Elizabeth Edwards, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and wife of former Presidential candidate John Edwards, today took a big swipe at McCain's so-called "health plan" (which is actually just something he scratched out on a napkin when someone told him there was an article on The Google that said that people liked health care).

Go Elizabeth Edwards!

Senator John McCain's health plan is based on the idea that everyone should be on their own to buy their health insurance on the individual market. And it's an approach fundamentally at odds with the point of health insurance: that we share risks. People with preexisting conditions, like McCain and myself, would pay much more for health insurance under his health plan, if we could get coverage at all.

Insurance companies have all sorts of characteristics they look at in order to increase premiums, such as preexisting conditions, occupation, age, and residence. But I hadn't realized that the McCain plan would enable insurers to "rate-up" my insurance bill for not only my status as a breast cancer patient, but also my gender.

The ability to become pregnant has long been understood as an excuse to charge women more for health insurance (because, of course, men have nothing to do with that particular health condition)... [I]nsurers are charging women higher premiums even if pregnancy benefits are excluded.

...

Whatever their reasoning, one thing is clear - they don't want to enroll too many women:

   "We don't want to get a disproportionate share of high-risk people," said [Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California].

I am shocked to find out that McCain is not the bastion for women's issues that I thought he was.

From the Jed Report:

McCain 2007 [video]:

"I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

McCain 2006:

McCain on the possibility Alito would vote to overturn Roe: "I've never agreed with Roe v. Wade so it wouldn't bother me any."

McCain 1999:

"I am pro-life. I have a moral belief that life begins at inception. I believe that we should work to repeal any law or any provision concerning abortion in my view." Then he added: "I'm for the repeal of Roe v. Wade."

McCain 1993: (this is the one that still baffles me): McCain votes against legislation to protect abortion clinics from right wing domestic terrorists. Only 30 Senators opposed the new law -- all radical anti-choice extremists.

Senate Passes Abortion-Clinic Crime Bill
By ADAM CLYMER

 

The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a Federal law to prohibit bombings, arson and blockades at abortion clinics, and shootings and threats of violence against doctors and nurses who perform abortions..

 

The vote was 69 to 30. Twenty-eight senators who voted against Federal financing of abortions six weeks ago supported the measure, seeing it as a law-and-order matter rather than as an abortion issue.

Vote in the poll after the fold to choose the issue on which you too base your support of John McCain. Share in the comments!

I'm pretty significantly depressed this evening.

I went to a going-away function some friends at work threw me and I chatted with a friend of mine who I haven't talked to in months. As it turns out, she was a huge Clinton supporter and launched into a tirade about how Obama was terribly sexist throughout his campaign and that she planned on not voting in the general election as a result.

I have read a bunch of pontificating about how Clinton supporters are wounded and hurt that their candidate didn't win. I have read a bunch of commentary arguing that the benefits of Clinton's gender (in terms of her strong female following in the primary) were far outweighed by the rampant negative sexism employed to tear her down. I have bought into the general notion that most of this anger and grief over Clinton's fall was centralized among so-called "low-information" voters.

Well, I got a dose of reality tonight. My work friend is a highly informed, highly intelligent corporate litigator. She is the first truly engaged friend of mine I've come across to hold the views I noted above.

My conversation with her makes me depressed because a lot of the anger and vitriol that my friend (and thousands of other Clinton supporters out there) hold in their hearts could have been mitigated somewhat by Clinton bowing out more gracefully without launching a months-long umbrage campaign about how all the horrible sexism in this country was the main thing holding her back.

Look, there was sexism in this campaign and there was racism. All true. But, let's be honest. Clinton didn't win the nomination for much more enormous reasons than her gender.

She ran an antiquated 1990s campaign in the 21st century.

She failed to seriously attempt to leverage online donors until it was too late.

She relied on the profoundly flawed advice of Mark Penn, who will likely go down as one of the worst campaign strategists in modern memory.

She failed to contest the caucus states.

She ran an "experience" campaign in a "change" election season.

And the list goes on and on.

It really galls me to think that a strong progressive women like my friend will be turned off enough to either not vote (like my friend) or vote for McCain due in large part to Clinton choosing to pour gasoline on the simmering flames of sexism among her supporters.

I won't sleep well tonight.

One of the sillier memes floating around out there is that Michelle Obama is somehow unpatriotic and not proud of America (due to a quote a while back that was misconstrued).

So, guess what rabid, left-wing crackpot jumped to Michelle Obama's defense today?

That's right, First Lady Laura Bush:

Michelle Obama has a new defender from those who say she isn't patriotic enough -- First Lady Laura Bush. In an interview with ABC News, Bush said that Obama's February remark that she was proud of the United States "for the first time in my adult life" was misconstrued.

"I think she probably meant `I'm more proud.' That's what she really meant," Bush said from Afghanistan.

"You have to be really careful in what you say because everything you say is looked at and in many cases misconstrued," she said.

Thank you, Mrs. Bush.  Your sanity on this issue is greatly appreciated.

Read More

I was not too long ago when McCain was strongly advocating for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from America's interventions in Somalia and Haiti. Compared to his rhetoric about Democrats wanting to "wave the white flag of surrender" in Iraq, think on this McCain quote from 1994 when he was advocating the immediate withdrawal of US forces from Haiti:

['As soon as possible'] does not mean 'As soon as order is restored to Haiti'.

It doesn't mean 'As soon as democracy is flourishing in Haiti'.

It doesn't mean 'As soon as we have established a viable nation in Haiti'.

'As soon as possible' means 'As soon as we can get out of Haiti without losing any American lives'.

Pretty stark difference, eh?

I guess his stance on "waving the white flag of surrender" depends on which constituency he is trying to appease at the time; i.e., the Republican Senate in the 90s and the Republican Base now.

See the video and judge for yourself:

Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of Sen. Clinton's closest supporters, kept pushing the false "Clinton won the popular vote" meme today on This Week with George Stephanopoulus:

"Hillary Clinton is well known, certainly she had the popular vote in this election."

Politico reports:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein reiterated that Clinton had won the popular vote -- an assertion that is not accepted by Illinois Democrat Sen. Barack Obama's camp and one that, if repeated often, could harm Democratic attempts to unify behind him.

If this meme keeps getting repeated, it will metastasize the (largely justified) disappointment and hurt that Clinton supporters are feeling right now and will solidify for them the notion that Hillary was somehow robbed of the nomination.

[Cross-posted to my blog]

 

Unlike in the general election where every state has their citizens cast a ballot for President, the democratic primaries involve both primaries (where each person casts their vote) and caucuses, where people gather in a room, express their support for their candidate and, from such internal voting, delegates for each caucus are apportioned to the state convention.  As a result, the popular vote numbers that you see are not apples-to-apples comparisons.

Now add to the mix that Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan (from which state Clinton supporters continue to unfairly insist that Obama got zero votes, even though the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee reached a compromise and apportioned all of "uncommitted" delegates to Obama).  In addition, none of the candidates were allowed to campaign for votes in Florida.  Further stir into the Michigan and Florida equation the fact that hundreds of thousands of people did not vote because they were told that their vote would not count at the Convention (as reflected in the fact that both states' voter turnout was far lower than expectations) and you get a highly polluted set of data from which to draw "certain" or "unquestionable" conclusions.

Final data point.  In Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada, these states did not release an official estimate of voter turnout.  However, Clinton supporters like Sen. Feinstein are content to completely disregard any tabulation or estimate of the turnout in such states in order to make the damaging argument that Sen. Clinton somehow "won" the popular vote.  Are voters' voices in Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada not supposed to be heard?

 

From the above analysis, I hope most of you will agree that the fairest assessment of the popular vote is to give the "uncommitted" Michigan votes to Obama and give both candidates the estimates of voter turnout in Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada.

There are only two conclusions to draw:

1. If you tally up the popular vote in the fairest and even-handed way described above, you'll see from RealClearPolitics that Obama is ahead of Clinton by 61,703 votes.

2. If you decide to tally up the popular vote in some other skewed and selective manner, the vote tally you come up with is too questionable to be asserted by our nation's respected leaders as unquestionable fact.

 

Here is where we stand:

Obama is now the presumptive nominee.

Hillary Clinton has suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama with a ringing call for party unity.

In the interest of party unity, as so eloquently expressed by Senator Clinton yesterday, we all need let the whole popular vote argument go.  It can only serve to make people angry, prolong the grieving process and hurt the Democrat's chances in the fall against John McCain.

Alright, this will be short.  

Regardless of who we supporting going into the nomination process those many months ago or who you supported today, it is time to rally around the democratic nominee.

Barack Obama today crossed the magic number threshold and became the presumptive nominee.

As the democratic nominee, we must now support and protect Obama against the swiftboaters and malcontents of the Right.

This means it is time to cease Obama attack diaries on this site.  

If you want to elect John McCain and therefore want to continue to attack the presumptive nominee of the party that represents true progressive values in this election, please find another site.

The time is now.  The general election will soon be upon us.  

Let the attack diaries be solely upon McCain.

This is exactly the wrong sentiment to be spreading for the national news media to grab onto.

Regardless of your support for either of the Democratic candidates, it is unhelpful for the Democrats' changes in November to be repeating the wounded "I'll take my toys and go home" canard that if someone can't have their candidate nominated, they'll go vote for the other party.

I have seen this sentiment echoed on this site for months.  And now, a bunch of Clinton supporters demonstrating outside the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting are continuing and heightening the threat:

"We are all a nation together, there are 50 states, not 48," said Constanta Nour-Hinkle, 35, who traveled by train from Reading, Pa. today to attend the rally. "I felt I needed to make my voice hear and I wanted to show solidarity with the 2.3 million voters [in Florida and Michigan] whose voices were not heard."

Mrs. Nour-Hinkle said she would rather vote for Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, than for Mrs. Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama -- echoing the sentiments of many protesters.

"It would be the first time in my life I would vote Republican for president," said Mrs. Nour-Hinkle, 35. "I think Obama is an empty shirt, the same as [President] George W. Bush but only a Democrat."

John Overton, who shouted pro-Clinton slogans outside the hotel, said he would leave the party if Obama receives the Democratic nomination for president.

"I can't stand for the Democratic Party if they don't stand for voters' rights," said Mr. Overton, who traveled from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., to attend the rally. The party "would no longer exist to me as a party."

"I don't scream like this normally, I'm a rational guy, but I've never felt like this before," he added. "This had been a travesty of democracy."

Look, I know a lot of bad things have been said and done by supporters of both candidates in this campaign.

But, the simple fact is that Clinton OR Obama would do a LOT more for progressive issues, like ending the war in Iraq, universal health care and reversing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy than John McCain and the Republican Party ever would.

We really need to stop this madness.  The race will be decided soon, the RBC will make their decision, and the last primaries will be held.  We will have a nominee and we need to focus on unity, not childish threats.