While sun shines on Obama, storm trips up McCain
Another entry in the category of if he didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all: John McCain, to counter Barack Obama's speech today before the adoring masses in Berlin, planned to fly out to an oil rig off the Louisiana coast to make the case for offshore drilling.
But Hurricane Dolly forced McCain to scrub the event, and instead hold yet another town hall meeting in Ohio.
So now McCain is relegated to a radio ad, financed by the Republican National Committee, that hits Obama's record on supporting the troops and that will air in three other Berlins stateside - in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The ad is already being denounced by the Obama campaign as a "distasteful and misleading attack" and criticized by independent fact-checking organizations as misleading.
Meanwhile, the weather forecast for Berlin in Germany is partly sunny skies and a nice day in the low 80s, as favorable political winds continue to push Obama's first foreign tour as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
And German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will meet with Obama, is already saying nice things about him. "I would say that he is well-equipped - physically, mentally, and politically," she said at a news conference yesterday, adding that she wouldn't be averse to a Bush-style back rub.
FOON RHEE
He has decided to buy $5 million in national advertising on NBC during the broadcast of the Olympic games. The ads will appear on network and cable channels.
The ad purchase was first reported yesterday on the website of Advertising Age, a magazine that covers the industry.
The Olympics, to be held in Beijing, will open Aug. 8. Such an extensive purchase of ad time would give Obama wide exposure before the Democratic National Convention, to be held the last week in August.
Obama has the resources: He has set fund-raising records and reported raising $52 million in June, more than twice the $21.5 million raised by his rival, Republican John McCain.
At the same time, the expenditure is as significant for its reach as for the bold statement it makes. Obama has been airing ads in 18 states, reaching key battlegrounds as well as states that have traditionally voted Republican in presidential elections, including Alaska and Virginia.
A national network ad is highly unusual in politics, because of its expense and because it reaches audiences that are not necessarily targeted by a campaign.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On both CBS and Fox News Channel yesterday morning, Jindal said he doesn't expect John McCain to pick him.
"I'm not going to be the vice presidential nominee or vice president," Jindal said on Fox News. "Let me be clear: I have said in every private and public conversation, I've got the job that I want."
Meanwhile, CNN reported yesterday that McCain told a small group of New Hampshire Republicans on Tuesday that they are "really going to like" Pawlenty. CNN said its source took the mention as a big hint because it seemed to come out of the blue. Pawlenty, on MSNBC Tuesday, refused to comment on any VP speculation.
The loudest speculation lately has revolved around former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, whom McCain lavishly praised again Tuesday during a town hall meeting in Rochester, N.H.
FOON RHEE
"We need to use nuclear," the presumptive Republican nominee declared at a town hall meeting in Wilkes-Barre, about 100 miles from Three Mile Island, the site, in March 1979, of the worst nuclear mishap in US history.
"Our problem is not that nuclear power isn't safe," said McCain, who wants to build 45 new nuclear plants. The problem, he said, is the storage of spent fuel and other nuclear waste.
The expansion of nuclear power distinguishes McCain from Democratic rival Barack Obama. They both say they want more use of wind, solar, and other alternative energy.
Another issue on which the candidates disagree is whether to allow more offshore oil drilling. "We need to drill offshore," McCain told the town hall meeting, crediting the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling.
The White House didn't go that far. Spokeswoman Dana Perino said the price drop also could reflect diminished demand. "I don't know if we fully deserve the credit," she said.
Obama opposes the idea, saying it wouldn't provide relief from high gas prices for a decade.
McCain hit Obama for opposing his proposals, reminding voters of the Democrat's short-lived campaign seal that resembled the presidential seal but had the Latin translation of his campaign slogan, "Yes We Can."
It should have said, "No We Won't," McCain quipped.
GLOBE STAFF AND AP 