McCain, I have a great idea!

Only my generation and older remembers Joe Biden's exit from the 1988 Presidential race after it was exposed that he plagiarized then British Labour leader Neil Kinnock in a speech.

Here are the speeches compared.

Which brings to mind Obama taking of quotes from Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts.

Via Politico:Here are the You Tube videos:

Deval Patrick 6/3/06
"I am not asking anybody to take a chance on me. I'm asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

Barack Obama 11/2/07
I'm not just asking you to take a chance on me. I'm also asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

Obama's famous Just words" speech was also taken from Mr. Patrick:

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” he said in his remarks. “ ‘I have a dream.’ Just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’ Just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words? Just speeches?”

I say McCain put together Obama and Patrick saying the same thing, side by side and then Biden saying the same thing with Kinnock side by side and say at the end "They don't have original speeches or original ideas."

Obama Sticks It To Hillary and Jesse

White or black, male or female. It doesn't matter how profound your history is within the party (Jesse Jackson) or how much you have given of your life to the party (Hillary Clinton), if you were a part of the past 30 yrs in a significant way and your name is Hillary or Jesse, you are being dismissed. Oh, they are giving Hillary what she wants at the convention out of fear of alienating her 18 million voters in the primary, but I have a feeling Obama won't have Hillary in his top five on his i-phone. In fact, she won't be in his phone at all.

Obama may have said that Hillary was on his shortlist for V.P selection, but the truth is that he never even vetted her. No wonder we have gotten less than estactic stumping for Obama from Hillary or Bill. No wonder the PUMA's are still ticked.

I have to give it to Hillary. She keeps getting betrayed and she still shakes it off and keeps on keeping on. She is one tough cookie.

Jesse Jackson seems to have been put out to pasture by the Obama camp. Once a Presidential contender that registered more than 1 million black voters and was the first African-American candidate to win major primaries. He gave inspiring speeches twice at Democratic conventions. But what about this time at the Democratic National Convention in Denver? Oh, how far the mighty have fallen:

Jackson and the campaign went through an uneasy minuet during the last two weeks over the issue of whether Jackson would appear at the Democratic National Convention at all. Ultimately Jackson sought clearance from Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett before deciding to appear in Denver.

Jesse had to appeal to the Obama campaign to even appear. It gets even worse for Jesse:

Jackson had expected to speak at a Democratic National Committee prayer breakfast next Thursday that will commemorate the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington. Jackson was at that march, near the speaker's stand, to hear King make his famous "I have a dream" speech. However, Jackson said Thursday that the DNC has decided to focus attention on the role of the King family and Jackson will not speak. Sharpton is scheduled to address the breakfast.

Ouch to that last sentence.

While I am no fan of Jesse Jackson, I think his life work in the Democratic party deserves a little better than that. We won't be hearing much from Jesse anymore. He doesn't seem to me to be the vengeful type and he has to keep in mind his son's future in the party. But Hillary?....She won't soon forget this and she isn't going anywhere.

Strange

I just find the whole Biden thing strange. There is this BIG buildup to the announcement of Obama's running mate and it was suppose to happen Friday. Then nothing happens Friday and Obama team says it will send out the text message on Saturday at 10am. Only they didn't. They sent it out at the ungodly hour of 4:50am ET, when absolutely everyone was sleeping, except those who work the overnight shift for the press.

Strange.

Then, after all the buildup the pick is...Joe Biden? The same Biden that has about 50 gaffes on tape about everything from saying Obama isn't ready to be President to how great McCain is, in addition to the "clean articulate black guy" gaffe. The Obama camp knew that would be played over and over.

Just too strange.

My speculation? He wasn't the first choice. The first choice said no. That would explain the delay and explain why Biden said yesterday that he wasn't "the guy."


Hillary perhaps? I mean Hillary would have been the big bang at the end of this text message drama. It would have lived up to the hype. It would have been HUGE. It would have been something talked about non stop for weeks. It would have united the party and brought on the 18 million voters who voted for Hillary. Obama isn't doing as well in the polls as expected. He is in tight race. He needs every single vote he can get. Hillary would have provided that for him.

If he didn't ask Hillary first, then I really do question his judgement.

If he did and Hillary said no, then her judgement isn't so bad after all.

Dude...

Let them smoke pot.

So says a drug panel to the Denver Police for the DNC participants:

The Denver Marijuana Policy Review Panel, appointed by Mayor John Hickenlooper, voted 5-3 at its Wednesday night meeting to issue a recommendation discouraging police from "arresting, detaining or issuing a citation" to any adult caught with up to one ounce of marijuana during the four-day convention.

I would especially recommend leaving the Hillary supporters to their weed. Maybe they will just get the munchies instead of making a scene for the queen.

"Felons Can Vote!"

At the Obama Phildephia campaign office. 'Felons can vote' signs were in the campaign office window.

They took them down when they "realized maybe it was sending the wrong message."

Good grief. You can't make this stuff up.

Brutal. Funny.

Brutal.




Funny.

Update: I want to add this link to NRO where Peter Wehner describes how effective the ads making fun of Obama and his celebrity are.

The bottom ad is funny and it does set the perfect trap to Obama in Denver. There will be Obama, in this big stadium in front of his adoring throngs. The entire thing is planned to be bigger than life and Obama is some sort of mystical change agent that we have all been waiting for.

Which is exactly what the ad above makes fun of.

I don't know who is in charge of these things over at McCain's, but they are geniuses.

Obama takes a swipe at McCain

You might want to re-think this one Obama.

CNN:

“Somebody asked John McCain, 'how many houses do you have?' and he said, 'I'm not sure, I’ll have to check with my staff,'” said Obama at a Thursday morning campaign stop. “True quote! 'I'm not sure, I'll have to check with my staff.' So they asked his staff and he said, 'at least four.' 'At least four.'

“Now think about that — I guess if you think that being rich means you gotta make five million dollars, and if you don't know how many houses you have, then it's not surprising that you might think the economy is fundamentally strong,” he continued. “But if you're like me and you've got one house — or you were like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so that they don't lose their home — you might have a different perspective. …

First of all, what is wrong with owning many homes??? Nothing.

Second of all I think someone who owns a $1.6 million dollar home with 4 fireplaces and a 1,000 bottle wine cellar ain't exactly living like a regular Joe.

Especially when you got a sweet deal on it because a campaign donor bought the property next door. Especially when that donor is Tony Rezko, who has been indicted and arrested on charges of fraud and extortion.

Yeah, like the abortion issue, the whole housing thing might not be what you want to focus on, Sen. Obama.

Update: I swear I didn't write that before reading this. I guess the McCain camp and I think alike.

“Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people ‘cling’ to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?”

Read full statement.

As NRO points out, this article is timely.

Update: McCain already has an ad out taking advantage of the door Obama opened. Wow, they are good there at the ad dept at McCain's:

Obama and abortion. Getting attention at last.

The reason the story regarding Obama and his vote to kill a bill protecting babies born alive following botched abortions is getting more attention is not, unfortunately, because of the horror of letting babies born alive die in soiled linens, as the nurse who witnessed these things talked about to the Illinois Senate, but because Obama has insisted that the National Right To Life is lying.

The problem is they are not and Obama is.

At issue is an Illinois bill in 2003 called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act that Mr. Obama voted against, which was modeled on federal legislation enacted the previous year declaring that in failed abortions resulting in a live birth, the baby must be given normal medical treatment. This was in response to a gruesome practice whereby abortions involving induced labor were resulting in unintended live births - and those infants were simply being left to die. It had passed the U.S. Senate without any dissent.

Mr. Obama contended that he "would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported," but that he voted against the 2003 Illinois bill because "that was not the bill that was presented at the state level." Except that it was.

As it turns out - and as even Mr. Obama's campaign admitted Monday to the New York Sun - the National Right to Life Committee wasn't lying; Mr. Obama was. The specific difference cited by Mr. Obama in the CBN interview was that the Illinois bill didn't contain the federal legislation's language explicitly stating that it would not "undermine Roe vs. Wade." (This was not merely off-the-cuff, as the campaign had issued a written statement to CNN in June offering the same rationale.) Not only did the bill contain the exact provision from the federal bill, but Mr. Obama voted in favor of adding it as an amendment. After the state bill was changed to be almost identical to the unanimously passed federal law, Mr. Obama voted against it.

..........

Regardless of the reasons for his vote, Mr. Obama cannot say that his critics are lying. He did oppose a bill virtually identical to the one unanimously passed in the U.S. Senate. And now, five years later, he might end up paying a political price for that decision.

There is a reason NARAL abandoned long time friend Hillary Clinton. We need to pay attention to these things because they will affect a lot more than abortion laws.

Discovering Obama's radical views on abortion is really what made me take a much harder look at him. As I posted previously, this is what the nurse who testified for the bills had to say about Obama:

From Human Events:

Jill Stanek, a registered delivery-ward nurse who was the prime mover behind the legislation after she witnessed aborted babies' being born alive and left to die, testified twice before Obama in support of the Induced Infant Liability Act bills. She also testified before the U.S. Congress in support of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

Stanek told me her testimony "did not faze" Obama.

In the second hearing, Stanek said, "I brought pictures in and presented them to the committee of very premature babies from my neonatal resuscitation book from the American Pediatric Association, trying to show them unwanted babies were being cast aside. Babies the same age were being treated if they were wanted!"

"And those pictures didn't faze him [Obama] at all," she said.

And if that isn't bad enough:

As a senator, Obama has opposed measures to criminalize those who transport minors across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.

At a townhall meeting in Ottawa, Ill., Joanne Resendiz, a teacher and mother of five, asked him: "How are you going to vote on this, keeping in mind that 10, 15 years down the line your daughters, God forbid, could be transported across state lines?"

Obama said: "The decision generally is one that a woman should make."

Yeah, but this is the thing Mr. Obama, minors aren't women yet. They are still children and they shouldn't be intimidated by boyfriends to have abortions and be taken across state lines so the girl's parents won't find out she is having surgery!

I did not know that Obama had such a radical view of abortion. I realize that many don't want abortion completely outlawed. But I always felt hope that there were things we could all agree that would reduce abortions and the agony of women.

It doesn't look like Obama would agree to any of those things.

A gay tourist stop

If you would like to see gays in their natural habitat, go to Castro Street in San Francisco!

Gays In SF's Castro Feeling Like Zoo Animals For Trourists

Residents of San Francisco's Castro district, which expects to see additional increases in tourism once the movie Milk is released this fall, are troubled by an increase in tour buses which stop to unload out-of-towners eager to see the gays in their natural habitat:

"For gay and lesbian residents, who are doing nothing more remarkable than, say, walking over to Cliff's Hardware Store, the idea that as many as six tour buses could turn up at once seems bizarre. They also worry that the upcoming release of the movie "Milk," based on the life story of Castro Street politician Harvey Milk, will just be another step toward turning the Castro into a kind of urban theme park for looky-loos. 'It is the spectacle of people who might be different. That's all it is,' said attorney Rob Guite, a Castro resident. 'The tourists appear to have little regard for the neighborhood and its residents and view the stop as akin to visiting a zoo or other attraction where they are entertained by exhibits or animals.'"
When Castro Street was transformed in January for the shooting of Milk businesses expressed concern over the circus atmosphere that filming brought to the neighborhood but felt reassured that the movie would help revitalize businesses in the area.

It's a strange world, isn't it?

Hillary supporters STILL not happy

The New York Post:

WomenCount's leaders say they aren't trying to make trouble, but to funnel all the Clinton passion responsibly. Says one founder, Democratic activist Jehmu Greene: "This passion won't go away. Obama and McCain will have to answer to the women of America."

Other groups don't have such high-minded plans for the convention. "Real Democrats USA" plans to distribute opposition research on Obama that it says is being ignored by the mainstream media.

Then there's "Just Say No Deal" - whose motto is "A coalition of millions with one thing in common - NOBama."

The group has rented a multimedia loft for "Democratic bloggers who chose not to fall in line" and support Obama, and is covering travel costs as needed. Sunday night, it will host an event to air a documentary, "The Audacity of Democracy," which chronicles supposed fraud perpetrated by the Democratic National Committee during the primaries. One organizer says its members will only vote Democrat if Hillary Clinton is at the top of the ticket.

Meanwhile, "The Denver Group" - which blames Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean for running a corrupt process that secured the nomination for Obama - has acquired two time slots to air TV ads reminding delegates and superdelegates of their rights and responsibilities and to "make clear what the consequences may very well be for the Democratic Party if they do not."
The pro-Clinton group "18 Million Voices" will put the spotlight on Clinton when its members march in Denver to celebrate her candidacy.
And "Democrats for Clinton" still maintain on its Web site: "We believe this race should go on and Clinton should be able to have an opportunity to make her case at the convention." They send out a daily "Electability Watch" chronicling any weakness in Obama's campaign, and urging supporters to pressure delegates to cast their votes for Clinton.


via HotAir

Bad Obama

History and Prayer

I've been watching on the History channel the campaigns of the 60's. So interesting.

It was a crazy and insane time. The assassinations. The anti-war protestors. The Democratic National Convention of 1968.

I had never seen video of The Democratic National Convention of 1968. We have all heard of the group called "Recreate 68" on the net, but after watching the horrifying video of that time, I would never ever want that recreated anywhere, even the Democratic Convention now. I hadn't realized the anti-war protestors of the 60's were just as terrible as the code pinkers today. The digust I felt at the code pink protestor who charged Condi Rice with "bloody hands" is how I felt as I watched the video the protestor of 68 that flew the Vietcong flag.

Another thing I saw on the history channel was the assassination of Robert Kennedy as he was running for President. I had seen it before, but it had been a long time. Truly gut wrenching.

It just got me to thinking that we would never want that to happen again. So I am going to take a moment and ask everyone who reads this and prays, to lift up Obama and McCain in prayer that they are kept safe in their campaigns and their conventions. I think Obama might be more of a target because of the historical nature of his candidancy, so I want to especially pray for his protection.

I know that might sound strange coming from somone who does not want him to be President. But I would never want anything like that to happen to him. So if you pray, pray that no protest becomes violent and that no candidate is targeted in any way.

Obama's youngest brother found in Kenya

From The Telegraph:

The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.
Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender.
"No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month."

.........

Interesting, but has nothing to do with the campaign. He has lots of half brothers and sisters I understand. He can't exactly help what his Dad did. I remember seeing a picture of him with his family when he was younger. I guess he didn't keep up with them.

via Drudge

Obama and the 'born alive' argument

From NRO:

Bereft of an argument, the Obama campaign is pounding the table.

The recent attacks on Senator Obama that allege he would allow babies born alive to die are outrageous lies. The suggestion that Obama — the proud father of two little girls — and others who opposed these bills supported infanticide is deeply offensive and insulting.* There is no room for these kinds of distortions and lies in this campaign.

Note, first, that Obama’s comment about lies over the weekend referred to the National Right to Life Committee. Yet the campaign has not made a single specific allegation that any of the NRLC’s statements are inaccurate, let alone dishonest. The campaign claims only that the NRLC has left out some context that exonerates Obama.

The main supposed omission: “What Senator Obama’s attackers don’t tell you is that existing Illinois law already requires doctors to provide medical care in the very rare case that babies are born alive during abortions.” The reason the NRLC didn’t include that information is that it is incorrect. Illinois law has rules — loophole-ridden rules, but rules — requiring treatment of babies who have “sustainable survivability.” If an attempted abortion of a pre-viable fetus results in a live birth, the law did not protect the infant. Nurse Jill Stanek said that at her hospital “abortions” were repeatedly performed by inducing the live birth of a pre-viable fetus and then leaving it to die. When she made her report, the attorney general said that no law had been broken. That’s why legislators proposed a bill to fill the gap.

Obama did not want the gap filled. He did not want pre-viable fetuses/infants to have any legal protection. In the Illinois legislature, he argued that providing them with legal protection would both be unconstitutional in itself — a violation of the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence — and undermine the right to abortion.

Obama was wrong about these points. The Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence treats the location of the young human organism, not its stage of development, as the key factor in whether it can be legally protected. But that’s the ground on which he stood, at the time. In recent years, however, he has had very little to say about the importance of denying legal protection to this class of human beings. He knows that’s a losing argument politically. So he has instead been emitting a thick cloud of smoke.

Only yesterday has the Obama campaign finally, in desperation, gotten close to telling the truth about Obama’s position. In its latest apologia, the campaign isolates the language it found so objectionable in the Illinois bill. “A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.” The campaign calls this “Language Clearly Threatening Roe.”

So far, only the conservative blogosphere has been calling Obama on his misrepresentations of his record on the Born-Alive Bill, and on his reckless accusations against his critics. Reporters should stop carrying his water. As for his defenders in the liberal blogosphere, if they want to take up for him again I would advise them to wait a while. The campaign doesn’t yet have its story straight, and it has no room for the truth.

*Incidentally, as a logical matter it makes no sense to say that because Obama is a “proud father” of former infants he therefore could not have supported a legal right to commit infanticide. Those daughters are also, after all, former fetuses.

I find it staggering that we are having an argument about infants BORN alive. Obviously this nurse was horrified by what she witnessed at her hospital. Shouldn't that be the focus? Shouldn't we all (including Obama) be sickened by even the notion of this. But no, Obama only defends himself.

I remember years ago at a pro-life summit listening to a nurse who described an infant born alive in a late trimester abortion. She said the doctor placed the baby in a metal bowl where she watched it gasp for breath until it died. She said she kept thinking of the infants at the same age that doctors were desperately trying to save a few floors up in the prenatal unit. The only difference being that one was wanted and the other not. She said she thought to herself, "When did life become of value only when it's wanted by someone else?" That is when she became pro-life.

Obama and the upside down flag

This is a ticket (bottom image) for those to see Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field. The image has the flag UPSIDE DOWN. But the DNC says, no, that is just using elements of the flag:

“The DNCC community credentials incorporate patriotic design elements. They do not depict an actual American flag. The DNCC has full and complete respect for the flag and all rules of display.”

Really? Then why does the image FLIPPED show a flag blowing in the wind? (top image)

Probably an innocent mistake for those who aren't used to looking at the American flag at all.

via HotAir

Hillary will be the V.P. pick

If Obama is smart.

Ralph Nader agrees.

The polls are too close and they shouldn't be considering the press adoration of Obama, his "Presidential" swing though Europe, the economy, and the unpopularity of Bush.

If he knows where his bread is buttered and he can swallow his pride, he will pick Hillary.

Then McCain will have an uphill climb.

Haircuts for the homeless

They need to look spiffy for the Democratic Convention in case they don't use the free zoo and movie tickets to get out of the way:


CBS4 Denver reports Sly's Salon in Denver is providing free haircuts to the homeless in advance of the Democratic Convention. The effort was organized by Denver Human Services.

It seems to be a first -- don't move the homeless, clean them up. That was the work of one salon and the recipients didn't even seem to care if the Democrats were coming to town. Sly's Salon at 17th and Grant was offering free haircuts to the homeless Monday. "To give them haircuts and make them all spiffed up for the Democratic National Convention, because they are part of our community as well," said Ghandia Gohnson, co-owner of Sly's Salon.
..........

CBS 4 Denver also reports there's some evidence police are cracking down on the homeless.
A businessman came up to CBS4's Rick Sallinger and suggested doing a story on how police are now cracking down on the homeless in the Park Avenue area. A minute later several squad cars drove up and began questioning people. One man was handcuffed, but later released.
Another approach: Free movie and museum passes and mass transit tickets. Denver police deny they are trying to hide the homeless:
Where are we going to hide our homeless during the convention? The short answer: We don't hide the homeless -- ever," Denver police and homeless advocates said in Denver's newspaper written by the homeless. The city says it is encouraging the homeless to take part in the convention week activities for the public.

via Talkleft

Reid vs. Pickens

via Don Suber

Bill Clinton praises McCain in speech

It's all part of the revenge, I'm sure. The Clintons start with mind games.

V.P. News

Marc Ambinder noticed that an Ohio Republican official wrote on his blog yesterday that Sen. John McCain would be in Dayton, Ohio the day after the Democratic convention -- and was looking for a "big" venue.

Wrote Alex Triantafilou: "Sen. McCain is expected to host a rally on August 29 in Dayton and is looking for a BIG venue and for a BIG crowd. He'll get it. This is not yet public. I guess I just made it so."

According to Taegan Goddard's political wire: Today, that sentence has disappeared from the site.

Hmmmm...Then this:

Our earlier speculation on an errant blog posting appears to be on the right track.According to Politico, Sen. John McCain "plans to celebrate his 72nd birthday on Aug. 29 by naming his running mate at a huge rally in the battleground state of Ohio."The campaign "has begun building a crowd of 10,000 for Dayton, Ohio, according to an organizer. McCain is scheduled to appear with his running mate at a large-scale event in Pennsylvania shortly thereafter."

This regarding Obama's pick:

Matt Drudge says the New York Times has learned that Sen. Barack Obama has now finalized his choice for a running-mate and "set an elaborate roll-out to announce his decision that will begin with an early morning e-mail to supporters, perhaps as early as Tuesday." Update: The New York Times says Sen. Evan Bayh, Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Tim Kaine have been Obama's main focus. "By all indications, Mr. Obama remains likely to chose someone relatively safe and avoid taking a chance with a game-changing selection." Update II: NBC News reports Biden is the leading contender "partly due to his working-class roots and foreign policy expertise."

Just to make sure we all know he is with us on drilling..

McCain will speak today on an oil rig. Heh.

I don't think he's spoken yet, but his written remarks have been sent out:

Americans across our country are hurting because of the cost of energy. Gas prices are through the roof. Energy costs have seeped into our grocery bills, making it more expensive to feed our families. And now, as people prepare for the winter, they are going to be hit with higher costs for home heating oil. It is time for America to get serious about energy independence, and that means we need to start drilling offshore at advanced oil rigs like this.

Two decades ago, this rig would not have been possible. But since then, technology has enabled us to drill further offshore with even greater efficiency and environmental safety.

Senator Obama opposes new drilling. He has said it will not "solve our problem" and that "it's not real." He's wrong, and the American people know it. This platform we are at today sits above a field of 160 million barrels of oil, and is capable of producing on a daily basis 55,000 barrels of oil and 72 million cubic feet of natural gas.

Our nation is sending $700 billion overseas every year to countries that don't like us very much. When I'm president that's going to stop. We're going to achieve energy independence, and we're going to do it by using every resource at our disposal to get the job done, including new off shore drilling.

New drilling has to be part of our energy solution. It will not solve this problem alone. Alternative energy will not solve this problem alone. Conservation will not solve this problem alone. Solving our energy crisis requires an "all of the above" approach. It will require aggressive development of alternative energies like wind, solar, tidal and bio-fuels. It also requires expanding traditional sources of energy like clean coal, nuclear power, and off shore drilling like that done on this rig.

The Obamessiah

via GOC

Because you can't help but make fun of Obama.

The Obama Campaign: Some Things Don't Turn Out As Planned

First Obama banked on the popularity of ending the war in Iraq. In 2007 he declared, “This election is about ending the Iraq War.."

The problem is that the war is no longer what this election is about. For all intents and purposes the combat has ended. We have won. When we look back at how we got here it's clear McCain was right about the surge, and Obama was wrong. Not good for Obama.

This was not how the Obama camp planned it.

In October of 2007 Obama said this:

"The main thing that we want to communicate today is that this war that we've been fighting in Iraq has got to stop, that we can no longer afford $275 million a day spent on a civil war between factions in Iraq where there is no military solution to be had, that it's time for us to begin bringing our young men and women home - they have been there long enough," Obama said at a high school.

But there was a military solution and the surge was it. If we had brought home our soldiers as Obama wanted, we would have left Iraq defeated.

That wasn't the way the Obama camped planned it.

Then there was the image that Obama was a candidate that transcends race in this county. But the Rev.Wright's videos came out and we all witnessed a racist rant against white people that shocked everyone. We witnessed conspiracy theories preached from the pulpit with white people as the villians. We learned that one of Rev.Wright's sermons had been the inspiration for the title of Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope."
Suddenly, he didn't look above it all. He didn't see to be the racial uniter that he claimed to be in his race speech later. A wonderful speech is one thing, but what one did with one's time and who they spent their spirtual journey with tells us much more.

They thought Michelle Obama would be the perfect spouse, smart, pretty, and a good mother. But then she said twice in one day, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.." Which didn't sit well with those of us who have been proud of our country our entire lifetime.

That wasn't the way the Obama camp planned it.

They thought that a world tour that included the Middle East and Europe would give Obama a Presidential look and feel, but instead it made him seem arrogant and full of grandstanding and distant from Americans. Despite the adorng crowds of Europe, the trip didn't not increase his polls numbers and McCain was able to use the footage to make the point that Obama's candidancy was more about celebrity than substance.

That wasn't what the way the Obama camp planned it.

They certainly planned on beating Hillary. But they didn't realize that the down and dirty politics that it took to do it would tick off around 18 million people. They didn't realize that Hillary supporters would demand that Hillary's name be put into nomination and a floor vote at the convention. They didn't plan on being forced to headline Hillary one night and Bill the next.

That wasn't the way the Obama camp planned it.

They weren't counting on high gas and oil prices to be such a concern that Obama was forced to reverse himself to say he would approve drilling in a comprehensive package deal.

And finally they weren't planning on McCain doing so well in their first public forum together at Saddleback Church.

The Democratic Convention is coming up soon. It will be big and it will be grand. I just wonder if it will go the way the Obama camp is planning it.