Tuesday Aggreposting: The Rumble in Myrtle Beach

» Mulling over some musical options, I've concluded that I'm in a bind - too cheap to catch Van Halen and too busy to catch Stellar Kart. But I'm still in need of some first-rate live music. Looks like my options are down to Martina McBride at the Rodeo and/or Flogging Molly at the Warehouse on 3/11. No Houston date yet for Carrie Underwood. Hope springs eternal, but it's even more eternal if she's still covering an 80s heavy metal tune in her setlist.

» Another day, another GOP elected official under scrutiny. Consider it one of the benefits of a one-party state. Dpn't blame me, I didn't vote for them.

» Great story in the Chron about development in Montgomery County. If you want to skip ahead and see how it turns out, take a look at McKinney, TX. And if you're a Democrat up there ... run everywhere.

» I'm officially in review mode for Amy Sullivan's work with Washington Monthly. Great rewind here on evangelicals. Amy's book comes out February 19th.

» I caught a bit more of last night's Dem debate than I expected. Pretty entertaining when the sparks were flying. Caught a nice glimpse of the John Edwards of 2004 ... crying about mommy and daddy fighting, etc, etc. Something about how none of that fighting will give a poor kid health insurance. To which I say bunk. Sometimes you have to fight for the things that are important. Unlike, say, the 2004 VP Debate in which Edwards just smiled as Cheney cracked on him.

Also interesting to see the reaction to some of Hillary's punches. It felt as if Obama had a very forgiving room. Even if he essentially stated that he sponsored a bill on sexual abuse before voting "present" for it. Yeah, I'm obviously biased, but I think his defense of the "present" voting habit was particularly weak. That vote doesn't denote reservations about a bill ... it denotes an unwillingness to go on record. Not exactly transforming if you ask me. Judge for yourself:

CLINTON: Just a minute. In the Illinois state senate, Senator Obama voted 130 times present. That's not yes, that's not no. That's maybe. And on issue after issue that really were hard to explain or understand, you know, voted present on keeping sex shops away from schools, voted present on limiting the rights of victims of sexual abuse, voted present time and time again.

And anytime anyone raises that, there's always some kind of explanation like you just heard about the 30 percent. It's just very difficult to get a straight answer, and that's what we are probing for.

OBAMA: I feel bad for John...

BLITZER (?): I know.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: ... because I know John's not getting a lot of time here.

Let me just respond to this.

BLITZER (?): You can...

OBAMA: I feel pretty bad, I do. I feel pretty bad. But let's just respond to the example that was just thrown out.

The bill with respect to privacy for victims of sexual abuse is a bill I had actually sponsored, Hillary. I actually sponsored the bill. It got through the senate.

(APPLAUSE)

That was on the back of 12 other provisions that I was able to pass in the state legislature. Nobody has worked harder than me in the Illinois state legislature to make sure that victims of sexual abuse were dealt with, partly because I've had family members who were victims of sexual abuse and I've got two daughters who I want to protect.

What happened on that particular provision was that after I had sponsored it and helped to get it passed, it turned out that there was a legal provision in it that was problematic and needed to be fixed so that it wouldn't be struck down.

But when you comb my 4,000 votes in Illinois, choose one...

(APPLAUSE)

... try to present it in the worst possible light, that does have to be answered. That does have to be answered.

OBAMA: And as I said before, the reason this makes a difference -- and I understand that most viewers want to know, how am I going to get helped in terms of paying my health care? How am I going to get help being able to go to college?

All those things are important. But what's also important that people are not just willing to say anything to get elected. And...

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Senator...

OBAMA: ... that's what I have tried to do in this campaign, is try to maintain a certain credibility.

I don't mind having policy debates with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards. But what I don't enjoy is spending the week or two weeks or the last month having to answer to these kinds of criticisms that are not factually accurate.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: And the press has looked at them. They are not accurate. And you need to present them as accurate.

BLITZER: We're going to be coming back.

CLINTON: Well, that law is still on the books. It was never struck down. That was there.

BLITZER: We're going to be visiting all these subjects, but I just want Senator Edwards to weigh in. Suzanne has got an excellent question coming up.

Go ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

EDWARDS: She's been wanting to ask it, too.

Can I just ask, though, before I do -- I mean, I hear the back and forth on this one particular vote, but it is -- I do think it's important, and I mentioned this about Senator Clinton earlier, to be fair, about Social Security. I do think it's important whether you are willing to take hard positions.

I mean, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are sitting in front of me right know they have to go to the floor of the House every day and vote on hard issues. And they have to vote up or down or not show up to vote -- one of those three choices. What I didn't hear was an explanation for why over 100 times you voted present instead of yes or no when you had a choice to vote up or down.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: I'll be happy to answer it. Because in Illinois - in Illinois, oftentimes you vote present in order to indicate that you had problems with a bill that otherwise you might be willing to vote for. And oftentimes you would have a strategy that would help move the thing forward.

» Two views on McCain: Dionne and Brooks. Between the two of them, I think they both capture something important. For Dionne's sake, it's the challenge that McCain has to be, at once, maverick and arch-conservative. For Brook's sake, it's that McCain-the-moderate reflects some form of diversity of conservative thought: both tax-cutters and non-tax-cutters (fortunately McCain covers both of these at once!). A McCain nomination, however, would force the Dobsons & Norquists of the world to accept that their role just might not be as prominent as they imagine it to be. Hardly a bad thing, that.

But the central reality is that in order to capture the nomination, McCain takes on more of the character of the Republican brand than would otherwise be healthy for him. That wasn't such a bad thing in 2000 with the GOP as the challenging party for the White House. But as the defending party? Not so much. Like Bob Dole before him, he's getting "his turn" a bit after his shelf life has expired. Fear not, though. It'll still be a relatively close election that'll come down to about 5 states by mid-October.