Indian-American Group Calls On Obama Campaign To Apologize
The Indian-American community is outraged over an opposition research document from the Barack Obama campaign, targeting Hillary Clinton's ties to business interests in India. "There cannot be a suggestion that Indian-Americans are somehow taboo," said Sanjay Puri, chairman of the 50,000-member U.S.-India Political Action Committee. The not-for-attribution document was entitled "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)'s personal financial and political ties to India." The "Punjab" line is a reference to a joke Hillary made at a fundraiser last year, "I can certainly run for the Senate seat in Punjab and win easily." Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement, "The intent of the document was to discuss the issue of outsourcing, but we regret the tone that parts of the document took."

Hillary: The White House Is "Evidence-Free" On Science And More.
Hillary Clinton lambasted the White House's position on stem-cell research at a New Hampshire event yesterday: "They've turned Washington into an evidence-free zone, and we've seen this in so many different ways."

Ron Paul Building A Following — But Still Lacks In Poll Numbers
The Washington Post has a story out on the Internet presence of Ron Paul — or, to put it more precisely, Paul's supporters. Paul's numbers in Facebook, MySpace, MeetUp members and YouTube views are the largest in the Republican field, second only to Barack Obama overall. And most interesting of all, Paul himself is somewhat of a Luddite. "To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard about this YouTube and all the other Internet sites until supporters started gathering in them," Paul said. On the other hand, he's had a hard time actually breaking through in real poll numbers. A 28-year old supporter casts some light on the subject: "But I'm not supporting him because I think he could get the nomination. I'm supporting him because I think he can influence the national conversation about what the role of government is, how much power should government have over our lives, how much liberty should we give up for security."

Edwards To Take On G8 Summit Goals
John Edwards is set to give a speech today in Austin, Texas, in which he will announce his support for the G8 Summit's challenge that the United States join in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases by 50 percent by the year 2050.

Bayh's 2006 Campaign Training Work Now Benefitting The Current Candidates
In the 2006 campaign cycle, Evan Bayh set up "Camp Bayh," a training seminar for would-be Democratic staffers, who would then be dispatched to Iowa and New Hampshire to help local candidates, building good will for Bayh's expected presidential run and putting those staffers in position to work for Bayh's campaign. As it turned out, Bayh back out of the race after a very brief exploratory phase — and the Camp Bayh graduates are now giving their services to other Democratic candidates. "It is sometimes surreal to see the fruits of two years of hard work preparing for the Bayh presidential campaign benefiting other candidates and campaigns," said Dan Pfeiffer, deputy communications director for the Obama campaign. "But at the end of the day Evan Bayh did a great service for these kids and the party as whole."

Hillary And Obama Both Working For Illinois Money
Hillary Clinton is not totally ceding Democratic money in Illinois, the state of her birth, to favorite son Barack Obama. While Hillary raised only one tenth the money Obama did in the first quarter there — $373,000 to his $3.73 million — her campaign is working to significantly increase their Illinois take this quarter. An upcoming June 25 fundraiser will feature longtime Clinton allies from the business community, as well as one of the sons of Jesse Jackson, who is himself supporting Obama. The campaign is hoping to build on May fundraiser in Chicago that took in $300,000.

Joe Lieberman gave a press conference with local reporters in Connecticut today. It was a pretty lively affair. You can watch the video here.

Lieberman was asked to clarify his views on Iran and his recent suggestion that we may need to take military action against that country, which he said was killing our soldiers in various ways. Here are a few excerpts.

Lieberman addressed the question of whether the military is strapped:

"We have a mighty military."

He sought to reassure his listeners that he doesn't envision all-out war with Iran:

"I'm not talking about any massive land invasion of Iraq. I'm not talking about any bombing of civilian areas."

He addressed the question of whether hostilities with Iran might have adverse consequences (our favorite):

"So what I'm saying is, if we knock out a base of theirs, if we have to do that, at which they're training these terrorists, yes, they may respond. But look, they're already on the move against us, and they're killing people as a result of it. I hope this is not necessary."

He talked about the horrors of war:

"None of us like war, people suffer from it."

He also slammed John Edwards for saying that the "war on terror" phrase is a bumper sticker slogan, and said we're in the middle of a "world war."

No doubt there's much more in there that we've missed, but you can watch the whole thing, which is definitely worth a look, right here. Happy Friday!

Obama In February: Oppo Research Should Focus On Issues, Not Ad-Hominem Attacks

Ben Smith unearthed a question and answer session with Barack Obama from February, in which he asked the candidate what approach he would have to opposition research. Obama said there would be an important role in being able to "compare and contrast where we stand on issues," but also said he would take pains in "not making ad hominem attacks toward other candidates." Smith notes, "Hard to see how attacking Bill Clinton's finances fits framework."

McCain To Campaign In Iowa With Former POW Cellmate

John McCain will be campaigning in Iowa this weekend with Ret. Col. George "Bud" Day, a Sioux City native and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. During the Vietnam War, McCain and Day shared a cell as prisoners of war.

Obama's Father's Day Message: Do Not Shirk Responsibility

Barack Obama delivered a message to a Baptist church in South Carolina, to coincide with Father's Day weekend: "Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child." Obama discussed his own childhood, marked by the absence of his biological father, whom he only knew about through stories from his mother and other relatives.

Lots Of Applause At Right To Life Convention

Mitt Romney defended his about-face on abortion as a genuine conversion at the National Right to Life Conference in Kansas City. He earned a standing ovation for his remarks, but Sam Brownback garnered yet more applause. Brownback attacked Romney: "In the past, he has said unequivocally he’s pro-choice. He’s saying now he’s pro-life ... That seems to me to be an inconsistency where you’ve been in one position in the past and you’re different now."

Bloomberg Has Dinner — In New Hampshire

New York City Mayor Mark Bloomberg is headed to New Hampshire for his girlfriend's college reunion. He will also travel to California to have appearances with Governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and at Google, which is coincidentally also hosting presidential candidates. The mayor dismissed any speculation about a possible presidential bid, however. "I don’t think the country’s quite ready for me," Bloomberg said.

Tancredo Lauds Cutting Security Funds For Sanctuary Cities

The House passed an amendment 234-189 to the homeland security appropriations bill cutting funding for cities with policies and laws giving sanctuary to illegal immigrants. Tancredo, who sponsored the measure, hooted and cheered with his staffers in his office. "The times, they are a changing," Tancredo said in a statement.

Richardson Raising Cash In Twin Cities

Indian donors, Latino leaders and bloggers attended a Bill Richardson fundraiser today, netting the Democrat $75,000. Barack Obama and John McCain plan visits to Minneapolis in the coming weeks.

New Jersey GOP Votes For Winner-Take-All Primary — Seen As Pro-Rudy Move

The New Jersey Republican State Committee has officially adopted a winner-take-all rule for the state's February 5 primary, as opposed to a system under which presidential delegates would be distributed proportionally to the GOP candidates' vote percentages in the state. The rule is widely seen to be done to benefit Rudy Giuliani — hailing from neighboring New York and being a socially liberal Republican, he'd be heavily favored in the state primary, and this rule would give him all of the state's delegates.

Mike Huckabee Doesn't Like Miniskirts

In an interview with the magazine Marie Claire, Mike Huckabee had an exchange in which he talked about his distaste for miniskirts. "If a person dresses provocatively, they're calling attention — maybe not the most desirable kind — to private parts of their body," Huckabee said. Huckabee is now complaining that the interview is being taken out of context, and he was joking around. In Huckabee's defense, when asked if he owns a miniskirt, he said he owns a thong. So this was probably a joke — at least, we sure hope it was!

Something fun for a Friday: The Edwards campaign is having a bit of fun today spoofing all the nasty and vicious skirmishing that's been going on between the Hillary and Obama campaigns today over opposition research.

The Edwards campaign just sent out a "not-for-attribution" document that they'd dressed up as a mock version of an oppo dump about themselves:

JOHN EDWARDS: THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT HIS "GREAT" WEEK

Some John Edwards supporters have said this was a "good" or "decent" week, but a closer examination of the record proves: this was a great week. Between bringing down health care costs for families, widely successful grassroots fundraisers, busy Iowa and New Hampshire trips, and even a little of mom's pecan pie, the facts are clear—John Edwards is on a roll.

Friday fun.

"We need a president who can walk and chew gum at the same time."

-- John Edwards, quoted by ABC News talking about his qualifications at a news conference today. Well, it's a start, anyway.

This video that's been making the rounds on the Internet is very ... interesting — it shows former Senator and current presidential candidate Mike Gravel doing nothing but staring into the camera for a solid minute, motionless, as if peering into the viewer's very soul. He then throws a rock in a pond and walks off into the distance. We asked Gravel's spokesman about it, and got some intriguing answers. But first, give it a watch:

Exciting, huh? We asked Mike Gravel's press secretary, Alex Colvin, what the point of it is. And Colvin tells us that there's no single, intrinsic point here at all.

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Here's a kind of contemptible postscript to the whole Bill-made-money-on-Sept. 11 saga we posted on below. The story in question -- that Bill allegedly gave a for-profit speech commemorating 9/11 on Sept. 11, 2006 -- was heavily promoted by Drudge yesterday, beginning in the late afternoon:

Here's the interesting thing, though. The Observer proved this story false yesterday, posting this debunking of it in the late afternoon or early evening yesterday, proving that Bill's schedule showed that he'd given the speech the day before, on Sept. 10.

But Drudge still had the above headline going strong this morning, pushing a false story for a full 12 hours after it had been proven to be thoroughly bogus.

Drudge does this all the time. Not long ago he linked to an article in the Boston Herald that purported to show that Hillary may have had botox. The paper did this with before-and-after photos -- but it turned out that the pics had been reversed. Hours and hours after The Herald put the photos back in the right order, rendering the visual entirely bogus, Drudge still had them up on his site in the wrong order.

We bring this up for a reason. Many of you will ask why we bother with this when we've all known for years and years that Drudge is chronically mendacious and dishonest. Here's why: Because many people at the big news orgs, particularly at the TV networks, take their cues from Drudge and even treat him as their de-facto assignment editor. So we point it out whenever Drudge leaves false information up on his site for hours and hours in (perhaps vain) hopes that the good people at these news orgs will take note of it one of these days.

Relatedly, John Aravosis asks a very good question: "what was Matt Drudge doing, and with whom was he doing it, this past September 11? Was he honoring the dead?" Well, we can tell you one thing: His site was active all throughout that day.

Still more bad news for John McCain, this time in a new Rassmussen poll.

It finds that his approval rating has plummeted below the 50% mark for the first time during this campaign, to 48%. That's down from 55% in April and the peak of 59% in December. This sinking popularity among across-the-board voters, Rasmussen theorizes, is due to his increasing identification with the unpopular war.

One potential bright spot for McCain, at least for the GOP primary: The poll finds that more and more voters are seeing him as a conservative. Forty five percent thought this in May's Rasmussen poll, up from 26% in December. Perhaps less voters are seeing the old "maverick" McCain and now are seeing the one who's now working overtime to win the affections of the right.

We've just obtained an email that shows that the Obama campaign yesterday circulated a negative, and ultimately false, story about Bill Clinton -- that he allegedly made money giving a speech on September 11, 2006.

Campaigns, of course, circulate negative stuff about each other all the time. This email is unusual in that it is flagging something potentially negative not about a primary rival but about the former President -- one who obviously isn't running in the Democratic primary and who remains popular with Dem primary voters.

Indeed, the email is particularly noteworthy in that it reflects one of the curiosities of this race -- that one of the candidates' spouses is a popular former President, and thus is playing a highly visible role in the campaign, making him a target for anonymous attacks from Hillary's rivals.

We obtained the email from the Hillary campaign, which declined to say how it got it.

The email, which was sent out by Jen Psaki of the Obama campaign and circulated to reporters (not us) on an off-the-record basis late yesterday, details some things that the Obama campaign found in Hillary's financial disclosure documents, which were released yesterday. More after the jump.

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This is funny. Mitt Romney's campaign — in an effort to defend itself against criticism from John McCain on abortion — has just released a video tape that it says refutes McCain's attack against him.

But that video inadvertently revealed yet another flip flop from Romney on another issue: Stem cell research. The vid seems to show that back in 2005, he endorsed federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. That's a position that's off limits to any GOP candidate — and one that Romney now claims he opposes.

A quick recap. As we
noted two days ago, John McCain's campaign circulated a YouTube of Mitt Romney in May 2005, in which he seemed to be endorsing the pro-choice status quo in Massachusetts. McCain charged that this shows that Romney's claim that he'd had an earlier conversion on the issue was bogus.

In response, the Romney campaign released this longer YouTube of that same press conference, showing the remark in its proper context:

(Turn up your volume — the audio signal on this video is rather weak.)

The vid does seem to back up Romney's case to a degree — it shows that he also said he opposed embryo farming, and that he was against abortion but was going to fight more winnable battles in liberal Massachusetts politics, such as the cloning issue.

The problem, though, is that on this longer video, Romney also said this:

"The United States House of Representatives voted for a bill that was identical to what I proposed. What they voted for is what I proposed, all right. They voted to provide for surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization processes, being used for research and experimentation. That's what I've said I support."

It sure sounds like Mitt Romney endorsed federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research in this video, doesn't it?

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Clinton Campaign Manager: We Expect Obama To Out-Raise Us
In a possible case of playing the expectations game — or potentially a premature admission of being behind — Hillary Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle told the Chicago Tribune that Barack Obama's campaign will probably out-raise them in the second quarter, which ends at the end of this month. "He's raising a lot and it’s likely he will out-raise us this quarter. God bless, good for him," she said. "I know how difficult it is to raise money and I have admiration for how they do it."

Fred Thompson Addresses National Right To Life By Video
Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has obtained an early copy of Fred Thompson's video address to the National Right to Life conference in Kansas City — a prime opportunity for Thompson to address his pro-choice leanings in his 1994 campaign. In a folksy manner, Thompson talks about different groups coming to see him in his Senate offices to talk about various business matters. "When you came to see me," Thompson says, "I always knew it was about something much more important than that, the most important thing of all in this World and that is life and I must say that those issues are even more profound to me as the years go by."

Immigration Bill: Back From The Dead?
Senate leaders have announced a new attempt to revive the immigration bill, possibly bringing it back to the Senate floor as early as next week. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have said that work on the bill will be restarted after the Senate finishes current debates on the energy bill.

Clintons Sell Oil, Drug Stocks
Hillary and Bill Clinton have liquidated a blind trust containing most of their assets, in order to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest and divest from companies in sectors such as petroleum and pharmaceuticals that might offend Democratic voters. The Clintons only learned what was in the blind trust when they were forced to disclose it to the public as a result of Hillary's presidential bid.

Spanish TV Debate Will Actually Be In English
All candidates at the proposed Democratic debate hosted by Univision at the end of the summer are going to be required to field questions in English, with their responses simultaneously translated into Spanish in order to create a more level playing field. Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, the only two candidates who speak Spanish, are upset at the decision. Richardson's spokesman said that "This is a disservice to Univision’s viewers. It is a Spanish-language network and candidates who speak Spanish should not be penalized because other candidates do not."

Candidates Apply To Wyoming GOP For Senate Vacancy — Lynne Cheney Not On List
The Wyoming Republican Party has closed the application process yesterday for the Senate vacancy left by the death of Senator Craig Thomas. The state party will pick three names, one of whom will then be temporarily appointed to the Senate by Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal. Notably not on the list of 31 names is Lynne Cheney, wife of Dick Cheney, around whom some rumors had been circling. One prominent name on the list is state House Majority Leader Colin Simpson — the son of former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson — who has already indicated that he will challenge Congresswoman Barbara Cubin in the GOP primary if somebody else is appointed to the Senate.

Richardson Endorsed By Hispanic New Hampshire Republican
Bill Richardson has picked up the support of Carlos Gonzalez, a New Hampshire Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Manchester in 2003. "Governor Bill Richardson is by far the most qualified candidate in the race for President," said Gonzalez. To support Richardson in the primary, Gonzalez will be changing his registration from Republican to Democratic.

Year Of Green Conventions
Both Democratic and Republican parties are planning conventions designed to have minimal environmental impact, including such measures as recycled confetti and budgets for purchasing carbon offsets. Democrats are looking for hybrid vehicles to shuttle passengers around Denver. "You can make a lot of speeches, but in the end, you've got to back up the words," said Leah Daughtry, chief executive officer for the Democratic convention.

Okay, as we noted below, we've been trying to find out as much as possible about the conference call that Harry Reid held with liberal bloggers that's created so much noise today.

Now we've obtained a tape of the relevant chunk of the call. Reid did call Pace "incompetent," so The Politico story was factually right about that. But the context does raise questions about whether its placement and headline were overblown.

In the call, The Politico reported, Reid blasted General Pace as "incompetent," and used "similarly disparaging language" to attack General Petraeus. We spoke to as many people as we could on the call to see what was actually said. And a number of liberal bloggers on the call told us that they didn't remember Reid saying these things.

Now we've finally found someone who taped the call -- and this person provided us with a recording of it, on the condition that we not make the audio available, and only post the transcript. The relevant part follows:

REID: Look what this Justice Department has done. And now, with the Surgeon General, we have a man here who has written articles that I think are a little questionable as to in our modern society. He's a medical doctor. And don't worry, he's gonna be looked at very closely.

BLOGGER QUESTION: What's the next step on Gonzales?

REID: Well, I guess the President, he's gotten rid of Pace because he could not get confirmed here in the Senate. Pace is also a yes-man for the President. I told him to his face, I laid it out last time he came in to see me. I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was. But he got rid of his Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, but he still hangs on to this failed Attorney General. And I guess he's gonna [inaudible]. We're gonna keep focusing on it. Every day that goes by, it seems he keeps giving. Now we've learned that the immigration judges are all graduates of Regent University I guess.

REID AIDE: Guys, I think we have time to take one more question...

So The Politico's John Bresnahan, who wrote the original story, was right; Reid did call Pace incompetent. On the other hand, it was in the context of a discussion of Alberto Gonzales and other administration incompetents, not Iraq. The reference to Pace was an aside -- brought up solely to highlight Bush's loyalty to Gonzales. Reid's focus here wasn't on Pace or the commanders.

Seems to me that the larger context suggests more clearly than the shorter snippet posted earlier by Bob Geiger, another blogger on the call, how pumped up the Politico story and headline were. Nonetheless, the truth is, Bresnahan's story was factually accurate. Though it's still unclear what Reid said about Petraeus, which is the more controversial aspect of the story, since Pace is on his way out and Petraeus is the key guy in Iraq. We were only able to obtain a tape of a limited chunk of the call.

Still outstanding question: Why didn't Reid's office just confirm that he'd said this? Why play this one so cute? A lot of people wanted confirmation, and a lot of liberal bloggers were out there saying that they didn't remember Reid saying this stuff. Couldn't Reid's office have just spared a bunch of people a lot of grief and effort by just confirming it?

Update: Taylor Marsh has more on just how unsightly this mess really is.

Christian Right Activist Asks Romney: The Bible, Or The Book Of Mormon?
Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Christian right Traditional Values Coalition, reportedly asked Mitt Romney face to face whether he would be sworn in as president using a Bible, or the Book of Mormon. Romney gave the right answer for Sheldon: The Bible. While Mormons do hold the Bible to be the Word of God, so there is nothing extraordinary about Romney's answer, consider this: Sheldon cared enough to potentially base his political decisions on that question.

Romney: Massachusetts Legislature Ignored "The Voice Of The People" On Gay Marriage
In a new press release, Mitt Romney condemned the failure of the Massachusetts legislature to reach the necessary 50 votes (out of 200) to send a constitutional ban on gay marriage to the voters in 2008: "Today's vote by the State Legislature is a regrettable setback in our efforts to defend traditional marriage. Unfortunately, our elected representatives decided that the voice of the people did not need to be heard in this debate. It is now even more important that we pass a Constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. Marriage is an institution that goes to the heart of our society, and our leaders can no longer abdicate their responsibility."

Upper-Income Black Donors Favor Obama
A study by USA Today finds that Barack Obama has taken the lion's share of donations from ZIP codes with both large numbers of black households and high black household incomes. Obama received about 2,200 donations from such areas in the first quarter, compared to only about 1,000 donations for Hillary Clinton.

Next Dem Debate Based On YouTube Questions
Democratic candidates will face questions posed by average citizens in the next Democratic debate July 23rd in Charleston, S.C. hosted CNN and Google/YouTube. Although the debate is set to be moderated by Anderson Cooper, he will be largely drawing questions from YouTube submissions.

Brownback Pegs Hopes On Straw Poll
Sam Brownback will begin a four-day, 27-town bus tour of Iowa on Monday, part of the campaign's do-or-die effort to perform well in the Ames straw poll this August.

Gay Advocacy Group To Lobby In Ames Straw Poll
The Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay advocacy group, said it plans to lobby public opinion in key primary states against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and other issues. "It’s a process of moving public opinion and moving public officials," said the organization's president Joe Solmonese.

Biden Loses Top Fundraiser
Joe Biden's campaign has lost Kory Mitchell, a top Democratic fundraiser. Mitchell joined the Biden campaign shortly after his previous favorite, Evan Bayh, dropped out of the race, but he reportedly never fit in among the Biden operation, and is said to have finally left over a salary dispute.

Obama Abandons Coal-To-Liquid Proposals
Under pressure from environmentalist circles, Barack Obama dropped his support for controversial coal-to-liquid technology. With the Senate considering a new energy bill, the issue gained renewed attention from environmental groups and left-wing blogs. A diarist on John Edwards’ campaign blog had criticized Obama this week as hypocritical on global warming over his support for liquefied coal, and asked supporters to sign MoveOn.org’s petition on the issue (ed. note - the original post referred to the site as "John Edwards' campaign blog" without clarifying that the link in question came from a diarist and not Edwards' campaign staff). — Benjy Sarlin

Congress Discloses Personal Finances
Did you know Harry Reid owns a gold mine? Find your own Senator's or Representative's personal finance disclosure form. The latest filings were released today.

Okay, we've just spoken to two more bloggers who were on the conference call with Harry Reid.

John Aravosis, who founded and runs the popular AmericaBlog, and Joe Sudbay, a D.C. political strategist who also writes for AmericaBlog, told me in interviews that say they don't remember Reid describing General Pace as incompetent or hear Reid disparaging Petraeus, as The Politico is reporting.

"I don't remember him saying this," Aravosis told us when asked about the assertion that Reid had called Paced "incompetent."

Sudbay, meanwhile, added: "If he had said something really juicy, we would have posted that ourselves."

Both Aravosis and Sudbay remember Reid discussing the two Generals, but said they don't remember him talking about them in the way that the Politico characterized the discussion. The Politico story claimed that Reid had called Pace "incompetent," and added that Reid had made "similar disparaging remarks" about Petraeus. Both Aravosis and Sudbay said they didn't remember Reid making any disparaging remarks about Petraeus.

The Politico story has set off an uproar, with Drudge linking it, John McCain and other leading Republicans attacking Reid over it, and White House press secretary Tony Snow using the story to slam Reid as anti-military at his press briefing today. But as we reported below, three other prominent bloggers on the call -- with Aravosis and Sudbay, that makes five total now -- didn't hear Reid say any such thing.

The Politico reporter who wrote the story is declining to comment on the bloggers' assertion and declining to comment on whether he spoke to anyone who was on the call. All five of these bloggers say they didn't hear from the Politico reporter.

Aravosis, meanwhile, pointed out that it was unlikely that the Politico could have gotten this from anyone on the call.

"Why would somebody on this call, which was on the record, hear something so newsworthy, and instead of posting it, call the Politico and tell them this on background?" Aravosis asked. "We would have written about it ourselves."

Intriguingly, Reid isn't denying directly that he said the remarks attributed to him, but he did say at a press conference today that he held Petraeus in high regard.

To be clear: We don't know what was said on the call, and we're not sure why Reid's office won't say so more directly. We're just trying to find out as much as we can by talking to the people who were on it.

It's possible, for instance, that Reid did mildly criticize Pace, and even conceivably Petraeus, without using the word "incompetent." Of course, without that one-word quote on the front page of the Politico, and then on Drudge, it almost certainly wouldn't have created the explosion that it did.

Meanwhile, AmericaBlog has much more on this in this post, which addresses this and an another important but overlooked aspect of this whole story. Check it out.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) laced into Harry Reid for disputed remarks about General David Petraeus in a statement:

“The fact that Democrat Leader Reid would stoop so low as to insult our top military commanders in an attempt to gain political points with his liberal blogging friends is outrageous. The debate about this war has gone into the gutter when the Democrat Leader of the United States Senate uses ‘disparaging remarks’ to describe our military leadership. Generals Pace and Petraeus are two honorable men who have performed admirably under the most challenging of circumstances. These combat-hardened soldiers have both served their nation with distinction throughout their military careers. To sling political mud at these two men who are not part of the political arena is cowardly."

This story's snowballing. Now the chairman of the Republican National Committee is getting into the game.

GOP chair Robert Duncan just issued this statement blasting Harry Reid over the Politico story claiming that he disparaged Generals Pace and Petraeus:

“Harry Reid doesn’t understand that there are some lines you just don’t cross. There is room for him to express reasonable disagreement about our path forward in Iraq. But to attack our military is unacceptable. To attack General Petraeus, the man actually leading our troops on the ground, is reprehensible. And to call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, someone who has served our nation for his entire adult life with honor and distinction, ‘incompetent’ is beyond the pale. Harry Reid once said ‘This war is lost.’ What he’s really lost, apparently, is any semblance of respect he might have once had for the best and bravest armed forces in the world.”

As we reported below, three prominent liberal bloggers who were actually on the conference call with Reid say he said no such thing.

Update: Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) also took the chance to lace into the "Democrat Leader" with a statement:

“The fact that Democrat Leader Reid would stoop so low as to insult our top military commanders in an attempt to gain political points with his liberal blogging friends is outrageous. The debate about this war has gone into the gutter when the Democrat Leader of the United States Senate uses ‘disparaging remarks’ to describe our military leadership. Generals Pace and Petraeus are two honorable men who have performed admirably under the most challenging of circumstances. These combat-hardened soldiers have both served their nation with distinction throughout their military careers. To sling political mud at these two men who are not part of the political arena is cowardly."

One of the big stories of the day is this front-page piece in The Politico that claims that Harry Reid blasted General Peter Pace as "incompetent" and described General David Petraeus in similar terms on a recent conference call with liberal bloggers.

The story has already sparked an uproar, and the conservatives have jumped all over it. It was linked on Drudge, and John McCain sent out a press release attacking Reid over it. And White House press secretary Tony Snow use it to hammer Reid as anti-military in today's White House briefing. Snow brought up the Politico story himself, saying that it was "outrageous" for Reid to be "issuing slanders" toward commanders "in a time of war."

But we've just spoken with three of the prominent liberal bloggers who say they were on the call, and they all say they don't remember Reid saying anything like this. One flatly denies that he said it.

The Politico story, which was written by John Bresnahan, only attributes the claim that Reid disparaged the generals to "several sources familiar with the interview," without saying whether these sources were on the call. It contains no direct quote of Reid beyond the one word "incompetent." It goes on to say that Reid "made similar disparaging remarks" about Petraeus, without quoting or paraphrasing any.

Bresnahan declined to comment on the bloggers' assertions and declined to comment on the question of whether he'd spoken to anyone who was actually on the conference call. Quotes from the bloggers themselves after the jump.

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Check out this Associated Press story on an event Rudy Giuliani spoke at today:

WILMINGTON, Del. - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, in an indirect swipe at President Bush, said Thursday the overwhelming attitude that the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction reflects a lack of leadership...

Speaking at a Flag Day rally in Wilmington, Del., Giuliani told more than 200 supporters: "What we're lacking is strong, aggressive, bold leadership like we had with Ronald Reagan."

So Rudy thinks that under Bush, we're "lacking strong, aggressive, bold leadership," right? It'll be interesting to see what GOP primary voters make of that.

Okay, it looks as if the right-wing Jerusalem Post has decided to stop its bizarre practice of sending out Rudy Giuliani's fundraising mail under the paper's name. Or so the paper has just announced in an email to readers, anyway.

To recap: The other day we reported that Rudy's campaign had sent out a fundraising pitch to readers of the Post. Rudy's pitch attacked Democrats as terrorist-coddlers who couldn't be trusted to defend Israel.

As we noted, what was odd about the pitch was that the sender was identified as The Post, and not as the campaign.

The effect was that it wasn't immediately clear who was raising the money, though it was made clear in the letter itself that the pitch was being made by the Rudy campaign. What's more, the fundraising request appeared at first glance to bear the support of the newspaper.

Well, now the Jerusalem Post has just sent out a new email telling readers that this practice will stop.

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MSNBC's First Read political blog shares a very interesting as-yet-unreleased number from the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll:

The most striking thing about the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is the damage that's been done to the GOP brand. Bush is not only unpopular (his approval rating is just 29% and favorability is only 32% -- both all-time lows for him). But his unpopularity also is dragging down the image of the Republican Party to its lowest level ever in this survey (28% positive rating). For better or worse, the GOP needs Bush to improve if they want the party's image to improve.

Via Jonathan Singer, who comments: "Although it's not terribly easy to draw a conclusion from a description of poll numbers that does not contain all of the available data, these numbers do not seem to bode well for the electoral hopes of the Republican Party. And these numbers should not be viewed as simply in a vacuum, just one outlier poll making a conclusion that is not supported by the preponderance of evidence. Polling earlier this year from CBS News and The New York Times showed the exact same thing -- the Republican Party's image has seldom, and perhaps even never in recent memory, been as bad as it is today."

Check out this story about Hillary's financial disclosure forms that Newsday just posted:

WASHINGTON -- Bill Clinton made about $10 million off corporate speeches last year, in addition to making an undisclosed million-dollar book advance -- and a hidden, hefty payday from the embattled boss of consumer list vendor InfoUSA, according to Hillary Rodham Clinton's personal finance disclosures released Thursday.

The former president raked in between $75,000 and $450,000 per chat session, the records show, averaging about $141,000 for each of the 67 speeches he delivered, many of them in Canada and Australia. Hillary Clinton's haul, in addition to her $151,000 Senate salary, included $350,000 from her autobiography "Living History."

An "undisclosed million-dollar book advance"? Did we know that Bill Clinton, who recently published a massive autobiography, is writing another book?

We've checked in with Bill's spokesman. We'll keep you posted.

Update: Yes, he is writing a new book -- it's a continuation of his autobiography dealing with the period after his Presidency.

Nancy Pelosi says it. From The Times:

It has been nearly three weeks since Democrats have held a formal Iraq debate or voted on an Iraq proposal in the House or Senate. Not since they assumed the majority in January has there been such a lull. During the three weeks, Congressional approval ratings have fallen, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she knew why.

“It’s the war, I believe so, it’s the war,” Ms. Pelosi said in a brief interview on Wednesday. “In terms of the issue that the American people want to have resolved, the war is three or four times higher than any other issue.”

No mystery here. Time to get down to it.

Iowa GOP Announces Candidates For Straw Poll — Including Rudy And McCain
The Republican Party of Iowa has announced the ballot roster for the August straw poll in Ames. Interestingly enough, Fred Thompson is not on the list — though the release adds that "other credible candidate will be considered when appropriate." And here's the real kicker: Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, who have pulled out from the poll, will have their names placed on the ballot anyway — possibly just to humiliate them with single-digit vote percentages.

Edwards To Introduce Proposal To Reduce Drug Patent Terms
John Edwards will reportedly unveil a proposal to drastically change how pharmaceutical drugs are developed, patented and marketed. His proposal would remove long-term patents for the drugs, and would instead have the government establish cash incentives for multiple companies to manufacture the drugs.

NYT Focuses On Obama And Rezko
Barack Obama says that pizza chain owner and developer Tony Rezko, who is now indicted for influence peddling, is nothing more than a one-time fundraiser. The New York Times has now picked up on the story, and they write that the two have had a closer relationship than Obama will now readily acknowledge, such as a land purchase from Rezko's wife. "I am sure that Obama saw in Tony the same thing that many of us saw — someone who was willing to help if asked, and for little in return," said former Rezko business partner Michael Rumman.

Rudy: I'd Consider Adding More Troops In Iraq
Rudy Giuliani says he would be open to sending more troops to Iraq if General David Petraeus asked for them. "If he said the strategy was working, and we needed more soldiers to make it work," Giuliani said in an interview with Bloomberg News, "of course I'd look at that and consider that." One question, how can the strategy already be working and still need more troops to "make it work?"

Senators Add $4 Billion For Border Enforcement To Immigration Deal
In an effort to keep the immigration deal afloat Senate dealmakers have added about $4 billion for border security and workplace enforcement to the bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he will move ahead with the deal if 20 more GOP Senators commit to it. "Everybody's trying to prove that they are willing and able to enforce the law this time, unlike 1986," said Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ). "What better way to demonstrate that other than to say, 'We're not going to let congressional appropriations dictate this — we are going to put the money up front.'"

Clinton Rakes In $500K With O'Malley
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley helped pull in nearly $500,000 for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid last night in Baltimore County. The campaign reported that many couples at the event gave $9,200, the federally allowed maximum donation of $2,300 each for both the primary and general election campaigns.

Richardson To Focus On Energy Policy In Campaign Book
Bill Richardson is set to release his campaign book, which will make energy policy its central focus. The book will be entitled, Leading by Example: How We Can Inspire an Energy and Security Revolution.

Giuliani's Untraditional Marriage Kept Off Campaign Trail
After a brief interlude into the national spotlight, Rudy Giuliani's third wife Judith has once again receded to the sidelines of her husband's bid for the White House, the New York Times reports. Unfavorable press on the inconvenient facts of his divorce and her supposed role in his estrangement from his children may end up to be too much for the former New York City mayor, who is facing no less of a family man than Mitt Romney.

George Allen Reappearing On Virginia Fundraising Scene
The Washington Post that George Allen was the star attraction at a fundraiser last week for Republican candidate Gary H. Baise, who is running against an incumbent Democrat on the Fairfax County Board. While Allen disappeared from politics after his political self-destruction last year, it has been rumored that he's considering a run for governor in 2009 — and if so, expect him to be seen at a lot more local GOP fundraisers in the next year or two, rebuilding his reputation bit by bit.

Mike Huckabee: Media Pays More Attention To Paris Hilton Than Things That Matter
Mike Huckabee is upset with the news media for spending too much time on Paris Hilton and events like "Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear" than more important matters, as in who will be the next president. So how does Huckabee think he might be able to boost the attention for the presidential race, and his own campaign? "Accompanying Paris Hilton to jail might work," the frustrated candidate said.

Tommy Thompson Fakes Out The Press — Is Staying In
Tommy Thompson has found an interesting way to finally get some attention from the media: Tell them that he'll be making a "major announcement," have his campaign deny he's dropping out, then tell us what the big news is — that he's staying in the Ames straw poll. "I know most of you have tuned in to see if I was dropping out of the race," Thompson said. "I am very much involved in this campaign." Meanwhile, Thompson has a new radio ad in Iowa, explaining his plan for Iraq.

New Poll: Bush And Congress Both At Astonishing Lows
A new NBC/Wall St. Journal poll released this evening has President Bush at a horrible 29%-66% approval-disapproval rating. Congress, however, is even worse off at 23%-64%. In the presidential primaries, the national numbers are: For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton 39%, Barack Obama 25%, John Edwards 15% and nobody else above 10%; And for the Republicans, Rudy Giuliani 29%, Fred Thompson 20%, and Mitt Romney and John McCain tied at 14% apiece.

NewsMax Promoting Gerth/Van Natta Book
Ben Smith has a great find: conservative website NewsMax is selling Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta's Hillary Clinton biography "Her Way" and promoting it heavily: "Two veteran New York Times reporters — with almost 42 years of combined experience — decide to tell the true story of Hillary Clinton in a new biography. For doing so they are attacked by their own newspaper."

McCain And Hillary Trade Blows
John McCain went after Hillary today over the roughly $150 million in earmarks that Hillary put into the defense appropriations bill. McCain vowed to slice the pork from the bill. The Hillary campaign hit back, pointing out that not long ago McCain praised the very same bill he's now trashing. More detail on the dust-up here.

Dean On Florida: "Their Primary Essentially Won't Count"
Howard Dean is stepping up the rhetoric against Florida, where both state parties have come together to defy the national leaders by moving their primary date up to January 29. Dean has threatened to not award any Florida delegates to candidates who campaign there. Dean has now reportedly reassured a pro-New Hampshire primary group, "Their primary essentially won’t count."

Giuliani To Join ABC Iowa Debate in August
Rudy Giuliani announced today that he will participate in a televised debate in Des Moines — which will take place about a week before the big Ames straw poll that he has withdrawn from.. "Mayor Giuliani is committed to providing voters with as much information as possible in order for them to evaluate their next president," Giuliani campaign manager Mike DuHaime told ABC News in a statement.

Cardinal: Rudy Is "Directly Against The Fundamental Catholic Position"
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a member of the elite Roman Curia, told the New York Observer in an interview that Rudy Giuliani's position on abortion is unacceptable. "Because if he says, 'Well, I’m personally opposed but I believe a woman should have a right to choose,' well then, how can you be personally opposed? It’s a contradiction," Kasper said. Kasper went even further: "To be pro-choice is directly against the fundamental Catholic position, and I don’t see how it could be possible."

D.C. Voting Rights Clears Senate Committee
A bill to award the District of Columbia a full vote in the House of Representatives has passed in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on a 9-1 vote.

Edwards And Obama Both Going To Each Other's Stomping Grounds
Barack Obama and John Edwards are both set to hold fundraisers in the other's home turf. Edwards has a small-dollar fundraiser tonight in Chicago, with a minimum donation of a mere $15. Meanwhile, Obama will hold a $1,000-plus big-money fundraiser tomorrow in North Carolina.

Tucker Carlson Presents False Choice On Abortion
Tucker Carlson tried to sway pro-life Family Research Council president Tony Perkins towards Rudy with a hypothetical matchup, asking "What's the right decision to make if you're morally opposed to abortion, you've never supported a pro-choice candidate, but it is a choice between a pro-choice candidate, Giuliani, who says he will work to reduce abortions and Hillary Clinton, who takes money from people who commit them, what do you do?" But here's the thing: Tucker Carlson's imagined "choice" is a false one. Hillary Clinton gained significant media attention in 2005 after she presented a plan to work together with pro-lifers to reduce abortions. And not only have similar claims by Rudy been debunked but he made six donations to Planned Parenthood in the 1990s alone. — Benjy Sarlin

Robert Novak's new column (no link available yet) is absolutely brutal about John McCain's Presidential prospects:

While Sen. John McCain claims that everything is "fine" in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, events strongly suggest otherwise. The former frontrunner is now in deep trouble. With respect to the positive signs a presidential campaign can point to at this early stage -- fundraising, national polls, state polls, endorsements -- McCain finds himself almost empty-handed.

For this and other reasons, the nascent campaign of former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson poses a challenge for McCain in particular. Thompson has reportedly raised millions in just days after filing an exploratory committee, and a new national Bloomberg poll puts him at 21 percent, in a strong second place against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. McCain has plunged to 12 percent, just ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but at least Romney has some bright points in his favor: his lead in fundraising and his lead in Iowa and New Hampshire polls.

McCain has no such good news. To make matters worse, key McCain supporters on Capitol Hill and in the political consulting world are jumping ship to go to the Thompson campaign. If Thompson is the charging bear, McCain is the slowest of the three campers fleeing him -- the most likely to be devoured.

Yikes! We don't think Thompson is all that scary -- by our lights, Novak is far more the devouring kind than Thompson is. Either way, that is one vicious column.

If Thompson is the charging bear, McCain is the slowest of the three campers fleeing him -- the most likely to be devoured.

-- Robert Novak, in a new column (no link available yet). Thompson doesn't seem that frightening to us, but the column is indeed brutal about John McCain's prospects, opining that McCain is "in deep trouble."

Rudy Giuliani has been saying again and again lately that we need to beware going "back to the 1990s" -- that is, back to the time when Bill Clinton was President -- in our attitudes towards terrorism.

Just yesterday, as Think Progress notes, Rudy directly attacked Bill on Fox News, saying he "let things go" in the war on terrorism:

GIULIANI: Well, that’s the preeminent challenge of our generation that’s been imposed on us by the terrorists. I mean, they’ve been at war with us for a long time. Unfortunately, tragically, we didn’t recognize it until September 11th, or America didn’t, but now we do....

It’s a frustrating thing, and America needs leadership to remain on offense. We can fall back easily into what the Democrats are talking about. It sounds very appealing, you know? Don’t react, let things go, kind of act the way Clinton did in the ’90s.

He sounds so sincere, so matter of fact, doesn't he?

So we thought it would be useful to pull up another quote on the topic from the very same Rudy Giuliani. Back in September 2006 Rudy was asked to comment on the controversy over ABC's docudrama, The Path to 9/11, which faulted him for missing an opportunity to kill Osama Bin Laden and otherwise being soft on terror. Wanna know what he said?

Read more »

Check out this video that the McCain campaign is distributing of Mitt Romney at a news conference on May 27, 2005, the day he vetoed a Massachusetts stem cell bill while serving as Governor there:

"I am absolutely committed to my promise to maintain the status quo with regards to laws relating to abortion and choice, and so far I've been able to successfully do that. My personal philosophical views about this issue are not something that I think would do anything other than distract from what I think is a more critical agenda, which relates to the topic we are talking about today but also jobs, education and health care."

The McCain campaign claims that this video, taken alongside Romney's claim that he'd had an epiphany about abortion six months earlier than this press conference, shows that Romney's claims of an earlier revelation are bogus.

"Mitt Romney's biggest challenge in this election will be convincing Republicans he has principled positions on important issues, especially now that it's known that he remained committed to pro-choice policies after his 'epiphany' on abortion in 2004," McCain spokesman Matt David says in a statement being circulated with the vid.

So was Romney caught in a contradiction here? Unclear. Romney, despite his personal views, may have simply been sticking to his promise to Massachusetts voters not to mess with the state's abortion laws -- an interpretation perhaps supported by his reference to his "personal" views.

Via Atrios, Obama campaign general counsel Robert Bauer caused the Senator some trouble today by writing a piece on the Huffington Post blog arguing for a pardon for Scooter Libby. Presumably not a popular position among Dems.

So we just asked the Obama campaign where he stood on a pardon. The answer: He's against it.

The Obama camp just sent us a transcript of an interview Obama did with ABC News' David Wright that hasn't been posted by ABC yet:

Wright: Another person who enjoys extraordinary privilege in our justice system, Scooter Libby, should he go to jail?

Obama: I think that based on the evidence and conviction that he deserves jail time, yes.

Wright: Full sentence?

Obama: Well, I have not followed the case closely enough to want to render a judgment on what would be typical in these types of sentences but what I can say is, he obviously betrayed the basic principle that you tell the truth to investigators to federal investigators. He did not do that and I think that’s a problem.

Wright: And if the President were to pardon him would that be a travesty of justice?

Obama: I think that people expect that if someone breaks the law that they are treated like other people who break the laws regardless of the connections or contacts they have.

Not as forceful as it could have been, but pretty much opposing a pardon.

Update: Yes, he definitely opposes a pardon. The Obama campaign just sent over this from spokesman Dan Pfeiffer:

"Bob was speaking on his own behalf. Senator Obama opposes a pardon and strongly believes that Libby should be held accountable for his actions."

That "major announcement" that the Tommy Thompson campaign is promising on a conference call with reporters today at 3 P.M.?

It is not that Thompson is dropping out of the race. Rather, the announcement is about whether Thompson is participating in the Iowa straw poll.

"We are not dropping out of the race," Thompson spokesperson Rennick Remley tells us. "The conference call will be about the Ames straw poll."

Rudy Giuliani was asked yesterday by reporters why the word "Iraq" didn't appear once in the list of "Twelve Commitments," or campaign promises, he unveiled yesterday. His answer?

Iraq's not my problem.

Rudy said:

“What I was trying to do was to look at the things, as best as you can predict it now, that are going to be there a year and a half from now,” he said. “Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people. But what we do know for sure is the terrorists are going to be at war with us a year, a year and a half from now.”

Leadership.

Seriously, this is highly noteworthy. This sort of answer has become a stock one on the part of Giuliani when asked about Iraq. His game plan is obviously to show enough support for the Commander in Chief to keep him in good with GOP primary voters while simultaneously distancing himself from the war in order to avoid the fate of John McCain, who wisely hung the Iraq war albatross around his neck and is now sinking with it.

But really: Is the media really going to let Rudy skate by with such answers? Iraq of course will be the single most important problem by far facing the next President. Will reporters press Rudy for some real specifics on his thoughts about it? Or will the alleged "national security credentials" he's now being credited with having based on his having been Mayor on 9/11 mean he gets a free pass on this question?

MSNBC just reported that Tommy Thompson is planning a "major announcement" for today at 3 P.M.

Dropping out? Yesterday, CNN released a New Hampshire poll finding that of 304 people polled, exactly zero chose him.

...oh yeah, and just in case anyone forgot about that majority of Americans that still hopes Congress will figure out how to get us out of Iraq, the new Quinnipiac poll we referenced below also finds that 54% of voters want a timetable set for withdrawal of all troops from Iraq.

That's up three points from the May Q-poll. And opposition to a withdrawal timetable dropped six points since May, to 39%.

The poll, unfortunately, doesn't go into any detail, failing for instance to ask when respondents would like to see troops withdrawn by. But the number seemed worth mentioning, if only so the Antiwar Majority that's out there isn't forgotten about.

That's what the new Quinnipiac poll released this morning finds. The number represents the "lowest score ever in a Quinnipiac University national poll," Quinnipiac says.

As Quinnipiac University's polling director Maurice Carroll notes dryly: "It will be interesting to see how low President Bush's numbers can drop."

The new poll from Quinnipiac has President Bush with some phenomenally low approval numbers:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as President?

Approve 28%
Disapprove 65%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?

Approve 23%
Disapprove 66%

Bush's Unpopularity Forcing GOP Fundraisers At NRCC To Struggle To Raise Money
"Financial projections for the President’s Dinner tonight confirm that Republican confidence in the president is in a state of collapse," The Hill reports today. Thanks to the President's unpopularity, the paper reports, the NRCC's fundraising expectations for the dinner are $7.5 million -- half of what they were last year. Meanwhile, in yet another sign of Bush's sagging fortunes, GOP Senator Olympia Snowe blamed the party's midterm losses last year squarely on the President, telling the paper that the electoral disaster was "definitely because of the president and his policies." AmericaBlog comments: "If what Snowe thinks is pervasive among her caucus, then Bush is in trouble."

Thompson on Leno: Political Waters Are "Warm"
Fred Thompson told Jay Leno last night that he's never craved the nation's top political job but "I want to do something that only a President can do." He also criticized Hillary Clinton for her position on Iraq, saying she was "trying to balance ... her prior positions with the new requirements of politics in the Democratic Party."

Reid: Timetables Are Back
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he would try to pass two amendments to an upcoming defense appropriations bill, which would deal with withdrawing or starting to withdraw American troops from Iraq by April. The bill will be considered before the July 4 recess.

Obama Supported Project of Indicted Developer — Campaign Denies Any Impropriety
Ben Smith points to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about a letter that Barack Obama wrote as a state Senator to support a project of Tony Rezko, a developer who is now indicted for allegedly demanding kickbacks, and Allison S. Davis, Obama's former boss. The Obama campaign has responded, saying there was nothing inappropriate about the letter because the project, a senior housing complex, was an unequivical bonus to the public welfare.

D'Amato Breaks With NY GOPers, Endorses Fred Thompson
Former Senator Al D'Amato (R-NY) has endorsed Fred Thompson for president. "I think he can provide America with the kind of leadership that the people desperately need, and that this country needs," D'Amato said. It's not too much of a surprise that D'Amato would break from many in the state GOP who have endorsed Rudy Giuliani — up until D'Amato's defeat for re-election in 1998, he and Giuliani often publicly feuded.

Hillary Wins Over Spielberg, Meek
Hillary Clinton has picked up the support of two high-profile Dems — one a big-name donor, the other a black Congressman from Florida — who had both been flirting with the Barack Obama campaign. Hillary has been endorsed by Steven Spielberg and Congressman Kendrick Meek.

Poll: Two-Thirds of Republicans Support Path To Citizenship
A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows that provisions in the immigration deal giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship are wildly popular with the American public, including 65% of Republicans and 63% of all Americans. Nine out of ten see immigration as an important problem.

Hillary Has Big Earmarks Despite Junior Status
Sen. Hillary Clinton has 26 earmarks worth $148.4 million in the upcoming defense appropriations bill, more than any other Democrat besides committee chairman Carl Levin despite her status as one of the most junior members.

Former Coleman Aide Considering Primary Challenge
Joe Repya, a retired Lt. Colonel in the Army and a former aide to Norm coleman, is considering a primary challenge against Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN). Repya is a strong pro-Iraq war activist who recently lost a race for state GOP chairman, and would likely challenge Coleman from the right.

Does This Count As Vote-Buying?
At a campaign stop in Los Angeles, a man asked Barack Obama how he was doing at quitting his smoking habit. Obama replied that he has successfully quit thanks to Nicorette — and then offered the man two pieces of the nicotine gum to try out for himself.

Time's Ana Marie Cox To Joe Klein: Please Name Your Targets
In an entertaining new podcast, Swampland's Ana Marie Cox asks blogger colleague Joe Klein some tough questions. Such as: Who are you talking about when you dump on unnamed liberal bloggers? As Cox puts it: "You don't name anyone in your column when you talk about the liberal blogosphere...are you thinking of anyone in particular?" Klein answered -- sort of. More broadly, Klein repeated his now-familiar argument that bloggers don't do enough reporting. But he also said: "I don't think I have to explain my sourcing at all." The whole thing is here and worth a listen.

Tonight: Fred Thompson On Leno
Just to remind you, Fred Thompson will be appearing on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, aired at 11:30 p.m. ET.

McCain's "My Friend" Expression Means Exact Opposite
John McCain's frequent use of the term "my friends" when talking about the immigration debate, Iraq or other contentious issues may have a peculiar explanation: "People who have worked with him said he addresses people who annoy him as 'my friend,' and they say they've heard that a lot more lately."

Team Thompson Grows, Scores a Cheney
Several new senior advisors have joined Fred Thompson's embryonic presidential campaign, including, in the foreign policy arena: Liz Cheney, a State Department expert on the Near East and South Asia, and daughter of Dick; Mark Esper, an aide to Bill Frist; and Joel Shin, who worked for President Bush's 2000 campaign. Nelson Warfield, a spokesmen for Bob Dole's presidential campaign and a longtime critic of Rudy Giuliani, will join as a consultant on television advertising.

Utah State Senate Leader Switches From Romney To McCain — Denies He Was Ever With Romney
Utah Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble (R) has announced that he is supporting John McCain. As the Salt Lake Tribune notes, however, "Bramble signed a Romney endorsement letter that circulated through the Legislature. He also went to a news conference but did not stand on stage with the candidate on Feb. 20." Bramble says his signature on the letter and his attendance at the news conference did not denote an official endorsement, only a warm welcome for the candidate — but other legislators who signed the letter say it was an endorsement.

Bush Attempts Resurrection Of Immigration Deal
On Capital Hill this morning, President Bush said he will persist in the fight to pass comprehensive immigration legislation. Majority Leader Harry Reid said his members largely support the deal, but Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said support from Republican Senators will depend on what is included in the deal. John McCain said while campaigning in California that the bill could pass before the July recess.

Simpson Scion To Primary Cubin
Wyoming state Rep. Colin Simpson, the son of former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), has announced that he will be challenging Congresswoman Barbara Cubin in next year's Republican primary. Simpson's name has also come up as a possible appointee to the seat of the late Senator Craig Thomas (R). Cubin was re-elected by a margin of only about 1,000 votes last year in her small, deep-red state. Her former opponent, Democrat Gary Trauner, is considering another run.

Hillary Defended By ... Bill O'Reilly?
Courtesy of Ben Smith, Bill O'Reilly has become an unlikely defender of Hillary Clinton, in the face of all the conspiracy theories that have been thrown about against her. "This woman Hillary Clinton did not commit any crime, in my estimation, based upon your two books, Ken Starr's investigation, and I think we should leave that," O'Reilly told Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, referring to both their recent book and Carl Bernstein's. "I think we should leave it alone."

A new CNN poll finds Mitt Romney with a substantial lead over his GOP rivals in New Hampshire:

Romney, who led New Hampshire’s southern neighbor from 2003 to 2007, drew 28 percent support in the new poll. Giuliani and McCain were tied for second at 20 percent, while 11 percent backed Thompson, who set up a campaign fundraising committee June 1.

Other recent polls have found Romney ahead in the state, too. Of course, 57% in this poll said they had "no idea" who they would vote for, meaning that these numbers are, well, meaningless.

One fun footnote to the new CNN poll: Of the 304 people polled, exactly zero chose hardcore winger Rep. Duncan Hunter (or Tommy Thompson, for that matter).

"The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsover. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics."

Charlie Cook weighs in on the Presidential race:

Can Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the initial GOP front-runner, raise enough money by the time the second-quarter campaign finance books close on June 30 to survive and continue on? While his candidacy might not be dead, it is, at best, on life support at this point.

An interesting question is whether McCain was worse off with immigration reform failing in the Senate or with it passing. Whatever the case, just the debate itself was further damage to McCain's already diminished prospects.

"At best" on life support -- awfully harsh. Yet it really is amazing how far and how fast McCain has fallen from a mere few months ago. One minute you're being annointed as the GOP establishment candidate, then along comes the surge...and immigration...and boom, suddenly the Charlie Cooks of the world are saying you're a goner. Rough business.

Here's an interesting glimpse into Rudy's fundraising strategy. The following fundraising letter was sent out by Camp Rudy painting Democrats as terrorist coddlers who are soft on Israel. The letter was emailed to what appears to be a list of subscribers to the right-wing Jerusalem Post.

But here's what's strange about this. The sender of the email -- which was received by several TPM Readers and forwarded to us -- is identified not as the Rudy campaign, but as the Post. It was sent out from the address "jpostoffers@jpost.com." In the "from" column it says: "The Jerusalem Post." Then, in the subject line, it reads: "A Message From Rudy Giuliani."

You can read the full mailer in our TPM Document Collection.

There's nothing untoward about sending out fundraising mail to lists that are rented from others -- campaigns do that all the time. However, it does seem a bit unorthodox for the sender of the email to be identified as the newspaper, and not the campaign.

The effect of this is that the mailer appears to bear the approval of the paper, and it's not immediately clear that it's the campaign that's doing the soliciting, though that's made clear in the letter itself. We've asked the Rudy campaign for comment on this.

Of course, if you read the letter, it makes sense that it would be targeted to readers of a right-wing Jewish newspaper. Rudy's letter says that "Democrats, or at least some of them, are in denial." And he says that "in the 1990s" -- that is, when a Democrat was President -- we were "coddling terrorists" such as Yassir Arafat. The basic point, obviously, being that the Democrats won't defend Israel, and Rudy will. Naturally, the message is being directed at readers of Jewish newspapers.

Of course, terror attacks around the globe have gone up under Bush, we were hit on September 11 under Bush, and the U.S.'s own intelligence analysts have concluded that Bush's Iraq War has been a terrorist recruiting boon. But as we've noted before, Rudy's game plan here is to cast the Dems as a bunch of pansies who don't understand just how bad they can be and don't have what it takes to deal with them -- precisely what he argued about crime in the 1990s. This letter is more of the same.

The full letter is here -- let us know what you think.

Update: A commenter below made the crucial observation that the Post is a right-wing newspaper, and as such its readers are more likely to be receptive to the message Rudy is articulating here. We've edited the above to explain this.

Here's a really interesting tidbit from Rudy Giuliani's new list of "12 Commitments," which we reported on below. Rudy has now rebranded the war on terror with a new name:

Got that? Rudy is now calling it the "Terrorists' War on Us." Note the capital letters.

Rudy has been critical of the GWOT phrase, saying that it gives the impression that America "wants to have war, or exercises its power too much, pushes its weight around too much." Oddly enough, Rudy agrees in this respect with John Edwards — even as he has lashed out at Edwards for saying the GWOT phrase is just a "bumper sticker."

Now Rudy has compensated for the fact that "GWOT" makes America sound overly militaristic by hatching this new phrase, saying that the terrorists are the aggressors making war on us. And another advantage this phrase has over GWOT: It's even scarier.

As you know, John Edwards adviser Mudcat Saunders riled up a lot of people yesterday by writing on Swampland that some unnamed liberal bloggers could "go to Hell."

Now Edwards Internet guru Joe Trippi has responded to Saunders. In a comment thread on the MyDD blog, Trippi responded to someone who suggested that he "shake some sense" about the liberal bloggers into Mudcat. Trippi wrote:

I've tried. Mudcat is...well he's Mudcat. I am not sure if he considers me one of the "Harvards" or not. But I consider him one of the best rural strategists in our party -- we can probably learn a lot from each other's strengths and weaknesses.

It looks like Trippi did "shake some sense" into Mudcat. He apologized this morning.

Meanwhile, asked if the Edwards campaign agreed with Mudcat's take on the liberal blogosphere, Edwards campaign spokesperson Eric Schultz gave us the following:

"That?'s just Mudcat being Mudcat. He speaks for himself."

Rudy Giuliani has just unveiled his very own Contract with America — a 12-point platform that he's calling his "Twelve Commitments." It was just posted on his Web site and sent out via press release. He also discussed it length this morning in a speech in New Hampshire.

The list lays out a set of goals seemingly designed to appeal to conservatives uneasy about his gay rights and abortion stances — note the promise to decrease abortions, end illegal immigration, and appoint judges acceptable to the right.

Read more »

A key number in the new Los Angeles Times poll: It finds that approval of Congress has sank to 27%, the lowest in a decade -- and even more tellingly, that less than one-third of liberals approve of the job Congress is doing.

The numbers would seem to suggest the possibility that the Dem leadership's decision to send President Bush a no-withdrawal-timelines Iraq funding bill may be further eroding public support for the new Dem Congress.

Yesterday, a feisty blogospheric debate erupted over the question of what impact Congress' Iraq policies are having on Congress' popularity. The argument was sparked by Stuart Rothenberg, who wrote a column arguing that Congressional Dems were playing the Iraq issue "like a Strativarius" by appealing to "swing voters." This prompted responses here and here arguing that this represented Beltway conventional wisdom at its worst.

Now we have these new numbers. Approval of Congress is at a meager 27%, down nine points from January, when the Dems took over. And less than a third -- 31% -- of liberals approve of the new Congress' performance, a precipitous drop from January, when 43% of liberals approved of it. (The 31% number is the same for moderates.)

A caveat: Approval of "Congress" as a whole -- as opposed to approval of Congressional Dems or of Congressional Republicans -- is not as fine-grained a number as we would like in gauging public support for Congress or for specific initiatives such as its Iraq policies. And other polls have shown Congressional approval dropping before Dems sent the final Iraq bill to the President. Nonetheless, the LA Times' pollsters themselves conclude that Iraq may be to blame for Congress' dip.

Indeed, it seems clear to us that if the Dems are playing Iraq "like a Stradivarius," as Rothenberg says, then the Stradivarius is badly out of tune.

For the first time by our reckoning, a new national poll finds that Rudy Giuliani is no longer the sole frontrunner in the GOP primary.

Fred Thompson, who just entered the race, has edged into a tie with Rudy in a new Rasmussen Reports poll released this morning. Each candidate pulls 24% of the vote in the survey.

Rasmussen suggests that Thompson's success is coming almost entirely at the expense of John McCain, who has sunk to a meager 11% -- down from 14% a week ago and 17% in May. Rudy's 24%, meanwhile, represents a statistically insignificant difference from the 23% he pulled in the last Rasmussen poll. More soon.

"Mudcat" Apologizes To Netroots
David "Mudcat" Saunders, an adviser to John Edwards, has written a new post at Swampland, promptly apologizing for his previous post telling many in the liberal blogosphere to "go to Hell." "And by the way, I never intended to shoot at the net roots with my initial post. I am simply an 'elitism hating' Southern Democrat who loathes the stereotypes that have been placed upon me and my neighbors," Saunders writes. "However, apologies with buts ain't worth a damn. Since I offended so many of you, I obviously did a poor job of communicating my feelings. I apologize ... no buts."

Poll: Hillary Least Electable Dem, Obama Most Electable
A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll finds Hillary Clinton losing to the top three Republicans — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and even the lesser-known Mitt Romney. The other top Democrats all do better. John Edwards tops Romney and McCain, while losing out to Giuliani. Barack Obama is the most electable in this poll, beating Giuliani 46%-41% and doing even better against McCain and Romney. Approval of Congress is at 27%, its lowest level in a decade, down from 36% in January when Democrats took power.

Host Of Recent Hillary Fundraiser Arrested
Timbaland, who hosted a recent Hillary Clinton fundraiser in Miami, has been arrested in Germany after getting into a bar brawl.

Tribune: How Brand Obama Was Built
The Chicago Tribune has a long article about how Barack Obama made the decision to capitalize on his national publicity following the 2004 Illinois Senate campaign. Obama and his advisors considered how he could establish himself with the limited power of a freshman Senator in the minority party, and they considered a possible run for governor in 2010, but not an attempt at the White House until 2012 or 2016."My profile outstripped my power in the Senate," Obama said of his emerging national image.

Florida Dems Call Out Dean
Florida Democrats are facing down threats from Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, over the state's change of primary date to January 29. The DNC has threatened to not only strip delegates from Florida, but not reward any Florida delegates to candidates who campaign there, instead giving the delegates to candidates who don't show up. And not only is the Florida state party making the primary binding, but Senator Bill Nelson (D) is going to so far as to compare the DNC's threats to the 2000 recount fiasco. "Florida has been in a situation in the past where votes have been taken away from the people," Nelson said.

Brownback: I'm A 'Bleeding-Heart Conservative' And The 'Whole-Life' Candidate
Sam Brownback, while stumping in Iowa yesterday, declared himself the "whole-life" candidate because he views the genocide in Darfur as a tragedy equal to that of abortion, his signature issue. The Kansas Senator also reiterated his call for splitting Iraq into three separate states along ethnic lines. "I think we've got to be there for some time," he said. "But I don't think we've got a political solution that's working."

WaPo: Support From Women Is Critical For Clinton
Hillary Clinton's support among women voters is twice that of Barack Obama and critical to her lead over her rival for the Democratic nomination. Clinton's support is largely drawn from lower-income and less-educated women, a contrast to Obama.

Hillary Endorsed By Menendez
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), one of just three Latino members of the Senate, will endorse Hillary Clinton today. Menendez was appointed to the Senate in early 2006, and won election in his own right last fall over Tom Kean Jr., the son of a still-popular former GOP governor.

Giuliani's Lead Worries Social Conservative Groups
Socially conservative advocacy groups are increasing worried that the GOP frontrunner, Rudy Giuliani, has been able to succeed without their endorsements and despite his pro-choice status and support for gay rights, the Politico reports. "Speaking as a private citizen, no, no, I could not support (Giuliani)," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council who said he would vote for a third party candidate if Giuliani is nominated.

GOP, Dems Eyeing Regula In Ohio
Both parties are keeping a close watch on 82-year old Congressman Ralph Regula (R-OH), who in 2006 was held to 58% — his lowest re-election total ever — in a non-targeted race. With Democrats in the majority, and Regula no longer chairman of the mighty Appropriations Financial Services subcommittee, Regula could be vulnerable in 2008 or could potentially retire. Democrats currently have a candidate in state Senator John Boccieri. One caveat: While Boccieri represents a key part of the overall House district in the state Senate, he does not in fact live in the district.

Edwards Advisor To Blogosphere: "You Can Go To Hell"
David "Mudcat" Saunders, a longtime Dem consultant who has helped Democrats in rural areas — notable victories include Mark Warner in 2001 and Jim Webb in 2006 — might be causing a bit of a headache for his current client, John Edwards. In his inaugural post on Time's Swampland blog: "So to those bloggers who believe in a straight-forward dialogue and exchange of ideas, God bless you and thank you ... At the same time, those Democratic bloggers, who have appointed themselves as intellectually superior and believe the only way to win an argument is to shot (sic) the loudest with personal attacks, you can go to Hell." Condemnations are already coming in from Duncan "Atrios" Black, Chris Bowers, and the Daily Kos community.

Third Way: Dems Still Need to Sharpen National Security Image
The Third Way has released a strategy memo arguing that while Democrats have taken a temporary advantage on national security issues thanks to Republican mismanagement, the party still needs to work hard to close the deal — and most importantly, shed the image of being weak. "A number of factors have aligned to create a moment for Democrats to completely change the nature of the security debate," the memo says — but Democrats still have to do the hard work. To read the memo, click here.

Gallup: Republicans Don't Believe In Evolution
The mere three GOP candidates who indicated at the South Carolina debate that they do not believe in evolution — Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo and Mike Huckabee — in fact represent the great mass of their party. A new Gallup poll finds that 68% of Republicans do not believe in evolution, compared to only 30% who do. Democrats believe in evolution by a margin of 57%-40%, and Independents by a margin of 61%-37%.

Rudy Rolls Out Iowa Support
Rudy Giuliani's campaign is compensating for their pullout from the Iowa straw poll by today announcing the support of some prominent Republicans in the state. Among the list: State Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby, former Cedar Rapids Mayor Paul Pate, and former Lt. Governor Joy Corning.

Wyoming GOP Taking Applications For Senate
The Wyoming Republican Party has come up with a novel way to form their list of three names they shall present to Dem Governor Dave Freudenthal, to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Craig Thomas. They are taking applications from anybody in Wyoming. The deadline for the application is 5 p.m. this Thursday. The party will then make their final three recommendations to the governor on June 19. If a non-politician makes it to the Senate as a result of this, will he or she face a primary challenge next year from among the large roster of elected Wyoming Republicans?

Another Dem Debate Announced
The Politico, CNN and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library have announced a Democratic candidates debate, scheduled for December 17. This debate is sure to be very widely watched — it will be only about one month out from the Iowa caucus.

Dem Poll: Bush Has Lost Favor Even In Rural America
A new poll by Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, conducted for the Center for Rural Strategies finds that President Bush's approval has fallen to 44% among rural voters, with 52% disapproving. And he's done some pretty serious damage to his party: A generic Democrat takes 46% of the vote for president, compared to 43% for a generic Republican. In 2004, President Bush won the rural vote by 19 points.

New Richardson Ad Focuses On Global Warming
Bill Richardson has a new ad, following his "job interview" theme, in which he talks about his qualifications on energy policy and global warming. "Global warming is critical for the next president, and no other state has done as much as New Mexico," Richardson says, laying out his environmental accomplishments — only to again be brushed off by the human resources guy interviewing him. To watch the ad, click here.

Chris Dodd calls for the closing of Guantanamo Bay in a new release that just went out:

"Rather than helping to protect the nation, the prisons at Guantanamo Bay have instead become the symbol for our decreased moral standing in the world and in so doing made us less secure. For the sake of American security, the prisons at Guantanamo Bay must be closed."

Other Dems who've called for its closing: Obama, Edwards, Clinton and Biden. Dodd's full release after the jump.

Update: Ben Smith has Dodd's latest TV ads -- which, along with this release, show Dodd working to build the case that unlike his fearful rivals he's not afraid to tackle big problems with bold solutions.

Read more »

A new CNN poll of New Hampshire voters lends comfort to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It finds that Hillary continues to dominate the field in the state:

Clinton 36% Obama 22% Edwards Edwards 12% Gore 12%

New Hampshirans think Hillary's the "strongest leader" by a wide margin:

Clinton 48% Obama 12% Gore 12% Edwards 6%

...but they find Obama the most likeable by a solid margin:

Obama 40% Edwards 20% Hillary 14% Gore 9%

Another key number: Only 8% of New Hampshire Dems say they've definitely made up their minds — showing just how wide-open the race remains, not to mention just how much the early-state voters love to play hard to get.

As you know, one big topic we're obsessed with here is the question of whether the media will cede Rudy an aura of national security experience based on his having been Mayor of New York on 9/11.

Today, CNN weighed in with a somewhat detailed report on Rudy's 9/11 performance. And it contains both good and bad. The bad first: It badly botches a key fact, wrongly suggesting that Rudy's experience includes dealing with not one, but two terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

From the report, here's CNN's John Roberts:

ROBERTS, (voice over): And in the GOP presidential race, Rudy Giuliani is the tough-talking candidate who says he'd be the best to lead that war. Why? Because he's been through it twice. During the 1993 and 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

The World Trade Center was attacked for the first time in February of 1993. Rudy Giuliani became mayor nearly a year later, in January of 1994. Whoops!

Sure, CNN has a bit of wiggle room here, saying that Rudy's been "through it" twice without quite saying that he was Mayor that day. But everyone in New York also went "through it," too. The implication here is clear -- and clearly false.

This gives us an occasion to make another, larger point about this.

Read more »

Those Florida Democrats just keep getting more and more defiant.

In a move that will cause a major headache for Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean and the national party, Florida Dems have hatched a plan to actively consider holding a straw poll at their state party convention in October, CQ Politics reports.

This would run directly counter to the DNC's wishes. The national party has long been strongly opposed to straw polls, considering them to be a distraction and a waste of resources. But if Florida activists go ahead with their plan, the candidates might have no choice but to compete — because Florida's early primary means the stakes are extremely high, and a win there would provide a huge boost in momentum.

This is the second direct challenge to the national party from Florida Dems, who joined local Republicans to change the state's primary date to January 29, ahead of the national parties' officially desired national primary date of February 5.

Making things even more complicated, this new straw poll development will be tough for Dean to oppose. His own insurgent presidential campaign actively competed in and won media-held straw polls at state Democratic conventions throughout 2003.

Stuart Rothenberg has just weighed in with an analysis of the Congressional Democratic leadership's handling of the Iraq standoff with the White House. His counterintuitive take: Dems have handled the issue perfectly, politically speaking.

"Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill played the issue like a Stradivarius," says Rothenberg. His basic take: Dems made a forceful antiwar statement with their first bill containing timetables; then, after the President vetoed it, they sent back a second one with no timetables that demonstrated their support for the troops.

And in a line that will surely win Rothenberg lots of friends on the left, he claims that there's no price to be paid by Dem leaders for doing this. "Anti-war critics of the Democratic Congressional leadership have nowhere else to go, both now and in November 2008."

We think the premise here is shaky. Why are we concluding that voters would automatically have seen it as "weak" or as against the troops if Dems had stuck to their guns, as it were, and had continued to insist that a withdrawal timetable be tied to funding? After all, majorities were telling pollsters that they wanted Dems to do this -- that they wanted the war to be funded only on the condition that a withdrawal date be fixed.

Were majorities really supporting an approach that they themselves would have been inclined to view as "weak" or counter to the troops' interests? Doubtful, if you ask us. We have not seen any evidence anywhere that voters were seeing, or would have seen, this approach in these terms. If such evidence exists, we'd love to see it.

Update: Matt Stoller points out that available polling evidence actually suggests that this supposedly shrewd approach has actually damaged the Dems.

South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson's doctor is telling CNN that, yes, he'll be able to work in the Senate again.

Yet though Johnson may be on the mend, he's already got to start worrying about facing a challenge next year. As Steve Benen notes, John Ensign, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, is already telling The Washington Post that there are several potential challengers waiting in the wings, including Republican Governor Mike Rounds.

Ensign says that they've already talked "a lot" to Rounds about targeting Johnson. How long after Johnson fell ill did they start talking about this? We'd love to know.

USA Today has taken a very detailed look at a bunch of its Gallup polls and has just released its findings. It ammounts to a detailed and eye-opening portrait of the public's attitudes towards the Presidential candidates.

Among the key findings:

* John McCain, the Iraq War's chief defender, is the number one pick of GOPers who think the war was a mistake -- a holdover from 2000, when McCain was the choice of more centrist Republicans.

* Giuliani's support is "unlike that of any Republican nominee in at least a generation"; he fares better with more moderates than conservatives; more secular voters than religious ones; and with young people and women.

* Hillary Clinton has more African American backers than Barack Obama, with 41% of blacks supporting her while 35% back Obama.

* While Obama and Hillary are tied among college-educated voters, he trails her by a startling 21% among voters with a high-school education or less, potentially endangering his chances of winning the primary.

* Edwards, who of all the Dems is most vocal about battling poverty, fares best among white, affluent men.

Go figure. The rest is here.

A new poll of Florida voters, commissioned by the Miami Herald, shows Hillary and Rudy with commanding leads over their respective fields.

Dems:

Clinton 36% Obama 16% Edwards 11%

Republicans:

Giuliani 31% Romney 12% McCain 12%

Florida matters because the state has moved up its primary to the last Tuesday in January, making it the first big primary state. That means Florida could prove important in selecting the nominee in both parties.

One caveat: Thirty percent of GOP voters, and 28% of Dems, haven't picked a candidate, meaning the race remains wide open despite the big leads enjoyed by Rudy and Hillary. The Herald's rundown on the poll is here.

Edwards Celebrates Birthday With Low-Dollar, High-Volunteer Drive
Most presidential candidates celebrate their birthdays with big-dollar fundraisers, attracting elite donors. By contrast, John Edwards honed his populist message Sunday with a 54th birthday party held as a backyard barbecue. The minimum donation to enter was a mere $15. Instead of shaking down attendees for money, Edwards appealed to the 500 people assembled to help out the campaign with their labors. "If you want to see big, bold change in this country — your country needs you. It needs you badly," Edwards said. "The great movements in the American history did not start in the Oval Office, they started out across America."

McCain: Bush Has Made America Safer
Speaking at an Iowa college campus, John McCain said on Saturday that President Bush deserves more credit on national security. "We haven't had another attack since 9/11, thank God, and I think, frankly, the president of the United States deserves some credit for that," McCain said. "And I'm disappointed that Americans aren't giving him more credit for that, to tell you the truth. He'd certainly get the blame if there was another one."

February 5 Glut Upends GOP Strategies
The Boston Globe reviews the ways in which the February 5 national primary is changing the plans of Republican presidential candidates. "Where Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have been the must-win early primary states in the past, big, delegate-rich states such as California, New York, and Illinois have blown up that calculus by moving up their primaries to Feb. 5 or earlier," the Globe writes. For example, the Giuliani campaign's decision to skip the Iowa straw poll might presage a decision to place less emphasis on the caucuses entirely, and instead look to large states like New York, New Jersey and California on February 5.

Mormons React To Romney Candidacy
The New York Times has a feature story about the reactions of Mormons in Utah as well as across the country to Mitt Romney's candidacy. "We struggle with those outsiders who see us as weird — the magic underwear stuff," said 30-year old University of Utah student John Hatch. On the other hand, talk-radio host Tom Grover said some of his callers were actually uncomfortable with Romney's repudiation of the church's polygamist history, during his appearance on 60 Minutes. "That’s a tough thing for people to hear when their ancestors sacrificed a lot to live that life," Grover said. "They probably wouldn't bring polygamy back, but they honor the place of it in church history."

Bush: Immigration Bill Will Pass
President Bush is planning to head to Capitol Hill tomorrow to meet with conservative Republican Senators to convince them the immigration bill that died in the senate last week is better than the status quo."I'll see you at the bill signing,"Bush said to the press while traveling in the Balkans.

GOP Will Stall Appropriations Process This Week
Republicans will try to thwart an effort by House Democratic leaders to change the way earmarks are added to appropriations bills. Some 30,000 requests have been made and Democrats are planning to put them into bills during conference committee and not on the floor.

Gingrich Think Tank Promotes Ideas Favored By Donors
The Associated Press reports that Newt Gingrich's health care think tank, The Center for Health Transformation, is bankrolled by industries that would benefit from his ideas, such as empowering individuals to be free agents in the insurance market, and the promotion of electronic medical records. Gingrich's aides say this is not a conflict of interest — the business groups contribute to Gingrich because he has formed ideas that they like, not the other way around.

Fred Thompson Goes To California
Fred Thompson is headed out to California this week to court conservative activists. First he'll stop at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where he'll court their conservative research fellows. Then, tomorrow night, he'll appear on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

Bono To Lobby Presidential Candidates on Poverty
The rock star Bono's ONE advocacy organization has announced a $30 million campaign to sway the presidential candidates into making policy changes to fight poverty and disease in the third world during their first 100 days in office. The organization has 2.5 million members and the initiative will be co-chaired by Bill Frist and Tom Daschle.

Dems Cut Deal With NRA On Background Checks
The Democratic leadership has negotiated a deal with the National Rifle Association for a reform of background checks, spurred on by the Virginia Tech massacre. States will be given financial rewards and penalties for complying or failing to comply with keeping the federal records up to date. On the NRA's end, individuals would be given opportunities to have their records expunged, and fees would not be charged to dealers or customers to have the background checks performed.

Newspaper: Fred Thompson Has Talked Pro-Choice, Has Pro-Life Record
The Tennessean has done some research into Fred Thompson's past public statements on abortion. In 1996, the then-senator indicated he was "opposed" to a constitutional amendment banning abortion, and added a handwritten note: "I do not believe abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people." He also answered "N/A" on a separate questionnaire asking if human life begins at conception. On the other hand, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said that Thompson's voting record gave him confidence in the candidate's pro-life bona fides. "Record trumps rhetoric," Perkins said.

Obama Campaign Kicks Off Massive Door-To-Door Effort
Yesterday the Obama campaign organized over 10,000 volunteers to go door to door on behalf the candidate. And more importantly, 1,500 of those canvassers were in Iowa.

Powell Advising Obama
Appearing this morning on Meet The Press, Colin Powell said that he has met twice with Barack Obama and given advice to the presidential candidate. "I've been around this town a long time and I know everybody who is running for office," Powell said. "And I make myself available to talk about foreign policy matters and military matters with whoever wishes to chat with me." Powell also hedged on whether or not he would support the Republican nominee in 2008, saying only that he would support "the best person that I can find who will lead this country for the eight years beginning in January of 2009."

Pelosi Smiles Upon Dem Freshmen
A feature story in The Washington Post about freshman Congressman Joe Courtney (D-CT) includes a hint into the leadership style of Nancy Pelosi. "Some older Democratic bulls complained privately that they were being overlooked in favor of the freshmen. Pelosi reminded them that they wouldn't have their new power in the House but for the many newcomers, whom she calls 'Majority Makers,'" the Post writes. "In a favor seldom bestowed on freshmen in other eras, Courtney and many other new members have received their choice of key committees."

Tancredo: It All Comes Down To Immigration
The Des Moines Register has an amusing write-up of a Tancredo campaign event in Iowa. In his talk, Tancredo linked just about every problem the country faces — education, health care, the environment, security, etc. — to immigration. Tancredo said it simply: "Every single area of concern that we talk about when running for president relates to the immigration issue, including education."

Ron Paul: Multi-Million Dollar Candidate?
Sources close to the Ron Paul campaign have told the Web site Free Market News that the campaign has taken in millions of dollars in the wake of his debate performances, where he was alone among the GOP candidates in voicing his opposition to President Bush's foreign policy. "Of course, it's hard to tell because the numbers keep changing – and thus nobody at the campaign has a firm count, at least not hour to hour," the source said. "But the numbers are big. It's definitely over three, probably over four, and if it hasn't hit five yet, it will soon."

HHS Tries To Set Up Meeting With Dead Senator
Now here's a faux pas: The office of Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt called the office of Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY) on Thursday, asking to set up a meeting with the Senator — who died of leukemia this past Monday night. Thomas' staffers, still grieving the loss of the Senator, were less than thrilled. "We're very sorry for their loss and very sorry if something like this did occur," said HHS spokeswoman Christina Pearson.