Dayton International Airport:

On the day when Barack Obama is to make his historic speech accepting the democratic nomination for president, the media descended on the small Dayton International Airport to wait the arrival of John McCain.  The speculation was running fast and furious on who the pick might be after Carl broke the news that Rick Davis, McCain campaign manager, confirmed that John McCain had made his decision….

No leaking of who…just that the decision was made……The Vice Presidential pick will join John McCain at a rally at noon Friday at the Nutter Center in Dayton, Oh.

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Obama calls criticism of spouses unfair, HRC says she will continue until there is a nominee, Major reports. Carl follows McCain as he accuses Obama of foreign policy inexperience.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

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Major reports on Obama’s aggressive linking of McCain to the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Carl is with Republican hopeful, John McCain as he addresses the NRA convention in Louisville, Ky.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

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Major reports on top Dems coming out in support of Obama after President Bush suggested he was an “appeaser”. Carl Cameron outlines John McCain’s expansive vision of American after four years of a McCain presidency.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

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Columbus, Ohio:

John McCain came to Columbus, Ohio to outline his vision of America and the world after four years of his presidency. His campaign also launched a new web ad highlighting that expansive vision of:
The Middle East stabilized.
Nuclear terror threat reduced.
Border security strengthened.
Energy independence advanced.
Wasteful spending reformed.
Health care choice delivered.
Economic confidence restored.

In his speech in Columbus, Ohio, JSM plans to go back to the future laying out his vision – or at least what he VERY OPTIMISTICALLY envisions the nation and world will be like AFTER what he anticipates will have been a TREMENDOUSLY successful 1st term as president. (The speech comes a few days after a comic six minute video from UBCComedy where a man wakes from a coma after seven years to see the new and improved world after Barack Obama)

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won.”

Internationally, McCain boldly predicts Al Qaeda in Iraq will have been defeated, Afghanistan will ALSO be stabilized and NO Major attack will have occured in the US since 9-11. He forecasts stunning diplomatic successes negotiating the elimination of stubborn rogue nuclear threats that have for yrs been unresolvable.

“Concerted action by the great democracies of the world has persuaded a reluctant Russia and China to cooperate in pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and North Korea to discontinue its own.”

McCains economic forecast is all sunny skies too. He assumes implementation of aggressive tax and spending cuts and that congress will have adopted his domestic agenda.

“The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth, and Americans again have confidence in their economic future.”

While Obama advocates hope, McCain predicts triumph: ever expanding global free trade will have made up for US job losses in manufacturing and other sectors

“New free trade agreements have been ratified and led to substantial increases in both exports and imports.”

McCain assumes cooperation with congress…on a host of long deadlocked issues, energy independence, revamping the tax code, public education, healthcare, medicare, even Social security.

“The reforms include some form of personal retirement accounts in safe and reliable index funds, such as have been available to government employees since their retirement plans were made solvent a quarter century ago.

Despite ardent opposition from his own party NOW to what many call amnesty for illegal immigrants McCain anticipates victory on comprehensive immigration reform which would include provisions for a guest worker program.

“the American people accepted the practical necessity to institute a temporary worker program and deal humanely with the millions of immigrants who have been in this country illegally. “

Only toward the end of his remarks does McCain acknowledge political opposition and how unlikely such wholesale success will be…he blames it on partisanship and the seemingly unending election cycle.

“This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end. We belong to different parties, not different countries. We are rivals for the same power. But we are also compatriots. “

This almost idealistic and hopeful tone is sure to draw sharp reaction from the Dems!

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Major Garrett reports on the Democratic race on the day of the W.Va primary, Carl is in North Bend, Wa and follows McCain’s second day of the  “global climate change” tour.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

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Major is in West Virginia following the Dem’s race on the eve of the primary there and Carl is in Portland, Oregon as McCain unveils his plan to tackle Global Climate Change.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

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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.

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

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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.

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