Media Hearts Obama

You saw John McCain's ad "Love" below, but now you can see another kind of love, the love that the media has for Barack Obama. Don't expect them to be fair or objective in covering this race. Take a look at these clips (and vote for your favorite love music to go along) at JohnMcCain.com of the media swooning for Obama.

Mississippi Democratic Party spins Obama

The Mississippi Democratic Party continues to spin that Barack Obama has a shot at winning Mississippi. They like to cite the historic turnout in the Democratic Primary earlier this year as evidence. 434,110 voters picked a candidate in the Democratic Primary; most of them (61.2%) picked Obama. But that leaves 168,608 Democrats who chose someone else. Now many of them will come around a tow the party line and back Obama. But a lot of them just couldn't wait until November to vote against Obama. And those Democrats - call them Clinton Democrats, call them Reagan Democrats, call them Fordice Democrats - will join with Republicans and independents to vote for John McCain. Does Obama have a shot at Mississippi? Sure. There are only two ways to run: scared or unopposed. If we run scared, work hard, contribute, and turn out our voters, then Mississippi will be well within John McCain's winning column.

Southeast Campaign HQ

To contact McCain's Southeast Campaign HQ - the region including Mississippi - see below:

Southeast Regional Headquarters
420 East Jefferson Street
3rd Floor
Tallahassee, FL 32302
Office number is 850-391-4219
Office fax is 850-681-2063
Email Mississippi staff at mississippi@johnmccain.com

John McCain Ad: Love

Meet the new Democrat, same as the old Democrat

Back in the Spring, I told people the best scenario for Republicans would be for the Clinton-Obama contest to continue all the way to the Democratic Convention with the Clintons using the super delegates to win and disenchanting all the young and progressive energy in the Democratic Party two months before the election.

I was wrong. That would have created a liberal martyr and made Obama that much more powerful in four years.

The best scenario now is playing out: Obama is discrediting himself with his base.

The hope for a new transformational politician has faded. The hope of an elevated debate on the issues became this threat by Obama regarding an ugly general election campaign, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." It is hard to be an idealist and a pragmatist at the same time.

Then came policy flip-flops.

Progressives love public financing to take "big money" out of politics. Obama pledged to run with public financing. Then he discovered the free market (as he calls it a "parallel public financing system" one in which the public decides...aka private financing) provides more resources and bailed on public financing. The left forgave him, after all, they want to win and it’s only the most wonkish intellectual liberals who want public financing anyway.

Then came the other shoes to drop. Moderating his position on abortion and guns; moving conservative on the issue of the death penalty; execution for bin Laden; he once opposed cracking down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants and now he is for it.

Liberals see all these as troubling, but they are pragmatic, they want to win.

The defining issue first distinguishing Obama and Clinton: the Iraq War. Obama was for full and immediate withdrawal within 16 months of taking office. MoveOn.org was dancing in the streets. Now Obama says he will listen to the military commanders, like President Bush is doing, and may "refine" his position.

Say it ain't so, O.

Obama was going to filibuster the FISA bill and stand up for all the liberal bloggers who didn't want the government spying on Americans and who were impassioned that big telecom companies not get immunity from lawsuits.

Instead he voted for the measure. Nobama, please, Nobama.

Markos Moulitsas, Grand High Pooba of liberal bloggers said before the vote, "He (Obama) spent the last two years telling us how he's going to be the leader of the free world ... not to mention the Democratic party and this nation.... I think there are people like us that are hoping to see some of that leadership.... I don't want to hear talk about leadership... I want to see him do it... If he does not, I think we may worry that he's just one of these spineless Democrats who are more afraid of controversy.. than doing the right thing."

Now Art Levine who has written for every major left wing publication since the Port Huron Statement (The New Republic, Mother Jones, Slate, Salon) posts "Will Netroots 'Hold their Noses' in Backing Obama?" He posted his comments at The Huffington Post. Et Tu Netrootae?

Some bloggers are willing to give Obama another shot and let his pick for vice president shore up his base. Let me get this straight, the nonpartisan National Journal rankings place Obama as the most liberal U.S. Senator and he needs a running mate to shore up his left wing? Who is he going to pick? Ralph Nader? Hugo Chavez?

The mainstream media is comparing Obama to McCain. The left wing is comparing Obama to Bush. If this keeps up, we'll all be comparing Obama to John Kerry when this is done with.

The New York Times: Obama supporters on the far left cry foul
The New Yorker: Obama's flip-flop flap
Midwest Voices: Obama's FISA flip-flop angers liberal bloggers

Polls: Mississippi Likes John McCain

Associated Content contends Mississippi will go for McCain.

Although the Mississippi primary showed Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton 61 to 31 percent, recent research polls show John McCain has a strong lead over Obama in a state that is 39 percent African-American. Mississippi is the only state with this large an African-American percentage, according to the 2000 census.

Mississippi is considered a Republican state, as no Democrat has won the state since 1976 when Jimmy Carter ran for President.

Rasmussen shows McCain with an 80 percent chance of winning Mississippi's six votes in November.

Pollsters Rasmussen Reports (5/29/08) McCain over Obama 50 over 44.
Research 2000 (5/23/08) Research 2000 shows McCain is the favorite 54% to Obamas 39%.
Survey USA (3/6/08) gave McCain the lead over Obama 54% to 41%.

Read the full story here: Polls: Mississippi Likes John McCain (Hat Tip Y'all Politics)

Lott advising McCain on VP

The National Journal reports (It's Vetting Time!) that former Senator Trent Lott is one of the closest confidants of John McCain's search for his Vice President.

McCain's process is so secretive that his campaign won't even confirm Culvahouse's role. "We don't comment on the vice presidential search," said Steve Schmidt, a McCain campaign adviser. Another aide asked for "no comment" to be off the record. Internally, fewer than 10 senior staffers are permitted to advise McCain on the selection. Conversations about the process are limited to a circle of five key staff advisers and a few others, including former Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Campaign staffers who interact with the press are kept in the dark so that they have plausible deniability.

It is nice to know that a Mississippian is at the table for such an important selection.

Obama's Mississippi Challenge

This week in the Madison County Journal (Reasonably Right: The Obama challenge) I write about two anecdotes, that if a trend in other states, spells trouble in November for Barack Obama. First, while there has been a lot of talk about the Obama effect in voter turn out, it won't simply be a matter of Obama voters turning out in record numbers and anti-Obama voters responding. There are men and women across the country who believe in the person John McCain, like Jack McMillan in Leake County.

In that sliver of land between Edinburg and the Neshoba County line in East Mississippi sits an old country store with "Vote John McCain President" stencilled in black lettering inside a crudely painted American flag that adorns the west side of the simple, block structure.

There's a portable flashing sign out front off Mississippi 16 with "Vote McCain President" as well.

A grassy, gravel drive leads to two wooden Uncle Sam figures on the columns by the door.

Jack McMillan, the owner and proprietor, envisions the store as the McCain volunteer headquarters for Leake County. He plans a youth involvement program, volunteer phone banks, a get-out-the-vote rally, and campaign signs, hats and CDs of McCain speeches.

He has never done this before.

Now retired, McMillan worked for the state for many years and speaks of his service with Govs. Cliff Finch and William Winter (he compliments both) while explaining he has never been personally involved in "politics."

He is no Republican Party activist and his words reflect no passion for Republicans or partisanship. He speaks about America - about duty, honor, country - a reflection of McCain's image.

I never heard an ill word toward Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton (or any mention of them for that matter) and for McMillan, it seems, this election isn't about them. For him, John McCain is the man that can best lead this country. McCain is the reason McMillan is out of retirement and into politics for the first time in his life.

Older, rural, blue-collar voters in the South, Appalachia, and the Midwest, relate to McCain's image as a respected and seasoned servant of his country. They hear McCain speak of service to America with humility - almost as if he were courting the person America - cognizant of his own failures but honest to his promise that just as he has in the past, he will give every measure of service and sacrifice to her.

These voters are not looking for Obama's change for the future. They have had enough of the future and want to trade in their risky aggressive high-yield stocks for the security and comfort of a trusty treasury CD. They may not be on blogs or YouTube, and they may be unable to leave their responsibilities to attend rock-star rallies; but like the fabled tortoise, they are steady, persistent, and unshakeable: to borrow from Richard Nixon, a silent majority. Besides the South, they put states like West Virginia and Indiana into McCain's column. Obama lost both states to Clinton in their primaries.

Here are a couple of pictures from McMillan's future Leake County McCain HQ.




Second, while a lot was made of McCain's challenges early on with maintaining and exciting his conservative base, Obama could face problems with moderates in the Democratic Party who supported Clinton.

Eighty miles southwest of McMillan is my home in the Belhaven neighborhood of Jackson. I didn't poll everyone at my street's recent block party, but if I was not the lone Republican, I was at least in a silent minority. Talk turned to the presidential race and the excitement about Barack Obama. No one cared that I plan to vote for John McCain. They've seen my yard signs. I'm a Republican. Republicans vote for McCain. But what turned up the temperature on the late May day in Mississippi was the discovery that several Clinton supporters were also voting for McCain.

I was intrigued to hear the discussion first-hand. A couple of the neighbors raised questions of competence and experience: they believe Clinton possesses those qualities, Obama does not. Regardless of ideology, they want an adult in the White House. These Democrats feel George W. Bush is an example of immature leadership and Barack Obama would be the Democratic version of him.

One neighbor is from Illinois. She notes just four years ago Obama was a state senator from Chicago dominated by ward-bosses, divisive men like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and indicted influence peddlers like Tony Rezko. She describes Obama as an old-style street politician cloaked in the illusion of transformative rhetoric. She would never vote for Obama, my Democrat neighbor said.

A Gallup Poll in March reported that 28 percent of Clinton supporters would vote for McCain rather than Obama: this includes a large number of Democrat leaning independents, conservative Democrats, moderate Democrats and Hispanic Democrats. Those numbers put states like Pennsylvania and Ohio closer to McCain (Clinton beat Obama in both primaries) and shores up McCain leaning but contested states like Florida and Virginia.

The Jackson Clarion Ledger wrote yesterday that "Some hope Obama turns Miss. 'blue". These anecdotes don't spell victory in Mississippi (which most expect anyway) but might suggest broader national challenges for Obama.

Mississippi voters have chosen the Democrat nominee once since 1960: the born-again Baptist governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter against the unelected Nixon-pardoning Gerald Ford in 1976. Ford barely lost.

Democrats don't look to improve their record this year.

A recent Rasmussen poll puts Obama six points behind McCain, 50 to 44 percent; and a Research 2000 poll puts the race at 54 percent McCain to 39 percent Obama.

No one is surprised that Mississippi is John McCain country, but if these examples indicate a broader national trend, then Barack Obama faces a cultural and electoral challenge in November.

You can read the full uninterrupted column at the Madison County Journal: The Obama challenge.

The General Election Begins

Don't Be Bamboozled

Rasmussen: McCain 50% Obama 44%

Another poll shows McCain leading Obama in the Magnolia State.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Mississippi shows John McCain leading Barack Obama 50% to 44%.

The strong racial divide is highlighted by the fact that Obama earns 44% of the vote in a sample where 36% of the voters are African-American. Obama overwhelmingly wins the African-American vote. Obama also leads among voters under 40 while McCain wins most votes from those 40 and older. Women are essentially evenly divided between the two candidates, while McCain leads by eleven percentage points among men.

George Bush won the state by twenty points four years ago and sixteen points in Election 2000. The current poll results are similar to Bob Dole's margin of victory in 1996. No Democrat has won the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976. In 1968, George Wallace won 63% of the vote while running as an Independent. Mississippi is currently rated as "Safely Republican" in the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator .

Fifty-three percent (53%) say that if John McCain is elected in November, it is at least somewhat likely the U.S. will win the War. Twenty-six percent (26%) say victory is likely with an Obama victory. On the other hand, 52% believe a President Obama would get his troops home within a year while 42% say the same would happen with McCain as President.

DailyKos: McCain 54% Obama 39%

DailyKos released the results of poll conducted May 19 - May 21 of Mississippians (+/-4) that puts John McCain over Barack Obama 54% to 39%.

California Dreaming?

National pundits claim the Republican brand is damaged. Mississippi's First Congressional District seat was won by a Democrat. Voters, weary of war in a weakened economy, want some kind of change. In this kind of atmosphere, could California be in play for John McCain? Brian Perry discusses the opportunity this week in the Neshoba County Democrat: McCain California dreaming?.

When George W. Bush won Florida in 2000, he won the presidency. Four years later, the White House came down to Ohio. Ohio 2004 seemed a rerun of Florida 2000: small margins, voting machine questions, a high profile Republican secretary of state, and whoever prevailed in Ohio would be President of the United State: the Electoral College majority hung in the balance. Any challenge in the Buckeye State whimpered out as Bush had a small but clear majority with 50.8 percent of the vote.

The seeds of Bush's Ohio victory were sewn a year prior in Massachusetts.

In November 2003, four judges on the seven-person Massachusetts Supreme Court, overturned a state law to establish America's only state permitting gay marriage. In response, 11 states placed defense of marriage measures on their ballots the following year. They all passed by wide margins.

In Ohio, Bush beat Senator John Kerry by fewer than 150,000 votes in an election where 5.7 million voters went to the polls and 3.3 million voted to uphold traditional marriage.

If four judges in Massachusetts could provide the boost needed by Bush to win a second term in 2004, could four judges in California do the same for John McCain in 2008?

In 2000, 61 percent of California voters approved a traditional marriage ballot initiative: Proposition 22. Now the California Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision, with the equivalent of a judicial super veto, declared that marriage in the state must be allowed for same-sex couples.

Already, conservatives have filed a provision with more than a million signatures to amend the California Constitution to make marriage only between one man and one woman for the California November ballot. Polls show a majority of Californians support the amendment.

For McCain to win California this year, Republicans would need a conservative surge in turn out, some independent and Democratic crossover, and a strong showing among Hispanic voters.

A traditional marriage amendment could produce the conservative surge. McCain's maverick style and perceived moderation could provide the cross-party appeal that some Western voters need to support the Arizona Senator. Finally, McCain's polling shows him in reach of surpassing the record 44 percent of the Hispanic vote that Bush carried in 2004. Catholic Hispanics trend against gay marriage and may make the difference for McCain in California.

Republicans haven't carried California in a Presidential election since George H.W. Bush whipped Michael Dukakis 20 years ago. McCain's Western base and Hispanic appeal alone can't deliver California, especially facing Obama's rock-star appeal and fundraising prowess. But throw a conservative mobilizing issue like the defense of marriage into the mix, and McCain might be able to squeak out a win.

Will Obama be another Dukakis or is McCain just California dreaming? If McCain does carry California, his campaign should send thank you cards to four judges in California and four judges in Massachusetts.

Read the full column here: McCain California dreaming?

McCain and the Judiciary

When Mississippi jurists like Charles W. Pickering, Sr.; Mike Wallace; and Leslie Southwick were attacked by national Democrats and opposed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, men like John McCain stood by Trent Lott and Thad Cochran in pushing their nominations. A column in the Madison County Journal this week highlights the differences in a McCain court and an Obama court.

November's election for President of the United States also determines the future of the federal judiciary. Mississippians know the type of jurist they want on our federal courts. We also know what national Democrats think of such nominees.

President George W. Bush nominated Charles W. Pickering, Sr. to a post on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. National Democrats and special interest groups attacked, slandered, maligned, obstructed, and ultimately blocked his confirmation with a filibuster without ever giving him an up-or-down vote (on which he would have prevailed). Next President Bush nominated Mike Wallace to the Fifth Circuit and Democrats, without skipping a beat, re-launched their assault and obstruction machine. They continued against the next nominee as well, Leslie Southwick, but were unable to defeat him.

Pickering, Wallace, and Southwick believe in the Constitution; they believe we are a nation of laws and not of men; they believe role of a judge is to interpret the laws and Constitution as written, and not to legislate from the bench or impose their own beliefs and values onto others through their rulings.

Senator John McCain shares that perspective.

Last week in a speech on his judicial philosophy delivered at Wake Forest University, McCain promised if elected President: "I will look for accomplished men and women with a proven record of excellence in the law, and a proven commitment to judicial restraint. I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and my friend the late William Rehnquist - jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference. My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power. They will be men and women of experience and wisdom, and the humility that comes with both. They will do their work with impartiality, honor, and humanity, with an alert conscience, immune to flattery and fashionable theory, and faithful in all things to the Constitution of the United States."

Sen. Barack Obama, who appears to be inching toward the Democratic nomination, told a very different philosophy to CNN in a recent interview: "What you're looking for is somebody who is going to apply the law where it's clear. Now there's gonna be those five percent of cases or one percent of cases where the law isn't clear. And the judge has to then bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings. And in those circumstance what I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can't have access to political power and as a consequence can't protect themselves from being being dealt with sometimes unfairly, that the courts become a refuge for justice. That's been its historic role. That was its role in Brown v. Board of Education."

Judges appealing to their own perspectives, ethics, and morals ruled in Dredd Scott v Sandford that blacks were not citizens; and judges seeking the law in themselves - as Obama advocates - ruled in Plessy v Ferguson to create separate but equal policies.

Some may say it is absurd to put Obama on the same side as these horrendous Supreme Court rulings. However, if activist judges had not ignored originalism in the former, nor disregarded the Fourteenth Amendment in the latter, America's journey to equality would have been achieved earlier.

McCain on Judges

Today at Wake Forest, John McCain spoke of his desire to appoint judges who will not legislate from the bench and will not bring judicial activism to the federal bench. He wants to see more judges like John Roberts and Sam Alito. The Associated Press reports:

"My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power," McCain said Tuesday in a speech at Wake Forest University.

McCain, the eventual GOP nominee, promised to appoint judges in the mold of Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, saying they would interpret the law strictly to curb the scope of their rulings. While McCain didn't mention abortion, the far right understands that such nominees would be likely to limit or perhaps overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Obama, on the other hand, voted against Roberts and Alito. So did Obama's rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, but McCain focused on Obama.

"Senator Obama in particular likes to talk up his background as a lecturer on law, and also as someone who can work across the aisle to get things done," McCain said. "But ... he went right along with the partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote against this highly qualified nominee."

In response, Obama's campaign said McCain would pick judges who would threaten abortion rights as well as McCain's own campaign finance reform bill.

"What's truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves," Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

The Arizona senator said his role models interpret the law strictly, paying attention to what lawmakers intended, as opposed to "activist" judges who, by striking down statutes or court decisions, make laws rather than interpret them. "Activist" is a term conservatives use pejoratively to criticize liberal justices.

The Republican National Lawyers Association notes that Mississippi's Judge Charles Pickering has weighed in on McCain's leadership in the Gang of 14. The post writes:

Judge Pickering's backing of the agreement is further sign that it was good for conservatives, nominees, Republicans and everyone interested in the confirmation of "capable and conservative jurists."

And links to a letter from Pickering to McCain that says in part:

There is no way you can look at that agreement as a Democratic victory. Two days after the Deal was announced, Owen was confirmed by the Senate. Two weeks later, Brown was confirmed, and the next day the Senate confirmed Pryor. These confirmations were exactly what President Bush and the Republicans had tried to accomplish for five long years and the Democrats had blocked.

The confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Sam Alito --two exceptionally capable and conservative jurists-- were made relatively easy because of the "Gang of Fourteen Agreement."