As soon as John McCain locked up the GOP nomination, he made a fast trip to the White House to get the endorsement of President Bush. Why anybody would want to base his run for president tied to the failed politics of the Bush Administration is a mystery that defies logic. When Sen. McCain ran against George Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries, I really believed the Arizona Senator was a straight-shooting maverick who would do the right thing regardless of the consequences, and that was somewhat refreshing. During that race, the attacks on Sen. McCain by Karl Rove and his gang of thugs were lowdown and dirty. As a result, as we all know, Bush prevailed and was ultimately elected President. Apparently, those attacks have been forgotten by the soon-to-be GOP nominee.

In any event, wanting to give the American people four more years of Bush-Cheney-Rove doesn’t seem to be very smart and certainly isn’t a winning strategy. Let’s take a look at the mantel that is being passed down by the Bush Administration to Sen. McCain and see what the Arizona Senator has inherited:

1. A war in Iraq that has already lasted for more than five years with 4,000 soldiers having been killed. The economic cost thus far is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no end in sight. There have also been over 30,000 American troops injured with most of the injuries being of a disabling nature. The current cost of the war and occupation is about $10 billion per month. The costs of this war, which are projected to be between 2 and 3 trillion dollars when all of the items are computed, have been paid with borrowed money. This is the first war in U.S. history that our generation has fought on credit, and future generations will pay for it.
2. The federal government is literally being run by special interest lobbyists.
3. The record federal deficit is growing daily.
4. We have a serious imbalance in foreign trade, with the latest numbers being around $65 billion.
5. Our nation’s economy is in recession and it’s getting worse by the day.
6. Mortgage foreclosures are occurring at a record pace, with the worst yet to come.
   Millions of Americans have no healthcare insurance.
7. Gasoline prices at the pump are projected to exceed $4 per gallon this summer with no real plan in place to do anything about it.
8. 37 million Americans are living in poverty.
9. The Administration has totally failed to address the critically serious issue of global warming as a reality.
10. We are experiencing a politicization of the immigration issue with nothing of consequence being done.
11. We have serious infrastructure problems in this country. The price tag for repairing crumbling bridges and highways has already reached $1.6 trillion and little is being done about it.
12. We have witnessed a dismal failure to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast areas of Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. Some 2 ½ years after Katrina many people in the region are still suffering and are getting little relief.
13. The environmental record has been the very worst in history and has protected the polluters like never before in recent times.
14. A failure to deal with the real threat of terrorism by not finishing the job in Afghanistan has caused the terrorists to be stronger than in 2002.
15. American’s image around the world is at an all-time low.
16. The failure to take care of military personnel – many of them disabled – returning from Iraq is a shame and a disgrace.
17. This Administration has favored the rich and powerful and has ignored the rest of America.

On the Democratic side, the race for the nomination is going forward and apparently will go all the way to the convention. Sen. Barack Obama clearly has the edge as he and Sen. Hillary Clinton face off in Pennsylvania. This issue of the Report went to the printer before the voting day in that state and therefore we didn’t have those results at this writing. Sen. Clinton was favored and probably will win there.

Frankly, I have been greatly disappointed in the tactics being employed by by the Clinton campaign. That type thing certainly doesn’t speak well for Sen. Hillary Clinton or for her husband. Actually, it’s been more like a campaign run by Karl Rove than one being run by a Democratic candidate in a primary fight. I suspect that Rove and the right wing of the Republican Party are working hard for a Clinton-McCain race in the general election. Nevertheless, I believe Sen. Obama will wind up as the Democratic nominee, and when that happens, the Democratic Party will unite and back him this fall without question.

I also believe a good number of Independents (who may be a much larger group than many experts project) will support the Obama campaign in November because of the strong opposition among Independents to the policies of the current Administration. It’s also quite possible that a fairly significant number of Republicans will vote for Sen. Obama because they too have seen the shape in which the Bush Administration has left the country. Also, many Republicans simply don’t trust the GOP standard bearer.

Without question, the mood of the voters is clearly for meaningful change. They want a President who understands the real needs of people, who tells the truth, who is not controlled by the special interests and their powerful lobbyists, and who will keep his promises. The choice will be very clear in November!

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