“I think that the Republican party has to discuss this issue in as humane way as possible,” he said. He later added, “the enthusiasm on the part of Hispanics for President Obama is dramatically less than it was in 2008, because he has not fulfilled his campaign promises either. So I view the Hispanic vote up for grabs.”

McCain comment, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” is a warning to the GOP primary candidates who have mostly embraced a hardline on immigration, lest they be accused of supporting any kind of “amnesty” for the some 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S. Newt Gingrich was most recently attacked by his opponents for saying he would grant legal status to those with longstanding family and community ties; he has since endorsed a South Carolina law that allows police to demand a person’s immigration status.

McCain said he believes the Hispanic vote could sway Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. The key, he said, was for Republicans to address immigration in a humane and pragmatic way that every voter could appreciate. More specifically, McCain said, GOP presidential candidates should find a way to address the status of illegal immigrants already in the country while finding a way to secure the border to deter others from crossing the border.

“It’s a careful balance of addressing this issue, which I think the majority of Hispanics would appreciate. . . . We have to have empathy. We have to have concern. We have to have a plan,” he said.

In 2008, McCain watched his own standing in the election suffer when he backed a plan to give some illegal immigrants an eventual path to citizenship.

Gingrich has challenged his GOP opponents to come up with their own plans for dealing with the millions inside the U.S. illegally.

“What is it that you’re going to do? Are you really going to go in and advocate ripping people out of their families?” he said.

In 2008, Mitt Romney had supported the idea of allowing some illegal immigrants to sign up for permanent residency or citizenship. More recently, he has said it would be a “mistake” for the GOP to allow anyone to “jump ahead of the line” and characterized Gingrich’s approach as a “doorway” to amnesty.

In the interview Sunday, McCain declined to comment on the position of individual candidates. “I respect the views of the voters,” he said.

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Also See:Romney Takes Swipe At Gingrich

“I’d rather have [silence] McCain was consistent, he was [silence] we have Romney and Gingrich [silence],” she said, before realizing she had been bleeped and asking, “what did I say? Douchebag?”

To hear her speak like that about someone in her own party is not entirely shocking to some.  Shes had a long record of being disrespectful of many Democrats.  Not too long ago she was quoted as saying:

“I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”

As if that was not enough, Ms. Coulter took it to an entirely new level and went onto go after late Senator and political icon Ted Kennedy:

” Speaking again about Romney’s repeated policy shifts, she said, ‘I mean, you’re flipping from positions you held when you came within five points of taking out that human pestilence. Come on, give the guy a break!’”

After her most recent comments against Ted Kennedy and McCain, it will be interesting to see what leaders from within the Republican Party condemn her remarks.  Do you think Ann Coulter has burned a bridge within her own party?  What are the limits of “shock talk” if any? Tell us what you think!  Read the complete story on Ann Coulter in the Huffington Post.

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President Barack Obama signs the New START Treaty, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON — Now, more than two years after clashing as campaign rivals, President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain are putting their relationship on defrost and searching for some common ground.

Obama and McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential contender, met privately for half an hour Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office, the outcome of outreach between the two after the Arizona shooting spree that seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords last month.

“We talked about a wide variety of issues,” McCain said later. “Obviously we talked about immigration, we talked about Egypt, we talked about fiscal issues.”

Aides to both men said the discussion centered on areas where they have shared goals, an indication of repositioning by both the president and the senator in the aftermath of the 2010 midterm elections.

Obama contacted McCain after the Arizona senator wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post praising Obama’s remarks at a Jan. 12 memorial observance in Tucson for victims of the Jan. 8 attack that left six people dead and 13 injured.

The meeting hardly signals a new friendship. There were tough words exchanged during the presidential campaign in 2008 and hard feelings lingered well after. During a bipartisan meeting on health care in early 2010, Obama pointedly rebuffed McCain’s complaints that health care legislation was being written “behind closed doors.” Said Obama: “Let me just say this John, because we’re not campaigning anymore. The election’s over.”

On Wednesday, McCain said his relationship with Obama has “always been cordial.”

“We look forward to working on some of the issues we discussed,” he said.

Asked how often they would confer, McCain joked, “Every morning.” He added that more meetings were likely in the future, “but they really depend on the issues.”

The White House, in a recap of the meeting, said that the two discussed ways to reduce the deficit and that the president thanked McCain for his longstanding opposition to earmarks, the special spending provisions for pet projects that Obama has said he will oppose in future legislation.

Last year, McCain ran for re-election as a tough conservative, a reflection of the tea party movement that was sweeping the country. But McCain’s stance seemed like an odd fit for a politician who made his reputation as a maverick who broke with his party on a number of issues.

“While, yes, it seems as though the relationship has thawed a bit, the fact is that these issues on the table are issues of mutual interest,” McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said.

Not all was perfect harmony between the two on Wednesday.

Following the meeting, McCain called for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to transfer power to a caretaker government immediately, saying the conditions in Egypt were deteriorating too quickly. The Obama administration has taken pains to avoid calling on Mubarak to step down immediately, urging instead for a swift transition to a new government.

Later, McCain said he did not tell Obama that he would call for Mubarak’s to relinquish the presidency. “I did not want to connect it to our meeting,” he said. “We did discuss the overall situation, but I didn’t argue for any position. The president makes his decisions. So I didn’t want to act like I was influencing his. But obviously we share the same concern.”

Washington (FinancialTimes)– According to the Financial Times, George W. Bush told a group of British dignitaries who asked him about his preference of candidates in the 2008 presidential election between Barack Obama and John McCain, that he would’ve endorsed Obama if Obama asked him to. When asked about McCain they claim he said:

Not a chance. “I probably won’t even vote for the guy,” Bush told the group, according to two people present. “I had to endorse him. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me.”

Read The Whole Story

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WASHINGTON — The embattled head of the GOP isn’t getting an endorsement from Sen. John McCain.

McCain says party chairman Michael Steele’s recent comments about the Afghanistan war are “wildly inaccurate” and inexcusable.

The Arizona Republican says Steele needs to assess whether he can still function in his job and must make “an appropriate decision” about his future.

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At a recent GOP fundraiser, Steele called the U.S. commitment of troops in Afghanistan a mistaken “war of Obama’s choosing.”

The war began after the Sept. 11 attacks, when George W. Bush was president. McCain tells ABC’s “This Week” that it’s “America’s war and we can’t afford to fail.”

Some Republicans want Steele to resign because of his remarks.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will send 1,200 National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border, an administration official and an Arizona congresswoman said Tuesday, pre-empting Republican plans to try to force votes on such a deployment.

Obama will also request $500 million for border protection and law enforcement activities, they said.

The National Guard troops will work on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support, analysis and training, and support efforts blocking drug trafficking. The troops will temporarily supplement border patrol agents until Customs and Border Patrol can recruit and train additional officers and agents to serve on the border, the administration official said.

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The official, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of a public announcement, disclosed the plans shortly after Obama met at the Capitol with Republican senators who pressed him on immigration issues including the question of sending Guard troops to the border.

Arizona Republican Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl have been urging such a move and Republicans planned to try to attach it as an amendment to a pending war spending bill.

In a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor, McCain said the situation on the border has “greatly deteriorated.” He called for 6,000 National Guard troops to be sent to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I appreciate the additional 1,200 being sent … as well as an additional $500 million, but it’s simply not enough,” McCain said.

WATCH coverage of Obama’s troop decision here:

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Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, said in a statement that the administration would announce the deployments later in the day Tuesday.

Homeland Security and Pentagon officials have been jousting over the possible National Guard deployment for the better part of a year. Pentagon officials worried about perceptions that the U.S. was militarizing the border and did not want Guard troops to perform law enforcement duties.

Members of the National Guard are civilians who train once a week and one month during the summer in units that can be mobilzed for military duty or emergency relief.

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LONGMONT, Colo. — Westward, uh-oh.

For Democrats, the newly minted crossover voters who helped elect Barack Obama president in 2008 are displaying a rugged individualist streak and echoing tea party-type distrust of all things Washington. This is haunting the party as it struggles to keep control of Congress.

Consider the perspective of Kevin Ladd.

Hundreds of Democrats crowded the stage recently in this northern Colorado town to see Vice President Joe Biden promote a factory expansion. But not Ladd, who sat on the back bumper of an electric vehicle outside the auditorium.

Ladd invested in the company that helped make the car and came to celebrate the expansion, financed in part by a federal stimulus grant. But the 47-year-old homebuilder says his business is down, and after abandoning his lifelong Republican affiliation to vote for Obama two years ago, Ladd isn’t sure about Democrats this year.

RELATED: An Open Letter To Swing Voters

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“I think a lot of swing voters are questioning their decision,” Ladd said. “President Obama promised change. I wish we saw more change.”

Democrats in the West are struggling to keep these new voters who helped the party turn Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico from Republican to Democratic in the presidential election just months after the party’s national convention in Denver. Westerners who also helped elect a raft of Democrats to the House and Senate now appear to be wavering.

They’re worried about federal spending. They’re anxious about a new health care law in a region where a doctor can be several hours’ drive away. They’re afraid that Democrats’ climate-change proposals will kill jobs in oil and gas fields. Illegal immigration dominates the debate, and opponents of Arizona’s new immigration law don’t see a salient alternative coming from Democrats.

Vulnerable Democrats can be found in every Western state:

_Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada is trailing in polls in his bid for a fifth term. The state’s home foreclosure rate is the highest, and the unemployment rate of 13.7 percent in April is above the national average – scary numbers for any incumbent.

_Democrats hold both of Colorado’s Senate seats for the first time since the 1970s. Sen. Michael Bennet, who was appointed to office to replace Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was outpolled by challenger Andrew Romanoff at a state Democratic assembly last weekend, a result that party officials said they anticipated. The two will meet in a primary Aug. 10. The winner will probably face former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton.

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_Colorado Rep. Betsy Markey, who joined Biden on the factory visit, ousted a three-term Republican in 2008, but the GOP still holds a registration advantage in her sprawling district. Markey’s votes in favor of the health care overhaul and a cap-and-trade climate plan could cost her in November.

_In southern New Mexico, Rep. Harry Teague voted against the health care overhaul but has been dogged by criticism over health insurance. As Congress was debating the plan, Teague dropped employer-based health coverage for 250 of his employees at Cavaloz Energy. Now Teague faces Republican former Rep. Steve Pearce, who gave up the seat that spans southern New Mexico to run for the Senate in 2008.

_Republicans think they can regain an Idaho district they narrowly lost in 2008. Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick has won an endorsement from the right-leaning Tea Party Express, the lone Democrat getting the group’s backing. But Minnick is the first Democrat Idahoans have sent to Congress since 1992. The GOP chooses a challenger Tuesday.

_Arizona Reps. Harry Mitchell, Ann Kirkpatrick and Gabrielle Giffords are all in their first or second terms and represent districts that chose Republicans John McCain and George W. Bush in the last two presidential contests.

The outlook has even left-leaning activists worried that the Democrats may be in for some tough losses this fall.

“We’re not really Democrat, we’re not really Republican. We’re independent, and we want results,” said Bobby Clark, head of the Denver-based ProgressNow Colorado group, a liberal group that played a role in turning out voters for Obama two years ago.

RELATED: POLL: Obama’s 1st Year Most Polarized Of Any President

Clark says it’s “absolutely possible” for Democrats to hold onto Western gains this campaign season. But he concedes that Democrats have their work cut out for them to keep Westerners engaged after two years of partisan wrangling in Congress.

“We’ve all had a front-row seat to the sausage-making in D.C., and that’s frustrating for people out here. They worked hard, they helped elect a Democratic majority and they want to see change,” Clark said.

Republicans insist that Westerners are so turned off by Democratic rule in Washington that they’ll swing hard to the right this fall. Joanna Burgos, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee whose district includes the interior West, said Republicans here are finding swing voters alarmed with the Democrats they’ve helped elect.

“The momentum in the West is different,” said Burgos. “People in the West are a little more independent, and they’re not as open to the government getting involved in their lives, from health care to energy. They’re seeing government intrusion, and they don’t like it.”

In her pitch to voters, Markey talks about her real-world experience.

At a Denver fundraiser with Biden after the factory visit, Markey highlighted her background as owner of a coffee-and-ice-cream shop and said voters here are more interested in thoughtful lawmakers, not partisan ones.

“I think that when people try to see the world through the tinged glasses of Democrat or Republican, that becomes an excuse to throw away critical thinking,” she said.

RELATED: Republicans Falter In Outreach To Blacks & Hispanics

From HuffingtonPost.com:

For the past few months, Sen. John McCain’s reelection campaign has operated on the assumption that if it can depict primary challenger J.D. Hayworth as fundamentally unserious, voters will recoil.

On Monday, the senator kept at it, releasing a new web ad — presented in the form of a spot created and approved by Hayworth himself — that can best be described as a “greatest hits” list of bizarre and brash statements by the former representative.

Billed as “A Special Message from J.D. Hayworth,” it paints the Tea-Party-favored Senate aspirant as someone more interested in confirming President Obama’s birth in Kenya (and stopping man-on-horse marriages) than tackling serious issues. In between, there are gratuitous references to Dracula, space aliens, and a Radar magazine article calling Hayworth one of the least bright members of Congress.

Click here to read more.

WATCH ad here:

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Sarah Palin has a new book. In the book she ignores to mention the fact that for a good deal of her political career, she was a member of  or closely affiliated with a radical secessionist Alaskan political party known as the AKIP. In this picture, Palin is holding a brochure with the title Con-Con Call.  This is short for the Constituitional Convention, an AKIP event. I believe the man in the picture is Joe Vogler, the founder of the AKIP. According to the New York Times, Vogler was killed in a plastic explosives deal gone wrong. Why did he want plastic explosives?

Here are a few quotes from the founder of the party, Joe Vogler:

‘The fires of hell are frozen glaciers (or cool breezes, per the Chairman of the Party, Lynette Clark) compared to my hatred for the American government.’

‘I’m an Alaskan first. Not an American. I have no use for America and her damned institutions.’

Palin tried to cover up her association with AKIP, even proposing to lie about her husband’s membership in the group to McCain advisers. Still Palin’s connections to the group are deeper than just being the wife of a member. For years members of the group considered her a member.

Here’s Video Evidence that Palin Was Sympthetic to if not a Member of AKIP

Former head of the AKIP, Mark Chryson, who seems to be a genuine right wing lunatic, had kind words to say about Palin ‘I have known her for over 15 years, been in her house and have had numerous conversations with her, in person, on the phone both for personal issues as well as political issues.’

Last year, I interviewed the head of the AKIP about Palin’s involvement. They seemed very uneasy and said they had received death threats and threatening letters regarding the situation. When I asked if Sarah Palin was a member, they said they thought she was until someone told them she wasn’t. When I asked who told them she wasn’t a member, they said they couldn’t reveal their source. When I asked if Sarah Palin was ever ‘sympathetic’ to their cause, they said, ‘no comment’.

They clearly seemed too afraid to speak and seemed, clearly, to be hiding something. If she was not member of the AKIP, she was definitely pallin’ around with them.

Below is a transcript from my interview with the Chairman of the AKIP, Lynette Clark(LC)
CG: Why did you change the website?

LC: I am telling you that as chairman of this party, when this all blew, and I realized that it was incorrect information, I submitted a press release. I made the changes to the site.

CG: Did she attend the convention? Did Sarah Palin attend any conventions?

LC: She was (sigh) — you guys muckrake all over the place.

CG: I’m just curious. I’m investigating…

Anon: She attended the 2006 Convention which was held in Wassilla, and it was a state-wide convention which is a bi-annual function.

CG: Okay.

LC: She took up the invitation that was given to all gubernatorial candidates which we have done for many years to have them come and speak to our memberships. It’s so we can have an idea of who these candidates are and what they stand for.

CG: In 2008, she had a video address. Correct?

LC: In 2008 she sent the convention — which was held here in Fairbanks, and you cannot attribute Dexter’s comment to that convention because that’s not when she was there…

CG: Have you had any contact with Sarah Palin or John McCain?

LC: I’ve had no contact from the McCain camp……. I apologized too for my misspeaking and I’ve been getting slammed with everything, including death threats.

CG: That’s horrible.

LC: That is bad. And since our first chairman was kidnapped and murdered, I don’t take threats lightly.

CG: No I know. I heard about the Joseph Vogler thing and it’s another thing I’d like to ask about. NY Times did say he was killed in a plastic explosives deal gone bad. I know NY Times.

LC: NY Times don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

CG: Okay, that’s why I’m contacting you guys.

LC: He was shot in the back of the head with a bullet lodged in the left side of his jaw.

CG: Could you give me some background on that?

LC: Ask the Alaska state troopers about that.

CG: So what was the motivation for you taking it off? Just because of …you didn’t like seeing Sarah Palin being slandered?

LC: The motivation of taking what off? All I did was add to that page, and what I added to that page was factual. What’s factual is “Welcome to the home of the Alaskan Independence Party. Update September 3rd, 2008.” And it has been brought to our attention that there is a counterfeit site.

CG: In terms of your philosophy…I’d like to run some quotes by you. Vogler? Is that correct? I believe he said something to the effect of “the fires of hell are glaciers of ice compared to my hatred of the U.S.”

LC: That is an absolutely incorrect quote from Mr. Vogler.

CG: So why is it on your website?

LC: “The fires of hell would be COOL BREEZES…”

CG: Cool breezes, I’m sorry.

LC: Cool breezes — it was a video — cool breezes compared to what the founding fathers tried to build of this country. Listen to it a little closer. And that hatred for the American government is about fascism.

CG: And this is a quote I have from your website, it says: “I am an Alaskan first, not an American. I have no use for America or her damned institutions.”

LC: Yup. Yup. That’s true. Because those institutions are corporate partnerships that the government — and that is the finite definition of fascism.

CG: So Dexter believed he heard from friends that she was a member?

LC: Both of us did. Over a year ago.

CG: You heard it as well that she used to be a member?

LC: Both of us over a year ago were told.

CG: Were told that she was a member…

LC: By an individual that we knew and trusted.

CG: When did you find out that she wasn’t a member?

LC: I am not involved in that because there’s enough sewer laying around that.

CG: So no one can divulge who told she wasn’t a member?

LC: I know who it was. I’m not going to divulge it myself.

CG: But you could say who DID say she was a member. Can I talk to that person?

LC: No I’m not going to tell you who said that.

CG: But Todd Palin was a member from 1995-2002?

Anon: That’s what was on T.V. That’s what the Division of Elections says.

CG: Right.

LC: Because that’s where we get our information.

CG: So they say that Todd Palin was a member but Sarah Palin…

LC: Was not.

LC: Because she didn’t vote but did you feel like she was sympathetic to any of your views?

LC: I’m not going to comment on that.

CG: Why not?

LC: Because it turns into a bunch of garbage again.

CG: Okay. I’m just curious. I’m trying to get objective things. I actually don’t have any problem with you guys wanting to secede from the Union.

LC: We don’t wanna secede from the Union. What we want is what we were entitled to and that is a plebiscite, which is an archaic word for a vote. As Alaska came into the Union we were classified by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory. And within that classification, there was a criterion of the United Nations that said that once these territories — and this was at attempt to end colonialism throughout the world and not just the United States but other major countries like France, Britain etc. who had colonies –but when those territories had reached a level within the criteria of self-government, we were required to be given a ballot that didn’t just say statehood up or down. It said that we were supposed to have four choices and that’s on the website.

CG: I’ve researched you guys and I don’t think you’re a bad organization.

LC: It’s our own political destiny that we should as Americans, period, have a right to. I’m trying to end the conversation, only because I have some place to go to.

CG:. I just want to know who told you she wasn’t a member.

LC: I’m not going to tell you that.

CG: You’re not going to tell me? Why not?

Glenn Beck thinks President Obama is better for the country than John McCain would have been, he said in an interview with Katie Couric to air at CBSNews.com Tuesday evening.

“I think John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama,” Beck told Couric in the debut episode of her new web show, @katiecouric.

Beck’s comment came in response to Couric’s question about Hillary Clinton, who Beck said he may have even voted for had she been the Democratic nominee against John McCain.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Beck said, “I think I would have much preferred [Hillary Clinton] as president and may have voted for her against John McCain.”

The Senate urged President Barack Obama Wednesday to pardon the late black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who was sent to prison nearly a century ago because of his romantic ties with a white woman.

Senators approved the resolution by voice vote; it now goes to the House.

Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion in 1908 – 100 years before Obama was elected the nation’s first black president. The boxer was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes. The law has since been heavily amended, but has not been repealed.

The resolution was sponsored by Obama’s 2008 opponent, Arizona Republican John McCain. Similar resolutions offered in 2004 and last year failed to pass both chambers of Congress.

“One down, one to go,” said the House sponsor, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., in a telephone interview Wednesday night. “The fact that John got it through the Senate is great.”

He said that there would be “tremendous historic significance” in the nation’s first black president pardoning the nation’s first black heavyweight champ. King added that he hoped the House will take up the resolution early next month.

Neither McCain nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment Wednesday night. But in unveiling the resolution in April, McCain said, “We need to erase this act of racism which sent an American citizen to prison on a trumped-up charge.”

He also said he was sure that Obama would sign the legislation.

McCain and King are advocating the pardon along with filmmaker Ken Burns, whose 2005 documentary, “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson,” explored the case against Johnson and the sentencing judge’s admitted desire to “send a message” to black men about relationships with white women. Burns helped form the Committee to Pardon Jack Johnson, which filed a petition with the Justice Department in 2004 that was never acted on.

The resolution approved Wednesday says that the boxer should receive a posthumous pardon “for the racially motivated conviction in 1913 that diminished the athletic, cultural, and historic significance of Jack Johnson and unduly tarnished his reputation.” It says a pardon would “expunge a racially motivated abuse of the prosecutorial authority of the federal government from the annals of criminal justice in the United States.”

Johnson, a native of Galveston, Texas, won the 1908 world heavyweight title after police in Australia stopped his 14-round match against the severely battered Canadian world champion, Tommy Burns. That led to a search for a “Great White Hope” who could beat Johnson. Two years later, Jim Jeffries, the American world titleholder Johnson had tried for years to fight, came out of retirement but lost in a match called “The Battle of the Century,” resulting in deadly riots.

From Politics Daily.com:

If things had gone differently…..

John McCain, the oldest first-term president in history, is proving as rambunctious and pugnacious as the youngest one, Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, Teddy probably would have sent the Marines to Venezuela, while McCain had to make do with mugging for the cameras with an exaggerated grimace when he was forced by protocol to shake Hugo Chavez’s hand at the recent hemispheric summit.

Click here to read more about what McCain’s first 100 days would look like.

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What If McCain Won? CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED!!

Check Out a Gallery of Obama’s First 100 Days

Sen. John McCain wants a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, who became the nation’s first black heavyweight boxing champion 100 years before Barack Obama became its first black president.

McCain feels Johnson was wronged by a 1913 conviction of violating the Mann Act by having a consensual relationship with a white woman — a conviction widely seen as racially motivated.

“I’ve been a very big fight fan, I was a mediocre boxer myself,” McCain, R-Ariz., said in a telephone interview. “I had admired Jack Johnson’s prowess in the ring. And the more I found out about him, the more I thought a grave injustice was done.”

On Wednesday, McCain will join Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., filmmaker Ken Burns and Johnson’s great niece, Linda Haywood, at a Capitol Hill news conference to unveil a resolution urging a presidential pardon for Johnson. Similar legislation offered in 2004 and last year failed to pass both chambers of Congress.

King, a recreational boxer, said a pardon would “remove a cloud that’s been over the American sporting scene ever since (Johnson) was convicted on these trumped-up charges.”

“I think the moment is now,” King said.

Presidential pardons for the dead are rare.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton pardoned Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the Army’s first black commissioned officer, who was drummed out of the military in 1882 after white officers accused him of embezzling $3,800 in commissary funds. Last year, President George W. Bush pardoned Charles Winters, who was convicted of violating the Neutrality Act when he conspired in 1948 to export aircraft to a foreign country in aid of Israel.

The Justice Department and the White House declined to comment on this latest Johnson pardon effort.

However, the idea has a passionate supporter in McCain, who has repeatedly said he was wrong in 1983 when he voted against a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

“It’s just one of those things that you don’t want to quit until you see justice,” McCain said of Johnson’s case. “We won’t quit until we win. And I believe that enough members, if you show them the merits of this issues, that we’ll get the kind of support we need.”

Johnson won the world heavyweight title on Dec. 26, 1908, after police in Australia stopped his 14-round match against the severely battered Canadian world champion, Tommy Burns. That led to a search for a “Great White Hope” who could beat Johnson. Two years later, the American world titleholder Johnson had tried for years to fight, Jim Jeffries, came out of retirement but lost in a match called “The Battle of the Century,” resulting in deadly riots.

Johnson lost the heavyweight title to Jess Willard in 1915.

In 1913, Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act, which outlawed transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes. The law has since been heavily amended, but has not been repealed.

Authorities first targeted Johnson’s relationship with a white woman who later became his wife, then found another white woman to testify against him. Johnson fled the country after his conviction, but agreed years later to return and serve a 10-month jail sentence. He tried to renew his boxing career after leaving prison, but failed to regain his title. He died in a car crash in 1946 at age 68.

“When we couldn’t beat him in the ring, the white power establishment decided to beat him in the courts,” Burns told the AP in a telephone interview. Burns’ 2005 documentary, “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson,” examined Johnson’s case and the sentencing judge’s admitted desire to “send a message” to black men about relationships with white women.

Both McCain and King said a pardon, particularly one from Obama, would carry important symbolism.

“It would be indicative of the distance we’ve come, and also indicative of the distance we still have to go,” McCain said.

Burns, however, sees a pardon more as “just a question of justice, which is not only blind, but color blind,” adding, “And I think it absolutely does not have anything to do with the symbolism of an African-American president pardoning an African-American unjustly accused.”

Burns helped form the Committee to Pardon Jack Johnson, which filed a petition with the Justice Department in 2004 that was never acted on. Burns said he spoke about the petition a couple of times with Bush, who as governor of Johnson’s home state of Texas proclaimed Johnson’s birthday as “Jack Johnson Day” for five straight years.

Bush gave Burns a phone number which led to adviser Karl Rove, Burns said, but Rove told him a pardon “ain’t gonna fly.”

Rove doesn’t recall any such conversation with Burns, his spokeswoman Sheena Tahilramani said, and “if he had been approached, he wouldn’t have offered an opinion.”

John McCain recently defended Rush Limbaugh in an interview with Fox News.He was asked on what he thought about Obama telling republicans to stop listening to Limbaugh.

Watch the Video

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From Peter Wallsten at LATimes.com:

Republicans signaled Sunday that they would not be daunted by President Obama’s soaring approval ratings, criticizing his proposed $825-billion economic stimulus plan, his strategy for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay and his decision to exempt a top-ranking Pentagon appointee from new ethics rules.

Some of the sharpest criticism came from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the party’s challenger to Obama in the election and the recipient of aggressive outreach as part of the new president’s efforts to forge an image of bipartisanship.

Click here for the full post.

I truly believe that we dodged a serious bullet this year with the election of Barack Obama. While I cannot say for certain what would’ve happened if John McCain had won the election this year, here is an educated guess at what might have happened if the philosophies and attitudes of John McCain and Sarah Palin were brought into the current political climate of the US and the world.

November 3rd: McCain airs his Reverend Wright ads in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Sean Hannity plays the infamous “Whitey Tape” from Michelle Obama in which a woman reported to be Michelle Obama says “Whitey is so dumb, he about to elect my light-skinned husband to be president, so we can take over the country, make it socialist, and give away all the white jobs to our Black friends and pal around with terrorists.”

November 4th: Despite leading in the polls and decisively winning the popular vote, Obama loses both Pennsylvania and Ohio due to faulty voting machines in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. There are reports of voter suppression and intimidation in Virginia, Georgia, Ohio and North Carolina.

November 5th: At 2 a.m., Fox News calls the election for McCain. Obama and the Democrats call for a recount. Tensions erupt across the country as  police clash with protesters. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson make public pleas to the government to stop police brutality against the non-violent protesters. The New York Times reveals the Michelle Obama “Whitey” tape to be a fraud.

December 12th: McCain claims that the military will back him if the high court makes Obama president by decree, McCain. Barack Obama, fearing a civil war, concedes the election. The Supreme Court rules that Barack Obama’s request for a recount is illegal.

December 13th: Massive protests erupt in New York, L.A., Detroit and Philadelphia against McCain stealing the election. A twelve-year-old girl is shot in the back of the head by police in Philadelphia during a protest. Barack Obama addresses the nation and gives what the media calls “the speech of a lifetime,” telling his supporters not to give in to violence and to work to build a better America.

December 20th: McCain names Joe Lieberman Secretary of State, General Petraeus Secretary of Defense, advisor Charlie Black Director of Commerce, and Elizabeth Hasslebeck Press Secretary.

December 22: McCain gives his economic plan to the nation. Tax cuts for the rich, increased spending on the military, cutting of social programs, and corporate deregulation are highlights of his agenda. After McCain reveals his plan, the stock market crashes, the Dow landing below 4,000. Companies make massive layoffs the day before Christmas.

January 20th 2009: McCain’s inauguration is marred by a massive protest. 200 people are arrested. McCain is forced to use a decoy car while he uses an alternate route to the White House.

March 5th, 2009: McCain blasts Democrats for leading the country into a depression. He attacks liberal media outlets such as MSNBC and the Huffington Post for being anti-patriotic and driving the nation into chaos. McCain suspends contact between his staff and all news organizations, except for Fox News.

April 25th, 2009: The National Enquirer releases videotape of Cindy McCain kissing former rock-and-roll star and soap opera actor, Rick Springfield. A taped conversation between Cindy McCain and a close friend reveals affairs from both John and Cindy and a “terrible, hypocritical marriage of convenience.”

May 15th, 2009: With the U.S. in a grave financial crisis, John McCain cuts Headstart, after-school programs, welfare and funding to community colleges. Protests erupt across the nation. Social unrest occurs all over urban America.

July 4th, 2009: Citing intelligence, Israeli and American forces attack a suspected nuclear weapons site in Iran. 600 workers are killed in a steel factory.

July 11th, 2009: Iran retaliates against the U.S. and Israel, bombing US bases in Kuwait and Iraq. Iranian-backed Hezbollah invades Israel from the north, and fights a drawn out battle with many military and civilian casualties on both sides.

See more of NewsOne’s BEST OF EVERYTHING 2008!!

July 25th, 2009: John McCain’s son is killed when his warship is attacked by Iranian missiles.

August 12th, 2009: John McCain launches a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran, killing 500,000 civilians in Tehran. Media everywhere declare the start of World War III.

September 11th, 2009: John McCain declares a draft and lowers the age of miliary service eligibility to 16.

September 20th, 2009: Massive student protests against the war. Hundreds of students are arrested at the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University in New York. A 19-year-old college freshman is killed when a tear gas canister fired by police hits her directly in the head at Indiana State University.

September 25th, 2009: Due to massive social unrest, John McCain creates a new position in his cabinet, Secretary of Un-American Affairs, and names Michelle Bachman to the post.

October 17th, 2009: Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid draft up orders for impeachment of John McCain.

November 8th, 2009: Barack Obama is arrested for high treason for trying to overthrow McCain. Obama is detained indefinitely.

November 9th, 2009: More protests around the country. Massive rioting in Philadelphia, Oakland, Detroit and Los Angeles. With no army or national guard to contain the riots, gangs begin take control of the cities.

November 10th, 2009: John McCain declares martial law in the United States and suspends habeas corpus.

November 22nd, 2009: Russia, China, India and Brazil impose sanctions on the United States, citing Human Rights violations and preemptive war with Iran.

December 4th, 2009: John McCain dies of a heart attack during a meeting at the White House.

December 5th, 2009: Sarah Palin is sworn in as President. She says she will continue John McCain’s fight against evil, and calls for the nation to rally against both domestic and foreign terrorists.

December 13th, 2009: Sarah Palin charges Russia and Vladimir Putin with arming the Iranians and trying to cripple the U.S. economy with sanctions.

December 21st: Sarah Palin claims she has had a vision from God to complete the fight of good over evil and threatens a nuclear attack on Russia.

December 22nd: Russia declares war on the United States. Troops are sent into Eastern Europe. The conflict has not gone “nuclear”

January 5th: Russia invades Alaska and is met with no resistance. They begin to move their forces through Canada into the U.S.

January 13th: American citizens, angry at the Republican despots, storm the White House and Capitol Building. Sarah Palin is arrested in a coup by several generals in conjunction with congressional dissenters.

January 20th: Russian, Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian forces invade southern Florida and begin making their way to D.C. With all of the U.S. army in the Middle East, they are also met with no resistance. The United States surrenders.

See more of NewsOne’s BEST OF EVERYTHING 2008!!

ABC News has acquired a secret McCain campaign ad that never aired, attacking Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Many Republican pundits believe that if that narrative had been fleshed out, the outcome of the election could have been very different.

According to the report, after the election Rev. Wright sent President-elect Obama a message that said, “As long as you are presiding over policy that grinds God’s people into Earth, I am coming after you.”

Watch the video here:

The meeting will be the first since Obama, the Democratic Illinois senator, beat McCain, the Arizona Republican senator, by an Electoral College landslide in the Nov. 4 election.

“It’s well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality,” Obama spokesman Stephanie Cutter said in announcing the meeting.

Advisers to both men say they do not expect Obama to consider McCain for a position in his administration, as he is with former primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of state. But he’d like to have McCain as a partner in the Senate on legislation they both have advocated on the campaign trail, like climate change, earmark reform and torture.

Cutter also said the two will be joined at Obama’s Chicago transition office by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a McCain confidant, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat whom Obama has chosen to be his White House chief of staff.

In his first two weeks as president-elect, Obama has struck a bipartisan tone. He paired a Republican and a Democrat to meet with foreign leaders this weekend on his behalf in Washington, for example, and his aides emphasized the bringing together of both sides in announcing the meeting with McCain.

Republican and Democratic officials say Emanuel and Graham arranged in a postelection conversation to have Obama and McCain meet at the earliest possible time and Monday was it. Emanuel and Graham have worked together before on issues on Capitol Hill, and Graham jumped to Emanuel’s defense when Republicans criticized his appointment as Obama’s chief of staff.

Since the election, McCain has had few public appearances. He appeared on the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno on Tuesday and campaigned in Georgia for Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who faces a runoff next month.

Obama met in Chicago with Clinton Thursday afternoon, said a Democratic official, who asked not to be publicly identified the information was not authorized for public release.

The motorcade of Clinton, who receives Secret Service protection as a former first lady, was seen leaving the office complex shortly before Obama left for the day. Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines would say only that “Senator Clinton had no public schedule yesterday.”

Obama has surrounded himself with several former staffers of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Others are thought to be under consideration for secretary of state, including Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

There has also been a significant racist backlash in the wake of the election results. Which is not surprising. After seeing videos of the hate mobs attracted to McCain-Palin rallies, I politely declined an offer to cover election day in Pennsylvania or Ohio out of fear of being attacked by some angry bigot.

One of my greatest fears after the euphoria faded was that the irrational Republican crowds who were drilled into believing that Obama was a terrorist, communist, Muslim traitor would continue their anger toward the President-elect and his supporters. The campaign was heavy with racial undertones, from Rush Limbaugh’s racist rants to Sarah Palin turning a blind eye to someone yelling the N-word at a rally.

Sure enough, a few pathetic racists and violent extremists have been lashing out. Since election night, there has been a string of disturbing firebombings, assaults, and incidents of vandalism directed at African-Americans.

A black church in Springfield, Massachusetts burned down on election night. While I would like to believe it was totally unrelated to racism or Obama’s triumph, I am fearful that it was. If this was a hate crime in liberal Massachusetts, it is a painful reminder of the destruction and terrorism that greeted the civil rights movement, in particular the bombing that killed four little girls in a church in Alabama.

A black family near Pittsburgh had their car torched right outside their house, while they were watching Obama give his victory speech on TV. Before the cowardly arsonists burned the car, they tossed the family’s Obama yard sign through a window and spraypainted “Obama” across the trunk. The blaze almost caught the family’s house on fire, leaving them afraid for their safety in a home where four generations of black Pennsylvanians have lived.

This can only be seen as an act of terrorism. Instead of a burning cross on the family’s lawn, there was a burning car, symbolizing the torching of our new African-American president. Carbombings are something you’d expect to happen in Iraq, not America.

There was another election night incident in Staten Island, New York where a 17 year-old Muslim, African-American male was beaten with baseball bats by a group of white men who repeatedly yelled, “Obama.” This brings back memories of Yusef Hawkins who was chased and beaten by an angry mob in Bensonhurst during the summer of 1989, which resulted in his death.

Ali Kamara, beaten on election night

At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, four students admitted spraypainting an entire campus walkway with racist and violent threats including “Shoot Obama” and “Kill that nigger.” As disgusting as that display of bigotry was, it was encouraging to see nearly 500 students and school officials including the chancellor rally against the hate. In Austin, Buck Burnette, a back up center for the University of Texas football team, wrote on his Facebook page, “All the hunters gather up, we have a Nigger in the White House.” Burnette promptly apologized and was kicked off the team.

Like the examples set by NCSU and the University of Texas, we all must condemn any post-election outbursts of hatred or intimidation. While Obama’s presidency is a great thing for the nation, it may trigger what remains of the lunatic racist fringe to resume their old tactics of bombings and assassinations. Already the FBI and ATF have broken up two plots to kill Obama, each originating with radical white supremacist groups.

Clearly, this election was a statement on how much progress black Americans have made in this country and how much tolerance, acceptance and even admiration whites have for an African-American candidate like Obama. The cynic in me would like to talk about how far we have to go to reach a truly colorblind society, but the optimist in me prefers to consider how far we’ve come.

I actually thought we’d see even more hate crimes both before and after Obama’s victory. Rather than being standard among whites, blatant racism in 2008 has been marginalized. This is not to say average white people don’t have their own prejudices and stereotypes, but the dehumanizing bigotry that defined America during the Jim Crow era is now discredited. Just like Bloods and Crips don’t represent most black people, and Al Qaeda doesn’t typify the Arab world, bigots and white supremacists do not in any way showcase the general feelings of today’s Americans.

But terrorism perpetrated by radical racist extremists must be taken as seriously as attacks from radical Islamic extremists. We must condemn the culprits and support the victims just as we did during 9/11. Our country has matured considerably, enough to enter the age of Obama, but the fight against racism is not over. We cannot tolerate the acts of a lunatic fringe still caught up in the outdated philosophy of white supremacy.

To send a check to the rebuilding fund for the church that was burned down in Springfield, MA:

Macedonia Church of God in Christ, c/o Greater Springfield Council of Churches, 39 Oakland St., Springfield, MA 01108

Donate to the charitable fund set up to support the carbombing victims:

Whiteside Family Relief Fund, c/o First National Bank of PA, 4140 E. State St., Hermitage PA 16148

(Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, rapper, producer and actor, and the assistant editor for NewsOne)

The Latest Outrage editor Erik Ose, a blogger from Chapel Hill, North Carolina who also writes for the Huffington Post contributed to this report.

In a series of interviews in the wake of last Tuesday’s elections, Palin said she had no problem with Republican presidential nominee John McCain, but that she resents rumors she said were spread about her and her family by the Arizona Republican’s aides. She emphatically denied that she was a drag on the GOP ticket.

“I think the economic collapse had a heckuva lot more to do with the campaign’s collapse than me personally,” the governor said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show.

Palin also said “There were a lot of times I wanted to shout out, ‘Hey, wait a minute, it’s not true.’ It’s pretty brutal.”

Nevertheless, the relatively obscure governor of Alaska, whose selection for the ticket by McCain last August brought excitement — and controversy — to the 2008 campaign, said she would be eager to do it all again under the right circumstances.

“I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door,” Palin said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. “And if there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Palin said she neither wanted nor asked for the $150,000-plus wardrobe the Republican Party bankrolled, and thought the issue was an odd one at the end of the campaign, considering “what is going on in the world today.”

“I did not order the clothes. Did not ask for the clothes,” Palin said. “I would have been happy to have worn my own clothes from Day One. But that is kind of an odd issue, an odd campaign issue as things were wrapping up there as to who ordered what and who demanded what.”

“It’s amazing that we did as well as we did,” the governor said of the election in a separate interview with the Anchorage Daily News.

“I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing,” Palin said in a story published Sunday.

Palin has scheduled a series of national interviews this week with Fox, NBC’s “Today” show and CNN. She also plans to attend the Republican Governors Association conference in Florida this week.

Palin has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. She also could seek re-election in 2010 or challenge Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Still uncertain is the fate of Sen. Ted Stevens, who is leading in his bid for another term but could be ousted by the Senate for his conviction on seven felony counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts, mostly renovations on his home. If Stevens loses his seat, Palin could run for it in a special election.

Palin and McCain’s campaign faced a storm of criticism over the tens of thousands of dollars spent at such high-end stores as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus to dress the nominee. Republican National Committee lawyers are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was bought for Palin, what was returned and what has become of the rest.

“I’ve been a North Carolina skeptic all year, did not believe Obama could win the state. And as of right now, I really think he’s going to. Things look good here.” – JONATHAN WEILER

[ione_audio align="center"]

A new video paints Barack Obama as Superman and Bush, Cheney and McCain as villains. It uses speeches and quotes from Barack Obama as well as George Bush, John McCain and Dick Cheney and footage from the Superman movie.

Watch the Video After the Jump

The world was riveted by the election drama unfolding Tuesday in the United States, inspired by Barack Obama or simply relieved that — whoever wins — the Bush administration was coming to an end.

From Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to the small town of Obama, Japan, the globe geared up to celebrate a fresh start for America.

In Germany, where more than 200,000 flocked to see Obama this summer as he moved to burnish his foreign policy credentials during a trip to the Middle East and Europe, the election dominated television ticker crawls, newspaper headlines and Web sites.

Hundreds of thousands prepared to party through the night to watch the outcome of an election having an impact far beyond America’s shores. Among the more irreverent festivities planned in Paris: a “Goodbye George” party to bid farewell to Bush.

“Like many French people, I would like Obama to win because it would really be a sign of change,” said Vanessa Doubine, shopping Tuesday on the Champs-Elysees. “I deeply hope for America’s image that it will be Obama.”

Europeans had a sense of the momentous change that was about to unfold, whether the winner was Obama or Republican John McCain.

“America is electing a new president, but for the Germans, for Europeans, it is electing the next world leader,” said Alexander Rahr, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

“We see new challenges coming up, not only Islamic extremism, but a newly resurgent Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea — everywhere there are fires,” he said. “And we, as Europeans, can’t solve these problems without America. A world without American leadership is, for most Europeans, a world of chaos.”

Germany’s mass-circulation daily Bild lionized the Republican as “the War Hero” and running mate Sarah Palin as “the Beautiful Unknown.”

In Berlin, Republicans Abroad organized a “November Surprise Election Party” to watch live “how the Republican ticket McCain/Palin comes from behind and leaves the ‘liberal elite media’ in Europe and the United States puzzled.”

In much of the Islamic world, Muslims expressed hope that the U.S. would seek compromise rather than confrontation.

The Bush administration alienated Muslims by mistreating prisoners at its detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and inmates at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison — human rights violations also condemned worldwide.

“I hope Obama wins (because) of the need of the world to see the U.S. represent a more cosmopolitan or universal political attitude,” said Rais Yatim, the foreign minister of mostly Muslim Malaysia.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledged that Afghanistan “will remain a close friend of the United States” regardless of who wins.

“The new president will have an impact on the economic and political situation in my country,” said Muhammad al-Thaheri, 48, a civil servant in Saudi Arabia. Like so many around the world, he was rooting for Obama “because he will change the path the U.S. is on under Bush.”

Nizar al-Kortas, a columnist for Kuwait’s Al-Anbaa newspaper, saw an Obama victory as “a historic step to change the image of the arrogant American administration to one that is more acceptable in the world.”

Yet McCain enjoyed a strong current of support in countries such as Israel, where he is perceived as tougher on Iran.

Israeli leaders, who consider the U.S. their closest and most important ally, have not openly declared a preference. But privately, they have expressed concern about Obama, who has alarmed some by saying he would be ready to hold a dialogue with Tehran.

Taking a cigarette break on a Jerusalem street corner, bank employee Leah Nizri, 53, said Obama represented potentially frightening change.

“I think he’ll be pleasant to Israel, but he will make changes,” she said. “He’s too young. I think that especially in a situation of a world recession, where things are so unclear in the world, McCain would be better than Obama.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown clung to convention by refusing to say which candidate he wants to see win. Regardless of the outcome, he told Al-Arabiya television while on a tour of the Gulf, “history has been made in this campaign.”

London Mayor Boris Johnson — a Conservative — felt less constrained about rooting for the liberal Obama.

“For those who have become disenchanted with America — including many Americans — (Obama) offers the hope of re-igniting the love affair,” he said.

And other Europeans made much of Obama’s ethnicity. “It’s a sort of pardon of America for its slave past,” said Alain Barret, a bank teller in Paris. “It lets America turn an important page in its history.”

“It would be fantastic to have a non-white president,” added Letisha Brown, a Londoner.

In Baghdad, a jaded Mohammed al-Tamimi said he didn’t think U.S. policy on Iraq would change. Even so, “we hope that the new American president will open a new page with our country.”

Kenyans made their allegiance clear: Scores packed churches on Tuesday to pray for Obama, whose late father was born in the East African nation, and hailed the candidate — himself born in Hawaii — as a “son of the soil.”

“Tonight we are not going to sleep,” said Valentine Wambi, 23, a student at the University of Nairobi. “It will be celebrations throughout.”

Kenyans believe an Obama victory wouldn’t change their lives much, but that hasn’t stopped them from splashing his picture on minibuses and selling T-shirts with his name and likeness. Kenyans were planning to gather around radios and TV sets starting Tuesday night as the results come in.

In the sleepy Japanese coastal town of Obama — which translates as “little beach” — images of him adorned banners along a main shopping street, and preparations for an election day victory party were in full swing.

Election fever also ran high in Vietnam, where McCain was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years after being shot down in Hanoi during a 1967 bombing run.

“He’s patriotic,” said Le Lan Anh, a Vietnamese novelist and real estate tycoon. “As a soldier, he came here to destroy my country, but I admire his dignity.”

If McCain wins . . . I’ll stare at the TV in shock. Then . . .

(1) War on Terror Version.

I’ll go down to my basement, bring up the hundreds of rolls of duck tape I’ve hidden there, and wrap it around my house.

I’d hug my family hard, as we hide out for four years.

Lucky for us, we have those tanks of water and cans of spam.

(2) Katrina Version.

I’ll cry so hard for hours and hours that it’ll start a flood.

My house will be ruined.

I’ll apply to FEMA, get a trailer and cover it with duck tape.

(3) Iraq War Version.

I’ll sign up at the local army office, and get shipped to Iraq.

If McCain wins, Iraqi politics will make more sense to me.

I’ll carry my duck tape with me.

Vijay Prashad is the director of International Studies at Trinity College and is the author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.

And I voted for my grandmother, who left South Carolina for New York to work in a government job for 49 years, and then left it all to my mother and me. I looked up to her from behind that curtain, and all was ok…

Smokey D. Fontaine is the chief content officer of InteractiveOne, parent company of NewsOne. Watch for Smokey tonight on TV One! (Check your local cable TV listings for channel information.)

Democrats are poised to make major gains in the Senate, but getting to sixty will be a tall order. Right now Democrats have a 51-49 edge in the Senate, but that includes the vote of Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman, who still caucuses with the Democrats but has been a vocal supporter of John McCain and an increasingly disgruntled member of the Democratic caucus. If you include Lieberman with the Democrats, they need to pick up a net of nine seats to reach 60. Without him, they need ten.

Open Republican seats in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado are a lock to become Democratic seats, where Mark Warner, Mark Udall and Tom Udall have commanding leads.

Additionally, four Republican incumbents appear headed for defeat. Democratic challenger Jeanne Shaheen is virtually certain to knock-off incumbent John Sununu in New Hampshire. Mark Begich is now in the driver’s seat over long-time incumbent and newly convicted felon Ted Stevens in Alaska. In Oregon, Democrat Jeff Merkle has opened a solid lead against Gordon Smith. Finally, Democrats are poised for victory in the ugly and expensive North Carolina Senate race, where incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole appears to be slipping behind Democratic challenger Kay Hagan.

This gives Democrats seven likely to certain pick-ups.

An additional possible net gain for Democrats is in Minnesota, where comedian turned Democratic challenger Al Franken is locked in a dead heat with Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota. Another intriguing race is in Georgia, where incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss is in a surprisingly tough race with Jim Martin.

As has been the case in North Carolina, early voting has been extremely heavy in Georgia and African American turnout has been very high. If Blacks make up 30% of the votes in Georgia this year (this has been the early voting figure), Chambliss may lose his seat (and John McCain may lose the state). If Franken and Martin manage to win, Democrats would control 59 seats even without Lieberman.

Longer shots to secure a Lieberman-proof sixty seats include Carl Lunsford, running against long-time incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, and Ronnie Musgrove, trying to unseat one-term GOP senator Roger Wicker in Mississippi.

Only one Democratic incumbent, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, faced a serious challenge this year, but she appears to be in command at this point in the race.

It’s no coincidence President Bush has been out of the public’s eye in recent days — that’s the way the Republican Party wants it. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Monday the incumbent’s invisibility is by design — because “the Republican Party wanted to make this election about John McCain.”

The president knows there are people in this country who want change and are looking for something new, Perino said.

“We’re realistic about the political environment that we are in,” she said. “What keeps him going is knowing that he’s done the right thing.”

With a 26 percent approval rating, Bush has only appeared in Democratic television ads that regularly tie him to Republican candidates. And that won’t change until after Election Day.

Since Bush endorsed McCain in the Rose Garden on March 5, the two have appeared in public only three times for a total of 12 minutes. That’s in stark contrast to the scores of fundraisers and rallies Bush did before congressional midterm elections in 2002 and 2006. Perino said the last time Bush and McCain communicated was before the president’s Cabinet meeting October 15.

As McCain and Democrat Barack Obama made their final pitches to voters over the weekend, Bush spent time at the Camp David presidential retreat. He has no public events on Monday or Tuesday, not even an Election Day photo op.

Bush voted in Texas by absentee ballot and plans a small dinner in the White House residence Tuesday night with two purposes: celebrating his wife’s birthday and watching “with great interest as the returns come in.”

The White House said Bush is busy with the financial crisis, two wars and the upcoming transition to a new administration. The economy and recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast prompted Bush to cancel appearances at fundraisers.

In early September after Hurricane Gustav, Bush scrapped his planned opening-night speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., and instead spoke via satellite.

What does the economic downturn mean for already struggling Black families?

In part two of our Bakari Kitwana’s discussion with Cornel West, Dr. West delves into the significance of the racist incidents and responses that reared their head on the campaign trial this year-from the McCain supporter’s taunts to John Lewis’ criticism. West points to the new danger posed by citizens willing to “sow the seeds” of racism of the George Wallace variety. The conversation then turned to the current financial crisis, including the budget challenges facing states and cities, and how Blacks will fare as the country seems headed to a second Great Depression. You know the saying, when white America catches a cold, Black America catches the flu? Here West carefully critiques what he sees as the 40-year economic depression that Blacks have suffered under for the last four decades in the US. For him, the economic downturn will only make matters worse-”depression on top of depression.” Once again, he says, Black churches, mosques and community centers will have to step it up, even as a Barack Obama presidency offers hope.

Cornel West is University Professor at Princeton University in the Center for African American Studies. The author of the 1993 groundbreaking Race Matters, his new book is entitled Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom (Hay House, 2008).

John McCain has a new working class surrogate. It seems as if he is trying to take some of the working class Latino vote by using Tito, a Hispanic construction worker. Tito first made waves when he was interviewed by Mother Jones outside of McCain rally where he angrily rallied against the media and ACORN.

Watch Tito the Builder After the Jump

Watch Tito the Builder Being Interviewed By John McCain

Watch Tito the Builder at a John McCain Rally

Watch Tito the Builder on Hannity and Colmes

In a bold move brimming with confidence, Democrat Barack Obama broadened his advertising campaign on Friday into two once reliably Republican states and further bedeviled rival John McCain by placing a commercial in the Republican presidential nominee’s home state of Arizona.

Obama’s campaign, capitalizing on his vast financial resources and a favorable political climate, announced that it was going back up with advertising in Georgia and North Dakota, two GOP states that it had teased with ads earlier in the general election campaign but then abandoned.

In what could be a final ignominy for McCain, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the campaign would also begin airing ads in Arizona, a state McCain has represented in Congress for 26 years. Plouffe said the race has tightened in Arizona, Georgia and North Dakota. A recent poll from McCain’s home state showed the two candidates in a statistical dead heat.

In a slew of states, “the die is being cast as we speak,” he said. “Sen. McCain on Election Day is not just going to have to carry the day, but carry it convincingly.”

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis derided Obama’s moves: “We encourage them to pick other states that we intend to win” to spend their money.

McCain was spending a second straight day touring economically ailing Ohio, a swing state with 20 electoral votes that McCain aides acknowledge is central to a victory on Tuesday. McCain was behind Obama in polls in the state.

While the Obama campaign continued to tie McCain to the unpopular President Bush, McCain assailed Obama’s economic policies as recipes from the far left of American politics.

McCain told a rally in Hanoverton, Ohio, that Obama “began his campaign in the liberal left lane of politics and has never left it. He’s more liberal than a senator who calls himself a socialist,” a reference to Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont.

Campaigning with McCain was former GOP rival and one-time New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told the crowd, “John McCain was right about the single most important decision that had to be made in the last four years and that was to stick it out in Iraq.”

Earlier, in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” McCain said, “Sen. Obama’s economic policy is from the far left of American politics and ours is in the center,” McCain said. “He wants to raise people’s taxes — that’s clear.”

Obama is proposing tax increases on families making over $250,000 and individuals making over $200,000 and tax cuts for the 95 percent of workers making less than $200,000.

McCain also was to campaign Friday in Columbus, Ohio, with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In an interview with The Columbus Dispatch published Friday, Schwarzenegger made no effort to disguise the challenge facing McCain He told the newspaper it will be a “major struggle for him to win.”

But, he added: “I have seen him in those major struggles in the past when he has come back when everyone counted him out,” Schwarzenegger said. “During the primaries, he came back and got nominated.”

Obama was to spend the day campaigning across the Midwest, with a quick stop home in Chicago to see his kids on Halloween. His first stop was where his campaign took off, in Des Moines, Iowa, where he upset Hillary Rodham Clinton in the campaign’s first contest.

Independent polling in Iowa shows Obama consistently ahead in the race for the state’s seven electoral votes, but McCain’s campaign maintains the race is tighter than it appears.

As McCain sought to close gaps in states such as Iowa, Obama was expanding the field of play. His campaign plans to air two ads in Georgia and North Dakota — a tandem of positive and negative commercials.

One ties McCain to President Bush, showing a man adjusting a review mirror in a car as an announcer says: Wonder where John McCain would take the economy? Look behind you, John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s economic policies.”

The other relies on Obama’s message of “unity over division” and reminds viewers that Obama has been endorsed by mega-financier Warren Buffett and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Plouffe said that in deference to McCain, the campaign would only run the positive ad in Arizona.

“It’s Sen. McCain’s home state,” Plouffe said. “We’re cognizant of that.”

McCain is planning a midnight rally on Monday in Prescott, Ariz., and his election party Tuesday night in Phoenix.

Plouffe said the expanded ad campaign was not diluting their advertising in other battlegrounds. “We’re always looking for opportunities to expand the map,” he said.

After the Halloween stop at home, Obama was to head for a rally in Highland, Ind., a town in Democratic-dominated Lake County where Obama hopes to run up the vote to offset Republican domination elsewhere in Indiana.

Meanwhile, former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, were to campaign for Obama in Florida.

Sprinting into the weekend, Obama was headed to the West, hoping to claim Colorado and maybe more. McCain was flying to Virginia, usually friendly country for the GOP but another place where polls give Obama the edge. McCain aides said the Arizona senator was likely to swing west also, to play to his base.

There was nothing complicated about their closing arguments to voters, with the economy the top concern. Obama is focused on linking McCain to Bush and blaming both for the nation’s economic woes.

McCain had hoped the election would turn on issues like the Iraq war, where he could use his military background to convince voters he’s the best choice as commander in chief. But he effectively has conceded that it’s all about the economy and people’s financial struggles.