It's the first Dem ad of the 2008 cycle -- and the first of what could be many targeting a GOP incumbent for his or her role in the Attorney Purge. The DCCC hit the radio today with an ad hammering New Mexico GOP Rep. Heather Wilson -- a top target for Dems following her razor-thin re-election -- for her role in the scandal. The ad will be running during drive time for the next five days. Transcript:

October, 2006.

A phone call is made … a scandal begins.

According to testimony from the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Congresswoman Heather Wilson called U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and pressured him concerning a federal corruption investigation.

Listen to U.S. Attorney Igelsias’ testimony before the Committee…

“I received a call from Heather Wilson.” “She said ‘what can you tell me about sealed indictments.’ The second she said any questions about sealed indictments, red flags went up in my head, because as you know, we cannot talk about indictments until they’re made public, in general, we specifically cannot talk about a sealed indictment.”

Serious questions remain about Heather Wilson and violation of Congressional ethics rules.

It’s time for Heather Wilson to release her phone records and come clean.

It’s time for Heather Wilson to tell the full truth.

The standard disclaimer identifying it as a product of the DCCC follows. Listen to the ad here. A Wilson spokesperson didn't immediately return a call for comment.

Some New Hampshire Democrats think that Katrina Swett may have a problem in her quest to win the wide-open Democratic primary to take on GOP Senator John Sununu: She co-chaired Joe Lieberman's 2004 pro-war Presidential campaign and backed Lieberman's Independent campaign for Senate against Ned Lamont last year — a major turnoff for the netroots and for many grassroots Dems. So Swett has developed a novel tactic to deal with this liability: Falsify the history of Lieberman's Senate race. More after the jump.

Read more »

they can actually get some of the concerns about these issues by going and say, hey, we rep a block of .... we'd be interested potentially in, you know, we know you need our supp, we und what the conseq are. we want to be on your team, but the issues of enforcement is a red line for us. can you guarantee...can you give us a vote...can you guar us when fisc...enforce with power of the purse frim now? public opinion will...

this is the best that's gonna pass. and that avote against it is a vote with republicans, not just to sink nancy's bill but to defeat attaching real limitations to the emergency supplemental...

issue of conscience is part of it...not having voted for any funding for the war. this would be funding fro the war...cynically? there' sa hard left constit out there that you can only get access to by thumb your noses at dem leadership on tihngs like this...

Now that Katrina-damaged Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco has announced she won't pursue reelection, Dem former Senator John Breaux is publicly mulling whether to jump into the race to replace her. He just released the following statement: "Now that Governor Blanco has made her decision, I am spending time with my family while seriously evaluating what is best for Louisiana, and determining whether I can be helpful for the State as a candidate for Governor. I expect to announce my intention in the near future and want to sincerely thank all the people who have offered their advice and support."

Breaux served for 18 years as a widely popular Senator, and may be the strongest Dem candidate against Bobby Jindal, the 2003 GOP nominee for Governor and currently a Congressman from the New Orleans suburbs.

Editor and Publisher has the memo from ABC News president David Westin:

About a month ago, Mark Halperin came to me to say that he wanted more time to pursue writing – perhaps another book and possibly for a publication. We all know how valuable a member of our political reporting team Mark is, and he made it clear that he has an equally high opinion of ABC News and what we're trying to accomplish. So, we've worked out a new relationship with Mark that will transform him from our Political Director to our Political Analyst at least through the 2008 election. This will make it possible for us to continue to draw upon Mark's unparalleled political analysis and knowledge while at the same time giving him some new venues in which to use his talents.

As Political Director these past 10 years, Mark has groomed an entire generation of outstanding political reporters. I'm pleased to say that our new Political Director will be one of the best and brightest of them, our own David Chalian. David began his career at ABC News in 2003 after covering city and state politics at NY1. At ABC News, David has distinguished himself and our news organization reporting on the California recall in 2003, the entire 2004 presidential cycle from Iowa to election night, and the 2006 midterms. David is deeply involved in every aspect of our political coverage and planning for 2008. Please join me in congratulating Mark and David.

"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says, 'You have to intervene here,' you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that says this isn't important.' "

-- Al Gore, responding to criticism today in D.C. from environmental science skeptic Joe Barton, a GOP Congressman from Texas.

Here's someone's response to the 1984-style anti-Hillary video: Another version of the same, this time blasting Obama.

Dunno -- somehow this one just isn't achieving its intended effect. Thoughts?

In a move that could help pave the way for Dems to grab a key open seat in Colorado, the only announced Republican candidate for the seat is expected to drop out of the race, The Washington Post reports. The move by former GOP Rep. Scott McInnis leaves the GOP without a candidate for the seat of retiring Republican Senator Wayne Allard — a top target for national Dems in their quest to expand on their 2006 electoral successes in the West.

McInnis, who could reportedly change his mind, has been struggling to build support with the state's conservative establishment, which has been trying to persuade two other potential candidates — former Congressman Bob Schaeffer or current state Attorney General John Suthers — to enter the race. Neither man has yet agreed, however. Dems, for their part, had settled on a candidate even before Allard announced his retirement two months ago: Congressman Mark Udall, who is expected to cruise to the Democratic nomination and is seen by many observers as having a better than 50-50 chance in the general election in a state that has been trending Dem.

Al Gore's planned environmental testimony on Capitol Hill today is expected to draw "overflow crowds" to Congressional committee rooms, as well as members of the national press corps -- all of whom are eager to witness his return to D.C. as an international star "on a mission to save the planet," The Hill reports.

Meanwhile, here's The New York Times's churlish and snarky description of Gore's return to Washington: "For Mr. Gore, who calls himself a `recovering politician,' returning to Capitol Hill is akin to a recovering alcoholic returning to a neighborhood bar."

The Democratic Presidential candidates are locked in an all-out dash for cash that is on track to rake in perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars more than in previous cycles, today's Washington Post reports.

"It is not simply Clinton's outsize fundraising power driving the vacuum-cleaner mentality," the paper says. "A confluence of other factors -- including voter dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, wide-open fields in both parties, higher donation caps, and a rush by large states such as California and Texas to move their primaries to the front of the nominating process -- has compelled campaigns to establish virtually round-the-clock fundraising schedules, with candidates and surrogates participating in sometimes a dozen events or more in a day.

"The result: More than a year and a half before the election, the collective field could match in a single quarter the nearly $100 million that George W. Bush raised during his record-breaking primary effort two presidential cycles ago."

With the vote on the House Dems' bill mandating withdrawal from Iraq set for tomorrow, Dem leaders are making one last push to round up votes from reluctant members on the left and right, the Associated Press reports.

"Pelosi's intense lobbying reflects the high stakes for a new speaker trying to prove that she can govern," the AP says. "With Democrats holding 233 seats and Republicans with 201, Democrats can afford only 15 "no" votes and still be assured of passing the legislation." The House Dem leadership has won several high-profile endorsements for the bill, including former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Iraq Study Group, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former President Carter's national security adviser, who will address House members today.

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that Speaker Nancy Pelosi "is holding the implied threat of lost committee seats over the heads of Democratic Caucus members" who may vote against the bill.

Hard-core conservative GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter won't seek reelection -- clearing the way for his 30-year-old son to inherit the seat (presuming that's okay with the district's voters, of course). Hunter the Elder's spokesperson confirmed to The Hill that he won't be running again, and his kid -- an Iraq war veteran whose name is also Duncan Hunter -- told the paper that he'd be announcing his candidacy sometime in April.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco is set to announce this evening that she won't be seeking reelection, according to local WAFB 9 News. Blanco, who was elected in November 2003, becoming the first woman to ever hold the office, had been saying she'd run as late as last week, telling reporters: "My plan is to continue running." Blanco's toughest challenger was seen to be Rep. Bobby Jindal.

So Hillary Clinton has finally spoken out about the 1984-style ad slamming her and boosting Barack Obama that's been all over the internet in recent days. Here's Hillary in an interview that was just posted on New York 1 News' Web site:

“I haven't seen it but I’m pleased that it seems to be taking attention away from what used to be on YouTube and getting a lot of hits, namely me singing ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Everybody in the world now knows I can't carry a tune,” said Clinton. “I thank heavens for small favors and the attention has shifted, and now maybe people won't have to tune in and hear me screeching about ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’”

Handled very nicely. In case you haven't seen it, here's the video again:

Update: Obama has emphatically denied having anything to do with this video.

ABC News takes a close look at Barack Obama's pre-war statements and concludes that his stance has been entirely consistent:

[A] review of comments Obama made in 2002 and 2003 — in video obtained by ABC News — makes it clear that the junior senator from Illinois, then a mere state senator, stood out during a time as opposing the war quite firmly when the war was overwhelmingly popular.

ABC cites a number of Obama's public statements, concluding with this:

Obama told the local audience, "Some people may disagree with me on this, but what absolutely we can't have out of our United States senator from Illinois is somebody who waffles on the issue and somebody who ducks the issue , and puts their finger out to the wind and waits to find out how the wind is blowing before they make a statement that, well, 'We had concerns about the war.' Everybody had concerns about the war. The question was, how would you have voted on a specific resolution giving George Bush carte blanche."

For many Democratic voters, that indeed is the question. And it seems fairly clear where Obama was at the time, however much others try to fuzz up the record.

The whole thing is here. Relatedly, in response to Atrios' point about this, he's right that the key central question at the time should have been, "Is Saddam really a threat"? Bill Clinton -- and by extension other Hillary supporters, one presumes -- doesn't appear to want the discussion to be about how Obama reacted to the central question as defined this way, but would prefer that the discussion is about alleged inconsistencies around the margins of it.

My view, to clarify, is that it's pretty clear that Obama was basically consistent in his views, and the main point is that he made the right call when the war-whooping was at fever pitch -- in other words, he made the right call when it counted. Nonetheless, we should be taking a close look at what Obama said and when. If anything, thrashing our way through these details ultimately leads us back to the big-picture question -- Who made the right call when it really counted, and who didn't -- as ABC clearly shows here.

Reacting to this post below, Atrios writes:

I too assumed that Saddam had something which could be classifed as a chemical weapon -- say a bucket of bleach sitting next to a bucket of ammonia -- though I also thought there was no evidence that Saddam had anything which could be in any way thought of as an actual threat to the US in any way. The issue was never really "does Saddam have WMDs as currently defined?" But, "is Saddam a threat to us?" The answer to the latter was obviously no, no matter how many industrial cleaning agents might be in the possession of the Iraqi government.

Yes, absolutely, but let's recall that no less than former President Bill Clinton, for obvious reasons, is trying to make the case that Obama hasn't been fully consistent in his statements on the war. I'm not supporting this, just noting it. Again for obvious reasons, Clinton doesn't appear to want the discussion to be about how Obama reacted central question as defined by Atrios above, but about alleged inconsistencies around the margins of it. My view, to clarify, is that it's pretty clear that Obama was basically consistent in his views, and the main point is that he made the right call when the war-whooping was at fever pitch -- in other words, he made the right call when it counted.

Nonetheless, whether we like it or not, the fact that Bill is out there raising these types of questions means it's only a matter of time until it's part of the dialogue. Indeed, a Boston Globe piece today raised similar questions about Obama. Better to hash these details out sooner, rather than later; if anything, getting them sorted and out of the way makes it easier, rather than harder, to steer the discussion back to the big-picture question, which is, Who made the right call when it really counted, and who didn't. In other words, more information is better than less.

This isn't good. A new poll finds that the approval rating of the Dem-controlled Congress is on the skids among not just Republicans, but Democrats, too -- and the pollster speculates that the Dems failure to "do anything substantive" on Iraq could be the reason why.

The new Gallup poll finds that Congress' approval rating is 28%, down nine points from Gallup polls in January and February. Congress' disapproval is at 64% -- up nine from the previous months. One thing helping drive this drop is the fact that even among Democrats, Congress' approval rating has dropped from 44% to 33%.

"It is difficult to pinpoint precisely what is behind the drop off in optimism about Congress among Democrats," Gallup says. "One possibility is that Democrats are disappointed that their party has been unable to do anything substantive about the Iraq war -- the dominant issue in last November's midterm elections." It'll be interesting to see what sort of impact, if any, Thursday's House vote on its Iraq withdrawal plan will have on these numbers.

Barack Obama was interviewed yesterday by CNN's Larry King. From the interview:

KING: When you opposed it, you could not have known that there were no weapons of mass destruction, so therefore even if there were, you'd have been against this war?

OBAMA: No, I -- I just -- I said very explicitly I thought the evidence for weapons of mass destruction were flimsy. I did not think that the administration had made the case that there were weapons of mass destruction that would cause an imminent threat to the United States. And keep in mind, that was the justification for us going into this war. I did not think that the administration was justified in mentioning mushroom clouds and the fact that if we didn't get in there right away, it might be too late.

We had the opportunity, I think, to forge an international coalition around some very tough inspections, because there's no doubt that Saddam Hussein posed a long-term threat to us. And I think the world generally recognized that he was somebody who had already invaded Kuwait once, who was mistreating and abusing his people, that he was somebody who needed to be incapacitated.

What we didn't need to do was to launch a full blown invasion.

But, again, that's in the past. At this point, what we've got to figure out is how do we move forward.

On page 294 of his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama did appear to say that he thought there were WMDs in Iraq, but that the war had to be opposed, anyway:

Like most analysts, I assumed that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and coveted nuclear arms. I believed that he had repreatedly flouted UN resolutions and weapons inspectors and that such behavior had to have consequences. That Saddam butchered his own people was undisputed; I had no doubt that the world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

What I sensed, though, was that the threat Saddam posed was not imminent, the Administration's rationales for war were flimsy and ideologically driven, and the war in Afghanistan was far from complete.

Does that edge uncomfortably close to a contradiction? Or is this not contradictory in the sense that he assumed that Iraq had WMD while thinking the administration's proof of it was flimsy? Does it matter in light of the fact that he clearly opposed the war?

Update: The Hotline parses this a bit more.

Late update: Comments below are running heavily in favor of Obama. Most are arguing that Obama's quote on King was specifying that the evidence was flimsy for WMDs which posed an imminent threat, which would be consistent with the book.

"Social liberal" Rudy Giuliani holds a startlingly large lead over John McCain and Mitt Romney among conservatives, a new poll finds. The new Gallup poll shows that among self-described conservative Republicans, Rudy enjoys an 18-point lead over McCain, and a 30-point lead over Romney:

Giuliani 38% McCain 20% Gingrich 14% Romney 8%

Take Gingrich out of the picture and Rudy's lead grows:

Giuliani 43% McCain 21% Romney 11%

Gallup cautions, however, that there are still "apparent opportunities for a favorite `conservative' candidate to emerge," adding: "The key question is whether conservatives will be able to look past any differences they may have with these candidates and support one of them for the nomination -- or hope that a more solidly conservative candidate emerges from the back of the pack or enters the race."

Barack Obama is edging up on Hillary Clinton and has closed the gap between them to within five points, A new Rasmussen poll has found. The survey finds 35% for Hillary and 30% for Obama, with John Edwards lagging behind at 11%. Eight days ago, another Rasmussen survey showed Hillary with a 12-point lead over Obama, 38%-26%.

Moderate GOP Senator Arlen Specter is running for a sixth term in 2010 -- despite the fact that he'll be 80 years old at the time, The Hill reports.

Specter, who narrowly survived a primary challenge from the right in 2004 from Pat Toomey, the President of the Club for Growth, is announcing his reelection bid early as a “preemptive move” to raise big bucks early and scare off potential challengers, says Pennsylvania pollster and analyst Terry Madonna. “He’s obviously trying to not set off a scramble within his own party,” Madonna tells the paper. “He’s sending a message to conservatives who want to do battle with him.”

John McCain, who's struggling to win over conservatives who find him insufficiently hard line on immigration, is now saying he's open to supporting a measure proposed by conservative GOP Rep. Mike Pence that would require illegal immigrants to return home before applying for U.S. citizenship, today's New York Times reports.

"Mr. McCain has previously favored legislation that would allow most illegal immigrants to become citizens without leaving the country," the paper says, adding that he'd formed an alliance last year with Senator Ted Kennedy on another immigration bill that stalled in Congress. "Mr. McCain’s aides said his identification with Mr. Kennedy accounted for much of his political problem on the issue with conservatives."

Remember the battles over the gaffes John McCain and Barack Obama committed recently, in which they both described American lives lost in Iraq as "wasted"? In today's Washington Post, columnist Richard Cohen offers a creative retelling of these episodes: In his recollection, only Democrats tried to politicize this. His column is worth a look -- partly because it shows us yet again how the journalistic quest for "balance" can often come at the expense of the full truth. Take a look, and if you feel like it, let us know what you think in the post's comments section.

A bit more on MoveOn's decision to jump aboard with the House Dem leadership's legislation to end the Iraq war by 2008: In advance of the expected vote on Thursday, the organization is now going up on the air with radio ads bashing two GOP incumbents who oppose the bill.

The lucky targets? GOP Reps. James Walsh of New York and Phil English of Pennsylvania.

The ads will run through Friday -- by which time the vote in the House will almost certainly have taken place. Check out the text of the ad:

YOUNG WOMAN: I don't know how he can walk.

MAN: I guess he doesn't drive a car.

OLD WOMAN: He must eat lying down.

ANNOUNCER: They're talking about our Republican Congressman, Jim Walsh. Reliable sources have reported that he's lost his backbone. Last November, America voted to change course in Iraq. We wanted to bring our troops home from a religious civil war.

And we expected Jim Walsh to have the backbone to stand up to George Bush and Dick Cheney, to stand with the leadership in Congress and get us out of Iraq.

Instead Jim Walsh seems to be rolling over in support of George Bush, in support of sending in more troops, sacrificing more lives and more money on this religious civil war.

Has Jim Walsh really lost his backbone? Ask him. Call XXXXXXXXXXXXX. Paid for by the 3.2 million members of MoveOn.org Political Action.

The ad's title: "Spineless."

GOP underdog Tommy Thompson is on the verge of declaring that, yes, he's running for President, CNN says. His "official" announcement isn't set to happen until early April, but Thompson is going on CNN's The Situation Room tomorrow at 4 p.m. to unofficially announce that he'll soon be officially announcing -- which is effectively an announcement. Got that? Like a whole line of other GOP candidates, Thompson is touting himself as the "only true reliable conservative" in the field. But even in his case the GOP base could find a hint of apostasy: As Governor of Wisconsin, he was a strong supporter of the embryonic stem-cell research being done at the state university.

MoveOn is hopping aboard the Pelosi train out of Iraq.

MoveOn's Washington director, Tom Matzzie, just confirmed to me that despite earlier concerns that the House Dem leadership's Iraq plan wasn't tough enough, the organization yesterday started polling its members and has decided to back the legislation, which would mandate a pullout from Iraq by Fall 2008 at the latest.

"We asked all 3.2 million of our members to weigh in, and 80 percent back the plan," Matzzie says, adding that he didn't have exact numbers on how many members had voted. "Our view is, this is a choice between Republicans who want endless war and Democrats who want a safe, responsible end to the war."

As first reported here last week, MoveOn's leaders were privately demanding that the House leadership make the enforceability of the bill tougher. Some liberal House members were worried that the current legislation didn't do enough to force an end to the war.

Asked why MoveOn decided to back the bill despite these earlier concerns, Matzzie said: "We're a membership organization, and our members support this...It's not everything we wanted but it's a good start in the right direction."

Get your updates on the movements of the Presidential candidates right here:

* Sen. Barack Obama's campaign sharpened its youth outreach today when it announced that Hans Rimer, who spent the past four years as the political director for Rock the Vote, has signed on as National Youth Vote Director.

* Obama made a massive spash in Oakland, California over the weekend where he spoke to a crowd of an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 people and raked in roughly $1 million at a fundraiser.

* Sen. John McCain spent the weekend campaigning in New Hampshire, where he promised to hold bi-weekly press conferences if elected President.

* Sen. Hillary Clinton has hired former Clinton administration official Bob Nash as a deputy campaign manager. Nash is currently the vice chair of Shore Bank Corp. and formerly the director of presidential personnel for President Clinton as well as undersecretary of agriculture.

* Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney picked up the endorsement of Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah today.

* A five-minute phone call seems to have calmed the tensions between Sen. Barack Obama and Rev. Al Sharpton. Sharpton, who had publicly questioned Obama's qualifications for President, said the two men "had a good conversation" and have "agreed to keep in touch."

More after the jump.

Read more »

The Club for Growth has now struck back very hard against John McCain, with a Club spokesman claiming that McCain is skipping its upcoming winter conference because he was "afraid of getting booed."

As reported earlier today, McCain blasted the Club in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, faulting the Club for attacking other Republicans and even blaming the GOP's loss of the Senate on the Club's campaign against liberal GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee.

Now Club for Growth spokesperson Nachama Soloveichik has lit into McCain in an interview with Election Central.

On McCain's claim he has little in common with the Club: "I would ask McCain, he said he doesn't have anything in common with us. He doesn't believe in low taxes? He doesn't believe in limited government? He doesn't believe in free trade?"

On the fact that McCain has missed so many conservative summits of late (he also skipped both CPAC and the National Review conference): "He keeps claiming he has scheduling conflicts, but people are growing suspicious that there's more to the story."

On McCain's charge about Chafee: "We pretty much think Linc Chafee was a goner anyway."

And her own suspicions on why McCain is skipping the Club's upcoming event: "I think he was afraid of getting booed. I’ve seen some political pundits say that, that it was smart for McCain not to show up, because he risked getting booed."

Via a campaign statement, here's Barack Obama's take on the meaning of the Iraq War's fourth anniversary:

“The consequences of this war have been dire, and the sacrifices have been immeasurable. Too many of our best have now returned from Iraq shrouded in the flag they loved. Too many have come home with broken bodies and shattered nerves and wounds that even the best care may not heal. And the rest of us have seen too many promises of swift victories, and dying insurgencies, and budding democracy give way to the reality of a brutal civil war that goes on and on to this day.

“When I opposed this invasion in 2002, I said that I am not against all wars, but dumb wars, and I believed that authorizing this conflict would lead to a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

“This is sadly where we find ourselves today. There is no military solution to this war. No amount of U.S. soldiers can solve the grievances that lay at the heart of someone else’s civil war. We must begin a phased redeployment of our forces starting May 1st, with the goal of removing all combat forces by March 30th, 2008. Letting the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever is our last, best hope to pressure the Iraqis to take ownership of their country and bring an end to their conflict.

“History will not judge the architects of this war kindly. But the books have yet to be written on our efforts to right the wrongs we see in Iraq. It is time to bring this conflict to a responsible end so we can bring our troops home and refocus on the wider struggle yet to be won.”

We all know the presidency doesn’t come cheap, but when does it qualify as out of control?
According to AP, the 08 race could come with a billion dollar price tag. That’s roughly twice the total cost of the 2004 election. Why so much money? The largest factor is the early start of this cycle, with candidates already investing in television and traveling to early states more than a year before the election. Also, 2004’s total bill was a combination of fewer candidates because the Republican field was limited to one.

AP doesn’t have exact numbers- financial reports for 07 through March aren’t public until April – but they do enumerate the many costs of a modern campaign. “From decorations -- Bush spent nearly $150,000 on balloons, flags, flowers and other filigree in the 2004 campaign -- to advertising, the single biggest expense of any campaign.” Candidates must also fund “staff salaries, travel, pollsters, fundraising consultants and direct mail.” Already, Romney is slated to spend over $800,000 in March alone for an ad campaign to increase his visibility in five key states including Iowa and South Carolina.
Top strategists like McCain’s John Weaver and Terry Nelson, not to mention to Clinton Machine, also command high salaries.
We’ll have to follow up when the reports come out next month.

Last week, the Club for Growth — whose membership boasts many Wall Street members of the GOP's donor establishment — announced that unlike the rest of the GOP Presidential candidates, John McCain would be skipping the Club's big winter conference on March 29-April 1.

Now McCain has unloaded on the group, saying in an interview with Pat Robertsons Christian Broadcasting Network that the Club cost the GOP the Senate:

In the case of Club For Growth, I’ve got to be honest with you. Ronald Reagan taught me the 11th Commandment, and that is you don’t speak ill of other Republicans. The reason why we don’t have a majority in the Senate today was the attacks that Club For Growth made on Lincoln Chafee, the Senator from Rhode Island, a liberal Republican Senator, but would have voted for Mitch McConnell to be the Majority leader of the Senate. They have continuously attacked Republicans that they don’t agree with. I believe in the big tent party. I believe there’s room for someone from Rhode Island that may not agree with everything that I agree with. But I still want him in the Republican Party. That’s not the case with the Club For Growth. So I’m not sure what the Club For Growth and I have really in common.

This is striking, largely because you'd think that McCain wouldn't want to alienate the major GOP donors that make up Club for Growth's membership — he is trying, after all, to win over the GOP establishment. What's more, though McCain is trying to repair relations with conservatives, this is the second powerful conservative group that he's alienated, having already skipped out on speaking publicly before the Conservative Political Action Conference a few weeks ago.

It'll be interesting to see what the Club's membership has to say about McCain at the winter conference — and how the other candidates will use it as an occasion to damage his reputation with conservatives further.

Not that you needed one, but here's another sign that former New York Governor George Pataki just isn't going to run for President: One of his most loyal longtime advisers is going to work for onetime Pataki arch-rival Rudy Giuliani.

The Rudy camp announced this morning that Republican consultant Mike McKeon has joined up with the campaign. McKeon is a longtime devoted Pataki adviser: He worked for the Pataki administration in New York for eight years, from 1995 until 2003, the last two as his communications director, and also took a leave of absence from the Governor's office to work full-time on Pataki's 2002 reelection campaign.

Is there any chance that McKeon would sign up to work for Rudy unless McKeon knew his former boss wasn't running?

McKeon himself insists Pataki didn't tell him he's officially out of it. "I spoke to the Governor before taking the job," McKeon tells me. "He told me he supported my decision, and he told me what he told [the press] -- that he's going to focus on policy and not politics."

Attention, House Dems -- time to stand up and be counted. The House Dem leadership has begun an all-hands-on-deck press on rank and file members to get their support for the big supplemental spending bill that mandates withdrawal from Iraq by Fall 2008, Roll Call reports.

Internal divisions among Dems remain, however, with some liberal members unhappy with what they see as the bill's lack of a powerful enough legal mechanism to force withdrawal. California Rep. Lynn Woolsey tells the paper that at least 15 Democrats will vote against the bill unless it is significantly altered this week.

More than $1 million -- that's how much Bill and Hillary's joint appearance at a fundraiser in Manhattan yesterday raised for her Presidential campaign, the New York Post reports.

Hillary also used the occasion to blast President Bush for a failure to act after September 11: "What were we asked to do? Go shopping," Hillary said. "I think America is ready to be asked to do something besides 'go shopping.'"

So, so simple. Asked yesterday on CNN about the Bush administration's predictions that pulling out of Iraq could mean chaos for the region, Congressman Jack Murtha said: “Why would I believe that?" He added: "Nothing they’ve predicted has turned out to be true.” Why, yes, that's right, come to think of it. Well put, Mr. Murtha.

With parties and parades set to take place today across the country celebrating the fourth anniversary of the U.S.'s Iraq invasion (editor's note: that's a joke), a new poll finds that the public's confidence and pride in the war has undergone a remarkably steep plunge.

A new CNN poll finds that only 35% of Americans are "confident" about the war -- down from 83% who were confident in a positive outcome when the conflict began. The poll also found that less than a third -- 30% -- were "proud" of the war. That's less than half of the 65% who expressed that sentiment in 2003, the year the invasion began.

In an interview yesterday with the Associated Press, Rudy Giuliani defended his law firm's role representing Citgo, which is ultimately controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, by saying the law firm had a contract with Citgo before his firm represented the company.

Rudy also claimed that Citgo is responsible for a startlingly high number of U.S. jobs: "What they're doing is lawful and honorable and helping to protect jobs for more than 100,000 Americans." One hundred thousand? Well, not exactly. The AP adds that Citgo employs only 4,000 people in Texas and other states, and that Rudy claimed that indirectly some 100,000 are employed because of the company. In other words, grain of salt time.

Attention, Congressional Dems: The public has your back. A new poll finds that a solid majority of Americans supports Congressional legislation that would require the withdrawal of the troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008 -- precisely the withdrawal deadline mandated in legislation authored by House Dems that is expected to go to a vote this coming week.

The new Newsweek poll asks respondents if they "favor or oppose Congressional legislation that would require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008." The answer: 59% favor it, while only 34% -- barely more than a third -- oppose it. Meanwhile, the poll also finds President Bush's approval rating mired at all of 30%, roughly where it's been since late last year.