McCain's Lobbyist "Friends"

Brave New Films, as part of their Real McCain campaign, has a new video about how McCain has lobbyists running his campaign.

John McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, and yet he said "I'm the only one the special interests don't give any money to."

Sign the petition demanding McCain return the millions of dollars raised by lobbyists.

~BT

Morning Quick Hits

The feeding frenzy surrounding McCain grows with the Washington Post printing a corroborating article this morning.

Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain's longest-serving political strategists.

John Weaver, who was McCain's closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe at Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.

For those thinking the media is giving Obama a pass, check out Chris Matthews grilling State Sen. Kirk Watson (D-TX) on Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments. Watch the video. Claire McCaskill was on Hardball the following day to do damage control.

Think Progress covers how Rove used his talk at Penn last night to defend Bush's use of signing statements. The DP coverage of the event is here.

Here are some morning tunes (Evermore vs Dirty South - Its too late)

~BT

Obama and Clinton Should Focus on McCain

In last night's victory speech, Obama added some extra lines to provide a better contrast with McCain. TPM's Greg Sargent highlights this part of Obama's speech (emphasis mine):

When I am the nominee, I will offer a clear choice. John McCain won't be able to say that I ever supported this war in Iraq, because I opposed it from the beginning. Senator McCain said the other day that we might be mired for a hundred years in Iraq, which is reason enough to not give him four years in the White House.

If we had chosen a different path, the right path, we could have finished the job in Afghanistan, and put more resources into the fight against bin Laden; and instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Baghdad, we could have put that money into our schools and hospitals, our road and bridges - and that's what the American people need us to do right now.

And I admired Senator McCain when he stood up and said that it offended his "conscience" to support the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in a time of war; that he couldn't support a tax cut where "so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate." But somewhere along the road to the Republican nomination, the Straight Talk Express lost its wheels, because now he's all for them.

Well I'm not. We can't keep spending money that we don't have in a war that we shouldn't have fought. We can't keep mortgaging our children's future on a mountain of debt. We can't keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace. It's time to turn the page.

Clinton needs to do the same thing and keep her focus on McCain and the Republicans. Some of the so-called pundits, like Pat Buchanan who I had to endure watching on MSNBC's coverage last night, are claiming that Hillary has to go negative on Obama. I disagree. The last time the Clinton campaign went negative on Obama, leading up to South Carolina, there was a huge blowback from Democrats. Rather, Clinton should focus on how she is better equipped and capable of beating John McCain in the general election.

~BT

McCain: Less Jobs, More Wars

From the mouth of Joe Scarborough to voters' ears, John McCain is running on a platform promising "Less Jobs and More Wars". The only way he can get around his awful policy positions is too blur the issues, maintain his patently untrue status as a moderate and rely on low information voters and the distortion of the media.

Knowing this, progressive groups have started to brand McCain as Stu Stein pointed out after seeing the John.he.is video, which has now been seen by over 700k people. Brave New Films has also launched a campaign called Less Jobs, More Wars. Check out the first, second and third videos released so far.






~BT

McCain: The Audacity of Gloom

Also check out McCain: Less Jobs, More Wards

In the spirit of Will.i.am's Yes We Can mashup of Obama's speech, we have this inspiring video for the likely Republican nominee, John McCain.
(h/t to Kagro X over at Dailykos)


Here is the video.

~BT