Texas Politics - Rumor Mill

Reunion Arena’s day of giving a good concert for INXS or Pink Floyd are not over. A second hand story informs me that there were 20,000 strong in Dallas to hear the Barack rock concert yesterday. What is the rumor I’m reporting? Tickets were being scalped outside for $200+.

Oh, and I’ve also heard Chelsea was in Dallas and did a nice job answering questions for students at UT Dallas (well, nice but boring according to a professor at the school). Timing is everything, and the Clinton campaign hasn’t made many right decisions yet. Maybe Mark Penn getting Bill elected for his second term wasn’t really a hireable offense.

The Lobbyist Story Won’t Die for McCain

It’s hard to kill a story when you lie in your denial of the story.  Apparently John did talk to the clients of his lobbyist (that he may or may not have been sleeping with) in an attempt to push through a decision that would help that client…despite him saying that he never talked to them.

What’s worse for him is a story that details that most of John’s advisors are lobbyists. I thought Hillary was having a bad month…ouch.

McCain Gambling with Taxpayer Money

John McCain being entrenched with lobbyists aren’t the only hits he’s taken this week. His latest troubles are not only real time, but much more of a direct poke in the eye to the American taxpayer.

A quick summary of the linked article above is that John needed a healthy chunk of money to get his campaign back afloat and like Hillary Clinton, took out a loan to get it going again. Neither candidate is doing anything terribly shady by doing that (although Hillary’s loan coinciding with a $100 million donation made to her husband raised serious questions about the old school Clinton tactics to make a buck…made shadier by her refusal to release her tax returns after loaning herself money for her campaign).

McCain’s problem, is that after his campaign picked up a little steam, he needed a second loan. He did what most people would do, in December he refinanced his loan. However, lacking collateral to pay the loan back with if he tanked, the new wording of the loan required that McCain would be FORCED (by the language of the loan) to unnecessarily stay in the race and apply for federal campaign money so that taxpayers would be forced to pay back his loan, even though he and the bank would know he was done…or as the article states, “stay in even if he didn’t want to.”

Just to be clear, a potential President of the United States and CURRENT senator would be forced to take money from the U.S. Government at taxpayer expense even if he already had decided that he was ready to drop out. If that’s not selling your soul to the devil, I don’t know what is. I won’t even get into the irony of John not understanding why the economy is in the tank due to predatory lending practices, but let’s just say Fat Albert has nothing on the thickness of it.

Fat Albert supports Barack and preventative health care

As terrible as this sounds, it is made worse by the fact that in recent days McCain has been trying to slam Obama for not accepting the public financing that McCain was using to rig the system.

With every scandal, John McCain is losing the one or two arguments he may have been able to use against Barack in the fall. I expect tomorrow we’ll find out John was withholding armor for the troops.

Fairly Even Debate

Barack proved that he has become a great debater and can rattle off stats, turn a question aimed at him to his opponent, and take on two opponents at once (by hitting McCain hard on not understanding the economy and proving it by embracing Bush’s economic policies).

Hillary showed why she has always been great at debates and would likely be a hell of an intelligent president. Her attacks ran hollow (and she was even booed for one lame remark about him taking a line from his friend), but her sensitive side may slow down the incredible momentum Obama has had. In the end, she needs more than a tie, she needs a blowout.

An even debate favors the person with the lead, and Barack’s lead has grown to be almost insurmountable, especially after his 11th primary or caucus win in a row after winning the primary for Americans living abroad.