Obama rasa

Everyone wants a crack at President Barack Obama: demonizers to tell him off, while acolytes would probably be happy just to touch a hem on his garments. Personally, I'm still trying to figure out who is and exactly what the hell he's up to.

Some think they will get their chance this March when he stops over in Guam. My term: I haven't seen anyone phrase it that way, but Guam's still a prime coaling station. Check the oil, kick the tires, stretch your legs and it's on the road again.

Oh, yeah; "he will speak with U.S. service members on the island," according to press secretary Robert Gibbs. Stalwart young men and women, clean cut (no t-shirt slogans and signs) and in the forefront where America's homeland security begins. This sounds like a script borrowed from the latter-day George Bush.

That's not meant to be as flippant and cynical as it sounds: it's what I'd do -- I could probably write the speech. The Guam activists and CNMI politicians looking for meetings and visits will very likely be disappointed. 'Bulwark' will be used once, 'defense' and 'security' several times. Japan will be mentioned, very diplomatically because of the new government's hardened stance on Marines in Okinawa.

It's been a cold winter in Washington figuratively and literally. Time to slide away from the domestic ruckus for a foreign policy War On Terror set-piece. "We're good guys," Indonesians will be told. (Like most of our Muslim allies, their draconian laws will be glossed -- though if anyone drops the word 'madrasa' into the comments I'll attempt to throttle them digitally) "WE are the good guys," he'll assure Australians... and we really wish you'd pony up some troops.

There will be pictures of shy, smiling students and Obama's kids will probably meet a koala. I predict... success.

Somewhere, I picked up the essentially useless nugget that, unlike airliners, Air Force One lands with enough fuel to get out of Dodge. They don't exactly keep the motor running, but that's one of many precautions. I'm sure that's part of the reason for the Guam stop, as is adjusting to different time zones. You don't want your President sounding incoherent due to jet lag.

Immigrant locator

It shouldn't make much difference in the CNMI and Guam but the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning on reforming its detention system.

The change that caught my eye was the proposed launch of an immigrant-detainee locator system in June. I've read countless horror stories of lawyers and family members who couldn't find detainees who disappeared into the system. Assistant secretary John T. Morton seems to have heard them also.

O'Keefe money

I'd read that the stone money brought from Palau to Yap by David Dean O'Keefe was worth less than 'traditional' money brought by canoe. The reason is obvious: he cheated.

In the same issue of azcentral.com as the immigration piece, we learn that something similar is happening in the case of James O'Keefe. Now conservatives are keeping their distance from the stalwart who lured ACORN into promoting prostitution. His latest escapade allegedly involved trying to tap the phones of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

"The truth shall set me free," he is quoted as twittering. But not pay the bail, I'd add. Whatever happens, he's done a public service. The right was energized by his expose, while politicians on the left were handed an excuse to keep their distance from ACORN demands.

I don't think so

The Yes men even tried to piggyback on O'Keefe's latest 15 minutes, claiming he played Queen Elizabeth in their latest phony website, the World Economic Forum. I believe that about as much as I believed the email copy of this press release.

No guts here, though I was pretty sure it was the Yes Men. A pretty obvious fake ("We just killed the Copenhagen Summit, we crashed many economies in 2009. Clearly the present system of rampant capitalism is not worthy of salvaging."), there was a small but real chance of some weird virus instead of more shenanigans.

Oh, this is the real site, and spokesman Adrian Monck reportedly responded that "the only defense to satire is common sense!" Umm, I had a Washington Post link I'll try to track down: the story listed some wrong-headed predictions coming out of Davos in the past.

Corporations are people too

I don't know if any corporations were in the gallery, but Justice Samuel A. Alito is a hot subject in pundit-land for the latest unguarded response to a Barack Obama pronouncement to Congress.

"Not true," lip-readers claim he muttered as the President wound down his State of the Union set-piece with the ringing words "I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities." Fine words, though the Supreme Court's decision to let corporations support or oppose political candidates is only lousy, not earth-shattering. Hint: check out the campaign contributions for any major candidate in the last Presidential election.

But it makes for some ringing rhetoric (He also has a fine cartoon and links to several others.) Let's see: freedom of speech, check; right-to-bear-arms, check (XE, nee Blackwater); I wonder if we can get corporations in the jury pool.

American Video finalists

President Barack Obama's Organizing For America is airing the final episodes of its Health Reform Video Challenge. Here's how New Media Director Natalie Foster put it to me on Sept. 26:

This is your chance -- you ingenious, insightful, funny people out there -- to make a 30-second ad telling the story about why the status quo has got to go, or explaining how the Obama plan will ensure we get the secure, quality care we need without breaking the budget.

The top submissions will be voted on by the public and a panel of experts, with the winning ad aired on national television. This is your opportunity to add your voice and creativity to the debate, get some great exposure for your work, and make a huge difference.

How clever, I thought at the time. Reaching out, 'getting input' and scamming a whole bunch of free brainstorming at the same time. I've been waiting anxiously, and Director Foster says we've got the finalists:

Out of nearly a thousand excellent videos submitted, we're down to the top 20. Now it's your turn to watch the finalists and vote for your favorites -- and then we'll air the winner on national television.

The top 20 ads will also be voted on by our panel of experts and artists, including Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, animator and director Seth MacFarlane, actress Kate Walsh, Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine.

Okay, so I might not get around to waiting while 20 videos download, but I might. It's always fun to see what's happening behind the curtain, and when one of these ads starts popping up everywhere, you can say you saw it here first. You could even vote, though I don't know how much weight you have versus the judges. The deadline is Nov. 6. Here's a somewhat random sample:

Hen-pecking the Fox house

Try this: define "news" for me.

It's not so easy, is it? New things? It's news to me? That's why I think President Barack Obama and company are way out on a limb declaring that Fox is not a news network.

For myself, I'll just agree with the wag who said "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it" Okay, the end of the sentence is ", and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." He was talking about pornography, but I'd give news more leeway, even Fox News.

Not that I think the attacks are particularly serious. Every President tries to manage the conversation and discredit opponents, though I wish Obama had a writer who could come up with something as quotable as William Safire's 'nattering nabobs of negativity'. (Or, I suppose, the sense of humor to suggest borrowing it. Use N3 if you're texting or twittering.)

Hurts so good

There's a symbiotic relationship here anyway. Obama probably assumes Fox viewers will oppose him no matter what he does. I thought that before I noticed how many "liberals" follow Fox closely enough to complain about its coverage of issues. In any case, he gets sympathy and support from his base by playing the victim.

Fox, of course, called the bet by declaring its martyrdom. Professional shoe-throwers like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity know a ratings goldmine when they see it. Their friends chime in, the other side responds and off we go. This little tussle looks like it will have the legs to go through more than one round of the news cycle.

Game on, as long as this quote from the New York Times doesn't indicate where the White House is headed:

In a sign of discomfort with the White House stance, Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Tuesday to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a “pool” camera crew shared by all the networks. That followed a pointed question at a White House briefing this week by Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent, about the administration’s treatment of “one of our sister organizations.”

A principled stand, says the angel one of my shoulders. The devil on the other reminds me that Beck came from CNN and Major Garrett used to write for Mother Jones.

Irony Alert

That segues nicely into an article in mysantonio.com about local groups joining Basta Dobbs. CNN, like Fox, is in business and I doubt that they think a group with the Spanish name Stop (Lou) Dobbs fits the demographic for his show. Again, however, there seem to be enough critics monitoring him to provide a ratings bump. Even if they succeed, they might just be pushing him right before he jumps. He's been talking to Fox, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Nicely played

Ready to post, I discovered that Lou Dobbs wants Basta Dobbs on his show. Nice move by CNN; another lob to the backcourt after the Latino in America pieces. Roberto Lovato responded with this backhand: I'll only appear if it's alongside CNN President Jon Klein because "our issue is not with you so much as the network that provides you with a platform." Ooh, game and set, I think. Match? Well, in a word, Fox.

Where does it end? Marc Lamont Hill is fired by Fox because he's too liberal, according to some. Contessa Brewer (nice name for Hollywood) introduces Jesse Jackson as that other Rev. Al Sharpton. They're both going to land on their feet. It's entertainment, and it's news too. So take a deep breathe and buy your ticket to the show you want to enjoy.

I wonder if the housepaint was scratched.
Guam - One of the two suspects in the October 15th robbery and stabbing of a Tamuning home has been arrested.

Ugh. A story that will probably make me mad:
Rape As A Preexisting Condition

Hee. Do I really need to read the story?
Pilot of Plane That Overshot Runway: We Were Not Asleep

How do you say "Garbage In Garbage Out" in Spanish? (It looks like they're blaming the computer.)
Dallas police ticketed 39 drivers in 3 years for not speaking English

Obama the Laureate *

I was just putting myself to sleep with CNN** when they broke the news about President Barack Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

My first reaction was congratulations! That's Great, but...

What has he done?

So far, he's made some great speeches, tried to hit the reset button with the Axis of Evil and the Moslem world, and scrapped a pie-in-the-sky missile defense system (replacing it with a more workable out-of-the-box system).

His foreign policy so far could best be described as Bush-Lite. That doesn't bother me at all. Like a locomotive or a ship at sea, a country's relations with the rest of the world has momentum. You don't hit the brakes or try hairpin turns.

I like what he's been saying, and I like where he appears to be heading. We just haven't seen any results and it's certainly too soon to say the world is more peaceful.

Now I'll read the stories.

* I was thinking of "The Not-Bush Peace Prize" as a title.

** It's better than warm milk; try it.

Your fed in the clouds

I just stumbled across the U.S. General Service Administration's Cloud Computing Initiative, complete with an applications website. It's nice to see our government entering the 21st Century.

Cloud what? The concept of 'Cloud Computing' has been around for awhile, but it's been general, fuzzy and/or, well, (sorry) cloudy.

Boring definition #1: “a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction". (National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) -- the definition seems to be version 15)

This will probably save a lot of money in the long run. Though... I wonder about some of the "Social Media Applications". If you visit a lot of government sites like I do, you've probably noticed they usually have blogs. Boring, and they repeat what you'll find in the "Press Releases" pages of the website. Somebody's being paid to do that. (Funny, I didn't see any comments on the Homeland Security blog.) Also, government Facebook or MySpace pages remind me of adults trying to be "hep" (heh) by aping Teen Talk.

This is another project pushed by Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, picked by Infoworld as one of the best Chief Technical Officers of 2008. One of his first projects after being appointed by President Barack Obama was data.gov a work-in-progress that puts raw government data on the web. Warning: it can be a gargantuan Time Trap if you start browsing through it.

Obama is definitely internet savvy -- I'm still on his email list after signing up during the campaign; I still get pleas for support (and money) for his initiative-of-the-day. (John McCain never got past just having a website with suggested 'talking points' for his supporters.)

The Whitehouse YouTube Channel (Joined January 20, 2009) has cranked out 454 videos as this is being written. It's one of 15 listed on the U.S. Government Channel. The agencies don't draw viewers like a piano-playing cat would (the FDIC?), but there's an audience out there.

I just think it's cool to have all of this stuff at my fingertips, even out on Saipan in the middle of the ocean.

A video on one of NOAA's sites:

Putting the civil in civil rights

I've been thinking, and saying, it's a bit early to think we've entered some post-racial utopia because of Barack Obama's win.

Here's some anecdotal evidence from MSNBC.com. Fringe people, you'd say rightly, but still a reality check.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

Another twist

Commentators, who have to overanalyze everything, have been theorizing that the large turnout for Obama helped pass California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8.

You see this coming, don't you?

According to eyewitness reports published on the Internet, racial epithets have been used against African-Americans at protests in California, directed even at blacks who are fighting to repeal Proposition 8.

Not to pick on Californians Against Hate (!), but really:

Even before the passage of Proposition 8, Californians Against Hate compiled and published a "dishonor roll" of those individuals, along with their company affiliations, who gave $5,000 or more towards supporting the measure. Telephone numbers and Web sites were added along with commentary about some of the larger donors to public information obtained through the California Secretary of State's Office. (I added the boldface)

Mmm, Mr. Obama, when can we have that conversation about race?

Defending Sarah Palin

I'm over my obsession with the Presidential election, but the media just won't let it go. It took Sarah Palin to make me care.

Go figure. On a personal level, her voice came out at a pitch that jangled my blackboard-scratch aural pain center. How much did I dislike her as a candidate? Let me count the ways.

That's all irrelevant; she's got my sympathy. It's not surprising that the worst of the post-election attacks came out on FOX news. Sleazy comments about her thinking Africa was a country* and not knowing the countries in the NAFTA treaty. Anonymous attacks.

That's my problem with FOX: not the political views, but the tabloidy rumors and innuendo it deals in to sell them. I've read conservative commentators for years, even added a cable company mainly to watch Rush Limbaugh at happy hour. That was years ago, before he took himself seriously and, scarily, others began taking him seriously.

It sells. They know that, and so do their competitors. Though they pretend to loathe that proud part of American journalism, they'll pick it up in a heartbeat if they're losing market share.

Who's your Uncle? Sam or Tom

For a moment, Shepherd Smith seemed to be auditioning for a job at another network with his "Joe The Plumber" interview on a Death to Israel remark. I guess not, it's the soundbite, stupid. He followed by highlighting Ralph Nader's loony remark about Barack Obama being an Uncle Tom. Ralph says he's just asking the question. Right, and why should we take you seriously? Did you ask yourself that question, Shepherd?

Mo' maps

The link to the graphic above was emailed by my brother. Yes, I'm tired of this stuff, but it caught me again. What if we map votes with a cartogram weighting population into the election results? From Mark Newman, he's got the same stuff by county and with other interesting manipulations.

* As a group, Americans are abysmally ignorant of geography. There have been dozens of studies proving this obvious fact. Just to pick a group, I'd like to see how many of the 435 U.S. Congressmen could pick out a country in an unlabeled map. How would they do identifying the majority of states? Finding Saipan or the Northern Marianas?

Throw off your Cheneys

Just when you thought it was safe to go near the Marine Monument (cue Jaws theme)

Barack Obama supporters may have thought they'd seen the last of Vice President Dick Cheney. Not so fast. According to an article in The Washington Post (reprinted in today's Saipan Tribune), Cheney is concerned about fishing and energy exploration around the northernmost islands of the Northern Marianas.

First Lady Laura Bush reportedly supports the proposed Marine Monument. According to the Post:

Claudia McMurray, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and science, said the administration will be "working up until the last week" of Bush's term on the initiatives.

"While it would take a significant amount of work, we haven't ruled it out," she said. "We feel fairly confident, scientifically, there are so many unique species in that area, from that standpoint, we think it's important to wall off as much as we can."

It's not Obama time yet.

That dog don't hunt

Sure, a lot of Republicans are looking for the last boat off of the Titanic, but why on earth would Vice President Dick Cheney endorse John McCain at the last minute? Does anyone think there's an undecided voter who's going to think 'well, if Dick says it's okay...'?

This seems like another Cheney hunting accident with McCain as the victim. Sure, he's still got his fans. So does George Bush: two people stood up for him in USSP last night. Those people have already made up their minds.

McCain is desperately trying to stay away from these associations. Oh, and according to Taegan Goddard, Barack Obama helpfully responded with "I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it."



Surprise, surprise, surprise -- Gomer Pyle

Now it's Hawaii

Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle claims Barack Obama is even "the other" in Hawaii: "Senator Obama likes to say he's from Hawaii. But, the truth is, I've never met him in my life."

Writer Paul Theroux disagrees in The Daily Beast.

She's met Theroux, though "I don’t have a lot of free time for reading," she is said to have said. See, there were other choices besides Sarah Palin.

Further proof that Obama is an elitist: I'm not familiar with Pico Iyer.

Election Night Lottery

Idly, I wonder if this is legal:

Ken --

I want you to be there with me on Election Night when the results come in.

We're planning a big event that will include tens of thousands of supporters in Grant Park in downtown Chicago.

We're saving some of the best seats in the house for 5 people who make their first donation to the campaign before Sunday at midnight.

If you're selected, you can bring a guest, and we'll fly you in and put you up in a hotel for the night. You'll go backstage at the big event and -- no matter what happens -- you'll have a front row seat to history as we celebrate the supporters who got us over the finish line.

Any donation counts -- whatever you can afford. Show your support at this crucial time with a donation of $5 or more, and you could join me on Election Night:

https://donate.barackobama.com/frontrow

This movement for change has been a testament to the power of ordinary Americans coming together to achieve extraordinary things.

I look forward to having you there on Election Night.

Thank you,

Barack

Biased news helps Obama campaign

WFTV's Barbara West defends her interview.

The Obama campaign disagrees.

And I disagree with both. That stuff is all over the web in some circles. The Obama campaign should use the interview in its advertising.

Mayberry BHO

The Audacity of Opie

Another Hollywood endorsement of Barack Obama. Only about an eight on the funny scale, but I like my pun.

I didn't know Andy Griffith was still around. Ron Howard's got some nice wigs.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

The new reality

My experiment with reality television is over.

I am proud that I have never watched a "reality" show for more than a few minutes... until the political debates.

It was fun: we got My BFF, followed by dancing Presidential candidates in Debate the Second. "Who's going to be the President?" got respectable ratings, but they have to refine the product.

I'm thinking sarcastic twits giving feedback throughout the performances. "That was pathetic. If you don't believe it why should I?" Ralph Nader and Bob Barr would have volunteered.

Forget the squiggles (worms to Aussies, I hear), let's have text-messaged votes.

It may seem that I don't take these beauty contests seriously. I don't. In, well, reality, why should I take anyone who hasn't made up their mind seriously? There's too much information if anything, and about distinct positions if you just filter out the polls and pundits.

Tupperware TV

Not only does Barack Obama seem to have better personal trainers, he's also figured a way to actually make the debates useful: Bring Your Own Ballot parties.

I've signed up for email notifications of his daily Talking Points (John McCain's website didn't give me that option) and one clever idea is Debate Parties. Combine that with early voting and you capture some of those 'real excited but gee I'm kind of busy on election day' voters. Don't sweat about it now, it will be overanalyzed for months after the election.

Gaming the system

There are those 18 ads in video game, of course, targeted at Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Colorado. It's all over the internet, especially tech-savvy sites.

That's probably the point, as one columnist astutely pointed out (I'd give him a shout, but I can't find his column again in all of the noise). A billboard in a racing game goes flying by; you're really not going to see it unless you want to.

The buzz is probably more important, and it still gets at the 18-34 year-olds he's trying to reach with the emphasis on registration and early voting. A smart move/ a lot of them are missed by other advertising and they're supposedly likely to favor him. Still, there's some rage at invading what are, after all, escapist worlds. He's more likely to pull it off than anyone trying it in future election cycles.


Extra inning

I can't be the only one laughing about ACORN News' pushing back the start of the World Series for Obama's half-hour show: "Sorry, John, but this is business."

Pizza pie charts

Food for thought: Domino's Pizza has its own poll when you order online. Has this gone too far? Are pollsters our new shamen?

With a few quibbles, it's close to most of the polls I've seen. Pollster.com had a little fun with this.

Who gets the all-important Philly Cheese Steak vote? Barack Obama and John McCain: "You got three weeks."

Obama the Arab

Here's an amazing video of the woman who John McCain corrected when she called Barack Obama an Arab.

Gayle Quinnel hasn't changed her mind.



Dementia and senility have been suggested since she's 75, and some pretty nasty names used in discussions.

That's an easy answer, but there seems to be more going on, like the sound of a mind slamming shut. McCain corrected her but that made no difference. She saw it "in the library" and in a pamphlet.

That's the dark side of our wiki-world: to some people all information is equal. We get to choose our facts.

From The Uptake: "This is an interview with her done by a live streaming cell phone. Interviewers include Noah Kunin, Senior Political Correspondent from The UpTake, Adam Aigner of NBC News and Dana Bash of CNN."

They have a transcript

Oh, maybe just whistle

Barack Obama and John McCain may be whistling in the dark when it comes to Iraq, and it's likely both candidates know it.

"Key aides" of each have been vetted (The veterinarian has checked their wind and teeth) and kept in the loop since summer. (President George Bush officially created a Transition Coordinating Council October 9.) They've probably heard much of what's in a draft National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. According to McClatchy Newspapers:

A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

I'd bet on both candidates ignoring it, unless McCain decides on yet another 'hail Mary' pass to revive his campaign. He has (or had) an edge on foreign affairs, but he's invested a lot in being right about the surge. For Obama, it would seriously threaten his 16 month deadline.

The article also provides less-than-optimistic statements from Gen. David Petraeus, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Defense Department.

The next President's to-do list isn't getting any shorter.

Media withdrawing

It's no surprise that government officials will filter the information they release, but at the same time most news organizations are doing their own pullout.

According to the Washington Post:

U.S. military officials say they "embedded" journalists 219 times in September 2007. Last month, the number shrank to 39. Of the dozen U.S. newspapers and newspaper chains that maintained full-time bureaus in Baghdad in the early years of the war, only four are still permanently staffed by foreign correspondents. CBS and NBC no longer keep a correspondent in Baghdad year-round.

Cynically, we could say that's because bombings sell advertising, while reconstruction and infighting over power won't make the front page. There's an election going on. It's also true that newspapers in particular are hurting, with several going out of business.

Whatever the reason, we're getting less information out of Iraq at a critical time.

The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in the any country. -- Rupert Murdoch, 2003

He will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of two to one. -- Rupert Murdoch, 2003

Obama challenges McCain on Ayers

Maybe we'll finally get an interesting debate.

Barack Obama has flung down the gauntlet on his alleged friendship with sixties radical Bill Ayers, challenging John McCain to make claims to his face. From ABC News:

"I am surprised that, you know, we've been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn't willing to say it to my face. But I guess we've got one last debate. So presumably, if he ends up feeling that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate."

Of course that would set up his argument that the attacks are "the centerpiece of the discussion in the closing weeks of a campaign where we are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and we're in the middle of two wars."

He's backing McCain into a corner.

Oh, and it's hard to accuse when you won't look at your opponent or even shake his hand (Courtesy JedReport)




UPDATE

Joe Biden repeats the party line on Ayers: “In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.”

McCain launches Ayers ad

Say it ain't so, John

Barack Obama wants this Charles Keating video filed under "Look what you made me do." Fair enough, in my book. Evidently it's been in the can, waiting for John McCain or his proxy to play the character card.

Sarah Palin led with McCain's chin, using a New York Times article on Bill Ayers to back this line "This is not a man who sees America as you and I do." McCain is following with "Who is the real Barack Obama?"

Well, negative sells to some voters, but McCain's Savings and Loan skeleton parallels the current sub-prime fiasco pretty closely. David Plouffe sent this link to me--and a few million others on Obama's list-- tipping us that it's going to be playing on keatingeconomics.com Monday.



Loose-lipped McCain operatives have admitted he's trying to divert attention from the economy (A surprising lack of discipline, but that's another subject.) The McCain advertising money does indeed seem to be going into negative ads, according to Talking Points Memo. TPM claims virtually 100% of his ad spending is for attacks, while Obama's is less than half. Of course, since Obama has more resources, "The remaining million per week" cited by TPM is the same amount spent by McCain.