John McCain raised the bar in the ongoing dust up between his campaign and the Barack Obama camp over retired Gen. Wesley Clark, saying it is time to cut Clark loose.
"I think it's up to Senator Obama now to not only repudiate him but cut him loose," McCain told reporters on his press plane en route to Colombia, according to CNN.
The two camps have been sparring over Clark since Sunday, when Clark said on Face the Nation that McCain's military experience is not a "qualification to be president."
Many within the McCain camp have charged Clark with "denigrating" McCain's military service. Obama has rejected Clark's comment.
Barack Obama's campaign blasted John McCain today for his three-day trip to Colombia and Mexico, saying the southern excursion reinforces bad trade policies forwarded by the Bush administration.
John McCain touted his experience in dismissing a question over his economic credentials Wednesday.
McCain said that he has more experience than Barack Obama when asked about his economic know-how in an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts. McCain, in Colombia, also called for lower taxes and defended free trade in the interview.
Roberts told McCain, "You have admitted that you're not exactly an expert when it comes to the economy and many have said..."
McCain then interrupted: "I have not. I have not. Actually, I have not. I said that I am stronger on national security issues because of all the time I spent in the military and others. I'm very strong on the economy. I understand it. I have a lot more experience than my opponent."
McCain also tried to reassure voters skeptical of free trade that he has a plan to boost the economy.
"Keep their taxes low, less regulation; start exploring and exploiting offshore oil deposits so that we can at least ease this burden; give them a little bit of a break from their gas taxes; get to work on nuclear, solar, wind, tide; invest in pure research and development and coal -- clean coal technology," he said. "We must also, I believe, stop distorting the market by subsidizing ethanol and preventing sugar cane-based ethanol from coming into the United States."
Barack Obama will lay out a comprehensive national service agenda in a speech at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs tomorrow, his campaign has announced.
The agenda will "create new opportunities for Americans to serve and direct that service to our most pressing national challenges," the campaign said.
Obama includes "service" in his website's list of 24 issues for his campaign. The site tells readers that Obama plans to more than triple the size of AmeriCorps, double the Peace Corps, and create Classroom, Clean Energy, Health, Homeland Security, and Veterans Corps as avenues for Americans to volunteer.
The senator also wants to establish a $4,000 tax credit for college students who do 100 hours or more of community service, the site says. The site points to Obama's beginnings as a community organizer in Chicago as the start of his "lifetime of service."
The Club for Growth, a leading D.C.-based group of economic conservatives, is blasting former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) for endorsing controversial earmarker Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).
"Over the past year, the Club for Growth has been criticized by Huckabee and some conservatives for painting the Arkansas Governor as a fiscal liberal," Club for Growth Communications Director Nachama Soloveichik wrote today on the group's website. "If ever there was proof that that the Club was right from the start, it is this outrageous endorsement of Rep. Young who embodies the worst of the Republican Party's wasteful habits."
Huckabee's political action committee, Huck PAC, issued the endorsement last Tuesday. Huckabee praised Young for his attention to U.S. infrastructure.
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The Iraq war is to blame for high gas prices as its cost has weakened the dollar and driven oil speculation, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a national co-chair of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, said today.
"We cannot economically afford to keep borrowing two to three billion dollars a week from China," McCaskill said on MSNBC. "That's why gas prices are so high. People are speculating in commodities because nobody wants to go near our dollar. We cannot--it is unsustainable to continue to prop up, in the middle of a civil war, an Iraqi government that will not step up and do what they need to do."
McCaskill appeared on MSNBC this afternoon to discuss Obama's planned trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. McCaskill is a national co-chair of Obama's campaign. When host Monica Novotny pressed McCaskill on Obama's plan to withdraw from Iraq despite recent security gains, McCaskill pushed back by saying the war's cost is unsustainable.
"If you can't leave Iraq when it's stable and you can't leave Iraq when it's not stable, that means that we're stuck with George Bush and John McCain--we can never leave Iraq," McCaskill said. See the video below.
House Democrats are trying to raise money by alleging that Karl Rove is working for a conservative outside group ready to spend millions on this year's congressional races.
The group, Freedom's Watch, denies that Rove is on board, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is hoping that the specter of Rove coordinating GOP House campaign efforts will lead to more Democratic campaign donations. The DCCC sent out Monday a fundraising e-mail appeal, written by Democratic strategist James Carville, that suggests that Rove and Freedom's Watch will spend millions to attack Democratic candidates this year.
"They're handing him hundreds of millions of dollars to spend attacking our candidates with this year's biggest 'Swift Boat' group," Carville wrote. "But, you and I can make sure Rove's new gig as the mischief-making maven of the GOP attack group Freedom's Watch is a total bust."
The letter went on to ask for donations before the end of the fundraising quarter, which at the end of the day Monday.
Freedom's Watch spokesman Ed Patru denied that Rove is working for the group in an e-mail.
"Rove is not working for this organization, but with gas prices having gone up 76 percent since Democrats took over congress, the DCCC should worry about who's working for America, not who's working for Freedom's Watch," Patru wrote.
Here's the DCCC-Carville letter:
Republicans are placing a big bet on Karl Rove.
Freedom's Watch, the secretive Republican attack group zeroing in on Democratic House candidates, has put its expected $200 million war chest in the hands of Karl Rove.
They're handing him hundreds of millions of dollars to spend attacking our candidates with this year's biggest "Swift Boat" group. But, you and I can make sure Rove's new gig as the mischief-making maven of the GOP attack group Freedom's Watch is a total bust.
Midnight tonight is your last chance to give before the June 30th FEC deadline- the first since Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee. And, Republicans, the media and the pundits are foaming at the mouth to use Democrats fundraising totals as a measure of our chances for success. Let's show Karl Rove and his friends what we are made of and my friends House Democrats will chip in too- they said they would match whatever you give 2-to-1 if you give before midnight tonight.
Contribute $35, $50 or more before MIDNIGHT-and your gift will be matched two-to-one.
The story is that Rove has teamed up with Sheldon Adelson - the billionaire casino mogul behind Freedom's Watch. As a result, Rove will have nearly a quarter of a billion dollar kitty at his disposal.
And, he'll use every red cent of it to unleash on Democratic candidates a relentless stream of attacks that twist the truth and prey on people's emotions. His group and others including one run by disgraced GOP leader Tom DeLay will stop at nothing to win.
You and I have to respond with wave after wave of Democratic energy that won't let Rove's recklessness, DeLay's deceptions, or McCain's machinations undermine our candidates.
Contribute $35, $50 or more before MIDNIGHT-and your gift will be matched two-to-one.
At midnight, we'll hit that crucial June 30th deadline. When those reports come out, let's make sure no one can doubt that we Democrats are on a no-looking-back, won't be denied drive to victory.
Rove can run through Adelson's money faster than a hapless tourist dropping his last paycheck at a Vegas roulette wheel.
We're still going to be holding the winning cards on November 4th.
John McCain's campaign sees Sen. Jim Webb's (D-Va.) suggestion that the Republican should "calm down" and avoid injecting politics into military service as evidence of an attack coordinated by Barack Obama's campaign.
If you didn't think this was a coordinated attack on John McCain's credentials before, it's clear now that it is. Barack Obama's surrogates are telling the McCain campaign to "calm down" about attacks on his military record? Seriously? Now somehow Wes Clark's attacks are John McCain's fault? It's absurd. If Barack Obama can't control his own surrogate operation, how can he be trusted to run the country?
Webb press secretary Kimberly Hunter denied there was any coordination and reiterated that Webb wasn't criticizing McCain's service in the military. Here's her statement, also given to TPM:
I can tell you that Senator Webb has never spoken with Senator Obama about this issue nor has he spoken to Wesley Clark. Senator Webb's comments were not targeted at McCain's military service. He has consistently called for politicians not to insert politics into military service. This is the exact same argument that he used against Lindsay Graham last year in their Meet the Press interview regarding objections to giving troops adequate dwell time at home.Senator Webb has never, and would never, demean the service of anyone who has stepped forward to serve our country. To the contrary, he was calling on those on all sides of the debate to refrain from implying that their political views are representative of the military writ large.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark heaped praise on John McCain Tuesday, applauding the former POW's military service but standing by his point that McCain's military experience is not a "qualification to be president."
"John McCain has to be recognized as someone who served his country in uniform," Clark said on MSNBC. "He served with courage; he served with commitment; and I honor that service. And, as I said on the show, he's one of my heroes."
After praising McCain's service, Clark said his time as a POW and Navy pilot is not "the same as having been in the White House or in the Pentagon or at a high-level command and having actually had to wrestle with national policy and national strategic issues."
"So let me explain why I think this is an important issue and why I think it's important that our viewers understand that there's a distinction between having shown your courage and commitment as a soldier, sailor, airman in the (inaudible) Marine in the United States armed forces and having learned from that the judgment that will make you a better president. Because I think ultimately this is a question about who has the better judgment to be commander in chief," Clark said.
"Barack Obama is not claiming any experience having been in the armed forces, but I think if you look at their record of what they said on things like Iraq and what they've said on the war on terror, and how they're approaching the use of all of America's powers, not only our military power, you would make a strong case with me that Barack Obama has shown the better judgment."
Since Clark's comment Sunday, the McCain campaign has hit back hard. The campaign has held multiple conference calls and launched a "truth squad" to refute what the campaign says are attacks designed to "denigrate" McCain's service.
Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) said he was "utterly shocked" that Clark would attack McCain in such a "disrespectful way"
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