Now, I’ll first repeat my firmly held position that John McCain is no great shakes, but come on. How do you, with a straight face, suggest that Obama, who even CNN admits largely owes his political career to someone who targeted his fellow Americans with explosives, should be held harmless for that association? How do you then, in the very next breath, suggest that McCain and Palin are somehow responsible for what one or two unhinged nutbags say or do while attending a rally?

Further, when most of the Democratic party online has spent the last five years calling Bush a war criminal, a traitor, or worse, how do you feign indignation when someone suggests that calling our military a bunch of baby killers is tantamount to treason? Here is Obama’s exact quote in context:

Now you have narco drug lords who are helping to finance the Taliban, so we’ve got to get the job done there [in Afghanistan], and that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air raiding villages, and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

Compare that to John Kerry’s now infamous winter soldier testimony:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command….

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

This portrayal of our military as a bunch of mongols ravaging the countryside with little regard for “killing civilians” and “air raiding villages” is epidemic in the Democratic Party. It is part of the anti-military talking points. You can’t possibly act surprised that people take Obama’s remarks as an attack on our military.

Yet we’re supposed to look the other way when a man who wishes to be Commander in Chief denigrates our troops?

At the same time, we’re supposed to give a candidate a pass for associating with a man who apparently believed, and remains without remorse for the belief, that the only appropriate use of military power should be against civilians working in our own government? A man who, after bombing his countrymen, still says he wishes he could have done more for his cause.

Honestly? You will defend Barack Obama’s associations with that man, and his own disdain for our troops, yet you will try, with flimsy reasoning, to connect the GOP ticket with some random crowd members?

What if the roles were reversed. What if John McCain had spent 15 years cuddling up to Tim McVeigh? What if Terry Nichols had held a campaign kickoff event for J-Mac in his home? What if McVeigh had worked to secure tens of millions of dollars for an initiative that John McCain ran? Would you give him a pass? I doubt it.

While I am shocked by the Democrats’ indifference to Ayers, I also think the events of the Vietnam war were, as Obama says, 40 years ago. People have moved on.

However, I do not see how you can ignore that, also ignore your candidates defamation of our military’s service on behalf of our nation, and then try, laughably, to make McCain and Palin responsible for some random nutjob in a crowd of thousands.

It makes you look hypocritical and ridiculous.

One of Joe Biden’s major applause lines tonight came when he demanded equal pay for women. That’s a worthy cause to be sure. But is Biden practicing what he preaches?

Maybe not.

Despite the fact that Biden employs 27 women and only 14 men (could that be a Clinton problem?), very few of the women and men share common titles. The one job where there is overlap is staff assistants. These are traditionally entry level low-wage jobs in congressional offices.

So how do Biden’s salaries stack up?

The average male staff assistant in Biden’s office (based on the most recent salary figures) made $39,162 in the time period.

The average woman in that position made $21,323.

Hey Joe! Before you demand something of others, maybe you should lead by example. Why not start by giving the women in your office a raise?

Update: It also looks like the highest salaries are reserved for men, despite their minority status. 4 out of 14 men made more than $40,000 in the period, but only 5 of 27 women cleared that mark. Two of the men earned $70k, but the highest paid woman made only $46,000

Update 2: Does Obama walk the walk? It looks like he’s certainly better than Biden. A review of his staff for the same period at least shows remarkable consistency in pay for the jobs carrying the same title. Although of the twenty highest salaries in his office, 13 are men and 7 are women.

Update 3: It also works going the opposite direction. Of the 20 lowest salaries in Obama’s office, 13 are women and 7 are men. (And please note, there is no overlap between those two lists, and I have not included anyone that worked less than the full time period.)

Update 4: For those who asked, one final note before I do some real work. Of the 20 highest salaries on John McCain’s staff, 13 are women, and 7 are men.

First, the campaign didn’t make the ad, and neither did the RNC. Browne clearly needs to stick to songwriting because he’s no lawyer (and apparently, neither are his lawyers). Suing McCain and the RNC for an OH GOP ad is like suing McDonald’s because you got a bad cheeseburger at Wendy’s – based on the theory that they all make hamburgers and therefore share in the liability.

All three of these groups are separate legal entities. Suing one for the actions of the other is not legally supportable unless you can prove collusion, which is unlikely (and I’m not even sure that would support anything other than an FEC violation).

Second, Browne’s suit is clearly politically motivated. You don’t sue organizations that had nothing to do with the ad unless you’re trying to make a political point. Browne could have sued the Ohio GOP, but he knew that wouldn’t make news. So they named the RNC and McCain as well. This is about politics and the alleged infringement is BS.

Third, very telling about Browne’s suit is this passage:

The 59-year-old singer claims his reputation has already been damaged and is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.

Browne released “Running on Empty” ‚Äî the song and an album by the same name ‚Äî in 1977. According to the lawsuit, the album has sold more than 7 million copies.

So Browne is suing over a song that’s 31 years old. He’s claiming $75,000 in damages. It seems likely to me that Browne’s sales as a result of this little publicity ploy should result in more sales of the album/song than he has seen in years otherwise.

This isn’t about a musician who was grievously injured by the misuse of one of his songs by a politician he does not support. It is much more likely that Browne suing McCain was more about getting his name in the paper and moving some units of an old song that was likely to remain largely forgotten otherwise.

Need further evidence that Browne’s political activism has hampered his sales, leading to his latest publicity outing? Try this from Billboard.com

With his first four albums, Browne built a loyal following that helped him break into the mainstream with 1976′s The Pretender. During the late ’70s and early ’80s, he was at the height of his popularity, as each of his albums charted in the Top Ten. Midway through the ’80s, Browne made a series of political protest records that caused his audience to gradually shrink…

Browne hasn’t released a new album in six years, instead pursuing “intimate (read: small), acoustic shows around the globe”.

Unable to draw an audience, and unable to sell his unique brand of burned out hippy protest albums, Browne is left with only one option: strike out in a ridiculously frivolous lawsuit at a campaign that has nothing to do with your claim in a desperate attempt to get attention.

Well, Jackson, you’ve succeeded.

Now the corollary to that is the number of election cycles in that time where I have seen Democrats throw out the racism charge as a way of shoring up their support. On that metric, the Democrats are batting .1000.

I cannot speak to what the GOP may have done in the 70s and 80s because I wasn’t there. I can, however, safely say that every conversation I have had about race in campaigns since 1994 was either a) how the Democrats were exploiting race at our candidates expense and b) how we write copy, produce ads, and develop messages with the specific goal of not providing an opening that let’s them do that.

From everything I have seen, the GOP is obsessively concerned with “not” using race as an issue. That’s not to say that the random nut doesn’t do something stupid, but there will always be examples of nuts saying and doing stupid things. That does not equate to the sustained campaign of racism the Democrats allege.

All of the evidence I have seen of systemic abuse of race comes from the other side, and their attempts to exploit “racism” not “race” for political gain.

In January of 2005, President Bush was asked if we would leave if the Iraqi government indicated it wanted us out. His reply? “Absolutely. This is a sovereign government. They’re on their feet.”

Last week, when Nouri al-Maliki announced his support for Obama’s withdrawal timetable, and signaled the Iraqi people were ready for us to leave, the Administration had an opening to live up to those words. The Administration should have immediately issued the following statement:

Today, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the desire of the Iraqi people to see a US withdrawal. We have always stated that the US is operating in Iraq only as long as the Iraqi government requests our help. We now see the Iraqi government requesting our departure and we will respect their wishes.

I have asked our military advisers to prepare a plan for the immediate withdrawal of US troops, and I expect to see 50% of our troops stateside within the next six months with a full draw down to be completed by the end of 2009.

This would have done three things. First, it would have taken withdrawal off the table as a political issue the Democrats could demagogue. Second, it would have lived up to the word of the Administration that they would leave when the Iraqis asked. Third, it would have completely deflated one of two issues that will weigh heaviest on the general election – the other being the economic turbulence.

For McCain, it would have offered a chance to shift to support withdrawal without being seen as a flip-flopper. He could simply say that he, too, agrees that the Iraqi move toward self-determination is the final condition for US withdrawal. Having met that, the US will honor its obligation and remove its troops.

Having missed this opportunity, both McCain and the Republicans have a problem in that we are now the occupying force that so many have alleged. If we insist on staying, despite clear statements from Iraqi leadership that they are ready for us to leave, the GOP is in the unfortunate position of having to justify our continued presence in a country that has said they want us out. That’s a much worse position to be in for the general election than simply supporting an unpopular war.

For my inaugural post at The Next Right, I thought I’d take a closer look at some of the incremental steps I see in the right direction. A recent e-mail exchange with a colleague pointed out one such item I had overlooked – John McCain’s “McCain Report”.

While I still must point out some of the things I find awkward about McCain’s blogs (not the least of which is that he has two of them that seem to compete with one another), I will note that Goldfarb’s content seems to be vastly superior to what is ostensibly their flagship blog – titled simply the “McCain Blog”.

The McCain Blog is largely the sort of press release and dull e-mail fodder we’ve come to expect from campaigns. It recaps the latest rally and pimps “new eco-friendly items” available in the McCain store. It gets updated every few days. The one upshot is they do allow discussion.

Goldfarb’s McCain Report, on the other hand, is actually good. It’s not full of PR fluff and cheerleading. It’s updated several times a day and it contains substantive material. It is what campaign blogs should be (save for the fact that McCain should occasionally author posts, which he so far has not).

Take one recent piece triggered by a Ben Smith item in the Politico:

As Ben Smith reported yesterday, the Obama campaign recently brought Jason Furman on as a senior economic advisor. Smith notes that Furman wrote a lengthy defense of Wal-Mart in 2005, titled “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story.” In it Furman denies that Wal-Mart is suppressing wages, or exploiting their employees. The fact “that more than 1.3 million Americans work at Wal-Mart demonstrates that its compensation is at least as good as the alternatives,” he says. And he adds that ‚Äúthe available data is consistent with the premise that Wal-Mart pays wages that are comparable to the retail sector.‚Äù

His new boss takes a different view. In 2006, Obama told Fortune that “Wal-Mart is making enormous profits, and yet it has chosen to go with low wages and diminished benefits.” And in 2007, Obama told union members that he won’t even shop at Wal-Mart because of their exploitation of American workers. Has Obama moderated his views on Wal-Mart or will Furman and he just agree to disagree?

That is far from the typical piece on the campaign’s other blog:

Today, John McCain addressed the threat of global climate change and outlined his strategy to lead America to meet its obligations as a steward of this planet. The centerpiece of his plan is a market-based system designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, mobilize innovative technologies, and strengthen the economy.

Be sure to watch the newest tv ad called, “A Better Way,” then click here for more information on the McCain Plan.

I’m actually very pleased to see the McCain camp doing something well. In fact, what impresses me most is the superior quality of the McCain Report when compared to the Obama blog.

Senator Obama released the following statement today in response to the news of the trade deficit increase:

Today we learned that the trade deficit jumped to its highest level in 13 months. This is not an accident. This is yet another sign of the failed economic policies of the Bush administration that John McCain seeks to extend – policies that reflect unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility and borrowing from abroad. Rather than get America’s fiscal house in order, Senator McCain is proposing $300 billion more in tax breaks and loopholes for big corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and he hasn’t explained how he’d pay for them. Just this week, John McCain reaffirmed his commitment to special interest-driven economic policies that will widen the trade deficit, but won’t help American automakers secure fair treatment in South Korea, and won’t ensure that China stops devaluing its currency and tilting the playing field against American workers. As President, Barack Obama will stand up for fiscal responsibility by restoring fairness to our economy, investing in a renewable energy future, and adopting a trade policy that serves the interests not just of multinational corporations but of America’s hardworking families.

You can learn more about Barack’s stance on trade here.

That is a stark contrast. The Obama team (vaunted as they are for their superior web skills) is running a dry boring blog, while McCain’s team have at least begun to get it. It’s nice to see.

(As a side note, I’d like to offer two suggestions to Team McCain. First, look into search engine friendly urls. Second, optimize the meta tags on your blog posts to actually include the specific content of the post. Especially with this new stuff critical of Obama, it’s going to be important that people can actually find it.

There will be, however, more than a few people who can’t stand the thought of someone as liberal as Obama, but also aren’t too keen on someone as liberal-friendly as McCain. So I started to actually take a serious look at the possible effect of a Barr candidacy on the possible outcome in November. There is a potential there for a Perot-like or Nader-like spoiler.

A lot of people I know within the GOP have adopted an attitude that can be summed up simply – the party deserves to get its ass kicked and spend some time in the wilderness. The reasoning is the GOP has lost its way on fiscal restraint, ethics, size/scope of government, and most other measures of the issues that brought us to the dance.

Now drawing out that analogy and thinking back to grade school dating power plays… If the date that brought you takes off and starts dancing with another, do you sit in the corner sulking, hoping they’ll come to their senses? Or do you find someone else to dance with in the hopes that they’ll get jealous and realize what they’re missing?

For people who are considering sitting this one out, Bob Barr may end up being their go-to guy instead.

His credentials are shaky at best. He led the charge for Clinton’s impeachment, but did so based on Bill’s shady campaign financing, not his extracurricular blow jobs. He led the charge on defining marriage as one man and one woman, but now regrets some of that and opposes a federal amendment because it violates the rights of states to decide things for themselves. He was for the Patriot Act before he was against it. He led the fight against medical marijuana laws, but the Libertarian platform has typically been pro-legalization.

So his past positions and present statements tend to paint a picture of a guy at odds with himself, and both his current and former party. Still, he had a fairly solid following when he was in Congress and his positions (however much they’ve solidified now) may be attractive enough to a sizable group of people.

The Libertarian Party typically garners between .3 and .5 percent of the vote nationally – not even enough votes to break out of the “other” category when the final tally is rung up. However, on a state by state basis, they could be significantly impact the GOP’s chances.

For instance, If Barr were able to pull just 2% in Ohio (based on 2004′s numbers) and those extra votes were subtracted from Bush’s total (let’s assume McCain runs about the same minus Barr’s votes), then a Barr candidacy could cost McCain Ohio. Barr would need to pull 5% in Florida (with the same assumptions) to cost the GOP the sunshine state.

But forget states like Florida and Ohio, and look at states like New Mexico, Iowa (tipped by a 2% and .8% swing, respectively) and Colorado (which would take about a 5% Libertarian vote). If Barr gets traction in those three states, suddenly you have enough EVs in play to overturn the results of 2004. Suddenly Obama walks into the White House while losing both Ohio and Florida. Colorado is already trending away from the GOP, New Mexico is fickle anyway, and Iowa was only won by a whisker as it was.

It wouldn’t take much for Barr to tip a couple of key states away from the GOP.

If McCain continues his about face on immigration reform, he’ll start driving people away faster than a dead rat in a salad bar. Yet he seems to be counting on making up for those losses by appealing to centrist Ds (and maybe the racists Dems that can’t stand pushing the button for the black man). If he pushes his ‘Uniter’ credentials, he risks reminding the GOP base exactly why they distrust/dislike him to begin with.

The next 5 month are going to be a tough tightrope for McCain to walk. Tilt too far to one hoping to pick up Democrats and drive more people to Barr. Tilt to far to the base to avoid bleeding supporters to the Libertarians and drive away the moderate Dems he seems to be courting.

Could Barr moving to McCain’s right force him to fight a two front war and lose? It’s possible.

I guess I should tone down the jokes about voting for Barr – that or just jump in his camp so I can be an early adopter. I suspect there may be a bunch of people moving that way. I may as well be the first… I’ll let you know what I decide sometime later.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say for the record I think this is a bunch of crap.

First, people in this country have incredibly short attention spans. Any fatigue present in June is unlikely to carry until November. It’s just not like us to carry that baggage for five months. This whole notion stems from the fact that nobody has seen a race like this in generations. People are used to these fire-and-forget campaigns. The argument assumes that people prefer that and don’t want something more. I think there is ample evidence, just in the water cooler conversations, that people are engaged in this, have picked a candidate to back (regardless of their party) and want to see who wins.

That’s significantly different from an election plagued by fatigue.

Second, the Democrats will end up with a huge advantage coming out of this. Having been forced to compete in all 50 states, they will have a ground game in all 50 states. They will have built the machinery to compete in places the GOP has ignored for decades either because it was “safe” red territory or because the states simply weren’t on the radar.

Voters in these states will be intimately aware of the Democrat, will have seen countless ads for them, will have seen them in their state. The GOP, by comparison, will have no exposure, name ID solely based on their name, not their message, and no organizers. That’s going to make more states competitive.

I think hopes for Democrat burnout are overstated. I think pundits underestimate the people and the race. Hopefully, the GOP apparatus doesn’t make the same mistake.

Unfortunately, not everyone outgrew that fad and now a fearsome threesome have decided to make truly horrible remixes of old tunes to promote the candidacy of one John Sidney McCain.

In the case of the McCain girls, I think they have the right idea, but the wrong marketing. They’re trying to help McCain, but going about it the wrong way. What they really need to do is release something that looks like a terrorist hostage video. They would have a big map of America and hold a knife up to it.

The audio would feature the McCain girls pledging to release one music video a week between now and the election unless two demands are met. First, the Democrats must immediately concede the election to J-Mac. Second, five million dollars must be deposited into a Cayman Islands account.

I guarantee you, by the time July or August rolls around, if they keep making these god awful videos, five million bucks and the presidency will feel like a small price to pay for not having to watch them anymore.

Granted he’ll have to spend an awful lot of it to beat Hillary. He’s currently out raising her almost two to one. He’ll blow through a lot of cash between now and the nomination, but anything that’s left (assuming he eschews the general election funding provided by the FEC) can go straight to his general election account. If he continues raising $30 million or more per month, he could conceivably end up up more in the bank to transfer than McCain will get from the FEC funds.

What should really make McCain nervous, though, is the situation at the FEC and the fact that he may not get those funds. The FEC is currently missing commissioners and cannot count a quorum. Without a quorum present, the FEC cannot approve the disbursement of those Presidential funds to the McCain camp.

The Senate won’t recess because they do not want Bush to make recess appointments. The Republicans and Democrats have relatively inflexible positions on the current crop of appointments, and don’t appear likely to blink. With that stalemate in place, and no reason for the Democratic majority to overturn it, McCain could well enter the fall campaign completely unarmed.

McCain’s team is currently raising about $12 million per month, but blowing through it just as fast. If they’re not banking any dough, it is possible the campaign will enter September without any money at all. Now, the GOP could take great offense to the Senate Dems using procedural maneuvers to keep their candidate broke and rally in large numbers to show J-Mac the money love. If that’s going to happen, though, it needs to start soon.

The Bush team in 2004 considered skipping the general fund and raising money, but they determined the costs would simply be too great. To raise the $75 million they’d be giving up, they would actually need to raise about $150 million – due largely to the high overhead of the Ranger/Pioneer model of fundraising.

Obama’s model has a much lower overhead. It’s possible he could raise vast sums of money on a small dollar model. He’ll have a lot more ready cash for a much smaller investment of time.

McCain’s team needs to get on the stick and go open-source. They should be e-mailing their list with the facts I have just laid out, and urging every single Republican to give to McCain. They could even be honest and upfront about it. Here’s a sample of the e-mail I would send.

While we may not have seen eye to eye on issues in the past, I hope I can count on you now. We, as a party, face an incredible challenge. In just 7 months, I will face the best funded Democrat to run for President in generations. As the liberals are stuffing the campaign coffers of my opponent, their allies in the US Senate are working to deny you a candidate.

As the Senate holds up confirmation of commissioners to the FEC, I am awaiting approval of the funds that will carry our party’s message in the fall. Roughly $80 million dollars is riding on a high stakes game of chicken. The Democrats want us to back down. They want to hold my campaign hostage and prevent the disbursement of the money we need for the election in an effort to deliver a defeat to the President.

Whether you agree with me, and whether you support President Bush and his policies, we must unite as a party, and beat the Democrats at their own game. How? We must ask every single Republican to make a donation of just $5 to this campaign.

If every single Republican who voted for President Bush in 2004 gave $5, we could unite as a party, raise more than $300 million dollars, and fund our election without the FEC.

Take the power out of the Democrats hands. Show them the people of this great nation will not allow them to deny half of us our candidate and our vote. Show them that like any family we may have our internal squabbles, but we will not hesitate to come together against someone who threatens us.

Please, ask every Republican you know to give $5. If you can give more, or they can give more, please ask them to do so. We

That’s it. Begin a fundraising drive to combat the situation you are in. Beat Obama at the small dollar giving and use the fact that the Democrats are purposefully blocking the FEC appointments in an effort to screw you against them.

If they don’t do something, and keep spending money under the theory that the FEC situation will be resolved before August, they run the real risk that they go into the general out gunned to the tune of $150 million or more.