Cliff Schecter

A guess this was just a matter of time:At the end of a two-day trip through Oregon, Obama was asked Saturday morning about whether it was fair for one of his supporters, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), to have invoked McCain's role in a nearly 20-year-old scandal when he introduced Obama at a University of Oregon rally Friday night.DeFazio had said:

And that is saying a lot when one contemplates the temper, position-swapping, lobbyist-lovefests and the like. From the Politico via Truthout:John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days. In case you've been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at

Yikes. This is harsh. I saw some of our faithful commenters referring to it, so I looked it up. Let's just say I don't think there will be any more talk of a pro-Hillary bias at SNL.

Both campaigns have begun planning their respective strategies for the the next six months, per the New York Times:Even before Mr. Obama fully wraps up the Democratic presidential nomination, he and Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are starting to assemble teams in the key battlegrounds, develop negative advertising and engage each other in earnest on the issues and a combustible mix of other topics, including age and patriotism.I found the

From barackobama.com via The Huffington Post:On May 10th, Barack Obama is launching Vote for Change, an unprecedented 50-state voter registration and mobilization drive. More than 100 events will be held across the country that day. Obama volunteers will register new voters as the start of a six-month voter registration drive.This appears to be an unprecedented effort to buck conventional wisdom about who votes, using technology and grassroots organizing to generate enormous

The Wall Street Journal seems to think so. Although they are not 100% sure:Sen. Obama already has begun pivoting toward the general election. Soon, he will be in position to unleash a barrage of attack ads aimed at defining Sen. McCain, though it's unclear when or whether the campaign will do so.

This time it's a Utah add-on.

The Washington Post reported the following yesterday:Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress

According to Senator McCain, it's ok to talk about a Hamas official's kind words about Senator Obama, even if it's not relevant to who should be elected president, because it's "of interest to the American people."It's very obvious to everyone that Senator Obama shares nothing of the values or goals of Hamas, which is a terrorist organization,” McCain said.

During a town hall meeting in Michigan on Wednesday A 14-year old asked John McCain why he opposed The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to end wage discrimination. He gave his stock answer about it empowering trial lawyers. Which of course is all the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and laws against sexual harassment in the workplace have accomplished.