Kiwiblog

A short video showing what Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden said earlier this year about Barack Obama and about John McCain. Nothing better than quoting someone back at themselves.

Hat Tip: New Zeal

Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joe Biden as his Vice-Presidential candidate.

Biden is 65 years old and one of the more experiences Senators – especially in foreign policy. He sought the Democratic nomination 20 years ago in 1988 and was briefly a candidate this time also.

He entered the Senate when I was five years old – in 1973, so has served 36 years there. His age when elected, 30, is the constitutional minimum to be a Senator.

Unlike Obama (who was not in the Senate then), Biden voted in favour of the resolution authorising war in Iraq in 2002.

His 1988 presidental campaign was derailed by plagiarism scandals.

Often VP choices are made to balance the ticket – make it more electable. The Biden choice is of course also about electability, but more about negating fears of Obama’s inexperience that appealing to a specific demographic. It seems a pretty solid choice. The only downside is he undermines Obama’s brand as being about change, but I doubt it will seriously impact that.

The latest Reuters poll has McCain 5% ahead of Obama. Now one should not take too much from one poll, but the RCP average of all polls has Obama’s lead over McCain down to just 1.2%.

Much more significantly is the electoral college count, and for the first time ever, McCain leads – by 274 votes to 264 for Obama. It is too close to call of course, but what is significant is the race is now becoming too close to call.

Obama will be picking his VP next week and ten have his convention. I suspect he will get a huge boost from the convention – especially as his address will be to 65,000 people in a stadium.

Then we get to hear McCain’s VP and his convention. He will then get a boost in turn. Around mid September the polls may start to give us some idea of how the final race is looking.

Obama has been refusing to go head to head with McCain, despite earlier areeing to do so. This editorial may give an idea why:

The stark differences between the two came through the most on the question of whether there is evil in the world. Obama spoke of evil within America, “in parents who have viciously abused their children.” According to the Democrat, we can’t really erase evil in the world because “that is God’s task.” And we have to “have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil.”

For McCain, with a global war on terror raging, there was no equivocating: We must “defeat” evil. If al-Qaida’s placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market isn’t evil, he asked: “You have to tell me what is.”

Fair point.

Asked to name figures he would rely on for advice, Obama gave the stock answer of family members. McCain pointed to Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq’s scourge of the surge; Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who “had his skull fractured” by white racists while protesting for civil rights in the 60s; plus Internet entrepreneur Meg Whitman, the innovative former CEO of eBay.

Bland answer No 2.

When Warren inquired into changes of mind on big issues, Obama fretted about welfare reform; McCain unashamedly said “drilling” — for reasons of national security and economic need.

Always a good question.

On taxes, Obama waxed political: “What I’m trying to do is create a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code.” McCain showed an understanding of what drives a free economy: “I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth.”

Again Obama gives a bland response.

To any honest observer, the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama have been evident all along. What we saw last weekend was Obama’s shallowness juxtaposed with McCain’s depth, the product of his extraordinary life experience.

The question is will Obama be able to go all the way to election day with bland generalisations about fairnness and change. Possibly he will.

Deborah Coddington lets loose on John Edwards:

… since American politics – whether we like it or not – impacts on the world – we should all be grateful to this woman who has exposed Edwards as a liar, hypocrite, narcissist, and, ultimately, misogynist.

Edwards was always my least favourite Democratic candidate of the three of them.

It’s taken the “respectable” newspapers months to pick up on Edwards’ vainglorious behaviour. Broken first by the National Enquirer, it was ignored by the “mainstream media” until they finally conceded the tabloid was on to something.

It is worth recalling that the New York Times ran a massive story alleging that McCain may have had an affair with a lobbyist. There wasn’t any evidence of this affair, just suspicions yet that was enough to make their front page. But with John Edwards, they ignored the affair for months and months despite the fact it was well known around the beltway, and had been covered at length in the tabloids.

I just wish Edwards had beaten Obama. If the Republicans had been handed this delicious news in the middle of the presidential campaign, McCain would easily be seated in the Oval Office, and the prospects of free trade for our agricultural produce, and New Zealand’s economy, would get a whole lot better.

Even Phil Goff is saying that NZ will do better in terms of a trade agreement, if McCain wins.

The crowd of 200,000 which turned out in Berlin to hear a mere candidate for the US presidency confirms that Obama is more a phenomenon than an ordinary candidate. I struggle to see how he will lose unless he majorly stuffs up. His flip-flops on the surge in Iraq are not going to be sufficient.

The speech was Obama at his best in a presentational sense. Almost every line drew applause. Now I can look at the content and be sceptical of such puffery as ridding the world of nuclear weapons and wanting Jews and Arab to work together, but as a candidate he can get away with such stuff. I do still wonder how he will go in office (ih he wins) when he has to actually make a tough decision.

But if he wins, it is clear he will be an extraordinarily popular United States President globally. And while they don’t vote, it will be refreshing to have a President who has global popularity. It may benefit both the US and Obama’s presidency.

But the flipside is the curse of expectations. When those tough decisions do confront Obama, and he does do something which is unpopular globally – the backlash may be even worse as people could feel a sense of betrayal.

Obama is only 4% ahead of McCain, but he will well ahead in the electoral college vote, and he is receiving twice as much coverage as McCain. This is arguably the result of an uncritical gushy media, but I can’t see it changing.

The latest JibJab – God those guys are good.

The left often go on about how awful money in politics is, and how we need the EFA because hell we can’t have a third party spend more than $120,000 supporting or opposing a party over a year etc.

So where have been the protests from the left that Barack Obama “purchased” the nominaion by outspending Hillary Clinton? Why are they not denouncing Obama for unfairly spending more money than Clinton?

Now Obama pledged in February 2007 that he would stay in the federal public financing system if he did win the primary fight, as long as his GOP opponent did the same, which McCain has agreed to. What this means is you get around $85 million of public funding but can’t spend extra on top of that, once the nominating convention has concluded.

Now Obama is looking to renege on that pledge, and may become the first ever presidential candidate to try and bury his opponent through outspending in the general election. So again where are the howls of outrage?

Some interesting stats at Real Clear Politics in terms of the popular vote for the Democratic nomination.

With all primaries over, Obama leads Clinton by just 0.1% in the popular vote. That is 34,000 out of 35 million cast. This excludes Michigan where Obama was not on the ballot.

If you add on estimates for four Caucuses, his lead stretches to 0.4%.

However if you add Michigan in, Clinton leads by 0.8% or 0.5% including the caucuses.

This is a bit unfair though as Obama was not on the ballot paper. However 45% voted uncommitted and if one assigns them to Obama (which is the fairest thing to do), what is the result?

It is Clinton ahead by 0.1%. However add in estimates for the four caucuses and it is Obama by 0.2%.

So it is a bit like Florida in 2000. Both sides can claim to have won the popular vote depending on how you count it. In three scenarios Obama wins, and in three Clinton wins.

I tend to think the final result I have listed – the one with Obama ahead by 0.2% is probably the most appropriate as it includes all primaries and caucuses.

Finally, after five months of primaries and caucuses, Barack Obama has become the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for the United States Presidency.

He passed the magical 2,118 target today with a wave of pledges from super delegates, putting himself over the line before we even get results from Montana.

It is a historic day to have an African American candidate for the most powerful job in the world. Not only was slavery legal 150 years ago in the US, but just 40 years ago African Americans were segregated second class citizens (and in NZ worth noting it was only in 1967 that Maori were allowed to vote on the general roll). The US has come a very long way in just one generation.

I am not a fan of Senator Obama’s policies, but today is a day to recognize his historic achievement. He is an extremely gifted politician who carries the burden of a huge amount of hope and promise for his supporters. He managed to defeat the formidable Clinton machine and now faces off the no less formidable Republican Party.

If he should win, it has to be recognized that an Obama presidency has the potential to be a positive catalyst for improving America’s standing within the world. A Black President would be more than just a powerful symbol for a country which is truly built on being a melting pot of immigrants. A President who attended school in Pakistan Indonesia, and has Muslim relatives would make it a lot harder to demonise the United States as the Great Satan.

There are legitimate questions over his experience and his policies, and they will be debated over the months to come. But today is Obama’s day – and one he has earnt.

Obama has picked up some more super delegates and looks to have 1,970 delegates – just 56 short of the 2,026 needed.

86 delegates are still to go, so if he gets half that is just 13 short. It really should finally end on the 3rd of June (4th in NZ).

In Montana a poll out last week has Obama ahead by 17% so he should pick up over half the 16 delegates – maybe 10 to 6.

South Dakota had a early April poll with Obama ahead by 12%. Delegate split of their 15 may be 8 to 7 in his favour.

In Puerto Rico, Clinton led by 13% in the last poll (5 April) and should win that one. Delegates may split 30 to 25 for her (55 in total).

The HeraldNet reports from the US on allegations against Obama, including from NZer Trevor Loudon who specialises in links to communism:

Here are some things we can look forward to learning about Barack Obama:

That he was mentored in high school by a member of the Soviet-controlled Communist Party.

That he launched his Illinois state Senate campaign in the home of a terrorist and a killer.

That while serving as a state senator, he was a member of a socialist front group.

That his affiliations are so dodgy that he would have trouble getting a government security clearance.

The newspaper is sceptical, saying:

The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy took a blow with Hillary Clinton’s exit. But it is regrouping, and finding plenty of sinister things to say about Obama — even if he didn’t trade cattle futures.

Hillary invented the term VRWC to describe her foes. If the VRWC is now targeting Obama, Hillary is probably funding them

“He’s a member of an organization (that is) openly a front for two socialist groups,” reported another participant, Trevor Loudon.

“Obama was raised and educated in a very Marxist-rich environment, which often would limit his worldview,” reported a third, Max Friedman.

In college, Obama “admits selecting Marxist professors among his friends and attending socialist conferences,” Kincaid went on. In Chicago, he said, “Obama launched his political career back in 1995 at the home of communist-terrorist Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn,” the two Weather Underground figures who have already made a cameo in the campaign. Kincaid then made the unilateral decision to accuse Dohrn of the 1970 killing of a policeman, a charge no prosecutor has made.

Personally I’m not too worried about communist influences when people were young. Hell Stephen Franks was a communist as a student and he has turned out fine

But I do hope the election in the US will focus on the policies, not just the rhetoric, of the two candidates. For example John McCain is staunchly in favour of genuine free trade agreements with as many countries as possible. Obama is not only against further FTAs but wants to renege renegotiate on the ones already signed such as NAFTA.

It seems Hillary Clinton has a new plan for winning the nomination. Just keep the race going as long as possible, and wait for Obama to be assassinated as Robert Kennedy was!

Well how else does one interpret her remarks:

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out

So the race isn’t over until the first shit shot is fired!

UPDATE: And maybe her Plan B ties into Bill pushing her to be the VP candidate for Obama. Wait long enough and she might still get to be the first female President!

According to Real Clear Politics, Obama now has 1,957 delegates – just 68 short of the magic 2,025. Obama picked up 42 from Oregon and Kentucky to 53 for Clinton.

86 delegates remain from two states and a territory. Clinton will probably pick up more than Obama due to Puerto Rico, but assume 50/50 then that puts Obama to exactly 2,000.

So he needs 25 more super delegates after that.  There are 209 yet to pledge so that should not be an issue. His campaign team will deserve to be sacked if on the day of the last primary (3 June) he can not announce two dozen super delegates. And finally it will be over.

A very amusing video song of all the things younger than John McCain. They include:

• GI Joe
• Barbie
• The AIr Force
• The CIA
• Snow White
• credit cards
• string bikinis
• The Pentagon
• Disneyland
• Coke in a can
• Batman
• Israel
• birth control (presumably just the pill)

It’s a bit nasty in one or two parts where they present McCain as confused and doddery, but overall it is an excellent use of humour.

Hat Tip: Whoar

Most media organisations are now reporting that Obama now has a lead amongst super-delegates as well as pledged delegates. There is no official site for super delegate counting but I use Real Clear Politics who has it Obama 275 to Clinton 271.

Clinton will probably stay in the race until the last primary, just so every vote counts but her money will now be dried up. Her only hope has been that her attacks on Obama would make him unelectable, and that super delegates would decide it for her. But now he can almost ignore her as he takes aim at McCain.

It is premature to post on the historic nature of Obama’s achievement, until it is official, but it is truly historic.

If Obama picks up half the delegates in the six primaries to go, he will add on 109 to his 1,866 to be at 1,975 – just 50 short of the 2025 he need. I suspect he will have those or get those by the 3rd of June.

Obama has easily won North Carolina (as predicted) by 56% to 42%.  Indiana went for Clinton but only by 51% to 49%.

Clinton’s failure to win bigger in Indiana is increasing the pressure on her to pull out. But it is likely that the contest will go on for at least another month.

In North Carolina the exit poll has a huge differential by race.

White Democrats backed Clinton 62% to 37% and white Independents were 58% to 38%.  Obama however got 92% of Black Democrats.

The Indiana exit poll is also extreme. Of concern must be the fact that only 71% say they will vote for Obama if he is the candidate against McCain.

White Democrats in Indiana went 64% to 36% for Clinton.  Black Democrats were 91% for Obama.

Obama also won the “very liberal” vote by 62% to 38%. They only make up 14% of primary voters.

I have followed Barack Obama’s career since around a year before he got elected to the Senate in 2004, as even back then people were saying he might be the first Black President of the United States.

He gave a great speech to the 2004 Convention, and I have hoped he would do well enough to one day be elected President, because I do think it should be a great day when an African-American is elected President of the United States. That of course is not reason enough alone to support them, but recognising their legacy of slavery and segregation which didn’t even centuries ago but just in the last generation.

I always thought he should not stand until 2012 or even 2016, when he would have more experience than not even a full term as a backbench Senator. But the opportunity to stand in 2008 became real, and he went for it – and will probably be the Democratic candidate.

I started off as a fairly strong supporter of Clinton over Obama for the Democratic nomination, mainly due to said inexperience. But over the months I started to be far more favourable towards Obama. His speeches were amazing, Clinton was over-exaggerating her own experience and Bill Clinton was starting to over-shadow his own wife and make it look like she was running for a third term for him, not for herself.

I thought a McCain vs Obama contest would be a good outcome, as both men were not creatures of their parties, but their own man.

But I have to say I have gone off Obama in a major major way. Yes he gives good speeches, but his policies are crap, his inexperience keeps showing, and I really don’t know what the guy thinks or will do if in office. I may not like Hillary Clinton, but at least you know what she is.

Mort Kondracke, the Executive Editor of Roll Call, notes:

He’s also now revealed as the most liberal Member of the U.S. Senate — and one who has never, ever departed from party orthodoxy to form the kind of bipartisan coalition he says — correctly — that it will take to solve America’s problems.

Unlike McCain, who has voted against his party often, Obama has never done any major deals with politicians from across the aisle.

Karl Rove (yes I know he is the Prince of Darkness, but he knows his subjects) writes in the Wall Street Journal:

His inspiring rhetoric is a potent tool for energizing college students and previously uninvolved African-American voters. But his appeals are based on two aspirational pledges he is increasingly less credible in making.

Mr. Obama’s call for postpartisanship looks unconvincing, when he is unable to point to a single important instance in his Senate career when he demonstrated bipartisanship. And his repeated calls to remember Dr. Martin Luther King’s “fierce urgency of now” in tackling big issues falls flat as voters discover that he has not provided leadership on any major legislative battle.

Mr. Obama has not been a leader on big causes in Congress. He has been manifestly unwilling to expend his political capital on urgent issues. He has been only an observer, watching the action from a distance, thinking wry and sardonic and cynical thoughts to himself about his colleagues, mildly amused at their to-ing and fro-ing. He has held his energy and talent in reserve for the more important task of advancing his own political career, which means running for president.

John Judis at the New Republic looks at his electability:

Even though he campaigned extensively among white working class Pennsylvanians, he still couldn’t crack this constituency. He lost every white working class county in the state. He lost greater Pittsburgh area by 61 to 39 percent. He did poorly among Catholics–losing them 71 to 29 percent. A Democrat can’t win Pennsylvania in the fall without these voters. And those who didn’t vote in the primary but will vote in the general election are likely to be even less amenable to Obama. …

Indeed, if you look at Obama’s vote in Pennsylvania, you begin to see the outlines of the old George McGovern coalition that haunted the Democrats during the ’70s and ’80s, led by college students and minorities. In Pennsylvania, Obama did best in college towns (60 to 40 percent in Penn State’s Centre County) and in heavily black areas like Philadelphia.

Its ideology is very liberal. Whereas in the first primaries and caucuses, Obama benefited from being seen as middle-of-the-road or even conservative, he is now receiving his strongest support from voters who see themselves as “very liberal.” In Pennsylvania, he defeated Clinton among “very liberal” voters by 55 to 45 percent, but lost “somewhat conservative” voters by 53 to 47 percent and moderates by 60 to 40 percent. In Wisconsin and Virginia, by contrast, he had done best against Clinton among voters who saw themselves as moderate or somewhat conservative.

As mentioned earlier, Obama’s position on every issue is pure “liberal”. His voting record is now the most leftwing in the Senate.

The Washington Post looks at the cost of pledges made by Obama (and Clinton). He has pledged US$333 billion of extra annual spending.

When you add on other pledges Obama is looking to impose extra annual costs of half a trillion dollars, and this is compared to an existign federal budget if $2.9 trillion. So that is an increase which wuld give even Michael Cullen the horrors.

And Obama is a protectionist, as identified by The Independent:

The most extraordinary thing is that Obama has actually been pandering to the “bitterness” he identified – the “anti-trade sentiment”. In the rust belts of Ohio and Pennsylvania the Senator from Illinois has lost no opportunity to blame America’s economic woes on the free-trade treaty with Canada and Mexico (Nafta) – which had been enacted by President Clinton.

Obama is one of three Congressional sponsors of “The Patriot Employer Act”, which seeks to give preferential tax status to American companies that choose not to invest overseas. His anti-globalisation rhetoric goes far beyond criticism of free-trade deals such as Nafta. Obama told voters in New Hampshire:”I would stop the import of all toys from China”. China supplies 80 per cent of the toys sold in the US, so that’s one heck of a pile of embargoed fluffy bunnies.

Why stop at banning the import of toys from China. Just ban everything.

Lyndon Hood reminds me of the goodness that is the Borowitz Report for US political satire. Take this item on Monday headlined “Democratic Race ‘Too Mean,’ Say Swift Boat Veterans“:

The Democratic race for President has descended to “a level of meanness and acrimony that is damaging to American politics,” the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said today.

The Swift Boat group, which became famous in 2004 for attacking Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, said that they were speaking out because “the current Democratic contest is giving swiftboating a bad name.”

“We have increasingly heard pundits accusing Clinton and Obama of swiftboating each other,” said Swift Boat Veteran Tracy Klugian. “This hurts the reputation of swiftboating.”

Mr. Klugian was quick to draw a distinction between what Sens. Clinton and Obama are doing and swiftboating, which he called “a noble profession.”

“When you try to destroy a member of another party, that’s swiftboating,” said Mr. Klugian. “When you do it to a member of your own party, that’s cannibalism.”

He said that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would soon air ads attacking both Democratic candidates for sullying the reputation of swiftboating.

That is just classic.

The table above shows the 51 states (including DC) which get to vote in the November US election, and who has won each state in the Democratic Primary, and by how much. It is sorted by most to least electoral college votes.

Of the ten biggest states (comprising 256 of the 538 electors) Clinton has won eight, and Obama just two (one his own).

Obama is still highly highly likely to be the Democratic nominee. But his inability to win in the larger states does mean those lingering doubts about him grow. And Clinton is not going anywhere as Maureen Dowd points out:

Now that Hillary has won Pennsylvania, it will take a village to help Obama escape from the suffocating embrace of his rival. Certainly Howard Dean will be of no use steering her to the exit. It’s like Micronesia telling Russia to denuke.

Heh. Indeed.

Meanwhile Clinton is going more hawkish than the hawks. Look at this:

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on “Good Morning America” Tuesday. ABC News’ Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Hey if MCain wins, maybe she can be Secretary of Defence

The US presidential election is of course open to US citizens only. But as the President is the de facto leader of the world, people in almost every country follow the election, and have a view on it.

Link TV have set up a site where people can send a message to American voters. Lots of interesting voters there.

I would ask American voters to choose a US president who will tear down trade barriers, and who will pressure Europe to lift their trade barriers so that families in Africa get a better chance of lifting themselves out of poverty, by not having their exports blocked by EU and US protectionism.

One of the sites I really enjoy is Fact Check in the US.  While not perfect, it does a very good job in fairly scrutinising claims and measuring them against the facts. We could do with a local version. And they defend and criticise all sides.

For example they defend Hillary Clinton’s claims that she helped expand health insurance to cover six million extra children, but they find she has been exaggerating her foreign policy experience.

They also rebut Obama’s attacks on NAFTA.

And a very strong stinging critique of the DNC’s ads against John McCain.  The most notable has been their claims he favours a 100 year war In Iraq, when in fact he said he wouldn’t worry if troops were still there in 100 years if they were *not* being killed or wounded, such as in Japan and Korea.

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer pull no punches. First he asks which controversial statements did Obama sit through without a word of protest. Did they include:

• Wright’s assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented the HIV virus “as a means of genocide against people of color”?
• Wright’s claim that America was morally responsible for 9/11 — “chickens coming home to roost” — because of, among other crimes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
• the charge that the U.S. government (of Franklin Roosevelt, mind you) knew about Pearl Harbor, but lied about it?
• the government gives drugs to black people, presumably to enslave and imprison them?

He then attacks the comparison of Rev Wright to his white grandmother who said she was scared of black men who passed her on the street:

“I can no more disown (Wright) than I can my white grandmother.” What exactly was grandma’s offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus’ time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one’s time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

Krauthammer does get to a key point. There is no comparison between the two. And I wonder how many people listened to those sermons and believed that the US Government invented AIDS to use against black people.

Finally he asks:

If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright’s rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?

To balance things up, here’s an article on how Hillary Clinton is a active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles which is known as “The Family”. The article alleges The Family has Nazi and fascist links over many decades. I don’t think the allegations are credible somehow.

And to add to woes for the Democrats, 25% of Florida Democrats have said in a poll they are less likely to support their party’s nominee if their state is not seated at the Democratic Convention.

Before the Internet, Obama would have easily escaped the issue of his links to Rev Wright. No voter would have seen Wrights’s insanities and hate, and Obama’s ever changing lines would not be heavily scrutinised by the media who love him. And neither Clinton nor McCain could or would go near the issue.

But just as You Tube got the original videos seen, so we also see the first real attack video on Obama, and it is pretty effective. It make Obama look, well like an ordinary politician, and once he is reduced to that level, more focus comes onto his actual beliefs and policies.

The video isn’t done by any formal campaign, just by one of many of thousands of politically active people who have access to video editing technology. Now I am not saying the video is fair (it isn’t) but it is a reality that power has partly transferred from the formal campiagns to a wider array of activists. McCain has in fact sacked a staffer who merely forwarded on a link to the video.

Is it hurting Obama? Well look at the Gallup poll:

Plus the National polls are showing McCain ahead of Obama. And more critically in the big swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania McCain has an average lead of 11%, 7% and 2%. Now months to go and this will change but I am hearing the Republicans would now rather have Obama than Clinton as their opponent.

Susan Estrich has a useful column on this:

What the critics are saying, sometimes out loud but also in quiet whispers, is that they don’t understand how a man who gives speeches about moving past the racial divide would choose a racist minister to be a member of his family, about why, with all the churches in Chicago, Obama not only picked this one but remained true to it, about how he could not have known what others knew, could not have heard what others did.

The critics will tell you that blaming white America for spreading AIDS to blacks is not the same as an elderly white woman admitting that she is afraid of black men, and that there is a difference between standing by the grandmother who raised you and standing by a religious leader who preaches hate.

Personally I liked Obama’s speech on race, but I think the growing issue for him is his evasions. He at first claimed he had never heard Wright say the controversial stuff, and then it emerged he had. As with many scandals, it is how you react to them, rather than the original scandal, which proves lethal. Ask Bill Clinton.

NZ Herald Assistant Editor John Roughan discusses the US elections:

This is more than a fascinating election, it’s a joy to observe because all the serious candidates left in the race seem admirable in their own way. That may change now that Hillary has survived and will play rough to win. But the politics of mutual respect has been a rare treat.

I wonder if we could do it this year. We have two very respectable candidates for Prime Minister.

This is the one part when I think Roughan is in fantasyland. There is not even a small sliver of probability that Labour and Clark will not try and demonise Key.  I mean when Clark was asked on TV if she could name one positive thing about John Key, she couldn’t even manage that.

I watched John McCain on television when he clinched the nomination in Texas this week and it struck me that he offers something Clinton and Obama do not.

They promise “change”, by which they mean more than a change of party in power but possibly not much more than a change of the race or gender of the President.

Ignore their faces, listen to their rhetoric, and you hear fairly standard policy speak from Clinton and great oratory – but only oratory – from Obama.

Listen to McCain and you might wonder whether he is a politician at all. Open your eyes and the impression is confirmed. He fails all the superficial tests of US politics. He looks old, sounds soft, dresses badly, grins like a chump. And his speeches are modest, reasonable, almost self-effacing but firm and clear in commitments that are not necessarily popular.

Indeed McCain avoids the populist route.

In Michigan where the depressed car industry has left high unemployment, McCain alone had the courage to tell audiences, “the old jobs are not coming back”.

He believes in free trade which is reason alone to pray for his victory, especially when Clinton and Obama are playing up fears and suspicion of foreign competition and corporate behaviour.

They don’t mean it; trade fear is standard feed for the Democrat Party base who vote in primaries. Obama and Clinton have shown themselves to be conventional politicians in that sense, while McCain has stood up to a pounding from his party’s conservative core.

I think the pundits who claim McCain have no chance at all in the general election will be surprised.  I am not predicting a winner, but I think it will be a very competitive race.