Nick Juliano
Published: Monday July 7, 2008
 
A new nationwide poll shows Barack Obama securing a majority of electoral college votes over Republican opponent John McCain in a new state-by-state poll.

The Zogby Interactive online survey also shows Libertarian Candidate Bob Barr shaping up as a substantial factor in this year's election, pulling 6 percent of the vote. (He was substantially outperforming then-Green Party candidate Ralph Nader at a similar point in the 2000 campaign)

The poll was conducted June 11-30 among more than 46,000 likely voters.

If the election were held today, Obama would win 273 electoral votes, enough to hand him the presidency, according to Zogby's tally. McCain would receive 160 electoral votes, leaving 105 up for grabs. Obama is the choice of 44 percent of voters surveyed, compared to 38 percent who prefer McCain. Other projections, like the one being maintained at FiveThirtyEight.com, have Obama winning with as many as 308 electoral votes.

Pollster John Zogby said Barr "could really hurt McCain's chances," pointing to the former Georgia Republican's 7 percent support among conservative or very conservative voters, 43 percent support from libertarians and 11 percent showing with independents.

Liberal gadfly Nader, now running as an Independent, is polling at less than 2 percent in the latest survey.

Obama's campaign has been paying attention to Barr, saying he could help them in states like Alaska and Georgia...

Complete article here: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Zogby_Obama_has_electoral_college_majority_0707.html

Associated Press
July 8, 2008

PITTSBURGH — Cindy McCain’s jab to her husband’s back came a second too late Tuesday to keep him from making a wisecrack about the health impact of Iran’s main import from the United States: cigarettes.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked about an Associated Press report that $158 million in cigarettes have been shipped to Iran during George W. Bush’s presidency despite restrictions on U.S. exports to that country.

“Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” McCain told reporters, smiling as he waited for a cheesesteak sandwich at the Primanti Brothers restaurant. His wife, sitting next to him at the counter, poked his back without looking up.

“I meant that as a joke,” McCain quickly explained. “As a person who hasn’t had a cigarette in 28 years,” he began to say, when his wife corrected him: 29 years.

Taking a more serious tone, McCain said, “I’d like to look into” details of exports to Iran. “This is the first that I’ve heard about it,” he said...

Complete article here: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/08/cindy-mccain-scolds-husband-for-iran-wisecrack/

By Michael Cooper
International Herald Tribune
July 8, 2008


WASHINGTON: Senator John McCain told a major Hispanic group here Tuesday that he remained committed to passing the kind of immigration legislation that angered many Republican voters last year, but he underscored that he intended to first secure U.S. borders.

By Michael Cooper International Herald July 8, 2008 Senator John McCain told a major Hispanic group here Tuesday that he remained committed to passing the kind of immigration legislation that angered many Republican voters last year, but he underscored that he intended to first secure U.S. borders.

Speaking to the convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens, McCain noted his efforts to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, which was supported by President George W. Bush and such Democrats as Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts but which fell apart last year after an angry grass-roots movement that viewed it as tantamount to amnesty rose up to oppose its passage.

"I and many other colleagues twice attempted to pass comprehensive immigration legislation to fix our broken borders, ensure respect for the laws of this country, recognize the important economic necessity of immigrant laborers, apprehend those who came here illegally to commit crimes and deal practically and humanely with those who came here, as my distant ancestors did, to build a better, safer life for their families," McCain said, "without excusing the fact they came here illegally or granting them privileges before those who have been waiting their turn outside the country."

He added: "Many Americans, with good cause, didn't believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts. We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States of America. But we must not make the mistake of thinking that our responsibility to meet this challenge will end with that accomplishment. We have economic and humanitarian responsibilities as well, and they require no less dedication from us in meeting them."

McCain's support of the failed immigration bill, which many Republican primary voters vigorously opposed, threatened to doom his candidacy last year. He was regularly attacked on the issue by Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and Republican contender, who spoke of it as the McCain-Kennedy bill. Voters opposed to the bill often brought it up to him in town hall-style meetings in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina...

Complete article here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/08/america/09immig.php

If that’s the case, then it’s probably a good thing McCain rejected overtures from Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, to form a bipartisan ticket and run with Kerry as his candidate for vice president.

Kerry had no kind words for his Senate colleague, accusing McCain of poor decision-making on everything from backing tax cuts for the wealthy to making support for continuing the U.S. military presence in Iraq the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

“John McCain … has proven that he has been wrong about every judgment he’s made about the war. Wrong about the Iraqis paying for the reconstruction, wrong about whether or not the oil would pay for it, wrong about Sunni and Shia violence through the years, wrong about the willingness of the Iraqis to stand up for themselves,” Kerry, who supports Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”...

Complete article here: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/06/kerry-mccain-unfit-to-be-president/

Duhaime is the first hire by Steve Schmidt since he took over operational control of the campaign last week.

Before working on the former New York City mayor’s unsuccessful campaign bid, Duhaime was political director of the Republican National Committee. He also served as a regional political director for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004.

Duhaime is a protege of former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, who developed an elaborate national get-out-the-vote effort for the Bush campaign in 2004.

FOX News’ Carl Cameron contributed to this report.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/06/mccain-hires-giuliani-campaign-manager-as-new-political-director/

By Mark Benjamin 

But the truth is that it's always about Vietnam for John McCain. He has invoked avoiding the mistakes of Vietnam with a sort of religious fervor in every important debate about dispatching U.S. troops since he first entered Congress in 1983. As he put it in an Aug. 18, 1999, speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he studies "every prospective conflict for the shadow of Vietnam." In fact, a look at his record shows that he subjects every major foreign-policy decision to a Vietnam-derived test similar to the famed Powell doctrine, a test summed up by the McCain quote, "We're in it, now we must win it."

So entrenched are those lessons that McCain sounds, at times, like he wishes they could be applied retroactively. "We lost in Vietnam because we lost the will to fight, because we did not understand the nature of the war we were fighting, and because we limited the tools at our disposal," McCain said at a speech on Iraq at the Council on Foreign Relations on Nov. 5, 2003. And for that reason, it might be advisable to take him at his word when he says he'll stay in Iraq for 100 years. Whether Vietnam is the prism through which he judges national security decisions, or the rationale he uses to explain whatever position he decides to take -- and even if the lessons he says he's learned from Vietnam often seem contradictory -- he has applied his Vietnam test to Iraq and come up with the decision to stay...

Complete article here: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/01/mccain/

He managed to limit the mechanical hand chops and weirdly timed smiles that can often punctuate his speeches. He delivered his lines with an ease that suggested a momentary peace with his longtime nemesis, the teleprompter. (He relied on a belt-and-suspenders approach, with text scrolling down screens to his left and right, and on a big TV set in front of him.)

But when McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came to the intended sound bite of his speech -- the part about reducing America's dependence on foreign oil -- he hit a slick.

"I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lex-eegton Project," McCain said, drawing a quick breath and correcting himself. "The Lex-ing-ton Proj-ect," he said slowly. "The Lexington Project," he repeated. "Remember that name."

In a town meeting in Cincinnati the next day, McCain would again slip up on the name of the Massachusetts town, where, he noted, "Americans asserted their independence once before." He called it "the Lexiggdon Project," and twice tried to fix his error, before flipping the name ("Project Lexington") in subsequent references...

Complete article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/us/politics/06mccain.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1215338561-jDvjTGA0sWz88iNCczU0BQ

Some grim US employment data emerged Thursday, showing 62,000 jobs were lost in June. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate John McCain responded with his proposal for a "jobs first" economic plan. The statement was released while McCain was wrapping up a trip to Mexico.

Not missing an opportunity to slam the GOP candidate for his support of open trade that many blame for lost US manufacturing jobs, Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean said the candidate was "hurting America."

"On the same day John McCain is in Mexico promoting NAFTA, we find out America lost another 62,000 jobs last month because of the failed Bush-McCain economic policies that have been a disaster for our country," Dean said in an e-mailed statement. "How much longer must this go on before George Bush and John McCain realize their economic policies are hurting America? What we need is a President who will put American workers first and give hard-working families a tax break."...

Complete article here: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_camp_leaks_details_on_jobs_0703.html

by Martin
June 09, 2008

People are complex individuals. We can do terrible things and perform great deeds in the space of a single lifetime. No one person is uniformly “good” or “evil.” Even humanity’s worst villains had areas of notable (if inexplicable) compassion, that shade their otherwise stark portraits with a little bit of gray. And people that are universally recognized as “heroes” can often turn out to be anything but in the overall scheme. Take John McCain, for example. No one can dispute the man’s heroism in enduring seven years of brutal torture as a prisoner of war. Few people could have the stomach to endure what he did and come back to build a decades-long career in public service. You can’t really speak to what that kind of horror is like unless you’ve been through it yourself. But does that heroism and strength justify some of the truly callous actions he has taken since then?

To wit: McCain, who is himself disfigured and partially handicapped as the result of torture, cruelly dumped his first wife Carol after she was crippled in an auto accident. Carol, who loyally stood by his side while he suffered in prison camp and continues to support him, was apparently not enough to satisfy McCain after she lost her beauty and mobility, so he tossed her aside for a younger, hotter, and blonder (not to mention richer) model.

McCain, who used his wife’s familial wealth and connections to augment an already cushy lifestyle as a Senator into a true billion-dollar empire, famously repaid Cindy’s devotion by calling her a “cunt” in public earshot when she poked fun at his receding hairline. More recently, McCain made headlines for rumors of a dalliance with telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman, who–shocker–is a younger, hotter, and blonder version of his current wife. McCain’s definitely not shy about trading up.

Speaking of telecoms, I’ve already written about how McCain has endorsed Bush’s illegal spying on innocent Americans, while taking money from the very same telecoms performing the spying AND filling his campaign staff full of telecom lobbyists. McCain was also against said wiretapping program before he was for it.

McCain, despite claiming his support for reducing reliance on fossil fuels and improving our environment, has no official energy policy, and what initiatives he has announced are essentially giveaways to the coal, oil, and nuclear industries.

McCain, who cemented his “maverick” status via the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, gambled big on a taxpayer-funded bailout of his campaign to keep him afloat if he didn’t get sufficient donations to stay in the race.

McCain, despite doing everything he can to distance himself from Bush and the current GOP doldrums, voted to support Bush policies 100 percent of the time in 2008 alone.

And most infamously, McCain stated that he’d have no problem with America being ensconced in Iraq for 100 years, and then furiously tried to walk it back and hope that people would just buy into it. Hell, McCain can’t even decide if he criticized the press or not in a speech the other day. And all of this I found with a few minutes of dedicated Googling. This doesn’t even get into the real depths of McCain’s flip-flops on everything from the Keating Five to immigration, which you can study in more depth with resources like Cliff Schecter’s awesome book “The Real McCain.” All of this information is out there and easily available to anyone willing to look for it.

But perceptions die hard, and wishes die harder. McCain has been feted by a salivatingly compliant press who get hot flashes for his military history and historic toughness, since most of them won’t get any closer to real combat than playing “Gears of War” on the XBox. Even for people who see that McCain is not the man he purports to be, there’s a squeamishness about criticizing him due to his status as a war hero. (Not that such squeamishness stopped anyone from Swift Boating John Kerry, of course.)

I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, many of which I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for by doing better. If I’m judged, I want to be judged on the whole of my life, good and bad. In turn, John McCain can’t be judged solely on the basis of his heroism in Vietnam, but how he’s spent his life and career since then. And in the doing, people will find that the man they thought John McCain was bears no resemblance to the man he is. And that isn’t a discovery you want to be making about the guy who may be our next President...

by Ryan Singel
Wired.com
June 03, 2008



If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.

McCain's new tack towards the Bush administration's theory of executive power comes some 10 days after a McCain surrogate stated, incorrectly it seems, that the senator wanted hearings into telecom companies' cooperation with President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, before he'd support giving those companies retroactive legal immunity.

As first reported by Threat Level, Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign, also said McCain wanted stricter rules on how the nation's telecoms work with U.S. spy agencies, and expected those companies to apologize for any lawbreaking before winning amnesty.

But Monday, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign, disavowed those statements, and for the first time cast McCain's views on warrantless wiretapping as identical to Bush's...