John McCain ad irritates many in Hollywood July 31, 2008
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TO HOLLYWOOD it smacked of desperation.
That’s why the reaction to a new John McCain ad attempting to portray Barack Obama as a kind of mindless celebrity — likening him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears — drew collective yawns and shrugs of irritation from politically active members of the entertainment industry.
“I didn’t think McCain could look silly,” mused Norman Lear. “But that ad diminishes him and makes him look silly.” Source Article
The Corporate Media Experiment: Why Isn’t Senator Obama ‘One of Us’?-Opinion July 31, 2008
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Posted July 31, 2008 | 06:17 PM (EST)
I’m not sure how he continues to be regarded as a very serious Washington pundit given his obvious history of race-baiting, but somehow he skulks his way onto MSNBC almost every day. Pat Buchanan on Hardball Monday night wondered out loud about Senator Obama: “Is he one of us?”
If by “one of us” he means a cranky, elitist, white, corporate media, man-shaped bunion who fashioned his career by demonizing brown people, the answer is a certain ‘no’. But we know what Buchanan meant by this. Is Senator Obama with “us” or is he with the uppity blacks? Is he a real American like Senator McCain or is he a Muslim terrorist like those e-mails suggest? Is he too European (GAY!)? Is he like us: white, wealthy, conservative, elite? Source Article
Dobbs cited Obama’s “newly painted Boeing 757 aircraft” as an example of hubris, but McCain has a jet too July 31, 2008
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Thu, Jul 31, 2008 5:16pm ET
Summary: Lou Dobbs pointed to Sen. Barack Obama’s “newly painted Boeing 757 aircraft, sprayed with, of course, the Obama campaign slogan” as an example of Obama’s alleged “hubris.” But Dobbs neglected to note that in June, Sen. John McCain unveiled his own Boeing 737 jet, with the words “JohnMcCain.com” emblazoned on it. Source Article
McCain camp accuses Obama of playing race card July 31, 2008
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By Steve Holland July 31, 2008 3PM ET
RACINE, Wisconsin (Reuters) – Republican White House hopeful John McCain’s campaign accused Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday of playing racial politics in some of the most biting back-and-forth of the presidential campaign.
The negative twist in the campaign for the November 4 election was prompted by a McCain television advertisement on Wednesday that called Obama a celebrity akin to star-crossed U.S. personalities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
In response, Obama said McCain was trying to scare voters away from him by pointing out he has “a funny name, and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills.”
Obama, whose father was Kenyan, would be the first black U.S. president. Only white men, most of them former presidents, are on U.S. paper currency. Source Article
McCain defends charge that Obama playing race card July 31, 2008
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CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. John McCain defended his campaign Thursday for saying that Sen. Barack Obama is playing the race card.
McCain’s campaign manager charged that Obama falsely accused the McCain campaign of injecting race into the presidential contest.
Asked by CNN’s John King whether that was fair criticism, McCain said it was.
“I’m sorry to say that it is. It’s legitimate. And there’s no place in this campaign for that. There’s no place for it, and we shouldn’t be doing it,” he said in Racine, Wisconsin.
The Obama campaign has denied the accusation, but McCain said, “I’ll let the American people judge.” 
Watch McCain’s interview with John King »
Obama Camp Sees Potential in G.O.P. Discontent July 31, 2008
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Chuck Lasker, a political blogger and Internet consultant in Indiana, hosted a gathering last week of 20 people he calls “whispering Republicans” — party members like him who support Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat, for president. Over iced tea and brownies, the renegades took turns explaining why they liked Mr. Obama and recalling the strange stares from other Republicans.
“It was sort of like a group therapy session,” said Mr. Lasker, who said he had never voted for a Democrat, for any office, until the Indiana primary in May. “We all wanted to make sure we weren’t a little crazy.”
Republican anger over the Iraq war and the economy has left some advisers to Mr. Obama hopeful that they can capture pockets of Republican votes on Election Day in states like Alaska, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota and Virginia. Advisers also said they had recently begun emphasizing Mr. Obama’s ties to Republicans as a way to make undecided independent voters more comfortable with him. Source Article
McCaskill: McCain probably not proud of ‘stupid’ ads July 31, 2008
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By Klaus Marre
Posted: 07/31/08 12:42 PM [ET]
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Thursday said she does not believe that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is proud of the ads his campaign has put on the air.
“I don’t think that McCain is proud of the ads he’s running right now,” said McCaskill, a national co-chairwoman of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) presidential campaign,” adding, “I bet John McCain is embarrassed a little bit by some of these ads.”
She added that the spots attacking Obama are “stupid,” “silly” and “juvenile.”
The McCain campaign on Wednesday released an ad comparing Obama’s appeal to that of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Source Article
Ad calls offshore drilling a ‘gimmick’ July 31, 2008
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Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor July 31, 2008 11:21 AM
With polls indicating that most Americans favor more offshore oil drilling to help ease energy prices, the antiwar group MoveOn.org is trying to help Democrat Barack Obama fight back on the issue.
Obama opposes lifting the federal ban on offshore drilling, calling it a gimmick. Republican John McCain, however, strongly supports it, reversing his stand from the 2000 presidential race, and has been hammering Obama on the issue.
MoveOn.org has launched a new TV ad that reprises an approach from an earlier ad that had a woman talking straight to the camera and saying that McCain would keep troops in Iraq indefinitely and telling him he couldn’t have her son Alex. Source Article
McCain’s pride is a dangerous vice-Opinion July 31, 2008
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John McCain’s pride in his accomplishments bespeaks an unfortunate tendency in American public life Alan Pell Crawford
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday July 31 2008
In his long and productive life, John McCain has done many things in which he might take great personal satisfaction. The senator, presumptive Republican candidate and, lest we forget, former prisoner of war is naturally and understandably proud of his many accomplishments, including commendable wartime sacrifice. This tendency would go down more smoothly, however, were he not so eager to tell everyone just how proud he is.
Pride is natural and understandable, but one needn’t be a Calvinist to realise that it has long been reckoned in the western tradition as – there’s no other word – a sin. Like most Americans, McCain seems not to know this. To him, pride is evidently a virtue.
McCain is not just proud of his country and its achievements and his role in them. He’s even proud of things his country has yet to do. “What we have to tell our friends around the world,” McCain said in May, “is that we will be proud of America because of what we’re going to do.” (Whether they remain our friends after this bragging act one can only guess.) Source Article
GOP’s celeb-Obama message gains traction July 31, 2008
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Carrie Budoff Brown Thu Jul 31, 5:33 AM ET
Barack Obama’s critics laid down the foundations of the strategy months ago: The Republican National Committee started the “Audacity Watch” back in April, and Karl Rove later fueled the attack by describing the first-term Illinois senator as “coolly arrogant.”
It wasn’t until the last week, however, that the narrative of Obama as a president-in-waiting — and perhaps getting impatient in that waiting — began reverberating beyond the inboxes of Washington operatives and journalists.
Perhaps one of the clearest indications emerged Tuesday from the world of late-night comedy, when David Letterman offered his “Top Ten Signs Barack Obama is Overconfident.” The examples included Obama proposing to change the name of Oklahoma to “Oklobama” and measuring his head for Mount Rushmore.
“When Letterman is doing ‘Top Ten’ lists about something, it has officially entered the public consciousness,” said Dan Schnur, a political analyst from the University of Southern California and the communications director in John McCain’s 2000 campaign. “And it usually stays there for a long, long time.” Source Article
The Central Tabulator 