Oops:

“McCain Wins Debate!” declares the ad which features a headshot of a smiling McCain with an American flag background. Another ad spotted by our eagle-eyed observer featured a quote from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis declaring: “McCain won the debate– hands down.”

This is the first of the Presidential debates that McCain was asking a couple of days ago to be suspended because of the US economy exploding. Obama called his bluff, and McCain figured out that he really couldn’t afford letting Obama have the stage to himself. Regardless, McCain’s showing up, and while it’s perfectly alright to be releasing ads claiming the candidate won the debate - it’s usually a good thing to wait until after the debate to release the ads, not before.

Maybe McCain and Palin have been consulting a medium or something.

If you missed her loathsome speech a couple of nights ago, one of the things that Republican VP Candidate Sarah Palin did in trying to argue that her being governor of Alaska gave her more experience then Obama running for President was to be very condescending and degrading to Obama and everyone else who did or does community organizing - that is apparently the Republican brand new code-word for Islamofascism, or un-American, or whatever. You’ll see some of the outrage at those remarks here but I wanted to focus on two very effective rebuttals to this deplorable attack.

#1 is this saying and logo that has popped up on the liberal blogosphere today:

Very effective, in my POV.

#2 is the Obama response to these snide put downs of community work and community organizing.

…but this time from the US, from the Conservative Party’s American Idols, the Republican Party, who did very well with fearmongering as an election tool from 2002-2005.  It appears some in the McCain team are trying once again to get Americans scared. First, they’re trying to get them scared of Obama. John McCain said in an interview a couple of days ago that he considered Obama’s voting record to show he was an extremist and maybe even a socialist (GASP!). Today, some in the McCain camp are  trying to paint an entire religious group as who Americans should be afraid of as well:

McCain POW bud: Muslims ‘going to kill us’

One of John McCain’s fellow POW’s in Vietnam defended the war in Iraq, saying, “The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.” In a phone call with reporters arranged by the McCain campaign, Colonel Bud Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

Actually, this is both a vivid example of fear-mongering and group-baiting as you’ll find.

Meanwhile, in the electoral college, you can see why McCain is resorting to these tactics, and it will only get worse from him and his campaign the longer you see all those Blue states staying that way or expanding, particularly in traditional Republican “red states”, and as they get more desperate to turn the Democratic tide.

Hillary Clinton won 3 of 4 states last night in the Democratic Primary. However, it appears she didn’t win big enough to make any serious dent into Obama’s lead in delegates. In fact, if Obama wins the Texas Democratic caucus, as predicted by many, the delegate pickups from last night could very well be a wash. Even if it isn’t and Hillary has picked up several delegates to 20 delegates on Obama, it still leaves Clinton with troubling numbers - troubling enough that Time Magazine says “It appears numerically impossible for her to overtake his lead among elected delegates”.

So, Hillary has bragging rights from last night, but I don’t think it did anything to change the dynamic, and I think you’ll see Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee - despite the Clinton “wins” and despite the Conservative government’s efforts to screw around and meddle with the primary race.

UPDATE@11:26AM: MSNBC’s count of delegates - actual and presumed ones coming from the Texas caucus - shows that Hillary barely made a dent into Obama’s delegate lead.