Plainville, NY:

Senator John McCain in his first interview after the third and final presidential debate against Barack Obama tells FOX NEWS Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron that the democratic nominee is conducting “class warfare.”  McCain breaks with President Bush, his own campaign, and Fla Governor Charlie Crist on a host of issues.  McCain steps up his attacks on Obama for Bill Ayers and ACORN and defends his assertion that he is the underdog and that’s his preferred position. 19 days and counting.

Watch the interview here….

St. Louis, Missouri:

One day after Gov. Sarah Palin went toe to toe with Joe Biden in the only Vice Presidential debate, she sat down with Carl Cameron to talk about her previous interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric, the financial bailout and her desire to continue to campaign in Michigan despite the McCain campaign’s decision to pull out.

Watch Special Report with Brit Hume for Carl’s complete take on today’s interview with the Govonor of Alaska.

Sen. McCain responds to Obama’s red state strategy, hits the Democrat as a hypocrite and continues his assault on Obama as a “liberal, doctrinaire Democrat” in today’s interview with Carl Cameron.

PART II

SEE PART I HERE…

As McCain campaign manager, Rick Davis, collects questionaires from campaign staffers about their past lobbying and political activity it’s important to remember what happened to the McCain campaign last year.
McCain’s bloated 2007 campaign imploded after spending huge amounts of money and nose-diving in the polls.
Davis, last June and July, cut most people loose and put a skeleton crew together of people willing and able to work for free. This meant he needed volunteers with separate incomes- some were lobbyists and political professionals with histories.
Campaigns routinely let people go when their outside pursuits conflict with the candidate’s desired image.
That is what the McCain camp is checking for now.
The revelation that two McCain aides had ties to the military Junta in Myanmar sparked this house cleaning; they are no longer with the campaign. A third aide, Craig Shirley, who’d been involved in an anti-Obama 527 has now also been moved on.
It was overdue, not so much for any one individual to go, but for the campaign to KNOW what they had been involved in.
There is still a haphazard feel to much of what the McCain campaign does.
While they have plans, tactics and a strategy, there are bugs in the system that often complicate the message.
Two weeks ago McCain was planning a theme of courting conservatives and intended to highlight judicial conservatism.
The week started with Cinco de Mayo, so he instead found himself starting a “conservative week” pitching comprehensive immigration reform, opposed by most conservatives as amnesty for illegal aliens.
This week was supposed to court independents and moderates with his anti-global warming agenda…he ends the week at the NRA convention talking gun rights, a conservative favorite.
The conflicting messages and events are a temporary glitch of the last 2 weeks which illustrates how some events and devlopments are reacted to by the McCain campaign rather than managed and massaged.
The staff housecleaning is not a big deal – beyond it’s timing.
It should have happened a long time ago.
The McCain campaign needs to tighten up fast.
Obama is gonna come out of his corner in top flight fighting condition with a battle tested and fleet-of-foot team.
McCain’s got a strong team and strong campaign plan. But this type of inside baseball staff problem illustrates that it is not yet exactly firing on all 12 cylinders.
He has had more than two months without a GOP rival, to get things in order…crunch time has arrived.

John McCain came to Wake Forest University in North Carolina hoping to grab a headline during Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s protracted duel. He tried to gain the upper hand on a key presidential issue: The picking of federal judges, 3 Supreme Court justices are over 70 years old and hundreds of positions are open for federal judges. The next president will likely have the ability to shape the bench.

“Senators Obama and Clinton have very different ideas from my own. They are both lawyers themselves, and don’t seem to mind at all when fundamental questions of social policy are preemptively decided by judges instead of by the people and their elected representatives”

McCain will reaasure conservatives he’ll appoint strict constructionist judges who, as he says, will apply the constitution rather than create new law in their courts.

“My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power.”

Though McCain helped get Chief Justice John Roberts & Justice Samuel Alito (both conservative!) confirmed, some Republicans didn’t like that he led a gang of 14 moderates to broker the deal.
He calls Roberts and Alito models for the kind of judges he’d nominate, and rips Clinton and Obama for having voted against both!

“Somehow, by Senator Obama’s standard, even Judge Roberts didn’t measure up. And neither did Justice Samuel Alito. Apparently, nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers, and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it — and they see it only in each other.”

While McCain expresses respect for the federal bench, his disdain for activist judges for being arrogant and dangerous is most pointed.

“Some federal judges operate by fiat, shrugging off generations of legal wisdom and precedent while expecting their own opinions to go unquestioned. Only their favorite precedents are to be considered “settled law,” and everything else is fair game.”

The next president could see as many as three (Stevens, Kennedy. Ginsburg) Supreme Court seats open up.

Though abortion politics can dominate such debates, McCain makes no mention of it in his prepared remarks. Like most Republicans, and unlike most Democrats, he has long promised he won’t have any abortion litmus test. He challenges Democrats to stop making confirmation hearings a partisan game of obstructionism and gotcha.

“Always hanging in the air over these tense confirmation battles is the suspicion that maybe, just maybe, a nominee for the Court will dare to be faithful to the clear intentions of the framers and to the actual meaning of the Constitution, and then no tactic of abuse or delay is out of bounds.”

Fred Thompson makes his first appearance on the trail with McCain since Thompson dropped out of the race. Thompson served as sherpa to both Roberts and Alito during their confirmation hearings, accompanying both men around the Hill as they courted senate confirmation votes.

Thompson has ruled out being both Vice President and Attorney General in a McCain administration.

Update to the previous post – RNC chairman Duncan writes DNC chairman Dean

Get your mute buttons ready, the attack ads have begun.

Today John McCain provided more details on his healthcare plan in Tampa, Fl….he promised to work with states to find creative ways to cover approximately 7 million Americans with pre-existing conditions who would have difficulty getting insurance. At the same time his campaign released an ad touting the already released cornerstone of his plan…a voluntary alternative to employer paid insurance:

While McCain chose healthcare as the focus of his first issue ad as the presumptive GOP nominee, the SEIU in Ohio launched its first attack ad

The ads are not only on domestic issues, the DNC unveiled an attack ad against McCain for his “100 yrs” remarks at a NH town hall mtg in January.

The ad excerpts McCain’s remarks in context then follows with some tough political hits, but the RNC is screaming foul. They want networks to refuse to air the ad asserting that it is “false and defamatory.”

In addition the RNC is threatening legal action arguing that the DNC unlawfully coordinated the ads’ message with the Clinton and Obama campaigns. They are not showing their hand prematurely by presenting evidence of such illegally coordinated communication, but there are a few people who have worked for both the DNC and the campaigns in recent months.

The RNC complaint appears flimsy on the surface, but they may have more cards to play. In the meantime the RNC has pout out a web ad aimed at shaming Obama for countenancing attacks on McCain.

While Sen. Barack Obama sought to improve his relationship with the Jewish community today by meeting with leaders in Philadelphia, comments by a Hamas political adviser this weekend could potentially hurt the Democratic presidential candidate.

During an interview on WABC radio Sunday, top Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said the terrorist group supports Obama’s foreign policy vision.

“We don’t mind–actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance,” Yousef said in response to a question about the group’s willingness to meet with either of the Democratic presidential candidates.

(Full interview)

For his part, Obama criticized former President Jimmy Carter’s decision to meet with Hamas, telling Jewish leaders Wednesday that “Hamas is not a state, Hamas is a terrorist organization.”

“We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction,” Obama said. “We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements.”

While the IL Democrat has condemned Hamas, an endorsement from a top leader in the group is probably the last thing Obama needs right now.

It would perhaps seem logical on the surface to some.  With Democrats on the verge of making history with either an African American or a female nominee,  Secretary of State Condoleeza  Rice would certainly compliment the McCain candidacy.

BUT! Senior McCain insiders say she has not until this point been under any serious consideration. That is not to say that she might not be soon.

It was reported recently that Rice attended  “The Wednesday Meeting” recently.  Lots of people go, its pretty much open to all.  It’s a regular weekly meeting held at conservative activist Grover Nordquist’s L Street offices in D.C.  Nordquist is head of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) but he dabbles in all sorts of conservative politics.

Rice’s appearance at a recent meeting according to several sources was NOT about auditioning for McCain’s Veep.  BUT she sure is an intriguing prospect.  Would she make it hard for McCain to fight the democratic charges that he’s running for a  third Bush term?

Sorry Sean,

Some conservatives are working hard to kill the idea of a McCain/Mitt ticket.

A petition is circulating on line to squash the Romney for #2 notion.

The site is sponsored by “Government is not God, A Political Action Committee of Social Conservatives.”

You can find their webpage and a full page ad at Govnotgod.org