Campaign Donation Disclosure: So Easy, a Caveman can do it

Well, cavemen, er cavepersons over at Slate.

Barack Obama refuses to release the names of the 2 million-plus people who have given his campaign less than $200. According to campaign officials, it would be too difficult and time-consuming to extract this information from its database.

So how come we were able to do it in a couple hours?

Oh dear. You have challenged Obama. Watch out for the pink slip getting kicked off the campaign bus.

Another Really Smart Guy draws a blank

This time it is Jeffrey Sachs.

Don't worry though. It's not like Jeffrey Sachs is an important really smart guy. Oh shit. He is.

lol, ObamaStock tickets sold out, not really

The free ones are all gone. Enough people handed over their personal information for data mining purposes. Now the short supply is entering the resale market.

FS: One ObamaStock ticket. Highest bid so far, $550.

He promised me a middle class tax cut. I spent it before I received it just to see the One.

What Honest Political Reporting Looks Like: Lynn Sweet Edition

ObamaStock 2008 in Grant Park is issuing tickets for data collection purposes for future use.

Dear Republicans,

Are you paying attention?

Sincerely,

The Silent Majority

Diehard Hillary Supporters still fighting the good fight

Barack Obama and his supporters have never played slow pitch softball when it comes to campaigning. They are calculating professionals that will bite, scratch, and claw their way to victory by any means necessary.

They are damn good at it too.

Hillbuzz, a blog run by supporters of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary, are churning out reports that attempt to hold state Democratic primaries that hold caucuses to the letter of the law.

They have a new report on the effort in Nevada.

AP Report on decline in Obama fundraising doesn't mention Address Verification System

Obama fundraising drops as McCain's cash dwindles

I have written to AP reporter Jim Kuhnhenn, AP DC bureau chief Ron Fournier, and AP Managing editor Michael Oreskas asking them if they had any information about the use of or lack thereof of the Address Verification System(AVS) that apparently is not being used by the Obama camp to validate online credit card contributions.

McCain pressing Raines ties to Obama

A brief review of the events that unfolded yesterday.

McCain camp ad tying Franklin Raines to Barack Obama hits airwaves the evening of 9/18. The ad is accurate based on reporting in the Washington Post.

Karen Tumulty insinuates the ad is racist because the voice of a white woman speaks in between photos of Barack Obama and Franklin Raines. Both men are black in case you didn't know. Tumulty further states that the lack of Jim Johnson, another disgraced executive at Fannie Mae that was chairing the Obama VP search committee, in the ad is further evidence of racism. On the morning of 9/19 the McCain ad citing Jim Johnson's connections to the Obama campaign hits the airwaves.

The ad is depicted as a lie. These claims are false.

McCain on the stump exaggerates Franklin Raines' connections to the Obama campaign.

This statement is accurately depicted as a lie. McCain extended the veracity of his campaign ad to say Raines is advising Obama on "housing policy matters". This claim is inaccurate.

One of the big problems I have with flinging lie, lies, and liar accusations at bloggers, reporters, pundits or politicians is the fact that a lot of comments made do extend or retract the accuracy of the original information. McCain's statement is something I would classify as a mistatement, but certainly one that he should correct. If that mistatement is made again, that's when we get into lie territory. At that point he's knowingly forwarding a point that is refuted as untrue.

AP: Franklin Raines' email to Carly Fiorina

AP says Frank told Carly he's not advising Obama.

Obama's campaign says Raines is not an Obama adviser and that McCain's campaign knows it because Raines said so in an e-mail earlier this week to Carly Fiorina, a top McCain adviser. Obama's campaign provided The Associated Press with a copy of the e-mail.

I really don't get these people. The Obama camp is sending copies of Frank Raines' email to the AP? Why isn't Frank Raines sending copies of his own email to the AP?

Frank Raines allegedly isn't advising Obama, but Obama still has copies of his emails?

Follow this story: TPM elevating "voter suppression" charges

lol

From a longtime reader ...

What, like a lawyer involved in the case?

Ride in the Delorian: I blogged about this story earlier this week. Macomb County GOP Chair John Carabelli continues to deny he ever made these statements about foreclosed homes and the voters that are registered as living in them.

When denials are made, Talking Points Memo is only listening when they want to hear what you're saying.

Updates: Is Frankin Raines advising Obama or not?

McCain runs a new ad quoting the Washington Post that says Raines is advising Obama on housing policy matters. Obama denies this. Who are the Post's sources?

Byron York is trying to tie up the loose ends today, but he's linking to stories I read in August where Raines is touting his access as he revives his reputation after Fannie.

It's the Washington Post vs Obama. Who is right?

Update: This post will be updated all day. This story turning very ugly, very fast.

Time Magazine's Karen Tumulty, a reporter I find to be among the most reasonable, fair minded go getters in the business, is accusing the McCain team of playing the race card. Unbelievable. Newsbusters and Patterico both have reactions to this. Tumulty has this to say.

Let me stipulate: Obama's Fannie Mae connections are completely fair game. But this ad doesn't even mention a far more significant tie--that of Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chairman who had to resign as head of Obama's vice presidential search team after it was revealed he got a sweetheart deal on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial.

No Jim Johnson means the ad is racist? Whoops. The Jim Johnson ad from Team McCain is out today with plans for a national ad buy.

When mainstream reporters speculate publicly on blogs they look foolish, but lets see how they react when you remind them of their commentary. Bloggers on the other hand openly speculate about reports and rumors all the time, but when they're not sure they use a question mark.

Team Obama is vulnerable on his connections to Fannie Mae, his love of ACORN, and Fannie Mae's family embrace of Obama and ACORN. This move to push the race card into these ads is alarming.

Member of DNC Platform Committee endorses John McCain for President

This makes Republicans for Obama or Republicans for Kerry look like a game of four square at the local park in Nowhere, USA.

Junior Varsity Foolery: Team Obama intimidates WGN again

There they go again.

The Tribune-owned station was flooded with calls and e-mails about an hour before an Aug. 27 interview with Stanley Kurtz, a conservative writer who examined Obama's ties to former 1960s radical William Ayers.

Vote early, vote often. The Chicago Way is the Obama way. Help keep Chicago practices in Chicago. My city is a political cancer that is communicable through voluntary means only.

More on that later: Two fronts to watch; Update: Drizzle

Two items today that actually do require a little "more on that later" insight. First is a TPM post from David Kurtz unlocking the door to discredit Amir Taheri's column published in the NY Post. Taheri alleges that Barack Obama tried to get the Iraqi government to delay their decisions on Iraq and the US presense there until after the November elections. Itself a serious charge, Taheri wrote this.

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

David Kurtz is suggesting this isn't really accurate and appears to have some sort of inside baseball quotes from Team Obama. Well, no quotes no, but hopefully more on that later. Kurtz does poor some slime in the path of, no, behind the path of Randy Scheunemann, a McCain foreign policy adviser.

If the news reports are accurate, and therein lies the rub. We'll have more on what exactly Obama has said on this issue, publicly, in a bit. But you need to know a bit more about Taheri, who runs in the same neocon circles as Scheunemann.

Taheri and Scheunemann might read the same newspapers. Uh oh.

Second story comes out of Michigan where allegedly the chair of the Macomb County GOP said that residents with homes in foreclosure will be challenged at the polls. Holy power of satan does this alleged charge have the passion and zeal to fire up the nutroots. But did the chair or didn't the chair actually make this statement that was reported and published by out and out left wing journalists.

Carabelli, however, told The Detroit News on Thursday that "I never said anything even close to that. We won't be doing voter challenges on foreclosures, and we've never had a plan to do it."

It's not the denial, but the original statement. Will it even matter if the original statement is fabricated? Project Vote is already on the scene in Michigan from a national view. Locally, the nutroots organized left of center media interest groups are pouncing.

What's in the postgame? Is Taheri a liar? Is Carabelli one too? More on both later.

UPDATE: In regards to Amir Taheri's column, has Team Obama confirmed the story? You decide.

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

Oh nos. More questions. Is the current Congress unable to review any statframagreement? Obama's part of that Congress. The Democrats control both chambers of the Congress. What gives? The Iraqis clearly state they're future cannot wait for Obama's clock to toll.

Team Obama goes back to the issues, one of which is, John McCain can't use a computer

OK. Perhaps not the best issues, but certainly "gloves off" "hard hitting" "non-trivial issues". Computers and email: change we can believe in that I sure hope doesn't push consistent voters over to McCain.

Jake Tapper is asking if this is the proper approach. He notes it is not the first time Team Obama has come out with a "gloves off" memo. In fact, he thinks it's the fourth time they've said this.

Obama also has a new "hard hitting" ad on "non-trivial issues" you have to see to believe. It's over with Tapper.

Why the McCain campaign is winning; Update: Does Obama read this blog?

Team Obama is trying to move forward while walking on their heels. Barack Obama's comment about lipstick on a pig wasn't directed at Sarah Palin. However, the McCain camp effectively played it up that way. The media bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Yesterday's slow news day was only made worse by the fact that Barack Obama cannot control the message of the day. The President still does that as he did yesterday.

Obama started his day with a big speech on education outlining his policies. But this was after the President made his comments about Iraq. Naturally the press had all sorts of questions for Obama at his education policy speech ABOUT IRAQ.

Did this foil the entire day for Team Obama? Later Obama makes his lipstick remark trying to be casual and humorous. I laughed when I heard the quote, but then started trying to figure out what he meant beyond the humor.

It didn't matter what the remark meant to convey. The McCain team pounced on it which led to the quote dominating the talk circuit that evening. To make matters worse, Larry King's show was devoted to featuring women in politics talking about Sarah Palin.

Whoops. But still this campaign is freaking sweet.

Barack Obama cannot set the national agenda for the day. This campaign strategy is foolish and further attempts by Team Obama to do so will have to be based on defensive positions or capitalizing on immense gaffes from Team McCain.

And there is a gaffe today from Team McCain. It's an ad about education which I posted earlier. Here Team Obama can play defense effectively to push the media to talk about what they want to talk about - Education. However, did Team McCain already consider this option? If Barack Obama starts talking about Education, Team McCain can start asking about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, something Barack Obama NEVER TALKS about.

Mr. "32 percent approval" President still sets the agenda for the day. The Obama campaign should know better.

Team Obama should be reading Mark Halperin's dispatches at The Page as well as reading his fantastic book.

Update: Barack Obama made some public statements in Norfolk, VA this morning. I promise I have no direct access to his Blackberry. Via Politico.

Obama said the McCain campaign moved to "seize an innocent remark and take it out of context because they knew it's catnip for the news media."

"See, it would be funny, but the news media decided that would be the lead story yesterday. This happens every election cycle. Every four years, this is what we do. This is what they want to spend two of the last 55 days talking about...Enough!" he said.

Obama called the attacks "lies, outrage and swift boat politics."

"These are serious times and they call for a serious debate...spare me all the phony outrage. Spare me all the phony talk about change."

Barack Obama just kicked this discussion from a topic that was moving to life support to a topic that will be discussed yet again for another 24 hour news cycle.

Where are the handlers? The rookie needs a visit to the mound. Coach him.

Josh Marshall insinuating falsely that new McCain ad is "race-baiting"

Josh "more on that later" Marshall reacts to the new McCain ad that tries to tell viewers about the type of education reforms that Barack Obama has authored and supported. Marshall declares the ad to be "race-baiting".

And today McCain comes out with this rancid, race-baiting ad based on another lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison. (And remember, President George H.W. Bush never ran the Willie Horton ad himself. It was an outside group. He wasn't willing to degrade himself that far.)

Marshall doesn't explain how the ad is "race-baiting". Does he even think it is necessary to explain it? Just watch it, I suppose, and you'll clearly see the ad has to be "race-baiting".

Watch the ad for yourself. Perhaps Marshall will explain the "race-baiting" angle when he has "more on that later". Members of the press actually read this guy.

The Campaign Tactic to Nowhere

Michael Crowley is right. The narrative that Barack Obama and Joe Biden voted for 'the bridge to nowhere' and Governor Sarah Palin killed the 'bridge to nowhere' was fun and exciting the first time we heard it. It served it's purpose, that being "Wow. What else did she do?"

Make the bet and hope it takes down the hand, but if the bet is called you better have something else in the chamber to fire. Otherwise you could be setting a trap for yourself.

I wondered about this yesterday. The claim that Sarah Palin "stopped" the bridge to nowhere is so blatantly dishonest that the McCain team had to know it would become at least a mid-sized media fixation. But I suspect they figured that a) more people will believe the advertisement than will see or believe the debunking and, perhaps more important b) it will start "a fight over earmarks with the Obama campaign"--a fight which will quickly stop being about the bridge specifically and play generally to one of McCain's few issues advantages over Obama (by pure dint of McCain's years of obsessive pork-fighting in the Senate).

Update: McCain +10 among likely voters; Can Obama get out out the youth vote? New: A telling graph

USA Today publishes a report on their recent polling with Gallup as their partner.

In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote. The survey of 1,022 adults, including 959 registered voters, has a margin of error of +/— 3 points for both samples.

McCain is +4 among registered voters. Barack Obama needs a GOTV strategy like one never seen before. Or, he needs 60 days of the best campaign ever. Probably a whole lot of both.

Here's a grandiose start.

BRAND: “Now, as a representative of the global community and a visitor from abroad, I don’t want to come across a little bit biased, but could I please ask of you people of America, to PLEASE ELECT BARACK OBAMA. Please! On behalf of the world. (Camera pans to singers Chris Brown and Britney Spears applauding and cheering.) Some people, I think they’re called racists, say that America is not ready for a black president. But I know America to be a forward-thinking country, right. Because, otherwise, you know, would you have let that retarded cowboy fellow be president for eight years?

We were very impressed. It was nice of you to let him have a go. Because in England, George Bush wouldn’t be trusted with a pair of scissors.

I am obliged by broadcasting law to show some balance in this situation, which means, uh, the Republicans might be alright. Sarah Palin. She’s a VILF! A vice president I’d like to…fumble, fondle, I dunno. I do feel a little bit sorry for her daughter, getting pregnant, poor kid. Is it a boy? Is it a girl? It’s a P.R. stunt. Come on. Be honest.

Enjoy the ride folks.

Update: A timely graph can help here. Notice the deduction from the "Other" and the addition to "McCain". Are those wily undecideds now decided? (HT: Mark Silva at "The Swamp")

Here we go again: "My Muslim faith" Update: "The Swamp" says he meant to say Muslim Faith

A Freudian slip at perhaps the worst possible point in the race. Now it will be two months of this "Barack Obama is a Muslim and he says so himself" nonsense.



With the correction that came from George Stephanopoulos.



Update: "The Swamp" is arguing Obama meant to say "my Muslim faith."

Stephanopoulos evidently thought Obama had misspoke and corrected him. But Obama didn't misspeak. Again, the rumor mongers have been pushing the lie about his "Muslim faith" and he was using their language.

Donor that quashed access to CAC records at UIC revealed

It was Ken Rolling, former Executive Director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and current Executive Director of Parents for Public Schools.

What's the bottom line?

Thus, someone with a 20 year history with Senator Obama was tipped off in advance and in secret by a public University about the interest of a political opponent of the Senator in these public records. The CAC was a non profit corporation organized under the laws of the state of Illinois to serve the interests of the people of Illinois. Of course, Ken Rolling now has no legally cognizable interest that I am aware of in the long defunct CAC. Legally, the successor organization to the CAC is the Chicago Public Education Fund, on whose board sits Obama Campaign Finance Chair Penny Pritzker and Obama supporter Susan Crown.

That's speculation, but is it in any way linked to Daily Kos readers that claim to know the facts before they are known. That comment is from Mark Bullocks, a Ph.D student at UIC that also works as a post graduate library assistant at the Richard J. Daley library.