2008 Presidential Race

On the Democratic side:
The Democratic debate last night had a few zingers, but was for the most part pretty sedate. Most reviews I have read have the debate really close, with Hillary slightly ahead on points, but certainly nothing that will change the current state of the race.

There have been a lot of questions lately about how far Hillary will go if Obama continues to be ahead or increases his lead in delegates. I think her last statement of the debate is very telling about her future actions: “And, you know, no matter what happens in this contest -- and I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored. Whatever happens, we're going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends. I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that's what this election should be about.”

On the Republican side:
The big news continues to be the fallout from the NY Times ethics story about McCain. So far, the right has lined up behind McCain to attack the Times. However, I’ve read several pundits who think that further information will be revealed about McCain’s relationship with the lobbyist by either the Times or another organization.

Newsweek discusses the facts behind the story here.

Finally, another interesting article from Newsweek: The End of Conservatism.

2008 Presidential Race - Follow-up

I mentioned earlier that the general consensus was that more information would be coming out about the McCain-lobbyist story.  Surprisingly, the first such information isn't coming from one of the anonymous sources, but McCain himself.

Newsweek has a deposition by McCain from a 5-year old lawsuit that contradicts some of his denials that his campaign made yesterday.  Specifically, the campaign sent out a statement that said, "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC."  Alcalde & Fay was the company that the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, worked for, and Paxson Communications was the company she represented.  McCain had sent 2 letters in 1999 to the FEC to support letting Paxson buy a Pittsburgh television station.

But in the deposition, McCain states that he was contacted by Mr. Paxson himself about this issue.  Further, as the article states, "McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could 'possibly be an appearance of corruption'-even though McCain denied doing anything improper."

So far only Newsweek and MSNBC have reported this, but I expect we will we hear much more about it before the day is through.