McCain Communications Director 'Nails Hazelbaker confirms the very sad news to Jon Martin.
It remains unclear if C-SPAN will have as much fun with Cheney at the convention as they did with Cheney in the Rose Garden:
(Obviously, the music is homemade. But the camera work is all C-SPAN)
In any event, can anyone else hear the cheering in Chicago?
Oh good!
The Cowboy Governor is jumping in with McCain to try and end the offshore drilling ban.
And it looks like there is going to be a statement from the Rose Garden at 10:30? Great!!!
Hopefully The Big Dick will weigh in over the next 24 hours and really seal the deal. Maybe he can bring his secret energy advisers along for the ride.
But let's set aside the snark for a moment and get serious.
Ending the ban on offshore drilling is "shitty" policy because it won't do anything to affect gas prices (those aren't Obama talking points, that's reality).
And ending the ban on offshore drilling is "shitty" politics because it not only puts the candidate in jeopardy in coast states like Florida (we don't have data, but we can't believe that swing voters in FL support lifting the ban, even with $4/gallon gas), and it further ties McCain to Bush/Cheney/and all those fat and happy oil execs down in Houston who hooted and hollered like children when McCain announced he was in favor of lifting the ban.
Think Team Obama has video footage of that?
We humbly suggest that Team McCain move on to the next piece of its energy plan as quickly as possible.
Jon Martin has a good piece up on what Team McCain is going to do about The Big Dick.
If anyone asks our opinion - and so far no one has - we would stuff Cheney into a secret undisclosed location and leave him there through November.
And yeah, we get the "can raise money angle", but it just ain't worth it.
Think of the fun the Dems could have in the battleground states with a Cheney/McCain video like this Cheney/Bush video:
Dick Cheney is going to be raising cash on Monday in North Carolina for the GOP.
The timing is horrible. And not just because there is no good time to put The Big Dick out on the campaign trail.
The timing is horrible because of this, which is slated to start running on Monday in North Carolina, the same day as Cheney's visit:
And we guarantee that at least 80% of the folks behind the ad (an ad that McCain & the national GOP oppose but for some reason can't get pulled down) are going to be dining with Mr. Cheney on Monday night.
And yucking it up.
Yuck.
But not for Howard Dean and the Democrats. This is a gift. A big, fat gift.
Not America's finest hour.
But well worth your hour.
As PBS's Frontline almost always is.
A very light day today.
First because so much of the political news cycle is currently being dominated by polls and 2Q money.
Yawn.
But also because we spent the past weekend on the water and have a hellish sunburn.
So we're passing the time by reading the Washington Post's 4-part series on Dick Cheney.
It's quite good. So long as you remember that everyone (EVERYONE!) who gives a quote in a Washington Post 4-part series has an agenda.
Including the reporters.
