Well, I figured now's as good a time as any to do an updated electoral college outlook.  In my last update, I figured that Barack Obama can count on at least 257 electoral votes to 151 for John McCain.  How much things can change in a matter of weeks.  How bad is it for McCain?  By my rather unscientific analysis, the best he can hope for is a bare majority of electoral votes.

It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

unless, of course,
the Obama campaign knows
that its internet fundraising operation is
so wholly dependent on the felt personal connection
to the candidate and his brand, that even he himself
cannot persuade his own donors to give to the DNC instead.

Right now, the DNC needs the money.   It has much less money than the RNC and slighlty less money that it needs to produce the Democratic National Convention, since the Denver Host Committee fell $11M short of its pledged obligation.

It is generally presumed that Obama renounced public financing because  he and his internet-based fundrasing machine  can raise so very much more (from small donors, mostly) than the  $84M he would have gotten from the government.   BUT WHY did he think that that limit would in ANY way limit that fundraising??
It simply wouldn't have: it would at best have required those contributions to be re-directed.

Senator Obama, your words;

" Your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples' attention on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true -- not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.

More after the bump

The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. It is the birthday of modern democracy--a day enabled by the brave patriots of days gone by. I like to see Old Glory  waiving on the Fourth of July, I like potato salad, hamburgers, the season's first corn, American-made fireworks, and apple pie on the Fourth of July. I get in the spirit by going to the farmer's market and the grocery store. Yesterday, John McCain got into the spirit of the Fourth of July by visiting Mexico, pledging to export American jobs and promising to send $400 million of our tax money to the Mexican government.

The mainstream media are attacking Barack Obama's Iraq policy as a huge flip-flop shift.  But Obama's current stance of Iraq is not a flip-flop.  At most, it is just a policy refinement.  People should keep in mind that John McCain still keeps Charlie Black at the top echelon of his campaign.    

Happy Fourth of July... wouldn't it be nice if we had two candidate who were respectful and recognize each other as Patriotic Americans?  Unfortunately, we have one candidate who is honorable and secure enough to recognize his opponent's Patriotism, and conversely we have another candidite who is a petulant asshole... case in point.

John McCain is saying that Barack Obama is not patriotic. A few days ago, when asked if he questioned Obama's patriotism, McCain did not answer the question.

And now, in today's Parade magazine, McCain has an essay on patriotism:

Patriotism is deeper than its symbolic expressions, than sentiments about place and kinship that move us to hold our hands over our hearts during the national anthem. It is putting the country first, before party or personal ambition, before anything.

Context below the jump.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has finally produced a column worth reading in the current election cycle.  In his opinion piece entitled "Rove's Third Term", Mr. Krugman has finally converted to the reality that electing a Democratic President is more important than his belief that Hillary would be the best candidate.

His column assails the crap argument that Gen. Wesley Clark's comments were in any way an attack on Sen. McCain's honorable service to our country.

Read on for snippets and analysis...

Many are declaring that they are independents this year, most as a protest because (gasp) a black man defeated their candidate who happened to be the first woman presidential candidate, at least one for a major party. (If anyone else had been their candidate there would be cries of racism but hey these so called Democrats are not bigots, they would never stoop to racist remarks, but supporting a Black man for President is going a bit to far).

How do these so called declarations of independence compare to that one 221 years ago?

Oh, sure, everyone here caught that during the week, Sen. McCain put one of the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" on his campaign conference call to attack Gen. Wesley Clark.  We all caught the irony and the outrage. But you may not have noticed that this guy, George "Bud" Day, isn't just any old SBVFT participant.

I've decided to conduct a sort of social experiment, right here at DKos.
It goes something like this:
The Pro-Life movement encompasses much more than anti-abortion legislation. Let's give conservatives everything they want with regards to the Pro-Life agenda and see what becomes of America.
We'll end abortion, support the growth of families, limit the spread of disease, and aid America in a long needed return to Family Values. Sound good conservatives? Come with me on this little journey and see just how good the Pro Life agenda will be for America.
What if we followed Pro-life principles to their logical end? What sort of society would we have? A free democracy, where  America's citizens could be free to fall in love with and marry whoever they choose? Or, would have something else? come with me on this sociological journey. You'll be surprised to see where we end up.

One problem here, while McCain likes to use this line and even features it in a new television ad in which he insinuates Barack Obama is unamerican, McCain allowed himself to be captured by the North Vietnamese and spent five years in a prison camp.

When they wanted to release him, he refused and continued to surrender himself to the enemy.

I am up to here with the rending of garments at this site.  You've heard it before.  You'll hear it again.  Now, I'm going to bed and when I get up tomorrow on THE FOURTH OF JULY ...  I want us to talk about anything else.  Anything.  Obama's VEEP choices?  Marion Hossa going to the Red Wings?  Ways to use less fossil fuels?  Will it rain again and block out the fireworks?

Please.  But, let me leave you with one thought.  First, enjoy this commentary by John McCain on FISA.  I tried to transcribe it from YouTube but there was a lot of rambling and incoherent muttering that I couldn't make out.  He was pretty hot and could hardly keep himself together, you see.  Here it is (below).

This is a truly inspired idea by Phyl!  Please show Wes some love and support by going to the blog post below (click on the headline of the post) , contributing any amount, and posting your contributions to this blog.  If you don’t have a CCN account, or don’t know how to post it, just send me your Transaction ID#, the date, Time, Payment amount (you can use "$xx.xx" instead of the amount if you want), and your first name/fullname/blogname, and I’ll happily post it for you:

There is something disconcerting about John McCain and his relationships with the women that he is married to.  John McCain treats Cindy McCain as invisible.  It’s not that I feel sympathy for Cindy McCain, it’s that it more a sign of what kind of man John McCain is that matters to me.  If you watch John McCain and Cindy McCain, he never holds her hand as they are walking side by side, no gentlemanly attention whatsoever. In this youtube video, he accidently shakes her hand and there is no response on his part for his mistake.  I’m not even going to go into the time he called her a c**t!

http://www.youtube.com/...

Once on a charter fishing boat off Miami, I noticed a discreet sign on the topdeck:

Marriages performed by the Captain are valid only for the duration of the voyage.

I assume the same protocol holds true for a campaign bus such as the "Straight Talk Express." All the journalists who have fallen in love with John McCain — to the point of being blinded to his endearing faults, contradictions, blunders, and closet Bushism — will eventually go back to their wives, and husbands, but mostly wives.

He couldn't wait more than a day to insult them. Just a day. A mere 24 hours. There was evening and there was morning, a Thurs day.

Who did McCain insult? Why, the faithful. The party faithful. The faith-full of the party. On the Wednes day, the news was revealed that a number of Christian Conservatives came out for McCain. Er, uh, I mean, they expressed their support for McCain's candidacy. They wavered, they weighed the choice, they prayed for guidance, and then they rose up with one accord to support John McCain.

How does McCain respond to their support? He makes changes to his campaign staff, and then he has the gall to speak of it as part of "a natural evolution." Evolution!

Oh, the insult of it all.  Why could he not speak of his plans as something he intelligently designed? Why? Why?

McCain wants to make this election about judgment and trust. He has called into question Obama’s trustworthiness.  McCain claims that he will "keep his word" to Americans and declares himself a person we "can trust."

Of course this is more double talk by McCain, who reminds us every day about his similarities with George Bush.