BOTH PARTIES DEEP INTO CORRUPT MONEY GAME

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone - Remember the total, hideous, inexcusable absence of oversight that has been the great hallmark of George Bush's America for almost eight years now? Well, now we're getting to see that same regulatory malfeasance applied to yet another cornerstone of our political system. The Federal Election Commission - the body that supposedly enforces campaign-finance laws in this country - has been out of business for more than six months. That's because Congress was dragging its feet over confirmation hearings for new FEC commissioners, leaving the agency without a quorum. The commission just started work again for the first time on July 10th under its new chairman, Donald McGahn, a classic Republican Party yahoo whose chief qualifications include representing Tom DeLay, the corrupt ex-speaker of the House, in matters of campaign finance.

Apart from the obvious absurdity of not having a functioning election-policing mechanism in an election year in the world's richest democracy, the late start by the FEC makes it almost impossible for the agency to do its job. The commission has a long-standing reluctance to take action in the last months before a vote, a policy designed to help prevent federal regulators from influencing election outcomes. Normally, the FEC tries to root out infractions and loopholes - fining campaigns for incomplete reporting, or for taking shortcuts around spending limits - in the early months of a campaign season. But that ship sailed way too long ago to take the stink off the 2008 race.

"The time for setting the ground rules was earlier," says Craig Holman, a lobbyist with the watchdog group Public Citizen. "There isn't time to do much now."

That's especially true given the magnitude of what we're dealing with here: the biggest pile of political contributions in the history of free elections, nearly a billion dollars given to presidential candidates in this season alone. Because the FEC has been dead in the water for so long, it's likely that we'll still be in the dark about a large chunk of this record manure pile of campaign contributions when we go to vote in November.

But that doesn't mean that a little sifting through campaign records doesn't tell us quite a lot about who's backing whom in these races. The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene. From Wall Street to the Big Oil powerhouses to the military-industrial complex, America's fat-cat business leaders know that the Animal House-style party of the last eight years that made almost all of them rich with bonuses, government contracts and bubble profits is about to come to an end, and someone is going to have to pay to clean up the mess. They want that someone to be you, not them, and they've spared no expense to make sure both presidential candidates will be there to bail them out next year.

They're succeeding. Both would-be presidents have already sold us out. They've taken the money and run - completing the cyclical transformation of the American political narrative from one of monopolistic Republican iniquity to an even more depressing tale about the overweening power of corporate money and the essentially fictitious nature of our two-party system.

In layman's terms, we've gone from being screwed to being fucked. Who knows - maybe Barack Obama will surprise us if he wins the election. But if you look at the money, it doesn't look good.

MORNING LINE

We have reported on how the Obama campaign has stagnated despite some obvious advantages including a poor economy, a weak GOP candidate and Obama's pop star image. Further, the Review's score card finds in recent weeks that the most number of senators the Democrats might gain has fallen from nine to five. Now some other journals have picked up the theme

Politico - While Obama still leads in most matchups with John McCain, the Illinois senator's apparent stall in the polls is a sobering reminder to Democrats intoxicated with his campaign's promises to expand the electoral map beyond the boundaries that have constrained other recent party nominees.

That gap between expectations and reality comes as Democrats enjoy the most favorable political winds since at least 1976. At least eight in ten Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. The Republican president is historically unpopular. From stunning Democratic gains in party registration to the high levels of economic anxiety, Obama by most every measure should have a healthy lead. Yet in poll after poll, Obama conspicuously fails to cross the 50-percent threshold. . .

Three demographic groups have generally kept Obama ahead in the past two months: African-Americans, youth and Hispanics. But a lead based on those groups is a tenuous one. The youth vote, notorious for not meeting expectations, must turn out in significantly higher numbers than in past elections. Obama must continue to win the black vote nearly unanimously and still turn out new African American voters. McCain must continue to underperform with Hispanics by about 10 percentage points compared to Bush in the summer of 2004.

McCain might also be said to have hit a ceiling himself. At best, he has only statistically tied Obama for fleeting periods this summer. Yet in this Democratic year, the subject that dominates chatter among pollsters is Obama’s stubbornly slim lead. If there is a primary explanation as to why the race has remained close this summer, it is that Obama has failed to make gains overall with white voters, who still cast about three in four ballots on Election Day.

Washington Times - "His bubble hasn't burst, but it's leaking a little bit," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "It is not massive. It is incremental, but we've seen it across the board in all of these states, that [Mr. McCain] is doing better among white voters, especially white voters without college educations." . . . [Pollster John]. Zogby said racial prejudice is clearly behind some of the defections from Mr. Obama and said Mr. McCain has made gains among conservatives, women and young voters, and now leads among Catholics - a group Mr. Obama struggled to win over in a grueling primary battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. . . Deepening Mr. Obama's woes, the appetite for negative information appears to be large. The Associated Press reported that three new anti-Obama books were among the top 20 best-sellers on Amazon.com's list on Tuesday, despite little critical attention or mainstream media coverage. . . Not all the polls show a dead-even race. The AP/Ipsos poll released Tuesday gave Mr. Obama a 47 percent to 41 percent lead, with the margin coming from women, minorities and young voters. . . In Minnesota, Mr. McCain jumped to a 48 percent to 40 percent lead among independents, after Mr. Obama led in June by 21 points - 54 percent to 33 percent - Mr. McCain also jumped to a lead among independent voters in both Ohio and Florida, and Mr. Obama lost support among independents in Michigan and Colorado.

Rasmussen Reports - McCain is currently viewed favorably by 56% of the nation's voters, Obama by 54%. McCain is now trusted by more voters than Obama on nine of fourteen key issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

GOP AFRAID OF ELDERLY WOMEN WITH COOKIES AS WELL AS PARIS HILTON

Corrente Wire - Following the celebration [of Medicare's birthday], Rosemary Prostko, a senior citizen and volunteer with the Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare, headed south to the Mt. Lebanon district office of her U.S. Representative, Tim Murphy, where she was joined by three other supporters. Their goal: to deliver an enormous "Happy Birthday Medicare/Support Improved Medicare for All" cookie, visible through hard plastic, along with single-payer information and an over-sized Medicare Birthday card containing hundreds of signatures in support of single-payer legislation.

Prostko’s account: "F. and I arrived at Rep. Murphy’s office at about 3:00 P.M. We were soon joined by two 60+ year old female constituents of Congressional District 18. The four of us approached the office with the camera on but not recording. I pushed the buzzer. A very young staffer opened the door a crack. I very pleasantly said, 'Since no one from your office could attend Senator Ferlo’s Birthday Party for Medicare we brought the party to you!' He slammed the door saying "We do not allow videotaping." I shouted through the door 'We will turn the camera off!' He disappeared into the darkness of the office.

"Quite surprised we looked at each other!! What should we do now?

"We decided to proceed to State Senator Pippy’s office two blocks down the street. We arrived at the Senator’s office-same materials, a second cookie, and entered. The person at the desk was very gracious. F. did ask if he could tape and was told 'Yes, of course'. . . . The whole episode took about three to four minutes and was very pleasant.

"As we left Senator Pippy’s office (three 60+ year old ladies and 45ish F.) we were approached by two Mt. Lebanon police officers. They were very polite but asked what we were doing and if we had ID. As compliant U.S. citizens doing nothing wrong, the others did as requested. I gave no ID because I had left everything in my car to carry the cookie/materials. We asked why they needed the info and they said they needed it for their report. Reports were made on all complaints. The officer doing the talking said we had frightened the staff at Rep. Murphy’s office and they were investigating the complaint. They said they would phone the representative's office and tell them who we were and our intent to deliver a cookie and written materials.

"M. and L. had run out of time so they left. F. and I went back up the street. F., as a non-constituent and the 'cameraman,' decided to stay away. The unmarked police car was in front of the office. I entered and rang the buzzer. Two staff people looked out at me and once more faded into the darkness of the office.

"I went to the police officer in his car. I said 'Please come to the office with me so they are not afraid.' He said 'I called and gave them your information. They are a private business and they do not have to admit you.' I, of course, responded ;They are not a private business they are the site of my government representative.'

"His reply once more was they did not have to let me in. I said I thought he was giving more service to them than to me. He replied if I felt threatened he would do the same to protect me as he was doing for them. I asked if he felt I was a threat to anyone. He smiled but did not answer.

"Remember, I did not give my name or any ID. This morning Rep. Murphy himself called my home to 'see what happened.' I wonder where he got my name? I will be going to the Mt. Lebanon Police Station to review the report.

"I think Murphy’s office owes us all an explanation. Democrat Steve O’Donnell is running for that seat, so if you live in Western Pennsylvania, you might want to give him a call."

MCCAIN WANTS TO TREAT AMERICAN CITIES TO MILITARY FORCE

Think Progress - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke to the National Urban League. When an audience member asked him how he planned to reduce urban crime, McCain praised Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s efforts in New York Cirty before invoking the military’s tactics in Iraq as the model for crime-fighting: "And some of those tactics - you mention the war in Iraq - are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement, etc, etc.

OBAMA IN SOME SERIOUS TROUBLE

The conventional media hasn't caught on, or is ignoring the fact, but not only was Obama's European trip a domestic political bust, but the Democratic candidate is running into problems he hasn't confronted before.

In just the past nine days, the Progressive Review's three poll rolling average for Obama has dropped 8 points and currently stands at just one point ahead of McCain, a statistical tie.

Also disturbing is a Zogby poll that reveals some striking changes in the political landscape.

What may be happening is that the Obama campaign - overwhelmingly based on symbolism and marketing techniques - has run into the real pros at manipulating such symbols and techniques - the GOP right. Obama's campaign was designed to make people feel warm and fuzzy towards him, but - in selling something - that doesn't hold up against a campaign based on negatives, doubts and fear to which people respond more forcefully.

For example, Obama's correct but unexciting argument that keeping tire pressure up could save fuel was quickly met by McCain staffers handing out air gauges to reporters and selling a gauge marked "Obama Energy Plan" for a $25 donation. As one commentator noted, Obama had been "Carterized" - as the GOP did much the same thing when Jimmy Carter wore a cardigan sweater as part of his plan to save White House energy costs.

In fact, the average driver could save the same amount of fuel driving 400 miles less a year, but campaign managers don't like to deny voters anything. Still, If Obama wanted to stay on the gimmicky side of things he could tried self denial - announcing that he was going to use five percent less jet fuel on his campaign than McCain, or maybe even switching to trains to bring to the fore America's most ignored and needed transportation alternative, and, incidentally, something those in the red states could use more of.

Far better would have been to have had a clear and appealing energy program from the start. But that wasn't what the Obama strategy was about and those who live by obsessively branding themselves risk death by someone who is better and meaner at the job.

ZOGBY - A national Associated TV/Zogby International telephone poll conducted July 31-Aug. 1 finds Republican Sen. John McCain taking a razor-thin 42%-41% lead over Democrat Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the U.S. presidency.

McCain made significant gains at Obama's expense among some of what had been Obama's strongest demographic groups. For example:

McCain gained 20% and Obama lost 16% among voters ages 18-29. Obama still leads that group, 49%-38%.

Among women, McCain closed 10 points on Obama, who still leads by a 43%-38% margin.

Obama has lost what was an 11% lead among Independents. He and McCain are now tied.

Obama had some slippage among Democrats, dropping from 83% to 74%.

Obama's support among single voters dropped by 19%, and he now leads McCain, 51%-37%.

Even with African-Americans and Hispanics, Obama shows smaller margins.

The survey results come as Obama, fresh off what had been characterized as a triumphant tour of the Middle East and Europe, including a speech to 200,000 Germans in Berlin. That trip quickly became fodder for an aggressive response ad by the McCain campaign that questioned whether Obama's popularity around the world meant he was ready to lead the U.S.

Catholics, who are always a critical voting bloc, favored Obama by 11% in mid-July. Now, they favor McCain by 15%.

Other groups where Obama's lead has suffered include college graduates and those with family incomes of $25,000 - $35,000.

Pollster John Zogby: "The McCain camp seems to have turned lemons into lemonade. Huge crowds and mostly favorable press reviews of Obama's overseas trip have been trumped by McCain's attacks on Obama. Loss of support for Obama among young voters may also be due to his perceived reversals on issues they care about, such as the war and government eavesdropping."

RECOVERED HISTORY: MCCAIN & THE KEATING FIVE SCANDAL

Tom Fitzpatrick, Phoenix New Times, 1989 - You're John McCain, a fallen hero who wanted to become president so desperately that you sold yourself to Charlie Keating, the wealthy con man who bears such an incredible resemblance to The Joker. Obviously, Keating thought you could make it to the White House, too. He poured $112,000 into your political campaigns. He became your friend. He threw fund raisers in your honor. He even made a sweet shopping-center investment deal for your wife, Cindy. Your father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was cut in on the deal, too.

Nothing was too good for you. Why not? Keating saw you as a prime investment that would pay off in the future.

So he flew you and your family around the country in his private jets. Time after time, he put you up for serene, private vacations at his vast, palatial spa in the Bahamas. All of this was so grand. You were protected from what Thomas Hardy refers to as "the madding crowd." It was almost as though you were already staying at a presidential retreat.

Like the old song, that now seems "Long ago and far away." Since Keating's collapse, you find yourself doing obscene things to save yourself from the Senate Ethics Committee's investigation. . . .

They say that if you put five lobsters into a pot and give them a chance to escape, none will be able to do so before you light the fire. Each time a lobster tries to climb over the top, his fellow lobsters will pull him back down. It is the way of lobsters and threatened United States senators.

And, of course, that's the way it is with the Keating Five. You are all battling to save your own hides. So you, McCain, leak to reporters about who did Keating's bidding in pressuring federal regulators to change the rules for Lincoln Savings and Loan.

When the reporters fail to print your tips quickly enough--as in the case of your tip on Michigan Senator Donald Riegle--you call them back and remind them how important it is to get that information in the newspapers.

The story of "the Keating Five" has become a scandal rivaling Teapot Dome and Watergate. The outcome will be decided, not in a courtroom, but probably on national television.

Those who survive will be the sociopaths who can tell a lie with the most sincere, straight face. You are especially adept at this. . .

You, the closest of them to Keating and the deepest in his debt, have chosen the path of the hard sell. You may even make it out of the pot, but to many, your protestations of innocence taste like gall.

NUMBER ONE REASON NOT TO PICK EVAN BAYH FOR VEEP

Someone will dub the Democratic ticket what Eugene McCarthy used to call Bayh's father and his fellow Indiana senator,Vance Hartke: Bayh & Bought.

OBAMA FLIPS ON OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he would back limited offshore drilling as part of a broader energy package that attempted to bring down gas prices and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Obama dropped his blanket opposition to any expansion of offshore drilling and signaled support for a bipartisan compromise in Congress aimed at breaking a deadlock on energy that includes limited drilling. . .

The bill would require the government to open additional areas in the Gulf of Mexico for development and would allow drilling off the coasts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia if those states give permission.

A commission would be created to recommend areas to be opened for leasing in the future. Offshore production would still only be allowed 50 miles from the shore, and all the new oil produced would have to be used domestically.

OBAMA CAMPAIGN STAGNATES

A stunning chart of the rolling average of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics shows that Obama's percentage of the vote when pitted against McCain has been stuck in a 2.5 point spread since last February. To the extent that the gap between the two has widened it has been mostly due to McCain losing support. McCain's total has varied between 47% last January and 41% the end of June, with a recent bounce to 44% while Obama's total has been stalled between 46% and 48%.

While we were aware of the Obama campaign becoming becalmed in recent weeks, we hadn't realized how far back the problem extended - since we don't save our own moving averages. In essence, Obama has failed to attract new voters since early this year and has relied primarily on McCain losing support. Right now, RCP has Obama at 46.5% and McCain at 43.9%. We have Obama four points ahead.

We have suggested from time to time that the problem with the Democrats is that they seek their votes and their money from two quite disparate sources. Even with the economy in the pits, the party is still looking for funds from the very places - Wall Street, large corporations etc - that got us into the current mess. This helps to explain why the Democrats and its candidate are so reluctant to propose dramatic (and appealing) new economic solutions. Yet, as the polls suggest, not doing so has done them little good and they are forced to rely on the inadequacies of their opponent rather than on their own virtues to maintain a slim lead.

OBAMA AND MCCAIN: LIFE WITHOUT FATHER

It took a British paper, the Times, to bring up a topic that has been studiously avoided in the American media: the interesting parallel between Obama and McCain, namely their fathers.

We're not sure what political can be drawn from this. Bill Clinton, for example, had neither a good father nor a good step father. His stepfather was a gun-brandishing alcoholic who lost his Buick franchise through mismanagement and his own pilfering. He physically abused his family, including the young Bill. His mother was a heavy gambler with mob ties. According to FBI and local police officials, his Uncle Raymond -- to whom young Bill turned for wisdom and support - was a colorful car dealer, and mob connected gambling operator, who thrived (except when his house is firebombed) on the fault line of criminality.

On the other hand, Abraham Lincoln survived rather well, although not without pain, a strained relationship with his father.

Ben Macintyre, Times UK - At one level, the presidential race is a battle between sharply contrasting personalities; at another, it is a race involving the two fathers - both long-dead, both missing for much of their sons' childhoods - who shaped them.

The fathers might have come from different planets. John S. McCain Sr was a four-star admiral, the hard-bitten scion of a warrior clan; Barack Obama Sr was a Kenyan goatherd from the Luo tribe, a wandering soul who tried, and failed, to make his mark in post-colonial Africa. Yet both fathers are defining figures in their sons' lives, paternal templates against which they measure themselves.

Obama describes Barack Hussein Obama Sr as “the father I had never truly known”: a charming, intelligent, feckless figure who came to Hawaii from Kenya on a scholarship, married Obama's mother and produced the future presidential candidate, then vanished back to Africa soon afterwards.

For years, brought up by a single mother and her parents, the young Obama could only imagine his father through legend, stories told and retold. “My father was missing,” he writes. “And nothing that my mother or grandparents told me could obviate that single, unassailable fact.” The father became a fantasy figure: “The brilliant scholar, the generous friend, the upstanding leader. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself.” The two Baracks met again only once: a brief, strained reunion when Obama was 10. A decade later, an aunt called from Kenya to say that Obama Sr had died in car accident: “I felt no pain, only the vague sense of an opportunity lost.”. . .

Cut to the same point in John McCain's life story and - although his start in life and family circumstances could hardly have been more different - one finds a comparable character, another quest for identity. Hell-raiser, drinker, a fighter with a short attention span and a shorter temper, the young McCain seemed, by his own account, to be heading for a life of meaningless self-indulgence. “I drove a Corvette, dated a lot, spent all my free hours at bars and beach parties, and generally misused my good health and youth.” Martial valour is the central motif of McCain's memoir. His father, a wartime submarine commander, would rise to the very summit of the US Navy; his grandfather had been a hellfire four-star admiral. The warrior clan traced its lineage back to “the distinguished conqueror” Charlemagne. “For two centuries,” he writes, “the men of my family were raised to go to war”.

Like Obama, McCain's self-definition revolves around his father, the inscrutable patriarch, gruff, hard-drinking, idolised, and seldom present. McCain writes that, in naval families, “you are taught to consider their absence not as a deprivation, but as an honour,". . .

At the end of Obama's book, one likes his absent father more; McCain's memoir leaves one admiring his father a little less, in spite of the son's protestations. There is something inhuman about the insistent drum-beat of sacrifice, courage and duty. When Admiral McCain first hears of his son's capture, he goes on to a formal dinner and does not mention the fact to anyone; he replies to letters of condolence with a clipped formula; he orders the B52s to bomb Hanoi, knowing his son is imprisoned there. “Few close observers of my father ever detected that my captivity caused him great suffering. He never let his concern affect his attention to duty or restrain him from prosecuting the war to the greatest extent,” McCain writes. This may be the mark of an effective military commander, but a willingness to bomb your own son is not the mark of a great dad. In McCain's world, it seems, duty trumps feeling.

Barack Obama's father, by contrast, emerges as an attractively flawed human, generous to the end with money he did not have, clinging to a frayed dignity. This is a man whom a son could have loved, had he only been there, or able to “outlive a mocking fate”.