AP Photo-White House

Our White House troops are reporting that President and Mrs. Bush have cast their absentee ballots today for Senator McCain. Here is the White House Statement:

Today the President and Mrs. Bush cast their ballots for the 2008 election during the early voting process. The ballots will be mailed back to Texas today. They plan to be here at the White House on election night.

CLEARWATER, FL - At a media availability today at the site of his debate preparations in Florida, Barack Obama told reporters that he did not intend to travel to Washington as his chief rival pledged to do, but that, ” if I can be helpful, then I am prepared to be anywhere, anytime.”

Just a few hours later - in the midst of his debate preps, his campaign announced he would, in fact, return to DC to meet with the president. “President Bush called Senator Obama and asked him to attend a meeting in Washington tomorrow, which he agreed to do.  Senator Obama has been working all week with leaders in Congress, Secretary Paulson, and Chairman Bernanke to improve this proposal, and he has said that he will continue to work in a bipartisan spirit and do whatever is necessary to come up with a final solution.  He strongly believes the debate should go forward on Friday so that the American people can hear from their next President about how he will lead America forward at this defining moment for our country,” spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

Following his trip to the nation’s capitol, Obama will return to Florida to continue preparations for Friday’s debate, which may or may not include Senator McCain.

The Obama campaign is doing its best to make George Bush the star of the Republican convention. They began airing an ad on national cable networks linking John McCain to the unpopular president, and have already issued a response to Mr. Bush’s yet-to-be-delivered speech tonight.

From Obama campaign manager David Plouffe:

“Tonight, George Bush enthusiastically passed the torch to the man who’s earned it by voting with him 90% of the time, and who will continue this President’s legacy for the next four years – his disastrous economic policies, his foreign policy that hasn’t made us safer, and his misguided war in Iraq that’s costing us $10 billion a month.  The man George Bush needs may be John McCain, but the change America needs is Barack Obama.”

George Bush is expected to address the Republican convention tonight by satellite - meaning Democrats won’t have any new video of the unpopular president rallying the troops. Which may explain why the Obama campaign will be airing a new ad to coincide with the events in Minneapolis.

The ad, called “Same,” features images of John McCain and George Bush together and uses video of McCain himself saying, ” I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time, higher than a lot of my even Republican colleagues.”

The ad begins airing today on national cable and in battleground states.

Before a man attending Obama’s Wisconsin town hall today asked a question on health care, he had a request for Senator Obama.

“When you’re elected president and you’re busy at making all kinds of political appointments, I would like to request that George W. Bush be appointed US ambassador to Iraq,” the man asked. The crowd laughed loudly.

It’s not looking likely for soon-to-be-former President Bush. “Honestly, we somebody really good in that job. So….” Obama said with a half smile.

The Obama campaign released the following statement on former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book, which criticizes both the Administration and the press corps on the lead up to the war in Iraq.

“It’s not news that this Administration engaged in spin and deception to lead us into a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged, the only question now is, do we continue George Bush’s failed policy in Iraq or do we change it?  John McCain is promising four more years of the exact same policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave troops and nothing of the Iraqi government, while Barack Obama wants to begin a phased withdrawal of our troops and refocus our efforts on going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,” said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan.

President Bush seemingly waded into the ‘08 fray during a speech before the the Israeli parliament yesterday, causing a firestorm of back-and-forth between the three ‘08 contenders. The offending comment - “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along…We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

While Bush didn’t name names (and the White House says the President was not specifically referring to Obama), of course it has been Barack Obama who has said on the campaign trail that he will meet with friends and foes - including Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Obama campaign quickly responded to Mr. Bush’s statement, saying it was “sad” that the president used his speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to “launch a false political attack.”

Later when John McCain “embraced” Bush’s statement, an Obama spokesman replied “It is the height of hypocrisy for John McCain to deliver a lofty speech about civility and bipartisanship in the morning and then embrace George Bush’s disgraceful political attack in the afternoon. Instead of delivering meaningful change, John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s irresponsible and failed Iran policy by refusing to engage in tough, direct diplomacy like Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan have done.”

Today, Obama responded with anger and forcefulness, while criticizing Bush’s “failed” policies abroad and hammering McCain for supporting them. “They’re trying to fool you. They’re trying to scare you. And they’re not telling the truth. And the reason is they can’t win a foreign policy debate on the merits, but it’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work this time and it’s not gonna work this year,” Obama told voters in Watertown, South Dakota. “If George Bush and John McCain want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that’s a debate I’m happy to have, anytime, any place, and that is a debate that I will win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” he said.

As evidence, Obama cited what he sees as foreign policy failures implemented by the Bush Administration. “Our Iran policy is a complete failure right now and that’s the policy John McCain is running on. He has nothing to offer except the naïve and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program in support for terrorism. I’m running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush’s course,” he said to applause.

done

Later at a press avail, Obama was asked if he took the White House’s word that President Bush was not referring to him. “For them to suggest that somehow they weren’t aimed – who’s this “some” that they were talking about? Is this some amorphous “some”? Or is this just a straw man that they were setting up? And if so, what was the purpose of the remarks? That’s being disingenuous,” he responded.

Of Obama’s South Dakota remarks, a McCain spokesman noted, “It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned.”

Senator Obama has been busy attacking both of his current rivals running for president on the stump at events across Pennsylvania. Senator McCain is on the wrong side when it comes to the economy and the Iraq war, while Senator Clinton’s “kitchen sink” campaign strategy is not moving the debate towards issues important to voters.

But in a moment of candor at the end of a town hall meeting in Reading, PA, he observed with a chuckle, “You have a real choice in this election – you know, either Democrat would be better than John McCain, and all three of us would be better than George Bush!”

At a rally last night in Harrisburg, though, Obama said that’s not a very high standard. “Senator Clinton will be vastly better than George Bush would be, but that’s a very low bar; that’s not good enough,” he told some 9,000 at a rally on the steps of the state capitol.

So why pick Obama out of the three? “What you have to ask yourself is who has the chance to really change things in a fundamental way so that ten years from now, or twenty years from now, you can look back and you can say, ‘Boy, we really moved in a new direction, and we put the country on a better path,’” he said.

OK, aside from the fact that they both happen to be running for President of the United States of America…
A: Even though the two disagree on the major issues and how to achieve solutions to America’s problems, they both agree on one thing - that there isn’t a lot of room between Hillary Clinton’s views and those of John McCain.

Just after Romney described McCain as “indistinguishable” from Clinton at a rally in Illinois, Obama asked a crowd of 20,000 Delawareans, “If John McCain is the nominee, then the Democratic Party has to ask itself, ‘Do you want a candidate who has similar policies to John McCain on the war in Iraq, or somebody who can offer a stark contrast?’

Obama continued, “When I’m the nominee, John McCain won’t be able to say that you were for this war in Iraq because I wasn’t. He won’t be able to say that I followed the Bush/Cheney doctrine in not talking to leaders we don’t like because I don’t. He won’t be able to say that I went along and gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran because I haven’t. He won’t be able to say that I was unclear about my position on torture because I’ve been absolutely clear we never torture in this country. I can offer a clear and clean break from the failed policies of George W. Bush. I won’t have to explain my votes in the past. The same is true on domestic policy.”

“We don’t need to have a Democratic nominee who is not clear about the kind of fight that we’re going into,” he said at the Wilmington rally.

But the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ saying isn’t exactly true here. Romney also accused McCain of being “indistinguishable” from Obama - something with which the senator from Illinois would surely disagree.

Obama held a roundtable discussion in Exeter, New Hampshire, with a panel of Independent, but very Obama-friendly, voters. The topic: Restoring Trust in Government.

During the hour-long discussion, Obama proved he listens to the people. One day after a Manchester voter advised Obama to “mention Truman” when talking about great Democratic presidents, the senator obliged. Obama brought up the 33rd President of the United States, and told the Indie voters and a roomful of press why he thinks Truman was a great president. His reasoning is remarkably similar to President Bush’s rationale for admiring the former president.

Obama said the issue of having a “stick-to-it-ness” when it comes to an agenda is important in Washington. “There’s no president, including FDR and the great ones, who didn’t have to try to strike while the iron’s hot and while you have a mandate for change before events start catching up with you. But some of the progress that has to be made has to be steady and sustained, and you have to not be looking at the polls all the time in order to make it happen. One of the presidents I admire is Harry Truman, who, that guy had some bad poll numbers, but had a clear vision of what needed to be done, particularly on the international stage and was willing to use that political capitol to get it done, and ultimately, won over the American people.”