charged rape victims for medical exams. Palin's appointed police chief wanted to save money. That's one kind of reform, but the State Legislature put a stop to it.  more >>

The tax Joe fears falls only on the likes of Cindy McCain. Cindy has got poor Joe doing her dirty work—protecting the Bush tax cut for millionaires.

Bush cut the top rate from 39% to 36%. Back when McCain was a maverick he voted against that. But when Obama says to push it back up, McCain calls him a socialist. Obama's just letting the top two tax brackets return to where they were before Bush cut taxes for millionaires and exploded the national debt.

Joe is making $40,000. He needs 6 times that before his taxes go up. And even then he'd only pay 3% more on the part of his income above a quarter million dollars a year. If Joe earns a quarter million plus extra and has to pay 3% more on the extra, he'll think he's died and gone to heaven.

But Cindy makes over $5 million a year. Joe wouldn't make that in a century -- it would take him 125 years. A 3% tax hike for her would cost her three years of Joe's wages every year. Three is not much out of the 125 she gets every year, but bothers her.

Cindy and John McCain say a 3% hike on millionaires is class warfare. But under Republican President Eisenhower, the top tax bracket was 90%, and the rich were still rich -- not exactly class-war refugees. And Eisenhower was no socialist.

Now there has been class warfare over the last thirty years and you know who's on the attack. Not Joe the Plumber or even Jill the Computer Geek. They make no quarter million a year. The multi-millionaires have attacked and won. They've gotten their taxes cut by more than half since 1978. And they call anyone who wants to turn the clock back even to 1990 a socialist and a terrorist. Now that's class warfare. more>>

Why does McCain call it "voter" fraud? Because it sounds like "vote fraud." But no one has found a single fraudulent vote. What happened? ACORN registered 1.3 million voters. Maybe 1% were bad registrations (not bad votes).

John McCain himself was a keynote speaker at a 2006 rally in Florida with ACORN and other liberal groups. He declared those at the rally to be "what makes America special".

Why the bad registrations? ACORN hires thousands of people to register voters. A few cheat and make up the names. Often ACORN catches them and fires them. But, by law they cannot throw out voter registrations (otherwise groups could throw out the ones they don't like). So ACORN flags the ones they think are bad and turns them in. They fire those who cheated them by making up names. Since there are no real people behind the fake names, there is no one who could vote fraudulently.

If a Democrat says Obama is honest it means little. If a Republican say McCain is honest it means no more. But if a staunch Republican says Obama is honest, this shows courage. They are giving an honest opinion. If this person is smart and in-the-know, we can learn a great deal.

For example, novelist and leading conservative thinker, Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, the father of modern conservatism would never vote for a terrorist for president. Or for someone who likes terrorists, or defrauds voters or hates America.

Buckley's smart and has every connection to find these things out. So when he switches from McCain to Obama we know one thing for sure:

McCain's "ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless."

So says Buckley, previously a huge fan of McCain. We can depend on him.

"This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him...

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is ...

Obama has in him the potential to be a ..." There's More...

I personally admire John McCain, but ... Obama's choice to serve his Chicago community and forego lucrative options to ...  Barack Obama has worn the shoes of main street.  His values and success are derived, not from ...  There's More...

"Deep in America's heart, ... is the nagging fear that our best years as a nation are over. ... Crossover voters were attracted by [Ike's] pledge to bring change to Washington and by the prospect that he would unify the nation. In this great tradition, I support Barack Obama's ..."    more from Susan

The McCain campaign manager, Rick Davis, told reporters in a conference call this morning that the coverage of Palin has been “frenzied” and that the press corps ought to “dial it back.”

So McCain picks for V.P. a Miss America runner up with no knowledge of international issues (Her entire Iraq policy: "We better have a real clear plan. And it better not have to do with oil."). He does this two working days before the Republican convention, knowing (he claims) that her unwed daughter is five months pregnant.

Then he has his team beat up the press for maxing out on this story. I'm mean, could he give them a better story?! What's this all about anyway? What did he expect?

P.S. McCain's brand-new attack ad claims "Obama's the most liberal in the Senate. And he gave Big Oil billions in subsidies." Let me explain something. Giving Big Oil big bucks is not even a little bit liberal. It's flat conservative. Only two lines to get straight, and McCain contradicts himself.

McCain officials said the news of the daughter's pregnancy was being released to rebut what one aide called "mud-slinging and lies" circulating on liberal blog sites.

Fair enough, but that means McCain and Palin deliberately hid this information. And, planned to hide it much longer. Only the rumors forced it out. But, surely they knew a 5-month pregnancy cannot long be hidden.

McCain's strategy was just dumb; it only hurt Republicans. You have to announce it. So do it on your own terms; don't let two-bit mudslingers get the upper hand. [Update: It was actually big-time mudslingers—at the National Enquirer]

And what good is a bad political strategist as world leader?

In November 2006, you said that if your daughter was raped, "I would choose life." You did not say "I would let my daughter choose," because you were arguing that women should not have that choice.

But now the McCain campaign says your daughter did have the choice and that she made the choice. I'm glad you gave your daughter the choice, but would you still take it away from other women you have never met? Have you changed your mind?

Back in January, Clinton could have been V.P. But now the Republicans are showing ads with Hillary saying “Senator McCain will bring a ... more >>

May 23, 2008. Today, Clinton claimed a new reason she stays in the race. "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." She's not staying in because she might be assassinated. But is she staying in to take advantage of Obama's possible assassination? Does this make sense?

If he were assassinated, she would gain the nomination for sure. No one else is close. As she knows, dropping out would not change that. So she definitely was not explaining why she stays in—that makes no sense.

And she didn't bring up Obama's assassination accidentally. She thought long and hard before saying something so dicey. So why did she bring this up?!

Only two things make sense. She's trying to give her supporters hope—that Obama will be assassinated. Or, she's trying to give crazy people ideas—people like Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan. Let's hope it's only the former—that's bad enough.

If the Democratic Party thinks it can lead this country, its leaders had better show they are tough enough to put an end such evil politicking.

May 14, 2008. Until Iowa, Hillary was my pick. Until Wisconsin, I thought her biggest problem was carrying Bill's baggage. But just as Bill convinced the blacks in South Carolina—who at first favored Clinton by 30 points—to switch sides, Hillary finally convinced me. more >>

May 9, 2008. Clinton has reduced her claim to be the Democratic nominee to 9 power-point slides with statistics on 20 Congressional districts—that's 4% of the country. She cherry-picked these 20 from 32 districts where Dems picked up seats in 2006. But cherry picking is not the main deception.  more...

May 8, 2008. Republicans and "race-matters" Democrats--that's who. Specifically, Rush-Limbaugh Republicans and Democrats who tell CNN that the "race of the candidate was important to them." I'll call these admitted racists (ARs). They make up only about 5.5% of the Indiana Democrats, so they are only important for Hillary's white edge. She and Obama have about equally-broad non-racist white support. more...

May 7, 2008. zHardFacts: This time Rush is right. His "Operation Chaos" actually threw the race. By zFacts analysis, absent Limbaugh-following Republicans, Obama would have won Indiana 51% to 49% instead of the other way around. All told, it looks like Rush has given Clinton 217,000 popular votes, and about 14 delegates.  more...

May 6, 2008. “We’re going to go right at OPEC,” she said. “They can no longer be a cartel." Tough talk—but every year OPEC writes a report asking us to reduce gas taxes (so we will use more oil)—and now that's Clinton's policy.  more...

April 5, 2008. The woman was not refused treatment, did have insurance, and was the Manager of a Pizza Hut. But as Clinton tells it "The hospital said, 'Well, you don't have insurance.' She said, 'No, ...  more

March 6, 2008 Rove, Bush's dirty trickster, gives lessons on how to smear Obama

Voters seldom think ahead: "I like X; I vote for X." But if Clinton wins, the "vast right-wing conspiracy" will destroy her before November. An unlikely win in November would mean 4 years of bloody right-wing attacks on everything she stands for. They would take a shocking toll. It is not her fault the right will attack, but she is wrong to seek this grudge match, and she and her supporters—and all of us—will pay dearly.

The opposite approach would benefit her supporters far more. A unified front that brings new blood into the Democratic Party and disarms the angry right is what aggressive Republicans fear, and why they support Hillary.

Limbaugh says fellow Republicans want to see “Barack Obama bloodied up politically,’’ but “don’t have the stomach for it.’’ On Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor he urged Republicans in Texas to vote for Clinton to keep her campaign alive.

The Dallas News reports: TX Republicans figure that to vote for McCain: Vote for the "weaker" Democrat and keep the Democratic Party "in turmoil" through August.  more

Latest CBS News/New York Times poll: among all voters, Obama had a 45/23 percent favorable/unfavorable split. Clinton's was 35/43. That's huge.

Obama will get things done, not because he's wonkier, but because he knows how to get things done. Obama is doing in his campaign exactly what it takes to get new policies passed. Clinton is "fighting," but as in 1992, it's still not working.

Clinton ended Thursday's debate saying "I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored." But she had known for several days all about the Obama pamphlets over which she now says "Shame on you, Barack Obama." What changed? Clinton's tactics. Nothing more.

I was wrong (see below) that being booed for nasty, and wildly applauded for nice, would teach her to stick to substance and be diplomatic. But it looks like she figured neither nice nor nasty was going to do it, so go for broke—try really nasty.

Now I don't like Obama's pamphlets, but he's right that she favored NAFTA. He's exaggerating that she wants to "force people to purchase insurance, even if they cannot afford it." But she did say that "going after people's wages" might be how she would get poor people to accept her health care plan.

Instead of saying "shame" and comparing him to Karl Rove and George Bush, she should have explained her plan to force 100% coverage. She has not. But her communications director Howard Wolfson has said that "comparing another Democrat to George Bush" is the "worst kind of tactical political maneuvering." Today, her chance of winning dropped from 19% to 15%. But I'm no longer optimistic that will make a difference. I think she's going for broke. Watch out for Monday, March 3.

Before the debate, Clinton's two top strategists: Grunwald (nice) and Penn (nasty) duked it out, but no decision. So Clinton tested one line from each. I'm speculating here, but see what you think. She attacked Obama with a Penn-prepared zinger—"change you can xerox," implying his change message is phony because a close friend helped him with a couple of lines in one speech. She was soundly booed. She ended the debate on a rather touching and conciliatory note, suggested by Grunwald, and got her best audience response of the night.

I'm betting she learned her lesson. We don't want them bickering. We want politics that stands tough on principle but unites rather than divides. That's why Obama is winning. It's too late for Clinton to win the race, but if she learns this lesson she will win something nevertheless important—respect.

I'm as wonky as they come: math, stats, econ. But I'll tell you the weakness of wonks: ignoring appearances. Take Hillary's health care plan. Not the one that blew up 14 years ago, her present plan. She claims it's 100% universal and Obama's is not. She's right. Here's why: She will force everyone in. When pressed on how, she said perhaps "going after people's wages."

Garnishing wages might be the best wonky approach. Not likely, but it's a complex question. But what's sure is that saying on national TV that you might garnish the wages of the poor to enforce "mandatory" health care is just plain dumb. Especially when you've had 14 years to think about it.

We don't need another great health-care battle, even if she could squeak by with her plan. Long-term success depends on not antagonizing half the country.

Considering he's new at this, Obama's plan scores nearly as well on the wonk meter, and it doesn't stir up the attack machines. That's big-picture smart.  more...

Clinton is rebuilding her strength--only among Dems. A Zogby International Poll of 7,468 likely voters nationwide found Obama over McCain 47 to 36 percent. But McCain over Clinton by 42 to 37 percent. That's a 16% difference."    Policy twins

Mark McKinnon, a senior campaign adviser to both President Bush and Sen. John McCain: "I met Barack Obama, I read his book, I like him a great deal, ... , and I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama.  ... "I will be supporting [McCain] from the sidelines."

Time Magazine proves zFacts point of Jan. 27 (see below). Obama wins 48 / 41 against McCain, but Clinton ties McCain 46 / 46 in a new Time poll. The reason is as predicted: "independents tilt toward McCain when he is matched up against Clinton. But they tilt toward Obama when he is matched up against the Illinois Senator."   more

InTrade.com is the world's #1 prediction market. People bet real money on their predictions, so these are the best—but still far from perfect. Clinton/Obama went from $62/$48 before super Tuesday to $50/$50 after.

Can Clinton beat McCain/Huckabee? The country's about 1/3 each Dems, independents and Republicans. Both Clinton & McCain leave some in their party uninspired, so that's a wash. But McCain draws independents better than Hillary. Do the math.

No doubt the far right hates Hillary. Is that why they claim Obama is a Muslim (see below)? Can't be sure, but it makes sense they would rather run against Clinton. This would explain why they are not attacking her now.

In November, Dems will vote for either, but that's only 1/3 of the country. To win, a candidate needs over half of the 1/3 who are independents. Obama is far stronger with independents and with young voters, who normally tend to stay home. Winning in November takes Obama's broad appeal. Besides, Obama is teflon; Clinton is anti-teflon.

The NY Times reports: "Mrs. Clinton has found her campaign losing badly in a string of state caucuses that relied on a high level of on-the-ground organizational skills at which the Obama campaign excelled." Having started way early, and raised $175 million, how did she run out of money just before Super Tuesday, and why is her organization so weak? Here claim to fame is knowing how government works and how to get things done. Perhaps Obama is just a very quick study.