Archive for September 8th, 2008
**McCain Speaks One on One with NBC12**
I just completed a one-on-one interview with Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president. The interview is significant for a number of reasons, but primarily because it makes NBC12 the first station in Richmond to obtain one-on-one interviews with both major party candidates for president. (We have actually interviewed Senator Barack Obama, one on one, on three different occasions).
Much like our interviews with Senator Obama, our time was brief (we were limited to a four minute satellite window). We were however, able to touch on a number of important issues, including McCain’s plans for the economy, his running mate Sarah Palin’s experience level and how vital he believes the race will be in Virginia.
I also asked Senator McCain about accusations today that the Obama campaign has levied about a new ad put out by the McCain campaign regarding Gov. Palin. The ad says that Palin “stopped the bridge to nowhere”. The Obama campaign called the ad an outright lie. This is how McCain responded to the charge:
“The polling data shows that you are going to see, unfortunately, a ratcheting up of these kind of negative attacks which characterize the Obama campaign. The fact is that Gov. Palin learned that earmarks are bad and she did say, we don’t need our bridge to nowhere, and we will pay for it ourselves if we need it. I mean, that is just a fact. Hey look she took on the incumbent, Republican governor and beat him, I mean Senator Obama has never taken on anybody in his party, that is why he has I say the most liberal voting record.”
The most interesting part of the quote is the section where he says that she “learned” that earmarks are bad. Does that mean that at one time she thought they were okay? You can see the McCain interview tonight during our 5:30pm news and then a complete report tonight at 11. We will also post the entire interview, uncut, on decisionvirginia.com at some point tonight. I will alert you when it gets up there.
**UPDATE** Below is the video of Senator McCain’s comments on Gov. Palin.
McCain and Palin To Visit Virginia Wednesday
You may remember that on Thursday night, we explored just how important personal visits by candidates to Virginia will be to the race for the White House. It appears that we have now learned the answer. Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will appear together at an event in Fairfax County this Wednesday.
Last week during the RNC, Bob McDonnell hinted that Gov. Palin would be coming to Virginia Beach on September 18th, but the campaign would not confirm that. There is no word if the Palin visit to Virginia Beach is still on. At this point the VP candidate has traveled exclusively with Sen. McCain.
We’ll keep you posted when we know more.
Gilmore On TV
His opponent in the race for Senate has been on the air for some time, but today I noticed during our newscast, an ad for former Governor Jim Gilmore. Gilmore is far behind in the fund raising department, but this shows that he has raised at least a little bit of money, because TV of any kind, is not cheap.
The ad takes a shot at Mark Warner, using Gilmore’s familiar theme that Warner can’t be trusted. It shows video of Warner duing a Gubenatorial debate where he said he would not raise taxes.
The latest FEC filing, which was posted on June 30th shows that Gilmore has raised a little more than $1.4 million. That sounds good, until you see that he has spent about $1.3 million. As of the end of June he had about $116,000 on hand.
Warner, meanwhile has raised more than $9 million and spent $4.1 million. He still has more than $5 million in cash.
This financial report also does not take into account Mark Warner’s incredible personal wealth, which at this point has not been tapped into. It is clear, Jim Gilmore is going to need some sort of major change in the dynamic of this race to have a realistic chance of winning.
