This is funny.

When asked what she thought about McCain's sad excuse for political discourse, this is what Paris Hilton's mother had to say:

It is a complete waste of the money John McCain's contributors have donated to his campaign.

It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs.

And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States.

[As an aside, isn't getting called "frivolous" by Paris' mom a bit like being called "trashy" by Britney Spears?]

To anyone sitting back acting complacement about the presidential race, this should wake you up:

John McCain has opened a modest lead over Barack Obama in the key swing state of Ohio. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Buckeye State shows McCain attracting 46% of the vote while Obama earns 40%. Last month and the month before McCain held a insignificant one-point lead over Obama.

Seven percent (7%) of voters say they’d prefer a third party candidate over either McCain or Obama and another 7% remain undecided.

When "leaners" are included in the totals, McCain leads Obama 52% to 42%.

John McCain, yesterday:

Remembering Czechoslovakia

A reader notes that John McCain today expressed concern about Russia's "reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia."

Which hasn't existed for nearly two decades.

Ok, he's made slips in the past, but no biggie, right?  He would never make this mistake twice, would he?

I only used breaking because the story did, too:

BREAKING NEWS

Barack Obama taps three people to lead VP search, including Caroline Kennedy. Details to come.

Hat tip to Lisa Lockwood (below) for adding this:

WASHINGTON—Barack Obama has asked a three-person team, including Caroline Kennedy, to help lead the vetting of a prospective vice presidential candidate. Kennedy has begun managing the process with high-profile Democratic insiders Jim Johnson and Eric Holder.

Johnson is the former CEO of Fannie Mae who also oversaw the vice presidential vetting for John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984. Holder was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and has been a senior legal adviser to Obama's campaign.

Thisis sad:

Hotline has the list of speakers at the pro-Clinton rally outside the RBC meeting Saturday, organized by the group Women Count.

It includes Florida officials, Reps. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and New York congressional candidate Eric Massa, who seems to be listed as a member of congress.

Eric Massa has much to be admired for, no doubt.  I would have loved to see him elected in 2006...and I still support his 2008 bid.

But...

Hillary on "This Week:"

Pressed twice by George Stephonopolous to name a "credible economist" who thinks the gas tax holiday is a good idea, Clinton can't.

"I’m not going to put my lot in with economists," she said on the "This Week" town hall. Clinton added that the tax holiday would work "if we actually did it right."

Mind you, she didn't actually spell out what "actually [doing] it right" would mean.  Rather, she attacked those who disagreed with her (read: ALL economists) without offering any substantive plans to combat the economists concerns.

In other words,you heard it from Hillary first: screw the people who know what they are talking about!

This is sad: even Matt Drudge is mocking ABC's "town hall."

Then again, after George "I'll commit suicide if Bill Clinton doesn't win" Stephanopoulos' disgraceful debate perfromance, even a hack like Drudge had to be embarrassed by his fellow "journalist."

Writes Drudge:

HILLARY 'TOWN HALL' TO BE HOSTED BY EX-CLINTON STAFFER STEPHANOPOULOS
Thu May 01 2008 17:25:20 ET

Just hours before the Indiana and North Carolina presidential primaries, ABCNEWS has offered to air a 'town hall' meeting with Hillary Clinton -- to be hosted by former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos!

Embracing and racing through a brave new era of journalism, it is not clear if ABCNEWS will inform viewers of Stephanopoulos's past employment.

Stephanopoulos helped run Mr. Clinton's first presidential election campaign and acted as his press secretary and advisor on policy and strategy before joining ABC NEWS.

But the best is below the fold...

Shut up, Howard Wolfson (see 8th paragraph...).

PRINCETON, NJ -- The peeling away of national Democratic support for Barack Obama seen this past week may have run its course. After trailing Hillary Clinton by one percentage point in Saturday's Gallup Poll Daily tracking report, Obama now leads Clinton by two points, 47% to 45%.

Anyone think SusanHu will update her diary or publish a retraction???

Canadians deny Obama call

A spokesman for the Canadian Embassy to the United States, Tristan Landry, flatly denied the CTV report that a senior Obama aide had told the Canadian ambassador not to take seriously Obama's denunciations of Nafta.

"None of the presidential campaigns have called either the Ambassador or any of the officials here to raise Nafta," Landry said.

He said there had been no conversations at all on the subject.

"We didn't make any calls, they didn't call us," Landry said.

"There is no story as far as we’re concerned," he said.

So yesterday Barack challenged his supporters to raise $5,000,000.

Seems they did...and more.

This was, of course, in response to Hillary's $5,000,000 loan--and her own challenge to her supporters to raise $3,000,000 over the course of three days.

Expectedly, as Barack approached, and then surpassed his total, bloggers, including many here, trumpeted his achievement: see here, hereand here.

Details are still coming in, but check this out*:  

EXCLUSIVE: OBAMA BREAKS FUNDRASING RECORD: $32 MILLION

-- 170,000 NEW DONORS FOR JANUARY...

DEVELOPING..

170,000 NEW donors!!!  Unreal!

And a million dollars per day???  WOW!!!

Senator Obama just delivered one of the more remarkable speeches I have ever read.

Rather than comment on it--beyond to say that this speech clearly articulates Senator Obama's vision for America and purpose for running (something Hillary has yet to do)--I will just place it below the fold for you to read.

Oh, boy...

Trying to keep up here "words vs. action" argument, Hillary flubbed it big-time:

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," Clinton said. "It took a president to get it done."

Oy...I am pretty sure she just said MLK was simply a talker and only the "experienced" white man, LBJ, could get anything done.

I am sure this will play well in the AA community.

More, from Ben Smith:

Finally, some honesty.

From the scathing letter from the Board to AFSCME chief McEntee:

We are writing to protest in the strongest terms the negative campaign that AFSCME is conducting against Barack Obama. We do not believe that such a wholesale assault on one of the great friends of our union was ever contemplated when the International Executive Board (IEB) made its decision to endorse Hillary Clinton.

Oh, but it gets better...

UPDATE: Man, you can't fake having cute kids...nice ad.

So much for this fictional storyline.  (Just goes to show that you shouldn't rely on polling outfits that haven't polled Iowa before and model it based on a 15% turnout for those under 45 years of age...)

Rather, ABCNews/WashingtonPost, which has been polling Iowa all year (here is last month's poll), have the race close, but with Obama maintaining his lead:

Obama: 33 (+3)

Clinton: 29 (+3)

Edwards: 20 (-2)

Shocked?

I'm not.

Democratic and Republican sources say that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut and fierce supporter of the war in Iraq, will formally endorse Sen. John McCain tomorrow in New Hampshire.

Ugh...

Wow...the Clinton campaign reached a new low today.

Via it's New Hampshire co-chair, Bill Shaheen:

Billy Shaheen, the co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign in New Hampshire, raised the issue of Sen. Barack Obama's past admissions of drug use in discussing the relative electability of the Democrats seeking the presidential nomination today.

There the Clinton's go again...saying actually being truthful will hurt Obama with the American people...

But it gets even more disgusting.

Newsweek has a new poll out today, and it seems to confirm what everyone has long thought: for casual Democrats, Hillary is the default choice.

But for those paying attention--and those prepared to actually caucus--Obama is SURGING!

For ALL Democratic voters, here are the numbers:

Clinton 30----Obama 29----Edwards 21

[NOTE: Obama has picked up 6 points from the same question in September (was Clinton 31, Obama 25) thanks, Geekesque!]

But let's be honest--Polling "Democratic voters" in Iowa is useless.  As everyone here knows, the caucuses involve a real investment of time, and any polling outfit worth anything will poll based on one's likelihood of actually attending the caucus.

So what's really meaningful about the poll...