Republicans struggling to "define" Obama
Leading Republicans are beginning to complain that the McCain campaign hasn't yet settled on a way of "defining" -- a.k.a. "sliming" -- Barack Obama, prompting some to worry that Obama may prove as elusive a target for them as he did for Hillary. It's worth noting that the multiple GOP lines of attack floating around right now clearly contradict each other: One moment Obama's an elitist at a country club; the next he's a "street" organizer; and so on.

Candidates celebrating July 4th
Barack Obama will honor Independence Day with his family by attending a parade and a picnic in Montana. Meanwhile, McCain will be taking it easy in his home state of Arizona.

Poll: Slightly more see McCain as a flip-flopper
New numbers from CNN suggest that a substantial majority doesn't buy the McCain-as-straight-talker narrative. The poll finds that 61% say McCain shifts positions for political reasons, though nearly as many (59%) say the same about Obama.

Six-term GOP Congressman in Virginia suddenly facing competitive challenger
The emergence of a tough and well-funded Democratic challenger to GOP Rep. Virgil H. Goode, Jr., who represents south-central Virginia's fifth district, has prompted CQ Politics to shift its rating of the race from Safe Republican to Republican Favored, essentially declaring the contest a competitive one. Goode's challenger, lawyer Tom Perriello, is expected to run well in and near Charlottesville, especially among liberal academics around the University of Virginia, and will also benefit from Obama's vigorous efforts in the state.

McCain to talk about the economy in key battleground states next week
McCain plans to spend the week following July 4th weekend talking about the economy in important battleground states, beginning on Monday with the release of a jobs plan in Colorado. McCain, who will also visit Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, trails Obama in polls by a substantial margin among voters citing the economy as a top concern.

Obama's national lead over McCain edges up
CNN's latest poll of polls finds Obama leading McCain by six points in the national match-up, up very slightly from his five-point lead last week. A cautionary note: On July 4th, 2004, John Kerry led George W. Bush by four points in CNN's poll of polls, and in the summer of 2000, Bush led Al Gore by six points before going on to lose the popular vote (and becoming president anyway).

Conservative pundits begin lying about Obama's Iraq remarks
Right-wing opinion-makers have begun falsifying Obama's Iraq remarks yesterday, starting with Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post, who has a remarkably dishonest column this morning asserting as fact that Obama has "already begun" his "shift" in the direction of erasing "all meaningful differences with McCain on withdrawal from Iraq." Curiously, there's no mention in Krauthammer's column of the subsequent presser Obama held yesterday firmly reiterating his commitment to a 16-month withdrawal timetable.

Happy fourth, everyone!

This is great. We now count three House Republicans who have continued to peddle the myth that China is working with Cuba to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though Dick Cheney had already admitted it was bunk.

The latest: Virgil Goode, the Virginia Republican best known for denouncing the election of Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, on the grounds that Ellison is a Muslim.

Goode faces a potentially tough challenge from Tom Periello, an international human rights worker who has been aggressively advertising on Christian radio and has also been able to raise a decent amount of money. So Goode's message to his base is clear: Vote for the Dems, and you're voting for China.

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Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), best known for his attack on Rep. Keith Ellison's (D-MN) use of the Koran for his swearing in ceremony, has attracted several Democrats who hope to topple him next year -- the latest of whom is Tom Perriello, an Albemarle County resident who has worked in Asia and Africa, founded a Catholic relief agency and has experience with other progressive faith-based groups.

In comments made to The Daily Progress, Perriello said his campaign will focus more on "the difference between right and wrong than the difference between right and left."

Perriello faces economic historian David Shreve and former state trooper Brydon Jackson for the Democratic nomination, although Perriello begins his campaign with an early financial edge -- he's already collected nearly $110K in four weeks of fundraising, while Shreve has raised $20K.

A top official at a leading Muslim group has just told us that GOP Rep. Virgil Goode's fear that U.S. money may soon be stamped with "In Muhammad We Trust" is rather at odds with the actual history and theology of the Muslim religion. As this expert points out — and as some TPM Readers have noted, too — Muslims don't worship Muhammad. They are monotheists worshiping a single God, called Allah in Arabic — not the individual Muhammad.

"There are many Islamic traditions that reinforce that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a human being, and he should not be worshipped," Ibrahim Hooper, the national communications director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, tells us. So the notion that any Muslim would want "In Muhammad We Trust" written on U.S. money is, to put it charitably, nonsense.

"In Muhammad We Trust." That's what GOP Rep. Virgil Goode says that U.S. money risks being marked with — that is, if we don't support escalation of the Iraq war as part of our broader efforts to stave off Muslim domination of the United States in general. "In Muhammad We Trust." Goode, you may recall, sparked a national controversy back in December by saying that the U.S. should close its borders lest it be overrun by frightening hordes of Muslims. To watch Goode's surreal moment on video, click here.

It looks as if Virgil Goode's attack on Rep. Keith Ellion's use of the Koran for his swearing in hasn't gone over well with at least one of his constituents: Goode's district office in Charlottesville, Virginia, was vandalized. A local paper called The Hook reports that his office window sported a curious new addition: The word "BIGOT" stenciled on it in gold paint. Interestingly, the word was very carefully stencilled on, just under his name and title and in a similar shade of gold, so as to make the word "BIGOT" look almost like an official part of his job description. Asked by the paper if it might be a reaction to his anti-Muslim comments, a Goode spokesperson declined to comment. View a picture of the vandalized office here.

Update: Hook senior editor Courtney Stuart has informed Election Central that the graffiti is not there anymore — but was there for several days straight. "Our reporter first noticed it on December 29 and it was still there the morning of Tuesday, January 2. It was removed later that day after our paper went to press," Stuart told EC by e-mail. Our original post implied that the vandalism was still there.