Yee-haw, SF Mayor Newsom treks to Montana ranch for next wedding

Wait, you can't go to bed without knowing this!

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who's seriously pondering a run to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as California's governor in 2011, got married again today.

The 40-year-old Newsom traveled all the way to Montana, where straight marriages are still legal, to marry actress Jennifer Siebel on her family's ranchland near Stevensville in the scenic Bitterroot Valley.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and ex-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown were among the guests who also traveled to Big Sky country for the ceremony by a river on the Siebel family ranch, according to the AP.

It's the first marriage for Siebel, who is 34 and has appeared in the NBC series "Life," and the next wedding for Newsom, who divorced Kimberly Guilfoyle 28 months ago.

The newlyweds met around the same time, and Siebel, a Bay Area native who prefers the country setting of Montana, stood by Newsom when he publicly admitted being an alcoholic and having had an affair with a mayoral staff member's wife. She was also by his side when he was sworn in for a second term last January (see photo).

(UPDATE: Nathan Ballard, Newsom's communications director, sends the following correction: "You wrote that Mayor Newsom 'publicly admitted being an alcoholic.' That is not accurate. It is true that in February 2007,  the Mayor quit drinking and sought counseling.")

Because Montana isn't far enough away from City Hall in San Francisco, the couple will honeymoon in Africa, which is often sunnier.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press

Obama gets initial poll bounce over McCain for Berlin, Paris stops

An initial daily tracking poll by Gallup shows that all the media coverage of the European portion of Barack Obama's foreign jaunt has produced a bump in approval for the freshman senator.

Before the trip, designed to produce just such political progress for the Democrat's campaign, Obama had a statistically insignificant two point lead over Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Even during the first days of his field trip in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, Jordan and Israel, the poll numbers held steady.

But Gallup reports a bulge in approval began showing up in polling done while Obama was in Germany and France. His lead is now up to seven points, according to our friends over at the Swamp. Tonight, he returned to his home on Chicago's South Side.

It's 48% for Obama now and 41% for McCain.

Mark Silva has the rest of the new early poll results' details here.

--Andrew Malcolm

New John McCain ad spotlights Barack Obama's derailed troop visit

Barack Obama took his own shot at defusing the flap surrounding the canceled visit to a U.S. military hospital during his overseas trip. But John McCain's campaign isn't about to let the matter rest.

Indeed, the Republican elevated the contretemps to what passes for the height of political discourse these days: it's a key element in a new television ad (see video below).

The 30-second spot zings Obama for making time for a gym workout while in Germany earlier this week, but removing from his itinerary a planned stop at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. The ad continues:

"Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras.

"John McCain is always there for our troops.

"McCain. Country first."

(The last line recently was unveiled on McCain's website as his....

John McCain, in his own way, hitched a ride with Barack Obama

As Barack Obama prepared to embark on his now-completed trek to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Jordan and three European locales, word from the John McCain camp was that he would use his time alone on the home front to spotlight the issue polls show Americans care most about, by far: the dicey economy.

Once Obama's journey was underway, however, McCain and his aides quickly began a running -- and aggressively negative  -- critique of it, as well as what they asserted was rose-colored coverage by the media corps that was along for the ride.

McCain, early in the week, was particularly eager to draw Obama into a debate over the U.S. troop surge in Iraq -- scoffing that his rival was politically craven for refusing to acknowledge the strategy's success.

And by the end of the week, it was clear that rather than try to change the subject to the economy, McCain and his aides had decided their best campaign counter-punching tactic was to treat his rival's trip as a foil.

Our friend Jim Tankersley reflects on this at The Swamp in an item that, in its headline, poses the question: "Obama attention good for McCain."

Jim notes that McCain today, in his new weekly radio speeches, abandoned any pretense of pretending that Obama's travels and his tete-a-tetes with various heads of state had not dominated the news. The Arizona Republican cut to the chase without delay:

Good morning. I'm John McCain, and this week the presidential contest was a long-distance affair, with my opponent touring various continents and arriving yesterday in Paris.

With all the breathless coverage from abroad, and with Sen. Obama now addressing his speeches to 'the people of the world,' I'm starting to feel a little left out. Maybe you are too.

The thinly veiled sarcasm, of course, was intentional. But what about the specific reference to Paris? Perhaps McCain believes that Francophobia remains alive and well in this country, despite the demise of "freedom fries" on Capitol Hill.

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Bloomberg News

Ticket Notice: Sunday guests--McCain, Obama, Rove, Reed

ABC This Week: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

CBS Face the Nation: Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.); both accompanied Obama on recent visit to Afghanistan and Iraq.

CNN Late Edition: McCain (one-hour interview at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT) and Obama (participating in candidate forum at UNITY conference at noon ET/9 a.m. PT).

Fox News Sunday: Sens. John Thune (R-S.D./McCain supporter) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo./Obama supporter); Karl Rove.

NBC Meet the Press: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Getty Images

Barack Obama will be joining August's vacationing hordes

LONDON -- One thing decidedly absent from Barack Obama’s packed agenda overseas was a good night’s sleep. As he wrapped up his travels today, a fellow politician on the other side of the pond advised Obama to kick back sometime soon.

“You should be on the beach,” David Cameron, the head of the British Conservative Party, told Obama in London a few hours before the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee headed home to Chicago.

“You need a break. Well, you need to be able to keep your head together.”

Obama told Cameron he would take a week off in August.

The pair also compared notes on the need for political leaders to make sure they keep themselves focused on the forest, not the trees -- efforts by aides notwithstanding.

Obama shared advice he said he got from an official in the Bill Clinton White House: “The most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you're doing is thinking.”

Cameron agreed, lamenting aides who “just chalk your diary up.”

“In 15-minute increments,” Obama said.

“You have to scrap that, because you've got to have time,” Cameron told Obama.

“You start making mistakes, or you lose the big picture,” Obama responded.

Politics, Cameron went on, is all about “the judgment you bring to make decisions.”

“That's exactly right,” Obama said. “And the truth is that we've got a bunch of smart people, I think, who know 10 times more than we do about the specifics of the topic.

"And so, if what you're trying to do is micromanage and solve everything, then you end up being a dilettante. But you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you.”

-- Michael Finnegan

Photo credit: Getty Images

Do journalists' political donations (mostly Democratic) = news bias?

Anyone perusing the media in recent days might have gotten the vague impression that someone named Barack Obama has been on some kind of foreign trip somewhere.

Funny how that information somehow seeped through despite all the other competing stories about the presumptive Democratic candidate for president visiting Iraq and Afghanistan.

And there were other distracting stories about a freshman senator from Illinois meeting with Israeli and Palestinian politicians. And a former state senator, also coincidentally from Illinois, speaking to a large crowd of Germans in Berlin for some reason.

And then an African American lawyer from Chicago had a real bon ami-bon ami moment with the shorter president of France before moving on to Britain today to smile and do that....

LeBron James dunks $20G's in the basket for Barack Obama

Not sure how we missed him the other day in another one of Dan Morain's comprehensive campaign finance roundups. After all, the guy is about two feet taller than our garage door.

But LeBron Raymone James, the 6-8 "small" forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers, has endorsed Barack Obama for president.

If by endorsing, you mean donating $20G's to a committee devoted to electing the freshman Illinois Democratic senator as president on Nov. 4.

James, an Akron native, was the No. 1 NBA draft choice in 2003 out of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. He got $90 million for a shoe-endorsing contract with Nike before playing one minute in the NBA. So he sure must have pretty feet.

Presumably James can afford the political donation. Maybe he'll also throw in a pair of running shoes for Obama to finish the race.

As you can easily see from the video highlights below, the much-touted James has turned out to be a pretty mediocre pro player, actually. He managed to be elected league Rookie of the Year only once. He's been on the All-NBA team only four times and was league scoring champion this past season.

Sure, as you can see, he's large (250 pounds), but he's quick, jumps high and makes baskets from great distances.

Other than that, not much to show.

--Andrew Malcolm

Secret Service needs more money to guard Obama and McCain

As virtually every White House contender has done since the Republic began, this year's major-party presidential candidates each vow to cut "wasteful" government spending and in general impose "fiscal discipline" in Washington.

Yet here comes news that their very pursuit of the office is adding to the taxpayer's burden.

In a short item, the Associated Press reported that "the Secret Service has asked for an extra $9.5 million to cover unexpected costs of protecting the presidential candidates during what has turned into a historic year for the agency’s campaign security job."

According to the AP story, the service already had anticipated a strain on its pocketbook, budgeting $106.65 million for the 2008 campaign cycle, up from $73.3 million in 2004 (at the time, a record).

What the service didn't expect was an unusual amount of campaign-related travel by Barack Obama and John McCain outside U.S. boundaries.

Obama, of course, is wrapping up an extensive overseas trek, much of which he deemed campaign-related (his initial stops -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- were as part of an official congressional delegation). And McCain made political trips to Canada, Colombia and Mexico.

Also incurring additional costs for the Secret Service, the AP noted, is Obama's decision "to accept the Democratic nomination at Denver’s Invesco Field at Mile High -- an open-air, 76,000-seat stadium -- instead of the 20,000-seat Pepsi Center, which is the site of the party’s national convention."

The main reason for the significant jump in protective expenses -- even before the new request is tacked on -- stems from the length and the leading players in the fight for the Democratic nod.

Hillary Clinton entered the race in early 2007 already guarded because of her status as a former first lady. Obama, largely because of racially motivated threats against him, had agents assigned to him in May 2007. And then the two proceeded to battle until this June, with hardly any breaks from the campaign trail.

Although McCain emerged as the obvious Republican nominee in early February, he initially resisted protection, saying it would impinge upon the up-close-and-personal contact with voters that he craves. A security detail finally was assigned -- and accepted by him -- in early spring.

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Associated Press

From veterans to the Dalai Lama, McCain has a day of contrasts

It was a day of unusual contrasts for Sen. John McCain. He began it with martial music playing, striding to the podium at a veterans’ convention in a downtown Denver hotel, and painting a dire portrait of how Iraq would have been lost if his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, had his way and ended the war there prematurely.

McCain finished his day hours later in the mountain air of Aspen, standing at the side of the Dalai Lama and praising the Tibetan exile’s lifelong commitment to nonviolence. (See video below.)

Here’s a sampling of what McCain had to say to the national convention of the GI Forum, a Latino veterans' group:

"The surge has succeeded and we are, at long last, winning this war."

He noted Obama opposed the surge. “If Sen. Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been very, very likely.

"Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened.”

Then, in Aspen: "I am very pleased and honored to meet with his holiness the Dalai Lama, a man of peace. His holiness represents the profound desire of millions of Tibetans for basic dignity and human rights.

"His nonviolence approach and his lifelong approach of seeking common ground around cultural and religious divides are an inspiration for all of mankind and to millions of Americans."

The Arizona senator did call on China to improve its treatment of Tibetans and release Tibetan political prisoners. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama stressed that the appearance was not an endorsement -- an aide said he’s also spoken to Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"My basic commitment," the Dalai Lama said, "is promotion of human values. That means human compassion, human affection."

--Nicholas Riccardi