Why Ann Kirkpatrick is the right person for the U.S. Senate

Back in early 2008,  Ann Kirkpatrick was doing an event in Winslow as she was running in a primary for what would eventually become a successful run to represent the first district of Arizona in the United States Congress.  Our incumbent Congressman, Rick Renzi (now an inmate at the Federal Correctional Facility in Morgantown, West Virginia) had declined to seek re-election after being indicted on multiple counts of racketeering, money laundering and extortion.  People wanted a change, and Ann promised to deliver it.


I'd met Ann and known about Ann a long time before that, which is why I had endorsed her on this blog the day she announced for Congress, and so I felt confident making a promise.  As the event wrapped up, I told her, "I've been making one promise on your behalf."  She got a worried look on her face, because Ann Kirkpatrick is very careful about not making promises unless she is confident she can keep them.  "I've been telling people," I went on, "that you will NEVER end up on the front page of the Arizona Republic after being indicted for money laundering and extortion."  Ann looked relieved.  "That promise," she said, "you can keep on making."

And I did.  That's because Ann Kirkpatrick is personally very honest and isn't interested in being in Congress (or now the Senate) for herself.  As I have told people, "Ann Kirkpatrick doesn't go to Washington because she loves Washington.  Ann goes to Washington because she loves Arizona."

The first thing she did was clean up the office after Rick Renzi and restore the integrity and honor that we as taxpayers and Americans have a right to expect.

Then she got to work.  There is very little of her district that Ann Kirkpatrick has not visited or seen personally with her own eyes.  That is a remarkable achievement, because the district is almost half the total land area of the state of Arizona, and is bigger than a lot of eastern states.  She doesn't believe in just coming out during campaign season or advertising on the airwaves while staying in Washington, as some people do.  One of her opponents complained about campaigning in the district a few years ago by saying he had run up 50,000 miles on his car.  Those of us who live here had to chuckle, since if there is one advance in automobiles where the market has responded to the kind of people who live in rural Arizona, it was to start making cars with a six figure odometer.  I don't know what Ann's odometer reads but I'm sure she wears out cars like she wears out her well-documented boots-- by using them for what they were made for.

But she hasn't gone on all those road trips to small towns just to visit them.  Though she does go to visit and hear from residents, there is also sometimes a specific need that she is able to address.  For example, in our area, back in 2010 there was a paper mill near Snowflake that was about to be shut down due to a problem with so-called 'black liquor,' a byproduct that was costing the mill so much that they would be unable to stay open.  Ann went there personally and negotiated a compromise that helped keep the mill open for another two years.  Unfortunately Ann lost the 2010 election (the only election she has lost) and before she won again in 2012, the paper mill ran into some other problems and closed, as congressman Gosar, who was then representing the district did nothing to try and save it.  Several hundred jobs were lost as a result (and out here good jobs are hard to come by.)    Ann has been able to help work towards a more positive outcome in Winslow, where the town is protected by a levee that prevents catastrophic flooding.  The levee was built by the corps of engineers decades ago, but funding for maintenance was not a priority for our members of Congress, until Ann was elected.  She has gotten some funding to begin needed repairs and maintenance on the levee.  When communities she represents need it, Ann is there. She doesn't just fly over it in a helicopter or send somebody to represent her office, she goes and is there to talk to people directly and then goes back to her office and works on getting them the aid they need.

Ann Kirkpatrick inspecting flood damage near Black Canyon City in 2010.


Ann's voting record has gotten her an earful at times from both the left and the right, but mostly from those who don't see the consistency in it.  Speaking from the left side of the spectrum, I certainly understand progressives who are frustrated at for example, Ann's vote against Cap-and-Trade or her steadfast defense of coal burning power plants in northern Arizona. (disclaimer: I should note, to be sure, that I live about two miles from the Cholla Plant;  I don't work there but a lot of my friends and neighbors do.)  Ann sent a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson shortly after being elected back into Congress in 2012 expressing concern over the jobs at the plants and letting her know that she was against shutting them down. The power plants are a mainstay of the economy in an area where unemployment is still high and a lot of the jobs that do exist don't pay well enough to support a family on.  So she favors finding ways to keep the plants here while still addressing environmental concerns, and she has worked as much as she can behind the scenes to save the jobs in the plants.  Similarly, many on the left have disagreed with Ann for working on opening a copper mine in Globe with Republican congressman Paul Gosar (who incidentally defeated her in 2010 before jumping into a different district-- but Ann realizes that her job is too important to hold a personal grudge, something that already marks her as being tempermentally an improvement over John McCain, who notoriously holds grudges for years.)   But the mine in Globe would provide over a thousand jobs in a community that has suffered steep declines in employment, so Ann while recognizing the opposition to it, supports the mine.


It is, however a mistake to think that congresswoman Kirkpatrick is a James Watt clone who doesn't care about the environment.  She cares about it a great deal and has worked on legislation to protect the Red Rocks near Sedona and has strongly opposed uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.  In her travels she has visited the Navajo reservation many times, a place where the few surface water supplies that might have been available have mostly been polluted, and people have been getting sick and dying, from the legacy of uranium mining during the 1950's through the 1980's. The Navajo Nation has banned any more uranium mining as a result, and Ann has supported plans to keep it out of the neighboring national park and surrounding areas.


On the right, aside from the usual boilerplate claim that Ann is a 'liberal' or 'beholden to the Obama administration' that Republicans make against any Democrat in a swing state (claims that are frankly silly in light of her moderate record and willingness to take on the Obama administration on issues like the power plants)  for the most part the criticism is directed at her 2010 vote for the Affordable Care Act and her continuing to defend it after returning to Congress following the 2012 election.  But her support for the Affordable Care Act was for a very straightforward reason and it is the same reason she has prioritized supporting jobs. When she voted for it, 21% of the people in Congressional District 1 (with slightly different lines than it has today) had no health insurance.  This was one of the highest figures in the country. Rural hospitals were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy because of all the uninsured patients flooding into emergency rooms.


In addition, Ann worked to get permanent funding for the Indian Health Service (IHS) included in the ACA before she would vote for it.  We have forgotten that today, but it used to be that IHS funding was sort of like the Medicare 'Doc Fix' or the 'Alternative Minimum Tax' (AMT) fix that was finally really fixed during the 'fiscal cliff' negotiation --a political football Congress had to fight over every year before they'd pass a short term fix. Ann insisted on and got a permanent 'fix' so Congress has one less political football to fight over.


Similarly, she supported the Stimulus, not only because of the dire national emergency we were facing at the time (in case anyone forgot we were losing nearly a million jobs every month and the economy was headed straight to hell) but also because of the glaring need for infrastructure in a broad spread out district.  This is a huge district with a lot of underpopulated areas so building and maintaining infrastructure is very important here.   In my morning delivery job I drive over a bridge south of Joseph City that was rebuilt a few years ago with Stimulus funds.  The old bridge was rickety and after the I-35 and I-5 bridge collapses  caused by past neglect of infrastructure (in no small part thanks to John McCain's crusade against dreaded 'pork')  I really wondered a few times whether they would even notice if that one fell into the Little Colorado River.  But fortunately, because of the Stimulus and Ann Kirkpatrick and other members of Congress who were willing to stand up and vote for it because it was the right thing to do, I can breathe a little easier in the morning when I drive across that bridge.


Ann did however oppose the release of some TARP funds.  Fundamentally, it did not help people who needed help. Bank bailout funds were not of much use to people in Arizona who were losing their homes.


And that defines the consistency in Ann Kirkpatrick's positions.  IN EVERY CASE the defining  question has been a simple one:  What most benefits her constituents.  In a district as large and diverse as CD-1 that is not always an easy question to answer, but it has defined Ann's concerns and her realization that she works for us, not the other way around.  


Let me summarize that again:  Ann Kirkpatrick in the end makes her decisions not based on what the Obama administration wants, or because of what some Washington lobbyist wants, or what some Super PAC wants, or what the news media wants, or what some pollster is telling her will be popular.  She makes her decisions based on one thing only:  What will make the most positive difference in the lives of the people she represents.


Ann also understands a very important principle that few in Washington seem to these days. This is the principle that the voters have sent her there to solve real problems and expect people there to work together to solve them, rather than retreat into partisan camps that throw insults at each other without either of them having the ability to solve anything on their own.  That is why she has been working with Congressman Gosar, and also why in a session when Congress as a whole, fractured by partisan infighting set a record for being the LEAST productive Congress ever, Ann was the first member of the Arizona delegation to write a bill which passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law. Just moving a bill through Congress requires doggedly hard work, and we are fortunate to have someone who is a doggedly hard worker like Ann running for the Senate.


John McCain may be off galavanting all over the world, trying to make the case that we should send our boys and girls into every foreign conflict when it pops up,  or be on all the TV news shows giving us his opinion about national and international issues, but you will probably find Ann in her office at the same time, working on legislation or constituent issues that need to be addressed.   As one rancher who lives south of town here told me this morning when we were talking about Ann's announcement,  "What's McCain ever done for Arizona?"  The answer is nothing.  If it doesn't enhance his national profile, he can't be bothered with it.


In closing, I should add that congresswoman Kirkpatrick is just as doggedly hard a worker on the campaign trail as she is in Washington.  In the 2014 election, outside 'dark money' groups spent over $10 million against her, literally beginning even before she was sworn in at the start of 2013 and continuing up through election day. This tide of dark money buried Democrats from coast to coast last year, and helped Republicans sweep all of the state offices in Arizona.  But Ann is too tough to be intimidated by that kind of pressure, as those of us who have gotten to know her are aware. Not only did she work hard to raise enough money on her own, maybe not to match that level of spending but at least to get heard, but she put all of us to shame.  We may have spent weekends or evenings knocking on doors or talking to voters, but nobody worked harder on her own campaign than Ann. Ever see that famous old photo of Adlai Stevenson with the hole in his sole?  Ann may wear cowboy boots on the campaign trail but I bet she's gotten some holes in a few of them by now.   Beyond that, people here voted for Ann because she's real. This is a district that voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, and went solidly for Doug Ducey in last year's governor's race.  But a lot of voters who voted for those Republicans voted for Ann both in 2012 and in 2014.   That's because even when they disagree with her (as I sometimes do as well,)  we all know that Ann doesn't let anyone tell her how to vote, and she is committed to working as hard as she can to do the best job that she can for the people of Arizona.

John McCain all but admits that he doesn't represent Arizona

I've been listening to the Health Care debate. John McCain was criticizing some deals struck with individual Senators to seal their votes. He zeroed in in particular on a deal Senator Bill Nelson of Florida made to get a preferred deal on medicare for residents of Florida. McCain called it the 'Florida flim-flam' and complained, "my constituents didn't get that deal.'

He's right, medicare recipients in Florida get a better deal. That's because Bill Nelson does what is expected of a Senator and made a deal. Does not Senator McCain think that if he had asked Harry Reid for a similar deal for Arizona to procure his vote, that Reid would have jumped at the offer? Of course he would have.

THE TRUTH IS THAT JOHN MCCAIN, WITHOUT REALIZING IT, ONCE AGAIN REMINDS US THAT HE DOES NOT REPRESENT ARIZONA.!!

John McCain has forgotten the state that elected him in order to pursue his own ambition on the national stage. The problem is not what Senator Nelson (or for that matter what the other Senator Nelson, or Senator Landrieu or others) did in making deals that benefit their constituents. That's what members of Congress are supposed to do. The problem is that Senator McCain DIDN'T get anything for Arizona, just like he DOESN'T get anything for Arizona, ever.

I hope that someone saved that speech and plays it back for some of Senator McCain's medicare-eligible constituents.

Sarah Palin: I QUIT.

A GOP Presidential contender for 2012 hadn't melted down yet this week, so I figure since it's Friday, there's still time. And sure enough--

I'm reading that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, apparently upset about a Vanity Fair article out this week that quoted anonymous former McCain staffers who said that she was difficult to work with, has decided to quit.

No, not in the sense of 'won't run for re-election.' More in the sense of 'I quit.' Now.

In a stunning move, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's 2008 vice presidential running mate, announced today that she'll resign later in the month and won't seek a second term next year.

Palin, a possible 2012 GOP presidential candidate, didn't answer any questions today and remains mum about her future intentions.

McCain, an Arizona Republican, made Palin a household name nearly a year ago when he picked her to join his ticket. On the national scene, Palin is one of those political figures who inspires passion in supporters and detractors alike. This week, Vanity Fair published a lengthy critical piece on Palin that allowed anonymous former McCain-Palin campaign officials to bash her.

Which, in my opinion, only proves that those who were concerned that she was too flaky and erratic to be President are right. Far from 'balancing' the ticket, the McCain-Palin ticket was erratic and inconsistent paired with erratic and inconsistent.

According to University of Virginia Political Science guru Larry Sabato, "Bizarro World: Sarah Palin just committed national political suicide by resigning as Governor of Alaska."

He's right about that. And every week another potential 2012 Republican Presidential candidate commits Hari-kiri.

Two weeks ago, it was John Ensign, who was in Iowa testing Presidential waters even as his fate was being sealed. One week ago it was South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Now it is Palin.

This benefits President Obama in two ways. First of course, potential 2012 foes are dropping like flies, but second this is now the third weekend when the GOP would prefer to talk about their opposition to health care, climate change legislation or Sonia Sotomayor but they will be competing in getting their message out with the weekly Republican meltdown story. In fact, the only Republican who is probably counting this as good luck is Mark Sanford.

At this rate, President Obama will have an easy time with re-election in 2012 because there won't be any Republicans left who haven't hit the self-destruct button.

Key witness in State Department passport case gunned down outside his church-- one year anniversary

Remember a scandal that erupted last year in the State Department when it turned out that Department employees had illegally accessed passport information regarding Barack Obama? Later on it turned out that the files of Hillary Clinton and John McCain were also accessed, though most of the scrutiny was of Obama's passport file.

At the time it was passed off as the clumsy work of a couple of low level trainees who apparently had accessed the information on a lark. Then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice even called Obama to apologize for the breach. A number of State Department employees were fired as a result.

Only the investigation didn't stop there. It led to an ongoing investigation into passport fraud. One key witness was Lieutenant Quarles Harris, Jr.

Well, obviously there is more at stake here than just ordinary passport fraud. Harris was shot to death one year ago yesterday as he sat in his car in front of his church.

It is not yet known who killed him or whether it is related to the passport fraud case. We will have to wait for the police to finish their investigation before we know that. But the fact that Harris was apparently specifically targeted at a location where he was known to frequent on Sundays is disturbing to say the least. Will they ever find out who killed him or will this simply be swept under the rug?

CORRECTION: I had originally looked at the date on the story and figured it happened this year. In fact this year was the one year anniversary of when it happened. And apparently they still have no killer.

McCain mob threatens Obama counterdemonstrators.

I go to a lot of Democratic events. And at some of them there have been counterdemonstrators.

I remember going to listen to Bill Clinton speak at the University of New Mexico in 1992. And as it happened I ended up right in front of a group of pro-life demonstrators who were holding up a big sign calling Clinton a draft-dodger and a baby-killer. They were also quite vocal, although Clinton had a mike and they were some distance away so I doubt if anyone at the stage heard them, but I sure did.

I remember watching John Kerry when he made his whistle stop in Winslow in 2004. In the back of the crowd were two men holding up a 'Bush/Cheney' sign and who booed when Kerry was being introduced. Like everyone else, I chose to ignore them.

I remember also in 2004, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech at the Wild Horse resort near Chandler. On the way in, I passed a group of Bush supporters who were enthusiastically waving signs, and strategically placed to try and make people think that the right road to go down was one that led to the casino there (not the building where the speech was.)

But hey, that's America. We believe in freedom of speech, and as long as people don't actually try to disrupt a campaign event they are every bit as free to show their non-support of a candidate as others are to show their support.

Except, apparently at John McCain rallies like the one in Miami today. It seems like his supporters are willing to threaten violence and engage in mob mentality if anyone dares to show up and suggest that they are not for McCain.

From fivethirtyeight:

Tonight we'll be at the Obama-Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Florida, and we're breaking in from Miami, where John McCain just concluded his "Joe the Plumber" rally at Everglades Lumber.

After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that's what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.

The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.

"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."

Garcia told us that the man who originally had warned the two it was his property when they had first tried to attend the rally with Obama T-shirts was one of the agitators. Coming up just before the scene started getting out of hand, the man whispered in Garcia's ear, "I'm gonna beat you up the next time I see you." Garcia described him for us: "a big stocky man wearing a tweed jacket." He used hand motions to emphasize this was a large guy. We went back to look for the gentleman twenty minutes after the incident but didn't find him.

The two Obama supporters had attempted to attend the event with tickets printed from the McCain website. Both were clad in Obama T-shirts, Sorando in a blue "Obama '08" shirt, and Garcia in a white "Obama-Biden" shirt. They were told that the event was being held on private property and that wearing the shirts or carrying the signs they would be asked to either remove the shirts or not attend.

For an hour during the rally, the two had stood across the street from the lumberyard on public property holding yard signs. Some drivers honked in support, and others honked in disapproval. When the rally ended and the crowd spilled out, the disturbance began.

Note that they did obey the request to vacate the private property, and were situated on the street, which by law is public access (anyone can stand there and demonstrate in other words.)

Well, Tony had something else to say to the man who had threatened him:

Garcia had a message for his stocky, tweed-clad threatener. "You tell that guy he can find Tony Garcia down at the West Dade library every day from 7 to 7 helping people early vote. I'll be there from 1 to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. You tell him if he wants to kick my ass that's where he can find me. Come beat me up."

Not thirty seconds later, John McCain drove by in his SUV and waved at Garcia on the sidewalk, who was happily waving his Obama sign.

But this is something that the McCain supporters don't get. Maybe Tony Garcia got under their skin by using his Constitutional right to counterdemonstrate at a McCain rally. But what else is he going to do this weekend? Darn right, he's volunteering to help people vote.

There are millions of Tony Garcias in the country, people who want change and whether they are as outspoken as he is or not, are going to do their part to make it happen.

We are all Tony Garcia.

Does this photo reflect the way things are really going?

Someone snapped this photo as Obama and McCain were walking off stage from last night's debate.

It may be metaphorical, but it looks like McCain is desperately trying to get a grip on Obama and pull him back to where McCain is.

The only post of the campaign in which I defend John McCain

Today John Lewis (D-GA), a veteran of the civil rights struggle who marched with Dr. King and was beaten bloody by police during non-violent protests in the 1960's, attacked John McCain and compared his attacks on Barack Obama to 'playing with fire' and then went on compare McCain himself to George Wallace.

As much as I respect rep. Lewis and all that he has accomplished, I have to disagree with that. As I alluded to in my last post, McCain finally stepped in himself to try and end some of the more outrageous attacks and was booed by his own crowd for doing so.

That isn't to say that there aren't some obdurate racists among John McCain's supporters. There most certainly are.

And Lewis, in saying that McCain is 'playing with fire' was right to refer to the fact that the McCain campaign in order to gin up the Republican 'base' has sometimes failed to confront some of their more extremist supporters.

However, I do not personally believe that McCain is comparable to George Wallace, who was the face and the personification of segregation during the most turbulent days of the Civil Rights movement.

Obama is significantly ahead of McCain right now, and it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that McCain has nothing to offer but the worn-out and failed policies of George W. Bush. People already know that hasn't worked, so rather than keep at it for four more years they are looking to vote for something different. It's just that simple.

I don't blame McCain for trying to win the election (after all he too is running for President.) And I know that politics can get a little rough at times. But Lewis' statement should be repudiated because it's not true. McCain is not George Wallace. McCain is just wrong, that's all. Maybe comparing him to Herbert Hoover would be more apt.

McCain booed at McCain rally-- for calling Obama a 'decent person'

Today things got way out of hand for Senator McCain.

In recent weeks he's tried to stir up his crowd and get them enthused by leveling a variety of charges against Barack Obama. Of course he's had plenty of accomplices in stirring up the GOP faithful to intense feelings of animosity towards the junior Senator from Illinois-- everyone from hotheaded talk show hosts to shadowy 'independent' groups who have done their best to convince everyone that if Obama is elected then he will begin the jihad against Christian Americans as soon as he takes away everyone's guns so they can't defend themselves.

So today in a townhall meeting with supporters in Lakeville, Minnesota, some of them urged him to get more negative and personal in his attacks on Senator Obama. And then they booed their own candidate when he complemented his opponent.

"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.

In a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin,

He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

Things are falling apart for the GOP. I've never heard of a major party Presidential candidate getting booed by his own supporters, at his own rally.

I can understand their frustration. For years some GOP strategists have known they were on the wrong side of a demographic divide, with a new generation (which a few years ago was defined as people under 25, then as people under 30, now as people in their twenties and thirties) leaning heavily towards the Democrats. This has been crystallized by the Iraq war (it is this generation which has been asked to sacrifice, and many if not most know a friend or family member who has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan while the GOP President hasn't even bothered to raise taxes on other generations to pay for the war-- meaning that the debt so incurred will also be passed onto the younger generation-- and many are resentful of that fact; I know some who feel this way, that their generation has been used, personally.) Other issues such as college aid, jobs and GOP cultural intolerance have also helped drive many younger people towards the Democratic party. Also, a lot of 'millenials' really only remember only two Presidents-- Clinton and Bush. They remember that when Clinton was the President people had jobs and Republicans tried to impeach him for sexual indiscretion (yes, I know that there were other issues but in a nutshell that is how it is perceived by most young people.) They've watched Bush as President, with a compliant Congress for most of it, and watched him go to war in Iraq instead of keeping after Osama bin Laden (they most certainly do remember 9/11), they have seen nothing actually get done about Katrina and they've watched the economy tank. Maybe in some cases Democrats have warts out of all this but for people who have paid attention for say the past 15 or 20 years (in which case they may also remember another President Bush who went to war with Iraq and fumbled on the economy) Republican leadership has been a failure, period. In fact, the youngest voters this year were born during the first Bush administration and may not even remember Clinton all that well. But polls show that overwhelmingly they favor Obama and other Democrats because they've seen enough of George W. Bush that the large majority have figured out they don't like him.

Another case in which the Republicans have ended up on the wrong side of a demographic divide is immigration. The GOP's suicidal focus on bashing immigrants has not won them a single seat in Congress, the Senate or a Governorship. In 2006 though it probably cost them at least two seats in Congress (one or possibly two in Arizona and one in Texas) as Hispanics, a demographic that in 2004 went 40% for President Bush, reacted with revulsion to the immigrant bashing and went only 20% GOP for Congress in 2006. John McCain is probably the best candidate the Republicans could have nominated to appeal to Hispanics but the truth is they've driven away a lot of culturally conservative, Christian, patriotic, hardworking voters who they should have been able to appeal to. In many cases Hispanics have relatives on both sides of the border, so GOP ideas like a border fence and requiring a passport to enter and leave the U.S. from Mexico have soured many Hispanics on the GOP (and I'm not even getting into racial profiling here.) Republicans like to point to polls showing that a majority of Americans favor tighter controls on immigration. That may be true but for hardly any is it a defining issue in a campaign. In contrast, the number of Hispanics whose own lives or the lives of their family is directly affected by it is much larger and for many of them it is a defining issue.

At the same time the bitter fruits of GOP economic policy have helped drive many working people, even those who had supported Bush, back to the Democrats. The GOP tried to take some hope from the fact that most of them supported Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama during this year's primaries. True enough, but now that the party (including Hillary) is pulling together behind Obama the Republicans are finding that the majority of the working people are now backing him too. Any suggestion that they might stick with the GOP because of God, guns, gays or similar types of 'red-meat' issues that have sometimes helped the Republican candidate in the past evaporated on Sunday, Sept. 14 (that was the day that Lehman Brothers bank failed, setting off the current nonstop economic drubbing that is affecting or likely will soon affect everyone's life for the worse.) Remember we've had thirty years of tax cuts, so-called "trickle down" and deregulation-- so these voters are smart enough to know that the fruit we have today is the result of these policies.) Instructive in categorizing the votes of working people is a new poll out in West Virginia. In the heavily Democratic state, which Hillary Clinton won by an enormous margin over Barack Obama and which Obama tried to downplay during the primaries by only visiting once (and he's not been back since) the new poll shows Obama opening up an eight point margin over McCain. That's pretty good for a state that he almost seemed to not want, not visiting, not even talking about and a state which went by a significant margin for Bush in 2004. McCain may pick off the occasional Hillary fanatic who refuses to ever vote for Obama, but it is clear that by and large the white, working class voters (West Virginia is a state where they predominate) who supported Hillary are now supporting Obama.

The personal attacks and smears (usually a GOP specialty) aren't working very well this year either.

So I can understand Republicans' frustration. Given the growth in the numbers and power of the millenial generation (and some late Gen-X'ers who exhibit some millenial outlook) and the decline in Republican voters (both those who have left the party over the past several years and the fact that on average Republican voters tend to be members of older generations than Democratic voters and therefore-- to be brutally blunt but harshly accurate-- have been dying at a faster rate than Democrats) to the point where they are a clear minority of the electorate it now seems as though the 2004 model won't work for the GOP. Even if the base is energized (as Palin was supposed to and for the most part has done) there just aren't enough Republicans anymore.

After the last time the economy looked this bad the GOP was in the wilderness for a generation (and it might have lasted longer than that if Ike hadn't come out as a Republican and provided them with their first really popular candidate since Teddy Roosevelt). Given the history of the two-party system I have no doubt that the GOP will eventually re-tool and figure out a way to get ahead on some issues that will come up in the future. But they will have to re-tool. The old deregulatory, tax-cuts-will-fix-any-problem, free market culturally restrictive conservative party that keeps looking backwards to Reagan for answers represents the Republican model that no longer appeals to enough Americans to win very many elections.

The Sarah Palin way to avoid trouble: investigate yourself and discover you are innocent

Sarah Palin seems to have figured out an all-new way to dodge any negative or damaging conclusions in a report due tomorrow: investigate yourself and then declare yourself exonerated.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

Sen. John McCain's running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law.

The move came hours after the state Supreme Court refused to halt the ethics investigation.

Lawmakers were expected to release their own findings Friday. Campaign officials have yet to see that report — the result of an investigation that began before she was tapped as McCain's running mate — but said the investigation has falsely portrayed a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and her commissioner as something inappropriate.

Keep in mind that this probe, begun by a Republican-led legislature back in July when Monegan was fired, was originally supposed to be completed and a report due October 31. The date was actually moved ahead three weeks for the benefit of Palin and McCain-- so that it wouldn't be released four days before the Presidential election. In spite of this, Palin and officials in her administration, who had cooperated with the probe initially spent weeks refusing to cooperate after she was tabbed as John McCain's running mate.

So, apparently afraid of what the report might say tomorrow about whether Palin used the power of her elected office to try and settle a petty family squabble, Palin and the McCain campaign actually investigated this themselves and are now issuing a report clearing Palin.

What a novel concept! Maybe using this as a precedent, McCain will, if elected, allow people accused of crimes to conduct the investigation themselves. Using the Palin-McCain standard for investigations, O.J. Simpson should have been allowed to run the investigation into his Las Vegas hotel room holdup himself. He should have been allowed to collect his own evidence, interview his own witnesses and expect the court and the jury to accept his own report instead of the police report.

This so-called 'report' by the McCain-Palin campaign could be called a whitewash, but that would do a disservice to Tom Sawyer, Richard Nixon and anyone else who has ever been associated with the term, 'whitewash.' It is a fraud and a dupe.

Really, publishing a report you wrote yourself, hoping people will read your report instead of the official one. How stupid do they think we are?

Nothing new to tell me how John McCain's plan would be any different from what got us here

What really stuck out to me from last night's debate is that in the face of the global economic crisis, Senator McCain couldn't suggest anything other than tax cuts (mainly oriented towards the wealthy) and his stale old economic plan that looks almost indistiguishable from George Bush's economic plan.

If tax cuts were the secret to prosperity then you'd think after the $1.3 trillion Bush tax cut plan that was passed in March 2001, we'd all be flying high by now. I guess you can judge how high you are flying (AIG execs attending their taxpayer funded 'retreat' and others with golden parachutes excepted, of course.) We will be paying for the Bush tax cuts for generations to come.

But in fact, even during the most prosperous years of the Bush administration 200,000 jobs created in a month was considered 'good.' But that was less than the monthly average during the Clinton years. So let's get this straight-- the best that George Bush's economy could do anytime during his term was below Clinton's average.

And Senator Obama was right-- real incomes have gone down. He offers a different plan, one that is oriented towards making sure that ordinary people have what they need to survive, whether it is help with their mortgages or whether it is health insurance they can afford.

Some may call that socialism. So be it. Call it what you want, but it's obvious that after trying conservatism and massive tax cuts for eight years and seeing where that led us, maybe a dose of European-style socialism doesn't sound all that bad anymore. They are having the economic crisis in Europe like they are having it here (inevitable in a global economy) but at least in Europe nobody is afraid they might get sick and not be able to afford the doctor.

Here it comes

Remember a few weeks ago when a McCain campaign advisor said that this year's campaign would be about 'personalities, not issues?'

And it began to be, with a flurry of negative ads by the McCain campaign, and misleading and irrelevant attacks on Senator Obama (i.e. claiming that the timeworn phrase, 'lipstick on a pig' was actually a sexist attack on Sarah Palin.)

Then we've had two weeks of the worst economic news since the Depression, and the focus was forcibly ripped back onto issues.

Now that the rescue plan has passed though the McCain campaign has wasted no time in saying they will be going back to the negative ad campaign.

Specifically, having used up Jeremiah Wright and milked the 'muslim' theme for all it is worth they intend to concentrate on Obama's past associations with disgraced fundraiser Tony Rezko and former Weatherman Bill Ayres. Never mind that when Rezko knew Obama he had not been convicted of anything, nor that Obama's associations with Ayres are at best of the 'acquaintance' variety and mostly occurred years in the past before Obama had any reason to know anything about Ayers' past, they intend to Willie Hortonize the campaign (former GOP operative Lee Atwater once bragged that he would have Mike Dukakis 'married' to murderer Willie Horton by the end of the campaign, and at least in the political sense, he did.)

In fact, the GOP are masters of pesonal attacks and distortions (does the term, 'swift-boat' raise any flags?) So we knew this was coming.

But that doesn't mean their campaign tactics have to work. There are two reasons to think they won't.

The first is that the issues this year are just plain too big. In 2004 they were plenty big (and Kerry was leading in the polls throughout the summer) but with the help of the 'swifties' the Bush campaign was able to sufficiently polarize the electorate to help their man across the finish line. But this year, after four more years of Bush failures, the issues are fundamentally huge. Rescue package or no, another Great Depression is staring us right in the face. Our army is still dangerously overextended, still fighting two wars at once and we now face a resurgent Russia to add to the same challenges that we faced in 2004.

The second is that the Obama campaign appears to be ready to respond to this crap. That makes a huge difference. The common theme between the Dukakis and Kerry campaigns is that they chose not to respond until it was too late. In contrast, Bill Clinton (who the GOP didn't even have to look for questionable associations, they had plenty on the candidate himself) was the master of the counterattack, and when he was negatively attacked, his campaign was able to throw it back, and harder (generally within hours or even minutes of the attack so it got into the same news story.) Obama has already pointed out that McCain 'plans to turn the page away from the issues and towards negative attacks' even before the first ones hit the airwaves.

Make no mistake. The Republicans are desperate to win the Presidency this year. They know very well that the failure called neo-conservatism that manifested itself in the 2006 congressional elections may well prevent the party that just two years ago had total control of the government from regaining Congress for at least a generation. Democrats are poised to make huge gains in the Senate. There is even an outside chance they could get to the sixty votes needed to prevent the GOP from even using the filibuster but even if they don't it seems likely that the GOP will be effectively prevented from using that tactic unless they can convince moderate Republican Senators like Arlen Specter or Olympia Snowe to suddenly become such fierce partisans that they would go along with filibusters designed to do nothing other than derail the Democrats (unlikely IMO that they would do that very often.) Democrats will almost certainly increase, maybe even substantially increase their margin in the House, probably by enough so that they could even survive the defection of some 'blue dog' Democrats on key legislation and still push through a liberal agenda.

So there is only one path the GOP has to block what they would see as the ultimate doomsday scenario: having a Republican in the White House, who would use his veto pen to stifle a wholesale rush towards (for example) withdrawl from Iraq, universal health care and tax rates where the wealthy pay their fair share. They still haven't given up on gaining a consrvative majority on the Supreme Court but that certainly can only happen with a Republican President (even though he'd have to nominate someone who could get past a Democratic Senate.) Having even lame-duck Bush in the White House has stifled Democratic efforts to do a lot of things, ranging from ending the Iraq war to providing health care for children, so the GOP is now going to put all its resources behind getting John McCain there. And to do it they will smear, distort and engage in the politics of personal destruction against Barack Obama.

But don't despair. Those politics can be defeated (as Bill Clinton proved) and it's the only thing they have left anymore.

Obama: the safe alternative to McCain

John McCain's whole strategy has been based on essentially two elements-- the first is to try and suggest that for America to elect Barack Obama would be to take too big of a risk, and the second is to argue that McCain is a 'safe' alternative.

But I think that might be just a little bit backwards.

An article out yesterday in the New York Times (maybe why one of McCain's managers tried to stage a 'pre-emptive strike' against the Times) by accusing them of bias even before this article came out highlights John McCain's own gambling habits and more importantly ties to the gaming industry.

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.

The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain’s campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world’s second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain’s affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress....

in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.

This is troubling to me on two levels.

The first is the matter of McCain's campaign rhetoric. Now, I know that the way the game is played in Washington is thought lobbyists who can raise millions of dollars to help a candidate-- if he gives them what they want-- or millions to defeat him if he goes against their interests. But Mr. 'straight talk' has staked a lot of his campaign by claiming to be a reformer, and in particular one who doesn't tie himself to lobbyists or special interests. Instead of being a hypocrite about it, why not just fess up, and say 'I've been a tool of the gaming industry for years?' The article even quotes a gaming industry expert who calls McCain, “One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” Yeah, there are people who might have trouble with that one, but at least then McCain wouldn't be pretending to be something he's not, and that he never was.

The second way this is troubling to me is much more profound, however. Now, I recognize that there is nothing illegal about gambling in a casino, and many good and honest people do. But it also says something about a person's decision making process. And let's face it. The recent past, whether it be McCain's gamble that he could raise enough money fast enough in 2007 to support a $100 million political machine for the primary (a gamble which failed), his gamble that he could skip the Iowa caucuses and still chase down Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination (a gamble that succeeded, thanks to Mike Huckabee getting in Romney's way), his gamble to choose none of the VP candidates his campaign had been vetting for months and instead pick a little-known Governor or Alaska to run for VP (a gamble which looked like it succeeded early on but as time goes on appears more and more questionable), or his gamble last week to play chicken with the debate and try to get credit for the bailout package (a gamble which failed), it is clear from John McCain's decision making process that he likes to take chances, often acting impulsively.

It isn't hard to look for another individual who makes decisions the same way. And on virtually all of them, John McCain has stood right by his side and rolled the dice with him. That person of course is George W. Bush.

President Bush gambled by pushing forward with deregulation, including of banks and of the financial services industry. John McCain stood right there alongside of Bush.

President Bush gambled that we could pass trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. It's true that John McCain voted against the first round of tax cuts, but now he stands right with Bush in wanting to make them permanent.

President Bush gambled that we could take time away from the Afghan war and the people who had killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11 to go invade another country, Iraq. John McCain stood with him on that decision.

President Bush gambled that the Iraq war would be short, easy and lead to a democracy that we could count on to help us find all those WMD that had to be stored in huge stockpiles all over Iraq. John McCain gambled on that right alongside of President Bush.

President Bush tried to gamble with our Social Security into a privatization scheme that would have tied it to financial markets. John McCain stood right there with Bush and gambled on that one too. Thank God that Barack Obama and Congress stood up and gave a resounding 'no' to that one. Imagine how much more quickly the financial 'iceberg' that Social Security faces would be coming at us if our Social Security was all wrapped up in the financial mess we see right in front of us.

The problem with gambling of course is as Kenny Rogers sang in the song, "The Gambler,"

You've got to know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em.
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table,
There'll be time enough for counting,
When the dealin's done.

And for both George Bush and John McCain, their downfall is that second line. Have you ever seen either of them fold and admit to a mistake? Admit that maybe we need to do something differently than what they've been pushing? Well, yeah-- John McCain did change his position on the Bush tax cuts that got us here in the first place. Now he wants to keep them. Trust me, they really like guys like that in Vegas, ones who even when they have a winning hand, throw it away in exchange for a losing hand.

After eight years of a Gambler in the White House (and not a very good one, at that) I'm certain that WE can't take the roll the dice on another risk-taker, especially one who has shown he really doesn't play his cards very well.

Luckily we don't have to. There is a safe alternative. When Barack Obama makes a decision he doesn't gamble. The way he chose Biden is instructive. He collects all the information that he has available. He reads it and ponders what he has read (Obama even took a week off the campaign trail out in Hawaii so he could work throught this decision.) He puts his head together with his advisors (which now includes Biden, who as the chair of the Foreign Services Committee has a great deal of experience in the one area where Obama recognized that he might need some help.) Obama is also a man of faith, so I suspect he prays for help in making the right decision. Then he makes it. And once it is made, he sticks firmly to it. At the same time, he does learn by experience. So for example, this year he opposed a 'vacation' from the Federal gasoline tax (an idea that McCain supported,) relying on his experience from doing the same kind of thing in Illinois and observing that the tax cut failed to reduce gas prices in Illinois (the reason for why it doesn't work would involve a discussion of the mathematical/economic concept of a relatively inelastic equilibrium point on the supply and demand curve which is too complicated to explain here, but Obama gets it.)

With the country facing it's most difficult economic crisis since the 1930's, we need a deliberate and careful decision maker, and one who is forceful in carrying out decisions but also able to recognize what works and what doesn't.

What we can't afford is to gamble on another gambler.

The line of the night

After Senator McCain accused Senator Obama of compiling the 'most liberal' record in the Senate, Obama responded,

"Mostly that's just me opposing George Bush's wrong-headed policies."

Great answer.

The difference in the candidates.

During the past 24 hours we've seen one candidate engage in a political stunt, jumping into the middle of ongoing negotiations affecting the future of the country as if only He can save us (clearly hoping to get credited with whatever the President and the leaders of the House and Senate come up with). We've seen him refuse to go to a debate that has been scheduled for almost a year, even though there are myriad ways he could still participate (whether by hopping on a campaign plane that could be in Mississippi in a couple of hours, or via satelllite hookup) in a debate in which millions of Americans, still unsure who to vote for, want to see the candidates answer some tough questions.

We've seen the other candidate not lose his cool, come to Washington when the President asked him to but also make it clear that he is prepared to work on the bailout plan AND debate.

What's more, this has been the pattern of the campaign. Obama rarely gets rattled, and doesn't go into crisis mode at the drop of a hat. For McCain, who has weathered numerous changes of his own doing during the campaign (at least two financial crises and several staff shakups) it seems like everything is a crisis all the time.

I know that for the next President I want the guy who won't blow his stack or run off and feel he has to do something rash instead of taking a few minutes to talk about it.

The timeline makes it clear that it is McCain who milked an opportunity for crass political gamesmanship

Here is the timeline of events according to both campaigns source

From the Obama campaign:

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

From the McCain campaign:

Senator Obama phoned Senator McCain at 8:30 am this morning but did not reach him. The topic of Senator Obama's call to Senator McCain was never discussed. Senator McCain was meeting with economic advisers and talking to leaders in Congress throughout the day prior to calling Senator Obama. At 2:30 pm, Senator McCain phoned Senator Obama and expressed deep concern that the plan on the table would not pass as it currently stands. He asked Senator Obama to join him in returning to Washington to lead a bipartisan effort to solve this problem.

Now, for a moment let's assume that events are exactly as the McCain campaign describes (though in fact the two statements in their details are not actually contradictory, just emphasizing different points.)

In that case I have only one question: why did Senator McCain then just moments after the phone call to Senator Obama, come out publically and issue a unilateral statement in which he said he was suspending his campaign and returning to Washington and attempting to call off the debate? That was so quick that even if Obama was taking a few minutes to ponder Senator McCain's offer and talk it over with his staff he wouldn't have had time to respond before it was all over the airwaves.

If the two of them were really working on coming together to propose a resolution to this crisis (and both campaign statements seem to suggest that that was the gist of the conversations during the day) then why did McCain clearly become the one to throw it out the window in favor of a political circus?

Was it because he is willing to throw away an opportunity to demonstrate real bipartisanship in exchange for a few moments of appearing to demonstrate it?

Was it because he wanted to make sure (even though both campaigns agree that Obama called first) that he would get credit for whatever comes of this, and not Obama?

Was it because he's not been spending adequate time preparing for the debate and was afraid of getting his rear end handed to him on a subject he is supposed to have the edge on?

Was it because if he can move the first Presidential debate to next Thursday he will be able to cancel the Vice Presidential debate so people won't have their own chance to judge how Palin, who has already been kept away from reporters, thinks on her feet? Is there something about Palin we don't know yet?

Was it because with the polls moving against him, McCain just lost his head and did something desperate?

As we learn more about what happened today and the timeline of events, it is increasingly clear that it is John McCain who has some big questions to answer.

McCain scheme to duck out of the debate Friday

John McCain has said he is suspending his campaign so he can rush to Washington and work on the bailout plan with Congressional leaders. He is also saying he wants to postpone the first Presidential debate, which is scheduled for Friday and has been scheduled for almost a year.

This is the same John McCain who has not bothered to show up for a Senate vote since April 8.

This is the same John McCain who has favored deregulation for years, a big part of why we have this crisis going on even as we speak.

This is the same John McCain who admitted earlier this year that he doesn't know very much about economics and said he needs to be 'educated' about it.

The truth of the matter is that McCain has been out there campaigning nearly every day while Senator Obama has spent some time off the campaign trail prepping for the debates. So McCain's offer is a lot like an unprepared student who realizes two days before the big exam that he hasn't been cracking the books, trying to figure out a way to get his test pushed back so he can catch up to the rest of the class.

Now I know which Republican President John McCain reminds me of.

Quotable:

The fundamental business of the country, that is production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis

-- Herbert Hoover, October 30, 1929.

Our economy, I think, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

-- John McCain, Sept. 15, 2008.

It isn't just John McCain who doesn't have a clue about the economy. Neither do the people advising him.

Today, Hewlett Packard announced another 24,000 job cuts, officially associated with its merger with Electronic Data Systems.

The job cuts however represent eight percent of HP's total workforce, suggesting that there are some intrinsic structural problems that are also being addressed. In fact, current CEO Frank Hurd has been very aggressive about cutting jobs since he was first hired in 2005.

While I might complain about Hurd's image as the new "Chainsaw Al" or point out that he is far from the only one doing it in these times (the unemployment rate has risen a full point since April) there is one thing that it also points out: the company that Hurd took over was unprofitable, bloated and badly in need of the overhaul he has brought to it.

And who did he replace? The answer is Carly Fiorina. Apparently she is at least partially responsible for the slow, lumbering company that Hurd has been riding herd on (and with some success, at that-- I'll give him credit for that.)

Hmmm. Not long ago the same Carly Fiorina stepped up to become John McCain's chief economic advisor, after Phil Gramm had to step down for saying that the bad economy was just in people's heads and that we had become a 'nation of whiners.'

Just today, John McCain said at a rally in Florida that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong.' This on a day when the Dow fell 500 points and National Public Radio reported that the International Monetary Fund will be conducting a stability assessment of the United States economy, a 'privilege' usually reserved for third world debtor nations that are in danger of defaulting on their loans.

Well, remember that McCain admitted back during the primaries that he doesn't know very much about economics.

So who else can he get economic advice from? Palin? Whatever her strengths and weaknesses are, has anyone even from Fox News suggested that she knows anything at all about subprime mortgage defaults or has a clue about how to get people back to work?

Keep in mind that the standard Republican playbook of 'tax cuts for the wealthy, loosen regulation and let the market drive the economy' has been in force for eight years and it's clear that it doesn't work.

Electing McCain would be a disaster. Not only has he pretty much appropriated the Bush economic strategy as his own (apparently not being able to figure out a better one) but the people around him, even his economic advisors, seem to have no better a record on the economy than he does.

McCain still claiming the economy is 'fundamentally strong.'

John McCain today at a rally in Florida-- that's right, TODAY, said that he feels that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

Today was the day after Lehman Brothers bank failed and went to bankruptcy court, Merrill Lynch failed and avoided bankruptcy court only because they were bought out by Bank of America (which is itself taking a risk, having recently also bought out mortgage giant Countrywide) and AIG appears headed to bankruptcy court unless something happens fast.

Today was the day when the DOW dropped five hundred points.

Today was the day I heard a report on National Public Radio that the International Monetary Fund will be conducting a stability assessment on the U.S. economy, something which normally happens to developing countries that are on an unsustainable economic course.

Just in the past five months the unemployment rate has spiked upward by a full percentage point.

Strong fundamentals?

I guess if you consider $5 million a year to be the threshhold of 'rich,' the fundamentals are strong. I guess if your plan for tax cuts, market based reform and resistance to regulation is indistinguishable from what President Bush has done for the past seven years, the fundamentals are strong.

For anyone besides John McCain the fundamentals are just plain wrong.

John McCain would rather throw kids to pedophiles than lose an election

John McCain was confronted during an interview last night on "The View" by host Joy Behar.

She specifically mentioned an ad the McCain campaign has put out (including the legally mandated caption, "I'm John McCain and I approved this message") which accuses Barack Obama of supporting comprehensive sex education children starting in kindergarten.

The truth is that Obama as a state legislature sponsored a bill that mandated teaching kindergarten students to recognize what is inappropriate touching by adults and who they can report it to.

Behar pointed to that ad specifically and said that what McCain had said he stood by (calling this 'comprehensive sex education for kindergarten students') 'are lies.' She asked if he still stood by them.

McCain's response?

"They are not lies."

OK. So this guy claims that calling a program to educate children about child molesters is the same thing as 'comprehensive sex education' for kindergartners.

What is worse, the McCain campaign came out with a statement trying to justify the ad suggesting that this kind of stuff should be taught at home (apparently still using their stock answer for 'sex education' to discuss teaching about pedophiles.) Taking education for kindergartners about pedophiles out of the schools is very dangerous since most child molestation does happen at home, and obviously pedophiles who have children in the home would be the last ones to teach them that there is anything wrong with it, or who they could talk to about it.

This ad, and this ad alone (and McCain's refusal when confronted with the facts to repudiate it) should be enough to disqualify John McCain from any serious consideration for the Presidency.