This is my two cents for what it's worth, on how to counter-attack McCain's current spate of negative advertising. My own sense is that this is a tricky moment and that a strong but adroit counter-attack is what is needed. I'm hoping something like this will happen, or if not, then something equally or more effective. McCain's in the gutter attacks have made it possible to go pretty negative while still claiming the high road. Maintaining the high road is a bad idea; looking higher-road than McCain while hitting him harder than he hits you is a good idea.

1. Surrogates: Obama rightly wants to avoid looking like the stereotypical racial victim, but he can have surrogates deconstruct aspects of McCain's dogwhistle rhetoric and also harp on just how negative McCain's campaign has become. Spin the media and make sure some of your ads are juicy enough that the media will run them for free.

2. Veterans Rights: I'd like to see Obama explicitly pivot the discussion to the subject of Veterans rights, where McCain is very weak and where his mean-spirited character and support for starting and prolonging the Iraq war can be exploited. He's been just plain nasty on Vet Rights and should be made to pay.

Are the GOP money men entirely happy with their candidate? Or do they find his positions as confused and incoherent as they look to... well, to little old me.

My headline is the actual title of an Op-Ed piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal: Is John McCain Stupid?

In his lead, Daniel Henninger points out:

Is John McCain losing it?

On Sunday, he said on national television that to solve Social Security "everything's on the table," which of course means raising payroll taxes. On July 7 in Denver he said: "Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't."

This isn't a flip-flop. It's a sex-change operation.

After reviewing further flipflops on Social Security, and several more such severe policy reversals, Henninger asks the money question:

What I'm asking is, does John McCain have the mental focus, the intellectual discipline, to avoid being out-slicked by Barack Obama, if he isn't abandoned by his own voters?

I hope questions like this, from the conservative WSJ, might encourage some of the Chicken Littles at Daily Kos.

If you watch a lot of TV, you'll find that, according to the heads you find talking there, an awful lot of things are good for McCain.

For example, these are good for McCain:

•GOP Senator Ted Stevens has just been indicted on multiple counts of corruption. This is good for McCain.

•Obama has led in virtually every national poll since June, by scores ranging from 12% to 1%. Why isn't Obama leading by more? This is good for McCain.

•Obama's composite lead in the national polls (pollster.com) is only 47.2-41.6. Why, that's not even six full points! This is very good for McCain!

•Obama spoke eloquently to 200,000 screaming, flag waving Berliners while McCain held forth to a few reporters in front of the Sausage Haus after earlier demonstrating his expertise on bread and cheese. This is extremely good for McCain.

I have an idea for taking on the language of racial innuendo on Fox News that I'm hoping many of you can get behind.

Last night, I was reading a thread, Fox News: Racism Is Their Marketing Plan. UPDATED w/Colbert Video, on the 620,000 petitions--collected by MoveOn and Color of Change—that had been delivered to Fox News asking them to rein in their racial innuendo / hate speech. Fox refused these petitions, which were presented later that night by the rapper Nas on the Colbert Report.

I got the idea, prompted by a comment KingOneEye, the thread's diarist, that copies of these petitions should next be submitted to Fox's principle sponsors, such as Toyota. Sponsors might get seriously queasy if they are called on Fox New's frequently revolting and incendiary racist propaganda.

This could be huge! At the least it's very interesting....

A series of linked discussions from MSNBC's Chuck Todd led 'First Read', from Marc Ambinder, and from Nate Silver's 'fivethirtyeight.com' explore the implications of an ABC / Washington Post poll which shows Obama as having a 3%, 8% or 12% lead depending on how you count (or weight) it.

How can the figures be so different? And what are the implications of these differences? More below the fold...

I was watching a snarky youtube video yesterday called How to Speak Republican in which a smarmy announcer tutors the viewer in this nasty and simpleminded art. The way it works doesn't require much thought.

If you're a conservative and somebody raises uncomfortable questions with you about Iraq, healthcare or the environment, all you have do is reply with sneer appropriate to the topic: "You're just a liberal who's soft on terrorism"--though it has to be said with just the right degree of snarl, and a waving finger thrust in the face of you're interlocutor is a helpful touch.

The conservatives use these kind of tactics because they have succeeded in demonizing the term liberal with much of the general public. This is part (but not all) of the reason for the emergence of the term Progressive. It's a term the GOP hasn't yet had a chance to smear.

But, the GOP brand is now in the toilet--and they put it there. How can progressives take advantage of this to start winning arguments the easy way? See my answer below the fold....

I haven't seen this posted yet, and I thought you might find it interesting.

According to examiner.com, who cite a new book by former Time reporter Paul Alexander titled Machiavelli's Shadow Bush fired Rove with the words, "‘Karl,’ Bush said, ‘there’s too much heat on you. It’s time for you to go.’” According to the examiner.com piece, he did it in church to avoid an unpleasant scene--you know, like Rove going nucaler.

Back in August of 2007, Rove claimed that leaving the White House because, according to theNew York Times:

White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, recently told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day he would expect them to stay through the remaining 17 months of Mr. Bush’s term.

That always seemed like a fishy cover story to me--nobody else left at the same moment. Now, the evidence suggests, it simply wasn't true.

Just a quick diary to express a current thought...

Sure it's a jury-rigged affair, with a mix of different kinds of elections and caucuses involving wildly varying rules, with a schedule that could charitably be called confused, and with a super-delegate system whose efficacy and legitimacy many called into doubt.

Yet somehow, against all odds, the Democratic primary system actually worked.

It allowed time for a large candidate pool to get sorted out and vetted. It allowed time for two front-runners to emerge and introduce themselves nationwide.

It allowed time for the front-runners to be battle tested and in the process grow a new and larger electorate.

I've been, since I made the choice just before Super Tuesday, a strong and ever-more enthusiastic Obama supporter. My wife has been a supporter of Hillary Clinton.

I think her motivation to back Hillary was twofold. First, Hillary is our Senator and we both think of her as a strong representative of the needs and values of New Yorkers. We also admired her first campaign in our state, where she made frequent visits to our small upstate community and ingratiated herself with many local politicians who are our friends. Second,  my wife is a strong, though never doctrinaire feminist, and she really wanted to see a woman president in her lifetime--a sentiment I certainly share.

She's also a strong liberal and made it clear that she would enthusiastically vote for Obama if he won the nomination. She's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, but she doesn't follow national politics very closely--and hasn't followed the primary campaign much at all. In fact, she's rather actively resistent to engaging much with national politics, though she has never missed a chance to vote, even in small local elections.

On the strength of all of this, I decided not to press the issue of my intense enthusiasm for Obama and the progressive movement he is building until after he had sewn up the nomination.

I did a quick look and didn't find this posted. I'll delete if there's a previous diary.

According to the Huffington Post, Hillary Clinton To Suspend Campaign Saturday

Other sources say Friday, as HuffPo notes, but this may be the real word:

The Clinton campaign issued a statement at around 9pm saying they will be hosting an event to announce her support for Sen. Obama on Saturday, as opposed to Friday:

Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, DC to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend.

I haven't seen this count diaried anywhere, so I thought I'd spell out (or maybe count out) the net superdelegates won by Obama since his recent big primary victory.

According to DemComWatch, Obama has netted a 22-1 advantage in super delegates since the May 6 primaries in NC and IN. This is assuming I have counted right, but I'm certainly close. He did this by winning endorsement from 22 supers, including three who switched to him after previously endorsing Sen Clinton. HRC picked up four, but when you subtract the three she lost, that gives her a net gain of just one.

You can find the resultshere, at DemComWatch,, which dailykos has been using as its primary source for superdelegates because of the site's transparency and high standards for verification.

On Saturday, Obama got five new supers including one switch (Kevin Rodriguez from the DNC). Clinton gained one, for a net of zero.

Note: This began as a comment on another diary, but thought I'd bump it up to a diary of its own. Here goes--

I have a grad degree but don't like arugula a or lattes either. And I take black coffee with my orange juice.

I can't figure it out. Does that make me just half an elitist? Or maybe 3/4?

Seriously, I never quite figured out what makes somebody an elitist...it seems like attending a classy university on scholarship, even if you're half black and raised by a single mom, makes you an elitist?

One thing is clear--both Hillary and Obama are members of an elite by several measures: education, wealth, rank (both US senators), fame, earning potential, communications skills. You name it, they are at or near the top.

In my opinion, what makes somebody an elitist is to believe that only the elites, or only one's own particular elites, matter. By that measure, Bush is clearly an elitist, but Obama, IMHO, is not and never was...

This is from Lawrence O'Donnell at Huffington Post, headlined: Hillary Will Drop out by June 15.

Here's the lead:

A senior campaign official and Clinton confidante has told me that there will be a Democratic nominee by June 15. He could not bring himself to say the words "Hillary will drop out by June 15," but that is clearly what he meant. I kept saying, "So, Hillary will drop out by June 15," and he kept saying, "We will have a nominee by June 15." He stressed what a reasonable person Hillary is.

I'm not sure how valid this is--or even how exciting. June 15 is more than a month away. But it does suggest that we're not going to have a battle on the convention floor.

I'm not sure if this has been diaried before, but I thought I would point out a link to a cool, fun, and (for Obama fans) reassuring New York Times Superdelegate Calculator.

What you can do with this is to slide an indicator along a bar, suggesting the percentage of pledged delegates Obama might win between now and the end of the primary season, and it will give you the percentage of superdelegates he or Hillary would need to secure the nomination.

Link and enjoy! The news is good for Obama supporters. It's not something you didn't already know, but it's nice to have the knowledge at your fingertips.

For example, if Obama wins 50% of the remaining pledged delegates, Hillary would need to somehow secure  73% of the remaining supers to be nominated. She can't do that. Barack, on the other hand, would win with just  27% of the supers.

More below the fold...

Well, I'm not sure if this can really be considered "breaking", since it merely records another stage in Bush's inexorable slide towards the trash-bin of history, but anyway the results of the latest CNN/Opnion Research Corp Poll is here.

"No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.

Bush's approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s," Holland said. "The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952

Only 30% support the war, while 68% oppose it.

My mother and two sisters live in Angola, Indiana--a small town on the northeastern tip of the Hooiser state. This is solid Republican country. In fact, the local paper is called the Herald Republican. My sisters are both rabid Democrats--transplants from NJ. My mother is a former dyed in the wool Republican, but now herself a rabid Democrat.

Since Indiana is now Primary Central--and I'm far away in upstate NY-- I thought I would check with my sibs about their on the ground view of things. What follows are extracts--admitedly unscientific-- from emails from my two sisters.

My sisters don't mince words--and they are the self-described "mamas for Obama"--so I hope you will find this fun, and maybe a bit encouraging, too.

Here's the first message, from the younger sister, sent on Saturday (4/26)

Wow!!!! What a great time to be a democrat, political junky and a Hoosier!!!!!  I guess I'll be pretty easy to be found for the next 10 days.. glued to the TV.
 
I'm going to take a wild guess that Obama will take IN by 4% and it will be a nail-biter right up to the last minute.

More below the fold...(and please note that capitalization, etc., has been left as I found it)

Why can't Obama "seal the deal"? That's what all the pundits (including Cafferty here) are asking. Because.... (wait for it)...the two strongest candidates in this presidential cycle are Democrats. Arguably, when the race included more candidates, the THREE strongest  candidates were Democrats (I'm thinking here of John Edwards).

Hillary is a very tough candidate. She has scads of name recognition, a strong base within core constiuencies of the Democratic party--including women, who have been waiting for a credible presidential candidate for a long time. (My wife and several co-workers fall into this category, and, much as I am rooting for Obama, I have to sympathize). Moreover, relative to Republicans like McCain, Sen Clinton has mounted a strong fundraising effort. She is very articulate, tenacious and combative, and she also has an experienced team of campaigners behind her even if they don't seem to quite understand the merits of the 50 state strategy. She would have won in a walk against any other Democrat.

What I like about the primary system is basically that it is so...well...democratic.

I know it is frustrating to watch what seems like this never-ending process. In particular, the proportional distribution of delegates following each primary makes it difficult to score a knockout blow. And with Obama so near to victory, it's hard to watch and wait for the seemingly inevitable to happen. The primaries are spaced out in time and with the proportional representation, plus the superdelegates drifting in at at rate of three or four per week, or so it seems, it appears as if it will never end.

But overall, I think this process has favored Obama and in fact has enabled the emergence of his candidacy. Under this system, his steady and seemingly unshakeable command of the pledged delegate count, and his growing strength in the superdelegate count, are projecting their own inevitable logic and are facts that can't be spun away.

As seamen in the days of sail used to say, "a stern chase is a long chase," but Obama's swift and agile clipper ship has overhauled Hillary's ponderous Ship of the Line and he just needs to stay on course to win...

More reflections over the jump...