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Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address in Boston, Massachusetts:

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John McCain is out of touch, and out of step with the American people. He may not know how many houses he owns but there is one House the American people cannot afford for him to move into. Check out this latest ad from the Obama campaign:

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Our friends at the DNCC unveiled the first official photos of the podium at the Democratic National Convention. Check them out:

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Following John McCain's revealing gaffe that he is completely out of touch with hard working Americans, the Obama campaign released the following ad;

Here's a topic for discussion: how many houses do you own?

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Politico reports that John McCain was asked how many houses do the McCain family own and his answer was, well, very telling.

He. Didn't. Know.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

Peter Viles at the Los Angeles Times ribs John McCain's failure to come up with a number.

File this under "Problems most of us will never have" -- You are running for president. Someone asks you how many houses you own. You can't remember. Is it four? Six? Seven?

The answer is seven.

This from McCain who believes that we are better off today than we were eight years ago. Just yesterday, he repeated his belief that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" as millions of Americans are hurting from the housing crisis.

John McCain: out of touch with the American people.

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Politico reports that, yesterday in New Mexico, John McCain harshly criticized the former leader of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, a man he once hailed as "one of the great men in the history of the world."

John McCain's views on former Georgia president Eduard Shevardnadze, a reform-minded architect of the Soviet Union's glasnost policy in the 80s, have done a startling 180.

Speaking about Georgia, McCain told a town hall in Las Cruces, New Mexico on Wednesday: "They had a corrupt government headed by a guy named Shevardnadze, who you may remember from the days of the Cold War. And they had a peaceful revolution and they took over, and they were putting democracy and freedom and human rights, and they were prospering."

In November 1999, the same John McCain described Shevardnadze as "one the great men in the history of the world" during a GOP debate at Arizona State University.

But "Startling 180s" are nothing new for John McCain. He'll say anything, even if it is completely opposite of what he has said before:

McCain Said He Might Include Musharraf If He Wrote A Sequel To His Book About Great Decisions By Extraordinary Leaders. According to the New Yorker: McCain was in New York to promote his new book, Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them, which he saw as a nice change from the usual campaign stuff… The hard calls discussed in McCain's book are an eclectic and decidedly historical bunch: Solzhenitsyn's decision to publish The Gulag Archipelago, Gertrude Ederle's determination to swim the English Channel, Reinhold Niebuhr's conversion from pacifism. Still, an obvious contemporary issue came to mind. Is Iraq a hard call? he said. I think it's not that hard, because I have had no doubt. It hasn't been a struggle within me. He identified Pervez Musharraf (My distinct impression of him is he's basically a humble, modest man who lives a fairly Spartan life) and Nicolas Sarkozy (whose name he pronounced Secorsi) as leaders who could, in time, merit inclusion in a sequel. [New Yorker, 9/3/07]

McCain on Musharraf Resignation: Good Riddance! "The resignation of President Musharraf is a step toward moving Pakistan onto a more stable political footing. Pakistan is a critical theatre in countering the threat of al Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism, and I look forward to the government increasing its future cooperation (with the US)," McCain said.

Sounds like that chapter isn't going to be in the second edition. Scrolling through the index, Pervez will be disappointed.

We released this video entitled "No Kidding." Enjoy.

At a time of great uncertainty in the economy, millions of Americans of all ages, working and retired, are worried about their economic future -- before and after they retire. That's why voters want to know more about John McCain's plans for Social Security.

It turns out, they won't get them.

John McCain, whose support for privatization of Social Security is well known, refuses to provide the details of his plan because it would, according to one senior adviser, "politicize the debate."

Consider McCain campaign senior adviser Taylor Griffin’s description of his candidate's plan for fixing Social Security:

"The history of the Social Security debate has taught that too many specifics, especially during a presidential campaign, has polarized the debate," he said of the program that McCain called "an absolute disgrace [that's] got to be fixed."

Will he contrast his plan to that of his opponent? "Sen. McCain believes this is so important that we do not politicize this debate during an election season."

This explains why John McCain's "Jobs for America" economic plan is only thirteen pages and economists widely criticized as thin on the details. It is not that John McCain wants to hide his massive tax cuts for the rich, and massive corporate tax breaks, he just does not want to politicize the debate.

And really, who needs to discuss policy details in a presidential campaign? John McCain doesn't want to cause a distraction from talking about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton -- you know, the things that matter.

John McCain's "Low Road Express" garnered quite a few headlines across the country for the campaign's dishonest and dishonorable attacks rife with factual inaccuracies:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "'Straight Talk Express' takes the low road"

Of late, sadly, McCain is saying goodbye to all that. The once bullish optimist is starting to come across as a churlish naysayer.

McCain's presidential campaign is evolving into nonstop attacks on Sen. Barack Obama, salted with distortion and innuendo. After years as a media darling, the candidate has taken to complaining about his opponent's press coverage.

What's happened?

Dallas Morning News: "Editorial: McCain off the mark in over-the-top ads"

Mr. McCain's tactics certainly aren't new to politics. But such negativity is disconcerting at this early date. The summer months usually afford presidential candidates the opportunity to delve into issues and ideology.

The bewildering debut of the politics-meets-Paris Hilton ad suggested that the clock suddenly had struck October.

Mr. McCain does voters a disservice by creating a caricature of his opponent instead of explaining their many differences on issues. Even some Republican strategists are troubled, saying that Mr. McCain appears to be swinging wildly.

Find the facts the McCain campaign continues to distort at LowRoadExpress.com.

We released the following web ad highlighting John McCain's pride in his widely-panned advertisement that features Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

In that same Q&A, John McCain claimed his campaign is talking about the issues:

"What we're talking about here is substance, not style."
-- John McCain

According to John McCain, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are "substantive" issues in this campaign.

While he takes his campaign down the low road of "childish" television ads with dishonest and dishonorable attacks, Senator Barack Obama is talking about the issues that matter, like energy prices, and turning around the sluggish Bush/McCain economy after eight years of failed policies.

John McCain says the "fundamentals" of the economy are strong. But, in the real world, 51,000 Americans lost their jobs last month as the jobless rate hit a four-year high. Associated Press:

The nation's unemployment rate climbed to a four-year high of 5.7 percent in July as employers cut 51,000 jobs, dashing the hopes of an influx of young people looking for summer work.

The numbers for July continued the troubling effects of Bush/McCain style economic policies.

July's reductions marked the seventh straight month where employers eliminated jobs. So far, this year, the economy has lost a total of 463,00 jobs.

Young people are heading back to the classroom in a few weeks, but many of them will be doing so a little lighter in the wallet than in the last sixteen years, as the economic downturn kept many of them out of work this summer.

This year, however, fewer of them were able to find work, the government said. The unemployment rate for teenagers jumped to 20.3 percent, the highest since late 1992.

Like George Bush's economy? Hire John McCain. He's too busy talking about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile, Senator Barack Obama is talking about what's on the minds of Americans: how we can turn our economy around.

New Yorker, 2/2/02:

McCain comes from the military aristocracy-he's John Sidney McCain III, the son and grandson of admirals, third-generation Annapolis-but New York is outside that group's ambit, so he can think of a trip there as a country boy's sojourn in the big city. It added to the little-boy feeling that McCain takes an unconcealed pleasure in being fussed over, which he had been, and in mingling with celebrities, which he had done." [...]

"On the way, McCain reminisced about his evening in New York. 'Bette Midler was great last night,' he said. 'Tony Bennett was marvelous. Natalie Cole did that thing where she sings the duet with her father on a screen. Joel Grey sang "Yankee Doodle Dandy." I loved what Bette said about Rudy Giuliani.'"