Subject: Re: today's update
From: "Begala, Paul" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 20:13:11 -0400

Great news!  Just used the info on a donor. Thanks a million...literally! 

----- Original Message -----
From: Tara McGuinness <[email-masked]>
To: 'David Brock' <[email-masked]>; Begala, Paul; 'John Podesta' <[email-masked]>; 'Stanley Greenberg' <[email-masked]>
Cc: 'Tom Matzzie' <[email-masked]>; [email-masked] <[email-masked]>; 'Susan McCue' <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thu May 01 19:21:22 2008
Subject: today's update 

We have had a HUGE day with McCain and the earned media.  If you need some up-to-date nuggets for any cocktail parties at the DA to show-off  our work inside a media cycle, here is a quick run down.

Mission Accomplished?

We have been working with partners (CAPAF, AU, USAction, Moveon) to highlight today “Mission Accomplished?” day, the 5 year anniversary of when Bush wore a flight suit on the air craft carrier.  We worked to  link McCain’s quotes about the banner and his support of the war to Bush.

-ADS/VIDEOS. Moveon put an add on the air tying the two of their rosy statements about Iraq to compete with McCain’s new ad buy in IA, we launched a similar video which super-imposed McCain on Bush’s photo on the air craft carrier (with quotes of McCain saying 

-EVENTS. In battle ground states and here in DC (at the White House) we worked with partners on more than 200 “mission accomplished?” events.  At the White House we unveiled a 50 foot “Mission Accomplished?”  “100 years in Iraq?” banner that ran on CNN, MSNBC and on the ABC Evening news tonight.

-RESEARCH. We circulated footage of McCain talking about “mission accomplished” – there was a great AP wire story about it.

Earmark Hypocrisy

Every day McCain talks tough about how he will eliminate all earmarks.  Everyday this week his campaign events have been at hospitals and research centers (all made possible by earmarks -earmarks that he voted against).  We pointed out the hypocrisy of this and got reporters to finally ask him about it- McCain got tangled up in his own words and said he didn’t mean “all earmarks are bad.”  There were 2 wire stories today based on our research and the WSJ is working on a longer, in-depth piece on McCain’s earmark dilemma (part 2 of this story is about how this implodes his budget plan.)

McCain Forced to Back Away from MN Bridge Collapse Remarks

Yesterday, McCain re-asserted that the MN bridge collapse was because of pork barrel projects, we teamed up with the Alliance for Better Minnesota to make hay of those remarks and to send MN reporters our research about McCain repeatedly making similar remarks about the bridge. Today Gov. Pawlenty backed away from McCain’s remarks and he was criticized in MN for “politicizing” the collapse of the bridge.  Finally, McCain backed away from his statements and the AP reported on the back and forth. We have a whole program to continue to hammer him for this.

On a side note ****McCain, Asked About Calling his Wife a Really Really Bad Name, Doesn’t Deny it

WSJ: McCain Refuses to Answer a Town Hall Question <http://feeds.wsjonline.com/%7Er/wsj/washwire/feed/%7E3/281667702/> 

In Campaign 2008 

Laura Meckler reports on the presidential race from Des Moines, Iowa.

Sen. John McCain finally got a question at a town hall meeting that he refused to answer. 

John McCain speaks during a town hall meeting in Des Moines, Iowa (Associated Press)

A man stood and, referring to an anecdote in a new anti-McCain book, asked the Republican presidential candidate if he had actually used a crude epithet in addressing his wife. The questioner used the word; we won't.

"There's people here who don't respect that kind of language so I'll move on to the next question," McCain said to a smattering of applause.

Later, another questioner said, "I want to apologize for the one individual. That's not indicative of what we as Iowans are all about." More applause.

McCain replied: "I understand and most importantly, you do, too."

The original questioner was referencing the recently released anti-McCain book, "The Real McCain," by Cliff Schecter, who reports that McCain blew up at his wife, Cindy, in front of Arizona reporters during his 1992 re-election campaign to the Senate. Schecter, who chronicles a number of alleged events where McCain's temper flared, wrote that McCain called his wife a "trollop" and another term, one of the crudest words used to refer to women.

McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said the incident was "complete fabrication and the book is trash journalism."

 

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MCCAIN_BRIDGE_COLLAPSE?SITE=FLROC&amp;SECTION=POLITICS&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2008-05-01-16-34-07 <http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MCCAIN_BRIDGE_COLLAPSE?SITE=FLROC&amp;SECTION=POLITICS&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2008-05-01-16-34-07>

 

 CLEVELAND (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Thursday backed off his assertion that pork-barrel spending led to last year's deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

With Democrats criticizing him for citing wasteful spending as the cause of the disaster, McCain told reporters in Cleveland, "No, I said it would have received a higher priority, which it deserved."

That statement was in contrast to McCain's remarks to reporters aboard his campaign bus as it rolled through Pennsylvania on Wednesday: "The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects."

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board suspect a design flaw - undersize steel plates - and heavy loads of construction materials as the cause of the disaster Aug. 1, according to preliminary findings.

Democrats accused McCain of using a tragedy that killed 13 people and injured 145 others to make a political point.

 "The last thing we need is a misinformed presidential aspirant posturing at our expense," said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., said, "He is manipulating a tragedy that took 13 lives in order to advance his election campaign."

Even Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota said McCain was wrong.

"The bridge didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money," Coleman said during a conference call with reporters.

"I understand Senator McCain's deep concern about earmarks," he said. "In this instance, I simply think he's wrong if he somehow ties the collapse of the bridge to a funding issue. Let's get the full data."

The remarks also put Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty - a national co-chairman of McCain's campaign and potential vice presidential running mate - in an awkward position. In January, Pawlenty had admonished critics to "quit exploiting the bridge tragedy to advance their political agenda."

Pawlenty struck a more cautious tone Thursday. "I don't know what he's basing that on, other than the general premise that projects got misprioritized throughout time," he said. "We have to let the NTSB weigh in on this before anybody can make a final conclusion."

On Thursday, McCain said he was worried most about safety.

"All I can do to respond to those critics is, my job is to make America as safe as possible," he told reporters. "My job is to prevent those tragedies, such as the canal that was dug in New Orleans that brought the hurricane up and did more damage to New Orleans."

The New Orleans project was paid for with a congressional "earmark," funding that lawmakers slip into spending bills outside of the regular funding process.

McCain promises to rid the federal budget of earmarks if he is elected, because he says earmarks take money away from much-needed transportation projects and other priorities.

"And I maintain, again, that I believe that when we fund a bridge to Alaska, fund a highway in Florida that the people there don't even want, then money is diverted from that much-needed project," he said.

"Do I know specifically whether it would have replaced that bridge in Minneapolis? No, but I know that funding would have been available for higher-priority projects," he said.

When he made the earlier statement, McCain was criticizing Democratic rival Barack Obama for opposing his idea of a summer holiday from federal gas taxes. The other Democratic candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, supports the proposal.

Obama opposes it because federal gas taxes go into a highway fund for building roads and bridges.

"Remember that bridge in Minneapolis?" Obama said in Indiana last week. "We're already short on money in terms of investing."