Political -- and Batman -- junkies probably already know about Sen. Patrick Leahy's little infatuation with Bruce Wayne's alter ego, Batman. He loves the character, and all those colorful evil incarnates, like the Riddler, the Penguin and the Joker. Leahy has even talked his way into cameo roles in Batman movies, and in "The Dark Knight," which opens July 18, Leahy gets himself roughed up by the Joker's goons. Bam! Pow! Ooof!
So strong is the Democratic Vermont senator's infatuation that he wrote the introduction for a 1992 book collecting some of the Batman comics, "The Dark Knight Archive," and has done voice-overs for childrens' Batman cartoons. And on July 12, Leahy will play host to a special premiere of "The Dark Knight" in that hot spot of Hollywood's elite, Montpelier, Vt. The proceeds will go to a local library that has named a wing after him. Leahy, that is, not Batman.
So as we head into the long Fourth of July weekend (that phrase is a journalism cue that it's a slow news day, at least at the moment), we wonder what other politicians might harbor secret infatuations with fictional crusaders, caped and otherwise? Or even better, what superhero might actually dwell beneath those dark (pant)suits?
Maybe John McCain in his, shall we say, crankier moments, as The Hulk? Barack Obama channeling The Flash? Hillary Clinton as Wonder Woman -- the first major female superhero? John Edwards as Batman's sidekick, Robin?
And they don't have to be the heroes. Go ahead and link politicians up with your favorite bad guys, too.
We've known for a while that Lindsey Graham and John McCain are something of political soul mates, as well as Senate colleagues. But a one-liner from Graham a little while ago makes us wonder (not too seriously, or deeply) whether he harbors secret ambitions.
Graham and Joe Lieberman are traveling with McCain on his two-country tour of Latin America, but this morning were shunted to the press boat (think of kids and the small table at Thanksgiving) for a tour by the entourage of the Port of Cartagena. McCain was in another vessel -- a faster, drug-interdiction speedboat called the Midnight Express (which for the moment could have been called the Straight Talk at Midnight Express).
The press boat chugged alongside McCain's boat for about 10 minutes as the presidential candidate and his wife, Cindy McCain, were briefed by port officials. Then both boats cruised out to open water, where they separated a bit. Graham, hopefully out of earshot of the Secret Service detail, pointed across the waves to McCain's craft and said, "Sink that boat!"
He then added: "I could get the nomination if you sink that boat."
A reporter asked if the comment was on the record, and Graham said no (sorry, senator, but nothing is off the record with pool reporters along). Graham also suggested the two boats play a little chicken.
Lieberman? Not so quippy -- he just occasionally waved at McCain during the 15 minutes at sea.
So, you want to know where John McCain and Barack Obama have been on the campaign trail? Where they've been in their lives? Google has a new toy tool that lets political junkies get cartographic.
Our colleagues over on the Technology blog have the details and a deeper explanation of Google's intent to have people adapt the tool for their own uses.
But there already are a lot of different ways to play with it. This, for instance, shows you the McCain and Obama campaign trails. This is a "bio map" of McCain, and this is of Obama. The Twitterati have got one going. So far, nada for tracking delivery of late-night pizza to various campaign headquarters, or kitchens where couples are arguing Obama versus McCain. But you just know that's coming sometime.
A personal favorite: Huffington Post's fundraising map. See if you can spot yourselves in there.
Aboard the 'Straight Talk Express' -- No one cracked a bottle of Champagne on its nose. No one cut a ribbon. Perhaps that was because the maiden voyage of John McCain’s new campaign plane was missing one vital ingredient: the senator himself.
McCain's new 95-seat Boeing 737-400 left Washington this morning carrying journalists and staffers to Harrisburg, Pa., where McCain had spent the night. The plane, paid for by the campaign (media riders reimburse the campaign for their shares), had been refurbished to re-create an airborne version of the Straight Talk Express bus, McCain's signature campaign vehicle, and replaced a plane leased from Jet Blue.
As always, press rides in the back, Secret Service agents in the middle cabin, and the candidate in first class. To replicate the horseshoe shaped banquette of the bus, where the candidate engages in free-wheeling discussions with reporters, one of the forward cabins has been modified to include a captain’s chair for McCain and a straight banquette for the press. FAA regulations require clear aisles, so a curved bench was out.
The plane's outer shell was repainted, as well, with McCain’s motto "Reform, Prosperity, Peace" on the side and the campaign's Web address -- www.johnmccain.com -- on the blue-and-gold tail. McCain got his first ride for the short hop from Harrisburg to Allentown, Pa., and apparently missed some of the most salient exterior décor.
"I thought it just says 'Straight Talk Express,' " he told reporters who asked how it felt to see his name emblazoned on the tail. "Whoops. I feel wonderful ... Maybe it’s a little added free publicity, I don’t know, at various airports."
There is one thing he’ll miss about his old Jet Blue-leased plane, though, and he’ll be feeling the loss starting Tuesday, when he is scheduled to fly from Indianapolis to Cartagena, Colombia, for a trip that will include a stop in Mexico.
"In interest of full disclosure," said McCain, "you know we used to have television sets on Jet Blue, and I miss out on my fix."
Given the scheduling motif adopted by Barack Obama's presidential campaign, we fully expect the candidate to soon deliver a speech decrying U.S. dependence on foreign oil in ... Energy, Ill.
That would be followed with an elaboration on his call for lower middle-class taxes in Bonanza, Colo. Then, he'll want to discuss national security matters in Protection, Kan.
And as the time for his vice presidential pick nears, we'll be watching to see whether he tips his hand with a stop on Richardson Bay, Calif. (or, for that matter, in Clinton, Iowa, Webb, N.Y., or Nunn, Colo.).
It's an attention-getting schtick, though easily overdone. In fact, Obama's campaign probably would be well advised to give it a rest.
Still, as always, we invite our readers to join in and offer suggestions for future venues for Obama or John McCain where name and theme would work hand-in-glove.
This is for sure: If and when they reach an agreement on joint town hall appearances, one site certainly needs to be Truth or Consequences, N.M.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, we'll chime in with a few places for the rivals to studiously avoid.
One, in fact, would be Dead Horse, Alaska. The towns of Boring -- one in Maryland, another in Oregon -- don't figure to show up on their itineraries, either. Same with Turkey, Texas.
The Democratic National Convention is making a show of trying to be environmentally friendly, and as longtime polar bear fans we can't object. And as fans of a certain beverage that has been part of the human experience since, well, forever, we can't object to the way they plan to fuel their ethanol cars.
Turns out Coors has been converting some of its bad beer -- yes, there is such as thing -- into ethanol at a plant in Golden, a Denver suburb. They make about 3 million gallons of it a year to blend with gasoline for E85 ethanol (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline).
And come August, some of it will be poured into part of the Democrats' convention fleet of 450 vehicles, 20% of which will run on E85, DNC transportation director Al Timothy Andrew Ballard told KUSA-TV in Denver.
Coors is the official ethanol sponsor for the convention, and you have to wonder if someone in Coors marketing pondered the sagacity of being known as the firm that gave gas to politicians. But it all makes us wonder which will consume more alcohol August 25-28 -- the cars, or the delegates?
Neither John McCain norBarack Obama will be inclined to dwell on this, but different as they are in so many obvious ways, similarities between the two are beginning to stack up.
Both are left-handed (indeed, as the New York Sun's Russell Bermanrecently detailed, it now appears certain that for the fifth time in the last 35 years, a southpaw will be president).
Both swear by the Ernest Hemingway novel in which the flawed American hero volunteers to fight in the Spanish Civil War, "For Whom the Bells Tolls." [Thanks, commenters, for correcting the title. Mea culpa, mea culpa.]
And both have an affinity for lucky charms.
McCain's superstitious nature long has been remarked upon; The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote this piece about it during the 2000 Republican primary race.
Obama's comparable proclivity gained attention last week, when while campaigning in New Mexico he pulled out a pocketful of trinkets to show some voters. In doing so, he struck an international chord.
Obama's tokens included a small monkey king replica, and in India they took notice. As a Sunday post in the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog noted, "the charm is presumed to be an image of Hanuman, Hinduism's popular monkey god."
Nor does the tale end there, as the item relates; check it out here.
We have to say, we like the (admittedly fanciful) image. Barack Obama sits down at a small table, whips his checkbook out of his jacket pocket, fills out a check for $4,600 (with Michelle Obama smiling and nodding somewhere nearby) then hands it off to Hillary Clinton, who endorses it and passes it off to an aide for deposit.
But it got us wondering. Could that campaign contribution be worth more than the $4,600 Obama presumably scrawled out on the "amount" line? We doubt that Clinton personally endorsed the donation check Obama gave the campaign Thursday -- in fact, we doubt she even saw it -- but if she had, what would such an historic document be worth to collectors? A check signed by the nation's first bi-racial major party candidate endorsed by a woman who came within a hair of her own historic nomination?
We asked George Houle, of Los Angeles' Houle Rare Books and Autographs, who appraises and deals in historic documents and signatures. He said the value to collectors would be determined by whatever happens in November. "Autographs of politicians are not in much demand, until they get to the White House." Harry Truman checks, he said, can be had for $250 to $500. An Abraham Lincoln check "brings $7,500 and up. A check to his wife Mary and endorsed by her could bring double that amount."
Right now, Houle said, the canceled Obama contribution check would be worth $300 to $500 though "having her ... endorse it for deposit would add considerably to its value. But, should he get elected, the value could triple or quadruple."
Supply and demand comes into play too: "Ultimate value would depend on how many autographs of his come to the market," Houle said.
Let's just state right up front that if Scarlett Johansson was chattering publicly to even one person, let alone a media crowd, that we had any kind of relationship, The Ticket would in a nano-heartbeat confirm totally whatever she said. She'd be dead-on in our minds, indubitably.
That's partly why we were so down -- well, devastated really -- a couple of weeks ago when The Ticket learned and wrote that Scarlett -- we call her that because we've never actually met -- was talking publicly about her ongoing relationship with presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
According to Scarlett, who's a fervent Obama supporter with phone calls and fundraisers and everything, the two of them were going at it pretty hot and heavy with the e-mails, back-and-forth and back-and-forth and back-and-forth.
And all of us, including Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett's alleged fiance, were left to guess exactly what might be in those electronic missives.
We learned of the Obama-Johansson relationship, as we learn of most important things, from our fellow LATimes.com blogger Elizabeth Snead over at the Dish Rag. Because of our nonexistent....
Here at The Ticket, as no doubt all across America, we are huge fans of the irrepressible Howard Mortman. And today is no exception.
Today, the impatient Mortman announces his Top 10 Political Quotes So Far in 2008. There are so many candidates to choose from. Yes, yes, of course, Larry King is in here, as always. But diligent Howard has whittled them down.
By the way, here's a nice photo of Howard. He's the one on the right, the one with the right hand that's afraid to actually touch his newest BFF, a lovely Miss Universe.
And there's still five more months of campaign blabbering to go for even more funny quotes. (and photos, we hope).
We won't spoil the fun of reading Howard's entire list. So just a couple examples to whet your appetite:
This is very exciting news to start off the first workweek of summer.
The other day, you may remember, we had a great kerfluffle over Michelle Obama's revelation on national television that while she does buy and wear some high-priced duds like another presidential candidate's wife, she just happened to be wearing at that very moment a dress that cost $148.
This was apparently huge news to half the country and could well somehow decide whose husband becomes president of the United States.
Under Michelle's husband's tax proposals, that $148 could turn out to become more like $174. So to beat the crush, thousands of women who would never be caught dead in the same dress as another woman were reported to rush out and buy up the entire existing national stock of that dress so they could wear the same dress as another woman. Yeah, well, go figure.
Now, thanks to the Canadian Press, we have just this morning received urgent news from overseas that Italian fashion goddess Donatella Versace has dedicated her entire 2009 spring-summer collection ...
Enjoy it. Talk up a storm on the road. You've got only a few days left to use cellphones in your hand while driving.
Then, ring-a-ding, the new California law takes effect requiring that you shut the heck up or use a hands-free phone thingy. The cops don't need any other excuse to stop you, no cocaine blowing out the back window, nothing but holding that hand suspiciously up by your ear. (So no ear-picking -- too risky.)
And there are no warnings for first-time offenders. Just tickets.
Politicians in Sacramento, who live by the cellphone themselves, realized they could get a lot of publicity by championing this restriction, claiming that thousands, probably millions, maybe even billions of drivers were driving on California's crumbling highways distracted by conversations on cellphones and causing a gazillion accidents.
Who hasn't seen an accident or near-accident with (always) a woman talking on her cellphone?
So no doubt, starting July 2 the number of traffic accidents in California will plummet to near-zero and our collision insurance premiums will too.
Or not.
That's because these same underemployed lawmakers did not ban such things as cup holders, Big Macs on your thigh, dripping mustard, too many radio commercials on one station, nagging spouses, CD players, children squabbling in the backseat or dogs sitting in drivers' laps to enjoy the breezes.
That's still all A-OK. So The Times' famed videographer Jeff Amlotte and Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive writer Dan Neil creatively collaborated on this hilarious video to instruct California drivers on exactly what is still legal for them to do while driving after June 30.
Be sure to watch this video while driving. That's still legal too. Oh, and e-mail this link to everyone on your contact list, one by one. That's legal too.
Just before the president of the United States makes an appearance at a speech, a usually tall, muscular person with a machine gun hanging under his suit coat quietly walks on stage and hangs the presidential seal on the podium front.
It's an impressive looking thing that conveys a sense of the power of the top elected office in the land and, indeed, the free world.
But Barack Obama's crowd has decided not to wait for any of the formalities like a presidential election, an inauguration or even a nomination, which he still hasn't actually officially won yet. Wasn't it Hillary Clinton who was so sidely accused of thinking her nomination was inevitable?
Obama now has his own Great Seal already. And it is really, really big. It's big like the tires on those elevated pickups in the parking lot at NASCAR races where you look out the car window and see nothing but fist-sized lug nuts.
Obama's new seal looks really presidential, which is probably a coincidence, don't you think? Obama's seal has an eagle just like the president's seal and he or she is holding arrows to signify war, which Obama was against before it even started.
And it's got olive branches, which stand for peace, which we haven't really had since 9/11 but DailyKos promises will come as soon as we shoo out Bush and Cheney.
The seal's also got a terrifically impressive motto in Latin -- "Vero Possumus" -- which means "The possum speaks truthily."
No, just kidding. It actually means "Truly we're able," which translates as "Si se puede," which translates as "Yes, we can." Obama is clearly copying George W. Bush's Texas gubernatorial reelection motto from 1998.
Plus it's got Obama's website right up there too. Lord knows, he needs more donations because the poor White Sox fan from Chicago's impoverished South Side has only raised a little under $290 million so far.
As chronicled by our colleagues over at the Swamp, some folks figure he'll top a half-billion dollars before election day, now that he's scrapped his promise to take public funds, this year a measly $84 million to spend between Labor Day and Nov. 4. Public money was good enough for every other presidential candidate for the last three decades. But how could any serious candidate possibly get along on only $1.3 million a day?
During the Democratic primary voting, a lot of folks were fooled into thinking Obama agreed with public funds when he signed a pledge last fall to use them and told constitutents before that, "If we're still getting financed primarily from individual contributions, those with the most money are still going to have the most influence."
As Jill Zuckman notes in the Swamp, the John McCain camp is using Obama's own phrase -- "Don't tell me words don't matter" -- to skewer the Illinois senator on his finance reversal. But McCain doesn't have his own giant seal.
The Obama campaign is clearly counting on any stink over the broken pledge to blow over in the 136 days left before the election. And, of course, once Obama backers see the kind of first-class seal they're getting for $290-plus million, they may go along.
If Obama does raise $500 million, that'll mean he spent around two gallons of gas per vote. He raked in another $22 million in May, according to the Tribune's Mike Dorning, roughly the same as McCain.
Some people might be inclined to make fun of a grown candidate who's against an imperial presidency but needs a really Great Seal before he even gets the official nomination. Maybe they'd suggest that as good as things look now from the city of big winds, maybe he's counting his eagles before they hatch.
But even if he loses in November, for $500 million Obama and Michelle could build their own White House. And paint it any darned color they want.
For a video of Obama explaining his public funding reversal, along with subversive subtitles from the funny folks over at 23/6, click on the Read more line below.
It's Friday, and we have made it our mission to find something with which you can waste valuable work time. Thank you, John McCain Web folks, for supplying it.
In the best tradition of their show, the folks at "The View" quickly dispensed with one bit of serious business they were compelled to confront during Michelle Obama's "co-hosting" stint today -- a discussion of her comment about being "really proud of my country" for "the first time in my adult lifetime" (which you can read about here).
That dispensed with, Obama settled into free-flowing chitchat during the ABC program that produced these tidbits:
** Her typical breakfast consists of toast, fruit and bacon. Indeed, "We're bacon eaters," she said of herself and her husband, Barack Obama. The dietician sharing the segment with her predictably recommended "lean, turkey bacon."
** She long ago gave up on panty hose, in part because they run so easily, particularly for a woman of her height (5' 11").
** "Kids are drawn to" her husband, she speculated, because "his first name is easy to say." In fact, some tots have been known to refer to him as "Baracko."
Obama made a point, as she made her entrance onto the set at the show's start, to offer her co-hosts what she wryly termed her "signature greeting" -- fist bumps.
That was a reference, of course, to the boneheaded segment Fox News recently aired on the fist bumps the Obamas exchanged two weeks ago on the night Barack snared enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Obama seems to be adapting to her heightened profile, which includes sharing the cover with her husband on the new edition of US Weekly (which our friends at the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog write about here). She was cool and collected during her "View" appearance; if anyone was nervous, it was Whoopi Goldberg, who spilled the contents of her coffee cup just as the show broke for its first commercial.
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.")
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?
"I did this as a symbol of my commitment to my dad and to represent the faith I have in his ability to be an effective leader for our country and to grow and strengthen the Republican Party when he is elected president of the United States," she wrote on her blog. "Happy Father's Day, Dad!"
But the bigger present from daughter to dad might be the book she's working on -- a children's story about her father due out in September. The press release says it's untitled but Simon & Schuster's website says it's called "My Dad, John McCain." The book is geared toward kids ages 5 to 10. Not many voters in that demographic, so you can't accuse the McCains of pandering to the youth vote. But those kids have parents.
"I am truly excited about the opportunity to write a children’s book about my father, who is not only a fantastic dad, but also a great American," the daughter said in the Simon & Schuster release. "This book will offer children the unique opportunity to see the character-building events that happened over his lifetime, experiences that led up to his current bid to become the future president of the United States."
All that in 32 pages. With illustrations (by Dan Andreasen).
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.
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 there 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.
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 are 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'scampaign 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.
Nobody's complaining here, but did anybody else notice a couple of unusual things about Hillary Clinton's weekend "event" where she suspended her own one-time, sure-thing presidential campaign and endorsed her more successful Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama?
Obama himself couldn't make it to the Washington unity event. The victor had the day off in Chicago and was seen heading out with his golf clubs. Aides said he watched the speech on a computer.
Who knows, maybe he wasn't even invited. Clinton and Obama have exchanged some pretty sharp barbs in recent months and that's going to take some time for each of them to pretend to get over. They'll no doubt have some kind of friendly joint media event in the near future. Ten gallons of gas says they raise clasped hands.
Clinton said all the right things in her speech, mentioned Obama 15 times by name. It was, not surprisingly, a moment for her people and mostly about her campaign. You can read The Ticket's account of her remarks and the full text here. (There's also a new retrospective photo gallery of her historic campaign available here.)
"Today, as I suspend my campaign," she said, "I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him, and throw my full support behind him. And I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me."
The clear words were delivered dutifully with a strong voice and we'll all no doubt see them repeated many times in coming weeks by the Obama campaign, which must desperately find a strategy to hold the crucial Clinton supporters in the Democratic column on Nov. 4. Clinton says she'll help with that.
But watch the video here. And look at Clinton's face. Are those
teeth clenched? Because that face is sure not smiling warmly as she carefully reads verbatim her heartfelt words of admiration and endorsement.
The other thing that had escaped our notice until we got a message from loyal Ticket reader Michelle and heard about a heated debate going on over at Facebook is, look a few seconds at the Clinton family in this photo from Saturday.
Notice anything?
The Ticket usually leaves celebrity sartorial observations to our fellow bloggers at LATimes.com. But check out the Clintons' wardrobes for this celebration of a remarkable, genderly historic and narrowly defeated campaign and the earnest endorsement of the party's new Chosen One.
All three of the Clintons are perfectly dressed -- for a funeral.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. It was a death of sorts. Personal choice rules. But in major national political campaigns, where appearances are so important because television images are so important, such things don't happen by accident.
Perhaps these simultaneous wardrobe selections are not symbolism or a silent statement or an unconscious reflection of their feelings after all these months and millions of dollars of useless campaigning.
Three dark suits all at once is probably just a coincidence. What do you think?
(To see some of Sen. Clinton's other color preferences during her campaign, click on the Read more line below.)
This just in: The Ron Paul 2008 campaign store is closed indefinitely. Apparently this week's special "End of Primary Season Blowout" sale decimated the inventory.
The special offer was $25 for a Ron Paul T-shirt plus an unspecified collection of Ron Paul buttons, Ron Paul stickers, Ron Paul key chains, Ron Paul magnets, Ron Paul wristbands, Ron Paul hats and Ron Paul mouse pads.
It looked like a campaign close-out.
But with his $5-million remaining political kitty, the 72-year-old, 10-term Republican representative from Texas continues to make his combination political-book signing rounds of the country and speaking to crowds of his determined followers, many of them new to the political process.
Paul will have ample time to do that this year because he's running for his 11th House term unopposed. There simply is no Democrat in southeast Texas stupid enough to take on the old man who inserts bounteous spending earmarks for his home district into legislation certain to pass and then votes against the bills so he can maintain his anti-spending reputation.
Paul didn't do all that badly in the meaningless Republican primary votes this week, if you deal in percentages. Paul captured ...
There's loyalty in politics, and then there's loyalty. Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, appeared on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" Tuesday night a few hours before Clinton's non-concession speech. She's going to The White House in January, he says. As president.
-- Scott Martelle
(McAuliffe shows up at about the two-minute mark.)
Given that we live out here within smelling distance of the smoke from Universal Studios, we open this with the caveat that agents are always talking with someone about movie rights. That's what they do. Usually over lunch. A long lunch.
Still, given the reception for HBO's recent "Recount," about the Florida leg of the 2000 election, and the other projects already in the works on the Bush years (and there's still seven months to go), why not a film version of Scott McClellan's "What Happened" memoir of the George Bush White House?
Politico suggests Jonah Hill to play McClellan, which gets our speculation gene fired up. Who to play Bush? Who to play Dick Cheney?
That's why we have a comments section -- to let you answer such burning questions (hey, this is politics; it can't all be strategy and policy-wonk talk). Who would you cast?
Todd S. Purdum, former New York Times staffer and current Vanity Fair national editor, lets loose in the July issue of the magazine with a lengthy profile of Bill Clinton after leaving the White House. It's getting reduced to sex in some places -- friends worried that he was spending suspicion-raising time with attractive women on the road -- but there's no smoking gun (to stick with political metaphors), and focusing on speculation about a return to form for the former wanderer-in-chief does the article a disservice.
Purdum, who covered portions of the Clinton administration, offers up a deeply reported look at a primal force in politics facing his own dissipation. Scandal, big-bucks speaking fees, big-bucks pals like Ron Burkle with private planes, but also heart surgery and a clear physical deterioration. Bill Clinton is no longer the man he once was, though he is still a force -- Purdum describes Clinton as "the smiling, snowy-haired man who is the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral he attends."
Purdum, who is married to Clinton's former press secretary, Dee Dee Myers, writes:
"To know Clinton is, sooner or later, to be exasperated by his indiscipline and disappointed by his shortcomings. But through it all, it has been easy enough to retain an enduring admiration — even affection — for a president whose sins against decorum and the dignity of his office seemed venial in contrast to the systemic indifference, incompetence, corruption, and constitutional predations of his successor’s administration. That is, easy enough until now.
"This winter, as Clinton moved with seeming abandon to stain his wife’s presidential campaign in the name of saving it, as disclosures about his dubious associates piled up, as his refusal to disclose the names of donors to his presidential library and foundation and his and his wife’s reluctance to release their income tax returns created crippling and completely avoidable distractions for Hillary Clinton’s own long-suffering ambition, I found myself asking again and again, What’s the matter with him?"
Barack Obama has cautiously avoided saying anything that might give someone the idea that he wishes Hillary Clinton would just pack it up and go back to the Senate. But he came close in Thornton, Colo., the other day at the Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts, just north of Denver.
At the end of a town hall meeting on education issues, Obama told the cheering crowd: "All right, everybody, thank you very much. I'll see back in August!" That can be interpreted different ways -- a candidate waxing hopefully, a reference to him being a superdelegate and thus in a chair at the Democratic National Convention, or just meaningless pablum from the stump (now that would be a first for a political candidate).
But the plans he's making for Tuesday night are hard to interpret in any way other than as an act of confidence, with a dollop of provocation. Obama plans to celebrate the end of the five-month Democratic presidential nominating calendar not in Denver, or his home city of Chicago, or straddling the Montana-South Dakota border.
First, we have to start with this reasoned medical opinion buried deep in John McCain's medical files, released for review earlier today. From his oncologist, Dr. Suzanne Connolly of the Mayo Clinic: "Buttocks unremarkable except for some very light tan freckling." That noise you hear? A massive "thank you" from Jon Stewart's writers.
On a more serious tack, the way the records were made available to reporters wasn't exactly a "release." It was more an environment of controlled access at the Copperwynd Resort and Club in Fountain Hills, Ariz., limited to a handful of media, none of whom were allowed to make copies. From the pool report just disseminated (by Michael D. Shear of the Washington Post):
About 20 reporters -- including CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta and NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman -- were allowed to enter a room at the resort in the back of the Alchemy restaurant. We were allowed in at 7:30 and given three hours to review the records and take notes. Most reporters used computers to take notes from the three stacks of documents that were provided to each of them. The main stack, labeled "Records from Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2000-present" were the main documents and are summarized below. The other two stacks were backup documents, including handwritten notes, lab results and insurance documents. In all it was 1,173 pages, in addition to 1,500 pages distributed the last time he ran for president.
The backup stacks included the statement of financial responsibility, assignment of benefits and authorization to release information, forwarded documents from the attending physician of the U.S. Congress, including lab results, clinical notes, pathology reports. Insurance details, doctor's orders and anesthesia reports. The documents went into great detail about his operations to remove melanomas and colon polyps.
While the records seemed to be comprehensive, a three-hour review by pooled media isn't exactly a full release. (At least they had a chance to eat: "It was a cloudy day of about 56 degrees and we were given fruit, bagels and some muffins, along with some nicely sculpted mounds of cream cheese. No one ate anything, as far as I could tell.")
Add that controlled environment, though, to the financial records McCain has made available, and there are some pretty significant questions about a McCain administration's approach to openness -- especially against the backdrop of the Bush administration, which has shown a penchant for secrecy.
like the Riddler, the Penguin and the Joker. Leahy has even talked his way into cameo roles in Batman movies, and in "The Dark Knight," which opens July 18, Leahy gets himself roughed up by the Joker's goons. Bam! Pow! Ooof!
Graham and 
