Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) — “rumored to be high on John McCain’s short list for vice president — says he hasn’t been asked for ‘any documents’ by the campaign of the presumed Republican nominee,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Despite broad, longstanding dissatisfaction with the war, just 50% of Americans prefer Obama’s plan to withdraw most U.S. forces
within 16 months of taking office. Essentially as many, 49%,
side with McCain’s position — setting no timetable and letting events
dictate when troops are withdrawn,” according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.
“McCain’s competitiveness on Iraq runs counter to broader views on the war, which more closely align with Obama’s.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey shows Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain, 47% to 43%, mainly on the strength of the Hispanic vote.
The state has a small black population, and McCain leads
46% to 45% among white voters. Obama’s 58% to 34% lead among the state’s growing
Hispanic population gives him the advantage overall.
Political Insider: Colorado could swing Democratic.
John Heilemann says Sen. John McCain campaign seems to be using Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign playbook.
“In presidential races, personnel and mechanics matter, but only on the margins. Yet in ways large and small, strategic and tactical, temperamental and attitudinal, the McCain campaign strikes me as having been cut from the same cloth as Hillary Clinton’s. Same story with the candidates themselves, in particular when it comes to their jaundiced perceptions of their rival. For supporters of Barack Obama, this might seem cheery news, since those perceptions led Clinton time and again to misplay her hand. But general elections are very different from primaries — and there are reasons to worry that Clintonianism, taken to its logical (and gruesome) extreme, may serve McCain better than it did the real McCoy.”
Sen. Barack Obama “is off to a more aggressive campaign in Iowa” than Sen. John
McCain, “despite the Republican having clinched the nomination three
months earlier than his rival,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“Obama has 15 campaign offices open and staffed in Iowa, while McCain is still plotting where to locate about half as many.”
“Though
Obama campaign officials declined to disclose their hiring plans, they
said its safe to say their 2-to-1 edge in local headquarters is a sign
Obama’s staff will outnumber McCain’s team, which could reach 20 by
this fall.”
CQ Politics: “There are Clinton supporters clinging to the hope that if her name is
placed in nomination and the roll call of the states is conducted, she
might — still win.”
We can probably scratch South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) from Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential prospect short list. On CNN, he was asked to explain the differences between McCain’s economic plan and the Bush administration, a moment Nico Pitney calls the “most painful clip” from Sunday morning television.
BLITZER: Are there any significant economic differences between what
the Bush administration has put forward over these many years as
opposed to now what John McCain supports?
SANFORD: Um, yeah. For instance, take, you know, take, for instance,
the issue of — I’m drawing a blank, and I hate it when I do that,
particularly on television. Take, for instance the contrast on NAFTA. I
mean, I think that the bigger issue is credibility in where one is
coming from, are they consistent where they come from.
“I don’t have any line that I have in my mind. If it happened, I’d know it when I saw it.”
– Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), quoted by the New York Times, explaining what would have to happen for him to become a Republican. Off the record at least, Democrats say they are preparing to kick Lieberman out of the Democratic caucus.
Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign is condemning as “tasteless and offensive” a
New Yorker magazine cover “that depicts Obama in a turban, fist-bumping
his gun-slinging wife. An American flag burns in their fireplace,” according to Politico.
Said a spokesman: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that
their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s
right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it
as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”
Over at Huffington Post, cartoonist Barry Blitt defends his work: “I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone
as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that
depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering
ridiculousness that it is.”
The Washington Post spent a year trying to find out why the murder of congressional intern Chandra Leavy remains unsolved.
