Here's the McCain campaign's response to Camp Obama's acceptance today of the four-debate framework put forth by the Commission on Presidential Debates, complete with the obligatory reference to Obama as a "celebrity":

"John McCain looks forward to debating Barack Obama as often as possible, but it's disappointing that Senator Obama has refused his offer to do joint town hall meetings. We understand it might be beneath a worldwide celebrity of Barack Obama's magnitude to appear at town hall meetings alongside John McCain and directly answer questions from the American people, but we hope he'll reconsider. The American people expect and deserve no less. Unfortunately, it appears that Barack Obama's tough-guy talk on 'duels' this week was just more empty words. Americans are quickly coming to the conclusion that it's better to look at what Barack Obama actually does and not listen to what he says."

Nothing on whether the McCain camp accepts the Commission's proposal.

Meanwhile, a Deluxe TPM Lava Lamp to the first reader who can find the most recent McCain statement that didn't have the now-apparently-constant "celebrity" sneer...

The Obama campaign has just accepted the proposal put forth in June by the Commission on Presidential Debates that suggests a framework of three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate in September and October.

The move appears to shut the door permanently on the McCain team's desire for a bunch of town-hall debates, which the Obama team had rejected. By accepting the Commission's proposal, the Obama team has effectively tossed the ball on to McCain's side of the court. The McCain team has yet to respond.

The Obama camp announced their acceptance in a just-released letter to the Commission from campaign manager David Plouffe...

Due to the late date of the two parties' nominating conventions, and the relatively short period between the end of the conventions and the first proposed debate, it is likely that the four Commission debates will be the sole series of debates in the fall campaign. Consequently, we believe that finalizing the arrangements for these debates with promptness and certainty is in the interests of both campaigns and the American people.

The letter also announced that Rahm Emanuel has been appointed as the Obama team's liason to the Commission. Full letter after the jump.

Late Update: The McCain campaign responds, sort of.

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Obama: McCain Team Aren't Racist -- They're Cynical
Speaking to reporters today in Florida, Barack Obama said the McCain campaign has tried to district voters from the real issues by focusing on his background. "In no way do I think that John McCain's campaign is being racist, I think they're being cynical," Obama said.

Obama In Florida Today
Barack Obama is in Florida today, where he's speaking before the National Urban League's annual convention -- a minority audience where the racial tensions of the current campaign are surely on many people's minds. John McCain spoke there yesterday, and was received politely.

McCain Off The Trail Today
John McCain has no public events scheduled for today.

Obama Offers Support For Energy Compromise -- Including Offshore Drilling
Barack Obama has shifted his position somewhat on offshore drilling, telling the St. Petersburg Times that he could support the "Gang of Ten" energy compromise unveiled yesterday by a group of Republican and moderate Democratic Senators: "My attitude is that we can find some sort of compromise." In addition to supporting offshore drilling, the proposal would also fund alternative energy sources and further other policy goals typically favored by Dems.

Poll: Ted Stevens Losing To Democratic Candidate By A Landslide
Another poll in Alaska, this time from local firm Ivan Moore Research, shows indicted GOP Sen. Ted Stevens' political fortunes plummeting in the wake of his indictment. Stevens remains a safe bet to win the Republican primary, leading his closest challenger by 40 points -- but in the general election against Democratic Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, Steven is trailing by a whopping 56%-35% margin.

Poll: McCain Up In Missouri
A new SurveyUSA poll gives John McCain a 49%-44% lead in the perennial swing state of Missouri, not significantly changed from a 50%-43% lead in late June. Other recent polls have given Barack Obama the lead here, making the reality of the situation something of an unknown.

McCain's "Country First Concert" Only Gets Hundreds Of People
Despite having the free entertainment of country music star John Rich, premiering his new song paying tribute to the candidate, the Washington Post reports that a McCain rally in the Florida Panhandle was only able to attract several hundred people. That's just a tiny fraction of the thousands of people who typically show up for John Rich at his own concerts -- meaning that John McCain is a serious drag on any marquee bill.

Okay, here are two new twists on the GOP myth that China is drilling for oil off America: We now have a GOP Rep. who is apparently raising campaign cash off the tall tale -- and as an added bonus, her campaign tried to deny she ever did this!

The culprit is good old Rep. Jean Schmidt, the Ohio Republican who famously called Jack Murtha a coward. In her fundraising letter -- which you can read here -- she blasts unnamed liberals who have "decided to come after me because I stood on the House Floor and pointed out that Cuba was drilling off our shores."

"Now whether they are drilling on the coast of Cuba or offshore less than 60 miles from Florida," Schmidt later adds, "it doesn't change the fact that the Communists in China understand the laws of supply and demand more than the Democrats."

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John McCain just held a presser in Florida. Here are the, er, high points:

• Said "I don't think our campaign is negative in the slightest." There are negative McCain ads running as we speak, and in the very same presser, he attacked Obama for injecting race into the campaign again.

• Blamed Obama for bringing up the issue of race in the campaign, and repeatedly said that Obama had "retracted" his charge that McCain is using race. It was obvious by the repetition of "retracted" that this was a cooked up talking point, and it was apparently a reference to the fact that the Obama campaign said it didn't think McCain had used race in the campaign.

But this wasn't a "retraction" at all: The Obama camp hasn't conceded he said that in the first place.

• Said he wants to move on from the race debate. But his campaign manager Rick Davis aggressively attacked Obama for allegedly playing the race card just today.

• Described a new Web ad implying that Obama believes he's the Messiah as "having some fun."

Is it happy hour yet?

A couple days ago we promised to try to nail down precisely what the McCain campaign is spending on its Britney-Obama ad.

Well, it looks like McCain is sinking a significant proportion of his current ad spending into it.

Evan Tracey, who tracks national ad buys for the Campaign Media Analysis Group, tells us that McCain is spending over $140,000 a day to run the spot. That accounts for roughly a third of his current overall TV ad spending, Tracey says.

The ad is running in McCain's 11 target states -- a list of them is after the jump -- so it's not a huge buy when spread across all those states, though it's certainly not insignificant.

But the fact that a fairly large chunk of his ad spending is going to a spot comparing Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton is kind of surprising and seems awfully suggestive. Either the McCain camp thinks it's working, or this is the best they can do on messaging right now.

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Woooooo-weee do we have a live one here.

Check out this video of GOP strategist Joe Watkins on MSNBC grabbing the McCain "race card" ball and running with it. He's kind of staking out the outer fringe of the GOP argument that Obama is racializing the campaign...

As you can see, Watkins repeatedly says here that Obama is trying to start a "race war." To be clear, McCain isn't responsible for what every GOP strategist says, and Watkins doesn't appear to have any official role with the campaign.

But this appearance does neatly suggest where the emerging GOP argument is headed, its intent and subtext. As noted here yesterday, the point of accusing the Obama camp of playing the "race card" is to undercut his image as a racial uniter who's not interested in re-fighting past political battles, and instead to paint him as confrontational on race.

Here you have it laid bare.

The Daily News made a big splash this morning by reporting that Hillary had decided against being nominated for president at the Dem convention at the end of August.

The piece, which relies on an anonymous source, quotes a Clinton spokesperson claiming that no decision had been made, and it makes it look as if Hillary views this as her own decision, something likely to fuel the idea that she's not fully committed to helping Obama.

But according to Hillary spokesperson Kathleen Strand, in truth Hillary is actually not making this decision on her own -- she's making it in concert with both the DNC and the Obama campaign.

"While no decisions have been made at this time, they will be made collaboratively with Senator Clinton and her staff, the DNC and Senator Obama's campaign and released at the appropriate time," Strand emails me. Curiously, according to Strand, this quote was also provided to the Daily News but didn't make it into its story.

In truth, the decision isn't quite as straightforward as it looks.

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On the morning shows today, McCain adviser Rick Davis and Obama adviser David Axelrod continued hammering away at each other over the McCain camp's claim that Obama played the "race card," with each side road-testing new and improved ways of pressing his case.

Davis claimed "high-mindedly" that his campaign had had no choice but to respond to Obama's alleged race-card playing, while Axelrod pushed the campaign's new macro-message that the McCain camp had made a clear strategic choice to take the low road. Check out our highlight reel...

Davis kept up with the argument that the McCain campaign is the victim here and continued claiming to be in high dudgeon over Obama's alleged racial tactics: "We did exactly what we should do as a campaign...We said, `No, we're not gonna let this card get played.'"

Meanwhile, Axelrod defended Obama as follows: "He said it to a crowd in rural Missouri, 99% white. There were all kinds of press there. Nobody reported it as a racial comment...the only time this became an issue was when Rick Davis and their campaign decided to kick this up and make it a racial issue."

Another way to put this, of course, is that the McCain campaign is the one playing the race-card here.

As noted below, John McCain gave a speech today to the Urban League, a minority group, a day after accusing Barack Obama of playing the "race card."

It just wrapped up. No mention of race in the speech, and McCain's attacks -- understandably, given the audience -- were so toothless and lacking in substance that it's hard to see how they qualify as news.

Full speech after the jump, if you're interested.

Late Update: Mark Halperin and Ben Smith find some hits on Obama in the speech that could be deemed newsworthy. I guess.

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Here's about as clear a sign of GOP desperation as you could wish for: GOP Senator Gordon Smith, who's locked in a brutal re-election battle in Oregon, has a new ad out hailing his work with not one but two Democratic nominees for president: Barack Obama and John Kerry, whom he routinely insulted back in 2004.

And Kerry is now taking a hard whack at Smith over it. First, here's the ad:

"Gordon Smith is my friend but the problem is that when it's come time to vote in the Senate he's been a much better friend of George Bush. Voting with George Bush ninety percent of the time just isn't good for the people and issues I've fought for over a lifetime," Kerry said in a statement.

Of course, Smith didn't always cozy up to Kerry. During the 2004 campaign he regularly bashed the Dem nominee for president. "It's not John Kerry's fault that he looks French," Smith said. "But it is his fault that he wants to pursue policies that have us act like the French."

Smith also said at the time: "So John Kerry to me represents socialism."

A high-ranking campaign staffer for John McCain lobbied for years on behalf of a major corporation in favor of repealing economic sanctions against Cuba, a position that is directly at odds with McCain's position, according to lobbyist disclosure forms.

The staffer, John Green, who has held the key post of chief campaign liaison to members of Congress since early March, lobbied members of Congress extensively on behalf of French alcohol company Pernod Ricard, in their efforts to get sanctions weakened or repealed. In the process, according to the disclosure forms, he also did extensive work with members of Congress who favor repealing the Cuba embargo entirely, a position that is also strongly opposed by McCain.

Such conflicts between lobbyists on McCain's campaign staff and McCain's hard-line foreign policy positions have already created controversy and generated criticism for McCain. Campaign manager Rick Davis, for instance, made news and was criticized by Democrats for his lobbying on behalf of a Ukrainian businessman with deep commercial ties to Iran -- even though McCain has called for divestment against Iran.

McCain has argued in favor of keeping all sanctions against Cuba in place until they undertake various democratic reforms. What's more, he has aggressively attacked Obama for not taking as hard a line on Cuba. Obama argues in favor of easing travel restrictions with the country, something McCain says would "send the worst possible signal" to Cuba's leaders by unilaterally dropping travel restrictions.

McCain's employment of a lobbyist who pushed for the lifting of Cuba sanctions could also prove to be a controversial issue in the critical swing state of Florida, where many in the large Cuban exile community favor a hard line against Cuba.

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Joe Klein, who early on maintained that McCain was an honorable fellow who could be counted on to run an upstanding campaign, recently wrote that he was beginning to harbor doubts about his assessment of McCain's character.

Now, however, he's made up his mind: He was wrong about McCain:

A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong. I used to think, as David Ignatius does, that McCain's true voice was humble and moderate...

Courage is grace under pressure. McCain showed it when he was a prisoner of war, and on many issues--yes, even on his stubborn insistence that the surge would work--but he is not showing it now. He is showing flop sweat. It is not a quality usually associated with successful leadership.

Is it too much to suggest that this might be something of a seminal moment, a key signal that McCain is losing the respect and benefit of the doubt of establishment opinion?

WaPo's Kurtz: McCain Has "Decided To Go Tabloid"
In a sign that John McCain's usual friends in the establishment media are catching on to his new campaign tactics, Howard Kurtz has a new article in the Washington Post going after the "Celeb" ad. "In a celebrity-driven culture that has left little space for John McCain," Kurtz writes, "the Republican presidential candidate has decided to go tabloid."

Obama in Florida Today
Barack Obama is in the big swing state of Florida today, where the candidate will be holding a town hall event in St. Petersburg to focus on national security issues. Recent polling has given Obama a narrow lead here after trailing McCain all season long, and he'll be working very hard to sustain that newly-won advantage.

McCain Addressing Urban League, Then A "Country First" Event
John McCain will also be in Florida today, where he'll be addressing the annual convention of the National Urban League -- a minority audience that is sure to have the campaign's current racial overtones on their minds. Then later this evening he'll be attending a new kind of campaign event: A "Country First Concert" with country singer John Rich -- part of the "Country First" slogan designed to present him as the truly patriotic candidate.

Country Singer Writes Song For "American Plan" McCain
Country singer John Rich has written a song about John McCain, which he'll perform tonight at that concert McCain is attending. The lyrics celebrate McCain's heroism as a POW, and also feed into the campaign's latest themes that he's the true patriot in the race -- calling him "a real man with an American plan."

Obama Supporters Helping Hillary With Debts Tonight
Hillary Clinton is attending a fundraiser tonight in Silicon Valley, featuring many of that area's top fundraisers for Barack Obama. The purpose: Raising money to retire her massive campaign debt, a cause for which some Obama backers have been reluctant to help, but many others see as important to forging a spirit of party unity.

McCain Alienates Celebrity Friends
John McCain used to be one of Hollywood's favorite Republicans, but the Los Angeles Times reports that many people who used to donate to him now deeply resent his "Celeb" ad: "But the truth is most of Hollywood won't return McCain's calls nowadays because many of the stars and executives he initially impressed now believe the maverick stance they found so attractive was just a pose."

An Obama supporter forwards me a fundraising email that's going out from Barack Obama himself to his supporters slamming McCain for claiming earlier today that he's "proud" of the Britney ad:

A few hours ago John McCain, the same man who just months ago promised to run a "respectful campaign," said he is "proud" of his latest attack ad.

That's the one attacking your enthusiasm, comparing me to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and making false claims about my energy plan.

Now, we're facing some serious challenges in this country -- our economy is struggling, energy costs are skyrocketing, and families don't have health care.

Given the seriousness of these issues, you'd think we'd be having a serious debate. But instead, John McCain is running an expensive, negative campaign against us. Each day brings a desperate new set of attacks.

Both sides are settling in with their messages. Game on.

Full email after the jump.

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CNN asks John McCain if it's fair for his campaign manager to accuse Obama of playing the race card in his comments about the Britney ad, and McCain replies...

"I'm sorry to say that it is. It's legitimate," McCain told CNN's John King. "And there's no place in this campaign for that. There's no place for it and we shouldn't be doing it."

One more time: The party playing the "race card" today is the McCain campaign. It's a very clever ruse. The McCain camp is desperate to undercut Obama's image as a racial uniter, as a figure who has moved beyond the racial battles of past. As Ben Smith noted today, this is central to Obama's appeal.

The real goal of McCain's accusation is to evoke memories of a more-confrontational racial politics that defined an older generation of African American leaders, thus undercutting Obama's image as a kind of transcendent figure who doesn't bear the scars of past battles and can thus effect real change.

It's true that Obama to some degree gave McCain an opening to do this with his remark about looking different from past presidents on one-dollar and five-dollar bills. But let's get real: The party that doubled-down on race today is the McCain campaign -- even as it pretends to be the victim here. It's that simple.

Late Update: Here's the video of McCain's comments.

We now have another poll confirming that Montana, a state that can usually be relied on to vote Republican, has improbably become a battleground state as Barack Obama aggressively pursues the Mountain West.

The new poll from Rasmussen has Obama and McCain tied at 47% each. A month ago, Obama led by a margin of 49%-44%, in a state that has voted Dem only once in the last 40 years.

The internals do show that McCain has a favorability advantage here, a good sign for his chances. His numbers are 59% favorable to only 40% unfavorable, compared to Obama's 53% favorable and 46% unfavorable. But with both candidates posting overall positive numbers, expect this state to see a very hard-fought race this fall.

Under fire from Al Franken, GOP Senator Norm Coleman claimed he'd dumped the contributions he got from indicted Senator Ted Stevens. But it turns out he's only gone halfway in dumping them -- and a personal connection to Stevens might explain why.

It turns out that Coleman's chief of staff is married to Stevens' chief of staff. But more on that in a bit.

Coleman donated to charity the $20,000 he's received from Stevens PAC -- but that's only the amount he's received for this cycle. The campaign told the Star Tribune that the additional $10,000 he also received during the 2002 cycle was long since spent, and he couldn't get rid of money for a campaign that had been over years ago.

But as it turns out, that wasn't a problem for him in January 2006, when the Star Tribune reported that he got rid of money connected to Jack Abramoff that in fact dated to 2002. So why the differing standard this time around?

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This gave me a bit of a sense of deja vu. On a conference call with reporters just now, the Obama campaign moved swiftly to charge that McCain's recent attacks prove he's chosen a low road at odds with his professed desire for a "civil" campaign, a similar line of attack that the Obama camp used on such calls for months against Hillary.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe appeared on the call for the first time in awhile, suggesting either that the Obama camp is worried about the attacks or that Obama advisers sense an opening to jiu-jitsu McCain in the same way they did his primary foe.

Plouffe announced a new Web site, the Low Road Express, which isn't live yet but which you can preview here.

"We hit another low note every day from this campaign," Plouffe said. "Observers from across the country, including some prominent Republicans, are questioning the tone of Senator McCain's campaign...This is not the John McCain Americans thought they were seeing."

Plouffe hammered away at the idea that McCain's fusillade of attacks show that a turning point in the race had arrived -- or, as he put it, a "critical mass" of attacks.

The idea here, obviously, is to use lingering conceptions of McCain as a maverick who's above politics to box McCain in. I haven't seen any polling on which candidate is viewed as the more negative one right now, but I have a general sense based on press coverage and insider chatter that the narrative is headed in the direction of casting McCain as the attacker.

We all know how things turned out the last time the Obama campaign pulled that off.

Late Update: The new CNN poll finds that 40% think McCain is attacking Obama unfairly, while only 22% say Obama is attacking McCain unfairly.

The McCain campaign has figured out a way of fusing its two leading attacks on Obama -- the criticism of the canceled troop visit and the apparently-now-constant description of him as a "celebrity" -- into one.

Check out this statement the McCain camp just sent out from Dr. Danny Jazarevic, a former leading surgeon at the U.S. Army base Obama was set to visit:

"Last week, Senator Obama skipped a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because the Pentagon would not allow campaign staff or media to accompany him into the hospital. I served as director of trauma surgery at that hospital for nearly four years and saw the effect that a visit from a celebrity like Senator Obama could have on morale."

A twofer! How creative!

Separately, John McCain himself now says that he's "proud" of the Britney ad.

Look, let's be as clear as possible about what's really going on here: By charging that Obama is playing the race card, the McCain campaign is itself playing the race card.

The subtext of the McCain team's charge is that Obama is indulging in racial grievance politics -- the goal being to undercut his image as a racial uniter and associate him with past African American purveyors of such stuff. This, even as the McCain camp pretends to be the victim here.

You could argue that to some degree Obama opened himself up to this. Perhaps. Either way, this is now the McCain game plan. No more, no less.

You knew this one was coming: Joe Lieberman is defending the Britney-Obama ad.

Lieberman took a different tack, saying the ad simply compares the two candidates in a "creative" way and people should lighten up. "To some extent the appearance of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- people complain about it -- they should just relax and enjoy it," he said. The idea is to draw people into the ad. The point of the ad is really quite strong: Who's ready to lead America?"

"Relax and enjoy" Britney and Paris? Hmmm. Wasn't there a time when Lieberman crusaded against the sort of crass celeb imagery that supposedly threatens our morals and culture? Thought I remembered something like that. Oh, well.

Just in case there were any doubts that GOP Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment would damage his political fortunes back home in Alaska, here's some confirmation: The new Rasmussen poll has him trailing his Democratic opponent by a double-digit margin in this deep-red state.

The numbers: Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich 50%, Stevens 37%. The poll was conducted yesterday, the day after Stevens' federal indictment came down the pike. Ten days ago, Stevens was trailing by eight points, as a result of the corruption investigations going on against him -- and which the indictment has clearly made worse.

A Democratic win here would be a huge victory, as this state hasn't elected a Dem to Congress since 1974.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis lashes out at Obama's comments yesterday on the Britney ad, saying in a statement that...

"Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."

But again, it's a stretch to say Obama "played the race card." It's possible, perhaps even likely, that Obama's reference to not looking like other presidents on dollar bills was a reference to race. But he's said similar stuff before, and this just isn't quite conclusive enough to support the charge.

And Obama's claim that the ad is painting him as "risky" needn't have anything whatsoever to do with race. He could easily have been saying that the comparison to vacuous celebs was designed to paint him as a lightweight and a flash-in-the-pan who lacks the gravitas and leadership qualities to be president.

Nonetheless, this latest McCain broadside will likely make news.

Late Update: Who's really playing the race card?

Even the diehards over at the Corner are saying that the Britney-Paris ad is a childish stunt, with Ramesh Ponnuru panning it as "juvenile," and Rich Lowry grudgingly admitting that it's "kind of silly."

Did Barack Obama cry racism and xenophobia in responding to the Britney ad? Last night, Obama turned up the volume a notch in response to the spot:

"Since they don't have any new ideas the only strategy they've got in this election is to try to scare you about me. They're going to try to say that I'm a risky guy, they're going to try to say, 'Well, you know, he's got a funny name and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills and, and they're going to send out nasty emails.

"And, you know, the latest one they've got me in an ad with Paris Hilton," Obama said, referring to a McCain campaign ad launched today. "You know, never met the woman. But, but, you know, what they're gonna try to argue is that somehow I'm too risky."

Some folks are arguing that Obama is accusing the McCain camp of racism. The dollar bill line sounds like it could be an allusion to race, but Obama has said similar stuff before, and this isn't quite conclusive enough to support that claim.

What's more, the "risky" part certainly doesn't have to be an allusion to race. Obama could easily be saying that the ad is painting him as "risky" by portraying him as a lightweight who doesn't have the leadership qualities necessary to be president.

Separately, it should probably be pointed out that the Republicans are not exactly strangers to using race to frighten voters, so it's perfectly reasonable for the Obama camp to expect such tactics to be used against him.

Late Update: The McCain campaign accuses Obama of playing the race card.

In another sign that Hillary's Veep chances are dwindling rapidly, Vote Both, the group devoted to pushing Hillary as Veep, is now officially out of business.

"Because it seems that Senator Obama has made his decision to offer the slot on the ticket to another candidate, we believe that continuing to ask him to pick Hillary is no longer helpful to our party's chances of winning in November," [group leaders] Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Arora wrote in an e-mail they planned to send Thursday to the 40,000-plus supporters who signed onto their online petition.

It's unclear how they know that Obama has already made his decision not to pick her. But it isn't an assertion that many would argue with at this point, especially since Hillary is set to speak on the second night of the convention, historically not the slot reserved for the Veep.

MoveOn sends over a new ad that's meant as a sequel to their earlier "Alex" spot, which featured a mother asking John McCain if her baby would be bound for Iraq under his "100 years" policy.

The new spot is about gas prices, and features a worried middle-aged man directly addressing McCain and telling him that he'd "let me and my kids down" by pushing the "gimmick" of off-shore drilling as a genuine solution to the gas crisis...

The idea with the spot is to dispel any lingering conception folks might have of McCain as a genuine reformer. MoveOn will be spending at least $150,000 on the spot, and it will likely run on national cable and in key states, though where exactly hasn't been determined.

Quinnipiac: Obama Ahead In Pennsylvania, Ohio And Florida
A new set of Quinnipiac polls has some very good news for Barack Obama, with him leading in all three of the largest swing states, albeit within the margins of error in two cases. The numbers: Obama ahead 49%-42% in Pennsylvania, ahead 46%-44% in Ohio -- and ahead 46%-44% in Florida.

Obama In Iowa Today, Then Texas Tonight
Barack Obama has a busy day ahead, starting in the swing state of Iowa. He'll be meeting with flood victims in Cedar Rapids, discussing the economy at a campaign event later on, speaking via satellite to AFSCME's annual convention -- and then heading off to Texas for a fundraiser tonight in Houston.

McCain In Wisconsin Today
John McCain is holding a campaign event today in Racine, Wisconsin, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET. This perennial swing state has voted Democratic in every election since 1988, but it's often been very, very close, and it's always on the GOP's target list.

Obama: GOP Will Try To Scare Voters About Me
Barack Obama told a Missouri crowd last night that Republicans will try to scare voters by reminding them that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama was not referring to race: "What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after spending decades in Washington."

McCain Hedges On Tax Increases For Social Security
John McCain is giving himself wiggle room on whether he'll raise taxes in order to fortify Social Security, a position that has been condemned by many on the no-tax right. "And in any negotiation that I might have, when I go in my position will be that I am opposed to raising taxes," McCain told a fundraiser last night, "but we have to work together to save Social Security."

McCain Camp: Stevens Scandal Part Of Pork-Barrel Culture
John McCain's campaign has finally responded to the scandal surrounding the Ted Stevens indictment, with a spokesperson telling the AP that Stevens is part of Washington's culture of pork: "This is a sad reminder that the next president will have his work cut out for him in rebuilding public trust by ending once and for all pork barrel spending and reforming Washington from top to bottom."

Obama Camp Condemns Rap Song Bashing His Detractors
Barack Obama's campaign is distancing itself from an overly-exuberant supporter, with the campaign condemning a rap song by Ludacris that uses various obscenities to describe President Bush, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Jesse Jackson. "This song is not only outrageously offensive to Sen. Clinton, Rev. Jackson, Sen. McCain and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear," said spokesman Bill Burton.

It looks like Hillary Clinton will get her own starring role at the convention, albeit not the one she'd hoped for at the beginning of this campaign.

CNN is reporting that Hillary will speak on the second night of the convention -- the traditional keynote slot that launched Barack Obama's national career last time around. "Tuesday night is Hillary night," a Hillary supporter told CNN.

Fun historical fact: That night of the convention will be the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which guarantees the right of women to vote. In honor of both that history and her own historic candidacy, Hillary will be joined on stage by all the other female Democratic Senators.

The Obama campaign is airing a tough new ad responding to the multiple McCain attack ads we've been seeing lately:

The ad continues using the strategy the Obama camp used in the primary to great effect. It dismisses Mccain's attacks as the "politics of the past," "the low road," and, most cuttingly, the "same old politics," thus simultaneously rising above the fray, dismissing McCain's attacks without engaging them, and amplifying the Obama change message.

The Obama campaign has not yet released details on where the ad will run.

A new CNN poll just released today has the first numbers taken entirely since Obama's overseas trip on key national-security readiness questions -- and the survey finds that McCain still holds an advantage in these areas.

CNN's article on the poll says that McCain polled better than Obama on all the foreign policy and national security questions: Who's trusted more to handle terrorism, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, and Iran. No internals are available yet, so we can't be sure that Obama didn't cut into McCain's lead on these questions -- but the McCain sweep seems pretty telling.

On the other hand, the poll also suggests that McCain's days-long effort to paint Obama as unpatriotic and indifferent to the troops has flopped. Two thirds of respondents said the trip was appropriate for a presidential candidate, and 72% say Obama cares about veterans and the troops in Iraq.

And Obama is ahead in the horse race: Obama 51%, McCain 44%, beyond the ±3% margin of error. So even if McCain is viewed as superior on foreign policy issues, it's not enough -- and Obama is getting a passing grade.

The stampede of Republicans dumping contributions from Ted Stevens picked up speed today:

• Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign spokesman tells us that McConnell is donating $10,000, the amount McConnell has received this cycle from Stevens' leadership PAC, to the Wayside Christian Mission. Still no response on whether McConnell is endorsing Stevens for reelection.

• The Pioneer Press is reporting that Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota is donating the money to support childhood cancer research. Interestingly enough, he'd previously said he wouldn't dump the money, on the grounds that Stevens is innocent until proven guilty. But a Franken radio ad tying him to Stevens might just have changed his mind.

• Mike Johanns, the Republican nominee favored to win the open seat in Nebraska, is also donating the money he's received from Stevens to charity.

We speculated below that the McCain campaign's new Obama-Britney ad, which is supposedly running on national cable and in "key states," might not have any real money behind it and could be designed merely to get free media coverage. McCain has done this before.

As it turns out, though, the Obama-Britney ad is already up on the air in the swing state of Pennsylvania, according to Evan Tracey, who tracks national ad buys for the Campaign Media Analysis Group. This suggests that this might be a real buy.

Indeed, Tracey tells me he suspects this one might have real money behind it.

"The ad seem to me to be something the McCain campaign tested and believes will work," Tracey says. "Therefore, I suspect this ad will be part of their rotation for a couple of days and not simply a video press release, but only time will tell."

Tracey added that the McCain camp might be reluctant to do another fake buy because it might make political reporters reluctant to cover future ads without proof of real cash behind them.

It would be interesting if this spot did test well and has real money behind it. It's too early as yet to know where else it may be running, but we'll bring you news of that as soon as we get it.

Obama himself responds to McCain's Britney-Paris ad:

"You know, I don't pay attention to John McCain's ads, although I do notice he doesn't seem to have anything to say very positive about himself. He seems to only be talking about me... You need to ask John McCain what he's for and not just what he's against."

Dunno. We'd prefer to hear Obama use the word "childish," or if he prefers, "sophomoric," as senior Obama adviser David Axelrod called the ad today. Hearing Obama himself laugh off the ad as childish or babyish would help ensure that McCain just keeps on shrinkin'...

Late Update: As a commenter notes, "pathetic" would also have worked pretty well.

Here's a fun video response to McCain's Obama-Britney ad from ProgressiveAccountability.org, that third-party group that reconstituted from David Brock's old outfit...

The vid shows a well-known, and particularly vacuous, Britney moment where she professes undying trust in Bush, and pairs it with McCain offering a similar sentiment, if not quite as mindlessly.

Heh.

This is pretty great. John McCain's claim that Barack Obama would rather lose the war than lose the presidential race is so repugnant that one of his most prominent surrogates -- Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who's also talked about as a potential Veep -- refused to endorse it.

Take a look...

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, to his credit, pressed Crist at least three times on whether he agrees with the notion that Obama wants to lose the war, and each time, Crist ducked, finally saying: "I have no idea. I would hope not."

But make no mistake: Even if Crist is unwilling to say it, the McCain campaign's official message -- voiced by the candidate himself -- is that Obama is basically committing treason.

Uh oh. Here's another sign that top Republicans are backing away from Sen. Ted Stevens: Roll Call reports that NRSC chairman John Ensign refused to give a definite answer when asked if he was endorsing Stevens for re-election.

"I'm not going to make any comment," Ensign said. "There's a process in place and we're going to wait to see how that process plays out."

We've also asked the campaign spokesman from Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell -- who is himself facing a tough re-election fight this year -- whether he supports Stevens, and whether he'll keep contributions he's received form Stevens' PAC. No answer yet.

The McCain campaign has launched their big push to define Obama -- they're hoping to define him in the public mind as a puffed-up dandy.

The McCain camp has a euphemism for this: "celebrity." But puffed up dandy is what they're really going for.

On a conference call with reporters just now, McCain campaign manager dug in and defended the new McCain ad deriding Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world" and comparing him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

"What we decided to do was find the top three international celebrities in the world," Davis said. "And from our estimations, Britney and Paris came in second and third. From our perspective, we have in this ad the three biggest celebrities in the world."

"He has more fans around the world than Britney Spears does," Davis added.

The "celebrity" epithet is key to the contrast the McCain camp is trying to draw now: Obama is a "celebrity," while McCain is a "leader."

Read more »

Another poll shows Obama's lead slipping a bit in a key swing state. The new numbers from Public Policy Polling, as compared to those in June:

Obama: 46% (48%)

McCain: 43% (39%)

The pollsters say that McCain's gain is fueled partly by his improvement among white voters. McCain has turned what was a small edge for Obama into a 10-point lead among them, 50%-40%.

The poll comes after another recent one found McCain making gains in Michigan and two other key states, Colorado and Wisconsin. Clearly, the conventional wisdom that McCain's campaign is struggling isn't being borne out by these numbers.

The McCain campaign is up with a new attack ad about Obama's trip abroad that refers to him as the "biggest celebrity in the world" -- a tag that presumably isn't meant as a compliment...

It's another effort to "create a narrative" (today's euphemism of choice) of Obama as puffed-up and presumptuous.

The McCain camp says the ad is running on "national cable" and in "key states," which strongly suggests that the target of this ad is again the national media, which is being counted on to amplify the McCain message for him.

But is using "celebrity" as an epithet really enough to generate the sort of media chatter the McCain camp is counting on? Guess we'll soon find out.

Not surprisingly, the Republican National Committee is now attacking Barack Obama over the Washington Post account of him supposedly hailing his own symbolic importance before a roomful of House Dems -- an account that's being disputed by multiple sources.

But here's what's funny: The RNC's attack consists of nothing more than a reproduction of the entire WaPo post, under the headline "Audacity Watch." In other words, the WaPo post is seen by the RNC as a perfect and complete attack in and of itself -- akin to an RNC press release.

I'm not kidding. Take a look.

Separately, it turns out that WaPo used this quote to hit Obama not once, but twice. WaPo's Dana Milbank has a "sketch" which is entirely devoted to tarring Obama as "presumptuous" (his word), a perfectly distilled GOP talking point. And it, too, is based partly on precisely the same quote, which came from an anonymous source.

That seem odd to anyone else?

Okay, just when we get done saying how great The Washington Post was for knocking down McCain's false troop visit attack, along comes a really, really bad one.

The "big story" of the morning is this post from WaPo which purports to reveal that in a closed-door meeting with House Dems, Obama said this:

"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

My gosh, Obama thinks he walks on water! Now the Republicans will be able to create a narrative about presumptuous Obama!

Except that it looks like WaPo may have grossly distorted what he actually said.

A Dem leadership aide who was in the room has emailed me and other reporters this:

"His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him. The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: 'It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol ... ."

...and Dem Rep. James Clyburn says this:

"...it wasn't about him. It was about Germany and Europe. And he said that he was a symbol of that hope."

Still no update on the original WaPo post.

Late Update: WaPo has now written up the leadership aides' pushback. Of course, that hasn't stopped the GOP from attacking Obama over the quote.

Progress! Today's Washington Post comes through with a great front-page piece devoted entirely to debunking McCain's false attack on Obama's canceled troop visit. Here's a key excerpt from the piece, which is entitled, "McCain charge against Obama lacks evidence:

For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true...

A reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding Obama's decision not to visit Landstuhl, based on firsthand reporting from the trip, shows that his campaign never contemplated taking the media with him.

There's a great detail in the piece, too: McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds tells the WaPo reporters that "press reports" show that Obama canceled the trip because he couldn't bring the media. And then...

Asked repeatedly for the "reports," Bounds provided three examples, none of which alleged that Obama had wanted to take members of the media to the hospital.

The sweet sound of journalism, ladies and gents. Meanwhile, the lead editorial in today's New York Times calls the McCain version of events a "false account of what occurred."

As Atrios would say, Baby steps into the light...

McCain's Attack Ad Played Almost Entirely By News Media
The New York Times reports that the McCain campaign's ad falsely attacking Barack Obama over the canceled troop visit has only run as paid commercial about a dozen times. Obviously the ad has gotten a lot more play than that -- and it's all come from free media talking about the ad, which was obviously the basis of their strategy to begin with.

Obama Touring Missouri Today
Barack Obama is spending the day in the perennial swing state of Missouri, where he'll be holding multiple events focusing on economic issues. Obama will be accompanied by Sen. Claire McCaskill, and will be touring through Springfield, Rolla and Union.

McCain In Colorado Today
John McCain is spending the day in Colorado, where he'll be speaking to employees at the Wagner Equipment headquarters, a regional dealer of Caterpillar equipment for the West. Given the location, expect McCain to talk quite a bit about economic issues.

McCain Has Multi-Million Dollar Fundraising Night
McCain spent also spent last night in the Denver suburbs, where the campaign claims to have had a very good night in fundraising -- with a take of $3.2 million. "These public housing projects are quite remarkable," McCain joked to the upscale audience.

Wall St. Journal Bashes McCain On Taxes, Social Security
The Wall St. Journal's right-wing editorial page is panning John McCain for his appearance Sunday on ABC's This Week, and the fact that he refused to rule out a tax increase to fortify Social Security. "If Mr. McCain can't convince voters that he's better on taxes than is a Democrat who says matter-of-factly that he wants to raise taxes," the paper says, "the Republican is going to lose in a rout."

Obama, McCain Camps Have Spent $50 Million On TV Since June 3
A new study by the University of Wisconsin finds that the Obama and McCain campaigns have spent $50 million on TV ads since June 3, when Barack Obama officially sewed up the nomination. It doesn't look like the end of the Democratic primaries June caused any sort of lull in the campaign.

John McCain got some good news today, with a skin biopsy showing no recurrence of skin cancer.

"Senator McCain visited the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, yesterday for a routine check of his dermatological health," said Michael Yardley, chair of public affairs at the Mayor Clinic, in a statement sent out by the campaign. "The biopsy that was performed did not show any evidence of skin cancer. No further treatment is necessary."

Here are two more Republicans getting rid of money from Ted Stevens: Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, who is in a close re-election battle in his Democratic-leaning state, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is running ahead in the polls for her own re-election bid.

"Money donated by Ted Stevens to Gordon Smith's reelection campaign will be donated to charity," said Smith campaign spokesperson Lindsay Gilbride, in an e-mail to Election Central.

Collins is also dumping the money, with the campaign's communications director telling Maine Politics that Collins will donate the money to charity.

Another GOP Senator is getting rid of money he's received from Sen. Ted Stevens' Leadership PAC: Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire, who is trailing his Dem opponent Jeanne Shaheen in the polls.

"Team Sununu will be donating to charity the $10,000 received during this 2008 campaign cycle from Northern Lights PAC," said campaign manager Paul Collins, in a statement sent to Election Central. "The campaign had previously donated to charity contributions received from VECO employees who pled guilty to wrongdoing."

The McCain campaign has repeatedly attacked Barack Obama as weak on terror, accusing him of a "September 10th mind-set" and hitting him for favoring a law-enforcement approach to terrorists as "criminals," rather than seeing the campaign against terror as a war.

But a study released today by a think-tank that does research for the Pentagon concludes that a law-enforcement approach, rather than a "war on terror" framing, is precisely what's needed to effectively counter terrorism -- a position that's squarely at odds with that of the McCain campaign.

From a summary of the study by the Rand Corporation...

Current U.S. strategy against the terrorist group al Qaida has not been successful in significantly undermining the group's capabilities, according to a new RAND Corporation study issued today...

In looking at how other terrorist groups have ended, the RAND study found that most terrorist groups end either because they join the political process, or because local police and intelligence efforts arrest or kill key members. Police and intelligence agencies, rather than the military, should be the tip of the spear against al Qaida in most of the world, and the United States should abandon the use of the phrase "war on terrorism," researchers concluded.

McCain, of course uses the phrase "war on terror" on the campaign trail almost as often as he giggles (though in fairness, Obama uses the phrase from time to time too).

And here's what the study's author has to say about how to confront terror groups: "In most cases, military force isn't the best instrument."

As Steve Benen, who flagged this earlier, notes: "In a sensible political environment, the Rand report's conclusion would be obvious and beyond question."

I would add that in a sensible political environment, this study would constitute a pretty strong blow to McCain's Obama-weak-on-terror hokum. But we aren't functioning in a sensible political environment, so one can only hope this study finds its way into the hands of as many media figures as possible.

Now that Senator Ted Stevens has gotten indicted, one big question is this: Will all the GOP Senators and Senate candidates dump the contributions he's given them?

We now have the first reported case of a Republican Senator getting rid of such money: Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, who is facing a well-funded challenge from Democrat Kay Hagan.

Campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley just told Election Central that the campaign has written a $10,000 check -- the amount Dole has received this cycle from Stevens' leadership PAC -- to the Society of St. Andrew.

Stevens' PAC has donated to every incumbent GOP Senator seeking re-election this year. That's one down. Will others follow?

This is pretty interesting: Barack Obama is up on the air with an ad responding to McCain's recent spot blaming him for higher gas prices:

Obama's ad, which will run in the same states that McCain's spot is running in, derides McCain's broadside as the "same old politics." The rub here is that Obama is reprising precisely the same response he used multiple times against Hillary in the primary, casting McCain's attacks as "old politics," thus responding to McCain while amplifying his own message. Hey, if it ain't broke...

It should also be noted that McCain's ad is ludicrously easy to deride.

You won't be surprised to learn that Obama's trip abroad got lots of media attention, but a new Project for Excellence in Journalism study details just how much attention it got, and the numbers are pretty extraordinary:

According to the study, which analyzes journalism from a huge range of news sources, Obama's trip sucked up more than 50% of campaign coverage. Meanwhile, the nearest competitor, that forgotten episode known as the Iraq War, got less than 10 percent.

I'm generally skeptical of studies that purport to measure whether one candidate is the target of more media bias than another. But quantitative analysis like this seems credible.

Does this mean the media is biased in favor of Obama, as the McCain campaign claims it believes? Not necessarily. As many others have argued, the increased attention also means increased media scrutiny that magnifies perceived mistakes and "gaffes."

To take just one example, consider how much attention was lavished on Obama's cancellation of the troop visit and on John McCain's ad attacking Obama for it. And consider how few news outlets pointed out that McCain's attack was false, even as multiple outlets amplified its message to an untold degree.

Wow, talk about a case of perfect timing. In the wake of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment, a development that almost ensures a huge Dem pickup in the Senate, Stevens' primary opponent Vic Vickers is set to go up on the air tomorrow with a new spot attacking him for corruption -- and it was produced days ago!

Though the race is totally in flux and Stevens could still win the primary, Vickers very well could be the one that Dem candidate Mark Begich faces in this high-stakes race. As we reported last night, the self-financing Vickers has come out of nowhere and bought over $400,000 worth of ad time on both TV and the radio from out of his own pocket.

Something tells us Vickers will be editing his new ad to mention the indictment.

So what's the best way to debunk the false Obama smears?

Lots of folks are weighing in today on the union mailer we posted on below that knocks down the more scurrilous rumors making the rounds about Barack Obama. A good take comes by way of the Jed Report, who says that this is the best anti-smear effort he's seen yet:

In late June, Professor Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton (mindgeek at Daily Kos), penned a New York Times op-ed describing how debunking falsehoods by repeating the falsehoods can in fact strengthen the original falsehood. Consequently, the best way to spread the truth is by leading with the truth to debunk the smear. For example, emphasize that "Barack Obama IS a Christian" instead of saying what he is not...

As you can see, instead of answering each smear in the negative, the mailer instead poses questions that can be answered positively. In this fashion, the flier is reinforcing who Barack Obama actually is instead of who Barack Obama is not.

By contrast, the Obama campaign's official anti-smear Web site leads with the smears, stating them as assertions, rather than as questions, the way the mailer does.

One related side-note: The word "Muslim" appears nowhere on the mailer, even though it directly takes on that particular falsehood. That seems very effective.

Late Update: A savvy political operative just got in touch to suggest that there is a reason to explicitly include the word "Muslim": It means that if you Google "Obama" and "Muslim," the anti-smear effort will also pop up. Which is to say, inquiring minds who are not yet informed on Obama's heritage could be more likely to learn the truth.

Huge, huge news out of Alaska: In a major development that all but ensures that Dems will make a major Senate seat pickup in a state that hasn't elected a Dem to Congress since 1974, incumbent GOP Senator Ted Stevens has just been indicted.

Stevens, who was indicted on seven counts of public corruption, was already trailing his Democratic opponent Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, by a decent margin in the polls. Begich's campaign has been founded on a commitment to public ethics, and this indictment will now give him even more ammunition.

The wild card here, of course, is whether Stevens steps aside and lets a stronger Republican take his place from the big GOP bench in this deep-red state, perhaps via a write-in bid for the upcoming primary. On the other hand, he might just be stubborn enough to stick around. Even if Stevens were to drop out, Begich is a strong candidate and would have a very good shot at winning.

In short, what was already a bad map for the Senate GOP just got a whole lot worse.

Late Update: It's worth pointing out that Stevens already had several primary challengers, and any one of them could end up being the new nominee. But none of them are big names, and Begich would start out as the favorite in a general election.

Wouldn't you know it, but former Hillary chief strategist Mark Penn now thinks Barack Obama has a good shot at winning the general election -- after spending months bad-mouthing his chances.

Penn arrived at this conclusion in a fairly novel way, however: He says that the key to the election will be a group of people he describes as "active grannies."

"In the coming months, the big viewers of cable television, the conventions and the debates will be the active grannies," Penn writes in a new column for the Politico, "and they will be torn between wanting to vote for the kind of change they voted for in 1992 and wondering whether Obama has cleared the experience hurdle they are concerned about."

"If I had to handicap the race now, Obama has a huge opportunity with this group," Penn later adds.

Of course, this is the same demographic that was supposed to deliver the nomination to Hillary...

Here's another fun stat that reveals just how badly the GOP is getting financially outgunned by the Dems in the battle for the House -- and how much of a hard time they'll likely have in trying to hold on to even their current number of seats.

A review of finance reports by CQ found that of the top ten best-funded candidates who are challenging incumbents, nine of them are Democrats. Among the very well-financed Dems are Jim Himes of Connecticut, Darcy Burner of Washington state, and Dan Seals of Illinois.

It gets better. The one Republican candidate on the list, businessman Sandy Treadwell of New York, is a self-financier. In other words, GOP donors didn't put a single challenger on the top-ten list.

Another poll shows a very close race in North Carolina, a state that hasn't voted Democratic since 1976 -- suggesting yet again that Barack Obama could be on the cusp of dramatically expanding the map for Dems.

The new numbers from Public Policy Polling (D): McCain 47%, Obama 44%, and Barr 3%, with a ±3.4% margin of error. Four weeks ago, it was McCain 45%, Obama 41%, and Barr 5%.

The racial breakdown is very interesting in this poll, with Barack Obama getting 34% of the white vote compared to John Kerry's 27% in 2004. Black voters only make up 20% of the electorate in this poll, compared to 26% in 2004. If Obama can maintain the proportion of the white vote he has here, with an electorate that looks like 2004, he could win it in the end.

Late Update: For his part, Tom Jensen at PPP e-mailed us to say that he believes the figure showing African-Americans making up 26% of the electorate in the 2004 North Carolina exit poll was wrong. He believes the 20% estimate used here is more on target.

Media Matters Action Network goes up with a new ad that tries to rebut -- and parody -- John McCain's recent Web video lampooning Obama's love affair with the media.

The new spot shows McCain picking daisy petals as he asks himself whether reporters still love him...

I'm told that Media Matters put $100,000 into an initial buy and is airing the spot only in New York and Washington, D.C., which obviously means the ad is strictly targeted at the insiders and two-timing reporters whose affections are apparently swinging wildly back and forth between the two men.

In a sign that the big labor unions are about to ratchet up efforts to woo Rust Belt union Dems towards Obama, the AFL-CIO is set to blitz four swing states with a pair of mailers targeted directly at blue collar swing voters.

The first one is the more interesting one: It seeks to dispel a host of false rumors about Obama that could be proving worrisome to working class whites, including the falsehoods that he's a Muslim and doesn't show sufficient deference to the flag (click on the images to enlarge)...

The second mailer is a more straighforward testimonial to Obama's labor record, and the mailers will go out in the next couple of weeks to about 600,000 swing voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, according to AFL-CIO spokesperson Steve Smith.

More broadly, the mailers signal the start of an aggressive new campaign by labor in the swing states, where unions hope to get their membership fully behind Obama and thus function as a kind of "firewall" for Obama in working class swing-voter territory, Smith says.

"We're ramping up our efforts to really define Senator Obama among union voters, especially in these key Rust Belt states," Smith tells me, noting that the union's membership is "still learning about Senator Obama" and will be targeted by a campaign to tell them "exactly who Senator Obama is, what he supports, and why he's right for working families."

McCain: Iraq Withdrawal Could Take 16 Months -- Or Even One Month!
John McCain is continuing to hedge on how long it might take to withdraw from Iraq, at once ruling out a timetable and hinting he might do it faster than Barack Obama. "Now whether that fits into 16 months or not, or one month, or whatever, the point is it's got to be conditions-based," McCain told Larry King last night.

Obama Meeting Big Names In Washington Today
Barack Obama is spending the day in Washington, DC, where he'll be meeting behind closed doors with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Gilani. Later on, he'll also be holding a meeting with House Democrats, presumably to collaborate on an overall strategy and unified platform for the election.

McCain In Nevada Today
John McCain will be holding a town hall meeting in the swing state of Nevada today, set to begin at 12:45 p.m. ET. This state has been very closely contested in the last few elections, and is being aggressively targeted by the Obama campaign to turn from red to blue.

Dems To Unveil Major Push For Latino Voters
The Washington Post reports that the Obama campaign and the DNC will be announcing a $20 million effort to target and turn out Latino voters this fall, targeting Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Despite the early conventional wisdom that Barack Obama would have problems with Latinos, all current polling shows him with a huge lead among this demographic, and the Dems consider it very much key to winning the White House.

GOP Launches Facebook Parody Of Obama
The RNC is finally getting creative with their online efforts, launching a new satirical site called BarackBook, an imaginary Facebook profile for Barack Obama that includes such "friends" as Tony Rezko and William Ayers.

Report: Obama Vacationing In Hawaii In August
Some more details are emerging on Barack Obama's upcoming August vacation, which a hot microphone caught him discussing with British Conservative Party leader David Cameron over the weekend. Obama will spend a week in Hawaii during the middle of August, spending most of the time with his grandmother and other family members but also making time for at least one fundraiser.

Independent Candidate Tossed Off Ballot In Maine Senate Race
Democrats in Maine got some good news yesterday, with the state Supreme Court ruling that liberal independent Senate candidate Herbert Hoffman will not appear on the November ballot after a challenge by the state Dems. Democratic nominee Tom Allen currently trails incumbent Republican Susan Collins in the polls, and Hoffman's presence had threatened to make his job that much harder. (Via Turn Maine Blue.)

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska is facing yet another bump in the road as he seeks re-election: A self-financing unknown who is about to spend a lot of money on a Republican primary challenge.

Businessman Vic Vickers has placed TV and radio ad buys totaling $410,000, in which Vickers will spend the next month until the primary hammering Stevens over the corruption scandals that have endangered the senior Senator's political career. "I bought everything that was available," Vickers told Roll Call.

Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of Vickers, as he hasn't been a big name in politics until tonight. I called up his campaign earlier this evening, and was told that his campaign Web site just went live today.

But I do expect we'll be hearing more from him. The first ad is set to air Wednesday -- the one-year anniversary of a federal raid on Stevens' home.

Sen. Tim Johnson, whose cerebral hemorrhage in late 2006 put him out of action in the Senate for a year, is now on the air for his re-election campaign. The ad features Johnson and his wife Barb talking about why he's running again:

"Besides, I wanted him out of the house," Barb Johnson says. To which Tim replies, "And I paid for this?"

Johnson is heavily favored to win re-election over the Republican nominee, state Rep. Joel Dykstra.

FactCheck.org comes through with a bracing takedown of the McCain ad falsely attacking Obama over the canceled troop visit, concluding the same thing we've been yelling all day:

McCain's facts are literally true, but his insinuation -- that the visit was canceled because of the press ban or the desire for gym time -- is false. In fact, Obama visited wounded troops earlier -- without cameras or press -- both in the U.S. and Iraq. And his gym workouts are a daily routine...

Reporters were not allowed to accompany him when he visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Medical Center on June 28. The small "protective pool" of reporters that routinely accompanies him was told by Obama's staff to remain outside, in the van, according to a reporter covering the campaign...no cameras or press were planned.

Pretty soon the number of parties using the F-word -- "false" -- about the ad with such reckless abandon will crack half a dozen!

Hmmm. Another one where the McCain campaign isn't looking all that prescient?

As you know if you've been reading TPMmuckraker today, which of course you have been, the Bush Justice Department released a report today finding that multiple Bush officials broke the law on the U.S. Attorney Purge.

So it seemed worth recalling what McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt said awhile back about the firings scandal:

Schmidt was untroubled by the firings, telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it was "mostly a combination of nonsense and politics and provides us no concern at all."

Seemed worth recalling, just for old time's sake. We have ongoing coverage of the report over at TPMmuckraker.

Not so fast with all the gloating over Barack Obama's lead in most of the national polls. A new USA Today/Gallup poll gives John McCain the lead among likely voters -- quite possibly the first poll in a long time to show this -- and Obama only a narrow edge among the wider pool of registered voters.

The numbers: Among likely voters, it's McCain 49%, Obama 45%, with a ±4% margin of error. A month ago, Obama led 50%-44% in this group. Among registered voters it's Obama 47%, McCain 44%, compared to Obama ahead 48%-42% last month.

This runs contrary to all the other polls out there, which have Obama ahead in both the registered and likely voter categories. Gallup pollster Frank Newport speculates that for his poll, Republicans are listing themselves as likely voters in greater numbers because of all the press coverage surrounding Obama's overseas trip and the crowds welcoming him in Europe: "At least in the short term it may have had the side effect of energizing Republicans."

As noted here on Friday, we've compiled a vast (perhaps too vast) timeline of McCain's statements about Bush administration policy on Iraq -- and it casts some doubt on McCain's claim that he was a broad critic of Bush policy and a prescient predictor of what would happen with the war.

Now we've updated the timeline with a couple of real finds from readers. There's this one from a McCain Op ed in The New York Times (wonderfully entitled "The Right War for the Right Reasons") which shows McCain's predictive powers to have been less than keen...

[N]o one can plausibly argue that ridding the world of Saddam Hussein will not significantly improve the stability of the region and the security of American interests and values....Isn't it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness?' Didn't those who argued that the war 'would not significantly improve the stability of the region and the security of American interests and values,' and that 'antipathy toward the U. S. in the Islamic world' would skyrocket, have a point?

We also added this fun nugget, which casts a bit of doubt on McCain's claim to have "consistently" insisted we need more troops in Iraq...

During a 2005 appearance on Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked McCain, "Do you believe we have enough American troops on the ground right now?" McCain answered, "I think we have in numbers probably enough."

If you all unearth more, we'll add them. You can view our updated timeline right here.

Okay, this is interesting: It looks as if the new McCain ad falsely attacking Obama over his canceled troop visit may not really have a lot of money behind it, suggesting that its real purpose isn't getting it before voters directly.

Rather, the real target audience may be the media -- meaning that the McCain camp's goal is largely to get the ad debated in the press and to drive the conversation that way.

Evan Tracey, who tracks media buys at the Campaign Media Intelligence Group, took a look at the McCain buys and discovered that an earlier McCain foreign policy attack ad, as well as the troop visit attack spot launched this weekend, are running in almost no battleground-state markets, with the new spot only running in Denver and Washington, D.C.:

"They're probably one part ads and one part press release," he said of the two spots. "I don't think these are in any part cornerstones to his message these days -- I think they're really designed to get in the press."

So, the bogus troop-visit attack ad's primary goal is to get reporters and pundits to talk about it. The McCain campaign is counting on the media to amplify the message for them.

Maybe that alone could persuade media folks to gear up those fact-checking skills and start calling out the ad as false?

In a sign that Democrats could have a serious shot at a normally very red Congressional district, first-term GOP Rep. Bill Sali of Idaho has now found himself badly outgunned financially for the fall.

Sali's second-quarter filing, which was filed late on Friday, shows he brought in $139,000 for the quarter, and has $250,000 on hand. Meanwhile, Dem businessman Walt Minnick raised $287,000 and has $444,000 on hand, for a nearly two to one advantage. The DCCC is also reserving $349,000 worth of advertising here for the fall, giving Minnick even more of an effective cash advantage.

On paper, this should be a safe Republican district, having voted 68%-30% for President Bush in 2004. But Sali is a controversial figure back home, and only won 50%-45% in an open-seat race in 2006. If the Dems were able to pull off a win here, it would be a very big deal.

Here's another reason why it's so critical that the media report accurately on the McCain attacks on Obama's canceled troop visit: The McCain camp's efforts to make sure this keeps boiling away as a major campaign issue are only just getting started.

The McCain campaign has just ratcheted up the rhetoric on this "controversy" with yet another misleading statement, this one in the name of Chief Warrant Officer (4th class) Michael J. Durant:

"Over the last week, Barack Obama made time in his busy schedule to hold a rally with 200,000 Germans in Berlin, hold a press conference with French President Nicholas Sarkozy in Paris, and hold a solo press conference in front of 10 Downing Street in London. The Obama campaign had also scheduled a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, but this stop was canceled after it became clear that campaign staff, and the traveling press corps, would not be allowed to accompany Senator Obama."

"I've spent time at Ramstein recovering from wounds received in the service of my country, and I'm sure that Senator Obama could have made no better use of his time than to meet with our men and women in uniform there. That Barack Obama believes otherwise casts serious doubt on his judgment and calls into question his priorities."

It's kind of amusing that McCain's ad says explicitly that the visit was canceled because Obama couldn't bring "the cameras," but this latest statement says it was nixed "after it became clear that campaign staff, and the traveling press corps," couldn't attend. A bit of truth managed to creep in, but only a bit.

Again: The notion that the Pentagon's nixing of press attendance had anything to do with the cancellation is a complete falsehood, for the reasons noted here and here. Will future reporting on the dust-up make this clear? After all, this story clearly isn't going away.

Gallup's daily tracking poll today finds that Obama has moved into a nine point lead over McCain, 49%-40%, the largest spread since Gallup started tracking the general election in March.

Meanwhile, today's CNN poll of polls finds Obama's national lead has doubled from last week to six points, though it's unclear whether this simply reflects the new Gallup numbers.

Other key metrics to keep an eye out for: How will the trip affect polling on Obama's commander in chief readiness, and will Obama cut into McCain's lead in this department? If Obama does manage to go some way towards neutralizing McCain's foreign policy advantage, the road ahead suddenly looks a lot steeper for the Arizona Senator.

We'll be keeping an eye out for numbers on that.

Late Update: The 49%-40% number is in fact yesterday's number, not today's. But today's is practically as good: Obama 48%, McCain 40%.

MSNBC does the impossible, pointing out that the McCain attack ad's claim that Obama canceled the visit to the troops because he couldn't bring "the cameras" is false:

NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports that there was never a plan for Obama to take the press to Landstuhl, despite the claim by McCain folks and others. The plan was to go with his military aide, retired General Scott Gration. The Pentagon said Gration was off-limits because he had joined the campaign -- violating rules that it not be a political stop.

Obama had gone to see wounded troops in Iraq earlier in the week, without even confirming he'd been there. No press, no pictures. He has done the same when he goes to Walter Reed -- never any press.

This is rather relevant info, to put it mildly, and it's unclear why it's missing from most of the other reporting about this ad.

I've just done a lap through the coverage by the big news orgs of the ad John McCain put out this weekend attacking Barack Obama for canceling his visit to a U.S. Army base in Germany.

CNN has a piece here, The New York Times has one here, The Washington Post has write-ups here and here, and the Associated Press has one here.

The stories did dutifully note the Obama camp's push-back against the ad. But not a single one of these reports told you that the ad is false.

McCain's ad makes a stark assertion about the reason the trip was canceled: "Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."

But there is no evidence whatsoever supporting this assertion. It's false. That isn't the reason the trip was canceled. Shouldn't that be explicitly noted in stories about this?

Read more »

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