The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar.
Doug Goodyear resigned as convention coordinator and issued a two sentence statement:
"Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign."
Goodyear, chief executive of lobbying firm DCI Group, resigned a few hours after Newsweek posted a story posted online that the company was paid $348,000 in 2002 and 2003 to represent Myanmar's junta.
The McCain campaign is absolutely crawling with lobbyists who would have a very good chance of moving right into a hypothetical McCain administration. This situation is surprisingly similar to that of Hillary Clinton's campaign and former head pollster Mark Penn, whose firm lobbied on behalf of Colombia for a trade deal that Clinton opposed (this, of course, holds out hope against hope that McCain opposes most of the actions of the Myanmar military regime) -- but so much worse, somehow, than Clinton's campaign ever was as far as the sheer number and influence of the lobbyists running the show.
John McCain: more of the same craven cronyism we've had for the past eight years, but now with 100 more years in Iraq to boot. Super.
Somehow, the AP managed to flub yet another piece of McCain's role in the campaign finance debate:
Newsweek also reported DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent" expenditure campaigns by so-called 527 groups, the kind of operations that McCain has denounced in his battle for campaign finance reform.
Pretty sure the widespread use of 527 groups grew dramatically after the McCain-Feingold legislation went into effect...but perhaps that's a bit too much parsing of the facts.
Different syntax. Different organizational structure. Different grammatical standards. Curiouser and curiouser.
Is this what we've come to expect from someone who gets puff pieces in the AP wire and Fox News interviews?
One might accuse me of keeping track of MDE a little too closely from time to time. But given Michael's spotty record with the truthiness thing, it's irresponsible not to speculate.
According to the ABC News delegate estimate, Barack Obama took the lead in superdelegate support today after Representative Donald Payne of New Jersey defected and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon announced his support.
Barack Obama now holds the lead in pledged delegates, superdelegates, popular vote, and states won.
What else can he win? The general election. I think it's about time to hand him the endorsement and let him take on McCain. Clinton campaign, I'm looking at you (again).
Wait just a dang minute. Michele Bachmann has (courtesy of Eva at LloydLetta) claimed credit for a federal earmark supporting St. Cloud's Metro Bus system when she actually voted against the bill that funded the earmark?
Look, I don't usually build posts like this from press releases. But the DFL has a point when they call her "shameless" on this issue -- at what point does the partisan spin and do-nothing wedge-issue grenade-lobbing become too much for the voters of the Sixth district?
(For your consideration, O netizens who love to vote in polls, especially polls that may get a great candidate a little help in the bank account area.... - promoted by Joe Bodell)
According to their website, "The Progressive Patriots Fund is dedicated to promoting a progressive reform agenda and supporting candidates across the country." Encourage them to support Ashwin Madia by voting for him using the link below.
[I promise, I'll get back to MN issues after this.]
In a desperate move to find some momentum, Hillary Clinton played up racial divisions in comments that were incredibly offensive.CNN reports:
Hillary Clinton suggested Wednesday that "White Americans" are increasingly turning away from Barack Obama's candidacy.
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY.
Wait, it gets worse.
Clinton cited an Associated Press poll "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
Is Hillary implying that only whites are hard working Americans? Maybe she's not speaking that clearly, but that's how I read that quote. She sounds like Jesse Helms, for crying out loud. Not only will this not help her campaign, but it may alienate a large portion of the democratic base.
Now that this campaign has hit a new low, Clinton should salvage what respect she has left and bow out of the race.
Per Paul Demko's post yesterday at MinMon, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Chris Van Hollen will be in town next week to stump and raise money for Ash Madia in his bid for the 3rd district open seat.
The press conference is all well and good -- free media is a good thing, and the DCCC has a distinct advantage this year relative to its Republican counterpart -- but the fundraising is even better. Q2 is tremendously important to help Madia even the financial playing field against Erik Paulsen before the head-to-head presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain really starts picking up and attention from voters and donors gets pulled in that direction.
If Van Hollen's appearance is in the evening I'll do my best to cover it and chat with the Maryland congressman. However, while we're on the topic, why not toss Madia a few bucks via ActBlue? I can assure you the campaign will appreciate it.
As I was heading to bed last night, I turned on CNN for just a minute, to see if the final results from Indiana were in. I tuned in just in time to watch Wolf Blitzer scolding the mayor of Gary, Indiana. "Why is this taking so long?" he demanded. He acknowledged that there had been an unprecedented number of absentee ballots, "but why couldn't you have posted partial results?"
I want to clue you in on something, Wolf. This is the electoral process we're talking about here -- perhaps the most important institution in our country. We're not going to undermine its integrity by speeding through the vote-counting so you can get your talking heads on the air.
Our "news" media have turned this election into one giant circus, full of gaffes, gotchas, and manufactured controversies. They have long since abandoned discussion of the issues in favor of attacks on the candidates. I realized something as I watched Blitzer hounding a public official to get all the votes counted so he could have his drama: our media used to be responsible for reporting the news. During this election, they have devoted their energies to trying to create news -- they have searched for that perfect "gotcha" moment, and replayed it over and over until the next one happened. Our media is no longer helping to inform the American public; instead, they are filling our airwaves with vapid political sniping.
Political Wire has learned that Sen. Hillary Clinton is returning to Washington, D.C. today to meet with advisers and discuss the future of her campaign.
Something I almost forgot, perhaps because of the execrable nature of its author: Yesterday everyone's favorite partisan Republican message-meister Michael Brodkorb went after Ash Madia for the liveblog he did on DailyKos recently:
Self-identified "moderate" Ashwin Madia participated in a live-blog on the uber-liberal hate site Daily Kos last evening. Madia wrote that he was "so excited to have this opportunity":.....It's sad to see that Madia is "so excited" to live-blog on website that represents the fringe of the Democratic party.
Wow, let's count the issues.
Faux concern for the Democratic Party? Please, don't make me laugh.
Hearing Michael Brodkorb call a website a partisan "hate site" is like Dr. Jekyll giving a lecture on the negative effects of mind-altering drugs -- you have to wonder whether the pot recognizes its similarity with the kettle
I can't speak directly for Madia, but look, DailyKos is a pretty great resource for raising the national profile of candidates in races like this one. Of course, I understand if Brodkorb is a bit jealous since nothing like it exists on the conservative side of the aisle. Perhaps this is an aside. On with the issues...
Once again, no trace of any kind of policy discussion on the race. Does this mean that Erik Paulsen is a real moderate and Madia is a fake one? No, Paulsen makes it clear that he is a good deal more conservative than current Rep. Jim Ramstad. Does Brodkorb's post mean there are substantive platform differences between the two candidates? Who knows?
Who would ever know? Note to traditional media: you're not doing yourself any favors on the accountability scale by letting the guy push his Republican Party-backed opposition research into the mainstream media narrative.
Total delegates gained on the day: Obama 91, Clinton 79. A 58-42 win in North Carolina and a surprisingly close 51-49 loss for Obama in Indiana should mean the end of the Democratic contest.
Yet what's the headline this morning? "Clinton 'full speed ahead' after Indiana nail-biter."
Come on. Let this go, Senator Clinton. It's been a hard-fought contest, and you deserve most of the respect your campaign team says you haven't gotten. Obama now has 1,836 delegates according to CNN's count, with what, 200 left to be pledged from states that are expected to split pretty evenly. If the remaining superdelegates also split evenly, Obama's going to be right at the winning threshold.
It seems like the gas tax holiday issue has been the major one heading into today's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, with Hillary Clinton agreeing with John McCain on support for a gas tax holiday and only Barack Obama taking a principled stand against the pander.
And yes, it's a pander. Let's review what would happen: federal gas tax is removed for the summer. Gas prices go down incrementally, but not much, since they're still going up month over month. We (with the federal government as our delegate) have less money to spend on transportation infrastructure. Demand for gasoline goes up as a result of slightly lower prices, and prices track that demand.
Essentially, what we would be doing is taking millions of dollars out of our federal transportation funding coffers and putting it in the pockets of the oil companies. But this isn't just the left-leaning blogger argument -- this is the argument being made by the free-marketeer CNBC network's talking heads.
Essentially, we know -- not believe, not think, know -- this is a bad idea.
And make no bones about it -- Clinton's agreement with McCain on a variety of issues -- the gas tax holiday, voting for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq, the American stance toward Iran -- is not an asset for her. It takes those issues off the table in November in a year when Democrats across the country should be clobbering McCain with his backwards approach to foreign policy and his admitted lack of wisdom on economics.
Indiana should be tight. North Carolina should make up the 30-some-odd delegates that were cut from Obama's lead in Pennsylvania, and this thing should be over tomorrow.
Of course, as always, the choice to do the right thing remains before Hillary Clinton.
