yankees-Diamondback World Series game together. “He is just very, very good company,” Mr. Diamond said of Mr. McCain. “I knew all his people and the staff.”

Mr. Diamond and his family have given more than $55,000 to Mr. McCain’s campaigns (and more than $600,000 to other federal candidates). More significantly, the developer has collected (or “bundled”) hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from others, and is now serving as a national co-chairman of the finance committee for Mr. McCain’s current presidential run. In the spring of 2000, when Mr. Diamond was in the thick of the negotiations for his California deals, he traveled with Mr. McCain through the early Republican primaries. Mr. Diamond was on the campaign trail again this year.

So now Diamond is not only serving as McCain's national co-chairman in the finance committee, but he is also on the campaign trail with McCain. In addition to raising the $250,000 for McCain's presidential campaign, Diamond has also given $55,000 to McCain's senate and presidential campaigns. Again, we have McCain giving preferential treatment to a land developer (who makes a huge profit) in exchange for campaign contributions. Again, this stinks.

And finally, we have McCain's connection with Arizona Representative Rick Renzi, who has been indicted on federal corruption charges in his own land-swap deal:

PHOENIX — Federal authorities announced corruption charges Friday accusing Rep. Rick Renzi of engineering a swap of federally owned mining land to benefit himself and a former business partner and stealing from his insurance company's clients.

A lengthy federal investigation that had put the three-term Republican congressman under a cloud for more than a year culminated in a 26-page indictment issued Thursday against him and two other men. Renzi announced Aug. 23 that he wouldn't run for re-election in Arizona's mostly rural 1st Congressional District.

"Congressman Renzi deprived the citizens of Arizona of his honest services as a United States elected representative," U.S. Attorney Diane J. Humetewa said.

The indictment's 35 counts include charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, insurance fraud and extortion. Most of the charges allege Renzi, 49, used his office to promote a land swap to collect on a debt owed by former Renzi associate James W. Sandlin of Sherman, Texas.

[....]

Renzi is one of 24 co-chairmen for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign in Arizona. McCain seemed surprised when asked about the indictment Friday at a campaign stop in Indianapolis, choosing his words carefully, shaking his head and speaking slowly.

Now I don't believe that McCain had any involvement with Renzi's land-swap deals or his corruption, however the fact that Renzi was one of the co-chairmen for McCain's presidential campaign does show the close relationships that McCain has with these big land developers, and how these developers respond in kind to McCain with big campaign checks. You can certainly bet that Renzi was going through his Rolodex, calling his land developing friends, asking for money to be given to McCain's campaign. What do you think all these big land developers are hoping to get in return for sending McCain into the White House?

Disturbing.

McCain's "spiritual guide" calls for destruction of Islam

I guess it is no big secret that Arizona Senator John McCain has sought out the Religious Right's support for his GOP presidential bid. However, it really gets interesting when you see just how insane some of these religious leaders are that McCain is pandering to. Take Reverend Rod Parsley for example. Mother Jones has a short YouTube video showing McCain praising Parsley as his "spiritual guide," even as Parsley has called for Christians to "destroy Islam." From YouTube:



What I find rather ironic here is how McCain criticized Democratic Senator Barack Obama over the remarks made by Jeremiah Wright without taking into account his own relationships with both Parsley and John Hagee. McCain sought out Hagee's endorsement, even as Hagee claimed that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for a gay right's parade in New Orleans. McCain attempted to distance himself from Hagee's comments, before half-heartily admitting that seeking out Hagee's endorsement was a mistake. And even though McCain admits his error of seeking Hagee's endorsement, McCain is still "glad to have his [Hagee's] endorsement." Obama had to denounce Wright's controversial statements.

Do you see the hypocrisy here? It is a controversy against the Democrats if liberal religious leaders make insane statements, but it is okay for the GOP if conservative religious leaders make their own insane statements. What is worst is that Obama had to deal with the political fallout of a single religious leader's statements, while McCain is happily getting endorsements from two insane religious leaders. And these are leaders who are calling for death and destruction of people who do not conform to their extremist, religious views--be it gays, Muslims, atheists, liberals, or anyone else that will not send money to their over-bloated religious-themed, corporate empires. It is disgusting.

And now McCain is calling Parsley his "spiritual guide," even as Parsley is calling for the destruction of Islam. The pandering that McCain gives to these right-wing nutjobs is just amazing. And John McCain doesn't care because this is the only way to buy the vote of the religious conservative wing of the Republican Party. This really shows just the extent of the Religious Right's influence and control of the Republican Party, and how the GOP presidential candidate John McCain needs to pander to their every wish.

Do you really want these nutjobs in control of the White House for another four to eight years?

One more little note, I found another YouTube video clip of Parsley's greatest hits on the unhinged statements scene through The Carpetbagger Report. From YouTube:



The madness continues.

The myth of McCain The Maverick

I found this interesting story from The Arizona Republic, deflating Arizona Senator John McCain's "Maverick" status. From the Arizona Republic:

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has publicly condemned Republican Party leaders and occasionally voted against the GOP on selected issues.

But an Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party's objectives.

The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period. On one of those occasions, Republicans could still have won if Vice President Dick Cheney had cast a tie-breaking vote.

The numbers are based on a review of Senate roll-call votes since 1999 that ended in a tie or were settled by one vote. The closest votes in that period included momentous, partisan-charged legislation, such as President Bush's tax cuts. More often, they were procedural votes on deal-breaking amendments to bills that would otherwise pass.

They partly reflect how rarely Senate votes come down to a single person, even though the chamber has been narrowly divided on party lines most of the past decade. But the votes also suggest that when McCain broke from Republicans, others often joined him, keeping the votes from being so close.

And his chronic absence in the Senate has seldom come in the most divided debates, the records show.

[....]

"He is a conservative who votes conservative on most issues," said Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego. "By no means is he a liberal or even a moderate."

Poole, who compiles a widely respected analysis of all Senate votes, ranks McCain as slightly less conservative than most Republicans throughout his career and near the far edge of the right while running for president.

During the 10 years The Republic examined, McCain crossed over to vote with Democrats 19 times in 82 close votes. He did so just once in the four years he was running for president: 1999, 2000, 2007 and 2008. All 12 of the close votes he missed happened in those years, too.

Even so, in 59 of the 82 close votes, Republicans got what they wanted regardless of McCain's position. In those 59 cases, McCain broke with his party 16 times.

Bottom line here is that McCain's "Maverick" status is really a myth. McCain is a staunch conservative who will take sides on the conservative issues, while at the same time present this PR-spin about how McCain butts heads against the Republican Party. The Arizona Republic also notes a Washington Post analysis reporting "McCain voted with the GOP this term 88.3 percent of the time, the same as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whose conservative credentials are seldom questioned. McCain ranked ahead of 29 other Republicans, including Arizona's Jon Kyl, who holds the No. 2 spot in party leadership." In addition, Congressional Quarterly gave McCain a 90 percent score for "party unity" voting in 2007, and reported that McCain supported President Bush's legislative agenda 95 percent of the time in 2007.

This is not a "maverick" senator here.

Pros and cons of an Obama / Clinton unity ticket

In my previous posting, I noted the potential power of an Obama / Clinton unity ticket as a means of unifying the Democratic Party as a means to attack the Republican Party under John McCain for the 2008 race to the White House. I have consistently said that both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will have to sit down and make a deal in order to bind this Democratic Party together for the general election. I still believe this to be true--whether Obama selects Clinton as his running mate, or if Clinton becomes the Senate Majority leader, or even is selected as a Supreme Court justice, a deal has to be made between these two campaigns.

Here is where I want to bring up the pros and cons of an Obama / Clinton unity ticket. The New Republic has two articles up, representing both sides of this unity ticket debate. The Democratic Strategist's managing editor Ed Kilgore gives the pro arguments for a unity ticket, while Guardian America's editor Michael Tomasky gives the con arguments against the unity ticket.

First Ed Kilgore on the pro arguments for the Obama / Clinton unity ticket:

The answer is simple, and for me at least, overwhelmingly compelling. Right now the Democratic Party is deeply divided, as evidenced by the steadily rising number of Democratic primary voters threatening to take a dive in November. Those divisions are, in fact, John McCain's most important political asset. Yet they are not about ideology, or about policy issues, really; they are about these two Democratic politicians, and all the symbolic freight each has assumed. The easiest way, the fastest way, and the only sure way, to heal these divisions is to unite their sources on a single ticket.

Sure, many, perhaps most, disgruntled Clinton voters will "come home" in any event, and Obama could appeal to some vulnerable constituencies through a different choice for running-mate. But nothing quite scratches the itch like a unity ticket.

Would Hillary Clinton as a vice presidential candidate overshadow Obama? There's no reason to think that; his candidacy remains the big political story of the year. And let's have no illusions that if the Clintons are assigned a minor role in the fall campaign, they won't be a distraction. For one thing, the Democratic National Convention, no matter how well stage-managed it is, will be "about" Obama's narrow margin of victory and his and others' efforts to unite the party. A unity ticket will greatly enhance the positive side of that story. As for the much-cited idea that Hillary's presence on the ticket will "energize" conservatives, I think the events of the last few weeks have abundantly shown their willingness to whip themselves up in a hate frenzy towards Barack Obama as much as Clinton.

Symbolism aside, Hillary Clinton would bring some tangible political assets to the Democratic ticket. Even if you dismiss her relative strength in the primaries among white working-class voters, older voters, Appalachians, or Catholics as ephemeral or irrelevant to a general election campaign, there is simply no denying her personal and positive appeal to professional women and Latinos, with whom she has generated as much excitement as Obama has among younger voters and African-Americans. She would also bring some national security street cred to the ticket, which is an Obama vulnerability that I suspect is being underappreciated at the moment.

And now Michael Tomasky on the con arguments against an Obama / Clinton unity ticket:

The case for the unity ticket is pretty obvious and is implied in the adjective. Ed Kilgore made the case well here yesterday, and it's an argument worth taking seriously, which is why I've come around to it a little. And yet. ...

Actually there are several and yets. Number one: Substantively, something tells me that Vice President Clinton couldn't work very well with President Obama. She'd always be thinking, "Well, I'd have done it this way." She would demand, because of her stature, some kind of major portfolio. Her track record with major portfolios is other than encouraging.

And if Mr. Clinton as First Husband seemed problematic, what of him padding around the Naval Observatory? A former president married to a current president would at least mean that the two were working more or less as a team. A former president married to a current vice president who really thinks she should be president creates the potential for way too much mischief that could undermine the president.

[....]

One problem is that I think a Clinton choice would be aimed solely at Democrats. It would be popular among them, but what about non-Democrats? Let's note something that's been little remarked upon so far this season. People keep talking about the stunning turnout in these primaries, and, for primaries, this has surely been the case. About 33 million people have voted.

But how many people voted in the last general election? Around 122 million. With interest seeming higher this year, and if Obama can indeed register many new voters, there is every reason to think that 100 million more people will vote on November 4 than have voted cumulatively over the last 18 weeks. Hillary on the ticket would clearly go down well among a large majority of the 33 million who've voted. But what about the other 100 million? How would putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket strike them?

It would depend of course on who they are. She has performed reasonably well among independents, especially more recently, so maybe this is a false alarm. But I suspect that by and large, her popularity is limited to Democrats. Which means I'm not sure she'd help in the traditional way vice presidential candidates are supposed to help.

And it's possible she could even hurt. If she'd been the nominee, or if she still somehow manages to become it, we can be certain that many millions of conservatives would come out to vote against her. They would not do so in anything like similar numbers if she were merely the bottom half of the ticket. But some number would. She could serve as a sort of "tipping-point" of negative motivation for conservatives. That is, Obama combined with X--Sam Nunn, say; and he's not my candidate, but I mean that kind of person--would be bad from the conservative point of view. But an Obama-Clinton ticket would be an out-and-out crisis. Obama has enough of his own problems.

I will admit that both editors make compelling arguments for and against an Obama / Clinton unity ticket. Thinking about how toxic this Democratic race has become, I'm starting to wonder whether such a ticket will even happen, or should it happen. The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum provides and interesting take on this unity ticket:

A strong vice president is one thing, but if you choose Hillary as a running mate you get the whole Clinton family in the bargain, and having Bill Clinton as a de facto part of the White House staff just smells like big trouble. That aside, the bigger issue is that picking Hillary would be a sign of weakness from Obama, and a completely unnecessary one. Obama certainly ought to reach out to Hillary once the primaries are over, but he can win in November on his own, and there are plenty of good, solid VP choices out there that would nonetheless make it crystal clear that an Obama White House would be an Obama White House.

What's more, Hillary can probably do more good in the Senate than she can from the veep's chair. I'd rather have her there anyway.

If there is a more compelling argument against the unity ticket, this could be it. When you bring Hillary Clinton into the Vice Presidency, you are bringing in the entire Clinton family with Bill being part of the White House staff.

I have been thinking about the arguments for and against the unity ticket, and it may not be a good idea for Barack Obama to choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate because of these negatives that both Tomasky and Drum present. I still believe that both candidates will have to make a deal with each other, however considering Hillary Clinton's policy wonk talents, I believe that she would be a stronger political force either as Senate Majority Leader, or even involved in a cabinet-level position like Health and Human Services, where Hillary Clinton could become a driving force for reforming the health care system within an Obama administration. And I can certainly see Obama selecting Clinton for a Supreme Court position, which could bring an amazing capstone to Hillary Clinton's political career. So there are some incredible opportunities for Hillary Clinton to continue to further her political career.

Thoughts on the Indiana / North Carolina primaries

I've been a little busy this week, but I did note the results of Tuesday's Democratic Indiana / North Carolina primaries. Again, it was a split decision, with Hillary Clinton taking Indiana and Barack Obama taking North Carolina. And yes, there were some interesting details to look at within these races. In North Carolina, Obama defeated Clinton 56 percent to 42 percent. In Indiana, Clinton squeaked by Obama with a 51 percent to 49 percent win. Clinton received 60 percent of the white voters in both states over Obama's 40 percent of the white vote in Indiana and 36 percent in North Carolina. Obama won an overwhelming majority of black voters in both states, with 92 percent in Indiana and 91 percent in North Carolina.

So what does this all mean? Again, we have a tie. The Democrats like both candidates and have enthusiastically supported both of them throughout this primary race. Clinton has the message of experience and leadership that the Democrats like. Obama has the message of change--the Democrats also like the message of change. Both candidates have shown their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses during this campaign season--Clinton has shown just how hard of an attack dog she can be with the "kitchen sink" strategy of negative campaigning against Obama. Obama has shown a tough, almost Teflon resilience, in fending off the relentless attacks by the Clinton campaign. Obama has shown a mastery of out-raising money and out-campaigning Clinton, yet he can't seem to close the deal with the Democrats. And while Clinton's campaign is running on fumes, she is still somehow surviving and fighting against the Obama machine. And whether the Democratic voters are tired of this exhausting campaign season or not, the message that they are sending here is that they like both candidates. It is a fascinating dynamic that I don't think I have ever seen in any presidential campaign.

The bottom line now is that Barack Obama will become the Democratic nominee for president. The delegate math shows that Obama will come into this convention with around 100 pledged delegate lead (including Michigan and Florida), and a 200,000 popular vote lead. From YouTube:



And yet while the delegate math is showing that Obama will become the Democratic nominee, I do not think that Obama has shown that he can close the deal. The Democrats are still sending this message that they like both candidates. So the real question for Obama now is how can he heal this fractured Democratic Party and concentrate its focus now on Republican candidate John McCain. Because as long as Hillary continues fighting for the nomination, the healing process will take more time away from the Obama campaign with engaging in a general election campaign. This is a question that I can't even answer.

Then there is Hillary Clinton. She has run an incredibly spirited campaign, and she would probably have been the first credible, female Democratic presidential candidate--had a first, credible, African-American, Democratic candidate named Barack Obama decided not to jump into the presidential race. It is amazing that she has come this far, and still continues to fight against all political odds for this nominee prize.

But I do believe that this prize is well beyond her reach. Baring some unforeseen catastrophe within the Obama campaign, Clinton will come into the Democratic convention behind Obama in the delegate count. The super-delegates will know that and will question why Clinton is the superior candidate when she is behind Obama in both the delegate count and even the money count. Clinton has thrown the kitchen sink at Obama with negative attacks in North Carolina and Indiana, and she just barely won in Indiana. The media is even now speculating that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race.

Should Clinton drop out of the race? That is a question that only Hillary can answer. But I do believe that the Indiana and North Carolina results show that the Clinton campaign's kitchen sink strategy of negative campaigning against Obama has clearly failed. Hillary Clinton has clearly alienated the African-American vote with this negative campaigning, and even if she does become the Democratic nominee, she may never be able to regain the African-American vote for the general election. But Clinton can shift her campaign strategy away from attacking Obama, and concentrate on both promoting a positive campaign for Democratic votes and engaging in a relentless attack against Republican candidate John McCain. Here the Clinton campaign could shift from seeking the Democratic nomination prize, to gaining as much political influence as Hillary Clinton can before the convention. As I have said before, this race has become a tie, with the Democratic voters supporting both candidates. Barack Obama will have the lead in the delegate count, and will not doubt become the presumptive nominee, once the primary races are finished and the super-delegates will come out in support for Obama. But Obama will be unable to unite this fractured Democratic Party without Hillary Clinton's support. And whether they both like each other or not, a unified ticket with Obama president / Clinton vice president is one way to unite the Democrats and potentially give a powerhouse ticket to defeat the Republicans and McCain in November. And even if there is not a unified ticket, Clinton could still walk away with a shot at replacing Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader in 2009. So there are certainly reasons for Hillary to stay in the race. The difference here is that the race is no longer about gaining delegates or winning the nominee, but rather about gaining political influence when the convention dealing starts up in August.

And here is where I will leave with a final comment. Because we have both the Democratic Party's split between the two candidates, and Obama's 100-plus lead in the delegate count, both candidates will need to make a deal in order to unify the Democratic Party in the race against John McCain. Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee, and Hillary Clinton will have to accept that. But Obama will also have to accept that Hillary Clinton will have a huge influence in shaping this race, with almost half of the Democratic Party supporting her. Obama will have to give some major concessions to Clinton in order to bring not just her support, but those who have voted for Clinton in these states' primaries and caucuses. A deal will have to be worked out between these two candidates--whether they like each other or not. It is the only way to bind the country together in the next face-off against McCain.

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

For a little Cinco De Mayo celebration, how about serenading your sweetie as the romantic hound dog Droopy does in Caballero Droopy. From YouTube:

Monday Schoolhouse Rocks--Telegraph Line

For today's Monday Schoolhouse Rock, let us send some telegrams via the nervous system. In fact, medical schools have requested this song to give a graphic way on how the nervous system works to their first-year medical students. So let us send some telegrams. Music and lyrics are by Lynn Ahrens. The song is performed by Jaime Aff and Christine Langner. From YouTube:

A backlash?

This New York Times column by Charles M. Blow is especially fascinating. Charles Blow asked this very simple question:

The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.

On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).

Graph showing favorable and unfavorable ratings for both white and black Democratic voters to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. From The New York Times.

So what is happening here? Since January, Senator Hillary Clinton has pummeled Senator Barack Obama with just about every negative ad, scandal, rumor, insult, and both the kitchen and bathroom sinks. The race card was even thrown at Obama--especially with all the flack coming from the Jeremiah Wright scandal. Wright has been a huge story for the mainstream media, endlessly speculating on how Wright's controversial statements will bring fear to white Americans of a potentially racist Obama presidency. But when you look at the graph here for white Democratic voters favorable and unfavorable ratings for Barack Obama, both have increased by around 5 percentage points since January 2007. There is not much change here.

But there is a huge change in Hillary Clinton's numbers for black Democratic voters. Since January 2007, Clinton's favorable ratings among black Democratic voters have dropped 36 points, while her unfavorable ratings among black Democratic voters have increased by 17 points. If there is any backlash, it is Black America that is turning against Hillary Clinton. I suspect that a good part of this backlash is because of the Clinton negative campaigning against Obama. Barack Obama has become an inspiration to black Americans as being the first credible African American to potentially win the White House. And black Americans are becoming angry at how the Clinton campaign has relentlessly attacked Obama--consider former president Bill Clinton's semi-racist attack just after the South Carolina primary, comparing Obama's campaign with Jesse Jackson's '84 and '88 campaigns, or Clinton adviser, former vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro's statement that Obama is only a contender because he is black. These are not the kind of statements you want to present if you're trying to rally Democratic votes to your side--especially since the African American vote is a strong constituency within the Democratic Party. There is a fascinating, internal dynamic taking place here with how race is shaping these two Democratic candidates. The candidate that is trying to use race as a means of an attack is finding her own support deteriorating.

McCain must explain U.S. 100-year vigil in Iraq

This is an excellent political commentary from The National Journal's Ronald Brownstein. In the big fight over the Republican complaint that the Democrats new television add had distorted GOP presidential candidate, Senator John McCain's statement of a possible 100-year U.S. presence in Iraq. McCain continues to insist that the statement did not mean that U.S. troops would be in combat for 100 years, but rather as a long-term military presence similar to U.S. military presence in South Korea, Japan and Germany. Brownstein argues that the problem for McCain and the Republicans is in their inability to explain how the current U.S. war in Iraq can be transformed into a U.S. military presence found in these three democratic nations. According to Brownstein:

First, if McCain doesn't envision a 100-year American front-line combat presence in Iraq, how long is he willing to keep U.S. forces in that role? So far, all he has said is that the United States should withdraw only if it concludes that the Iraq mission is unachievable or when it has achieved success, which he defines as the establishment of "a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state."

McCain hasn't said how long he would keep fighting to reach that demanding goal. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain's closest Senate allies, recently said he thinks that McCain would maintain current U.S. troop levels in Iraq through his entire four-year presidential term if military commanders recommended that course to maintain stability there.

McCain has not said when, but he has pledged that Iraqi units will eventually assume the major combat responsibility. That prompts the next question McCain should address: What would then become the mission for the U.S. forces he wants to maintain in Iraq? McCain hasn't specified. But he has suggested that their job would be to deter external aggression, much as in South Korea where our troops "served as a buffer against invasion from North Korea."

In that example, however, the U.S. and South Korea agreed that North Korea posed a threat. The American troop presence in Germany and Japan long rested on a similar agreement about the potential danger from the Soviet Union, notes Ivo Daalder, a Brookings Institution senior fellow in foreign policy.

[....]

Indeed, skeptics raise another question that fundamentally challenges McCain's analogy to Germany, Japan, and South Korea: Could U.S. troops ever be accepted in Iraq as completely as they have been in those societies? Or would our forces always be a target in Iraq, not only for Al Qaeda but also for the contending domestic factions? As Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean asked this week, "Does anyone think ... if you keep our troops in Iraq for a hundred years, people won't be ... setting off suicide bombs?"

[....]

Five years ago this week, President Bush exulted beneath a banner that declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. McCain, under any interpretation of his words, is proposing another mission in Iraq--a long vigil--that would extend for decades. With the stakes so high, it's not enough for him to accuse critics of twisting his meaning: He needs to more clearly explain it himself.

You can bet that John McCain will never attempt to clearly explain his own policy of continuing the U.S. war in Iraq.

Cheney praises Bush in Tulsa

There is not much to comment on this story. From The Tulsa World:

The VP says the world will fondly remember the president.

The world is a better place because of George W. Bush's presidency, Vice President Dick Cheney assured Oklahoma Republicans on Friday evening.

"When the history is written, it will be said this is a safer country and more hopeful world because George Bush was president," Cheney said.

Cheney spoke for about 20 minutes to a state GOP banquet crowd of about 400 at the Crowne Plaza Tulsa.

I think Cheney has been hiding too long in his bunker.

Obama wins Guam!

From The Washington Post:

HAGATNA, Guam -- Barack Obama has defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton in Saturday's Democratic caucuses on Guam by just seven votes.

More than 4,500 island Democrats voted.

Neither candidate campaigned on the island in person.

Results of the all-night count completed Sunday morning Guam time show delegates pledged to Obama with 2,264 votes to 2,257 for Clinton's slate.

The territory sends four pledged delegates and five superdelegates to the National Convention in August in Denver, although U.S. citizens on the island have no vote in the November election.

If I had to make a guess on the delegate count here, Barack Obama probably won 2 pledged delegates and three super delegates, to Hillary Clinton's two pledged delegates and two super delegates. It is interesting that, while neither candidate campaigned on the island, they still split the Democratic vote with only a difference of seven votes between them. This story really shows just how divided the Democratic Party is between these two candidates.

Bush + McCain = McSame?

I found this little story through The Carpetbagger Report, and I'm somewhat amazed by it. First there is this Reuters News story, reporting that GOP presidential candidate John McCain is trying to distance himself from the Bush administration:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Slowly but surely, Republican presidential candidate John McCain is putting some distance between himself and unpopular President George W. Bush.

This week it was the ill-timed "Mission Accomplished" banner that the White House hung behind Bush five years ago when Bush declared major combat operations over in Iraq.

"I thought it was wrong at the time," McCain said in Cleveland on Thursday, proceeding to criticize Vice President Dick Cheney's various comments over the years that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes" with "a few dead-enders" all that was left.

Last week, McCain surprised some in the White House by declaring Bush's leadership "disgraceful" during the crisis over the 2005 Katrina hurricane that walloped New Orleans.

"Never again," McCain declared.

It is a strategy born of necessity for McCain, facing uphill odds as he tries to win a third straight White House term for his party, a feat that has happened only once in presidential politics in the past half century.

Political experts say McCain has to put some distance between himself and Bush, whose approval rating was at 27 percent in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The same poll found that 43 percent of Americans have "major concerns" that McCain will be too closely aligned with Bush's agenda.

"When you're succeeding a president whose job approval is less than the percentage of the vote you need to get elected president, some fairly simple math suggests that John McCain needs the votes of a lot of people who disapprove of George W. Bush's presidency at the moment," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

Or, as presidential scholar Stephen Hess put it, "John McCain looks at the pluses and minuses, as all candidates do, and he simply doesn't see any pluses in getting too close to the president of his party."

Well, what do you expect when the current Bush administration is polling a 27 percent approval rating during an election year, and Republican candidate John McCain is trying to win a third Bush term for the White House with this Bush albatross hanging around his neck. Of course the McCain campaign would attempt to distance itself away from the Bush administration, as we can see when McCain blasted President Bush for his "disgraceful" leadership during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina crisis. John McCain is trying to tell the American voters that he is a different kind of Republican than the current Republican occupant in the White House.

The irony here is that this is all a dog an pony show. From Media General News Service:

A senior adviser to John McCain says the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign is now talking with senior White House staff everyday.

President Bush and McCain, former GOP rivals, “have an excellent relationship,” Charlie Black said at a lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Black said McCain is “not a protégé” of President Bush and would not be an extension of Bush’s presidency as Democrats have claimed. He cited McCain’s differences with Bush on federal spending and the initial war strategy, but was clear that Bush’s White House team is helping the presumptive Republican nominee at every turn of the campaign.

Black said the White House got a “head’s up” earlier this week before McCain called out Bush for his poor handling of hurricane Katrina in 2005.

You just have to love the McCain PR-spin here--declaring that McCain is distancing himself from President Bush even as the McCain campaign is working closely with the Bush administration every day in presenting this distancing message to the American voters. I especially love how the McCain campaign gave the Bush White House the "head's up" before McCain denounced Bush's leadership during Katrina.

Another dog and pony show, brought to you by George W. Bush and John McCain.

Housing continues to be a drag on the U.S. economy

I found a number of MSNBC stories that continue to show the wreaked housing market is continuing to be a drag on the slowing U.S. economy:

Mortgage rates rise to highest level in 7 weeks; Rates on 30-year mortgages continue to remain above 6 percent, making it the highest level in seven weeks. Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year fixed mortgages averaged 6.06 percent for this week, up slightly from 6.03 percent last week. It is interesting to note that while mortgage rates are remaining at above 6 percent, the Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate down by a quarter point to around 2 percent. This is the lowest level the federal funds rate has been since late 2004. So the Fed is trying to cut the interest rate down to stimulate the economy with more business and consumer investment in order stave off a recession, potentially caused by the housing slump and credit crisis. But the banks have been stung by the credit crisis due to their own excessive lending of subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages to Americans, during the housing boom. These Americans can no longer pay the higher interest rate fees on the subprime mortgages and are forcing the banks to foreclose on these homes. The banks are sitting on a glut of homes that have fallen in value during the bust, and can no longer recoup their own losses. Hence, the banks are keeping home mortgage rates high at above six percent, perhaps as a means of recouping their losses due to the speculation in the housing market.

Home foreclosure rate continues ugly climb; The number of U.S. homes heading toward foreclosure more than doubled in the first quarter of this year. California-based RealityTrack reported that 649,917 homes reported at least one foreclosure-related filing in the first three months of 2008--up 112 percent from 306,722 during the same period last year. Among the hardest hit states were Nevada, Florida, and California. The latest tally also represents an increase of 23 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007. Bottom line here is that the U.S. housing market has not shaken out the excess caused by the subprime mortgage meltdown. There are still too many Americans with subprime mortgages or ARMs that will be going under over the course of this year.

Sales of new U.S. homes plunged in March; The Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes dropped by 8.5 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, the lowest sales pace since October 1991. The median price of a home sold in March dropped 13.3 percent, compared to March 2007.

Existing home sales fell 2 percent in March; The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing single-family homes and condos dropped by 2 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.93 million units. The median price of a home sold in March was $200,000, a decline of 7.7 percent from a year ago.

A couple of interesting points here about both of these MSNBC stories on the falling sales of both new and existing homes. Both median prices of new and existing homes dropped by a significant percentage--new home prices dropped 13.3 percent while existing home prices dropped 7.7 percent, when both compared to a year ago. Sales of new homes dropped by a significant percentage of 8.5 percent. These are probably newly constructed homes that home builders have probably not been able to find buyers for, and are slashing prices just to get these unsold homes off their books. Existing home sales are those homes that Americans currently own. I would say that these Americans realize that home prices are dropping, and are either pulling their homes off the market, or perhaps converting possible second homes into rental properties until home prices stabilize, or start to increase. Either way, both of these stories show that the housing market is still in the dumps.

Vacant homes for sale hit new record high; The Census Bureau reports that 2.9 percent of U.S. homes--excluding rental properties--were vacant and up for sale, compared with 2.8 percent of homes during the fourth quarter of 2007. This works out to around 2.28 million homes, up from 2.18 million homes during the same quarter of last year. More than likely, these numbers represent the foreclosed homes that the banks are sitting on, of which they can't unload to cover their losses in the subprime mortgage meltdown and credit crisis. And you can bet that the current value of these empty homes have dropped significantly, when compared to the price of the mortgages the banks gave out in selling these homes to Americans during the housing boom. It all goes back to the high 6 percent mortgage rates that banks are refusing to lower in order to cover their losses of these empty, foreclosed homes.

And finally, we have this MSNBC story;

Shiller: Housing slump may exceed Depression;

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - An influential economist who long predicted the housing market bubble cautioned Tuesday that the slump in the U.S. housing market could cause prices to fall more than they did in the Great Depression and bailouts will be needed so millions don’t lose their homes.

Yale University economist Robert Shiller, pioneer of the widely watched Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, said there’s a good chance housing prices will fall further than the 30 percent drop in the historic depression of the 1930s. Home prices nationwide already have dropped 15 percent since their peak in 2006, he said.

“I think there is a scenario that they could be down substantially more,” Shiller said during a speech at the New Haven Lawn Club.

Shiller’s Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index is considered a strong measure of home prices because it examines price changes of the same property over time, instead of calculating a median price of homes sold during the month.

[....]

“Basically we’re in uncharted territory,” Shiller said. “It seems we have developed a speculative culture about housing that never existed on a national basis before.”

Uncharted territory....Wow!

CNN poll: 70 percent of Americans say things are going badly

There is not much more to say about this CNN story:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The vast majority of Americans think things are going badly in the country, according to a new poll.

Seven in 10 people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say things are going badly, with only 30 percent saying things are going well.

"It's been 16 years since the public gave the country's condition such a bad rating: January 1992, to be precise, in the last year in office of the last president named Bush," CNN pollster Keating Holland said.

"Seventy percent is a lot worse than two years ago, when 48 percent thought times were bad and the Republicans lost control of Congress," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider added.

The poll indicates that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain fares poorly against either Democratic candidate when it comes to most domestic and economic issues but has a big advantage on terrorism and a narrow edge on Iraq.

Let us see now. We've got a slowing U.S. economy, high gas and food prices, a slumping housing market, increasing number of foreclosures by American homeowners, a wreaked U.S. financial industry, and a still unpopular U.S. war in Iraq. Is it no wonder that Americans are turning sour as this year progresses?

Then there is this comment on McCain's "advantage" on terrorism and Iraq over his Democratic counterparts Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. While there may be a statistical advantage here for McCain with this CNN poll, there is another CNN poll reporting that the U.S. economy is taking center stage over that of Iraq in the 2008 presidential race:

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (CNN) -- A new poll indicates that the economy is issue No. 1 with American voters, now more than ever.

Forty-nine percent of those questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Friday said the economy is the top issue in their vote for president, seven points higher than found in a March survey.

The Iraq War is a distant second, with 19 percent of those polled saying it's the most important issue, followed by the issues of health care at 14 percent, terrorism at 9 percent and immigration at 8 percent.

"Through most of 2007, the war in Iraq was the top issue in voters' minds," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "But starting in November, the economy and Iraq tied for first and by December the economy was in the lead. Now the economy beats the war by more than 2-to-1."

The poll suggests that inflation is the top economic issue for most Americans, with 47 percent of those questioned identifying it as the biggest economic problem.

The housing crisis, at 19 percent, came in second, followed by taxes,13 percent; unemployment, 13 percent; and the stock market, 5 percent.
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Both gasoline prices and food prices have skyrocketed this year, but 68 percent of respondents said prices at the pump concern them more, while 23 answered food prices did.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday, with 1,008 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

This is not good news for the McCain campaign, since the McCain economic policy has been pretty much a continuation of the Bush administration's economic policy of more tax cuts and deregulation. If Americans continue to sour on the economy, and if the U.S. economy starts to contract later this year, you can probably bet that Americans will tie McCain to the Bush administration's failed economy when they go into the polls this November. And I do want to point out that the U.S. economy grew by only 0.6 percent for the first quarter of 2008. If it is reported that the U.S. economy contracts during the second or third quarters, then I'm thinking that the McCain campaign will be in serious trouble in explaining how their continuation of the Bush economy policies will pull the U.S. out of a recession. No amount of war spin or terrorist threats would convince Americans to vote Republicans when they are losing their homes, their jobs, and their savings to high food and gas prices.

As gas prices rise, Americans buy more small cars

Why have I seen this before? From The New York Times:

DETROIT — Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede.

In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car.

The switch to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles has been building in recent years, but has accelerated recently with the advent of $3.50-a-gallon gas. At the same time, sales of pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles have dropped sharply.

In another first, fuel-sipping four-cylinder engines surpassed six-cylinder models in popularity in April.

“It’s easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here,” said George Pipas, chief sales analyst for the Ford Motor Company.

The trend toward smaller and lighter vehicles with better mileage is a blow to Detroit automakers, which offer fewer such models than Asian carmakers like Toyota and Honda. Moreover, the decline of S.U.V.’s and pickups has curtailed the biggest source of profits for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

Once considered an unattractive and cheap alternative to large cars and S.U.V.’s, compacts have become the new star of the showroom at a time when overall industry sales are falling.

Sales of Toyota’s subcompact Yaris increased 46 percent, and Honda’s tiny Fit had a record month. Ford’s compact Focus model jumped 32 percent in April from a year earlier. All those models are rated at more than 30 miles per gallon for highway driving.

Okay, gas prices shoot up to $4.00 a gallon. This results in Americans spending around $80 to $100 to fill up their gas-guzzling SUV fuel tanks. So what are Americans doing in the face of these high gas prices?

They buy gas miser cars. And what is funny is that we've seen this type of behavior before. According to the NY Times story:

Previous spikes in sales of smaller cars were often a result of consumers trading down during tough economic conditions or gas-price increases. When the economy improved or fuel prices dropped again — as they did after the oil-price shocks in the 1970s eased — buyers invariably went back to bigger vehicles.

Back in the days of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Americans were caught driving Big Detroit Iron with big appetites for gas. The Detroit Big Three car companies of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, never bothered researching into smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles--vehicles that the Japanese car companies were selling on the market back then. When gas prices shot up, Americans suddenly flocked to the new Japanese car companies of Toyota, Datsun (now Nissan), and even Honda, leaving Detroit with a surplus of gas-guzzling cars that nobody wanted to buy.

Flash forward to today. The Detroit Big Three car companies were pushing big, gas-guzzling SUVs with high profit margins to American consumers, and yes, the American consumers were happily picking them up as gas prices remained stable during the 1990s and early 2000. But after the start of the U.S. war in Iraq, oil prices have shot up. Back in November 2002, the price of one barrel of Brent crude oil was around $24.60. Today, the price of Brent Crude oil is around $114.56. It is no wonder that gas prices have shot up to around $4.00 a gallon. The Japanese automakers were some of the first to successfully market hybrid-electric technology into their cars with both the popular Toyota Prius, and the Honda Insight in 2000. And yes, Detroit is still playing catch-up with the Japanese with incorporating hybrid technology into their cars.

Déjà vu?

Update: Here is an MSNBC story, reporting Detroit Big Three auto sales plummeting in April:

DETROIT - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler saw double-digit U.S. sales declines, but Toyota’s sales edged up 3 percent in April, as high gas prices accelerated consumers’ rush away from trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Weak sales were expected throughout the industry as gas prices rose to record highs. Automakers reported sales Thursday.

General Motors Corp. said its truck and SUV sales were down 27 percent, dragging down increases in car and crossover sales and GM’s best-ever month for hybrids. GM’s overall sales were down 16 percent for the month compared with last April.

“Consumer preference is shifting, and we’re shifting with it,” said Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of North American sales. Sales of GM’s midsize Chevrolet Malibu shot up 40 percent, but the long popular Chevrolet TrailBlazer SUV saw sales dip 73 percent.

GM said it produced 130,000 fewer vehicles in April due to an ongoing strike at supplier American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc., which has affected 30 plants. LaNeve said the production cuts didn’t affect sales to individual customers because of the company’s large inventory of trucks and SUVs. But LaNeve said GM cut 15,000 sales to rental and commercial fleets in April because of the strike.

Ford Motor Co. said its SUV sales were down 36 percent in April compared with the same month last year, and its overall sales were down 12 percent. Car sales were down only 1 percent, buoyed by sales of the Ford Focus small car, which saw a 44 percent jump in sales. The Focus gets 24 miles per gallon in the city and 33 on the highway. By comparison, Ford’s largest SUV, the Expedition, gets 12 miles per gallon in the city and 18 on the highway.

George Pipas, Ford’s top sales analyst, said retail — or non-fleet — sales of passenger cars exceeded trucks and sport utility vehicles combined for the first time in at least 20 years.

“It’s such a new world for us, because as you well know, for the better part of the last two decades, we’ve been a truck and SUV company predominantly,” Pipas said. “So this requires a big shift in our culture, in our training and our thinking. Not only for Ford but our dealers.”

Toyota Motor Corp. said its car sales rose 12 percent, largely on the strength of the subcompact Yaris, which saw sales rise 46 percent and the hybrid Prius, which was up 54 percent. Toyota’s truck and SUV sales dropped 8 percent.

Again, American consumers are being turned off by the gas-guzzling SUVs that have been Detroit's mainstay for possibly 20 years. And again, they are turning towards the popular Japanese hybrids like the Toyota Prius, and the subcompact Yaris--of which both have had strong sales increases. And if you look at Toyota's sales, their truck and SUV market has dropped by 8 percent, but their car sales have increased by 12 percent on the strength of the increased sales of both the Prius and Yaris. Toyota covered both the SUV market and the combined hybrid and subcompact market to balance out the drop in the SUV market with the rise in combined fuel efficient hybrid and subcompact market. Toyota increases their sales in the long-term. Compare that with the Detroit car companies, who were interested in selling high-profit, gas-guzzling SUVs to American consumers, and not making the investment into smaller cars or hybrids to cover the possible shift in car sales as a result of high gas prices. Detroit has never learned the lessons of the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

New Democratic Party ad attacking McCain's 100 year war in Iraq

This is devastating. The Democratic National Committee has launched a new political campaign commercial attacking GOP presidential candidate John McCain's comment on how the U.S. should continue the war in Iraq for 100 years. From YouTube:



This is exactly how you attack John McCain. You hit McCain hard with his own words. The problem with the McCain campaign is that they do not have a coherent policy for the U.S. war in Iraq--except for continuing the Bush administration's disastrous policy of maintaining the current U.S. occupation of Iraq. McCain does claim that he envisions U.S. troops to be stationed in Iraq similar to the role of U.S. military presence in South Korea, Japan and Germany. But the problem with that strategy is that the U.S. presence in South Korea, Japan and Germany is maintained to deter a potential outside aggression from another country--specifically a potential North Korean invasion of South Korea, and the Soviet Union's potential invasion of Japan and Germany. There really is no outside aggressive threat against Iraq at this time. I do not think that Iran is considered much of an aggressive threat against Iraq, considering that Iraqi Shiites would probably welcome closer diplomatic and economic ties with Iran. And as for al Qaeda in Iraq, estimates of the number of al Qaeda fighters vary from 1,000 to 30,000 fighters. I don't think anyone really knows how many al Qaeda fighters are in Iraq, although I'm sure the McCain campaign would use the 30,000 figure to bolster their support for continuing the U.S. war in Iraq.

The bottom line here is that John McCain has every intention of continuing with this disastrous war into his presidency. And McCain will use any excuse, lie, or even political spin to continue a war that a majority of the American people oppose. How do you stop the McCain campaign from continuing this disastrous war?

By attacking John McCain with political ads like these.

McCain lied--Iraq war was really about oil

Here is GOP presidential candidate John McCain telling a Denver town hall audience, Friday, that the Iraq War was really about oil. From YouTube:



Now here is GOP presidential candidate John McCain "clarifying" his remarks about saying that the U.S. war in Iraq was not really about oil. From CNN.Com:

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- Republican Sen. John McCain has been forced to clarify his comments suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. He said he was talking about the first Gulf War and not the current conflict.

At issue was a comment he made at a town hall-style meeting Friday morning in Denver, Colorado.

"My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East," McCain said.

The presumptive GOP nominee sought to clarify his remarks later Friday after his campaign plane landed in Phoenix. He said he didn't mean the U.S. went to war in Iraq five years ago over oil.

"No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the Gulf War for several reasons," McCain told reporters.

One reason was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, he said. "But also we didn't want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it's more important than any other part of the world," he said.

"If the word `again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean," McCain said.

"The Congressional Record is very clear: I said we went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction."

Excuse me Johnny Boy--which gulf war did the U.S. go to war in Iraq for oil? Are you saying that the U.S. went to war with Iraq in the First Gulf War because of oil? I thought that the U.S. went to war with Iraq in the First Gulf War to remove the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Now you are saying that the First Gulf War is really about oil, speaking before a Denver town hall audience while we are currently engaged in the second Iraq War--but you are not talking about the secondIraq War that we are currently engaged in, but rather the First Gulf War in which we removed Iraq from Kuwait. And both gulf wars were apparently not about oil, and yet you are saying that the First Gulf War was really about oil--even though that war ended 17 years ago.

What a frickin' liar you are.

The real irony here is that John McCain was telling the truth in that Denver town hall meeting--both U.S. wars with Iraq are really about the control of oil. In the First Gulf War, the U.S. evicted Iraq from Kuwait in order to keep the Kuwaiti oil fields out of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's control. With this current Iraq War, the unspoken reason for the U.S. occupation of Iraq has been for the U.S. to maintain control of the Iraqi oil fields under the puppet Iraqi government. There is no other reason for the U.S. to maintain a military presence in Iraq except for the oil fields there.

Unfortunately, this truthful reason conflicts with the McCain campaign's political spin. The last thing the McCain campaign wants is to admit that the U.S. went to war in Iraq for oil--especially considering how the price of oil has exploded since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. You don't want to admit to the American voters, who are suffering under $4.00 a gallon gas prices, that the U.S. went to war for the benefit of Big Oils' excessive profits. So the McCain campaign has to lie to the American voters, continuing the Bush administration's ridiculous spin that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to remove Saddam's non-existent WMD program, or to remove al Qaeda from Iraq. What is even more amazing is that John McCain lies about Iraq with such impunity, knowing that the corporate media will not call him out on this issue. What I have to wonder is will the American public continue to buy into these McCain lies about continuing the U.S. war in Iraq for another 100 years, or will they demand a U.S. pullout of Iraq by removing the Republican Party from the White House?