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Happy 4th of July!

Right off the top, I favor national service in America. I think something is lost for both the nation and the individual when citizens do not perform some form of national service early in their young adult lives.

There is a focus on the overall, on the common good, on what it takes to build America and defend America, that is to be gained from serving in the US Armed Forces or in civilian organizations such as the Peace Corps, VISTA, and Americorps.

You also learn about sacrifice, discipline, and how to function as a member of a team, a community.

All too often, such things are bypassed in our success and materialism-oriented society. Instead of undertaking the rigors of military life, or the sacrifice of helping a downtrodden community, most plunge right on in their quests to become financial and/or cultural elites, or at least comfortable. And too often, those who do serve the nation are derided as warmongers or losers if they join the armed forces, or as silly do-gooders if they seek to help to build a community.

What this does is engrain too much cynicism and selfishness in the society, and a too cavalier attitude about what it takes to defend America and build its communities.

Which brings us to this week’s dust-up over Wes Clark’s comments about John McCain.

As will not surprise you, I do believe that military service is a qualification for the presidency. It demonstrates a basic commitment to the nation. It also gives you a sense of the essence of the thing. But while service in and of itself is a qualification — and anyone who has not served starts out behind, especially if they turn out when conveniently too old to serve in the military to be persistent advocates of military intervention — it’s just a basic level qualification. The next thing to look at is the nature of the service.

John McCain has an extraordinary record of military service. He’s probably America’s most famous Vietnam War hero, though Virginia Senator and former Navy Secretary Jim Webb may be about to give him a run for his money in that department.

McCain was a heroic pilot — or naval aviator, as the Navy prefers — prior to being shot down and imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton. There he underwent years of deprivation and torture, and courageously refused to accept an early release when his Vietnamese Communist captors discovered that his father was the commander of all US forces in the Pacific Theater. He won the Silver Star in Vietnam and later commanded the largest squadron in the Navy, the “Hellrazors.” He ended his naval career as a captain, the Navy’s equivalent of a colonel in the other services, one rank short of being an admiral.

McCain has served for decades on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees and also has the benefit of having learned from his father, a four-star admiral with enormous command experience, and his grandfather, also a four-star admiral with tremendous command experience. It won’t surprise you to learn that I have a cherished, personally inscribed, copy of McCain’s recommended memoir, “Faith of My Fathers.”

But while McCain has tremendous experience in the field, far more than Barack Obama — who I would be happier with had he spent a little time in the Army Reserve — his experience is not of a nature that it trumps all discussion about what he thinks.

Clark is a very impressive character in his own right. His military background actually surpasses that of any politician. He’s not the son of a four-star admiral, he is a retired four-star general in his own right. First in his class at West Point, a Rhodes Scholar (he met future President Clinton when they studied at Oxford), an Army Ranger who won the Silver Star as a company commander in Vietnam and later commanded NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the largest multinational military force in the world) during the successful Kosovo War which stopped “ethnic cleansing” and toppled the regime of Serbian thug Slobodan Milosevic.

On Hillary Clinton conference calls on national security and geopolitics, frequently I or someone else would ask a question, Clinton would give a brief answer, ask Clark to elaborate, then say, “I agree with General Clark.”

Should Clark have fallen into Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer’s trap of mirroring his question back to him? “Riding in a fighter jet and getting shot down is not a qualification for the presidency.” Certainly not. It came off as denigrating McCain’s service. (Ironically, Clark had showered McCain with praise for his service moments earlier.) My view is that McCain having the courage to get in that jet in the first place is a qualification. Just not a determinative qualification.

Clark’s point is that, for all his heroics and proximity to high-level decision-making, McCain has not been the actual decisionmaker. In other words, despite his fame, he ain’t Ike. A fair point to make, though one can certainly infer that McCain has had plenty of opportunities to absorb the essence of the thing.

Webb got into the middle of the fray as well, suggesting that his old friend McCain — the Republican candidate blurbed the front cover of Webb’s excellent history of the Scots-Irish in America, “Born Fighting,” calling Webb “a legendary fighting man” — ought to “calm down” his talk about the military and politics. Republicans got a little perturbed with Ronald Reagan’s Navy secretary and assistant secretary of defense, saying his remark showed that Obama is coordinating an assault on McCain’s military record.

Which Webb mostly shrugged off. He’s feeling kind of amused and magnanimous at the moment, coming off his big win in gaining passage of the new GI bill, which both McCain and President Bush strongly opposed, then took some credit for after the fact.

Webb’s not as smooth a character as Clark, who rubs some people the wrong way, and, in contrast to Webb’s old friendship with the GOP candidate, crossed swords with McCain on the Armed Services Committee when he ran NATO. Webb has more of a down home manner than Clark. But he’s a brainiac in his own right — those terrific novels and non-fiction books of his didn’t write themselves — and his combat medals as a Marine platoon leader in Vietnam, which include the Navy Cross, surpass those of either McCain or Clark. Each of these men is viewed as arrogant by more than a few, by the way. One may be better than the others at tamping it down.

It will be interesting to watch if Webb is Obama’s running mate. A possibility which increased this week with Clark’s not entirely deserved new level of controversy.

Incidentally, I hope you enjoy the video. I always get a kick out of that classic opening scene from Patton. A lot of people though George Patton was crazy. He was certainly intense, and obviously at times over the top. But that is an important part of the mix of what it takes to defend America. It was Patton’s brilliance and aggressiveness as a commander that helped shatter the German Army in World War II and defeat the sheer evil of Nazism.

** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.

Barack Obama is in Butte, Montana for a 4th of July picnic with Michelle Obama and their two kids. Obama leads in the newest poll of the longtime red state of the Mountain West.

John McCain is off the campaign trail in Arizona.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

With world oil markets rattled by talk of war with Iran, Barack Obama talks up national service yesterday in Colorado Springs.

** OBAMA RESPONDS ON F.I.S.A. Barack Obama’s position on FISA is controversial on the left, as he does not want to pulverize the telecoms for going along with the Bush White House on surveillance in the wake of 9/11. On his Huffington Post blog.

** 4TH OF JULY GUBERNATORIAL GAMES. As San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who I defended vociferously last year against sneering netrootsers in the wake of the affair with his campaign manager’s wife and subsequent entry into alcoholic treatment, rolls out an exploratory campaign for governor, there have been a few developments.

First, Newsom is in hot water for his administration’s policy of moving illegal immigrant teenage crack dealers to — not south of the border — but, um, San Bernardino and Riverside. Whoops!

Second, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a Republican inventor of the technology that enables corporations and the government to track you via your cell phone, who backed Al Gore in 2000 and is now an official of the John McCain campaign, is in the late stages of negotiating with strategist Mike Murphy to come on board for his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Murphy did a good job in California as a key part of the 2003 ensemble for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first election as governor. But he crashed and burned after that.

** MAC MEETS WITH JEB BUSH IN MEXICO CITY. Is this a good idea?

** NEW RECORD OIL PRICE. After spiking past the $146 per barrel mark during intraday trading, a new record, oil settled at $145.62 per barrel, a record high closing price. Notwithstanding what some of my associates over on the right have been saying. They thought the price would shoot way down. Ah, that woudl be, no. Meanwhile, more revelations are emerging about the role of the Bush Administration in oil contracts that seem to fly in the face of national policy.

** JERUSALEM POST: IRAN WILL HALT NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT IN EXCHANGE FOR REMOVAL OF SANCTIONS. Oddly, well, not really, this is quite similar to the deal which the US just struck with North Korea. Which the far right in America has been blasting for days now.

** MAC’S NEW SUPREMO: STEVE SCHMIDT. I’ve talked with old NWN friend Steve Schmidt, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign manager and Senator John McCain’s senior advisor — who is now running the McCain for President campaign — yesterday and this morning. I will have a column/profile on him on Monday, following the 4th of July weekend.

** THE IRANIAN CONUNDRUM. To attack or not to attack, that is the question. And who should attack? (If anyone attacks.) The US or Israel? And why?

Many anti-Iran activists say the country is run by mad mullahs on the verge of developing a nuclear bomb, with which they will dominate the Middle East and destroy Israel. Of course, some of these folks also said in January 2007 that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was dead. And continued to insist that he was dead for some weeks after. Even after I quickly determined, through Pentagon sources on the same day that I was busy with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s second inaugural, that Khamenei was in fact not dead.

Clearly, Iran is a problem. But how much of a problem? And is the proposed cure worse than the disease?

The Pentagon doesn’t seem very interested in attacking Iran. And President Bush, one of the foremost saber rattlers in the world with regard to Iran, today publicly urged Israel not to attack.

Frankly, I knew more about this six months ago than I do now. Before the endless Democratic primary campaign. Actually, it’s the Clintons’ fault. (I’m joking a bit.) And the new media culture. The Clintons continued their quest for a return to the White House for months after it was obvious that Barack Obama was the winner. As for the emerging media culture, it puts a premium on endless bickering and not on contemplation of larger issues.

Is Iran a threat? Certainly some sort of threat. What to do about it?

** OBAMA LEADS IN … MONTANA! Yes, according to the new Rasmussen poll, Barack Obama leads John McCain in generally red state Montana, 48% to 43%. It is where Obama won the last primary of the season, in a landslide over Hillary Clinton. And it is part of the Mountain West, the new battleground region where Obama has shown real strength. I guess this is why the Obamas will be in Butte, Montana for the 4th of July.

** MY NEW PODCAST. The road ahead.

** TV AD WARS: CHANGING MCCAIN V. WORKING OBAMA. It’s John McCain who is the candidate of change in the latest round of the TV ad wars, changing to his third campaign slogan in less than four weeks. Barack Obama shows more consistency, as in consistently emphasizing work over welfare in his battleground states message. From my other blog.

** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.

Barack Obama is in Fargo, North Dakota.

John McCain is in Mexico City.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil is trading in record territory, around $144 per barrel, on concern about a potential Israeli military strike on Iran and reports of a mysterious supply drop in the US. But gas at my station is down a nickel.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

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Barack Obama’s speech promoting faith-based programs yesterday in Zanesville, Ohio.

** OIL IN THE REAL WORLD. You know, I am recalling some folks who said oil would go down right away in price, and so on. Meanwhile, in the real world, crude oil broke two more all-time records today on the verge of the long 4th of July weekend, in which AAA says fewer than ever families will venture forth in their cars for holiday weekends. Oil broke the $144 per barrel barrier in intraday trading, shooting up to $144.13 per barrel. And it settled at a record closing price, a whopping $143.57 per barrel. I’d better gas up, well, now, before my friend the local service station owner raises his price tomorrow …

**  MY NEW PODCAST. The road ahead.

** R.N.C. TO START ATTACK ADS ON OBAMA. The Republican National Committee is going up with attack ads on Barack Obama this coming weekend in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. All states in which Obama has leads, of one size or another. Quite a mistake for Obama to forego public financing and decide not to give up his fundraising advantage …

** SCHMIDT TAKING CONTROL. Steve Schmidt, a very familiar figure to NWN readers who ran Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign and serves as senior advisor to John McCain, is taking over much of the day-to-day management of the McCain campaign. As I reported earlier, the very capable Schmidt had been travelling with McCain but left his side to go to campaign headquarters to take on more of an operational role there. Campaign manager Rick Davis will remain with a key strategic role.

It will be interesting to see if this improves the relative incoherence of the McCain campaign, about which I have been writing for weeks, or if the incoherence is actually dictated by the strategic situation.

** FROM COLORADO TO CARTAGENA. What an interesting choice. Is this the moment for John McCain to venture to Latin America, extolling the virtues of free trade while frontrunner Barack Obama is in Middle America talking about faith, patriotism, and economic insecurity in a region which, rightly or wrongly, views trade deals like NAFTA as a principal cause of its problems?

** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.

Barack Obama is in Colorado Springs, Colorado for a speech on his plan for national service. He will visit NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) at Cheyenne Mountain. He has a fundraiser in the home town of the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Rev. James Dobson tonight.

John McCain is in Cartagena, Colombia. He is promoting free trade and examining the drug trade and the country’s security concerns.

UPDATE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s briefing on the fire situation will be webcast live at 11:30 AM on www.gov.ca.gov.

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tours the fire scene near Big Sur with FEMA Administrator David Paulison this morning and discusses the situation. With the Sierra snowpack notably reduced, California is in a near drought situation, which naturally makes wildfires more prevalent. Schwarzenegger has asked local communities to avoid 4th of July firecrackers, but has not banned them. The chronic state budget deficit is at an impasse, with legislative leaders of both parties deadlocked amidst no progress.

** TV AD WARS: CHANGING MCCAIN V. WORKING OBAMA. It’s John McCain who is the candidate of change in the latest round of the TV ad wars, changing to his third campaign slogan in less than four weeks. Barack Obama shows more consistency, as in consistently emphasizing work over welfare in his battleground states message. From my other blog.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing through the $143 per barrel barrier Monday, crude oil is trading in the $142 to $143 per barrel range, on concern about a potential Israeli military strike on Iran and reports of a mysterious supply drop in the US. But gas at my station is down a nickel.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

YouTube Direktvideo link

Barack Obama dominates the presidential race in California. Here he talks about patriotism yesterday in Independence, Missouri.

It began as Clinton Country. For awhile, it seemed John McCain might stake his claim on the Golden State. But now, it is clearly Barack Obama’s California.

Without campaigning all that much here, Obama has developed a powerful hold on California. Up by 17 points over McCain in the two most respected public polls in the state, Field Institute and Public Policy Institute of California, taken some weeks ago, the new Rasmussen tracking poll last week shows Obama now with a stunning 2 to 1 lead over McCain, 58% to 30%.

The latest Rasmussen tracking poll of California — bear in mind that pollster Scott Rasmussen is an avowed Republican — shows Barack Obama opening up a massive lead over John McCain in the Golden State, which Team McCain once saw as a possibility. Frankly, this is the biggest lead I can recall in any such presidential poll of California voters. McCain’s shift in position for offshore oil drilling is a major backfire. The McCain connection has become not a badge of honor in California, but a negative. Unfortunately for the Republicans, all of their most credible 2010 gubernatorial candidates are officials in the McCain campaign. Hasta la bye bye.

Speaking of which, even McCain’s biggest supporter in the West, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, dismisses his drilling idea, saying during a Thursday speech at the Florida Climate Change Summit: “Anyone who tells you this will lower our gas prices anytime soon is blowing smoke. America is so addicted to oil that it will take years to wean ourselves from it. To look for new ways to feed our addiction is not the answer.”

So the state in which McCain essentially won the Republican nomination, knocking Mitt Romney out of the race back in February, is now off the table for Republicans both in this election, and likely in 2010 as well, when Schwarzenegger is termed out of the governorship.

Instead, it is a central power base for the new Obama-era Democratic Party. And as Obama dominates here — as much through a sort of political and social osmosis as through personal campaigning, as Obama became more nationally known and familiar, weathering various crises — leadership within the state is shifting also.

When Obama appeared at the LA Music Center for last Tuesday’s big gala fundraiser for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee — most operations of which the freshman Illinois senator has moved from Washington to Chicago — he was introduced by California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, a former nurse from Los Angeles who happens to be the first African American woman to head a state legislative body anywhere in America. The Music Center event raised $5.5 million for the integrating Obama and party operations.

Bass is part of a power shift inside California politics, with Obama backers supplanting Clinton backers. She replaced termed-out former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who was a national co-chair of the Hillary campaign. And the incoming new leader of the state Senate, Darrell Steinberg, is also an Obama backer who also replaces another Clinton backer, Don Perata.

And two years ago, yet another Clinton backer, then Treasurer Phil Angelides, narrowly won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination over ex-eBay honcho Steve Westly. But Westly, then California’s state controller and now a greentech venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, signed on with Obama, becoming one of his earliest and biggest supporters. Now he’s leading California’s Obama delegates to the Democratic national convention in Denver, and Angelides is staying home.

Westly was very much on hand at the Music Center. As was the leader of California’s Clinton delegates, LA Music Center board chair John Emerson. Emerson ran Bill Clinton’s two campaigns in the Golden State, was a top aide to President Clinton, and a national finance co-chair for Hillary. But last month he went with other Clintonites to Chicago to join Obama’s national finance team.

“The integration is going very smoothly,” says Emerson of California Clinton backers joining forces with Team Obama. “They’re being very welcoming,” he says of the Obama campaign. He and Westly had earlier worked smoothly together in pulling together the overall California delegation to Denver, which will be the biggest at the convention.

“Barack is a great fit for California,” says Emerson. “I think Californians are getting to be very excited about his candidacy.”

Also on hand at the Music Center was former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, the favorite for governor in 2010 if he chooses to run. (The state’s term limits law was passed after his two terms.) Brown, who has useful advice for those who ask, was officially neutral in the primary. He ran against Bill Clinton in 1992, ending as the distant runner-up for the Democratic nomination. Brown had earlier predicted that Obama would prevail easily in the fall here over McCain.

Westly might run again for governor, as well. Other potential Democratic contenders, such as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is not likely to run, campaigned hard for Hillary Clinton around the country. Newsom was a national co-chairman of the Clinton campaign.

There is nowhere in America that received more attention from then President Bill Clinton than California. Even more than New York, the classic, aging power center the Clintons selected as their base of operations as they sought to extend their reach in national and global power politics well into the 21st century, California was the key to the Hillary experiment. It was the endless fundraising bonanza, and the state longtime chief strategist Mark Penn selected as the close-out contest to clinch the nomination for Hillary. (Yes, many Clintonites insist that Penn quite mistakenly thought it was a winner-take-all primary. The Democrats don’t have winner-take-all contests.)

But polling before she conceded in early June showed Obama leading Clinton in any California re-run, 51% to 38%, and he was running stronger than she against McCain. In any event, while she won California, 51% to 43%, back in February as Obama left the campaigning to surrogates, she and Bill had to spend more time than they expected to hold the state, with the former president devoting the final two days of the Super Tuesday campaign locking down a long-expected win.

Obama had closed a huge gap in California as he did around the country leading into the more than 20 Super Tuesday contests on February 5th. With a few more days time to devote to California, which he did not have, he could have beaten the Clintons here. But without that time, but with his strategic feint in California having succeeded in drawing the Clintons back to the state, he pivoted to other other contests. As Obama garnered a big delegate haul in the Golden State due to the party’s proportional representation rules — with Oprah, Michelle Obama, Caroline and Ted Kennedy, and California First Lady Maria Shriver campaigning for him — he was off winning other states while the Clintons furiously defended their heavily-cultivated electoral crown jewel.

With Westly and others, such as David Geffen, building an operation from scratch, Obama nearly matched the Clintons in California fundraising. While strong in LA — he actually raised a little more Hollywood money than Clinton — Obama was clearly the toast of Silicon Valley. Now it’s falling together for Obama, with the base so painstakingly assembled by the Clintons joining with Obama’s new machine to form something even more powerful. Geffen will probably join with partners Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg for another big Obama gala this fall.

But there’s at least one problem still for Obama in California. And that’s the ongoing phenomenon of rumor-mongering about Obama, no little of which seems to emanate from Los Angeles. The conspiracy theories are very involved, but center on the notion that Obama is some sort of “Manchurian candidate” — folks pushing that stuff might want to check out the actual novel or movie, which doesn’t mean what they think it means — a deeply un-American figure out to advance radical Islam and destroy Israel.

So former LA Congressman Mel Levine, an early Obama backer who is one of Israel’s biggest supporters, joined forces with his former congressional colleague from LA, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Howard Berman, to shoot down the rumors and get the truth out about Obama. Decrying the “persistent effort to undermine and distort Obama’s record,” Levine and Berman have formed a Jewish community committee to get the truth out about Obama and shoot down the rumors.

Just another way in which California has suddenly become a bulwark of this once seemingly most unlikely of prospective presidents.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

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John McCain’s web ad touting a trade deal with Colombia.

**  MOVES BY BROWN AND NEWSOM. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown has started raising some national campaign money, as he looks at possible 2010 gubernatorial race. But while his committee is called Jerry Brown 2010, it’s not a formal exploratory gubernatorial campaign committee, so he can’t raise money in the same big chunks as, say  …  San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who did open such a committee today.

** TV AD WARS: CHANGING MCCAIN V. WORKING OBAMA. It’s John McCain who is the candidate of change in the latest round of the TV ad wars, changing to his third campaign slogan in less than four weeks. Barack Obama shows more consistency, as in consistently emphasizing work over welfare in his battleground states message. From my other blog.

** PELOSI AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON THE WAY. San Francisco’s longtime congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, now the speaker of the US House of Representatives, has an autobiography on the way. In “Know Your Power: A Message To America’s Daughters,” coming on July 29th, Pelosi “tells how her work on behalf of then-California Gov. Jerry Brown’s 1976 presidential campaign helped turn her from a San Francisco housewife and mother of five who dabbled in Democratic Party politics into a serious political figure who became California’s state party chair in the early 1980s. In 1987, all her hard work paid off when she was elected to the House in a special election from San Francisco, the Baltimore native’s adopted hometown.”

** THE BUSH PROBLEM. A new Gallup Poll shows that two-thirds of Americans are concerned that John McCain would pursue policies that are “too similar” to the policies of President George W. Bush. 49% are “very concerned.” Only 15% are “not concerned at all.” The conundrum for McCain is that Bush remains very popular with the conservative base.

** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.

Barack Obama is in Zanesville, Ohio, for a speech on religious faith. Obama is reaching out to Christian evangelicals, and will discuss his plan as president to expand faith-based programs.

John McCain is in Indianapolis, Indiana and Cartagena, Colombia. McCain is addressing the National Sheriffs Association in Indianapolis and will meet tonight in Cartagena with Colombiana President Jose Uribe and members of the his cabinet and military general staff. McCain is in Latin America this week to promote free trade and explore security issues in Colombia, beset by a leftist guerilla movement, and Mexico, beset by increasingly bold drug cartels.

** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be in the rural Northern California community of Anderson to tour the fires around Mount Shasta. He will give a briefing on the Shasta fires and the fire situation around California. Schwarzenegger is bringing in National Guard troops to fight fires on the ground, in addition to the previously committed air support. The event will be webcast live at 10:20 AM on www.gov.ca.gov.

California missed its constitutional deadline for budget passage last night, per usual. There is no progress at present, with the usual ultra-government and anti-government factions holding sway in the Legislature.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing through the $143 per barrel barrier yesterday, crude oil is trading in the $142 to $143 per barrel range. on concern about a potential Israeli military strike on Iran.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

YouTube Direktvideo link

The Tesla sports car may be a harbinger of future all-electric vehicles.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was putting on his best cheshire cat impression this morning in San Carlos as he joined state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and officials of Tesla Motors to announce that the all-electric vehicle company will manufacture its next set of cars in the San Francisco Bay Area. Silicon Valley-based Tesla, named in homage for early 20th century inventor Nikola Tesla, created a stir with its first car, just now in production at Lotus in England, a stylish $98,000 sports car that does 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds with a range of 225 miles per battery charge. Schwarzenegger got one and has been touting the car as a harbinger of a cool new clean tech future, an alternative to the Soviet-era styling of the hybrid Prius, which Schwarzenegger tells me he “wouldn’t be caught dead in.”

It’s what the industry calls a “halo car,” a car to capture the imagination and show what’s possible. But at $100,000, the Tesla Roadster is a car for folks like Schwarzenegger and Dennis Haysbert, of TV hit 24’s first black president fame. It’s the follow-on cars, a mid-size sports sedan for $60,000, a competitor to the BMW 5-series and Jaguar XF set for the end of 2009, and a smaller sports sedan for $30,000 set for 2011 that will start to make a difference.

And the next cars were set to be be made in New Mexico.

Schwarzenegger’s friend, Governor Bill Richardson, made Tesla a good deal. So Schwarzenegger set out to work with Tesla officials, including Tesla board member Steve Westly, the former California state controller and Obama for President national finance co-chair, to come up with a better deal. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer provided the lynchpin, using the little-known California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority to finace the purchase of $100 million in equipment for the new plant. Tesla is leasing the equipment from the state and can buy it later, but would pay no sales tax in the end. The state is also providing grants for employee training.

Schwarzenegger is fond of telling Detroit to get off its butt. So far, it hasn’t. The big US automakers have resisted not only fundamental technological changes, but also significant increases in fuel efficiency, and as a result have fallen behind world automakers in Japan in Europe.

So now Schwarzenegger has an increasingly famous car company not only headquartered in his state and designing its vehicles here, but also producing them here. I think it will be the first car manufacturing plant since GM shut down in the San Fernando Valley a quarter-century ago.

Schwarzenegger has also adroitly switched the vehicle most associated with him. For years, it’s been the Hummer. But the Hummer, the civilian version of the massive HumVee, which has proved to be so problematic in Iraq combat situations, is on its way out. The Brobdingnagian vehicle, the military version of which caught Schwarzenegger’s fancy following the first Gulf War, is, in this sudden era of very expensive oil, a luxury that’s simply not affordable. I’ll write about the Hummer, and Schwarzenegger’s association with it, another time.

Meanwhile, the Tesla sports car is starting to appear, as you see in the video above. As a vehicle designed to compete with the likes of Porsche and Ferrari, it’s clearly an aspirational vehicle rather than a realistic one. But it gets people’s attention for what comes next. And maybe it will shame the conventional US automakers into making some changes, before it’s too late for them.

There aren’t many political writers who pay attention to energy — too bad it’s the key to so many issues in the new environment — and only a few, like Slate’s Mickey Kaus and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, who are into cars and gadgets. None seem to have paid attention to this yet.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.

Barack Obama is in Independence, Missouri, Harry Truman’s hometown, for a speech on patriotism.

John McCain is in Harrisburg and Pipersville, Pennsylvania, trying to catch up in a state many had thought would be a big problem for Obama.

** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE ELECTRIC CAR WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joins state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and officials of Tesla Motors this morning in San Carlos to announce that production of the firm’s innovative new all-electric sports cars — 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds — will take place in California. The event will be webcast live at 11:30 AM on www.gov.ca.gov.

** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA. It began as Clinton Country. For awhile, it seemed John McCain might stake his claim on the Golden State. But now, it is clearly Barack Obama’s California. From my other blog.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing through the $143 per barrel barrier earlier today, crude oil is trading in the $140 per barrel range.

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Hillary Clinton in Unity, New Hampshire.

In this 4th of July week, Barack Obama and John McCain are taking very different tacks. McCain is heading for Latin America to burnish his already well-known foreign policy credentials, with tours of Colombia and Mexico. Obama is heading to Ohio and the Mountain West, the latter part of his new swing states strategy.

Both are continuing their TV ad campaigns, with Obama on the air in 18 states and McCain in 11. But McCain has a new ad up, pushing his new theme of energy security, while Obama continues his biographical introduction. And McCain has changed his slogan again, to “Putting Country First,” his third in a month.

Both candidates had some rocky moments last week. McCain chief strategist Charlie Black may be on a long vacation off a short pier after being quoted in a Fortune profile of McCain saying that a successful terrorist attack on US soil would help elect the Arizona senator. A lot of people think it’s true, incidentally. I don’t. And one of McCain’s biggest backers, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, criticized his oil policy. He also fell behind in Schwarzenegger’s California by a whopping 2 to 1 in the latest Rasmussen poll. The poll, bear in mind that pollster Scott Rasmussen is an avowed Republican, shows Obama opening up a massive lead over McCain in the Golden State, which Team McCain once saw as a possibility. It’s Obama 58%, McCain 30%. Frankly, this is the biggest lead I can recall in any such presidential poll of California voters. McCain’s shift in position for offshore oil drilling is a major backfire for he and his party in California.

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John McCain’s new TV ad, and latest campaign slogan.

Obama got a big boost at the end of the week with his Unity, New Hampshire — a bit too clever, perhaps, sounding like the name of a TV show — rally with Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a much more compelling and polished speaker than when she began her presidential campaign. She and Barack Obama played off each other quite well. He with his slightly loosened French, er, royal blue tie, she with matching (trademark) pantsuit. (Actually, it may be more of a robin’s egg blue.) She either actually wants him to be elected president, or has become a very accomplished actress. 6000 people showing up in a field outside a town so small it doesn’t have an elected mayor. Where neither candidate actually campaigned in the New Hampshire primary, but where each received 107 votes.

Reviews are more mixed for Obama’s pivot to the center since the primaries. Some think he looks like a flip-flopper. Others think he looks like a smart politician. In the former camp politico.com, which has a feature pushing a theme. That Barack Obama is really just another conventional politician. This happens to be the theme pushed in a memo by McCain senior advisor Steve Schmidt, the former Schwarzenegger campaign manager. The argument is that Obama has made a mistake in the last two weeks. By not making “bold choices.” Or by, looking at it from another perspective, not playing into Republican hands. Decides not to give up massive fundraising advantage over McCain? Supposed mistake. Decides not to debate in McCain’s preferred and by far best format? Supposed mistake. Decides to favor the right of the individual to bear arms? Supposed mistake. Decides to support death penalty for the rapists of children? Supposed mistake. Decides not to punish telecom firms caught up in the post-9/11 fervor that cooperated with national security officials? Supposed mistake.

Of course, had Obama gone the other way on these issues, he would be derided as an idiot. Naturally. But it sure would have played into another favored Republican theme, that Obama is the most radical Democratic presidential nominee in history.

Nevertheless, the moves make it clear that Obama is a politician, for those who haven’t been following along. His positioning looks an awful lot like Bill Clinton’s, who was off in London for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday while his wife was schlepping off to a field in picturesque New Hampshire.

Meanwhile, with national polls delivering varying numbers, from a 15-point Obama lead to a dead-even race, battleground state polls are promising for Obama. In the new Quinnipiac polls for the Wall Street Journal, for example, Barack Obama leads John McCain in key swing states. In Colorado, it’s 49-44, Michigan 48-42, Minnesota (home of possible McCain running mate Governor Tim Pawlenty) 54-37, and Wisconsin 52-39. And in New Mexico, Barack Obama holds a significant lead over John McCain in the latest Rasmussen tracking poll, 47% to 39%.

But the most important numbers look to be the economic numbers. Crude oil closed over $140 per barrel Friday for the first time in history, at a whopping $140.90. It also hit a new intraday trading high of $142.99 per barrel. Gold is around a record high, the dollar is around a record low, and the stock market is on the cusp of beardom, with financial stocks especially nosediving.

The ballyhooed summit of oil producers and consumers in Saudi Arabia failed, with OPEC leaders insisting the problem of price is not a matter of supply, but largely one of speculation. They essentially washed their hands of any responsibility, which guarantees that the energy economy, and everything it affects, will be front and center in the presidential election.  …

You can see the whole MMQB on PJ Media.

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The Batman pictures do very well when America is in a dark mood. Here’s the trailer for the 2005 franchise reboot, Batman Begins. Its sequel, The Dark Knight, opening in three weeks, shows universal recognition in audience surveys, and will be one of the year’s biggest movies.

**  SUNDAY SHOWS, AND MORE. As first reported here, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was Tom Brokaw’s first guest on the post-Tim Russert Meet The Press, the interview fiilmed several days ago at the Reagan Library in the distant Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley. Brokaw asked Schwarzenegger some tough questions about California’s chronic budget crisis, recurring with the economic downturn, which the former action superstar handled with relative aplomb, though he might have mentioned his various attempts to reform the budget process.  Schwarzenegger, while making it clear he disapproves of John McCain’s oil policy, stuck by his endorsement of the Vietnam War hero, which had enabled McCain to effectively win the Republican nomination by knocking Mitt Romney out of the race with a big win in the California primary. The show also featured other Western governors, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, playing up the newfound importance of the West in this year’s presidential race. To his credit, Schwarzenegger did not try to insist that McCain has much chance in California against Barack Obama.

On other shows, General Wes Clark, one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest backers, took a big smack at McCain with regard to his national security credentials. Clark, a former Ranger and highly decorated infantry company commander in the Vietnam War who went on to become supreme commander of NATO, scoffed on Face The Nation at the idea of McCain as national security guru, saying he never commanded anything in wartime, has no executive experience in national security matters, and went so far as to say that getting shot down isn’t much of a  credential. Whoa! Who let the dogs out? Clark’s move came a day after McCain said, at a Kentucky fundraiser, that Obama is not “trustworthy.”

In other action, two Californians from opposite ends of the spectrum were on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Arianna Huffington, head of the now massively trafficked liberal Huffington Post, jousted with radio host Hugh Hewitt of the conservative TownHall.com.

Meanwhile, another type of show, this one a feature film, hit the $300 million mark today in domestic box office. Again belying some early tidings of woe, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which we’ll just call Indy 4, is well on its way to being the biggest movie of the year around the world. If it’s not caught by the new Batman film.

** SUNDAY — WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.

Barack Obama is in Chicago, off the campaign trail.

John McCain is in Asheville, North Carolina, meeting with evangelists Billy Graham and son Franklin Graham, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. McCain had been criticized for taking 19 of the past 20 weekends off the campaign trail, though he did host potential veeps at his Arizona “cabin.”

** OBAMA AS THE “RADICAL MUSLIM MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE.” The Washington Post, with the assistance of Dr. Danielle Allen of the Institute for Advanced Studies, delves into the origin of the endless e-mail attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as a radical Muslim “Manchurian candidate.” Proving, among other things, that those making the charge have never seen The Manchurian Candidate. It turns out that the far right web site Free Republic is the constant aggregator of these spurious charges. I get into this issue at the end of the column referenced below, “Obama’s California,” which notes that various such rumors, conflated into more complex permutations, emanate from arguably more sophisticated sources in Los Angeles.

** SCHWARZENEGGER ON FIRST POST-RUSSERT ERA MEET THE PRESS. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appears as the first guest on the first full-fledged post-Tim Russert edition of Meet The Press on Sunday. Check your various markets for the time. Schwarzenegger, whose wife, California First Lady Maria Shriver, was one of the late Tim Russert’s best friends, will be new Meet The Press host/former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw’s first guest, is expected to discuss his views on energy policy and climate change, as well as the late longtime host of the show, whose death shocked and saddened so many of us.

** SATURDAY — WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.

Barack Obama was in Washington, DC to address the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. Obama, incidentally, will travel in July to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, Germany, France, and Britain.

John McCain was in Washington, DC to address the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.

** APOLOGIES. To the readers, for the unaccountably small font size now employed on this site. The change was effectuated by the technical manager of NWN, which would be PJ Media. This change was undertaken without the approval of the owner of NWN, who is me. They have been instructed to correct their error, say that the error is being corrected, but the error has not been corrected yet, apparently as it is a weekend. For what it’s worth, I now have eyestrain from reading my own site.

** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA. It began as Clinton Country. For awhile, it seemed John McCain might stake his claim on the Golden State. But now, it is clearly Barack Obama’s California. From my other blog.

** MY LATEST PODCAST. The road ahead. Which actually holds up very well. This is the podcast from last week. The producers of the podcast, PJM, had the requisite equipment misplaced by an airline. Hence the absence of this week’s show.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil closed Friday at a record high of $140.90 per barrel. After it hit another record trading high of $142.99 per barrel. The markets in gold, equities, and the dollar all hit appropriately record and/or bad levels. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

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Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, joined by Prime Minister Tony Blair and other notables, signs California’s landmark 2006 climate change package in this NWN video.

Things may be more than a bit stalled out for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the state Capitol. With the return of the chronic budget crisis, the two parties in the Legislature, dominated by their respective ultra-government (Democratic) and anti-government(Republican) factions, have assumed their default positions. But while the two legislative parties inch forward toward the big reveal that their positions are untenable, Schwarzenegger moves forward on other fronts.

He’s big on the international front, though no longer so much on the international trips, and on another occasion I’ll get into his moves in advance of a major border governors conference this summer in LA. He’s the kick-off guest this Sunday for the new edition of Meet The Press with host Tom Brokaw, the former NBC News anchor who’s taken the place of the late Tim Russert. His administration is working to implement the state’s landmark climate change legislation, to mostly good notices so far. And he’s speaking out on energy policy.

If all this sounds a bit presidential, well, it is. Schwarzenegger is at least as plausible a contender as most of the folks who ran good races this time around. But there’s just that little constitutional wrinkle for the Austrian-born former Mr. Universe. Still, he is the governor of America’s biggest state, as well as a global brand in his own right, with many options for action.

Actually, Schwarzenegger sees energy policy as utterly central, not only to his long-range climate change plans for California and the rest of it all but also, increasingly, to the national political debate. A really comprehensive energy policy has been missing from the presidential contenders, both John McCain, backed by Schwarzenegger, and Barack Obama. So yesterday in Miami, speaking at the Florida Summit on Global Climate Change, the former action superstar took a stab at laying out an energy policy.

He began by discussing environmental and economic and geopolitical challenges, with “the addiction to oil” front and center. He didn’t talk about bringing down the price of oil, and hence, gasoline, perhaps because the real keys to doing so  –  involving speculation, the dollar, and geopolitical risk premiums  –  are a bit beyond the purview of a governor.

“We need,” he said, “a consistent, long-term energy policy that gives consumers more choices. And we have to stick with it, not just a few years until something better comes along and then drop it.”

Politicians, he noted, without naming them, though most felt he was clearly referring to his endorsed candidate for president, amongst others, have been throwing around many ideas, in a sort of crazyquilt pattern that doesn’t really add up to what they say.

“Rethinking nuclear power to pushing biofuels and more renewables and ending the ban on offshore drilling and it goes on and on, the list. But anyone who tells you that this will bring down our gas prices immediately or anytime soon, is blowing smoke. America is so addicted to oil that it will take years to wean ourselves from it and to look for new ways to feed our addiction is not the answer.”

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a possible McCain running mate who last week switched his position on offshore drilling (and later adjusted it in response to the outcry against him in his own state), was sitting just off to the side as Schwarzenegger said this.

Instead of desperately drilling in new areas for relatively small amounts of oil that won’t affect price in a global market, Schwarzenegger said the answer is to go “towards greater innovation and new technologies and new fuel choices for our consumers. This is the only way that we will ultimately reduce fuel costs and protect our environment. In other words, America did not get into this mess overnight and we are not going to get out of this mess overnight.”

Schwarzenegger declared it “shameful” that America gets less than 2% of its energy from renewable sources. And that California gets 12% of its electricity now from renewables and, with mandates he has pushed, 33% by 2020. He noted that Germany leads the world in solar power and Denmark leads the world in wind power, with 20% of its electricity from wind and one in three wind turbines produced in the world coming from the small Scandinavian country. He did not note that California, when Jerry Brown was governor, led the world in both wind and solar power. America, Schwarzenegger declared, should be leading the world in solar and wind power.

He lauded Brazil for its strong ethanol program, which is cellulosic rather than corn-based. Corn-based ethanol, which dominatees in the US, is driving up food prices.

And he praised Denmark, Germany, and Brazil for making “a commitment to clean energy and not wavering, even when it wasn’t popular or appealing.”

In contrast to those countries, US policy “is all over the place. We had a big solar energy push under President Carter in the late ’70s, but then we abandoned it again.” Congress, he noted, passed tax credits for solar, wind and geothermal energy in the 1990s, but “now it’s expiring by the end of this year and we have no idea if they ever will renew it, which ought to be renewed for another decade.”

Schwarzenegger criticized politicians and the auto industry for dropping the ball on vehicle fuel efficiency, which would lower the pain at the pump dramatically.

“Our average passenger vehicles,” he noted “get less than 25 miles per gallon, because politicians have not been willing to hold automakers feet and oil companies’ feet to the fire. That’s less than the Model T got in the 1920s. The Model T in the 1920s got more than 25 miles per gallon.”

Since the Model T went out of production, “America summoned the political will to put a man on the moon and to end legal discrimination and to bring down the Berlin Wall and the list goes on and on and on.” In each case, he said America “was guided by an unyielding and optimistic vision for the future.”

Instead, today’s politicians are happy to require fuel efficiency averages to go from 25 miles per gallon to 35; by the year 2020. But Schwarzenegger noted that Italy already has cars averaging 35 miles per gallon.

Schwarzenegger famously forced the market mechanism of carbon trading into California’s greenhouse gas reduction program, to bring a degree of flexibility. But he clearly sees regulation as playing a forcing function for innovation. He also talked up California’s first-in-the-world Low Carbon Fuel Standard which mandates clean fuels but doesn’t pick winners, as well as new green building standards, the so-called “Million Solar Roof” program, and the Renewable Portfolio Standard, which mandates that utilities sharply increase the proportion of renewable sources in their energy mix.

All of which he says, echoing the Wall Street Journal, is helping to spur a “New Gold Rush” for California in clean tech investment.

It’s an aggressive agenda. All the answers? Hardly. But an intriguing effort.

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