The problem with McCain's lack of Straight Talk on the issue of earmarks is that the entirety of his balancing the budget rests on the elimination of earmarks. It would supply only a tiny fraction of the amount needed in any case, but this certainly sounds like business as usual.

I think your entire post could have been stated by simply referring to this Toles cartoon.

What McCain is delivering is the largest political propaganda effort in election history, built on the back of a decades-long propaganda campaign by the Republican party and its constituent groups. Nothing is what it seems. Nothing is as they tell us. It's just propaganda.

“I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party." -McCain

I hope Obama pushes the line about McCain trying to fix and reform the GOP. Why can't the GOP do that on their own time? There's a party that's perfectly ready to step up and lead while the Republican's are fixing their party before getting to the country's problems? Why would we want to elect a broken party?

steve:
"Voters know, or are at least given an opportunity to know, what Obama wants to change, and how he'd go about doing it"

'Given the opportunity' is the key phrase here. Obama has made an enormous amount of information available on his website. A few minutes viewing is all it should take to eliminate any doubt that Obama lacks 'substance'.

The problem is, just how many people TAKE the opportunity. The MSM press clearly is not doing so, since the meme about 'lack of specifics' still dominates their discourse. And, unfortunately, the 5-10 percent of the voters who ultimately decide elections probably do not do so either.

These are the classic 'low information' voters who don't make up their minds until the last few days before the election. In the primaries such voters tended to favor Clinton by wide margins (2-1 or 3-1). They vote on emotion and 'gut feelings'. More importantly they vote on FEAR. They vote status quo over genuine change.

These are the voters Republicans are counting on. They want to make Obama look as scary as possible so they will vote the 'safer' candidate.

These are the people Obama needs to reach or better yet, take out of the equation entirely by builing a solid 8-9 point lead over McCain before election day.

As important as our government claims our many freedoms and the fight to keep them are in the world today. We send our Secretary of State to Libya....for what...I'll answer it for ya with this equation: Condoleezza + Gaddafi = OIL!

So, the argument now is "what have you done for me lately John?" Interesting. I kind of like, "what have you EVER done for me Barak?"

If an "issues" page on a website stands as evidence of a "substantive" agenda - here ya go: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/

Google is your friend.

OK, finally got through on Alaska.gov site. Palin's biz partner divorce papers confidentiality request. Everything moves along to a final resolution and then sundry child-insurance mods. Inactive from May until September 3rd (lots of stuff before 4/3, including final dissolution decree). Then a move to remove from the public record. Yup, nothing fishy about that timing, I'm sure. Not an RNC lawyer in sight probably. Nothing to see here, move along.......

09/04/2008 Order Denying Motion Case Motion #3: Motion to Make Case File Confidential 0.00 0.00
09/03/2008 Motion to Make Case File Confidential Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); Case Motion #3 0.00 0.00
09/03/2008 Motion for Expedited Consideration of: Motion to Make Case File Confidential Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Case Motion #2 0.00 0.00
05/19/2008 Notice to Employer Re: Children's Medical Insurance Deborah Marie Richter (Co-Petitioner); 0.00 0.00
05/19/2008 Cust/Spprt/Visit Modified. Case Closed. (no motion link) 0.00 0.00
05/19/2008 Order Granting Stipulation Case Motion #1: Standard Motion 0.00 0.00
04/03/2008 Stipulated Agreement for Child Support and Parenting Agreement Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Case Motion #1

Well, for starters he was one of George H.W.'s "Thousand Points of Light."

Steve Duncan, please tell me that you eother have a screen shot or have the tab open so you can get one. Please, oh please please please please please....

Let's keep in mind that the Congress will remain solidly democratic, giving McCain an excuse to not follow through on any of his campaign promises: he'll just blame it on the Dems.

McCain knows he's lying. He just doesn't care as long as he has a scapegoat.

oh, wonderful. a new troll

let's lighten up on the mccain criticism. he's only been in the senate a few decades, hardly enough time to develop detailed positions on issues.

The thing is, Obama has already backed up his desire for government reform with real, recent action in the senate. Behold, the law that actually is already doing what John McCain said he'll do once he's president:

http://obama.senate.gov/press/071213-coburn_and_obam/

"Throughout his career of public service, John McCain has worked across party aisles with Republicans and Democrats alike to reform our campaign finance system..." So, that's why in June 2007, he abandoned this campaign-finance bill that had his own name?

It's on Steve's McCain Flip-Flop list on his old blog site

The emptier that McCain's domestic agenda is, the more likely it is that he wants the presidency because he wants to go to war. The statements on the economy, education, energy, are all there just to fill up the space. He doesn't mean any of it, and will be unable to speak coherently about any of it.

Replace: reform -> change
Replace: McCain -> Obama

Same thing.

He'll reform Washington by... hiring lobbyists to run his campaign

He'll reform Washington by... hiring the very people who assassinated his character in 2000 to be his surrogates

He'll reform Washington by... needing 4 or 8 more years to do what he failed to accomplish in the last 26

Please, this is a three ring circus. Anyone who defends McCain is an absolute moron. And i do mean all the trolls here.

If an "issues" page on a website stands as evidence of a "substantive" agenda - pidgas

On ethics, for example Obama has an 18 point list of changes. McCain has Zero. Maybe it's not enough to know how to use Google.

Steve Benen wrote: "But if McCain could take a moment at some point over the next 60 days to explain what it means, it'd be helpful."

Well, I'll gladly take a moment to be helpful.

"What it means" is that John McCain is a bullshit artist, a fake, a phony, a fraud, and a deliberate liar who is a career white-collar crook and a bought-and-paid-for tool of corporate lobbyists.

Glad to help.

Ambiguous, yes, moreover America has been fiddling around with Iraq and Iran for around fifty years. America, has given a special kind of surge in all kinds of gifts in military aid, training and advice with a whole lot of money way back since the eighties or earlier. So, here we are committed to this last resort of toppling the government to create one corporate America likes. For oil? Yes.

Just like the Russians are sitting on American financed pipelines in Georgia.

If America tallied all money from the early eighties, likely every baby boomer and black on welfare could have retired out of poverty by now. But all that money is in secret baby trust fund bank accounts for the rich.

Actually if America Mainstream Media really told the truth the electorate would realize why they have extremism and why that part of the Middle East is so confused with a lot of distrust in Americans. America simply screwed them over for decades.

What Obama needs to do is let America know that complete review of this war may very well be necessary to hold those accountable. Holy golly you mean that might mean Bush is going to be challenged for this war mess? Could be, do you all think McCain or the Republicans could do that? No. Could Obama do that? Yes. Most likely the collection of convictions of the years could finance America’s way out of deficit into prosperity with a bull market reaching a Dow in an easy twenty thousand.

Do you think Mainstream Media would be securitized as key players as embedded partners in this mess? You bet, and the very reason for the media to give compete support and complicity in lies and cover ups that place America in its worst time in history is something they don’t want to go down in history as partner of the commander and chief villain fighting a proxy war for the Arabs.

Do you think the Media will let this happen? No, with every optic fiber in their cable system mainstream media will confuse and distort the electorate to make America believe McCain is good for the presidency via Palin. What a joke.

MSNBC Joe Scarborough said it very straight forward “Anyone who challenges the media will loose�. Now that’s scary. Or some call it terrorism.

Steve - It is clear that McCain is no longer in control of the "Republican" party, if he ever was. He looked surrounded last night, and would have gotten a better reception from Democrats then he did from his "fellow" Republicans. The faces in the crowd were telling.

I think we need to start calling the Republican party for what it is: Welcome to the American Evangelical Party. The only interested they have in governing is using goverment to win the cultural war at home and inable the second coming abroad.

In many ways, this new Party reminds me of the "white flight" day schools that were prevalent in the South where I grew up. Call it gated-community politics. It will be cold day in hell before they let an uppity African American anywhere near the White House.

It's Palin's party now, and the Evangelicals have found their Obama. The question for you, is it a large enough voting block that they can push this one over the goal line, with the help of rural (code for racist) voters.

Caught this post on the CBS News feed? And it was (or maybe is) at the top of Google news "Elections" grouping? I didn't know CBS was copping Political Animal posts.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/05/politics/animal/main4419939.shtml

So, the argument now is "what have you done for me lately John?" Interesting.

Interestingly creative, at best. I haven't heard anyone saying or read anyone writing anything like that. It's all too obvious, particularly now after the events at the RNC, that what Senator McCain and the Republican Party propose is More Of The Same. And it has been evident since early March that the Republican candidates have no qualms whatsoever about mimicking Democratic language, talking points, web pages, mailers. That Senator McCain would simply take Senator Obama's objectives and parrot the wording is neither surprising nor unprecented.

Since you raised the question, "What have you done for lately, John?" I'll happily answer: Nothing, actually.

And I seek to keep it that way. Permanently.

If too many cartoons are like Jake's at 3:09, McCain is dead. It's pretty devastating at a voter level.

I guess I don't want to waste any brain power thinking about what McCain meant by reform because I don't think he actually meant anything by it. It was talk that sounded good in a speech but nothing he will actually have to do anything about because it is so general and not tied to anything specific that he will be accountable (or a much as the press with its McCain crush can muster up - which is not much) for.

Pillars?

What, is that some elitist thing? Mc Cain's Greek Temple of Government Purity?

Before this presidential season, I really liked John McCain... he seemed to "say what he meant and meant what he said" type of guy. I even liked him at the very beginning of his run for the Presidency. He was the only Republican candidate that I though I could get behind. This had nothing to do with Obama... it had everything to do with the last 6 years. However, all I hear from him now is PR-speak. When he does say anything that doesn't sound like he's parroting his campaign manager's talking points, he's kissing the "Base's" ass. How can anyone who isn't a brain-dead, knee-jerk Republican still stupport this guy for President?! I just don't understand.

Seems to me Bush ran as a "reformer with results" and now McCain is trying it too?

McCain's website spends a lot of words saying not very much on the 'issues'. The few specifics in there basically boil down to "Cut taxes, cut government programs" - i.e. the same mantra we've heard from the Republicans for however long, and that's got us where we are now. He talks a lot about giving people "choice" and "promoting" one thing or another - but not much about actually doing anything. In other words he'll pay lip service to the issues and hope the private sector delivers... but who really cares if it doesn't as long as the rich don't have to pay for any of it... i.e. business as usual under Republican rule. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will be left to swing, and they'll find someone else to blame it on by the next election.

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