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Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, a potentially endangered Republican in November's election, raised many an eyebrow recently with an ad that included an unexpected cameo.
"Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment?" asks a narrator. "Barack Obama."
TV viewers in the Beaver state then saw a flash of Obama's face and his campaign Web site as the ad went on to say the two lawmakers had teamed up "and broke through a 20-year deadlock to pass new laws that increase gas mileage for automobiles."
 Despite Smith's effort to scramble the partisan divide, it's comforting to know that in some cases, the old rules still apply -- such as a conservative Republican from Texas invoking a tried and true symbol of California liberalism, Sen. Barbara Boxer, as a way to raise money.
Boxer did her part to rate such a mention. On the Web site for a political action committee she set up, she recently conducted an online "Choose a Challenger" contest. Participants were given a list of various Democrats challengers trying to win GOP-held Senate seats this year and asked to vote on which one should be singled out for fundraising help by the PAC.
Down in the Lone Star State, Democrat Rick Noriega launched an effort to stack the deck. As part of his longshot bid to topple GOP Sen. John Cornyn, he urged backers to cast ballots for him in Boxer's tourney; a win, he said in an e-mail, could funnel "tens of thousands of dollars" into his coffers.
Not surprisingly, the Cornyn camp got wind of this and sought, in turn, to use it for its own financial advantage.
A solicitation to potential donors notified them that Noriega "is enlisting California Liberal (sic) Barbara Boxer’s help to raise money. The note continued: "Barbara Boxer, the one who opposed Chief Justice Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court and verbally assaulted Justice Alito during his confirmation process."
"But it gets worse. You know what Senator Boxer is up to now? To quote her own website: 'I want you to know that I won't give up in our fight to stop the drilling…'
"Gas is approaching $4.10 a gallon with no end in sight and Rick Noriega is asking for help from Barbara Boxer, who is leading the charge to stop domestic drilling making us even more dependent on foreign oil?"
"While Rick Noriega is counting on Californians to help his campaign, John Cornyn is counting on Texans just like you."
Sounds like Cornyn would be loathe to get caught in the same elevator with Boxer.
But here's another side of Washington. Cornyn is the vice chair of the Senate Ethics Committee that Boxer heads. And about a week after the missive excoriating her, Cornyn's Capitol Hill office issued a release touting an amendment they were jointly offering to require members of Congress to publicly disclose their residential mortgages (a touchy topic these days in the Senate).
The release included both of their names in its headline, provided quotes from each promoting their mutual cause and offered nary a hint of discord between the two.
Noriega, by the way, triumphed in Boxer's contest (for the results, go here).
--Don Frederick
The Republican National Committee has spun off its own independent expenditure committee and plans an initial $3 million ad buy targeting Barack Obama in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Politico reports.
Why the separate group?
Brad Todd, who will run the effort, blamed Obama in a statement to Politico: "Following Barack Obama's decision to become the only major party presidential candidate in history to not adhere to campaign spending caps, the Republican National Committee has begun an independent expenditure campaign in accordance with FEC regulations."
Under federal law there are no limits on how much the group can spend, though it cannot coordinate efforts with John McCain's campaign or the RNC. Still, both have helped to raise some of the funds that will launch the new effort.
So now we know where the RNC will be funneling some of its cash advantage over the Democratic National Committee to try to compensate for the record-breaking fundraising Obama has enjoyed. And the decision to target those Rust-Belt states underscores the GOP view that Obama is vulnerable in that part of the nation. Three of the four -- Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- went Democratic in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
Lot of white working-class men and women in those states, which account for 68 electoral votes.
-- Scott Martelle
As of now, Barack Obama seems committed to competing vigorously in Georgia and North Carolina -- the two states are among 18 that have been targeted for two waves of general election ads by his campaign.
But Obama's ultimate chances of carrying those two states -- as well as Mississippi, where some of his  supporters believe he has a shot -- are nil, argues Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland's Baltimore County campus.
Schaller brings an impressive pedigree to the table in making his case; he's the author of the 2006 book “Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South.” As summed up in this blurb, Schaller contended that for Democrats -- certainly those seeking the presidency -- "spending valuable resources in Southern states is a dangerously self-destructive strategy..."
In an Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times, he focuses his general thesis on the particulars of Obama's candidacy. For instance, he walks through the prospect of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee maximizing black turnout in Mississippi and winning 95% of that vote (John Kerry corralled 90% four years ago), and concludes that Obama still would come up short in the state.
A major hurdle for Obama throughout the Deep South, Schaller writes is this: "the more blacks there are in a Southern state, the more likely the white voters are to vote Republican."
The one state in the region that Schaller thinks Obama has a "reasonable chance" of winning is Virginia -- in part because the percentage of its black population is low, compared to most other Southern states, and in part because, he writes, it has been transformed by a "huge influx of upscale non-Southerners."
Virginia also is one of the states where the recent spate of Obama ads has been airing (a list that contains several traditionally GOP states, as we noted previously).
Despite Schaller's overview, many Democrats in the South are feeling feisty these days, as illustrated by this news from Mississippi.
President Bush traveled there today ...
Read more Barack Obama & the South: Forget about it, says an expert »
Wesley Clark told ABC's "Good Morning America" a little while ago that Barack Obama and his campaign had nothing to do with the comments he made the other day that John McCain's service record did not equip him to lead the nation.
Clark took a lot of heat for the comments -- and a veiled rebuke from Obama Monday -- and today added a little context: "I served 38 years in uniform. I'm proud of my service and I was asked to give my opinion about professional qualifications based on my experience." Clark said that as both a wounded combat vet and a high military officer "I have some appreciation for both levels of command and the qualities it takes at the top. I simply say it's a matter of judgment — experience, yes, it's important. It shows character and courage, but on the other hand there are other ways to show character and courage."
Clark didn't back down but said he respected McCain and his service, and was "very sorry this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out."
You can see the video of Clark here.
UPDATE: The McCain surrogates are having none of it, describing Obama's relationship with comments by Clark and others as a "wink and a nod game." But shouldn't that presumption cut both ways? To paraphrase an old axiom, live by the surrogate ...
UPDATE (3:53 p.m. PDT): Obama addressed the issue with reporters in Ohio today and said his comments in Missouri Monday were not intended as a rebuke to Clark, despite the timing: "Sen. McCain deserves the utmost honor and respect for his service to our country. I’ve said that repeatedly, I’ve said it all the time. I notice that in at least one publication it was reported that my comments yesterday on Sen. McCain were in response to Gen. Clark. I think my staff will confirm that was in a draft of a speech I’d written two months ago." -- Scott Martelle
We all remember John McCain's "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" mini-aria, and many of us have caught McCain during his late-night talk show appearances. He can be funny (though the laughs at his reworking the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" were far fewer than he may have anticipated). But can comedy kill the campaign?
Gawker has a piece (which includes some language inappropriate for this blog and which we want to warn readers about) on McCain's sense of humor and parallels to Ronald Reagan. It concludes McCain is no Gipper.
What strikes us as interesting is the issue of timing the piece raises. McCain made his "bomb Iran" joke more than a year ago -- before before his spectacular political collapse and resurrection. In many ways, McCain got a pass then. There was some backlash from people who likely wouldn't support McCain anyway, but the feeling was his campaign was moribund anyway, and the mini-flap quickly faded.
But what would happen if McCain cracked that joke now? Would that kind of stumble derail him? Or would it just further separate the pro-war from the antiwar votes?
Politics -- it's all in the timing.
-- Scott Martelle
Some Democrats have been known to complain that the party's last two vice presidential nominees -- Joe Lieberman in 2000 and John Edwards in 2004 -- shied away from the "attack dog" role often assumed by the politician holding down the second spot on a party's national ticket.
If Barack Obama is looking for combativeness in his pick, retired Gen. Wesley Clark signaled today that he's up to the task. Then again, Clark may have pursued a critique of John McCain that Obama and his aides would just as soon stay away from.
Appearing on the CBS chat show "Face the Nation," Clark -- who has rated prominent mention as a veep prospect both because he was a strong Hillary Clinton supporter and his credentials on the national security front -- backed off not one bit from his previous characterization of McCain as "untested and untried" as an executive leader.
Pressed on that quote by moderator Bob Schieffer, Clark said that "in the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk, it's a matter of gauging your opponents and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. ... He hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall. ..."
Pressed further by Schieffer, Clark then delivered perhaps the day's marquee quote: "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."
The McCain campaign responded quickly, teeing up Clark as a surrogate for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and blasting away: "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to question John McCain's military service, that's their right. But let's please drop the pretense that Barack Obama stands for a new type of politics. The reality is he's proving to be a typical politician who is willing to say anything to get elected, including allowing his campaign surrogates to demean and attack John McCain's military service record."
For a wrapup of some of the other back-and-forth on the Sunday shows -- including independent White House contender Ralph Nader pressing the assault he unleashed last week on Obama -- see this posting on the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog.
And The Times' Evan Halper recounts the needling California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took from NBC's Tom Brokaw during a "Meet the Press'" appearance. As Halper notes in his story, Schwarzenegger generally gets fawned over by the national media, but that wasn't the case in this encounter.
-- Don Frederick
You kind of remember the long Democratic primary campaign as, first of all, long. Even at times bitter.
Hillary Clinton, speaking today with the Democratic winner, Barack Obama, in New Hampshire, said, "It was spirited because we both care so much." Watching this video no one would doubt the caring, but it sure wasn't about each other.
"Spirited" would not quite describe some of the exchanges by Democratic candidates discussing Obama, which in the interests of the opposite of unity, the Republican National Committee has generously assembled and is suppressing widely around the country today as an antidote to the Democrats' "Kumbaya" spirit.
No doubt it's deeply appreciated.
--Andrew Malcolm
Don't you hate it when old Navy guys just can't get along? John McCain took a swipe at Jimmy Carter the other day in an interview, with the transcript getting posted over at the Las Vegas Sun earlier today. As the folks at CNN's Politicker point out, it's not just a gratuitous political shot, since McCain has been trying to tie Obama to Carter, generally considered by the right (and quite a few centrists) to have been an ineffectual president.
But the comments are a bit jarring. McCain was asked by interviewer Jon Ralston, a Nevada political observer and blogger, about Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste and Carter's decision to end reprocessing, which McCain held up as a possible solution to the nuke waste problem. "Q: You know why he did that then?
"A: Yes, because Carter was a lousy president .... This is the same guy who kissed Brezhnev ...."
Ralston also asked McCain whether his call for a gas tax holiday for the summer amounted to pandering. "I don’t think so. When I meet a guy who owns two trucks that run on diesel, who says he's going out of business, but may not have to if he is spared the 24-and-half-cent tax, which goes to things like a bridge to nowhere in Alaska." Ralston pointed out a Republican (actually it was two, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young) proposed that bridge. "As you know," McCain replied, "I've taken on Republicans and Democrats. Some of them dislike me intensely and some of them still won't endorse me."
Look out, Dale Carnegie.
-- Scott Martelle
John McCain has been trying hard of late to link Barack Obama with Jimmy Carter in the public consciousness, hoping that the "ineffectual" label that many voters affix to the former president will prove transferable.
 But Grover Norquist -- the conservative activist who specializes in promoting an anti-tax agenda and, more generally, revels in the role of agent provocateur -- is offering a different comparison.
Norquist dropped by The Times' Washington bureau today and, as part of his negative critique of Obama's liberal stances on economic issues and other matters, he termed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee "John Kerry with a tan."
Since Norquist isn't running for anything, he can get away with such remarks; we doubt McCain will be incorporating the line into his speeches anytime soon.
Norquist's clout on the right is such, however, that McCain and his aides will pay attention to his thoughts on who would fit well in the second spot on the GOP's presidential ticket. And in his chat with Times' reporters and editors, he was especially high on Bobby Jindal, the recently elected governor of Louisiana.
Norquist touted Jindal's success in pushing through tax-cut and ethics reform legislation during his short tenure as Louisiana's chief executive (no mention was made of the flap surrounding the governor for failing, so far, to live up to a promise to block a pay raise for state legislators).
Nominating Jindal for vice president also would generate a mother lode of contributions for Republicans from Americans of East Indian descent, Norquist predicted.
Another recipient of kind words as a veep prospect was Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota; Norquist praised his record on taxes save for one "mistake" -- approving a hike in state cigarette taxes in years past.
Norquist's most recent book is entitled "Leave Us Alone," which makes the case that Republicans can put together a post-Ronald Reagan governing coalition by appealing to voters who want government to stay out of their affairs.
Along those lines, he predicted that one reason conservative radio talk show hosts will rally behind McCain -- who many of them have been cool toward -- is that some Democratic leaders are advocating a return of the "fairness doctrine." That's the abandoned federal rule that required broadcasters to give equal time to opposing political viewpoints.
[UPDATE: John Kartch, Norquist's director of communications, e-mailed Friday with "two concerns" about the post. "One, it suggests that Grover was singling out Kerry. The entire statement was that Obama had no policy differences with Carter in 1980, [Walter] Mondale, [Michael] Dukakis, [Al] Gore or Kerry. 'Kerry with a tan,' was simply Kerry was the latest of the string. Two, to be fair to Kerry, Grover pointed out that even Kerry's reputation as a snob never went as far as Obama's contemptuous comment on middle America "clinging" to its guns and faith.]
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Associated Press
Ralph Nader isn't backing down.
Gee, what a surprise.
Controversial comments he made about Barack Obama in a newspaper interview garnered more coverage for him today than his little-noticed presidential campaign has received all year, including extended discussions on various cable news shows.
It also prompted Obama, when asked about the matter at a news conference, to dispute Nader's contention that he has been ignoring a range of issues.
Tonight, Nader responded with a statement that begins: "Sen. Obama said earlier today that I haven't been paying attention to his campaign.
"Actually, I have.
"And it's clear from Sen. Obama's campaign that he is not willing to tackle the white power structure -- whether in the form of the corporate power structure or many of the super-rich -- who are taking advantage of 100 million low-income Americans who are suffering in poverty or near poverty."
The rest of the statement can be read here.
--Don Frederick
Some writers aspire to snarky. Maureen Dowd is already there and not looking back.
At least until this week.
Reading Dowd is reminiscent of watching a Don Rickles' nightclub act, only with a lot more hair. You never know what outrageous thing is going to come out next. 
That, frankly, is why so many people read her regularly. She sounds spontaneous, producing the unexpected reading experience, not preformed and formulaic like so much modern newspaper writing.
She's a buzzmaker at a publication that has, until her, always wanted the institution to be the star, not the individual.
Which is why over the years so many gifted writers like Gay Talese, David Halberstam, David Broder, E.J. Dionne, Hedrick Smith and others left the well-paid but cloisterly confines of that paper.
Dowd showed early snarkiness and a keen eye for the scalpeled phrase while writing about George H.W. Bush. The borderline inappropriateness of some of her writing in the news columns and the fear of losing her....
Read more Maureen Dowd, N.Y. Times' snark-in-chief, gets a public scolding »
We almost wish we were there to see this happen.
-- Scott Martelle
We're in the thick of a pretty intense presidential campaign, but that doesn't mean all the scores from the 2004 election have been settled.
Veterans who served with John Kerry during the Vietnam  War released a letter and documents this week that they hope will put the lie to claims that Kerry's Navy service was anything less than exemplary.
The missive was delivered Thursday to Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who said in November that he would pay $1 million to anyone who could disprove even a single claim made against Kerry by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
That group launched a series of television ads against the Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee that undercut a crucial piece of his biography -- that he was a courageous war hero. Many Democrats felt the accusations helped kill Kerry's chances of defeating President Bush, so much so that they created a new verb form for unfair political attacks -- "Swift boating."
In their letter to Pickens, 10 of Kerry's comrades in arms said they were providing conclusive proof that the opposition group "lied about our skipper's and our service in Vietnam and in so doing, damaged our reputations and attacked the quality of our service to country."
The 15-page letter and 42 pages of Navy reports and other documentation focus principally on a 1969 engagement in which three boats under Kerry's supervision counterattacked after an ambush on a tributary of the Bay Hap River.
Kerry won a Silver Star for his actions, but critics contended he had exaggerated the incident and his own heroism. In this week's response, Kerry's crew offers details, after-action reports and the medal citation to prove that Kerry led with valor.
One of the most telling rebuttals to the anti-Kerry camp came from Bill Rood, who commanded one of the other swift boats that day. Rood, who went on ...
Read more John Kerry's Swift Boat pals to T. Boone: Cough up $1 million »
First, last fall, there were all kinds of people, a number of them Ron Paul supporters, dashing from Internet site to Internet site suggesting that John McCain could not serve as president of the United States.
That was because he was born outside the United States and, therefore, not native-born, as presidents must be constitutionally.
McCain was, in fact, born in a U.S. military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was serving in the Navy. That was, in fact, American-controlled territory at the time.
More importantly, his parents were both American citizens, so he could have been born on Mars and still been an American at birth. And a sense of the Senate resolution took care of any lingering doubts.
Now come the rumors about Barack Obama's birthplace, that he was really born in his father's native Kenya, so like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, he can't become a U.S. president.
Same rule would apply as for McCain. Obama's mother was an American. So is her son.
The Obama campaign has provided at The Ticket's request what it says is a copy of the Illinois senator's official birth certificate, reproduced here, showing he was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, at 7:24 p.m., which means he was late for dinner, just like a politician. Click on the photo to enlarge for reading.
Now, about the citizenship of all those people planting these rumors.
(UPDATE: In reaction to some of the comments left below challenging the veracity of the document, Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, sent the following reaction to The Ticket: "I can confirm that that is Sen. Obama's birth certificate.")
--Andrew Malcolm
Don't bring a knife to a gun fight, the old saying goes, but Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has suddenly escalated his rhetoric this weekend.
Sounds like he's anticipating some tough political struggling with the Republicans in these next few months, or trying to create that impression anyway. Or he just watched a 21-year-old movie (see video below).
"If they bring a knife to the fight," Obama told a crowd in Philadelphia last night about his Republican opponents, "we bring a gun."
Say what? This is only June! For pete's sake.
Is this the new kind of politician full of hope who wants to change Washington's ways? He anticipates some kind of close-in fighting with his 71-year-old opponent, John McCain, and his gang of GOP suits with their own secret signs?
Obama was responding to a man in the Pennsylvania crowd who, as the freshman Illinois senator was describing the no-doubt nefarious tactics he expects from GOP opponents this fall, shouted out, "Don't give in!"
"From what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl," Obama went on, according to the pooled press report. "I've seen Eagles fans."
Set aside for a moment the dissonant sound of an urban lawmaker speaking lightly about guns.
Or how about the fact that he stole that line from Sean Connery in "The Untouchables," which is from Chicago too, come to think of it. See video below. For a little more on this story, go here.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo Credit: AP
Two bits of campaign jab-and-spin, or, the debate about the debate.
This letter is from John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis this morning to Barack Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe: "Dear Mr. Plouffe,
"Thank you for responding to our proposal. Just to reiterate, we have proposed at least ten joint town hall meetings once a week until the week before the Democratic Convention begins. As we understand your counter-proposal, you have proposed only one town hall meeting before the Democratic Convention.
"In keeping with our original proposal, we are planning a joint town hall meeting in Minnesota next Thursday evening (June 19, 2008). We will hold time on our schedule for joint town halls every Thursday night until the Democratic Convention. I hope Sen. Obama would reconsider his position and agree to join Senator McCain as early as next week.
"We have also today accepted the invitation from Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Lynda Johnson Robb and Luci Baines Johnson to attend town hall meetings in July at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. As Mrs. Johnson said, these town halls will truly be an opportunity to "deliberate the great issues of our time." Their sponsorship certainly meets our standards for a positive and productive opportunity for voters to interact with the candidates. I hope you will agree.
"However, at this moment, we fear that our negotiations over joint town hall meetings are turning into a debate about process. That is exactly what we have always hoped to avoid, and why we proposed a town hall format that would render many of these process issues moot. As Sen. Obama has said, he is prepared to meet 'anywhere, anytime' for a town hall.
"We remain committed to this idea because joint town hall meetings offer the best format for presenting both candidates' visions for our country's future in a substantive way. We have a chance to change the way presidential elections are run and elevate the political dialogue. Americans deserve this kind of opportunity, and we hope that Sen. Obama will join us at town hall meetings throughout the summer months."
This from Plouffe: "Barack Obama offered to meet John McCain at five joint appearances between now and Election Day—the three traditional debates plus a joint town hall on the economy in July and an in-depth debate on foreign policy in August. That package of five engagements would have been the most of any Presidential campaign in the modern era -- offering a broad range of formats -- and representing a historic commitment to openness and transparency.
"It's disappointing that Senator McCain and his campaign decided to decline this proposal. Apparently they would rather contrive a political issue than foster a genuine discussion about the future of our country.
"Sen. Obama believes that the American people deserve an open and accessible debate as they choose between real change and four more years of failed Bush policies, and he welcomed McCain’s invitation to offer voters 'the rare opportunity of witnessing candidates for the highest office in the land discuss civilly and extensively the great issues at stake in the election.'"
Now, doesn't this new kind of politics make you feel positively warm and fuzzy? And stuck in a time warp?
-- Scott Martelle
This might shock you, but Bill and Hillary Clinton's people are still seething over Hillary Clinton's defeat in the Democratic primaries. It's already been -- what? -- five days since she surrendered after XX years of planning, working and dreaming of winning the biggest political prize in America.
Now comes word that those close to the Clintons are reportedly keeping lists of disloyal former associates who have defected to the camp of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. A less polite term might be "traitors." Or even "enemies."
According to a new article, "the Clintons get hundreds of requests for favors every week," said Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's recently deceased presidential campaign. "Clearly, the people you're going to do stuff for in the future are the people who have been there for you."
McAuliffe emphasized that "revenge is not what the Clintons are about." The accounting is more about being practical, he said, adding: "You have to keep track of this."
These details come from a New York Times story, since denied by the Clintons, about how the pair track those who cross them. High on that list would have to be New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was given several plum jobs by President Clinton, only to turn around and endorse Obama.
Good luck living long with that kind of anger bottled up inside. Oh, wait, the lists don't exist.
-- Andrew Malcolm
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...
Read more Top of the Ticket, the start of Year Two »
John McCain has carefully avoided mentioning the military service of his son Jimmy, a Marine who returned from his first tour in Iraq earlier this year, on the campaign trail -- to prevent anyone from suggesting he would use his son’s service for political advantage.
But this morning, McCain surrogate Joe Lieberman invoked that service to defend McCain, who was under fire from Democrats for saying during an interview that it’s "not too important" when U.S. troops leave post-surge Iraq.
When McCain was asked in the NBC’s "Today Show" interview about whether he could estimate when U.S. troops could leave Iraq, he said "No, but that's not too important." On an ensuing conference call organized by McCain’s campaign, Lieberman charged McCain’s Democratic foes and Barack Obama's campaign with distorting McCain’s words "to distract the American people from the fact that John McCain has been both courageous and right about the surge in Iraq and Barack Obama has unfortunately been consistently wrong."
He noted that McCain was answering a question about his estimate of when troops would return from Iraq based on the success of the troop surge in Iraq.
Lieberman said it was outrageous for McCain's critics to suggest that he’s out of touch with the needs of our troops.
"More than most any American, Sen. McCain knows the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform make and the burden that their families bear, and it really is wrong to suggest otherwise," Lieberman said. "Obviously he knows that from his own—from his father’s service and the impact it had on his family; from his own service and incarceration; from his eight visits to Iraq -- on which I’ve been with him on a lot of them -- and interacting with our troops there; and of course from the fact that his son was deployed to Iraq."
Lieberman dropped off the conference call in the middle of questions from reporters. McCain's foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, declined to comment when asked whether Jimmy McCain's service would now be part of the campaign.
-- Maeve Reston
You know, sometimes it really does feel like this is the way campaigns go.
-- Scott Martelle
Our colleague Robin Abcarian has a good piece over on The Times' Campaign '08 page and, being the great writer that she is, she sums it up best herself with her lede: "They loved to hate Hillary Rodham Clinton. They loved to hate Teresa Heinz Kerry. And now, it appears, conservative voices are energetically taking on Michelle Obama."
Abcarian delves into the Tennessee Republican Party's Web video mocking Obama's "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country" comment and how it will echo through the fall election. More significantly, the piece raises the question of whether a candidate's spouse is fair game. There are several ways to slice that up, but you have to figure that if a spouse is out t here on the campaign trail, the spouse -- be it Obama, Bill Clinton or Cindy McCain -- is fair game, for fair criticism.
What's curious is that the most vocal critics, as Abcarian writes, tend to be conservatives sniping at Democrats. (But then, Republican candidate spouses haven't made as much news as the Democratic spouses). And fairness tends to be in the eye of the beholder (Evidence: the comment sections on this and other blogs).
But for the candidates, the prime issue is to make sure the spouse isn't stumbling around off message, and saying things that anger the very people you're trying to appeal to and give ammunition to those who oppose you.
-- Scott Martelle
Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
If politics were a baseball game, then John McCain just lobbed a pitch that he may wish he could have back.
In a TV interview this morning on NBC's "Today" show, McCain was asked whether he could estimate when U.S. troops could leave post-surge Iraq. "No, but that's not too important," McCain said. "What's important is casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That's all fine. American casualties, and the ability to withdraw. We will be able to withdraw. ... But the key to it is we don't want any more Americans in harm's way."
Democratic leaders lined up to take swings, conveniently ignoring the backing context McCain offered that he is more concerned with casualties than length of deployment.
Harry Reid, Senate majority leader: "McCain’s statement today that withdrawing troops doesn’t matter is a crystal-clear indicator that he just doesn’t get the grave national-security consequences of staying the cour se -– Osama bin Laden is freely plotting attacks, our efforts in Afghanistan are undermanned, and our military readiness has been dangerously diminished. We need a smart change in strategy to make America more secure, not a commitment to indefinitely keep our troops in an intractable civil war."
Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: "I think many of our brave soldiers and their families would disagree that it's 'not too important' when they come home. Knowing when our troops can come home from Iraq is vitally important, because the costs of staying with 140,000 or more troops are getting steeper every day. ... It is long past time to refocus our foreign policy on the many challenges we face, not just Iraq. Like President Bush, Sen. McCain cannot tell the American people when, or even if, Iraqis will come together politically -- which was [the] purpose of the surge in the first place. He can't tell us when, or even if, we will draw down below pre-surge levels. He can't tell us when, or even if, Iraq will be able to stand on its own two feet. He can't tell us when, or even if, this war will end."
Rahm Emanuel, House Democratic Caucus chair: "Once again, John McCain has displayed a fundamental misunderstanding about the situation in Iraq, our strained military, and American troops and their families. ... With each passing day, the more John McCain talks about Iraq, the more the American people are reminded of how much we need change in Washington -- not more of the same from Sen. McCain."
-- Scott Martelle
Photo: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times
First, we need to clear the air about our colleague, David Sarno, the clever fellow who writes for The Times' Web Scout blog.
No one has come forward with any proof of the rumors that he's a Chinese sleeper agent sent here to confuse Americans about how the Internet and popular culture interface while his parents a re held hostage back home.
None of that is probably true.
As far as we know at The Ticket, David is hardly behind on his taxes at all. Most of the speeding tickets have been paid. And the Hollywood incident never came to court.
So he's perfectly well-qualified to write about what he's writing about today: the damaging power of rumors in politics, their viral spread on the Web and the urgent need to combat them constantly. It's a fascinating column that deals mostly with the efforts of Barack Obama's campaign to fight distorted truths and outright lies.
All candidates have rumor problems and virtually all campaigns experience and/or employ some dirty tricks, some as simple as stealing opponents' lawn signs, others push polling or worse.
It didn't take the speed of the Internet for 19th century political campaigns to spread ugly words about their opponents, things like illegitimate children, for instance. And without widespread photographs, cartoons in partisan papers could distort into ugliness an opponent's visage free of visual refutation.
In 2000, Sen. John McCain ran into a rumor buzzsaw in the South Carolina Republican primary when word was spread that the McCains' dark-skinned adopted daughter from Bangladesh was really -- here we go again -- an illegitimate child of his with a black woman.
This time the campaign against McCain is much more subtle and wrapped in smiles. It's ageism. His opponents spread and encourage all kinds of jokes and stories about his age and mental capabilities, using the cover of humor to try to make acceptable the undocumented planting of doubt.
If the same kinds of "jokes" were told about Sen. Hillary Clinton's, let's say, inability to drive properly because, well, you know women drivers, or her mood swings at certain times during the campaign, people would be quite properly outraged.
But Sarno, who isn't very old for a young person, focuses on Obama's efforts to combat untrue stories of the candidate's Muslim faith. It's a really good and revealing read here, despite what we heard about David's hunting trip to Manitoba.
-- Andrew Malcolm
P.S. Some people may have noticed Scarlett Johansson's stunning photograph here. And they may also have wondered what she has to do with our blog item on David Sarno's blog item on politics and the Internet. That's a good question. To get the answer, place your cursor on the photograph. Also, we warned Ticket readers way back here.
Photo credit: WireImage
For the first time since he was elected to the Senate 24 years ago, John Kerry, who voted for the use of military force in Iraq before he opposed the conflict, will face a primary challenger for his Massachusetts seat.
Attorney and former Gloucester City Councilman Ed O'Reilly, a onetime commercial lobsterman, won 22.5% of the delega tes Saturday at the Democratic state convention in Lowell, Mass., to secure a place on the state primary ballot in September.
O'Reilly has been endorsed by Progressive Democrats of America, the antiwar group that helped activist Donna Edwards unseat eight-term incumbent Democratic Rep. Albert R. Wynn in Maryland earlier this year.
Just four years ago Kerry was the losing Democratic nominee for president. He won the state party's endorsement today by capturing a majority of the convention delegates. He's expected to turn back the challenge.
"I'm here with humility to ask for your support," Kerry said.. "We have literally so much unfinished business ... My friends, I have more energy, I feel more focused, I'm more ready for the fight than ever before."
The last serious challenge Kerry faced for the Senate seat was in 1996, when he beat Republican Massachusetts Gov. William Weld in what was seen as a contest between potential presidential contenders. He's not faced a Democratic challenger since winning a three-way primary in 1984 to succeed Sen. Paul Tsongas.
The winner of the Sept. 16 primary will face Republican candidate Jeff Beatty in the general election. Matthew Hay Brown has the full story here.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo Credit: AP
With all the sudden emergence of unity talk and who should be president at today's long-awaited endorsement of Barack Obama by Hillary Clinton, it's easy perhaps to forget that it wasn't so long ago that these two -- plus others involved in this historic Democratic nomination contest -- had some contrary, not-so-nice things to say about the party's new presumptive nominee.
Now here, like clockwork in the two-party political system, comes the Republican National Committee, which has cleverly assembled a series of film clips of both Clintons, John Edwards and Joe Biden talking about Obama in unflattering ways from the not-so-distant past. It has also created a lengthy web display of transcripts and videos here of Clinton's many criticisms of the man she now heartily endorses.
As these tit-for-tat political ploys go, this one packs a bit of a punch. Here's a little piece of timing to ponder. You remember how long it feels since that cold caucus night in Iowa when Obama took first and Clinton's third-place finish foretold fundamental troubles that ended with today's euthanasia of her flailing campaign?
Well, we're not quite halfway from that night until election day Nov. 4.
And in the remaining 21 weeks until then, we're pretty sure to see this video or pieces of it many more times.
--Andrew Malcolm
Hillary Clinton's campaign is in full damage-control mode after her remarks on Friday that referenced the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in a way that some perceived as offensive to Barack Obama.
Sunday's New York Daily News has a two-page "exclusive" from the candidate herself "to set the record straight" about her comments, which she said were taken "entirely out of context and interpreted ... to mean something completely different -- and completely unthinkable."
And her communications director, Howard Wolfson, and campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, used their appearances on the Sunday talk shows to blame Obama's campaign (along with the media) for the resulting firestorm.
Clinton says that in her appearance ...
Read more Hillary Clinton explains -- again -- about her RFK assassination remark »
Election Day is still more than five months away, and Barack Obama has yet to obtain the "presumptive nominee" tag in the Democratic presidential race. But if the verbal brickbats John McCain hurled at him today are any indication, a prospective general election matchup between the two will bear little resemblance to the reasoned, civil campaign both have said they will strive for.
 It's been fairly obvious for some time that McCain not only has less respect for Obama than Hillary Clinton, but that it's easier for the senator from Illinois to get his goat. McCain's reaction today to a barb Obama directed at him removed all doubts on those fronts.
Obama, taking to the Senate floor in the morning before returning to the campaign trail later in the afternoon, personalized an impending vote on a veterans benefits bill by noting McCain was against it. After making a nod -- as he almost always does when mentioning him -- to McCain's military record, Obama said, "I can't understand why he would line up behind" President Bush in opposing the measure.
A release from McCain, who was campaigning in California, followed quickly, notable for the unconcealed contempt expressed toward Obama.
It begins with a bold-faced quote from McCain: "Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."
So much for the Senate's tradition of collegiality.
Then, in the longer statement that follows, McCain has this to say about his potential White House rival: "And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."
In the past...
Read more Barack Obama gets under John McCain's skin »
Must be something in the air.
Two days after Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate, stirred a hornet's nest with harsh words about Barack Obama, Sen. Joe Lieberman, the party's 2000 veep nominee, burnished his credentials as a political renegade.
Ferraro has merely suggested she will bolt the party if Obama heads its presidential ticket; Lieberman long ago fervently embraced Republican John McCain's candidacy. And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that appeared today, Lieberman scorched Obama.
After a discourse on the ebb and flow of Democratic foreign policy positions since World War II, Lieberman concludes that -- to his chagrin -- "activists have successfully pulled [the party] further to the left than it had been at any point in the last 20 years."
Than he gets to the matter of the moment -- lambasting Obama, as McCain has done -- for saying that as president, he would eschew preconditions to meet directly with leaders of anti-American governments. Lieberman also scoffs at Obama's contention that his stance parallels the negotiating positions of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan (among others).
Lieberman asserts that it is impossible to imagine either president "sitting down unconditionally" with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The entire commentary can be read here.
Eventually, the Democrats will have a confirmed presidential nominee and that choice will sit down and start seriously vetting a potential running mate. It would seem an additional question is called for: Can you envision someday turning on your party?
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama got mangled in Kentucky tonight by Sen. Hillary Clinton (see her video at bottom) by a better than two-to-one margin. But he basically ignored that setback and returned to an enthusiastic crowd at the scene of his initial primary season victory tonight and talked to Iowans over and over and over about change.
In fact, even before learning of his Oregon victory, standing before the state capitol in Des Moines, the freshman senator said the word change 14 times. That provides a pretty obvious clue to the major theme he envisions in the already building general election campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Obama congratulated Clinton on her overwhelming Kentucky victory and praised her as a pioneer, perhaps an early indication of reaching out to Clinton supporters, many of whom still cling to hopes of a mathematical miracle in her struggle for convention delegates. Obama said, "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has changed the America my daughters and your daughters will come of age."
The crowd gave a half-hearted cheer.
He made the obligatory attack on McCain, saying, "The lobbyists who rule George Bush's Washington are now running Sen. McCain's campaign."
"McCain," Obama added, "is not change."
"Our journey may be long," Obama said, his voice rising. "Our work may be great. But we know in our hearts we're ready for change."
"Iowa," he added to growing cheers, "change is coming to America. Change is coming."
In case, you didn't get it, Obama thinks change is coming. And he is it.
--Andrew Malcolm
Hillary Clinton stalwart Geraldine Ferraro got the week off to a rousing start by declaring to the New York Times that Barack Obama is "terribly sexist."
She elaborated this morning on the "Today" show, describing as "dismissive" Obama's crack, dur | |
Despite Smith's effort to scramble the partisan divide, it's comforting to know that in some cases, the old rules still apply -- such as a conservative Republican from Texas invoking a tried and true symbol of California liberalism, Sen. Barbara Boxer, as a way to raise money.
