Fox News Cuts Democratic Keynote After Two Minutes; Switches to Anti-Obama Coverage – In its August 26 coverage of the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Fox News aired just over two minutes of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner’s nearly 20-minute keynote address. Then they went on to discuss an anti-Obama ad and an interview with former Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani.
Ohio GOP Illegally Funneled $495,000 From Federal Account, Top Campaign Finance Official Writes – The Ohio Republican Party funneled $495,000 into an account used to support the candidacy of former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell that should have only been used to support candidates for national office, according to a letter from Ohio’s current Secretary of State and a GOP spokesman.
The letter says Ohio’s Republican party collected nearly half a million dollars from a federal GOP account in October 2006. They also took in $20,000 from a state GOP account the same month and another $25,000 in November 2007. According a state GOP spokesman, the money supported just one candidate — former Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
Blackwell achieved notoriety after allegations he abused his office as the state’s top elections official. While serving as Secretary of State, which handles statewide elections, he also doubled as state chairman for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. Blackwell has been named in more than ten voter disenfranchisement lawsuits. He was also named in a 2006 lawsuit after his office publicly disclosed the Social Security numbers of Ohio residents.
Republicans Love Their Indicted Senator – Senator Ted Stevens received 63 percent of the primary vote against six challengers, even as he faces a trial in September on charges that he concealed $250,000 in home renovations and gifts provided by an oil services company, VECO. If the trial goes forward on schedule, Mr. Stevens, who has been in the Senate for 40 years and is revered in Alaska for bringing home billions of dollars in federal spending, will be defending himself in court while he also tries to hold off a strong general election challenge from a popular and well-financed Democrat, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage.
The results of the Republican primary’s other top race, between Representative Don Young and his challenger, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, may not be known until next week or even later. Like Mr. Stevens, Mr. Young is under federal investigation for his ties to VECO, but he also faces scrutiny on other matters. He has spent more than $1 million of his campaign money on legal fees.
US Threatens UK to Try to Make Them Not Tell About Torture – In a remarkable development at the High Court in London, an email from a senior US State Dept. official has been revealed, apparently threatening to curb co-operation with Britain on international intelligence sharing if details on a detainees interrogation are revealed. Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, held at Gitmo, have taken legal action in the UK to force the release of details which, they say, will prove Mohamed was illegally abducted and tortured into a confession. Mohamed claims that his torture included having his penis cut with a razor blade by Moroccan proxies for the US.
What Bush Taught McCain – The woman, a venture capitalist from the Denver area, looked a bit like Cindy McCain, and so it was disconcerting when she announced, in a focus group of undecided voters conducted by the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, that she had decided she just couldn’t vote for John McCain this year. “I supported him enthusiastically in 2000, but he’s hired the same people who ran him into the ground last time to run his campaign,” she said. McCain’s tone was more negative now. “It breaks my heart.”
Most people don’t care about the consultants a candidate hires — very few handlers achieve the celebrity status of a Karl Rove or a James Carville. Most voters who supported McCain in 2000 but not this year have more obvious gripes: they don’t like the way he’s shaved his policy positions to approach Republican dogma. They may remember that he opposed the Bush tax cuts before he favored them. They may remember that he was more moderate on social issues like abortion in 2000, decrying the extremists on both sides and saying that “people of good intentions” could come to some understanding. They may be surprised by his free-range bellicosity, rattling sabers from Iran to Georgia. All of which is summed up in a single image: McCain hugging — no, nuzzling up to — George W. Bush. And yet, as the venture capitalist pointed out, the most disheartening aspect of McCain’s 2008 campaign is not his embrace of Bush’s policies but of the Bush style of campaigning
Regards,
Jim
Will you listen to your hopes or your fears?
Andy Hailey