Ad ad promoting free trade with Colombia in the middle of a recession ... huh???
Meanwhile, McCain is headed south ... of the border ... to which the Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler says:
It is an effort to pad his foreign-policy credentials, appear statesmanlike and drive home a message about trade and international relations. In Colombia on Tuesday and Wednesday, in the coastal city of Cartagena, he plans to highlight a pending free-trade agreement that he supports and rival Sen. Barack Obama opposes. Thursday in Mexico, the Republican candidate will talk about the war on drugs. The Arizona senator will meet with both nations' presidents.
It isn't clear how much the trip will benefit Sen. McCain's No. 1 mission: being elected president. This will be Sen. McCain's third foreign trip since effectively wrapping up the Republican nominating contest, making him among the best-traveled presidential candidates. This spring, Sen. McCain visited the Middle East, including Iraq, Israel and Jordan, and Europe, including London and Paris. Last year, in the midst of the primaries, he went to Switzerland, Germany, Pakistan and Iraq. And June 20, he was in the Canadian capital of Ottawa.
More head scratching here:
Some Republican political strategists expressed surprise that Sen. McCain would take time out for this trip. "It just continues to burnish his foreign-policy experience and continues to focus on Obama being inexperienced," said strategist Tony Fabrizio. "At this juncture I'm not sure there are a lot of voters on the fence wondering about that."
A McCain adviser said the campaign considered that the candidate's time might have been better used elsewhere but decided that the senator should go anyway, partly because the days before the July 4 holiday are slow.
Some have speculated, as well, that the trip could play well with Hispanic voters, whom the Arizona senator is trying to win over.
MSNBC's Chuck Todd pointed out today that McCain will garner plenty of free media on Telemundo, Univision and other Spanish-language news and talk outlets in the U.S., which may be his way of bringing up his numbers with Hispanic voters out West, who are about 70 percent Mexican-American.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
