Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake filed a fundraising complaint against John McCain yesterday with the FEC.

Yesterday, on behalf of a large number of progressive bloggers and activists, Jane went to the FEC and filed an official complaint against John McCain's alleged campaign finance violations. We've been asking a lot of questions about this, and the answers have been less than forthcoming. So, instead of just sitting here and stewing about yet another GOP ethical problem, we decided to put our action where our concerns were.

....As Markos of DailyKos pointed out in joining the complaint, “John McCain has officially blown past campaign spending limits mandated by his original acceptance of public campaign funding. While he has signaled his intent to withdraw from such financing, that has been hindered by the fact that he used the promise of public funding to secure a campaign loan.” Guess the campaign finance laws only apply when they aren't inconvenient for McCain's ambitions.

McCain will be fundraising in Denver tomorrow. [More...]

Bumped BTD

I'll be at the dentist most of the day and I'm tired of moderating race-baiting comments. Here's an open thread with a caveat....no Rev. Wright, no race talk. Those comments will be deleted when I get back.

In other news:

• Terry Kindlon has an op-ed in the Albany Times Union, Bush's view of war an insult to all

• Ann Althouse writes about Obama pitches to Texas delegates, including those like her son who are Hillary delegates, encouraging them to vote for Obama at the county convention.

• Via Instapundit, Quick as a Link, You're in the Clink

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Daily Kos, the latest negative attack from the Obama campaign:

Senator Clinton’s claims about her visit to Tuzla, Bosnia—and the footage disproving her account—have created quite a stir. And with good reason. . . . Unfortunately, Clinton’s fantastic invention of a sniper-raked landing is only one in a growing list of instances in which she has exaggerated her role as First Lady, particularly with respect to domestic policy.

Any words of reproach for these negative attacks from Obama supporting blogs? Of course not. I hope that we can at least hear no more about how negative Clinton has become from these same sources. If you are pleased with negative attacks by Obama, you can hardly condemn them from Clinton. Me, I condemn them from both sides.

Hilarious postscript on the flip.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Remember when Obama famously declared that he could get Clinton's voters but she could not get his? Time to rethink that proposition. The Gallup Poll has Obama losing 28% of Clinton supporters against McCain (19% of Obama supporters defect to McCain if Clinton is the nominee.)

Too many in the Obama campaign, Obama supporters and Obama supporting blogs believe that their demonization of Hillary Clinton has had no ill effects on Barack Obama's image among the half of the Democratic Party that supports Hillary Clinton. They are wrong. At this point, without the active and sincere support by Hillary Clinton of his potential Presidential run against John McCain, Obama has no chance in November. And vice versa of course.

We Democrats will need unity in November. I believe a Unity Ticket is the only way to achieve this.

Update (TL): Comments now closed.

Twenty-two percent (22%) of Democratic voters nationwide say that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that an identical number—22%--say that Barack Obama should drop out.

A solid majority of Democrats, 62%, aren’t ready for either candidate to leave the race.

Time to let this issue go until Pennsylvania at least.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

The pro-Obama blog Huffington Post (with an assist from the Obama campaign?) appears to have taken Hillary Clinton's bait on the Wright issue. Sam Stein reports:

[T]he pastor at the church that Clinton did once attend has recently expressed public support for Wright. He's even proclaimed it a "grave injustice" to make a judgment on Wright based off of "two or three sound bites," and criticized those who would "use a few of [Wright's] quotes to polarize."

Not sure what the point of this story is (that Hillary's ex-pastor disagrees with her on Wright? So what?), but I do know this is the LAST story Barack Obama wants to have driving the news narrative today. Now Hillary has a good excuse to continue discussing Wright. She gets to be anti-Wright while Obama gets reinforced as being pro-Wright.

I imagine Hillary Clinton is thrilled that Huff Po detests her so much that they will push this anti-Obama issue in order to try and get at Hillary Clinton.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

When the Media and the Left blogs deplore the negativity of the Democratic presidential campaign, especially from the Clinton campaign, they ignore that they are a major reason why it has happened. Why? Because they attack the Clinton campaign no matter what it does while ignoring or defending every negative attack and questionable tactic of the Obama campaign.

The examples are legion. There is not an ounce of doubt that it was the campaigns challenging Hillary Clinton last fall that first engaged in negative attacks. The Media and some of the Left blogs were imploring the Barack Obama campaign to do that and certainly not a single word of reproach was written about it.

Led by Tim Russert and Brian Williams in the October 2007 debate, and followed eagerly by the entire NBC network and many Left blogs, the attacks on Hillary Clinton, especially on her character, were applauded on a daily basis. More.

Apropos of former NYC Mayor Ed Koch's op-ed today on Barack Obama's comments about Rev. Jeremiah Wright in his race speech. Koch notes that Obama's young daughters attend the church. Hate is taught. Are Wright's hate-filled sermons something he thought it was okay for them to hear and learn?

Why subject your children to the politics of hate?

This is an open thread. Please remember to be civil and respect the comment rules.

Update: Comments at 200 and now closed.

Harris County (Houston, TX) Clerk Beverly Kaufman today turned over 1,167 names of voters suspected of voting in more than one primary to the District Attorney.

Some of them, she says, voted in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. Others, she says, voted twice in the same primary.

“I’m convinced that there are some instances where people had strong feeling on both sides of the aisle where they wanted to vote for a candidate on both ballots thinking they wouldn’t get caught,” Kaufman said.

The DA will investigate. Was it confusion or voter fraud?

“Those people who actually voted in the Republican primary and then tried to mess with Democratic primary committed crimes, and they should be prosecuted,” said Gerry Birnberg, who is the Harris County Democratic Chair.

The sniping continued today between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns.

Hillary says she mispoke about her Bosnia trip. Obama aides pounce. Hillary aides pounce back.

After Mr. Obama’s campaign mocked her Tuesday for her misstatements, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign went on the offensive, citing news reports that identified instances where Mr. Obama had exaggerated.

“Senator Obama has called himself a constitutional professor, claimed credit for passing legislation that never left committee and apparently inflated his role as a community organizer, among other issues,” said a Clinton spokesman, Phil Singer. “When it comes to his record, just words won’t do.”

McCain's aides took a more sensible approach:

A senior adviser to the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, cited the Democratic skirmishing to note that politicians sometimes made misstatements.

This is such a non-story for me, but it's in the news, so if you want to discuss it, go ahead, beat it to death.

Rush Limbaugh got a little worked up today about Dan Abrams and my criticism of his "Operation Chaos" plot in Ohio to get Republicans to register as Dems to sway the Ohio vote.

As I listened to Dan Abrams and Jeralyn Merritt, don't you know that Josef Stalin would be so proud? Stalin would be trying to get out of that grave of his, and join the fray. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Stalin had in mind.

He says he thinks I should be defending him instead of calling his plan despicable.

Well, Rush, I did defend you here on TalkLeft more than once when you had your past legal troubles. Drug addiction is a disease and no one, not even you, should go to jail for it. Sorry I can't say the same about possible election fraud.

Even so, to set the record straight, while I explained what it would take to charge a voter or Rush and opined that if prosecutors could make the case they should prosecute to deter others from engaging in the same conduct, I didn't say I thought they had a case or that Rush should be convicted and jailed. Or that the government should spy on people's private internet communications. [More...]

Rev. Wright will not be speaking in Tampa this weekend after all.

The Rev. Earl Mason cited security concerns and said the three-night revival featuring Wright was turning into an "event" and media circus, rather than the celebration of the church's 10th anniversary that it was intended to be, so Mason asked him to stay in Chicago.

Good. Perhaps now we can get back to important issues like universal health care and ending the war in Iraq and how to count the votes of the 2.2 million voters in Florida and Michigan.

Rev. Wright is a distraction. Focusing on him puts us right in the midst of the Republican playbook. If he weren't Barack Obama's pastor, his remarks would be a blip on the radar screen.

Update: Comments mow closed.