General Clark speaks

General (ret) Wesley Clark on John McCain:

"The truth is that, in national security terms, he is largely untested and untried. He's never been responsible for policy formulation. He's never had leadership in a crisis, or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or in managing his own congressional staff. It's not clear that this is going to be the strong suit that he thinks it is. McCain's weakness is that he's always been for the use of force, force and more force. In my experience the only time to use force is as a last resort. When he talks about throwing Russia out of the G8 or makes ditties about bombing Iran, he betrays a disrespect for the office of the presidency."

Public Financing

LINK:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11242.html

LINK:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91724104

It's unfortunate for his campaign that Obama made a pledge on this issue and has now retracted it, but this won't be an issue at all in 2 to 3 weeks, I believe. The only reason McCain doesn't reject public financing is because he knows he can't raise more cash than public financing would give him...whereas Obama is set to raise $500 million. At least twenty of those will be mine.

Widget

LINK:
http://www.270towin.com/

Well, in the past few weeks HRC has been dropped and the general has started. Thought I'd add this widget that you can play with to the links section. Let's you manipulate swing states and electoral votes. Cool example?: Obama can win w/o Florida or Ohio if he picks up Colorado and Virginia, two states in which he leads in the polls at the moment. The widget should become even more entertaining come Oct/Nov.

Who's looking out for you?

LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsQLot6QMtU

Has nothing to do with the campaign, but this video of Bill O'Reilly going nuts on the set of Inside Edition made my day

McCain emphasizes mil power as opposed to economic connectivity

LINK:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/fareed_zakaria/2008/04/mccains_radical_foreign_policy.html

Before the guillotine fell on the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton, her pleas to superdelegates to vote for her were largely based on the claim that she would be a stronger candidate vs. John McCain. This had to of amounted to simple politicking, as far as I can see, as John McCain offers negatives on every front. His emphasis on military might and his willing aggression could further strain our military, further ruin our credibility, and continue the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq. Even more worrying is his lack of understanding of the global economic order, on full display in the above article by Fareed Zakaria. His proposal to boot Russia out of the G8 and exclude China would, Mr Zakaria says, "reverse a decades-old bipartisan American policy of integrating these two countries into the global order, a policy that began under Richard Nixon (with Beijing) and continued under Ronald Reagan (with Moscow)." Still think Mr Obama's proposed 5% capital gains tax increase sounds scary?

Funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGyuYKlxIg

Notes from the Heartland: It's Alabama in between Philly and Pittsburgh

Well, there was a debate a few nights ago on ABC, maybe you heard about it. If not, here are the highlights via TPM:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_Koq6-UlLvo

The woman who cares about flag pins so much is Ms. Nash McCabe, 52, of Latrobe PA. (Sweet Jesus -- a cowboy's name, a baby boomer, and she comes from the city of Rolling Rock Light Beer!) The weird thing is that she was tracked down by the NYT, which reported this exchange, on APRIL 4:

"How can I vote for a president who won't wear a flag pin?" Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

"I watch him on TV," Mrs. McCabe said. "I keep looking for that lapel pin."

It's interesting that she was the ONLY outside questioner from the entire ABC debate. Did some producer from ABC see the NYT story, track Ms McCabe down, and have her ask the question? Of course they did.

At least Jake Tapper of ABC.com posted a follow up.

The whole thing is pathetic.