Although the registration information is hidden, if you swing by the domain VoteForTheMILF.com (Creation Date: 30-aug-2008) you will notice that without passing go and without collecting two hundred dollars, you will be instantly redirected to JohnMcCain.com. If you’ve never been before (or if you cleared your cookies) it will first direct you to Palin’s intro video.

Sure, this could just be some crazy supporter’s idea, so here’s the proof:

• The URL was registered within about two days of McCain’s decision to select Palin.
• The dot net and dot org counterparts also redirect to the McCain site.
• The URL is held by the same registrar as JohnMcCain.com.
• A simple trace route shows that voteforthemilf.com/net/org and johnmccain.com are hosted on the same IP: 64.203.107.149

This campaign never ceases to amaze me with its underhanded political tactics.

If you’ve ever heard John McCain talk about his time in a POW camp in Vietnam, or read his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers, you’re likely aware of a story in which McCain tells of being interrogated and in lieu of naming his actual squadron mates he lists the defensive line of the Green Bay Packers at the time. Not just any Packer team, but the team that won the first Super Bowl. To be precise, here’s what he writes in the book:

Once my condition had stabilized, my interrogators resumed their work. Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.

This is a story that he not only wrote about in his book, but has told it publicly several times and was even documented in a 2005 movie of the same name. This story has time and time again been a mainstay of McCain’s biography, but has been told by him numerous times to support his opposition to torture, noting that he gave false information under pressure.

McCain, however, must have hoped that no one would catch him playing the game of underhanded politics when, while campaigning in Pittsburgh on the 9th of this month, a local TV reporter asked him what he first thinks of in relation to Pittsburgh. His response? “The Steelers really made a huge impression on me, particularly in my early years.” He then continued blowing hot air out his ass saying, “When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup – defensive line – of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!”

So that’s how you’re going to play it, McCain? Stabbing your fond history with the Packers in the back? Next time you’re in Wisconsin, I hope one of our local reporters has the chutzpah to throw this back in your face and watch you flop around for an answer.

Most of the following McCain ad is garbage that you can ignore, but watch extremely closely at about the 25 second mark and try to identify the shirt that the woman shaking John McCain’s hand is wearing.

Did you catch it? If you did, you’re probably chuckling to yourself right now if not actually laughing out loud. If you didn’t, she’s wearing an Obama campaign shirt. Someone clearly wasn’t paying close enough attention when they put that commercial together. If this is the level of effort they are putting in to their campaign ads, I can’t wait to see what else we have to look forward to.

Still straining to see it? Here’s a freezeframe:

A tie or a loss for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania this past Tuesday would have more or less forced her out of the race, allowing Barack Obama to finally mount a national campaign, with the support of the DNC and other pro-Democratic groups, against John McCain and the Republican Party. Alas, this did not happen. Everyone (even the media!) knows that Barack Obama is going to walk out of the convention with his name on the ticket. He has won more states, he has more of the popular vote, he is leading her in pledged delegates, and none of the remaining primaries are going to change that. By winning Pennsylvania with a 10 point lead, Clinton has gotten the ego boost that she so desperately needed to convince herself and her supporters that it is worthwhile to stay in the race through the convention. No one quite knows what this will mean, as there hasn’t been a brokered democratic convention since the 50s, so this should be interesting.

I forsee an Obama/Clinton ticket to reunite an increasingly divided party and defeat McCain.

It’s all over the news that Mark Penn has resigned (been forced out? fired?) as Chief Strategist for Hillary Clinton’s campaign because of his professional ties supporting a Columbian trade deal that Hillary opposes. Basically, her campaign differed in position from his real job as CEO of Burson-Marsteller, a Public Relations firm. Well, they fired him, he’s no longer involved in the campaign, so the conflict of interest is over, right? Wrong.

What else could you expect from a campaign strategist who specializes in spin, than more spin. Sure, he’s no longer the “Chief Campaign Strategist”, but he is still one of her top advisers and his company, Burson-Marsteller, is still doing the polling for the Clinton campaign. I could be wrong, but that sure doesn’t sound like getting fired. It sounds to me like he just had to step back in to the shadows a bit for fear of hurting the campaign that he has orchestrated. This fact seems to be something that mainstream media has been leaving out and instead going forward with the “he’s fired, lets move on” story. For lack of a better term, that’s complete bullshit. If you’re going to fire someone for a conflict of interest, fire someone for a conflict on interest. Don’t keep them on the payroll in a similar capacity and change their title to look less important.

If we’ve learned anything from Karl Rove and George W. Bush, it’s that sleazy campaign tactics do, in fact, get you elected. I just hope that it is too little too late for Hillary to sleaze her way in to the Whitehouse.