As ThinkProgress noted, Karl Rove attacked Richmond, VA this week when he criticized Gov. Tim Kaine’s (D) possible candidacy for vice president, saying Kaine was only the mayor of the “105th largest city in America…not a big town.” In response, Richmond residents called Rove’s comments “patronizing” and “belittling.” But that didn’t stop Rove. Yesterday on Fox News, he repeated the charge:

ROVE: And look, Kaine is undistinguished. With all due respect, he’s an able but undistinguished governor of the state of – or the commonwealth of Virginia and a former mayor of Richmond, which is the 105th largest city in America, not very big. And you can’t get Virginians to tell you really anything that he’s done, other than and raise taxes for transportation.

Watch it:

However, after President Bush selected Dick Cheney — whose prior elected experience included being a congressman from Wyoming — Rove said Cheney was a “great candidate for us.” On Fox News on Sept. 23, 2000, Rove said Cheney received “the best candidate training” from “retail campaigning” in Wyoming:

ROVE: Well, look, the best candidate training is to, is — you know, this is a guy who won elections in, in a very contested primary in Wyoming, where you have to do a lot of retail campaigning, and got reelected a number of times. He’s — it’s — he’s exercising those political muscles again.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) currently holds the title of most absent U.S. senator, missing over 60 percent of votes this session. In an interview with Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Institute yesterday, McCain claimed he has not “missed any crucial vote” on energy legislation:

McCAIN: I have a long record of that support of alternate energy. … I’ve always been for all of those and I have not missed any crucial vote. But my citizens in Arizona know that when I’m running for the President of the United States I have to be out campaigning.

Watch it (via Progressive Accountability):

McCain’s has actually missed several “crucial” energy votes. In July alone, he missed every single energy vote brought to the floor. This session, McCain has skipped votes supporting renewable energy tax credits four times, all of which were filibustered. In June, for example, McCain missed a vote on the landmark Lieberman-Warner climate change legislation.

McCain has also been the “crucial” absent vote on key legislation. In December, legislation stripping tax break giveaways to Big Oil and investing in cleaner sources failed by one vote, 59-40 (Vote #425); McCain missed that vote to campaign. In February, McCain skipped a vote on extending tax credits to renewables, which also failed by one vote (Vote #8). Both times, McCain was the only senator absent.

“It’s interesting to hear Sen. McCain talk about bringing Congress back” for a vote on offshore drilling, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said this week. “He wasn’t even in Congress when we had two very important bills on energy.”

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) finally released a statement laying out his positions on technology policy. Under a header describing himself as a champion of “fair and open world trade,” McCain promises to “protect the creative industries from piracy“:

John McCain Will Protect The Creative Industries From Piracy. The entertainment industry is both a vital sector of the domestic economy and among the largest U.S. exporters. While the Internet has provided tremendous opportunity for the creators of copyrighted works, including music and movies, to distribute their works around the world at low cost, it has also given rise to a global epidemic of piracy. John McCain supports efforts to crack down on piracy, both on the Internet and off.

As Richard Koman at ZDNet points out, McCain’s stated desire to protect “the creators of copyrighted works” is at odds with the fact that multiple artists have accused his campaign of copyright infringement.

Just yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported that singer Jackson Browne is suing the McCain campaign and the Ohio Republican Party for copyright infringement because his song “Running on Empty” was used in an ad by the state party, which Browne’s lawyers say “McCain and his campaign were well aware of.” Browne isn’t alone in complaining about McCain:

– Earlier this week, the McCain campaign re-cut a web ad after comedian Mike Myers’ publicist complained about the use of footage of Myers and fellow Saturday Night Live alum Dana Carvey’s Wayne’s World characters.

– Last month, the McCain campaign had to pull and re-cut a web ad after Frankie Valli’s record label, the Warner Music Group asserted its copyright claims over the use of the song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.”

– Earlier this year, the copyright owners for the “Rocky” theme song “telephoned the McCain campaign to politely complain it was being used without permission.”

Ironically, McCain has joked on the campaign trail that he has refrained from using music by his beloved ABBA because of “licensing and other concerns.” “If you’re not careful you can alienate some Swedes,” said McCain.

It’s been widely reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is a self-admitted “illiterate” when it comes to computers. But some have suggested that he could still put forward sound technology policy because he surrounds himself with tech-savvy advisers, such as former Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman.

But it’s unclear how much he is listening to them. Yesterday, McCain finally released his technology platform. (Until this time, “technology” was not even listed in the Issues section of his campaign website.) His plan supposedly focuses on innovation, but in reality, it often repeats McCain’s previous non-innovative positions, such as his opposition to net neutrality:

When Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts. John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.

This position is misguided and opposed by major Internet innovators. As Free Press explains, net neutrality preserves a “free and open Internet” by preventing “from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.”

On April 5, 2006, technology industry leaders wrote to Congress and asked it to preserve net neutrality. Although these companies would be more than able to pay any fees the telecoms might charge, they recognized that it would hamper future entrepreneurship on the Internet. One of the signers to the letter? Meg Whitman, who was then heading eBay. From the letter:

Until FCC decisions made last summer, consumers’ ability to choose the content and services they want via their broadband connections was assured by regulatory safeguards. … This “innovation without permission” has fueled phenomenal economic growth, productivity gains, and global leadership for our nation’s high tech companies.

To preserve this environment, we urge the Committee to include language that directly addresses broadband network operators’ ability to manipulate what consumers will see and do online.

Whitman has stayed silent about McCain’s opposition to net neutrality, and apparently, McCain is refusing to listen to Whitman as well. In 2006, McCain sided with the telecom industry and voted against legislation sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) that would have prevented broadband providers from creating a pay-for-play system. McCain sided with the telecom industry and voted against this bill.