Right Wing Nut House

This piece originally appeared on The American Thinker Blog

The New York Times launches its long-awaited smear of John McCain today, and the most impressive aspect of the smear is just how baseless it is. They basically emulate Page Six at the Post, but add in a rehash of a well-known scandal from twenty years ago to pad it out and make it look more impressive. In the end, they present absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing — only innuendo denied by all of the principals:

The scandal Ed refers to - the Keating Five dust up - was carefully taken out of the closet by the Times, dusted off, and presented as news - or as Ed says, filler for a story that had no legs and precious little in the way of facts. Nearly 500 words on a scandal that by almost universal agreement on Capitol Hill, John McCain has managed to overcome and re-establish his reputation for honesty and integrity.

One other aspect of this story that will be coming out over the next news cycle is that the Times may have been forced into publishing the story before they wanted to. Word is that The New Republic was doing a piece on the Times holding the story and the fierce office politics involved:

The McCain campaign is apparently blaming TNR for forcing the Times’ hand on this story. We can’t yet confirm that. But we can say this: TNR correspondent Gabe Sherman is working on a piece about the Times’ foot-dragging on the McCain story, and the back-and-forth within the paper about whether to publish it.

Gabe’s story will be online tomorrow.

Update: McCain senior aide Mark Salter tells Time: "They did this because the The New Republic was going to run a story that looked back at the infighting there," Salter said, "the Judy Miller-type power struggles — they decided that they would rather smear McCain than suffer a story that made the New York Times newsroom look bad."

There are reports that one of the reporters on the story, Marilyn Thompson, was so disgusted with the fact that the Times wouldn’t run the story that she quit and went back to the Washington Post (who also features a story on the rumored relationship with the lobbyist).

On Feb. 12, the Washington Post announced that Thompson would be leaving the Times and returning to the Post, her employer for fourteen years. Rumors had circulated internally that Thompson had been working on the McCain piece and was dissatisfied it had not yet run, according to two Times staffers.

Politico asked Baquet if holding the piece had anything to do with her leaving the paper. “I’m not going to go into stories that may or may not run in the paper,” Baquet said last week, declining to confirm or deny that there was such a story. “I had long conversations with Marilyn, and it’s about her regarding the Post as home."

A question might be asked just why the Times was holding the story. Were they waiting for maximum negative impact on McCain? Perhaps the day after clinching the nomination?

One thing is for sure; the next time you hear a Democrat talking about the vaunted "Republican attack machine" throw a copy of the New York Times in their face.

It’s downright Orwellian the way that Michelle Obama’s words are being parsed by her defenders these last 48 hours. It is a version of “Newspeak” the author would have instantly recognized. Substituting emotion for meaning was one of the psychological tricks of the totalitarians. Hence, we have those who explain away Mrs. Obama’s statement about her husband’s candidacy - that for the first time in her adult life, she was “really proud” of America - by referring to some nebulous feeling Mrs. Obama may have had when uttering the words:

I’m not sure what Michelle Obama meant, but being a black person with privilege and access often makes you more aware of American inequality, not less, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what Michelle was referring to. Try living in say, New Orleans or Newark for a few years and see how proud of your country it makes you.

Being “aware of American inequality” - as opposed to British, French or even Chinese inequality? - is what she “meant?” Perhaps if we were all speaking Newspeak.

And speaking of Newspeak, here’s a fine example - with a little ignorance of the facts to go with it:

They are questioning her patriotism and saying that her statement means she has never been proud or very proud of anything about America before. Their accusations are without merit for many reasons. One reasons is because anyone who is even mildly objective knows that she was speaking in the moment to a crowd. Another reason is that any reasonable person would believe that a woman seeing her husband (of any race) have a real chance to be president would be the proudest moment in her life and no reasonable person would believe she meant she’d never been proud of this country before.

They are questioning her patriotism and saying that her statement means she has never been proud or very proud of anything about America before.

Setting up the strawman while denying in no uncertain terms that she ever uttered the words that she had “never been really proud” of America in her adult life takes a special kind of obtuseness; the kind that doesn’t allow reality to intrude too often into one’s thoughts. The question of “patriotism” shouldn’t enter into the criticism. One can criticize what she said solely on the basis of the idea that both Obama and his wife are extraordinarily self-centered - mesmerized by their own greatness. Like the Clinton’s, “it’s all about them!”

One reasons is because anyone who is even mildly objective knows that she was speaking in the moment to a crowd

Um…no. She made the statement twice. Both times she was reading the speech. There was absolutely nothing “in the moment” about it. If you’re going to excuse stupidity, please get your facts straight.

Another reason is that any reasonable person would believe that a woman seeing her husband (of any race) have a real chance to be president would be the proudest moment in her life and no reasonable person would believe she meant she’d never been proud of this country before

Because she was proud of her husband no “reasonable” person could say she wasn’t proud of America? A logical fallacy if there ever was one. There is no connection between pride in husband and pride in country - none, zero, zilch. But it sure sounds good in Newspeak!

What all this boils down to is that people are refusing to acknowledge the clear meaning behind the unambiguous words of the wife of a man running for president. While Orwell would get a kick out of liberal bloggers employing the tactics of his totalitarians, we are stuck with condemning such “liberalspeak” for what it is - an attempt to use language not as a means of communication but as a means of control. If the words spoken by Michelle Obama do not mean what she clearly intended them to mean then those who can redefine what she meant hold enormous power over the rest of us by having the ability to alter reality whenever it suits them.

I’ve written about this many times over the last three years, perhaps most extensively here. Glenn Greenwald chose to redefine the term “chickenhawk” in order to cut down a columnist who dared take the left to task for their idiocy and illogic in formulating the word in the first place. Greenwald or one of his many fans then altered the definition in less than 24 hours in Wikpedia - more evidence of Newspeak:

Even if Waldo or one of his minions did not rush to alter the Wikpedia definition to reflect his revised, made up definition, the point still stands; when losing an argument, the left invariably tries to change the parameters of the narrative rather than attempt to win on the merits or on logic. They view language with a fluidity that lacks the proper respect for and understanding of the importance of commonality of usage – that we all must use the same reference points when talking with each other. Otherwise, we talk past each other rather than with one another.

Instead of trying to parse and twist what Obama said, the left should have been trying to defend her intent and meaning; that there is nothing that has happened in Michelle Obama’s adult life that made her proud of her own country. (Sorry but I don’t buy the super-parsing between the idea that she was not “really proud” of America only “proud.” The adjective “really” is superfluous to the word “proud.” You are either proud or you are not proud. There are no gradations of pride that I know of.)

It is true that the left has been so ashamed of being liberal that they have desperately sought to cloak their proposals as “post partisan problem solving” or even trying to hide them as “moderate” ideas.” Shame is a dominating feature of modern liberalism. If you don’t feel “shame” for the sin of racism, you are not an authentic liberal. If you’re not “ashamed” of America for its imperialist warmongering, you are just not in the club.

This has been the dominant theme of liberal ideology since the rise of the New Left back in the 60’s, culminating in the nomination of a man who spoke the “New Leftspeak” fluently; George McGovern:

So join with me in this campaign. Lend Senator Eagleton and me your strength and your support, and together we will call America home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning.

From secrecy and deception in high places; come home, America

From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, America.

From the entrenchment of special privileges in tax favoritism; from the waste of idle lands to the joy of useful labor; from the prejudice based on race and sex; from the loneliness of the aging poor and the despair of the neglected sick — come home, America.
Come home to the affirmation that we have a dream. Come home to the conviction that we can move our country forward.

Come home to the belief that we can seek a newer world, and let us be joyful in that homecoming, for this “is your land, this land is my land — from California to New York island, from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters — this land was made for you and me.”

Do you hear McGovern’s echo in Obama’s impassioned pleas for change? Do you feel his shame and recognize it is the same kind of shame felt by Michelle Obama that her country has done nothing right in her adult lifetime that would allow her to feel pride in her America’s accomplishments?

This isn’t a question as some on the left have hopefully suggested that white conservatives can’t feel her pain and that our frame of reference is so different that we can’t understand from where her shame is coming. There are plenty of instances in the last 35 years I have been ashamed to be an American:

* I was ashamed to be an American when the “smoking gun” tape was released and I realized the President was an obstructer of justice. I was not a supporter of Nixon. But it saddened me immensely to find out the President broke the law to save his political hide.

* I was ashamed to be an American when the weakest, most incompetent president in American history allowed our hostages - taken in a brazen act of war recognized as such by international law - to languish in an Iranian prison while part of the world laughed at our impotency and the other part wrung its hands in fear and frustration at our weakness.

* I was ashamed to be an American when the Soviets marched into Afghanistan and our president responded by cutting off grain shipments. This after telling us we must get over our “inordinate fear” of communism.

* I was ashamed to be an American when I realized my political hero Ronald Reagan traded arms to those same fanatics for hostages in contravention of his own policy not to deal with terrorists.

* I was ashamed to be an American when it became clear that the White House, the Commerce Department, and other agencies of government were for sale under the Clinton Administration.

* I was ashamed to be an American when a gay man was dragged by a pick up truck full of bigots to his death.

* I was ashamed to be an American when some right wing fanatic bombed the olympics in Atlanta. His bombing of abortion clinics didn’t make me feel proud either.

* I was ashamed to be an American when it was proven the President of the United States lied under oath and denied an American citizen her right to a fair hearing in a court of law of her lawsut against him. He lied for the same reason Nixon lied - to save his political hide.

I’m sure there are plenty of other instances where my government or the country has let me down and I’ve felt shame in being an American. Bu to say I have no frame of reference to feel shame for America is silly and stupid and only reveals the ignorance of anyone who would make such an argument.

The point isn’t that Obama didn’t feel proud of America for any one of dozens of selfless, self-sacrificing acts by the American government or the millions such acts by her citizens. Or taking pride in America’s force of arms to free first Kuwait then Afghanistan and finally Iraq from tyrannical regimes and occupation. One can be so self absorbed as the Obamas apparently are and allow the world to pass them by, taking note of only what affects them personally or their own little worlds they have created be they a community organizer or a PR executive.

The real problem with Mr. and Mrs. Obama is that they may know what Americans want to hear but they have no clue as to what makes Americans tick. Not on a psychological level which is where they are targeting their appeals. But at the level of the American soul.

American exceptionalism is more than empty platitudes about America’s greatness that usually drive many liberals and foreigners batty. It is something most Americans I have come across feel deeply about - so deeply that it transcends convention and becomes a part of our character as a people. Being proud of America is not a prerequisite for patriotism. But it should be if you want to be president. To not recognize the uniqueness of America to the point that you are bursting with pride at a million different times in your life shows a disassociation with the American public that should disqualify someone from being president.

There are troubling signs in his speeches that Obama believes this campaign is about him and his “movement” rather than America and its future. His speeches are self-referential - a trait noticed by both left and right critics of the man and his candidacy. Michelle Obama’s revelatory remarks about how she feels about this country are a part of this denial of the exceptional nature of America. And that is why what she actually said and meant should be taken into account when deciding whether to vote for her husband.

My latest PJ Media column in is up. I parse the results from last night’s Wisconsin primary and show that the Hillary Clinton campaign is dead in the water with not much hope and and no ray of sunshine they can glimpse that can bring them out of the darkness.

A sample:

Nine in a row. Every primary and caucus since Super Tuesday 2 weeks ago. The Barack Obama campaign juggernaut rolled into frigid Wisconsin and emerged with another double digit win under its belt, leaving Hillary Clinton to ponder the question of what she can possibly do to slow down Obama’s momentum and get back in the race.

Super Delegates who are interested in winning a general election probably shudder at the thought of a Democratic candidate who does so poorly among men.

The Rick Moran Show will go live tonight at the special time of 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM Central Time.

Tonight, I’ll have my trusty sidekick and co-host Rich Baehr, Political Correspondent of The American Thinker with me for the entire hour as we examine the results from Wisconsin.

For the best in political analysis, click on the button below and listen in. A podcast will be available for streaming or download around 15 minutes after the show ends.

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Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

Leaving no stone unturned in her quest to win the Democratic nomination for President, a source inside Hillary Clinton’s campaign has confirmed that the New York senator will target pledged Republican delegates and try to convince them to vote for her at the Democratic convention in August.

This comes hot on the heels of news that Clinton will go after pledged Obama delegates in her “Win at all costs and then some” campaign:

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

What? Isn’t that impossible? A pledged delegate is pledged to a particular candidate and cannot switch, right?

Wrong.

Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first ballot. This has been an open secret in the party for years, but it has never really mattered because there has almost always been a clear victor by the time the convention convened.

But not this time. This time, one candidate may enter the convention leading by just a few pledged delegates, and those delegates may find themselves being promised the sun, moon and stars to switch sides.

GOP delegate from Wyoming Ida May Quanset says she has already been contacted by the Clinton campaign.

“They offered to pay my way to Denver if I would switch my vote to Hillary,” she said. “I tried to explain I was a Republican but all this man kept saying was ‘You’re a delegate aren’t you? You’re going to a convention, right?’ He was quite an insistent young man.”

Another GOP delegate to the Minneapolis convention, Holbrooke Buttersnipe III was giving the offer from Hillary’s campaign serious consideration.

“I thought the offer a a free hooker every night at the convention was a little over the top and said so,” Buttersnipe said. “But they may have me if they can come through with the trip to Disneyworld.”

Everyone knows that Hillary Clinton will do almost anything to win. Does going after Republican delegates cross an invisible line?

“Not necessarily,” says Clinton advisor Jan Nutz. “It all depends on what the meaning of ‘delegate’ is. Nothing in the rules saying a delegate is specifically a Democrat, right? We’ll define what a delegate is our way and let Barry define a delegate his way and may the best candidate win.”

Another Clinton advisor speaking on condition of anonymity due to the extreme sensitivity of the matter indicated that Hillary would also seek delegates going to the Socialist Workers Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party Conventions.

“Hell, do they have a convention for one legged midgets? We’ll go after them too. Maybe we can talk to the Shriners.”

The Obama campaign is a little taken aback by this attack on the integrity of the primary process:

“Obviously we’re concerned,” said one aide who asked not to be identified because he’s such a lowly putz he could get fired if the Obama camp found out he was talking to the press. “I honestly don’t know what to say, I’m so taken aback by the whole idea.”

Never underestimate the grasping, voracious, appetite of the Clintons for power…

UPDATE

Alright, so? It was an interesting idea and could still be an option on the convention floor.

I cross posted my “McCain Proving Himself a Canny Campaigner” article over at RedState and former FEC Commissioner and a great friend of bloggers Brad Smith was kind enough to respond to my argument that Obama would be crazy to forgo privately financing his campaign in the general election.

Smith alerted bloggers back in 2005 to some of the more onerous requirements of McCain-Feingold while sounding the alarm over how the FEC might interpret the law. So I was pleased to receive such expert instruction on the ins and outs of campaign finance from someone intimately familiar with the process.

First, Brad left this comment:

The Tax Subsidy May be worth it by Brad Smith

The tax subsidy for the general election, if the candidates take it, is about $85 million. It is a MUCH better deal for the general election than for the primary. That’s why even Bush took the general election subsidy.

Think about it - $85 million, to spend between the end of the GOP convention on September 4 and the election on November 4. That’s a healthy $1.42 million per day. By comparison, through the end of 2007, Obama had been campaigning for over a year and spent about $85 million.

Additionally, because the subsidy comes with no strings attached, there are no fundraising costs. Typically, fundraising costs can eat up about 20% or more of the funds raised. In other words, to get $85 million to spend, you would have to raise more like $100 million. Obama’s total amount raised in all of 2007 was just over $100 million. At this point, he is raising about $1 million a day, but is probably spending about that much, too. Let’s suppose he wraps up the nomination after March 4 (a dubious proposition), he will still need to spend probably $300K a day through the summer. If the Democratic battle extends all the way to the convention, or even June, Obama will likely have to devote all his fundraising to the primary.

Now, you can start raising the general election money now, true, but Obama is still battling Hillary for the nomination, and he’ll need to raise other money to stay on the airwaves between the time he might wrap up the nomination and the Democratic Convention ending on August 28.

And it gets tougher. Even subsidized candidates can raise money for a “GELAC” account, “General Election Legal and Accounting.” This is privately raised but will typically total about $20 million. McCain can certainly raise that for the general. So McCain would have to match that $20-30 million McCain raises for his GELAC, plus the $100 million for campaign expenditures, just to match a subsidized McCain in the General Election.

In short, it is not at all clear that Obama can raise enough to battle for the Dem nomination AND fund his GELAC account AND raise still more for the general in an amount in excess of $100 million, which would be about what he would need to have parity in the general election with a subsidized McCain.

In the end, I don’t think this will matter a whole lot.

Brad Smith
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School

My response:

Thanks for your input, Brad by Rick Moran

But if Obama can raise $30 million a month - mostly from an online donor base - I would think that he would be stupid to limit himself to the $85 million in federal funds that would be available to him after July 1 when he might have $100 million by that date if he chooses to go the private route.

This is assuming he wraps up the nomination in April.

He would then have an additional two months of fund raising before the convention. Is there any reason he couldn’t raise $150 million?

I see your point about overhead but we’re talking money raised in amounts undreamed before. The temptation may just be too great.

But Brad pointed out one salient point I had not considered; monies for the general election couldn’t be spent until after the conventions:

He’s raising a million a day for the primary by Brad Smith

The federal funds for the general are not available to him until the end of the Democratic Convention on August 28. Until then, he has to raise money privately. Assuming, as I calculated, he really needs about $120 million from the end of August to election day to be competitive with a subsidized McCain, he has to raise about $2 million a day, minus anything he can save up for the general election before then.

Meanwhile, before the end of August he must raise money to fund his primary battles and his expenses of staying visible etc. through the convention? Plus he’ll have the hassle of raising funds, taking up time that could go to other events. You’re talking about him probably raising another $200 million total, maybe more, between now and November. I’m not saying he can’t, but I’m not sure he can, either. That’s nearly double what he raised in his first year of campaigning.

Even Bush and Kerry took the subsidy for the general. There’s a first time for everything, but I’m not sure that Obama’s fundraising capacity is really that great.

Another way to look at it is this: Barack has to keep spending now to fight Hillary. So he’s got to be spending more than McCain. Beyond that, between now and the general election, can he outraise McCain by $100 million? He’s not close to that big an advantage for the last year - why can he do it over the next 8 and a half months?

Brad Smith
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School

Brad Smith makes a very compelling case for Obama taking federal funds rather than trying to raise money for the general election outside of those limits.

By the way, Brad is also the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Center for Competitive Politics, a non profit group:

CCP’s mission, through legal briefs, studies, historical and constitutional analyses, and media communication is to educate the public on the actual effects of money in politics, and the results of a more free and competitive electoral process.

I expect most of us who blog will be bookmarking this site for its potential as a vital reference for information on campaign finance.

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River.

This is the story of what could be the greatest day of the greatest American who ever lived. It originally appeared in The American Thinker on February 22, 2005 and was the very first article I wrote for that fine publication.

If any American deserves this singular honor, it is Washington. Quite simply, there would not be a United States of America without him. And even if there were, it would certainly be a much different place.

****************************************************

This article originally appeared in The American Thinker.

The year was 1783. While formal hostilities had virtually ceased between the Crown and the American colonies, peace talks continued to drag on in London. The Congress was broke and in serious debt even though the Articles of Confederation, which required individual states to contribute funds to the Congress, had been approved two years earlier.

The Continental Army was restless. Many of its officers hadn’t been paid in months. Promises made by Congress at the time of their enlistment regarding reimbursement for food and clothing, pensions, and a pledge to give the officers half pay for life were either not being honored or were rumored to be withdrawn. Petitions by groups of officers to Congress asking them to redress these and other grievances either went unanswered or were brushed aside.

As a result of these indignities, a cabal of officers headed up by Colonel Walter Stewart and Major John Armstrong, an aide to George Washington’s chief rival Horatio Gates, were making plans to march to Philadelphia at the head of their men to force Congress to deal with their demands. The implication was clear; if Congress would not address their concerns, the men would enforce their will at the point of a bayonet.

The plotters believed that General Washington would be forced by their actions to become a reluctant participant in a military coup against the government. They believed that by presenting a united front composed of the senior officers in the army, Washington would have no choice but to back them.

To that end, they scheduled a meeting on March 10 of all general and field officers. With the invitation to the meeting, a fiery letter was circulated calling on the soldiers not to disarm in peace and, if the war were to continue, to disband and leave the country to the tender mercies of the British Army.

Washington got wind of the meeting and was deeply troubled. He issued a General Order canceling the gathering and instead, called for another meeting on March 15 ” of representatives of all the regiments to decide how to attain the just and important object in view.” The next day, another letter was circulated by the plotters that implied by issuing the General Order, Washington agreed with their position.

With the army teetering on the edge of revolt and the future of the United States as a republic in the balance, Washington stood before the assembled officers and began to speak. He started by saying he sympathized with their plight, that he had written countless letters to Congress reminding them of their responsibilities to the soldiers, and begged the officers not to take any action that would “lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained.”

At that point, Washington reached into his pocket and withdrew a letter from a Congressman outlining what the government would do to address the soldiers grievances. But something was wrong. Washington started reading the letter but stopped abruptly. Then, with a sense of the moment and flair for the dramatic not equaled until Ronald Reagan became President, Washington slowly reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a pair of spectacles. There were gasps in the room as most of the officers had never seen their beloved General display such a sign of physical weakness in public. As he put the glasses on, Washington said “Gentlemen, you’ll permit me to put on my spectacles, as I have grown not only old but almost blind in the service of my country.”

Witnesses say that the officers almost to a man began to weep. This powerful reminder of the nearly eight years of service together and their shared sacrifices and hardships won the day. The revolt died then and there.

It could be argued that this was the greatest day of the greatest American who ever lived. And the fact that we no longer officially celebrate Washington’s birthday on February 22 as a national holiday is a travesty that makes this and other deeds of George Washington seem like mere footnotes on the pages of history.

In fact, the third Monday in February is still designated as Washington’s Birthday, not “President’s Day” as it has come to be known. As Matthew Spaulding of the Heritage Foundation points out, several times, legislators have introduced legislation to direct all federal government entities to refer to the holiday as George Washington’s Birthday but to no avail. President Bush could issue an executive order to that effect but has failed to do so.

This doesn’t address the issue of celebrating February 22-no matter what day of the week it falls on-as a national holiday. The argument that no other American is so honored just doesn’t hold water. The fact is, there wouldn’t be any other Americans to honor if it weren’t for the character, the purposefulness, and the determination of George Washington.

For long stretches during the Revolution, Washington was the government; the only recognizable entity for people to rally around. Couple that with Washington’s superhuman efforts in molding and shaping the Presidency and then exhibiting the sublime understanding to step down after two terms to cement the foundation of the new republic to the rule of law and not of men, and you have a strong case to make an exception to the rule of honoring individual Americans.

Currently, Martin Luther King is the only individual American who is honored with his own holiday. And the Fourth of July and Veterans Day are the only federal holidays covered under the Monday Holiday Law passed in 1968 that are celebrated on the day of the week regardless of whether or not it falls on a Monday (Thanksgiving’s date changes yearly. Christmas and New Years day may be celebrated on either Friday or Monday depending on what day of the week they fall on in a given year). Designating February 22 as a national holiday to celebrate the life of someone called “the indispensable man” of the American founding by his outstanding biographer James Thomas Flexner would seem to be fitting and proper.

We owe so much to Washington that it seems almost trivial to deny him this singular honor.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is pulling out of Wisconsin a day early according to press reports:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has scaled back her Wisconsin campaign schedule by a full day, and is now planning to leave the state after Monday morning instead of Tuesday morning.

The move suggests the campaign does not think it can overtake rival Barack Obama here. Obama has already campaigned in the state Tuesday night, Wednesday, Friday, and today. He also has single events planned for Sunday (Kaukauna) and Monday (Beloit).

While the two have exchanged hard-hitting TV ads here, Obama began airing ads a week earlier and has spent much more on TV.

Today is Clinton’s first day of campaigning in the state, with an event in Kenosha and a state party dinner in Milwaukee, where Obama also will appear. Clinton will campaign Sunday in De Pere, Wausau and Madison, and is expected to do one event in the state Monday morning before leaving.

All the polls that have come out in the last week show Clinton within 4-5 points of Obama. Why then, is she pulling up stakes and abandoning the state when she’s within striking distance?

Obama has won the last 8 primaries by double digits - the last three by margins of 3-1 and 4-1. Perhaps Clinton’s internal polling is showing another double digit disaster looming and rather than waste resources on a lost cause like Wisconsin, better to spend time and money in Ohio and Texas where she has put her campaign out on a limb by saying she needs to win both states to stay viable.

If, as expected, she loses Wisconsin - and loses big - she will have two weeks to watch Obama work his magic in Texas and Ohio. She will be outspent and outgunned everywhere by an Obama organization that suddenly can do no wrong. It is very possible that her own double digit poll leads in both states will vanish and by March 4 Hillary Clinton will be fighting for her political life.

Can she hold off this juggernaut anywhere? It seems that as each succeeding contest moves to the fore in the Democratic race, Obama’s numbers skyrocket and hers plummets. It’s as if once voters start to concentrate on a race, they abandon Hillary like yesterday’s stale donuts and attach themselves to Obama’s crusade.

Frankly, unless she can level the playing field, she’s toast. And by level the field I mean she has to find a way to bring Obama’s campaign back down to earth from that elevated, ethereal plane it currently occupies - somewhere between a religious movement and a revolutionary army.

Otherwise, the same thing will happen in Texas and Ohio that has happened in Wisconsin and elsewhere; Obama will play do his pied piper thing and the Democrats in those states will follow him to the polls.

How do you defeat a political phenomenon? If you find out, you better tell Hillary quickly because she’ s running out of states - and time.

One of the biggest concerns going into the general election for Republicans has to be the massive discrepancy between the amount of money raised by Democratic candidates in the primaries - especially Barack Obama - and the amounts raised by the GOP.

For John McCain who was broke just a few short months ago, this is a matter of life and death. With a massive donor base that Obama will be able to tap anew for the general election campaign, it is quite possible that the Illinois senator would be able to double the amount raised by McCain over the course of the race. Obama corralled more than 135,000 individual donors alone in 2008 so far. This puts him well over 200,000 contributors he can call on.

How then, can McCain neutralize this huge advantage? It seems that back when McCain was a frontrunner in early 2007, he made a pledge to accept federal financing for the general election if the Democratic candidate did the same. Apparently, Barack Obama took him up on that challenge at the time. Here’s the New York Times from 3/2/07:

Senator John McCain joined Senator Barack Obama on Thursday in promising to accept a novel fund-raising truce if each man wins his party’s presidential nomination.

“Should John McCain win the Republican nomination, we will agree to accept public financing in the general election, if the Democratic nominee agrees to do the same,” Mr. Nelson [then McCain’s campaign manager] said.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Bill Burton, said, “We hope that each of the Republican candidates pledges to do the same.”

Mr. Burton added that if nominated Mr. Obama would “aggressively pursue an agreement” with whoever was his opponent.

Sounds cut and dried, doesn’t it? If McCain and Obama square off in the general election, both will take public financing, right?

Not so fast, says the Agent of Change in politics:

Obama’s campaign is backing away from suggestions that the Illinois senator would publicly finance his campaign in the general election, if he’s the nominee, and referring to public financing as an “option” — not as the “pledge” McCain’s campaign claims Obama made.

[snip]

I asked Burton again today if this was a “pledge,” and he repeated that it’s an “option.”

“The only reason this is an option is because we pursued the decision from the FEC. As the Clinton campaign continues to remind you, Obama is not the nominee, but this is a question we will address when he is,” he said in response to Davis’ remark.

For McCain, this has left an opening that you can drive a truck through. And he has been savaging Obama about breaking his “pledge” all week:

Hammering Senator Barack Obama for a fourth straight day, Senator John McCain said here on Friday that he expects Senator Obama to abide by his pledge use public financing for his general election if Mr. McCain does so as well.

“It was very clear to me that Senator Obama had agreed to having public financing of the general election campaign if I did the same thing,” he said after a town hall meeting here. “I made the commitment to the American people that if I was the nominee of my party, I would go the route of public financing. I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well.”

Asked if he would use public financing even if Mr. Obama did not, he said: “If Senator Obama goes back on his commitment to the American people, then obviously we have to rethink our position. Our whole agreement was we would take public financing if he made that commitment as well. And he signed a piece of paper, I’m told, that made that commitment.”

Predictably, there are some on the left who have hit the ceiling and are beside themselves that Obama would give up an election winning advantage:

For the first time ever, the Democratic party is outraising the Republican party. The party and its candidate will have the resources to compete on a huge playing field, not just shoring up its blue state base and courting voters in swing states, but there will also be the ability to truly compete in those red states the GOP is holding on to by a thread.

This election could be the one that knocks back conservatism for ten years to a generation.

Don’t give up that advantage. This is the equivalent of the opposing coach asking the Bulls to bench Michael Jordan in his prime.

Kos decided to do a little whistling past the graveyard:

Look, no one gives a shit if Obama takes public financing or not. The Edwards campaign thought they’d get brownie points for opting in during the primary, and other than me criticizing them for it, they heard crickets. And that was among Democrats, who supposedly care about this sort of thing.

This is such a process story with zero relevance to the public that there’s no benefit to be gained by taking public financing — unless you can’t raise it as fast as your opponent. Then you do whatever you can to try and goad your opponent to join you by opting in.

A “process story?” He’s kidding himself. This attack hits Obama where it hurts the most - the idea that he’s a different kind of politician, an “Agent of Change.” How can Obama credibly make those claims if he’s playing the old game of spending massive amounts of money to get elected. People won’t care where it comes from. They’ll only see that Obama would be raising an ungodly sum of money - playing politics the old fashioned way.

McCain’s attacks are well aimed and on target. It will be interesting to see how Obama plays this. While he has not made a formal “pledge” to forgo federal financing, McCain still has him over a barrel because Obama was agreeable to the idea of public financing. Obama is trapped by his own supporter’s ideal of the candidate. To this point, he has successfully wrapped himself in a cloak of unquestioned integrity - even if living up to that standard hurts him politically. This is what his supporters expect. To do anything less will assist in their disillusionment.

And that must be McCain’s number one priority; level the race by bringing Obama back down to an earthly plane. McCain cannot win if on election day, Obama is seen as some kind of civic messiah. He must be exposed for the inexperienced, shallow thinking, ultra-liberal politician that he is.

Is there anything short of capitulation for Obama? Allah has his options:

1. Abide by the pledge and give up that moneybomb advantage. Not a chance.

2. Deny that he ever “pledged” to take public funds and weasel out of the deal. Possible.

3. Offer McCain an alternative deal which he’ll never accept because it plays too much to Obama’s advantages. See the “$150 contribution” proposal in LJ’s second post.

4. Accept the deal and shunt the moneybombs off onto 527s:

As the two campaigns dueled, people on both sides said it was possible that they would agree to accept public financing and then simply have each political party spend unlimited amounts on behalf of its candidate, including money for voter mobilization efforts and television commercials, as allowed by law.

5. Admit that he “pledged” but has to break his pledge now because he’s got a movement thing going that people want to be part of and, goshdarnit, it wouldn’t be fair to them to deny them the fun of donating. Weak, but still preferable to number one.

I think option #2 is really his only option. Whatever hit he takes politically pales in comparison to the advantage he will get by having all that Democratic cash to spend. Where McCain will be limited in going after targets of opportunity like Pennsylvania and perhaps even California, Obama, if he is fully funded, will be able to literally run a 50 state campaign. He and the various Soros-funded 527’s will bury McCain under an avalanche of ads as well as organizing a GOTV operation that the GOP will be unable to match.

Still, this line of attack by McCain proves that he’s a canny campaigner, making the most of what’s available to him in order to score political points. It’s never too early and McCain getting a head start on trying out some themes for his campaign shows that he may surprise some people with the aggressiveness of his campaign.

I hate days like this. There are a lot of things I’d like to write about but really don’t have anything to add to the blogospheric cacophony. Not that I’m necessarily above stealing from other bloggers. But do you really want to read your umpteenth post for the day on how Hillary is finished (or not), or Obama is a dangerous liberal cult figure (or not), or McCain is a lying sack of turd blossoms who will destroy the Republican party (or he’s worse than that).

I know I left The Huckster off that list but is anyone writing about him at all?

Then I could have blogged about the FISA fiasco. But it just seems of late I’m suffering from “Outrage Fatigue” (a term I take pride in coining. Well…if not coining the phrase I certainly popularized it. Um…perhaps not popularized, more like “used it to its best effect.”) Try as I might, I found it hard to rant and rail against liberals for their incredibly stupid, delibertately dishonest caterwauling about interrupting the Tom Lantos memorial service with a procedural motion on FISA when it was the Speaker’s admitted fault that the motion was unavoidable under the rules and that a scheduling snafu had occurred to boot.

Did that stop the “Republicans polticize the dead” crowd from throwing a tantrum worthy of any two year old? Of course not. And to make the criticism ascend to the level of sublime irony, it seems our lefty friends forget that Google has gone public and is actually making a little money now. If I typed in the name “Paul Wellstone” and added “Memorial Service” to the search, you would come across a story so profoundly disturbing that you would be forgiven for wretching while reading it.

It seems the Democrats wanted to honor the late great Senator from Minnesota who tragically died in a plane crash a few days before the 2002 election with a “memorial service.” I put the event in quotes because whatever Democrats tried to call it, it became a hot house political rally for the left. Republican friends of Wellstone - and there were many who respected his honesty, integrity, and sincere desire to take others views into account - found themselves the target of political barbs. The White House offered to send the Vice President of the United States - he was disinvited. One speaker went so far as to demand that Norm Coleman exit the race and allow a Democrat to win.

I guess when liberals politicize a memorial service, it’s “speaking truth to power” and is perfectly acceptable. Like when Jimmy Carter alluded to government spying on Martin Luther King at Coretta King’s funeral - a veiled reference to the wiretapping controversies of the day. And Joseph Lowrey, at the same memorial service, excoriated President Bush for the Iraq War.

There have been other examples of the left using dead people like political clubs. Accusing the GOP of doing so when a simple reading of the rules would have given the lie to that meme propelled the left wingosphere beyond contempt and into the stratosphere of malicious mischief.

You can see my dilemma. Unless you can summon the appropriate amount of outrage, simply listing the transgressions of liberals for exactly that which they are taking the right to task becomes an exercise in boredom killing. Everyone knows that lefties are a bunch of hypocritical bastards with the morals of an alley cat and the brains of a marmoset. How many times can you say that and remain interesting?

There were other topics I could have written about today. Pakistan is set to elect a parliament on Monday. Musharraf has been making deals with al-Qaeda and the Taliban so quickly, he’s running out of white flags to run up Pakistani flag poles. Perhaps in spite of this, he is easily the most unpopular man in Pakistan. He envies George Bush’s approval numbers.

And yet, given that he has forbidden much international monitoring of the election, it is probable he will try to monkey with the results. He will almost certainly not try to engineer a victory for his party but rather deny the opposition a 2/3 majority which would result in his immediate and well deserved retirement. The US should condemn this election before it happens just to get a head start on the mayhem that will probably follow.

Kenya has been in the news recently as well. Not only is Obama’s good buddy Raila Odinga of the Luo tribe still winking at the violence being carried out by his supporters against the corrupt, election stealing government of President Kibaki and his Kikuyu tribe, but it now appears that the Germans of all people are offering Kenyans the opportunity to use their own power sharing agreement as the basis for a rapproachment.

I know there’s some really bad international relations joke in there but I can’t find it at the moment.

Other topics I could have written about were Lebanon (tipping toward civil war), Afghanistan (NATO is going to its grave with a whimper), Iraq (things aren’t as good or as bad as people are saying), GOP election prospects (where?), and the horrific tragedy at Northern Illinois University (talk about politicizing dead people…).

Any one of these topics I could have turned into one of my brilliant, penetrating, incisive essays, read by millions, and influencing the movers and shakers in government, bending them to my iron will.

But telling the world what to do gets boring sometimes so I’ll just sit here and shut up for the time being. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find something interesting to write about…