Senator Joe Biden, a top Obama surrogate who's being discussed as a potential Veep for Obama, just announced that he'll be visiting Georgia, too, in addition to key McCain surrogates Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham.

"I am going to Georgia this weekend to get the facts first-hand and to show my support for Georgia's people and its democratically-elected government," Biden said in a statement released today. "I look forward to reporting to my colleagues in the Senate and on the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Administration, about what I learn."

The move, which is likely to stir even more speculation about Biden's Veep chances, could play in Obama's favor. The Illinois Senator would almost certainly like one of his key foreign policy allies to visit Georgia, too, at a time when McCain is trying to usurp the commander-in-chief role with regard to the Russia-Georgia crisis by talking to the lead actors in the crisis almost daily and dispatching his own campaign allies to the region.

Late Update: Biden is going at the request of Georgia's President.

DNC Out-Raises RNC For First Time This Cycle
The Democratic National Committee has announced that they raised $27.7 million for the month of July, just edging out the RNC's $26 million, the first time this whole cycle that the usually-underfunded DNC has outdone the RNC. The DNC, including its joint committee with the Obama campaign, has $28.5 million cash on hand, bringing the Democratic total with the Obama campaign to $94.3 million -- just narrowly behind the Republicans' aggregate total of over $100 million on hand.

Obama Leaves Hawaii
Barack Obama's Hawaiian has come to an end last night, as the candidate left the islands to head back to the mainland and the campaign trail. Between now and November, it will be practically nothing but non-stop campaigning.

Obama And McCain To Appear At Saddleback Church Tonight
Barack Obama and John McCain will both be at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church tonight, where they will take questions separately from Warren on various national issues. Note that this is not a debate, in which the candidates would take questions simultaneously, though they are expected to share the stage for a brief photo opportunity. The event is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET.

Loretta Sanchez: Half Of House Dems Could Vote For Hillary At Convention
In an indication that the Democratic Convention could unintentionally give an appearance of Democratic disunity, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of California is predicting that up to half of the House Dems could end up voting for Hillary Clinton under an open roll call. "I felt she was the most experienced and the best candidate and I still feel that way," Sanchez added -- though for the record, it should be noted that Hillary herself has said she personally plans on voting for Obama.

McCain: Western State Water Compact Should Be Reopened
John McCain may have just gotten in trouble in the key swing state of Colorado, telling The Pueblo Chieftain that the 1922 water compact among Western states should be renegotiated. Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar responded by saying Mccain's position is "absolutely wrong and would only happen over my dead body," and that Colorado should fear losing more its water resources if negotiations are opened up again.

GOP Senate Candidate: Feds Raking In Cash On The Backs Of Oil Companies
And speaking of Colorado, the campaign of Democratic Senate nominee Mark Udall is sending around this tracker audio of Republican nominee Bob Schaffer complaining that the federal government is taking too much money from the oil companies. "But because prices are soaring, the reality is the federal government is raking in a bunch of cash right now on the backs of energy producers," Schaffer says -- perhaps not the most popular message this year:

From the Obama campaign's release:

Senator Barack Obama's campaign announced today that more than 65,000 new donors contributed to the Obama campaign during the month of July, bringing the total raised for the month to over $51 million. More than 2 million people have now contributed to the campaign.

"The 65,000 new donors to the Obama campaign demonstrate just how strongly the American people are looking to fundamentally change business as usual in Washington. We are proud of the millions of volunteers and more than two million donors to the Obama campaign who will provide the backbone of our campaign to put America back on track and reject the old politics and failed Bush policies, which is all John McCain is offering," said David Plouffe, campaign manager of Obama for America.

The Obama campaign also says they now have roughly $65 million on hand.

Obama raised $52 million last month, and with the $51 million this month we can see that Obama has kept the pace of roughly $50 million a month he needs to meet his goal of raising $300 million or more.

Obama's haul is also nearly double the $27 million raised by McCain in July. The McCain campaign and Republican National Committee have roughly $100 million on hand. The DNC's numbers are expected sometime this weekend, so we'll soon be able to see how the two sides stack up against each other.

Was this a Freudian slip, or a deliberate insult?

In an interview on NPR today, Howard Dean was asked about the increasing minority populations in the country, and he predicted it would bode well for the Democrats.

"If you look at folks of color, even women, they're more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the (chuckles) Republican Party, because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups."

RNC chairman Mike Duncan was quick to respond in a statement tonight: "Howard Dean's comments on race and gender today are disappointing and wrong. His efforts to divide Americans are an insult to all our nation's citizens and have absolutely no place in the national dialogue."

We think it was a Freudian slip -- though Dean didn't seem too embarrassed about it. The interview can be heard here, with the apparent gaffe at shortly after the seven-minute mark.

Late Update: DNC press secretary Stacie Paxton has responded in an e-mail to Election Central: "He misspoke and corrected himself immediately."

The McCain campaign outdoes itself, releasing two "celeb" sneer ads in one day, the latest being this new spot that's going up in Ohio.

It offers a creative new twist on the "celeb" theme, with a narrator opining that "maybe the applause has gone to his head"...

McCain's ad is a response to the Obama campaign's criticism of the DHL merger, which FactCheck.org says is misleading.

Separately, it's sobering to think that the "celeb" sneer, with those shots of crowds chanting Obama's name as he supposedly basks in his own adulation, could conceivably appear in just about every single McCain attack ad between now and election day.

The McCain camp clearly thinks this slow-burn defining of Obama is working. Either that, or maybe all the applause for Obama has gotten to McCain's head...

A spokesman for Congressman Bill Sali is disputing a quote now going around the blogs, in which the Idaho Republican reportedly said that there are up to 40 barrels of crude oil in every tree. Needless to say, such a claim would be scientifically erroneous.

"I wasn't there," spokesman Wayne Hoffman told Election Central, "but I can assure you he didn't say there's 40 barrels of oil in a tree."

It's been noted that Sali said something virtually identical in 2006, when he was quoted by the Spokane Spokesman-Review saying that "Forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is crude oil."

Hoffman told us that the 2006 quote was "out of context."

Sali might have been referring to cellulosic ethanol in a very awkward fashion. "He believes there's a lot of potential for that, found right here in Idaho," Hoffman said.

The Obama camp is pushing a new theme in Pennsylvania tomorrow -- it's called the "Buy American, Vote Obama" campaign.

Here's the new logo, to be unveiled tomorrow and to appear on stickers and flyers in select towns around the state:

According to an Obama aide, the new effort dovetails with a renewed push by the Obama team in Pennsylvania to poke fun at John McCain's recent claim that he would rather hear the roar of "50,000 Harleys" than the cheering of 200,000 Berliners.

As the Obama camp was quick to point out, McCain opposed legislation that would have forced the U.S. government to buy American-made motorcycles.

The Obama camp's push on the issue includes running this recent ad, which was running in the York market and mocks McCain's Harley quote while pointing out McCain's position on American-made bikes, in two new markets in Pennsylvania beginning tomorrow -- the Pittsburgh and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre markets.

Obama's Pennsylvania campaign, the aide says, will be hitting the ground this weekend in around five towns around the state with stickers and flyers bearing the above "Buy American, Vote Obama" logo.

The events will feature a few dozen actual Harley riders for Obama that have been recruited for the weekend's events.

"Harley riders aren't typically supportive of Democratic candidates," the aide says. "But we're making a play for them by saying that Obama's economic policies are the true patriotic ones."

If "Buy American, Vote Obama" catches on, it could conceivably be unveiled in other battlegrounds.

It's yet another sign of the Obama camp's efforts to turn the attacks on his patriotism on their head by arguing that McCain is the one who's anti-American-worker. Such arguments have had mixed success, but with the economy topping the list of voter concerns, it's possible that they will land on fertile ground in the struggling industrial battleground states.

The McCain campaign has offered a novel defense against critics who hit him for offering up his wife Cindy as a contestant at a topless biker beauty pageant: He was a POW!

This whole mess started when Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, who is heading up an independent group of pro-Obama pastors -- and, by the way, officiated at Jenna Bush's wedding -- criticized McCain's remarks at the Sturgis rally: "My personal opinion, and based on my opinion of the Christian faith, that's not the type of expression a presidential candidate or anyone following the Christian faith ought to make."

The Wall St. Journal reports that McCain spokesman Brian Rogers fired back by saying that Americans "know that John McCain's faith and character were tested and forged in ways few can fathom."

The Obama campaign, eager to make it known that it's responding forcefully to the new Swift-Boating book by Jerome Corsi, is jumping on a John McCain moment today where he appeared to sidestep an opportunity to condemn the book and its multiple falsehoods about Barack Obama.

Asked by a reporter today to comment on the book, McCain said: "Gotta keep your sense of humor," before his aides whisked him away.

That prompted Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor to launch approximately a dozen tactical nukes in McCain's direction:

"The old John McCain used to boast about honorable politics, while the new John McCain finds Roveian smears funny. Honor is not a laughing matter. What does John McCain think is funny about an intolerant smear artist who called Pope John Paul II senile and claims the government lied about 9/11? McCain has said he wants to run an honorable campaign, but his belief that these smears are funny makes people question whether he now approves of the same reprehensible politics used to smear his own character eight years ago."

The point that bears repeating here is that in 2004, McCain did condemn the Swift-Boating of John Kerry, which Corsi also had a big role in. Also, McCain has claimed he wants the current campaign to be "civil."

But McCain has looked the other way when his own surrogates have questioned Obama's patriotism and American-ness, and his campaign has even endorsed these attacks. And now the same tactics that McCain condemned in 2004 are apparently just some gag that we should all have a good laugh over.

McCain campaign advisers, too, are declining to condemn the Corsi book. This morning, we asked the McCain camp if Corsi's tactics have a place in a campaign McCain himself says he hopes will remain "civil." No answer yet.

Late Update: The Associated Press reports that a McCain spokesperson is claiming that he didn't understand the question. But AP adds that the McCain campaign has no comment on -- or condemnation of -- the Corsi book.

Here's the response from Obama spokesperson Hari Sevugan to McCain's ad from this morning calling Obama a "celebrity" and the "taxman":

"This ad is just more of the same old false and discredited attacks that Senator McCain knows aren't true. Senator McCain will say or do anything to hide the truth: while Obama will cut taxes for the middle class, McCain will give a billion dollars in new tax breaks to America's eight largest corporations, while his plan provides no direct relief for more than 100 million American Families.

"And despite his rhetoric, he's refusing to support the bipartisan Senate proposal to expand production and invest in renewable energy because he wants to protect tax breaks for oil companies. We've seen what happens when we put the oil companies and their lobbyists ahead of working families, and that's exactly what Americans want to change in this election."

Tough stuff. But what happened to the word "lie"? That had been popping up a lot in Obama campaign responses, much to this blog's delight. Bring back "lie"!

Also, it still seems like the "celeb" sneer needs to be engaged directly. Something along these lines, perhaps.

Late Update: Lots of folks think the Obama team doesn't wanna hit McCain on his wealth because they don't wanna get hit with the old "class warfare" club. One other possibility: Drop the words "Washington celebrity" (from Obama's previous response ad) into these responses. Of course, that risks looking like tit for tat.

One name that's conspicuously absent from the current lineup of speakers at the Dem convention: Jim Webb.

This, even though Obama is making a major play for Virginia. This, even though Webb would be a fantastic voice on the third night of the convention, which is national security night.

This could mean one of several things. First, and perhaps most likely, he hasn't been slotted in yet, though why this would be the case is unclear. Second possibility: He will be Veep, even if he's ruled it out. Third possibility: He's still being actively considered for Veep.

It's an odd, and conspicuous, omission. [Editor's note: Actually, it doesn't mean any of those things, and it's not an odd omission. See update below.]

Late Update: It's true, as a commenter points out, that Tim Kaine and Wes Clark also haven't been scheduled yet. But we know Kaine is being considered for Veep, and Clark has said he'll be out of the country.

And again, Webb ruled out the Veep slot, so slotting him in on national security night should have been a no-brainer.

Late Late Update: A Webb spokesperson tells me it's "unlikely" he'll speak at the gathering. He's leaving Wednesday morning to keynote an American Legion national convention in Phoenix. I've changed the headline to reflect that.

Which is to say, I never should have done this dopey post at all.

Hillary will campaign for Obama this Sunday at Northern New Mexico College, her office confirms.

She's in the state to attend a couple of fundraisers with Bill Richardson to pay off her campaign debt.

Her campaigning for Obama comes at a time when tensions between the two camps, to the extent that there were any, have largely tailed off. Hillary and Obama agreed yesterday that her name will be entered into nomination at the Dem convention, after which she'll urge her backers to support Obama.

Separately, there's been a bit of confusion over who's speaking when on Tuesday night at the convention. While Virginia Governor Mark Warner unquestionably has the marquee slot as keynote speaker, the Dem convention team also confirms that Hillary will speak last, meaning she'll deliver the climax speech, which is also a good slot.

This, just blasted to reporters by the McCain campaign, has to be one of the oddest attacks ever:

You know you may just be a global celebrity when you get this headline in Reuters, "Obama Takes Shirt Off Again, Goes Body Surfing In Hawaii."

Hard to know what's more bizarre: The fact that this is indeed the Reuters headline, or the fact that the McCain campaign is flogging it.

Talk about a slow news day...

In yet another indication that Barack Obama's financial advantage may not prove to be all that formidable, the McCain campaign has just announced a solid fundraising month for July. Campaign manager Rick Davis said on a conference call with reporters just now that they took in $27 million, compared to $22 million in June.

The RNC also took in $26 million, and has $75 million on hand. Between the McCain campaign, the RNC, and the national and state-level joint victory funds, Davis said the current total cash on hand for the GOP's campaign effort is over $100 million.

And the McCain campaign will also be spending a whole lot of money this month, as they burn through their entire reserves before McCain receives his federal funding for the general election. "We'll have a very good August, as far as expenditures go," Davis said.

The Obama campaign and DNC numbers for July have not yet been announced, but they did quite well in June: The Obama campaign took in $52 million, and the DNC brought in $22 million, with a total of $92 million cash on hand.

The McCain camp is out with yet another "celeb" sneer ad, this one drawing a shap contrast between Obama's allegedly vacuous popularity and the possession of real leadership qualities: "Celebrity? Yes. Ready to lead? No."

The ad somehow figures out a way of pinning higher gas prices on Obama's forthcoming tax hikes (in fact, he's calling for a middle-class tax cut), without explaining how it is that we now have soaring gas prices, even though Obama's phantom tax hikes haven't been implemented yet.

The spot is running in "key states," according to the McCain campaign. Script after the jump.

Read more »

WaPo Takes Closer Look At McCain's Shadow Foreign Policy On Georgia
The Washington Post points out this morning just how odd John McCain's move has been in sending his own delegation to Georgia. "They accused Obama of being presumptuous," said Lawrence Korb, a former Reagan Defense official now supporting Obama, "but he didn't do anything close to this."

Obama Camp To Announce "Backstage with Barack" Winners
The Obama campaign will announce today the names of ten grassroots supporters selected for their "Backstage With Barack" drawing, who will be flown out to the Democratic Convention and given hotel accommodations at the campaign's expense.

John McCain Off The Trail Today
John McCain does not have any announced public events for today.

GOP's Conservative Base Objects To Potential Pro-Choice McCain Veep
The Christian Right base is up in arms over a trial balloon that John McCain has floated, indicating that he could potentially pick a pro-choice running mate. "That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates," said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens For Community Values.

Poll: McCain Up By Six In North Carolina
A new Rasmussen poll of North Carolina gives John McCain a 50%-44% lead here, with a ±4% margin of error. This lead comes thanks to a two-to-one advantage among white voters, while Obama picks up 93% of African-American respondents.

Parties Taking In Big Last-Minute Donations For Conventions
Both parties are hitting up their biggest donors and interest groups to close their budget gaps for the conventions. The Democratic Convention's committee, which has struggled to meet its fundraising goals, was helped in the last month by donations of more than $500,000 each from AFSCME and the American Federation of Teachers.

Mark Halperin has a new Obama ad that the campaign hasn't publicly released, in which Team Obama stays true to its promise to keep hammering John McCain over a local issue in Ohio: The likely closure of a shipping hub that was bought by DHL in 2003 with the help of lobbyist and current McCain campaign manager Rick Davis -- as well as McCain himself.

The announcer says that "thousands of Ohio jobs are at risk" thanks to McCain, along with statements by average Ohioans talking about the threat they're facing. "It's tough times, when it's a foreign entity coming in and sucker punching us," one man says. "That's how this felt."

The word "foreign" occurs three times in this ad -- perhaps an effort to turn the GOP's attacks on Obama's supposed un-Americanness on their head by hitting Republican trade policy as anti-American-worker.

Watch the ad here.

A new Rasmussen poll of Colorado has some bad news for Democrats: John McCain has edged into a statistically insignificant lead in a state that has become a linchpin for Obama's strategy.

The numbers: McCain 49%, Obama 48%, with a ±4% margin of error. Three weeks ago, Obama held a narrow lead of 50%-47%. While the movement itself isn't significant, it is nevertheless a good sign that this whole election is going to be tightly contested to the very end.

Karl Rove wrote in The Wall St. Journal today that Colorado is set to be one of the four states that will decide this election, along with Michigan, Ohio and Virginia, and he thinks Obama is best-positioned to win this state. We'll see what happens.

Another major news org, the Wall Street Journal, has now picked up on a topic we've been fairly obsessed with of late: Senator Evan Bayh's co-chairing of the neocon Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, along with John McCain and Joe Lieberman, and why that makes him a bad Veep choice for Obama.

But The Journal spoke to Bayh about this, and he now says that, well, he's forgotten all about any association he might or might not have had with that group...

Sen. Bayh now says he regrets his early support of the Iraq war and has no recollection of the committee. "I don't remember any meetings, any conversations, any anything," Sen. Bayh said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "Obviously my name was linked to it, but other than that there's nothing that can be said."

Really? As Steve Clemons wryly notes, "I take Senator Bayh at his word that he may not recall this high profile committee that garnered lots of press attention and had McCain, Lieberman, Scheunemann, James Woolsey and others attached. But then I think that the Senator owes us an explanation of how his staff signed him up for this -- or how it happened."

We'd say so. This is deeply absurd, to put it very charitably. Separately, that Facebook page where liberal bloggers are organizing against Bayh for Veep has how grown to over 2,500 members -- in one day.

What do you do if you're a GOP Senator who's held office for 40 years in a deep-red state, but you're now on the verge of losing your seat amid an indictment for public corruption?

You roll out your first ads of the season, reminding the voters of how much you've done for them and how they shouldn't forget you, just as Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' campaign has announced. The ads feature regular Alaskans singing the praises of Uncle Ted:

Stevens is heavily favored to win his Republican primary in two weeks, but then comes the tricky part: The polls all show Stevens losing very badly against Democratic candidate Mark Begich. Dems haven't won a federal election here since 1974, and it will be a very big event if they end up taking Stevens down in the end.

Stevens also has two other ads, which can be viewed here and here.

In stark contrast with the Kerry campaign in 2004, the Obama campaign is mapping out an aggressive counter-attack against the new Swift-Boat-Vet style book targeting Obama -- including plans to dig more deeply into the author's past statements, plans for increased surrogate action against the book, and stepped up pressure on high-level media executives to let the Obama team have air time to rebut the charges.

The plan is taking shape amid new signs that the book -- by Jerome Corsi, who wrote the tome that formed the basis for the attacks on Kerry -- will have staying power and become a real factor in the campaign.

We've just learned, for instance, that the Corsi book, called Obama Nation, will be number one on the New York Times best seller list two weeks running, according to an early copy of the list from the Sunday after next we obtained. It was previously known that it would debut at number one this weekend, but the fact that it will stay there for a second week running suggests the attacks will continue to resonate.

We've also learned that a second anti-Obama tome -- The Case Against Barack Obama, by David Freddoso -- will also debut at number five on the best-seller list the week after next.

Obama advisers say that whenever they hear that Corsi has been booked for an appearance on a network program, they are quickly contacting the program's producers to rebut the book's charges in phone conversations and giving them a whole run-down of past Corsi quotes that are controversial.

Obama aides also vow to insist that the producers allow them to have on a campaign surrogate to attack the charges, and are expecting to recruit more campaign surrogates, well plied with talking points, to push back against the book.

Read more »

At this point, the pattern is overwhelmingly clear: Again and again, John McCain's attacks on Barack Obama have been virtually identical to the ones Hillary waged against him during the primaries. We've compiled a chart below that illustrates this in striking terms.

Our chart documents seven examples in which the spirit and substance of Hillary's attacks during the primaries have found themselves repeated in identical terms by the McCain campaign.

In some ways, this is to be expected. After all, two people who are running against Barack Obama will be tempted to adopt the same obvious themes.

But McCain's parroting of Hillary's attacks is nonetheless striking. At times, the McCain campaign has occasionally referred directly to Hillary's criticisms of Obama in a play for her voters. McCain has frequently echoed even some of Hillary's most esoteric and unlikely attacks, too.

The McCain team seems to have calculated that the differences in the primary and general election electorates are substantial enough that the same attacks that failed last time will work this time. But this is nonetheless a big gamble for the McCain camp. Obama has already faced down these same attacks -- and won.

View our full chart after the jump.

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As expected, Obama and Hillary have just released a joint statement confirming that her name will be placed in nomination at the Dem convention.

The key to the statement, though, is this sentence:

Senator Obama's campaign encouraged Senator Clinton's name to be placed in nomination as a show of unity and in recognition of the historic race she ran and the fact that she was the first woman to compete in all of our nation's primary contests.

It was Obama who encouraged Hillary's name to be entered. It's hard to overstate how at odds this is with what pundits such as Maureen Dowd cooked up -- their reckless and outright fictional assertion that the discussion that Hillary's name be entered was proof that she was trying to disrupt the proceedings.

Indeed, Obama advisers only had a problem with Hillary's more vocal supporters. They say they never had any real problem with how Hillary and her advisers handled this.

Their full statement after the jump.

Late Update: Some of you are making the perfectly valid point that it's possible that the statement doesn't really reflect what happened. All I can tell you is that multiple sources on both sides say that any talk of tensions between the two campaigns on this score is vastly inflated and say that the talks were generally harmonious.

The big issue that both sides grappled with together was what to do about her embittered supporters, and even Obama sources insist that the Hillary camp showed a commitment throughout to resolving this in a way that worked best for the Democratic Party and for Obama.

Read more »

This is really, really perplexing. It turns out that according to a new analysis, troops deployed abroad have donated six times more money to the candidate who wants to bring the troops home from Iraq:

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.

Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

Interestingly, the analysis notes that in 2000, George W. Bush outraised Al Gore by two to one among military personnel, but in 2004, with the war underway, John Kerry closed the gap somewhat. Now, with the war having gone on for more than five years, the Dem has an overwhelming advantage among troops abroad.

I can't account for this odd phenomenon. Anyone have any ideas why this might be happening?

The Hillary and Obama campaigns have finally reached an official deal on how to handle her role at the convention -- her name will be placed in nomination, as a way to assuage her embittered supporters and minimize the possibility of strife at the Denver gathering, according to two sources familiar with the deal.

Obama and Hillary advisers decided that this course was preferable to having her name not introduced, the sources say.

One source confirmed that there will be a roll call vote at the convention, probably on the third day, with her name in entrance, and that Hillary will encourage her supporters to vote for Obama.

"This will recognize the historic nature of the primaries, honor the voices of everyone who participated, and help with party unity," the source says.

The second source says that the Hillary campaign, under pressure from its supporters, expressed concern about her backers making noise at the gathering and finding a way for their voices to be heard. The Obama campaign was also considering how to ensure that and offered the idea of putting her name in nomination, the source says.

This resolution, which was the product of joint negotiations between the two campaigns, runs directly counter to what some Hillary critics in recent days were describing as an effort on her part to hijack the convention proceedings. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, for instance, recently wrote that Hillary "feels no guilt about encouraging her supporters to mess up Barack Obama's big moment."

But people in both the Obama and Hillary camps say that this is pure fiction. Indeed, as Marc Ambinder reported this morning, tensions between the two camps were greatly exaggerated.

Indeed, according to sources, the only problem the Obama camp had was with the tiny minority of vocal Hillary supporters who were threatening to make trouble. Obama advisers say that they had no issue with Hillary or her advisers' handling of the negotiations.

A joint press release on the deal is forthcoming.

Late Update: The joint release on this from Obama and Hillary has now been released.

Barack Obama and the DNC are seizing on Social Security's 73rd anniversary to launch a series of attacks on John McCain on the issue that try to link McCain with the original opponents of the program back in the 1930s (no, it's not a dig at McCain's age).

Obama uncorked a statement today hitting McCain for describing the program as an "absolute disgrace," adding: "The Bush privatization plan that Senator McCain now embraces would tell millions of elderly Americans that they're on their own, putting them at risk of falling into poverty...It's time to reclaim the idea that in this country, we're all in it together."

Meanwhile, the DNC has a new web vid featuring the grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt directly linking McCain to FDR's arch foes, who didn't want a government role in helping bail out the elderly, and saying that McCain "agrees with that old way of thinking" (Hmm, maybe it is an age dig?)...

The Dems are banking on the continued unpopularity of privatization to appeal to retirees, who could prove pivotal in some battleground states, and to offset whatever difficulties the younger Obama may have among elderly white voters. The DNC is also staging a series of Social Security events around the country, though absent any paid media it's unclear what sort of resonance this nostalgia play will have.

Late Update: In fairness, such events do have a real shot at getting local press around the country, which is their main goal.

In a move that signals a major new effort to woo elderly voters to Obama, the AFL-CIO is dropping a scorching new mailer in battleground states hammering John McCain on Social Security and directly referencing McCain's wealth, his corporate jet, and his expensive Italian shoes.

"McCain's worth over $100 million," reads the mailer, which we obtained in advance of its public release. "He owns 10 houses...he flies around on a $12.6 million corporate jet...he walks around in $520 Italian loafers."

"If John McCain lost his social security, he'd get by just fine," the mailer continues. "Would you?" Click on the images below to enlarge:

The new mailer, which highlights McCain's history of support for privatizing Social Security, signals a recognition that unions can play a role reaching out to what they think will be a pivotal swing state vote: Retired union members.

Steve Smith, a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO, tells me that the union will be striving to reach out to more than a million union retirees in coming weeks.

"In key battleground states, the retiree vote is going to be crucial in the presidential race," Smith says. "Our research -- polling, focus groups -- indicates that many seniors still are unaware of John McCain's record in support of privatization and plans to drastically reduce benefits."

The mailer will go out tomorrow to 50,000 retirees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, and more mailings will soon be dropped in those states, where the union is also planning a series of Social Security events.

The mailing's hard-hitting references to McCain's wealth also suggests that the big unions see another role for themselves: Striking a sharp populist tone in attacks against McCain that others have been calling on the Obama camp to employ, particularly in response to McCain's "celeb" ads. The message, quite simply, is: Who's the real elitist here?

Obama Running Negative Ad In Indiana
Barack Obama is running a targeted negative ad against John McCain in Indiana, reusing footage of McCain saying during the primaries that the economy was just fine. "How can John McCain fix the economy when he doesn't think it's broken?" the ad asks viewers:

McCain In Colorado Today
John McCain is campaigning today in Colorado, a state that has only voted Democratic once in the last 40 years but where most recent polls have put Barack Obama narrowly ahead. McCain has an event in Aspen, scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. ET.

Labor Groups Filing FEC Complaint Against Wal-Mart
The AFL-CIO, the Change To Win Federation and other labor groups will be filing an FEC complaint against Wal-Mart, one of their biggest corporate nemeses, over reports that the company has been engaging in illegal electioneering. This comes after The Wall St. Journal quoted an anonymous Wal-Mart employee describing a mandatory meeting in which employees were warned of the dire consequences that would follow if the Democrats won the election.

Dems Battling Ticket Scalpers For Obama's Speech
Democrats are working hard to stop an unintended consequence of Barack Obama's big acceptance speech in Denver: Ticket scalpers. Online auctions and Craigslist entries advertising tickets for sale, or from people seeking tickets, have been shut down at the Dems' request -- and furthermore, tickets haven't actually been printed and distributed yet, meaning any offers from people claiming to have one are fraudulent.

Dem Chances Go Up In Nevada House Races
CQ has changed their ratings for the two Republican-held House seats in Nevada, upgrading both of them for the Dems. The Second District held by freshman GOPer Dean Heller has been changed from "Republican Favored" to "Leans Republican," and the Third District held by third-term GOPer Jon Porter has been changed from "Leans Republican" to "No Clear Favorite."

Poll: Dem Ahead In Deep-Red House District
A new poll form Capital Survey Research Center (D), the polling arm of the Alabama Education Association, shows the Democratic nominee substantially ahead in the race for the open GOP-held Second Congressional District. Democratic candidate Bobby Bright, the mayor of Montgomery, leads GOP state Rep. Jay Love by a margin of 47%-37% -- even though this district voted 66%-33% for George W. Bush in 2004.

One has to wonder whether it's appropriate for a sitting U.S. Senator to gossip about these topics on a live radio show. While appearing on local radio in Maine, Republican Senator Susan Collins said she believes John Edwards is the father of Rielle Hunter's baby:

The discussion of the Edwards scandal begins at the two-minute mark, with Collins saying at around 3:30, "But also, don't you think he is the father of the child?"

(Via Collins Watch.)

A new pair of Rasmussen polls gives John McCain narrow leads in the key swing states of Nevada and Virginia, a sign that the presidential race remains very competitive on the state-by-stat level.

The numbers in Nevada: McCain 48%, Obama 45%, with a ±4.5% margin of error. In another worry sign for Democrats, McCain's personal ratings are at 58% favorable to 42% unfavorable, compared to only 47% favorable and 51% unfavorable for Obama.

In Virginia: McCain 48%, Obama 47%, with a ±4.5% margin of error. McCain's favorable are at 51%-36%, with Obama's at 51%-47%.

We now have a high-ranking Democrat openly saying Joe Lieberman should pay for his betrayal of the party once this election is over.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Nancy Pelosi was asked about the Lieberman problem, in light of his recent comments implying that Barack Obama doesn't "put the country first."

"The Democrats in the Senate are in a tough spot. They have 51 votes. Joe Lieberman organizes with them," said Pelosi. "In 85 days or something, they will have five more Democrats -- they won't need him to make the majority. And it will be interesting to see what the leadership in the Senate, the Democratic leadership in the Senate, does at that point in terms of Joe Lieberman's chairmanship of his committee."

Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon has taken yet another step to distance himself from the national GOP as he runs for re-election: The Oregonian reports that Smith has resigned his role as a state co-chairman for the McCain campaign.

The official reason Smith is doing this is so he can focus his time and effort on his re-election campaign in this blue state. But bear in mind that these co-chair roles are really honorary titles -- he wouldn't have to actually do anything except lend his name to the campaign, at any rate.

But for a senator who has now been airing ads tying himself to Barack Obama and John Kerry, it seems like even an honorary role on the McCain campaign is too off-message.

On Fox News just now, conservative commentator Bill Kristol said in no uncertain terms that sources close to the Obama campaign had told him that Colin Powell will endorse Obama and may even speak at the Dem convention on Wednesday night.

Not so, says Powell's spokesperson, Peggy Cifrino.

"There's no truth to it, no substance to it," Cifrino tells me. "I have no idea why Bill Kristol would be making this statement. There is no imminent endorsement."

Cifrino also said that he won't be at the GOP convention, either: "He will not be at either convention," she said.

Asked if this had meant Powell had ruled out endorsing Obama, Cifrino demurred. "He has said repeatedly that he is watching both candidates," she said. "He'll make a decision at some point. I know of no endorsement coming up."

Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

Late Update: You'll be surprised to hear that Matt Drudge is nonetheless flogging this as his lead story.

At a press conference just now, John McCain redoubled his efforts to thrust himself into a leadership role on the Russia-Georgia crisis front, announcing that two top campaign surrogates, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, are going on a visit to Georgia. McCain said:

"The situation in Georgia remains fluid and dangerous. As soon as possible my colleagues senators Lieberman and Graham will be traveling to Georgia. They're both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I hope that other members of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate will go together."

Lieberman and Graham, of course, are key campaign allies of McCain. The Arizona Senator has been using Obama's absence on vacation to associate himself more directly with the Russia-Georgia war in the mind of the public.

The idea is to showcase himself as a man of action during a time of international crisis and to remind people that the world is a dangerous place that's still filled with aggressive actors, something that the McCain camp presumably thinks will play in his favor.

McCain's announcement of his key campaign allies' trip abroad also seems designed to shoulder Bush aside as the primary GOP leadership figure here.

Okay, here's yet another twist on the false Republican claim that China is drilling for oil off American shores: Tom McClintock, the GOP nominee for the open seat of scandal-plagued Republican John Doolittle, has now asserted that China is on the verge of draining off all the oil in the Gulf!

"Meanwhile, the vast oil fields off the coast of Florida that American law prevents Americans from developing are now being drained by the Chinese government drilling in Cuban waters," McClintock wrote in a column for the Auburn Journal, pointed out to us by the campaign of his Dem opponent Charlie Brown.

"And still Nancy Pelosi and her supporters in Congress continue to block the development of these vast American oil reserves."

Question: Given how long it takes to set up offshore rigs, isn't it already too late to prevent China from taking every last drop of the oil they aren't actually drilling for?

Wow, such perfect timing! Below we noted at some length that the national media was failing to hold the McCain campaign accountable for its surrogates' pattern of questioning Obama's patriotism.

Now along comes a perfect example of this from Newsweek's Howard Fineman on MSNBC. Fineman was talking about Joe Lieberman's claim that Obama hasn't always put his country first:

Fineman said that while Lieberman's quote was clearly questionable, McCain himself wouldn't sanction it. "I still don't think if you said to McCain flat out, 'Do you approve of that kind of message,' that he would necessarily agree with it or support it," Fineman said.

But Howard, the McCain campaign itself blasted Lieberman's quote out to its press list, which constitutes an official McCain campaign endorsement of the quote. Isn't McCain responsible for his own campaign's message? And besides, if McCain doesn't agree with Lieberman, why hasn't he said so yet?

This from Fineman is really part and parcel of a larger media meme: The bizarre ability of some people to see questionable political behavior by McCain and his campaign as somehow indicative of good character on McCain's part.

For instance, when McCain pandered slavishly to the religious right, some pundits noted that McCain was uncomfortable doing this and didn't really mean it, so it didn't really matter. Similarly, when McCain constantly talks up his POW experiences, which he's perfectly entitled to do, we're always told that he's really reluctant to do this. This is a twofer for McCain, because he gets to showcase his war experiences and simultaneously be seen as modest about them at the same time.

Let's start calling this stuff for what it really is.

Late Update: TPMer Ben Craw has a sharp take on this over at his fun new TPMtv blog.

We bet this will blow up into a big story today. The Tennessee GOP -- which has hit Obama with previous incendiary attacks such as that video hitting Michelle Obama's "proud of America" quote and that effort to tie Obama to anti-semites and Farrakhan -- has just done it again.

They're out with a new video linking Obama to Kwame Kilpatrick, the mayor of Detroit who just landed in the slammer for violating the conditions of his bond:

It's unclear when this took place, though it's all but certain that it was before Kilpatrick was publicly embroiled in scandal. And of course, that's all beside the point -- the question will be the degree to which folks discern a racially-charged attack here.

In what is emerging as a clear pattern, high-profile McCain surrogates have been questioning Barack Obama's patriotism and his roots in American culture, without drawing any objection from the McCain campaign -- even though McCain campaign advisers have explicitly said that attacks on Obama's patriotism are off-limits.

In some cases the McCain campaign itself has endorsed its surrogates attacks, such as yesterday, when Joe Lieberman made the incendiary charge that Obama hasn't always put his country first.

Yet at the same time, the national political press and punditry have largely ignored the glaring disconnect between the words of McCain surrogates and the McCain campaign's professed high-mindedness, declining to point out the contradiction or to hold the McCain campaign accountable for his surrogates' attacks.

This odd media passivity towards McCain on this sensitive topic stands in stark contrast to coverage of the Democratic primary, when objectionable quotes from Obama and Hillary surrogates were met with aggressive coverage that forced the Democratic campaigns to either own or disown their surrogates' comments.

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The new Pew poll finds that the presidential race is continuing to narrow, with Barack Obama's lead still holding but much less than it used to be.

The numbers: Obama 46%, McCain 43%, with a ±2.5% margin of error. Last month Obama was ahead 47%-42%, and two months ago it was 48%-40%.

Despite Obama's recent efforts to burnish his credentials on foreign policy, the poll shows McCain continuing to beat Obama on leadership qualities: McCain is seen as more qualified by a 54%-27% margin, and having better judgment in a crisis by a 51%-36% margin.

On the other hand, McCain's "Celeb" ads may not be having their desired effect of painting Obama as culturally out of touch with ordinary people: It finds that Obama leads on the question of who "shares my values" by a 47%-39% margin.

Here's a new ad from Obama reclaiming the offensive with an attack on McCain over the economy:

The ad features a book called "economics by John McCain" that says he "supports George Bush 95% of the time." The spot also directly ties the poor economy to our sky-high spending on McCain's Iraq War, a line of attack that we haven't seen as much as we might. Good stuff.

The spot will be running in 16 battleground states. Script after the jump.

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Opposition in the liberal blogosphere to Obama picking Evan Bayh as Veep has grown so much that the lib bloggers are now organizing against the idea on Facebook.

The group's name: "100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh for VP."

"Let's grow this group to 100,000 in a day [and] send a clear message to the Obama campaign that Evan Bayh is not the right choice for Vice President," the group's page says.

Among the top bloggers who joined up: Atrios, Mydd's Todd Beeton, OpenLeft's Mike Lux, TPM alum Spencer Ackerman, Steve Clemons, Hilary Bok of Obsidian Wings, Taylor Marsh, Rick Perlstein, and The Nation's Ari Melber.

You can join the group or read the group's argument against picking Bayh right here.

Oh, and did I mention that Bayh co-chaired the neocon Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, along with John McCain and Joe Lieberman?

( Via Steve Clemons.)

A new Franklin and Marshal College poll shows Barack Obama with a narrow lead in the big swing state of Pennsylvania, a place where his primary loss caused some to question his electability.

The numbers, among likely voters: Obama 46%, McCain 41%.

The pollster's analysis shows that both candidates have a hurdle to overcome here: "If McCain's primary difficulty is that many believe he will carry on the policies of an unpopular administration, Obama's primary difficulty is his perceived inexperience."

That said, Obama can take some encouragement from the fact that he's ahead right now, though this state will continue to be contested through November.

Another poll confirms that North Carolina is looking like a close state for this November, despite the fact that the state hasn't voted Democratic since 1976.

The new numbers from SurveyUSA: McCain 49%, Obama 45%, with a ±3.9% margin of error. This is not significantly different last month's poll, which had McCain up 50%-45%. All the recent polls have shown McCain leading by a very narrow margin -- much closer than it was in 2004, when George W. Bush won by a margin of 56%-44%.

Barack Obama is aggressively targeting this state, and has placed it on his campaign's list of 18 states where his TV ads usually run. It's yet another suggestion that Obama is making good on his promise to broaden the map this year.

Wow, talk about taking right-wing attacks against Dems on Iraq to the next level. At a debate in New Mexico for the open GOP-held Second District late last week, Republican nominee Ed Tinsley accused his Dem opponent Harry Teague of wanting to cut the throats of American troops in Iraq:

"How can I call my two nephews over there right now ... and tell them I'm running against a guy that will cut your throat -- that will cut the bottom out of your funding," Tinsley said.

At this point Tinsley was drowned out by boos from the audience.

(Via New Mexico FBIHOP.)

Jerome Corsi, the writer of "Unfit for Command," which provided the basis for the Swift-Boat-Vets attack on John Kerry, is out with a new book that has the same lofty goals, but this time, the target is Barack Obama.

Today's New York Times has a run-down on the book, and the paper reports that Corsi is planning to work with some conservative groups to run Swift-Boat style ads against Obama, and the wingnut noise machine is already going full throttle, with talk-show hosts promoting the heck out of it. The chief editor of the publishing house behind the book is GOP operative Mary Matalin.

The Times piece offers a glimpse of several of the specific lies in the book that will no doubt be used on the Illinois Senator when the Swift-Boating gears up. Here's a quick rundown of the lowlights:

• Corsi's book says that Mr. Obama had "yet to answer" whether he "stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended to his law school days or beyond." Corsi even adds, "How about in the U.S. Senate?" But as the Times points out, Obama has written his memoir that he "stopped getting high" in the early 1980s. That's lie number one.

• Corsi's book, amusingly, uses Newsmax.com as a source for the falsehood that Obama was present at a sermon in July of 2007 where Reverend Jeremiah Wright faulted "the 'white arrogance' of America's Caucasian majority for the world's suffering, especially the oppression of blacks." In fact, Obama wasn't at that sermon. Even conservative columnist Bill Kristol issued a correction after trafficking in the same falsehood. That's lie number two.

• Corsi says that Obama failed to dedicate his book "Dreams From My Father" to his family, an apparent effort to suggest that Obama lacks family values. But The Times reports that Mr. Obama did dedicate the book to several family members in the introduction. That's lie number three.

At any rate, these are some of the lies we'll be hearing this fall. Oh, and not to hit you all with something so depressing first thing in the morning, but Corsi's book is set to hit the Times best-seller list this weekend. The non-fiction one.

Late Update: Media Matters did a nice job knocking down the book's multiple falsehoods.

Mark Warner To Keynote Dem Convention
The Obama campaign has announced that former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, who is on track to pick up a Senate seat this November, will be the keynote speaker at the convention. This should be seen as another major play for Virginia, by putting a very popular Democratic name there in prime time to advocate for Obama's election.

McCain In Michigan Today
John McCain is campaigning today in Birmingham, Michigan, in a big swing state that hasn't voted Republican since 1988. McCain has a media availability scheduled for 5:15 p.m. ET.

Obama Brings In $1.3 Million In Hawaiian Fundraiser
Barack Obama had a good evening last night in Hawaii, with a Honolulu fundraiser taking in $1.3 million. Obama offered this joke about why he's vacationing in Hawaii, a state he's virtually guaranteed to win this November: "It's going to be really embarrassing if we don't pull it out. I think I need to spend two or three days campaigning."

Poll: McCain Leads With Hunters, But Not By Much
A new poll from the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation finds John McCain ahead of Barack Obama among hunters, but by less of a margin than the Republican should be able to count on. McCain is ahead 45%-31%, compared to to a 27-point lead that George W. Bush had in 2004.

Right-Wingers Oppose Drilling Compromise
The Wall St. Journal reports that some conservative Republicans are coming out against the "Gang Of 10" energy compromise, which increases offshore drilling while simultaneously increasing funding for alternative energy. The Journal notes that drilling could cease to be an effective wedge issue if both parties actually came together and agreed to a compromise plan.

McCain Not Canceling Fundraiser With Ex-Abramoff Partner
The McCain campaign is ignoring calls from good-government groups for him to cancel an upcoming fundraiser with Ralph Reed, the former Jack Abramoff business partner. For his part, Reed is employing some interesting logic to say he isn't actually hosting a fundraiser: "I am just strongly supporting Senator McCain. I'm contributing to him and encouraging others to do so."

Okay, this is significant -- the McCain campaign appears to be officially endorsing Joe Lieberman's claim earlier today that Barack Obama has not always "put the country first."

Below we linked to an item on The New York Times Caucus blog which reported the comments.

In them, Lieberman said that the choice in this election is "between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not."

Just moments ago, the McCain campaign emailed out the same Lieberman quote to its full press list -- putting its official stamp of approval on Lieberman's assertion.

This is effectively an abandonment of the campaign's quasi-official position, which used to be that the McCain camp saw questioning Obama's patriotism as off limits. Last month, senior McCain adviser Charlie Black said explicitly that "we don't want to talk about his patriotism and character. We concede that he's a patriot and person of good character."

That no longer appears to be operative. The full quote as emailed out by the McCain campaign after the jump.

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Now this is something: A new poll of Alaska from local firm Hays Research has Barack Obama ahead in this deep-red state -- a place that has voted Dem only once, in the LBJ landslide of 1964.

The numbers: Obama 45%, McCain 40%, with a ±4.9% margin of error. Other recent polls from Rasmussen and Research 2000 have given McCain the lead here, so this poll might be an outlier.

On the other hand it's only the seond poll that we've seen from a respected local firm -- a poll conducted in July by Ivan Moore gave McCain a bare three-point lead -- so it might be an early sign that John McCain will have to work hard to hold on to a state that most Republicans can count on winning easily.

In that spirit, the Obama camp also announced today that they picked up the endorsement of Jim Whitaker, the Republican mayor of Fairbanks.

Another day, another unsightly smear of Obama from Joe Lieberman:

"In my opinion, the choice could not be more clear: between one candidate, John McCain, who's had experience, been tested in war and tried in peace, another candidate who has not,'' Mr. Lieberman said. "Between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not. Between one candidate who's a talker, and the other candidate who's the leader America needs as our next candidate.''

Between Lieberman saying that Obama hasn't always put country first, and senior McCain aide Charlie Black saying the other day that the McCain campaign concedes that Obama is a patriot, you have to conclude that the McCain camp's message is a bit muddled on this.

Surely the McCain team, irked by this glaring lack of message discipline, will be working harder to get their surrogates a little more in line with the campaign's message that attacks on Obama's patriotism are out of bounds. Right?

Separately, here's more proof that Lieberman is all but certain to attend the GOP convention.

Late Update: The McCain campaign officially endorses Lieberman's assertion.

Bob Perry, the wealthy businessman who bankrolled the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth to the tune of several million dollars, has a new cause: He's lavishing huge funds on the conservative group Club for Growth, which is in turn putting big money behind GOP candidates in key Senate races.

Perry has just plowed a whopping $400,000 into the coffers of the Club for Growth, the big right-wing group that advocates for conservative economic policies, the latest FEC records show.

Club For Growth, in turn, is now spending about $227,000 of that money to air an attack ad in Colorado against Mark Udall, who is the presumptive Dem nominee is going up against scandal-plagued GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer. The battle is playing out in a state where Dems have made strong gains after many years of Republican dominance.

Polls show Udall leading Schaffer by a fairly consistent margin in the mid-single digits. So Schaffer will be relying on wealthy funders like Perry to be funding, via Club for Growth, attack ad campaigns that just might enable him to hang on to his seat despite the scandals engulfing him.

At any rate, the big Swift-Boat-Vet financier now has a new cause.

Here's video of John McCain's speech earlier today on the Georgia crisis:

McCain voiced his total support for Georgia, saying he'd spoken earlier with President Mikheil Saakashvili. "He knows that the thoughts and prayers and the support of the am people ar ewith that brave little nation as they struggle for their freedom and independence," McCain said.

McCain added: "And I know I speak for every American when I say to him: Today, we are all Georgians."

Here's something else that could create political complications for John McCain in key swing states as he continues to defend measures that would maintain tax breaks for the oil industry: He recently opposed extending tax breaks for the wind-power industry.

Making this more difficult for McCain, the fledgling wind-power industry is popular in key upper Midwest and central plains states -- and here you have McCain protecting such tax breaks for Big Oil, but opposing them for Big Wind, or, if you prefer, Little Wind.

McCain recently opposed the big $300 billion farm bill, which itself is extremely popular throughout the upper midwest, describing the bill as "a $300 billion, bloated, pork-barrel-laden bill" because of subsidies for industries like ethanol.

But in a little-noticed development, the bill also contained a measure extending a tax break for developing wind power, which McCain specifically opposed. Obama backed it. According to Senator Tom Harkin, an Obama ally, the wind energy industry is employing close to 2,000 people, some concentrated in those key swing states. It's little local issues like these that can move votes in states where the voting is expected to be extremely close.

Making matters more difficult for McCain, Congressional Dems, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are edging towards supporting that recent bipartisan compromise energy bill that would open up some areas for drilling but repeal Big Oil's tax breaks.

This ups the pressure on McCain, because it forces him to keep defending his opposition to such a compromise, making it easier to tie him to Big Oil.

The slogan writes itself. McCain: Big Oil, yes, Little Wind, no.

Late Update: To clarify, the wind-power trade group says the industry overall employs 50,000 people. Harkin likely meant they employ 2,000 people in Iowa specifically.

Late Late Update: An interesting take from Steve Benen, who adds the crucial context that McCain's position on Little Wind is at odds with his rhetoric.

We like to keep track of the, er, intriguing sayings of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the Christian Right champion from Minnesota. But this latest is really out there -- Bachmann says we don't need pesky environmentalists like Nancy Pelosi around, because Jesus already saved the planet!

"[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet," Bachmann told the right-wing news site OneNewsNow. "We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that."

Wow.

Other recent Bachmannisms include the claim that there isn't actually any wildlife in the areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where she wants more drilling, and the allegation that Democrats want high gas prices so as to force people to move into "inner cities" and "the urban core."

The Obama campaign rolled out their new group, "Republicans for Obama," on a conference call with reporters today, and the GOPers on the call offered full-throated endorsements of Barack Obama's approach to foreign policy, while harshly criticizing that of John McCain.

Former GOP Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, a moderate with a background in foreign policy, sought to describe Obama as the real heir to the internationalist approach of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.

"In my judgment there's a difference between realism and pseudo-realism," Leach said. "The pseudo-realists believe that we can operate in the world alone, that expanding international law doesn't matter, that things like arms control are false starts."

"You try to work with allies, rather than without them," Leach added. "And that is the kind of realism that I think is common sense to the vast majority of the American people, and that's what Senator Obama is reflecting in so many of his speeches."

Leach's distinction is one that's rarely been drawn in this campaign and is worth pausing over. McCain is a proponent of the foreign policy school of thought that holds that American military power can accomplish literally anything, as long as we have the will to do it. You want to leave Iraq stable, with our troops coming home with "victory" and "honor"? No problem, we'll just stay until it gets done.

Obama, by contrast, has had the temerity to suggest that there are -- gasp! -- perhaps limits to what American military power can accomplish. "Iraq is not going to be a perfect place, and we don't have unlimited resources to try to make it one," Obama said recently.

As Leach said, Obama is the genuine "realist" here.

The McCain campaign is staying quiet on allegations that the candidate's statement yesterday on Georgia -- designed to bolster the candidate's appearance of expertise on foreign policy -- lifted sections on Georgia's history from Wikipedia.

Taegan Goddard first pointed out the similarities, noting that in some instances it looked like only a few words had been changed. If this is true, it would obviously contradict the idea that McCain knows everything he has to know about foreign policy and the intricacies of different regions.

We e-mailed the McCain campaign for comment yesterday, and they still have not replied.

Late Update: The campaign is denying the allegation, saying that there are only so many ways to state the historical facts and that any similarities between their statement and the Wikipedia entry are purely coincidental.

I just reached former Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson to ask him for comment on Josh Green's big piece in The Atlantic reporting that chief Hillary strategist Mark Penn suggested a big effort to draw a contrast with Obama's "limited" roots to American values and culture, as Penn put it in a memo.

Wolfson's response: Penn's idea was a bad one, and all of Hillary's senior advisers rejected that approach.

"Mark had plenty of good ideas on the campaign," Wolfson said. "This was not in my opinion one of them. It was never seriously considered, in any way shape or form."

Wolfson insisted that Penn's approach wasn't ever a real topic of debate within Hillaryland.

"There were lots of long running debates within the campaign about strategy. This was not one of them," Wolfson continued. "I don't ever remember having a lengthy or serious conversation about this. None of her advisers supported this approach when presented with it."

Wolfson even insisted that Penn didn't continue to press for this approach: "In fairness to Mark, I don't remember him particularly pushing it," Wolfson said.

Josh Green's article reports that Hillary ultimately didn't adopt Penn's suggestions. "Clinton wisely chose not to go this route," Green wrote.

The question, of course, is how does the idea that senior advisers and Hillary rejected Penn's approach square with the fact that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (along with other associations) became such a big issue in the campaign? Ultimately the media broke the Wright story, though that hardly rules out the possibility that some Hillary advisers were partly responsible for making that happen.

When the Wright story broke, the Hillary camp was initially reticent about it for a time, until Hillary herself responded to a question at an edit board meeting by saying: "He would not have been my pastor."

Of course, one could also argue that making an issue out of Wright is not necessarily synonymous with an all-out campaign to exploit Obama's "limited" roots in American values and culture, though they certainly have similar shading.

Jake Tapper of ABC News counts up the young white women in McCain's new "hot chicks dig Obama" ad.

The grand total: Four young white women.

Discuss.

Today's New York Times profiles Senator Evan Bayh as a Veep candidate and hits on a point we've been banging away at here: Bayh's Veep prospects are clouded considerably by the fact that he co-chaired the neocon Committee for the Liberation of Iraq along with John McCain:

Mr. Bayh's support of authorizing force in Iraq stands in sharp contrast to Mr. Obama's oft-stated view that he showed the good judgment to oppose the conflict from the start. After his vote, Mr. Bayh in early 2003 joined Mr. McCain as an honorary co-chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which made regime change in Iraq its central cause.

"He was not only wrong, he was aggressively wrong," said Tom Andrews, national director of the Win Without War coalition, referring to Mr. Bayh. "In my view, he would contradict if not undermine the Obama message of change, turning a new page on foreign policy and national security."

Indeed. Bayh would muddle Obama's message considerably. One key to Obama's candidacy has been a general refusal to let the terms of the foreign policy debate be dictated by the GOP and a willingness to challenge Republican frames on national security. Bayh, by contrast, is a darling of the class of Democrats who leap through GOP frames whenever Republicans say "jump," like so many trained seals jumping through hoops.

Bayh would indeed undermine Obama's message that it's time to turn the page on foreign policy. To be sure, any member of Congress who voted for the war would face a bit of a similar problem as Obama's Veep. But Bayh's co-chairmanship with the Committee, along with McCain, puts him in a separate class entirely. As Tom Andrews told The Times, Bayh "was not only wrong, he was aggressively wrong." The GOP talking points would write themselves.

GOP Preparing Legal Effort To Challenge Voter Registrations
The Wall St. Journal reports that Republican lawyers are preparing an organized response to Democratic voter-registration efforts, with a training session held this past weekend on how to comb through registrations and challenge them as ineligible -- particularly in swing states like Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Obama campaign already has their own response underway, with legal counsel in all 50 states ready to oppose the challenges.

Obama Holding Hawaii Fundraiser Tonight
Barack Obama is taking some time out from his Hawaiian vacation for some political activity, with a fundraiser scheduled for tonight in Honolulu.

McCain In Pennsylvania Today
John McCain is spending today in York, Pennsylvania, where he has a town hall scheduled for 11:45 a.m. ET, and will also tape a Fox News interview set to air in the 6 p.m. time slot. He'll be accompanied by former two-term Governor Tom Ridge, as he attempts to win over a big swing state that hasn't voted Republican since 1988.

Obama Camp Announcing Republicans For Obama Group
The Obama campaign will be hosting a conference call this morning to roll out their Republicans For Obama group, featuring former GOP Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa. Leach served in the House for 30 years as a relatively liberal Republican, most notably voting against the Iraq War in 2002, before being defeated in an upset by Democrat Dave Loebsack in 2006.

Pelosi Could Allow Vote On Drilling Compromise
Nancy Pelosi has softened her opposition to offshore drilling, following Barack Obama's lead in indicating that she could accept a compromise that included it. Pelosi told Larry King last night she could potentially allow a vote on drilling, if it was coupled with Dem-favored policies such as releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Sheehan Gets On The Ballot For House Bid Against Pelosi
Cindy Sheehan has officially qualified for the ballot in her Congressional race in San Francisco, where she is running as an independent against Nancy Pelosi. Election officials confirmed yesterday that Sheehan collected enough signatures for her campaign, which has the stated goal of punishing Pelosi for not ending the Iraq War or impeaching President Bush.

Stevens Now Opposed By Former Governor Who First Appointed Him
A new voice has come out against indicted GOP Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska: Former Governor Walter Hickel, the same man who first appointed Stevens to the Senate way back in 1968. "I don't care if I appointed him," Hickel told Bloomberg. "That was a long time ago."

In addition to the garden variety Mark Penn sliminess we posted on below, there's plenty of other good stuff in Josh Green's Atlantic article, which collects a bunch of internal Hillary campaign memos and demonstrates in graphic new detail just how embattled and chaotic the campaign really was.

The memos have just been posted, and they offer the following revelations:

*Hillary anger prompted "kindergarten" attack on Obama. Green reports that Hillary got angry on a conference call in December of 2007, wondering why the campaign wasn't on the attack. That sparked a flurry of emails among Hillary advisers, with chief spokesperson Howard Wolfson writing: "I would like to put out a release documenting all the instances that we know Obama has been contemplating a potus run."

Later the campaign would make an issue out of Obama's kindergarten essay on running for President one day, only to say the whole thing was a joke after the attack was ridiculed.

* Several Hillary advisers advocated a big push in March to address the Florida and Michigan delegation standoffs, but the campaign didn't do anything in earnest until May. A March 10, 2008, memo from two Hillary advisers insists that "our campaign should step into the vacuum" and says that the goal is to run up the "popular vote totals" in the two states. Nothing happened for at least two months, and by then, it was too late to build real momentum for revotes.

* Top Hillary strategist lashed out at campaign leaking. When Geoff Garin took over as Hillary's chief strategist in April 2008, he penned a memo saying he was appalled at all the leaking going on. Garin wrote: "I don't mean to be an asshole, but..."

* Uber-Washington-insider Robert Barnett also lost it over leaking. D.C. lawyer and top Hillary supporter Barnett boiled over after seeing a Washington Post article filled with leaks. "This circular firing squad that is occurring is unattractive, unprofessional, unconscionable, and unprofessional," Barnett wrote. "It must stop."

More memos here.

Josh Green's big piece in The Atlantic on all the behind-the-scenes drama that gripped Hillaryland during the campaign has just been posted online, and the host of internal campaign memos he's obtained are now up. They contain a bunch of new revelations about chief strategist Mark Penn.

Green's piece already got a bit of attention when an advance copy leaked out. But now that the actual memos are posted, there are buckets of new Penn sliminess to wallow in. Among the new revelations:

* Penn proposed targeting Obama's lack of American roots -- but also said the campaign could never do this publicly. Early accounts of Green's piece note a key revelation: That in a memo on March 19, 2007, Penn explicitly proposed drawing attention to what he called (with a rather jarring oxymoron) a "very strong weakness" for Obama: "His roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited."

But the memo has something that makes this even better: Penn said they'd never publicly do this. "We are never going to say anything about his background -- we have to show the value of ours," he wrote, adding: "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."

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Barack Obama has released the following statement on the Russia-Georgia War:

Good morning. The situation in Georgia continues to deteriorate because of the escalation of Russia's use of military force. I have spoken to President Saakashvili, and conveyed my deep regret over the loss of life, and the suffering of the people of Georgia.

For many months, I have warned that there needs to be active international engagement to peacefully address the disputes over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, including a high-level and neutral international mediator, and a genuine international peacekeeping force - not simply Russian troops.

No matter how this conflict started, Russia has escalated it well beyond the dispute over South Ossetia and invaded another country. Russia has escalated its military campaign through strategic bombing and the movement of its ground forces into the heart of Georgia. There is no possible justification for these attacks.

I reiterate my call for Russia to stop its bombing campaign, to stop flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and to withdraw its ground forces from Georgia. The Georgian government has proposed a cease-fire and the Russian government should accept it. There is also an urgent need for humanitarian assistance to reach the people of Georgia, and casualties on both sides.

The United States, Europe and all other concerned countries must stand united in condemning this aggression, and seeking a peaceful resolution to this crisis. We should continue to push for a United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for an immediate end to the violence. This is a clear violation of the sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of Georgia - the UN must stand up for the sovereignty of its members, and peace in the world.

The statement continues after the jump.

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A new Rasmussen poll of Iowa shows that Barack Obama's lead is starting to slip in this Midwestern swing stat,e though he does maintain an overall advantage.

The numbers: Obama 49%, McCain 44%, with a ±4% margin of error. A month ago, Obama had a healthier 51%-41% lead, in a state that voted narrowly for Al Gore in 2000 and then switched to George W. Bush in 2004.

Reclaiming this state for the Dems is a cornerstone of Obama's electoral strategy, so don't be at all surprised if he steps up his visits here in order to hold on to his lead.

The DCCC is firing back at Freedom's Watch, the right-wing group that's been targeting key Democratic House incumbents and challengers with radio ads on energy policy, with their own $175,000 ad campaign in ten districts across the country.

The ads tie the Republican candidates to Big Oil interests that want favors done for them in Congress, and say that this is why listeners have heard nasty attack ads on the radio lately. One of them in particular, in the Louisiana district picked up this past Spring by Democrat Don Cazayoux, even starts with the audio of the Freedom's Watch ad before cutting away to debunk it:

"We interrupt this negative attack to bring you ... the truth," the announcer says.

In many ways Freedom's Watch has become the true rival of the DCCC. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the official campaign arm of the House GOP, has been chronically unable to raise money in sufficient amounts to compete. But this new ad campaign shows that the DCCC understands who the real enemy is.

The latest McCain Web ad takes the "Celeb" tag to a whole new low -- it proclaims that "Hot chicks dig Obama":

"We know he doesn't have much experience, and isn't ready to lead, but that doesn't mean he isn't dreamy," says the announcer, followed by footage of two women at rallies -- both of whom are white, mind you -- complimenting Obama's looks.

How long until "Barack, call me" ends up in a McCain paid TV ad?

To our knowledge the Obama campaign didn't release it to the national press, but Team Obama is airing a new radio spot in Wisconsin -- the home of Harley-Davidson -- attacking John McCain over his recent quip at a biker rally that he'd much rather listen to the "roar of 50,000 Harleys" than the cheering of 200,000 Berliners.

The spot quotes McCain's joke, then calls him a phony for opposing a requirement that the government buy American-made motorbikes. "But when it comes to his record," the announcer says, "American-made motorcycles like Harleys don't matter to John McCain."

Click To Play

The standard Dem effort to turn GOP patriotism attacks on their head by painting Republican trade policies as anti-American worker has generally met with mixed success. But with the economy topping the list of voter concerns, particularly in industrial swing states, it's possible that such attacks will land on more fertile ground this time around. Full script after the jump.

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I'd been wondering when Camp Obama would do this: Campaign manager David Plouffe is now trying to raise money off McCain's "celeb" sneer ads, ratcheting up the counterattack on the spots by painting them as an assault on ordinary voters who see Obama as more than just a cheap pop culture phenom.

From Plouffe's latest email to supporters:

John McCain and the Republican National Committee are trying to convince you that you've been swept up and tricked into wanting change...

While supporters like you are out knocking on doors, registering new voters, and organizing in your local communities, our opponents are not even trying to match your efforts. Instead, they're spending millions to spread the smear that Barack is just a "celebrity" and that our grassroots movement is just a bunch of mindless fans.

So who is John McCain really attacking? Real people like Brandon, a carpenter from McCall, ID. Stephanie, a registered nurse from Phoenix, AZ. And Pamela, a retired teacher from Franklin, WV.

These are actual people who have made donations to our campaign this week.

The "tricked" and "mindless fans" lines are exactly right. The "celeb" spots are all about getting people to doubt their own responses to his candidacy, to portray them as something cheap and inauthentic, something that has nothing to do with Obama's policy aspirations or even their own genuine political yearnings.

Plouffe's letter asks folks to register their objections to the ad by donating all of five bucks apiece. It would be interesting indeed to track how much McCain's "celeb" sneers bring into Obama's coffers.

A new survey of Colorado by Public Policy Polling (D) shows Barack Obama's lead holding steady in this Western swing state, a historically Republican area that Barack Obama is making a major play for thanks to its own Democratic shift in recent years.

The numbers: Obama 48%, McCain 44%, with a margin of error of ±3.2%. This is essentially unchanged from the 47%-43% lead that Obama had in PPP's last poll from a month ago. The internals show the two candidates tied at 47% each among male voters, and Obama taking the lead thanks to a 49%-42% edge with women.

Also, the poll gives Dem candidate Mark Udall a 47%-41% lead over Republican Bob Schaffer in this state's open Senate race, in which the two candidates are competing to succeed retiring GOPer Wayne Allard.

If John McCain can't hold on to Colorado, which has only voted Dem once in the last 40 years, the road suddenly looks steep for him: Unless he can pick up a Kerry state to balance it out, he'd need to sweep Florida, Ohio and Virginia, plus take either Iowa or New Mexico -- and Obama has been well ahead in recent polls for those last two.

Here's yet another sign of just how reluctant people are to run for Congress under the tattered GOP brand: Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican in charge of the Senate GOP's recruitment efforts, has now admitted that he resorted to begging people to run for office for the sake of America.

"This is America, and it's worth fighting for," Ensign said he told potential recruits, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. "I appealed to their patriotism."

The problem is that Ensign admits he failed in many cases to recruit strong candidates, leaving us all with a cycle in which the Democrats have only one vulnerable seat. In short, this cycle is so daunting for the GOP that not even the most vigorous flag-waving can convince a solid Republican to run.

The new SurveyUSA poll of Virginia gives John McCain a one-point edge in this state, confirming that this historically red state will be closely contested from now to November.

The numbers: McCain 48%, Obama 47%, with a ±3.9% margin of error. A month and a half ago, SurveyUSA gave Obama an insignificant lead of 49%-47%, and other recent polls have all given either candidate an insignificant lead.

From the internals: Obama attracts 37% of the white vote, five points ahead of John Kerry's showing among white voters here in 2004, when he lost the state by eight points overall.

What's in the water Dems are drinking today? Don't they want Obama to win the presidential race?

First we had Bob Kerrey praising McCain as someone whose war service shows he "can deal with a crisis." Now the Milwakee Journal Sentinal has this from Senator Russell Feingold:

"I think the guy calls 'em as he sees 'em, and as president would call 'em as he sees 'em, and would make people mad all over the place because it wouldn't fit anybody's playbook," said Feingold, who teamed up with McCain to rewrite federal campaign laws.

"He would be very original," Feingold said.

Feingold even went on to describe McCain as a "maverick by nature."

This isn't exactly on message with the Obama camp. In fact, the Obama campaign message is that McCain has an image as a maverick who "calls 'em as he sees 'em" but that in reality he isn't that at all. Obviously, someone somewhere has decided that Obama's most prominent surrogates are all supposed to go out and praise McCain en masse today in terms directly at odds with Dem efforts to define him.

Thanks to TPM Reader JR for spotting this one.

Late Update: There's some question as to whether it's fair to identify Feingold and Kerrey as "surrogates." They are probably not surrogates in the sense that the campaign hasn't deputized them to go out and speak to the media on Obama's behalf. They are probably better described as "supporters." Obviously this doesn't make their comments any less objectionable or helpful to McCain, since they're fellow Dems, but it's worth clarifying.

The New York Daily News got a bit of a buzz going by reporting yesterday that Chelsea Clinton would be introducing her mother when Hillary speaks at the Dem convention on Tuesday night.

But Hillary spokesperson Mo Elleithee assures us that that isn't the case -- yet. "No decisions have been made," Elleithee says.

Any decision on this would be made by the Obama campaign, in concert with Hillary. I'm told that Chelsea is definitely being considered for the role, but it's far from official at this point.

The Democratic National Convention Committee has unveiled a novel theme for the Denver convention: "America's Town Hall," complete with questions from the public.

Kasnas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius announced the format on a conference call with reporters just now, along with a Web page where people can go to submit questions in writing or as video. During the convention itself, selected questions will be replayed live from the floor and then answered by a convention speaker.

The will also be a live element, said Sebelius: "There'll be an opportunity for people to actually tune in and call in and be included live as the convention is underway."

Hopefully the call-in questions will themselves be pre-taped earlier in the day, so there won't be any live questions during the convention asking about Baba-Booey's health plan.

Late Update: A Dem convention spokesperson confirms to us that all questions will be taped, with all answers delivered live.

Late Late Update: The Obama campaign clarifies to us that "America's Town Hall" is one running element of the convention, along with the themes for the individual nights: "One Nation" for the first night, "Renewing America's Promise" for the second night, "Securing America's Future" on the third, and finally "Change You Can Believe In" on the night when Obama is officially nominated.

John McCain is upping his hawkish rhetoric on Russia's military action against Georgia, blasting Russia's bombing of the smaller country as "unacceptable" and demanding that the United Nations bring a resolution condemning it.

McCain delivered a statement on the crisis to reporters today.

"Yesterday Georgia withdrew its troops from South Ossetia and offered a ceasefire," McCain said. "The Russians responded by bombing the civilian airport in Georgia's capital, Tblisi, and by stepping up its offensive in Abkhazia...This should be unacceptable to all the democratic countries of the world, and should draw us together in universal condemnation of Russian aggression."

"The United States and our allies should continue efforts to bring a resolution befo the UN Security Council condemning Russian aggression, noting the withdrawal of Georgian troops from South Ossetia, and calling for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgian territory," McCain added. "We should move ahead with the resolution despite Russian veto threats, and submit Russia to the court of world public opinion."

McCain's response continues to be more hawkish and confrontational than Obama's. And McCain clearly hopes to use the combo of the violence and Obama's vacation to associate himself more directly with an international crisis and to try to remind people that the world remains a dangerous place, something the McCain camp presumably believes will play in his favor. His full statement after the jump.

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Kerrey, Kerrey, Kerrey. With Obama surrogates like these, who needs political opponents?

"John McCain is a known quantity," says Bob Kerrey, who thinks Obama will ultimately prevail. "You don't look at John and say, 'Who the heck is he?' He's a veteran, he's a guy who got pretty banged up in Vietnam. He can deal with crisis. There's some uncertainty about Senator Obama."

Hard to see why any Obama surrogate would be suggesting a link between McCain's war service and his commander-in-chief credentials, isn't it? This is precisely what McCain's argument is.

Indeed, the Republican National Committee just blasted out Kerrey's quote to reporters. GOPers understand how helpful this kind of thing is to them.

Late Update: There's some question as to whether it's fair to identify Kerrey as a "surrogate." He's probably not a surrogate in the sense that the campaign hasn't deputized him to go out and speak to the media on Obama's behalf. He's probably better described as a "supporter." Obviously this doesn't make his comments any less objectionable or helpful to McCain, since he's a Dem, but it's worth clarifying.

New Obama Ad: McCain Has "Been Washington's Biggest Celebrity"
The Obama campaign has a new national cable ad firing back at the McCain campaign's "celebrity line," pointing out that McCain has "been Washington's biggest celebrity" and has regularly appeared on shows like Jay Leno and Saturday Night Live. The ad is certainly entertaining, but it could also be a sign that the Obama camp sees McCain's efforts as effective and thus requiring a rebuttal:

McCain In Pennsylvania Today
John McCain is touring the swing state of Pennsylvania, seeking to maximize the benefit he can get from Barack Obama's vacation by having a must-win state for Dems to himself. McCain is scheduled to make a statement from Erie at 9 a.m. ET on the Georgia crisis, and will hold a town hall tomorrow in York.

McCain Meets With Tom Ridge
John McCain had dinner last night in Pennsylvania with Tom Ridge, the former two-term Pennsylvania governor and original secretary of homeland security. Expect quite a bit of VP speculation around Ridge as the two tour Pennsylvania over the next two days, but it still remains unlikely -- Ridge is pro-choice, a position that would alienate much of the GOP's base.

AFL-CIO Takes Up Obama Camp's Charge Against McCain On Ohio DHL Deal
The AFL-CIO has a new mailer in Ohio blasting John McCain and campaign manager Rick Davis for their role in the DHL deal, which the mailer says has now led to "8,000 Ohio Jobs Lost," an issue that the Obama campaign has vowed to hammer in this big swing state. The mailer then adds forcefully: "Don't Let McCain Get Away With It."

Obama Camp: VP Announcement Will Be Texted To Supporters
The Obama campaign is offering their supporters the chance to be the first to know who the vice-presidential candidate will be, with a Web page where supporters can sign up to receive the announcement by e-mail and/or text message. The big question: Will this list really be the first to know, or will somebody leak it to a media outlet first?

Dem Chances Improve For Open House Seat In New Jersey
CQ is changing its rating on New Jersey's Third Congressional District from "Leans Republican" to "No Clear Favorite," a sign of increasing Democratic chances for this open GOP-held seat. The district is currently occupied by retiring GOPer Jim Saxton, and Democratic nominee John Adler is mounting a very well-financed bid against Republican Chris Myers.

Third-Party Group Plans Pro-Obama Blitz -- But Can They Succeed?
Yet another third-party group is planning a major push for Barack Obama, with California-based PowerPAC announcing that they will launch a voter registration drive targeting black voters in the South and Hispanic voters in the West. The group intends to spend $10 million, but will face the same challenge as other third-party groups that want to help Obama: He has explicitly told his supporters not to fund such efforts.

John McCain has often boasted that he led the way in the investigation that helped put Jack Abramoff in prison -- but apparently Abramoff's business associates are just fine for fundraisers.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that McCain is set to hold a fundraiser next week with none other than Ralph Reed, the Christian right leader and former Abrmaoff business partner whose 2006 bid for lieutenant governor of Georgia was derailed by the publication of numerous e-mails describing how Reed could launder money from Indian tribes to make it appear as if he wasn't actually working for pro-gambling interests.

"If you read this space, you knew this was coming," says Journal-Constitution columnist Jim Galloway. "But even now that the odd-couple alliance between Ralph Reed and John McCain is complete, you still can't believe that it's true."

Late Update: In all fairness, Barack Obama has previously raised money with Greenberg Traurig, a law/lobbying firm that was caught up in the Abramoff scandals.

The DNC's committee for the convention announces the dates of two key speakers at the big event: Michelle Obama, and Hillary. From the release:

Monday August 25th's headline prime-time speaker will be Michelle Obama.

Senator Hillary Clinton, who is a champion for working families and one of the most effective and empathetic voices in the country today, will be the headline prime-time speaker on Tuesday August 26th.

The headline prime-time speaker on Wednesday August 27th will be Barack Obama's Vice Presidential nominee.

Not that this was in any doubt at all, but this would appear to confirm that Hillary is definitely not Veep. Reports have it that Bill will speak on Wednesday, too.

Report: Penn Wanted To Deride Obama's Americanness
In a revelation that will lower his stock in Democratic politics even further than it already has been, a newly-released set of internal memos shows that Mark Penn aggressively pitched a xenophobic strategy for the Hillary campaign to use against Barack Obama and his "lack of American roots." Penn wrote: "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."

Both Candidates Off The Trail Today
Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain have any public events scheduled for today. Obama is of course on his Hawaiian vacation this week, and McCain does not have any announced events, either.

Edwards' Ex-Mistress: No Paternity Test
John Edwards' former mistress Rielle Hunter has issued a statement ruling out any paternity test for her daughter. Edwards said he was willing to take a test in order to prove he is not the father, but Hunter's refusal means no such test will actually occur.

Georgian President Speaks With Both Candidates
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili spoke Saturday with both Barack Obama and John McCain about the invasion of his country by Russia. Both candidates assured Saakashvili that they want full recognition of Georgia's sovereignty, and have condemned Russia's actions in this conflict.

McCain Declining To Endorse Energy Compromise
John McCain is so far refusing to take a position on the "Gang of 10" energy compromise, which Barack Obama has already signaled he could support, which would allow a combination of offshore drilling and increased investment in alternative energy. The Hill notes that if McCain comes out against it then he'll be standing in the way of a bipartisan energy plan, but if he endorses it he'll cede a clear distinction he has with Obama.

Report: Lieberman Being Vetted For McCain's VP
The Financial Times reports that Joe Lieberman is being vetted to be John McCain's running mate. While it would certainly be interesting to have a party-switching running mate who ran on the other party's ticket just eight years earlier, this still seems unlikely -- Lieberman's socially liberal positions on issues like abortion and immigration would likely alienate many conservative activists.

Obama Web Vid: McCain's New Ad "Is A Lie"
The Obama campaign has released this Web video, in which economic adviser Brian Deese debunks the claims in John McCain's latest ad charging that Barack obama would raise taxes on the middle class. "In summary, this ad is a lie," Deese says: