TPM Election Central has the audio for a new radio ad that the Obama campaign will run in parts of Virginia and Ohio.  It is in response to a RNC ad which claims Obama will "raise taxes".

It's brilliant, and seems like the start of a real counterpunch campaign against McCain and his prevarication.

Obama has canceled his economic town hall here in Cedar Rapids tomorrow, giving deference to the city leaders who need to be paying attention to the record flooding.

The Cedar River is projected to crest at 2 feet over the previous record on Friday, and some residents are being evacuated or asked to prepare to evacuate already.

Obama is kicking off a two-week tour on economics, starting in Raleigh, NC on Monday.  The tour is called Change that Works for You

With oil prices skyrocketing by more than 10 dollars today to another new record, unemployment up .5% to 5.5% for its biggest one month jump in since 1986 and the horrible job numbers today, this seems like perfect timing.

As pointed out at TPM many more Americans care about the economy than the war.

Today's  CNN poll showed that the economy dwarfs even Iraq as a concern in this election, finding that 42% of registered voters cited the economy as the thing that will be the most important in their choice for president, versus only 24% who cited Iraq.

This will certainly put McSame on the defensive on his self-professed weakest subject.

From Mark Halperin's The Page I found this AP article written by Chet Brokaw: Obama, Clinton in Close Battle for South Dakota

Here's how it starts:

The voters of South Dakota look a lot like those who have favored Hillary Rodham Clinton in presidential primaries this year, but her rival, front-runner Barack Obama, has plenty of friends in high places in this rural state.

and later:

Straddling the line between Midwest and West, South Dakota is overwhelmingly rural with corn and soybeans in the east and rolling cattle ranches and the Black Hills in the west. The state is 88 percent white, consistently ranks last in the nation in annual average wages and has the eighth-largest percentage of residents older than 65. Clinton has handily won states with electorates like this, most recently Kentucky and West Virginia.

Just flipped over to CSPAN and Tancredo is at it again. He's on the House floor jabbering about the "cult of multi-culturism".  He really is a one-trick pony, isn't he?

here's a quote:
"the cult of mulitculturism is problamatic. it is propped up by immigration and the political forces behind open borders."

then he goes on complain about the latin american counties immigration laws and how strict they are compared to ours.  

he also mentioned remittances, but not his proposed tax on them.  

but basically it's about Samual Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" and his new book "Who Are We?"  

So his whole speech seems to be that immigration ruins our sense of unity and the culture of America and the "American Ideal". That this "cult of multiculturalism" allows and pushes people to not value the american ideals, or not speak english.  that we are becoming held together by diversity instead of a set of ideas.
But he assures us that he's not a racist and doesn't have any animus in his heart.

Since he seems to want no immigration, or at least immigrants to assimilate themselves completely, is it safe for me to assume that Mr. Tancredo is a pure blood native american?