With the enormous strain that occurs on any candidate running for President of the United States, it seems apparent to me that their duties as a Congressman, Vice-President, Governor, dog catcher, whatever must take a major hit.  

A very gray area also presents itself as we're seeing with Barack Obama's trips to places like Iraq and Germany and the controversy over injecting politics into military and foreign policy matters.  Is he a Senator or a candidate?  Is there public funding involved in certain parts or is it campaign funds?  

There was another "Shock and Awe" attack in Iraq this week. But this time it was not the military might of the United States raining down upon the Iraqis but rather it was the political might of the Iraqis raining down upon Bush & Co. and, by extension, John McCain. And it was the flexing of this new-found power that helped Barack Obama win his own battle with Senator McCain.

There are some items up on News Unfiltered that may interest the community.

DNC on Howard Dean's national tour to engage voters:

After a successful kick-off tour through Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana last week, Governor Howard Dean continues his national voter registration efforts in North Carolina and Georgia Friday and Saturday. The tour builds on the overwhelming enthusiasm and voter turnout seen during the primaries as Democrats mobilize and organize voters for the fall election.

Read more.

So, who you looking for to be the Dem nominee after 8 years of Obama?

People will be tired of competence...of transparency...of government that works for them.

I think we need Dave Barry.  Any man who suggested what we protect West Germany with a 250 yard strip of Astroturf during the cold war (The Russians and East Germans would get about 200 yards in and fall down screaming.  The torn ACLs and high-ankle sprains would cripple them.), deserves serious consideration.

And then there is his platform:
Crime: Against
Taxes:  Everybody would pay less. You, personally, would pay nothing.
Social Security:  I WANT MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
Health Care: Number One health-care priority, as a nation, must be to make the medical profession find some way to get to the prostate gland other than the way they're getting to it now.
Foreign Policy: Drop lawyers on Baghdad.  If that didn't work, put parachutes on the lawyers.
And finally, we have:

The Mullet

Obama cannot seem to do anything right by the standards of some.

No matter what he does (even when he does what they want him to do) he still gets it wrong.

After the jump...

I've come alot closer to my full support of Obama, I just don't ever make total decisions when elections are months away, I also don't just look at the single person trying to give their resume, I look at how they present themselves, smear and slam are big no no's, and I look at who they bring close to them in their campaigns and try and figure out, if they win, who will they surround themselves with while in office ( and I hit the nail on the head, which I do for a living, as to the bush crowd, not exactly reading the future but seeing alot of what was to come do so! ), especially as to Federal Representation and the Presidential Office, more towards my Representation on who I would Hire.

In an otherwise Democratic year, (Gw with a 28% approval rating, economy in a recession, and two wars), the polls only show Obama with a modest lead, against an average opponent!
How can that be, you may ask?  Easy, a determined group of Hillary supporters( about 3 million or so) is making things difficult for Obama.
Calling radio stations, running negative ads and yes even 527s against, you got it, OBAMA!
So I suggest what ever differences you all may have with Obama be put on hold, because your not gonna like what I have learned:
Join me over the jump with proof that Hillary is not dead yet!

Why on earth would anyone vote for a guy who can't do a simple thing like getting a campaign in order???? This is from MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25580207/):

"By Adam Nagourney
updated 1:09 a.m. PT, Tues., July. 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - Senator John McCain’s campaigns have long been defined by internal squabbling and power plays, zigzagging lines of command and a penchant by the candidate for consulting with former advisers without alerting current ones, always a recipe for disquiet."

I often ask how Obama can win the election if he can't get the knucklehead vote, but I would like to extend that question by demanding an answer from everyone who votes for McCain. How, I would ask, can you justify voting for someone whose campaign is dominated by internal squabbling and power plays, and zigzagging lines of command? This is what you want from your commander in chief?

I figure that Obama's VP pick is a much bigger deal than March Madness.

So, I figure that the rows will be the potential VP picks, and the columns will be the dates.

Obviously, the further before the convention, the more time will be covered by each time slot.

Let's be clear, this is not online gambling.  That would be wrong.  It is a complex financial instrument, like the Iowa presidential election futures market.

Obviously, the "house" gets a cut of the action, just like on Wall Street.

So here are the questions:

• Should this just be a VP pick, or should less restrictive betting pool futures market be set up.
• What criteria are used to select potential candidates?
• How should the time be divided for the matrix?

and finally:

• If Sam Nunn is selected, who is the approved vendor for pitch forks and torches?

... otherwise he would be talking about it every goddamned day:

By now, everybody on Kos has heard about this.  Yesterday, Sunday June 29th, General Wesley Clark went to bat for Obama on "Face the Nation", and the GOP and their enablers immediately went utterly insane about it.  Here are some of CarpetBagger's articles about it:

General Clark's appearance

A little bit of McCainity

Sen. Obama's response to all of this?  Probably the worst possible response of all: He's backing away from it.

• I trust McCain do deal with foreign policy issues like a rabid wolverine gorging on chocolate covered espresso beans.
• I trust him to appoint judges to remove the presumption of privacy and innocence from search and seizure.


• I trust him to do everything he can to criminalize abortions in the United States.


• I trust him to look at healthcare solely in terms of the enrichment of insurance companies, large medical conglomerates, and big pharma.


• I trust him to start a war with Iran.


• I trust him to fill his cabinet, as he has filled his campaign, with lobbyists.

I do not trust Barack Obama to do these things.
Thus, I must vote for Barack Obama for president.

After reading some of the posts over the past few days regarding the FISA bill and the huge outrage over Obama's "lack of leadership" on the issue, a thought occurred to me.

Do we have posters and diarists on here that are "sleeper cells", Republican plants lying in wait pretending to be on the liberal and progressive side of issues but merely a hair trigger away from creating hate and disconnect when the ideal issue comes along that could fracture the party?

DISCLOSURE: Before I begin, a little disclosure. First off, I'm a former Clinton supporter; now I'm an Obama supporter, as of June 4th. Second, I'm a Jew and I support our government's support of the State of Israel. Third, like millions of Jews in the U.S. and Israel, I'm strongly against the Israeli government's hardline approach as far as its dealings with the Arab community--and the Palestinian issues in general--are concerned. Fourth, my father-in-law, who passed away in 2005, ran the Mideast desk of the U.S. Army's Defense Logistics Command during the Yom Kippur War. As a result of that--as you'll read in more detail below--he was very much on the front line of Operation Nickel Grass in 1973. So, please be clear here when I say I am in favor of our country's ongoing support of Israel as far as military materiel assistance is concerned.

Quotables:

Amity Shlaes says economics often lays the path for politics.
Bob Scheer says Hummers didn't drive us to high oil prices.
Arianna Huffington says McCain sounds like Bob Dole -- it's the 80s all over again.
Matt Miller wonders aloud whether the media is destroying democracy.

Congrats to Arianna: Huffington Post has again been named a big Webby Award winner -- 2008 awards go to her for best political blog and favorite People's Voice blog in the political category.

This is part 1.1 of an ongoing project to assess the CNN Electoral Map.  If I had to state a hypothesis for this project, it would be that this map is being used to aid and abet an agenda to display this race as more close and competitive than it really ought to be.  My intent is to determine the extent to which this map is driven by the polling narrative or, alternately, the extent to which it is being used to drive narrative.  I will stay on version 1.x and use Rasmussen Reports data until CNN updates their map.  Then we'll go 2.x and mash it up with a different polling service.

Read the intro post in CNN's Electoral Map Project v 1.0

In 1.0 I addressed the states CNN calls Toss Up.  In Version 1.1 I am going to address the Leaning states.  This category, as CNN devises it, accounts for 106 EVs.  And based on the response to my 1.0 post, many are suspicious of why many of these states are even classified how they are.  

I don’t own a car and am fortunate enough, if I did own one, not to have to worry too much about the cost of gasoline.

But while snowbirding in Florida this past winter we of course needed to rent one and that swept us directly into the world of almost daily price-per-gallon price increases and thrust us into many conversations with frustrated and angry people struggling much more than we to pay their mounting bills.  

And we were also temporarily residing in the one county in America where plummeting real estate values were perversely leading the nation and almost everyone, expect for the gazillionaires with houses right on the beach, were worried about foreclosures and the imminent loss of most of what they had through their lifetimes managed to accumulate.  This reality hugely compounded the appropriately raw feelings.

In looking at some poll results over the past two days in states that are labeled "battleground states" for the presidential election on kos' battleground map, I think kos needs to do some updating. Two new polls show Obama with double-digit leads in two "yellow" battleground states on kos' map: Wisconsin and Massachusetts.  The Wisconsin poll in particular has nothing but bad news for McSame.