Edwards Poverty Foundation Story Spreading
The Associated Press has now done their own take on allegations made by The New York Times, that John Edwards used his anti-poverty foundation work as a cover to stay in the political spotlight and travel to early primary states. Chuck Todd notes, "Neither one of them is a positive for Edwards and, frankly, the AP hit might be worse since it will likely to get picked up in a slew of smaller papers tomorrow. In fact the AP story hints at a potential FEC investigation."

Group Calls Upon Rudy To Fire Placa
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group for victims of abuse by Catholic clergy, are calling upon Rudy Giuliani's security consulting firm to fire Monsignor Alan Placa, a childhood friend of Giuliani who has been accused in a 2003 Suffolk County, Massachusetts, grand jury report of having sexually abused children. Placa was never prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. The company has no intention of firing Placa. "The former mayor believes that Alan Placa has been unjustly accused," said a Giuliani Partners spokeswoman.

Thompson To Announce ... Campaign Headquarters
Nashville NBC affiliate WSM-TV reported yesterday that Fred Thompson's campaign has picked a historic site in the city to be the campaign's national headquarters, with a grand unveiling set for this Tuesday. A source told the station that Thompson would announce his candidacy there, saying that "Everything's in place for Tuesday," but Tennessee GOP Chairman Bob Davis denied that there would be an explicit announcement of candidacy.

Obama Grassroots Operating Independently, Focusing On GOTV
The New York Times has a story on the grassroots support Barack Obama enjoys, and how it often operates independently of the campaign and beyond their control — potentially both a blessing and a curse. "It is our hope that anyone who supports Obama does so directly through his campaign," said campaign spokesman Bill Burton. One concern of both the movement and the campaign proper is that their work ultimately recruits not simply volunteers and small donors, as the 2004 Howard Dean campaign was notable for, but also is able to mobilize and turn out actual voters to win the primaries.

Richardson: I Will Ask Court Nominees About Abortion
Bill Richardson appears to be trying to compensate for his gaffe at the first Democratic debate, in which he said the late Supreme Court Justice Byron White — a Roe v. Wade dissenter — was his model justice. "I know I am going to upset some people, but this is what I would ask them," Richardson said at an Iowa event, when asked about his potential approach to court nominees. "I would say, 'Do you believe that Roe vs Wade is settled law?' If they say yes, they have a good chance of being picked. If they say no I will not pick them."

Elizabeth Edwards To Attend San Fran Gay Pride Event
Elizabeth Edwards will be appearing tomorrow in San Francisco at the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Democratic Club, in a breakfast being held in association with the annual gay pride parade. This marks the first time someone with such a high political profile will be attending the parade festivities — not even Senator Dianne Feinstein, who formerly served as mayor of the city, has gone there. (And on a side note, the local LGBT Democratic club is named in honor of Toklas, who in addition to being the life partner of Gertrude Stein, is also best remembered as giving her name to the recipe for marijuana brownies.)

Ohio Attorney General Curses Out Reporter At Obama Event
This might not be the kind of publicity Barack Obama wants: At a fundraiser for the candidate a few days ago in Ohio, state Attorney General Marc Dann cursed out Warren Tribune Chronicle reporter Steve Oravecz, over a story Oravecz wrote alleging that Dann helped get his adopted daughter a job in the Secretary of State's office. Dann was caught on camera yelling over to Oravecz, "Hey Steve, write this down: Go fuck yourself!"

Obama Pledges New Ethics Rules
Barack Obama said members of his presidential administration would face tough new ethics rules, including a restriction on lobbying from former political appointees, a gift ban, a two-year restriction on working in a domain involving a former employer and others. "When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency," Obama said, "we won’t be going to the Supreme Court to keep it secret like Dick Cheney and his energy task force; we’ll be putting them up on the Internet for every American to watch.” The news comes out at a time when the Senator's image as an outsider was threatened by the release of controversial opposition research and his ties to an indicted Chicago real estate mogul.

RNC Out-Raises DNC, House Committees Tied For May
Congressional Quarterly reports that the Republican National Committee raised $6.8 million last month, compared to $4.9 million for the Democratic National Committee. Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee matched the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, at about $4.5 million apiece — though the Democrats benefitted from spending less. While we have previously reported on the DCCC's fundraising lead, the GOP appears to be catching up. One possible explanation might be from Democratic money being taken up for now by competition between the candidates for president, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama raising record amounts.

McCain Camp Apologizes For Supporter's Anti-Mormon Remarks
John McCain's campaign has apologized for a reported incident in April, at a meeting of the Republican Party in Warren County, Iowa. McCain's county chairman, Chad Workman, reportedly said that he would not support Mitt Romney because of Romney's Latter-Day Saints religion, and accused the Mormon church of supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas. "Such comments are inappropriate and unacceptable," said McCain spokesman Danny Diaz.

Romney Decries Efforts To Close Guantanamo
Mitt Romney today denounced government officials who might be looking at ways to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "I think Guantanamo is a symbol of our resolve," Romney said. Romney also reiterated his denunciation of habeas corpus rights for terror suspects, which he has voiced at Republican debates. "I do not want to see those prisoners transferred to United States soil," the candidate said. "I do not want to see the legal system in this country potentially opened up to terrorists and feel we’re better keeping Guantanamo in place. And if we need additional space, why, we should be expanding Guantanamo."

Thompson Headed To Early Primary States
The Hill reports that Fred Thompson is headed next week to South Carolina for a lunch with the state Republican party and also to New Hampshire, where he will meet with the Manchester Union Leader editorial board. MSNBC reports that he will practice his stump speech, which is still being finalized.

Lindsey Graham Takes A Beating Back Home Over Immigration
Senator Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) approval rating has sunk to deep low, according to a new poll from Atlanta-based firm InsiderAdvantage. Graham's approval rating is a ghastly 31%, compared to a disapproval of 40%. And thanks to Graham's loud support for the immigration bill — which only 21% of respondents approved of, compared to 63% disapproval — Republicans have a higher disapproval of Graham than Democrats. GOPers' disapproval of Graham is at 46%, compared to Dems at 36%. Graham had for some time been in danger of a primary challenge by state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel — but Ravenel has now been indicted on charges of conspiring to distribute crack cocaine.

Top Arkansas Dems Support Hillary
Hillary Clinton has been endorsed by most of the top Democratic officials, including new endorsements today from Senator Mark Pryor, Congressmen Mike Ross, Marion Berry and Vic Snyder, former Senators Dale Bumpers and David Pryor, and others. Notably absent from the list, at least thus far: Governor Mike Beebe and Senator Blanche Lincoln, who have yet to make any endorsements.

Reid Suggests Bush Do "You Know What" With Rubber Stamp
Straight-talking Nevadan Harry Reid responded today to a threat by the Bush administration to veto energy legislation that includes new automobile gas mileage standards. "They can take their rubber stamp and you know what they can do with it," the Senate Majority Leader said. Let us be the first to suggest a Unity '08 ticket of Harry Reid for President and Mike Lange for Vice President.

Oh, this is fun. Thank you, Senator Inhofe, for the endless entertainment today!

As you know, Inhofe made a bunch of news today by alleging on the radio that he overheard Hillary and Barbara Boxer saying they want a "legislative fix" for talk radio. This story was broken by Drudge "collaborator" Andrew Breitbart today in a TV "exclusive."

But here's what's funny. He told a second version of the story today on Fox News. And, well, let's just say that the two versions are not exactly in sync with one another.

Here's version number one, the one broken by Breitbart:

Inhofe said:

I was going over to vote the other day, and I was walking with two very liberal gals -- they didn't pay any attention to me being with them -- and they were outraged by something that you said, or Rush Limbaugh said. Somebody said something that upset 'em. They said, "We've got to do something about this. These are nothing but far right wing extremists. We've got to have a balance. There's gotta be a legislative fix to this."

Inhofe went on to confirm that the two Senators were Hillary and Boxer. So, in this version, Inhofe overheard this "the other day."

Version number two after the jump. Enjoy!

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Here's an interesting side note on the appointment today of Republican John Barrasso to the Senate vacancy left by the death of Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY): It turns out that Barrasso — who was appointed partly because of his staunch conservative views — has a glaring pro-choice past.

More after the jump.

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The Edwards campaign is pushing back hard against today's enormous front-page New York Times piece alleging that there was something untoward about the fact that the antipoverty programs set up by John Edwards provided a "bridge" to his Presidential campaign. The story has already come under fire here, here, and here.

But we've just learned something new and surprising about the story. The Edwards campaign has just told us on the record that The Times refused the chance to talk to any real, live beneficiaries of Edwards' programs.

If this is so, this strikes us as highly suspect. Particularly in light of the story's lede from reporter Leslie Wayne:

John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.

Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.

We think these lines are highly charged with innuendo in a way that's beneath the Paper of Record. They stray into mind-reading and indulge in motive assessment. They lack factual specificity. Given how potentially damaging they are -- and simultaneously how murky they are -- they should not have been permitted by the editors to get onto the paper's front page. Unless the paper's editors no longer mind murky innuendo on A1 above the fold.

But if you are going to put such lines on your front page -- if you are going to publish an enormous story alleging that a person's antipoverty program was set up mainly to benefit the person who set it up -- then basic journalistic fairness would dictate that you make a genuine effort to see how the program fulfilled its "stated" purpose of helping people. Surprisingly, no mention of how the programs actually impacted people appears until the story's 18th paragraph -- and at that point it comes from the mouth of an Edwards spokesman. There's no indication that the reporter made any genuine independent effort at all to discover whether the programs helped anyone.

Such an effort might entail, you know, speaking to such people, among other things. Yet no such people are quoted in the story.

So we checked in with the Edwards campaign. And yep -- the campaign confirmed that the paper had turned down the chance to speak to any people directly impacted by Edwards' programs.

We've asked the reporter and a Times spokesperson for comment. If we hear back, we'll let you know.

The must-read story of the day is by Alex Koppelman and Joe Strupp in Salon. It tells the tale of Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime Giuliani employee and confidant linked to shocking allegations of child sexual abuse and cover-ups.

While elements of the story have been out there before, Salon adds a crucial new detail: Despite these allegations, Rudy's business, Giuliani Partners, continues to keep Placa on its payroll. The article claims Rudy believes Placa is innocent.

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The National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee both raised about $4.5 million last month, but the Dems spent less, giving them another chance to add to their lead over the GOP in funding for House races, according to CQ Politics. We reported last month about the continuing dominance of the Democrats in fundraising for House races. The Dems spent $2.3 million and ended with $11.5 million cash on hand while the GOP spent $4.3 million, leaving them with $1.8 million cash. The Republicans also have slightly more debt.

The Republican National Committee, with $6.8 million in contributions, continued to out-raise the Democrats, however, who brought in $4.9 million, according to another report in CQ Politics. The RNC has been the exception to the general GOP slump since the transfer of power in the last election. The committee has now raised $39.8 million, over 60 percent more than the Dems' $24.7 million. Their lead in cash on hand is even more impressive: $15 million with no debt compared to $5.5 million and a $2.5 million debt for Democrats.

This morning you probably read about Jay Garrity, the hapless aide for Mitt Romney who's under investigation for allegedly impersonating a cop, harassing a reporter and other shenanigans.

Well, it looks as if it's finally dawned on Garrity that he's creating a problem for his boss. The Romney campaign has just confirmed to Ana Marie Cox that Garrity is taking a quiet leave of absence until those probes are sorted out.

“I am not going to be president.”

-- Michael Bloomberg, quoted by The New York Times, talking on his radio show this morning about whether he's going to run. As The Times notes, this denial is different from past ones. Is this finally the flat-out denial everyone's been waiting for? Or does he mean that he thinks he has no chance of winning? Or should we all get a life and stop talking about this until he himself explains his intentions?

Drudge's banner headline right now:

The shocking headline links to a "Breitbart TV Exclusive" -- Andrew Breitbart is a "collaborator" on the Drudge Report -- saying that GOP Senator James Inhofe says he overheard Hillary and Boxer saying they want a "legislative fix" for talk radio.

Except that...they didn't say this. Or so their spokespeople claim.

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Remember Mike Lange? He's perhaps best known for his rant against Dem Governor Brian Schweitzer during a GOP caucus meeting, an episode that got him pushed out as a State House leader in Montana. The expletive-filled speech turned Lange into a blogosphere and YouTube phenomenon.

Well, guess what -- Mike Lange is back! And this time, he may be running for the Senate!

From the Great Falls Tribune:

HELENA — Ousted House Majority Leader Mike Lange apparently has no intention of going quietly into the good night.

Lange, whose obscenity-laced screed against Gov. Brian Schweitzer during the legislative session is a YouTube feature, has apologized once again for his outburst — not at all coincidentally just before the state Republican Party convention here, where he expects to announce that he's running either for governor or U.S. Senate.

For good time's sake, here's the YouTube of his tirade:

Incidentally, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already released a statement with a short history of his "bizarre" career.

Yesterday we brought you the news that hapless GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa -- fresh from his efforts to build on our southern border the sort of electric fence used for livestock -- was planning to introduce an amendment to prevent Nancy Pelosi from consorting with the enemy.

The amendment -- attached to appropriations legislation -- would have prohibited Pelosi from using State Department funds to visit Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria.

Well, King's measure was voted on early this morning in the House of Representatives. And it went down to a crushing defeat. The final tally: 337 noes; 84 ayes.

Needless to say, all the Democrats voted against it, thus confirming once again the party's uniformly traitorous bent.

However, only 84 of 201 Republicans voted for the measure, suggesting that many Republicans, too, think it's okay for Pelosi to consort with the enemy. Go figure.

If the best strategy in golf is to keep trying to best yourself, Bush is doing a bang-up job of that in the polling game. He just keeps on outdoing himself, with poll after poll showing him with the lowest approval numbers and highest disapproval numbers yet.

And here's another one. In the new ARG poll released this morning, 27% approve of Bush's performance, and 67% disapprove.

Says ARG: "This is the highest level of disapproval and lowest level of approval for the Bush presidency." Meaning, presumably, in ARG's polls.

Ralph Nader is threatening another run for President, arguing that the two major parties amount to little more than a giant two-headed robot whose movements are entirely controlled by corporate America.

But one signature good government group he founded in the 1970s, Public Citizen, appears to disagree. A top official at PC just told me that he sees Barack Obama -- who, last time we checked, was a Democrat -- as a very reliable ally in trying to accomplish the group's goals.

Right now Obama's giving a big government reform speech in New Hampshire. The package he's unveiling includes a provision barring political appointees who leave their position from lobbying the executive branch for the remainder of the term -- thus more or less closing the so-called "revolving door" between government and the lobbying business.

Craig Holman, the ethics lobbyist for Public Citizen, tells us the group endorses all the principles in Obama's speech. "These are all things we've been advocating for several years now," he says. "Obama has been working on many of these reforms for the last year."

Asked if this meant Obama was really better than the other Dems on good-government issues, Holman said: "Certainly in terms of his active roles. I would expect many of the Democratic candidates to endorse similar proposals. But Senator Obama has been actively working on these since even before he considered running for President."

New York Times: Edwards Used Anti-Poverty Charity For Personal Gain
The New York Times reports that the largest beneficiary of John Edward's anti-poverty tax exempt charity was the former Senator himself, who was looking for a way to keep busy after his failed presidential candidacy. Edwards used the Center for Promise and Opportunity, which raised $1.3 million in 2005 without the need to disclose donors or limit contributions like political groups, to fund travel and hire members of his former campaign staff. "He was not a U.S. senator; he had no office," said Ferrel Guillory, a political program director at the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "So he set up a series of entities to finance his travel, to finance a political shop and to finance an issue shop. It all adds up to a remarkable feat of keeping a presidential candidacy alive without any of the traditional bases for it."

Investigations Open Of Reporter's Allegation Against Romney Campaign
The New Hampshire Attorney General's office is now investigating an accusation by New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich that the Romney campaign's security men pulled his car over, told him they ran his license plates, and ordered him to stop following them. It is illegal in new Hampshire for private citizens to access license plate databases or to pull over other private citizens. Meanwhile the district attorney's office in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, is also investigating whether a Romney staffer falsely represented himself as a state trooper when calling them for the license information. Romney's campaign has denied the allegation.

Michael Moore: Clinton Supporter Weinstein Tried To Make Me Cut Hillary Scenes
Michael Moore is alleging that movie executive Harvey Weinstein "begged" him to cut a scene from his new film Sicko, a scene in which Moore blasts Hillary Clinton for her big donations from the medical insurance industry. "I said, 'No, Harvey. I gotta do the right thing.' He understood," Moore said. Weinstein is a friend and political supporter of the Clintons.

Giuliani: Venezuelan State Oil Company Subsidiary Is An "American Company"
After giving a speech yesterday in Florida where he ripped into Latin American dictators, Rudy Giuliani was forced to respond to a question about the ethics of work his law firm did for the Venezuelan state oil company and he waffled: “My firm did represent Citgo, they never represented Venezuela. They represented an American company that employs thousands and thousands of people in America,” he said. A Giuliani campaign aide later said: “The mayor does not say it is an American-owned company. He calls it an American company, which is accurate.”

Gore Inner Circle Remains Unallied In 2008 Race
Senior advisors to Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign have largely remained neutral in the 2008 presidential race. The Hill speculates they may be leaving themselves available for a possible Gore run, but all deny it in the article — they don't think Gore is running.

Once Wall Street's Nemesis, Giuliani Now Pursues Its Donations
Some of Rudy Giuliani's highest profile cases during his time as U.S. Attorney for New York were against Wall Street tycoons accused of fraud that he aggressively pursued. Those days are long gone as Giuliani raised $1.8 million by the end of last quarter from securities and investment firms for his presidential bid a close second to only Mitt Romney.

Catholic Hierarchy: We'll Stay Involved In Presidential Politics And Abortion Debate
Catholic bishops are continuing to discuss how to address politics, especially on abortion, and in light of the pro-choice Republican Catholic candidate, Rudy Giuliani. And one thing is becoming clear: They are not going to hold back. "I personally think that anybody that is pro-choice as a Catholic is not being faithful to his Catholic identity, and I think that people who are Catholics, when they look at those issues, should take that into consideration when they vote," said Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput. "I didn't name names last time, and I'm not going to name names this time. But I think if you study people's history and their records, you know the people."

Poll: Hayes Vulnerable
A poll just released by Democratic polling firm Anzalone Liszt finds that Congressman Robin Hayes (R-NC) may be vulnerable to a challenge from 2006 Democratic nominee Larry Kissell, whom he defeated by less than 400 votes. The poll finds that Hayes, with a name recognition of 83%, leads Kissell by a mere 45%-43% margin, despite Kissell's name recognition of only 34% — meaning nearly ten percent have no idea who Kissell is, but are ready to vote him simply by virtue of opposing Hayes. The poll was conducted last month.

Ralph Nader Discloses More Details On Possible 2008 Campaign
Ralph Nader told The New York Times that he is seriously weighing another third-party bid for the White House, in which he would continue to take on the Democrats and Republicans as both being tools of corporate power. One obstacle, though, would be getting infrastructure in place and overcoming onerous ballot access laws across the 50 states. "This doesn't diminish my interest," Nader said. "It means that if you are going down a certain road, you need gasoline in the tank. You need volunteers to get way and above the minimum number of signatures and a network of pro bono lawyers. But that in itself is not a reason to give up."

Stuart Rothenberg: National Dems Are On Verge Of Recruiting Two Big 2008 Senate Candidates
Stuart Rothenberg reports that the DSCC is on the verge of scoring two big candidates to run in key 2008 Senate races. He says national Dems are close to getting former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen to run against GOP Senator John Sununu and Bob Kerrey to run for the Nebraska Senate seat that would be vacated should Chuck Hagel decide not to seek reelection.

MoveOn Swiftly Raises $200,000 For Opponent Of Lieberman Ally
Joe Lieberman is once again in the sights of the netroots. MoveOn.org sent a letter to supporters decrying the Connecticut Senator's fundraiser today for Republican colleague Susan Collins of Maine and the anti-war group promptly raised $200,000 for her opponent.

MSNBC Investigates Journalists' Campaign Contributions
At least 144 journalists gave money to political campaigns in the past few years, according to an MSNBC investigation. The magazine, newspaper and television reporters and editors offered various explanations, ranging from ignorance to outright irreverence of their news organizations rules.

Tribune Writer To Release Obama Biography
An upcoming unauthorized biography of Barack Obama by Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell portrays Barack Obama as a more calculating figure than the one seen by some of his idealistic admirers. A key tidbit: The book allleges that his 2002 anti-Iraq War speech was given not simply because of his opposition to the invasion, but specifically to pick up the support of key liberal donors in Chicago early in the primary race for Senate.

Edwards To Visit Historic Cooper Union
John Edwards will deliver a speech this evening about protecting consumers from predatory lenders and otherwise reforming the credit market in this country. The site: The famous Cooper Union in New York City, where Abraham Lincoln delivered the famous "House Divided" speech in 1860, which rocketed him to the Republican nomination and the Presidency.

Has Edwards Only Raised $6 Million This Quarter?
Ben Smith reports that the Edwards campaign is either doing a masterful job of setting fundraising expectations or are having serious fundraising travails. Joe Trippi sent an e-mail to supporters this morning saying that the campaign is two-thirds of the way to its goal of raising $9 million before the end of the second quarter in ten days. That's $6 million -- which, compared to the fundraising figures that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been pulling in, means that Edwards is way behind. Unless the campaign is bluffing.

Senators Make Deal On Fuel Economy, Taxes
Senators rejected an effort to fund renewable energy with a tax on oil companies and agreed to increase fuel economy standards on new cars to 35 miles per gallon, the first such move in 20 years. Democrats were three votes short to overcome a filibuster threat from Republicans on the tax provision.

Iraq Study Group Redux
Legislation introduced today in the House would revive the Baker-Hamilton Commission to offer a new report on the best strategies in Iraq. The legislation introduced by Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) would give Congress an alternative to the one expected from the Bush Administration in September.

Late Update: This post originally contained a historical error. Robert LaFollette's disastrous speech in 1912 was not at Cooper Union.

Oh, this is a good one. GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa apparently wasn't satisfied with the attention he got for proposing the use of an electrified fence -- the kind used on livestock -- for our southern border. He must've wanted some more.

So he hit on a nifty solution: Dust off the old Pelosi-to-Syria controversy!

Just in from The Hill:

House Republican wants to restrict Pelosi’s travel

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will not be permitted to use State Department funds to travel to nations that are known to have sponsored terrorism if a Republican amendment to appropriations legislation passes the House on Thursday.

The amendment to the $34 billion State and Foreign Operations bill, offered by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), prohibits funds to be used to travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria.

The idea did get attention -- it was the lead on Drudge for some time.

So we thought it would be fun to check in with a spokesman for King and ask if the amendment would also apply to any of the Republican members of Congress who went to Syria recently. As you may recall, they included GOP Reps. Eric Cantor, David Hobson, Darryl Issa, Frank Wolf, and several others.

We reached a King spokesman and posed the question. The answer: "The measure only applies to one position -- the Speaker of the House."

When we asked why the measure wouldn't also apply to Republicans who might want to go to Syria, King's spokesman replied: "The Speaker of the House is the third in line, and Nancy Pelosi has made it very clear that she wants" to interfere in the crafting of foreign policy.

We then inquired why the measure didn't also apply to members of Congress, since journeying to "enemy" countries is presumably a bad thing even when done by lowly Congressmen. The spokesman's answer: He wasn't sure whether that had been considered, or why it might not have been.

Oh, well. One can try.

Call it the Dick Branch of the American government.

Rahm Emanuel's office just sent out a nifty chart illustrating Veep Cheney's latest. As you may have heard by now, Cheney reportedly exempted his own office from the presidential order establishing government-wide procedures for the guarding of classified national security info. He reportedly did this by asserting that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

That inspired the following from Rahm's office:

Rahm's statement:

"Today, we discovered that everything we learned in U.S. government class was wrong. Evidently, the Vice President does not consider himself a part of the executive branch, and therefore believes he can obstruct meaningful oversight and avoid being held accountable. If the Vice President truly believes he is not a part of the executive branch, he should return the salary the American taxpayers have been paying him since January 2001, and move out of the home for which they are footing the bill."

Rudy Giuliani is promising to make enormous cuts in the federal workforce -- but two experts we contacted dismissed the ideas as highly unworkable.

One even dismissed his proposals as "naive at best," adding that they revealed Rudy's "lack of knowledge about the internal workings of the federal government."

Rudy's promise came in Iowa yesterday, where delivered a speech on fiscal discipline that contained a rather outsize vow:

Giuliani said 42 percent of civilian employees in the U.S. government will retire in eight to 10 years, and he would not replace one-half of them.

"We have to end the culture of spending in Washington, D.C., and we can do that. ... I've done it before," said Giuliani, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

In other words, Rudy is claiming he'd cut the civilian government work force by at least one-fifth.

But is this really possible? Not according to the academics we interviewed.

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President Bush just keeps on shattering record after record. The new Newsweek poll has him breaking a whole bunch of them:

* Approval rating at 26%, his lowest in this poll and lower than Carter's worst.

* Sixty-five percent disapprove, the most ever in the poll.

* Seventy-three percent disapprove of his handling of Iraq, the highest yet in the survey.

* Twenty-three percent approve of his Iraq performance, the lowest yet.

Of course, Congress fares even worse than the President, checking in with an approval rating of 25%.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE...MUST CREDIT ELECTION CENTRAL...

Elizabeth Edwards has blasted and mocked Matt Drudge for picking on the Edwards' nine-year-old daughter -- and Ms. Edwards even suggested Drudge has the intelligence and sophistication of a child, Election Central can reveal!

Her comment came in response to a Drudge item quoting a local newspaper account that suggested that the Edwards' nine-year-old child supported Hillary, not her father.

Election Central has learned that Elizabeth put a comment in the comments section of another Web site's post debunking the Drudge item.

Elizabeth claimed the daughter was joking and mocked Drudge as follows:

"It was Emma Claire, who pointed to a Hillary pin slyly and then, smiling pointed to her father. A nine-year [old] sense of humor -- you would have thought Matt Drudge would have been able to pick up on that."

The Edwards campaign has confirmed to Election Central that the Elizabeth Edwards in question is indeed John Edwards' wife!

Impacting...

Now that everyone's talking about Mike Bloomberg as potential Presidential material, it seemed to us like a good idea to take a look at where he has been on, you know, the most important political issue of our time: Iraq.

Right now Bloomberg is distancing himself from Bush and his foreign policies. As part of his whirlwind "I just may go for it" tour this week, he gave a speech on Monday at Google headquarters criticizing Bush's approach to foreign policy, though it's also worth noting that he stopped short of calling for withdrawal from Iraq. He said this:

"We are in trouble overseas. There's obviously an unpopular war, but a war that has no easy answers. The people that say, 'let's just automatically pull troops out,' I don't think have really looked at the consequences of destabilizing the world, and the genocide that may or may not occur, depending on who you believe."

And this:

"Our reputation has been hurt very badly in the last few years. We are, we have had a go it alone mentality in a world where, because of communications and transportation, you should be going exactly in the other direction. There's no one country that can stand on its own anymore, we're so interconnected through trade and everything else..."

It's worth noting, however, that Bloomberg tacitly endorsed -- and certainly didn't oppose -- Bush's international approach and his quasi-unilateral invasion of Iraq back in 2002 and early 2003, when it really counted.

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Remember Tom Marino? He's the U.S. Attorney from Pennsylvania who was on the firing short list and was viewed by national Republicans as perhaps the most promising challenger to Dem Rep. Chris Carney of Pennsylvania.

Well, Carney can rest easy -- for now, anyway. Marino has told national Republicans that he's taking a pass on the race.

We hear from the Edwards campaign that he's planning to revamp his 2004 "two Americas" theme in a speech tonight that will center on a variety of proposals designed to turn "two Americas" into "one America."

"I have learned something in the last four years," he will say, according to advance excerpts of the speech sent to us by the Edwards camp. "It'?s not enough to talk about the Two Americas. We also need to talk about what we need to do to build One America ?and to do that, I believe we have to build One American Economy."

One key thing -- though not the only thing -- on the agenda tonight: Edwards is planning on proposing a "Family Savings and Credit Commission" which would help those who are the target of abusive lenders and to otherwise help those who are borrowing and investing.

"We should start with the Wild West of the credit industry, where some abusive and predatory lenders are robbing families blind," Edwards, who's made poverty the center of his campaign, will say in tonight's speech at Cooper Union in New York City. "It?s time for a new sheriff in town.?"

More details later as we get them.

This is interesting: Barack Obama is vowing to detail all his earmark requests today and is challenging his Presidential rivals to do the same.

Obama, who's tried to be out front on good government and ethics issues, is apparently the first Presidential hopeful to do this.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton says that Obama will detail his earmarks today by posting a 113-item list on his Senate office website.

Burton emailed us the following quote challenging the other candidates to follow suit:

As a matter of transparency and good government, Obama thinks it?s important that voters know who their candidates are, what their sources of income are and whether they have any potential conflicts. We would hope that other candidates follow suit in disclosing their earmarks as well.

Not a huge deal, but clearly, a challenge to Hillary.

Update: Here's the list of Obama's earmarks.

Poll: Americans Have Almost No Confidence in Congress
A new Gallup poll shows that Americans have a record low level of confidence in Congress as an institution — only 14% said they had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence. By contrast, 18% trust big business, 19% trust organized labor, 33% trust the public schools, 46% trust organized religion, and 54% trust the police.

Romney Campaign Denies Pulling Over New York Times Report
The Mitt Romney camp is denying an accusation by a New York Times reporter that their security detail pulled him over, told him they had run his license plates, and ordered him to stop following their car. "We will not comment on security procedures for the governor," said Romney spokesman Matt Rhoades. "We can confirm, though, that at no time was the reporter's license plate run through a check or was his vehicle pulled over," Rhoades insisted — indeed, to have done so would have been illegal under New Hampshire law. The Times Mark Leibovich made the allegation in a feature article about Romney, which ran this past Saturday, and he is standing by his story.

NY Times: Bloomberg Planning Run For Two Years
Mike Bloomberg has been planning a run for president for the past two years, investigating balloting processes in all 50 states and studying Ross Perot's 1992 independent bid, the New York Times reports. He did not intend for his change in party affiliation to become public this week, the Times also alleges, but he is pleased with the attention it garnered.

Romney Tops The $1 Million Mark In Arizona
Mitt Romney's campaign has announced that they've reached $1 million in contributions in rival John McCain's home state of Arizona — clearly a jab meant to signify that they're beating McCain with conservative constituencies. McCain spokesman Danny Diaz said the campaign is not concerned about their support back home, as they've raised twice as much in the state. "We've also done well raising money in Massachusetts," Diaz said. "Senator McCain has been elected and re-elected in Arizona time and time again."

Tommy Thompson: Iraq War Has A "Degree Of Insanity"
Speaking in Des Moines on Tuesday, Tommy Thompson gave his frank opinions about the Iraq War. "If you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, that has a degree of insanity stapled with it and that is exactly what we're doing," Thompson said. "Eight and a half billion dollars a month and we still do not have a plan on how we're going to win the war or win the peace."

Ron Paul Backers Irate About His Exclusion From Tax Debate
The group Iowans for Tax Relief did not invite libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul to an upcoming event featuring other candidate, and his supporters have besieged the group with protests. Paul's libertarian platform has attracted a raft of dedicated supporters who organize on the Internet. The Iowa group said it considered the candidates' commitment of resources to Iowa when making the cut.

Nader Mulls 2008 Run
Ralph Nader is mulling another independent presidential bid for 2008 in light of what he sees as another contest of establishment candidates who are converging on issues. Nader is widely blamed for throwing the 2000 election to George Bush by draining votes from Al Gore in key swing states, especially Florida, but he blamed recent Democratic losses on the Democrats themselves. "Democrats have become, over the years, very good at electing very bad Republicans," Nader said. "Democrats always know how to implode, how to be ambiguous, how to waver, how not to be authentic."

Tancredo On Bloomberg: "Good Riddance"
Tom Tancredo warmly welcomed Mike Bloomberg's exit from the GOP, saying the move helps purify Republican party ideology, and maintaining that the mayor's independent candidacy would have little impact on Electoral College votes. "Good riddance," Tancredo said, adding that other Republicans should do the same because "it would be a truer reflection of who they really are."

Obama Wins Take Back America Straw Poll
Results from the straw poll at the progressive Take Back America conference: Barack Obama - 29%, John Edwards - 26%, Hillary Clinton 17%. "Obama clearly did himself well with a red-meat speech, showing he knows how to appeal to the activists," said conference organizer Roger Hickey. "But the overall message of this poll is that all three of them have their supporters among the activists." In addition Bill Richardson took 9%, and Al Gore took 8% as a write-in candidate. Dennis Kucinich won 5% of the vote, and Mike Gravel 1%.

Hillary Wasn't The Only One Booed
The crowd was restless at the Take Back America conference — sticking it not only to the Republicans, but to Dem leaders they don't think have been doing a good enough job. Hillary Clinton got some heavy booing in the middle of her speech. The reaction was spurred by her statement that the U.S. Armed Forces had done their job in Iraq, and the failures were instead the fault of the Iraqi leaders. Even Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha were on the receiving end of the audience's heckling, given activist ire at the leadership's failure to stop the war. In short, the activists place the blame squarely at the feet of the Bush Administration — and don't tolerate people who they think are dodging that point or failing to stand up to the Administration.

Poll: Not Too Much Potential For Bloomberg Nationally
A new Pew Research poll finds Mike Bloomberg with little potential national appeal, at least for now. The poll finds that 33% of registered voters have never heard of him. Only nine percent say there is a good chance they would vote for him, while 23% say there is some chance they would vote for him. However, 56% say there is no chance they would vote for him.

McCain: Fundraising Is 'Very Tough' But I Don't Need Money
John McCain offered some insight into his campaign's financial strategy and fortunes today in Florida: "I think it’s important to do O.K.," McCain said. "It's been very tough. There's a lot of candidates, and the people are a little dispirited, but we're working hard. We weren't going to win this campaign on money anyway. It's whether we can do what we did in the year 2000, and that's go out and do the real politicking, the retail politicking that's necessary. It's not money that's going to win or lose."

Romney Fundraiser Sued For Child Molestation
Over 100 people are suing the co-chairman of Mitt Romney's Utah Finance Committee, who has helped raise hundreds of thousands for the campaign, over sexual abuse and other crimes they allege took place at a home for troubled teenagers that he ran. The suit is one of many against Robert Lichfield, The Hill reports.

Illinois Joins Super Tuesday Craze
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed a law today moving the primary in his state to Feb. 5, joining many others who have picked the earliest possible date that national party chairs have allowed. The move, which was largely expected, is seen as an attempt to help Barack Obama, an Illinois Senator.

Nader Booed At Take Back America
It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy: Ralph Nader made an appearance yesterday at Take Back America to introduce Mike Gravel. The crowd's response to Nader's presence: A lot of booing.

Edwards' Young Daughter: Hillary Is My Favorite
It's a good thing for John Edwards that his youngest daughter isn't of voting age. At a campaign stop in Iowa on Saturday, Elizabeth Edwards asked her nine-year old daughter Emma Claire who her favorite presidential candidate was. The answer: Hillary.

A new batch of polls just out from SurveyUSA provides us with the first detailed snapshot we have yet of the state-by-state effect a Bloomberg candidacy would have on the 2008 Presidential race.

Bottom line: Bloomberg's impact depends entirely on who the Dem and GOP nominees are, but it's clear that in more cases, his entry actually flips the states from red to blue than the other way around.

One other interesting point: The polls suggest that the two candidates who would be most hurt in a general election by a Bloomberg entry are Mitt Romney and, surprisingly, Barack Obama. And Bloomberg flips states when either of those two are nominated — at least for now.

We have a detailed chart on exactly how Bloomberg's candidacy would affect the race in each state after the jump.

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So today Rudy personally responded for the first time to the story saying he got bumped from the Iraq Study Group after blowing off a few of the group's meetings.

From the Associated Press:

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani, whose tough talk on terrorism is the centerpiece of his campaign, said Wednesday that it was a mistake to join a bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which he later quit.

"I thought it would work, but then after a month or two I realized the idea that I was possibly going to run for president would be inconsistent with that," he said...

"All of the other members of the commission have had distinguished public careers, but none of them were prospective candidates for office."

We really hate to repeat ourselves here (okay, no we don't) but it's apparently necessary: This explanation is thoroughly bogus. The public record unequivocally proves it.

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We're certainly not the first to observe that the downside of the Hillary candidacy is that it gives the media a chance to relive the nineties all over again.

But we think we've found the most perfect classic of this genre to date. It's a piece by the Associated Press' Ron Fournier, who dreams up a Godawful clever new coinage:

Sen. Hillary Clinton An Artful Dodger

WASHINGTON -- Slick Hillary? Former President Clinton earned the nickname "Slick Willy" for his mastery in the political arts of ducking and dodging. He had a knack for convincing people on both sides of an issue that he agreed with them.

His wife may not be as smooth, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is doing a passable impression of the ever-parsing former president.

Look, we have no problem with the piece for pointing out questions Hillary won't answer. We were frustrated, for instance, with Hillary's refusal to say whether she favored a Libby pardon.

But artful dodger? Slick Hillary? Can't we be a little more subtle about our panting desperation for a nineties rerun?

Best of all, the piece also gives us this artfully dodgy passage:

She told the crowd Tuesday that she had been calling for a troop withdrawal "for some time," not mentioning that her rivals have held that position for a longer period. On the other hand, she said some troops will need to remain in Iraq to contain al-Qaida, protect Kurds, keep an eye on Iran, protect the U.S. Embassy and maybe train Iraqi forces.

The answer offered a little something for everybody, for or against U.S. involvement in Iraq. Pretty slick.

Pretty slick? Pretty slick of the reporter, actually. Note the weaselly way in which the story says that her answer offered something for people who are for "U.S. involvement in Iraq." That phrase, of course, means nothing. The rather imprecise wording was necessary, of course, because in the real world, there's no way anyone who wants a significant American presence to remain in Iraq would be happy about what Hillary offered here. In other words, her answer actually didn't offer something for everyone. Nope -- just not true.

Also note the inane way in which Hillary's being faulted here for "not mentioning that her rivals have held that position for a longer period." Yep -- she didn't tell the crowd how great her rivals' positions on Iraq are! God, what a massive phony! Slicker than Slick Willy himself.

Further coverage from Newsday

The New York Times

The Chicago Tribune

The Seattle Times

NewsMax

AM New York

MSNBC — But only by way of the First Read Web page. NBC News does not have a standalone article.

CNN's Political Ticker links to Newsday — but CNN does not do a separate, more prominent article.

So far, there has not been coverage of the Rudy's absenteeism from the Iraq Study Group by other journalistic organizations like the Associated Press or Reuters. And Fox News? Don't even think about it!

Wow. That vid Hillary released yesterday spoofing The Sopranos and introducing her new campaign song?

A whopping 500,000 hits yesterday, the Hillary camp just said in a release.

And Ana Marie Cox's head explodes. Again.

That was quick. Less than 24 hours after the news broke that Rudy's South Carolina chairman was indicted for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, the Rudy campaign has quickly ushered in a replacement.

the nrcc is crystal clear on who jim sith is...he's obviously a lob...for cont group...I haven't seen that reported any...no, we did not tell any reporters on back ground that that was the case...like I said we are crystal clear on who jim smith is...

mcnerney...either ignorant or unaware, writing a letter to lobbyist...we don't...it's not, our argument is not what jim smith does for a living. it's the fadct that jerry mcnerney is

the nrcc is completely aware of who jim smith is and what he doesn for a living...

it only furthers point that I was trying to make...this proves that jerry mcnerney was...even after the fact unaware, who exactly we were referencing. it either speaks to his ignorance on issue or to lack of understanding...that's...

National Democratic strategists are eyeing Alaska as a state ripe for a major pickup in 2008 — and a new poll of the state's voters suggests that Dems have some reason to be optimistic about making a big gain there.

National Dems have been working overtime to recruit Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich to run for Congress in 2008 — either against powerhouse Senator Ted Stevens or against Representative Don Young. While snatching Stevens' Senate seat obviously would be a bigger coup, knocking off Young would be a more than decent prize, too.

Now a new poll suggests that both GOP targets may be a good deal more vulnerable than initially thought.

Details after the jump.

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Now that Mike Bloomberg has left the GOP, uncorking a tsunami of speculation about his possible independent run for President, it's a bit surprising just how many analysts are jumping to the reflexive conclusion that his entry would automatically be bad for the Democratic candidate.

But we just checked in with an adviser to one of the Republican Presidential candidates. He gave us a counterintuitive view: He says it's much more likely to hurt the Republican candidate. His interesting take after the jump.

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And the first Dem Presidential candidate out of the box today in blasting President Bush for his veto of the measure promoting stem-cell research is...

...Barack Obama, who will soon send out the following statement:

By vetoing funding for stem cell research once again, the President is deferring the hopes of millions of Americans who do not have the time to keep waiting for the cure that may save or extend their lives. The promise that stem cells hold does not come from any particular ideology, it is the judgment of science, and we deserve a President who will put that judgment first and make this promise real for the American people.?

Update: Actually, Hillary hit Bush first this morning on this during her speech at the Take Back America conference:

"Now, this is research that…holds such promise for devastating diseases. Yesterday, I met with a group of children suffering from juvenile diabetes. I co-chair the Alzheimer's caucus in the Senate. I've worked on helping to boost funding for research to look for cures and a way to prevent so many devastating diseases. And we know that stem cell research holds the key to our understanding more about what we can do. So let me be very clear: When I am president, I will lift the ban on stem cell research.

"This is just one example of how the President puts ideology before science, politics before the needs of our families, just one more example of how out of touch with reality he and his party have become. And it's just one more example as to why we're going to send them packing in January 2009, and return progressive leadership to the White House."

it's too early at this point to start slugging it out on national issues. people dont vote until dec at the earliest...we're just not in the game of making this a big issue. people wanna see what the natioanl sec is come sept and while we come to elect...and we want to find out how this issue weighs, iraq and national security in general...

...downside in att rudy on this issue. I dont think he's viewed as vul on this. cert folks like firefig and cops in ny that he shld be vuln on this...that has'nt sunk in yet...

sky high in terms of creditibility...I dont think so, in order to drag down that sort of crid you need ot have rock sol credib works...regard of whether or not folks ended up buying he story line these were guys who served in vietnam...he watched his neighbors suffer and die on 9/11...it takes time for messages to burn...

I think that he in general I think he prob dam republicans more because...not bec he's areal repub...here's a guy who's gonna run with biz street cred. but he's will to be reasonable on immigration, against the war...there's a growing seg of the gop that buys into that...there are lot of rep out there who are fed up with iraq and who aren't rest on immigration and who frankly likes the appeal of a business guy. look at his numbers in nyc. people rate him higher than rudy, the 9/11 guy...I dont think it's ultimately going to damage dems too much because there's a lot energy beh dem party right now. not that there's not friction, there is and...people are fired up. it's a good time right now to be a dem. anybody is facing...the question tho, is, giuliani is the nominee...you've got two nyc reps running in a gen in a southern cons party...wldnt shock the heck out of me...guar

look at what blooomberg does...

Check out the numbers in the new Gallup poll released this morning. It finds that the top three Democratic candidates for president are all beating each of the top three Republicans in all nine possible matchups:

Clinton (D) 50%, Giuliani (R) 46%
Clinton (D) 49%, McCain (R) 46%
Clinton (D) 53%, Romney (R) 40%
Edwards (D) 50%, Giuliani (R) 45%
Edwards (D) 50%, McCain (R) 44%
Edwards (D) 61%, Romney (R) 32%
Obama (D) 50%, Giuliani (R) 45%
Obama (D) 48%, McCain (R) 46%
Obama (D) 57%, Romney (R) 36%

We keep hearing — in the LA Times and elsewhere — that voters are reluctant to support the actual Democratic candidates we have, especially Hillary. Numbers like these would seem to be telling a different story.

NY Observer: Bloomberg Party Switch A Clear Sign Of White House Run
The New York Observer notes that it's hard to take Mike Bloomberg's change of party affiliation from Republican to independent as a sign of anything except preparation for an independent White House bid. "Could it be a coincidence that June 15 was the day Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler showed up (according to a source at the board) to meet with the chairman of the New York City Board of Elections to register the change—the same day the Mayor appeared on the cover of Time magazine, leaning up against a smiling Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, over the legend 'The New Action Heroes'?" the paper asks rhetorically. "Or that he’s switching parties even as he maintains a packed out-of-state travel schedule that has, recently, included stops in Oklahoma, Texas, California and (ahem) New Hampshire?"

Quinnipiac: Hillary Still Leads In New York When Bloomberg Is In The Mix
A new Quinnipiac poll tests Mike Bloomberg's impact in New York, in a three-way race with Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, finding HIllary with a continued strong lead: Hillary 43%, Rudy 29%, Bloomberg 16%. In a two-way race, Hillary leads Rudy 52%-37% — so Mayor Mike appears to be drawing equally from the two when he's thrown in. The poll also finds Hillary and Rudy continuing to hold comfortable leads in their respective primaries in New York.

Giuliani Begins Iowa Offensive
Some of Rudy Giuliani's senior campaign officials will be in Iowa this week to train staff and kick-start a new major push there. Rudy, who will give a speech today in Des Moines focusing on fiscal conservatism, has so far largely concentrated his time and effort in other states, giving Mitt Romney and John McCain the opportunity to build support and top polls in Iowa.

Clintons Headed To New Hampshire Together
Bill Clinton will campaign with Hillary in New Hampshire starting July 13, a campaign spokesman said a day after their first joint appearance in Iowa was announced. The appearances are widely considered much earlier than anticipated.

McCain To Miami Cubans: We Can Overthrow Castro
John McCain "will not passively await the long-overdue demise of the Castro dictatorship," according to a speech he is set to deliver in Florida today. McCain will call Cuba a "national security threat" and also takes a tough line on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Bush Ready To Veto Stem-Cell Bill
President Bush will use his veto pen today on a bill that would end restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. Republicans have enough votes in the House to sustain a veto.

McCain Campaign Attacks New Romney Ad
A McCain spokesman lashed out at Mitt Romney's new ad focusing on fiscal discipline yesterday. "What Governor Romney's TV ad fails to mention is that spending increased by 27 percent and taxes and fees increased by $700 million per year during his tenure in Massachusetts," spokesman Matt David said.

Runoff For Norwood's Seat — Second-Place Finisher Undecided
Former state Senator Jim Whitehead (R) came in first place in the first round of the special election to replace the late Congressman Charlie Norwood (R-GA), although the second-place position is not yet definite. Physician and Republican activist Paul Broun has a 115-vote lead over Democratic candidate and physician Jim Marlow — so Marlow may be able to get into the runoff through a recount. In either case, Whitehead is the heavy favorite and the GOP is widely expected to keep the seat, whether the runoff is a GOPer vs. Dem or GOPer vs. GOPer.

Wyoming GOP Picks Finalists For Senate Seat
The Wyoming Republican Central Committee has selected the final three choices to fill the seat of the late GOP Senator Craig Thomas, until an election can be held in November 2008: Tom Sansonetti, a former state GOP chairman who served as Thomas' chief of staff during his years in the House; State Senator John Barrasso, a surgeon who wants to make rural health care his top priority; and former state Treasurer Cynthia Lummis. All of them are considered strong conservatives. The final choice for the appointment goes to Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal, who has five days to pick from among those three.

Show Biz People Donating To Franken — Including A Right-Winger
Roll Call has a list of some of the celebrities who have donated to Al Franken's campaign for the Senate. Along with many of the expected liberal names — Rob Reiner, Barry Levinson, Bradley Whitford, Larry David, Paul Newman and others — Franken has also received a $1,000 donation from Ben Stein. Stein, a character actor, former Nixon aide and bona fide right-wing Republican, is perhaps best known for his 1990's game show Win Ben Stein's Money, and his role as the boring history teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Here's the statement from Rudy's political director, Mark Campbell, on the indictment of South Carolina campaign chair Thomas Ravenel for conspiracy to distribute coke:

"Our campaign has no information about the accusations pending against Mr. Ravenel. Mr. Ravenel has stepped down from his volunteer responsibilities with the campaign.”

The campaign has "no information about the accusations"? We're happy to help. The indictment is right here.

Report: Bloomberg Leaving GOP

The Politicker blog reports that Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who's apparently pondering a run for President as an independent, has quietly changed his party registration from Republican to "blank," meaning he's no longer a member of the GOP.

"As a political independent, I will continue to work with those in all political parties to find common ground, to put partisanship aside and to achieve real solutions to the challenges we face," Bloomberg said in a statement. "Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology."

Bloomberg's full statement is here, and it's a must-read.

Rudy's South Carolina Chairman Indicted For Alleged Crack Peddling

Rudy Giuliani scored a huge "get" when his campaign recruited South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel to serve as his state chairman. Well, he'll probably be looking for a new honorary state campaign head soon — Ravenel has been indicted for alleged conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine.

New Charts Show Direction Of Primaries In Key States

Over at Pollster.com, Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin have posted a nifty new set of graphs showing the poll numbers for each party's primary/caucus in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida, accompanied by trend lines to give the reader an idea of not just where the contest is now, but where it appears to be heading. Readers are invited to weigh in on what they think of the chart feature right here.

Fun Flashback: Hillary Pollster Mark Penn Was Criticized For Polling On Sopranos

Here's a fun postscript to today's Hillary and Bill YouTube spoofing the Sopranos. It turns out that Hillary's pollster, Mark Penn, got in a bit of hot water for polling on how people viewed the The Sopranos when he was working for then-Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo in 2001. According to a Daily News article at the time (via Nexis), Penn was criticized for polling to see how voters thought the show portrayed Italian Americans.

McCain Tops The Field In TV News Face Time

The New York Times has a chart counting the appearances of the presidential candidates on network and cable news, from January 1 up to June 10. John McCain takes a solid first place with six hours, followed by Bill Richardson with about four and a half hours.

Dem Poll: Dems Running Strong In Battleground Districts, Nation Still Restless

A new poll by Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner finds that Democrats are running well ahead of Republicans in swing districts. Only 35% of respondents approve of President Bush's job performance, a generic Dem candidate for President has a lead of 49%-40% over the Republican, and Dems have a lead for Congress of 50%-41%. But the natives are restless: Only 29% are "warm" to Congress as an institution, compared to 39% "cool," and respondents overwhelmingly oppose the immigration bill.

Another Top Bush Aide Leaves

White House Office of Management and Budget Rob Portman, a former Congressman from Ohio, is leaving his post. He will be placed by former Congressman Jim Nussle, who in 2006 was the losing GOP nominee for Governor of Iowa. The Associated Press speculates that Nussle might bring a combative, hardline style to bear against the Congressional Democrats.

McCain: New Primary Schedule Is 'Bizarre'

John McCain said today that Florida's new Jan. 29 primary day compresses campaign schedules so much that the parties won't have adequate time to choose a nominee. "We are now going to choose the nominees of our parties either in late January or in early February and our conventions are in August and September. That's a little bizarre," McCain said.

So reports The New York Observer's politics blog, The Politicker:

Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been flirting with the idea of an independent run for president, just changed his party registration to "blank," a spokesperson at the city Board of Elections told me.

The Politicker adds that this is the "most concrete step to date Bloomberg has taken towards running for president."

Wow.

Here's the new ad from Mitt Romney. He's departing from the approach in his previous ads — which rounded up a bunch of focus-grouped catchphrases to introduce him to GOP primary voters — and instead focusing squarely on fiscal policy. Could this be a bid to shift the subject from areas where his conservative record is shaky, such as abortion and stem-cell research, on to some more solid ground?

Notice that he can be seen addressing the Club For Growth, a visual cue that conservative activists would be sure to pick up on. And of course, it's being targeted at the key states where Romney has been experiencing a rise in the polls — the new ad will start running tomorrow in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Giuliani campaign today is pushing back on the big story today reporting that he was kicked off the Iraq Study Group because he blew off ISG meetings despite having time to make high-priced speeches.

The Rudy camp's claim? He was seen as a "potential Presidential candidate" and didn't want this fact to turn his work for the ISG into a "political football."

But a quick and dirty bit of research shows that the Rudy campaign's pushback here is entirely bogus. Details after the jump.

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As you all know, we're admittedly obsessed with the idea that political pundits and commentators are ceding Rudy the aura of national security experience based on little more than the fact that he was Mayor of New York on 9/11.

Now there's a twist to this increasingly dispiriting tale.

This morning, a newspaper broke a big story about Rudy that by all rights should do some real damage to the former Mayor on national security, which the media is already billing as his "signature issue," even though he doesn't have any actual national security experience.

So here's the question: Will the rest of the media cover this hard-hitting scoop on Rudy and his alleged national security credentials?

The early returns are not at all encouraging.

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Okay, it turns out there's a bit of a backstory to the Celine Dion song "You and I," which has just been chosen as Hillary's campaign song.

The song was originally written for...an ad campaign for Air Canada.

That, at least, is the story as told in an article in the Financial Post, a Canadian newspaper, from November 1, 2004. Here's the deal, according to the piece:

The idea for the song was first dreamed up by Jacques Duval, the president and chief executive of Marketel, the Montreal-based ad agency employed by Air Canada. Back in 2003 things were looking bad for Air Canada, and by extension, Marketel.

So Duval decided to write a joyful, inspirational song about flying, with the eventual intention of using it to give Air Canada a lift. He came up with the "You and I" lyric and a melody. He went to another songwriter and they co-wrote the song.

Long story short: It's a bit complicated, but basically what happened is that after getting recorded first by Dion, a Canadian, it ended up being used just for what Duval originally intended it for -- an Air Canada ad.

This would appear to be the Air Canada spot, complete with the Dion song -- now the Hillary song -- in the background:

That's quite a journey -- the song has gone from being written for an ad campaign for an airline that had fallen on hard times, all the way to being Hillary's official campaign song.

More details on the backstory here -- as told by the Financial Post -- after the jump.

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While the top three Democratic candidates made sure to define their Iraq positions in strong opposition to the Bush Administration's in their speeches before AFSCME today, every one of them nevertheless made a stark acknowedgment: To a person, they all seemed to concede that a total pullout from Iraq is not feasible, and all three suggested that America will remain in the Middle East in some capacity for some time to come, perhaps years.

We have video highlights of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama all holding forth on their post-occupation vision after the jump.

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No more suspense. The contest is over, and Hillary's official campaign song has been decided! Listen to it here.

Update: Here's the video the Hillary campaign has posted introducing the song. It features Bill and Hillary and a parody of a Sopranos character:

Note the affectionate joking between Bill and Hillary about Chelsea's parking and the carrot sticks -- part of the campaign's "you don't know the real Hillary" theme. Bill, incidentally, will campaign with Hillary in Iowa from July 2-4.

We've just received advance excerpts of the speech Barack Obama will give today at the Take Back America 2007 conference.

In his speech, Obama is planning to put heavy emphasis on his pre-war opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Since the speeches today before the conference are a key test of how the candidates are faring among the liberal Dems who drive the primaries, Obama is clearly looking to draw a distinction between himself and his primary rivals, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom of course supported the war.

From Obama's forthcoming speech:

"I am proud that I stood up in 2002 and urged our leaders not to take us down this dangerous path. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this is a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.

“So many of us knew this back then, even when it wasn’t popular to say so.

“We knew back then this war was a mistake. We knew back then that it was dangerous diversion from the struggle against the terrorists who attacked us on September 11th. We knew back then that we could find ourselves in an occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

“But the war went forward. And now, we’ve seen those consequences and we mourn for the dead and wounded."

Hillary, Edwards and Obama just wrapped up their speeches before ASFCME -- more on that in a bit.

Woodward: Fred Thompson's Role In Watergate Investigation Exaggerated
In a Washington Post online chat yesterday, Bob Woodward said Fred Thompson is falsely given credit for his famous moment during the Watergate hearing: When, as Republican counsel, Thompson asked Alexander Butterfield a question that resulted in the public revealing of the White House taping system. "First of all, when Fred Thompson (who was the Republican counsel to the Senate Watergate committee) asked Alexander Butterfield the question about possible tape recordings in the White House or Oval Office," Woodward writes, "Thompson, like a good lawyer, knew the answer — because three days before the public testimony, lawyers and investigators for the committee got Butterfield to reveal the existence of the secret tape-recording system."

Obama Calls Indian Groups To Apologize
The Los Angeles Times reports that Barack Obama has now personally called several prominent Indian-American activists to apologize for the now-infamous "Punjab" memo — an opposition-research document from his campaign tying Hillary Clinton to business interests in India. Obama previously issued a statement taking personal responsibility for the memo.

Bill Clinton To Hit Campaign Trail With Hillary
The former president will join his wife July 2-4 in Iowa. It will be the first time they have hit the campaign trail together.

Dems Face Unions, Activists At Conferences
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and other candidates will speak to members of two of their most important and demanding constituencies: 2,000 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and also liberal activists at the Take Back America 2007 conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future.

Rudy Booted From Iraq Study Group For Poor Attendance
Newsday reports on how Rudy Giuliani was asked to leave the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group in 2006, because he was skipping too many meetings for paid fundraisers and speeches. Giuliani missed an opportunity to gain foreign policy experience and contribute his ideas on one of the most pressing issues facing the country. He instead earned $11.4 million in 14 months on a speaking tour.

Bloomberg Talks To Google On Woeful State Of The Country
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the country was "really in trouble" at Google headquarters in California yesterday, touching on Iraq, immigration reform, education, health care and crime. Bloomberg said the current field of presidential candidates is too concerned about terrorism. "Every press conference they all beat their chests and say, 'I can protect this country better from terrorism.' Well, what about protecting them out in the streets every day?" said Bloomberg, who reiterated his plans to finish his term as mayor but refused to answer a question as to whether he would rule out a presidential bid.

The Hill: Very Few Senators Actually Read The NIE
The Hill reports that only around one fifth of the Senate actually read the National Intelligence Estimate before voting on whether to go to war in Iraq. The Hill contacted both sitting and former Senators, and could only find 22 Senators who said they read the report, versus 38 who did not, six who declined to comment, and 30 who did not even return the paper's phone calls. "A lot of people on both sides of the aisle are getting whacked around with this," said former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), who voted for the authorization and did not read the report. "You have to understand that the briefings are so thorough that it’s common for members not to read entire reports."

Thompson Leads Giuliani In National Poll
Fred Thompson leads Rudy Giuliani by a statistically insignificant one percent among likely primary voters, with 28% for Thompson and 27% for Giuliani, according to a new Rasmussen poll. John McCain and Mitt Romney are tied at 10% each.

Romney: I Accept Brownback's Apology
Mitt Romney says he has accepted an apology from Sam Brownback — given personally over the phone — over a Brownback staffer sending out an e-mail to Iowa Republicans containing statements against the Mormon church. "I appreciated his generosity in making the call," Romney said. "Now and then campaign workers make mistakes. It's a good thing when people who are friends like he and I are can reach out and point out that was unintended." The aide in question has been reprimanded, but has not been fired.

Brownback Apologizes To Romney
Sam Brownback called Mitt Romney this afternoon to apologize for an e-mail sent by one of his staffers, asking recipients to fact check various negative statements about Romney's Mormon faith — including clear statements that Mormonism is not really a valid Christian religion. Brownback was "clearly very sort of personally hurt that this had happened in his team," said spokesman Brian Hart. "There's no place for this in his campaign."

Fred Thompson Will Likely Announce After July 4
NBC News reports that Fred Thompson will likely make his presidential campaign announcement some time shortly after July 4. Advisers reportedly said that they decided against the July 4 date because it would be presumptuous to "think our news is more important than the nation's birthday."

Votes On Immigration Deal May Continue Over Weekend
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said today that work on the immigration compromise may continue into this weekend, the start of the July 4 recess. Reid is said to be considering invoking a rare procedure typically used to stall legislation in order to move the bill forward, allowing Senators to vote for quorum before they consider the 22 amendments that are vital to secure passage.

Clinton Expected To Raise Over $1 Million In Garden State Tonight
Hillary Clinton will hold a fundraiser at an East Brunswick, N.J. hotel, where her campaign expects to raise more than $1 million for her presidential bid. Governor Jon Corzine and other state politicians will also attend the event, which was closed to all but those paying over $1,000.

Thompson Finds Closest Thing To Reagan — The Iron Lady Herself
Fred Thompson traveled to London today to meet with Margaret Thatcher, a close political ally of Ronald Reagan, and deliver a foreign policy speech titled "Strengthening the Transatlantic Alliance." The trip, as well a voyage to Israel planned for later this year, is seen as part of an effort to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

Edwards: Demand My Presence, And I'll Come
John Edwards released a video asking supporters to use the Web site eventful.com to request a visit by the presidential candidate to their town. "Whatever city or town has the most demanders, I will go to that city or town and answer questions from the demanders," Edwards said. "So we need to hear from you."

Forbes: Newt Gingrich The Creepiest White House Hopeful
Working with market-research firm E-Market, Forbes magazine conducted a novel poll: Who is the creepiest current or potential candidate for president? Newt Gingrich won with 19%, a relatively strong plurality in a field containing almost everyone else. Hillary Clinton and Al Gore tied for second with 15% each.

Okay, readers. We're offering an Official TPM Lava Lamp to the person who best can decipher these comments by Mitt Romney this morning on abortion:

Transcript here.

We're going to make a genuine effort to translate this as fairly as possible:

When Romney ran for Governor, he was "effectively" pro-choice -- even though he didn't call himself pro-choice -- in that he was promising to uphold Massachusetts abortion law. But as soon as he got into office, he immediately "came down on the side of life" on the first piece of abortion legislation he saw.

This wasn't inconsistent, because all the while he continued to honor his promise (as an "effectively" pro-choice candidate) not to roll back existing law. But lest anyone think of him as insufficiently pro-life because he didn't move to roll back existing law, keep in mind that he was as pro-life as he possibly could be given that he was simultaneously honoring a campaign promise that had made him "effectively" pro-choice.

That really is our best shot at representing Romney's description of his own views.

If anyone can do better than that, you get our TPM Lava Lamp. Hallucinogenics supplied by Romney himself...

Still more on the "Punjab" Hillary oppo document controversy.

Barack Obama has just issued the following response to the Indian-American community:

I wanted to respond personally to the concerns you expressed regarding the recent research memo that our campaign put into circulation.

I believe that your concerns with the memo are justified. To begin with, the memo did not reflect my own views on the importance of America’s relationship with India. I have long believed that the best way to promote U.S. economic growth and opportunity for American workers is to continually improve the skills of our own workforce and invest in our own scientific research, technological capacity and infrastructure, rather than to try to insulate ourselves from the global economy.

More importantly, the memo’s caustic tone, and its focus on contributions by Indian-Americans to the Clinton campaign, was potentially hurtful, and as such, unacceptable. The memo also ignored my own long-standing relationship to – and support from – the Indian-American community.

In sum, our campaign made a mistake. Although I was not aware of the contents of the memo prior to its distribution, I consider the entire campaign – and in particular myself – responsible for the mistake. We have taken appropriate action to prevent errors like this from happening in the future.

Please feel free to share this letter with other members of your organization or leaders in the Indian-American community. I look forward to our continued friendship and exchange of ideas – during the course of this campaign, and beyond.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Here's a key line, in light of his comments earlier today to the Des Moines Register in which he took aim at his research team:

"I consider the entire campaign -- and in particular myself -- responsible for the mistake."

Update: Some analysis of the apology from Ben Smith, who had it first.

This has gotta be pretty rough on some of Barack Obama's campaign staffers.

In a meeting with editors and reporters of the Des Moines Register today, Obama responded to all the criticism of that leaked oppo-research document his campaign had produced about Hillary that was all over the place last week.

Obama's response was interesting. He was surprisingly specific about who was to blame for the screw-up: His research team, which he denounced in unusually scalding terms. More after the jump.

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By now it's clear that one key aspect of Rudy Giuliani's game plan is to get people to see strong rhetorical support of Israel -- which he's often voiced throughout his career -- as being synomous with having strong anti-terror bona fides.

The latest example of this: Rudy met briefly today with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, The New York Times reports.

"The meeting is something of a coup for the Giuliani campaign, as the 2008 candidates compete for the support of Jewish voters," the paper says.

Rudy's efforts to push his support for Israel as evidence of anti-terrorism credentials have at times been quite overt. As we reported here recently, the Rudy campaign recently sent out a fundraising email to readers of the right-wing Jerusalem Post describing himself as tough on terror while characterizing the Dem candidates as terrorist-coddlers who can't be relied upon to defend Israel.

CQ Politics flags an interesting nugget in the new USA Today/Gallup poll. According to the survey's numbers, Al Gore would siphon equally from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, suggesting that his entry into the race wouldn't necessarily affect the outcome.

"With Gore included, Clinton still handily leads the pack at 33 percent while Obama gets 21 percent to Gore’s 18 percent, a statistical dead heat for second place," CQ says. "Take Gore out of the equation and the Gallup poll shows Clinton at 39 percent and Obama at 26 percent."

Of course, if Gore did enter the race, he'd have a chance to, you know, actually do a bit of campaigning, which might change the equation in all sorts of unforeseen ways over time.

For months now, Katrina Swett, a longtime New Hampshire Democratic activist seeking the nomination to run against first-term GOP Senator John Sununu, has been taking a heavy beating from the netroots and from liberal activists. They fault her for her vocal and repeated support of Joe Lieberman's independent re-election bid last year — something that's badly compromised her efforts to compete in the Senate primary.

Now, however, Swett appears to have changed her tune on Lieberman. Her campaign has just confirmed to us that she's reconsidered her support for the Connecticut Senator. Details after the jump.

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A lot has been written about Hillary Clinton's divisiveness and high unfavorability rating. How accurate are such perceptions? Very accurate, according to a new Forbes poll, which used a market research firm to assess how people perceived the candidate's qualities.

The poll finds Clinton dwarfing the other major candidates in negative qualities such as cold, creepy, insincere, mean and rude. For example, more than three times more people, 26%, see her as cold than do John McCain, 8%, the next major candidate. She also does similarly poorly with positive qualities like approachable and a voters ability to identify with the candidate.

Rankings after the jump.

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Okay, this is pretty interesting.

As you all know, many leading Republicans appear to believe that our military commanders are not to be subject to any sort of criticism. Ever. Last week, when Harry Reid said that General Pace was "incompetent" and allegedly said other critical things about General Petraeus, Republicans -- including John McCain, Tony Snow, and many others -- hammered away at Reid mercilessly, suggesting that he was anti-military and worse.

So it'll be interesting to see what their reaction will be to what John Edwards has now done. He's just released a statement blasting Petraeus for suggesting yesterday that we may need to remain in Iraq for many years to come. Edwards:

“General Petraeus’ comments are just the latest example of the Bush Administration’s disconnect from the reality on the ground. In order to get the Iraqi people to take responsibility for their country, we must show them that we are serious about leaving, and the best way to do that is to actually start leaving. Instead of talking about keeping our troops in Iraq for another decade, the Administration should begin bringing our troops home to the hero’s welcome they deserve."

Edwards appears to be suggesting here that Petraeus is out of touch with the "reality on the ground" in Iraq. Without getting into the specifics of the debate over the residual force favored by many leading Dems, it is interesting to see a Dem going after the General. It'll be similarly interesting to see if the other leading Dem Presidential candidates offer anything on Petraeus' comments. Our guess is that many leading Dems will view this one as an untouchable, so we bet we won't be hearing much on this score from them.

An interesting new round of polls from SurveyUSA finds that an independent candidacy by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg would, well, not really matter that much at all or appreciably affect the outcome of the 2008 contest.

Bloomberg is at or around 10% in most of the states. But even with Bloomberg in the race, those states expected to go Democratic stay Dem. And those expected to go Republican stay Republican. Swing states, meanwhile, remain up in the air between the two parties. In short, it does not appear that Bloomberg currently presents any spoiler effect, let alone a chance of a winning.

Minnesota: Clinton (D) 48%, Giuliani (R) 37%, Bloomberg (I) 7%
Wisconsin: Clinton (D) 44%, Giuliani (R) 40%, Bloomberg (I) 10%
Oregon: Clinton (D) 44%, Giuliani (R) 38%, Bloomberg (I) 11%
Washington: Clinton (D) 42%, Giuliani (R) 41%, Bloomberg (I) 11%
Iowa: Clinton (D) 42%, Giuliani (R) 37%, Bloomberg (I) 11%
California: Clinton (D) 45%, Giuliani (R) 40%, Bloomberg (I) 10%
Massachusetts: Clinton (D) 47%, Giuliani (R) 37%, Bloomberg (I) 9%
New York: Clinton (D) 49%, Giuliani (R) 32%, Bloomberg (I) 15%
Alabama: Giuliani (R) 46%, Clinton (D) 39%, Bloomberg (I) 11%
Kentucky: Giuliani (R) 42%, Clinton (D) 41%, Bloomberg (I) 10%
Texas: Giuliani (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 34%, Bloomberg (I) 10%
Virginia: Giuliani (R) 45%, Clinton (D) 40%, Bloomberg (I) 9%
Kansas: Giuliani (R) 47%, Clinton (D) 36%, Bloomberg (I) 8%
New Mexico: Clinton (D) 45%, Giuliani (R) 41%, Bloomberg (I) 8%
Missouri: Clinton (D) 44%, Giuliani (R) 39%, Bloomberg (I) 10%
Ohio: Clinton (D) 47%, Giuliani (R) 41%, Bloomberg (I) 8%

Of course, things might change a bit if Mayor Mike were to sink half a billion dollars or so into TV ads in those states. But this is where things stand right now, at any rate.

At the very end of an article on John Edwards in today's New York Times, we are given Hillaryite Paul Begala's take on John Edwards' evolving positions on Iraq over the years:

Paul Begala, a Democratic consultant who was a senior adviser to Mr. Clinton in 1992 and is now close to Mrs. Clinton, said: “In 2002, he sounded like General Patton. Now he sounds like Mahatma Gandhi.”

Yes, we know, we know, this is all in fun, but seriously, is it really all that wise for any denizen of Hillaryland to highlight her rivals' shifting positions on Iraq? After all, it isn't as if Hillary hasn't traveled a comparable distance to Edwards on the war. And as Matthew Yglesias and Atrios both note today in a different context, there isn't a heck of a lot of daylight between Hillary and Edwards and other Dems right now on what to do about Iraq, either -- both want to get out, but leave behind residual forces with vaguely defined missions. The only meaningful difference on Iraq between her and Edwards that we can discern is over how to accomplish this, with Edwards calling on Congress to send the same bill back to the President again and again.

On the other hand, if Edwards is indeed more Gandhi-like than Hillary on Iraq, this is something that would be of great interest to Dem primary voters. Perhaps Begala should enlighten all of us on the Iraq differences he sees between the two candidates.

Brownback Aide's Letter: Romney Is Not A Christian
Sam Brownback's southeastern Iowa field director, Emma Nemecek, has sent out a letter to Iowa GOP leaders containing attacks on Mitt Romney Latter-Day Saints religion. The letter asked for help "fact-checking" statement such as, "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith," and "The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches." The Brownback campaign has backed off from the letter. "It was not originated by Ms. Nemecek and the purpose was to fact-check, said spokesman Brian Hart. "But it was in violation of campaign policy and it won't happen again."

Petraeus: Don't Expect Troop Reductions In September
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said yesterday that conditions in that country will not improve enough by September to justify a drawdown of forces. The military is expected to report that month on the progress of President Bush's troop surge and will also, according to the general, examine the consequences of a withdrawal of U.S. forces given the influence of Iran and Syria. Petraeus said the current problems in the country wouldn't be solved for several years — possibly even a decade — listing the British experience in Northern Ireland as a comparison.

Obama: Religion Has A Place In Politics
"Doing the Lord's work is a thread that runs through our politics since the very beginning," Barack Obama told an Iowa crowd on Saturday — but added the important distinction that religion should be used to bring people together for good causes, not to divide. "It got hijacked," Obama said. "Part of it is because the so-called leaders of the Christian right are all too eager to exploit what divides us."

Gallup: Hillary Regains Big Lead Over Obama
Hillary Clinton has jumped back into a lead over Barack Obama in the national Gallup poll. The new poll shows Hillary leading Obama by a 32%-21% margin, compared to a poll from about two weeks ago had Obama with a one-point lead over Hillary. On the Republican side, the new poll has Rudy Giuliani with 28%, Fred Thompson at 19%, John McCain 18%, and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich with 7% apiece.

Sun-Times: Obama's Rezko Ties Greater Than Acknowledged
The Chicago Sun-Times' continuing coverage of businessman and longtime Illinois Democratic patron Tony Rezko — currently under indictment for alleged political corruption — shows that Rezko and Rezko-connected donors have raised an estimated total of $168,308 for Barack Obama over the years. Seven months ago, Obama told the paper that Rezko raised "between $50,000 and $60,000" for his campaigns. "Tony was one of the biggest fund-raisers," one source said.

McCain's Campaign-Finance Position Translates Into ... Less McCain Campaign Finances
The New York Times writes today about how John McCain's legislative positions in the Senate — dealing with issues such as campaign finance and consumer protection — has made it difficult for him to attract donations from Republican-friendly firms, especially in the military sector. McCain plans to attend 35 fundraisers this month, collecting more than $100,000 at each from small donors as he tries to pick up the pace from his last quarter totals.

Richardson Focusing On Nevada — And He's The Only One
While most of the Democratic candidates have been focusing on the traditional nominating hotspots of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Bill Richardson has been paying plenty of visits to Nevada, which is set to hold its caucus a mere five days after Iowa. "Richardson has had about as many events in the state as the three front-runners for the Democratic nomination have combined," The Washington Post writes. "The gap was illustrated starkly on Wednesday. Richardson held four events in the state, and his only competition was the wife of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Michelle, who campaigned in Las Vegas."

Kucinich Lacks Any House Support
Dennis Kucinich been active on the campaign trail, and has been working to recruit co-sponsors in Congress for his articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney, but there is apparently one thing he has not put much effort into: Recruiting endorsements from his fellow members of Congress. The one member to endorse him in his 2004 campaign, Lynn Woolsey of California, is currently neutral. And Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), who has offered to travel around Ohio with him, says he has not even sought endorsement. "He’s never asked me for an endorsement," Kaptur told Roll Call. "I don’t think he feels like he wants to pressure his colleagues."

Webb: It Was My Gun
Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) has admitted that he owns the gun that an aide carried into a Senate office building. Webb has so-far refused to comment on the incident, saying he doesn't want to affect the outcome of the case against the aide, Phillip Thompson, and his recent statement still leaves questions about how the aide was in possession of Webb's gun and two loaded magazines.

Romney On Bush: Americans Need To "Get Our Mind-Set Out Of Just Iraq."
At a campaign stop in Iowa yesterday, Mitt Romney praised President Bush's performance in office, saying that Americans need to "get our mind-set out of just Iraq" and also look at the president in terms of the economy, judicial appointments and other issues. Romney also invoked the words of Theodore Roosevelt. "I want to carry the big stick," Romney said of his proposal to increase the size of the military. "I hope I don't have to use it, but I want to make sure we have it so that people understand we are a nation of strength."

Leppert Wins Dallas Mayoralty
Businessman Tom Leppert defeated City Councilman Ed Oakley in the runoff for Dallas Mayor yesterday, winning by a 58%-42% margin. Had Oakley been elected, it would have made Dallas the largest city to elect an openly gay mayor. Oakley was supported by the Democratic Party, while Leppert had donated thousands of dollars to President Bush's past campaigns.

Biden Hits Lieberman On Iran Talk
Joe Biden lashed out at Joe Lieberman this morning on ABC's This Week, over Lieberman's talk of attacking Iran in retaliation for their government's alleged involvement in sending weapons to militias in Iraq. "Now if Joe could come up with me and tell me how he’s going to, not even being able to quell things in Iraq, how he’s going to go into a country of 72 million people, attack and not have our problems metastasize well beyond what they are now, I’d like to know what that is." Biden said defiantly.

Edwards Calls For Better Relationships With International Institutions
John Edwards attacked President Bush for showing disdain of international institutions at an Iowa event yesterday, and said that as president he would take a greater role in reaching out to the international community, such as supporting groups like the International Criminal Court. "If America wants to be a leader in the world and we want to be respected by other countries and treated in a way we like to be treated, Edwards said, "then we're going to have to show that we're willing to engage with the international community."

Poll: Obama, F. Thompson Lead In South Carolina
A new Mason-Dixon poll shows Barack Obama and Fred Thompson leading their respective primary fields in South Carolina. On the Democratic side, Obama has 34%, Hillary Clinton 25%, and John Edwards 12%. Obama leads due to a strong lead among black voters, with 41% for him to only 18% for Hillary. In the Republican primary, Thompson takes 25%, Rudy Giuliani 21%, Mitt Romney 11%, John McCain 7%, and Mike Huckabee 5%. To see a full archive of South Carolina polls this cycle, check out our Election Central Poll Tracker's South Carolina listing.

NYT: Romney Campaign Disciplined, But Sometimes Detached
The New York Times has a look at Mitt Romney's campaign style: "By any measure, Mr. Romney, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, is a master pitchman and presenter, bred in politics (his father, George, was the governor of Michigan), enriched in business and battle-tested in the Republican pariah colony of Massachusetts." But the reporter wonders if Romney is perhaps a little too perfect: "While he is climbing in the polls, some people who have seen him close up at recent events describe him as impressive but somewhat detached. He struggles at times to convey a sense that he is an accessible mortal — that he can be spontaneous, that he bears scars and can appreciate at gut-level the struggles of ordinary Americans."

Draft Shaheen Effort Mounting
In New Hampshire, powerful Democratic state Senator Peter Burling has endorsed non-candidate Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor and unsuccessful 2002 nominee for U.S. Senate, for the 2008 race against the incumbent Senator and 2002 winner John Sununu. Current candidates are Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand, Democratic activist Katrina Swett — wife of former Congressman and 1996 Senate nominee Richard Swett — and Dartmouth medical school professor and former astronaut Jay Buckey.

New York Fire Fighters And Rudy — A Rocky Relationship
The New York Times has a feature on the views of various New York City fire fighters regarding Rudy Giuliani's candidacy. Beyond his image as a hero of 9/11, fire fighters also remember disputes with Giuliani over contracts and other policies throughout his tenure as Mayor of New York City. Many of them are especially harsh, such as John Walsh, a veteran fire fighter for 21 years. "He’s been riding our coattails since 9/11 like he did something," Walsh said. "He did nothing. He showed up to funerals. So what? He’s a self-promoter. I told my wife, 'Anything that ever happens, I don’t want him at my funeral.'"