The media and McCain need Hillary, for now.

[ProSense]

Patience During Turbulence

By Al Giordano

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re experiencing some turbulence in the flight toward Denver. A perfect mini-storm has been created by three weather fronts colliding:

1. The Clinton campaign’s need to portray it’s upcoming Pennsylvania win not as the result of predictable demographics (and of the state primary’s exclusion of Independent voters), but as a confirmation of its claim (to the most gullible of superdelegates, if such a group exists) that Senator Obama is somehow less electable in November than its own severely damaged candidate.

2. The Republicans’ need - from John McCain to Rush Limbaugh - to have Senator Clinton as the Democratic nominee to rally against in November instead of the game-changing Obama.

3. The political press corps’ need to maintain (at very least, the illusion of) this contest going all the way to the convention in August, or face reassignment off the gravy train and back to their desks to be barked at by editors that remind of J. Jonah Jameson (with the corresponding need of the business side of commercial political websites to keep those hit counts and ad revenues up).

The disingenuous huffing and puffing by all three sectors has created a sudden bumpiness in the ride.

But The Field notices a glimpse of sunlight through the cloud cover: Unlike during the last bout of turbulence, when “Hurricane Jeremiah” turned out not to register the destructive force that the media’s forecasters had predicted, the passengers in the Obama section of the plane (that is, the volunteers, bloggers and small-donors riding in coach) aren’t panicking this time. They’ve learned - fast - the most important lesson in politics: the art of riding out the storm, of not being distracted or diverted from the real work by the panic these three forces are attempting to impose.

If only the most accurate pollster in this primary season, Survey USA, would produce a new Pennsylvania poll, taken after the “bittergate” story broke, we’d have confirmation of whether the effort to paint the son-of-a-single-mom as “elitist” is succeeding or not. The last Survey USA poll - taken April 5-8, had Pennsylvania contest with an 18-point lead: Clinton 56 percent, Obama 38.

Oh, wait: New Survey USA numbers are emerging from the horizon… The new poll, taken Saturday through Monday (April 12-14) - entirely after the “perfect mini-storm” became the obsession of the TV news and the rest of the media - shows the opposite of what the Chicken Littles had forecasted. Clinton’s margin over Obama has not expanded during the turbulence, but rather, diminished, from 18 points down to 14: Clinton 54, Obama 40.

more

Bitter doesn't stand a chance of being the story in the GE, but this would.

Video: http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=1057">Guide to Understanding Washington Lobbyists

Everyone going on and on about the GE, need to read these:

The downside to suspending the gas tax?

Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 12:05 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: 2008, Economy, McCain

Donning my old hat as a transportation reporter, it's worth noting that McCain's call to suspend the 18.4-cent gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day also potentially dries up funding to use to pay for highway/public transportation infrastructure.

The 18.4-cent gas tax goes into a Highway Trust Fund, which pays for roads, bridges, subways, etc. So there's a legitimate policy question here: If you suspend that tax, what are you doing to an already-deteriorating infrastructure system? (After all, remember that bridge collapse in Minneapolis/St. Paul, where interestingly the GOP convention takes place in September.)

VIDEO: Presidential candidate John McCain talks to CNBC’s John Harwood about his economic plan.

The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Power also raises this question about suspending the gas tax: "Relief — or fewer jobs? According to a white paper circulated on Capitol Hill last week by the U.S. Transportation Department, every $1 billion of federal highway investment supports 34,779 jobs. Many economists have also questioned the wisdom of suspending or cutting gas taxes; doing so, they say, simply stimulates more consumption of gasoline."

<...>

*** UPDATE *** Matthew Jeanneret, a spokesman for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, tells First Read that suspending the federal gas tax for three months could cost $9 billion from the federal highway trust fund. And if that lost $9 billion is replaced by general Treasury revenues, that will increase the size of the deficit. "It might be good politics," Jeanneret says of the McCain measure. "But it is shortsighted, and it won't do anything to stimulate the economy."

Relying on bogus retention argument, McCain opposes modernized GI Bill:

McCain’s opposition comes a day after petitions from 30,000 veterans arrived at McCain’s Senate office, urging him to support the modernized bill to offer veterans a college education.

But the reason for the opposition is especially ridiculous.

Bush administration officials, and apparently McCain, “worry that a more generous and expansive GI Bill would create an incentive for troops to get out of the military and go to college.”

McCain "Family Recipes" Lifted from the Food Network:

It took less than 12 hours from the time the media caught wind of Cindy McCain's recipe theft for John McCain's campaign website to scrub away the offending pages (screen-captured below). That's 12 hours more than it took Cindy to come up with the recipes... (In the meantime, you can still see the listing of recipes as it originally appeared on the campaign website through the Google cache.)

[Thepricebreaker]

1. I really wouldnt call the food network "The media".

[ProSense]

3. "The media" was not a reference to the Food Network. n/t

[karynnj]

6. K & R

[Quixote1818]

2. Exactly right. K and R. nt

[ProSense]

5. Imagine McCain calling anyone out of touch. n/t

[ProSense]

4. In addition to ad, Obama drops a mailer on Hillary's ties to lobbyists

Full mailer here


Excellent!