The news out of the Democrats visit to Planned Parenthood has given us some interesting topics that will be sure to eventually rile up the religious right. The latest is from ABC News:

ABC News’ Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson Report: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is “age-appropriate,” is “the right thing to do.”

“I remember Alan Keyes . . . I remember him using this in his campaign against me,” Obama said in reference to the conservative firebrand who ran against him for the U.S. Senate in 2004. Sex education for kindergarteners had become an issue in his race against Keyes because of Obama’s work on the issue as chairman of the health committee in the Illinois state Senate.

“‘Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergarteners,’” said Obama mimicking Keyes’ distinctive style of speech. “Which — I didn’t know what to tell him (laughter).”

“But it’s the right thing to do,” Obama continued, “to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools.”

This has been a REALLY odd election thus far. For some reason its been impossible to find a Republican truly against abortion and a Democrat that hasn’t used a racial or sexist slur.

The latest is Bill Richardson who apologized, after a years time, for using the term “faggot” in Spanish on the Don Imus Show (yes the Don Imus show). the story which I found via Andrew Sullivan.

This comes on the heels of what will be the first Democratic debate focusing solely on LGBT issues.

It is about where we thought. A to Obama said the Sen. raised $30, the Clinton campaign has said her haul would be about $27 million, Edwards did exceed expectations and raise $9 million undoubtedly thanks to Ann Coulter and the publicity the spat between her and Ms. Edwards received.

Gov. Bill Richardson took in a nice $7 million.

Unsure about Republicans but it looks like Romney will be lower than last quarter, Giuliani will have gained and McCain, well, he will be McCain.

According to Political Wire he did.

Richardson turned from his brand of “nice guy, no attack” politics to, well, attacking his Democratic opponents this week by taking an Iraq position as far out as possible. The problem? While attacking the other candidates position he forgot that he himself once held similar beliefs and so his staff began working hard to white wash any and all references to said position off his site.

Check out the evidence from the New Republic.

Cue Google cache.

Gov. Bill Richardson & Senator Chris Dodd have agreed to the first Spanish language Presidential debate.

The debate will be hosted by and broadcast on Univision Communications Inc. the nations largest Spanish broadcaster.

This does always bring me back to a frequent question in my head. Why can I watch English television with Spanish subtitles but not have the ability to watch Spanish television in English? As a non-Spanish speaker I won’t be able to watch the debate

Wow Romney last week, Clinton & Obama this week. McCain is really going at it and I have to say I LOVE IT.

Anyway McCain said today of Clinton & Obama’s vote on Iraq funding:
“This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it’s the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda.”

Which lead to Obama releasing a statement saying (From The Hill):

“And if there ever was a reflection of that it’s the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, 10 armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago.”

McCain’s retort?

“While Senator Obama’s two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation’s security” adding “By the way, Senator Obama, it’s a ‘flak’ jacket, not a ‘flack’ jacket.”

Meanwhile a McCain aide also added Obama “wouldn’t know the difference between an RPG & a bong” which played to Obama’s early revelations that he experimented with drugs in his life.

Update: As a user on Digg pointed out the American Dictionary does say you can use flack & flak interchangeably. But I did make the following point not so much in defense of McCain as just explaining where I think he was coming from:

I think technically though McCain was criticizing Obama’s lack of military knowledge & experience. The military, as far as I can tell spells it flak and so Obama’s team not taking the time to know that would be considered further evidence in McCain’s jab.

I often talk to people in different branches of the armed service who share their annoyance that civilians don’t take the time to really understand or show knowledge of their world. Little things like understanding ranks and the importance of medals seems to be irritating. Especially when you come politically from a place where you say “I know what troops must be feeling or thinking” about an issue.

To follow-up from the news that NM & 2008 candidate would be at Google Headquarters for a talk here is the video of that event:

Also see Hillary Clinton or John McCain at Google.

As noted Senator John McCain has been to Google & so has Senator Hillary Clinton. Now Gov. Bill Richardson will join them tomorrow at 3:00 Pacific time for a town hall meeting with Google Employees. Google has been very good about putting these out on the Web so as soon as I have it I will upload to this post.

Video Now Available.

Bill Richardson’s new TV spot. There are actually two of them in there.

You can tell the campaign what you thought of the ads while you are at it.

Gov. Bill Richardson has been heralded by some as the dark horse and next big thing of the Democratic primary but yesterday he gave voters a reason to pause. While talking about embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to The Hill Richardson said the following on his position of asking for the resignation of the AG:

The only reason I’m not there is because he’s Hispanic, and I know him and like him,” Richardson said, adding, “It’s because he’s Hispanic. I’m honest. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

It would be very difficult to swallow if the President said he gave Donald Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt on Iraq because “he is caucasian” or “white” and likewise it would be hard to swallow if Barack Obama said he gave a black leader the same leeway because of his race or Hillary Clinton because of their gender or any candidate because of a persons religion, ethnicity or creed.

Richardson, about an hour ago, made up his mind giving the following statement to the Associated Press:

After reviewing the attorney general’s behavior, I must reluctantly conclude that new leadership is needed.

It is still hard to ignore the gaffe by Richardson and if he does move up in the polls/fundraising that little quote could come back to haunt him in a big way. It would be the easiest move by Republicans who, on the issue of illegal immigration, see a fearful group of conservatives and moderates in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania & throughout the South, to warp that statement into many different things.

The statement does amount to a certain kind of racial profiling, one that gives preferential treatment to one group of people over another and had Richardson been a Republican that uttered those words I would be hard pressed to find a Democrat or a leader like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton who wouldn’t use it against him.