Hillary Clinton's campaign was undone by a clash of personalities more toxic than anyone imagined. E-mails and memos - published here for the first time - reveal the backstabbing and conflicting strategies that produced an epic meltdown.

For all that has been written and said about Hillary Clinton's epic collapse in the Democratic primaries, one issue still nags. Everybody knows what happened. But we still don't have a clear picture of how it happened, or why.

The after-battle assessments in the major newspapers and newsweeklies generally agreed on the big picture: the campaign was not prepared for a lengthy fight; it had an insufficient delegate operation; it squandered vast sums of money; and the candidate herself evinced a paralyzing schizophrenia - one day a shots-'n'-beers brawler, the next a Hallmark Channel mom. Through it all, her staff feuded and bickered, while her husband distracted. But as a journalistic exercise, the "campaign obit" is inherently flawed, reflecting the viewpoints of those closest to the press rather than empirical truth.

How did things look on the inside, as they unraveled?

To find out, I approached a number of current and former Clinton staffers and outside consultants and asked them to share memos, e-mails, meeting minutes, diaries - anything that would offer a contemporaneous account. The result demonstrates that paranoid dysfunction breeds the impulse to hoard. Everything from major strategic plans to bitchy staff e-mail feuds was handed over. (See for yourself: much of it is posted online at www.theatlantic.com/clinton.)

Two things struck me right away. The first was that, outward appearances notwithstanding, the campaign prepared a clear strategy and did considerable planning. It sweated the large themes (Clinton's late-in-the-game emergence as a blue-collar champion had been the idea all along) and the small details (campaign staffers in Portland, Oregon, kept tabs on Monica Lewinsky, who lived there, to avoid any surprise encounters). The second was the thought: Wow, it was even worse than I'd imagined! The anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even the most reserved Beltway wise men. Surprisingly, Clinton herself, when pressed, was her own shrewdest strategist, a role that had never been her strong suit in the White House. But her advisers couldn't execute strategy; they routinely attacked and undermined each other, and Clinton never forced a resolution. Major decisions would be put off for weeks until suddenly she would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire.

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence - on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to "do the job from Day One." In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles' heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton's loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency. What follows is the inside account of how the campaign for the seemingly unstoppable Democratic nominee came into being, and then came apart.

As long ago as 2003, the Clintons' pollster, Mark Penn, was quietly measuring Hillary's presidential appeal, with an eye toward the 2004 election. Polling suggested that her prospects were "reasonably favorable," but Clinton herself never seriously considered running. Instead, over the next three years, a handful of her advisers met periodically to prepare for 2008. They believed the biggest threat was John Edwards.

Decisions made before her 2006 reelection to the Senate were to have important consequences downstream. Perhaps the biggest was Clinton's choosing to forgo the tradition of visiting early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Even if she was presumed to be the heavy favorite, Clinton needed to win Iowa to maintain the impression of invincibility that she believed was her greatest advantage. And yet Iowa was a vulnerability. Both husband and wife lacked ties there: Bill Clinton had skipped the 1992 caucuses because Iowa's Senator Tom Harkin was running; in 1996, Clinton had run unopposed.

With her Senate race looming, she feared a backlash if she signaled her presidential intentions. If New Yorkers thought her presumptuous, they could punish her at the polls and weaken her national standing. A collective decision was made not to discuss a presidential run until she had won reelection, leaving the early pursuit of Iowa to John Edwards and Barack Obama.

The effect of these choices in Iowa became jarringly clear when Penn conducted a poll just after Clinton's Senate reelection that showed her running a very distant third, barely ahead of the state's governor, Tom Vilsack. The poll produced a curious revelation: Iowans rated Clinton at the top of the field on questions of leadership, strength, and experience - but most did not plan to vote for her, because they didn't like her. This presented a basic conundrum: Should Clinton run a positive campaign, to persuade Iowans to reconsider her? Or should she run a negative campaign that would accuse her opponents of being untrustworthy and under-qualified? Clinton's top advisers never agreed on the answer. Over the course of the campaign, they split into competing factions that drifted in and out of Clinton's favor but always seemed to work at cross purposes. And Clinton herself could never quite decide who was right.

Penn had won the trust of both Clintons by guiding Bill Clinton to reelection in 1996 and through the impeachment saga that followed. But his poll-tested centrism and brusque manner aroused suspicion and contempt among many of their advisers. In the White House and during Hillary's Senate races, Penn often prevailed in internal disputes by brandishing his own poll numbers (which his opponents distrusted) and pointing out that he had delivered a Clinton to the White House once before.

In light of this history, he got off to an inauspicious start when Clinton entered the race in January 2007, by demanding the title "chief strategist" (previously he had been one of several "senior advisers") and presenting each of his senior colleagues with a silver bowl inscribed with the words of Horace Mann: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Penn had clear ideas about how to engineer a win for Clinton, in Iowa and beyond. Obama had eclipsed Edwards right out of the gate and was experiencing the full measure of "next JFK" hype. In a memo dated March 19, 2007, Penn laid out an "Overall Strategy for Winning" built upon a coalition of voters he called "Invisible Americans," a sort of reprise of Bill Clinton's "forgotten middle class":

As this race unfolds, the winning coalition for us is clearer and clearer. There are three demographic variables that explain almost all of the voters in the primary - gender, party, and income. Race is a factor as well, but we are fighting hard to neutralize it.
We are the candidate of people with needs.
We win women, lower classes, and Democrats (about 3 to 1 in our favor).
Obama wins men, upper class, and independents (about 2 to 1 in his favor).
Edwards draws from these groups as well.
Our winning strategy builds from a base of women, builds on top of that a lower and middle class constituency, and seeks to minimize his advantages with the high class democrats.
If we double perform with WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, then we have about 55% of the voters.
The reason the Invisible Americans is so powerful is that it speaks to exactly how you can be a champion for those in needs [sic]. He may be the JFK in the race, but you are the Bobby.

Clinton was already under attack for an attitude of "inevitability" - the charge being that she imperiously viewed the primary process as a ratifying formality and would not deign to compete for what she felt she was owed. Penn's memo makes clear that what she intended to project was "leadership" and "strength," and that he had carefully created an image for her with that in mind. He believed that he had identified a winning coalition and knew which buttons to press to mobilize it:

1) Start with a base of women.
a. For these women you represent a breaking of barriers
b. The winnowing out of the most competent and qualified in an unfair, male dominated world
c. The infusion of a woman and a mother's sensibilities into a world of war and neglect
2) Add on a base of lower and middle class voters
a. You see them; you care about them
b. You were one of them, it is your history
c. You are all about their concerns (healthcare, education, energy, child care, college etc.)
d. Sense of patriotism, Americana
3) Play defensively with the men and upper class voters
a. Strength to end the war the right way
b. Connect on the problems of the global economy, economics
c. Foreign policy expert
d. Unions
Contest the black vote at every opportunity. Keep him pinned down there.
Organize on college campuses. We may not be number 1 there, but we have a lot of fans - more than enough to sustain an organization in every college.

Penn's prescription is notable because it is the rare instance of a Clinton campaign goal that panned out - the coalition she ended up winning a year later is the one described here. Penn's memo is also notable for its tone: it reinforces rather than confronts the Clintons' biases. "The biggest problem we have is the troika that has been set up to tear Hillary down," he wrote.

It is a vast right and left wing conspiracy. Listening to Brit Hume say that Obama is surging while Hillary failed to do X is almost comical and certainly transparent. The right knows Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun, and a third party would come in then anyway.

By contrast, top consultants like Karl Rove usually aim to temper their clients' biases with a cold dose of realism. I suspect the damaging persecution complex that both Clintons displayed drew much of its sustenance from memos like this one.

Penn also left no doubt about where he stood on the question of a positive versus negative strategy. He made the rather astonishing suggestion to target Obama's "lack of American roots":

All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.
Save it for 2050.
It also exposes a very strong weakness for him - his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. 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. He told the people of NH yesterday he has a Kansas accent because his mother was from there. His mother lived in many states as far as we can tell - but this is an example of the nonsense he uses to cover this up.
How we could give some life to this contrast without turning negative:
Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. Values of fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back.
Let's explicitly own 'American' in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn't. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let's use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let's add flag symbols to the backgrounds.

Clinton wisely chose not to go this route. But the defining clash within her campaign quickly became the disagreement over how hard to attack Obama, if at all. Invariably, Penn and Bill Clinton pressed for aggressive confrontation to tear Obama down, while senior advisers like Harold Ickes, Patti Solis Doyle, Mandy Grunwald, and Howard Wolfson counseled restraint and an emphasis on her softer side that would lift her up. The two strategies were directly at odds.

On March 29, Ickes, who oversaw the targeting and budget operation with the campaign's manager, Solis Doyle, circulated a list of the campaign's "Key Assumptions." (Though Penn was "chief strategist," he was a paid contractor, and thus barred from most targeting and budget planning.) Ickes believed that Iowa and New Hampshire could determine Clinton's fate, and that the February 5 Super Tuesday primaries would determine the nominee. No mention was made of the delegates or the later-caucus states that actually figured so decisively.

Ickes seemed attuned to the asymmetric risk that accompanies overwhelming front-runner status: the collapse of momentum that would accompany an unexpected loss. He posited that Edwards and Obama could sustain losing Iowa and New Hampshire but worried that Clinton could not; he urged that she spend "substantial" time in Iowa; and he recommended a contingency plan that would haunt the campaign when his own budget team didn't fulfill it. Noting the difficulty of raising more than $75 million before Iowa, Ickes stressed the need to maintain a $25 million reserve, presumably as insurance against a setback. The campaign wound up raising more than $100 million - but, according to The New York Times, by the time Iowa was lost, $106 million had been spent. The $25 million reserve had vanished, and the campaign was effectively insolvent.

By April 8, Penn seemed to have absorbed the criticism of Clinton as behaving imperiously, as well as the emerging importance of the "change" theme Obama was touting. "Show more of the happy warrior," he counseled in a memo. "Let's talk more about a movement for change coming from the people. It's not a Republican movement or a Democratic movement, but a broad-based movement centered on the idea that America is ready for change."

He also seemed cognizant of the growing power of the Web, and, straining for hipness, took at a stab at brainstorming a "viral" strategy:

I CAN BE PRESIDENT. This idea has potential for a viral campaign among moms - it is about your sons and your daughters believing that they too can be president. Your success paves the way for them ... We are making a video with celebrities to launch this program in a FUN way, with great clips from kids and from celebrities saying what they would do if president.

Once again, he returned to the "Invisible Americans":

Invisibles - need to use this as a creative vehicle to involve people - This can be a cool button where people appear/disappear. Mandy is working on an early spot that would give this some drama to the idea that it's the people's turn to be seen again.

With Obama's popularity and fund-raising strength becoming clearer by the day, Penn started advising Clinton in areas technically outside his purview. He began what would become a contentious, and ultimately unsuccessful, push to persuade Clinton to hire "a friendly TV face" - a clear jab at Howard Wolfson, the chief spokesman. He also urged Clinton to gather more data about the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire and suggested major "issue speeches" in both states.

Penn wasn't the only one worried about Iowa. On May 21, the deputy campaign director, Mike Henry, wrote a prescient memo noting the cost and difficulty of running there and proposing that Clinton skip the caucus. The memo was leaked to The New York Times. Henry had estimated (conservatively, as it turned out) that Iowa would require more than $15 million and 75 days of the candidate's presence, and would not provide any financial or organizational edge. "This effort may bankrupt the campaign and provide little if any political advantage," he warned. When the story appeared, Clinton felt compelled to publicly recommit, thereby upping Iowa's significance even further.

Clinton's staff spent the summer battling itself over how to take on Obama, and battling the media over her record on Iraq and just about everything else. Penn had confronted Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, at a Harvard symposium in March with the charge that since arriving in the Senate, Obama had voted no differently on Iraq than Clinton had. "Are we going to ... tell everyone out there the truth about ... who voted for what, when, or are we going to selectively tell people?" he demanded.

The gambit failed, because Penn was practically the only Clinton adviser eager to push the Iraq issue; the rest believed it was a debate Clinton would lose. The fact that Edwards had apologized for having voted for the war resolution further isolated her. Penn insisted that an apology would be "a sign of weakness," and Clinton never seriously entertained the notion. But the lingering contrast with Obama did not favor her, particularly among Iowa's liberal caucus-goers, and the attacks she did launch only highlighted this fundamental disparity.

The internal discord over whether to attack Obama led some of her own staff to spin reporters to try to downplay the significance of her criticisms. The result for Clinton was the worst of both worlds: the conflicting message exacerbated her reputation for negativity without affording her whatever benefits a sustained attack might have yielded.

Clinton's epic and costly battles with the press - and her husband's, as well - had their genesis in this incoherence. About the only thing the campaign's warring factions did agree on was that the press ought to be criticizing Obama more severely. The more the Clinton team became paralyzed by conflict, the more it was forced to rely on the press to write negative stories that would weaken Obama - to, in effect, perform the very function it was unable to do for itself. This led the campaign to aggressively pressure reporters throughout 2007 and launch the outright attacks against the press that backfired once the primaries began.

Inside the campaign, Penn was losing the debate. His insistence that Obama's mounting attacks called for an expanded press operation was seen as an attempt to weaken his rivals, and he was punished with leaks suggesting that Clinton might dump him as chief strategist. Meanwhile, Clinton had nervously accepted the advice from her Iowa campaign staff that negative attacks would backfire.

On December 1, Clinton and her husband attended a private dinner with the influential Des Moines Register editorial board. Seated at opposite ends of a long table, they were stunned to hear journalists praise the skill and efficiency of the Obama and Edwards campaigns and question why Clinton's own operation was so passive.

On the next morning's staff conference call, Clinton exploded, demanding to know why the campaign wasn't on the attack. Solis Doyle was put on a plane to Iowa the next day to oversee the closing weeks. Within hours of the call, the panicked staff produced a blistering attack on Obama for what it characterized as evidence of his overweening lust for power: he had written a kindergarten essay titled "I Wanted to Become President." The campaign was mocked for weeks.

One story line that has featured prominently in the postmortems is Harold Ickes's attempts to alert the campaign to the importance of the party's complicated system of allotting delegates - a system that Obama's campaign cleverly exploited, by focusing on delegate-rich caucus states. Ickes wrote a series of memos, fatefully ignored, that drew attention to this matter. Nothing I was privy to suggests that anyone else gave it more than passing attention until just before Iowa (though as a cost-saving measure, the budget team halted polling in many of the caucus states they expected Obama to win). Then, on December 22 - just 12 days before Iowa - Ickes tried again, in a memo that seems to be introducing the subject of delegated for the first time:

Assuming that after Iowa and New Hampshire the presidential nominating contest narrows to two competitive candidates who remain locked in a highly contested electionthrough 5 February, the focus of the campaign and press will shift to the delegate count. The dedication of resources (including candidate time) should be influenced, in part, by factors that will afford HRC an advantage in acquiring more delegates compared to her opponent(s).

The advice finally registered - but it was too late.

In the hours after she finished third in Iowa, on January 3, Clinton seized control of her campaign, even as her advisers continued fighting about whether to go negative. The next morning's conference call began with awkward silence, and then Penn recapped the damage and mumbled something about how badly they'd been hurt by young voters.

Mustering enthusiasm, Clinton declared that the campaign was mistaken not to have competed harder for the youth vote and that - overruling her New Hampshire staff - she would take questions at town-hall meetings designed to draw comparative," but not negative, contrasts with Obama. Hearing little response, Clinton began to grow angry, according to a participant's notes. She complained of being outmaneuvered in Iowa and being painted as the establishment candidate. The race, she insisted, now had "three front-runners." More silence ensued. "This has been a very instructive call, talking to myself," she snapped, and hung up.

In the days leading up to her stunning New Hampshire comeback, on January 8, Clinton's retail politicking, at last on full display, seemed to make the most difference. But any hope of renewal was short-lived. Not long after New Hampshire, in a senior-staff meeting that both Clintons attended at the campaign's Arlington headquarters, Ickes announced to his stunned colleagues, "The cupboard is empty." The campaign had burned through its money just getting past Iowa. And the news got worse: despite spending $100 million, it had somehow failed to establish ground operations in all but a handful of upcoming states. Now, urgently needing them, it lacked the money.

Clinton ended up agreeing to lend the campaign $5 million. But even this would enable it to compete in only some of the February 5 states. Though under heavy pressure to fire her campaign manager and chief strategist, Clinton wouldn't drop the ax. She layered on still more advisers, including her former White House chief of staff, Maggie Williams, who settled uncomfortably alongside Solis Doyle.

On January 21, Guy Cecil, a veteran operative who had been brought aboard in September, circulated a memo laying out the game plan for February 5. Now fully alive to the challenge ahead, Cecil split the map into three categories: Obama base states, battleground states, and Clinton base states (of which there were four - Arkansas, California, New Jersey, and New York).

To maximize delegates cheaply, Cecil fell back on trying to drive up voter turnout in Clinton states. He also seems to have been the first person to spot the alarming possibility that blowout wins in weak Clinton districts could yield huge delegate gains for Obama. But here he was essentially flying blind. The Clinton campaign had long since ceased polling in unfriendly states, and now had to make do with guesswork. Cecil estimated that Clinton could net 58 delegates on February 5, significantly expanding her narrow lead.

On February 4, Ickes circulated a "framework" of the post-Super Tuesday strategy, stoically noting that "given the lack of polling information for post 5 Feb states, these projections are based on best estimates." The campaign was collectively holding its breath. Ickes wrote:

Assuming HRC's lead in super delegates holds and continue [sic] to increase even slowly, she will continue to lead BO in total delegates at every step. We are in for a real fight, but assuming she at least achieves the projections for Tuesday and given some breaks, it is a fight that she can win.

On Super Tuesday, however, Clinton fell well short of projections, and according to NBC News, Obama finished the day having netted about 10 delegates and narrowed the gap. The slow-motion collapse of Clinton's candidacy began to accelerate.

On February 10, Clinton finally fired Solis Doyle and moved Williams in - but did not heed calls to fire Penn, enraging Solis Doyle's many loyalists. At this crucial point, long-simmering feuds burst into the open. On February 11, Williams's first day on the job, Phil Singer, Wolfson's deputy and a man notorious for his tirades at reporters, blew up in Wolfson's office and screamed obscenities at his boss before throwing open the door to direct his ire at the campaign's policy director, Neera Tanden, an ally of Solis Doyle. "Fuck you and the whole fucking cabal!" he shouted, according to several Clinton staffers. In the end, he climbed onto a chair and screamed at the entire staff before storming out.

The same day, Philip Bennett, the managing editor of The Washington Post, sent Williams a letter formally complaining that Singer had maligned one of his reporters by spreading unfounded rumors about her (apparently in retaliation for an accurate - and prescient - story that had noted, long before anyone else, Clinton's tendency to burn through money). Fearing for his deputy's job, Wolfson intercepted the letter, though Bennett eventually got a copy to Williams. Singer disappeared and was presumed fired. But a week later, he made amends and rejoined the campaign. "When the house is on fire, it's better to have a psychotic fireman than no fireman at all," Wolfson explained to a colleague.

As the days wore on, morale deteriorated. In state after state, the staff watched helplessly as huge leads dwindled to nothing in the face of Obama's massive outlays. Toward the end of a February 21 debate, amid what would prove to be a string of 12 straight losses, Clinton spoke of the race wistfully, as though resigned to losing. The press took this as a signal that the end was near - not at all what she meant.

On the call two days later, the candidate was furious, this time at a press corps she accused of purposely misreading her designs in an effort to force her from the race. "They're taking out their revenge on Bill," she fumed, according to a participant's notes. Later that day at a press conference, Clinton left no doubts about her purpose, lighting into Obama. Penn's star was ascendant.

Penn believed that white men ("beer drinkers") had been up for grabs since Edwards had bowed out, on January 30; one basis for his disagreement with colleagues who wanted to showcase Clinton's softer side was that doing so would not attract white men. "The idea," he wrote, "that this can be won all on smiles, emotions, and empathy is simply wrong."

Penn created his infamous "3 a.m." ad, questioning Obama's readiness for a crisis, with these voters in mind. Before presenting the ad to the senior staff, he secured Hillary Clinton's approval to broadcast it. But even Clinton's newfound willingness to attack did not prevent Penn from being challenged. His detractors had two rationales: that attacks would look desperate and drive up Clinton's already lofty "unfavorable" ratings; and that if she continued down this path she would irreparably damage her reputation and possibly that of her party's nominee.

In the days leading up to Ohio and Texas, the campaign kept arguing over whether to air the ad. With the deadline looming, Bill Clinton, speaking from a cell phone as his plane sat on a runway, led a conference call on Thursday, February 28, in which he had both sides present their case. As his plane was about to lift off, it was Bill Clinton - not Hillary - who issued the decisive order: "Let's go with it."

On March 4, Clinton carried the primaries in Ohio and Texas, and vowed to remain on the offensive. She chided her reluctant advisers: "A general alone cannot assault a hill." In a triumphant memo afterward, Penn brandished his sword: "We have begun, but must now in earnest, show that their image of Obama Camelot is simply nothing but campaign pitter-patter."

The celebration was dampened, however, by a front-page headline in The Washington Post: "Even in Victory, Clinton Team Is Battling Itself." Rather than spotlighting the resurgent candidate, the March 6 piece examined "the battle on the inside" - particularly the towering contempt for Penn.

At nine o'clock that morning, Robert Barnett, the eminent Washington attorney prized by the Clintons for his years of wisdom and discretion, finally blew his top and fired off an e-mail to Hillary Clinton and her senior staff:

STOP IT!!!! I have help [sic] my tongue for weeks. After this morning's WP story, no longer. This makes me sick. This circularfiring squad that is occurring is unattractive, unprofessional, unconscionable, and unacceptable ... It must stop.

Yet the clashes and paralysis continued. In the aftermath of Obama's historic race speech on March 18, Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas congresswoman, urged Clinton to deliver a speech of her own on gender. Clinton appeared very much to want to do this, and solicited the advice of her staff, which characteristically split. The campaign went back and forth for weeks. Opponents argued that her oratory couldn't possibly match Obama's, and proponents countered that she would get credit simply for trying, inspire legions of women to her cause, and highlight an issue that everyone in the campaign fiercely believed was hurting them - sexism. But Clinton never made a decision, and seemed troubled by the concern of Ann Lewis, perhaps her most venerable feminist adviser, who opposed such a speech for fear that it would equate sexism with racism - another contrast with Obama that Clinton feared she would lose.

Even in the midst of chaos, Penn was at last where he wanted to be: steering the campaign. After the death-defying wins in Texas and Ohio, he delivered a strategy update on March 30 charting Clinton's "Path to Victory":

1. Win PA, WV, KY, PR
2. Perform well in OR, NC, SD, MONT, GUAM
3. Pick up 25 Delegates
4. Resolve or Revote MI, FL to close at least 30 Delegates including Supers
5. Be ahead in Popular Vote inc. MI and FL
6. Be ahead in delegates from primaries (his lead will be entirely from caucuses)
7. Be ahead of him against McCain (why we will contrast with McCain on ec, Iraq)
8. Increase concern about what he would do to Congressional Races (trying test now in white rural districts)
9. Will have won every big state and have coalition of Catholics, working class, Latinos, and women - the key electorates.
10. Super-delegates must see Obama as a doomsday scenario to vote en masse for HRC

Then he shifted gears and went after his colleagues within the campaign:

Does anyone believe it is possible to win the nomination without, over these two months, raising all these issues on him? A "nice" campaign that wins the states along [sic] that can be won - will that be enough or do serious issues have to be raised about him?
If you believe that serious issues need to be raised then we have to raise them without continual hesitation and we should be pushing the envelope. Won't a single tape of [the Reverend Jeremiah] Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?
Many people (Peter Hart excluded) believe under the surface that 20 years sitting there with Goddamn America would make him unelectable by itself.

Four days later, Penn's momentum collided with The Wall Street Journal, when the paper exposed his lobbying activity on behalf of a free-trade agreement with Colombia that Clinton opposed. He was stripped of the "chief strategist" title, though he maintained an advisory role, and Geoff Garin, a veteran Democratic operative, replaced him at the helm of the campaign.

The absence of clear lines of authority meant that another lurking problem was ignored for too long. The Democratic National Committee had disallowed the results from Florida and Michigan, to punish the states for holding primaries earlier than its rules permitted. Though Ickes had monitored the developments throughout 2007, the status of the delegates from the two states did not become vitally important until Clinton fell behind. Because she had won both states (even though it was clear that they were technically meaningless "beauty contests"), her campaign made the assumption, routinely reflected in e-mails and memos from top strategists, that it would be able to formalize her claim to the delegates.

On February 25, a pair of Clinton advisers began sending a series of increasingly urgent memos, which were given to me by a recipient sympathetic to Solis Doyle as a way of illustrating that strategic mistakes continued even after her dismissal. The first memo, from Philippe Reines and Andrew Shapiro, worried that Clinton's anticipated wins in Texas and Ohio on March 4 would not meaningfully narrow Obama's delegate lead - a fact sure to sap momentum once the initial excitement of victory passed. They proposed that Clinton, from a position of strength immediately after her wins, challenge Obama to accept Michigan and Florida revotes. Such a move "preempts Obama's reiteration on March 5th that they are still up 100 plus delegates and that we can't win," they noted. "The press will love the rematch, like Rocky II."

On March 4, as Ohio and Texas were voting, the advisers, who now included senior strategist Doug Hattaway, circulated another memo formalizing what they now called the "Florigan Plan." Absent a revote, the memo warned, "we cannot secure enough delegates to win; we cannot overtake him; the math simply doesn't work ... it is imperative that we provide ... a clear and tenable answer to the single most important question we face." But March 5 passed without any action. On March 10, sensing that the opportunity to reclaim the Florigan delegates had already vanished, the group again urged pressure for a revote. On the next day's call, Clinton asked for an update on Florida and Michigan. Exasperated by the meager response, she erupted once again and insisted that something be done. A week later, Clinton made an impromptu visit to Detroit to publicly highlight the lack of a resolution.

The campaign did not launch an organized offensive until nine weeks later, on May 21. But by then Clinton was operating from a position of weakness. Rather than greeting it as Rocky II, the press covered her bid for a revote as a "last-gasp strategy," which soon failed.

Geoff Garin, the new leader, soon encountered the old problems. Obama remained the front-runner, and Clinton's communications staff disagreed on how to turn back the tide of tough stories. Garin was appalled at the open feuding and leaking. "I don't mean to be an asshole," he wrote in an e-mail to the senior staff. "But ... Senator Clinton has given Howard Wolfson both the responsibility and the authority to make final decisions about how this campaign delivers its message." On the strategic front, Garin sided with the coalition opposed to Penn's call to confront Obama, and he had numbers to support his reasoning. Polls showed that a majority of voters now distrusted Clinton.

Though Clinton carried Pennsylvania on April 22, aided by Obama's "bitter" comment, Garin believed that a positive strategy could rebuild trust in her in North Carolina and Indiana, the next big hurdles. The campaign was deeply in debt, but Garin convinced Clinton that if she committed several million dollars to his strategy, they would win Indiana, pull to within single digits in North Carolina, and live to fight on. In an April 25 e-mail outlining his approach, which would be very different from Penn's, he wrote:

We are definitely moving in the right direction, and I believe we are on track to narrow this to single digits - especially if we fund a competitive effort in [North Carolina].
Our white targets are slightly more male than female, and definitely skew under age 50 ... About 20% of all whites are still moveable to Clinton.

But on May 6, the narrowness of Clinton's victory in Indiana and her blowout loss in North Carolina effectively ended the race. She finished out the primary calendar, with Garin gently steering the campaign into port on June 3.

That evening, as she delivered the non-concession speech that awkwardly preceded the real one several days later, Clinton seemed to finally embrace the ideas of her erstwhile chief strategist (who was, even in his reduced role, preparing one final attempt to win the argument, this time in a formal presentation for the superdelegates). Her campaign at an end, Clinton seemed to reach all the way back to the beginning, to Penn's "Invisible Americans":

I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, and no longer to be invisible.




By Joshua Green, The Atlantic, August 16, 2008

538.com's Nate Silver, looking at one of the Mark Penn E-mails released by Joshua Green of the Atlantic, argues that the "black vote was invisible to Penn." I wouldn't put it that way, but I do think the Clinton campaign made a mistake by assuming that Hillary Clinton would get a sizable share of black votes against Barack Obama.

As the graph that Silver helpfully provides shows, as late as December 2007, Clinton was splitting the black vote evenly with Obama. In early January 2008, Obama was winning a big margin among blacks, and by the end of the month he was for all practical purposes monopolizing the black vote.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think the Clinton campaign should have anticipated this. History supports the proposition that black voters tend to vote overwhelmingly for one candidate in Democratic primaries, even when that candidate's rival has valid claims on their votes. Case in point: In polls, Robert Kennedy swept the black vote against Hubert Humphrey in 1968, despite Humphrey's long and valiant fight for civil rights laws. If memory serves, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton also got the lion's share of black votes in primaries in 1976 and 1992. Having attended black political events over the years, I remember how often I would hear speakers calling for "unity." Uniting in support of one candidate is a rational strategy for achieving political leverage for members of a minority group (although it can deprive them of all leverage if that candidate is one no one else will vote for: for example, Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988). It seems that in this cycle, black voters, once they saw from the results of the Iowa caucuses that white people would vote for Obama, went en masse for Obama.

Humphrey would surely have won almost all black votes if Robert Kennedy had not run. Similarly, Hillary Clinton would have won almost all black votes if Obama had not run. That would have meant that she would have had guaranteed wins in southern states where half or more of Democratic votes would be cast by blacks: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Clinton campaign - I say in retrospect; I didn't write this at the time - should have anticipated that its black support might vanish suddenly. That meant that its chances of sewing up the nomination by Super Tuesday were much lower than her campaign staffers had expected. And if they had understood that, maybe they wouldn't have spent virtually all their money by February 5.

By Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, August 14, 2008

One thing that can be said about Hillary Clinton's backers is that the word quit is not in their vocabulary. Their thinly disguised end around at the Democratic presidential nomination shouldn't really surprise. The end around is the soft soap announcement that they'll keep her name in play as a Democratic presidential candidate at the convention. There are several reasons why there's no quit in Hillary's folks. They make up a big percentage of the Party, and they still fervently believe that she's the best, maybe only, Democrat who can beat McCain.

Their passion is driven by an odd, troubling and invigorating, commitment mix of dedication, gender support and racial fears. It's also driven by the growing unease that the steam is leaking out of Obama's turbine. Despite seven weeks of non stop media fawning over and adulation of him, Obama still can't give McCain the shakes in the polls. Worse, McCain seems to have gotten better. He's sharpened his message, his attacks and confidence.

A huge tip of Clinton's backers worry about Obama's chances is Bill Clinton's kind of sort milk toast endorsement. The ludicrous scuffle in public and behind the scenes over what role Bill would have at the Democratic convention showed that Party regulars are either brain dead, are have a political death wish. Here's the most successful Democratic president in the past four decades, and there's a question about a role for him?

But it's not just Hillary and Bill's ego, bruised feelings, and over inflated political self importance, to appease her supporters that move Clinton to agree to keep her name in play. There's the bigger fear that losing an election supposedly impossible to lose will devastate the Democratic Party. Legions of Democrats quietly and increasingly openly think that can happen.

The hard numbers and demographics certainly are good reason for terror over an Obama loss. His caucus and primary wins in the red states and the handful of endorsements he got from the Democratic governors and senators in those states hardly spell a breakthrough for the Democrats in the head to head match with McCain. Obama swept to primary or caucus wins in Idaho, North Dakota, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia and Nebraska. Bush won these states handily in 2000 and 2004. But that's only the start of the problem. Republicans outnumber Democrats in Idaho and Utah by a crushing margin of a three to one, and in other states by margins of two to one and half.

The red states that Obama won in the Democratic primaries have been the guaranteed pathway for Republican presidents Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. to win and stay in the White House. Their 170 to 200 electoral votes are virtually in the GOP's coffers before the first vote is cast on Election Day. The states are so bankable and reliable for the GOP that it's the rarest of rare sighting to see a GOP presidential candidate even bother to make anything more than a token appearance in these states in the stretch run of the campaign.

Clinton's tact to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency was the exact opposite of Obama's. She recognized that the small Western and Southern states he won are not in play for the Democrats; so why squander time, energy and limited resources in a pointless chase of votes there. Better to spend the time and resources trying to wrest Ohio, Florida, and now even Texas with its surging numbers of Latino voters, solidly pro Clinton, from the GOP. Then there is Pennsylvania. It's a big, swing state that can make a difference. While the Democrats has won the state in recent elections, the possible defection of many Hillary Democrats to McCain or simply the possibility they'll stay home could spell trouble for Obama.

A huge percent of Pennsylvania voters are blue collar, anti-big government, socially conservative, pro defense, and intently patriotic, and there's a tormenting history of a racial polarization in the state.

Pennsylvania's electoral votes and those of the other swing states can make the difference if the race is on the line. Florida and Ohio cinched Bush's two election victories in 2000 and 2004.

Democrats are also ecstatic at the near record turnout by Democrats in some of the red states that Obama won compared to the relatively lower turnout in the Republican primaries in those states. This also means little. Far fewer Republicans turned out in the Republican primaries in the presidential election battles of Bush Sr. in 1988 and Reagan in 1980, and Bush Jr. in 2000. All three were still elected.

It's of course much too late in the game for Clinton's more sober minded backers to think that she can do a 12th hour snatch of the nomination from Obama. The Democrats have bet the bank on him. Hillary's people just fear that the vault will be depleted by November 4th.

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, The Huffington Post, August 14, 2008

So she's in. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama announced that Clinton's name will indeed be on the nomination ballot at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Obama supports this for the sake of unity, saying he hopes it will help bring the party together. This is historic, but will it do anything to satisfy Clinton's supporters?

Clinton joins Margaret Chase Smith, whose name was considered for the Republican nomination in 1964, and Shirley Chisholm, who won 151.5 votes at the Democratic convention in 1972. The National Organization for Women and other groups across the country are touting her accomplishment. "Hillary Clinton's campaign made history this year, with 18 million women and men across the country voting for her in the primaries," NOW President Kim Gandy said in a statement. "And she will make history yet again when delegates from nearly every state in the nation will be able to take the floor and proudly say Clinton's name in the roll call vote."

These groups are right: Clinton is making history. But she is still supporting Obama. Her latest statements show no indication that she expects to win the nomination or join the fight against the "flawed" primary process that groups like PUMA (Party Unity My A-) and The Denver Group are making noise about. When delegates take to the floor and get to vote for Clinton, the woman who got closer to winning the presidency than any woman in history, it will be historic. But for advocates of women in politics, like me, the true example of success is when delegates can vote for a woman who has a chance of winning the nomination. That will be the point in history when we can truly say we've come far enough. Right now, there is still a lot of work to do for women in politics. Allowing delegates to vote for Clinton at the convention isn't the end of the fight for women or, likely, for PUMA supporters.

By Morgan E. Flechner, U.S. News & World Report, August 15, 2008

The nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton for president at the upcoming Democratic National Convention could mollify the New York senator's ardent supporters and rally them around Barack Obama.

At least that's what most party leaders hope will happen.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton agreed to place her name in nomination at the convention after weeks of negotiations between their respective aides. The two sides made the announcement Thursday.

Some delegates, however, including a longtime Texas Democrat, say anything but a staged show could hurt Mr. Obama by fueling lingering bitterness felt by some Clinton loyalists and turn Mr. Obama's coronation into a circus.

Democratic National Committee member and former Texas Democratic Party Chairman Bob Slagle said he'd write to fellow Clinton delegates and urge them not to push a legitimate roll call vote.

He also said he wanted to curb festering anti-Obama sentiment with some Clinton supporters.

"I need to try to stop the infection," Mr. Slagle said. "Hillary Clinton is no fool. She's a very smart, bright woman. She always said she's for Obama and would do anything he asks. Anything he asks doesn't mean screwing up the convention."

Mr. Slagle of Sherman said Mrs. Clinton's name may go into nomination, but he didn't think there would be a dramatic roll call vote.

"They may have it choreographed where there is some stage play," Mr. Slagle said. "She could go up there and give a flowery speech and then ask her supporters to vote for Obama. I don't know why she would want a roll call vote and then go down in flames."

But other Clinton supporters were thrilled with the prospect of casting a vote for Mrs. Clinton, who has an estimated 1,891 delegates. Mr. Obama has an estimated 2,254 delegates.

"I understand the whole unity call, but Sen. Obama needs to understand that Clinton supporters need to cast that vote," said Darlene Ewing, the Dallas County Democratic Party chairwoman and a Clinton delegate. "They want to take that act."

Ms. Ewing said it was important for women to be able to cast a Clinton vote in what's been a historic campaign.

"The fact that I'm going to get to vote for a viable female candidate means a lot to me," Ms. Ewing said. "I'm an old-school feminist, and it will be very emotional for me and it won't change my support for Sen. Obama at the end of the day."

Other Clinton supporters also wanted to vote for their leader.

"It authenticates the process, and it makes it much easier for us to unite for victory," said Neil Emmons, a Dallas delegate and Clinton supporter.

Mr. Emmons said he was 99.9 percent sure Mr. Obama would get the nomination.

Former Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, who chaired Mrs. Clinton's Texas campaign, said that multiple candidates were nominated at previous conventions.

After a candidate gets the total number of delegates to win, a motion for a united vote by acclimation would occur.

"We just decided two weeks before the night that we're going to do what we always do," Mr. Mauro said. "I sure intend to be right there voting for the motion of acclimation, after I do my duty."

The Dallas Morning News, August 15, 2008

Flaws in voting machines used by millions of people will not be fixed in time for the presidential election because of a government backlog in testing the machines' hardware and software, officials say.

The flaws, which have cast doubt on the ability of some machines to provide a consistent and reliable vote count, were supposed to be addressed by the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency that oversees voting. But commission officials say they will not be able to certify that flawed machines are repaired by the November election, or provide software fixes or upgrades, because of a backlog at the testing laboratories the commission uses.

"We simply are not going to sacrifice the integrity of the certification process for expediency," said Rosemary E. Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the commission.

As a result, machine manufacturers and state election officials say states and local jurisdictions are forgoing important software modifications meant to address security and performance concerns. In some cases, election officials in need of new equipment have no choice but to buy machines that lack the current innovations and upgrades.

The federal government does not require that states use machines that the commission certifies, but most states depend on the commission to approve new machines and software, and at least 10 states have rules or laws requiring federal certification.

In Ohio, for example, which requires federal certification, election officials found that in this year's presidential primary the touch-screen machines used in 43 counties, or by more than three million voters, dropped at least 1,000 votes as memory cards sent data to the central server in each county. The discrepancy was caught and corrected before final tallies were calculated, but election officials say the risk is too high. The newer software being provided by manufacturers fixes the problem, but it has not been certified, and so the state cannot use it.

Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in Ohio, plans to use a type of optical scan machine that lacks safeguards to prevent election officials from tampering with the ballots and affecting tallies, said the Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer L. Brunner. Those safeguards do exist on a later model, she said, but it remains uncertified.

"We need the federal oversight to create consistent standards and to hold the manufacturers to a certain level of quality, but we also have to be able to get the equipment when we need it," Ms. Brunner said. "Right now, that equipment is not coming, and we're left making contingency plans."

Election officials in Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin told of similar frustrations.

The slowdown began in February 2007 when the commission took over the certification process that was previously performed by a volunteer program operated by the National Association of State Election Directors. Until then, the association had arranged for private testing labs to scrutinize the machines, using standards set in 1990 and 2002 by the Federal Election Commission. That process was widely criticized as being inconsistent and rife with conflicts of interest.

"The problem is that the pace of innovation is outstripping the pace of regulation," said Doug Chapin, director of the Web site set up by Pew Center on the States, electionline.org. "Federal certification is intended to help election officials manage voting technology, but right now it's getting in the way instead."

Since the commission took over the certification process, no new equipment or software has been certified.

Advocates for better election systems say one reason for the delay is that the machines are fraught with problems that should have been detected earlier, giving manufacturers more time to make improvements. Had there been stronger standards before the commission took over, they say, the current level of scrutiny would not be necessary.

"The E.A.C., to its credit, has decided to dig their collective heels in and insist that the software and hardware be rigorously tested by professional testing labs," said Warren Stewart, a technology expert with Vote Trust USA, a voting rights watchdog group.

Either way, said Chris Nelson, the secretary of state in South Dakota, which requires federal certification of voting-machine changes, he is tired of waiting.

In 2006 the ballot-marking devices used by disabled voters incorrectly marked 50 to 100 ballots, Mr. Nelson said. The machine maker says it has fixed the problem but the state cannot install the fix without certification, said Mr. Nelson, who added that he had also not decided how to proceed.

In Chicago, election officials say they are frustrated that they cannot upgrade the software that runs their optical scan machines so that it will perform more smoothly for disabled voters. The software change will also more accurately count ballots cast in voting precincts that sit on the fault line between two Congressional or judicial districts.

Part of the reason for the slowdown has been that the commission chose to certify systems from top to bottom, including software and hardware, rather than simply certifying modifications to noncertified machines.

Many states have begun to consider moving away from requiring federal certification. In Washington, Pierce County received a state exemption from the certification requirement after it decided to give voters the ability to rank candidates running for county office in order of preference, thus avoiding a primary. The new voting method required a software change that would have otherwise required certification, said Pat McCarthy, the county elections director.

In Wisconsin, election officials have to use calculators to add machine tallies individually in about 1,500 polling places. Kevin Kennedy, director of the state elections board, said the upgrade needed to make the state's touch-screen machines communicate properly with its optical scan machines was not certified.

"It is slow, insecure and opens up room for error," Mr. Kennedy said. He added that the state had been using the same optical scan machines since the mid-1980s and would like to buy new hardware but would not until new machines were federally certified.

Machine manufacturers are also becoming frustrated.

In June, the Election Technology Council, the trade association that represents most major voting machine makers, issued a report highly critical of the commission that said the certification delays were squelching innovation and raising the industry's costs.

A draft report out this month by the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional watchdog, said the current system left states on their own to discover voting machine problems. The report calls for Congress to revise the Help America Vote Act and provide the commission with the authority and resources it needs to resolve problems with machines that were certified before the commission took over the process.

By Ian Urbina, The New York Times, August 15, 2008

On the day Mitt Romney bowed out of the presidential race last February, his supporters latched onto something of a consolation prize that appeared to bode well for his political future: the warm embrace of hundreds of conservatives whose seal of approval he had long sought.

The enthusiastic ovations Mr. Romney received before and after his speech ending his campaign at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington seemed to signal that he had finally overcome skepticism many conservatives harbored about him and become a a bona fide standard-bearer for their movement.

Yet as Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is said to have emerged as a top contender to be Senator John McCain's vice-presidential running mate, a vocal segment of conservative leaders and grass-roots activists have mobilized against him, with some going out of their way to block his path to the Republican ticket.

It is unclear just how large the group of Romney detractors is and how representative it is of the broader conservative movement. Many are evangelicals who flocked to one of Mr. Romney's rivals in the Republican primaries, Mike Huckabee, the Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor whose own hopes for making a repeat presidential run in 2012 or 2016 could suffer if Mr. Romney were named to the ticket.

Indeed, Mr. Huckabee himself aimed a few jabs at Mr. Romney this week, arguing that he would make an unacceptable vice-presidential pick because of his shifting positions on several issues.

Nevertheless, the determined opposition to Mr. Romney highlights the nagging concerns about his ideological authenticity - and his Mormon religion - that dogged him throughout his primary campaign. It also illuminates the continuing unease Mr. McCain arouses among some evangelicals and other social conservatives who make up an important voting bloc of the Republican base.

Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has seemed to be weighing whether to pick a running mate who would help him shore up his ties to his party's conservative base or to make an unconventional choice who could help him attract independents.

But after Mr. McCain said this week in an interview with The Weekly Standard that he might consider a supporter of abortion rights as his running mate, like former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, conservative leaders responded with a torrent of criticism, warning that such a decision would be disastrous for the party's chances in the fall.

Mr. McCain's floating of Mr. Ridge's name - and the backlash that ensued - could actually make the selection of Mr. Romney more palatable. Mr. Romney's fluency on economic matters and his family ties to Michigan, a crucial swing state, are considered assets in his favor.

Mr. Romney's staff sought from the beginning of his presidential campaign to position him as the most electable conservative candidate in the field. But even some of his closest advisers conceded they might have overcompensated while trying to paper over some of the more moderate views he espoused in the past. The dissonance led to accusations of flip-flopping from Mr. Romney's opponents.

Toward the end of Mr. Romney's run, however, with the momentum clearly behind Mr. McCain, a growing chorus of conservative voices began to rally to Mr. Romney, with talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh talking him up, and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham endorsing him ahead of the crush of states that voted on Feb. 5. The support proved to be too late, but Mr. Romney's supporters took heart, looking ahead to another run in four or eight years.

"The problem was not that it didn't gel," said James Bopp Jr., an anti-abortion activist and lawyer who was among several leading conservatives who endorsed Mr. Romney early on. "The problem was it gelled too late."

Several evangelical and conservative leaders said they believed that Romney detractors were a relatively small faction, contending that he remained acceptable to most. But others said that the hostility toward Mr. Romney in their ranks was much more widespread. They suggested evangelicals might be more open to potential candidates like Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, although he remains an unknown quantity to many, or, better yet, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

"I think when you look at Mitt Romney, he's not in the totally uncomfortable column, but he's not in the completely comfortable column, so he's kind of in between," said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. "Those that do have opposition to him, they're pretty adamant in their opposition."

Mathew D. Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law and founder of the conservative legal advocacy group Liberty Counsel, recently organized a meeting in Denver of some 100 top Christian conservative leaders in which they agreed to try to coalesce around Mr. McCain, despite reservations about him.

But Mr. Staver said that choosing Mr. Romney would "not advance the ball within the evangelical bloc of voters that McCain needs."

"It would make my job to rally the grass roots more difficult," he said.

Mr. Romney's shifting stances and tone on abortion, gay rights and other issues clearly figure into his critics' feelings, but his Mormon faith also remains a factor in attitudes toward him among some evangelicals.

"I think Romney would be very acceptable to the foreign policy conservatives and the economic conservatives and most social conservatives," said Richard Land, leader of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. "But I think it's fair to say that about 15 to 20 percent of evangelicals would have a difficult time voting for a Mormon on either side of the ticket."

Mr. Land said he believed that Mr. Romney's faith should not be an issue, pointing out that Mr. Romney managed to win at least the tacit approval of many national evangelical leaders and made significant gains among rank-and-file evangelicals. But a sizable number of state-level activists have remained adamantly opposed to Mr. Romney, Mr. Land said, attributing the phenomenon partly to the fact that many are heavily involved in their evangelical churches, which do not consider Mormonism a part of Christian orthodoxy.

"It would mean at the margins there would be some evangelicals who just wouldn't vote," Mr. Land said.

Since his exit from the race, Mr. Romney has continued to work to burnish his conservative credentials, forming a political action committee, Free and Strong America, in the spring that has contributed roughly $50,000 to conservative candidates across the country. Peter Flaherty, Mr. Romney's former deputy campaign manager who was one of his top advisers for conservative outreach, is executive director of the committee.

Last week in Ohio, however, about a dozen grass-roots conservatives, many of them former Huckabee backers, gathered in Cincinnati to discuss their alarm about the talk of a McCain-Romney ticket and to draw up plans for a new group, Social Conservatives Against Mitt Romney.

"We're talking about getting the word out to people about the fact that we don't want Mitt Romney as the candidate," said Diane Stover, the leader of a social conservative group in the Cleveland area, who dialed into the meeting. "There seems to be a groundswell of voices for Mitt Romney out there, but I want to make sure the grass-roots voices are heard."

In April, a collection of social conservative leaders took out a full-page advertisement in a newspaper in Arizona when Mr. McCain was campaigning there that was headlined, "An Open Letter to John McCain: No Mitt."

The ultimate danger for Mr. McCain is not necessarily that Christian conservatives will not vote for him if he chooses Mr. Romney, but that they will not be as energetic in turning people out to vote, said David Fornshell, vice chairman of the Republican Party in Warren County, Ohio, where evangelical turnout helped lift President Bush to victory in 2004 in that critical state.

"I'm going to back whomever McCain picks," said Mr. Fornshell, who supported former Senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee in the primary. "But am I concerned that there is a very important, very hard-working segment of traditional Republican backers who might not work hard? Yeah, that concerns me."

By Michael Luo, The New York Times, August 15, 2008

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Arkanses has a Democratic governor, an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, two Democratic United States senators and three Democratic Congressional representatives out of four.

The Democratic presidential primary here drew 80,000 more voters than the Republican one. And though the state voted for President Bush in 2000 and 2004, the two previous elections went handily to its native son, Bill Clinton.

But Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, does not yet have a campaign office here, and has not visited the state since 2006. One group of his volunteers meets in a donated space - the small waiting room of a medical spa - that they share with a prominent display of skin care products and a leaky air conditioner. The only Obama signs and stickers at the state party headquarters were paid for by the Pulaski County Democratic Committee.

Obama campaign officials have made much of their desire to expand the traditional Democratic playing field into states like Idaho, Indiana, Missouri and Montana and have promised they will run a 50-state campaign. But in the red-bloc South, the campaign has begun a push only in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. It has offices in several Republican-leaning states that have three electoral votes to Arkansas's six, leaving his supporters in this state to wonder, why not here?

"We checked the state borders to make sure they hadn't been clogged up or something, to make sure a wreck hadn't stopped traffic on the Interstate," said Pat O'Brien, the Pulaski County clerk, who handles voter registration and who was one of the few elected officials to publicly support Mr. Obama while the state's former first lady, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, was still in the race.

After Mrs. Clinton's concession, Democratic officials threw their support to Mr. Obama, including Bill Gwatney, the state party chairman who was shot to death this week by a gunman at party headquarters. (The killing had no apparent link to politics.)

But while Arkansas on paper might entice a Democratic candidate, Arkansas in person is a different story, and the fact that Mr. Obama's campaign is not yet here reveals much about his strategic approach to turning red states blue.

In Arkansas, unlike other Southern states, Democrats have maintained dominance by keeping white, conservative, rural voters - the ones that need the most convincing by Mr. Obama - in the fold. Arkansas's population is whiter than the rest of the South; it is only 16 percent black, compared with 30 percent in Georgia and 21 percent in North Carolina. Its voters are older and less educated and include fewer transplants from outside the South. Virginia has elected a black governor; Arkansas has never elected a black candidate to statewide office.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, does not have an office in Arkansas, but he visited in April and again last week, when he called Arkansas a "swing state" and promised to aggressively pursue "Clinton Democrats." But Merle Black, an expert on Southern politics at Emory University, said the McCain camp most likely expected to do as well in Arkansas as in more solidly Republican states like Tennessee and Kentucky, where white Protestants dominate the electorate.

"McCain's not an ultraconservative, he's not an orthodox Republican - that might actually help McCain in Arkansas," Professor Black said.

He added that he was skeptical of arguments that Arkansas could go to the Democrat. "If Arkansas's in play, Obama's winning everything," Professor Black said.

Indeed, in most of the political maps that code the American political landscape, political experts have colored Arkansas a flat red for presidential purposes. But in the map by Charlie Cook, the founder of the Cook Political Report and a Southerner with Arkansas roots, it is pink, giving the Obama campaign a bit more hope based on the state's voting history.

"I'm probably more a prisoner of history than most people," Mr. Cook said.

He said it was obvious why Mr. Obama would choose Georgia and North Carolina: in addition to the demographic advantages, they are the region's big prizes at 15 electoral votes each.

More puzzling, Mr. Cook said, was that the Obama campaign already had a paid staff in Louisiana. "I don't know what test Louisiana meets that Arkansas doesn't," he said. "I don't know what test that would be."

The campaign, of course, has had to make strategic decisions and cannot play with equal intensity in every state. Jon Carson, the national field director for the Obama campaign, said it was still ramping up and would ultimately have staff members in all 50 states to build on the grass-roots efforts already under way. In states like Georgia, Mr. Carson said, voter registration drives are important, but the campaign would not use the same approach everywhere.

"Arkansas is a state where persuasion, I think, is going to be a larger factor than a massive registration program," Mr. Carson said.

Louisiana does have an incumbent Democratic senator, Mary L. Landrieu, fighting off a challenger, while Arkansas's Congressional delegation faces no significant opposition. And there are factors besides the number of electoral votes, like Mr. Obama's margin of victory in the Georgia primary, which he won by 35 points. In Arkansas, Mrs. Clinton beat him by 43 points, his worst defeat in the primaries.

Mrs. Clinton's lock on Arkansas has certainly impeded Mr. Obama's momentum there. Virtually all of the state’s major Democrats were Clinton supporters, and for many her defeat was a personal blow.

Sheila Bronfman, a longtime friend of the Clintons and the coordinator of the Arkansas Travelers, a group that toured the country to promote Mrs. Clinton during the primaries, said she was planning to vote for Mr. Obama and to tell others to vote for him. Asked if she would place an Obama sign in her yard, however, Ms. Bronfman hesitated.

"Hillary threw my bridal party," she explained. "So it's just hard for me to do that. I just have to decide how far I want to go."

Still, Obama supporters here say there is plenty of pent-up enthusiasm for his candidacy. In 2006, when Mr. Obama held a rally on the Capitol steps for Mike Beebe's successful run for governor, he drew well over 1,000 people, even though the rally conflicted with a University of Arkansas football game.

"In the past, it's always been going out and encouraging and begging people to register to vote," said Tracy Steele of North Little Rock, the majority leader of the State Senate, who added that he was planning a statewide voter registration drive without waiting for the Obama campaign. "More than ever, I receive calls from people wondering, 'Where can I register, how can I early-vote?' "

Some have suggested that even after Mrs. Clinton's concession, the state party has been slow to embrace the Obama campaign, perhaps because its leaders fear alienating conservative Democrats.

"The Democratic Party has not had a candidate for statewide office to energize African-American voters since Bill Clinton left the state," said Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. "Whether they like it or not, they're going to be tied to Obama. They might as well get the benefits out of it."

Before his death this week, Mr. Gwatney said that he was awaiting direction from the Obama campaign, but that he believed the campaign would open a state office in a few weeks.

State Senator Mary Anne Salmon, another member of the Arkansas Travelers, said Mr. Obama would have to battle buried racism throughout the South.

"People who feel that way don't want to admit it," Ms. Salmon said. "They say things like 'Well, he's so young.' I keep saying to people, 'Well, he's half white.' "

Supporters like Mr. O'Brien argue that a visit by the candidate would go a long way toward dispelling such antipathy among rural Democrats.

Nelda Burrow, 87, seemed to confirm that notion. Ms. Burrow, a lifelong Democrat, was discomfited to learn from a recent article in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that she is distantly related to Mr. Obama, whose maternal ancestors helped settle the Ozarks. "I don't claim him," she said, as she played dominoes and talked politics with a group of friends.

Ms. Burrow said she would not vote for Mr. Obama because she believed he was either a Muslim or would, if elected, rejoin Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago congregation that he left after a controversy over the former minister's racial views.

Ms. Burrow's son, Dennis, tried to convince her that Mr. Obama was not a Muslim.

"He'd have to come to my home and eat some of my purple-hull peas before I'd believe him," Ms. Burrow said of Mr. Obama. "And my fried okra. Anyone that breaks bread with me, I'd have more confidence in him."

EAGLE, Colo. - Senator John McCain has a busy day today in Aspen. Unfortunately, most of it will be out of view of his traveling press corps. The traveling press corps is traveling all right - but to California - while the candidate takes care of business on the ground in Colorado.

His first event was breakfast with T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oilman, at the Aspen Institute. Mr. McCain showed up with his sidekick, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Steve Schmidt, a senior McCain adviser, joined them.

Cameras and a small pool of reporters were allowed in for a minute for some quick pix and a little chit-chat before being ejected. The pool did report an interesting tidbit: Mr. McCain was asked about the new Jerome Corsi book against Senator Barack Obama.

Here's what happened, according to the pool report: "McCain replied somewhat cryptically, 'Gotta keep your sense of humor,' " and the pool was then "ushered" out.

Mr. McCain's initial response was flashed around the Web and was quickly derided by Democrats.

A few hours later, a clarifying pool report arrived in our in-boxes. The campaign had informed the pool reporter that Mr. McCain had not actually heard the question.

And later still, a third pool report arrived, again at the behest of the campaign, to clarify the circumstances surrounding the question.

Here's what the third report said: As the photo-op was ending and aides were escorting the pool out of the room, Chuck Babington, the Associated Press reporter, approached Mr. McCain and asked him about the Corsi book.

"McCain took a step toward Mr. Babington and then said, 'Gotta keep your sense of humor,' " the pool report said. "The effort to escort us out was intensified and we all left." Later, the report said, a McCain aide told the pooler that Mr. McCain "had not heard the question and thought Mr. Babington was asking about one of the TV ads." The aide also wanted it to be clear, the report said, that this moment emanated not from a sanctioned media "availability" but a stray question called out to Mr. McCain.

And so it goes. The continued efforts to clarify the incident point up why campaigns often like to keep candidates, and particularly Mr. McCain, away from spontaneous interaction with reporters.

In any case, Mr. McCain next conducted a closed, three-hour meeting with his big-hitter donors and campaign advisers.

The afternoon - nearly six hours - was given over to "campaign filming day," which sounds like he's creating his own version of Bill Clinton's 1992 "Man From Hope" video for the Republican convention and some TV spots.

While all this is going on in Aspen and environs, the traveling press corps will be enroute to California. Mr. McCain is to fly in later Friday night and resume "campaign filming" on Saturday, again without reporters on hand.

This is trail life in the post-primary world of Mr. McCain, once considered to be one of the chattiest, most accessible politicians in the United States. Even spotting him these days is rare. And it does not take place by accident, like catching the wing of an osprey. It is more like viewing the Aurora Borealis - you have advance notice of an unusual happening and must be in proper position, well ahead of time.

Even though The Times and several other media outlets are ostensibly "covering" Mr. McCain campaigning, we last saw him Thursday afternoon, in his first appearance at the Aspen Institute, from the press section at the back of a large tent with 1,000 other people. We will see him next on Saturday night in California, with thousands of people more.

Covering a presidential candidate is often like being in a black hole. You can go for days without seeing the candidate and for hours without cell or Internet access because you're on a plane or running to catch the bus or in a remote location. Besides, Mr. McCain seems determined not to "make news" these days and rarely does anything in public that is unscripted (his appearance Thursday afternoon at the Aspen Institute was a rare exception, although it yielded largely positive press coverage for him).

This causes the campaign little concern. For reporters, it only underscores why being on the road is often the last place from which news will emanate.

With that in mind, you might appreciate a little jail break that some of us staged on Thursday afternoon, after Mr. McCain continued on with two more fund-raising events in Aspen and met up with his advisers.

The plan for the press corps was to cart us away on a bus to a hotel that was almost two hours away.

As the bus was about to pull out for this sojourn to nowhere, several of us looked at each other and asked, "Why are we doing this?" Why are we allowing the campaign to ship us off while he stays here?

In a way, of course, it didn't matter where we were. It's virtually impossible for a reporter to attend any of his closed events or talk with his aides or even see him unless you are in the pool.

And yet, reporters by nature have an independent streak, and after so much confinement, a little busting out can make you feel you have accomplished something.

After some quick calculations - What about our hotel rooms, paid for in advance? Can we find alternative lodging in downtown Aspen? How do we get to the plane in the morning, which was leaving from an airport closer to the far-away hotel? - we hesitated. But as the driver pulled the door shut and put his hands on the wheel, it felt like the clanging of a cell door.

"Stop!" I called to the bus driver. "We're getting off." About six of us trooped off, and found ourselves on the sidewalk without a plan. (O.K., it was Aspen, not Appalachia, but still ...)

We walked over to the hotel where Mr. McCain was holding a fund-raiser. We didn't get into the event, but some of us picked up conversations with random donors.

In the end, our revolt from the bus was not hugely productive journalistically and created a lot of logistical headaches. But in terms of morale, we all felt better, almost as if we had control over our lives.

Later, we received the pool report from our colleague inside the fund-raisers. The pool reporter is basically whisked in and out of events and is kept at some remove from those attending. This, by the way, is why there were limited pictures of Cindy McCain, the candidate's wife, the other day when an enthusiastic supporter gripped her hand too hard and she was taken to the hospital for X-rays.

Still, at least the pool reporter can hear most of what the candidate says. In this case, here is what we learned from the pool reports from Aspen:

Mr. McCain spoke to 250 donors at the Jerome Hotel and had his picture taken with some of them. Rick Davis, the campaign manager, told reporters that the purpose of Friday's gathering was to bring big donors and senior advisers together; many had flown in from around the country.

Marc Holtzman, a major donor who ran for governor of Colorado two years ago, said the Jerome event raised $832,000. "Senator," he said, "I'm pleased to report to you that this is the most successful event that's ever been held for a political cause in Aspen."

Mr. McCain continues to tell his audiences about two "great cultural experiences" that he has experienced lately - his trip to Sturgis, S.D., and the Iowa State Fair.

Referring to Sturgis, where there was a major motorcycle rally, he told the crowd at the Jerome: "I noticed that my opponent recently was greeted by 200,000 Berliners. I'll take 50,000 Harley guys any time."

The second fund-raiser was held at the Pine Tree Cookhouse and was a gathering of bundlers, who in McCain-speak are known as "trailblazers," if they have raised at least $100,000, and "innovators," if they have raised more than $250,000.

There were about 250 people there, and they were to have their own briefing Friday with senior campaign officials - while the press corps is shipped off to California.

By Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times, August 15, 2008

The Democratic Convention, which begins in less than two weeks, seems to be turning into Obamafest - and we're not just talking about the party's presumptive nominee.

Earlier in the week, the convention committee announced that Michelle Obama will be the headline speaker on Aug. 25, the opening night of the convention. Who's going to introduce her? None other than her brother, Craig Robinson.

The theme of the night is "One Nation," but from what we're hearing, it sounds like it might be more about "One Man."

"The opening night of the Convention will highlight Senator Obama's life story, his commitment to change, and the voices of Americans who are calling for a New Direction for this country," says House Speaker Pelosi in press release provided by the convention committee. "Barack Obama's story is an American story that reflects a life of struggle, opportunity and responsibility like those faced by Americans everyday."

Pelosi and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill will also speak at the convention that night. Another party lion, Sen. Edward Kennedy, is being honored in a special tribute on the convention's opening night.

By Brian Wingfield, Forbes, August 15, 2008

With the Democratic convention fast approaching, Barack Obama's camp has hinted that he may name a vice presidential nominee as early as next week. John McCain will likely follow shortly thereafter. While Obama is likely to select someone to help him address concerns about his inexperience in foreign policy and executive leadership, McCain could probably help himself most by balancing his ticket with a younger, more conservative, running mate who understands the economy. The latest poll averages show McCain trailing Obama by just 4.5 percentage points. Picking the right running mate could make the crucial difference for one of the candidates in this election.

As with Obama, Trailwatch sees four prime candidates for McCain's VP nominee: former governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania; and current governors Charlie Crist of Florida and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.

As I wrote in April, Mitt Romney is probably the best candidate for boosting McCain's economic credentials. The one-time chief executive of Bain & Company and co-founder of its successful private equity arm is both financially savvy and relatively young. Drawbacks? Bad blood reportedly persists between the former rivals, which could make cooperation difficult.

John McCain has been campaigning with veep hopefuls, most recently with Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge. The former governor and the first head of the Department of Homeland Security would beef up McCain's credentials on fighting terrorism, but would do little to address the question of the economy. Ridge could, however, help McCain in Pennsylvania, a state worth 21 electoral votes.

Democrats won Pennsylvania in 2004 by just 2 percentage points and Hillary Clinton's strong appeal in rural parts of the state could leave Obama exposed there if her supporters fail to rally behind the likely Democratic nominee. While social conservatives, already troubled by McCain's moderation, would have to swallow Ridge's pro-choice leanings, it could bolster McCain's support from more moderate Republicans and independents.

Minnesota's 10 electoral votes went to the Democrats in 2004, but just barely; John Kerry's margin over George W. Bush was 3 percentage points. A win in the Gopher State could offset the loss of Virginia - if Obama manages to swing the commonwealth toward blue in November. If McCain wanted to go hard for those conservative votes, he could tap Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a 47-year-old evangelical Christian.

As an attack dog, Pawlentry would have to watch his tongue, however. His wit, although sharp, sometimes wanders into the risque. The Washington Post reported:

The Minnesota governor, who aspires to be John McCain's vice president, said during a radio interview in the spring that his wife enjoys fishing, football and hockey. "Now," Pawlenty quipped, "if I could only get her to have sex with me."

Florida has played a crucial role in the past two presidential elections. If McCain picks the state's governor Charlie Crist to join his ticket, the move could keep Florida in Republican hands. McCain currently leads Obama in the Sunshine State by less than 2 percentage points.

In his run for the statehouse in 2006, Crist distanced himself from President Bush and instead reached out to McCain, who stumped for him on the campaign trail. Crist has some negatives, however. With only two years of a first term under his belt, he may be too inexperienced, especially in economic matters, to join McCain. Despite being 52, Crist doesn't have the youthful look that McCain's campaign needs. Note that Mitt Romney, who finished second to McCain with 31% of all votes cast in the Florida primary (to McCain's 36%), clearly has enough support to help McCain hold Florida, especially with Crist campaigning with the duo.

The veepstakes chatter, as always, includes some dark-horse candidates as well. Among them: former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who could address the economic issue. Her presence on the ticket would also lend an historical element to their ticket and could pull in centrist supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Independent senator Joe Lieberman, a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, could help McCain in Florida. His independent status could bolster McCain's reputation as a bipartisan consensus-maker, and may also help McCain add some distance from the Bush administration.

Also among the dark horses: Virginia congressman Eric Cantor. The 45-year-old congressional leader would lend youth to McCain's ticket. Since 2001, Cantor has represented Virginia's 7th district, home to many affluent Republicans. Cantor, one of the few Jewish members of Congress, could boost McCain in Florida and help him hold onto Virginia. While his views on drilling and taxes coincide with McCain's, it's unclear that, as a relative unknown, Cantor would lift McCain nationwide.

By Paul M. Murdock, Forbes, August 15, 2008

Politicians from both parties seek new and even more daring ways of connecting with mass audiences via entertainment.

"There's a reason pop culture attracts viewers: It's entertaining," said political consultant and former Clinton White House staffer Chad Griffin, who has a large Hollywood clientele. "Politics, on the other hand, is not something people usually enjoy. So what do you do? You make yourself more visible to the public in a more entertaining way."

McCain and Obama have been enthusiastic participants in this system, working talk-show hosts as they would a crowd in Ohio.

As a result, the path Clinton blazed is indeed well traveled:

You go on with Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert so that people can see you're able to take a joke, even at your own expense. You go on with Jay Leno to show you're a regular guy and can carry on a conversation like one. Oprah Winfrey shows you've got soul and David Letterman demonstrates you're hip and smart but unpretentious.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who understands celebrity from every angle, took things a step further and actually announced his candidacy for governor of California on Leno. Actor Fred Thompson followed suit, announcing that he was running for president on the show's Burbank soundstage last year.

Politicians before Clinton occasionally appeared on TV programs. ( Richard Nixon played the piano on Jack Paar in 1960). But it was always clear they stood apart from entertainment.

Clinton seemed like a natural part of the cast. He instinctively understood pop culture and was at ease with the connections it made with ordinary people. (He also had friends in Hollywood and routinely turned to them for advice.)

After Clinton played his sax version of "Heartbreak Hotel" during his June 1992 appearance on Hall's show, the host quipped: "It's nice to see a Democrat blow something besides the election."

The audience was smitten. Political strategists took notice.

Obama has played pop culture with the same polished aplomb as Clinton. McCain looks a bit goofy on the TV shows, but in an affable and charming sort of way.

If their ads attacking the other's celebrity continue to get much traction, it will be because they connect with another, darker pop cultural current -- America's love/hate relationship with its celebrities amid an endless cycle of alternately building stars up and tearing them down.

"We feel that these people in Hollywood have made a fortune having a good time," said presidential historian and author Douglas Brinkley. "People like to see them take a fall and get their comeuppance."

The same holds true, it seems, for this new hybrid of celebrity politicians.

" 'Celebrity' has become a dirty word in 2008," said Darrell M. West, an academic with the Brookings Institute and co-author of the book "Celebrity Politics." "Neither McCain nor Obama want to be seen as celebrities. Yet both of them are. So what we have here is both hypocrisy and absurdity."

Even so, McCain's celebrity attack ads on Obama are having an effect.

According to the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism study of campaign coverage, McCain last week virtually tied Barack Obama in the battle for press attention for the first time since the kickoff of the general election.

McCain -- who started his ads hammering Obama on his celebrity status in mid-July -- appeared as a significant or dominant factor in 78% of election stories the week of July 28-Aug. 3, compared with 81% for Obama. It marked McCain's highest amount of coverage since the general election season began in early June.

The study noted that one major catalyst for coverage of McCain was his ad that described Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world" and included images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. At 10% of the available news space, the subject of campaign advertising was the second-biggest campaign story line of the week.

The ad also generated other media narratives, including whether McCain's campaign has gone too negative (6% of the news space).

Brinkley believes that Obama should avoid being spotted with any stars, at least for now.

"McCain needs to paint Obama as a Harvard elite egghead celebrity," Brinkley said. "Now he feels like he's ringing the pinball machine. The last thing Obama needs is to be seen in a photograph with a celebrity."

That should make Denver interesting. You won't be able to throw a stone without hitting a star or two at the Democratic National Convention. It would be easier to avoid them on the Oscar red carpet.

But here's the ultimate test: Come late October, when the campaign is neck-and-neck, will either McCain or Obama turn down an invitation to be on Leno?

Stay tuned.




By Tina Daunt, Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2008

Democrats say McCain is endorsing the much-criticized book after he responds to a question about it by saying, 'Gotta keep your sense of humor.' But aides say he misheard and was speaking of a campaig

ASPEN, COLO. -- An offhand remark Sen. John McCain made to reporters Friday morning is adding kindling to the controversy over an inflammatory new book about Sen. Barack Obama.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was asked by a reporter if he had a response to the best-selling "Obama Nation" by Jerome Corsi, which repeats discredited allegations about Obama and portrays him as a stealth radical with extensive Muslim ties.

But Democrats seized on the remark, claiming that McCain was giving the book his tacit seal of approval.

"Despite pledging to run a respectful campaign, McCain is just standing by while Corsi and his publisher, former Dick Cheney aide Mary Matalin, poison this presidential race," reads an e-mail message from the Democratic National Committee's rapid-response team, sent to 3.4 million Americans. "Right now, you can take the next step by pushing back on Corsi, the media, and John McCain. Tackle this smear campaign head on."

The Obama campaign has already released a 41-page, point-by-point rebuttal called "Unfit for Publication" and accused Corsi of being a "discredited liar" who has made "bigoted comments"

Among Corsi's claims: "Obama wants to will all the white blood out of himself so he can become pure black."

Democrats are responding vigorously to "Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality" at least partly because of lessons learned in the failed 2004 candidacy of Sen. John F. Kerry.

Four years ago, Corsi and John O'Neill wrote "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," which accused Kerry of fabricating incidents of bravery and heroism in the Vietnam War.

Many of those claims were later proved false.

But the book's allegations, which were broadcast in advertisements by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Kerry campaign's decision to ignore the claims to avoid giving them more publicity are believed to have contributed to his loss to President Bush.

One of the financiers of the Kerry attack ads, T. Boone Pickens, had breakfast Friday with McCain.

Lately, Pickens has focused his efforts on how to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, the topic he took up with McCain.

"We plan on having a similar meeting with Senator Obama in the very near future," Pickens wrote on his website.





By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2008

Finance chief Fred Baron had long ties to lawyers for Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young, the man who says he fathered her child.

WASHINGTON -- New questions emerged Friday about John Edwards' longtime chief fundraiser and secret efforts that protected the pregnant woman with whom the former presidential candidate has admitted an extramarital affair in 2006.

Fred Baron, Edwards' national finance chairman and a wealthy Dallas-based trial attorney, has acknowledged that he quietly began sending money to Rielle Hunter, Edwards' mistress, to resettle in California, along with the family of Andrew Young. Young is the campaign aide who has said he is the father of Hunter's daughter, born after her affair with Edwards.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has decried the practice and vowed to reform convention funding, but the Denver Host Committee was facing a budget shortfall.

WASHINGTON -- Facing a large deficit in the Democratic National Convention budget, officials from Barack Obama's campaign have begun personally soliciting labor unions and others for contributions of up to $1 million. In exchange, donors could get stadium skyboxes for Obama's acceptance speech and other perks.

Obama has regularly criticized politicians seeking large donations outside the framework of campaign finance regulations -- so-called soft money -- while touting the virtues of relying on small donations.

In an example of the campaign's late-innings effort, a very senior Obama campaign official called the political director of one of the largest labor unions about two weeks ago and asked for a $500,000 contribution on top of a similar amount that had been committed just a few weeks before, according to the union official.

Lawrence Scanlon, the political director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said that since AFSCME had already contributed, he declined to contribute more, urging the campaign to seek donations from wealthy individuals or corporations to help pay for the convention so that the union could spend its funds on voter outreach.

A spokesman for the campaign, Hari Sevugan, declined to say whether Obama himself had become involved in these fundraising efforts or to confirm any details of work done by others from the campaign.

"We are working together with the convention committee on many levels to ensure a successful convention this year," Sevugan said. "As we announced earlier, moving forward, one of Sen. Obama's reform priorities will include changes in the way party conventions are funded to assure they can be run without dependence" on soft money.

Donations made to convention host committees are not covered by federal donation limits. As a result, corporations and wealthy individuals can donate unlimited sums under the premise that the committee is promoting civic pride and economic growth, not a political cause.

However, the leadership ranks of these local fundraising committees are dominated by political partisans and elected officials.

In Minnesota, similar appeals are being made by Republicans to fund their September convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

"Both conventions are bringing in new fundraisers connected with the presidential candidate to go the last mile," said Steve Weissman, a reform advocate with the Campaign Finance Institute. Weissman said that the campaigns' involvement in raising these large-dollar contributions contradicts the reform rhetoric both candidates employ to win votes.

Big-dollar donations from corporations and wealthy individuals hark back to the days before the Watergate scandal when big checks from such sources were a staple of campaign fundraising.

Rules now limit the amount individuals or groups can donate, but there remains a loophole for conventions.

The Service Employees International Union has already committed $500,000 to the Democratic convention and an undisclosed sum to the Republicans.

In addition, a new labor consortium it belongs to, Change to Win, has been asked to donate. Other unions that are members of Change to Win, including New York-based Unite Here, have made unspecified donations to the Democrats' host committee. The American Federation of Teachers donated $750,000 last month.

For the GOP convention, the Twin Cities Host Committee recently turned for help to a strong supporter of Sen. John McCain's candidacy, Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson IV, owner of the New York Jets. Committee Chief Executive Jeff Larson said it now is close to meeting its fundraising goals.

After Obama became the clear nominee, a member of the Denver Host Committee's executive panel, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), approached the Illinois senator, telling him that the committee would need the campaign's assistance in raising funds. Obama did not respond in any detail, she said.

Since that conversation, Farber has been in touch with Obama's chief campaign finance advisor, Julianna Smoot, and others from the finance team.

The campaign team provided the host committee with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of likely donors and dispatched a fundraising expert, Jon Rotenberg, to help.

Use of Invesco Field skyboxes as a fundraising tool provides a positive ending to what was at first considered a financial headache. When Obama announced that he planned to deliver his acceptance speech at the outdoor stadium, campaign officials estimated that it would add about $6 million to the convention's cost. Since then, the sale of the $1-million packages has been highly successful, with many of the boxes selling out.

Those paying the $1-million price tag will get skybox tickets for 25 people and an additional 50 regular tickets to Invesco Field.

What's more, donors will get occasional access to skyboxes at the Pepsi Center, where the rest of the convention will take place. Donors will also have access to private parties and receptions.

Obama spokesman Sevugan insisted that none of the campaign's involvement with large-dollar convention funding indicated a weakening of Obama's resolve to reform the system.

Sevugan said: "In addition to his commitment to reform the convention funding process, Sen. Obama has also taken unprecedented steps to curb the influence of money on the political process in refusing contributions from PACs and Washington lobbyists, money raised by them, and asking the DNC to do the same -- all steps that John McCain refuses to take.

"While we recognize that the steps we have taken are not perfect or even a perfect symbol, they do reflect the fact that Barack Obama shares the urgent desire of the American people to change the way Washington operates."




By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2008

A Virginia governor got the nod for the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention - but it wasn't the state's current governor, Tim Kaine. Rather, former governor (and current Senate candidate) Mark Warner will give the speech. Since Democrats are unlikely to give the keynote address to a Virginian if the vice presidential nominee is also from Virginia, the announcement means that Tim Kaine is unlikely to get the nod as Barack Obama's number two. Kaine, one of the first big-name politicians to endorse Obama's run for the White House, was apparently on Obama's short-list for running mates, in part because Virginia is emerging as a possible swing state.

Surprises are always possible, but with Kaine apparently out of the running, we see four likely candidates left in Obama's veepstakes: Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, Indiana senator Evan Bayh, Connecticut senator Chris Dodd and Delaware senator Joe Biden. Obama's largest shortcomings are a lack of executive and foreign policy experience. His selection for vice president will likely need to address these concerns as well as fill the traditional attack-dog role.

In making his choice, Obama will also need to tackle the ever-present rift between his campaign and that of Hillary Clinton. During the primaries, many called for a Clinton-Obama "dream ticket." However, Clinton's recent antics have essentially eliminated that possibility.

So, how could one of these four contenders help Obama in November? Kansas governor and Democratic convention co-chair Kathleen Sebelius brings two terms of executive experience to the table. She is from a traditionally Republican state in a region that Obama would like to turn blue in the fall. As a woman, she could placate supporters anxious to see a woman move closer to the White House. The problem? Kansas and the Midwest are unlikely to swing to the Democrats, regardless of Sebelius's presence on the ticket. Sebelius lacks foreign policy experience, and her presence may not be enough to pull in hard-core Clintonites.

Indiana senator Evan Bayh is one politician who could bridge the gap between the Clinton camp and Obama. The former governor and current senator from Indiana was an early Clinton endorser. He has executive experience and currently serves on the committee of armed services, the select committee on intelligence, and the sub-committee of emerging threats and capabilities. He's a white male from the Midwest who might swing reluctant voters for Barack Obama. However, Bayh was an early supporter of the Iraq War, which puts him at odds with one of Obama's key campaign elements. An internet petition against Bayh's candidacy has set a goal of 100,000 signatures from people displeased with the Indiana senator on Iraq and his other centrist positions (so far, just over 2,000 people have actually signed). Perhaps more importantly, Republicans defeated Democrats by 21 percentage points in Indiana in 2004, making it unlikely that Bayh could swing the state and its 11 electoral votes to Obama in November.

As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and with over 30 years of experience on Capitol Hill, Connecticut's Chris Dodd could bring valuable experience to Obama's ticket. As we pointed out in May, Dodd was popular with chief executives, running second to Hillary Clinton in donations from top executives. While Obama has appealed to a record number of small donors, he still needs support from the business community. However, Obama has tried to distance himself from traditional donors, attempting to appear as the candidate for every American as opposed to those in the highest tax brackets. As a result, Dodd's role as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs could prove too much for Camp Obama to swallow - especially since both the housing and banking bubbles burst during Dodd's watch as chairman.

That leaves Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware. Despite his lack of executive experience, Biden has other positives. As chairman of the foreign relations committee, Biden is one of the most experienced foreign policy wonks in the country. He has national name recognition (something Bayh and Sebelius don't offer) and the ability and willingness to attack Republicans on all issues. Yet some see Biden as a loose canon, which could keep him out of the second slot. Could Biden stick to the script? If Biden does not end up on the ticket, and Obama wins in November, expect to see him nominated for Secretary of State.

Three notable dark horse candidates: Gen. Wesley Clark, Gov. Bill Richardson and Republican senator Chuck Hagel. Clark, a nominee whom I suggested back in December, likely ruined his chances a few months ago by attacking John McCain's military leadership. Hagel's party affiliation, his opposition to the Iraq war notwithstanding, could keep a number of Obama's supporters from the left at bay, offsetting any potential gain from Republican centrists. Richardson is an interesting choice: he has executive and foreign relations experience; he's from a region (the Southwest) that the Obama camp is aggressively pursuing; and he's Latino, representing a voting bloc that will likely be crucial in November.

By Paul M. Murdock, Forbes, August 14, 2008

At Saddleback Church, the candidates will field similar questions before an audience not chosen by their tightly controlled campaigns.

The meeting between John McCain and Barack Obama today at Saddleback Church in Orange County will be brief -- a handshake and perhaps an exchange of pleasantries in between back-to-back interviews with the church's pastor, Rick Warren.

But for the 3,000 people in the audience and viewers watching live on cable television, this first onstage matchup will offer a preview of the three critically important presidential debates, the first next month at the University of Mississippi.

In some respects, the candidates have opposite strengths.

Obama is often described as a powerful orator but was not a standout debater in the Democratic primary season. McCain is most comfortable speaking extemporaneously but has undercut his foreign-policy credentials with mistakes, such as mischaracterizing Iran's role in Iraq and referring to the Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia.

"This is like a high-stakes trapeze act that these guys have -- because mistakes and gaffes matter oh so much in these contests," said Tom Hollihan, a communications professor at USC's Annenberg School.

The two men will also have very different objectives in the three 90-minute presidential debates. McCain will try to convey his experience but must also show that "he has the energy and the forward-looking vision to lead" when matched with a much younger challenger, Hollihan said.

In addition, McCain faces the delicate task of energizing the Republican base while reaching out to independent voters disappointed in President Bush. "He has to deal with the ghost on the stage, and probably has to do that in a dramatic way," said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick.

By contrast, because of Obama's youth and relative inexperience, many undecided voters will use the debates -- along with forums like today's at Saddleback Church -- to assess the Illinois senator's preparedness for the presidency.

"The pressure will be on Obama," said Robert Friedenberg, a communications professor at Miami University in Ohio. With McCain likely to present himself as the "safe alternative," Friedenberg said, "people will be looking for [Obama] to demonstrate a mastery of the questions."

Past presidential contenders have learned, however, that debates can turn not just on substance but on how voters perceive small gestures or how a candidate answers a sensitive question. George H.W. Bush's decision to look at his watch three times during a 1992 debate with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot telegraphed to some voters that he'd rather be elsewhere.

Michael Dukakis' dispassionate answer in 1988 about whether he'd favor the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered hardened some voters against him.

McCain's and Obama's extensive debate practice in the primaries may prove instructive.

Obama was widely viewed as improving as a debater -- and he may have learned from criticism. He was faulted in one debate for appearing to gang up on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with John Edwards, and he took heat for what was widely interpreted as a snide remark to Clinton in a New Hampshire debate: "You're likable enough, Hillary."

McCain's difficulty is controlling his facial expressions. For him, there may be a cautionary tale in former Vice President Al Gore's sighs in his first matchup with George W. Bush in 2000 or in Bush's grimaces during his first 2004 debate with Sen. John F. Kerry.

McCain sometimes looked annoyed by his primary debaters, particularly former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who "really seemed to get under his skin," Schroeder said.

"You can't do that in a general-election debate," he said. McCain's advisors are likely to work on "keeping him on an even keel at all times and not letting the situation rattle him in any way," Schroeder said.

By contrast, Hollihan noted that Obama generally appeared unruffled. "He very seldom lets his emotions get the better of him, which I think is very helpful," he said.

But that can have a downside too. Obama often seemed "almost too deliberate or reserved" in his answers, said Schroeder, which may be why Obama reportedly reviewed debate clips of Hillary Clinton, who was masterful at connecting with voters at those primary forums.

Obama "is a very nuanced thinker, and that's good, but sometimes in the expression of that, it bogs him down a little bit -- so he's not as direct a speaker or performer as the best debaters have been," Schroeder said.

McCain has sometimes succeeded in forging instant connections with his audiences at town hall meetings. One of his strongest moments was during a June 2007 debate when he walked across the stage and gently told Erin Flanagan, a New Hampshire woman whose brother had been killed in Iraq, that the war had been "badly mismanaged."

Black believes that moment and a passionate performance during another New Hampshire debate after Labor Day revived McCain's candidacy.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who led a focus group during the September debate, said McCain won points by being feisty and tough. "He was the John McCain of 2000 once again," he said.

Dukakis, who lost his 1988 Democratic presidential bid, said that if he had to do it all over again, he'd spend less time rehearsing.

At that point in the campaign, "you've been saying the same thing over and over again for a year and a half -- you're really bored out of your mind," Dukakis said. "So what's important here is to try to get the candidate to be effective but also fresh and spontaneous."





By Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2008

Barack Obama returns to action Saturday after a week's vacation for a joint appearance with John McCain at the Saddleback Church in California. Obama's reappearance on the campaign trail signals the beginning of three of the most critical weeks of the general election.

In the modern era, there has never been quite as concentrated a dose of potentially campaign-altering events as the coming three weeks could produce. By the end of that period, Obama and McCain will have announced their vice presidential running mates, staged four-day infomercials for their candidacies and delivered what are likely to be the single most important speeches of the general election.

For those who revel in the unpredictability of politics, this calendar is ready-made for enjoyment. The cascading events will heighten the cost of mistakes, affect the post-convention bounce for Obama and perhaps McCain, supercharge the traditional Labor Day opening of the fall campaign and raise the stakes on the two presidential nominees not to misuse their conventions, as John Kerry did four years ago.

Normally these events have stretched over six weeks or more and generally have taken place much earlier in the summer. Voters have had time to fully digest each one before the next has occurred. That changed this year because the Democratic and Republican parties decided to hold their conventions back-to-back, and later than ever before. It also changed because, despite much speculation to the contrary, Obama and McCain have waited until just before the conventions to name their vice presidents.

The competitiveness of the Obama-McCain contest now argues for safe vice presidential choices. Neither is in a position to risk -- nor does either need -- a running mate whose selection dramatically changes perceptions of their candidacies.

The "first, do no harm" rule is especially important for Obama, given the question marks he is still dealing with. But it is similarly significant for McCain, whose still-tenuous relationship with his party's conservative base may check his instincts to use his pick to send a message to swing voters that he is not a George W. Bush Republican. Some Republicans believe he will send that message with his acceptance speech, rather than his vice presidential pick.

As if to test how much leeway he has in picking a running mate, McCain gave an interview to the Weekly Standard in which he floated out the idea of choosing someone who favors abortion rights, someone like former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge. The reaction from social conservatives has been highly negative.

Mike Huckabee then went out and trashed the idea of putting Mitt Romney, who is widely seen as a prospective running mate, on the ticket, given what Huckabee said were his "inconsistencies" on social issues, adding to McCain's woes.

What impact all that will have on McCain, who does not appreciate being told what to do, isn't clear. But the potential for a backlash against his choice must be weighing on the presumptive nominee and his advisers, as they get ready for their final deliberations about the choice.

Obama and McCain each have convention narratives that will require deft management. For Obama, it is the inevitable drama with Hillary and Bill Clinton. Both camps suggest that everything is on track for a harmonious week in Denver even as they continue to negotiate the mechanics of having Clinton's name put in nomination. One of the latest elements of the roll-call vote under discussion is to have Clinton's home state delegation from New York put Obama over the top as a gesture of unity.

Perhaps all that will work out as the organizers hope. Still, there are at least a few veterans who understand the unpredictable dynamics of a convention floor. They worry that the plan to put Clinton's name in nomination could spin in directions neither Clinton nor Obama anticipates. Their view is that with as many delegates as Clinton will have in Denver, that moment could produce spontaneous emotions that will retard rather than accelerate the process of unifying the party.

McCain's narrative presents even trickier management. Can he simultaneously lock down the base and send signals to the independents he desperately needs to win in November that he's different? Can he embrace parts of Bush's presidency and reject others and do so with a consistency and conviction that will resonate with those voters?

Finally there is what the first President Bush called, dismissively, "the vision thing." Will either Obama or McCain demonstrate with their acceptance speeches that they have it? So far they have fallen short on that front.

There's no question that Obama has been an inspiring candidate. The grassroots energy that his campaign has produced is testament to that. By moving his acceptance speech from the smaller, indoor Pepsi Center to gigantic, outdoor Invesco Field, he will shine another spotlight on that part of his candidacy.

But he has a lot more to accomplish in Denver. Obama's rhetorical gifts are obvious, but what he needs is a convention speech that is not just inspirational. His governing agenda is ambitious but sprawling and needs sharper focus. He is still looking for a more authoritative voice on the economy. He also may want to use the speech to confront the issue of race even more directly than he has.

McCain is rarely at his best with the kind of big, set-piece speeches that he will be asked to deliver in St. Paul. So the first requirement is to find a way to take the eloquence of the words penned by his alter ego Mark Salter and lift them off the page and beyond the Xcel Energy Center. Beyond that, there is the question of what kind of America he sees ahead. Can he authentically describe where he wants to take the country?

The presidential campaign has produced a three-week moment fully worthy of what this new, 24/7 media age demands -- a stretch of days that will generate a non-stop string of words, images, commentary and speculation. Three weeks from today, it will all be over, and the sprint to November will be underway, leaving the candidates to wonder whether they were as fully ready for what just transpired as they should have been.

By Dan Balz, The Washington Post, August 15, 2008

The top executives of America's biggest companies are more willing to open their wallets for John McCain than his Democratic rival, donating 10 times as much to the Arizona senator's campaign as to Barack Obama's.

Obama's campaign seized on the findings of The Hill's review of campaign finance records to suggest that the gap was due to "special favors" McCain has given corporations.

The presumptive GOP nominee has received $208,200 from the chief executive officers of the 100 biggest Fortune 500 corporations, according to a review of campaign finance reports. Obama has taken in $20,400 from the same group of people.

"It is not surprising that a Washington celebrity like John McCain would be able to collect contributions based on 26 years of special favors provided to individual businesses," said Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy director.

The McCain campaign hit back, saying it makes sense that business leaders would support a nominee whose policies would promote economic growth.

"It shouldn't be a surprise that John McCain's plan to cut taxes, fight wasteful spending and grow jobs is preferred by business leaders and hardworking families both," said spokesman Tucker Bounds. "It's also no surprise that Barack Obama doesn't have a record of doing any of those things - celebrities don't cut taxes, they take beach vacations."

But in a McCain television ad that began airing May 29, the narrator says McCain will "make ... corporate CEOs accountable."

Obama is shattering fundraising records and has significantly outraised McCain. Federal Election Commission records show that through June the Illinois senator raised more money from donations of less than $200 than his rival has raised in total.

The Democrat became the first candidate to opt out of public funding for the general election since campaign finance rules were tightened in the aftermath of Watergate. Obama cited these small donations to justify his decision to back away from earlier assertions that he would accept the public funds.

During an Aug. 4 conference call on small businesses and economic policy, Obama surrogate Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) hit McCain for his ties to business. "His agenda primarily benefits big business," Velazquez said. "It really is a laundry list for corporate America."

In 2004, the difference between the Republican and the Democratic candidates was much less pronounced in terms of Fortune 100 donations. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) nearly kept pace with President Bush.

Among the same 100 individuals, the vast majority of whom were in their current positions in 2004, Kerry raised nearly three-quarters of what Bush did. Kerry brought in $74,500 from the business leaders, while Bush raised $103,200. The difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates this election is more clear-cut, with McCain's 10-to-1 advantage over Obama.

But while Bush drew on a larger base - 42 of the CEOs donated to his campaign; only 29 have donated to McCain - the president's would-be Republican successor has managed to bring in more than twice as much than Bush did, despite drawing on fewer CEOs as donors.

That uptick has been largely due to the fact that several donors have contributed large additional sums to McCain's Victory 2008 political action committee (PAC).

Three corporate chiefs from Fortune's top 100 stand out as McCain's biggest backers. In addition to maximum $4,600 personal donations to McCain, Verizon Communications CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg, Merrill Lynch CEO John A. Thain and Hess Corporation chief John B. Hess have also donated $28,500 each to McCain's Victory 2008 PAC.

Hess also donated $2,300 to Obama's campaign.

Two other CEOs, Marathon Oil's Clarence P. Cazalot and Liberty Mutual's Edmund F. Kelly, have also made large PAC donations. Cazalot donated $15,000 to McCain's PAC, and Kelly donated $10,000. Like Hess, Kelly has also donated $2,300 to Obama.

It is a far smaller number of CEOs that have donated to both Obama and McCain. The two campaigns share five donors: the previously mentioned Hess and Kelly plus State Farm CEO Edward Rust, Lehman Brothers’ Richard S. Fuld, and Allstate chief Thomas J. Wilson. But even among these shared donors, McCain has raised $64,100 to Obama's $8,900.

Of the shared donors, only Fuld's and Rust's donations split evenly between Obama and McCain; Fuld donated $2,300 to each and Rust donated $1,000 to each campaign. Allstate's Wilson gave $4,600 to McCain and $1,000 to Obama.

Lehman Brothers' Fuld has been a prolific fundraiser for both candidates, but was recently touted as one of Wall Street's top Obama supporters by the New York Post, which reported that there was a copy of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, on Fuld's desk.

Obama has only drawn exclusive donations from Costco CEO James Sinegal, Motorola CEO Gregory Q. Brown and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet. Sinegal's single $25,000 contribution to Kerry's 2004 Victory PAC is more than the $20,400 total Obama has raised from these three donors and the five he shares with McCain.

Obama has also struggled to win over the 13 CEOs who donated to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) primary campaign. Of those 13, only two have donated to Obama as well - Buffett and Fuld.

Five of Clinton's corporate donors, though, have also given to McCain: GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt, Walgreen CEO Jeffrey Rein, Newscorp head Rupert Murdoch, Seidenberg and Fuld. Those five donors gave a total of $13,800 to Clinton but gave a total of $45,600 to McCain.

By Michael O'Brien, The Hill, August 15, 2008

It's official: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's name will be placed in nomination at the convention in Denver later this month, an arrangement the two camps agreed on late Wednesday night, after much debate over how to honor Clinton's historic campaign for president.

Sen. Barack Obama, in a joint statement by both offices, said he is "convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion." Although Clinton will be nominated, and there will be a roll-call vote on her nomination, the two sides are still working out the mechanics of how that will happen, aides said. Clinton will not have enough delegates to win the nomination, which Obama will formally secure before delivering his acceptance speech on Thursday night.

Some Clinton backers had said they would leave the convention after Clinton speaks on Tuesday night, as part of an ongoing protest against Obama's nomination. But Clinton herself is planning to stay for the week, and her advisers said that the dealings with the Obama campaign were actually very amicable. Both teams said they agreed on the need to celebrate Clinton, not only to pacify her supporters but also to demonstrate that the issue has been put to rest as the party heads into the general election.

The entire statement follows:

Statement from the Obama and Clinton Press Offices
August 14, 2008

Since June, Senators Obama and Clinton have been working together to ensure a Democratic victory this November. They are both committed to winning back the White House and to to ensuring that the voices of all 35 million people who participated in this historic primary election are respected and heard in Denver. To honor and celebrate these voices and votes, both Senator Obama's and Senator Clinton's names will be placed in nomination.

"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion," said Senator Barack Obama.

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.

"With every voice heard and the Party strongly united, we will elect Senator Obama President of the United States and put our nation on the path to peace and prosperity once again," said Senator Hillary Clinton.

Senator Obama and Senator Clinton are looking forward to a convention unified behind Barack Obama as the Party's nominee and to victory this fall for America.

By Anne E. Kornblut, The Washington Post, August 14, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) campaign said Thursday that is has encouraged former rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) to place her name in the nomination at this month's Democratic convention.

"I am convinced that honoring Sen. Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong, united fashion," Obama said in a statement.

Observers have been questioning for months whether there continues to be a rift between the two former opponents, and there have been several reports that Clinton supporters plan to demonstrate at the convention in Denver.

Placing both names in nomination will serve 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," the two Democratic campaigns said in a joint statement.

Party unity has been a big question mark for the Democrats following the contentious 54-primary battle waged between the two senators. The contest, for all intents and purposes, ended with an emotionally charged meeting of the Democratic Party's rules and bylaws committee. The panel awarded Obama delegates from Michigan and Florida, evaporating Clinton's last, best hope for a comeback victory.

Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, are both scheduled to speak at the convention, and reports are circulating that daughter Chelsea might also be heard from on the convention stage.

In the joint statement, both campaigns stressed that the reason for placing Clinton's name in nomination is to demonstrate party unity.

"Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton are looking forward to a convention unified behind Barack Obama as the party's nominee and to victory this fall for America," the statement read.

Despite the calls for unity, one Democratic strategist who endorsed Obama early said the campaign is giving too much away and the Clintons have not shown enough good will to earn such treatment at the convention.

"I have never seen a worse negotiation in my lifetime," the strategist said.

By Sam Youngman, The Hill, August 13, 2008

Honolulu - For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Only once, at the beginning of the week, did Mr. Obama discuss the fighting in public, when he emerged from his beachfront rental home to condemn Russia's escalation, in a way that seemed timed for the evening television news. He took no questions whose answers might demonstrate command of the issue.

Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, "We are all Georgians."

It is as if the candidates' images have been reversed within a matter of a few weeks. When Mr. Obama was overseas last month, Mr. McCain's foreign policy bona fides seemed diminished, if only because he could not attract the news media attention received by Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Now, Mr. Obama's voice seems muted at a time when much of the world has been worriedly watching the conflict.

A spokesman said that Mr. Obama had interrupted his vacation several times to get updates on the situation in the Caucasus and that he had been in "constant contact" with his national security advisers. He has spoken to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Mikheil Saakahvili of Georgia, as well as former Senator Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia; Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana; and former Defense Secretary William J. Perry.

For his part, Mr. McCain has fielded questions daily, batting back criticism that his tough stance is reminiscent of the language of the cold war. On the other hand, the fluency with which Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, discusses Georgia, citing the history of the region and the number of times he has visited, lends an aura of commander in chief. And as if he already had a cabinet, Mr. McCain said he was dispatching his allies Senators Joseph I. Liberman, independent of Connecticut, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to the region.

To conservatives, particularly the neoconservative set, Mr. McCain's forceful responses have been welcomed. Conservatives have pointed out that Mr. Obama looks a bit out of touch this time. "I didn't think that Obama had to do much during his week's vacation - everyone deserves a break," wrote Jim Geraghty of National Review Online. "But this week is starting to really turn into a week where you don't want to be seen golfing."

Mr. McCain, pressed by reporters, has resisted opportunities to criticize how Mr. Obama has addressed the situation in Georgia.

Mr. Obama's week has been low-key, a sharp contrast to his high-voltage campaign events. On Thursday, he toured a nature preserve and went body surfing. Beyond that, Mr. Obama has played golf, taken walks on the beach with his daughters, eaten dinner at a few Honolulu restaurants with his wife and friends, and visited almost daily with his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, whom Mr. Obama calls "tutu," a Hawaiian term.

He has held only two campaign events, a fund-raiser and a welcoming rally that was quickly added to his schedule. "It would have been devastating to everyone here if he had not done that," said Kallie Keith-Agaran, an Obama supporter who lives in Maui.

Minimizing public appearances may have provided less fodder for those detractors who have portrayed his vacation spot as elitist or exotic. Last weekend, Cokie Roberts, an ABC News analyst, said, "I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii, and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place." Ms. Roberts added, "He should be in Myrtle Beach if he's going to take a vacation at this time."

A few months ago, some campaign aides had reportedly discussed a splashier homecoming, including a major speech at the Punchbowl National Cemetery, where Mr. Obama's maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, a World War II veteran, is buried. Instead, Mr. Obama stopped at the grave briefly on Wednesday, carrying a lei.

Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman, defended the trip, saying, "I don't think anyone can credibly criticize Senator Obama for going back to the place where he was born to visit his grandmother where she happens to live."

Still, some Hawaii residents and political observers acknowledged that exotic impressions of the islands have become mythology among Americans, making it one of the most unlikely places for a presidential candidate to call home.

Perhaps that is why Mr. Obama has played down his Hawaiian roots, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Obama's biographical narrative has focused on his mother from Kansas and father from Kenya, and less on his time in Oahu.

"When you're being accused of being an elitist," Ms. Jamieson said, "and when people are using code words such as 'exotic' in order to describe you and your background, you would not want to locate your biography in Hawaii, if you had a choice."

Ignoring the warnings that Social Security can derail political careers, Senator John McCain has infuriated his party's right wing by saying that "everything has to be on the table" in discussions about keeping Social Security solvent.

Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, does indeed seem to have put everything on the table. In the space of one week, he opened the door to an increase in Social Security taxes, denied he would raise payroll taxes and then, through an ally, called a tax increase a "dumb idea." He has also sowed confusion about whether he favors privatizing Social Security, or continuing with the current system.

Senator Barack Obama, Mr. McCain's likely Democratic rival, has been attacked for offering his own, far more specific plan that would raise payroll taxes, though only for the rich. But that criticism has not come from his party and has not been as intense as the denunciations of Mr. McCain.

Party elders and analysts who have seen many a politician fall victim to the jinx of Social Security, which was signed into law 73 years ago Thursday, say they are not surprised.

"All you have to do is open your mouth and you're dead meat," said Bill Frenzel, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is now a Social Security analyst at the Brookings Institution. "If you say you might have to raise payroll taxes, the no-tax crowd jumps all over you. Say you might have to decrease benefits, and the AARP and the Democrats will kill you."

Both candidates agree that adjustments to the Social Security formula are necessary because the trust fund, though in surplus now, will begin showing a deficit around 2018, according to actuarial forecasts. Some project that the fund will be exhausted shortly after 2040; others, using less pessimistic calculations of economic and population growth, say that would occur decades later.

Still other economists say such warnings are fear-mongering, and argue that economic growth and immigration, combined with some tinkering, could keep the system solvent indefinitely.

The two presumptive nominees do not appear to be among them. But unlike Mr. Obama, whose proposal unambiguously calls for higher taxes on wealthy Americans but also hands his adversary fodder for the fall campaign, Mr. McCain, in refusing to be pinned down, has left many experts wondering what approach he would favor. Somewhat unexpectedly, Social Security surged into the presidential campaigns on July 27, when, on ABC's "This Week," Mr. McCain said "there is nothing I would take off the table" in efforts to keep Social Security viable. When asked if that included a tax increase, he twice repeated his "nothing's off the table" phrase.

That statement was apparently meant to give Mr. McCain maximum flexibility in any negotiations with Congress over the future of Social Security that are sure to be part of the next administration's agenda, regardless of who wins the election. "John McCain believes we're not going to be able to start a negotiation with ultimatums," said Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for Mr. McCain. "What he's saying is, Let's keep this out of a polarized political debate."

But it immediately brought a sharp rejoinder from the Club for Growth, an antitax group, which forced Mr. McCain into verbal acrobatics in which he tried to maintain his personal opposition to a tax increase.

He also confounded experts by endorsing the idea of individual private accounts, but without clarifying whether he sees them as a tool to augment the existing system or to replace it with some form of privatization similar to what President Bush proposed in 2005.

The distinction is vital. In their mildest form, so-called "add-on" accounts would permit, but not oblige, employees to make contributions above the current payroll tax rate. But a "carve out" approach would reroute some part of current contributions to the system and, in some versions, would be mandatory.

Democrats and their allies oppose the carve-out concept, which they argue could eventually open the door to diverting most of the money going into Social Security and would result in decreased benefits. But they have been less hostile to add-on plans, some forms of which they see as benign.

Though both campaigns are reluctant to name other steps, beyond a payroll tax increase, that might be required to keep Social Security solvent, several proposals are already on the table, including one written jointly by current and former advisers to both candidates.

Raising the retirement age further, reducing benefits across the board, pegging increases in benefits to inflation rather than wage hikes, and allowing retirement at an earlier age in return for cuts in benefits were all floated in a December 2005 study, "Nonpartisan Social Security Reform Plan." Its authors included Jeffrey Liebman, now Mr. Obama's chief Social Security adviser, and Maya MacGuineas, who advised Mr. McCain on the subject in 2000.

Ms. MacGuineas is now an analyst at the New America Foundation, a bipartisan Washington research group. Mr. Griffin of the McCain campaign said the views in the study were "her own" and that "she is not currently an adviser to the campaign." The Obama campaign, likewise, said the views in the study were Mr. Liebman's, and not the candidate's.

Mr. Obama's proposal would increase the payroll tax in a way that, to hear his critics tell it, could transform Social Security from a purely social insurance program into one that also helps redistribute income from the rich to the poor. But while his plan has taken heat from the McCain camp, it has raised fewer hackles within Democratic circles.

To begin to attack the problem now, Mr. Obama would subject all wages above $250,000 a year to the payroll tax. That concept has been nicknamed the "doughnut hole" because it would exempt wages between $102,000 a year, the current ceiling for contributions, and $250,000.

"What Barack Obama is doing is different from what people running for president traditionally have done," Jason Furman, Mr. Obama's chief economic adviser, said in an interview. "He's putting an option on the table, not just saying he wants to work with Congress, but also saying what he wants to work on."

While more specific than Mr. McCain's plan, the Obama proposal raises questions. The tax rate Mr. Obama would apply to wages over $250,000 has not been established, but it would be lower than the combined 12.4 percent that employees and employers now jointly pay. "We've studied a range of plans with combined employer and employee rates between 2 and 4 percent," Mr. Furman said.

By itself, the Obama proposal will not guarantee the solvency of Social Security. Andrew Biggs, a Social Security expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, calculates that the plan would reduce the gap by 15 percent to 43 percent, depending on the level of the surtax, which he complains "is being fuzzed up to prevent people like me from running the numbers."

It is also not clear whether those paying the additional payroll tax would receive more benefits, as the system now mandates. Mr. Furman said "it is factually inaccurate to say that a decision has been made to de-link taxes from benefits," because "that is something you'd want to work out with Congress."

But Pat Toomey, a former Republican congressman who is president of the Club for Growth, was skeptical, saying that there is no point to having the doughnut hole "unless you're going to redistribute wealth."

Mr. McCain and his surrogates have also sharply criticized the Obama proposal, portraying it as a new soak-the-rich tax. Lawrence B. Lindsey, who as Mr. Bush's chief economic adviser was one of the architects of the 2001 tax cuts, has even argued that Mr. Obama's plan would turn Social Security into "just another welfare program."

But when Mr. McCain was asked in February 2005 in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" if he could support the doughnut hole concept, he offered a cautious endorsement.

"As part of a compromise, I could," he said, so long as it included "other sacrifices, because we all know that it doesn't add up until we make some very serious and fundamental changes."

And Mr. McCain's former adviser offers guarded praise. "The doughnut hole is not a fix in itself," Ms. MacGuineas said, "but it can be one piece, depending on what the other pieces are. I happen personally to think you have to have a balanced solution, with some revenue increases and some spending cuts."

By Larry Rohter, The New York Times, August 13, 2008

As tabloid reports of a sex scandal threatened former Senator John Edward's presidential campaign last December on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, two lawyers surfaced with written statements that appeared to exonerate the candidate.

One of them, Robert J. Gordon of New York, said that his client, Rielle Hunter, a pregnant 43-year-old filmmaker, was not carrying Mr. Edwards's child. Shortly thereafter, the other lawyer, Pamela J. Marple of Washington, sent word that her client, Andrew Young, an Edwards campaign aide, was the baby's father.

Seemingly issued independently of Mr. Edwards, the statements appeared to deflate the anonymously sourced reports of an Edwards tryst. But what went unnoticed was that the two lawyers shared an important connection to Mr. Edwards that suggests they were part of an orchestrated effort to protect him, one that is continuing even after he admitted last week that he had an affair with Ms. Hunter but denied that he fathered her child.

The lawyers are linked through Fred Baron, a wealthy Dallas lawyer and former finance chairman for the Edwards campaign who was a key player in the campaign's response to the scandal. Mr. Gordon has worked with Mr. Baron on class-action personal injury cases, and Ms. Marple helped defend a lawsuit brought against both men and their law firms by an asbestos manufacturer.

After initially saying that he did not know how the lawyers were chosen to represent Ms. Hunter and Mr. Young, Mr. Baron acknowledged that he might have played a role.

The revelations of ties among the lawyers emerged through public records and interviews with people close to Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter, which suggested that their affair went on longer than Mr. Edwards admitted and that the effort to conceal it by Mr. Edwards's inner circle was much more extensive than has been reported.

The review found that Mr. Edwards's political action committee went to unusual lengths to make a final $14,000 payment to Ms. Hunter's film company months after its contract with the committee had ended. The payment was issued while the committee was short on cash and could pay its bills only after receiving thousands of dollars from Mr. Edwards's presidential campaign and donations from four people, including Mr. Baron's wife.

Furthermore, a woman who helped Ms. Hunter create a Web site on New Age spirituality in 2006 says she regularly corresponded with her about a married North Carolina man named John whom Ms. Hunter was dating in March of that year, if not earlier. Mr. Edwards has said his affair with Ms. Hunter did not begin until after she had started doing video work for his political action committee months later.

The woman, Pigeon O'Brien, who says she worked with Ms. Hunter to build her "Being Is Free" Web site and a related foundation, said that Ms. Hunter recounted how she had met "John" at the Regency Hotel in New York in early 2006 and that they had started dating soon after.

Ms. O'Brien said that Ms. Hunter made at least one trip to North Carolina in March 2006 to visit him and that, during the next few months, she never made any references to Mr. Young, who later claimed to be the father of the child, or indicated that she even knew him.

Ms. O'Brien recalled that Ms. Hunter, whom she had originally met in the 1980s in New York, had difficulties in dealing with the fact that John was married.

"There were stormy moments for her, a lot of tears and a lot of struggle," Ms. O'Brien said.

Mr. Gordon, Ms. Hunter's lawyer, declined to comment, citing the privacy of Ms. Hunter and her baby.

Ms. Hunter's work for the political action committee involved making short videos of Mr. Edwards, known as Webisodes, in which she tried to capture what she considered to be his more natural side. Ms. Hunter can be seen in photographs videotaping Mr. Edwards in the final days of December 2006, right after he declared his candidacy for president on the 28th of that month. The committee made six payments totaling $100,000 to Midline Groove Productions, Ms. Hunter's production company, before its contract ended on Dec. 31, and Ms. Hunter no longer appears in photographs of campaign events after that.

But three months later, on April 1, 2007, the committee made another payment to Midline for $14,086, which coincided with the receipt of $14,035 by the committee from Mr. Edwards's presidential campaign to cover the cost of office furniture, according to Federal Election Commission reports. The infusion of cash from the presidential campaign was necessary to make the payment to Midline, because the committee began April with only $7,932 in the bank, the reports show. The only other money the committee took in during that quarter was donations totaling $18,000 from Mr. Baron's wife and three other people.

A senior official in the Edwards campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the final payment to Ms. Hunter covered the cost of video clips she took of Mr. Edwards under her 2006 contract. The payment did not occur until April because it took that long for the committee to get Ms. Hunter to turn over the video, the former official said.

This person added that the two $14,000 transactions were necessary to cover the payment to Ms. Hunter because the One America Committee was winding down and no longer raising much money, except to pay for expenses left over from before Mr. Edwards announced his intention to run for president. Once he made that announcement, under federal election rules, he could no longer use his political action committee.

The public airing of the videos created by Ms. Hunter was short lived. By the fall of 2007, when the first reports of an Edwards affair began circulating, the videos had been removed from the Web and Ms. Hunter's personal Web site, beingisfree.org, had been taken down.

The precise nature and origins of Ms. Hunter's relationship with Mr. Young, Mr. Edwards's campaign aide, is unclear, because neither has spoken publicly about it. But by mid-2007, Ms. Hunter had moved into the gated community in Chapel Hill, N.C., where Mr. Young rented a house with his wife and three children. The Youngs had moved there earlier that year, after selling their house in Raleigh.

After The National Enquirer reported in October 2007 that Mr. Edwards had had an affair, Mr. Baron helped to relocate Mr. Young and Ms. Hunter. Mr. Baron, who made millions pressing asbestos lawsuits, has long supported Mr. Edwards, a fellow lawyer who opposed efforts in the Senate to rein in damage awards in liability cases.

Although he said he used his own money to pay for Mr. Young and Ms. Hunter to move to California, Mr. Baron initially said he did not know how they had chosen their lawyers.

But he has since offered conflicting explanations about his involvement in arranging for the two lawyers to step in and effectively defuse an accusation that threatened to derail Mr. Edwards's political career. Because neither Ms. Hunter nor Mr. Young have spoken publicly about it, the statements issued by their lawyers remain the only record of their denials that Mr. Edwards fathered Ms. Hunter's child.

On Wednesday, Mr. Baron said he might have directed Ms. Hunter to Mr. Gordon.

"I have this recollection of somebody asking me for lawyers in New York, and I remember naming three or four, and he must have been one of them," Mr. Baron said. Referring to Ms. Hunter, he added, "It was either her who called or somebody on her behalf."

And on Thursday, Mr. Baron also provided a vague answer to the question of whether he was involved in introducing Mr. Young to Ms. Marple, who represented Mr. Young for a brief time and is no longer involved in the case.

"I remember getting a call from Pam and her telling me that she was representing him," Mr. Baron said. "I may have sent him over there, but on the other hand I may not have. I don't have an accurate recollection."

Asked whether he had lent Ms. Hunter and Mr. Young any money, Mr. Baron said, "I have a brief recollection of giving someone some cash. My assumption is I loaned some small amount of money to the both of them." Ms. Marple declined to comment on her representation of Mr. Young. Mr. Gordon, Ms. Hunter's lawyer, said: "Ms. Hunter called me. I represent her and only her, as I would any client."

When Ms. Hunter, her baby and the Youngs moved to California around the end of last year, they all initially lived in the same residence, according to an associate of Mr. Young and Mr. Edwards.

But the arrangement strained relationships, and Ms. Hunter moved into a different residence, which cost about $6,000 a month in rent. The associate believed that the lease on the home where the Youngs had been staying was to run out on Friday.

AUSTIN, Texas - Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are expected to march down Colfax Avenue on the day she is set to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

"We want to make this all about her and thank her for having the guts to come out and do this," said Katherine Vincent, an organizer for Colorado Women Count/Women Vote and a Clinton supporters group called 18 Million Voices.

The groups are planning two days of Clinton celebrations as party leaders call on Democrats to unite behind presumed nominee Barack Obama at the convention.

The events to acknowledge the New York senator will begin Aug. 25 with Clinton supporters gathering in Confluence Park. The next day, they will march down the convention parade route from 11:45 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., and then more celebrations are planned at Cheesman Park in the afternoon and evening.

Vincent said the events are meant to be positive, to acknowledge Clinton's achievements and to celebrate women's suffrage.

Instead of dividing Democrats, she said, the march and rally would promote unity and serve as a sort of catharsis for Clinton supporters.

"I think a lot of us were disappointed, frankly, about the way the primary was conducted," Vincent said. "We're looking to channel that energy into something positive."

Among the marchers will be El Paso delegate Blanche Darley.

Party unity, she said, doesn't mean that she and other Clinton supporters should not be heard.

She's no Obama fan but said that doesn't mean she won't vote for him Nov. 4.

"If he's the nominee, it will be awfully hard for me," Darley said, "but I'm a yellow-dog Democrat."

Colorado Democratic Party chairwoman Pat Waak said her only concern about demonstrations was for safety, and she didn't expect them to disrupt the convention.

"I think in the end, most people will unite, and that's what the convention is all about," she said.

By Brandi Grissom, The Denver Post, August 13, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Republican John McCain won a round against Democrats on Thursday when the Federal Election Commission rejected their contention that he violated campaign finance laws during the GOP primary.

The FEC's draft opinion affirms McCain's right to bypass the public financing system and the spending limits that come with it.

That was a rejection of the Democratic National Committee's complaint asserting that McCain's campaign had wrongly received loans based on his participation in public financing before later withdrawing from the system.

Democrats pointed to a section of law that bars candidates from withdrawing from the public system if the candidate has "pledged public funds as security for private financing."

FEC lawyers concluded that McCain did not pledge to use public financing as collateral for the loans. The FEC votes on the matter next week.




The Associated Press, August 15, 2008

Reaching Spanish speakers could be key in battleground states.

Univision Communications Inc., which went private last year, expects to take in as much as $20 million in political ads in the second half of 2008, Chief Financial Officer Andrew Hobson said. That would represent a full-year gain of as much as 78% from 2004.

New York-based Univision, the largest U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster, has five TV stations in Colorado, Florida and New Mexico, among a total of 63.

Entravision's Wilkinson said presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told him recently that he planned to "spend heavily" in competitive states.

McCain is running a TV ad with a military theme in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, as well as Spanish radio spots in all four states, said Hessy Fernandez, the candidate's director of specialty media.

"A significant amount of our resources will go to those four states," said Vince Casillas, coordinator for Spanish media for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is running against McCain.

Entravision reported income of $40 million from continuing operations last year on sales of $250 million. First-quarter political ad sales, during the primary campaign, doubled to $1.5 million from 2004.

In 2004, political ads made up 2.4% of Entravision's revenue and 3.5% of the total collected in the second half of the year, spokesman Joe LoBello said.

Political spending on all media will rise 76% to $3 billion from 2004, said Evan Tracey, who leads the campaign media analysis group of TNS Inc., a Reston, Va.-based market researcher.

Azteca America, owned by Mexico City-based TV Azteca, almost doubled its political ad sales from 2004 during the primaries, and projects similar gains in the general election, said Brian McCullough, director of spot TV sales in New York. Azteca has nine affiliate stations in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada, he said.

Telemundo, part of General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, also enjoyed record primary spending, said Enrique Perez, senior vice president of sales, who wouldn't provide specific numbers.

As much as 25% of the company's available ad time may go to political commercials in the second half, he said. Ten of Telemundo's 14 owned stations operate in the four battleground states, he said.

There are 46 million Latinos in the U.S., representing about 15% of the population, 9% of eligible voters and about 6.5% of actual turnout, according to Pew.




Bloomberg News, August 15, 2008

An 'enthusiastic supporter' in Michigan apparently aggravated an existing condition, and the GOP presidential candidate's wife is treated for a minor sprain at a local hospital.

The House speaker says the independent Connecticut senator, formerly a Democrat, is trying to undermine Barack Obama and may pay a price for that after the election.

He has been mentioned as a possible running mate for McCain.

Lieberman has questioned Obama's positions on Israel and Iraq and contrasted the Democrat's lack of military experience with McCain's status as a Vietnam War hero.

Pelosi said during the radio interview that Senate Democrats are in a tough spot -- they need Lieberman to maintain their 51-49 majority -- but that "it will be interesting to see what . . . the Democratic leadership in the Senate does [after the election] in terms of Joe Lieberman's chairmanship of his committee."

Lieberman is chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

If Democrats bolster their Senate majority this fall, they could strip Lieberman of the chairmanship.




The Associated Press, August 14, 2008

The always insightful Toby Harnden of the Daily Telegraph has a nice blogspot on the Obama campaign's agreement that Hillary Clinton's name will be put in nomination at the Democratic National Convention and its allowing Hillary Clinton to give a prime-time speech on Tuesday night and Bill Clinton to give a prime-time speech on Wednesday night. However, the former president's speech will not be scheduled for the single hour, starting at 10 p.m. Eastern, that is reserved for the vice presidential nominee. (But will Bill stay within the time limit? He didn't when he gave the nomination speech for Michael Dukakis in 1988, and was cheered when he finally said, "In conclusion.")

Harnden scoffs at the idea that the Obama campaign made these concessions voluntarily. I think that in this case the spin may have been accurate. Here's the problem the Obama campaign faces: Nearly half the delegates on the floor were picked by Hillary Clinton. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that many of these Clinton supporters are unreconciled to the Obama candidacy.

As are many Clinton voters: The recent Pew poll showed only 72 percent of them are supporting Obama against John McCain. A large mass of unreconciled delegates can be a problem for a presidential nominee. At the 1980 Democratic National Convention about 40 percent of the delegates were for Edward Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter's forces continually lost control of the timing and demeanor of the convention. There were enough Kennedy delegates to defeat a motion to suspend the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority, and House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who was chairing the convention, was not going to jam things through on a bogus voice vote. So the Carter campaign had to negotiate with the Kennedy campaign: The Kennedyites would demand a platform plank with another $4 billion or so of CETA public-sector jobs in return for allowing the proceedings to go back on schedule in the prime time hours.

I was privy to this because I was working on the podium for the Kennedy campaign. It came about this way: I was working for Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who had done polling for the Kennedy campaign, and Carl Wagner, one of the managers of the Kennedy campaign, picked me to represent it on the podium. This was a plum assignment: A podium pass gets you anywhere at the convention, and Tip O'Neill made sure that there was always plenty of good food in the green room under the podium. (Delegates had to stand in line to get Madison Square Garden hot dogs.) In the disputes that arose, the Kennedy campaign was represented by Harold Ickes and the Carter campaign by Bob Torricelli, two tough hombres.

O'Neill, as I recall, stayed carefully neutral between the incumbent president (whom he couldn't stand) and his home state senator. At one point a little after 8 p.m., at the beginning of vital prime time, Ickes threatened a floor vote on some procedural point and Torricelli threatened back. A floor vote would have consumed an hour or so, and O'Neill was not going to have that. He banged down his gavel and declared that the convention was temporarily adjourned. His aide Kirk O'Donnell, a brilliant political operator who died much too young, told Ickes and Torricelli to come back to them when they reached a compromise. Reporters buzzed around the podium and asked what was going on. It took about 10 minutes for the hot-tempered negotiators to reach an agreement, and then O'Neill placidly declared the convention back into session. I've always had great respect for the way O'Neill handled this. He wasn't going to be muscled around by anybody, not by the Kennedys, not by the president of the United States. (I should add that these memories are pretty dim now, and I may have some of these details wrong. But I didn't take any notes and this is how I remember these things.)

The Obama campaign doesn't want anything like this going on at their convention. The proportion of Clinton delegates (at least those originally chosen to support Clinton; some like Clinton herself will cast their votes for Obama) will be higher than the proportion of Kennedy delegates in 1980. Hostile delegates can make a lot of noise in the convention hall - or they can be eerily quiet when the nominee's operatives want them to cheer. Controlling the decibel level of the hall is one of the chief challenges of the nominee's team: I remember that in 1988, the Dukakis people kept the cheering level down during vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen's speech, to make sure that the cheering would be a lot louder during Dukakis's. (How do I know? One of them, Tad Devine I think, told me so on the floor.) That, I think, helps to explain why Obama is giving his acceptance speech in Invesco field, where Clinton supporters will be far outnumbered by Obama supporters, rather than in the convention hall, where there will be approximately equal numbers of Clinton and Obama delegates.

And it explains why they were ready to allow a roll call. They can schedule that for odd hours when there won't be much television coverage (like the "rolling roll call" that took place intermittently at George W. Bush's convention). As for the two Clinton speeches, how could they avoid them? They have to let Hillary have her say, given how many delegates she has. And they can hardly ignore the only politically successful Democratic president of the last 40 years. That means there's a risk that the convention will not be an ideal television extravaganza for the Obama campaign. But that's the price they pay for not sweeping the primaries. Hillary Clinton won more popular votes and more delegates in the primaries than Barack Obama. Obama won the nomination because of the big delegate margins he won in caucuses and because superdelegates went along with him. Nothing is free in politics; there is some question about when you pay the price. Obama will pay the price of not sweeping the primaries in March and April on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Then he'll have a chance to make up for that on Thursday.

By Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, August 15, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - As Barack Obama prepares to rejoin the fray of the White House campaign, the Democratic hopeful can take heart from holding his own in the polls despite sequestering himself in Hawaii for the past week.

But with Obama set to resume battle with Republican rival John McCain this weekend following his family break, he cannot be entirely comforted by poll findings that suggest he has yet to seal the deal with US voters.

When he left for vacation in his birth state a week ago, ahead of the convention season, the Illinois senator had a three-point edge over McCain in the Gallup Daily tracking poll.

By Thursday, as Obama packed his bags to fly back to the US mainland, his Gallup lead was still three points -- 46 percent to 43.

The moving average failed to budge despite a rhetorical onslaught by McCain on the crisis in Georgia, as the Republican's campaign scented an opportunity to hammer Obama on his perceived weak spot of foreign policy.

"I would attribute this to the amount of coverage of the Olympics, and the fact that foreign affairs generally isn't of much interest to Americans except under very unusual circumstances like the war in Iraq," pollster John Zogby said.

"So it just isn't registering. And if Obama can frame the election about the economy, then he should do OK," he told AFP. "He has a built-in advantage, but the deal just isn't closed."

One poll by Rasmussen said 59 percent of Americans regard Russia's actions in Georgia as a threat to US national security. But only 31 percent believed the United States should take any diplomatic action against Russia.

Obama does best on readings of which candidate is preferred by voters to tackle what is their overriding priority these days -- the economy.

In Pennsylvania, one of the swing states hit hardest by industrial decline, Obama has built up an eight-point lead of 44 percent to 36, according to the Center for Opinion Research at the Franklin and Marshall College.

But over half of respondents, 51 percent, said they would be concerned if Obama were elected president. Overall, 39 percent of respondents said they were worried about Obama's lack of experience, or knowledge, or ability.

"He's on third base, but so far he can't seem to find a way to get home," poll director Terry Madonna told the Philadelphia Daily News, which co-sponsored the survey released Wednesday.

"Look at the underlying trends. The economy is a huge issue. (President George W.) Bush's ratings are terrible," he said.

"But too many voters are concerned about Obama's experience, and don't yet have enough confidence in his ability to lead."

The Pennsylvania poll mirrored national findings that suggest the electorate is still not sold on Obama's readiness to lead even though this should be a banner year for the Democrats.

A Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday said Obama trounced McCain as the candidate viewed as having new ideas -- 69 percent to 17.

But asked which the candidate "would use good judgement in a crisis," 51 percent plumped for the Republican compared to 36 percent for his Democratic opponent.

The clutch of polls came as Obama readies to announce his choice of vice presidential nominee in advance of the August 25-28 Democratic convention, an all-important decision that has likely intruded on his holiday thinking.

One potential contender who doesn't appear to be in the mix is Hillary Clinton, despite poll numbers pointing to a residual mistrust of the new Democratic champion by supporters of his defeated primary rival.

The Clinton question weighed on Obama's vacation as the two camps announced Thursday a deal to submit her name to a symbolic vote by delegates to the Denver convention, where he will be formally crowned the White House nominee.

AFP, August 15, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, vowing to heal wounds still festering from their White House scrap, agreed Thursday to submit her name to a vote at this month's nominating convention.

The symbolic vote will allow the former first lady's supporters to have their say at the August 25-28 convention in Denver, and then the party can move on to take the fight to Republican John McCain, the erstwhile rivals said.

But it could also bring lingering tensions bubbling back to the fore, with pro-Clinton groups angered at her primary loss already planning to rally in Denver ahead of Obama's coronation on August 27.

"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong, united fashion," Obama said in a joint statement.

Clinton said: "With every voice heard and the party strongly united, we will elect Senator Obama president of the United States and put our nation on the path to peace and prosperity once again."

The decision means that delegates in Denver will hold a "roll-call" vote to formally enter Clinton's achievement -- she won nearly 18 million primary votes -- into the record.

The race ran all the way into June, and Clinton came up just short in the delegate count as party grandees known as "superdelegates" rallied behind Obama to be the Democratic champion for November's presidential election.

"After the state-by-state roll is tallied, Mrs Clinton is expected to turn over her cache of delegates to Senator Barack Obama," the New York Times reported.

"So how will Mrs Clinton, who is a superdelegate herself, vote? Associates say she will throw her lot behind Mr Obama and ask her supporters to follow suit," it said.

In a YouTube video from a California fundraiser last month, Clinton told her supporters that a roll-call vote would provide "catharsis" for the Democratic Party after its months-long nominating fight.

Clinton herself is due to address the convention in prime-time on Tuesday, August 26. Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, will speak on the next night, Wednesday, when the ballot takes place.

After the ballot, Obama's vice presidential nominee is scheduled to address the delegates.

Hillary Clinton's billing the night before would appear to preclude her from being the VP pick -- and many of her more diehard supporters say the only way they will countenance voting for Obama is with her on the ticket.

But prominent Democrats who sided with the New York senator, the once "inevitable" nominee because of her and Bill Clinton's long standing as Democratic royalty, are now pledging fealty to Obama.

"There are many, many fine choices Senator Obama can make (for VP)," Ohio Governor Ted Strickland told reporters at an automotive conference in Michigan.

"My first choice would be Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, obviously, but I have no reason to believe that will happen and I have no idea who the final choice will be," he said.

According to widespread reports, both camps have been debating for weeks the former first lady's demand for a public acknowledgement at the convention of her prolonged battle for the Democratic nomination.

But the joint statement said the initiative came from the Illinois senator.

"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 said.

"Senator Obama and Senator Clinton are looking forward to a convention unified behind Barack Obama as the party's nominee and to victory this fall for America."

AFP, August 15, 2008

In a bid to foster Democratic Party unity, delegates will have the option during the roll-call vote of choosing Clinton rather than Obama as the party's presidential nominee.

"With every voice heard and the party strongly united, we will elect Sen. Obama president of the United States," Clinton said in a statement released by the two campaigns.

Clinton had pointed to the restiveness of her supporters in an appearance at a private home last month, saying they needed "a catharsis" before falling in line behind Obama. A video of Clinton's remarks was posted on YouTube.

Now that the four-day convention schedule is taking shape, it is clear that the Clinton family will have a prominent role.

If past practice holds, Clinton will be the focus of nominating and seconding speeches by people she designates before the roll-call vote.

Clinton herself will address the delegates in prime time on the second night of the convention, Tuesday, Aug. 26. Her husband, former President Clinton, will speak the following night. Discussions are also taking place about whether daughter Chelsea Clinton will get a speaking slot.

Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a public policy research center at Stanford University, said: "Obama's people know that they have not closed the deal with Hillary voters the way they would like, and they just can't afford to do anything -- real or perceived -- that upsets Mrs. Clinton and her followers. So they have more than bent over to accommodate her."

The Clinton family's role at the convention has been the subject of prolonged negotiations with the Obama campaign. Two prominent lawyers have been representing the Clintons' interests -- Robert B. Barnett and Cheryl Mills, a White House counsel in Bill Clinton's administration.

Some aides to Hillary Clinton said she had been unsure about the wisdom of putting her name into nomination. While the convention can offer a coveted place in the national spotlight, Clinton risks appearing politically weak if many of the delegates she won during the primaries and caucuses split off and vote instead for Obama, either in the name of party unity or because they want to side with the winner.

Asked how Clinton herself would vote, campaign aides noted that she had endorsed Obama and campaigned for him, and they strongly indicated that she would vote for him.

At the same time, Clinton has voiced worries about a poor showing in private conversations with staff, as have some of her advisors, one former aide said.

"You do worry, and I think that was something that concerned her as well," said the former aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be candid. "What is the turnout going to be? Is anyone coming to my party?"

But Clinton loyalists said they were pleased to know that she would be recognized in such fashion.

Larry Scanlon, political director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said: "She sought to be the first woman nominated for president. She came up a little short, but she made it easier for the next female candidate to get the brass ring. Many in the Democratic Party would like to celebrate that. I think that they should celebrate that."

Recent conventions have been scripted affairs, with all four days devoted to showcasing the nominee, among them John F. Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. But there have been many instances in which unsuccessful primary challengers have had their names placed into nomination.

Former California Gov. Jerry Brown's name was entered into nomination in 1992, after he lost in the primaries and caucuses to Bill Clinton.

And both the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Gary Hart had their names entered into nomination in 1984, after losing to Walter F. Mondale.




By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2008

If you believe the chatter, Barack Obama is desperately seeking a white guy - any white guy - to be his running mate. Democratic sources have floated vice-presidential trial balloons for every pale-faced stiff in the D.C. region - from Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. But with Obama needing his "change" brand to overshadow his recent flip-flops, no pick would be more self-defeating than Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh - the career politician who best personifies "more of the same."

The son of Sen. Birch Bayh, Evan has no discernible political skills (unless "skills" include being the cure for insomnia and having a famous last name). In the decade since this prince claimed his daddy's Senate seat, he has amassed not a single significant accomplishment - a miraculous achievement, even by Washington's do-nothing standards. If he is known at all, it is for heading a business front group called the Democratic Leadership Council, using that position to rake in corporate campaign contributions and then paying back the money with votes.

For instance, in his 2004 campaign, Bayh raised almost $1 million from the banking and financial industries, then voted in 2005 for a bankruptcy bill helping those industries intensify their usurious practices. Similarly, despite representing a manufacturing state crushed by trade-related job losses, Bayh has voted for a bevy of lobbyist-written trade pacts, including the monumentally destructive China deal in 2000.

On foreign policy, it's even worse. Bayh has been a shameless Bush parrot, infamously commending himself for being "tough and smart" after aggressively supporting the war in Iraq- the same war that U.S. intelligence agencies have said is severely weakening America's national security.

Obama selecting this corporate Frankenstein would implicitly signal that the Illinois senator's populist campaign promises are a farce. In terms of demoralizing Democratic voters, a Bayh pick would make Al Gore's 2000 choice of Joe Lieberman - the worst vice presidential nomination in contemporary history - look positively brilliant.

But let's say Obama doesn't mind destroying Democratic enthusiasm for his candidacy. Let's say he is specifically looking to win a Republican state like Indiana. Even in that context, a Bayh nomination is absurd.

Democrats have lost Indiana in every presidential election since 1964, including the three that Bayh appeared on the statewide ballot. In the June Democratic presidential primary, Bayh backed Hillary Rodham Clinton - and yet, Obama nearly tied her in Indiana. That's correct - the Bayh machine that is supposedly powerful enough to deliver Indiana in the general election couldn't even muster a decisive intra-party victory.

The most ridiculous arguments for Bayh are those insisting that his nomination would a) appease embittered Clinton supporters because Bayh was a Clinton supporter and b) help win Indiana border states such as Ohio.

Like most D.C. analysis, this assertion assumes that most Americans are as obsessed with politics as professional pundits, and therefore that most Clinton voters a) know who Bayh is and b) know Bayh supported Clinton. Furthermore, the theory presumes that unemployed factory workers in places like Akron will decide to vote for Obama because of Bayh - even though most of them have never heard of the Indiana senator and those that have know him for voting to ship their jobs overseas.

(Note to Obama: If you want to win Ohio, why not pick the Buckeye State's anti-war and anti-NAFTA Sen. Sherrod Brown?) If Obama has, indeed, confined his vice-presidential search only to white men (a big "if"), that's unfortunate, though unsurprising. With Obama facing a continued barrage of race-tinged attacks, such calculation would be predictable. But that doesn't mean he has to pick a running mate who completely undermines his "change" message. If he does that, Democrats could be saying Bayh bye to the presidency.

By David Sirota, San Francisco Chronicle, August 15, 2008

The Rev. Rick Warren is so prominent and respected that just being seen with him is a boon for any presidential candidate.

For Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, their appearances at a forum Saturday night at Warren's evangelical California megachurch bring risks along with rewards.

The event will play to one of Obama's strengths, talking about his Christian faith, but it will also underscore the gulf between his views and those of the most conservative Christian voters.

Many of McCain's positions are more in line with the evangelical worldview, but he is uncomfortable - and some critics say unconvincing - while talking about his personal beliefs.

The candidates will appear separately, spending one hour each with Warren, before coming together on stage for a handshake. The pastor, who does not endorse candidates, will be the only one asking questions.

Warren is an anti-abortion Southern Baptist who is nonetheless part of a shift away from the religious right's strict focus on abortion and marriage. The environment, poverty and education have also become pressing concerns, especially for younger evangelicals.

Warren is best known for building Saddleback Church into a 23,000-member megachurch in Lake Forest, Calif., and for writing the multimillion-selling book "The Purpose-Driven Life."

But he and his wife, Kay, are also leading advocates for HIV/AIDS victims worldwide. They have invested enormous resources in their PEACE Plan, now under way in Rwanda, which aims to combat corruption, illiteracy and other social problems through church partnerships with government and business.

Older-guard evangelical leaders who oppose broadening the agenda have been leaning on Warren. In a stream of statements in the days leading up to the forum, they implored him to press the candidates about their positions on abortion.

Larry Ross, who represents Warren, said the pastor has been consulting with other clergy and with experts in different fields to develop questions for the candidates about leadership, the Constitution, human rights and "sin and righteousness issues."

"The more liberal camp just assumes that Pastor Warren is going to make this a Christian litmus test of the presidency. Others, who are more conservative, fear he is going to wimp out on some of the issues," Ross said. "He says, 'Neither group understands or knows me.' He's going to ask tough questions, fair questions, not gotcha questions."

Obama has proven adept at explaining how his Christian faith has shaped his policies. The church forum also gives him a perfect setting to counter the misperception that he is Muslim. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 12 percent of respondents believe the Illinois senator is Muslim.

"It's a great way for him to do what he can to make connections with not only moderate evangelicals, but also the many people out there who read 'The Purpose-Driven Life,'" said Mark Silk, who specializes in religion and public life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

However, Obama will inevitably be asked to explain his support for abortion rights and other issues that clash with conservative Christian theology.

The Obama campaign has been diligently courting religious voters with a presence on Christian radio and blogs, and through "American Values Forums" and other events.

In June, Obama took the bold step of holding a private meeting with a large group of evangelical leaders, including the Rev. Franklin Graham, who challenged him on his beliefs in salvation, his support for abortion rights and other issues.

The benefit of the forum to McCain, who attends a Baptist church, is less clear.

While many of his views, including opposition to abortion, match the outlook of conservative Christians, he is far less comfortable than Obama discussing his faith. McCain did not participate in a spring forum at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa., where Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton discussed religion and their personal lives.

McCain supporters have taken to circulating excerpts from his memoir "Faith of Our Fathers," that explain his beliefs. He recently met privately with Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, one of the most vocal U.S. bishops on the duty of Catholics to make the abortion issue a priority in choosing public leaders.

Yet, many evangelical leaders have backed him only reluctantly. And he put conservative Christians on edge Thursday by floating the prospect of picking a running mate who supports abortion rights. Conservative Christians comprise about one-quarter of the electorate.

"You just wonder, is he trying to shoot himself in the foot?" said David Domke, author of "The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America."

No one expects Obama to lure the most traditional Christian voters from the GOP. Polls consistently show McCain winning frequent churchgoers by large margins. But in a close general election, Obama could win by taking a small percentage of the evangelical vote away from the GOP.

"Obama is going to make real inroads for people who want to be satisfied that this is a pretty religious guy but that he's not a lunatic," Silk said.

The person with the most at stake may be Warren himself. The impression he makes Saturday will shape his reputation, the public view of his church and his position among evangelicals for a long time to come.

"I think Rick is in an unenviable position in that he stands to get attacked from the right and the left, based on what direction he takes," said Mark DeMoss, an evangelical public relations specialist who had supported former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the GOP primary. "As an evangelical, I am much more interested in his list of questions than in either of their answers."

By RACHEL ZOLL, The Associated Press, August 15, 2008

White, working-class voters will support Barack Obama in November because his policies align with their interests

Since the primaries, when Hillary Clinton declared that she was more likely to get the votes of "hard-working Americans, white Americans", the belief that Obama is unable to win over white, working-class voters has been discussed widely across the media.

However, the latestWashington Post poll suggests a noticeable and surprising turnaround. According to the poll, "even among white workers - a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November - Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47% to 37%, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate."

I have never really understood why the white working class - defined by the Washington Post research as workers ages 18-64 who work at least 30 hours a week and make $27,000 a year or less, although the definition varies quite dramatically depending on which research you read - would be reluctant to support Obama. Funny name and racial differences aside, he has much more in common with the white working class than McCain does.

His background, at least, bears more similarity to a working class one than does McCain's. He was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. His mother, at one point, was on welfare. His attendance at a private school in Hawaii was due to sacrifices made by his family. In Obama" From Promise to Power, author David Mendell writes that "By living in a modest apartment and sending Obama (and eventually [his sister] Maya) to private school, his grandparents had sacrificed their own prosperity for the sake of Obama and his sister."

Whilst Obama had the fortune to attend prestigious Ivy League institutions such as Columbia and Harvard Universities, he got there not because he comes from a rich family or is well connected, but because he worked hard enough to get in. His wife, Michelle, raised on the poor South Side of Chicago describes herself as "a working class girl".

Of course, not all white, working-class families are run by single mothers or are on welfare. The point is, however, that Obama's story is one of humble beginnings, with hard work being the main factor in getting him to where he is now.

Contrast this with John McCain. Born into a family of privilege, McCain's father and grandfather were admirals in the navy. He is married to Cindy, an heiress said to be worth some $100m, with whom he apparently has a pre-nuptial agreement. He now apparently owns some eight to 10 homes and wears $500 Ferragamo loafers. This doesn't sound like a regular guy who is in touch with working-class life to me.

Of course, however, neither McCain nor Obama's backgrounds are that important. It's when looking at what voters should really be basing their decisions on - policies - that it becomes clear that a vote by working-class people against Obama in November would be a vote against their own interests. Going by the Washington Post poll, it seems that the white working class is aware of this.

According to the Washington Post research, white, working-class voters are particularly concerned about healthcare, with over 70% saying that the "government should focus on helping people like them find more affordable health insurance". On healthcare policies, Obama - who pledges to overhaul the current system, reduce premiums, provide coverage for the 45m uninsured Americans and make affordable health care available to all - is clearly their man.

McCain, on the other hand, proposes to encourage people to buy their own health insurance rather than have it provided by their employer, which could lead to the 71% of Americans who have employer-based insurance losing their healthcare coverage. He also advocates a more competitive insurance marketplace as opposed to government intervention and essentially is in favour of a healthcare system that remains the same as it now - that is, one that provides the best coverage for those with the most money.

The economy is also a key issue for white, working-class voters. Amongst those who are feeling the most financial strain and who describe themselves as "very insecure" in that area, Obama leads by 19 points.

On the economy, Obama has proposed raising taxes on high income earners, eliminating corporate tax loopholes, raising the minimum wage and ending the war in Iraq, which is costing the US government $10bn a month. All of these are policies aimed at helping lower-income earners. Anyone who believes that the Republicans would be best for the economy only needs to look at the state of America's economy today.

By playing on the idea of Obama as an elitist, McCain - and indeed Hillary Clinton - has used the much debated, and somewhat condescending, notion - espoused by the Thomas Frank book What's the Matter With Kansas? - that the white working class votes against its own interests on social and moral-based issues because of its dislike for the liberal elite, or that it is simply racist and ignorant.

However, it's clear that this view has been overstated. The reality is that on the issues that matter most to white, working-class voters Barack Obama - yes, the man with the funny name - is much more closely aligned with them than McCain. Judging by the polls, they will be casting their votes for him in November.

By Lola Adesioye, The Guardian, August 14 2008

The issue of race has been at the centre of a series of disputes during this year's U.S. presidential election because Democratic candidate Barack Obama is black and would be the first African American president.

-- Obama told an audience in July his rival, Republican candidate John McCai, was trying to scare voters by pointing out he had "a funny name and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five-dollar bills."

McCain said that by falsely presenting him as racist, Obama was shamelessly employing an underhand tactic to appeal for votes. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Obama had "played the race card."

-- A July cover of the New Yorker magazine showed a cartoon of Obama wearing a turban and his wife, Michelle, holding a gun. Obama said the cover could encourage misconceptions about
him. The magazine said the cover was intended as satire.

-- Then-Democratic contender Hillary Clinton referred in May to Bobby Kennedy's assassination in June 1968 as an example of how Democratic nomination campaigns sometimes stretch into June. Critics said she was implying Obama might be assassinated, an interpretation that Clinton rejected.

-- In May, Clinton cited a poll she said showed her appeal among white voters would be crucial to defeating the Republican Party in November's election. She said Obama's support was weakening "among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans." She denied the remark was divisive.

-- Sermons by Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright in which he said "God damn America" and castigated the country for its racial policies rocked Obama's campaign when they were repeatedly played on television in March.

Many voters said Obama's long association with Wright put his judgment and trustworthiness in doubt. Obama gave a wide-ranging speech on race in a bid to dispel concerns.

-- Former President Bill Clinton compared Obama's win in South Carolina's primary in January to the victories of black civil rights leader Jesse Jackson in the state in 1984 and 1988. Critics said Clinton was playing down Obama's victory and belittling black voters. Clinton said that interpretation was unfair.

-- Hillary Clinton said in January that the civil rights movement would not have had the successes it had if Lyndon Johnson, president from 1963 to 1969, had not pushed crucial legislation. Prominent blacks said the remark was dismissive of Rev. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.

-- Prominent businessman Robert Johnson, a Clinton supporter, made an apparent reference to Obama using drugs as a youth. Obama has said he used drugs but Johnson was criticized for highlighting a divisive issue.

-- In February 2007, then-Democratic hopeful Joseph Biden described Obama as "articulate and bright and clean." Critics said his words were patronizing and suggested he was surprised a black man could be articulate and clean. Biden apologized.

By Matthew Bigg, Reuters, Aug 14, 2008

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted Sen. Joe Lieberman on Wednesday for making what she called "totally irresponsible" remarks about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and warned that the Senate might retaliate by revoking Lieberman's committee chairmanship.

Pelosi also chastised some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters for being "less than gracious" toward Obama, although she praised the New York senator for rallying behind the party's nominee after a bitter primary fight.

Pelosi's remark in an interview with KGO Radio talk show host Ronn Owens in San Francisco is certain to anger Clinton backers, including some who are pushing to have Clinton's name placed into nomination at the party's convention in Denver later this month. But the House speaker's rebuke of Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat-turned-independent, is likely to please Democratic activists, who are irate at Lieberman's sharp jabs at Obama.

Campaigning for Republican John McCain in York, Pa., on Tuesday, Lieberman appeared to question Obama's patriotism when he called the election a choice "between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put his country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate that has not."

Pelosi was asked by a caller on Owens' show what could be done about the attacks from Lieberman, the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential nominee who, though an independent, still caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate.

"You're right," Pelosi said. "Joe Lieberman has said things that are totally irresponsible when it comes to Barack Obama. Here we have a leader for the future, really a great leader for the future and one that comes along only every now and then, and they know it so they have to undermine him. And one of their best weapons, of course, is someone who is considered by some to be a Democrat."

Pelosi explained that Senate Democrats are leery of challenging Lieberman over his comments because his vote is crucial to preserving the Democrats' 51-49 majority in the Senate. But she warned that Lieberman's top spot on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee could be in jeopardy if Democrats gain seats in the Senate in November.

"The Democrats in the Senate are in a tough spot. They have 51 votes. Joe Lieberman organizes with them," she said. "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."

Lieberman's Senate spokesman could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Pelosi, who was on the show promoting her new book, "Know Your Power," was also pressed about why former President Bill Clinton declined in a recent ABC News interview to say whether he thought Obama was ready to be president.

"I can't answer for Bill Clinton," Pelosi said. "It's hard when you're in a primary election. Losing is very, very difficult."

Pressed about whether Hillary Clinton could have been more gracious to Obama, the San Francisco Democrat responded, "I think Hillary Clinton has been very gracious. I think some of her supporters have been less than gracious."

Pelosi also offered new clues about how she might handle the touchy issue of domestic oil drilling when Congress returns in September. After months of opposing a vote on new drilling, Pelosi seemed to reverse her stance on CNN's Larry King show Monday night. She said she would be open to a vote on new drilling in protected areas as part of a much broader energy package.

Pelosi told Owens the package could pair some new offshore drilling with Democratic energy proposals that Republicans have opposed, including expanding subsidies for renewable energy, revoking tax breaks to oil companies and forcing the Bush administration to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

"We can have a piece of offshore drilling, but we have to renegotiate the terms," she said. "Here we have Big Oil drilling, getting the profits, not paying the royalties. We want to say, in a very protected way, you may be able to drill here in the context of a fuller package of renewables, and when you do, the taxpayers should benefit from that."

By Zachary Coile, San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 2008

We've come to let sexual behavior play a huge role in assessing character. Certainly how a person behaves when no one is looking, especially when it imperils his family, is important.

But it's not everything. How much attention should indicted Senator Ted Stevens and his son get for allegedly trading favors with an Alaskan oilman versus former presidential candidate John Edwards skulking pathetically around a Beverly Hills hotel at 2 a.m. to visit his mistress?

I'd say at least equal. But Stevens's coverage was the size of a classified ad next to the reams of front-page copy Edwards generated.

Which isn't to say the Edwards affair is a non-story.

His weekend of explaining himself, or pretending to, depresses the body politic just as Democrats are hoping to excite it with a boffo convention show. Not that he's going to be there. If you think Edwards will be allowed anywhere near Denver or a Democratic election ever again, I'm a Nigerian princess with a $10 million inheritance that I will split with you once I receive your bank routing number.

But his stink casts a pall. Edwards gives Hillary Clinton and her supporters some basis, however thin, to assert that the course of history might be different if Edwards's affair had been reported with the ferocity that Bill Clinton's were.

On Aug. 11, Hillary Clinton's former communications director, Howard Wolfson, claimed that if the Edwards affair had been known earlier "we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee.''

No Evidence

The only available evidence on that subject indicates otherwise. A University of Iowa poll taken on primary day showed that Edwards voters would have gone to Barack Obama over Clinton by a 2-to-1 margin.

Still, the Clinton dead-enders will hang their demands to be heard and heard and heard on the slimmest of reeds. Calls to have Clinton's name in nomination and have a roll-call vote are increasing. Do you know how long it takes to call the states from Alabama through Wyoming with the head of the delegation from each great state rising to cast votes for the great lady from New York?

This is in addition to the party's concession to let the Clintons dominate two nights of a four-day convention. On top of that, the TV scroll will replay every slur the Clintons uttered against Obama, including Bill Clinton's latest that "no one is ever ready to be president,'' except for his wife who was, as he repeatedly said, "ready on Day One.''

Edwards coming clean now gives Hillary Clinton and her supporters more reason to be sore at the press. It took the National Enquirer to nail down a story the press had known for two years.

Edwards's Enormity

It wasn't media bias, though. Edwards was protected by the enormity of what he was doing.

The Edwards presented themselves as a two-for-the-price-of- one pair, doing interviews together, calling a press conference to announce the campaign would continue in spite of her dire medical report. Who could believe that a presidential candidate would cheat on a wife with cancer, in or out of remission?

What a good cover hiring his paramour as videographer with reason to be at his side at all times. There were rumors. Reporters have eyes. But Edwards's denials were vehement. He held out so long and with such bravado he made Bill Clinton look like a cooperating witness.

The worst fallout is that Edwards fuels the cynical belief that all politicians are liars and hypocrites. Listen to Edwards indulging in some moral preening on the subject of infidelity, dragging Chelsea Clinton into it for good measure:

"This president (Bill Clinton) has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen.''

Hypocrites in Perspective

This puts into perspective hypocrites like the anti-gay crusader and gay-sex solicitor Senator Larry Craig and the proud Christian moralizer and client of the Washington Madam, Senator David Vitter.

Edwards was breathtaking in his smug, ingratiating interview on ABC's "Nightline'' after he had been bagged by the National Enquirer.

Two of many excuses were as ethically obtuse as they were lame: His wife's cancer was in remission at the time of the affair and all the God-like adulation he received lulled him into thinking he could do anything and get away with it. Even as he was smiling and blinking earnestly, hard documents and canceled checks conflicted with his statements.

Everyone feels sorry for Elizabeth Edwards -- cancer AND this lout for a husband. She wrote an entry on the blog Daily Kos this week bitterly complaining about the "voyeurism,'' saying she never wanted to have this mistake "play out on a public stage.''

Stay at Home

But if that's the case why didn't she ask him not to go on the public stage as a candidate for president? By the time he announced, she knew of the affair. Did they forget they had children? He could have dropped out at the press conference announcing Elizabeth's recurrence of cancer. Had he, the chances of TV-station helicopters buzzing the Edwards home would have gone to zero.

So Democrats go into their convention with Republican sins washed away by this fresh one.

Lying, regardless of who engages in it, redounds to the detriment of the party that asks people to believe they can do better.

Change you can believe in? No, most believe of public officials the best of a million jokes on the topic: "OK, so honesty is the best policy. What's the second-best policy?''

By Margaret Carlson, Bloomberg, August 14, 2008

Barack Obama's carefully sculpted image as a moderate may be showing some cracks.

It turns out that while in the Illinois legislature, he voted against a bill that would have defined a fully born baby who survived an abortion as a "person." The concept isn't that controversial even among liberal Democrats. Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the Senate's leading pro-choice champion, urged her fellow Democrats to vote for a federal version of the same concept back in 2001, saying such a provision did not impinge on the rights enshrined in the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. The Born Alive Infants bill eventually passed the U.S. Senate by 98 to 0.

But in the Illinois Senate, when Mr. Obama chaired the Health and Human Services Committee, records show a bill consisting of exactly the same language two years later was voted down by six to four. Mr. Obama was one of the legislators opposing it.

Mr. Obama has consistently denied the two bills were identical. During his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, he responded to a question about the Born Alive Infants bill, saying: "At the federal level there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe v. Wade. I would have voted for that bill."

But documents recovered from the Illinois Senate archives contradict his statement. "In essence, Obama voted to successfully amend the bill in a way Obama has said would have enabled him to support it, before he voted against it," says columnist Amanda Carpenter of TownHall.com. The National Right to Life Committee's Legislative Counsel Susan Muskett calls the documents a "smoking gun" that finally resolve the Obama abortion vote controversy.

The Obama campaign has strenuously attacked critics who bring up the "Born Alive" bill. Last June 30, Team Obama issued a statement accusing talk show host Bill Bennett of "outright false statements" for contending that Mr. Obama wouldn't support a bill that even leading pro-choice groups declined to oppose. Here's hoping journalists try to pin Mr. Obama down on just why he appears to be to the left of his own party on abortion.

By John Fund, The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2008

Top Money Raisers Include Geffen And Mosbacher

The 2008 presidential campaign has led to a new category of mega-fund-raiser: the $500,000 political bundler. Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain have between them released the names of 98 supporters who each have raised at least half a million dollars for their campaigns from relatives, associates and employees.

The record spending in this contest, combined with aggressive end runs around campaign-finance limits on individual donations, indicates that the top fund-raisers in each party are surpassing the previous high-dollar totals, set by President George W. Bush in his two campaigns. Mr. Bush pioneered and perfected the bundling system with a cadre of more than 600 big donors.

Along with money, bundlers sometimes bring political problems. Late Thursday, Sen. McCain's camp said it would return about $50,000 gathered by the business partner of one of his prominent Florida bundlers, after news reports raised questions about how the money was gathered. The campaign said it had determined that some of the donors had no interest in supporting Sen. McCain's campaign.

Sen. Obama's list of 35 top money raisers, released this week, includes Hollywood producers David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The group also includes Washington insiders such as William Kennard, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Kennard, who has raised in excess of $500,000 for Sen. Obama, is now a managing director at Carlyle Group, a Washington private-equity firm.

Sen. McCain's half-million-dollar team includes Johnson Co. Chairman Robert Wood Johnson IV, owner of the New York Jets and a fund-raiser for both of Mr. Bush's campaigns. Also on it are Jerrold Perenchio, former head of Univision Communications, and Robert Mosbacher, an oilman and former commerce secretary.

The top donors are particularly important for Sen. Obama, the first major-party presidential candidate to forgo federal government funds for the general-election campaign since the system was created three decades ago.

Sen. McCain can count on $84.1 million in federal funds after he formally receives the Republican nomination in early September. While he can't spend more than that amount in the final two months of the campaign, Sen. Obama faces no spending limits.

The two likely nominees are on track to receive -- and spend -- nearly $1 billion between them this political season. In 2004, candidates Mr. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, along with their parties, spent about $675 million collectively on their campaigns.

It is easier this year for fund-raisers to raise large sums because of the growing popularity of joint funds that both campaigns have established with their national and state parties. Donors to the joint committees can give more than $70,000 with one check, well above the $2,300 cap individuals can donate to the presidential candidates directly.

Sen. Obama often touts the broad swath of small donors who fire his campaign; through June, about 47% of the $340 million he has raised is from people donating $200 or less at a time, federal records show. This is proof, he says, that the "special-interest domination" that has infected presidential politics for decades hasn't sullied his campaign.

What Sen. Obama mentions less often is the increasing amount of time his campaign spends courting big donors, as it did Wednesday when he flew to Minneapolis to mingle at a three-tier fund-raiser, where about 350 people had paid $1,000 to hear him speak and about 40 more ponied up $30,000 to "break bread," as he put it, with him at a sit-down dinner in a hotel ballroom. Such events have become a staple of Sen. Obama's schedule: Next week, when he is on vacation with his family in Hawaii, a fund-raiser is the only campaign-related event now on his public itinerary.

Despite the Obama campaign's ban on accepting lobbying money, his bundlers include a number of ex-lobbyists, and some, such as Alan Solomont, have been upgraded to his top half-million-dollar category. Mr. Solomont is a former Massachusetts nursing-home operator and was also, as late as last year, a registered federal lobbyist for health-care-related businesses.

But some of Sen. Obama's top-level bundlers are political neophytes, who say they have raised their large sums from small-dollar backers. Bruce Oreck, a lawyer from Boulder, Colo., and the son of vacuum-cleaner maker Oreck Corp. founder David Oreck, is in the half-million-dollar category. He said he has never raised money for a presidential candidate but joined the campaign more than a year ago at the behest of his 24-year-old daughter. He noted that some of the money he has collected from neighbors and strangers is in checks of $100 or less.

The McCain campaign said Thursday that it was returning money raised by Mustafa Abu Naba'a, a business associate of McCain bundler Henry Sargeant III, the finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

The move was taken "as a precautionary measure," McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said. "People were giving to the campaign who had no intention of supporting John McCain," Mr. Rogers said. "We had an issue with that."

The campaign also sent a letter to donors gathered by Mr. Sargeant noting that their contributions "may not be reimbursed to you by any other person or entity." The moves follow reports in the Washington Post and New York Times that some of the contributions gathered by the two men were from donors of average means, which can be a red flag that the donors were reimbursed.

"We are reviewing all of the contributions that have been gathered by Mr. Sargeant to make sure the donations he has bundled are appropriate," Mr. Rogers said. He declined to explain what exactly sparked the investigation. Mr. Sergeant didn't return a phone call asking for comment.

Sen. McCain has been criticized by Sen. Obama and others for the more than $1 million in donations he has taken from large oil companies. A chunk of these donations have been gathered by bundlers such as John Hess, chief executive of Hess Corp., a New York integrated oil company.

Sen. McCain supports increased offshore oil drilling, which Sen. Obama insinuated was why he is favored by oil companies. Mr. Rogers dismissed the idea of a quid pro quo, noting that Sen. McCain has, through his career, taken many positions hostile to big business.

By CHRISTOPHER COOPER and T.W. FARNAM, The Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2008

Campaign Spends About $6.5 Million; McCain Leads State

In Florida's living rooms, the presidential contest so far has been a landslide -- Barack Obama, 9,785; John McCain, zero.

That is the tally of local television commercials broadcast by each candidate in the state, whose 27 electoral votes Sen. McCain almost certainly needs to win the White House. Recent polls in Florida show Sen. McCain holding a small edge.

The Obama campaign has spent about $6.5 million on TV advertising in Florida, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of media tracker TNS Media Intelligence. In part, the spending can be attributed to the Democrat's late start there. He refrained from campaigning in Florida during the primary season after the Democratic Party penalized the state for holding its primary early.

A spokesman for Sen. McCain declined to discuss why the campaign hasn't run TV ads in Florida, but said the Republican is investing heavily in the state and is doing well. "We've got offices across the state and a very robust operation," said Jeff Sadosky. "That's a state where we won a primary."

Sen. McCain does get some exposure to Florida television viewers through national buys on NBC during the Olympics and on cable news channels.

By this time in 2004, President Bush's re-election campaign had spent $13.5 million on television in Florida. The president went on to win the state in November.

Sen. Obama's ads have touched every media market in Florida, which is the most expensive for advertising among the closely fought states. In total, Sen. Obama has spent about $36.6 million on television ads across the country since the end of the Democratic nomination fight, with Florida so far taking the biggest share of any single state.

Although Sen. Obama has a larger war chest overall, both candidates are spending similar sums on TV on a national basis, according to Campaign Media Analysis Group, with Sen. Obama devoting $4.5 million a week to Sen. McCain's $4.1 million. Sen. McCain has spent $32 million overall during the general-election period, including $3 million spent by the Republican National Committee.

The Obama campaign is alone on the airwaves in North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia and southern Virginia. Republican presidential candidates have done well in those areas, but the Obama campaign is hoping to turn them Democratic this year. Meanwhile in some traditional battlegrounds, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Republicans have outspent Democrats.

Sen. Obama's campaign says many voters don't know the Democratic candidate well, and two of the four Obama spots now in rotation focus on his biography. "We had to start from scratch," said Florida Obama spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh.

"They are coming in early when it's cheaper to be on TV," said John Sowinski, a Republican strategist in Orlando, Fla. "And they are determining if it will be worth it to push things in Florida later on."

Some observers note that the Obama ad push in the state doesn't seem to be damaging Sen. McCain's standing in local polls. "It's been a totally one-sided affair but it hasn't bent the needle much," said Mr. Sowinski.

Evan Tracey, head of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, said: "I think this is a case where the McCain campaign is hoping that the state stays close and they can focus their resources closer to the end."

By AARON RUTKOFF, The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2008

As Barack Obama tries to draw hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls, Republicans are beginning to scrutinize registrants' eligibility as both sides draw a major battle line over voting rights.

Republicans are moving to examine surges in voter registrations in some states. A Republican lawyers group held a national training session on election law over the weekend that included campaign attorneys for Sen. John McCain and other Republican leaders. One session discussed how party operatives can identify and respond to instances of voter fraud.

Republicans said they are particularly worried about prospects for fraud in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and are beginning to comb thousands of new registrations in those states for ineligible applicants. In some cases the huge numbers threaten to swamp their efforts -- and those of state and local governments to verify and process applications.

Election officials in Virginia and other states say there is no evidence of widespread fraud so far. Numerous studies have found fraud and other voting irregularities in past elections to be infrequent and generally not prevalent enough to influence the outcomes of most contests. Some Republican lawyers say that despite the huge numbers of new registrations in some areas, this year's problems could be fewer compared to prior years, because of improved procedures and tougher rules.

Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer last Tuesday said in a memorandum to campaign supporters that their own voter legal defense operation is under way, earlier than those of previous Democratic campaigns, including legal counsel on the ground in 50 states. The campaign is working closely with the Democratic Party, which said it has spent three years building a voter-protection program that includes more than 18 paid staff and 7,000 lawyers. The personnel deployed Aug. 1 and are dealing directly with local elections officials.

In just about every election, understaffed polling sites, malfunctioning voting machines and outdated voter data are reported. Such bureaucratic problems often are rolled into the divide between Democrats and Republicans over who should vote and how -- a battle that has become more intense since the 2000 Florida recount.

Traditionally, Democrats favor fewer checks on verification and greater access to voting to encourage larger turnouts, particularly among lower-income and minority voters, who tend to favor Democrats. Republicans usually push for closer monitoring, in such forms as laws with strict requirements for voters to present identification, which can result in lower turnout.

The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, which monitors elections, projects registrations this year will surpass the total from any previous single election year, building on momentum from the record 20 million registrations for the combined election cycles of 2004 and 2006. Newcomers helped drive turnouts for the Democratic primaries, which drew roughly 19.5 million more voters than in 2004, according to the Democratic National Committee.

"State elections systems have shown signs of stress, and there's a serious concern that they won't be able to handle the number of voters," said Wendy Weiser at the Brennan Center.

In Pennsylvania, where improper registrations have been a problem in past elections, state officials say rolls have increased by about 230,000, to 8.4 million, since the 2006 midterm elections. Some observers believe the large increase could invite more potential for voter-fraud problems, said Lawrence Tabas, general counsel of the state Republican Party. "When you get so many new registrations like that at record numbers...it's very difficult for people to monitor the validity of it," he said.

The Republican secretary of state in Alabama has asked the Justice Department to investigate claims and monitor polling sites on Election Day. On the Republican National Committee's Web site, an interactive U.S. map is used to track recent fraud allegations, proven or not, in a number of states. An RNC official said the Web page was launched in August 2007 and is compiled using news articles.

The efforts are on a collision course with those of Sen. Obama, whose strategy hinges on the success of efforts to boost the number of first-time voters, particularly among African-Americans, and people under the age of 30.

Other efforts are aimed at registering new voters around the country. In the largest effort, Project Vote and Acorn, a community organizing group, are teaming up with the aim of registering 1.2 million people nationally by Labor Day.

Project Vote's executive director, Michael Slater, acknowledged occasional problems with voter registrations, but said that many are the result of poor record keeping. He said a greater risk comes from Republicans' efforts to police the rolls. "We don't have a real history in the last 10 to 15 years of large-scale voter fraud," he said. "What we do have a problem with is getting everyone on the rolls and making sure their votes are counted."

Sen. McCain's campaign is keeping distance from rank-and-file Republicans' efforts to police the new registrations. "State and local parties have the primary responsibility for monitoring local voter registration and identifying problems," Trevor Potter, the campaign's general counsel, said in a written statement provided to The Wall Street Journal in response to questions. But, he added, "Our view is that advance monitoring of legal developments can avoid real legal problems later on -- especially on Election Day."

The St. Louis weekend training session, held annually by the National Republican Lawyers Association, featured a session on voter fraud and possible Republican responses. The panel included Sen. McCain's Election Day coordinator, Michael Roman, as well as Foley & Lardner lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a vocal critic of Democratic-allied groups' efforts to fight what many Republicans regard as necessary ballot-integrity safeguards.

Ms. Mitchell warned about what she regards as a long pattern of abuses in registration by groups such as Acorn and their Democratic allies. "We're all for getting people involved in the process...and getting them to the polls," she said in an interview later. "What we're not for is registering fake people at fake addresses, and creating barriers to trying to identify voter fraud where it exists, which is everywhere. It's a growing problem, because of the professional vote-fraud denier industry."

She urged lawyers working on behalf of state and local party groups and campaigns to monitor new registrations. She also pointed out that Sen. Obama himself -- in his past life as a community organizer -- was "involved" with some of the groups that have been responsible for abuses in recent years.

Obama campaign spokesman Corey Ealons said, "Then, as now with his national campaign for the president, Barack Obama has always worked to inspire individuals to exercise their right to vote. He sees that as a key to his victory this fall."

Years before he took elected office in Chicago, Sen. Obama ran Project Vote's operation there. This year Acorn's political action committee, which the organization said is entirely separate from its voter-registration operation, has endorsed Sen. Obama's campaign. The Obama campaign has said it doesn't accept financial contributions from the PACs of interest groups that both register voters and endorse candidates.

By COREY DADE and JOHN D. MCKINNON, The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2008

McCain Response Stresses History Of Bipartisanship

A trio of Republicans have defected from their party's likely presidential nominee and kicked off an effort to garner support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The group, called Republicans for Obama, is led by two moderate Republicans -- James Leach, a former U.S. representative from Iowa, and Lincoln Chafee, a former U.S. senator from Rhode Island -- along with Rita Hauser, a prominent fund-raiser for President George W. Bush.

Their reasons for crossing party lines are diverse, ranging from the war in Iraq to overspending in Washington, and signal unhappiness not just with the candidacy of Republican Sen. John McCain, but with the Republican Party as a whole.

"Thousands of other Republicans are going to be picking country over party in this election," predicted Mr. Leach, who served for three decades before losing his re-election bid in 2006.

One prominent moderate Republican not joining the group: Chuck Hagel, the senator from Nebraska. A representative for Sen. Hagel said he will not be joining the group, endorsing a candidate or attending either convention.

Republicans responded by stressing Sen. McCain's bipartisan accomplishments. "Obama can roll out whoever he wants," said McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace. But for Sen. McCain, compromise "is in his DNA. It's who he is."

Yet the departure underscores the GOP's struggle to define itself in the shadow of an unpopular president and in the wake of defeat in the 2006 midterm election.

Republicans for Obama plans to launch a Web site outlining the policy differences between the two candidates. Beyond that, it isn't clear what role Republicans for Obama will have in the general election. An Obama spokesman declined to comment on whether the three founding members would be attending the Democratic National Convention.

Each candidate has had trouble courting his party's base. Sen. Obama has angered some on the left as he has tried to take a more centrist approach to issues including the war in Iraq and increased funding for religious groups offering community service. Sen. McCain has upset religious conservatives with his stance on embryonic stem-cell research as well as a refusal to support a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

As a result, both Sens. Obama and McCain have been able to woo some voters across party lines. Sen. Obama this week also received the endorsement of Jim Whitaker, the Republican mayor of Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska. "My goal is to let Republicans have a clear understanding that their right to vote should not be restricted by party affiliation," Mr. Whitaker told the press.

Sen. McCain has his own cadre of former Democrats supporting him, the most prominent of whom is Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 who was defeated in a 2006 Democratic Senate primary and is now an independent.

Sen. Lieberman joined Sen. McCain at a town hall meeting in York, Pa., on Tuesday. Explaining why he decided to support the Republican candidate, Sen. Lieberman said the decision is between "one candidate, John McCain, who has always put country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not."

Sen. McCain echoed the same sentiment in his opening statements. "I know Americans are tired of the partisanship," he said before opening the floor up to questions. "I have a record of reaching across the aisle, reaching across the aisle and working with my friends, whether it be Joe Lieberman or Ted Kennedy."

The Arizona senator's comments were supported by the Republican National Committee, which criticized the Illinois senator for, in its view, his lack of bipartisan accomplishments. They made note of Sen. Obama's party-line votes. During the 109th Congress, which was in session in 2005-2006, Sen. Obama voted along party lines 97% of the time. Sen. McCain voted with his party 81% of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly.

Despite Sen. McCain's bipartisan activity, including on campaign finance and immigration, the Republicans behind the Obama support group express dismay with how his candidacy has evolved.

Mr. Chafee said that he supported Sen. McCain on a number of issues while he was in the Senate but said he's seen a sharp change. "It's a different John McCain," Mr. Chafee said, pointing to the candidate's reversal from previous stances to support offshore drilling and Bush tax cuts. "Seeing the two different John McCains is a fracture in his credibility."

By ELIZABETH HOLMES and AMY CHOZICK, The Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2008

John McCain raised $27 million in July, his largest one-month fundraising haul since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, while the Republican National Committee brought in nearly $26 million.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting had $21 million to spend as August began and the national party started the month with $75 million to compete with the Democrats.

"Our fundraising continues to be very healthy," Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, said in a conference call with reporters, noting that July was the fifth-straight month McCain has improved his cash flow. He said the money came from 600,000 donors, who are part of the GOP's 1.5 million donors.

Comparatively, Democratic rival Barack Obama recently surpassed 2 million contributors. He and the Democratic National Committee have not yet disclosed their monthly takes.

Republicans have been trying to even out the financial playing field in this campaign after trailing Democrats in overall fundraising for most of the election cycle. The July numbers show they are making strides with McCain and the RNC combined raising $53 million, with $96 million to spend this month.

"We will start the general election fully flush," Davis said, putting the budget for September, October and the first few days of November at more than $100 million - including $84 million in taxpayer money and accounts the RNC shares with the campaign.

McCain has agreed to accept public financing for the general election and the spending restraints that come with it. Though the Republican Party can raise and spend as much as it wants to help him, the taxpayer money is the only cash that McCain can spend after accepting his party's nomination at the convention in early September. He essentially needs to drain down his privately funded campaign bank account this month.

That explains, for example, why he can afford to spend some $6 million to run TV advertising during the Olympics this month, and why his overall advertising budget for August is expected to exceed $20 million. Despite lackluster fundraising earlier this year, he has been able to blanket 11 battleground states with multimillion-dollars worth of commercials — and stay on the air — since first advertising in earnest in early June.

By the convention, Davis said McCain is on track to spending some $60 million on TV expenditures.

Obama, a prolific fundraiser emboldened by record-shattering collections in the primary, decided to forgo public financing for the general election and became the first major-party presidential candidate in three decades to do so. That means he needs to rely on his significant fundraising capabilities to build up his cash reserves going into the fall, whereas McCain needs to deplete his.

McCain's last month total exceeded his $21 million June collection, at that point his best fundraising month; Obama raised more than twice that at $52 million.

Not counting July, Obama overall has raised about $340 million to McCain's nearly $140 million.

However, the RNC has far outraised its Democratic counterpart, helping McCain and the GOP draw even or near even with Obama and the DNC.

By Liz Sidoti, The Associated Press, August 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - Still sore from an epic primary battle, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters aren't buying the unity theme planned for the Democratic National Convention.

They weren't mollified when nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama gave prime-time speaking slots to Clinton and her husband, the former president. Instead, they're itching for a fight and plan to wage one in Denver.

One group intends to paper the city with fliers, promote a video detailing what they contend were irregularities in the nominating process and unleash bloggers to give their take on the proceedings. Another group has purchased newspaper advertisements demanding that Clinton be included in a roll-call vote for the nomination.

"I am a very realistic woman," said Diane Mantouvalos, co-founder of the Just Say No Deal Coalition. "I don't think that anything is going to change, but I do think it is important to be heard, and this is our way of doing it."

Some of the disaffected Clinton supporters are open to supporting Obama; many are not.

Obama needs Clinton's supporters to beat Republican John McCain. Polls show that he has won over most of them. But some simply don't like Obama or still feel Clinton was treated unfairly during the primaries.

These groups are not affiliated with Clinton, who has endorsed Obama and campaigned for him. Representatives from the Clinton and Obama campaigns said they are working to unify the party because Obama will champion issues important to Clinton supporters, such as reforming health care, improving the economy and ending the war in Iraq.

"Senator Clinton understands and appreciates that there are supporters who remain passionate, but she has repeatedly urged her supporters to vote for Senator Obama," Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a swipe at the Clinton die-hards Wednesday.

"I think Hillary Clinton has been very gracious," the San Francisco Democrat told Bay Area talk show host Ronn Owens. "I think some of her supporters have been less than gracious."

Nevertheless, many Clinton activists plan to voice their discontent in Denver.

Mantouvalos, a Miami public relations consultant, said her network is renting a 5,000-square-foot loft in Denver for its bloggers. Another outfit called The Denver Group is planning a reception the evening Hillary Clinton speaks at the convention. The group, which is pushing for Clinton's name to be placed in nomination, also hopes to raise enough money for a TV ad.

The Clinton and Obama campaigns have pledged in a joint statement to "ensure that the voices of everyone who participated in this historic process are respected" at the convention.

They have not, however, decided whether Clinton's name will be placed in nomination.

"The only way a Democratic Party will have the credibility to elect a Democrat in November is if the party uses a legitimate process to choose its nominee," said Heidi Li Feldman, co-founder of The Denver Group. "We are not per se a Clinton support group, we are a Democratic Party get-your-act-together support group."

Some of the activists complain the Obama campaign manipulated party caucuses; others feel the media treated Clinton unfairly. Nearly all are still angry over how the party divvied up delegates from the Florida and Michigan primaries.

With the agreement of all Democratic candidates, the states were initially stripped of all their delegates for violating party rules by holding early primaries. None of the candidates campaigned in the two states, but Clinton won the two primaries and thereafter tried to get all the delegates seated.

The national party reinstated the delegates in May, but gave each a half vote. And it awarded Obama some Michigan delegates, although he had taken his name off that ballot because of the party's initial decision.

With the nomination clinched, Obama said this month that he would seek to give both delegations full voting rights.

At the very least, the activists want Clinton's name put in nomination, with a full roll-call vote. Some won't be satisfied unless Clinton is declared the nominee - an unlikely prospect. Others would be happy if Clinton were asked to run for vice president - also unlikely.

Feldman, a Georgetown University law professor, said she is a loyal Democrat who won't vote for McCain, but Obama hasn't won her support. Will Bower, co-founder of the Just Say No Deal Coalition, said he would only support the Democratic candidate if her name is Clinton.

"I have been voting Democratic for 18 years. I only voted for Democrats, from dog catcher to president and everything in between," said Bower, who lives in Washington. "I will be voting for someone other than Barack Obama come November."

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press, August 14, 2008

McCain has been styling himself as a man who puts his 'country first'

WASHINGTON - It's a colonial era city in the midst of farm country. Famous for its peppermint candy and barbell factory, York also gained notoriety during the Revolutionary War when the Continental Congress stopped here long enough to draft the Articles of Confederation.

The city is a faded monument to a certain kind of American life: 18^th century English and German settlements, Pennsylvania long rifles, a wariness of outsiders, social change, and Big City.

This made York the perfect place for John McCain and his team to lay out their core strategy in the race against Barack Obama.

Their messages:

• I'm an American and he's not.
• I'm a patriot and he's not.
• I'm a tough son-of-a-gun willing to confront our foes, he's not.

This cold-blooded, chest-beating theme will either give McCain a real chance to overcome long odds and win the White House - or it will consign him to the dust bin of history.

For years, if not decades, McCain has positioned himself as the "thinking man's" fighting man.

He sends out the idea that he's tolerant and eager to cross party lines, while at the same time willing to eschew ideology and fear in the name of finding practical solutions.

That McCain still exists, and it is that man who appeals to independent voters. Among them, the senator still enjoys an certain je ne sais quoi.

But for that very reason, he has never been all that popular with the Reagan-Bush Base - the one Lee Atwater and Karl Rove built - of Southern whites, evangelical Christians and combative necons.

The way to woo that group, McCain & Co. has decided, is to scare the bejesus out of them.

And they're doing it by highlighting this allegedly un-American, unpatriotic, weak, somehow foreign, and mysterious character named Obama.

We have been through this movie before - in 1988 and 2004 - and both times it helped a Republican named Bush win the election.

But will it work this time? McCain's camp thinks so.

In York, they sent forth Joe Lieberman, whose bland demeanor hides a hit man's heart, to explicitly utilize the accusatory theme that McCain has used before.

McCain, for nearly two months now, has been styling himself as a man who puts his "country first."

He is legitimately using his unwillingness to be given an early release from prison camp during Vietnam as a metaphor.

McCain, the son of admirals, says he knew that the Vietnamese wanted a propaganda tool, and he was not about to become one to aid his own plight.

It's hard to dispute that, and no one has attacked him for the implication, which is that Obama has not and will not "put the country first."

In York, Lieberman made things "perfectly clear," to use an old Nixon term.

Introducing McCain at a large fairgrounds rally, Lieberman said the choice was "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."

If the McCain campaign thought Lieberman had gone a step too far, they didn't say so. Just the opposite: they posted his entire introduction online.

I asked McCain's closest advisor and friend, Mark Salter, for an example of a time when Obama did not "put the country first."

His answer: the Senate maneuvering of immigration legislation.

In his view, Obama did big labor's bidding by helping to kill the chances for a grand compromise on immigration reform.

"His campaign came before his country," Salter told me in an e-mail.

In other words, if you weren't for McCain's deal, you didn't put the country first.

In York, McCain didn't just wrap himself in the American flag - he wore it like a tight-fitting Olympic swimsuit.

And the folks in the stands loved every minute of it.

He also portrayed himself as the man who understands who our enemies are in the world - including a renascent Russian bear.

Obama, his aides said, was slow off the mark in his initial statements about the situation in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

The cheering crowd not only loved McCain's combativeness, but seemed almost glad to be facing a familiar old foe: the Russians.

All in all, it was a good event for McCain.

The crowd comprised a slice of America that McCain needs if he intends to win Pennsylvania and the election.

And that slice is: white (I did not spot a single African American in the crowd), rural, "exurban," and mostly Protestant, with local roots stretching back centuries.

They live in "The T" of Pennsylvania - which encompasses pretty much everything outside of the metropolitan areas of Philly and Pittsburgh.

It's indubitably American.

But so, Obama will have to argue, is he.

He's the up-by-the-bootstraps son of a wayward but brilliant immigrant father and an idealistic mom. He's the kid who worked hard and took out loans to get an education at Columbia and Harvard. And he's the candidate who loves his country for the chances it's given him.

Who knows, that might even sell in York.

Presidential campaigns ultimately come down to who can win 270 Electoral College votes. With most states favoring one candidate or the other, this year's contest could come down to a few battleground states.

Based on visits this past week with party leaders and old pros, it's clear that Barack Obama will focus on Colorado and Virginia. Both have large concentrations of white, college-educated voters with whom Mr. Obama is popular. And both have seen Democrats surge recently.

Of the two, Mr. Obama is best positioned to pick up Colorado's nine electoral votes. Denver hosts the Democratic convention at the end of this month. And a quartet of local millionaires (mini-George Soroses) have spent lavishly to boost Democrats. They have succeeded at shrinking the Republican advantage among registered voters. The GOP now has just 68,507 more voters on the rolls in Colorado than Democrats, down from a 176,572 edge four years ago.

Democrats win the state when they hold down GOP margins in rural districts, and appeal to swing women voters in Larimer County and the Denver suburbs. Mr. Obama lacks rural credentials, but he might make inroads in the suburbs.

Sen. McCain's independence will help him in Colorado. Also, there will be two anti-union initiatives on the ballot this fall that could energize conservatives. But he needs to run up votes in the GOP strongholds of El Paso (Colorado Springs), Douglas (south of Denver), Weld (Eastern Plains) and Mesa (Western Slope) counties, while appealing to Democratic and independent Hispanics and Catholics.

The last time Virginia (13 electoral votes) went for a Democratic presidential candidate was 1964. In 2004, the GOP's margin was eight points. That makes Virginia an uphill climb for Mr. Obama, but not out of reach. He's focused on increasing African-American voters in Hampton Roads (in the southeastern corner of the state), Richmond and Petersburg, and on deepening his strength in Northern Virginia, where Fairfax was one of only 60 counties in America to flip from Republican in '00 to Democrat in '04.

But Mr. McCain's maverick image allows him to compete in Northern Virginia, where he's buying expensive D.C. TV ads. He also needs to do well in rural Virginia and the Richmond suburbs. Hampton Roads is home to nearly twice as many veterans as the national average, so Mr. McCain should be able to do well there.

If Mr. McCain lost Colorado and Virginia, he would likely have 264 electoral votes (assuming he carried the other states President Bush won in 2004). To win, he would have to pick up a state Democrats are counting on winning, such as Michigan.

With 17 electoral votes, Michigan is an attractive target. But it is also a complicated state. The Democratic machine is in near meltdown in Detroit, where the city's mayor is fighting felony charges stemming from an alleged cover-up of a sex scandal (he recently spent a night in jail). The party is also hurt by adverse reactions to Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm's $1.5 billion tax increase last year, which dampened economic growth.

Mr. McCain needs Reagan Democrats and independents in eastern Michigan. These working class, culturally conservative, mostly Catholic voters are how the GOP elected an attorney general, a secretary of state and a state Senate majority. These voters care about jobs and know manufacturing runs on affordable energy. They will respond to Mr. McCain's call for domestic drilling and expanded nuclear power.

Mr. McCain also needs to focus on "soft" Republicans, particularly in the Detroit suburbs. His renegade reputation will help him with socially liberal independents and Republicans. But Mr. Obama's change message will help him in western Michigan where the socially conscious, historically Republican Dutch voters have antiwar tendencies.

Then there is Ohio. Ground zero in '04, its 20 electoral votes will be hotly contested again this year. No Republican has won the White House without winning the Buckeye State.

How can Mr. McCain take Ohio? He can appeal to swing voters in the northeastern part of the state. Cuyahoga, Summit and Lucas counties and the Mahoning Valley are full of culturally conservative, working-class voters. In addition, Mr. Obama was wiped out in the primary among the blue-collar Reagan Democrats of southeastern Ohio. Outside of the university town of Athens, he won less than 30% of the vote in southeastern Ohio. This Appalachian region remains bad turf for him.

Mr. McCain will need to do well with suburban independents in the counties surrounding Columbus to balance heavy African-American turnout. He will also need to run strong in the Cincinnati suburbs in the southwest, and in rural and small-town counties.

Other states will see serious competition, including Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, Missouri and Wisconsin. But Colorado, Virginia, Michigan and Ohio are likely to be the center of the action. To win, Mr. Obama needs to pick up 18 electoral votes more than John Kerry received, meaning Mr. Obama must carry Colorado or Virginia and add another small state to his column. If Mr. McCain carries Michigan as well as Ohio, it would make Mr. Obama's Electoral College math very difficult. And if Mr. McCain can limit GOP losses to one or two small states from those won by the GOP in 2004, he'll be America's 44th president.

By KARL ROVE, The Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2008

With the polls continuing to show John McCain giving Barack Obama a run for his money, much of the press has seemed flummoxed by the turn of events. After all, the narrative of this campaign was supposed to be how a triumphant Obama rode discontent against the Bush administration to an overwhelming victory.

That still could happen. But if reporters seem surprised at the way things have gone so far, it may be because their account of what has already happened is flawed. As the poet once said, what's past is prologue.

The dominant narratives of this race have been how Obama upset the odds (and the Clintons) through a brilliant campaign, and how McCain mostly stumbled his way to the nomination, staging a comeback in New Hampshire and riding the momentum to victory. But maybe that's not what really happened. In truth, Obama always had a much better chance of emerging as the nominee than the press gave him credit for -- which is why this column even made him the slight favorite over Hillary Clinton way back in March 2007.

Yes, Obama was new to the national political scene. But in the primaries, insurgency is often an advantage, especially if the novice is as brilliant an orator as Obama. More important, because of Obama's race, he knew that if he could get a successful launch in Iowa or New Hampshire, he could count on solid support in the African-American community that would guarantee him more than a third of the delegates needed to nominate. That's one heck of a benefit, and he took advantage of it.

Moreover, Clinton was never as strong as advertised -- in part because she's not an exceptional campaigner, but mostly because of Clinton fatigue. If she could be beaten early (and she was), it was axiomatic that much of the support she had garnered simply by being the front-runner would evaporate.

True, Obama ran a creditable campaign and proved himself a brilliant fundraiser. But he was no powerhouse. Outside of a few states, such as Wisconsin and Missouri, he was never really able to expand his base beyond his coalition of African-Americans, the young, and the well-educated.

Every time he had a chance to beat Clinton decisively enough to force her from the race -- in New Hampshire or Texas or Pennsylvania or Indiana -- he lost. In fact, had Clinton not committed a major strategic blunder by failing to get organized for the large caucus states, she could have beaten him.

And, given Obama's major demographic advantages, that would have been the upset.

The Real Story

On the GOP side, McCain did catch some lucky breaks. The most notable was that the major figures in the party who could have beaten him -- Jeb Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Newt Gingrich, even Colin Powell -- chose not to run for a variety of reasons. (In Schwarzenegger's case, the decision was made for him by the Constitution.) And true, the field that remained proved to be a weak one.

But McCain won mostly because Republicans almost always avoid upstarts and gravitate to the front-running figure in their party -- an inclination that, for the most part, has served them well in the past. Moreover and predictably, the experience McCain had obtained running in 2000 served him well. He had the guts to skip Iowa (maybe Clinton should have done the same) and he didn't panic when his campaign went through rough stretches. He also "gamed" the process better than anyone else, understanding that, if Rudy Giuliani's candidacy didn't take off, the former New York mayor's support would go to McCain -- as it did on Super Tuesday, giving McCain a lead in delegates that proved decisive.

Given all this, Democrats have reason to be concerned -- even if, at the moment, their confidence has been bolstered by the mostly glowing press coverage their nominee has received. History shows that the Democrats are up against an experienced, steady Republican candidate who is unlikely to make major mistakes. And their nominee, after a brilliant start in January and February to launch his candidacy and cement his base, hasn't had a terrific six months. Obama continues to show few signs of extending his support to the demographics that are likely to decide the election -- principally the working-class voters concentrated in industrial states such as Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

The good news for Obama and the Democrats is that the race doesn't really get serious (i.e., engage the public), until the conventions kick off the fall campaign at the end of August. A win is still well within their grasp. But it will happen only if they stop buying the press's view of the race and begin to recognize what's really transpired so far.

By Steven Stark, Real Clear Politics, August 14, 2008

With Barack Obama rumored to be nearing a vice presidential pick, there is NO candidate hotter than Sen. Joe Biden (Del.).

Why?

The decision to name former governoe Mark Warner (Va.) as the keynote speaker for the Democratic National Convention seems to suggest that Gov. Tim Kaine is falling from the top tier. The "security" theme of Wednesday night at the convention, the same night the vice president will speak, seems to suggest that the veep pick will be someone with a deep resume. And, the notoriously loquacious Biden -- and his campaign team -- has been preternaturally quiet over the past few weeks, a silence that is fueling rumors that he is the pick.

Today we make the case for Obama to pick Biden. Tomorrow we offer the opposite argument.

Foreign Policy First

There's no one in the Democratic Party who knows more about foreign policy and is as comfortable speaking about it as Biden.

Biden has done several stints as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and during the Democratic primaries he spoke passionately and intelligently about Iraq while also framing the way in which America needs to position itself in the post-9/11 world.

For Obama, whose only obvious weakness in the race is his light foreign policy resume, Biden would provide an immediate boost and badly complicate John McCain's attempts to paint the Illinois senator as ill-prepared to represent the United States on the world stage.

Here's a snippet from Biden's comments about McCain during a conference call last month: "He doesn't get it. The mere fact that you would have someone compare the circumstances now, in the past, or in the future, of Iraq to the ending of World War II and the ending of the Korean war absolutely demonstrates a total fundamental lack of understanding of what the problems America faces."

That quote (and others like it) suggest Biden can -- and would -- go toe to toe with McCain (and whoever the Arizona Senator chooses as his running mate) over conflicts across the world, relationships with foreign leaders and vision for the future of the country.

One other potential foreign policy benefit to Obama in picking Biden. The Delaware senator has known McCain for the better part of three decades, meaning that he knows ever nook and cranny, every nuance of the positions that the Arizona Senator has taken over that time. That means the Obama campaign can call McCain on any sort of foreign policy flip flop by using Biden, a credible messenger on the issues.

Average Joe

It's a strange thing to say about a guy who has spent 36 years in the Senate but Biden genuinely has appeal to the blue-collar, working class voters that Obama struggled to attract during the Democratic primaries.

Maybe it's Biden roots in hard-scrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania. (Hello, Michael Scott!) Maybe it's the fact that Biden takes Amtrak home to Delaware every night and knows the name of all the conductors and ticket agents on the route. Maybe it's the fact that his personal story -- his wife and daughter were killed a month after he was elected to the Senate in 1972 -- resonates with people who have suffered similar losses.

Regardless of what it is, there's little question that, in the words of one Biden advocate, he passed the "have a beer" test. That is, Biden is the kind of guy most voters can imagine themselves having a beer (or, heck, a boilermaker) with -- a crucial hurdle when it comes to electing a president. (George W. Bush, widely dismissed by elites, was elected to two terms due in no small part because he was perceived as far more of a regular guy than either Al Gore or John Kerry.)

Biden's ability to connect with blue collar voters would almost certainly help Obama in Pennsylvania (aside from Biden's roots in Scranton, he has been a regular figure on Philadelphia television during his campaigns) as well as potentially in Ohio and Michigan as well.

It's also worth noting that Biden is a strong Catholic. Obama lost white Catholics badly to Hillary Rodham Clinton during the primary season and, as Post pollster Jon Cohen notes, white Catholics have emerged as one of the bellwether groups in recent elections; the candidate who wins white Catholics has won the presidency in every election since 1972.

Charismatic Campaigner

It's hard to remember now but back in 1987 when Biden first ran for president he was the hottest commodity in the Democratic Party -- the bright young star who would lead on the national stage for years to come.

That wasn't to be but in the intervening years Biden has lost none of his charisma and ability while adding the heft that comes with decades spent in the political mix.

During the primary season, Biden surprised many observers -- The Fix included -- by winning a number of crucial endorsements in Iowa despite the fact he was a decided longshot. In fact, in the days leading up to the caucuses, there was some buzz that Biden could shock the world and end up in the top three thanks to the energetic and effective campaign he ran.

Ultimately Biden fell well short, a finish that had more to do with his inability/unwillingness to raise the money necessary to compete with the Big Three of Obama, Clinton and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) than his own campaign skills.

As the vice presidential nominee to a candidate who looks likely to shatter every fundraising record there is, Biden will be freed from the burden of cash-collection and will be allowed to devote full time to stumping for the ticket.

And, when it comes to the crucial vice presidential debate on Oct. 2 in St. Louis, it's hard to imagine a more tested and able candidate than Biden. Biden got almost no air time during the nearly two dozen Democratic debates (as befitted his second tier status) but was still able to make lemonade out of lemons more often than not.

He thinks quickly on his feet, is extremely well versed on the issues of the day, and, most importantly, knows how to inject a bit of humor into the proceedings. The only knock? Biden tends to be a bit long-winded -- but more on that tomorrow in the case against him.

Attack Dog

There aren't all that many tasks for the vice president. Advocate for the presidential nominee, stump in off-the-beaten track places, and, most importantly, attack the other party's candidate.

Recent political history is littered with vice presidents who either couldn't or wouldn't play the attack dog role. Allies of Kerry (Mass.) still complain that Edwards didn't do enough to hit President Bush and Vice President Cheney during the 2004 campaign -- perhaps out of fear of hurting his own presidential chances if Kerry came up short.

Biden's main rival at this point for the vice presidency -- Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh -- has been dogged by questions of whether picking him would be a repeat of Kerry naming Edwards; Bayh, a tremendously popular figure in Indiana politics, hasn't had a race in which he had to get down and dirty, well, ever, and is clearly interested in being president down the line.

Biden, on the other hand, will be 66 years old when and if Obama is sworn in next January and, according to various sources on Capitol Hill, is perfectly content to spend the remainder of his days as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. In other words: He has exorcised the presidential bug.

Picking Biden then would virtually ensure that Obama would not have to worry about whether the vice president was constantly trying to position for a national race of his own down the road.

Add to that Biden's clear willingness to deliver attacks. During the primaries, Biden was one of the rare candidates willing to throw an elbow from time to time -- although always with a smile on his face and a kind word for his foe.

In that, Biden most closely resembles Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.) whose polite demeanor masks a hard-edged commitment to delivering sharp and effective attacks. Given the real potential that Lieberman could be McCain's pick, Obama would be smart to go with Biden to neutralize the Connecticut Senator's well-earned reputation as a skilled attacker.

As always, this piece is meant to spark conversation, so feel free to agree, disagree, condemn or compliment in the comments section below. (Looking for past "case for/case against" pieces? You can find them in our "Veepstakes" category.)

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, August 13, 2008

Former secretary of State Colin Powell, responding to a burst of speculation that he would endorse Barack Obama, said he would absolutely not be attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver and has not decided which candidate he supports.

"I am not attending either political convention," Powell wrote in an e-mail. "As I have said for some time, I know both candidates and I am studying their positions and statements. I have not decided who I will vote for."

The statement is sure to continue stoking speculation that Powell may some day endorse Obama, but it throws cold water on an assertion made by conservative commentator Bill Kristol that the deed was done. The Weekly Standard publisher told Fox News that not only would Powell endorse Obama at the convention but he might speak on his behalf. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, told the liberal website Huffington Post the same thing, further stoking the frenzy.

By Jonathan Weisman and Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, August 13, 2008

WASHINGTON - Her name will not be on the general election ballot this fall, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential candidacy will receive one final tribute when her name is formally placed into nomination at the Democratic convention.

The symbolic move, announced Thursday in a joint statement with Senator Barack Obama, is intended to soothe a lingering rift with Clinton supporters and to unify the party. With Mrs. Clinton scheduled to deliver a prime-time speech in Denver, a state-by-state roll call vote increases her time in the convention spotlight.

"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion," Mr. Obama said in a statement.

The decision was brokered after long negotiations by advisers to both senators, with Mr. Obama ultimately signing off on the plan on Wednesday. The former rivals never spoke directly about the matter, but advisers said Mr. Obama encouraged Mrs. Clinton to agree to place her name into nomination as a nod to the historic nature of her candidacy.

At the same time, it was an effort to keep peace in the Democratic family, with some of Mrs. Clinton's most ardent supporters still planning to broadcast a television commercial and stage rallies protesting Mr. Obama's nomination.

In her portion of the joint statement on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton left no doubt about who was the party's nominee.

"With every voice heard and the party strongly united, we will elect Senator Obama president of the United States and put our nation on the path to peace and prosperity once again," Mrs. Clinton said.

While this is hardly the first time a losing candidate's name will be placed in nomination - Mo Udall persuaded Jimmy Carter to allow it in 1976 - the duration and intensity of the Obama-Clinton nominating fight created wounds that have yet to heal among some Democratic activists. Many backers of Mrs. Clinton have been vigorously pushing for her candidacy to be validated through a roll-call vote.

The proceedings could take place on the same night that former President Bill Clinton is to deliver his convention speech.

For Democrats inside the convention center in Denver, as well as the television audience, it could create some interesting moments on the third night of the party's gala. The details of the roll call have not been worked out, including how or whether Mrs. Clinton's delegates would be released or turned over to Mr. Obama.

"This is a united convention," said Jenny Backus, a convention spokeswoman for the Obama campaign. "This is a united party."

By Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times, August 14, 2008

The turning point in Tim Kaine's campaign for Virginia governor in 2005 was an advertisement by his opponent featuring a father whose son had been murdered by a man Mr. Kaine represented on death row.

"Tim Kaine says that Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty," said the outraged father. "The people of Virginia are entitled to know just what Tim Kaine is and what he stands for."

Mr. Kaine took the opportunity to tell them. Looking directly into the camera, he said: "My faith teaches life is sacred. That's why I personally oppose the death penalty."

But, he added, "As governor, I'll carry out death sentences handed down by Virginia juries, because that's the law."

What Mr. Kaine stood for, voters decided, was a new kind of Democrat, not just another liberal, but a man of faith who could talk about religion without it seeming like a prop. Now the Obama campaign is eyeing Mr. Kaine as a potential running mate, seeing in him a like-minded breath of fresh air who has also shown he can win in a red state. But Mr. Kaine's similarities to Senator Barack Obama are also a potential weakness: he has a legislative record that even some supporters say is thin, and virtually no experience in foreign policy or military affairs.

While running mates typically complement the presidential candidate, Mr. Kaine, 50, more replicates Mr. Obama. He is an inspiring speaker, a Harvard-trained lawyer who spurned corporate work for civil rights. He eludes ideological labels - a Roman Catholic, he opposes both the death penalty and abortion, yet has allowed several executions during his tenure as governor and says he does not think abortion should be criminalized. He describes himself as pragmatic, not partisan - a bridge builder.

"He reinforces a basic message Barack Obama wants to send about a new, non-Washington era," said Robert D. Holsworth, the director of the Center for Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University. "He has a lot of personal appeal."

But, Mr. Holsworth added, "he's going to have trouble demonstrating political accomplishments."

Much of Mr. Kaine's three-year tenure as governor has been spent in frustration trying to unclog Virginia's choked roads. His aides argue that Republicans in the House of Delegates are obstructing that effort, and even Republicans admit that they did not want to allow Mr. Kaine the same success his Democratic predecessor, Mark Warner, had in working across the aisle. But even Mr. Kaine's supporters note that his latest proposal did not find a sponsor in the State Senate, which his party controls.

To his supporters, though, his authenticity matters more than his accomplishments. And Democratic strategists say that Mr. Kaine's appeal to Mr. Obama is largely based on the personal chemistry between them.

Broad shouldered, with an easy smile, Mr. Kaine seems to understand intuitively how to connect to an audience. At rallies, he mixes the booming encouragement of a high school coach with the nodding affirmation of a preacher (in encouraging Texas Democrats to turn their state blue, he says: "If Virginia can do it, I know Texas can do it - I KNOW Texas can do it!")

At the convocation the day after the massacre that left 33 dead at Virginia Tech in April 2007, he spoke to students like a sympathetic father, pain scraping his voice. With Hispanic audiences, he will slip into Spanish (he is fluent). If there is a band, he will get on stage to play one of the harmonicas he keeps in his briefcase.

"He's not a person who seems to be driven by politics," Mr. Holsworth said. "That's what people like about him. He seems to be driven by something else, which is that he wants to do things for other people."

The oldest of three sons, Mr. Kaine grew up in a suburb of Kansas City, Kan., attending Catholic school and working weekends in his father's ironworking shop. He went to Harvard Law School after graduating from the University of Missouri. Finding himself "with a lot of options but little direction," as he wrote after his election in 2005, he left after a year to work as a missionary in Honduras, running a vocational school and traveling with a priest from village to village to celebrate Mass.

Mr. Kaine has called it the most transformative experience of his life, save marriage and parenthood. (He has declined interviews since the vice-presidential speculation began.)

"It was evident when he came back that he was consciously looking to use his talents to help others," said Charles Hirschhorn, a film and television executive who shared a house with Mr. Kaine at Harvard and has remained a close friend.

In Honduras, Mr. Kaine first came across the saying of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that the most segregated hour in America was 11 o'clock Sunday morning. He decided, he says, that he would work toward racial reconciliation.

At Harvard, he met Anne Holton, the daughter of a former Republican governor of Virginia. They married, settling in Richmond, where she became a Legal Aid lawyer and later a Juvenile Court judge, and he a civil rights lawyer, fighting housing discrimination cases and, as a court-appointed lawyer, a handful of death penalty appeals. In 1998, he helped win a $17.5 million settlement for an advocacy group that accused Nationwide Insurance of discriminating against black homeowners.

The Kaines joined St. Elizabeth's, a mostly black Catholic church, where Mr. Kaine sang in the choir. "That's very rare in Richmond," said John V. Moeser, a neighbor and a professor emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth who has written extensively on the city's racial history. "Not only were they committed to integration, they lived it."

Friends describe Mr. Kaine as self-assured, but unpretentious.

"He's just Tim, at church," said Barbara Williford, who met the Kaines at St. Elizabeth's in 1984 and is godmother to the youngest of their three children. "People say 'governor' and he looks and says, 'Who's here?' because he's not expecting that."

Mr. Kaine entered electoral politics in 1994 by winning a seat on the Richmond City Council, which had the power to select the city's mayor. In 1998, a black majority council chose Mr. Kaine.

While Mr. Kaine was lauded for bridging the city's black-white divide, he sparked controversy when he spent $6,000 of public money to help send buses to the Million Mom March against gun violence; he later raised private money to pay it back, but the incident still rankles gun control advocates.

After a term as lieutenant governor, Mr. Kaine campaigned in 2005 to replace the enormously popular Mr. Warner (Virginia governors cannot run for a consecutive term).

The high point of his tenure so far has been his response to the Virginia Tech massacre. Mr. Kaine and his wife had just arrived in Tokyo for a two-week trade mission when a phone call awoke him with the news that a mentally ill student had killed 32 people and himself in a drawn-out killing spree that kept the campus suspended in terror for several hours.

He took the next flight home, and the next day appeared with President Bush at a convocation on campus. Mr. Kaine spoke without notes, hailing the students for their strength but telling them that it was O.K. to be angry, that he, too, had shed tears.

John C. Watkins, a Republican state senator, calls it "one of the most meaningful speeches I've ever heard."

"I like George Bush," Mr. Watkins said, "but he kind of put George Bush to shame."

But while Mr. Kaine was known as a bridge builder in Richmond, the State House has forced him into a more partisan position. He disappointed even moderate Republicans who support him by calling a special session on transportation this summer that only seemed designed to try to pin blame for an impasse on the other party.

Many Republicans and even some Democrats have also criticized him for not having had a signature accomplishment in the way other governors have at the same point in their tenure.

"He really is in the bottom quartile of governors," said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Aides note that Mr. Kaine has expanded mental health and foster care programs, and invested enormously in new research and new buildings for higher education across the state - managing to do so at a time of budget cuts.

He eliminated the estate tax. And after the Virginia Tech killings, he shepherded through a law denying guns to anyone who has been committed to a mental institution. He secured about $20 million to allow more 4-year-olds into pre-kindergarten programs - short of the universal pre-K he had campaigned on.

"I think he came in with a great deal of zeal," said L. Douglas Wilder, the former Democratic governor who is now the mayor of Richmond. "Unfortunately, I think the first couple of years he has not been able to outline what he wants his legacy to be. He pretty much was still trying to deal with some of the things he was left with."

Mr. Kaine's biggest legacy, though, may be helping to nudge Virginia into his party's column. In 2006, he raised money and campaigned hard to secure a Democratic majority in the State Senate and for Jim Webb's election to the United States Senate. And in what may end up being his most prescient move, in early 2007 he became one of the first officials outside Mr. Obama's home state to endorse him for president.

Mark Penn, the former chief strategist for Hillary Clinton, is not exactly the most popular person in the political world these days.

Clinton still owes him money, but many donors have been angrily saying that they don't want any of their money to go to Penn. And a new Atlantic magazine story paints him as wanting to go very negative against Barack Obama -- counsel that Clinton rejected.

So, it's rather rich that he wrote an opinion peice for the Politico website that declares: "Clever negative advertising works. That is reality.The tactic meets with media and pundit disapproval and spawns accusations of negativity, but the reality is that a clever negative ad can be devastatingly effective."

Penn praises Republican John McCain's much-dissected spot that compares Obama with celebutantes Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, even comparing it favorably to his "it's 3 a.m. and your children are sleeping" spot for Clinton that questioned Obama's readiness to be commander-in-chief.

"Some negative ads crystallize voters' opinions without presenting any new information," Penn writes. "That's what was behind John McCain's recent ad equating Barack Obama's celebrity status with that of Paris Hilton - that viewers would associate the Democrat's leadership with mere celebrity, not substance. Fair or not, as advertising it did its job: It used humor, stuck viewers with memorable images and created a debate, just as Lyndon Johnson's 1964 "Daisy" ad, Walter Mondale's "Red Phone" spot 20 years later and Hillary Rodham Clinton's "3 a.m." commercial in 2008 did.

"The Paris Hilton ad also bore a Republican political trademark - attacking a candidate-s strengths rather than the candidate-s weaknesses. The spot attempted to portray Obama's leadership for change as something fluffy and useless."





By Foon Rhee, The Boston Globe, August 12, 2008

For political junkies, the only thing better than following a political campaign is sifting through the wreckage of a failed one -- trying to understand why a candidate pursued a certain course, and what worked and didn't work.

Enter The Atlantic's Josh Green, who has penned a piece in the most recent issue of the magazine that details the massive internal struggle for control of Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign using, deliciously, a number of internal memos and e-mails to show the strife that permeated the campaign.

The memos contains a multitude of information and insights, but, here at The Fix, we always aim to give our loyal readers the best of the best -- the news you need to know to impress your friends and vanquish your enemies.

So, we spent the morning reading the internal communiques of the Clinton campaign so you don't have to. What follows is our CliffsNotes version of the thousands of words -- most of them written by chief strategist Mark Penn.

* From the very start, Penn believed that Clinton should be positioned as the "tough single parent" in the race. She should be seen as "someone who can combine the toughness they are used to with the negotiating adeptness they believe a woman would bring to the office," wrote Penn in a memo way back in December 2006. He saw Clinton as a modern day Margaret Thatcher -- an image that he pushed throughout the campaign.

* Dating back to the fall of 2006, Penn recognized the potential threat that Barack Obama posed as a movement candidate. "Obama represents a serious challenge because at least for the moment he represents something big -- an inspiration movement," wrote Penn in late 2006. Even then, however, the Clinton top strategists weren't sure how to deal with Obama; Penn urged that the campaign avoid attacking the Illinois senator and instead hope he flamed out or decided not to run when the calendar turned to 2007. (Interesting sidenote: Despite the obvious concern Penn had regarding Obama, he spelled the candidate's name wrong -- "Barak" -- in each of the first two memos obtained by Green.)

* Penn urged a subtle campaign designed to highlight Obama's lack of "American" roots, a strategy that was not ultimately adopted by the candidate. "All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared toward showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light," wrote Penn. "Save it for 2050. It also exposes a very strong weakness for him -- his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited." On that score, Penn was dead wrong; Obama's message of the "fierce urgency of now" hit a chord with voters -- suggesting that the Illinois senator's timing was just right.

* The Clinton campaign seemed to fall into the trap of re-running past campaigns rather than designing a strategy unique to the new political realities. Penn repeatedly urged Clinton to avoid being likeable as a political strategy largely out of a belief that such a move had doomed the candidacies of Al Gore and John Kerry. "I believe we should reach out to be as likeable as possible," Penn wrote to Clinton in March 2007. "But reach too far in this dimension and you risk really getting into Gore and Kerry territory."

* Obama's massive fundraising capacity -- and the limits of Clinton's own cash-collection operation -- were recognized relatively early on by adviser Harold Ickes. In a March e-mail to senior staff, Ickes wrote: "BO may well outpace HRC, or at least keep even, in fundraising." He also noted that Clinton would likely not be able to raise more than $75 million in primary funds during 2007.

* The confusion/lack of preparedness inside the Clinton campaign about a potential protracted delegate fight with Obama is stunning. Ickes addressed the delegate math in a Dec. 22, 2007 memo -- long after Obama had begun putting in place the organizations in post-Feb. 5 states that would eventually help him build an insurmountable delegate lead. Why was the Clinton campaign so slow to realize the possibility of a trench warfare campaign for delegates? The answer is found in an Ickes e-mail from March 2007; "5 February is likely to decide the putative nominee," he wrote.

* Over and over again in 2007 Penn writes that the key for Clinton to win is to claim the mantle as the change candidate. "Buzz, excitement, movement," he writes in an April memo. "We have a great deal of support in the party and across the nation -- but we need to energize it more....let's talk more about a movement for change coming from the people." And yet, roughly a year later, Penn has abandoned the "change" motif. "When you strip away those voters who are voting on race or gender, this election is not about change, not about experience but about leadership," said Penn in a March 5, 2008 memo. In retrospect, Penn's initial instinct seems the right one. The overarching dynamic of the race became stale, status quo Clinton versus exciting, fresh face Obama. The Clinton campaign would have done well to accentuate the fact that millions of people -- largely women -- were extremely passionate about the New York senator's candidacy and, in not doing so, allowed a passion gap to open.

* As the race looked less and less winnable for Clinton, Penn upped the volume on his call to attack Obama -- arguing that even if Clinton scored several wins toward the end of the race, it would not alter the fundamental dynamic. "The idea that this can be won all on smiles, emotions and empathy is simply wrong....this can be won on the basis of presidential leadership tempered by showing the other human side through counter-tv appearances, some home visits and events that keep this tethered to helping people, not ambition," Penn wrote.

* Penn advised that Clinton attack Obama as "just words" -- a very similar tact to the one successfully adopted by John McCain's campaign in recent weeks. "Show that their image of Obama Camelot is simply nothing but campaign pitter patter," Penn wrote in March 2008. "He is just words and she is a lifetime of action," he added. " She is the one who is ready to fill the big shoes of this job and he is an inspiring speaker who isn't."

There's TONS more in the memos -- including a plea by pollster Geoff Garin to run all messaging through senior strategist Howard Wolfson and a request for interns to move their cars to make room for campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and her staff.

Take a gander yourself. And use the comments section below to let us know your favorite tidbits or what we missed.

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post,August 12, 2008

Perhaps the best way to think about the vice presidential sweepstakes is as an extended -- and very public -- job interview.

Resumes are examined, references are checked, past performance is measured. But, more important than all of those factors is how the job applicants do under pressure -- can they perform well when the klieg lights are on them?

If the job you are applying for is vice president of the United States, then your best chance to show your stuff is on the closely-watched Sunday talk shows. Succeed in advocating for the nominee and/or pushing back against attacks on him by your rival guest and boost your stock. Bomb out and watch the buzz around you -- and your chances at being the pick -- peter out.

This is clearly a high wire act that nearly every candidate mentioned seriously as a potential pick by either John McCain or Barack Obama has performed over the past few weekends and will continue on until the choices are made.

In the last two weeks, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.) has stopped by "Meet the Press" and "Fox News Sunday," Gov. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has appeared on "Face the Nation" as have Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I). Govs. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) and Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) as well as former Gov. Tom Ridge (R-Pa.) have stopped by the "This Week with George Stephanapoulos" set. (We know we missed a few appearances. It was not intentional. We love all vice presidential candidates and all Sunday shows equally.)

And now comes word that Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) -- the vice presidential frontrunners for their respective parties -- will square off this weekend on "Face the Nation."

Make no mistake: every person involved in the vice presidential selection process for McCain and Obama will be watching closely to see how each man does. And while these appearances are not likely to prove conclusive in making up either nominee's mind, they are certain to play a role in the decision making.

Both men have something to prove.

Bayh is widely perceived as too nice a guy to deliver an attack -- too cautious and too calculating about his own political future to go to the wall to defend Obama.

His supporters insist that characterization is flawed and provide as evidence Bayh's recent one-on-one with Lieberman (a skilled debater no matter what else you might think of him) on "Fox News Sunday" late last month.

In the clip, Bayh's supporters argue, he effectively parries Lieberman's attack that Obama favored a strategy of "defeat and retreat" in Iraq despite the fact that Bayh himself was an aggressive advocate for the war at the time.

For Bayh, proving he is tough enough to stand up to a sustained assault on Obama -- and his record -- and willing to throw a few punches is the task confronting him this weekend.

The challenge for Pawlenty is to prove he is "big" enough for this kind of national stage; the knock on him has long been that he is a nice guy and a genuine political talent but just not ready for primetime.

The chatter in Republican circles is that McCain would like to pick someone with whom he is close personally, unless it becomes clear that none of those candidates is as strong politically as former governor Mitt Romney, for example.

Pawlenty is as close to McCain as any of those mentioned as veep contenders. Can he give McCain the confidence that he is ready and willing and able to take on the demands of the vice presidency?

For those who doubt the importance of these Sunday talk show tete a tetes, don't. One of the most important -- perhaps THE most important -- roles the vice presidential nominees will play is taking part in the lone vice presidential debate on Oct.2 in St. Louis.

Recent political history suggests these vice presidential debates have real potential to influence the dynamic of the overall narrative in the general election. In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney was widely seen as drubbing former senator John Edwards, which provided a bit of momentum for the Republican ticket. Four years earlier, Lieberman and Cheney fought to a draw -- a result that made an already close race even closer.

Sunday will be the latest -- and, maybe, the last -- tryout for Bayh and Pawlenty. How they do will tell us a lot about their respective political futures.

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, August 12, 2008

Governor's Scandals Top A List of Woes

LAS VEGAS -- The scandal-plagued Republican governor is so politically toxic that few of his party's prominent candidates will be seen with him. The GOP's most powerful state senator survived a tough primary after 36 years of never even facing a credible opponent. And the party may quickly be losing its grip on a state that could be critical to the outcome of the presidential election.

If Republicans are hurting nationally this election year, there may be few places where the pain is quite as acute, or has arrived as quickly, as Nevada, where a confluence of problems has left a once-potent state party in tatters. Just two years ago, Republicans occupied all six statewide constitutional offices. Today, they hold only the posts of governor and lieutenant governor.

Democrats now enjoy a 60,000-voter registration edge in a state where the parties were virtually tied a year ago. The state GOP raised less than one-third of the $1.3 million the Nevada Democratic Party's central committee took in during the first half of 2008. And the Republicans who hold two of the state's three U.S. House seats are in danger of losing them.

A Republican primary race between the state Senate majority leader, Bill Raggio, and a former assemblywoman was emblematic of the trend. Raggio, 81, won a six-point victory on Tuesday after being forced to campaign actively for the first time since his initial race in 1972. His opponent is a hero of Nevada's hard-core fiscal and social conservatives angered by Raggio's compromises on such things as a large 2003 tax increase.

"Obviously there has been creeping disunity within the party," Raggio said. "I have not had a very serious, tough election up until this primary."

Former governor Kenny Guinn and Reno Mayor Bob Cashell walked Raggio's district with him earlier this month but the current governor, Jim Gibbons, did not.

Nor, say several prominent Republicans, have many GOP candidates asked for Gibbons's help, preferring to avoid association with the former five-term congressman, who is the subject of an unceasing barrage of negative publicity.

The Republican chief executive's troubles began in 2006 when a cocktail waitress accused him of assaulting her in a parking lot after a night of drinking three weeks before Election Day. Surveillance video cast doubt on the accuser's claim and no charges were filed, but the flap turned an expected Gibbons walkover into a squeaker.

Then came reports in the Wall Street Journal that the FBI was investigating Gibbons and his wife, Dawn, in a public corruption probe

This year, Gibbons has been mired in controversy over allegations by his now-estranged wife that he has had an affair, and revelations that he sent a married woman 850 text messages in one month on his official cellphone. The Gibbonses are divorcing, but Dawn Gibbons refused to move out of the governor's mansion in Carson City for two months, a further embarrassment. And last month Elko County Assessor Joe Aguirre, a Republican, went public with accusations that the governor pressured him for a property tax break on 40 vacant acres Gibbons owns there.

Gibbons has become so politically isolated that Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign turned to Lt. Gov. Brian K. Krolicki rather than to the governor to chair the Republican candidate's Nevada effort.

"I don't know if the problems in the [Gibbons] administration drag the ticket down rather than that it's a loss of the opportunity to lift the ticket up," said Pete Ernaut, a veteran GOP activist and Guinn strategist who predicted that Gibbons will face a primary challenge in 2010. "I don't think the governor's numbers have negative coattails, but it's the loss of the opportunity to be able to stand next to the governor."

Beyond Gibbons's woes, though, Ernaut and others note that the state party has not recruited high-quality candidates the way it did in the 1990s.

"You can't get any higher than where the Republicans were in 2002," said Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Erin Neff. "They really won it all. Once they hit that level, their farm team had been pushed up. They weren't grooming anyone for office. That was going to result in an uptick for Democrats irrespective of the national scene."

In the past 40 years, Nevada has gone Republican in all but two presidential elections -- 1992 and 1996, when Ross Perot's independent candidacies helped Bill Clinton pull off upsets.

In addition to how dispirited many Republicans are, the Democrats enjoyed a huge boost in registration and fundraising from its Jan. 19 caucuses. About 116,000 Democrats took part, more than double the number of Republican participants.

Nevada GOP Chairman Sue Lowden is one of the few who say they do not see significant problems in the state party. She points to the 45,000 Republicans who participated in the Nevada caucuses as a success story, and she insisted that Gibbons has been actively campaigning and effectively fundraising on behalf of state and local GOP candidates. She also dismissed assertions by Ernaut and others that Gibbons could face a revolt from within in 2010.

She said the party's woes, if there are any, come from the broader anti-GOP mood nationally.

"The overall Republican brand doesn't seem to be as appealing," Lowden said. "But I'm optimistic that all of our incumbents are going to win. . . . If we stay a red state, I'll be a hero. If we don't, I'm not going to be happy."

The Nevada Democratic Party's executive director, Travis Brock, said his team also deserves credit for building a solid party full of appealing candidates and for taking better advantage of the early caucuses to excite the base. He's particularly pleased about the prospects of state Sen. Dina Titus, who lost to Gibbons in the 2006 governor's race, to topple three-term U.S. Rep. Jon Porter in a district where there are now 25,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. The Democratic edge was about 3,000 voters when Porter won his last reelection by fewer than 4,000 votes.

"One of the real reasons I wanted to pursue this career opportunity was that I saw an organization that was on the edge of a big sea change," said Brock, who assumed the job in April 2007 after years working for Democrats in Iowa. The Republican Party's problems, he said, were evident even then and have only grown worse since. "To say that I love it is an understatement," he said.

OMAHA, Neb. -- Talk of Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as a potential running mate for Democratic candidate Barack Obama tends to confound partisans in both parties.

"His anti-war posture might be attractive to Obama, but he's anathema to much of the progressive base of the Democratic Party," said Toby Chaudhuri, communications director for the liberal Campaign for America's Future.

Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., calls the pairing "not a good fit" and says that on issues other than the Iraq war, Hagel and Obama are not compatible. The American Conservative Union, which examines voting records on everything from abortion to national security, pegs the Nebraska Republican as a conservative.

When Hagel accompanied Obama on his trip to Iraq and Afghanistan last month, speculation swirled anew that he was a possible vice presidential pick.

Plenty of people have suggested that Obama recruit Hagel, one of the Senate's most outspoken opponents of the Iraq war. The Illinois senator would benefit from Hagel's military experience in Vietnam, they say, and Hagel would help temper perceptions that Obama is too liberal. A bipartisan ticket would also support Obama's call for breaking away from polarizing politics.

Others don't see Hagel in that role, and some predict that delegates to the party convention might not either.

"I think, though it is impossible to predict with absolute confidence, that the delegates would not deliver their votes unless at a minimum he switched political parties," said former Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Democrat from Nebraska. "Even then it would be a difficult vote."

Vic Covalt, who takes over as chairman of the Nebraska Democratic Party in December, said he's not fooled by Hagel's Iraq position.

"He's not a good man when it comes to everything else, and he hasn't voted well in any way, shape or form that would gain any support from me or any other thinking Democrat," Covalt said.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, a Republican, questioned whether Hagel could take his place behind Obama.

"Hagel couldn't keep his mouth shut long enough to be somebody's No. 2," Bruning said.

"Hagel is his own man," he said. "It's tough to be someone's No. 2 when you're used to making your own decisions."

Although Hagel disagrees with President Bush and Republican candidate John McCain on the war, he chafes at suggestions that he is less than conservative, pointing to his desire to reduce the scope of the federal government and give more control to states and cities. He says abortion should be allowed only when the life of the mother is in danger.

Yet in June, the Nebraska Republican said he would consider serving as Obama's running mate. Still, he added that no one had approached him about the job and that he expected Obama to pick a Democrat.

Hagel considered his own presidential bid but then announced last year he wouldn't seek a third term in the Senate or the GOP presidential nomination. He was widely mentioned as a running mate on an independent ticket with Michael Bloomberg before the New York mayor decided not to run.

Last month, McCain said Hagel could have a place in a McCain administration. Both are Vietnam veterans wounded at war, both labeled mavericks for speaking their minds and both strongly conservative in their voting records.

Still, Hagel hasn't endorsed the man he calls a friend and appears to be drifting farther from him. Since traveling to Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama, he has chided McCain for suggesting that Obama decided on a withdrawal from Iraq based on political expediency.

"John's better than that," Hagel said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It's just not responsible to be saying things like that."

Hagel was on the short list for vice president once before, in 2000 as a possible running mate for George W. Bush. Hagel said at the time that he spent $15,000 on accountant fees to put together the information requested by the Bush campaign and interviewed twice with Dick Cheney, who was supervising Bush's search for a running mate.

Bush eventually picked Cheney himself.

McCain Mum as Possible Running Mates Campaign With Him

YORK, Pa., Aug. 12 -- The bay door opened under a giant American flag, John McCain's dark-blue Straight Talk Express bus rolled into the exhibition hall to the inevitable (in Pennsylvania, at least) strains of "Rocky," and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee emerged with not one but two of The Mentioned.

Long shots, to be sure. One of McCain's travel companions, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), has already run for vice president -- as a Democrat. The other, former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, is a favorite son in this important battleground state but is considered suspect by much of the party's conservative base elsewhere. A front-page headline in Tuesday's Philadelphia Inquirer read "Ridge on McCain ticket? Not likely."

Still, their appearances here created a sense of deja vu to those following McCain as he prepares to make the most important decision he faces before accepting the Republican presidential nomination next month -- his choice of a running mate.

McCain, much like Democratic rival Barack Obama, has campaigned extensively with those thought to be on his shortlist, and the campaign has called upon the potential running mates often to promote the senator from Arizona on television and elsewhere.

Just Tuesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty went on "Fox and Friends" to tout McCain's "wisdom" in his statements on the Russian invasion of Georgia. McCain's knowledge and experience would be a big benefit to voters choosing the next president, Pawlenty said.

But Pawlenty brushed aside questions about his vice presidential prospects, saying that he had gone on a fishing and innertubing trip over the weekend. He's "helping Senator McCain as a volunteer," Pawlenty said on Fox, in the first of his three television appearances scheduled Tuesday.

Another governor whose name has cropped up consistently in the mentioning, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, was booked to show the flag on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes."

It's either the world's longest audition or one of the most elaborate head-fakes in political history.

In truth, very few know who is on the really short list. The candidates are being vetted outside the campaign, and McCain aides say the decision is discussed only within a circle that includes McCain, wife Cindy and a small clutch of senior advisers.

On a plane ride last week, McCain told a few reporters he was confident there would be no unpleasant surprises about his No. 2, once he makes his choice.

"I certainly hope so," he said, adding quickly: "I'm convinced of it."

Asked whether he was satisfied with the process he put in place, he responded: "You are never satisfied. I would have liked to have selected yesterday." But, for a variety of strategic reasons, that choice is more likely to come after the Democratic convention ends on Aug. 28.

Yet public appearances such as those this week keep the speculation alive. Ridge and his family had a perch dinner with McCain on Sunday night, and the twice-elected governor accompanied the senator throughout the commonwealth over the next two days.

He gave a taste of what he'd bring to the ticket Tuesday with an appeal to Pennsylvania's independent voters, who he said will decide the race.

"Ladies and gentlemen, when you pick up the newspapers and look at the maps, there are red states and blue states. But we need a president who is red, white and blue," Ridge said. "And independents in Pennsylvania [are] going to support that red-white-and-blue candidate for president."

But when McCain was asked the day before about his first 90 days in office, he -- intentionally or not -- threw a little water on the burning speculation. He said he would "call Tom Ridge to Washington from whatever vacation he is taking, get him down there and get him to work." That did not sound as if Ridge would be busy moving into the vice presidential mansion at the Naval Observatory.

Ridge told the Inquirer he had not discussed the job with McCain. "If you cast a universal net, my name might be on the list," Ridge said. "But as the list narrows, I don't have a clue who's on and who's off.''

Lieberman is another McCain favorite, a frequent sidekick who has infuriated Democrats with his full-throated support of the Arizona Republican. At Tuesday's town hall, the sometime Democrat, sometime independent from Connecticut showed he had learned something from his experience running for vice president with Al Gore. He was far tougher on Obama than either Ridge or McCain.

The choice, Lieberman told a cheering, partisan crowd in this GOP stronghold, is "between one candidate, John McCain, who's had experience and been tested in war and tried in peace, and another candidate who has not. 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 American needs as our next president."

Lieberman had the crowd so worked up, he had to calm them down.

"I'm just the warm-up act," he said with a grin.

By Robert Barnes, The Washington Post, August 13, 2008

Despite reports to the contrary, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) will not be the keynote speaker when Democrats gather in Denver later this month to nominate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Instead, Senate candidate and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner will fill the same coveted Tuesday night slot from which Obama exploded onto the national scene four years ago.

Warner will highlight his economic success as governor on a night when the convention's theme is "Renewing America's Promise."

Clinton has often been reported to be the keynote speaker, and many viewed it as a way to placate the former first lady and her supporters.

Clinton and Obama battled for the nomination until the last primary and many observers believe that tensions remain between the two camps.

Many of Clinton's supporters believe that she was not treated fairly in the process by the media and party rules. In addition, another group of people had held out hope that Obama would put his primary rival on the Democratic ticket in an effort to unify the party.

During the convention, some of Clinton's supporters are organizing events to highlight their misgivings.

The New York senator is still scheduled to be Tuesday's "headline" speaker.

By Sam Youngman, The Hill, August 13, 2008

A determined crowd of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's delegates - preparing to head to the Democratic Party's national convention in Denver - have begun gathering signatures to ensure her name is placed into nomination, insisting their effort won't take spotlight off presumed Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Many of those involved in the campaign, which they say is a matter of respect and acknowledgement of 18 million voters who backed Clinton, argue that the nomination of the New York senator is a matter of historic and political precedent at such party conventions. And they're chafing at reports that the campaign of the Illinois senator is resisting the efforts - and even hoping to avoid a roll-call vote.

"Since 1884, we've had a roll-call vote. ... It's a nominating convention, not a coronation," said Garry Mauro, the four-term Texas land commissioner and past gubernatorial candidate who ran against George W. Bush - and who will go to his 10th Democratic national convention this month as a Clinton delegate.

With less than two weeks until Aug. 25, when Democrats open their nominating convention in Denver, the sentiment is typical of many Clinton delegates who say the nomination of the New York senator from the floor of the convention doesn't endanger Obama's presidential campaign - and could serve his cause.

The Obama campaign declined to comment on the story, but many supporters of the presumed Democratic nominee suggest that Clinton will get more than her share of high-profile face time and respect at the convention.

She is scheduled to deliver a keynote address on Aug. 26 - reportedly to be introduced by her daughter, Chelsea - and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is delivering the prime-time address on the following night, when the vice presidential candidate is nominated.

Moving on

Still, "I don't think there's any harm in nominating Sen. Clinton at the convention," said David Serrano Sewell of San Francisco, one of the delegates at the forefront of the signature-gathering movement. "It will acknowledge the success we had, and it will give an opportunity for people to express themselves and get behind Obama and win in November."

Already, he said, Clinton delegates have more than half of the 300 signatures needed to put Clinton's name into nomination - and they fully expect to get more than enough by the time the convention begins in Denver.

"It's a simple thing to do, and it's the biggest sign of party unity," said Laura Spanjian, a San Francisco Clinton delegate who also supports the move. "If we do that one thing, the Hillary people can get past it - and move on."

Clay Dougherty, another San Francisco delegate for Clinton, said that "if the situation were reversed, the Obama people would feel the same."

"For the first time in a generation, it's been a close election ... and this was such a unique situation," he said, in which the first major African American presidential candidate competed with the first major female presidential candidate. "We need to honor both candidates," he said.

And many Democrats suggest that the move to accommodate Clinton's supporters may be politically smart.

"Sen. Clinton is going to do everything she can to make sure Sen. Obama is the next president - and that will include how the convention is handled and the role she plays," says Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, who was a Clinton supporter and a past White House spokesman for Bill Clinton.

But "polls out there show that older women are the potential swing demographic in this election," he said. "It helps Obama and the party ... to have her play a prominent role in the convention."

Under the rules of the Democratic National Committee, 300 valid delegate signatures are needed in order to place a candidate's name on the ballot - if the candidate agrees to it.

Bob Mulholland, an undecided California superdelegate, said that means "if a candidate's got delegates, then both names can be placed in nomination" - and the losing candidate, in this case Clinton, can declare, " 'Let's make it unanimous.' "

Or Clinton can be nominated and a surrogate speaking on her behalf can say, "The senator has declined, but let's vote on Obama," he noted.

A third option is that she won't allow her name to be nominated at all, he said.

Organized resistance

Mauro said that because it was such a closely contested election, he is mystified as to why the Obama campaign is resisting and even balking at a roll-call vote, according to some reports.

"Are these folks so new to politics, are they so arrogant, that they think he's different from every other nominee we've ever had?" he asks.

Serrano Sewell says one reason for the resistance may be that some Democratic officials have apparently mistakenly associated the delegates' activities with those of an independent group of Clinton supporters who call themselves PUMAs (which stands for "Party Unity My Ass"), who have pledged that they will protest outside the Denver convention.

He says there's no connection.

"We're not trying to drag Obama down," he said. "We're Democrats. We're precinct captains. We're fundraisers. We're the kind of Democrats Obama will need to win in November."

Dougherty says he's now waiting for a signal from Clinton herself about what might happen next in Denver.

"If she releases us for the sake of party unity, fine," he said. "But she hasn't done that. The campaigns are talking - and I respect they need to come to an agreement that makes both sides happy."

By Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 2008