Philebrity put out an entry about some doorknob hanging literature appealing to "South Philly" machismo by invoking area war hero John Dremasi's grit under torture. Ironically, Rolling Stone just put out an article which begins with Dremasi calling McCain to task on his character.

I blogged the connection, but the links above give you the full story too.

So what is John McCain's strategy to miraculously turn the credit crunch to his advantage? Turn it into a racial allegory. How does he do this?

Whoever this Ed Rendell dude is, we need to put him in front of the cameras:

"She [claims to be] a reformer," said the Pennsylvania Democrat. "And yet she is being investigated on the charge that she used her power as governor to fire someone who was going through a messy divorce with a relative of hers. Could you imagine if I was doing the same thing in Pennsylvania? You would be calling for my impeachment."

Zing!

In between getting lessons in how to dress from Vaughn Hebron, Big Poppa Rendell also said this:

"[The McCain camp] has tried to again obscure the facts about Gov. Palin. 'She is a reformer and against earmarks.' No she isn't, when she was mayor of that town she hired a lobbyist to get earmarks... 'She was against the bridge to nowhere.' No she wasn't. She was for the bridge to nowhere first... She is a budget balancer. But she left the town in greater debt then when she became mayor, so she is not a budget balancer."

And this:

"First of all, let me say it should be embarrassing for the Republican ticket that Rick Davis, Sen. McCain's campaign manager, said 'this election is not about issues.' Good lord, with all the challenges facing America it has to be about issues...They don't want to talk about issues because when the truth comes out about issues the American people will favor Sen. Obama tremendously."

The Republicans, he added, "would make the all time all-star team for spiders the way they can spin."

Get this man a hoagie and lots of national camera time, because it is about time Democrats started dealing bluntly with McCain/Palin.

Some numbers were running through my head this morning:

• PA Democratic Registration Advantage, November 1998: 442,671.
• PA Democratic Registration Advantage, May 2008: 1,014,052
• Percent of Pennsylvania House Reps that are Democratic: 50.2%
• Percent of Pennsylvania Senators that are Democratic: 42%

Dear Pennsylvania Democratic Party and activists: Get it together. A basic tie in the House and a huge GOP majority in the Senate is a sad commentary on the state of the PA Democratic party.

.........

• Number of passwords that the City Commissioners determined they could give out to view election returns: 150
• The number of passwords that Vince Fumo had by himself: 10
• The number of Philadelphia citizens who have now requested their own password within the last 5 days: 327

For those people who submitted them Friday, you should hear something by Friday (5 business days), and a final decision within thirty days.

.........

• Days until the November Election: 104
• Average PA Poll Lead for Barack Obama: 9.7%
• Number of pundits who have stated the obvious, that Barack Obama is going to kick John McCain's ass in PA: 0(?)

I am not saying we don't need to work hard here to get this done, because we do. But, as long as we do, McCain may as well not run an ad in PA.

What else is going on?

The Story of John “Keating” McCain:
A Proposed Strategy for Democratic Victory in 2008
by Nicholas Feden

Hillary Clinton says her economic policies will restore the economic policies of her husband's administration. However both Hillary and her husband failed to demonstrate any economic wisdom or foresight as Alan Greenspan warned of irrational exuberance while the sub prime housing loans and dot com investment bubbles were created and pandered during her husband's administration and both supported China's entry into the World Trade Organization without any conditions such as protecting the environment or labor and property rights to levels that are comparable to western standards.

The U.S. government surplus (generated by taxes raised from the housing and investment bubbles) evaporated once the housing and investment bubbles burst.