I woke up this morning to this pro-Obama video playing on MTV.  It is a great and inspiring song by Big Boi and Mary J Blige.  It touches on everything from high gas prices, unemployment, healthcare, and the Iraq war.  Video and Lyrics below the fold

I don't know if this qualifies as substantive enough to diary about, but I just thought I'd share some anti-Obama sentiments I've been hearing from some very nice women.  I frequent a forum on a website for women who are trying to conceive.  I'd noticed over the last couple of months that these are some of the most caring and compassionate women you could hope to come across.  Everyone is always there for each other with supportive comments, helpful tips and real empathy for the pain of infertility and loss.  You get a real sense of sisterhood and community with these women.

I got inspiration from one of the comment that I found on politicalwire about super rich confused McCain not remembering how many houses he owns. I modified it to this new version of "There are some things that money can't buy" ad.

$100 for a makeover to look young

$520 for black leather Ferragamo Italian shoes

$28,500 in campaign donations from Hess Oil executives after changing mind to allow oil drilling

$50,000 for speechwriter who can attack 'hope'

$58,000 per year of taxpayers money in disability payments

$200,000 expense on "household staff" in 2007

$300,000 from Keating Five

continued after the fold..

Now that the presidential debates have been finalized, it might be worthwhile to remind the moderators (Lehrer, Brokaw, Schieffer) that they need to do a little bit more than toss up conservative softballs like Rick Warren.  (Indeed, thinking back on the Faith Forum, Warren looked a whole lot more like an overweight softball pitcher, beer in hand, gently leaning forward to underhand those babies McCain's way, than he did like a serious interviewer.)

I thought it might be useful to look back at Tim Russert's series of one-on-one interviews conducted with the candidates in the pre-primary season.

What will you drink to toast the end of the Bush era? Will it be something to honor the 43rd President, or are you just looking forward to 44?  Will it be something from Texas, which Bush calls home, or Connecticut, where he was really raised?  Maybe a nice French champagne, a bit of a poke in his eye?  Or do you prefer Italian prosecco, since they supported the "War on Terror"?  Whatever it is, get ready to lift a glass and toast the end of an era that America will never forget.

This diary is brought to you by my own site, 2 Bottles per Day, and Wine Blogging Wednesday, a cooperative venture of the wine blogging community. Wine bloggers, meet political bloggers.  Political bloggers, meet the wine people.  And please come back to see the results of the first WBW Special Release, when the world's wine bloggers review their choice for January 20, 2009.

Wine Bloggers around the country and around the world will post their choices on Wednesday, September 3, during the Republican National Convention. I will post a compendium of them here, but hope you will visit all the sites to see what everybody was drinking.

I will put my judgement of foreign policy over the last five years over John McCain anytime."

"Of course he (McCain) was talking about my patriotism, he is trying to back track from yesterday."

"What kind of values are those , to make stuff up about people."

They (the Republicans) aren't listening to Maliki telling us we need to leave."

Those quotes were from Barack Obama today in good old Martinville, Virginia today.

The ONSLAUGHT IS ON:John McCain, More of the Same

There's been an awful lot of hay thrown around over McCain's comment at last weekend's Saddleback Forum that a $5 million income is what it would take to be classed as rich.  Today, however, Magoo showed the comment was no mistake, but in fact was part of his long-term strategy to discredit Obama.

Look at his campaign's response to Obama's attack ad on the house issue:

Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?

More on the flip...

Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, or Evan Bayh?

Oh, you silly country rubes. There is not an audacious name in that bunch.

On Saturday, Barack Obama will return to the initial scene of his crimes against humanity with his vice presidential choice in tow.

That choice?

With the current hullabaloo over how many houses McCain owns and the $5 million in income makes you rich idiocy (I'd provide links to diaries, but seriously, I couldn't link to them all in the diary character limit!), it is time to push harder on the idea that McCain is a richie rich guy who is out of touch.  

One thing is to start pushing Cindy McCain's refusal to release her taxes again.  With the McCain camp attacking Obama over making $4 million last year, it's time to find out how much the McCain family actually earns every year.  It's a winner because if she refuses they have something to hide, and if she releases them we get a lot of info we didn't have before.

Another question to ask is how many servants McCain has.  Does he have butlers, drivers, gardeners, maids, etc.  How much does he spend every year on servants to wait in empty houses in case he arrives?  Every Democratic talking head should be pushing this question to get it in folks' minds.

Just got the text!

Picked this up off Drudge Report/Politico/The Crypt:

In an unusual move, Hillary Clinton's staff is creating a 40-member "whip team" at the Denver Democratic convention to ensure that her supporters don't engage in embarrassing anti-Obama demonstrations during the floor vote on her nomination, according to people familiar with the planning.

The team, which is being organized by longtime Clinton staffer Craig Smith, is working in conjunction with Obama's floor organizers to help foster the image of a unified front during a roll-call process Clinton herself has described as an emotional "catharsis" for her disappointed supporters.

"If people get down there on the floor and want to start blowing kazoos and making a scene we want to make sure we've got people who stand in front of them with Obama signs," said a person involved in the planning.

A little more below.

Title flagrantly stolen from buhdydharma. :)

Like many in the blogosphere, I too occasionally worry about Obama's strategy. However, I've spent the last few weeks reminding myself of how it has played out in the long term, and I think the strategy has been clear, consistent, and effective.

It's all about Washington, not Obama. Obama is the finger that the people use to poke Washington in the eye. Clinton was in many ways the ultimate manifestation of Washington, in the ways she was connected, and who her most vehement supporters were. So Obama didn't need to attack, he just needed to continue defining the debate in terms of "change". As long as that was the framing, he was pretty sure to win. The same applies to November. More elaboration in the body.

Everyone knows what John McCain did in a prison camp in Vietnam.  And everyone knows that because he has an (R) by his name, it is off-limits to question his military service (that only works if you have purple hearts and a D by your name).  But Obama doesn't have to bring it up everytime he talks about him.  In fact, he shouldn't.  No progressive should.

This morning I was walking to work and reading the news on my phone when I came acrossed an article where Obama was hitting McCain on the economy.  I was excited to see the MSM picking up a major, substantive criticism of McCain.  But I was distressed by the quote from Obama.  He prefaced his criticism with "John McCain has served our country, no one questions....blah blah blah."

From today's Beyond Chron.

It’s déjà vu all over again.  We’re in August of a presidential election year, and all of a sudden progressives are freaking out by saying: “I think [insert Republican candidate here] is going to win.”  But it’s important to keep things in perspective, and stop the same usual panicking that is only self-defeating.  John McCain may have inched up in the polls, but Barack Obama still has a lead.  And this movement (which has only been a few points) is the product of a string of McCain attacks that the Obama campaign did not respond to until now.  More importantly, McCain cannot keep this going because he’s outspending Obama in the “swing states” – despite raising less money.  Meanwhile, Obama is waging a 50-State strategy that gives him a far superior ground game – giving him more than one pathway to victory, and also more room for error.  If anything, the Obama campaign is brilliant to let McCain do this now while most voters are still not paying attention.  After the Democratic Convention next week, McCain will have run out of options.

When I went to Pennsylvania to canvas for Obama before the primary, Tim Kaine spoke to us at the Wilkes-Barre headquarters.  I had very much liked his speech in response to Bush's 2006 SOTUS, in which he laid out a better way for our future, and he did not disappoint that morning.  He had us all fired up to go out and brave the rural Pennsy electorate.

Governor Kaine is a very intelligent and engaging man.  He is not boring.  He does not have baggage.  He has run a state.  He has not had to cast votes in Congress that the Republican spin machine can cast in a bad light.  He, too, went to Harvard, which does not have a weird, God help us, Skull and Crossbones secret society, but has a positive, uplifting open atmosphere that emphasizes learning and solutions, not the macabre.  Heaven knows, we've had enough of secrecy and death under this administration, and we are gasping for a breath of fresh air and change.

In an interview to be published in The New York Times this Sunday, Rep. Dennis Kusinich continues to  make the case for impeachment – especially amid the Russia/Georgia crisis – as well as arguing for Democrats to come together to back Obama.

Asked why he continues calling for impeachment, Kucinich responds, "This president is capable of taking us into war, in October, on the eve of an election, to try to change the outcome of the election...

"The events in Georgia are a premonition...of an attack on Iran.  When Georgia moved against South Ossetia as the Olympics are starting, the Bush administration begins its own Olympics – the war Olympics."

"It's seven."

"Hmm."

Three words lay the McMaverick low.

Successful national campaigns for the presidency combine extremely effective media and outstanding ground efforts--no matter how loathsome and low-road they might be.  And, since the GOP is the only party I know of that's won a national election in this country in the past 11-1/2 years, I am referring to the GOP'ers penchant for putting the two major pieces of this winning strategy together more effectively than us Dems during this era, as well.

With the Rethugs, winning is the only thing. With the Dems over the last few years...not so much.

However, a new style of broadcast ad buying is being quietly implemented by Rove & Co.  this cycle. It's right from the pages of an Orwell novel. It's mind-boggling.