Winning over Ron Paul on John McCain's to-do list

John McCain wooing Ron Paul?

That's what the Washington Times reported today. Here's the lead to the story by veteran political reporter Ralph Z. Hallow:

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The McCain campaign, acting through the Republican National Committee, has been negotiating with Rep. Ron Paul to win his support and acquire the names of his sympathizers among the 4,607 delegates and alternates at the Republican National Convention, according to a senior aide to the Texas congressman.

Paul might go along with providing the McCain forces entree to his allies (at which point we imagine the aides to the almost-official Republican presidential nominee still will face a daunting task). But Paul himself seemed to douse any possibility that he'll be sharing a podium anytime soon with McCain and offering himself as a backer.

Appearing on C-SPAN today, before hosting a large gathering of his devotees near the site of the GOP convention, Paul noted that his entire political career has been devoted to three core principles: limited government, a balanced budget and a "sensible" foreign policy.

Referring to McCain, Paul said (in his typically low-key manner) that "it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense" for him to support someone who, in his view, does not adhere to those positions.

Good point.

-- Don Frederick

Credit: Associated Press

John McCain's housing gaffe: Democrats likely to dwell on it

DENVER -- Here's an early taste of a taunt that -- in different forms and phrasing, from speakers of all shapes and sizes -- can be expected to resound constantly at this week's Democratic National Convention.

Various labor groups, a key party constituency, gathered for a large rally Sunday in the convention city and Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, wasted little time cutting to the chase.

The Times' Ole Jann was there and reports that Baker opened the proceedings by asking the crowd of about 2,000: “And how many houses do you have?”

“One,” most shouted back, with some even proclaiming, “None.”

“No cheating here," Holt Baker added. "I am going to get back to your staff about that."

And John McCain, in the wake of his now infamous gaffe about the extent of his property holdings, can brace for other Democrats to get back to it again, and again, and again.

-- Don Frederick 

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Joe Biden's crack about wife Jill? No problem, Nancy Pelosi says

DENVER -- So which stumble at today's Democratic lovefest in Springfield, Ill., will live on the longest -- Barack Obama introducing his running mate pick as "the next president," or the Joe Biden crack about his wife that has not been universally well received?

If it's the latter, at least Biden gets a pass on it from the highest-ranking woman in the history of U.S. politics -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi had barely arrived in Denver this afternoon before she was holding court at a small luncheon with the media at the city's historic Brown Palace Hotel.

As the session wrapped up, and she was offering the expected prediction that the about-to-begin Democratic National Convention would "achieve its purpose" of sealing any overt cracks in party unity, a pesky reporter asked if Biden's attempt at humor about his mate might exacerbate efforts to get all of Hillary Clinton's hard-core backers on the bandwagon.

Here's what Biden had said in his debut as the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee:

"Ladies and gentlemen, my wife Jill, who you'll meet soon, is drop dead gorgeous. My wife Jill, who you'll meet soon, she also has her doctorate degree, which is a problem. But all kidding aside ..."

Pelosi, who had spent much of the lunch depicting an America in dire straits after eight years of a Republican administration, didn't miss a beat: "Lighten up," she said. "We've got a planet to save."

She added that if Biden found his wife beautiful, "That's A-OK."

But what about the PhD part of Biden's comment? That's what sparked reaction in the blogosphere, including an item by Adele Stan on Huffington Post headlined: "Careful Joe! 'Smart Women" Jokes a Dicey Game."

Of the "gorgeous" remark, Stan opined: "Nothing wrong with that. Who wouldn't want to be described as such by his or her partner?"

But of the doctorate addendum, she wrote: "It was obviously a failed attempt at humor. Or perhaps I'm just a humorless feminist. Either way, one can only hope this isn't a harbinger of gaffes to come."

Clinton's name came up a couple of times at the Pelosi gathering. The speaker was asked... 

Mystery solved*: Barack Obama was American-born

*Except, of course, for the conspiracy theorists out there.

One of the subtexts to the presidential campaign so far has been speculation by haters of both Barack Obama and John McCain that neither is eligible to be president because neither was born in the U.S.

In the case of McCain, he was born to U.S. citizens in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone while his military father was stationed there. McCain's Senate colleagues pooh-poohed the idea that disqualified him, and lawyers are wrestling over it, but we doubt that a challenge on those grounds will get far.

In Obama's case, there has been rampant online speculation that his birth certificate is forged or altered somehow. Well, the folks at FactCheck.org say they have seen the certificate, touched and vouched it -- Obama is as American as baseball, apple pie and, these days, burritos, pasta and kung pao chicken.

So that should settle it ... unless ... wait ... the people at FactCheck.org use computers, with keypads, that have the letters r-e-z-k-o on them, which just happened to spell the name of one of Obama's disgraced former backers ... and they were in Chicago to see the birth certificate at ... Obama headquarters ... CONNECT THE DOTS, PEOPLE!

--Scott Martelle

Photo: Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times

Robin Leach on the lifestyles of the rich and political -- John McCain

Robin Leach isn’t your usual political pundit. But the former champagne-toasting host of the TV hit of the mid-'80s to mid-'90s, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," may be more qualified than most to opine on John McCain's now-infamous inability to remember how many homes he owns.

In an early morning phone call Friday from his fabulous crib in Las Vegas, Leach told The Times that he isn’t really surprised at McCain's odd memory lapse given the complex lives that the super-rich lead.

"He probably was confused as to which homes are in his name, his wife's name, or corporate names," Leach explained in his familiar, deep British baritone. "In his attempt to be honest, he put his foot in his mouth."

Indeed, McCain’s four homes and at least four other residential properties are held in the name of his wife, Cindy, and her dependent children through a series of partnerships and trusts. Their combined value is nearly $14 million.

Leach said McCain "tends to answer questions very rapidly without thinking of the correct answers. ... I would call it honest confusion."

The British-born Leach isn't a U.S. citizen and thus can't vote. But for a man famous for focusing on froth, he took a serious view of America's latest political fracas.

"This has nothing to do with the issues candidates should be discussing," he said. "Let’s talk about real things, not silly things. It’s irrelevant whether the future president has one home or ten."

"It’s nothing to get into a kerfuffle about," he added. "It’s silly and ridiculous."

As host of "Lifestyles," Leach served as an always-enthusiastic tour guide to the extravagant homes of wealthy entertainers, athletes and business moguls. He ended each segment with his signature sign-off: "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams!"

Now 66, Leach writes books and a blog, travels widely, and owns an HDTV studio in Las Vegas.

-- Bob Drogin

Rapid response: Obama and McCain's lightning-quick attack "house" ads prove a point

Politics, like so many things in this age of Twitter and the 24-hour news cycle, is speeding up.

A candidate's gaffe sometimes took days or weeks to swell into a matter of swirling debate. Now, the fur almost always starts flying right away.

Today provided the perfect example of this new political paradigm.

This morning, just hours after John McCain told a Politico.com reporter that he wasn't quite sure how many houses he owned, Barack Obama pounced. The Illinois senator scoffed at McCain's blunder in a speech this morning, and the campaign released a cable television commercial that attacked the Republican as out of touch with Americans who are struggling economically.

But the McCain camp struck back in a flash. In plenty of time for the evening news on the East Coast , it was up with an ad that mentions Obama's "million-dollar mansion" and questions the Democrat's dealings with Chicago political fundraiser -- and convicted felon -- Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

Obama's camp isn't likely to drop the "McCain doesn't know how many houses he has" line soon. It thinks it will help paint McCain, the man who defined "rich" as having $5 million, as an out-of-touch elitist. But at the rate that political fires get put out these days, we wonder what kind of impact it will have.

Here are both of the ads. The transcripts are after the jump.

Barack Obama, John McCain take aim at glass houses

Now THIS is what we like to see -- the campaigns focusing on the issues that matter (and yes, we know, sarcasm doesn't translate well in print, but trust us, it's there). If we worked for Comedy Central, we'd be offering up a little logo here: "It's Gaffe-orific!"

John McCain -- who, as they say, married well -- couldn't answer a question Wednesday that most people have no trouble answering: How many houses do you own?

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you." The staff response: Four homes. The reality: Seven homes.

Not a good flub for the candidate who the other day defined (in a joke, the campaign said later) being rich as making $5 million a year (what's so bad about $4 million?), and whose economic surrogate thinks most voters concerned about their own deteriorating financial well-being are just a bunch of whiners.

In baseball terms, that's known as hanging a curveball. And this morning you can't find a Democrat who's not holding a baseball bat, swinging away. Barack Obama's campaign may have set a record getting an ad up about it.

Even Obama -- who usually leaves this stuff to the surrogates and staffers -- got into it, weaving a jab into a comment earlier today in Chester, Va. (Transcript is from the campaign; video is below):

I guess if you think that being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you’re like me, and you’ve got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don’t lose their home, you might have a different perspective. ... So there’s just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain’s world and what people are going through every single day here in America."

Of course, McCain's people couldn't leave Obama's reference to his own house dangling out there. That's the house, you'll recall, next to the lot Obama got a deal on through his friendship with now-convicted Chicago wheeler-dealer Antoin "Tony" Rezko. McCain's spokesman Brian Rogers:

Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people 'cling' to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans? The reality is that Barack Obama’s plans to raise taxes, and opposition to producing more energy here at home as gas prices skyrocket show he’s completely out of touch with the concerns of average Americans.

Ah, democracy!

-- Scott Martelle

Now, ABC's Stephanopoulos goofs on Czechoslovakia! What gives?

What is the deal with Czechoslovakia? It doesn't exist. Since last century.

Swell-sounding word and all. But so many folks keep talking about it like it's another actual country that could be invaded by the former Soviet Union, currently run in actuality by the new Czar Putin.

And it's a bipartisan gaffe. Republican Sen. John McCain. Former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn, who'll turn 70 if he can last another couple of weeks.

And now, in all fairness, we must admit that a prominent member of the media, formerly of the political Clinton clan, has made the same gaffe in front of a few million people.

George Stephanopoulos.

If George was 71 years old, we could have a really good time making fun of him and suggesting his obvious mental decline caused him to forget his history, that Czechoslovakia evaporated in 1993 and became the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

But boy George won't be 71 for another 24 years. And how also do we explain former senator and current Barack Obama surrogate Tom Daschle mis-dating the disappearance of Czechoslovakia on the same "This Week" program today?

At "only" 60, Daschle doesn't even qualify for senior fares on Southwest. So how can anyone make fun of his geriatricness?

While interviewing Daschle and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (who's nine months older than Daschle and looks every day of it), Stephanopoulos, the show's host, asked Romney:

"How do you respond to the argument that by pushing for Georgia to be in NATO, by pushing for Ukraine to be in NATO, by putting a missile defense system in Czechoslovakia, this was seen as belligerent and aggressive by Putin [who's 57, by the way] and kind of brought him in?"

As guests, neither Romney nor Daschle corrected their host. Imagine that, on national TV. However, apparently attempting a sly zinger from his memorized talking points at McCain's previous Czechoslovakia gaffe, Daschle then committed one of his own.

"Barack Obama knows," the former senator declared, "we haven't had a Czechoslovakia for the last 20 years."

If Barack Obama indeed does know that, then he too is off -- by five years.

Or maybe all this means simply that regardless of age, each of us can mis-speak. Or mis-spill words. And not everyone knows who Gustav Mahler is. (Place your cursor on the photo, read, then click.)

-- Andrew Malcolm

With a Hat Tip to our buddy Frank James over at the Swamp.

Photo credit: Some really old book.

Jackson Browne sues John McCain over song use

Jackson Browne is suing John McCain for using the song "Running on Empty" in a campaign ad -- and the veteran rocker is also calling the candidate a great pretender when it comes to standing up for constitutional rights.

Browne, one of rock music's most famous activists for liberal causes, is "incensed" that the presumptive Republican candidate for president has been using Browne's signature 1977 song "Running on Empty" in campaign commercials, according to the singer-songwriter's attorney. Browne filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against both McCain and the Republican National Committee on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting the use of the forlorn arena anthem or any other Browne compositions, as well as damages.

They may be suing the wrong people. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers tells our colleague Seema Mehta in Colorado that the ad in question is not a McCain campaign ad but one put together by the Ohio Republican Party.

But Browne's attorney, Lawrence Y. Iser, says they have the right defendants. "We have sued the Ohio Republican Party as well, and we have been informed and believe that McCain and his campaign were well aware of the ad. We are also informed and believe that the ad was broadcast on television in Ohio and Pennsylvania.... The fact that it appears on the Internet means it also reaches an audience well beyond those states."

Iser said the lawsuit "is not politically motivated. It's a copyright infringement lawsuit, pure and simple, but the fact that Sen. McCain has used this song in a hit-piece on Barack Obama is anathema to Jackson."

Iser claims the McCain campaign has a track record of using music without permission.

"They used a John Mellencamp song until he made them stop and he used an ABBA song and a Frankie Valli song -- it's ridiculous and it's setting a terrible example," Iser said. "It's shocking that they don't even attempt to get permission. There's no copyright difference between using a song to sell cars or by people running for president. The music industry continues to suffer due to lack of respect for intellectual property rights, and a candidate for president has a duty to lead by example and ensuring their campaign does as well. The copyright protections are derived from the Constitution itself."

In the commercial in question, Barack Obama is mocked for suggesting that the country conserve gas through proper tire inflation. The suit claims that use of the song violates the Lanham Act by falsely implying that Browne is associated with or endorses the McCain candidacy.  The suit also claims the commercial violates Browne's right of publicity under California law.

Real good talker Barack Obama loses mind on stage

We've had some fun here at The Ticket in recent months over Barack Obama's 57-state remark and his promise to meet with the president of Canada and his shouted greeting to one city when he was actually in another. (Yes, and John McCain's and Sam Nunn's shared fondness for good old Czechoslovakia.)

The poor famous guy in this video from an Indiana TV station may be a regular rock star in Germany and have just turned 47 last week. Which, admittedly, is getting up there in years.

And he did not have his usual teleprompter. But it sure does sound like he's not very happy with this America that he wants to be the president of, if he really doesn't want his daughters to grow up in it.

Now, we understand why the freshman senator ended up dodging that summertime series of joint townhall meetings with the veteran McCain.

But whatever Obama meant to say, the guy really, really needs a vacation. May he and his family thoroughly enjoy and soak up the warmth from the sands of Hawaii together this whole week and not even use the word townhall in a vicious game of S-c-r-a-b-b-l-e.

--Andrew Malcolm

John Edwards' sincerity has been questioned before

The revelations the last couple of days about the romantic affair that former senator, former vice presidential nominee and former presidential candidate John Edwards had with Rielle Hunter outside his marriage prompted our blogging colleague Jim Tankersley over at the Swamp to pull out a profile he wrote on Edwards last year.

Even today, his words seem pretty prescient. At the end of this item be sure to watch the video on Rielle Hunter.

Edwards' admissions -- that he had an affair while his wife Elizabeth battled cancer -- break sharply from the family-man image the former senator has cultivated his entire political career. They also crystallize many detractors' long-held worries about Edwards' sincerity and authenticity.

As I wrote in a profile of Edwards last year:

(Former John Kerry consultant Bob) Shrum's memoir, published this year, hints at what rivals say could keep Edwards from the nomination: a question of authenticity.

Shrum writes that Edwards, interviewing with Kerry for the vice-presidential ...

Sex and politics: A Ticket photo gallery of Edwards, Spitzer, Craig, Vitter et al

And the beat goes on.

The recent revelations about former Democratic senator, former vice presidential nominee and former presidential candidate John Edwards and what he said was a brief affair with videographer Rielle Hunter in 2006 brings back a long list of other familiar names.

Eliot Spitzer. Remember him? Used to be New York's Democratic governor. And Ashley Alexandra Dupre, who, judging by her reported fees, apparently charged her clients by the second? (See photo of her celebrating something with V-for-victory signs.)

And Larry Craig, who used to be a Republican senator from Idaho until some toe-tapping in the men's room of the Minneapolis airport led to his arrest last summer and his announced resignation when that got out and he said he wasn't gay.

But, oh wait, right, he changed his mind. He still said he was not gay. But he decided not to resign. So he's still a Republican senator from Idaho until his term ends after this year. The state party surely loves that. 

Sex and politics, there's something about that mix -- or maybe it's not really a mix -- that sends an endless array of characters across the public stage having somehow misbehaved according to hypocritical American customs that require we condemn public people for doing what so many others do themselves.

So to commemorate these dramatic public moments, The Ticket has arranged a special Sex and Politics photo gallery of some of the more recent cases. We could probably go back to ancient Greek times for more examples. But the photography then was just awful.

One of the most striking characteristics of this photo gallery are the faces of the spouses, standing by their man and often unsuccessfully hiding the pain. As was asked after the Spitzer affair, why do they do it? At least the Edwards couple issued separate statements, and not in public, to provide yet another apologetic husband and stoic wife.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo credits: Extra via Associated Press (top); MySpace via AFP / Getty Images

Rielle Hunter video of John Edwards' during affair

This morning former Sen. John Edwards admitted an affair with a videographer named Rielle Hunter, an issue The Ticket has reported on here previously and here last night and in the Opinion L.A. blog on July 23.

This afternoon, after taping an ABC-TV interview for broadcast later, Edwards issued a printed statement admitting the affair. Later, his wife, Elizabeth, also issued a statement. The full text of both is published on the secondpage of this item, click on the Read more line.

The 55-year-old lawyer, former Democratic vice presidential nominee and former North Carolina senator said:

"In 2006 I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness.

"Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99 percent honest is no longer enough."

The complete text of Edwards' statement is available here by clicking on the Read more line below.

Despite her lack of experience, Hunter was hired in 2006 to make a series of behind-the-scenes campaign videos on Edwards for his ultimately unsuccessful run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Those videos were exhibited on the Edwards website for a brief time last year.

Then, they disappeared.

However, The Ticket has obtained Chapter I of those videos called, in ironic hindsight, "Plane Truths."

The film includes casual in-flight interviews of Edwards during trips to speeches, the candidate making fun of his staff, discussing his speech notes and then cutaways to the actual passages in his later speech and ruminations about the political process in America today, how modern politicians so easily just get speaking a reel and not the truth. All designed to show, presumably, the candidate's human side.

Often, you hear the voice of a woman off-camera asking questions or laughing heartily at some Edwards' comment, which he appears to enjoy.

You do not see the woman. However, the film is dated 2007 and is fully credited to the 42-year-old Rielle Hunter. It's titled "Inspiring Politics: A Webisode Series John Edwards. "

In the opening, the former Democratic presidential candidate, who finished second in the Iowa caucuses, says:

"I've come to the personal conclusion that I actually want the country to see who I am, who I really am. But I don't know what the results of that will be.

"But for me personally I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll you put out in front of audiences. That's not me, you know."

In his statement Edwards also denies paternity for Hunter's baby and<

offers to take any tests to prove that. He also denies making any financial payments to Hunter or to the Edwards friend who's taken responsibility for the infant, Frances Quinn Hunter, born Feb. 27, although her birth certificate carries no father's name.

"It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry," Edwards continues, "as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry.

"In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up -- feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself."

He says with this statement and his TV interview he will have nothing further to say on the matter.

According to the Associated Press, Edwards' One America Committee paid $100,000 to Midline Groove Productions on July 6, 2006, five days after Hunter, who had no previous video experience, incorporated the firm in Delaware. She produced four webisodes, one only 150-seconds long.

To see the full texts of both Edwards' statements, click the Read more line below.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo: Extra via Associated Press

ABC News: John Edwards admits affair, denies paternity

ABC News is reporting that John Edwards confirmed that he indeed had an affair with videographer Rielle Hunter, but denied that he is the father of her baby -- the subject of recent allegations in the National Enquirer that have launched a broad debate over the media's responsibility in pursuing such stories.

In an interview with Bob Woodruff to air this evening, Edwards admits to having an affair with Hunter but says it began and ended while the cancer afflicting his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, was in remission. The disease has since flared anew.

ABC said that Edwards, who has not taken a paternity test, contended he could not be the father of Hunter's baby because the affair ended before the child's conception. A former aide, Andrew Young, has said that he is the father though a birth certificate apparently lists no father for the child.

It was unclear whether Edwards had been on Barack Obama's short list of vice presidential contenders, but his admission would seem to put a spike in that, not to mention any high-profile role at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 25-28 in Denver.

Added to the controversy: Edwards lied about the affair when the Enquirer first raised the issue in October. As The Ticket reported then, Edwards, then actively seeking the Democratic nomination, told reporters the story was "false" and "ridiculous."

Video of the news can be seen here.

-- Scott Martelle

Photo: Associated Press

'I am not a racist,' ex-President Bill Clinton asserts

Former presidents get a whole lot of leeway in what they say in public. But former President Bill Clinton just violated one of the prime rules of political communications: Never say what you are not.

"I am not a crook," said Richard Nixon, which, of course, raised or confirmed the issue in the minds of millions during the long-running Watergate scandal that forced him from office. And provided a historic sound bite.

Clinton, who is supposed to be a major surrogate campaigner for Barack Obama this fall and speak at the Democratic National Convention later this month, gave a fascinating and revealing exclusive interview to ABC News in Monrovia, Liberia, over the weekend.

Under some prodding and questioning, he showed an edginess that belied his denial of holding any anger about anything.

His jaw, his body language and lack of that warm, winning campaign smile added to the impression. Clinton spoke about several things, including his role in his wife's presidential primary campaign and what he regretted about it.

Asked if Obama was ready to become president, a readiness point Hillary Clinton hammered hard throughout the campaign, Bill Clinton clearly dodged the question, saying he doubted....

Advisor Axelrod admits Obama was referring to race

On Wednesday, campaigning in the state once known for the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive nominee for president, said about his Republican opponents:

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know: 'He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.' "

That last phrase was the spark that set off perhaps the most profound and potentially emotional and divisive disagreement of the general-election campaign so far. To many, the most obvious commonality among "those other presidents on the dollar bills" is not powdered wigs; it's their race: white.

Immediately, John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, sharply rejected Obama's statement, saying the  Democrat had "played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck." Davis called Obama's remarks "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."

With not much else going on in midsummer, the media pounced, and we had a full-scale flareup. On Thursday, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs denied Davis' accusation and said Obama was simply referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others. "It is not about race," Gibbs claimed.

Obama has since called the race charge "a typical pattern" of the GOP campaign.

But now Obama's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, admits that the candidate was referring in part to his race when he suggested that the McCain campaign wants voters to fear Obama because he doesn't look like other presidents.

"He's not from central casting," Axelrod told a national TV audience Friday, "when it comes to candidates for president of the United States. He's new to Washington. Yes, he's African American."

Our blogging colleague Katie Fretland has more details on the ongoing controversy over here at the Swamp.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Newsday

On donor disclosure, John McCain gets a B, Barack Obama gets a C

John McCain lately has gotten huzzahs for fundraising transparency. Barack Obama? Not so much.

McCain discloses his biggest fund-raisers, the high rollers who tap friends and associates to provide green for his campaign. In addition to posting hundreds of names, McCain identifies their employers and occupations -- a move that has caused him heartburn.

But in today's sharp-edged politics, transparency has its costs.

By listing bundlers’ occupations, he allows Democratic rivals to slam him for raising money from certain segments, such as say, the D.C. lobbying corp.

Obama also lists his big bundlers. But the candidate who urges transparency in all things government doesn’t disclose bundlers’ occupations or employers.

An Obama spokesman referred the curious to the Federal Election Commission website -- a site that for the uninitiated is not particularly easy to navigate.

All this is not to say that McCain is pure. Among his oversights: ...

Change Obama can't believe in; he's on a ticket with Larry Craig

Here's how Republican Idaho is:

In 1992, Bill Clinton came within 1 percentage point of finishing third there in the general election behind President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.

So it was surprising to many during this past primary season when Sen. Barack Obama invested an unusual amount of time for a Democrat in the scenic potato state.

Now, an even bigger surprise: According to a new political button just unveiled, Obama is running on the same political ticket as Republican Sen. Larry Craig, who had that embarrassing to-do last summer in the men's room of the Minneapolis Airport.

No, really!

As you can see from the photo, Obama and Craig are shown shoulder-to-shoulder on the button, which has become an instant classic collector's item.

It is, of course, a mistake. A hilarious one. After announcing his retirement and then unannouncing it to finish his six-year term, Craig is not running for anything this fall.

Instead, Lt. Gov. Jim Risch is representing the GOP in the U.S. Senate race against Democrat Larry LaRocco, whose photo was supposed to be on the button next to Obama. Risch and LaRocco are longtime Idaho political foes, having faced each other twice for state Senate and lieutenant governor, with Risch winning both times.

The button company, Tigereye Design out of Ohio, simply picked the wrong Idaho Larry from the photo file. After selling a few buttons to some sharp-eyed collectors, the incorrect button sale was halted.

-- Andrew Malcolm 

Barack Obama not so sure what Senate committee he's on

Maybe it's simple fatigue from the grueling pace of campaigning for American votes in the United States for 18 months and then campaigning for American votes all over the Middle East and Europe for nearly a week. He might need four years to rest up.

Or maybe it's simply Barack Obama's advancing age. After age 28, you know, the body and mind start to go. And in only 13 years Obama will be 60. And will have endured two teenage girls.

The freshman Illinois senator slipped up again Wednesday on his foreign field trip. In a news conference answering a local reporter's question about what he'd done to protect Israel's security, Obama cited a bill "we passed" just last week tightening sanctions against Iran in the Senate Banking Committee -- "my committee."

Of course, everyone but Obama knows that isn't Obama's committee. If Obama was the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he would have been getting preferential loan interest rates from Countrywide Financial like the real banking committee chairman, Sen. Chris Dodd, who has endorsed Obama, who isn't even on that committee. (See the video below.)

Some blogs like WakeUpAmerica and HotAir (video hat tip) interpreted Obama's misstatement as an intentional attempt to overstate his efforts. That would indeed be shocking in the middle of a political campaign.

This is the whole Obama news conference quote: “Just this past week, we passed out of

the U.S. Senate Banking Committee -- which is my committee -- a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon.” Frankly, he certainly doesn't sound very uncertain there about who did what.

This gaffe follows one in Oregon back in May when Obama said he'd visited 57 states with one more to go. That was the same day he suggested a recent typhoon might have killed 100 million people in Burma, which he later corrected to 100,000.

Previously, he talked about conferring with the president of Canada, which doesn't have one. And then that bitter small-town-people-clinging-to-their-guns-and-religion remark that was just mis-speaking but didn't help him in central Pennsylvania precincts soon after. 

And then in May the Illinois senator bounced onto the stage before an enthusiastic crowd at a Midwestern primary rally and exclaimed, "Thank you, Sioux City!" The crowd fell silent because all these years those people thought they'd been living in Sioux Falls, which is in South Dakota, not Iowa. Obama realized his mistake and corrected himself. And everyone was relieved.

Marc Ambinder, the political blogger at TheAtlantic.com, wondered online then if the very same serial gaffes would be so quickly and easily dismissed as quite obviously and simply fatigue-related had they been made by an older candidate, say, someone in their 70s in a different political party. Or would they ignite suspicions of senility? It's a good question.

Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic ex-Sen. Sam Nunn keep talking about Czechoslovakia, which disappeared as a country 15 years ago. McCain has also apparently confused Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia and Sudan, also the Packers and Steelers. And Hillary Clinton often told a now-famous tale, later also blamed on fatigue, about undergoing sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia, which had been filmed and showed no such thing. McCain is 71. Nunn is 69. Clinton is 60. Brett Favre is 38.

Fortunately, these folks have staff who can scurry around after the stumble and straighten things out. Obama's office late Wednesday offered that the senator had meant to say, "my legislation." Nice try.

The country can only hope that when that 3 a.m. call comes in the White House next year, it doesn't concern Czechoslovakia or Obama isn't too tired.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Obama calls the commander-in-chief role an art, not a science

Last year's surge of U.S. troops in Iraq is widely credited with reducing violence in the country.

But Barack Obama says he still isn't persuaded that the troop-increase plan -- which he opposed, and John McCain supported -- deserves the credit. So why did violence subside?

In an interview Monday with Terry Moran of ABC's "Nightline," Obama attributed the improvement to "a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops." Those political factors included Sunni tribal leaders rising up against Al Queda, he said, and the "standing down" of Shiite militias "to some degree."

Obama also dashed the hopes of any optimistic peace activists that, as president, he would disengage the United States from overseas conflicts. One of the reasons he has set a goal of withdrawing American combat troops from Iraq in 16 months is that he wants to put more forces in Afghanistan where, he said, "we need at least a couple more brigades and right now we don't know where to get them from."

Yet disagreements with military commanders over managing warfare are inevitable for presidents, he said. "This is not a science," Obama said, "it's an art."

(UPDATE: Obama, at his news conference today in Jordan, said there has been “security progress” in Iraq over the past year, and now it’s time to work toward “a political solution.”)

-- Stuart Silverstein

Gramm quits McCain campaign

Phil Gramm may have gotten back into John McCain's good graces, but he won't stick around as an official campaign advisor to the Republican presidential candidate.

Earlier today it looked like Gramm would play an ongoing role in the McCain campaign. Columnist Robert Novak reported that the two old buddies had patched up their differences over Gramm's recent blunder -- namely, the former Texas senator's remarks that America was a "nation of whiners" and that the country was in a "mental recession." Gramm was said to be staying on as a McCain advisor and campaign surrogate.

Barack Obama's campaign, however, pounced on the rapprochement. It faulted McCain for giving tax relief to oil companies while providing no breaks for millions of middle-class families. And it stuck in the dagger by adding that it "shouldn't come as a surprise, since today we learned that Phil Gramm will continue to advise Sen. McCain on economic policy."

By this evening, Gramm was done. In a statement, he said:

"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Sen. McCain on important economic issues facing the country. That kind of distraction hurts not only Sen. McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems; it hurts the country. To end this distraction and get on with the real debate, I hereby step down as co-chair of the McCain campaign and join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters."

This is hardly the first time this campaign season that a verbal gaffe has led to a quick departure. Samantha Power quit her role as a foreign policy advisor to Obama following a dust-up over some of her comments, including calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster."

And in December, just before the primary season started, the co-chair of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign, Billy Shaheen, departed after stirring up controversy by commenting on Obama's acknowledged drug use as a youth.

-- Stuart Silverstein

Nothing to whimper over: McCain and Gramm are reunited

It seems that a little whining won't spoil the relationship between John McCain and Phil Gramm.

Columnist Robert Novak reports that Gramm will stay on as a McCain adviser and surrogate. This comes after McCain repudiated his buddy for the former Texas senator's recent impolitic comments about America being "nation of whiners" and in a "mental recession."

The patch-up might come as a surprise to Carly Fiorina, the ex-Hewlett-Packard chairwoman who is a top advisor to McCain. In a damage-control effort, Fiorina on Sunday declared, "I don't think Sen. Gramm will any longer be speaking for John McCain, and I think John McCain was crystal clear about that."

And with McCain and Gramm making up, the Barack Obama campaign was handed another opportunity to go on the attack.

The Obama camp issued a statement that McCain's economic plan "gives nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to the oil companies but doesn't provide any tax relief to more than 100 million middle-class families. But that shouldn't come as a surprise since today we learned that Phil Gramm will continue to advise Senator McCain on economic policy despite calling Americans struggling in this economy 'whiners.' "

-- Stuart Silverstein

Credit: Karin Cooper / Associated Press

What is it with Czechoslovakia? Now, Sam Nunn blows it

The other day here we noted that Republican nominee-to-be John McCain keeps referring to the country of Czechoslovakia, which hasn't existed since 1993.

Now, Sam Nunn, a veteran retired senator and an oft-mentioned Democratic vice presidential running mate with Barack Obama, is doing the same thing.

His reference to the former country, which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was the third mention of Czechoslovakia during campaigning this week. A former chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee who could know better, Nunn was on the campaign trail in Indiana with Obama.

"We in this country are about to, under this government, under the Bush administration, deploy [a] missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia," Nunn said. For more details and a pretty funny video, check out our colleague Katie Fretland's item over on the Swamp.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Bill Clinton shares an insight about live microphones

Bill Clinton offered a nifty defense of Jesse Jackson’s “I didn’t know the microphone was on” moment last week, when the civil rights leader took his crude swipe at Barack Obama.

At a Harlem news conference Thursday, Clinton said, “If all of us lived on live mics, 100% of us would be embarrassed.”

The ex-president ought to know. Clinton himself unleashed an outburst -- one that, he apparently was surprised to find out later was recorded -- against Jackson during the Arkansan’s first run for the presidency in 1992.

As recounted in the New York Observer, a few days after that year’s New Hampshire primary, which Clinton lost, a local television reporter asked him to comment on a (baseless, as it turned out) report that Jackson had decided to endorse Iowa senator Tom Harkin.

Clinton was furious. “It’s an outrage,” he fumed. “A dirty, double-crossing, back-stabbing thing to do. … For him to do this, for me to hear this on a television program, is an act of absolute dishonor.”

And last month Clinton slipped up again. He went on a tirade against Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum (calling him, among other things, “slimy” and “dishonest” and worse) –- only to later learn that his verbal rampage had been recorded by his questioner and put on the Huffington Post by that amateur Web journalist Mayhill Fowler.

Clinton was far more cheery and diplomatic at Thursday’s news conference, which spotlighted work being done by his foundation.

According to the Associated Press, when the subject turned to Obama -- whom Clinton  portrayed as too inexperienced for the presidency during the primary season -- the ex-president said he was ready to campaign for the candidate. “I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do, whenever I can do it,” Clinton said.

-- Stuart Silverstein

Photo credit: AP

With findings already found, Obama's fact-finding trip can relax

A couple of seemingly unrelated political developments struck the Ticket early this morning.

First of all, it was unusually thoughtful of Sen. Barack Obama to give his big foreign policy speech before his big foreign policy trip and announce the results of his findings in advance of the actual fact-finding junket to the Middle East and Europe.

There are a lot of things for average Americans to be doing in mid-summer in the United States. And worrying over exactly what the freshman senator heard from U.S., military commanders in Iraq about the actual situation on the ground should not be high on the list.

So now that we know he's going to stick to his 16-month end-the-war-no-matter-what pullout, not just the MoveOn.org crowd but all of us can put on our own flip-flops and start focusing on the upcoming NFL roster cuts.

No, he's never been to Afghanistan, but Obama already knows it is the true central front in the war on al-Qaeda. Which is equally good.

And because the results of Obama's trip are already known and because Obama's staff has been practically begging them, all three network anchors are going to traipse along and seek three non-exclusive exclusive interviews along the route, as will top reporters for print media.

A whole planeload apparently. In marked contrast to the limited press coverage afforded the three foreign trips of Republican Sen. John McCain this year. But that probably has to do with something.

Without worrying over content, Obama's five-nation, 12,000-mile "tour" can be the rock star event Chicago HQ wants. Of course, if he does another one of those "Thank you, Sioux City" things and it gets reported, that might be another thing.

Speaking of change to believe in, ABC's Jake Tapper is reporting that Hillary Clinton has changed her hair and is now parting it on the right, which as believers in the actual little-known hair-part theory understand, is the more feminine side.

We'll leave it to Jake to explain all the details, but right hair parts are believed to connote strength, leadership and masculinity, which explains Jimmy Carter's troubled presidency and Margaret Thatcher's success but not Ronald Reagan's.

The other good news is that -- finally -- after nearly six weeks of not campaigning for a presidency somewhere Clinton has launched her fund-raising for the 2012 election. She says the money drive is for a New York senate reelection effort that year.

But someone just pointed out that 2012 also happens to be the same year as the next U.S. presidential election. What a coincidence, eh?

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Fox News

Barack Obama tries to repair a PR blunder, but 2 days too late

He's been a quick learner. But it's too late this time for the Democrat who wants to move into the White House next January. And then get his kids a dog.

As our Swamp colleagues report, Barack Obama finally commented last night on the highly controversial cover of this week's New Yorker magazine. And he said all the right things. But he was about 54 hours tardy.

Sunday, as soon as the elitist magazine released its provocative cartoon cover, Obama declined to comment, not wanting to elevate it to something important enough for a candidate to speak about. Fine. But, as The Ticket promptly reported here, advisors still sent out his communications director, Bill Burton, to denounce it:

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

The McCain campaign immediately (and ultimately self-servingly) issued a similar statement quoting Tucker Bounds as saying: "We completely agree with the Obama campaign. It's tasteless and offensive."

The cover of this week's New Yorker magazine depicts Obama in one-piece Muslim garb and headdress fist-bumping his booted, Afro-wearing wife Michelle in camo clothes with an AK-47 and ammo-belt slung over her shoulder beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden while the American flag burns in the fireplace -- in the presidential Oval Office. Other than that, nothing particularly ...

Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

The Arizona senator, who advocated the surge for years before the Bush administration employed it, says the resulting reduction in violence is proof it worked with progress on 15 of 18 political benchmarks and Obama's plan to withdraw troops by now would have resulted in surrender.

When President Bush ordered the surge in January 2007, Obama said: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse,"  a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he acknowledged progress, but maintained his position that political progress was lacking.

Tuesday, while Obama gave a speech on foreign policy, the New York Daily News was the first to notice the removal of parts of Obama's campaign site listing the Iraq troop surge as part of "The Problem." An Obama spokeswoman said it was just part of an "update" to "reflect changes in current events," as our colleague Frank James notes in the Swamp. The update includes a new section on the rise of Al Qaeda violence in Afghanistan.

But some might see the updating as part of Obama's skip to the political center now that he's secured the Democratic nomination. "Today," McCain said Tuesday, "we know Sen. Obama was wrong" to oppose the troop surge.

An old quote of Obama's criticizing the "rash war," which helped him with the left wing of his party and helped differentiate his stand from that of Sen. Hillary Clinton, a primary opponent who voted for the use of force in Iraq, has been replaced on his site by one saying that ending the Iraq war will make America safer. That's more of a general election message.

And hat tip to the folks over at the Wake Up America blog for their continuing trenchant analyses of the summer campaigns in general and, specifically, for highlighting the video below that contrasts Obama's pre-surge position with a more recent interview of David Axelrod, his chief campaign strategist, denying Obama's statements. A reminder of how carefully voters must listen during these last four campaign months.

--Andrew Malcolm

John McCain's repeated geographic challenge

John McCain might need a new map.

He keeps mentioning Czechoslovakia –- a country that hasn’t existed since 1993 –- as if it still did.
In an interview in Phoenix on Monday, McCain told a reporter, “I’m concerned about a couple of steps that the Russian government took in the last several days; one was reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia.”

Oops. It happens to them all.

Czechoslovakia was split into two countries –- Slovakia and the Czech Republic –- 14 years ago, after the communist government was overthrown in the Velvet Revolution.

McCain, who likes to tout his foreign policy savvy, made the same mistake at a town hall meeting in New Mexico on Tuesday. And he’s done it before.

Three months ago, McCain told Don Imus that he would "work closely with Czechoslovakia and Poland and other countries" to install the European missile defense system in Poland.

And during a GOP debate in October, McCain said, "The first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland." Our blogging colleague Elizabeth Snead over at Dish Rag has a fun version of this story and a better picture.

Being on the campaign trail seems to do things to your mind, including impose fatigue regardless of age. Not too long ago Barack Obama talked about having visited 57 of the 58 states and then bounced onto a stage in Sioux Falls and yelled, "Hello, Sioux City!"

-- Kate Linthicum

Are beach flip-flops (the foot kind) from John McCain a smart idea?

This morning, aboard John McCain's Straight Talk Express jet, one of the Arizona senator's favorite traveling companions -- Steve Duprey, who co-chaired McCain's Republican primary effort in New Hampshire and has been hanging around ever since -- handed out little customized bottles of McCain sunscreen.

News reporters on the plane also received yellow-and-blue flip-flops printed with the message "McCain ... Another Day at the Beach."

Certainly the sunscreen -- SPF 30 -- is an excellent idea for McCain, who still bears the faint scars of surgery for melanoma on the left side of his face.

But flip-flops?

Isn't that a rather dangerous form of footwear for a senator who has been accused by some in his own party of changing his positions on issues such as immigration reform and tax cuts?

Back at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, certain enterprising capitalists had trouble keeping one popular item in stock: John Kerry flip-flops.

On the other hand, as The Ticket reported Sunday California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is among the many who think flip-flops (the speaking kind) are good for society because they show growth and learning.   

-- Robin Abcarian

A modest proposal: Put the campaigns on hiatus for the summer

We've got about seven weeks to go until the Democrats' nominating convention and eight until the GOP's -- and in politics years (sort of like dog years), that's a lifetime. That's an endless summer of stump speeches by the candidates, not to mention even more opportunities for those off-the-cuff comments by the candidates' surrogates that can cause the political equivalent of a fender-bender that ends up clogging the 405 for miles.   

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chairwoman who is a top advisor to (and surrogate for) GOP presumptive nominee John McCain, attempted to engage in a little damage control today ...