The ‘Obamacan’ Movement got a nice bump yesterday, when two Republicans, Rep. Jim Leach (IA) and Jim Whitaker, mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in Alaska, endorsed Obama, reports Kate Linthicum in today’s L.A.Times. Whitaker, also a former Alaska legislator (99-03), who supported McCain in the 2000 Republican primary, cited Obama’s stronger “intellectual capacity.”
In his NYT op-ed today, Thomas L. Friedman comments on McCain’s “perfect record” in opposing federal support for renewable energy and Greg Sargent amplifies the point in his TPM Election Central post, “McCain Supports Tax Breaks For Oil Industry — But Not For Wind Power.” McCain is not only a good candidate for the ‘Big Oil’s Errand Boy” meme, but his commitment to ethical campaign finance, especially when Big Oil’s interests are at stake, is being questioned, according to McClatchey reporter Greg Gordon.
CBS News media columnist Jon Friedman urges Senator Obama to bristle less and relax more when confronted by press intrusions, which are only going to get worse — often hard to do, but generally good advice for any candidate, just about any time.
“To help the party doofuses and pundits — and the candidate himself — spare all of us another suicide-inducing election night,” Michael Moore has an advisory up at Alternet, “How the Democrats Can Blow It … in Six Easy Steps.”
Bill Cotterell of the Fort Meyers News-Press reports that Dem registration in Florida is up more than a quarter of a million this year, while new GOP registrants are up less than 100K and independents just under 50K. See also Rachel Kapochunas’s CQPolitics.com piece on the play of issues and demographics in the Sunsihne State.
Writing in The Guardian UK, TNR Senior Editor Michael Crowley echoes the argument that Obama must resist the temptation “to cruise at high altitude” and Dems must get engaged in unraveling McCain’s “political mythology.”
Political Animal Kevin Drum makes the case that Obama’s “McCain is the real celebrity” ad is pretty limp for an ‘attack’ ad.
So that’s what McCain really means by “drilling for oil.”