Bill Wants Barack to Do What?

Despite the Unity show put on last week in New Hampshire, the relationship between the Clintons and the Obamas remains strained. It seems Bill Clinton is looking for a kiss.

...even as the former president and the current presumptive Democratic nominee prepare to meet to make their own amends, Bill Clinton reportedly told close friends Obama can “kiss my ass” to get his support.

You'll recall that Bill was reported to be angry over his treatment at the hand of team Barack, particularly accusations that he was injecting racism into the campaign.

Bill Clinton has more recently cooled his rhetoric toward the de facto party leader, but he has publicly expressed his anger over being painted as a racist and race-baiter while his wife was campaigning against Obama.

Does Bill feel that he played the race card?

“No, I think that they played the race card on me, and we now know from memos in the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along."

It appears that the Democrats haven't found Unity yet.

Wrapped in Stripes

This thing of Barack's - this technique of wrapping himself in the flag of thoughtfulness - it's starting to get tedious. Even liberals will, I think, start to see it for what it is - contrived thoughtfulness - a style that was at first appealing, but which now reads as formulaic. Thus was the case again today as he gave a speech on patriotism - just the latest of many deep topics on which Barack is, for some reason, an expert in his own mind.

Finally, it is worth considering the meaning of patriotism because the question of who is – or is not – a patriot all too often poisons our political debates, in ways that divide us rather than bringing us together. I have come to know this from my own experience on the campaign trail.

Yup - we all remember, Barack, when you poisoned the debate by suggesting that those who wear flag pins are phony patriots. Guess who is now regularly wearing a flag pin.

So let me say at this at outset of my remarks. I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine.

And we remember when you suggested that those who think they have a constitutional right to own guns were just bitter Americans.

Throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given. It was how I was raised; it is what propelled me into public service; it is why I am running for President. And yet, at certain times over the last sixteen months, I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged...

And why should anyone question the patriotism of a man who took the help of domestic terrorists to help get his career launched, then lied about the closeness of their association?

One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my grandfather’s shoulders and watching the astronauts come to shore in Hawaii. I remember the cheers and small flags that people waved, and my grandfather explaining how we Americans could do anything we set our minds to do. That’s my idea of America.

One of my earliest memories of Barack is hearing him defend his close friend, confidant and spiritual mentor for saying, "It's not God Bless America, It's God Damn America."

I remember listening to my grandmother telling stories about her work on a bomber assembly-line during World War II. I remember my grandfather handing me his dog-tags from his time in Patton’s Army, and understanding that his defense of this country marked one of his greatest sources of pride. That’s my idea of America.

I remember him responding to accusations that there was something inappropriate about his close alliance with a race baiter and divider with a suggestion that Reverend Wright was no worse than his own grandmother.

Beyond a loyalty to America’s ideals, beyond a willingness to dissent on behalf of those ideals, I also believe that patriotism must, if it is to mean anything, involve the willingness to sacrifice – to give up something we value on behalf of a larger cause.

Barack has made that sacrifice - having given up his personal integrity in his pursuit of the presidency. Why, I remember him sending Wes Clark out onto the Sunday talking head shows to attack the sacrifice that John McCain made for this country. When was that - I think it was - oh yeah, yesterday!

``I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,'' Clark said, referring to the incident that led to McCain's being taken prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Enough, please, Barack, with the hypocritical sermons! Enough of the posturing. They may be less nasty then the ones given by your friends Pfleger, Farrakhan and Wright, but they're no less sanctimonious.

Another Loser for Barack

As if claiming that McCain is as big a flip-flopper as he is isn't a big enough loser for the Obama camp, they've found an idea that's worse.

``I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,'' (Wes) Clark said, referring to the incident that led to McCain's being taken prisoner of war in Vietnam.

This is the sort of slam that gets looped on TV through a news cycle - reminding Americans that McCain is a war hero, and also highlighting that Barack's never done much of anything except seek higher office.

Obama is ``running on his strength of character, on the strengths of his communication skills, on the strengths of his judgment,'' Clark said.

Excuse me? Are we talking the Jeremiah Wright judgment, the Bill Ayers judgment, or perhaps the Tony Rezko judgment? Are we talking the promise to be part of the public financing system but then changing your mind when it's convenient sort of character, or the inject race into the campaign kind of character?

Or, are we talking about the strength of Barack's judgment on the war in Iraq. As Joe Lieberman points out

"...if we had done what Senator Obama asked us to do, for the last couple of years, today Iran and al-Qaeda would be in control of Iraq. It would be a terrible defeat for us and our allies in the Middle East and throughout the world.''

Barack the Jap

Barack built his candidacy on faith. He asked people to believe in him and his message of change. To trust him.

With the nomination wrapped up, he has betrayed that trust with zeal. It's a new ballgame. As one of two guys with a chance to become president, Barack figures whatever the tactics were for beating Hillary don't control what happens next. It's the playoffs. Anything to win.

John McCain, in his sharpest attack yet against rival Barack Obama, said the Democratic presidential candidate's word ``cannot be trusted.''

Which means his liberalism goes in the closet, along with his friends and advisers of the past couple of decades. Change beliefs, betray the faith that inspired so - read the polls and follow the game plan that the consultants map out.

``This election is about trust -- trust in people's word,'' McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told several hundred donors at a $2 million GOP fundraiser in Louisville, Kentucky, yesterday. ``And unfortunately, apparently on several items, Senator Obama's word cannot be trusted.''

He goes from Barack the Angel sent from Heaven, Barack the Messiah, to Just Another Politician. He's the incredible JAP.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator, said Obama has gone back on his word by pledging to take public financing during the general election and then deciding not to do so.

The challenge for McCain is to get the word out. The sooner the better. And as he does, the Obamafia is making the same accusations against McCain.

Obama supporters are quick to highlight areas where McCain has changed his opinions in an attempt to label him as a worse ``flip-flopper'' than Obama. McCain has also changed his views on evangelical voters and offshore drilling, his supporters say.

That's an accusation that Barack can throw at McCain all day long without hurting him, as McCain was never The Messiah, so Obama playing tit for tat with him diminishes Barack's brand, not McCain's.

Spiaggia

What does Barack do on date night?

Obama managed to have some fun last night. He and Michelle had a swanky date night at Chicago’s premiere restaurant, Spiaggia.

Who went with them? Tony Rezko? Reverend Pfleger?

Michelle, dressed in a chic, black dress and Barack entered the restaurant alone and dined for almost 2 and a half hours.

Two and a half hours! They must have had the eight course tasting menu. It's just $165 per person, with a wine tasting thrown in for an extra $90 each. They aren't bitter - they're millionaires - although the house cured anchovies might have caused them to pucker a bit.

SPAGHETTI ALLA CHITARRA CON POMODORI, CAPERI E ACCIUGHE

Hand crafted spaghetti with San Marzano tomatoes, Pantellerese capers and house cured anchovies

They must have gone over to the Wright estate for after dinner drinks - Nah, the meal would have included a TORTA DI NOCCIOLE PIEMONTESE.

Well, what did Barack do before dinner.

As soon as he returned home yesterday afternoon, he quickly changed into his gym clothes and headed to a local gym where he worked out for over an hour. This morning, he headed back to the gym and later took his family to Chicago’s East Bank Club to play basketball.

Why does the national media suddenly have access to so many scintillating Obama details?

Details of his days and nights off the campaign trail have been murky, until now. After lengthy negotiations with the press, the campaign has established a protective pool to travel with the candidate and this was the inaugural weekend.

Thank goodness we're finally getting the details!

Vacuous Opportunist

In an interview with Stephanopolous on This Week, Ralph Nader went after Barack, quoting, among others, political scientist Adolph Reed:

I’ve known him since the very beginning of his political career, which was his campaign for the seat in my state senate district in Chicago. He struck me then as a vacuous opportunist, a good performer with an ear for how to make white liberals like him. I argued at the time that his fundamental political center of gravity, beneath an empty rhetoric of hope and change and new directions, is neoliberal.

Reed, now at the University of Pennsylvania, says Barack can manipulate with the best of them:

The Obama campaign has even put out a misleading bio of Michelle Obama, representing her as having grown up in poverty on the South Side, when, in fact, her parents were city workers, and her father was a Daley machine precinct captain. This fabrication, along with those embroideries of the candidate’s own biography, may be standard fare, the typical log cabin narrative. However, in Obama’s case, the license taken not only underscores Obama’s more complex relationship to insider politics in Daley’s Chicago; it also underscores how much this campaign depends on selling an image rather than substance.

Reed, a black man, says Barack can play the race card:

The Jackson comparison points to one of Obama’s key contradictions: Like Jackson, he wants to appeal to blacks with the “it’s our time now” line, and to white liberals with that, as well as with the “I’m black in a different way from Jesse” qualifier and the religious conversion rhetoric. A friend said that Obama’s campaign, in stressing his appeal to rapturous children and liberal, glamorous yuppies, offers vicarious identification with these groups, as well as the chance to become sort of black in that ultra-safe and familiar theme park way.

Writing when Hillary was still in the race for the nomination, Reed wrote that he could not vote for him because:

Obama’s empty claims to being a candidate of progressive change and to embodying a “movement” that exists only as a brand will dissolve into disillusionment in either a failed campaign against McCain or an Obama Presidency that continues the politics he’s practiced his entire career.

But this, really, is what will get Barack.

Because he’s tried carefully to say enough of whatever the audiences he’s been speaking to at the time want to hear while leaving himself enough space later on to deny his intentions to leave that impression, his record represents precisely the “character” weakness the Republicans have exploited in every Democratic candidate since Dukakis: Another Dem trying to put things over on the American people.

Can You Say Hussein

Forget about the criminals, the bomb planters, and the America haters who Barack built his career with. Forget about the inexperience. Forget about him having falsely portrayed himself as an agent of change. If this catches on, it will be the thing that stops Barack cold.

There is, if we can believe the New York Times,

a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

On the one hand, the instincts of these young activists for Barack are correct. A name is only foreign until it becomes common enough for its foreignness to be absorbed. But Hussein is a problematic middle name for Barack to carry because it provides a confirmation of people's worst fears - that Barack himself is different enough that we can't know who he is, what he believes, and what he wants for America.

“I am sick of Republicans pronouncing Barack Obama’s name like it was some sort of cuss word,” Mr. Strabone wrote in a manifesto titled “We Are All Hussein” that he posted on his own blog and on dailykos.com.

Barack is scary - his level of inexperience is astounding, his associations are disastrous, and his politics are liberal beyond what voters can imagine. He takes the fear that Al Gore and John Kerry triggered in Americans and pushes it up a couple of notches. His middle name intuitively suggests the danger that he represents.

Some Obama supporters say they were moved to action because of what their own friends, neighbors and relatives were saying about their candidate. Mark Elrod, a political science professor at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., is organizing students and friends to declare their Husseinhood on Facebook on Aug. 4, Mr. Obama’s birthday.

What these young supporters of Barack don't see is that they reflect the world that liberalism has created - they are naive, inexperienced, uneducated, coddled - they're actually living at home while campaigning for Change! And they think they live in a country that is too conservative! They are not equipped to change our perception of Barack or his middle name - they confirm the worst fears that it symbolizes!

“It’s one of those things that just takes off, because everybody got it right away,” said Stephanie Miller, a left-leaning comedian who blurted out the idea one day during a broadcast of her syndicated radio talk show and repeated it on CNN.

Ms. Miller and her fellow new Husseins are embracing the traditionally Muslim name even as the Obama campaign shies away from Muslim associations.

Stephanie Hussein Miller won't change a bunch of minds on her own, but the more young radicals she can get to adopt the name Hussein, the tougher the job of convincing Americans that they can trust Barack becomes.

Dick Morris Talks with Todd

In an interview this week, Dick Morris outlines the ideas that make Barack scary in a conversation with Todd.

The Unity of Hope

Who hates unity more - Barack, or Hillary?

Rezko Trial - Where Was Barack?

Why was Barack's name kept out of the Tony Rezko trial, which, you may recall, ended in a conviction several days ago? There is a funny smell coming from that courtroom.

While none of that came out at trial, today, for the first time, a filing recently unsealed shows the government's initial intent to call witnesses about that aspect of the case. The judge in the case, Amy St. Eve, ruled that the prosecution could bring up Obama's name. But they never did. And references to Obama were not only kept out of the trial during his run for the primary -- it was kept under seal. Until today.

It's amazing what the system will do to protect the powerful. Obama's close ties to Rezko should have made his name an everyday utterance in the proceedings.

The filing indicates that the prosecution wanted witnesses to talk about Rezko's prowess as an Obama fund-raiser and his influence in getting two others -- Joseph Aramanda and Semir Sirazi -- to donate Rezko money to Obama's campaigns in their names. The money kicked into Obama's campaigns came from an illicit kickback scheme. Obama has since donated that money to charity.

That's it? Obama has since donated that money to charity, so everyone's happy?

"And references to Obama were not only kept out of the trial during his run for the primary—it was kept under seal," Natasha Korecki (Chicago Sun-Times) reported June 26, 2008. "Until today."

What we do not learn is why prosecutors did not bring up Obama's name more often, particularly since U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve "ruled that they could."

Keep tabs on this at Rezko Watch.

Barack's Housing Scandal

"No one should have to live like this, and no one did anything about it," said Cynthia Ashley, who has lived at Grove Parc since 1994.

What is Grove Parc, and why is Cindy Ashley so upset? Grove Park is one of the ghettos built and managed under a policy supported by Barack, built and managed by Barack's friends.

CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

But it's not safe to live here.

What's this got to do with Barack and the new kinda politics?

Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.

Barack supports this stuff - but wait a sec, he's a good government, compassionate guy, right? Fighting for a better life for the underclass, isn't he?

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters.

Wait - are you trying to tell me that when he wasn't running for reelection, running for Congress, running for Senate, and writing his book, Barack actually got involved with policy matters?

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

Barack remains tied to many who were responsible for the subsidized housing tragedy that occurred in his district. Valerie Jarrett was part of the scam and is senior adviser to Barack's campaign. Allison Davis was involved in the housing and was a major fund-raiser. And then, of course, there's Tony Rezko.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.

How did Rezko get so rich and powerful?

One of the largest recipients of the subsidies was Rezmar Corp., founded in 1989 by Tony Rezko, who ran a company that sold snacks at city beaches, and Daniel Mahru, who ran a company that sold ice to Rezko. Neither man had development experience.

Over the next nine years, Rezmar used more than $87 million in government grants, loans, and tax credits to renovate about 1,000 apartments in 30 Chicago buildings. Companies run by the partners also managed many of the buildings, collecting government rent subsidies.

Why is Rezko so important to Barack?

All the while, Tony Rezko was forging a close friendship with Barack Obama. When Obama opened his campaign for state Senate in 1995, Rezko's companies gave Obama $2,000 on the first day of fund-raising. Save for a $500 contribution from another lawyer, Obama didn't raise another penny for six weeks. Rezko had essentially seeded the start of Obama's political career.

As Obama ascended, Rezko became one of his largest fund-raisers. And in 2005, Rezko and his wife helped the Obamas purchase the house where they now live.

So Barack must have used his leverage with Rezko to make sure the developer took good care of the poor people living in Barack's district, right?

Eleven of Rezmar's buildings were located in the district represented by Obama, containing 258 apartments. The building without heat in January 1997, the month Obama entered the state Senate, was in his district. So was Jones's building with rats in the walls and Frizzell's building that lacked insulation. And a redistricting after the 2000 Census added another 350 Rezmar apartments to the area represented by Obama.

But Obama has contended that he knew nothing about any problems in Rezmar's buildings.

Well, if honest Abe Obama didn't know, we have to take him at his word.

After Rezko's assistance in Obama's home purchase became a campaign issue, at a time when the developer was awaiting trial in an unrelated bribery case, Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times that the deterioration of Rezmar's buildings never came to his attention. He said he would have distanced himself from Rezko if he had known.

Other local politicians say they knew of the problems.

It's not fair, though, to expect Barack to be aware that his friends were forcing the poor in his senate district to live in squalor. He was busy trying to get out of the squalor of the state senate, and on to the presidency!

Dick Morris Talks with Todd

In an interview this week, Dick Morris outlines the ideas that make Barack scary in a conversation with Todd.

Unity

Hillary felt the need to exaggerate a bit today in the Unity event.

"I know Senator Obama. I've served with him in the Senate for four years."

Well, let's see - Barack would have been inaugurated three years and 5 months ago this month, and he's been campaigning full-time for President for about two years - so really, Hillary served with him in the U.S. Senate for about a year and a half, which is the full extent of Barack's career in national politics.

She flipped quickly over to something more closely resembling reality.

I've campaigned with and against him for lots of months," Clinton told a crowd of 4,000, who had gathered in an elementary school field on a steamy afternoon. "So I've had a front row seat to his candidacy. And I've seen his strength and his determination, his grace and his grit."

While Hillary was there to pretend to like Barack (she has 1o million reasons to do so), who crowd wasn't similarly incentivized.

Some of her supporters weren't quite ready to let go. "We want Hillary!" a handful of Clinton fans shouted during her speech. "It's over!" an Obama voter shot back.... When it was Obama's turn to pile on the plaudits, another voice in the crowd yelled, "She rocks." Obama answered, "She rocks, she rocks. That's the point I'm trying to make."

Big News - No Change

The big pollsters continue to deny the wished for results in Newsweek's poll of last week that showed Barack up 15 points.

PRINCETON, NJ -- For the third straight day, Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows Barack Obama and John McCain tied in national registered voter preferences for the fall election, each now with 44% of the vote.

Rasmussen, along with Time, continues to show Barack up four points.

Thirty-three percent (33%) are just as certain they will vote for McCain. Seventy percent (70%) of Republicans are certain they will vote for McCain and 68% of Democrats say they same about Obama. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 30% are certain to vote for McCain, 25% for Obama and 45% say they could change their mind before Election Day (see notes on recent demographic data). Part of the reason for this extraordinary fluidity is that the candidates are relatively unknown. Another factor is that the issue array is not as settled as in recent elections.

It's the Party, Stupid!

Poor conservatives, Time Magazine seems to be saying. With Supreme Court rulings on Guns and Death Penalty, they'd expect to be able to nail Barack for being the withering liberal that he is.

When the Supreme Court issues rulings on hot-button issues like gun control and the death penalty in the middle of a presidential campaign, Republicans could be excused for thinking they'll have the perfect opportunity to paint their Democratic opponent as an out-of-touch social liberal. But while Barack Obama may be ranked as one of the Senate's most liberal members, his reactions to this week's controversial court decisions showed yet again how he is carefully moving to the center ahead of the fall campaign.

Yup, it's sad. All Barack can be busted for now is being John Kerry disguised as a younger, more appealing candidate.

John McCain's camp wasted no time in attacking, with one surrogate, conservative Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, calling Obama's gun control statement "incredible flip-flopping." McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann was even tougher in a conference call Thursday. "What's becoming clear in this campaign," Scheunemann said, is "that for Senator Obama the most important issue in the election is the political fortunes of Senator Obama. He has demonstrated that there really is no position he holds that isn't negotiable or isn't subject to change depending on how he calculates it will affect his political fortunes."

It's possible that Barack can survive the attacks that Kerry succumbed to. Maybe they'll be able to swallow that he's a guy with a spine who is so ruthless that he'll say and do anything for power. The downside of that is obvious - if he's so politically calculating as everyone else, then how can he be the change candidate he pretends to be?

Liberals are hoping that despite Obama's moderate response to the Supreme Court decisions, the issues alone will rally supporters to him. "What both of these decisions say to me is that the Supreme Court really is an election year issue," says Kathryn Kolbert, President of People For the American Way. "We're still only one justice away from a range of really negative decisions that would take away rights that most Americans take for granted," she says.

In reality, Change was the brand for winning the nomination. The new pitch will be - It's The Party, Stupid! Democrats expect to win simply because they're the Democrats in a Democratic year. Perhaps they're underestimating just how heavy Barack's bags are.

It's Early Still

An evaluation of swing state polls by Quinnipiac reveals some scary news - Barack Obama is doing as well as John Kerry was four years ago. As with Kerry, folks are just getting to know Barack. While Kerry was dull and cumbersome, Barack has the Obamafia to account for, a much tougher electoral ball and chain. But right now, Barack is looking good in some important states.

COLORADO: Obama 49 - McCain 44
MICHIGAN: Obama 48 - McCain 42
MINNESOTA: Obama 54 - McCain 37
WISCONSIN: Obama 52 - McCain 39

These numbers will change often, but eventually end up on McCain's side in most, if not all cases.

"November can't get here soon enough for Sen. Barack Obama. He has a lead everywhere, and if nothing changes between now and November he will make history," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Oh, and, by the way.

"There is a clear consensus among voters in all of these states that they don't want Sen. Hillary Clinton as vice president and that they see her as a liability for Obama, not an asset."

Warns Brown:

"But Sen. Obama should not be picking out the drapes for the Oval Office just yet. His lead nationally, and double digits in some key states, is not hugely different from where Sen. John Kerry stood four years ago at this point in the campaign," Brown added.

Mr. Clean

Barack was bragging the other day about how he escaped Chicago politics without becoming tied into the dirty politics that dominates the town.

"You will recall that for my entire political career here, I was not the the endorsed candidate of any political organization here," the Democratic presidential hopeful said at the Westin Hotel downtown. "I didn't go around wielding a bunch of clout. My reputation in Springfield was as an independent. There is no doubt I had friends and continue to have friends who come out of the more traditional school of Chicago politics but that's not what launched my political career and that's not what I've ever depended on to get elected, and I would challenge any Chicago reporter to dispute that basic fact."

Nope. It's true. Barack built his own insidious clan - the Obamafia.

Obama friend Tony Rezko was convicted of corrupting state government, but Obama was never implicated and has returned contributions Rezko made to his Senate campaign. Obama did run as an independent Democrat but worked closely with state Senate President Emil Jones, an old-school organization Democrat. Obama runs for president with the full blessing of Mayor Daley.

And, of course, Barack benefited on the political clout of Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn.

He's A No Man

In a new ad, John McCain attacks Barack for saying no to all his ideas for confronting the energy crisis. The spot portrays Barack as Dr. No.


Is it a mistake to use a 40 year old pop culture reference? Laura Ingraham thought so tonight on O'Reilly, but I disagree. If you don't know the movie, you get the point. But most people know the title. And Barack's constant no's, all sounding reasonable on their own, do have a cumulative effect by the end of the spot.

Rove Doesn't Heart Obama

A few days ago, Barack was a martini drinking snob. But Karl Rove wants to work him over again, this time using the short-lived Presibama Seal as a symbol of his conceit.

His seal featured an eagle emblazoned with his logo, and included a Latin version of his campaign slogan. This was an attempt by Sen. Obama to make himself appear more presidential. But most people saw in the seal something else – chutzpah – and he's stopped using it. Such arrogance – even self-centeredness – have featured often in the Obama campaign.

Rove goes after him for throwing Wright under the bus, for throwing campaign finance control out the window, then berates him for refusing to accept McCain's offer to meet in a series of free-form debates.

Last month he replied "anywhere, anytime" to John McCain's invitation to have joint town hall appearances. Last week he changed his mind. Fearing 10 impromptu town halls, Mr. Obama parried the invitation by offering two such events – one the night of July 4, when every ambulatory American is watching fireworks or munching hotdogs, and another in August. His spokesman then said, "Take it or leave it." So much for "anywhere, anytime."

Barack has been arrogant in taking credit for passing legislation he didn't even bother to vote on, and his chutzpah in injecting race into the race.

Mr. Obama has now also played the race card, twice suggesting in recent weeks that Republicans will draw attention to the fact that he's black. Who is unaware of that? Americans overwhelmingly find it a hopeful, optimistic sign that the country could elect an African-American president. But they rightly want to know what kind of leader he might be. They may well reject as cynical any maneuver to discourage close examination of him by suggesting any criticism is racially motivated.

There is, from my perception, a certain unlikability developing in the attitude of Barack. Rove suggests this pattern of behavior could influence others, as well.

Mr. McCain will be helped if he uses Mr. Obama's actions to paint his opponent as someone driven by an all-powerful instinct to look out only for himself. In a contest over who is willing to put principle above personal ambition and self-interest, John McCain, a war hero and a former POW, wins hands down. That may not be the most important issue to voters in electing a president, but it's something they will rightly take into account.

Barack Shot Down By Court

In the wake of today's Supreme Court ruling affirming the right to bear arms, John McCain used the opportunity to remind voters how Barackists feel about gun rights.

"Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly," McCain said.

Barack used the opportunity to have a foot on both sides of the issue.

Obama said if elected president, he would uphold the rights of gun owners, but he said: "I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals."

Ironically, today's ruling may make it easier for Barack, and other liberal, blame the gun, types, to do their parsing. Gun rights voters don't have to fear the slippery slope that Barack represents quite as much now that the court has clarified the issue.

The court's 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

Although McCain's not so sure about Chicago's gun laws remaining in tact.

"Today's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans," McCain said in the statement.

And it appears he's right.

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

In Chicago, a ban on the sale and registration of handguns has been in place since 1982. Only police officers, aldermen and a handful of others are exempt from the ban.

Polls indicate that Americans are strongly on McCain's side, while Barack doesn't believe gun rights warrant a button on his website's issues list.

Nearly three out of four Americans — 73% — believe the Second Amendment spells out an individual right to own a firearm, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,016 adults taken Feb. 8-10.

Gallup Shows Race Tied - Again

For the second day in a row, Gallup's daily tracker of 2600+ registered voters shows a tie between Barack and McCain. Rasmussen, a more accurate survey of 3000 likely voters, remains a four point lead for Barack when "leaners" are included, and five points without.

Is it possible that international security concerns in the news are working to McCain's advantage and keeping the race tighter than it would be otherwise? That's what Dick Morris said last night on the Factor. Gallup's numbers would seem to reinforce this view:

Americans are more likely to have confidence in John McCain (80 %) than Barack Obama (55%) ...to handle the responsibilities of commander in chief.

While the Gallup numbers do indicate how poorly Barack is doing at a point when he should be flying high, polls at this point are not great predictors of what will happen in November, since there hasn't been a campaign yet. At the same time, it seems the more that voters get to know Barack, the less impressed they are.

The Age Thing

Nader, 74, is a consumer advocate and political activist.

So how come no one is saying that he's too old to be president?

Uncle Ralph

Ralph Nader is calling Barack Obama out for being, essentially, an Uncle Tom.

CHICAGO (AP) — Barack Obama dismissed Ralph Nader's claim that the Democratic candidate is trying to "talk white" and has failed to challenge the power structure to appeal to "white guilt."

Now there's a strategy for Nader to get some press.

In a story published Wednesday, the Denver-based Rocky Mountain News reported that Nader said he was not impressed with Obama and that the senator was playing down poverty issues. The interview took place Monday in Washington, the News reported.

While the media will likely focus on the racial overtones of the comment, Nader is making a serious point about Barack. He is avoiding certain issues so that he can appear non-threatening.

I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson?"

When asked if Obama does try to "talk white," Nader replied, "Of course." He also said that Obama doesn't want to appear to be "another politically threatening African-American politician."

Nader describes Barack to the suburban elites who are so taken by him.

"He wants to appeal to white guilt," Nader said. "You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up."

Nader doesn't seem to suck up to anyone, or to compromise his values. On the other hand, he doesn't get many votes.

The Mythology of Change

A story in Newsweek questions how Barack can change a city he's never known. Just three years into his first term, much of the last two have been spent trying to escape his new job. In his rush to get home to the family each weekend, Barack is part of a generation of Congressmen who don't get to know the city or their compatriots.

Old-guard senators bemoan their new colleagues' eagerness to get out of town on Thursday nights, a tendency that the veterans believe has helped make Washington a more partisan place. It was easier to understand the gentleman from the other party, they reason, when you saw him cheering at St. Albans' soccer games.

It was this connection that members of opposing camps felt that made it possible for them to work together in the past.

And as they contemplate capturing the White House under a banner of bipartisanship, Obama and his generation of senators face a broader dilemma: how do they work with their opponents when, for so long, they've lived their lives apart?

Is it possible to change Washington if you don't know the players? The town?

John Warner, the Republican from Virginia, retiring after six terms, remembers this Senate as "a close-knit family" where "a new senator had a big brother and his wife had a big sister." The collegial quarters made it harder to stay mad. "I remember in the good old days, there were several senators who were known to keep a pretty good bar," says Warner. "We would just go down and have a sip together and go home. The fight was over."

In Barack's case, uncomfortable in his role as Washington bachelor, he didn't spend any time developing relationships during his brief time in the capital.

Obama shunned the party scene, confining his socializing to fund-raisers, dinners with policy experts and the occasional meal with old law-school classmates. "I'm not aware that he ever went to a residential party," says Cassandra Butts, a law-school friend who helped him set up his Senate office. "He could have developed much deeper personal relationships if he had spent more time in D.C," says a senior aide who would describe a weakness only anonymously.

Yet another instance of how McCain, after more than twenty-five years there, knows his way not just around the city, but around the opposition party. The real change candidate.

Planning for Unity

The ridiculous Obama campaign event to role out the newly bought Hillary endorsement in Unity, New Hampshire is a complex thing. Here's the press advisory from the campaign.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27
Unity, NH

"UNITE FOR CHANGE" RALLY WITH BARACK OBAMA AND HILLARY CLINTON
Unity Elementary School

864 Second NH Turnpike

Unity, NH

Early Media Access: 0:00 AM

Media Pre-Set: 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Equipment must be dropped at the site by 11:30 AM; media will not have access to the site from 12:00 AM to 11:00 AM.)

Media Access: 1:00 AM

Live Truck Parking: Directed on site. Unity Elementary School soccer field. Live trucks are the only media vehicles allowed on site.

Media Parking: There is no media parking available onsite. Members of the media MUST take shuttles provided by the Obama campaign to access the event. For media who need to pre-set, a shuttle will begin running at 10:00 AM Friday, June 27, and run until 9:00 AM from the Claremont location listed below. Shuttles will resume running at 4:00 AM for other media. Media will be credentialed at the Twin State Speedway; members of the media must present a credential in order to ride the shuttle at any time. At the conclusion of the event, shuttles will resume running back to the Twin State Speedway.

Times have been adjusted to dissuade crashers.

Meet Mr. ATW

Barack is not the man from Hope any more. He's abandoning his angelic, liberal stances and has morphed into ATW - Anything to Win. The difficulty of doing this standard general election reposistioning when you're the guy who is going to be different is outlined in Time Magazine.

To some observers, Obama's transformation from upstart candidate to presumptive nominee has made him begin to look dangerously like the typical Washington politicians he so often rails against. Worried about his patriotism? He now wears a flag pin daily. Worried about his church? He left it. Think he's inexperienced? Don't fret; he's got lots of renowned advisers. Too liberal? Well, just look at his recent policy statements on defending Israel and protecting warrantless wiretapping.

It may be my imagination, but there seems to be a darker mood to Barack these days. He comes across as less warm, less innocent, less likable.

in some ways Obama has boxed himself in: in trying to counter criticisms about his experience, he's brought in a team full of gray-haired advisers who, by dint of their long-established positions and Washington relationships, represent the furthest thing from change.

Perhaps he feels ugly, giving in to his lust for power the way he has.

As he tries to maintain the fervent grass-roots enthusiasm that has gotten him this far while appealing to enough independents to take him to the White House, the Illinois Senator must both disprove and prove the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

That will be hard, for sure.

The liberal blogosphere lit up angrily when Obama signed on to a controversial Senate compromise to authorize President George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping programs last week. Earlier this month, Obama conceded that his own rhetoric on trade during the primaries was "overheated and amplified" and that he supports "opening up a dialogue" with trading partners Canada and Mexico on "how we can make this work for all people," as he told Fortune. And in his first speech after cementing the nomination, Obama assured the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent Jewish group, that he would like to see Jerusalem "remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," a surprisingly hawkish declaration that outraged the Arab world and Arab-Americans and appeared to contradict earlier statements he had made.

Barack has so effectively built his brand as the remedy to a self-serving, unprincipled government in DC, that it has to diminish his magic to behave as maliciously as he has of late.

The Tarnished Brand

While Barack will still use the words about being an agent of change, and voters will still fall for it, the brand has been effectively ruined.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama sought the Democratic presidential nomination by pledging to rise above partisan politics and bring to Washington a more public-spirited way of governing. By rejecting the public finance system to pay for his general election campaign — thus avoiding the limits it would impose on spending — Obama demonstrated that he is a politician like most others: one for whom principles must bow to expedience.

The worst of all possible damage has been done to the Change brand because now, people who defend Barack, do so by saying, "Well, McCain did the same thing!" That defense represents a guilty plea as a result of Barack having raised the bar so high for himself.

However, in first declaring his intention to seek public funds and then changing his mind, Obama is no worse than McCain. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee sought public funds during the primary, used their availability to secure bank loans and then improperly opted out of public finance when adequate private donations began to flow.

Who would have imagined, just a few weeks ago, that "Barack's no worse than McCain," would have been deemed an attempt at complimenting Barack's politics?

Obama's change of heart is vulnerable to criticism on several counts: His flip-flop shows that on some matters he cannot say what he means and then stick to his word. The switch also flies in the face of Obama's claims to be devoted to reform and transformative change.

Race Tightens

Even while less credible polls that show a big Obama lead get massive media coverage, the credible polls are ignored as they show the race to be tightening.
Gallup's daily tracker has gone from a 3 point lead for Barack yesterday to a tie today, a pretty big change. Rasmussen keeps Barack's lead at 6.

There's more good news for McCain.

Just 22% now say the McCain is too old to be President, down from 30% who held that view earlier. Forty-one percent (41%) continue to believe that Obama is too inexperienced.

The race has remained very stable in recent weeks. Without leaners, Obama’s support has stayed between 45% and 47% for fourteen straight days. With leaners, he has stayed between 48% and 50% for twenty straight days.

McCain, too, has been very stable.

his support has been at 40% or 41% on eighteen of the last twenty-one days. Twice, he inched up a point above that range and once he slipped a point below. With leaners, McCain’s support has stayed between 42% and 45% every day since Obama clinched the Democratic Presidential Nomination (see recent daily results).

Hollywood Hits

A bunch of new Hollywood hits have offered their support to The Chosen One, who had a fundraiser in California yesterday. Barack took in an estimate $5M - proof of his moonbat status.

Actors Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, John Malkovich and Dennis Quaid were just some of the stars in the audience, which also included supermodels Cindy Crawford and Heidi Klum.

And Klum's husband, singer Seal, was there as well. Seal

sang two songs to fire up the crowd, many of whom had shelled out 28,500-dollar-per-head for a VIP dinner, benefiting the Democratic National Committee, followed by a 2,300-dollar-per-person reception.

But there were other singers there.

Other celebrities included Black Eyed Peas front-man Will.i.am, immaculate in an ivory silk suit, porkpie hat and Nike sneakers emblazoned with Obama’s face and the "Obama 08" logo.

This crew of opinion leaders joins an impressive list of endorsers that includes Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Robert Reich, Ted Kennedy, Tom Hanks, NARAL, John Edwards, Jane Fonda, The Teamsters and Steel Workers unions, Moveon.org, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Reggae Singer Cocoa Tea, and Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef, just to name a few of the characters of questionable credibility who have given their dubious nod to Barack.

The ticket prices match the maximum allowable contributions to national committees and individual candidates.

Barack, of course, doesn't take money from any special interests.

Media Lust

The media continues to revel in the story that is Barack.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has an index of what makes the news each week of the campaign season. Here is what happened from June 16 to 22:

Obama appeared as a "significant or dominant" factor in 76 percent of stories, compared to 53 percent for McCain, according to PEJ. Some stories last week about Obama included his decision to abandon public financing, Al Gore's endorsement and Obama's apology to two Muslim women that were banned from seating behind his podium at a rally.

It's tough for McCain to compete with those bad news stories for Barack.

Michelle Obama and President Bush also played a key role in campaign coverage last week. In a measure of the campaign newshole, the potential First Lady took up 9 percent of campaign stories. The press has focused on whether Michelle Obama is trying to remake her image following criticism for her remarks that she was proud of her country "for the first time" in her adult life.

Meanwhile, the press does its best to hurt McCain.

In the coverage of McCain, Bush helped drive the campaign narrative taking up 7 percent of the campaign newshole. Here, the press has focused on the Bush-McCain relationship. (Critics have said McCain is pursuing a third term of Bush's presidency). In an advertisement last week, McCain says that he stood up to Bush about the environment, however they took the same position on offshore drilling.

Polls

The best of the current presidential polls is the Rasmussen daily tracker, which tests 3000 likely voters and shows Barack having a 5 point lead.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows Barack Obama attracting 46% of the vote while John McCain earns 40%. When "leaners" are included, Obama leads 49% to 44%. Three percent (3%) say they will vote for a third-party option while 4% remain undecided (see recent daily results).

Both candidates are doing well amongst the voters in their own parties.

Currently, Obama wins the vote from 80% of Democrats while McCain is supported by 82% of Republicans. The two contenders are essentially even among unaffiliated voters.

But the key to this poll is that it demonstrates what a poor predictor the polls are at this point of what is going to happen in November.

However, one of the key stats in the race remains the potential for volatility in a race with two little known candidates—32% of voters are either uncommitted at this time or could change their mind before Election Day. Thirty-six percent (36%) say they are certain to vote for Obama while 32% are that certain of their support for McCain (see recent demographic notes).

There's another poll, meanwhile, that shows a big lead for Barack - this one from the LA Times and Bloomberg. Like the Newsweek poll that preceded it, the lead doesn't match the norm of the other polls, and its fundamentals appear flawed.

The Newsweek poll, which appeared several days ago, shows a 15 point lead for Barack. But it has a small sample size of about 896 registered voters. Polls of registered voters aren't as accurate as ones which only poll those who are deemed likely to vote based on their answers to qualifying questions.

The new poll from the Times shows a 12 point lead for Barack, has a sample size of a bit over 1100, and is also a poll of registered voters.

On a four-man ballot including independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by an even larger margin, 48% to 33%.

Gallup, meanwhile, in its daily tracking poll, shows Barack leading by 3 points with a sample size of 2587 registered voters. This one is good because of its much larger sample size, but questionable because of the lack of a test to see if respondents are likely to vote.

The best of the bunch is the tracking poll from Rasmussen.

The realclearpolitics average of all national polls has ticked up to a mean 7.5% lead for Barack on the strength of the big leads in the Newsweek and LA Times polls. But these polls are, at this point, aberrations.

Barack's Inexperience

A new column in Newsweek is trying to twist Barack's lack of experience into something different.

...here's something I bet you didn't know: If Obama becomes president, he will have spent more time serving as a state legislator (eight years) than anyone who has occupied the White House since Abraham Lincoln.

Is that because everyone elected president over the past 145 years has been lacking in experience, or because we don't view two terms in a local legislative body to be demonstrative of massive leadership abilities?

John McCain has been a member of the U.S. Senate since 1986; do I really mean to suggest that Obama's eight years in the Illinois Senate (not the most august deliberative body, as anyone who has seen it will attest) provide the same preparation for the presidency? Well, not exactly.

What Alan Ehrenhalt does argue is that being in the U.S. Senate isn't the best experience for anything. No argument there. But my problem with the whole premise of this, and most arguments offered on the experience issue, is that people make their arguments based on political experience alone. When I argue that Barack doesn't have the experience for the job, it's not just his lack of political experience. It's an evaluation of his entire resume - there's just not much there.

During the years that Obama served in Springfield, 1997-2005, he was forced to wrestle with the minutiae of health-care policy, utility deregulation, transportation funding, school aid, and a host of other issues that are vitally important to America's coming years, but that U.S. senators are usually able to dispose of with a quick once-over. State legislators have to do this largely on their own, without ubiquitous staff guidance, because staffing is not lavish even in the more professional state capitols.

Whatever. Eight fidgety years in the state legislature, combined with a law degree but no law career of note, and a couple of years of community service, hardly shows a history of leadership. That's the real argument. John McCain's 22 years in the Senate isn't great by itself, although it does show his willingness to focus on one job for a long time. Barack has never been serious about a single job in his 'career'. But you add in McCain's military service, his U.S. Naval Academy training, and his two terms in Congress, and it blows Barack out of the water.

As for the fall campaign, I am not urging anyone to vote for Obama, or against McCain, on the issue of experience. What I am suggesting is that experience itself is a slippery commodity to measure—that there is no easy way to guess what sort of political career is ideal for a president—and that we would all be better off just listening to what the candidates say and how they say it, and spending a little time looking into what sort of people they are.

Listening to what they say only takes you so far since presidential candidates say whatever they have to in order to win election. But when you look into Barack's past associations to determine what sort of person he is, that, of course, is when voting for Barack becomes impossible.

Black Flack

Given the flack over the comments of McCain aid Charlie Black regarding the benefit that McCain would get from another terror attack, the perspective offered by Jake Tapper of ABC is valuable.

...it's worth recalling that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, in August 2007, while campaigning in Concord, NH, similarly noted the political advantage a terrorist attack might give the Republican candidate.

Which Hillary then turned to her own advantage.

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord. "So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that."

Hillary took some heat for it, but she was politicizing terror, wasn't she?

Hillary was pilloried for the comments at the time, with then-rivals such as Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn, saying, "Frankly, I find it tasteless to discuss political implications when talking about a potential terrorist attack on the United States."

Just goes to show that these attempts by candidates to punish one another for saying things that are obvious and true and harmless are silly. I had hoped for more from the new kinda politics.

New Politics of Pettiness

Once again comes evidence from the campaign of Change that there is nothing different with Barack - he eagerly engages in the politics of pettiness.

Barack Obama’s campaign held a conference call with former 9/11 commissioner Richard Ben Veniste to excoriate McCain adviser Charlie Black — accusing him of engaging in the “politics of fear” by speculating that a terrorist attack could help McCain in November.

It is true that any conversation about international affairs helps McCain, as it's the one area in which polls indicate voters trust him more than Barack. But in the world of Gotcha, it was a dumb thing to say. He certainly wasn't engaging in any politics of fear - more the politics of self-destruction.

Black, a long-time senior aid to McCain, told Fortune Magazine that a new
attack “would be a big advantage to him,” saying that the assassination of Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto last December helped McCain win the GOP nomination.

“His knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief,” he said. “It helped us.”

McCain, of course, realized the mistake and offered an attempt to preempt the silliness that he knew would be forthcoming from the Campaign of Same Old.

Asked about his aide’s remarks, McCain said “I strenuously disagree,” adding “I cannot imagine why he said it. It’s not true.” Black himself said he deeply regretted his comments, calling them inappropriate. “I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire life to protecting his country,” he said.

In Barack's world, speaking the truth is disgraceful.

Obama’s campaign released a statement last night calling Black’s comments a “complete disgrace.” Spokesman Bill Burton said “Barack Obama will turn the page on these failed policies and this cynical and divisive brand of politics.”

Does Contrived Work?

How silly is the whole Unity thing.

Hillary and Barack unified? Riiiiiggght. A tie vote in Unity means Barack and Hillary are unified? Nope. Hillary won New Hampshire but Barack won the nomination equals unified. No, not exactly.

But the duo will go to Unity New Hampshire on Friday where they each received 127 votes, and use the dramatic symbolism the town represents (???) to blow away the world with how much they love each other!

In announcing that decision Monday, the Obama campaign was less than subtle in its symbolism. The announcement noted, for example, that in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire last January, the town of Unity split evenly between Obama and Clinton - 107 votes to 107 votes.

Some people, who haven't thought about the true symbolism of the meeting place, are taking it to mean something even more... unified.

But Unity could also be a point in the argument that Obama should pick Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, an argument he doesn’t appear to want to make but others in the Democratic Party do.

Together, their vote total in Unity nearly equaled the entire vote for the Republican field, 214 for Obama-Clinton, 216 for the 21 Republicans on the New Hampshire ballot.

Which means... what exactly?

McCain edged out second place finisher Mitt Romney. But no vote combination of McCain and any of his Republican rivals came close to equaling the Obama-Clinton combo.

Now that - that's powerful.

Edwards Not Confident

Elizabeth Edwards doesn't have much confidence in the power of Barack.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate and vice presidential nominee John Edwards, predicted that November's contest between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain would be close.

She's right, of course. The odds of Barack surviving his inexperience and sleazy friends is not very good, no matter how much money he spends.

Interviewed by Skype video before an audience at the Personal Democracy Forum 2008 conference in the Time Warner Center here after weather problems prevented her from flying to N.Y. to speak at the annual gathering, Edwards predicted, "We are going to need to fight for every vote. This is going to be a close election."

Matthew Dowd, a a political guy on ABC News and the chief political strategist for Bush/Cheney in 2004 made an interesting point on This Week Sunday regarding Barack and money. He said its tough to spend $84 million dollars between the convention and the general election, and he's not sure that you can use more than that effectively. Maybe that's why Elizabeth isn't feeling cocky.

"I said I would work as hard as I could to make sure he is the next president," said Elizabeth Edwards of Obama. Electing him president "is enormously important," she said, "but I don't think it is by any means assured."

Sealing the Deal

The Obama campaign has apparently flipped on the idea of using a slightly modified presidential seal to represent the candidate.

Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs told CNN "that was a one time thing for a one time event."

Good decision. Going from the superficial to the super-scary, Democrats are trying to figure out if Barack's platform is a repeat of past mistakes.

While Sen. Obama is certainly more articulate than his party’s recent presidential candidates, his platform is not much different than that offered by Democratic nominees Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry in 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004 respectively.

If Barack loses, Democrats will finally have to face the fact that Americans don't care for their liberal policies. If he wins, despite being dealt the best hand of any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson, Democrats will make the mistake of thinking liberalism is popular.

His foreign policy is centered on his opposition to the war in Iraq, a position consistent with the past Democratic message that the Republicans are too quick to fight, rhetorically and militarily, rather than talk and cooperate with America’s enemies.

Of course, there's really not a question. Democrats are not popular with the core of America which is 74% white.

McCain is favored among all white Americans by 12 points (51 to 39 percent)... consistent with how well Republicans have done in several of the most recent presidential elections. In 2000, Al Gore lost white voters by 12 points. In 2004, George W. Bush had a 17-point advantage over John Kerry among whites.

How have Democrats traditionally won? Only when they convince the mainstream that they're not so scary.

In 1976, Carter defeated then-President Gerald Ford in part by only losing the white vote by five points. In 1992, Bill Clinton lost the white vote to George H.W. Bush by only one point.

So, there's nothing new about the fact that Democrats have trouble winning national elections. And it proves that race is not the reason Barack will lose, especially where he will do so well with minorities. He will lose because of his willingness to affiliate with radical extremists, and because of his own extreme liberalism.

Barack's Race Game

Here's an outline on how Barack's race card game works according to John Pitney at National Review Online.

On Friday, Senator Obama warned a cheering audience about the Republicans. “They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

You heard that one, didn't you, over the weekend? Even though Barack said it just once and the audio wasn't great - the media is all charged up and reporting the hell out of it.

A few months ago, historian Sean Wilentz dubbed this tactic the “race-baiter card.” Smear your opponents as racists, and if there’s no evidence for the claim, accuse them of using “coded language.” There is no authoritative racial codebook, so the charge is easy to lodge. The campaign need not make such accusations directly, since sympathetic writers will do so.

It's an easy game to play, since the co-conspirators are preprogrammed to be coordinated in their thinking - they don't even realize when they're dancing along.

Consider Senator Clinton’s “3 A.M.” television spot. The ad did not mention Obama. It merely said that if a crisis erupts while our kids are asleep, we need an experienced president to take the call. A race-neutral appeal, right? Not according to Professor Orlando Patterson. Noting that the ad’s sleeping children were white, he recalled the silent movie Birth of a Nation. This racist epic glorified the Klan, picturing black men as threatening and brutish. “The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.”

Just like doing a waltz, the smart people start moving to the beat.

Patterson’s charge was ridiculous. The ad was a lineal descendant of a 1968 Nixon commercial, which showed a nighttime still of the White House, along with ominous music and a voiceover saying that the president’s decisions “can affect the future of your family for generations to come.” Nixon’s opponent was Hubert Humphrey, a Norwegian American.

Remember when Barack was accused of being an elitist after he made his elitist comments in San Francisco to an elite group of donors - the 'bitter' comments?

Yet journalist David K. Shipler wrote: “‘Elitist’ is another word for ‘arrogant,’ which is another word for ‘uppity,’ that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.”

This "thinking" is insidious and carries great political power.

Last year, Joseph Biden got reams of bad publicity when he said that Obama is “articulate.” An article in the New York Times suggested that the word had a subtext: “articulate ... for a black person.” The writer explained: “Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the ‘compliment’ is notably different from other black people.”

So McCain will have to be careful in trying to utter any truths about Barack.

In the months ahead, expect similar attacks from Obama and his allies. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” he recently said. He failed to add that the knife can be imaginary.

It's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations.

So just picture how Obama supporters would react if McCain tried various compliments.

“Barack Obama is extremely intelligent.”

McCain is hinting that black people have lower IQs than white people.

“Barack Obama is very nice.”

McCain is obviously playing to the stereotype of violent black males. He’s suggesting that most black people are anything but nice.

Does Experience Matter

Barack should be running in another dozen years or so.

Last week's Zogby poll revealed some concern over the fact that Barack isn't qualified to be president.

Asked whether Obama has the necessary experience to be President, 54% said that he does not, while 43% said they believe he is experienced enough for the White House.

That's pretty amazing. As is the fact that more than a third of Democrats are already aware enough of his sparse resume to deem him unprepared.

Among Democrats, 62% said they think he has enough experience, while 36% agreed that he was too inexperienced to be President. Among those age 35-54, a majority – 55% – said they think he has too little experience to be President. Among men, 55% said he was too inexperienced, while 53% of women agreed.

You can't fool all the people all the time.