According to head to head match-ups, Obama and McCain are tied in Galllup and Rasmussen Reports.

We have a tie or polls within the margin of error. If the election were held today, it would be very close.

We do not have a close election along ethnic lines. Back to Rasmussen:

“McCain leads by twelve percentage points among White Men and eleven points among White Women while Obama overwhelmingly attracts the African-American vote.

Among Hispanic voters, Obama leads 58% to 35%.

Obama leads 59% to 35% among those who rarely, never, or occasionally attend Church or other religious services.

Among those who attend services at least a couple of times a month, McCain leads 56% to 37%.

McCain leads 69% to 28% among Evangelical Christians.”

What does that mean? Our national division goes on.

Obama’s “white vote” problem is outlined by Juan Williams:

“Clinton has defeated Obama among white voters in key states such as California, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Exit polls show Clinton winning an overwhelming average of 57% of white Democrats since the February Super Tuesday elections.” (Obama Has Growing Problem w/White Voters)

Obama’s early promise was that he wasn’t a black candidate.

I still see Obama as a liberal. I want to run against Obama as a liberal who is weak on national security and will make a mess out of courts.

However, Rev. Wright changed the election. His remarks killed Obama with white voters.

It did not help that Obama had ear plugs for 20 years!

Obama is now a black candidate. He gets 90% of the black vote in primaries and loses to McCain with white voters, specially white men!

Let me say this: It would be a nightmare for the US to have an election decided along racial lines.

I guess that we are not smart enough to understand what Obama meant to say!

First, it was Michelle Obama. She said that she was finally proud to be an American because her husband was running for president.

Second, Rev. Wright’s videos amazed us. How did Barrack and Michelle Obama let their daughters hear that?

Now it’s Obama who is making outrageous statements. Now it’s Obama who is coming across as a San Francisco liberal.

Professor VD Hanson is one of our favorites. Friday, he posted The McGovernization of Obama :

The worst hypocrisy, of course, is Obama’s charge that these small towns in Pennsylvania express “anti-trade sentiment.”

It was not George Bush or John McCain, but Barack Obama himself who tried to salvage Ohio by demagoguing NAFTA and opposing a free-trade agreement with Columbia.

His entire campaign is predicated on showing more anti-trade sentiment that the Clintons.

Yes, Obama is saying that small town folk cling to anti-trade statements. Who is telling these folks a bunch of lies about free trade?

What about clinging to religion? What about the Obamas clinging to a racist minister! What church in rural America is saying what Obama’s minister said of Sec. Rice?

Mike Allen has a suggestion for Obama:

“If you are going to say something that makes you sound like a clueless liberal, don’t say it in San Francisco.”

Better than that, don’t turn off the teleprompter. Obama always gets in trouble when he is speaking rather than reading a speech!

Hillary can’t take advantage of Obama’s gaffe

Obama is a lucky guy. He just made a huge mistake. In other words, he stepped on some very bad stuff.

Obama is lucky because Hillary Clinton can’t take advantage of it.

Hillary was doing a lot of Obama bashing today. According to The Caucus:

She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.”

Her father taught her to shoot when she was a young girl? Is this what inspired Hillary to join the Marines in Arkansas?

Is this the latest version of the Bosnia sniper fire story?

Again, Hillary Clinton’s credibility is Obama’s best ally:

FLASHBACK: HILLARY 1999: Lobbies for Massive Gun Control…

She was for gun control in ’99 and now she is for fathers teaching young girls to use guns!

How can anyone believe a word out of this woman’s mouth?

The Dems are caught between two unelectable candidates. On one side, there is Obama, a left wing elitist! On the other side, there is Clinton, a woman who will say whatever she needs to say!

My money is on McCain! I hope that you are also betting on McCain because he will win a fairly easy one in November!

Obama is doing a lot of damage control. Obama’s explanation is that he went to church often but did not hear the pastor say anything provocative.

Obama’s explanation is patently not believable. Is Obama telling me that he did not hear, directly or indirectly, what Pastor Wright said on the first Sunday after 9-11? (ABC)

Again, Obama needs to come up with a better explanation than that. (Obama Responds)

I remember the first Sunday after 9-11. Most priests, rabbis and ministers did not get political. Instead, they tried to soothe a worried nation. It was a day of coming together rather than an opportunity to unleash mindless demagoguery about Nagasaki and our support of Israel.

Obama needs to hold a full press conference. He needs to answer a simple question: Which one of the pastor’s messages did he agree with? Why didn’t he confront the pastor after the unbelievable 9-11 sermon? Why did he continue as a member of this church

Why a press conference? Because Pastor Wright may have lost the Jewish vote for the Dems.

Let me repeat. The Jewish vote is not going to support a Dem with such a pastor. The Jewish vote is critical in Florida and many other cities!

Obama can not argue that he has the judgement to lead but not the judgement to lead his family out of this church.

Let’s just check some of the minister’s words:

“We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty…”

Obama can’t hide and say that he disagrees with this minister now.

Didn’t he hear, directly or indirectly, the pastor say such an outrageous thing about AIDS?

Sorry Obama. You waited too long to disagree with your pastor.

You should have looked for another church years ago!

You should not have used your pastor’s words in your book.

The title of Mr. Obama’s bestseller “The Audacity of Hope” comes from one of Wright’s sermons. Mr. Wright is one of the first people Mr. Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. Mr. Obama consulted Mr. Wright before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Mr. Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.

Sorry Obama. You praised your pastor just last year. (2007 Profile: Wright provides “spiritual guidance” for Obama, Oprah)

Obama’s pastor is an irresponsible promoter of crazy conspiracy theories. Obama can’t say that the pastor is the crazy uncle who shouts obscenities from the roof! You don’t choose your crazy uncle. He comes with the family. You do choose your pastor and the church that you contribute money to!

Obama has been severely wounded by the pastor controversy. At the same time, Hillary Clinton can’t stop him unless she persuades the super delegates that Obama is unelectable.

P.S. Obama’s Rezko problem is also brewing:

“Barack Obama has already had a tough week, and it’s just about to get worse.

With his campaign reeling from the videos of his pastor spewing race-baiting rhetoric, the Tony Rezko trial just produced a new nugget that makes Obama look more dishonest.

For the second time, the amount of money Rezko raised for Obama has been significantly increased from Obama’s prior admissions.” (Ed Morrissey)

I have watched Hillary Clinton make the case to Texas Dems that she has the experience. Over in Ohio, I saw a smooth Barack Obama say that experience is the old measurement to elect presidents.

At some point, Dems need to stand back and take a look at the big picture.

You can’t hope that your candidate has experience. You can’t say that your candidate has experience. Either she does or she does not! In this case, she does not!

If her name was Hillary Rodham, would anybody be supporting her for president? Would she even be the Senator of NY?

At some point, Dems need to understand that she is Bill’s wife and that’s her only real experience.

Don’t give me the “Bush was a president’s son” bit. GW Bush was a businessman and a very successful governor of Texas. For the record, Texas is the 10th largest economy in the world! Did he benefit from being a Bush in 1994? Of course, he did. Was a successful governor? Indeed he was!

With respect to Obama, he can’t get away with saying that experience is the old way to choose a candidate.

Obama emphasizes judgement. Yet, his only example of judgement is that he gave some interview to a Chicago TV station in 2002 about the Iraq War. Obama claims to be a uniter but has a rather dismal record of uniting anybody. (Obama: A Thin Record For a Bridge Builder by David Ignatius)

Why does this matter? We are choosing a president, the commander in chief of the world’s largest military, the one and only person in the country who can give the order to fire a nuclear missile, the leader of the free world, etc.

In that context, it’s hard to believe that the Dems have reached the point where their two finalists are the least experienced people ever to seek the presidency.

Obama and Clinton are not serious candidates. I don’t care how much Democrats hope it or say it. They do not have a single day of executive experience. They have never managed a city, a state, an agency, a business or anything at all.

Here is the larger question: What does this say about the modern Dem party

In my memory, the Dems nominated a VP Humphrey, a Sen. McGovern, a Gov. Carter, a Pres. Carter, a VP Mondale, a Gov. Dukakis, a Gov. Clinton, a Pres. Clinton, a VP Gore and a Sen. Kerry. Along the way, there were serious candidacies from Sen. Bentsen, Gov. Brown, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Hart, Sen. Glenn, Sen Bradley, etc.

What did all of these men have in common? They had some degree of executive, public sector, private sector and military experience!

How can anybody in their right mind say that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama match the experience of any of these men or even the ones who did not make it?

This is insane. This is today’s Dem party! (Slate reporter to Hillary aides: Name one foreign policy crisis she’s been tested by)

Why is Hillary Clinton having such a hard time making the case that Barack Obama does not have experience? Because she does not have any experience but most Democrats are just too blind to see the truth.

On paper, it is very difficult for a party to win 3 presidential elections in a row. It has not happened much except for 1988 when Pres. Reagan was succeeded by VP Bush.

History favors the Dems. However, they need to put forward an experienced candidate, specially when our side is putting up one of the strongest national security cards in Sen. McCain!

Last night, Sen. Obama gave another one of his wonderful speeches. He told them what they wanted to hear. Obama has style. Obama has charm. Obama can sell a liberal anything, specially when he gets into his “yes we can” chants! (Don’t get me wrong: He is a great speaker!)

My question is this: What is this man really saying?

Pres. Reagan gave great speeches, too. He called on people to rely on themselves and cut back on government. He identified enemies of freedom. He told you to keep your income because you were better at spending your own money than government.

One of Pres. Reagan’s greatest speeches came in 1964 when he supported the Goldwater candidacy. It did not help Goldwater but propelled him into running for governor in California and then the presidency. Check it out! (“A Time for Choosing” (October 27, 1964)) He called on people to reject liberalism because it ultimately eroded your freedoms.

In 1980, candidate Reagan delivered a wonderful speech in Detroit. (Acceptance of the Republican Presidential Nomination, “Time to Recapture Our Destiny”) This is one of my favorite speeches!

Give me Reagan. He called on us to think for ourselves rather than all of this “voodoo” coming from Obama.

Sen. Obama wants to expand government by getting in your pocketbook. He calls it “taxing the rich”. All of this garbage about “taxing the rich” is just garbage, pure garbage. (The rich aren’t made of money)

The Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.03% of Income Taxes! How gullible or ignorant are all of these people listening to Obama? The Top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes; the top 10% pay 64.89%; The top 25% pay 82.9%!

He wants to tax corporations! Who ends up paying corporate taxes? Can you spell CONSUMER! Didn’t any of these Dem candidates take an economics course in college? They should enroll in one of Dr. Walter Williams’s Econ 101 classes! (Class warfare chicanery)

Also, how do you tax corporations without reducing the jobs that they create. Maybe we should send Obama to France and sit down with Sarkozy. France is desperately trying to get back in the business of “job creation” by dumping the welfare state that Obama calls for

Furthermore, what’s a corporation? Most of our jobs are created by small businesses not large companies.

He wants to improve our image around the world, etc. What does that mean? Didn’t we hear this nonsense from Democrats during the Reagan years? Can’t these guys come up with a new tune? See Anti-Americanism: It’s About American Power, Not Policy By Soeren Kern!

Also, how do you improve our image around the world by adopting the protectionist message coming out of the Dems’ base? Free trade is very important for most countries. Bashing free trade deals is not going to make us popular. (The Coming Democratic War on Free Trade By Steve Chapman)

Obama and the Childish Left By James Lewis will make you think, specially if you are one of those who actually listens to what orators are saying:

“This is the candidate as Rock Idol. It is purely instinctive. The thinking part of the brain has nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, the United States still needs a real adult to lead it through the next four or eight years. The nation is at war — though the infantile half of our population lives in denial.”

On the issue of life, Sen. Obama is pro-abortion! (Obama is the Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever By Terence Jeffrey)

So “yes we can” what?

Abortion and a bigger welfare state.

I’m not making the Clintons’ case against Obama. However, someone in the media must sit down and ask this guy a question and demand an answer beyond another speech about hope! I got plenty of hope. I just need some specifics!

The speeches are over. It’s time for Obama to get specific! I agree with Riding the Obama Wave By Peter Wehner! Check out Lack of Policy Detail Raises Doubts About Obama By Mort Kondracke!