Well, he has endorsed S. 796, the best currency misalignment bill out there.  But what to make of this?

In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine's upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee suggests he doesn't want to unilaterally blow up NAFTA after all.

"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.

What Obama says now is that he believes in "opening up a dialogue" with trading partners Canada and Mexico "and figuring to how we can make this work for all people." ...

Rasmussen, Alaska: McCain over Obama 45-41%. 

Rasmussen, Maine:  Obama over McCain 55-33%

Quinnipiac, PA:  Obama over McCain 52-40%

Quinnipiac, OH: Obama over McCain 48-40%

Quinnipiac, FL: Obama over McCain 47-43%.  This may be the biggest surprise.  Pollster.com has a composite showing McCain with a tight lead, 44.4 to 42.7, over Obama.

UPDATE:  Rasmussen has Obama and McCain basically tied in Ohio, contrary to Quinnipiac. 

What is truthiness?  

Truthiness is a word that U.S. television comedian Stephen Colbert popularized in 2005 as a satirical term to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

What is the truthiness that begets my presentation to you of the definition of truthiness?  The free trader truthiness on trade.  Brought to you today by Deloitte (fka Deloitte and Touche).

They say American manufacturers are optimistic.  An email commenter said this about the Deloitte survey, performed in coordination with... you guessed it... the National Association of Manufacturers - the home of manufacturing truthiness.

Right at the very end of the article, the bias of the authors is revealed when they indicate that "The simplistic way to view manufacturing is to look only where production is located."  Thus, it is okay to relocate production to allegedly low cost centers like China and India and still consider yourself a U.S. manufacturer if you leave other non-production operations here.  And I am willing to bet that Deloitte has services to help U.S. producers do just that . . .

North Carolina Congressman Robin Hayes (R) promised to vote against CAFTA, then voted for it.  He got in big trouble, but narrowly beat challenger Larry Kissell by 329 votes in 2006.

Larry Kissell is back again, making the CAFTA vote into a campaign issue:

"When Robin Hayes sold out the workers of the Eighth District and flip-flopped on his CAFTA promise and cast aside the interests of working families just to please President George W. Bush, he said he did so to gain leverage in America's trade policies with China," said Democratic Congressional nominee Larry Kissell. "And now the most recent available numbers indicate that our nation lost over five billion dollars a week in April as a result of that deal. Clearly the concessions Mr. Hayes bragged about at the time have never truly come to pass. It was just another of many broken promises."
 

The Kissell campaign says their internal polling shows him leading 45-43%, which is basically a tie.  I've not seen an independent poll.