John McCain receives boisterous, sustained standing ovations from Houston oil executives who then proceed to pump nearly $2 million in cash to his campaign.

Working class voters are supporting Senator Barack Obama by a two-to-one margin over John McCain.

Washington Post:

Obama’s advantage is attributable largely to overwhelming support from two traditional Democratic constituencies: African Americans and Hispanics. But even among white workers — a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November — Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.

On Health Care:

McCain Today: "I believe every American should have the opportunity to have affordable and available health care"

McCain Facts: His Promise of More Bush Policies Won't Reduce the Ranks of the Uninsured.

McCain Health Plan Just Like Bush Plan. "President Bush proposed a similar idea" to the tax credits in McCain's plan, which was dead-on-arrival in Congress in early 2007, because the plan only awarded those who purchased insurance in the private market. [Wall Street Journal, 10/11/2007; Washington Post, 1/25/2007]

Mark Mellman: McCain's Health Care Plan Mirrors Bush's Proposals. In a column for The Hill, Mark Mellman notes that "by adopting President Bush's plan," McCain "offers incontrovertible evidence that he represents a third Bush term here at home, as well as in Iraq…Asking up to two-thirds of the American public to relinquish health insurance they like, provided through their employer, puts the McCain-Bush plan on life support." [Mark Mellman Column, The Hill, 5/7/2008]

McCain Plan Resembles Bush Proposal. According to the Washington Post, "McCain's proposal is similar to one that Bush put forth in his 2007 State of the Union address. That plan, which would have replaced employer tax breaks for health insurance with a $15,000 tax deduction for married couples, flopped in Congress, failing to get even a committee hearing." [Washington Post, 4/30/2008]

McCain: I Believe We Should Grant Tax Credits to Individuals and Families for Health Insurance. McCain said: "I believe that everyone should get a tax credit of $2500, $5000 for families, if they have health insurance. It is good tax policy to take away the bias toward giving workers benefits instead of wages. It is good health policy to reward having insurance no matter where your policy comes from." ["John McCain on Health Care," Des Moines Rotary Lunch, 10/11/2007]

Bush: We Should Give Tax Credits to Individuals and Families Buying Health Care. During a speech in Madison Wisconsin, Bush outlined his proposal of the tax credits for the uninsured. "For those with limited means, my budget will provide new credits to afford health coverage -- up to a thousand dollars for an individual, or $3,000 for a family," Bush said. [Bush Remarks on Health Care Reform, 2/11/02; White House Fact Sheet, 2/11/2002]

On Police Funding:

McCain Today: "We need to help the COPS program. We need to provide them with the technology."

McCain Facts: McCain Repeatedly Voted Against the COPS Program, the 1994 and 1992 Crime Bills.

1994: McCain Voted Against the Landmark $30.2 Billion 1994 Crime Bill. In 1994, McCain voted against the Crime Bill which has authorized $30.2 billion over six years for crime related programs, including the hiring of additional police officers, prison building, helping communities prevent crime, and an assault weapons ban. [1994 Senate Vote #295, 8/25/1994]

1992: McCain Twice Voted Against 1992 Crime Bill Which Expanded Handgun Control Measures. In 1992, McCain voted twice against invoking cloture on the 1992 Crime Bill, which mandated a five day waiting period and background check for handgun purchases. The bill also provided additional grants to state and local law enforcement. [1992 Senate vote #53, 3/19/1992; 1992 Senate vote #262, 10/2/1992]

2005: McCain Voted For Corporate Tax Breaks Instead of $1 Billion for COPS. In 2005, McCain voted against providing $1 billion for the COPS program, offset by closing corporate tax loopholes. [2005 Senate Vote #70, 3/17/2005]

2004: McCain Voted To Keep Tax Breaks For Millionaires Instead of $1.1 Billion for Law Enforcement Programs. In 2004, McCain voted against increasing funding for COPS and other local law enforcement programs by $1.1 billion, offset by reducing tax breaks for taxpayers with incomes over $1 million. [2004 Senate Vote #44, 3/11/2004]

2003: McCain Prioritized Bush Tax Cuts Over Funding For $1 Billion for Police Programs. McCain voted against increasing spending on Community Oriented Policing programs by $1 billion, offset by a reduction in non-reconciled tax cuts. [2003 Senate Vote #78, 3/21/2003]

2003: McCain Voted Against $500 Million For Local Law Enforcement To Help Fight Drug-Related Crime. McCain voted against providing $500 million for local law enforcement grants that provide money to rural law enforcement agencies to fight violent and drug-related crime. [2003 Senate Vote #6, 1/17/2003]

1999: McCain Missed A Vote On Reauthorizing the COPS Program. In 1999, McCain missed a vote on an amendment to extend the COPS program to 2005 an authorize $1.5 billion for the program. [1999 Senate Vote #139, 5/20/1999]

1996: McCain Voted Against $1.8 Billion for COPS Program. In 1996, McCain voted against providing an additional $1.8 billion in funding for the COPS program. [1996 Senate Vote #31, 3/13/1996]

1995: McCain Voted To Eliminate the Successful COPS Program. In 1995, McCain voted for the Republican Commerce-Justice spending bill which included a plan "to dismantle [the] cops-on-the-beat program" [COPS] and replace it with a "block grant program giving local governments control over how to spend crime-fighting money." [1995 Senate Vote #591, 12/7/1995, McCain: N; Chicago Tribune, 12/8/1995]

On the Economy:

McCain Today: "Under my plan, we will preserve the current low rates as they are, so businesses large and small can hire more people. We will double the personal exemption from $3,500 to $7,000 for every dependent, in every family in America. We will offer every individual and family a large tax credit to buy their health care, so employers can spend more on wages, and workers don't lose their coverage when they change jobs. We will lower the business tax rate, so American companies open new plants and create more jobs in this country."

McCain Facts: The Bush-McCain Economy Has Been Detrimental To The African-American Community…

July 2008: Nearly 10% of African Americans Without A Job. In June 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate was 9.7%, up from 9.2% just one month prior, in June 2008. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation Summary, 8/1/2008]

FLASHBACK to January 2001: 8.4% Unemployment Rate Among African Americans. In January 2001, the unemployment rate for African Americans was 8.4%. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation Summary, 2/2/2001]

2006: Nearly One Quarter of African Americans Living In Poverty. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Data, 24% of African Americans in the United States were living in poverty in 2006, representing almost 9.5 million people. [U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Poverty Tables, Accessed 4/23/2008]

FLASHBACK to 2000: One Million Less African Americans Living In Poverty. In 2000, 22% of African Americans or 7.9 million were living in poverty. [U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Poverty Tables, Accessed 4/23/2008]

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Sunday that he favors a proposed referendum in Arizona that would ban affirmative action, reversing a position he took a decade ago.

It's the latest example of McCain changing positions that had once put him at odds with conservative Republicans, including his new proposals to extend President Bush's tax cuts and expand offshore oil drilling.

In 1998, McCain described an anti-affirmative action effort in his home state as "divisive." On Sunday, McCain backed a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution that would ban "preferential treatment" on the basis of "race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin."

Scores of people could not get into the convention to see Senator Obama speak so the campaign improvised and hosted a public party outdoors a few blocks away where visitors watched his speech live on a large screen. By Monday morning, over 1,000 folks RSVP'd to attend. Obama organizing fellows took advantage of the situation and registered voters during the outdoor event.

Gramm told the Washington Times an interview published last week that the economy has "never been more dominant" and said we have become a "nation of whiners" constantly "whining and complaining." The McCain campaign may be quick to throw a top economic adviser under the bus but that does not hide the fact that John McCain offers four more years of George W. Bush on the economy.

We released this web video highlighting the shared belief of John McCain and Phil Gramm that these troubling economic times are "psychological" and a figment of your imagination.

Stateline columnist Louis Jacobsen writes:

Some Democrats hold out hope that Obama could actually win one of the six Southern states that he won so convincingly during the primary season — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina — all of which have voted strongly Republican in recent presidential elections .

But while it’s an outside possibility in North Carolina, most analysts believe Obama’s likelihood of picking off any of the other five Southern states is a long shot.

More plausible, though, is a November scenario in which the voters Obama draws to the polls also pull the lever for Democrats up and down the ticket — in statewide posts, congressional seats, state legislative seats and even county positions.

Democrats in the region have been salivating over this possibility for months. Consider Waring Howe, a Democratic National Committeeman from South Carolina and, until recently, chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party. When Howe first realized that Obama might become the party’s nominee, “I used that as a candidate recruiting tool. But I actually didn’t have to use it much, because a lot of the prospective candidates already felt that way anyway.”

Below are excerpts of the article, which can be found online at:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10464.html

Politico.com
Racial woes: GOP fails to recruit minorities
By: Jim VandeHei and Josh Kraushaar
May 19, 2008

"Just a few years after the Republican Party launched a highly publicized diversity effort, the GOP is heading into the 2008 election without a single minority candidate with a plausible chance of winning a campaign for the House, the Senate or governor...the GOP is fielding only a handful of minority candidates for Congress or statehouses - none of whom seem to have a prayer of victory.

"At the start of the Bush years, the Republican National Committee - in tandem with the White House - vowed to usher in a new era of GOP minority outreach. As George W. Bush winds down his presidency, Republicans are now on the verge of going six - and probably more - years without an African-American governor, senator or House member. That's the longest such streak since the 1980s. Republicans will have only one minority governor, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, an Indian-American, when the dust settles on the '08 elections. Democrats have three minority governors and 43 African-American members of Congress, including one - Illinois Sen. Barack Obama - who is their likely presidential nominee. Democrats also have several challengers in winnable House races who are either black or Hispanic...

"So who's to blame for this diversity deficit? Jack Kemp, the former Republican congressman and vice presidential nominee, says the culprit is clear: a "pitiful" recruitment effort by his party. 'I don't see much of an outreach,' he said. 'I don't see much of a reason to run.'...In all fairness, Republicans have never been very good at attracting strong minority candidates, especially African-Americans...The dilemma is simple: Who wants to run when the Republican brand is so unpopular and money is so scarce?"

"The historic 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education earned a special place in history by rejecting decades of discrimination and unequal access to America's educational system. More than half a century later, however, the growing economic divide in rural, suburban and urban areas of our nation has resulted in a new form of segregation that yields unequal educational opportunities for America's children, often reflected through race and ethnicity. Fifty-four years later, much work remains before us.

"The Democratic Party is committed to electing a President in 2008 who will work to ensure every child in America has access to a quality education regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic standing. The American people are looking for leadership that puts our nation's best interests first, and that starts by empowering our children with the tools to succeed and reach for the American dream. That includes reigning in the rising cost of attending college, but also insisting that this generation of Americans stop passing on their debt to the generations that follow. And it begins by never forgetting that it took decisions like Brown v. Board to help America move forward."

The decision overturned the ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that established "separate but equal," ruling that it was unconstitutional.

Today, we celebrate this glorious decision and reaffirm our commitment to the betterment of our schools and the advancement of equality for all.

Read the full decision here.

For the candidate who wants to have it both ways, this is just politics as usual. But how can McCain say he would help America's working families when he also said he would veto funding to give them things like hospitals? It's time for McCain to fess up. No more doubletalk--which is it?

Youngstown Earmarks Included Funding for Education…

• In 2003, Youngstown State University received $500,000 for expenses to expand a materials engineering/science program (Institute of Museum and Library Services - Department of Education). [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]

And Health Care…

• In 2005, Forum Health in Youngstown received $200,000 for facilities and equipment (Health Resources and Services Administration - Department of Health and Human Services). [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
• In 2004, the Ursuline Sisters HIV/AIDS Ministry in Youngstown received $50,000 to expand their health care and counseling services (Health Resources & Services Administration - Health & Human Services). [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
• In 2004, the Saint Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown received $400,000 for construction, renovation, and equipment (Health Resources & Services Administration - Health & Human Services). [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
• In 2001, Forum Health of Youngstown received $921,000 pediatric and adolescent asthma school program (Disease Control, Research & Training - Centers for Disease Control). [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
• In 2000, Forum Health of Youngstown received $1.2 million for a hospital conversion project (Community Development Block Grants). [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
• In 1999, the City of Youngstown received $1 million for the Southside Medical Center [Community Development Block Grants]. (HUD) [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
  

And for the Air Reserve Center…

• In 2006, the Youngstown Air Reserve Station received $7.5 million for a Joint service logistics facility (Phase I), (Air Force Reserve). [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
• In 2000, the Air Force Reserve, Youngstown Air Reserve Station, received $3.4 million for the Apron Runoff/Storm Water/Deicing Collection System. [Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW.org) Pigbooks, FY95-FY07]
  

After casting himself as a "Maverick" in 2000, the new John McCain is walking in lockstep with President Bush, pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party, and embracing the ideology he once denounced. On the campaign trail McCain has callously abandoned many of his previously held positions, even contradicted himself, in a blatant attempt to remake himself into a candidate Republicans can accept in 2008. So just who is the real John McCain? The Democratic National Committee will present a daily fact aimed at exposing the man behind the myth.

Written from the confines of a Birmingham, Alabama city jail cell, Dr. King poetically explored the moral imperatives for action against racial injustices perpetrated around the country, and drawing on history's lessons that these rights are demanded, not bestowed.

Unsatisfied with idly standing by from Atlanta while such injustices continued in Birmingham, Dr. King was compelled to help this community in need with the determination that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Read the full letter.

In 1990, McCain was one of the deciding votes in helping then-President George H.W. Bush sustain a veto against the relatively benign Civil Rights Act of 1990.

In doing so, the senator found himself at odds with majorities in both chambers of Congress, most senior African Americans within the Bush administration, and the Republican-led U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He also helped Bush became the first president ever to successfully veto a civil rights measure -- Andrew Jackson in 1866 and Ronald Reagan in 1988 both had vetoes overridden.

But unlike his decision against the Dr. King holiday in 1983, this is one vote John McCain will not apologize for.

"The issue in the early '90s was a little more complicated," he told Fox News Sunday. "I've never believed in quotas, and I don't. There's no doubt about my view on that issue. And that was the implication, at least, of that other vote."

It is, critics say, a shaky defense; one that only a third of the Senate felt comfortable holding on to.

As noted by the Times at the time of the bill's debate, opponents could not produce any evidence that the original ruling in 1971 had led to a rash of quotas. And indeed, as Thomas Homburger of the Anti-Defamation League said at the time: his group historically opposes quotas and the Civil Rights Act of 1990 was "simply not a quota bill."

The measure fell one vote short.

The following are excerpts of the story:

Arizona Blacks: Where's McCain?
Politico
By: Jonathan Martin
April 8, 2008

"Oscar Tillman heads the Phoenix area branch of the NAACP and is a former statewide president of the group. He has been a leader of Arizona's small, tight-knit African-American community for decades. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn the name of one person, over all those years, with whom he has never spoken. It is the state's senior senator better known these days as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. John McCain, said Tillman, 'has pretty well zero relationship with the African-American community that I know of.' 'I don't recall him ever attending any function with the NAACP,' Tillman added. 'Each year we send them an invitation [to an annual banquet], and each year they say no.'...

"'In a word, none,' said Ron Busby, president of the Greater Phoenix Black Chamber of Commerce, when asked to describe the senator's relationship with Arizona's African-American community. In the 10 years that the organization, which represents about 300 black-owned businesses, has been in existence, Busby said McCain has never been to any of its events. Busy, who owns a large janitorial services firm that cleans businesses, hospitals and the home of the Arizona Cardinals, said his organization is not a traditionally liberal black group...McCain's discomfort with this kind of touchstone politics underscores a central part of his political persona: He has great difficulty feigning interest in subjects in which he lacks genuine personal interest. Civil rights organizations are hardly unique in this respect. Whatever the constituency or issue, if McCain doesn't care deeply about it, his feelings tend to be obvious over time...

"'As far as I've seen, he has no relationship with the African-American community in Arizona,' said Cloves Campbell Jr., publisher of the Arizona Informant and a Democratic state representative from Phoenix. 'He's never been to the paper,' said Campbell. 'We've called to get interviews, but there has never been any response. I've never talked to him.' Founded in 1971 by Campbell's father, also once a state legislator, the Informant is a weekly that serves the 4 percent of the state's population that is African-American. 'We've had conversations with Kyl several times; we even had [former Rep.] J.D. Hayworth in the office,' said the younger Campbell. Nor has McCain ever been to his church, Campbell said. Tanner Chapel A.M.E. is the oldest African-American congregation in the state and is located in downtown Phoenix."

"This year's presidential election provides a ray of hope in the realization of Dr. King's dream. Across the country we've seen historic turnout as Americans from all walks of life are making their voices heard to move our country forward. Today the Democratic Party reaffirms its commitment to work towards the beloved community Dr. King envisioned. "