A planned mega-fundraiser for the GOP, featuring President Bush and John McCain, has now been scaled back in the face of a daunting problem: Too few people actually wanted to buy tickets.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal, fundraiser set for this Tuesday in the city's convention center failed to sell enough tickets, leading to fears that the anti-Bush protesters might end up outnumbering actual attendees.

The new plan is for the Bush-McCain fundraising effort, which will benefit both the McCain campaign and the RNC, to be held in private residences in the Phoenix area away from media coverage.

You really have to watch this ad from Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), the main primary challenger to Dem Senator Frank Lautenberg.

Andrews is running way behind in the polls, and now has an ad that is a very hard-hitting -- and perhaps desperate -- play for women voters. The message: Lautenberg ridiculed a female candidate's age.

The ad says that during Lautenberg's first campaign in 1982, he used "not so veiled language" to say "it's okay for a man to make fun of a woman's age," accusing Lautenberg of sexism in his race against GOP Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick:

Asked to cite a specific example of Lautenberg attacking Fenwick's gender, Andrews campaign manager Michael Murphy told Election Central, "I would not be able to say that he said, 'This person is incompetent to serve because she's a woman.'"

However, Murphy said of Lautenberg's age-based attacks used in that campaign: "It's virtually impossible, in projecting that message, to divorce that message from the fact that Millicent Fenwick was a woman."

The Obama campaign is criticizing Hillary for invoking the assassination of RFK while explaining why she's staying in the presidential race.

Her comments came during that Argus Leader editorial board meeting that we posted on below. Here's what she said...

...which prompted this statement from Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton...

"Senator Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign."

...and here's Hillary's subsequent clarification of her remarks...

Another prominent Hillary supporter amplifies the growing Hillary-as-veep drumbeat:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a Clinton booster, told The Post, "I am one that believes that if it works out that Senator Obama is the nominee, the strongest ticket would be Senator Clinton as vice president. No question in my mind....

"The weight of the states he carried versus the states she carried. It's different. And, therefore, if you combine them both, you've got the best electoral path."

Feinstein said she promotes an Obama-Clinton ticket with everyone she talks to.

This one's key, because someone like Feinstein has the capacity to be influential among super-dels. And any campaign to make Hillary veep would likely target the super-dels in hopes that they in turn would pressure the Obama camp to take her.

Separately, one uncommitted super-del is now also calling on Obama to do this. Senator Tom Carper of Delaware also told the Post: "I'll encourage [Obama] to ask, and if he does, for her to say yes."

During a meeting with the editorial board of the Argus Leader, Hillary appeared to accuse the Obama campaign of being behind the story CNN aired today reporting that there are "talks" between the two campaigns about her getting out of the race and possibly becoming veep.

"That's flatly untrue -- flatly, completely untrue," Hillary said when asked about "reports" of such talks. The edit board meeting is being aired live, and is still underway.

"No discussions at all," Hillary continued. "It is not anything I'm entertaining. It is nothing I've planned. It is nothing I'm prepared to engage in."

Both campaigns denied the story earlier today.

A bit later, Hillary added: "This is part of an ongoing effort to end this before it's over."

Later still, Hillary brought the hammer down: "I would look to the camp of my opponent for the source of those stories," she said.

So much for a non-aggression pact as the race draws to a close.

Late Update: It should be pointed out that the CNN story actually is explicitly sourced to people in Clinton's inner circle. What's more, Hillary's top finance chair today pushed the idea of her as veep.

Late Late Update: Here's video...

Democrats look like they may have a very good shot at capturing a major Republican-held Senate seat in a red state -- that of first-term Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina.

And to top it off, the latest piece of evidence is a new poll done by a Republican firm.

The survey, by state-level conservative think-tank the Civitas Institute, finds that Dole is barely leading her Dem challenger, state Senator Kay Hagan, at 45%-43% -- a statistical dead heat.

Other polling has shown this to be a close race, as well. With the Senate GOP being badly under-funded compared to the Dems, it can't be good for them that they're now having to play on defense in practically every part of the country.

In a few moments, Hillary will sit down for an interview with the editorial board of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

You can watch her meeting live by clicking right here.

If you're so inclined.

Barack Obama's call for negotiations with hostile foreign leaders has been hammered particularly hard by John McCain among Florida's Cuban community, a politically powerful demographic in the important swing state.

Now Obama is set to rebut McCain's attacks in a speech to the Cuban American National Foundation, scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m., in which he's going to offer a vigorous defense of his position and actually try to win them over.

"Now I know what the easy thing is to do for American politicians," Obama will say, according to prepared excerpts. "Every four years, they come down to Miami, they talk tough, they go back to Washington, and nothing changes in Cuba. That's what John McCain did the other day. He joined the parade of politicians who make the same empty promises year after year, decade after decade."

"Instead of offering a strategy for change, he chose to distort my position, embrace George Bush's, and continue a policy that's done nothing to advance freedom for the Cuban people."

CNN reported this morning that there are some kind of "talks" taking place between the Obama and Clinton campaigns about the possibility that she might leave the race and become veep.

The network claimed that the Clinton camp was pushing three "scenarios" it was envisioning for the future.

Well, I've just spoken to both campaigns about this. And their denials couldn't be more adamant.

Here's what Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson sent me:

1) There have been no discussions with the Obama campaign

2) The only scenario being discussed by this campaign is Senator Clinton's nomination as President

3) The report is 100% false

And here is what Obama spokesperson Bill Burton said:

This is something that I agree with Howard on 100%.

If I didn't know better, I'd say those sound like denials...

In a move that could foreshadow a public push from the Hillary forces to get Barack Obama to invite her on the ticket, Hillary's top campaign fundraising official said in an interview that there's a "risk" that Hillary's political and financial supporters won't get behind Obama in time for him to win in November if she's passed over for the veep slot.

The fundraiser, businessman Hassan Nemazee, is Hillary's leading finance chair and one of the most influential money men in the party. He's the first prominent Hillary campaign official to raise the possiblity of an Obama loss should she not be invited on the ticket, and his comments suggests that this argument could emerge as central to any Clinton camp push to make her veep.

"There's a desire on the part of the party to come together under any circumstances, and Hillary and her supporters will do everything in their power to help Obama win, should he become the nominee, whether or not she's on the ticket," Nemazee said to me this morning.

"But there's a risk that if she isn't invited on the ticket, Hillary's political and financial supporters may not feel compelled to be as integrated and involved in the Obama campaign in order to provide the maximum support that he'll need to prevail in November."

"We have to recognize that we're talking about the month of June, versus a normal process that historically would have begun in the month of March," Nemazee said. "Time is not your friend. A dream ticket would be the best way to ensure both unity and full and active support, financially and politically, for the ticket to be in the strongest position to win in the fall."

Nemazee went on, "It goes without saying that this argument is predicated on the fact that the single most important aspect of Senator Obama's decision is who is able to serve as president in a moment's notice should that need arise. And it is clear that Hillary Clinton fills that role."

Nemazee's comments -- the farthest any Hillary campaign official has gone in this direction to date -- come after The New York Times reported this morning that "friends" of Bill Clinton say he's informally floated the possibility of her in the veep slot.

More on this soon.

After a relative lull in super-del movement yesterday, Obama has picked up some new momentum this morning with two new endorsements -- including a defection from Hillary Clinton's column.

The two new supporters are Congressmen Jim Costa and Dennis Cardoza, both of California. Cardoza used to be a Hillary backer.

According to the Obama camp's numbers, he only needs 59 more delegates to clinch the nomination, not counting Michigan and Florida.

The score thus far today: Obama +2, Clinton -1. According to DemConWatch, Obama has 1,964 delegates to Clinton's 1,780.

Republicans may now have a tough time on their hands defending a Senate seat in, of all places, Mississippi.

The new Research 2000 poll, commissioned by Daily Kos: Appointed Sen. Roger Wicker (R) 46%, former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (D) 42%. Margin of error: ±4%.

Mississippi would normally be considered beyond reach for the Democrats, but a lot of doubt has been cast upon that normal assumption by the recent special election win in Wicker's former House district. And the general circumstances of this year, with Wicker's recent appointment to the seat and an under-funded national Senate GOP organization, could open up new opportunities for the Dems.

In the wake of John McCain's public rejection of John Hagee's endorsement, a prize he had sought for some time up until the Texas primary, we here at TPM have assembled a timeline documenting their political relationship from 2007 to the present.

Check it out here.

Besides the usual Republican attacks on Al Franken's policy positions and overall goofy comedic personality, the contents of his old comedy routines have now been declared fair game by the Minnesota GOP. The state party has now put out a scathing attack on Franken, specifically citing graphic sexual humor in a piece he once wrote.

The state party's press release specifically cites a piece Franken wrote for Playboy in 2000, entitled "Porn-O-Rama," about a visit to a fictional sex institute.

The press release resents the idea that the subject matter at hand can be declared funny: "We believe there is a pattern in your writings and words that seem to suggest you believe you can continue to represent women as playthings and objects and then scurry behind the defense that it is simply 'comedy' or 'satire.'"

In a sign that Democrats are now circling the wagons around Barack Obama as the party's nominee, Joe Biden has written a guest column in the Wall St. Journal rebutting an earlier piece by Joe Lieberman, which attacked Obama's credibility on national security. Biden has not formally endorsed a candidate in the race, but his public defense of Obama is telling.

"Sen. Obama is right that the U.S. should be willing to engage Iran on its nuclear program without 'preconditions' - i.e. without insisting that Iran first freeze the program, which is the very subject of any negotiations," Biden writes. "He has been clear that he would not become personally involved until the necessary preparations had been made and unless he was convinced his engagement would advance our interests."

John McCain's campaign has released his medical records, from the last eight years, in an effort to deal with unease about the candidate's age. The documents show the candidate is in very good overall health.

Regarding his past experiences with melanoma, probably the single biggest concern, McCain's dermatologist said: "We don't have a crystal ball, but we have no way to say anything at the present time would preclude him from running for office."

The Republicans are out of luck in the open House seat of Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY). Their favored candidate, Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, has now opted against running. The GOP's attention will now turn to state Sen. Andrew Lanza and county clerk Stephen Fiala, both lesser candidates.

Had Donovan run, he would have been heavily favored to win the seat, which was the only New York City district to vote for President Bush in 2004.

His decision is part of a pattern the NRCC has had to deal with in candidate recruitment: If the downsides of defeat aren't bad enough, victory brings the "reward" of serving in what is expected to be a powerless minority. It's difficult, to say the least, to get up-and-coming local Republicans to sign on to something like that.

John McCain has now publicly rejected the support of yet another powerful right-wing preacher, Rod Parsley of Ohio, after rejecting the endorsement of John Hagee earlier today.

McCain said of Parsley, a self-proclaimed "Christocrat" who has declared that America was founded with the mission of destroying Islam: "I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn't endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement."

Parsley is in many ways a different case from Hagee, who at the end of the day can only deliver votes in what is already the safe Republican state of Texas. Parsley controls an evangelical vote operation that was pivotal in President Bush's 2004 Ohio victory. If Parsley were to view this as anything more than a pro forma rejection for the sake of appearances, it could have very real consequences down the road.

In a sign that Obama is shifting more aggressively into general election mode, the Illinois Senator will undertake a tour of three purple states -- New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado -- on the first three days of next week, I've learned from a senior Obama campaign aide.

Obama will visit the Las Cruces area on Monday, the Las Vegas area on Tuesday, and and the Denver area on Wednesday, the Obama aide confirms.

The tour will draw attention to three states that Camp Obama has argued he can run well in this fall -- an assertion that's key to deflecting Hillary's case to super-delegates that she's more electable in a general election.

More to the point, it will continue to broadcast the signal -- as have his visits to other general election states -- that the Obama camp views the primary as effectively over and that his showdown with McCain has begun in earnest.

Earlier today, John McCain responded to Obama's criticism of him for not supporting Jim Webb's 21st Century G.I. bill by saying: I served in the military; you didn't.

Here's Obama's response:

"I am proud to stand with Senator Webb and a bipartisan coalition to give our veterans the support and opportunity they deserve. It's disappointing that Senator McCain and his campaign used this issue to launch yet another lengthy personal, political attack instead of debating an honest policy difference. He should know that this is not about John McCain or Barack Obama -- it's about giving our veterans a real chance to afford four years of college without harming retention. Senator Webb's bipartisan bill will do this, and the bill that John McCain supports would not. These endless diatribes and schoolyard taunts from the McCain campaign do nothing to advance the debate about what matters to the American people."

This is about the people impacted by our policy decisions, "not about John McCain or Barack Obama," he says -- trying to strike at McCain's effort to make the G.I. bill debate about his war heroism.

The McCain campaign, of course, will try to make the conversation all about his bio for the next five months.

Here's some audio of a stunning rebuke that a top Hillary supporter gave her in response to her comparisons of the Michigan/Florida controversy to the country's historical civil rights struggles.

The supporter, New York Governor David Paterson, said flatly on a local radio show that Hillary was starting to show "a little desperation."

Listen below:

"I would say at this point we're starting to see a little desperation on the part of the woman who I support and I'll support until whatever time she makes a different determination," Paterson told a New York radio station, clearly weighing his words very carefully.

On the Michigan primary in particular: "You have to rule out the undecideds in Michigan. You have to assume she won 100 percent to nothing in Michigan. I don't think anybody in their right mind would do that, nor would they see it as a civil rights issue."

The controversy surrounding John Hagee's endorsement has finally gotten to John McCain. In the wake of new quotes being circulated by the Huffington Post in which Hagee called Hitler an instrument of God's will, McCain has now rejected Hagee's support.

"Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them," McCain told CNN in a statement. "I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

That matter aside, McCain was sure to bring this back to Barack Obama, insisting that his active effort to get Hagee's support originally was not nearly as bad as Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright.

"I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright's extreme views. But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for twenty years. I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today."

Late Update: Hagee has now issued a formal withdrawal of his endorsement, but it reads more like he's stepping aside rather than actually dropping his support:

"I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues. I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Senator McCain for President effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign," he said in a statement.

"I hope that the Senator McCain will accept this withdrawal so that he may focus on the issues that are most important to America and the world."

This is noteworthy: John McCain is now officially making a campaign issue of Obama's lack of military service.

On the Senate floor today, Obama hit McCain for not supporting Webb's 21st Century G.I. bill. In response, McCain released a lengthy statement. Here's the key line, buried in the middle of it:

I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.

McCain is constantly said by pundits to be reluctant to bring up his Vietnam experiences in a political context. But this is now the third day in a row he's done this.

Yesterday and the day before he made oblique, but obvious, references to his torture in captivity. And today -- to my knowledge for the first time -- McCain directly attacked Obama for his lack of military service.

It's not an exaggeration to say that the McCain campaign message, boiled down as succinctly as possible, is this: "I'm more of a man than you are." Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment.

McCain's full statement after the jump.

Read more »

National Dems are bullish about expanding their Senate majority, given that they're dramatically out-raising the GOP and that they have the Republicans on defense in multiple states.

And here comes the first wave of ads from Dem Senate candidates, a sign that Dems are aggressively shifting into general election mode, even if the presidential race hasn't quite finished yet.

Here's the new ad from Jeanne Shaheen, who is running ahead of incumbent John Sununu in the New Hampshire Senate race:

More ads after the jump.

Read more »

John McCain might just have to work a little hard to secure the electoral votes of his home state of Arizona, a new poll from Southwestern firm Behavior Research Center (no link) finds.

McCain (R) 50%, Obama (D) 39%
McCain (R) 51%, Clinton (D) 36%.

Sample size: 630 likely voters, weighted for age, sex, race and party identification.
Margin of error: ±4%.

While this is a double-digit lead, it is still uncomfortably close for a home-state candidate -- indeed, an incumbent Senator seeking re-election with those numbers would be considered a possible target.

Even if McCain is still favored to win Arizona, any effort he has to put in to lock it down is time and energy that could have spent elsewhere, and it also means down-ticket Dems will need less ticket-splitters to win their races.

The Senate just voted to pass Jim Webb's 21st Century version of the G.I. bill, which would greatly expand educational benefits to veterans.

Guess who skipped it?

John McCain.

McCain, who touts his support for veterans, had previously declined to support the bill. He offered another version of it so he'd be seen as having tried to offer an alternate solution.

McCain came under pressure from real live veterans and others to back the Webb bill. And rather than vote against it, he skipped the vote instead.

Both Hillary and Obama voted for it, and it passed 75-22.

On a conference call with reporters just now, Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson flatly rejected the notion that Camp Hillary is pushing for a full seating of Florida and Michigan in order to ensure that Obama's win is seen as somehow tainted should the delegations not be seated.

Wolfson was asked by Slate's John Dickerson if an Obama victory would be "counterfeit" if the delegations aren't seated -- and the votes aren't counted -- in the manner Hillary hopes.

"I wouldn't use the word you used," Wolfson answered. "This is not about tainting the nominating process. It's about an effort to secure maximum participation from everyone who came out and voted."

Wolfson added: "That's not what Senator Clinton is thinking, not what we're thinking. I wouldn't characterize it in the way that you characterized it."

That would appear to be a flat-out assertion that Hillary's position is that even if she doesn't get the votes counted as she hopes to, Obama's victory would be nonetheless completely legitimate.

Late Update: Here's the audio from the conference call:

Click To Play

Barack Obama is now floating a compromise on the Florida situation, telling the St. Petersburg Times that one idea would be to cut the delegations' sizes in half -- a step back from his previous stance of splitting the delegates 50-50 between himself and Clinton, but a far cry from the Hillary camp's insistence upon seating them in full.

Obama also rejected the idea that the Florida primary represented a true test of electability or popular support: "In all these races if I didn't campaign at all and this had just been a referendum on name recognition, Sen. Clinton would be the nominee."

The Republican National Committee is hiring one of the party's toughest oppo-researchers -- former Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin, who was also at the center of the U.S. Attorney scandal -- to dig into Barack Obama's past and unearth info to damage his general election candidacy, a senior Republican operative confirms to me.

Griffin played a lead role in the GOP oppo operation during the 2004 campaign, unearthing info that damaged John Kerry's presidential bid. According to the senior GOP operative, who's familiar with Griffin's past work, he was instrumental in unearthing a videotape of a 1971 interview that Kerry did in which he appeared to confirm that he renounced his medals to protest the Vietnam War.

The video was subsequently used in an ad by the Swift Boat Vets, whose work was renounced by McCain. The McCain campaign -- and the RNC -- declined to comment on Griffin's hiring.

"Griffin is basically going to consult for the Republican National Committee on working out Obama's vulnerabilities," the senior Republican said, somewhat euphemistically. "The hope is to do to Obama what folks successfully did with John Kerry."

Griffin tends to describe his own work in fairly bellicose terms. "We think of ourselves as the creators of ammunition in a war," Griffin once said. "We make the bullets."

Read more »

A new set of polls from Quinnipiac gives some credibility to the Clinton campaign's argument that Hillary is the more electable Democrat. She does better than Obama against McCain in the big three swing states, and he's currently running behind in two out of the three:

Florida
McCain (R) 45%, Obama (D) 41%
Clinton (D) 48%, McCain (R) 41%

Ohio
McCain (R) 44%, Obama (D) 40%
Clinton (D) 48%, McCain (R) 41%

Pennsylvania
Obama (D) 46%, McCain (R) 40%
Clinton (D) 50%, McCain (R) 37%

It's unlikely that these numbers alone would be enough to get super-delegates to overturn the pledged-delegate majority for Obama, but it does lend weight to Hillary's electability argument.

In another sign that the Obama campaign views the race for the nomination as essentially over, Obama has reportedly begun his search for a running mate, tapping former Kerry adviser Jim Johnson to head up the selection process.

This is obviously a subject the Obama camp can't discuss publicly at this point, with Hillary Clinton still in the race and arguing that she is the more electable Democrat.

John McCain will release his health records tomorrow, an important step in dealing with any unease that the 71-year old might not be physically up to the presidency -- and a step he didn't take during the primary season, which in helped allow concerns about his age to linger.

McCain said the release has been delayed by a concern for accuracy and thoroughness on the part of his doctors: "They're going to be saying, 'We have reviewed these records and these are the facts.' And I think it's very clear that they want to make sure that every single thing is right."

Check out this funny ad from a group called Coloradans for Economic Growth, promoting Republican candidate Bob Schaffer in the state's top-tier Senate race. The ad attempts to sell the right-wing Schaffer to voters concerned about the environment:

It would appear that what business interests think environmentalist voters want to see is ... a bunch of flowery images in what otherwise looks like a Nasonex commercial.

Barack Obama has lagged behind John McCain in Florida, with a much poorer performance than Hillary Clinton, and a new piece this morning in the New York Times sheds some light on one factor: Jews in Florida, a normally loyal Demoratic constituency, still feel distrust of Obama.

Obama is taking some steps to defuse the situation, speaking today at a synagogue in Boca Raton in order to let voters there meet him up close, something he couldn't do before when boycotting the state's rogue primary.

"Because of a dispute over moving the date of the state's primary, Mr. Obama and the other Democratic candidates did not campaign in Florida," the paper explains. "In his absence, novel and exotic rumors about Mr. Obama have flourished. Among many older Jews, and some younger ones, as well, he has become a conduit for Jewish anxiety about Israel, Iran, anti-Semitism and race."

John McCain is taking a major step in the general election campaign, as he prepares to meet this weekend at his Sedona ranch with three individuals who have been mentioned as potential running mates: Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and his former rival Mitt Romney.

McCain has reportedly taken a very hands-on approach in the selection of his running mate, so the stakes will be very high this weekend for the three men involved. Of those three, each offer pluses and minuses: Crist would bring a big state but is distrusted by some conservatives; Jindal is young and would be a non-white person on the Republican ticket, but has only been governor for less than a year; Romney became a favorite of establishment conservatives during his campaign, but the two men also came to dislike each other in the process.

The fundraising figures for April show that the Democratic party committees continue to dominate in total cash-on-hand, despite a surge of support for the Republicans as they settled on John McCain as their nominee.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee out-raised the National Republican Congressional Committee for the month, with $5 million for the DCCC to $4.2 million for the NRCC. The real edge is in cash-on-hand -- the DCCC has $45.3 million on hand, compared to only $6.7 million for the NRCC, an advantage that will have big ramifications this Fall.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee just edged out the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the month, at $4.3 million to the DSCC's $4.2 million. However, the DSCC maintains a cash-on-hand advantage of $37 million to the NRSC's $19.4 million.

The only good area for the GOP is the Republican National Committee, which has vastly outdraised the DNC. The RNC took in $20 million for the month, compared to only $4.8 million for the DNC. And the RNC now has a cash advantage of $41 million against the DNC's $4.4 million.

Howard Dean's 50-State Strategy of party-building, while effective in many ways, has had the downside of the DNC not raising an awful lot of money for itself. In addition, the RNC also has an advantage of being able to court big-money donors who want to go above and beyond any limits in donating to John McCain as the official Republican nominee, while the Democratic fundraising game is still very much a battle between the Obama and Clinton campaigns.

Rep. Tom Cole's authority as head of the House GOP's campaign committee is being curtailed in the wake of three defeats in red House districts, defeats which threatened his job security as NRCC chair.

A Republican source tells Election Central that Cole and Minority Leader John Boehner announced to the House GOP Conference several changes in approach -- most notably that two auditors will be appointed to provide oversight over the committee.

Read more »

Hillary advisers have publicly said that they expect a Dem nominee to be chosen by early June, but it looks like Hillary is envisioning a scenario under which this contest could go all the way to the convention, after all:

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Hillary Rodham Clinton says she is willing to take her fight to seat Florida and Michigan delegates to the convention if the two states want to go that far. In an interview with The Associated Press, Clinton was asked whether she would support the states if they continue the fight.

The presidential candidate said Wednesday, "Yes I will. I will, because I feel very strongly about this."

Could this really happen? Could Hillary take the battle over Florida and Michigan all the way to the convention? It's possible, but unlikely.

The next major step along the way is May 31st, when the Rules and Bylaws Committee meets to consider what to do about Florida and Michigan. For reasons that we'll explain here in more detail tomorrow, it's likely that the RBC will successfully vote on some sort of solution to get them seated in some fashion.

If that doesn't happen, the next stop is the Credentials Committee in late June. Hillary supporters are outnumbered on the Cred Committee by Obama supporters. DNC chair Howard Dean also controls a bloc of members. In theory, if the Cred Committee didn't reach a solution to Hillary's liking, her backers could introduce a minority report at the convention.

But this is unlikely to happen in reality. She says she'll take it this far if the state delegations want to, which seems unlikely. And without the states as cover, her backers on the committee seem unlikely to take this step, too, because such an effort would almost certainly fail, and her backers -- some of whom have their own careers to think about -- would take the blame for the ensuing chaos.

In short, it's highly unlikely that this will come down to the convention. But it's not impossible. More on this in some detail tomorrow.

National Dems are breathing a sigh of relief today, because the results of a GOP primary in Oregon yesterday suggest that Dems are now more likely to hang on to a key seat in an open Dem-held swing district.

That's because in last night's voting in Oregon's Fifth district, a conservative businessman named Mike Erickson prevailed over his GOP challenger -- and Erickson is alleged to have a rather colorful past that, well, makes him a less than ideal GOP candidate.

Specifically, Erickson has been accused of impregnating a younger woman and paying for her abortion back in 2000.

Read more »

It seems safe to predict that John McCain will soon be bringing up his torture experiences every single day.

Fhat for the past two days running now, McCain has gone out of his way to make apparent references to his POW past. From his statement attacking Obama today:

I have news for Senator Obama: I have met some very bad people before in my life.

From a McCain campaign spokesperson yesterday, responding to criticism from Bill Richardson:

John McCain has not only talked tough but been tough in encounters with more bad guys than Bill Richardson will ever meet.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's version.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with McCain talking about his bio as much as he wants. But as Atrios notes, pundits continue to claim that he's uncomfortable bringing up his Vietnam experiences in political contexts.

That's a message that McCain obviously wants to promulgate -- and so the above references to his POW status are veiled ones

Yesterday we had a bit of fun with John McCain's claim that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the leader of Iran.

McCain has been whacking Barack Obama for his willingness to meet with Ahmadinejad, presumably focusing specifically on Ahmadinejad because he's the anti-semitic crackpot in Iran who's most visible to the American people.

But the other day journalist Joe Klein grilled McCain, asking him why he keeps parroting the name Ahmadinejad when many experts think Iranian foreign policy is in fact controlled by supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. McCain scoffed at this notion.

But now here's an excerpt from McCain's latest statement out today hitting Obama on Iran...

"He now claims that some 'fear' to 'negotiate' with the likes of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who has called Israel a 'stinking corpse' or Ayatollah Khamenei, who called Israel a 'cancerous tumor.' I have news for Senator Obama: I have met some very bad people before in my life. It is not fear that drives my opposition to unconditional meetings with Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, Kim Jong Il, and Raul Castro..."

Khamenei exists! Ahmadinejad isn't the only leader of Iran, after all! McCain said so himself. Glad that's settled.

Looks like McCain took Klein's lesson to heart. Sort of, anyway.

Late Update: McCain's full statement after the jump.

Read more »

Okay, here's some more detail on Hillary's fundraising numbers for April. The $22 million they announced raising for last month doesn't tell the story.

The bottom line: The Hillary campaign is in the red right now.

Here's the rundown. The Hillary campaign confirms to me that when you factor in Hillary's expenditures, right now they have $6.7 million in cash on hand for use in the primary.

Meanwhile, Camp Hillary's current filing shows that they're over $19 million in debt.

So it would appear that the Hillary campaign is over $11 million in the red right now. It's not quite that simple, though.

That's because, as the Hillary campaign points out, she has lent the campaign roughly $11.4 million which she doesn't necessarily have to pay back right now.

So, interpreting these numbers in the most charitable way possible for her, the campaign's debts -- not including her own loans -- are roughly $8 million.

Since that's more than the cash-on-hand she has for the primary, that means that the campaign is at best a couple million in the red.

And again, that's not including the loans to herself. By contrast, the Obama campaign has over $37 million on hand for the primary.

So that's where we are. Not a pretty picture for her. And this is certainly not something that will help make any kind of case to super-dels, to put it mildly.

The Obama campaign has just released its official delegate tally after last night's voting. They claim they are now 62 delegates from securing the nomination.

Here are their totals from last night:

Oregon: Obama 31, Clinton 21

Kentucky: Obama 14, Clinton 37

And here are the Obama camp's totals overall:

Edwards pledged delegates now supporting Obama: 9

Obama Pledged Delegates: 1,647.5 (20.5 more than needed for the majority)

Obama Superdelegates: 307.5

Obama Total Delegates: 1,964

That puts them within 62 total delegates of 2026, which the Obama camp is pointing to as the magic number. The Hillary campaign, of course, is disputing this, arguing that Florida and Michigan should be seated.

Right now, we can't be certain of how the Rules and Bylaws Committee will rule on Florida and Michigan on May 31 or how this will affect the nomination battle. Suffice it to say, however, that as Obama's total continues to mount, it becomes more and more likely that he will secure the nomination even if the RBC sat the two states' delegations in precisely the manner Hillary hopes.

And that's something that very likely won't happen, anyway.

A new Zogby poll gives Barack Obama a truly unreal national lead over Hillary Clinton.

The numbers: Obama 59%, Clinton 33%.

Holy outlier, Batman!

Yesterday we brought you a ridiculous attack ad being run by Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) that ties his Dem opponent to the "San Francisco values" of Nancy Pelosi -- a sign that the incumbent sensed he was in serious danger, to be going up negative so early.

Well, guess what? A new poll confirms Graves is vulnerable, but still ahead in the race.

The new numbers from SurveyUSA: Graves (R) 49%, Barnes (D) 39%.

This race is being closely watched by the national parties because it offers Dems a chance at knocking off a four-term incumbent, which would be a major victory. And for his part, Graves is in the sub-50% danger zone -- so expect to see more of that wacky ad and others like it, in order to whip up the GOP base.

A few weeks back Hillary took some heat for saying that John McCain had passed the "commander in chief test," prompting some to point out that this could prove rather helpful to McCain in a general election.

Now Hillary adviser Sidney Blumenthal has veered similarly off the Dem message for the general, warning his party that painting McCain as a "McSame" continuation of Bush will fail:

Bucking the Democratic National Committee's talking points that characterize a potential McCain administration as tantamount to a third Bush term, Blumenthal told our Liz Halloran that running on that strategy in the fall would be a mistake.

"I understand people's political reasons for doing that," he said. "I think it's more helpful to describe [political opponents] as they are." Bottom line, Blumenthal calls the strategy "a mistake and adds: "The public doesn't see [McCain] that way. That's a hard sell."

Whether Blumenthal is right or wrong about this -- my take is that the jury's out on whether the public will buy this, because the media has seared the "McCain is a maverick" line into the electorate's brain for 15 years or more -- it certainly won't make him any friends at the DNC.

In a sign that they're trying to seize some momentum after the primaries last night, the Hillary Clinton camp is first out of the gate with a super-delegate endorsement this morning, coming from Ohio add-on delegate Craig Bashein.

Barack Obama still leads in super-dels, though, which are essentially Hillary's last chance to win the nomination since he clinched the pledged-del majority.

The latest super-delegate numbers from DemConWatch: Obama 304.5, Clinton 278.5. With both pledged and supers added together, Obama leads with 1,961 against Hillary's 1,780.

Not counting Michigan and Florida, Obama only needs 64 more delegates to clinch the nomination -- and adding the two rogue states into the mix wouldn't radically change the math, either.

Late Update: Obama has picked up his own super, Congressman Joe Courtney of Connecticut.

The Oregon exit polls lend a bit more weight to the theory that Barack Obama's real problem is more with Appalachia than it is with working class whites in general, as the Hillary campaign has repeatedly suggested.

In Kentucky yesterday, Hillary slaughtered Obama among these voters. But the Oregon exits show a different story.

Obama beat Hillary by sizable margins among all ages of white voters except those 60 and older. And he beat Hillary among voters with no college degree, too -- and since the state is overwhelmingly white, these voters are the ones he's supposed to have trouble with.

Late Update: The exits also show that Obama also beat Hillary by seven points among voters making less than $50,000 (though she won among voters making between $15,000 and $30,000).

What's more, Obama also won among voters from a household with a union member. I've edited the above to make that point.

Late Late Update: Mark Blumenthal, over at Pollster.com, has some caveats about Oregon's exits.

Barack Obama just got some good election news to balance out his big loss tonight in Kentucky: Almost immediately after voting ended in Oregon, the news organizations have called it as a big win for him in this particular swing state.

This should further pad out Obama's numbers on pledged delegates, with the campaign already having claimed a full majority of pledged dels after Kentucky alone.

Obama's speech in Iowa is now underway, and as expected, he declares that he's clinched a majority of pledged delegates, framing it as a major milestone reached after a very long journey that began in this state 15 months ago.

But because of today's solemn news about Ted Kennedy, and because there's no percentage in over-hyping tonight's achievement now that he's on his way to winning the nomination, he isn't declaring victory. From the prepared remarks...

And yet, in spite of all the doubt and disappointment -- or perhaps because of it -- you came out on a cold winter's night in numbers that this country has never seen, and you stood for change. And because you did, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And tonight, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

I think Obama got the balance right here -- he's telegraphing the significance of tonight's achievement without insisting that it's conclusive. Even so, his declaration is unmistakable: This is the metric that matters, and according to this metric, he has effectively won.

Of course, this is being disputed by the Hillary campaign, which is calling for the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations, and it's unclear as yet what the operative committees will decide on this score and how it will affect the overall nomination battle.

Obama also delivered a tribute to Hillary that took stock of the history-making dimensions of her candidacy, an implicit acknowledgment of the hard work of unifying the party that lies ahead...

The road here has been long, and that is partly because we've traveled it with one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office. In her thirty-five years of public service, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has never given up on her fight for the American people, and tonight I congratulate her on her victory in Kentucky. We have had our disagreements during this campaign, but we all admire her courage, her commitment and her perseverance. No matter how this primary ends, Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and yours will come of age.

Full speech after the jump.

Read more »

A number of you have written in to ask whether the $22 million raised by Hillary in April includes the $6.4 million she lent herself in recent weeks. She lent her campaign $5 million on April 1; the rest came in May.

Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson confirms that the $22 million does not include the loans.

Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson confirms that she raised $22 million last month.

Obama raised over $31 million, putting him nearly $10 million ahead of her. Interestingly, that's actually a smaller spread than in March and February: Obama outraised her by around $20 million in both months.

This is probably due to the fact that Obama donors know he's basically got the race sewed up. Even though his $31 million is an extraordinary pull, it's dwarfed by his huge haul in each of the previous two months.

Meanwhile, Hillary's numbers have pretty much held steady, albeit at a lower level.

Late Update: Keep in mind that this total is supposed to include the $10 million she raised in the 24 hours after her Pennsylvania victory on April 22.

Late Late Update: Some of you have asked whether this includes money Hillary lent her own campaign. It's a good question. She lent her campaign $5 million on April 1st; the rest of her loan came in May. We're trying to determine whether the $22 million includes the loan.

Late Late Late Update: Wolfson confirms that the $22 million does not include the loan.

Just as Hillary begins her victory speech in Kentucky, the Obama campaign's April fundraising numbers land in our inbox.

Obama raised $31 million last month for the primary, with an additional $600,000 for the general election. Other numbers:

New donors in April: 200,000

94% of contributions were under $200

93% of contributions were $100 or less

77% of contributions were $50 or less

52% of contributions were $25 or less

Number of donors to the Obama campaign overall at the end of April: 1.475 million

Number of contributions given: 2,929,000 million

Average donation: $91

Cash on Hand: $37.3 million (plus an additional $9.2 million for the general election)

McCain raised $18 million in April, a little over half of Obama's haul. No hard numbers yet from Hillary.

Hmmm. This isn't very nice.

On CNN a few moments ago, analyst Jeffery Toobin argued that Hillary was right when she said in an interview that coverage of the race has been "sexist," buttressing his case by pointing to a recent newspaper column suggesting that Hillary is a "white bitch." Toobin, unsurprisingly, took issue with this, saying that it was "appalling" that this was considered acceptable.

GOP consultant Alex Castellanos, someone who presumably was on CNN's panel because he'd been invited by the network's producers, disagreed. Check out what he had to say about it...

"Some women, by the way, are named that, and it's accurate," Castellanos said. He went on to buttress his case by pointing out that Hillary is "abrasive, aggressive, irritating."

What's amusing about this is that Castellanos actually argued that it's sometimes accurate to call a woman a "bitch" as a way of making the claim that Hillary was wrong to argue that there's sexism in our political coverage. Pretty twisted stuff.

Hard to imagine that CNN would invite this gallant and chivalrous fellow back on the air, isn't it...

All the networks call Kentucky for Hillary, seconds after the polls close. The exit polls suggest a two-to-one margin.

More from the exits:

Only 33 percent of Hillary backers in the state say they'd vote for Obama in the general election.

Of course, Kentucky's electorate is among the most conservative: Only a third of voters called themselves liberal.

Late Update: With nearly a third reporting, Hillary is leading Obama by nearly 20 points, 58%-39%.

Another sign of a thaw as the end approaches?

Top Hillary adviser Terry McAuliffe, on Fox tonight, appears to go slightly off-message, saying that, yes, Obama can win the critical swing states in a general election...

"If Senator Obama's the nominee, can we win these states? Of course," McAuliffe said.

To be fair to Camp Hillary, her advisers have generally stopped short of saying Obama can't win in these states. They've generally stuck to the message that Hillary is a better candidate in those states (though Mark Penn at one point said flatly that Obama can't win the general).

But Hillary advisers have of course tried to sow fear among super-dels and others about Obama's prospects in these states, and McAuliffe's comments are tonally a bit out of sync with that.

This is a fun one: It appears John McCain has just given an interview in which he inadvertently revealed a key flaw in his attack on Barack Obama over Iran.

McCain has been hammering Obama for supposedly being willing to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Time magazine's Joe Klein yesterday grilled McCain about this, asking why he keeps bringing up Ahmadinejad, when the leader of Iran thought to control foreign policy is supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

McCain scoffed at this, saying that the president -- Ahmadinejad-- is the leader of Iran. But here's what McCain said today when he answered a foreign policy question in an interview with Essence magazine...

McCain: Absolutely. And President Roosevelt didn't sit across the table from Hitler and President Reagan didn't sit across from the Ayatollah Khomeini and President Kennedy didn't sit across the table from Fidel Castro. The president of Iran two days ago called Israel a stinking corpse. What are you going to talk about when you sit across from him? I don't believe Senator Obama has the experience and judgment. That is what will be the debate in this campaign.

During the 80s, Khomeini was the supreme leader of Iran. So back then, according to McCain, the leader of Iran -- the one a president would negotiate with, if he were so inclined -- was the supreme leader.

Now, suddenly, the president, not the supreme leader, is the leader of Iran -- because, conveniently, it allows McCain to link Obama to Ahmadinejad, the fellow spouting all the hateful rhetoric.

So which is it?

Not a huge deal, but a telling moment indeed.

Okay, we've got some more for you on that wonderful attack ad we posted on earlier that Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) is running -- it connects his Dem challenger to Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco values, and (gasp!) young people dancing to club music.

The ad is worth dwelling on because it's a sign that this race is going to be a top priority for both national parties this Fall.

Read more »

CNN sends over an advance transcript of an interview Obama just got through taping with Wolf Blitzer.

In it, Obama repeatedly hits back at McCain's foreign policy attacks, and broadens his case that a McCain administration would be nothing but a continuation of Bush's failed policies. Key quote:

John McCain essentially wants to continue George Bush's policies of not talking to leaders we don't like and not talking to countries we don't like....the bottom line here, Wolf, is that John McCain wants to pursue policies that George Bush has pursued for the last eight years with no success. When it comes to Cuba, what he is now saying is essentially the policy we've pursued for 50 years and the Cuban people are not more free.

And the notion that we would keep doing the same thing over and over and over again when it doesn't work and that somehow is a sign of toughness is extraordinarily naive, I think does a disservice to the Cuban people. That's the kind of break from the Bush administration that I want to initiate when I am president of the United States.

Given that McCain's onslaught of foreign policy criticism is unlikely to abate anytime soon, the question is this:

How much time should Obama spend in the weeds rebutting the substance (such as it is) of McCain's attacks, and how can he balance it with his efforts to steer the conversation back on to offense, back to the larger truism that McCain represents nothing but a continuation of Bush's catastrophically failed policies?

How can Obama cut through the clutter of accusations and slurs and focus the conversation on his broader effort to, in effect, change ingrained conceptions of what constitutes genuine "toughness" on foreign policy?

Full transcript of the interview after the jump.

Read more »

The Hillary campaign announces that she's picked up a super-delegate today, her first of the week: Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

But check out this quote from Coakley, which has an after-the-fact ring to it...

"Regardless of the outcome of the primary, Mrs. Clinton's energy, stamina, and resolve have changed the course of history for women seeking office, including the presidency, and I dare say, have changed the course of history of Presidential politics in the United States. It is for these reasons that I will vote for Hillary Clinton in August at the Nominating Convention."

"Regardless of the outcome of the primary..."

MSNBC's latest totals: Obama has 1,906 overall delegates, while Hillary has 1,724.

Okay, that's not quite what he said, but pretty darn close.

Time magazine's Joe Klein points us to a YouTube of him grilling John McCain yesterday about his attacks on Barack Obama over Iran.

McCain has been blasting Obama for his willingness to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But in questioning McCain yesterday, Klein pointed out: "According to most diplomatic experts, the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is the guy who's in charge of Iranian foreign policy, and also in charge of the nuclear program."

"Why do you always keep on talking about Ahmadinejad, since he doesn't have power in that realm?" Klein asked.

Check out McCain's response...

The key line comes at the very end, when McCain says: "I think if you asked any average American who the leader of Iran is, I think they'd know."

Translation: I know I can count on Americans thinking that Ahmadinejad is the leader of Iran, so the reality doesn't matter a whit.

Seriously, it's either that or McCain genuinely believes what he said here. To state the obvious, neither is terribly confidence-inspiring...

Add two -- or perhaps three -- more super-delegates to Obama's total today.

The News Star of Louisiana gets Senator Mary Landrieu, a super-delegate, to reveal that she's likely to go for Obama:

"I'm unpledged, but my support will likely reflect the will of the state," Landrieu said while in Monroe on Sunday. Obama beat Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Louisiana primary.

Meanwhile, Obama also picked up the support this morning of two other super-dels: Guam Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo, and Iowa Democratic Chairman Scott Brennan.

The Obama camp claims they're now 107 overall delegates away from getting the nomination (not including Florida and Michigan).

The latest national numbers from Gallup show some startling movement towards Obama among Dems who have been among Hillary's most reliable supporters.

It finds that Obama is now tied with Hillary among whites (47%-47%); leads her among women (49%-46%); edges her among Dems with a high school graduate or less (46%-47%); and leads her among Hispanics (51%-44%).

Those groups, obviously, have been the bedrock of Hillary's candidacy. The only major demographic group that Hillary gets 51% or more of are women aged 50 and older.

These numbers suggest that Obama's support is broadening daily, and that the party's rank and file -- in addition to its institutional players -- appear to be coalescing behind him.

MoveOn, a major Obama supporter, goes up with this tough new ad attacking McCain's ties to lobbyist Charlie Black...

The ad, which is pretty vivid and arresting, paints Black's client list as a kind of global murderer's row of tinpot dictators and thugs.

The spot is running on national cable, which suggests that it's partly intended for media and political insiders. It's perhaps an effort to gain some free media, to keep reporters in the hunt on the McCain-lobbyists story, and to get pundits to stop reflexively granting McCain reformer credentials.

National Democrats can breathe a bit easier regarding the New Jersey Senate race, with a a new poll showing that they probably won't have to worry about a primary challenge becoming too divisive.

The new poll by Rasmussen finds Lautenberg with 49% in the Democratic primary, way ahead of Rep. Rob Andrews at 19%, and Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello with seven percent.

A lot of hype has been generated in New Jersey about Andrews' challenge against Lautenberg, whose age and often-lackluster ratings made him seem vulnerable. But Lautenberg might not have had much trouble, after all, once a campaign actually got going.

Senator Jim Webb -- whose new book has stirred talk that he's raising his profile in an effort to bring about an Obama-Webb ticket -- continued his veep tour last night, hobnobbing with a bunch of high-profile liberal writers and media types at the Four Seasons in Manhattan, where he took questions.

Judging by an account by The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel, he went over extraordinarily well with this crowd...

Jim Webb can make the Four Seasons seem like a diner in Owensboro, Kentucky. It's that kind of blue-collar street cred that may be just what it takes to propel the first term Senator from Virginia onto the Democratic ticket as Vice-President...

When asked tonight, by the New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg, what he thought of those who opposed the Vietnam war, Webb said "I never had a problem with those who properly opposed the war. I had a problem with the way vets were treated when they got home."

The case for Webb, a Vietnam vet who has a son in Iraq, is that he might put Virginia in play and could credibly make an anti-war, and populist, case to the blue collar whites that voted for Hillary over Obama.

Webb could also help defuse the inevitable GOP efforts to cast the antiwar Obama as ungrateful for the troops' service, making it tougher for the GOP to turn the election into a re-litigation of the sixties, as Republicans have done in pretty much every election since then.

For these and other reasons, Webb -- as the above account suggests -- is fast emerging as one of the veep candidates of choice for the liberal intelligentsia.

This is a big day for the presidential campaign, with the primaries in Oregon and Kentucky practically guaranteed to clinch a majority of pledged delegates for Barack Obama.

Polls in Kentucky show Clinton on track for a two to one win in Kentucky, as she has performed best against Obama in the Appalachian region. Obama, meanwhile, is favored to win Oregon by a strong margin. Kentucky has 51 pledged delegates, and Oregon has 52 -- and with Obama only needing less than 20 delegates to clinch the pledged majority, he'll get more than he needs to reach that goal.

The question then becomes how the two camps spin the results, and whether the Obama camp plays it up as a genuine victory mark for the campaign. Obama himself has said he won't, but the Hillary camp has already been pre-rebutting that idea, calling it a "slap in the face" to the millions of people who have voted for her.

The first polls close at 6 p.m. ET in Kentucky, followed by western Kentucky at 7 p.m. ET. Oregon's mail-in voting ends at 11 p.m. ET.

Here's another sign that Hillary's staying in until the end -- and perhaps intends to end the race on a positive note.

Hillary is up on the air in South Dakota, which votes on June 3rd, the last day of the voting, with this stock ad that we've seen in other states...

It excoriates Bush on the economy and presents her as a fighter for the middle class, with no mention of Obama.

Check out this new attack ad from Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), who is facing a tough challenge from former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes (D). The ad attacks Barnes' "San Francisco values," with some truly stunning imagery:

The Graves campaign is standing by the ad: "The same week Kay Barnes was in San Francisco for a fundraiser, the California Supreme Court issues the most sweeping liberal, activist, pro-gay marriage ruling in the nation."

The Barnes campaign has this ad hitting back at Graves, saying that after eight years in Congress that ad is all he has to show for it:

In an indication that John McCain sees foreign policy as the best route to take on Barack Obama -- and that he will take it frequently -- McCain is set to roll out another tough attack, with a speech today to the Cuban community in Miami. At the rate things are going, the McCain camp will be hitting Obama on some new foreign policy point every day.

"Just a few years ago, Senator Obama had a very clear view on Cuba," McCain will say, according to prepared excerpts, then quoting Obama saying that normalization of relations would improve conditions for the Cuban people.

"Now Senator Obama has shifted positions and says he only favors easing the embargo, not lifting it. He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro. These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators - there is no need to undertake fundamental reforms, they can simply wait for a unilateral change in US policy."

The tawdry political scandals of Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY) could soon be coming to an end. The Associated Press is reporting that Fossella has decided to announce this week that he will not be seeking re-election.

Republicans believe that an open seat would be easier to hold in this particular case, with the Staten Island district likely to vote for John McCain by a big margin. If Fossella were to run again, the cash-strapped national party would have been unlikely to spend any money on his behalf in the country's most expensive media market.

If Fossella does announce his retirement, it would be a big cause for relief on the part of the NRCC.

Under the shadow of tomorrow's presidential primary, there's another very big race with national implications taking place in Oregon: The Dem Senate primary, where two candidates are locked in a brutal struggle for the right to take on vulnerable GOP Senator Gordon Smith.

The outcome tomorrow could determine whether Democrats have a chance at winning a big Senate seat that national strategists would absolutely love to capture -- and one that they think could be winnable, in a state that hasn't gone Republican since 1984 and where Barack Obama has led John McCain by double-digit margins.

What has national Dems on the edge of their seats is the fact that the candidate preferred by the national party -- state House Speaker Jeff Merkley -- might not prevail against his spirited primary challenger. Merkley is also under sustained attack from GOP incumbent Smith, who's launched an almost-unprecedented pre-primary ad campaign against him -- prompting some to charge that Smith is trying to swing the race to his lesser-funded opponent.

The guy who just might beat Merkley is attorney Steve Novick. An unorthodox candidate by any measure, he has become a surprise YouTube hit for his ad where he opens a beer with his prosthetic hook. Surprisingly, Novick has managed to lead Merkley by narrow margins in most polls.

Read more »

As Mark Halperin noted -- and some of you emailed us about -- the Sunday New York Times was rather bullish on Obama's chances this coming Tuesday, reporting that he could end up with enough pledged delegates to proclaim that he's the actual nominee "without fear of contradiction."

Of course, though it's altogether possible that Obama will clinch the majority of pledged dels on Tuesday, that won't officially make him the nominee. And Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson loudly protested as much on Sunday.

Now The Times has rethought the matter. And the paper offered a correction today:

"To truly become the presumptive nominee, however, Mr. Obama would have to win additional support from superdelegates. And Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts to have the party recognize results from two disputed contests, in Florida and Michigan, could also affect the status of the delegate race."

Barack Obama's momentum continues unabated. Today he has received the support of five more super-delegates, with the campaign saying he is now 109 delegates from securing the nomination.

Obama was most notably endorsed by Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia. He also picked up state party chairs Larry Gates of Kansas and Dwight Pelz of Washington state, and DNC members Cindy Spanyers and Blake Johnson, both from Alaska.

Hillary Clinton has not received any super-del endorsements so far today.

A new pair of polls in Oregon give Barack Obama a big lead going into tomorrow's primary, a contest that is expected to clinch a majority of pledged delegates for him:

SurveyUSA
Obama 55%
Clinton 42%

Sample size: 627 likely and actual primary voters.
Margin of error: ±4%.

Public Policy Polling (D)
Obama 58%
Clinton 39%

Sample size: 1,296 likely and actual primary voters.
Margin of error: ±2.7%.

From PPP's analysis: "Obama has likely pretty much won the election already. Oregon votes by mail, and he is polling at 59% with the 74% of poll respondents who reported already having cast their ballots."

These polls both run counter to a Suffolk poll from earlier today, which had shown it to be a close race.

Patti Solis Doyle, one of the closest of Hillary confidantes, is informally discussing the possibility of working for Obama in the general election. Already.

That the woman who actually coined the expression "Hillaryland" would be discussing this at this juncture -- when the official position of the Hillary campaign is that this thing is far from over -- is pretty striking.

Indeed, here's what Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson had to say when asked about this:

"I intend to be working in the general election for Sen. Clinton," said Wolfson. "I find any other speculation offensive."

Ouch.

Barack Obama, in Montana, responded moments ago to McCain's ridicule of the Illinois Senator for saying that Iran is a minuscule threat compared to the former Soviet Union.

McCain said this revealed Obama's "inexperience and reckless judgment." Here's the key part of Obama's reply...

"Here's the truth: the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't have a single one. But when the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do, that's what strong presidents do, that's what I'll do when I'm president of the United States of America."

Obama also said: "What are George Bush and John McCain afraid of"?

This sort of thing will thrill Democrats who want to see how a Democratic presidential candidate will fare if he adopts something other than the oft-employed "hawkish" rhetoric that's supposedly necessary for Dems to win an argument with Republicans about national security.

Judging by these early skirmishes between McCain and Obama -- who appears to be trying to do nothing less than redefine what it means to be "strong" and "tough" on foreign policy -- we may soon find out.

Late Update: Here's video of both Obama and McCain...

The Hillary campaign sends out a memo hitting Obama for allegedly planning to declare victory tomorrow night, if he secures a majority of the pledged delegates after tomorrow's voting. Here's the key graf...

Senator Obama's plan to declare himself the Democratic nominee tomorrow night in Iowa is a slap in the face to the millions of voters in the remaining primary states and to Senator Clinton's 17 million supporters.

The key there is the idea that this is an insult to Hillary's millions of supporters, a not-so-subtle suggestion to the Obama forces that she holds millions of Democrats in her pocket and that he'd better make nice if he wants to win them over.

Separately, it's worth noting that the claim that Obama has a "plan" to do this appears to rest on a single anonymous quote given to The Politico several weeks ago.

Barack Obama has just received a Senate endorsement with layer upon layer of symbolism: Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who called Obama "a noble-hearted patriot and humble Christian," who "has my full faith and support."

The endorsement comes less than a week after Obama lost the West Virginia primary by a landslide, with many observers seeing race as a factor -- thus making the endorsement by Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, all the more potent if the Obama campaign is to argue that they can reach out to white Appalachian voters.

As Ben Smith notes, the Byrd endorsement "is a note of reconciliation that underscores Obama's message."

At a speech this morning in Chicago, McCain hit Obama again on Iran -- this time ridiculing the Illinois Senator for his completely uncontroversial remark yesterday that the Iran threat is minuscule compared to that of the former Soviet Union.

After arguing that Iran is a dire threat indeed (nukes, Israel, etc. etc.), McCain cranked up his attacks again on Obama's willingness to negotiate with hostile foreign powers, saying that it "betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment."

"An unconditional summit meeting with the next American president would confer both international legitimacy on the Iranian president and could strengthen him domestically when he is unpopular among the Iranian people," McCain said, according to remarks provided by his campaign. He added: "The next President ought to understand such basic realities of international relations."

A couple quick things about this. First, note the direct attack on Obama's "judgment." Given that the good judgment Obama showed in opposing the Iraq War -- which McCain supported -- is central to Obama's candidacy, what you have here is the old Rove play-book in action: Attack your opponent's greatest strength and pretend your own weakness on that same front doesn't exist.

Second, what's consistently surprising about McCain's continued assaults on Obama's willingness to negotiate with hostile foreign powers is that majorities support Obama's position and oppose McCain's -- another sign that this is more Rove Politics 101.

McCain's full remarks on this after the jump.

Read more »

Al Gore is set to do a major fundraising event uniting top Hillary and Obama donors on behalf of the Democratic National Committee on May 31st, a sign that the Dem fundraising establishment is beginning to unite and ramp up in earnest for the general election.

The event features prominent donors on both sides, as you can see if you click on the image of the invite (which was forwarded our way by a source) to enlarge...

Of those listed on the invite, Maureen White, Robert Zimmerman and Al Puchala are major Hillary backers. Meanwhile, Orin Kramer, Mitchell Draizing, Brian Mathis and Jamie Whitehead are Obama supporters.

There's a lot of chatter out there to the effect that the Republican National Committee is outraising its counterpart, the DNC, in advance of the general election.

While this won't mean that Obama won't have a financial advantage against McCain, given his astonishing fundraising success, Obama backers would of course like to see the DNC as flush as the RNC, and will be cheered by signs that the Dem donor and fundraising establishment is uniting -- in this case, with the help of Al Gore -- to gear up for the general.

For the privilege of attending this particular Gore event, donors are being asked to shell out up to $28,500 apiece.

Although Barack Obama could end up with a majority of the pledged delegates after tomorrow's voting in Kentucky and Oregon, Obama himself declared yesterday in Oregon that this "does not mean we declare victory."

Obama advisers have been saying privately and publicly for weeks now that May 20th will be the campaign's D-Day -- the day that they secure a majority of the pledged delegates (not necessarily including Florida and Michigan, which the Clinton campaign will argue negates the significance of securing that majority).

The fact that Obama won't use this milestone, should it occur, to declare victory represents the topsy-turvy set of considerations that Obama advisers are entertaining as they puzzle out how to wrap this thing up while keeping the party unified.

Before they had effectively won the primary, they were trying to persuade reporters that they were on track to winning on May 20th. But now that they have effectively won, they will take care not to declare victory, in order to avoid alienating Hillary's supporters in advance of the general election.

Although Barack Obama is on his way to clinching a majority of pledged delegates tomorrow, a new round of polls from Suffolk University shows that it might not be by much on the day it actually happens.

Obama is headed for a landslide loss tomorrow in Kentucky, while it could be a close race in Oregon, where he's favored:

Kentucky
Clinton 51%
Obama 25%

Sample size: 600 likely primary voters.
Margin of error: ±4%

Oregon
Obama 45%
Clinton 41%

Sample size: 600 likely primary voters.
Margin of error: ±4%

Obama's popularity varies immensely between states -- he's viewed favorably by only 43% of Democratic respondents in Kentucky, and by 73% of respondents in Oregon.

Barack Obama responded in strong terms to attacks against Michelle Obama made by the Tennessee Republican Party, saying in an interview shown today on Good Morning America that "these folks should lay off my wife."

"The GOP, should I be the nominee, I think can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. If they think that they're gonna try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful, because that I find unacceptable."

Late Update: Here's the video:

Senate Democrats could have some trouble in the closely watched Minnesota Senate race, where Al Franken is trying to beat freshman GOP Sen. Norm Coleman. The latest poll from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Coleman (R) 51%
Franken (D) 44%

Sample size: 1,117 registered voters.
Margin of error: ±3.6%

Coleman is viewed favorably by 53% of poll respondents, with 33% view him unfavorably. Franken, meanwhile, is still having trouble becoming a credible candidate, with 33% viewing him favorably and 39% unfavorably.

Franken has been hurt recently by news that his businesses failed to pay taxes in all the states where he was active, and his agreement to pay $70,000 in total back taxes to multiple states.

Barack Obama further inched his way towards the nomination this weekend, with a decent level of action on the super-delegate front.

Obama picked up add-on delegates in Colorado and Kansas, caucus states where his wins guaranteed that his supporters would be picked for the add-on slots at the state conventions. In Colorado, former Denver Mayor Federico Pena was selected, while Kansas Dems picked Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson, who is interestingly a former chair of the state Republican Party.

Obama was also endorsed by Maryland DNC member Greg Pecoraro, the campaign announced.

For their five add-on slots, the California Democrats picked three Clinton supporters and two Obama supporters.

The score for the weekend: Obama +5, Clinton +3.

If today's crowd in Portland is any indication, the Obama campaign can have some confidence in their expectation of clinching a full majority of pledged delegates with the Oregon primary on Tuesday -- Obama spoke to an estimated 72,000 people, according to the city's fire officials.

To put this in perspective: That one mega-crowd has almost as many people as there were in West Virginia who voted for him, and the audience size is a new personal record for Obama.

In a further sign that Barack Obama is looking past the primary season and onward to the general election, the Obama campaign has announced that he'll be spending Tuesday night not in Oregon or Kentucky -- where primaries will be held that day -- but in Iowa.

The Obama campaign is very likely to clinch an overall majority of pledged delegates with Tuesday's contests, so the symbolism of his swing-state rally should be obvious: That he considers himself the popularly-elected nominee, and the race is on to fight John McCain.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has yet to announce where she will be on Tuesday.