Obama’s World Tour – I was thinking of a way to start this column in any other way imaginable, but it is next to impossible. All of the political oxygen has left the country for the week and that has got to be driving the McCain campaign bonkers. As I wrote in my previous column this week, the Berlin speech has got to be an excellent one in order for this July trip to be a success. Obama has to be detailed in how he expects to rebuild the trans-Atlantic relationship; the diplomatic requirements...

The travel itineraries of the candidates for President have been interesting to analyze. A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Cindy McCain was going to travel to Rwanda as part of a group to discuss the effects of poverty and disease on the people in that country. Huh? Is there any need for this trip outside of the obvious political move to show that they care about Africa? If the McCain campaign is trying to make political points by showing you care about people of color, why not go...

The Obama campaign announced a $52 Million fundraising haul for June. This is a pretty big deal since Senator Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign on June 7th and Obama has been very supportive of erasing her campaign debt. His assistance in Clinton’s thirty million dollar restoration project will have a direct impact on Obama’s fundraising capacity in the coming months. The post-Clinton cash windfall factor hasn’t kicked in yet. From the DNC Convention until the general election, Obama...

I am going to try to post this column every Wednesday and discuss ideas off the top (or bottom) of my cranium about all things political. Some of it will make sense, other things may be funny, but I hope that most of these will be enlightening. 1) Is it really important for John McCain to know the difference between the Packers and the Steelers? Favre is not coming back (or is he, I lose track) and the Steelers are from Pittsburgh, so who cares? I am a native of the ‘burgh’, only joking: Go...

Bill Cosby were running for President and told black folks that they need to “cowboy up” and take responsibility over their lives instead of blaming white folks. Well, that happened yesterday at the NAACP National Convention from presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama. This is an excerpt from the speech last night: “Teaching our daughters to never allow images on television to tell them what they are worth; teaching our sons to treat women with respect, and to realize responsibility...

Wow! I thought we were in the 21st Century. Obviously, the tabloid escapades of the early 20th century have not totally lost their place in American journalism. The cover art of The New Yorker (July 21st edition) is a characterization of the rumors surrounding the Islamic ties of Senator Barack Obama that have been circulating around the internet for over a year. The difference, of course, is that e-mail chains and bloggers do not have the readership or the journalistic history of this publication. This...

What is going on behind the scenes of the Arnold Schwarzenegger / Barack Obama love fest? In December of 2007, Obama made a public statement that he would be willing to offer the California Governor a spot on his cabinet. Yesterday, Schwarzenegger returns the volley by stating “I’d take his call now and I’d take his call when he’s President, anytime.” I can understand the politics of Obama offering the olive branch to the Governor of the nation’s most populous state before...

OK! Enough already, everybody get out of insanity wave pool. It is a fair claim to say that we have hit the low of this campaign as far as media coverage of campaign surrogates. The big political news over the past week or so has not involved important domestic and/or foreign policy ideas but has revolved around the mumblings of Phil Gramm and Jesse Jackson – two men who never had a realistic chance to become President of the United States. In fact, Gramm and Jackson have probably received...