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He won't budge on Rick Davis unless the media pound him mercilessly on it for several days and it actually makes a difference in the polls.

Republicans aren't spooked by inconvenient facts, only inconvenient opinions.

The Republican Party: I Am What I Say You Are

as usual the Obama campign is a day late and a dollar short. The Repug meme has been delivered and has been absorbed buy the low information masses.

But when you put pictures of Raines and Obama next to each other in an ad, there's something about them that makes you thing that they are together. I can't quite say what it is. Like lobbygow says, it's spooky.

Based on his ads I'd say John McCain has Stage 1 Alzheimers.

You are supposing that in a crisis people stop and think things through carefully. McCain is banking (no pun intended) that they don't and on emotion carrying the day.

He is throwing alot of punches - peppering Obama - so Obama has a harder time getting in a punch of his own - and when he does start counter punching it will look like he is just reacting - not acting. Just being a "politician" not a "leader". It all part of a trap - the only question is whether the American people will fall for it.

As I said before in another thread, McCain's goal at this stage is simply to muddy the water and to raise suspicions about Obama. It doesn't make any difference to him that all of his accusations leveled against Obama apply equally well (or better) to himself. If McCain can get people to think that all mainstream politicians are scum, then he will have neutralized Obama's advantage. He doesn't need to convince anyone that he is himself a saint.

And phil "I am the vice chairman of UBS US" gramm who's company, a foreign bank, may now participate in the planned treasury giveaway.

In the midst of the deepest economic crisis our country has faced in 80 years John McCain responds to his opponent with vehemence, superficiality and and Palinistic false attacks.

Obama should respond aggressively with these facts and the question, "Who is more ready to lead?"

Who are we kidding, the Raines ad was a pure appeal to racism. Two successful black men, one disgraced, and a poor old white woman "victim." That wasn't a dog whistle ad. It was a shout.

Everyone just needs to cheer up. There hasn't been a missing blonde woman in over a week.

Steve, you're forgetting Rule Number One: It's OK If You're A Republican.

And *none* of McCain's attacks make sense on logical grounds; they're *all* based on the fact that McCain is running for president, and some Democrat is threatening to thwart his ascent to the White House.

McCain, like any good ambitious Republican, would attack anyone to win, using any argument. The fact that an argument is crazy, unsupported by facts, slanderous, or even that it applies far more to McCain himself, does. Not. Matter.

What you people forget is that to McCain, 5 minutes is a very long time. I mean, if he was able to make a decision about who is the best person to lead the country if he dies in office - in 15 minutes - it is conceivable that John really believes that that 5 minutes meeting between Obama and Raines was enough to corrupt Obama.

I just can't believe that any conservative actually wants McCain to win at this point. Do they really want McCain/Palin/Neocons to kill off the golden goose once and for all?

But for 51/2 years I didn't have a bank.
I'm john McCain and I approved this ad.

Just like that "hard hitting" pow story er interview on 60 minutes

McCain's campaign manager earned millions of dollars from Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac to keep access to McCain open and their business free of regulation.

But Obama once talked to a guy who worked there who offered advice even though the guy disavows any influence or work with Obama's campaign.

Tomayto tomahto, they're all exactly the same, you can't trust any of 'em, so I'm either going to stay home or vote for the white war hero. It just...feels...right.

I'm the low information uneducated voter & I...approve?...this message?

Amen slappy! And it's not just merely that these people are low information, but they're damn proud of their "cynical" view about American party politics. They're more than happy to lecture to others about how all parties are corrupt so they'll just vote their (racist) comfort level.

When you're claiming someone has foreign policy experience by virtue of living near a foreign country, that having been a POW automatically qualifies you to be a POTUS, by implying being white is superior to all other qualities, then talking to a guy--even if it's just to say "Hi!"--means you're in collusion with him.

Grasping at straws, saying anything to keep fear going. It's still effective, despite the bare naked facts.

Actually, as I recall, one of the conditions is that the companies must be headquartered in the U.S., which leaves out UBS.

Sorry, the above was a response to bubba's semi-literate outburst.

This whole thing is racially motivated. Looking at the ad, it's hard for me to see it as anything other than the McCain campaign saying: "Look! Look what happens when you put a black man in charge of something! Fannie Mae collapsed, right? Well, look at the guy who was in charge of it! He was black. And look at who's running for president! A black guy!"

The fact is the the Dems are up to their eyeballs in assisting these two agencies and promoting minority ownership even when the risks were too high.

You've got Dodd taking money AND a sweetheart loan for his own home, Obama being on the take as the second largest recipient of money from these entities (Dodd being #1).

I hope there's an investigation into just how deep Congress was in the pockets of this mess.

Obama and top committee chairman have DIRECT links.

No guilt by association....direct association with companies that make Enron look like a model of corporate respectability.

We nailed Enron's executives now for their malfeasance, and rightly so. Now I want to see some accountability on the part of these failed companies and their congressional allies.

Some heads should roll.

Let's remember when we say he was paid $35,000
a month, that usually means his company or organization was paid this amount- he then pays his staff and expenses for the consulting work that was done- not so outrageous to me.

Someone said that "Republicans pee on you and tell you it's raining"

I laughed but it's absolutely true. Look,

1. The Rick Davis issue should be heavily covered.

2. The bailout plan that was supposed to be for American banks now stands to benefit Barclays and UBS. UBS lobbied heavily. Phil Gramm who is McCain's #1 economic advisor is a former VP of UBS and current lobbyist. So the man who John McCain might make the next Secretary of the Treasury was probably heavily lobbying this weekend. They shouldn't get anything unless foreign governments step up. It is a global crisis as Obama was pointed out.

3. Why aren't we talking about Keating?

The media isn't going to do any of this for the Obama campaign so they had better buck up and start jabbing.

i'm tired of being peed on and told that it's raining.

You ask, "Is that change?" It isn't small change...

But when you put pictures of Raines and Obama next to each other in an ad, there's something about them that makes you think that they are together. I can't quite say what it is. Like lobbygow says, it's spooky.

It's called marketing and branding, in this case negative marketing and branding. It's amazing that this type of marketing is only allowed in political campaigns.

Imagine: Burger King has a commericial that says "McDonalds is only in business to make your kids obese and lathargic So eat at Burger King." This just wouldn't happen.

Either way there are subtle pyschological patterns and rules that a normal human mind adheres to when processing information. Marketers use all those queues/tricks/rules to their advantage. It's an art that has been perfected over the past 100 years.

I bet if you put an autistic adult in front of a political ad, they would not be able to make sense of it because they dont' use the same subtle queues, inuendo and connections to make sense of something like a normal mind. In fact, we're probably more illogical and more suseptable to inuendo - which makes us easier to trick when it comes to throught control. The first rule of knowing you are being tricked is to recognize the subtle queues. Don't take images at face value and always question everything.

Rick Davis is not running for President.
He is McCain's MANAGER, not policy advisor.
McCain never took from Fredie Fannie house of cards.
B.O. did. BIG TIME!

McCain never took from Fredie Fannie house of cards. B.O. did. BIG TIME!

Horseshit. McCain took over ten times as much in contributions from the top management of those organizations.

Blue Girl,

There you go again. Playing dirty politics by quoting "facts" to use against McCain. In contrast, Republicans may play hard-ball, but they would never stoop that low.

McCain took over ten times as much in contributions from the top management of those organizations.

...whereas the lousy $128 large donated to Obama consisted of individual contributions from employees.

Geez, but Republicans are grasping at straws.

Mr. Mccain just keeps shoveling the racist dirt on his campaign grave. This is man with no honor or intergrity left. I expect more of this Franklin Raines-he's-black-like-Obama shit to continue and get worse.

There you go again. Playing dirty politics by quoting "facts" to use against McCain. In contrast, Republicans may play hard-ball, but they would never stoop that low.

I never was a squishy liberal. They pull a knife, you pull the gun - I'll be in the trees with a deer rifle covering you.:)

Pray tell how it is that the political Messiah got so much money from Fanny Mae & Freddie Mac? After all did not Obama make his living as a Adjunct Professor of Law and working for a law firm that served real estate developers who worked with the Feds and the City of Chicago to provide and upgrade affordable housing to the disadvantaged. A lot of money could be and was made in that business. Some of the developers came to sticky ends, like a certain former fundraiser to and friend of Senator Obama, you know the guy, the one who helped him by his large home in Hyde Park?
When all is and done Senator Obama is a Chicago politician, one who worked with the Daley Machine, since he would not have gotten very far if he had worked against them. Perhaps after all Senator Obama is not a political Messiah, just a more glib than usual politician. What Senator Clinton called "the cloud of pixie dust" is getting pretty thin.

The only campaign I hear referring to Sen. Obama's color/race/ethnicity is the Obama Campaign. Comments like, "I don't look like the presidents on the money." or "He's got a funny name." that are part of Obama's stump speach.I get sick of the notion that anytime you say anything negative about someone who is black, it means you are attacking all blacks or being racist. If he took money from Raines and posed for a picture, he did so. Showing the picture is not racist. It is just making people aware of Obama's associations. Rather than calling McCain a racist for showing the picture, maybe you should ask Obama to renounce the association and call for a prosecution of Raines.

In other words, Fannie and Freddie paid Davis $35,000 a month, for years, so they could get access to Senator McCain, and ultimately, President McCain. Why? Because the companies hoped to continue to avoid government regulations of their business practices.

So if Mac was going to be in their pocket why did he cosponsor s190????

b-mack: The only campaign I hear referring to Sen. Obama's color/race/ethnicity is the Obama Campaign.

Even if this were true, that Obama's reference to his name sounding funny wasn't really about his name sounding funny but about him being black, and that the dollar bill comment is solely about his race, I'm OK with that for one simple reason.

It's a fact that a great many white democrats are going to have trouble pulling the lever for a black man. What Obama is saying is that he understands these peoples' trepidation and he wants to attempt to put their minds at ease. Essentially, he's saying, "don't be frightened into voting against me because of my color." He is not saying that ANYONE should vote for him because he is black.

McCain is no racist. I don't think anyone here would accuse him of being one. But, he belongs to a party with a long history of using scare tactics to sway voters. From the Defense of Marriage act, gun control, flag burning, and higher taxes to 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 and 9/11, the Republicans as a party are hardly above amping up voters' fears of race as a tactic to win the presidency.

It's not playing the race card if a black candidate tells a white audience that he's black and that it shouldn't be an issue. It IS playing the race card if a campaign uses proven advertising techniques to subtly remind white voters with racist baggage that, if they don't vote against him, there's a chance that a black man will be their president.

People who claim McCain is racist are crazy. McCain's youngest daughter is adopted... from Bangladesh as a baby in 1993, and she is now 16 and apparently a healthy normal american teenager.

And no, contrary to what Obama's camp has claimed Bridget was not JM's illegitimate daughter with a black mistress --- look at her, she's east indian as anyone can tell.

McCain may have many flaws, but racism? Come on!

Bangladeshi, the people you want to talk to about racial slurs about McCain's daughter would be the Bush team of 2000. Except that they're mostly working for McCain now. They're certainly not working for Obama.

And no, contrary to what Obama's camp has claimed Bridget was not JM's illegitimate daughter with a black mistress

You are woefully misinformed! That happened in 2000, in the South Carolina primary, and was orchestrated by the Bush campaign. Adding insult to injury, the people who peddled that smear are now employed by the John McCain campaign.

Some of the developers came to sticky ends, like a certain former fundraiser to and friend of Senator Obama, you know the guy, the one who helped him by his large home in Hyde Park?

You mean the one that Dennis Hastert and Karl Rove promised to help by getting Patrick Fitzgerald fired from his trial? That one?

Or are you under the impression that there are two different Antoin Rezkos, so the one who's pals with Hastert and Rove must be a different guy?

OK, fair enough,McCain fires his campaign manager and in exchange Obama withdraws from the race & Sen. Biden takes over.

Is it just me or dies Rick Davis look like Jeffrey Dahmer.