Last week, McCain's campaign staff restricted the national press corps to 38 minutes of access to the candidate. Not 38 minutes per press conference, not 38 minutes per day, but 38 minutes for the entire week.

Moreover, most of the access consisted of McCain reading a prepared statements. The media was allowed to ask him questions on just one occasion all week, and that came on Friday afternoon -- hours before the Olympics were set to start.

I almost (but not quite) feel sorry for McCain's campaign staff. How can they possibly spin this as a positive? (Emphasis added.)

McCain said he would concentrate on getting more sleep when he can.

"If I put in three or four 18-hour, 20-hour days in a row, I'm not sharp. It's just a fact," the Republican senator from Arizona said. "I'm more sharp if I get a little rest."

McCain said he feels best sleeping until 7:30 or 8 a.m., as opposed to his usual morning drill of rising at 5:30 or 6 a.m.

"It seems to help me to get up a little later in the morning," he said, joking, "Sorry to bother with that intimate detail."

Earth to McCain: the presidency is a 24/7 job.

John McCain talks strategy with Randy Scheunemann, his top foreign policy adviser. Scheunemann has made hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, even as he was advising McCain on foreign policy.

::: :::

Here's the question Americans ought to ponder: should the next president's top foreign policy adviser get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of foreign governments?

And just as importantly, what does it say about McCain's judgment that he apparently sees nothing wrong with the practice?

McClatchy's election blog flags a deft move by the Obama campaign:

August 09, 2008
Obama camp suggests McCain has "a woman problem"

The Obama campaign just sent out an email with the compellng headline: "Does John McCain have a woman problem?"

Coming the day after John Edwards admitted an extramarital affair, the headline might be seen as suggesting the same for McCain. Edwards himself said in his confessional interview on ABC Friday evening that McCain had had an affair at the end of his first marriage.

But no, the Obama camp wasn't saying that. Instead, the enticing headline drew readers into a New Republic article on McCain's opposition to abortion rights. Thus, his "woman problem."

John McCain is doing a bang-up job in his new starring role as the featured celebrity in Barack Obama's new targeted advertising campaign. Yesterday it was in a radio ad targeting Ohio, and today it's in a new ad in my home state of Nevada focused on John McCain's support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

I guess this is fair game now (emphasis added):

In his 2002 memoir, "Worth the Fighting For," McCain wrote that he had separated from Carol before he began dating Hensley.

"I spent as much time with Cindy in Washington and Arizona as our jobs would allow," McCain wrote. "I was separated from Carol, but our divorce would not become final until February of 1980."

An examination of court documents tells a different story. McCain did not sue his wife for divorce until Feb. 19, 1980, and he wrote in his court petition that he and his wife had "cohabited" until Jan. 7 of that year -- or for the first nine months of his relationship with Hensley.

Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.

Apparently I'm not alone in having content quashed by McCain's bury brigade at digg. The basic idea of McCain's bury brigade is to hide from view negative stories about McCain on digg, the web's most popular community-moderated site for sharing news and other information.

A perfect recent example of a video getting buried is my recent "What Happened?" video about McCain's curious blanking out. It received hundreds of diggs on the day it was posted, yet never made it to the front page of digg -- because McCain's censors quashed the story.

It's hard to know exactly how McCain's bury brigade operates because digg is not transparent. But as the post at Political Irony makes clear, there is an organized effort to squelch discussion of topics which do not flatter McCain.

This is a thoroughly dishonorable tactic -- especially given the negative tone of his campaign.

I figure I ought to react to John Edwards admission that he had an affair with Rielle Hunter in 2006. I'll be brief: I think it sucks. I'm incredibly glad Barack Obama won the nomination. Beyond that, I'm not sure it deserves much more analysis.

John McCain just can't give up the dumb:

I guess this means he's still sticking to his energy plan:

But will the media call him out on his flip-flop?

This is an interesting factoid from the AP story on Dick Cheney's convention speech: nearly 1 in 10 Republican Senators won't be showing up for their party's convention

There are convention no-shows among prominent Republicans. Sens. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who has been indicted on felony charges of concealing gifts and services, has said he won't attend. Nor will Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine, all facing tight races for re-election.

So basically if you're a Republican under indictment or a Republican with a close re-election race, you're skipping the convention.

I wonder what Larry Craig'll do?

I love this new radio ad. It uses Barack Obama's best attack dog to go after John McCain -- John McCain himself.

Direct link (audio, .mp3)

This clip is a bit long -- almost ten minutes -- but it's still worth watching because Brian Kilmeade is such an ignorant bully, and Janeane Garofalo humiliates him so thoroughly. It's especially funny watching Kilmeade defend linking Iraq and Al Qaeda after his false claim that Bush had done no such thing.

While I was on vacation, a heckler interrupted a Barack Obama speech and demanded that he recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Since I wasn't tuned in, I don't know how much play the moment got, but Barack was cool as a cucumber. Instead of a McCain-style freakout, he diffused the situation by acknowledging the heckler, and bringing him inside the tent by asking him to join with the audience in leading the pledge What could have been an explosive moment instead became ho-hum -- as it should have been.

You can't extrapolate too much from an incident like this, but at least for me it does reinforce the idea that Barack Obama's temperament is better suited to the presidency than John McCain's.

Brian Kilmeade is rapidly becoming one of the GOP's top propaganda tools. (By the way, if you're a fan of watching Kilmeade getting his ass kicked, watch this drubbing put on him by Jeanine Garofalo.)

Here's how freaked out John McCain is about being associated with George W. Bush: according to William Kristol (not always the best source, to put it mildly), McCain is going to wait to pick his VP until the Tuesday of the GOP convention in a desperate effort to get people to forget about Bush's prime time convention keynote on Monday.

Without doubt, at some point during Bush's speech, some McCain operative is going to leak the name of McCain's pick to FOX News (or perhaps ABC).

On the surface this seems like a good strategy, but like all strategies, it has a weakness. In this case, the strategy's weakness is that there's nothing at all subtle about what McCain is trying to do: he's taking the single most newsworthy thing his campaign will do (at least until the debates) and using it to try to distract attention from his association with Bush.

The countermeasure is obvious: Democrats need to point out that the reason why McCain is dragging his feet is because he wants to find something -- anything -- that will trump Bush's convention speech.

This is wonderful news: Stephen Cohen won his renomination fight, taking 79% of the vote from Nikki Tinker.

This unequivocal victory was a clear statement by the voters of Tennessee's Ninth CD against racial prejudice and religious bigotry, and in making that statement, they became role models for all Americans to follow this coming November.

Tonight, Charlie Gibson devoted the first five minutes of ABC News to a thoroughly dishonest appraisal of the so-called divisions within the Democratic Party and their impact on Barack Obama. There's no point in going through their hacktacular, innuendo-laden broadcast point-by-point, but there were at least two things that I did notice missing.

First, at no point did Gibson acknowledge that his own network's polling shows that while 13% of Democrats say they will vote for John McCain....13% of Republicans say they will vote for Barack Obama. In other words, party unity on the Democratic side is just as solid as it is on the Republican side.

Second, Gibson made no mention of the fact that John McCain faces ongoing skepticism from conservatives who are disturbed by his confusing, inconsistent statements on taxes. Their criticism of John McCain has been withering. Watch for yourself:

Keith Olbermann was puzzling over the strategy behind latest McCain's latest web ad, the "Johnny Maverick" video which fell flat on its face when the DNC responded with "Maverick No More."

Craig Crawford, recalling an old Kissinger story about the Soviets, had a witty reply: "Never assume they have a strategy."

Video below, including both the McCain and DNC web ads.

I just saw on Countdown that Bill Clinton will be speaking on Wednesday night at the DNC. Sounds good too me. No matter my differences with how he handled the primary campaign, I'll put him up against George Bush any day of the week.

I also saw that clip of Hillary Clinton and her supporters talking over convention strategy. I hate to admit it, but I didn't see anything wrong with what she said. The key point is that she knows who the nominee is and will be. Not only is there nothing wrong with finding some symbolic way to recognize her supporters, it's actually a good idea.

Everything I've heard (which comes exclusively from reporters) is that Barack Obama mill be choosing one of the following four potential VPs to be his running mate: Hillary Clinton, Evan Bayh, Tim Kaine, or Joe Biden.

Each of those candidates has pluses and minuses, and it's hard to argue against the CW that one of them will end up joining Obama on the ticket -- especially since the CW is based on actual reporting from sources close to the campaign.

Still, something just doesn't seem right to me about about the CW. The Obama campaign is not one that is prone to leaks, and I don't understand why they would leak the name of the VP well ahead of his or her eventual selection. On the other hand, I do understand why they would float names that they didn't plan on selecting.

Looks like somebody is overcompensating for the fact that his wife bought the TV controlled by his remote.

p.s.: It also reminds me of that comment that rhymes with the first syllable of his campaign slogan.

This is a pathetic ad from Nikki Tinker, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Stephen Cohen in today's primary in Tennessee's Ninth CD. Barack Obama has condemned it, as should all Democrats -- and Republicans, for that matter. I hope she loses today -- as should all those who have endorsed her. If Tinker wins the primary, she is going to be a major headache for the Democratic Party.

One thing hasn't changed while I was on vacation: David Broder is still a complete tool. Now he's blaming Barack Obama for the negative tone of John McCain's campaign.

On MTP, Chuck Todd said that Barack Obama would be fighting back this week, and fighting back hard, linking Bush and McCain tightly together. So far, Todd's prediction has been validated.

The best part is that Barack's fighting back with a sense of humor -- he's making fun of the absurdity of John McCain's campaign. Not only is that far more palatable than the angry tone of his curmudgeon of an opponent, it probably annoys the heck out McCain.

After taking a bit of time off from tracking the campaign, I thought it would be a good idea to try and get a sense of where things stand.

To that end, I decided to create a very simple chart showing the daily average of all national polls completed in the previous two weeks for each day since May 1. (In other words, for June 14, the chart shows the average of all polls completed between June 1 and June 14.)

As you can see, since the conclusion of the Democratic primary, Barack Obama has maintained a durable lead over John McCain. Obama is down a smidge from his peak, and McCain is up a bit from his trough, but the changes have been at the margins.

Well, my plane landed safe and sound yesterday, I've had a good night of sleep, and my house is still standing. For now, I want to say good morning and thank you debrazza for guest blogging while I was on vacation. Assuming I can remember how to work this whole Internet thingy, I'll be putting up a post soon about the campaign. (Maybe John McCain is giving free web surfing lessons somewhere?)

- Jed

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

Anything that preempts Morning Joe with a USA v. Japan soccer match deserves an award in my book, even if it was only for an hour.  It was ugly, but we won one-nil as they say.  And at least we got one win.  Next up are the Netherlands and Nigeria.  I'd hate to be a pessimist, but we don't have a chance.

To make this post relevant to the election, something I have been thinking for a while is that the Beijing Olympics present a predictable and obvious political issue coming up that I hope the Obama campaign is ready to address.  We don't know exactly what is going to happen, but we know there will be protests that are likely to be put down by force.  There are likely to be articles written about censorship, political prisoners and probably every activity that is captured in the Freedom House reports.  I hope they are prepared to respond.

And as my last post, I would just like to say thanks to everyone for reading.  It was a pleasure to guest blog for Jed  on this great site for all you great readers and commenters.  Keep up the fight.  Jed should be back resuming his regular duties at some point today.

Update: Matt Lauer just told me that the flagbearer for the opening ceremony is one of the original Lost Boys of Sudan.  And that's why I love America.  Obama people, be ready.  More of this is likely to come.

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

After Obama trounced McCain's "Original Maverick" ad yesterday, John McCain comes back with the only thing he has left, lies.

McCain's new ad says that Obama is "bad for families", implies that his tax proposal will affect everyone, when it won't and said that "hence, fewer jobs", without even bothering to cite a source.

These types of tactics however don't come without a cost. John Aravosis at AmericaBlog tallies the full disillusionment of McCain's base, as they write editorial after editorial, article after article, from national to local media, condemning him.

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

John McCain has taken a rather unorthodox approach towards winning those crucial swing states in this election.  His approach is rather fascinating to watch unfold.  Let me see if I can sum it up in two steps.

Step 1: Make the centerpiece of your campaign a plan to build 45 new nuclear reactors without proposing a plan to deal with the radioactive waste, when nuclear waste is one of the biggest political issues the swing state of Nevada.  Then, after years of enthusiastically supporting the storage of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, tell the people of Nevada that you are against it, only to flip-flip just a month later and say you are for it while on a campaign stop in Nevada.  And, in the meantime, be against even the transport of nuclear waste through his home state of Arizona on its way to Yucca Mountain.

Step 2: Tell a weeping woman in Ohio, another swing state that has suffered substantial economic distress, the "straight talk" that 8,000  blue collar jobs aren't coming back to her town.  However, hire as your campaign manager your best friend lobbyist whom you collaborated with in orchestrating a foreign take over and the shipment of those jobs overseas, while hiding behind the military and leading a cash strapped town to make $00 million in investments that ended up being worthless.

These are the two most egregious examples, however there are others.  Like supporting the Airbus tanker deal and have a revolving door with Airbus lobbyists, while a substantial amount of Boeing manufacturing occurs in the swing state of Missouri (why does John McCain support foreign companies and jobs over American ones?).  Another is trying to scupper the multi-billion dollar Everglades water works project that is critical for Floridians. 

This cannot be a winning strategy.  I am sure I am leaving out a lot of other examples as well.  Please feel free to add them in the comments.

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

Update: john in comments says he was at the event and disputes the AP's account.

Like the pun?  But seriously, this news today that Pawlenty is seemingly sort of endorsing Obama and seemingly attacking McCain throws me for a loop.

My first thoughts were that it was confirmation that Pawlenty was on the ticket.  Because if the campaign gets ugly, he can innoculate himself by saying something to the effect that "I have only praised Obama for what he's acheived even before I was on the ticket, but that's not the issue, the issue is whether he is ready to lead..."  Or some such nonsense.

However, if you really look at the quotes, it seems to me that he is telling McCain publicly that he wants no part of his campaign.  Of course, he caveats his statement by saying that McCain has run a positive campaign (huh?).  But then he takes a turn.  Here are the quotes.

Nothing but fond praise for him as a person, his message and his campaign.

Say what you will about Barack Obama,people gravitate when you have something positive to say.

He actually had some ideas

Next he delivers the setup (is he talking about McCain?),

People want to follow hopeful, optimistic, civil, decent leaders, they don't want to follow some negative, scornful person.

Finally, the kill shot,

Pawlenty, 47, said he came of age during President Reagan's tenure in the 1980s, but acknowledged the Republican icon is ancient history to young people.

"If you're under 40, that was a long time ago, man," he said to laughter.

Is anyone else just as confused as I am?  Is scornful a reference to McCain?  What about saying that Reagan and the 80's were ancient history, irrelevant?  Didn't Reagan give McCain his start in politics in the 80's?  Wow, I just don't know what to think here.

Update: in an odd twist, this is the second day in a row that a Republican Governor has had something good to say about Obama.  Yesterday it was AK Gov. Palin.  Does this strike anyone as suspicious?  Am I paranoid?

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

I know some of these are a bit late, being that we live in internet time and these items were news this morning. But they still give me the giggles.

• McCain/Straight Talk Express gets Punk'd
  The New Argument, with a post titled "You Darn Kids!" points us to these hilarious photos of the Straight Talk Express rolling with an Obama '08 bumper sticker.  Brilliant.  Even funnier, the bus was located at the time in Boca Raton, FL.  Makes me wonder if the McCain's were visiting Del Boca Vista Phase II, shopping for a new house.

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

There have been two words that I have long wished Obama to use repitively against McCain: Serious and Dangerous.

In fact, on Monday I wrote an email to Jed and saying just this.

Forget the bio stuff, instead of worrying about Obama, they should instead turn the campaign into a big worry about McCain, using the word "dangerous" over and over and over. His economic plans? dangerous; his plan for social security? dangerous; taxes? dangerous.

Which is why I was so glad to see John Kerry get the ball rolling at Obama's birthday party/fundraiser.

He doesn't get it. He's even dangerous, I think, for the direction of this country.

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

Newton's Law of Motion states that "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction".

  This is a demonstration of what happens when you finish 894 out of 899 in your class and a lesson to all you kids out there, study!

Action

Reaction

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

Terry Neal, of whom I must disclose that I had an email exchange with some years ago while he was working for the Washington Post and I quite like him, sets the record straight in stone cold relief for the media regarding McCain, the media and "presumptuous". 

The fact that the mainstream media has embraced the uppity-Obama storyline is further evidence of the right's ability to advance whatever preposterous storyline it chooses, despite its persistent whining about the liberal media.

Interestingly, calling someone a racist has become a worse offense than actually being one. And thus the media will allow McCain and his defenders to have it both ways—play to racial sensitivities and express mock horror than anyone would have the audacity to question their motives.

We have also had a great deal of push back last week on this that should shame almost every reporter who wants to continue to spread this GOP smear.  In the days following Dana Milbank's now infamous error riddled and yes, racially tinged, July 30th smear of Obama, a remarkable thing has happenend in the media.  Let's follow the events as they unfolded.

Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

Barack Obama turned 47 yesterday and to wish him a happy birthday, he got the best present any kid can ask for: money.  And a lot of it.  Thanks to a coming together of Obama and Clinton donors, Obama was able to raise $5 million yesterday at a fundraiser in Beantown.

The festivities adroitly featured that terrorist fist jabbing duo of Harry Connick, Jr. and daughter singing happy birthday to the Senator next President.

John Kerry delivered some funny lines.

"I asked Barack what he wanted for his birthday and he said, just three things: 'Indiana, Colorado, and Virginia.'"

"John McCain is looking for someone for vice president who has more economic expertise than he does. So congratulations to all of you, you're on the short list."

And the donors had a love in. 

"Her own exhortation to her supporters, plus the sense of urgency about doing everything we can to help Barack Obama become the next president of the United States, has motivated an awful lot of us," said Steven Grossman, a leading Clinton fund-raiser and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "We all wanted to make a dramatic statement that we're with him every step of the way."

"We've stopped thinking in terms of Hillary people and Obama people," he said. "What was good about this was that we got everybody involved."

Who said Barack couldn't bring people together to spread peace and harmony?  I think I see the sky opening up, light coming down and celestial choirs singing right now as a matter of fact.

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Guest post by debrazza

Guest post by debrazza

The unveiling of both campaign's VP picks is now moving towards a stare-down in what amounts to a classic game of chicken.

With the opening ceremony in Beijing coming this Friday, time appears to be running out for either campaign to make their VP picks before the start of Democratic convention immediately following the Olympics on August 22nd.  At this stage of the campaign, there are only two more events that a campaign can fully control and stage manage to maximize their media value: (1) their acceptance speech at the convention and (2) the unveiling of their VP picks.

I think there's only two responsible reactions to Ron Suskind's bombshell allegation that the Bush White House ordered the creation of forged document linking Iraq to al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks.

1. A completely independent and non-partisan investigation must be conducted by both the Justice Department and Congress. We cannot afford to get our facts wrong about this.
2. The results of the investigation should dictate the next step. If Suskind's account is discredited, this must be made widely known. If Suskind's account is confirmed, there is no other option than to bring to justice those who have perpetrated this treasonous crime, including, but not limited to, the President and Vice President.

The only thing I'd add to this is that the worst possible scenario is if we verify Suskind's account, but fail to seek justice.

I've got one more post in the pipeline, but other than that I'll be taking off the rest of the afternoon today and the entire day tomorrow, returning on Thursday. While I'm gone, debrazza will again be guest blogging in my place. (I just realized that when I return, the election countdown will be under 90 days. Wow -- time flies.)

There's lots of buzz today about John McCain's apparent offering up of Cindy McCain to a topless "beauty" pageant at the Sturgis biker rally.

I think the issue here is that McCain is so out-of-touch that he had no idea what he was talking about. If he knew it was nude event, I can't imagine he would have said he wanted to see Cindy in it. He's not that stupid.

The point I'm making is that while John McCain was trying to position himself as the biker's best friend, the truth is that he's a $520-shoe wearing elitist -- and a total phony at Sturgis. He's got nothing more in common with the Harley-riding bike ralliers there than George Bush does with a true rancher in Texas.

Does America really want another faker in the White House?

So now that John McCain has come out against driving on fully inflated tires, what exactly is his energy plan? Well, it turns out he told us -- on April 12, 2008:

And I'm sorry to tell you that the price of oil -- as far as I can tell -- is not gonna go down anytime soon until we eliminate our dependency on it.

We can do that as a nation -- we can turn out the lights five minutes earlier, we don't have to drive the extra block.

This actually seems pretty sensible to me, but I guarantee you that any conservative who hears it will start calling him John McCarter.

I've now spoken with a neuroscientist (MD/Ph.D.) about John McCain's bizarre moment at that press conference on Friday in Panama City, Florida. He wasn't sure whether McCain had forgotten the question he had just been asked, or if McCain just hadn't understood the question in the first place. Either way, he didn't think it spoke very highly of McCain's cognitive abilities.

He thought it would be useful to see how McCain ultimately answered the question, so I've posted a new version of the video, this one with not just McCain's full answer (which has been debunked by C&L), but also the last part of his answer to the previous question.

I still am not sure exactly what happened here, but it seems to me that it's something worth exploring. I don't ever remember a major presidential candidate (including McCain) faltering like that and asking a reporter to repeat the question, and it's reasonable to look for an explanation of what happened and why.

"see-dubya," a blogger at Michelle Malkin's site, launches a hilarious attack on the LA Times James Rainey, who recently criticized the MSM for playing into the ludicrous narrative that Barack Obama is uppitypresumptuous.

My favorite part of the post was its title: Obama’s chair on his jet reads “President”; LA Times analyst says his arrogance is a “myth”.

Um, not exactly. The truth is that Barack Obama's chair is labeled with a logo reading "Obama '08 President." So while it does literally use the word "President," it only does so to indicate the office being sought. If Barack is guilty of anything, it's of having a campaign logo on his chair.

On Countdown tonight, Keith Olbermann interviewed Stephen Price, the reporter who was booted from the press area outside McCain's bus by McCain's security detail. Price, the senior writer for Florida's Tallahassee Democrat (a non-partisan newspaper), was told that he was booted because he was a state-based reporter standing in an area cordoned off for national reporters.

The problem, of course, is that Price -- the only black reporter in that area -- was also the only reporter singled out for this treatment, even though there were many other state-based reporters in the area. (When another reporter complained about Price's treatment, that reporter was also booted.)

For the past few weeks I've been saying the most important electoral math of the campaign is the equation of Bush = McCain = Status quo. I've now updated the equation just slightly:

McCain = Bush = More of the same

Its meaning is unchanged, but it rolls off the tongue a little better.

Earlier today, the Obama campaign called attention to this quote from Saturday's Wall Street Journal:

“A spokesman for Sen. McCain said that while he ‘applauds the bipartisan effort,’ he wouldn't support the proposal because ‘he cannot and will not support legislation that raises taxes.’"

Just to be clear, the taxes that McCain is concerned about are windfall profits taxes on oil companies -- the same companies who have reaped the biggest corporate profits in human history.

And now John McCain is willing to sacrifice a bipartisan effort to achieve energy independence in order to protect these companies from paying their fair share in taxes.

John McCain is the real Dr. No.

John McCain and the GOP have been mercilessly mocking Barack Obama for his sensible suggestion that keeping tires properly inflated will help improve gas mileage (not to mention make driving safer).

The problem for McCain and the GOP is that Obama is absolutely right -- and, as the Obama campaign notes, they've made the same point as Obama in the past.

Clearly, they want to portray Obama as some sort of out-of-touch elitist. But given the facts of the situation -- including their own past rhetoric -- McCain and his allies are just proving that they will do and say anything to win this election, even if it means lying to the American public and telling them that tire pressure won't improve their gas mileage. There's no good idea they won't oppose if they sense a way to gain political advantage from saying no.

Here's a list of quotes (compiled by the Obama campaign) from McCain supporters and non-partisan organizations alike making it clear that properly inflated tires will help improve mileage:

The basic message of Obama's new TV ad: while John McCain and George Bush are on the side of big oil companies, Barack Obama is fighting for you.

The ad is one of the most overtly populist TV spots of Obama's campaign so far. It ties McCain's support from big oil ($2 million in contributions) to his plan to cut taxes on oil companies by another $4 billion, and it contrasts the Bush-McCain agenda for big oil to Obama's plan to use a windfall profits tax on oil companies to fund a $1,000 energy rebate for working families.

It's been nice being able to spend a few days up here in the Pacific Northwest. It's hard to get over the fact that I set the thermostat in my house in Vegas about 8 degrees warmer (81) than the average high here. I'll be taking off most of Tuesday and all of Wednesday, during which time debrazza will be returning to guest blog.

On the campaign front, here's a few items I thought were interesting:

• Later today in Lansing, Michigan, Barack Obama will detail his energy plan. It will focus on his plans to lower gas prices, create five million new green jobs, and eliminate reliance on Middle Eastern oil within 10 years.
• On MTP, Chuck Todd made a pair of observations that will be interesting to those of us who are eager to see more contrasts drawn between Barack Obama and John Bush McCain. First, he said that Obama campaign staffers are acutely aware of the need to draw these contrasts. Second, he said Obama would start aggressively emphasizing those difference very soon -- probably this week.
• Meanwhile, John Harwood reports that McCain is following the Clinton strategy to beat Obama. This strikes me as just more evidence of McCain's lack of intellectual horsepower: he's basically decided to study the quivalent of Karl Malone's gameplan for beating Michael Jordan.
• Andrew Sullivan thinks Barack Obama has already demonstrated the diplomatic skills and ability to exercise soft power that the next president will need -- and that he's done so more than McCain.
• Ta-Nehisi Coates delivers a smackdown on the department of no matter what Obama does, it's wrong: some are saying he's too undisciplined.
• And finally, for the second time I'll flag a funny note John McCain's strange new "Obama forgot Latinos" attack ad: when McCain went to Canada to talk about NAFTA, he didn't mention Mexico a single time.

By popular request, I've uploaded a new version of the clip of John McCain's press conference from Friday, August 1 in Panama City, Florida. It still has the same three angles, but on the final angle, the clip now includes the first few seconds of McCain's answer, once he finally gets back on track.

Today, I watched The McLaughlin Group for the first time in fifteen years or so (I'm visiting my grandmother's house in Shoreline, WA), and at one point, Rich Lowry was handicapping the election and let loose a phrase that I would not have expected a right-wing ideologue to utter: "working class." Has he abandoned his National Review brethren and gone socialist or something? Maybe it's time for Jonah Goldberg to write about Lowrian Fascism?

Just started watching MTP over here in Seattle about twenty minutes ago. This is some entertaining stuff -- Kerry is on fire, and I swear I just heard Lieberman's voice crack.

This is a must-watch video, recorded from at least three different angles. (From a John McCain media availability in Panama City, FL held on Friday, August 1, 2008.)