A Blog Called Hope

After some public delays by John McCain, it seems that McCain will go ahead and fund raise with a Texas oilman who cracked jokes about rape

Williams Made Misogynist Remarks. “Clayton Williams, who ran unsuccessfully against the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards (D), sparked controversy nearly two decades ago when he joked women should give in while being raped. ‘As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it,’ the oilman remarked at the time.” [Washington Post, 6/13/08]

Main Point: John McCain’s claim that he is running a different kind of campaign rings hollow. His refusal to denounce or return the money raised by Clayton Williams, a supporter who has made misogynist and offensive comments in the past, shows McCain has no intention of running a different kind of campaign. Instead the McCain campaign has scheduled an additional fundraiser with Williams.

• Not only has the McCain campaign refused to return the money raised by Williams or denounce his outrageous remarks, but now the campaign is rescheduling the fundraiser for later next month.

• Instead of benefiting from two fundraisers involving Clayton Williams, Senator McCain should make it clear he will not tolerate this kind of sexism and inappropriate language in public life.

• McCain’s effort to mislead the voters into thinking Monday’s fundraiser had been canceled is truly outrageous and shows Senator McCain is not offering the ’straight talk’ he promised the American people. Instead of running a transparent campaign McCain has no problem deceiving the American people to benefit his own political career.

KEY FACTS:

McCain Campaign To Hold Fundraiser Later This Summer. “Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) has decided to hold a fundraiser initially sponsored by a controversial Texas oilman later in the summer at a different venue, according to an aide who asked not to be identified.This morning, a McCain aide confirmed in an e-mail that the contributors who had already made a combined donation of at least $300,000 to the event would have another chance to meet McCain.” [Washington Post, 6/15/08]

McCain Campaign Postpones Fundraiser. “Late Saturday afternoon, a McCain aide confirmed to the Chronicle that the Midland event had been postponed but had not been taken off the calendar. The compromise allowed McCain to say he had not held a fundraiser at Williams’ house; it gave Williams an opportunity to say that the event he organized had not been canceled.” [Houston Chronicle, 6/14/08]

McCain’s Tax Plan? Fiscally Irresponsible

Exhibit A of the poison pill in action is the sad case of John McCain, part of whose lingering image as a maverick rests on his early opposition to the Bush tax cuts, which he declared excessive and too tilted toward the rich.

Since then the budget surpluses of the Clinton years have given way to persistent deficits, and income inequality has risen to new heights, vindicating his opposition.

But instead of pointing this out, Mr. McCain now promises to make those tax cuts permanent – and proposes further cuts that are, if anything, tilted even more toward the wealthy. And how is the loss of revenue to be made up? Mr. McCain hasn’t offered a realistic answer. (New York Times)

Not The Man He Used To Be. . .McCain 2.0 Has Abandoned His Former Self

But that term didn’t even make the list this year when voters were asked by the Pew Research Center to sum up McCain in a single word. “Old” got the most mentions, followed by “honest,” “experienced,” “patriot,” “conservative” and a dozen more. The words “independent,” “change” or “reformer” weren’t among them.

Voters have notoriously short memories, but it could be argued that McCain cheapened his own brand.

He embraced President Bush and attempted to become, like Bush, the choice of the Republican establishment. In the process, he helped obliterate recollections of his first run for president, when he became the first Republican in a long time with strong crossover appeal to independents and Democrats.

Losing his reputation for independence could prove particularly costly this year. (Baltimore Sun)

Revelation About McCain Fundraiser Unlikely To Win Over Any Women

Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign canceled a fund-raiser at the home of an 86-year-old oilman, Clayton Williams, after the campaign faced questions about comments Mr. Williams made in the 1990 race for Texas governor.

At the time, Mr. Williams, a Republican who was running against Ann Richards, made a joke about rape and said he would campaign against Ms. Richards, a Democrat, as he would deal with a cow on his ranch: “head
her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt.” He later apologized for the remarks.

The campaign canceled the fund-raiser on Friday after it faced questions from ABC News and The Washington Post. (New York Times)

McCain’s Vision For The Supreme Court Would Turn Country’s Clock Backward

Want to overturn Roe v. Wade and begin a new political civil war over abortion? How about a Supreme Court that supports the George Bush approach of executive power similar to royal monarchs, with massive and
illegal wiretapping thrown in, legalized by a McCain court?

The Supreme Court is not only one branch of government, it is the branch that determines the powers of the other two branches. In the world of George Bush and John McCain, the executive branch is all-powerful with no meaningful checks and balances.

With a Supreme Court that would fully support this radical and extreme notion of unlimited, pre-emptive executive power, the sins of George Bush are only the beginning of what a McCain court would make the law of the land.

Bush and McCain almost always agree on the need for a super secret superstate, justified by the politics of fear, employing tactics such as massive eavesdropping in violation of clear constitutional language and clear federal law.

Bush and McCain almost always agree in opposition to legal protections for women and labor. In their economic and legal philosophy, Bush and McCain always agree on a Darwinian laissez-faire where the big boys rule, the average folks are unprotected, the powerful monopolize their power and the powerless become second-class citizens with third-class legal rights.

The list goes on. Even on torture, McCain’s latest position is torture-friendly. Even on Guantanamo, which McCain says he will close, his legal position is anti-constitutional. His verbal position depends on his need for extreme right-wing support and his level of political desperation at the time he speaks, on a given day. (The Hill’s Pundits Blog)

Preliminary electoral projections show a potential neck and neck race between Senators Obama and McCain, but Gallup poll tells another story

Today, CNN released their Electoral Projections for the upcoming November election. These projections are based off of “a number of factors: polling, state voting trends and more”.

In what CNN deems “safe” states (nearly certain to vote for that candidate), Barack Obama leads with 153 electors compared to 125 for McCain. Safe states for Senator Obama include the likes of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and California. Texas, Arizona, and Mississippi are three states considered “safe” for McCain.

On the other hand, McCain has more states that CNN believes are “leaning” (showing present tendencies to vote for) McCain. The 69 electors “leaning” for McCain include states like Louisiana and Indiana. At this time, Senator Obama has Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington “leaning” his way; accounting for 37 electors.

As expected, this election will once again hinge on the “swing states” (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, etc.) that CNN currently deems a “toss up”. These 12 states account for 154 electoral votes; representing 29% of the total electoral count.

Meanwhile, the most recent Gallup poll shows that Barack Obama currently holds a 6% (48% to 42%) lead over his Republican counterpart. This figure is actually up one percentage point from when Senator Obama effectively claimed the Democratic Party nomination. The 6 percentage point gap is also an encouraging number because this represents Senator Obama’s largest advantage since he and McCain have been polled against one another.

These figures, specifically CNN’s electoral projections, exhibit the close race that faces this country. It will be immensely important for Rhode Islanders to sure up support for Senator Obama within the state as well as elsewhere. Rhode Islanders who support Barack Obama have the ability to reach out to other states, such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, to help Senator Obama capture the 270 electoral votes necessary to claim the Presidency and to spur the change our country needs.

For more Election coverage and a map displaying the Electoral Projections visit CNN.com.

John McCain may claim he’s a different kind of politician, but his efforts to cover up his misstatements about the war in Iraq instead of admitting he was wrong ring of the same kind of dishonesty we’ve come to expect from the Bush Administration. After seven years of a president who will distort the truth for political purposes, Americans don’t want four more years of the same with John McCain.

Last week we saw the lengths John McCain and his campaign will go to cover up misstatements he made about the facts on the ground in Iraq.

After inaccurately stating that U.S. troops were “drawn down to pre-surge levels,” McCain refused to admit his error and claimed what he said was “just facts.” [Wisconsin Town Hall, 5/29/08, http://youtube.com/watch?v=42ke9Q-qXg4]

Likewise, his campaign went into Washington spin-mode, organizing a last-minute conference call where McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann said that McCain’s mistake was an issue of “semantics” and that “[w]e are talking about a verb tense.”

But no one was buying it. One reporter wrote that “the attempt by the McCain media machine to spin the mistake as a simple matter of ‘verb tenses’ is an insult to our intelligence.” [The Fact Checker, Washington Post, 5/30/08; http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/30/mccain-call-nitpicking/]

McCain Says U.S. Troops At Pre-Surge Levels. “We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.” [Wisconsin Town Hall, 5/29/08, http://youtube.com/watch?v=42ke9Q-qXg4]

Troops in Iraq Not Expected to Return to Pre-Surge Level Until End of July. “The increased U.S. presence in Iraq — which topped out at about 170,000 troops — is expected to go down to 140,000 by the end of July. U.S. officials plan to keep 15 combat brigades in Iraq through the end of the year, though ongoing assessments could allow commanders to change those numbers.” [Washington Post, 5/20/08]

McCain’s foreign policy competency called into question due to Al-Qaeda-Iran gaffe

John McCain must be thanking his lucky stars that the remaining Democratic hopefuls continue to battle it out to decide who will get the nomination. Or otherwise, McCain’s own incompetence and misunderstanding of world affairs would be in the limelight.

But his confusion is not about just ANY issue. It is about THE predominant global conflict facing America. One could understand if McCain was a little mixed up about the Nigerian oil conflicts, strife in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or even human rights atrocities in China and Darfur. MAYBE an observer, or a voter, could let such a gaffe pass because they are not issues directly affecting our country at this moment. (Though, one would like to believe a potential leader of our country would have knowledge of such prevalent global topics.)

The issue is al-Qaeda. The issue is the leading terrorist organization in the world and our most dangerous and heinous adversary. The issue is al-Qaeda’s relationship (or lack thereof) with the always contentious Iran.

Unfortunately, John McCain appears to not grasp the realities surrounding al-Qaeda, Iran, and terrorism as a whole.

In recent weeks John McCain has upped his efforts to poke holes in Obama’s candidacy, and particularly what McCain deems Obama’s ‘naïve’ foreign policy approach. Speaking in front of an American-Israeli committee, McCain took the opportunity to rail against Mr. Obama’s desire to sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

During one of his rants, John McCain falsely linked al-Qaeda to the Iranian government. McCain asserted unequivocally that, “Al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran.”

The truth of the matter is that the Sunni al-Qaeda is a rebellious counterpart to the ruling Shi’a regime in Iran. In fact, Iran has gone to great lengths to keep adversarial al-Qaeda fighters out of the country. It is this deep-seeded conflict that continues to enflame the already volatile situation in Iraq. So to think, and then say, that there is a relationship between a Sunni faction in al-Qaeda and a hard-line Shi’a regime in Iran is immensely deceptive.

It is hard not to notice the similarity in rhetoric between McCain’s baseless assertions and those spewed by Bush in late 2002 and early 2003. As we have seen, by way of the 9/11 Commission’s detailed report, al-Qaeda had no ties, affiliations, or relationship with Iraq. Despite this, the President continues to hold out false hope that he was somehow correct in his misrepresentation of Middle Eastern dynamics.

It’s these kinds of unfounded assertions that continue to shift our focus away from where it should be; finding al-Qaeda leadership and stemming the spread of its brutal ideology.

For those who hoped that the lens would shift back to a genuine focus on waging the war on terror, think again if McCain is elected. Given McCain’s misrepresentations, it would appear that the misleading of the American people won’t end with George W.

… Maybe getting riled up about McCain improperly aligning two prominant figures in our war on terror is an overreaction. Maybe foreign policy is not McCain’s strong suit… Problem is John McCain himself has asserted that foreign policy is a point of strength for him. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal back in November 2005, McCain proclaimed, “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.”

Given McCain’s egregious mix-up of two key U.S. foes, it certainly appears McCain needs a lot more education on BOTH (economics and foreign policy) fronts. Perhaps McCain should crack open some history books and prepare to pull some all-nighters studying; because, are there any more significant concerns facing our country than the economy and the war on terror?

McCain co-chair, and potential Treasury Secretary, tied to root of subprime mortgage crisis

Plummeting property values. Job losses numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Financial institutions crumbling to their knees. Economic growth screeching to a halt.

What may have been perceived as merely an economic nightmare during the booming 90s, has quickly become all too real in the last few years as the subprime mortgage crisis has reached immense proportions.

What some people may not understand what actually spurred this current crisis.

In 1999, under direct influence from bank lobbyists, the then-existing regulatory scheme controlling the banking industry was abandoned. As economists have theorized, this de-regulation was a leading cause of the current mortgage crisis our economy faces today.

As Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Former Texas Senator, and current John McCain campaign co-chairman, Phil Gramm helped spearhead that shortsighted and devastatingly erroneous legislation in 1999.

Then, three years later, Phil Gramm joined Swiss bank UBS where he served as a lobbyist on legislation regarding the mortgage crisis as recently as the end of 2007. Currently, while taking time away from McCain’s camp, Gramm continues to serve as a UBS vice chairman. Given the rivaling concerns within the mortgage crisis, this relationship with a predominant banking institution calls into question whose interests that former Senator Phil Gramm aims to protect. Will he work to protect the floundering property market and strapped mortgage borrowers, or work to sure up UBS’ bottom line?

John McCain, apparently cut from the same ragged cloth as Gramm, has come out in support of further de-regulation of the banking industry, which he believes will help resolve the current mortgage crisis. This proposal stands in direct conflict with the assessment of the Secretary of the Treasury. In March 2008, Treasury Secretary Paulson remarked that it would be necessary, and beneficial, to again regulate financial sectors that were de-regulated back in ‘99.

Amazingly, it appears that Phil Gramm, despite his immense miscalculations with far-reaching ramifications, has the ear of John McCain and the inside track to become the next Secretary of the Treasury if John McCain is elected in November. For now, as Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute explained to the Washington Post, “[Senator] McCain is counting on people having very short memories and not connecting some pretty obvious dots.”