Well the one poll showing a hefty lead for Senator McCain is from Military Times showing “landslide support for John McCain, who captures 68 percent of the military vote to Barack Obama’s 23 percent.”

From the International Herald Tribune:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

In my opinion? Watching both parties and campaigns attempt to portray the other in a negative light on this issue is utterly ludicrous. I would be surprised if anyone could find a person in Washington that did not have their hand in the cookie jar in one way or another, who did not receive donations or whose staff does not include a person, current or former, that was employed or defended in some small way an entity connected with this mess.

It was dumb and short sighted of the McCain camp to launch such attacks.

The following quotes are making the rounds on the internets thanks to some Republican opposition research.

“I’ve been calling for more troops for over two years, along with John McCain and others subsequent to my saying that.” — Meet the Press, November 27, 2005
“The only guy on the other side who’s qualified is John McCain.” — MSNBC, October 30, 2007

“John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off” — The Daily Show, August 2, 2005
And a Biden campaign release: “The Biden for President Campaign today congratulated Sen. Barack Obama for arriving at a number of Sen. Biden’s long-held views on combating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

As Barack Obama attacks John McCain over his support of what the Senator calls legislation straight out of “the Cheney Playbook” the Associated Press notes that in 2005 it was Obama who supported a pork laden energy bill Dems have called the Cheney energy bill while McCain voted against it.

Obama voted for a 2005 energy bill backed by President Bush that included billions in subsidies for oil and natural gas production, a measure for which Vice President Dick Cheney played a major role. McCain opposed the bill, saying at the time that it included billions in unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry.

The Obama campaign has said the Illinois senator supported the legislation because it included huge investments in renewable energy. Yet Democrats long have characterized the 2005 energy bill as being written by Cheney. One of them, Democratic primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, criticized Obama earlier this year for backing the “Dick Cheney lobbyist energy bill.”

Seriously this is probably the best campaign ad I have seen all season.

So apparently all the speculation this week started by Robert Novak that McCain would counter-program Obama’s Europe trip with a VP announcement was just that, speculation. Obviously McCain could at any moment come out with something but considering it is 11:00am on a Friday and nothing has been said, I have to believe it isn’t going to happen.

Last week McCain top economic adviser Phil Gramm made some comments that did not sit too well with observers. He basically said that the recession is a state-of-mind and the American people had become “a nation of whiners”. They were comments that McCain eventually disavowed and Obama jumped on.

This morning when asked McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina made it pretty clear Phil Gramm would not have a position in the Senator’s White House. Now news from the campaign that Gramm has been releaved of his duties and is no longer a part of the team.

I just watched a half an hour of campaign surrogates Carly Fiorina and Senator Claire McCaskill debating their candidates plans on Meet the Press. After a half an hour the final conclusions I came to were these:

1) Neither candidate is willing to come out on a firm position on almost anything.
2) Neither candidate has an economic plan that adds up to solving our problems.
3) This election looks and sounds almost exactly like every other one for the past few cycles.

Call me a curmudgeon but for over a year I have been skeptical about this tidal wave of “change” and “reform” that has been touted by both of these candidates but especially Obama. Through the sheer for of their wills is how we are told they will change the system. Yet here we are in what is obviously the general election campaign, forget waiting until the conventions, and I see two candidates and their surrogates who look, sound and feel just like any other.

John McCain echoes the weekly Presidential Radio addresses with his first address today (click link to hear it) detailing his positions on energy.

Good morning. I’m John McCain, and this week I’ve been on the road in Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. I’ve been holding town hall meetings to talk over the subject on most everyone’s minds these days — our slowing economy.

More than 400,000 Americans have lost their jobs since December, and the rate of new job creation has fallen sharply. Americans are worried about the security of their current job, and they’re worried that they, their kids and their neighbors may not find good jobs and new opportunities in the future. It’s a big problem when gasoline, food, and other necessities of life carry the price tag of luxury goods, and that’s what it feels like to millions of Americans.

I have a plan to grow this economy, and it starts with getting a handle on the cost of gasoline and regaining America’s energy security. I believe we should immediately suspend the federal gas tax for the remainder of the summer driving season. We also have billions of dollars of oil in the United States, and vast reserves of natural gas as well. So we must commit to producing more of both, to send a message to the market and trigger lower prices for oil and gas.

We will develop more clean energy, and especially zero-emission nuclear energy. We will build at least 45 nuclear plants that will create over 700,000 good jobs to construct and operate them. At the same time, we will develop clean coal technology — which alone will create tens of thousands of jobs in some of America’s most hard-pressed areas.

Under my energy plan — the Lexington Project — we will also accelerate the development of wind and solar power and other renewable technologies. And we will help automakers design and sell cars that don’t depend on gasoline. Production of hybrid, flex-fuel, and electric cars will bring America closer to energy independence. And it will bring jobs to auto plants, parts manufacturers, and the communities that support them.

My opponent has an answer to the Lexington Project, and it’s “no”: No to more drilling, no to more nuclear power, no to more use of coal. For a guy whose “official seal” carried the motto, “Yes, we can,” Senator Obama’s agenda sure has a whole lot of “No, we can’t.”

We need to think as well about small businesses and the jobs they create. Small businesses are the job engine of America, and I will make it easier for them to grow and hire more workers.
My opponent would make it harder by imposing a healthcare mandate that will add a crushing $12,000 to the cost of employing anyone with a family. My plan attacks the real problems of health care — cost, availability and portability.

In an economic downturn, the worst of all ideas is to raise taxes. And Senator Obama will do just that. If you are one of the 23 million small business owners who files as an individual rate payer, watch out — because as your business grows, my opponent proposes to raise your taxes. If you have an investment for your child’s education or own a mutual fund or a stock in a retirement plan, watch out — because Senator Obama intends to nearly double the taxes on capital gains. He will raise estate taxes to 45 percent. I propose to cut them to 15 percent. For those of you with children, I will double the child deduction from $3,500 to $7,000 for every dependent, in every family in America.

To promote job creation, we must also get government’s fiscal house in order. Government has grown by 60 percent in the last eight years, because this Congress and this Administration have failed to meet their responsibilities. When I’m president, I will order a stem to stern review of government, and I will veto every single bill with wasteful spending.

For his part, Senator Obama proposes to create sprawling new federal programs that will increase government spending even more. As for earmark spending, I have never asked for a single earmark in my entire career. In his Senate career, Senator Obama has requested some $930 million for earmark projects. That comes to more than a million dollars in pork for every working day since he became a United States Senator.

In America, the most important measure of the economy is the opportunity — the chance for every man and woman to find a better life, and to make one better still for their children. That is all a part of the promise of our country. And if I am elected president, I will see that promise kept.
We’re passing through a very tough time, my fellow Americans. But we’ve been through worse, and beaten longer odds. And very soon, we’re going to get this economy running again at full strength.

I noticed that there was something oddly familiar about General Wesley Clark’s attack line against Sen. McCain’s military service, it sounded like a joke I had heard from Al Franken, I just couldn’t remember where I had heard it. Luckily we have Google and I could find the quote from a 2000 campaign related interview in Playboy magazine.

OV: Do you like McCain?

AF: I just read his autobiography and I like that a lot. I think he’s admirable in many, many ways. He has certainly been courageous on tobacco and campaign finance reform. I read the book and it has a lot about his time in captivity in North Vietnam being tortured and stuff. I don’t understand why all this war hero stuff. I mean anybody can get captured. Isn’t the idea to capture the other guy? As far as I’m concerned, he sat out the war.

Now obviously, Franken unlike Clark was joking. With that said this isn’t the first interesting Franken thought to come out of a Playboy related article for the comedian who is currently running for the Minnesota Democratic Senate ticket.