Why? It's a) simplistic and b) counterproductive.

On Sunday, former NATO commander (and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate) Wesley Clark made some provacative remarks about John McCain on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president," Clark said. "[McCain] has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn't a wartime squadron." (This echoed Clark's earlier claims that McCain has "never had leadership in crisis, or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or [in managing] his own congressional staff.")

Many rank-and-file Democrats applauded Clark for his candor. "It's about time that someone told the truth (some of it) about Sen. McCain," Stumper reader D.R. wrote this afternoon in an email message. "He is not the hero that he or the media professes him to be, and there should be more questions about his life." This was hardly surprising. Attacking your opponent's strength is Rovian Political Theory 101, and there are few Dems better credentialed than Clark--who began his 30 year military career serving and sustaining injuries in Vietnam and would up successfully commanding NATO forces in the Kosovo War as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe--to lead a potential onslaught.

Unfortunately, questioning whether McCain's military service prepared him for the presidency isn't an onslaught worth leading. It's not that Clark's analysis is wrong; it's that it's so narrowminded and obvious that it doesn't do any damage at all. Of course spending five years as a POW doesn't automatically qualify McCain to take over the free world. No one--not even McCain himself--would argue that it does. There are only a few jobs, in fact, that provide direct, transferable training for the Oval Office--the vice presidency, the governorship of a large, complex state and/or military command service. Neither McCain nor Barack Obama has held any of these gigs, which means that Clark completely misses the point. Without a past "presidential"-seeming position to base their decision on, a la Dwight Eisenhower or Ulysses S. Grant, voters must instead examine all the available data points--the candidate's positions, plans, Senate votes and personal biographies--to determine who they trust to lead the country. Hiring a president isn't like hiring an accountant; there's no job like the presidency, so it's an informed leap of faith. To hint that McCain's searing Vietnam experience--especially his refusal to accept Vietnamese offers of early release--doesn't tell us something about his character, his sense of duty, his determination and therefore what sort of person he is and what sort of president he would be is simply absurd. It's not the whole picture. It's not his one and only qualification. But, like Obama's decision to forgo lucrative law jobs after college and work as a community organizer in Chicago, it's an undeniably, fundamentally relevant part of our portrait of a potential leader.

In the end, Clark's simplistic dismissal did little to hurt McCain. But it did hurt Obama. For starters, it provided the McCain campaign with the pretext to slam the Illinois senator for supposedly not living up to his lofty standards. Clark is not an Obama staffer, and Chicago did not sanction his statement; in fact, Clark supported Hillary Clinton until the bitter end. But as soon as the words "fighter plane" slipped out of his mouth on Sunday, Team McCain issued a pair of outraged statements attacking the candidate, not Clark. "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to question John McCain's military service, that's their right," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said at the time, conveniently ignoring the fact that Obama (and Clark, for the record) constantly calls McCain an "American hero" and expresses deep respect for his service. "But let's please drop the pretense that Barack Obama stands for a new type of politics. The reality is he's proving to be a typical politician who is willing to say anything to get elected, including allowing his campaign surrogates to demean and attack John McCain's military service record."

This was ridiculous, but it put Obama on the defensive, forcing him to do his opponent's PR work for him. "No one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign," Obama said today in Independence, Missouri. "And that goes for supporters on both sides. We must always express our profound gratitude for the service of our men and women in uniform. Period." (Spokesman Bill Burton added that Obama "rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark.") Finally, the media seized Clark's comments and cranked out a round of stories linking them to earlier (and often far more offensive) attacks--including the accusation that McCain was a North Vietnamese collaborator--leveled largely by fringe commentators who have even less to do with Obama's campaign than Clark (and would've been ignored in earlier, pre-Internet election cycles). This gave Team McCain cover to claim, as Rogers told reporters this morning, that "[this] is a pattern... Barack Obama wants to make... part of his campaign"--ensuring that questions of whether Democrats are conspiring to "Swiftboat" an honorable soldier would dominate the news for at least another 24 hours. Again, ridiculous. But today, Obama wanted us to talk about his patriotism. Instead we're talking about this.

In the end, it isn't difficult to see why Clark probably just lost his spot on Obama's veep list. As Ben Smith wrote this morning, "McCain's heroism is too well-established, and a climate of respect for soldiers too strong, for attacks on his service to do anything but backfire." Whether you agree with Clark or not, it doesn't take a pollster to determine which side of this particular debate most voters will favor: the side that seems to be questioning whether five years of torture, broken limbs, stabbings and starvation are relevant (or worse), or the side that is defending that record from criticism. The costs of Clark's comments simply outweigh the benefits. There are plenty of things Democrats can (and should) say about McCain. But as Obama knows, dismissing his service isn't one of them.
 

On May 27, I assessed the chances of John McCain choosing former Massachusetts governor and rival for the Republican nomination Mitt Romney as his running mate. My conclusion? That Romney would a) "help dispel doubts about the managerial and economic acumen of his partner, a career legislator"; b) "could very well boost his boss's bid in the increasingly purple swing state of Michigan, where his father was governor and the Romney brand is strong"; c) "could also help close the massive fundraising gap between McCain and Barack Obama" thanks to his "proven skill at soliciting donations and a personal fortune of $250 million"; and d) "would probably do the most of all the potential picks to excite dispirited, ground-level Republicans." In the end, I concluded that Romney's odds were only "moderate," mostly because of McCain's "lingering animosity" toward Mitt. "In the wake of Romney's February withdrawal, it was widely reported that Team McCain considered their recently vanquished rival an unprincipled opportunist," I wrote. "And in interviews and speeches at the time, the candidate was barely able to keep his contempt in check." But overall, I was bullish--prompting commenters (and at least one reporter who'd spent the winter covering Romney) to call me, in effect, crazy.

Turns out I wasn't crazy enough. Over at the Politico, F.O.S. (Friend of Stumper) Mike Allen is reporting this afternoon that--surprise!--"Romney is at the top of the vice presidential prospect list for John McCain." "One of the chief reasons the Massachusetts governor is looking so attractive is his ability to raise huge amounts of money quickly through his former business partners and from fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," writes Allen. "McCain sources tell Politico that they believe Romney could raise $50 million in 60 days. One close Romney adviser said it could even be $60 million." The rest of Romney's advantages will sound familiar to Stumper readers as well: he's "squeaky-clean and fully vetted by the national media"; he "has presidential looks and bearing and immediately would be a strong campaigner who could be trusted to stay on message"; and his "family’s Michigan roots would help in a swing state that went Democratic in 2004." Same goes for the major minus: "McCain remains less than enamored with Romney." Seems like Team McCain and I see eye to eye.

Though the character clash could ultimately derail a GOP "dream ticket," I can't help but conclude (at this admittedly early stage) that Romney is the man to watch. Over at the New Republic, Noam Scheiber asks if "McCain stays within the public financing system for the general election, how useful is the money Romney raises?" Pretty useful, I'd imagine. If McCain opts in, Romney can divert the dinero to the RNC; if he opts out, the cash will go directly to the candidate's coffers. Anything that can cut into Barack Obama's estimated $100 million general-election advantage is hugely helpful--even if, as Scheiber notes, there'd only be 60 days or so to spend it. What's more, the other major objection to Mitt--"concerns about whether his Mormon faith could imperil McCain in Southern states that Obama hopes to put into play"--is, I think, overplayed. Yes, evangelicals are deeply suspicious of Mormons. But I'm not convinced that the difference in evangelical turnout between, say, a McCain-Pawlenty ticket and a McCain-Romney ticket is enough to sink the Arizona senator in the South and Midwest. Why? Well, I suspect that the evangelicals who'd stay home because Romney is No. 2 are the ones most likely to already be staying home because of McCain, and that he won't be able (given the importance of appealing to moderates, too) to pick running mate who'd win back enough of those hardliners to make a significant electoral difference. In other words, McCain has an evangelical turnout problem with or without Romney, so it may be savvier to pick a veep--maybe Romney, maybe not--who can shore him up in red swing states like Colorado and Nevada (where there happen to be a lot of Mormons) while helping to flip a blue swing state like Michigan.
 

In which Stumper examines the Republican nominee's possible--and not-so-possible--vice-presidential picks. (Previous McCain installments: Bobby Jindal; Mitt Romney; Charlie Crist; Tim Pawlenty. Previous Obama installments: Ted Strickland; Jim Webb; Wes Clark; Hillary Clinton.

In this week's dead-tree NEWSWEEK--our annual superduper Global Literacy summer special on "What You Need to Know"--my colleagues Evan Thomas and Jonathan Darman debate whether flip-flopping makes the flip-flopper a typical, opportunistic pol (Evan) or a flexible public servant (Jon). Obviously, there's a ton of gray area here. But with much of the punditocracy obsessing over McCain's seemingly expedient reversals and Obama's post-primary maneuvering, it's one of the key questions in presidential politics right now. So check out these excerpts and weigh in below. The comments are all yours.

THOMAS: Candidates Think Flip Flopping Is the Only Way to Win Elections 

Since he clinched the nomination, Obama has become a fairly traditional presidential candidate, shoring up the party base by telling interest groups what they want to hear. With polls showing a weakness with Jewish voters in Florida, a key swing state, Obama recently made a get-tough-with-Iran show of support for Israel before AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. To be sure, his show of devotion to Israel was no more fervent than John McCain's. McCain, too, has become an uncharacteristically cautious pol of late. The candidate who once loved to riff on the record for hours with reporters can now be seen reading his talking points from index cards. Just before he secured the GOP nomination in March, McCain seemed wistful about the free-wheeling old days. Appearing before reporters, flanked by two handlers, McCain said, "I think they think I'm going to say something I shouldn't." He raised his eyebrows as though he were a rebellious teenager talking about his overly strict parents.

Neither Obama nor McCain seems to enjoy the role of political hack. McCain has a slightly pained or hangdog look when he starts trying to appease the Republican right. Obama gets testy or huffy when reporters draw attention to his expediency. Last week, after the L.A. fund-raiser, a reporter asked him why he had abandoned the federal finance system. "Well, we talked about this, I think in Florida, I answered almost exactly the same question," he said in an exasperated tone, as if a candidate should never have to answer the same question twice over several days. "So, I will say it again," he said, and launched wearily into an elaborate and not altogether candid speech about his reliance on small donors.

The 2008 election was supposed to be different. McCain and Obama were the refreshing outsiders, the antipoliticians who fulfilled the public's desire for change. McCain had the bracing idea of putting on a road show with his rival this summer—standing on the same stage to debate the great issues, no reporters to ask canned questions. McCain wanted to debate every week, but Obama—wary of McCain's skills in informal "town hall" settings—suggested only two debates. The negotiations collapsed in accusations of bad faith.

It may be inevitable that presidential candidates become less free-spirited as they enter the general election. "When you get to the general, every huckster and ad man and consultant wants in," says Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. "And the consultants always push you to the lowest common denominator … Candidates are afraid to abandon the conventional wisdom of consultants, that the way to win is to be handled, controlled, scrubbed of all your rough edges."

DARMAN: The Noble History of Flip Flopping

It is worth remembering, before the depression sets in too deep, that flip-flopping has a noble history in this country. In his first run for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln vowed not to force the end of slavery in the South. But by his second Inaugural, he could swear that, God willing, "every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn by the sword." Where was the greatness when Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964? In the fact that a white politician, who'd come of age in Jim Crow Texas and had been a sometime segregationist in the Senate, knew he was sacrificing his party's domination of the South—and did the right thing all the same. What made Bobby Kennedy's antiwar campaign of 1968 so remarkable? In part, the fact that he had been the fiercest of cold warriors, a lieutenant to Joseph McCarthy himself. Schoolchildren know what grace means in America: I once was lost but now am found,'twas blind but now I see.

That doesn't mean that the men who seek to replace him should feel free to reinvent themselves with full impunity. But the partisan activists, and perhaps especially the press, ought to give them the chance to prove that their conversions have been genuine ones. Rather than obsessing over the flip-flops, we might dig deeper at the motives behind them. When was Obama being honest: last year when he supported public financing, or now, when he has abandoned it? What does that say about him as a man? Does John McCain really now believe in offshore drilling? Or is he just taking advantage of anxiety over the high price of gas? Both McCain and Obama are seeking the White House in a year when the new president will have to restore Americans' faith in so many things, not least in courageous conversion narratives. How do they do that? By starting with three words seldom heard in contemporary politics: "I was wrong."
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

IN FLAG CITY, FALSE OBAMA RUMORS ARE FLYING
(Eli Saslow, Washington Post)
On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor's house, at his son's auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate's background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance... Here in Findlay, a Rust Belt town of 40,000, false rumors about Obama have built enough word-of-mouth credibility to harden into an alternative biography. Born on the Internet, the rumors now meander freely across the flatlands of northwest Ohio -- through bars and baseball fields, retirement homes and restaurants... Does he choose to trust a TV commercial in which Obama talks about his "love of country"? Or his neighbor of 40 years, Don LeMaster, a Navy veteran who heard from a friend in Toledo that Obama refuses to wear an American-flag pin? Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama's Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?

'IT'S OVER, LADY'
(Maureen Dowd, New York Times) 
Unity was spared the banality of unanimity... When it was Obama’s turn to speak, Carmella announced loudly, “I wish I had ear plugs.” Then, as Obama tried to ingratiate himself with the Hillary partisans in the crowd by saying that because of the New York senator, his daughters “can take for granted that women can do anything that the boys can do and do it better and do it in heels,” Carmella put her fingers in her ears. As Obama tried to curry favor with Hillary, looking over at her sensible, sturdy shoes and marveling, “I still don’t know how she does it in heels,” Carmella tore up a tissue and stuffed it in her ears. When Obama pandered with a line about how he wouldn’t “perpetuate a system in which women are paid less for the same work as men,” she put her hands over her tissue-stuffed ears. “Maybe she’d like what she heard if she listened,” sighed Axelrod.

OBAMA'S IRAQ PROBLEM
(George Packer, New Yorker)
Obama, whatever the idealistic yearnings of his admirers, has turned out to be a cold-eyed, shrewd politician. The same pragmatism that prompted him last month to forgo public financing of his campaign will surely lead him, if he becomes President, to recalibrate his stance on Iraq. He doubtless realizes that his original plan, if implemented now, could revive the badly wounded Al Qaeda in Iraq, reënergize the Sunni insurgency, embolden Moqtada al-Sadr to recoup his militia’s recent losses to the Iraqi Army, and return the central government to a state of collapse. The question is whether Obama will publicly change course before November. So far, he has offered nothing more concrete than this: “We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.”

THE OBAMA AGENDA
(Paul Krugman, New York Times)
We could — and still might — do a lot worse than a rerun of the Clinton years. But Mr. Obama’s most fervent supporters expect much more. Progressive activists, in particular, overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama during the Democratic primary even though his policy positions, particularly on health care, were often to the right of his rivals’. In effect, they convinced themselves that he was a transformational figure behind a centrist facade. They may have had it backward. Mr. Obama looks even more centrist now than he did before wrapping up the nomination... The candidate’s defenders argue that he’s just being pragmatic — that he needs to do whatever it takes to win, and win big, so that he has the power to effect major change. But critics argue that by engaging in the same “triangulation and poll-driven politics” he denounced during the primary, Mr. Obama actually hurts his election prospects, because voters prefer candidates who take firm stands. In any case, what about after the election? The Reagan-Clinton comparison suggests that a candidate who runs on a clear agenda is more likely to achieve fundamental change than a candidate who runs on the promise of change but isn’t too clear about what that change would involve.

PRESIDENTIAL IMPOTENCE
(Daniel Gross, Slate)
Today, while the president of the United States may be the most powerful person in the world, "his influence on the short-term macro-economy is generally overestimated by voters," says Thomas E. Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Partisans might think the economy got off the mat the minute Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981 or when Bill Clinton took the oath in January 1993. But the factors that influence the business cycle are so myriad, powerful, and unpredictable that not even an executive as muscular as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could bend them to his will. The megatrends that made the 1990s a long summer of economic love—the end of the cold war, the deflationary influence of an emerging China, the Internet—would have happened with or without Rubinomics. And most of the factors now making life miserable—commodity inflation, a housing bubble and a weak dollar engineered by the Federal Reserve's promiscuous policies, the demand-driven surge in oil—would likely have materialized had John Kerry won in 2004 (sorry, MoveOn.org).  

SOME ON LEFT TARGET MCCAIN'S WAR RECORD
(Ben Smith, Politico)
The highest voltage third rail of this presidential campaign may not be race, sex, or age, but Senator John McCain's military service. McCain's campaign Sunday issued a pair of outraged statements after retired general and Barack Obama supporter Wesley Clark said he didn't think that McCain’s service as a fighter pilot and prisoner of war was relevant to running the country. Obama has consistently praised McCain's service, and called him "a genuine American hero."  But farther to the left—and among some of McCain's conservative enemies as well—harsher attacks are circulating. Critics have accused McCain of war crimes for bombing targets in Hanoi in the 1960s. Sunday, a widely read liberal blog accused McCain of "disloyalty" during his captivity in Vietnam for his coerced participation in propaganda films and interviews after he’d been tortured.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...

According to USA Today, the "battle for the Hispanic vote is on." But what the paper doesn't mention is that one of this year's White House hopefuls is already the heavy favorite to win.

In a piece pegged to John McCain and Barack Obama's back-to-back appearances tomorrow before the annual meeting of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Kathleen Kiely reports (in the words of her headline) that the "Latino vote [is] 'up for grabs' [and] could swing [the] election outcome." The second part of that assessment is true. The first part? Depends how you define "up for grabs." 

One of the most persistent myths of the interminable Democratic primary clash was that Hispanic voters didn't like Barack Obama. (The oft-cited but largely inaccurate reason: his race.) Yes, Latinos preferred Hillary Clinton to Obama; her longstanding ties to the community (and her husband's popularity) typically gave her a two-to-one edge over the Illinois upstart. But pundits too often predicted--illogically--that this outpouring of Latino support for Clinton in the primaries would translate into lack of support for Barack Obama in the general election. They've been proven wrong. In early May, a Gallup poll showed Obama beating McCain 51 percent to 41 among Hispanics--a relatively narrow margin. But by the end of the month--as the Democratic race was winding down--Obama's support had skyrocketed to 62 percent, and McCain's had plummeted to 29. Polls taken since then have mirrored that massive 30-point gap, with the most recent (AP/Ipsos) showing Obama clobbering his Republican rival 65 to 21.

This means that if Hispanics do, in fact, swing November's election, they're much more likely to swing it to left. According to NALEO, 9.2 million Latinos will cast ballots this fall--a 21 percent increase over 2004. (In the Democratic primaries, Hispanic turnout was up 42 percent.) What's more, many of these votes tend to be concentrated in a quartet key swing states--Florida, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. In 2004, George W. Bush received record Latino support (for a Republican) of between 40 and 45 percent, which propelled him to victory in each of those crucial contests--and the election overall. But as it stands, McCain is trailing Bush by 15-20 points among Latinos, and Obama's beating John Kerry's final numbers by 10. That's one reason the latest polls show him leading in Colorado and New Mexico and closing in Florida and Nevada. In the end, it's pretty simple: a major surge in Latino turnout is better for the candidate who's getting two-thirds of their support than the candidate who's not. End of story.

Of course, Election Day is still four months away. John McCain has long history of appealing to Hispanics. He won 54% of the Hispanic vote in the Florida primary, for example, and often boasts that 70 percent of Hispanics supported him in the 2004 Arizona Senate race. Most importantly, he famously broke with the GOP to cosponsor comprehensive immigration reform in early 2007. But the problem for McCain is that he's spent the year or so since his bill failed trying to reassure the right wing that he's not "soft" on immigration, and will find it difficult in the coming months to reach out to Hispanics on the issue without offending the Republican base. (He's already in hot water for secretly meeting with Latino leaders in Chicago last week.) Still, Kiely is technically correct when she writes that "both candidates have strong selling points for Hispanic voters." It's just she forget to mention that, based on the current numbers, Obama looks much more likely to seal the deal.
 

Just as I was about to write an item exploring John McCain's effective maneuvering on energy this week--it's good to see him finally getting down to nuts-and-bolts specifics--my NEWSWEEK colleague Michael Hirsh beats me to the punch. Fact is, McCain's energy plan does represent a significant break with Republican orthodoxy, and while offshore drilling, nuclear innovation and greener car batteries won't lower gas prices anytime soon, it's probably wise to leave them on the table--despite Barack Obama's reflexive pooh-poohing. Here, then, is an excerpt from Mike's latest column, in which Mike praises McCain's power play and lifts the curtain on the political strategy that's underlying it. Very smart stuff.

John McCain, it is generally agreed, has something of an age problem. It's not just that he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated for the first time. McCain's criticisms of Barack Obama sometimes draw on events and cultural references that many Americans only dimly recall—the movie "Dr. No" (the first James Bond flick, from 1962), or Jimmy Carter's windfall tax from 30 years ago. Every time McCain has a moment of forgetfulness, the skeptics start whispering again—reminding one that, as a Pew Research Survey showed last year, "ageism" may be a bigger factor in the election than racism.

But now, in a neat bit of campaign jiujitsu, the McCainiacs are trying to change a liability into a strength. McCain's 71 years have given him not only vastly more experience than Obama, the new thinking goes, they have ensured that America will have, once again, an "adult" president in the mold of an Eisenhower or a Truman. And there is no better evidence than McCain's energy plan, which the candidate has laid out in a very, er, energetic series of appearances and speeches over the last week. "We wanted it to be a grown-up vision," said Mark Salter, McCain's chief speechwriter and alter ego, who in a Newsweek interview reiterated several times that McCain's approach is that of an "adult." This evidence of mature judgment specifically includes McCain's decision to reverse himself—grown-ups adjust, after all, to changed circumstances—by calling for offshore oil drilling. "We wanted to show that McCain would view the presidency as a problem solver—a bipartisan problem solver," says Salter.

The McCain energy plan has left the Obama-ites sputtering that their candidate laid out a comprehensive energy plan last October. "You have it exactly backward!" Jason Furman, an advisor to Obama on energy, told me when I suggested that Obama was on the defensive. "John McCain is responding to Barack Obama, who has put forward a major and ambitious plan on energy.'' Frankly, however, no one really cares what Obama said last October. And there's no question that McCain's flurry of concrete proposals—including a call for 45 more nuclear power plants, a $300 million prize to the designer of a new electric car battery, overturning the 27-year ban on offshore drilling and a $5,000 tax credit for people who buy "zero-emissions" cars—prompted Obama to spend most of his own energy speech this week knocking those ideas down. That in turn generated a GOP Web video declaring that "Obama is Dr. No," complete with a Bond-like theme song.

Something of a role-reversal is going on here. Most pundits think Obama's had the advantage so far in offering a "vision" and in taking the offensive. Now it's McCain who has laid out a clear—if questionably feasible—energy vision for the future, while the Obama-ites are still rushing to put together a comprehensive paper gathering all his ideas on the current gas crisis and the long-term energy crisis. Compare: McCain, in a speech on Wednesday (his fifth), launched his so-called Lexington Project—"named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before." "Let it begin today with this commitment: In a world of hostile and unstable suppliers of oil, this nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025," he said. What does "strategic independence" mean? It's not quite clear. But the phrase sounds pretty good, and rather more inspiring than Obama's narrower proposal to "reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce oil consumption overall by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels, by 2030," or to "reduce the energy intensity of our economy by 50 percent" by the same year. True, Obama has called for an investment of $150 billion over 10 years, dwarfing McCain's incentive plan, as Furman points out. But he hasn't spelled out how that would be used.

Like McCain's embrace of global warming as a national-security issue, his new stance on energy is a studied repudiation of the Bush administration. It is one of the ways he is seeking to neutralize Obama's relentless efforts to define a McCain presidency as a "third Bush term." "Some in Washington seem to think that we can still persuade OPEC to lower prices—as if reason or cajolery had never been tried before," McCain said mockingly in another speech this week. "But America is not going to meet this great challenge as a supplicant or a plaintiff." He was, of course, mocking Bush himself—who twice in the last six months has gone to Riyadh pleading for more oil production.

And, while no one's quite saying this, McCain's new "grown-up" theme may be a put-down of Bush as well. It is a way of reminding voters that, while the antic Prince Hal never quite matured into King Henry V—and could never control the infighting between ideologues and realists in his administration—John McCain is already a well-rounded man in full, with a set program.

READ THE REST HERE. 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

OBAMA: CHANGE AGENT GOES CONVENTIONAL
(Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico)
Barack Obama has crafted an image as an unconventional candidate, a change agent and a post-partisan politician who represents a dramatic break from the status quo. But since securing the Democratic presidential nomination, when confronted with a series of thorny issues the Illinois senator has pursued a conspicuously conventional path, one that falls far short of his soaring rhetoric. Faced with tough choices on fronts ranging from public financing and town hall meetings to warrantless surveillance and the Second Amendment, Obama passed up opportunities to take bold stands and make striking departures from customary politics. Instead, he has followed a familiar tack, straddling controversial issues and choosing politically advantageous routes that will ensure his campaign a cash edge and minimize damaging blowback on several highly sensitive issues. 

MORE: For Obama, a Pragmatist's Shift Toward the Center (Michael Powell, New York Times)
Barack Obama has taken a stroll this week away from traditional liberal political positions, his path toward the political center marked by artful leaps and turns. On Thursday, he seemed to embrace a Supreme Court decision, written by the court’s premiere conservative and upheld 5-to-4, striking down Washington, D.C.’s ban on handguns. Mr. Obama seemed to voice support for the ban as recently as February... In the last week, Mr. Obama has taken calibrated positions on issues that include electronic surveillance, campaign finance and the death penalty for child rapists, suggesting a presidential candidate in hot pursuit of what Bill Clinton once lovingly described as “the vital center.” “A presidential candidate’s great desire is to be seen as pragmatic, and they hope their maneuvering and shifting will be seen in pursuit of some higher purpose,” said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian. “It doesn’t mean they are utterly insincere.”

OBAMA SMART AS A PISTOL WITH NEW TOUGH-GUY ACT
(Charles Hurt, New York Post)
The Democratic Party has long been mocked as the Mommy Party for its soft, nurturing governing style and its paralyzing patience for listening to dissent from every quarter, no matter how small or irrelevant. The Republican Party is the Daddy Party - always tough, determined and willing to do whatever dirty work is necessary to get the job done. Democrats want Oprah Winfrey. Republicans want Jack Bauer. But now that Barack Obama has taken over the Democratic Party, he's bending these "genderizations." He's taking Mommy out of the Mommy Party... If you're wondering who's in charge, don't. Within days of winning the nomination, Obama moved party headquarters to his home town of Chicago and started pushing party heads around, telling them they can't raise money from PACs and Washington lobbyists...  Obama may as well have strapped on his John Wayne chaps and holster yesterday to announce his support of the Supreme Court's decision that the Second Amendment guaranteeing gun rights actually means what it says... As Obama moves rightward and gets tougher, Republicans are desperately trying to portray him as some sort of arrogant flip-flopper. But these audacious moves by him are not signs of weakness; they're signs of a man who will win at any cost. Isn't that what they used to say about the Clintons?

MCCAIN, GOP UNLEASH ANTI-OBAMA PLAN
(Jonathan Martin, Politico)
Republicans might have a reason to smile: John McCain and his allies seem to have finally settled on a way to draw a stark contrast with Barack Obama. After weeks of criticism from Republicans about the leisurely pace at which they seemed to be preparing for the general election, McCain’s campaign has apparently settled on a highly personal campaign theme that aims to differentiate McCain and Obama on both character and issues. The strategy: Paint Obama as conventional politician who always takes the safe and easy political road, then amplify the distinction by framing McCain as a patriot, somebody who has put sacrifice above self. It’s seemingly an effort by McCain to remind voters of his Vietnam-era heroism and compelling life story while touching on key issues to avoid running purely on biography. The message also is designed to underline McCain’s unique record of service to his country without touching on subterranean questions about Obama’s patriotism. Whether it will work — or if the famously improvisational McCain will even stick to it — is an open question. 

LET MCCAIN BE MCCAIN
(Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal)
What can Mr. McCain do? It's still early, a lot of history has yet to unspool, we've entered summer and the shallow part of the campaign, the doldrums, there's a little space. He should take advantage of it and have some fun. This would be a good time for him to get interesting again. And he'll find it easy because he is interesting. That's why the boys on the bus loved him in 2000. That's why the Republican base rejected him in 2000. He was hot and George W. Bush was—well, let's call it mellow. Mr. McCain attacked Christian conservative leaders while Mr. Bush played them. Republicans were trying to recover from eight years of interesting. They didn't want more. I used to think what Mr. McCain's aides thought after he started winning: He has to change now, be more formal, more constrained. That was exactly wrong. Let McCain be McCain. Get him in the papers being who he is, get people looking at his real nature. Maybe then they'll start taking him seriously when he talks policy. Maybe he'll start taking himself seriously when he talks policy. The most interesting thing about Mr. McCain has always been the delight he takes in a certain unblinkered candor. There is also the antic part of his nature, his natural wit, his tropism toward comedy.

As a rule, we here at Stumper headquarters--which, for the record, is not located in a massive underground lair or on a space station--are big fans of all things Bond. James Bond. So we were excited to see John McCain reinforce his latest talking point--that "Barack Obama is the Dr. No of energy policy"--with a Bond-themed web video boasting authentic theme music and groovy 60s-style title sequences. Unfortunately, the rest of the ad is not quite as accurate. Our qualms:

1) One panel portrays Obama as saying "no" to energy "innovation" and "the electric car," but as we've already pointed out, Obama has said that he would invest $150 billion in green technology since last October--long before McCain proposed his $300 million prize for a greener car battery. 

2) Another panel claims that Obama has said "no" to "clean, safe nuclear energy." In fact, Obama has said, "I have not ruled out nuclear... but only [would support it] so far as it is clean and safe." So he's more like Dr. Maybe.

3) Actually, comparing Obama to Dr. No on nuclear energy at all is kind of confusing. In the 1962 Bond film, the handless villain Dr. Julius No was a nuclear innovator who managed to build a reactor on the isolated Jamaican island of Crab Key before Bond foiled his plan to divert American rocket launchers from nearby Cape Canaveral, Fla. So instead of dissing the doc, McCain might want to hire him to help out with those 45 new nuclear plants he's always talking about.

4) At no point in the ad does Honey Ryder emerge from the ocean in white bikini with two large conch shells.

That said, we enjoy the implication that McCain is the worldly Bond to Obama's nefarious No, and hope the campaign releases more ads in this mold. If so, we humbly suggest that they cast Mrs. McCain as a Bond girl. We even have a name picked out: Cindy Licious.

We'll stop now.
 

Ultimately, the presidential race is zero-sum contest. One person wins. The other loses. But the constant clashes, quarrels and scraps that lead up to Election Day aren't quite as black and white--despite what the MSM might have us believe.

Take today, for example. The big news is the U.S. Supreme Court's unsurprising 5-4 decision to overturn a 32-year-old District of Columbia law limiting private gun ownership, for the first time expressly extending the Constitution's Second Amendment to private citizens (rather than just militias). The press has portrayed this as a victory for John McCain. The ban--which prohibited residents from keeping handguns at home and required that lawfully registered guns, such as shotguns, be locked and unloaded when stored in the house--has long angered gun-right activists, who said that it infringed on an individual's Constitutional right to keep a firearm in the nightstand for self-defense. Given that these activists are largely Republican--and have clashed with McCain over gun-show restrictions in the past--no one was surprised this morning when the Arizona senator seized on the ruling to slam Obama as a typical gun-grabbing liberal. "Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness," he said in a statement, "today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right--sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly." Wonder who that "bitter" barb is aimed at.

Meanwhile, the chatterati quickly declared Obama loser of the day. The decision makes a certain kind of sense. As Obama has transitioned over the past five years from liberal Chicago lawmaker to more centrist Democratic presidential nominee, he has struggled to downplay his long record of support for gun-control measures and emphasize his sympathy for gun rights instead. That has created some awkward moments. In 1996, for example, Obama indicated on a pair of Independent Voters of Illinois questionnaires that he supported banning the "manufacture, sale and possession of handguns." Asked late last year about the surveys, Obama's aides said that they were completed by his then-campaign manager, who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position,” and that the candidate himself “never saw or approved” the forms--even though reporters later discovered his handwriting on one of them.

His stance on the D.C. gun ban has been similarly slippery. In 2004, Obama "opposed letting people use a self-defense argument if charged with violating local handgun bans by using weapons in their homes," and in late 2007 his campaign put out a statement saying that "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional" (a position he didn't dispute in a later interview). But in February, Obama began to walk back that unambiguous remark, declining at least four times over the following months take a position for or against the constitutionality of the ban. "I confess I obviously haven't listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence," he said in April. The point, of course, was to situate himself to support whatever the Supremes decided and minimize blowback on a sensitive issue. So when the ruling was finally handed down this morning, Obama (surprise, surprise) embraced the decision--"I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne," he said--and spokesman Bill Burton cleared up any lingering confusion by telling ABC News that the campaign's earlier statement declaring the law constitutional "was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position." The buck, it seems, stops somewhere over there.

Despite all that fogginess, however, I'm not sure Obama will actually lose this round with voters--or that McCain will win. Imagine, for example, if the court had ruled the other way. Gun owners would be energized. Obama would be forced to declare his support for the ban. The right to bear arms would become a major campaign issue. And McCain would suddenly be able to drive a huge wedge between his opponent and all those bitter, clingy Pennsylvanians. That's a clear win-loss scenario. As it is, Obama gets to reaffirm his broader beliefs, which have, in fact, been consistent all along: that a) individuals have gun rights under the Second Amendment but b) "that individual right is constrained by the rights of the community to maintain issues with public safety." "I don't think those two principles are contradictory," Obama said today. Unfortunately for McCain, the public agrees. A recent Washington Post poll shows that while 72 percent of all Americans consider gun ownership an individual right, a full 58 percent "support a D.C.-like ban on private handguns and trigger lock requirements." So the only way McCain can "win" here--politically, at least--is if swing voters (who largely concur with Obama on the underlying issues) absorb the whole confusing chronology and decide that it exposes some sort of character flaw. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But very few people will sit still long enough to find out.

Team McCain's best bet? Using Obama's gun-shyness as a plot point in a larger narrative. They're already off and running. The idea, as Jonathan Martin reports, is to "paint Obama as a conventional politician who always takes the safe and easy political road, then amplify the distinction by framing McCain as a patriot, somebody who has put sacrifice above self."  On a conference call this morning, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback claimed that Obama's recent maneuvers on guns, FISA and campaign finance "reflect a willingness as the campaign changes from a primary to a general to change on positions," while McCain foreign policy guru Randy Scheunemann charged that "the most important issue [for Senator Obama] is the political fortunes of Senator Obama." Of course, McCain has his own issues with flip-flopping. But defining Obama as conventional candidate whose politically advantageous calculations contradict his change-agent image strikes me as McCain's most (and perhaps only) promising line of attack. Unfortunately for him, though, the bell won't ring on that particular round until Election Day.

UPDATE, June 27: The New Republic's Noam Scheiber makes a great point about McCain's "typical pol "attack:

Obama has such a strong tail-wind behind him that he'll win if "typical pol" is the worst thing you can call him. (He'll still be a typical Democratic pol, after all, which voters say they strongly prefer this year.) The only way he loses, I think, is if voters get the impression he's somehow un-American, un-patriotic, out of the political mainstream, or unable to keep them safe. To the extent that it draws attention from these insinuations, the "typical pol" charge may even help him somewhat. Thanks to his race, his eloquence, and his relative youth, Obama's just never going to come across as completely typical. In some sense the bigger risk is not being typical enough.

When it comes to their musical selections, presidential candidates tend to be a little stiff. And by "stiff" we mean "mind-numbingly literal." Mitt Romney put Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation (a Little More Action)" into heavy rotation. Ronald Reagan praised "Born in the U.S.A." (until the Boss told him to stop.) John McCain's rallies typically end with a rousing round of "Johnny B. Goode," courtesy of Mr. Chuck Berry. And when critics pushed her to concede, Hillary Clinton responded by blasting Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" at every stop. After all, nothing sets toes a-tappin' like message control.

Barack Obama has been no exception. Since launching his campaign, the Illinois senator has relied on the bland uplift of songs like "Only in America" (Brooks & Dunn) and "City of Blinding Lights" (U2) to rev up his crowds. But in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, he makes a musical reference that's--gasp!--kind of bold. Asked by editor Jann Wenner to name his favorite track by Bob Dylan, a recent endorser, Obama skips the obvious anthems ("The Times They Are A-Changin'") and safe ballads ("Shelter from the Storm"). "One of my favorites during the political season is 'Maggie's Farm,'" he says. "It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric."

Maggie's Farm? Regular readers of Stumper know that I'm a bit of a Bobhead. So when I read that Obama was partial to the "political" message to this particular cut--a modified 12-bar blues off of 1965's "Bringing It All Back Home"--I was somewhat surprised. Dylan famously--heretically--shattered his folkie image by performing "Maggie's Farm" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with a blistering electric blues band (video above). The fact is, it's an angry, subversive song that completely clashes with Obama's public image of dispassionate cool. Sure, the track features snippets of Dylan's famous wordplay (a "bedroom window" "made out of bricks," for example). But most of lyric is straightforward. With a singer railing against the institutions ("Maggie's farm") and individuals (Maggie's ma, pa and brother) responsible for the drudgery of his daily life, it's pretty clearly about frustrated individualism and being forced to do work that's beneath you. (Dylan was dealing with the demands of entitled fans and greedy record execs at the time.) "I got a head full of ideas that are drivin' me insane," he says."It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor."

The metaphor, of course, is malleable. Maybe the song "speaks to" Obama "during the political season" because he sympathizes with the downtrodden working classes. Or maybe it was the civil-rights connotations--"they sing while you slave"--that connected. Either way, it's kind of hard to ignore the obvious implication: that the Democratic nominee isn't exactly pleased with performing in a political dog-and-pony show. Dylan's lyrics certainly support this reading. There's the media scrutiny ("He puts his cigar / Out in your face just for kicks"). There's the image maintenance ("I try my best / To be just like I am / But everybody wants you / To be just like them"). There's even the fundraising ("He hands you a nickel / He hands you a dime / He asks you with a grin / If you're havin' a good time"). Am I arguing that Obama is aware of these resonances? Not at all. But he picked "Maggie's Farm," not me. I'd say that's sort of revealing.

There are a few ways to counter the Democratic attack that John McCain's presidency would represent a third Bush term. You could, for example, lay out a logical case for why you think "Obama's leap from 'McCain agrees with Bush more now' to 'McCain will govern exactly like Bush' is pretty misleading"--as I did last week. Or you could do what Stephen "Bio-Dome" Baldwin did yesterday on Fox News:

That's right, folks. "The most stupidest thing I've heard in my life." Which once again proves that the only people less qualified than bloggers to weigh in on politics are Hollywood actors.

Especially if they're Baldwins.

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories. 

MCCAIN-OBAMA SO FAR: POSITIVELY NEGATIVE
(Dan Balz, Washington Post)
Since Obama (D-Ill.) wrapped up the Democratic nomination a few weeks ago, he and McCain (R-Ariz.) have served up a series of indignant exchanges over foreign policy, terrorism, the economy, energy and campaign money. Their aides have gone further, with snarling put-downs in conference calls and taunting e-mails that flow constantly out of the Chicago and Crystal City headquarters. McCain has given a series of policy speeches, and Obama is beginning to do the same. Whatever substance they may contain has been buried in negative counterattacks from the opposing camp, designed to turn ideas into stereotypes and candidates into caricatures. In the hands of Obama's advisers, McCain is nothing more than the third coming of President Bush. To McCain's staff, Obama is merely a liberal, naive, arrogant extension of what Democrats have been offering for years. Gone in the early stages of this campaign is any sense of the uniqueness of the nominees. But those realities have been submerged beneath a tactical shouting match that feeds the cable culture of contemporary politics. Don't blame the media for this. The campaigns have deliberately adopted postures of hyperaggressiveness to set the early tone. The testosterone levels appear extremely high. 

DEMOCRATS IN DELICATE TALKS TO UNIFY PARTY
(Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times)
With the help of one of Washington’s best-connected lawyers, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are negotiating a thicket of complicated issues, like how to repay Mrs. Clinton’s campaign debt and her role at the Democratic convention. The talks come as they try to leave behind their intense rivalry and work out a plan to cooperate this fall. At Mrs. Clinton’s request, the lawyer, Robert B. Barnett, who has brokered multimillion-dollar book deals for clients including Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Bill Clinton, is working to hash out questions large and small as the two camps work toward a political merger. Perhaps the thorniest question — what to do about Bill Clinton, who friends say continues to refight the bitter primary fight — has yet to be raised by either side, advisers said. On some levels, the melding of the two operations is moving ahead relatively smoothly. Mrs. Clinton will introduce some of her top donors to Mr. Obama on Thursday night in Washington, and on Friday the two of them will appear together at a rally in Unity, N.H. Mr. Obama is in talks to hire one of Mrs. Clinton’s most prominent advisers — Neera Tanden, her policy director — and has hired and dispatched a few of Mrs. Clinton’s field operatives to work in Missouri and Ohio. But nearly three weeks after Mrs. Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed Mr. Obama, some loyalists, especially on the Clinton side, are having trouble moving on.

A WINNING STRATEGY FOR MCCAIN
(Todd Domke, Boston Globe)
Polls show growing support for Barack Obama, for Democrats generally, and for change. And since Obama broke his public financing pledge he'll have much more money than McCain for advertising. How can McCain change the dynamic of this race? The simple answer is that he must be the maverick McCain of 2000 - a straight-talking, bipartisan-solutions reformer. The more profound answer is that he must deserve to win. Run on reform. He should base his candidacy on a platform of compelling solutions. Promise to serve only one term. McCain would change the political calculus if he pledged to devote full-time to enacting reforms and protecting the public, rather than trying to win reelection. Fire lobbyists from the campaign. McCain should make clear that he will not be indebted to any lobbyists - including those who are campaign "volunteers." Pick a presidential vice president. If McCain takes the one-term pledge, his VP choice needs to be credible as a would-be president. The running mate should have impressive experience, a sincere commitment to implementing the McCain reform platform, and a reputation for honesty. Be a leader in improving race relations.

THE OBAMACONS WHO WORRY MCCAIN
(Robert Novak, Washington Post)
What is an "Obamacon?"... All "conservative supporters" of the Democratic presidential candidate. Their ranks, though growing, feature few famous people. But looming on the horizon are two big potential Obamacons: Colin Powell and Chuck Hagel. Neither Powell, first-term secretary of state for George W. Bush, nor Hagel, retiring after two terms as a U.S. senator from Nebraska, has endorsed Obama. Hagel probably never will. Powell probably will enter Obama's camp at a time of his own choosing. The best bet is that neither of the two, both of whom supported President Bush in 2000 and 2004, will back John McCain in 2008. Powell, Hagel and lesser-known Obamacons harbor no animosity toward McCain. Nor do they show much affection for the rigidly liberal Obama. The Obamacon syndrome is based on hostility to Bush and his administration and on revulsion over today's Republican Party. The danger for McCain is that desire for a therapeutic electoral bloodbath could get out of control.

THE GREENEST SHOW ON EARTH
(Stephanie Simon, Wall Street Journal)
As the Mile High City gears up to host a Democratic bash for 50,000, organizers are discovering the perils of trying to stage a political spectacle that's also politically correct. Consider the fanny packs. The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA. Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary conclusion: "That just doesn't exist." Ditto for the baseball caps. "We have a union cap or an organic cap," Mr. DeMasse says. "But we don't have a union-organic offering. Much of the hand-wringing can be blamed on Denver's Democratic mayor, John Hickenlooper, who challenged his party and his city to "make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet." Convention organizers hired the first-ever Director of Greening, longtime environmental activist Andrea Robinson. Her response to the mayor's challenge: "That terrifies me!" After all, the last time Democrats met in Denver -- to nominate William Jennings Bryan in 1908 -- they dispatched horse-drawn wagons to bring snow from the Rocky Mountains to cool the meeting hall. Ms. Robinson suspected modern-day delegates would prefer air conditioning. So she quickly modified the mayor's goal: She'd supervise "the most sustainable political convention in modern American history."

Somebody's optimistic. 

During a session with reporters at the Democratic National Committee's Washington, D.C. headquarters this afternoon, Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe made a pretty interesting prediction: Obama could win Alaska in November. I wasn't there, but I imagine Plouffe's projection was greeted with the sound of every hack in the room scribbling "crazy" in his notebook. And underlining it. Twice.

For those of you who can't remember as far back as 2000--or don't have access to CNN's handy exit polls--to describe Alaska as a red state would be something of an understatement. Blood-soaked is more like it (at least when it comes to presidential elections). Only one Dem has ever won the state: LBJ. He also won 43 others. In 2000, George W. Bush clobbered Al Gore by 31 points in the Last Frontier, and four years later preserved his dominant record by routing challenger John Kerry 61 to 36. The only state in recent memory to change columns by swinging more than 25 points from one election to the next was Arkansas, where Bush beat Al Gore by five percent four years after Bill Clinton won by 27. But Arkansas was Clinton's home state.

So Plouffe is nuts, right? Surprisingly, not so much. The math is pretty simple. Only 311,808 Alaskans voted for president in 2004--meaning that Bush's 25-point margin of victory represented a mere 80,000 raw votes. And Obama is already outperforming Kerry and Gore on the ground, trailing McCain by a mere four percent in the latest Rasmussen poll. If you assume that turnout will hold steady, that translates to a deficit of about 12,500 ballots. Given that Obama will likely outspend McCain by more $100 million overall and still has a solid organization leftover from the Feb. 5 caucuses--unlike his rival--scaring up 12,500 votes doesn't seem, in principle at least, like a particularly unattainable goal. As the New Republic's Noam Scheiber writes, "it's basically the same logic behind the Obama campaign's aggressive focus on small caucus states during the primaries." Plus there's the added bonus (as in Georgia) of Bob Barr, whose Libertarian bid should resonate in a rugged, laissez-faire state that's famously fond of third-party candidates. (In 2000, Ralph Nader hit double digits in Alaska--and nowhere else.) According to Plouffe, "we think Barr can get 6, 7, 8 percent." That alone would trigger an Obama-McCain tie. It'd be up to Obama's precinct-level operation to do the rest--*which, as the commenters note, is not as resistant to Democrats locally as recent presidential returns would imply.*

Ultimately, though, Plouffe's prediction is as much about making the cash-strapped McCain sweat as picking up electoral votes. Alaska only has three, and Obama is hardly a sure thing. Then again, today's presentation also highlighted Montana and North Dakota--two other low-population red states where Obama is planning to compete. That would bring his grand total of "Big Sky" EVs to nine --a potentially decisive number. So maybe McCain should be sweating after all. And maybe we reporters should be crossing out those "crazy's" in our notebooks and writing "watch Alaska" instead.

*Updated. 

UPDATE, June 26: Looks like Obama plans to walk the walk. From the Anchorage Daily News:

Democrat Barack Obama could be coming to Alaska to campaign as part of his effort to win a state that hasn't chosen a Democrat for president since 1964."That is the plan -- we are pretty sure he's going to come at the end of the summer," said Kat Pustay, who was named Wednesday as Obama's Alaska director. Obama is opening a campaign office in Anchorage with paid staff, although Pustay said she didn't know yet just how big the operation will be here. "The campaign in Chicago is saying this is a battleground state so we're going to get resources," she said.

As Ben Smith writes, this "marks a real commitment to that state -- though the key test will be where he goes in October." We'll be watching...
 

It's one of the golden rules of politics: praise the polls that show your candidate in good shape--and dismiss the ones that don't.

So it's no surprise that Team McCain is now trashing a pair of brand-new surveys--from the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg and this magazine, incidentally--that show Barack Obama ahead by 15 points. "It is important that both the campaign, as well as reporters covering the campaign, not overreact to every single survey that is released," the Arizona's pollsters write in a memo. Given that there are three or four such surveys released every week--none of which can predict what will happen on Election Day--they're undoubtedly right. Too much overreacting is bad for one's joints. But that doesn't change the question: is Obama currently clobbering McCain by double digits--or have some loopy pinko pollsters have simply led us astray?

The answer: it depends. The major difference between the Newsweek and Los Angeles Times polls and some other recent surveys--which typically show Obama ahead by about five points--is party identification. In the NEWSWEEK poll, 38 percent of the 896 randomly-selected respondents were Democrats, 23 percent were Republicans and 35 percent were Independents, while the Los Angeles Times polled a 1,115-person pool that was 39 percent Democrat, 22 percent Republican and 27 percent Independent (with about 10 percent answering "other," an option not offered by NEWSWEEK). According to Team McCain, these 15-17 percent gaps in party ID are "out of line with what most other public polls are showing"--and that imbalance, they say, inflates Obama's actual lead by about eight points. Voila. No double digits.

The problem here is that unlike race, age and gender, party ID is fluid--and even extreme swings might reflect actual changes in the mood of the electorate. "This is a canard," says NEWSWEEK polling maestro Larry Hugick when asked about the McCain memo. "Both parties do it. But ID isn't a fixed property. In fact, it's associated with the candidates. It's been proven that as a candidate goes up in the polls, so does his party. Same when a candidate goes down." What's more, recent surveys have shown that a double-digit gap in party ID doesn't necessarily result in a double-digit lead. The June 3 CBS pool, for example, was 38 percent Democrat and 24 percent Republican--a 14-point gap--but Obama led by only six. A week later, a similar AP/Ipsos sample group (37 percent Dem and 23 percent Republican) produced a similar result (Obama by seven). So to blame Obama's big leads solely on fluky party ID--instead of, say, his own appeal to voters--is somewhat self-serving, and impossible to prove.

Of course, Team McCain is more concerned with psychology than mathematics. As the Politico puts it, they're "trying to ease anxieties and calm fears among party elites and activists that Obama is developing a lead so significant that it can't be overcome." But even McCain's keepers admit that if the L.A. Times party identification gap is "recalculated" to "ten (29% GOP / 39% Dem), the ballot would be 40% McCain – 47% Obama." That's a more conservative--and, according to the RealClear Politics 6.9-percent polling average, a more consensus--estimate of Obama's lead. But it's still still seven points--which, according to the sophisticated projection engine over at FiveThirtyEight.com, would be enough to propel Obama to a 344-194 electoral college win on Nov. 4.

Given that, the best answer to "Does Obama Really Have a Double-Digit Lead?" is probably another question:

"Does it really matter?"

UPDATE, June 26: For more, check out the latest column by Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal. An excerpt:

The memo lists party identification results in 10 polls from May and June that average out to 38 percent Democrat and 29 percent Republican. LAT/Bloomberg had roughly the same proportion of Democrats (39 percent) but far fewer Republicans (22 percent).

The problem with that comparison is that four of the most recent polls -- by Newsweek, AP/Ipsos, ABC News/Washington Post and NBC News/Wall Street Journal -- all reported a Republican identification in the range of 23 percent to 24 percent and Democratic ID ranging from 33 percent to 37 percent. While the Democratic advantage on the LAT/Bloomberg poll is bigger, it is not wildly different.

For Republicans, desperate times call for desperate measures. Like, for example, pretending they're Democrats.

In a new, 30-second TV ad touting his "bipartisan leadership" on energy issues (above), incumbent Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith snubs fellow GOPer John McCain--whom he endorsed in early 2007--to trumpet his connection to the guy he ostensibly opposes for president. "Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment?" asks the narrator. "Barack Obama!" The music swells. On screen, the camera pans from Smith's name to a headshot of the Democratic nominee. The background is blue. Smith's logo is green. And there's not a drop of red in sight.

Smith's mancrush on Obama is understandable. The last statewide Republican standing in bluer-by-the-minute Oregon, Smith is facing a Democratic challenger, Jeff Merkel, who has pulled within three points in recent polls. Obama, on the other hand, attracted 75,000 people--a personal best--to his most recent rally in Portland, and is currently clobbering McCain by an average of 6.3 percent in local polls. Plus, he has really great abs. (NB: This probably doesn't factor into Smith's calculations.)

To be fair, Smith, who crossed the aisle on stem-cell research and health care and broke ranks with his party in 2006 to denounce the Iraq War, does have a relatively moderate record, including a National Journal ranking as the Senate's second most-liberal Republican (which he's emphasized in earlier ads). But seeking to save your skin by sidling up to the Democratic nominee--while ignoring his GOP counterpart--is a whole different can of worms. For starters, it proves that the Republican Party has no message for voters, having abandoned the clear, top-down discipline of 2000 and 2004 in favor of an "every man for himself" approach. Like the round of anti-Obama ads tied to May's special congressional elections--which, by the way, backfired--Smith's maneuver only reinforces the idea that McCain is little more than bit player in a drama that's all about Obama. And, as Jonathan Martin writes, Smith is actually "making life difficult for his GOP colleague by breaking the ice for other blue-state Republicans to hug Obama."

In other words, totally unprecedented--and totally awkward. Yesterday, in fact, Obama was actually forced to rebuff the Republican's advances, lest the good people of Oregon think that he, you know, reciprocates. "Barack Obama has a long record of bipartisan accomplishment," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. "[But] in this race, Oregonians should know that Barack Obama supports Jeff Merkley for Senate."

Don't worry, Gordon. The pain will subside after a pint of Chunky Monkey and a few hours with "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason." We promise.
 

In a must-read guest piece for NEWSWEEK.com, "Governing" magazine executive editor Alan Ehrenhalt asks an crucial question: "For a smart, curious and hard-working young legislator—for a Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate--can we be so sure that the skill set picked up over eight years in a state Capitol is inferior as presidential preparation to two decades in the pompous, cordoned-off environment of the U.S. Senate?" Mr. Ehrenhalt says no. Here's why:

If Obama becomes president, he will have spent more time serving as a state legislator (eight years) than anyone who has occupied the White House since Abraham Lincoln.

You're thinking that's kind of irrelevant. John McCain has been a member of the U.S. Senate since 1986; do I really mean to suggest that Obama's eight years in the Illinois Senate (not the most august deliberative body, as anyone who has seen it will attest) provide the same preparation for the presidency? Well, not exactly. But looking back on quite a few years covering Congress, and an almost equal number of years following legislatures, I'm drawn to some slightly curmudgeonly comments about what it is that U.S. senators do, and what it is that state legislators do.

Twenty-first century U.S. senators are, virtually by the nature of the job, gadflies. They flit from one issue to another, generally developing little expertise on any of them; devote a large portion of their day to press conferences and other publicity opportunities; follow a daily schedule printed on a 3x5 card that a member of their staff has prepared; depend even more heavily on staff for detailed and time-consuming legislative negotiation that they are too busy to attend; and develop few close relationships with colleagues, nearly all of whom are as busy as they are.  There are exceptions, of course—senators who beat the odds and develop an encyclopedic knowledge of topics that interest them—but they are the minority. I don't doubt McCain's instinct for global strategy, but a few months ago, when he had to be corrected on his statement that Iran was training Al Qaeda operatives, I wasn't surprised at all. I'm surprised this doesn't happen to senators more often.

By contrast, what do state legislators do? At their worst, they are doggedly parochial, people who tend first and foremost to the interests of a relatively small constituency. At their best, they keep all the state's significant issues in mind; it is possible to do that in a state legislature in a way that is not possible in Washington. During the years that Obama served in Springfield, 1997-2005, he was forced to wrestle with the minutiae of health-care policy, utility deregulation, transportation funding, school aid, and a host of other issues that are vitally important to America's coming years, but that U.S. senators are usually able to dispose of with a quick once-over. State legislators have to do this largely on their own, without ubiquitous staff guidance, because staffing is not lavish even in the more professional state capitols. They enter into day-to-day bargaining relationships over the details of legislation with colleagues of both parties; there is no one else to do it for them. At the end of the session, they are likely to know the strengths and quirks of nearly everyone who serves in their chamber.

And perhaps most important, there is simply more personal contact across the aisle than there is in Congress. Legislatures have grown more partisan in the past decade, as all of American politics has. But in most state capitols, the wall of partisan separation is nowhere near as high as it is in Washington. When Obama was in the Illinois Senate, he was obligated to sit down in a small room day after day with his Republican counterparts and work out the details of legislation expanding health-care coverage and revising campaign-finance law. He played in a regular poker game in which party and ideology were utterly irrelevant. Maybe there are still poker games in the U.S. Senate. I haven't heard of one lately.

READ THE REST HERE. 
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

OBAMA HOLDS 12-POINT LEAD OVER MCCAIN, POLL FINDS
(Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times)
Buoyed by enthusiasm among Democrats and public concern over the economy, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has taken a sizable lead over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at the opening of the general election campaign for president, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found. In a two-man race between the major-party candidates, registered voters chose Obama over McCain by 49% to 37% in the national poll, conducted Thursday through Monday. On a four-man ballot that included independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by 48% to 33%. Obama's lead -- bigger in this poll than in most other national surveys -- appears to stem largely from his positions on domestic issues. Both Democrats and independent voters said Obama would do a better job than McCain at handling the nation's economic problems, the public's top concern... McCain suffers from a pronounced "passion gap," especially among conservatives who usually give Republican candidates a reliable base of support... Even among voters who said they planned to vote for McCain, more than half said they were "not enthusiastic" about their chosen candidate; 45% said they were enthusiastic. By contrast, 81% of Obama voters said they were enthusiastic, and almost half called themselves "very enthusiastic," a level of zeal found in 13% of McCain's supporters.

TURNOUT BOOST COULD FAVOR OBAMA
(Mike Dorning, Chicago Tribune)
Barack Obama could make major gains in at least nine states the Democratic ticket lost in 2004 if he can achieve a relatively modest increase in turnout among young and African-American voters, a Tribune analysis of voting data suggests. That potential helps explain why the Obama campaign chose to forgo federal funding and also why it is engaged in a massive voter registration drive. With its unprecedented resources, the campaign can fund an array of specific targeting operations, and Obama exploited early versions of those to great success during the primary campaign. If Obama could inspire just 10 percent more Democratic voters under 30 to go to the polls than did four years ago, that alone could be enough to switch Iowa and New Mexico from red to blue, the analysis suggests. Just a 10 percent increase in turnout among blacks would make up more than 40 percent of George W. Bush's 2004 victory margin in Ohio and more than 20 percent of the Republicans' 2004 victory margin in Florida. Turnout increases of 10 percent of both young voters and African-Americans could virtually eliminate the Republicans' 2004 victory margin in Ohio and go a long way to closing the gap in Colorado, Nevada, Missouri, Virginia and—a bit more of a stretch—possibly North Carolina.

MORE: Obama's Aim: 14 Bush States and Local Races (Ben Smith, Politico)
Barack Obama will focus his resources largely in 14 states George W. Bush won in 2004, his chief field operative said Tuesday, hoping to score upsets in places like Virginia, Indiana, and Georgia. But winning the White House won’t be his only goal, deputy campaign manager Hildebrand told Politico: In an unusual move, Obama’s campaign will also devote some resources to states it’s unlikely to win, with the goal of influencing specific local contests in places like Texas and Wyoming.

WILL 'EXPERIENCE' HURT OBAMA?
(Jay Newton-Small, Time)
To some observers, Obama's transformation from upstart candidate to presumptive nominee has made him begin to look dangerously like the typical Washington politicians he so often rails against. Worried about his patriotism? He now wears a flag pin daily. Worried about his church? He left it. Think he's inexperienced? Don't fret; he's got lots of renowned advisers. Too liberal? Well, just look at his recent policy statements on defending Israel and protecting warrantless wiretapping. And for a man who last week flip-flopped on his pledge to stay within the public financing system, his planned meeting tomorrow with Hillary Clinton's fat cat donors seems to be Obama's way of saying, 'I may not like your game, but I'll take your money.' ... Having spent the last 16 months pledging to be "the change you can believe in," Obama faces an especially delicate balancing act in playing to the center. Currently Obama trails McCain among independents not leaning toward either party by a margin of 26% to 35%, according to a June 5-10 Gallup poll.

TRIPLE $$$ RANCH
(Jason Horowitz, New York Observer)
John McCain used to be Lincoln Chafee’s kind of Republican. In 2001, Mr. McCain and Mr. Chafee were the only two Republican senators to vote against George Bush’s tax cuts. Now, Mr. McCain favors making them permanent, and Mr. Chafee thinks the Arizona senator has lost the right to call himself a maverick. “Technically, the definition of maverick in the dictionary is an unbranded calf, which is appropriate—you got no brand on your flank,” said Mr. Chafee, a former Republican moderate from Rhode Island who lost his seat to a Democrat in 2006 and switched to independent. “McCain just made a calculated decision to pander. And he got a brand on his flank. The ‘R’ brand. My own feeling is that credibility is everything and you just get cracks in your credibility when you have to pander to the extent that he has. It’s just not the same John McCain.”

It's time for another round of "Name That Talking Point."

As Republican presidential nominee John McCain tours the country to tout new energy policies like offshore oil drilling, possible ANWR exploration and a $5,000 tax credit for clean vehicles--which are new mostly because the candidate opposed them until, oh, right now--his staffers and surrogates have been busy slamming Barack Obama as an indolent lazybones unwilling to swing into action and magically lower the nation's skyrocketing gas prices. "Senator Obama has no plan," says McCain economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakins."Or maybe his plan is to say, 'No.'" "Barack Obama has sort of a do-nothing or minimalist approach, and that's not going to work," adds Minnesota Governor and McCain national co-chair Tim Pawlenty. Not to be left out, Sen. Lindsey Graham claims that Obama refuses to respond to the "great challenge" of energy independence and "just says no to everything," while spokesman Brian Rogers calls the Illinois senator the "Dr. No of energy security." Listen, everyone. I think Lassie's trying to tell us something!

Team McCain's attack may be novel--it's not everyday you hear a Republican demanding more government intervention from a Democrat--but, sadly, it's totally misleading as well. Like McCain, Obama has been perfectly willing to reach out to cash-strapped Americans desperate for lower prices at the pump, proposing to crack down on oil speculation, tax the oil companies' windfall profits and send a second stimulus tax credit of $1,000 to 95 percent of working families (to provide "meaningful relief from soaring energy costs," he says).

These measures, say energy analysts, mean that it's Obama, not McCain, who's more likely to deliver short-term relief to consumers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, for example, the Arizonan's gimmicky gas-tax holiday proposal would save customers an estimated $30 over the course of a summer--a sum that's likely to be swallowed up as oil companies simply raise the per-gallon price and pocket the difference--while eliminating 300,000 much-needed construction jobs. And while McCain pitched his offshore drilling reversal last week as an alternative to the "far-off plans of futurists and politicians" that would "assure affordable fuel" for Americans who "do not have the luxury of waiting," experts agree that it would take four to five years for any new domestic oil to make its way to the market, and that even then, consumers would save a mere three or four cents per gallon. "“Drilling offshore to lower oil prices is like walking an extra 20 feet per day to lose weight,” says David Sandalow, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of "Freedom from Oil." “It’s just not going to make much difference.” Simply put, McCain's meager savings can't compare to the $1,000 that blue-collar workers would receive immediately under an Obama presidency, or the $65 to $70 per barrel drop in oil prices that may occur within 30 days if Obama were to rein in speculators, according to recent Congressional testimony. In Fresno, Calif. yesterday, even McCain seemed to describe his short-term plans as shiny objects meant to distract the electorate. "I don't see an immediate relief," he admitted. "But... the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."

That said, no one--not even the Leader of the Free World--can do much to permanently ease the pain at the pump. While Obama would act quicker than McCain, taxing oil profits and meddling with the commodities markets could still deepen our addiction to foreign crude and trigger unanticipated price increases. The important question, then, is not who's best for my wallet right now--the answer is neither, really--but rather who will do the most to wean the U.S. off foreign oil in the long run? Here, too, McCain claims that Obama has a "do-nothing" approach. But while the Arizonan this week proposed a $300 million prize for the inventor of a greener car battery, Obama has said since last October that he would invest $150 billion over the next ten years to move the country toward energy independence. Will McCain's less expansive plan--which includes measures Obama has endorsed (mandatory emissions caps) and measures he's rejected (45 new nuclear reactors)--bring us closer to that distant goal? If I knew, I'd be a much richer man (and/or Al Gore).

But to say that Obama is offering the American people "nothing" on energy--when, in fact, he's literally offering "more"--might be the understatement of the year. 
 

(Photo from LisaNH on Flickr)

Talk about symbolic overkill. When Barack Obama's press office announced yesterday that Obama and Hillary Clinton would hold their first joint rally this Friday in "Unity, New Hampshire," where "both candidates received exactly 107 votes... in the primary," I reflexively sought out the most convenient wall to bang my head against. Apparently, wrote the New Republic's Christopher Orr,  "the rivals were unable to find venues with appropriate seating in Help Retire My Debt, Penn., or You Should've Dropped Out In March, Fla." He forgot about I Still Won the Popular Vote, Ohio and Lady, It Was a Race for Delegates, Mich., but otherwise, my feelings exactly.

But then I got to thinking: Bill Clinton has been awfully quiet since Obama won the nomination. Actually, except for a one-sentence, secondhand endorsement issued today--"President Clinton is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States," said a spokesman--he hasn't said or done anything at all. Of course, the most recent Democratic president can't exactly sit out The Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes ®, so he's going to have to sack up and hit the trail for the Obama sometime soon. The question then become, which town will set the right tone for Bill and Barack's first joint appearance?

The most obvious pick is probably Bill's birthplace of Hope, Ark.; like Clinton circa 1992, Obama likes to say the word hope a lot. But that might be drifting too far onto Bill's turf. If so, Obama should suggest the swing-state towns of New Hope, Penn.and Little Hope, Wisc. instead. That said, the whole hope thing might be a little overhyped. For other uplifting options, we'd probably try Progress, Ore.; New Era, Penn.; Presidential, Conn.; Democrat, Idaho; Opportunity, Mont.; or Forty Four, Ark. Friendship, Okla. is acceptable, if cheesy. Brothers, Ill. could work. But Manlove, Calif.? Perhaps a bit too much.

In fact, there may be more restricted territory than open terrain. Bill, for example, will probably want to skip Cheat Lake, W.Va., Intercourse, Penn. and Horneytown, N.C. Likewise, Obama should avoid Bitter End, Tenn. Recalling his famous critique of Obama's bid, Bill could suggest Fairyland, Tenn., but I doubt his new partner would accept; same goes for Bill and the plausible Obama destination of Jerktail, Missouri. And while Bigfoot, Texas might be accurate, it's not exactly the message anyone wants to send at this point.

So where to go? My personal favorite is a tiny historical village in Coshocton County, Ohio. It's in a swing state. It leaves even less to the imagination than Unity, N.H. And it pays tribute to the person responsible for bringing Bill and Barack together. Its name:

White Womans Town.  

Hope you have a wall handy.
 

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Once, Barack Obama only threw people "under the bus"--Samantha "Monster" Power, for example, or Jim "Countrywide" Johnson. But that got boring. So now he's moved on to symbolic objects.

When the Democratic nominee met Friday with a group of governors in Chicago, what he said wasn't as newsworthy, apparently, as what he said it in front of: a make-believe version of the official presidential seal (above left). There was still a splayed bald eagle clutching an olive branch in one talon and a quiver of arrows in the other. But everything else was Obama-ized, with a Latin version of his "Yes, we can" motto replacing "E pluribus unum," and his rising-sun campaign logo subbing for the bird's Stars and Stripes shield. At the time, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki praised the seal as "a mix of presidential politics and a call for hope and change," while Ben Smith reported that it was intended "for events meant to feel presidential." But by Monday, Team Obama was disowning the design. "It was a one-time seal for a one-time use," Psaki told Reuters.

What happened? Apparently, the critics got their way. "The Latin inscription "vero possumus"... made me think of opossum," wrote Frank James of the Chicago Tribune on Friday. "It's emblematic of all that is wrong with the Obama campaign," added Bonnie Erbe of U.S. News and World Report. "Presumptuousness, self-aggrandizement in lieu of substance, unadulterated hunger for power and social climbing." "Looked like Gilbert and Sullivan to me," quipped a commenter at Politico. And so the seal--not, it seems, the very model of a modern, major general-election tactic--was put out of its misery.

This is too bad. We here at Stumper headquarters were actually looking forward to a summer of subliminal messages designed to make us imagine Obama as president. Picture it. When Obama enters the room, a mashup of "Hail to the Chief" and Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulders" plays over the loudspeakers. At the end of his speech, Obama whispers "so help me God" over a copy of "The Audacity of Hope." When referring to the boss, staffers start using the acronym BOTUS (Barack of the United States). The campaign plane becomes Air Force Won. At his regular pickup basketball games, Obama insists on wearing the number 44. And when reporters notice that he's carrying a strange tool everywhere he goes, the presid--I mean, the candidate--feigns innocence. "This old thing?" he says. "Why, it's just a drape-measuring device."

But alas--vero non possumus.

Update, 4:09 p.m.: In response to the commenters, I do think it's fair, when writing a piece of satire, to use Jay-Z for joke about a "Hail to the Chief" mash-up. Why? Because Obama likes listening to him on his iPod, has played his songs at rallies, has used him to make robocalls and has even referenced his lyrics at a campaign stop. Now, I could have used Miles Davis or Bob Dylan--two of Obama's other favorites--but frankly I imagined a Jay-Z beat working better for an HTTC remix than, say, "Tangled Up in Blue." I disagree with the insinuation that there's something "racist" about mentioning Obama and Jay-Z in the same breath.

Also, this is a blog. I write three to five items a day. Some are serious; some are not so serious. Please check the archives if you're interested in reading about, say, McCain's flip flops. Thanks for visiting, Andrew
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

THE EVOLUTION OF JOHN MCCAIN
(David Whitford, Fortune)
When he took part in an economic roundtable in Union City, Calif... McCain took the opportunity to tick off some of the highlights in his stump speech: his insistence that "the foundation of our economy is incredibly strong"; his belief that when it comes to government, "the lesser the better," and to taxes, "the lower the better"; and above all, his commitment to free trade. "Erecting trade barriers," he said in his introductory remarks, "would be the most harmful thing we could do to America's economic future." Some of that went over pretty well with the Silicon Valley techies in the crowd. But the economic landscape is nothing if not fractured. Tax cuts, investment credits, stimulus packages, trade deals, help with the mortgage, government contracts - everybody's looking for whatever it is they're looking for, and if they don't get it they're not happy... The overall tepid response McCain received from the people we spoke to afterward seemed to point up the peculiar challenge he faces when laying out his economic plan. How does a tough, uncompromising former prisoner of war - a self-described maverick who built his political reputation on straight talk - handle competing demands for limited resources during hard times, meanwhile keeping the ideologues in his own party at bay? Not always gracefully, it turns out.

WHAT OBAMA MEANS FOR BUSINESS
(Nina Easton, Fortune)
Toward the business community, he will build on a message of "tough love" that he has delivered since he landed in Detroit a year ago to tell the auto industry he would impose strict emissions standards, but in return help them with crippling health-care costs. In the coming months voters will hear that a decade-long middle-class squeeze hurts business, because it "reduces demand for the stuff that companies are selling," says his economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee. Therefore, he argues, business should support Obama's plan to shift the tax burden toward the wealthy and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 over two years... His voting record, however, is among the most liberal in the Senate, reflecting the sensibility of a former community organizer who for 20 years belonged to a church that urged congregants to disavow the pursuit of middle-classness. During the primary campaign, his rhetoric was sharply populist, denouncing big business and blaming the shift of jobs overseas on free-trade agreements... Yet there are hints that the presumed Democratic nominee's economic agenda remains a work in progress - and will evolve toward his ambition to win in November. Already his circle of advisors has expanded beyond a small core of academics to include veteran capitalists inside the Democratic Party. 

OBAMA'S VIRTUES ASIDE, IT'S POLITICS AS USUAL
(Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe)
There was a time - just a few weeks ago, in fact - when Obama seemed to be challenging the electorate to look beyond superficial expressions of patriotism. He sometimes declined to wear a flag pin. But that got him tagged as unpatriotic, and now he's sounding the expected notes. In addition, he vaulted to the top of the Democratic field by alluding frequently to his mixed-race background and international upbringing. He declared that America would look at itself differently when he's president, and the rest of the world would look at America differently. That was a compelling appeal to liberals, but it's not liberals he's after right now, so he's stressing his similarities to other Americans, via the Kansas side of his family. At the start of the general election campaign, many people believed Obama was so intent on showing his distaste for the usual political tropes - and his superiority to them - that he would go all the way to November with a message of Jimmy Carter-like pieties: hope, change, honesty. The revelation of the past two weeks is that he's not taking that route.

TWO REPUBLICAN CONTENDERS WHOSE SIMILARITIES ARE MOSTLY SKIN DEEP
(Adam Nagourney, New York Times)
Mr. Dole was not just a creature of the Senate but the very face of the Washington legislative establishment. Mr. McCain has promoted an image as a renegade in the body, scolding it, for example, for its pork barrel spending. Mr. McCain is, to a considerable degree, sprinting away from his own party and looking to distance himself from an unpopular incumbent president. Mr. Dole resisted running against an institution that he cherished, and that made it easier for Democrats to tie him to what they portrayed as the Republican Party’s excesses during the period when the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, and the ascendant conservative wing of the party were seeking to reshape domestic policy. Mr. Dole, as a candidate, reined in his humor and kept a protective wall around him, avoiding freewheeling sessions with voters or reporters, in deference to the urging of his campaign advisers. Mr. McCain’s campaign is a rolling caravan of town hall meetings, news conferences, wisecracks and the very kinds of unscripted events that made Mr. Dole’s advisers sweat.

RAISE THE HIGH RAFTERS
(Sam Anderson, New York)
Barack Obama’s upcoming speech at the Democratic National Convention is—barring the miraculous reanimation of Winston Churchill’s corpse, sometime in mid-July, to recite the Sermon on the Mount in twelve different languages—pretty much a lock to be the rhetorical blockbuster event of the summer. The speech offers, among many other hooks, a tidy dramatic symmetry. Obama first stepped out of the political phone booth on this occasion four years ago, when he gave the climactic keynote address for John Kerry’s otherwise legendarily droopy campaign. In ten minutes, America watched him rip off the rumpled suit of anonymous, mild-mannered state-senatorhood and squeeze into the gaudy cape and tights of our national oratorical superhero—a honey-tongued Frankenfusion of Lincoln, Gandhi, Cicero, Jesus, and all our most cherished national acronyms (MLK, JFK, RFK, FDR)... So, as Obama heads back to the spectacle that launched him, this time under completely different circumstances, he runs up against one of the most difficult conundrums in American politics. He has to extend his popularity, which he built on the strength of his electric speechmaking and subtle intellect, to a new audience that is deeply ambivalent about precisely those qualities.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...
 

There are many ways to determine who will win a presidential election. Poll analysis. Demographic projection. Listening to people repeat conventional wisdom on television for hours on end. Even waiting until Election Day for the actual results. But while each of these methods has its merits, we here at Stumper headquarters have decided--for today at least--to use a different yardstick to determine who will emerge victorious on Nov. 4:

The candidates' physical attributes.

Call it the body politic. In recent years, political geeks have eagerly cataloged and compared the corporeal quirks of presidential candidates in search of patterns that reveal what the American people are looking for in a leader. At this point, someone somewhere probably knows whether the White House hopeful with expansive ears typically defeats a smaller-flapped foe. Does that mean that the size of a particular politician's auditory organs actually helps determine whether he will occupy the Oval Office? Not so much. But considering the amount of attention we pay to polls--which, after all, incorrectly predicted the winner of the popular vote in four out of the last five elections at this point in the cycle--it couldn't hurt to take a look at what the anatomical record has to say about the battle between John McCain and Barack Obama. A feature-by-feature face-off:

HEIGHT:
If the most familiar bit of physical folk wisdom about presidential elections--"The taller of the two major-party candidates always wins"--were true, then McCain might as well give up now: at 5'7", he's a full five-and-a-half inches shorter than the 6'1.5" Obama. Luckily for the Arizonan, there's still hope. For the 46 elections in which the heights of both candidates are known, the shorter candidate managed to come out on top--pun intended--at least 17 times. That's not nothing. What's more, the trend seems to be heading in McCain's (downward) direction, with four of the last nine contests going to the more diminutive combatant. In 1972, Richard Nixon (5'11") beat George McGovern (6'1"). Four years later, Jimmy Carter (5'9") repeated the rare trick, trouncing Gerald Ford (6'1"). And George W. Bush (5'11")--according to critics, McCain's clone--twice defeated taller men. Still, the odds favor the loftier pol, who has captured 59 percent of past presidential elections. Adding to McCain's woes: his particularly meager stature. The last candidate shorter than 5'9" to secure the presidency was William McKinley (5'7") in 1900. That said, the average American man was 5'6" at the time; today, he's 5'10". To find a shorter-than-average president, which McCain would be, we'd have to go all the way back to 1812, when Americans elected the minuscule James Madison (5'4"). Ultimately, if McCain did manage to defeat Obama, he'd be overcoming the largest height gap since Franklin Pierce (5'10") surpassed Winfield Scott (6'5") in 1852. And you thought Obama was the only one poised to make history this year. Advantage: Obama.

EYE COLOR:
Less familiar than the height factor but definitely more consistent: of our 43 presidents, a shocking 38 have had blue, gray or hazel eyes. The brown-eyed exceptions? John Quincy Adams, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. (With one impeachee and one near-impeachee, that's not exactly a stellar lineup.) Genetic diversification can partially explain this pattern. Because the country's early ethnic settlers--English, Scottish, Irish and German, primarily--tended to have blue eyes, 50 percent of Americans boasted the recessive genetic trait as recently as 1900. But at no point in U.S. history were 89 percent of the population's peepers blue. In fact, while the general incidence of non-brown eyes declined to its current level of 16 percent over the last century, the presidential rate held steady at nine out of ten. Any way you look at it, that's a highly disproportionate number--and in our battle of the body parts, it gives the blue-eyed McCain an edge over his brown-eyed rival. Advantage: McCain.

HANDEDNESS:
Is it sinister? Or just the latest anatomical pattern in presidential politics? As Russell Berman reports in this morning's New York Sun, only "two presidents [before 1974] were known definitively to be left-handed: James Garfield and Harry Truman." Since then, however, "presidents Ford, Reagan*, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton have all favored their left hands, while [only] President Carter and the current President Bush are righties." That's a 66 percent rate of presidential left-handedness in recent years--compared to only 10 percent in the population at large. Coincidence? Some experts think not. Melissa Roth, the author of "The Left Stuff: How the Left-Handed Have Survived and Thrived in a Right Handed World," argues that lefties realize early on that they're different from their peers and seek to distinguish themselves accordingly. "Their difference might be treated as a positive or a negative, a 'creative' asset or a failure to adapt," she told Berman. "But either way they are aware that they are 'special,' and that's a trait psychologists find in many leaders." So who has the upper hand? Neither McCain nor Obama, actually. Turns out they're both southpaws. What's more, the list of lefties who've lost the presidency in the past two decades (Bob Dole, John Edwards, Bill Bradley, Ross Perot) is as long as the list of winners. How gauche. Advantage: Tied.

BALDNESS:
These days, the only thing worse than being a short, brown-eyed, right-handed presidential candidate is being a short, brown-eyed, right-handed presidential candidate who's also bald. The U.S. has elected only five hairless presidents in its long and illustrious history, and four of them--John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Garfield--won the White House before 1880, when voters weren't forced endure the sight of their pink, shiny, uncovered craniums on television. Since then, only Dwight Eisenhower has managed to overcome his follicular deficit and assume the highest office in the land--which barely counts, considering he had the benefit of running twice against Adlai Stevenson, who was even balder. The only bald president of the last 50 years--Gerald Ford--wasn't actually elected, and Dick Cheney wasn't *technically* president. This spells trouble for John McCain. Despite the white wisps combed across his skull, the Arizona senator is more bald than not. Worse, he's running against the only candidate in U.S. history who's ever grown an afro. (Other than Andrew Jackson, of course.) Even if McCain does win, his hair-related problems won't, ahem, recede. Adams, Quincy Adams and Van Buren were one-term presidents; Garfield was shot less than four months after taking office. Advantage: Obama.

MELANIN LEVEL:
After a close analysis of historical documents, I have determined that precisely 100 percent of our presidents have been white. Advantage: McCain.

FINAL SCORE:
2-2-1. A tie. Perhaps there's something to that whole "waiting until Election Day for the actual results" thing after all.

*As in his politics, Reagan apparently went from left to right as he got older.
 

In which Stumper examines the Republican nominee's possible--and not-so-possible--vice-presidential picks. (Previous McCain installments: Bobby Jindal; Mitt Romney; Charlie Crist. Previous Obama installments: Ted Strickland; Jim Webb; Wes Clark; Hillary Clinton.)

Name: Tim Pawlenty
Age: 47
Resume: Two-term Minnesota governor, former Minnesota state representative and state House majority leader.

Source of Speculation: A flurry of reports claiming that Pawlenty has risen to the top of McCain's vice presidential short list. Last Thursday, U.S. News and World Report money and politics blogger James Pethokoukis wrote that the "flavor right now for Team McCain is the environment-loving, hockey-playing governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty," according to "a high-ranking McCain campaign official." At the same time, a close Pawlenty confidant told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that his pal "has better than a 50-50 chance because of his personal relationship with McCain," and the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza reported that "there's little dispute in Republican circles that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is the leading candidate at the moment to be selected as John McCain's running mate." Can't get much more buzzy than that.

Backstory: Despite the faddish feel of the current Pawlenty chatter, he's long been considered a top veep possibility for McCain. The Minnesota gov was one of the first high-profile pols to endorse McCain's second White House bid. He started lobbying his fellow governors as early as Dec. 2006. He signed on as national co-chair of the senator's exploratory committee in Jan. 2007. He assumed a parallel role on the campaign three months later. And he didn't let last summer's implosion scare him off. "He stuck with us through thin,” said senior McCain adviser Charlie Black in February. “He went anywhere we asked and did anything we asked him to do." As a result, the Star-Tribune began to ask "Pawlenty for Veep: Will He or Won't He?" as early as March 2007; a year later, no less a conservative authority than George Will was advocating on his behalf. ("Pawlenty is a center-right politician in a center-right country," he wrote.) Most importantly, both McCain and Pawlenty have signaled their interest in a possible partnership. Speaking to the Times of London last week, Pawlenty said he was “honored to have his name mentioned," while adding the de rigueur disclaimer he was delighted with his “day job”. “I’m going to be very demure about it,” he said. Meanwhile, McCain told a town hall crowd in Minneapolis Thursday that Pawlenty "has a place in the future of this country as well as our Republican party." In other words, there's a whole lot of flirting going on.

Odds: Very strong. Contrary to the boosterish buzz, Pawlenty isn't a perfect candidate. According to Pethokoukis, internal McCain polls show that putting Pawlenty on the ticket would propel the senator to victory not only in Minnesota but also in neighboring Wisconsin, both of which went Democratic in the last two presidential elections by less than 3.5 percent. The reality? Not going to happen. Obama has held double-digit leads in both states since Iowa, and Pawlenty is neither popular not powerful enough to overturn them. He won reelection in 2006 by a mere two points, and his full-throated support did little to prevent McCain, by then the clear frontrunner, from losing by a whopping 19 points to Mitt Romney is Minnesota's Feb. 5 caucuses. The reason, as Cillizza has reported, is that "Pawlenty has an almost non-existent political operation either in the state or nationally."

What's more, Pawlenty is a virtual unknown. His low profile will do little to rev up grass-roots GOP activists and party operatives--a key consideration for a campaign that's in desperate need of electricity. But it will open the door for "rough treatment from the national press corps as they sift through his record as governor." For McCain, that's double trouble. "In this environment you can't pick someone who hasn't already been publicly vetted," a Republican strategist told the Post. Pawlenty's past is not without grist. He's been involved in a few campaign-finance and corporate-crony-related scandals. He pissed off some fiscal conservatives by imposing a 75-percent tax on cigarettes. He's undermined his bipartisan brand by clashing with the state legislature. And he recently made waves with a risque crack about his wife. "She loves football, she'll go to hockey games," he told a local radio interviewer last month. "Now, if I could only get her to have sex with me." Not exactly the best way to woo former Hillary Clinton supporters.

That said, Pawlenty is about as good as it gets for McCain. Think balance. He's youthful; McCain isn't. He has executive experience; McCain doesn't. And his blue-collar cred adds some "regular guy" ballast to McCain's rootless warrior image--not to mention a potentially useful link to middle-class voters, who have been trending Democratic in recent elections. A trucker's son raised in the working-class neighborhoods south of St. Paul, Pawlenty was the first in his family to graduate from college. As governor, he plays ice hockey whenever possible. On opening day of fishing season this spring, he snagged a 17" walleye. And he's completely comfortable visiting a roadside bar and putting a constituent in a headlock. Pawlenty's "proletarian chic," as the New Republic's Noam Scheiber calls it, would serve the stiffer McCain well, and help sell a message of populist Republicanism--for "Sam's Club not just the country club," in Pawlenty's trademarked catchphrase--perfectly calibrated for this dismal economic climate.

Pawlenty is the rare Republican who could reassure supply-siders and social conservatives still skeptical of McCain without scaring off blue-state moderates. (After all, they've elected him twice.) As governor, he's cut taxes and spending, backed an anti-gay marriage amendment, signed a law requiring doctors to explain the risks and alternatives to abortion and maintained close ties to the evangelical community (his wife Mary attended an evangelical college and counts the president of the National Association of Evangelicals as a personal friend). At the same time, Pawlenty, who refuses to wear his religion on his sleeve, has branded himself as reformist/maverick in the McCain mold.  He speaks out against global warming. He rails against oil and pharmaceutical companies. And he stresses the need for a new kind of conservatism. "I believe the Republican brand needs refreshment,” Pawlenty has said. “Our principles haven’t changed but the country is changing in terms of demographics, culture and technology and we need to make sure the Republican messenger has a modern message.” As the Times of London put it last week, he's "the thinking man’s blue-collar conservative, a political moderate and environmentalist." That's a tricky balance to strike--and it's exactly what McCain needs to win in November.

Will McCain tap Pawlenty? We won't know until early August. But it's worth remembering that the senator places an unusual premium on loyalty and friendship--meaning that personal factors will probably influence his pick as much, if not more, than political calculations. This is where the Minnesotan may have the biggest edge on his competitors (namely, Mitt Romney). According to campaign insiders, Pawlenty and his prospective boss get along swimmingly, sharing a bawdy sense of humor and a strong mischievous streak. (The governor, for example, has been known to use his reception-room fireplace as a hockey goal.) In addition, Pawlenty stepped aside in 1998 to let a senior Republican run for governor, proving that he can shelve his own ambitions for the good of the party--a key part of being veep. In the end, choosing a running mate is as much an art as a science. But however you slice it, Pawlenty is well-positioned to score.
 

In the latest dead-tree edition of the mag, my NEWSWEEK colleague Fareed Zakaria delivers a must-read column on how Barack Obama should shift his message--if not his policy--on the war in Iraq in light of the recent decline in violence. "Barack Obama needs to give a speech about Iraq," he writes. "Otherwise he will find himself in the unusual position of having being prescient about the war in 2002 and yet being overtaken by events in 2008."  According to Fareed, "the reason to lay out his approach to Iraq is that, were he elected, the war would be his biggest and most immediate problem. He will need to implement a serious policy on Iraq, one that is consistent with his long-held views but is also informed by the conditions on the ground today." Selection's from Fareed's suggested speech:

"The surge has produced a considerable decline in violence in Iraq. General Petraeus has accomplished this by using more troops and fighting differently. Perhaps more crucially, he reached out and made a strategic accommodation with many Sunni groups that had once fought U.S. troops. To put it bluntly, he talked to our enemies. These reversals of strategy have had the effect of creating what General Petraeus calls 'breathing space' for political reconciliation. And he has always said that without political progress in Iraq, military efforts will not produce any lasting success.

"He is right. All today's gains could disappear when American troops leave—and they will have to leave one day. The disagreement I have with the Bush administration is that it seems to believe that time will magically make these gains endure. It won't. Without political progress, once the United States reduces its forces, the old mistrust and the old militias will rise up again. Only genuine political power-sharing will create a government and an Army that are seen as national and not sectarian. And that, in turn, is the only path to make Iraq viable without a large American military presence.

"In recent months there has been some movement on the reconciliation long promised by the Bush administration. It remains piecemeal and limited—nothing like the new national compact that the Maliki government promised two years ago—but I welcome the gains. It is encouraging to see the Iraqi government act against Shiite militias in Basra and Sadr City, which sends a signal that they will be equal-opportunity enforcers of the law.

"More needs to happen. Militias remain powerful in many parts of Iraq. The Sunni tribes that have switched sides must have their members enrolled in the armed forces and police (a process that has moved very slowly so far). Constitutional discussions that have been postponed again and again need to take place soon.

"My objective remains to end American combat involvement in Iraq and to do so expeditiously. At some point we are going to have to take off the training wheels in Iraq. I believe that we must have a serious plan that defines when that point is reached. If we define success as an Iraq that looks like France or Holland, we will have to stay indefinitely, continue spending $10 billion a month and keep 140,000 troops in combat. And that is neither acceptable nor sustainable. We will have to accept as success a muddy middle ground—an Iraq that is a functioning, federal democracy with a central government and an army able to tackle the bulk of challenges they face. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have themselves said that no matter what success we achieve, there will remain some Al Qaeda presence in Iraq and some Iranian influence, since Iran is a neighbor.

"I have been a longstanding opponent of the Iraq War. But I am a passionate supporter of the Iraqi people. They deserve a decent future after decades of tyranny and five years of chaos. The United States must continue its assistance and engagement with Iraq on a whole range of issues—economic, administrative and security-related. We owe the Iraqi people this, and we hope to maintain a friendship with them for decades. I have always said that I would not withdraw troops precipitously, nor do I insist that we will draw down to zero. If circumstances require, we will have a small presence in the country to fight Al Qaeda, train the Iraqi Army, protect American interests and provide humanitarian assistance. But it will be small and it will be temporary—which is also as the Iraqi people seem to wish.

Another significant difference between Senator McCain and me is that I would couple the reduction in our military forces in Iraq with a diplomatic surge, not just to push the Iraqis to make deals, but also to get its neighbors more productively involved in Iraq. It is a sign of our neglect of diplomacy that today, five years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, only two Arab governments have pledged to name an ambassador to Baghdad. Iraq is not an island. It is a founding member of the Arab League and a crucial country in the Persian Gulf. We need to engage with all Iraq's neighbors—including Syria and Iran—to create a lasting political stability that is supported in the region.

"But finally, I would return to my original concerns. General Petraeus has successfully executed the task he was given, to shore up a collapsing situation in Iraq. But his responsibility was Iraq. His new area of operation stretches from the Arab world into Pakistan and Afghanistan. There lie the most dangerous and immediate threats to American security. The Taliban is enjoying its greatest resurgence since 9/11. Former U.S. commander Gen. Dan McNeill has said we need at least two more combat brigades to fight it. But there are literally no brigades to spare because of our massive commitment in Iraq.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?
(Dorothy Wickenden, New Yorker)
Obama promises to tell voters what they need to know and not what they want to know. It’s a risky strategy, and one he doesn’t always follow, but when he put it into effect in April, by attacking McCain’s proposed summer gasoline-tax holiday, he helped his campaign more than he hurt it. Last week, he denounced McCain’s latest reversal, on offshore drilling. But he needs to go further. A year ago, he likened “the tyranny of oil” to that of Fascism and Communism, saying, “The very resource that has fueled our way of life over the last hundred years now threatens to destroy it if our generation does not act now and act boldly.” This is the kind of unequivocal message that Obama needs to develop. By telling just such inconvenient truths, Al Gore has inspired a worldwide movement to arrest climate change. The next President could be its most powerful leader. Obama will not rouse voters by getting lost in a tussle with McCain over the virtues of cellulosic ethanol. He can, however, make voters part of the solution by helping them understand that the greedy oil companies, the failing auto industry, and the craven Congress will not redeem themselves until consumers demand that they do so by making some inconvenient changes of their own. A little more audacity will yield a lot more hope. 

OBAMA MOVES TO REINTRODUCE HIMSELF TO VOTERS
(Dan Balz and Anne E. Kornblut)
In the opening weeks of the general-election campaign, Sen. Barack Obama has moved aggressively to shape his campaign and offered a clear road map for the kind of candidate he is likely to become in the months ahead: an ambitious gamer of the electoral map, a ruthless fundraiser and a scrupulous manager of his own biography in the face of persistent concerns about how he is perceived.  Obama's early maneuvers suggest a clear understanding within the campaign of his strengths and weaknesses. He bought air time in 18 states, a sure sign that he hopes to expand Democrats' traditional electoral map. He opted out of the public campaign-financing system -- revealing his determination to press his financial advantage, even at the cost of handing his Republican opponent the opportunity to raise questions about the sincerity of his rhetoric on reform. And with a first ad that delves into his biography, Obama acknowledged ongoing concerns among his advisers that voters do not know whether he shares the values and beliefs of ordinary Americans, a potentially critical vulnerability.

MCCAIN DRIVING DEBATE, BUT SOME FEAR SWERVING
(Michael D. Shear and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post)
In the two weeks since Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee, John McCain has demonstrated a knack for driving the daily political debate, forcing his opponent to respond to a challenge to meet in town hall debates, accusing him of being 'delusional' about terrorism and saying he flip-flopped on public financing for his campaign. But even as McCain's strategists claim tactical victories, Republicans outside the campaign worry that underlying weaknesses in its organization and message are costing him valuable time to make the case for his own candidacy. Allies complain that the campaign has offered myriad confusing themes that lurch between pitching McCain as a committed conservative one day and an independent-minded reformer the next, while displaying little of the discipline and focus that characterized President Bush's successful campaigns. Several Republican supporters of the presumptive nominee said they were puzzled by a series of easily avoidable mistakes, including sloppy political stagecraft and poorly timed comments that undercut McCain's reputation as a maverick.

OBAMA CAMPAIGN TARGETS BLACK VOTERS--CAREFULLY
(Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times)
Obama strategists believe they have identified a gold mine of new and potentially decisive Democratic voters in at least five battleground states -- voters who failed to turn out in the past but can be mobilized this time because Obama's candidacy is historic and his cash-rich campaign can afford the costly task of identifying and motivating such supporters. In Florida alone, more than half a million black registered voters stayed home in 2004. Hundreds of thousands more African Americans are eligible to vote but not registered. And campaign analysts have identified similar potential in North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and Ohio. In these five states, which were crucial to the GOP's presidential success in 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush's victory margins were generally slim enough to suggest that a major expansion of black turnout could lead to Democratic gains this year... John Bellows, a database expert in the Obama campaign, said he had already identified "big pockets of potential voters" in key states. "There are pretty big numbers lying around to turn out," he said. The strategy requires a deft touch and carries risks, however. In large part, Obama... has succeeded so far by appealing across racial lines. Strategists say he cannot afford to appear to be exploiting race or running solely as a black candidate -- particularly as he courts moderate whites and blue-collar workers who did not support him in the primaries. 

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...

Barack finally has his bounce. For weeks many political experts and pollsters have been wondering why the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain had stayed so tight, even after the Illinois senator wrested the nomination from Hillary Clinton. With numbers consistently showing rock-bottom approval ratings for President Bush and a large majority of Americans unhappy with the country's direction, the opposing-party candidate should, in the normal course, have attracted more disaffected voters. Now it looks as if Obama is doing just that. A new NEWSWEEK Poll shows that he has a substantial double-digit lead, 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters nationwide.

In the previous NEWSWEEK Poll, completed in late May when Clinton was still fighting him hard for the Democratic nomination, Obama managed no better than a 46 percent tie with McCain. But as pollster Larry Hugick points out, that may have had a lot to do with all the mutual mudslinging going on between the two Democrats. By contrast, in recent weeks Clinton has not only endorsed Obama but has made plans to campaign with him. "They were in a pitched battle, and that's going to impact things. Now that we've gotten away from that period, this is the kind of bounce they've been talking about," said Hugick.

The latest numbers on voter dissatisfaction suggest that Obama may enjoy more than one bounce. The new poll finds that only 14 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country. That matches the previous low point on this measure recorded in June 1992, when a brief recession contributed to Bill Clinton's victory over Bush's father, incumbent George H.W. Bush. Overall, voters see Obama as the preferred agent of "change" by a margin of 51 percent to 27 percent. Younger voters, in particular, are more likely to see Obama that way: those 18 to 39 favor the Illinois senator by 66 percent to 27 percent. The two candidates are statistically tied among older voters.

Most other national polls have shown Obama with a 4 to 5 point lead over McCain so far. Random statistical error can explain some of the difference in poll results. The NEWSWEEK survey of 1,010 adults nationwide on June 18 and 19, 2008, has a margin of error of 4 points. But the latest evidence of his gaining ground goes well beyond that margin.

READ THE REST HERE.

He's watched. He's waited. And now, finally, his moment has come. John Kerry--soldier, senator, disappointing Democratic presidential nominee--can at long last to do what he has dreamed since Nov. 2, 2004 of doing. Utter those two cursed words. "Flip flopper." About someone else. 

You could almost hear the sweet, vengeful satisfaction in Kerry's voice Thursday as he told reporters that Republican presidential nominee John McCain--a (former?) friend and one of his top 2004 veep picks--has become, like, way more of a flip-flopper than he ever was. "There was one issue on which the entire Republican campaign based itself last time," said Kerry, referring to his claim to have voted "for the $87 billion [in Iraq war funding] before [he] voted against it." "[But] it was a vote of principle. It was not a change of position." On the other hand, McCain has "complete[ly] change[d] [his] position on the actual substance" of numerous issues, said Kerry, including some that represent "fundamental value[s]." To which he added, "Nanny nanny boo boo."

He's right to crow. In 2004, critics mocked Kerry for a series of small slips, shifts of emphasis and rational responses to changing conditions. But for McCain, the reasonable process of positioning himself for a second run at the Republican presidential nomination, which began in 2003, has become an incoherent muddle of contradictions on core policy positions and principles----especially in the past two weeks. The "flip flopper" tag stuck to Kerry because it reinforced the existing impression of him as someone who wanted to have everything both ways. So far, McCain's brand--the straight-shooting maverick with unshakable convictions--has kept the label from sticking. But actually examine the record, and it's clear who's the more frequent and fervent flip-flopper of the two. Hint: he doesn't windsurf.

Take oil, for example. Running for president in 1999, McCain endorsed a federal moratorium on offshore drilling. But earlier this week, he "called for dissolving the federal ban on offshore oil drilling on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and some parts of the eastern Gulf of Mexico." Flip Flop Number One. The next day in New Hampshire, McCain added that he "would be more than happy to examine [drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]"--even though he'd said "I don't support drilling there" as recently as last week. Flip Flop Number Two. In each case, McCain framed his reversal as a short-term response to the skyrocketing price of gas. But experts say that it would take four to five years for any new oil to make its way to the market, and even then, consumers would save a mere three or four cents per gallon. In other words, domestic drilling is neither a quick fix nor a permanent solution--as McCain himself seemed to realize until this week. "We drill today in the false hope that doing so will solve our energy problems," he saidin the Senate on Dec. 20, 2005. "But in doing so we leave future generations with a degraded environment and the same dependence on oil that we have today.” Since then, nothing has changed--except McCain's political predicament.

And so his flipping and the flopping continues. Speaking on Tuesday in Houston--the heart of oil country--McCain attacked Barack Obama for supporting a windfall profits tax on oil companies. Unfortunately, it was only a month ago that McCain said he'd be "glad to look... at the windfall profits tax" himself. Flip Flop Number Three. In 1999, McCain told reporters that "in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade." But apparently both the short and long terms have expired, as McCain now says he "do[es] not support Roe v. Wade" and "think[s] it should be overturned.”  Flip Flop Number Four. Meanwhile, McCain has 5) endorsed the view that President Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, after previously stopping short; 6) reversed course on Bush's tax cuts, which he opposed in 2001 and 2003 but now wants to make permanent; 7) cozied up to Jerry Falwell after decrying him as a "agent of intolerance" in 2002; and 8) caved to White House demands to soften his hard-line opposition to torture.

Whew. 

To win in November, McCain must thread a near-impossible needle: satisfy a base still skeptical of his conservative credentials while appealing to moderates sick of Republican rule. So his maneuvering is understandable. What's more, elected officials should be allowed to grow and adjust--unless we want them to act like Bush. (NB: We don't.) In isolation, then, each of these reversals could probably pass as the normal stuff of politics--conditions change, constituents complain, different races require different degrees of emphasis. But at a certain point individual inconsistencies start to look like a pattern. For McCain, the danger of letting these flip flops pile up is that voters will eventually stop seeing him as a man of principle and start seeing him as a typical politician. So far, the public hasn't abandoned McCain the maverick; according to a Pew Research Center survey from May, voters still view him as "a centrist whose views are fairly close to their own." But if they flip flop, he's toast. The only thing keeping McCain competitive in this dismal climate is his reputation. Squandering it would be suicide.

Perhaps Kerry should consider investing in a dolphin costume.

By Jake Sherman 

A packed room likely expecting fireworks during Scott McClellan’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee Friday got nothing but smoke.

When the former White House press secretary was asked whether crimes were committed in the Bush White House, he said he did not know. Was Vice President Dick Cheney involved in a cover up? No answer. How many television appearances has he made in support of his new book? He simply could not recall.

But when he did answer questions from the committee, the former Bush loyalist rarely veered from his 368-page memoir “What Happened,” his biting criticism of his time inside the Bush White House. McClellan, devoid of the American flag lapel pin he sported for most of his time as a staffer in the administration, called Bush a “decent man” but said he thought the president rushed into the Iraq War.

It was certainly one of the first, and likely one of the last, insights into the inner workings of the Bush White House. After pausing for more than an hour to debate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Congressmen took turns questioning motives, and prompting McClellan to mentally search for references inside his book.

Democrats generally applauded McClellan’s candor and Republicans lamented the book’s timing and ulterior motives, yet, perhaps surprisingly, the testimony rarely turned confrontational. But Washington theater did have its stage call. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, asked McClellan if he could have “taken this to the grave with you and done your country a favor?”

Perhaps in the mold of the late “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, Rep. Ric Keller, a Florida Republican, asked if President George W. Bush had ever misled him, to which he responded yes. Keller showed a passage in McClellan’s book where he wrote that Bush had never misled him. Keller even questioned the motivation of citing Bush's drug use in his book, asking McClellan if he had used illicit drugs (he says he has). Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, asked if McClellan was upset about his departure from the White House. McClellan responded no, yet his book said otherwise.

Democrats, although generally laudatory of McClellan’s literary debut, pressed McClellan for nuggets of information, with Florida Democrat Robert Wexler telling the audience that the information uncovered warrants the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Five-and-a-half hours must not have been enough for Chairman John Conyers, the chairman of the committee. The record, he said, will be open for five more legislative days. Let the digging continue.
 

Barack Obama must be pleased as a peach.

Yesterday morning, the presumptive Democratic nominee ditched his pledge to accept a grant (and a spending cap) of $85 million in public money for the general election, freeing up the record-shattering fundraiser to drop a projected $300 million on expanding the electoral map. By afternoon, he'd already cracked open the war chest, investing an estimated $4 million to launch his first ad of the fall face-off (a sticky slice of apple-pie called "Country I Love") in 18 states--including scarlet-red Georgia. Pundits said this was mere gamesmanship, a head fake meant to force John McCain into defending Republican turf. After all, George W. Bush won by 17 points in 2004, and the latest polls put his Arizona successor ahead by at least 10. But the evening brought another morsel of good news for the Land of Lincolner: a poll from Atlanta-based Insider Advantage showing McCain with 44 percent of the Peach State vote--and Obama with 43. For those of you keeping score at home, that's a tie.

Could Obama actually, you know, win Georgia? Believe it or not, it's possible--if not yet likely. Ultimately, his performance depends on the two B's: Bob Barr and black voters. A former four-term Republican congressman from the Atlanta suburbs, Barr's been a known quantity in Georgia for two decades; now, as the Libertarian Party's nominee for president, he's guaranteed to sap a sizable number of votes from McCain, who lost the state's February primary to Mike Huckabee and inspires little enthusiasm among its largely Evangelical Republican base. Since February, only two polls have listed Barr as an option--and both were conducted by Insider Advantage. The Barr-less polls peg McCain's support at 53 or 54 percent--an insurmountable edge. But as soon as you add Barr to the equation, McCain's numbers plunge eight to 10 points. Released on May 21, the first Insider Advantage poll show Barr swiping eight percent of the vote and McCain slipping to 45; in the second, it's Barr with six and McCain with a mere 44. The moral of the story: if Barr's on the ballot in November--and he will be--McCain is vulnerable.

Here's where black voters come in. Obama has long boasted that he can flip Southern states in the fall by boosting African-American participation--often to the disbelief of experts. "I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I'm the nominee, goes up 30% around the country, minimum," he told New Hampshirites last August. "Mississippi is suddenly a Democratic state. And Georgia may be a Democratic state. Even South Carolina starts being in play." But while Mississippi and South Carolina are still serious stretches, Georgia, thanks to Barr, might now be within his grasp--especially with Obama's predicted cash advantage of $100 million over McCain. In addition to the "Country I Love" ad campaign, Obama now has 15 full-time paid staffers and 265 organizing fellows already stationed in Georgia, where many have been working since before the Democratic primaries ended to harness the excitement that increased black turnout in the 2008 primary by 85 percent over 2004. The plan? Register as many of the state's estimated 500,000 unregistered African-Americans as possible and make sure the 460,000 registered blacks who didn't vote in 2004 actually show up this time. All told, that's nearly one million untapped votes--a huge pool of possible supporters.

To get a sense of how a shift in the demographic composition of the electorate would affect Obama's chances, compare Insider Advantage's latest poll to its previous release. In 2004, 25 percent of the Georgia electorate was black, and 88 percent of Georgia blacks voted for John Kerry. That's Obama's baseline; a black candidate with his resources has the potential to significantly increase both black turnout and his share of the black vote. But in May's Insider Advantage poll--which showed Obama trailing McCain by 10 points overall--blacks only made up 21.9 percent of the pool, and only 79 percent said they supported Obama. Factor in how the poll also wildly underepresented 18-29-year-olds--another key Obama demographic, they made up 19 percent Georgia's 2004 electorate but only 4.9 percent of May's sample group--and that pretty much explains Obama's 10-point deficit. In comparison, June's numbers--29.4 percent black, 20.6 percent under 30 and 83.4 percent black support for Obama--are far more plausible. Far from a fluke, then, Insider Advantage's latest survey--the only one to include Barr and realistically estimate Obama's black backing--is probably the most accurate sounding we've seen.

Of course, lot can happen in four months, and we won't know for sure whether Obama is within striking distance until more stats hit the wires. But for now, the McCain camp should tread lightly. Asked Thursday about the Democrat's interest in Georgia, McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky sounded positively gleeful. "We're obviously overjoyed when Barack Obama spends money in a state that we are very, very confident that John McCain will carry in November," he said. Meanwhile, McCain himself was busy comparing Obama to Georgia's own Jimmy Carter--the last Democrat to win the state (without, that is, a boost from Ross Perot). "Senator Obama says that I'm running for Bush's third term," is how McCain puts it. "It seems like Barack Obama is running for Jimmy Carter's second."

Might want to be careful what you wish for, Senator.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

OBAMA CHOSE WINNING OVER HIS WORD
(Liz Sidoti, Associated Press)
The Democrat once made a conditional agreement to accept taxpayer money from the public financing system, and accompanying spending limits, if his Republican opponent did, too. No more. The chance to financially swamp John McCain — and maneuver for an enormous general election advantage — proved too great an allure. Obama, a record-shattering fundraiser, reversed course Thursday and decided to forgo some $85 million so he could raise unlimited amounts of money and spend as much as he wants... And with that, the first-term Illinois senator tarnished his carefully honed image as a different kind of politician — one who means what he says and says what he means — while undercutting his call for "a new kind of politics." ... Not that the Arizona senator has much room to talk. He, too, has cast himself as a reformer who tells it like it is but his words and actions sometimes conflict with that identity. Overall, the race between Obama and McCain amounts to an authenticity contest. Voters are craving change from typical Washington ways and each candidate is claiming he offers a new brand of politics that transcends poisonous partisanship. Yet, each candidate, in what he says versus what he does, also is undermining his own promises not to become the politics of usual.

MORE: Without Public Funding, Sky's the Limit for Obama (Mike Dorning and John McCormick, Chicago Tribune)
Get ready for the $500 million presidential campaign. That's how much money some Democratic strategists think Barack Obama can raise for the fall election now that he has reversed field and decided to opt out of the public financing system that limits the election spending of presidential candidates. "Raising a half-billion dollars is a very realistic figure for him," said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser to the last two Democratic presidential candidates. The pace of fundraising could be staggering. To make the $500 million mark in the remaining 137 days before Nov. 4, the campaign would need to raise $3.6 million a day, including Sundays, all in increments of no more than $2,300 per person, the legal limit for campaign contributions. That's more than $150,000 per hour, more than $2,500 a minute, much of it likely flowing in over the Internet through mouse-clicks and credit card transactions.

MEANWHILE: McCain Raises Money the Hard Way (Michael D. Shear, Washington Post)
McCain's fundraising has improved dramatically since he secured the nomination in early March. But unlike Obama, he's had to do it the very hard way, slogging through fundraiser after fundraiser, shaking hand after hand. By the count of some reporters who trail him daily, McCain has attended more than 90 fundraisers since March 5, flying around the country to court high-rollers in hotels and private homes.The fundraisers are time consuming, usually entailing a small reception for the biggest donors followed by a larger luncheon or dinner for a bigger group. There's almost always a line of people who get a photo with the candidate. On Monday, for example, McCain held a fundraiser at the the Belo Mansion in Dallas, followed Tuesday by one at the San Antonio Country Club and then two more at private homes in the River Oaks area of Houston.Total take: more than $4 million.

THE TWO OBAMAS
(David Brooks, New York Times)
God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.  But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes. This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside... He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

THE REAL MCCAIN
(Eric Alterman and George Zornick, Los Angeles Times)
In a Pew Research Center survey from May, most voters described McCain as "a centrist whose views are fairly close to their own." These voters might as well be visiting Casablanca for the waters. The reality is that McCain has repudiated virtually all of the moderate, supposedly maverick positions that liberal reporters and columnists used to find so admirable. He voted for President Bush's right to waterboarding; he now rejects his own immigration plan; he hopes to extend the tax cuts he once condemned; and he's fine with Bush's plan for domestic spying. Today, McCain calls himself a thorough-going conservative, and he's got the statistics to prove it. He has voted with his party almost 90% of the time this term, which puts him ahead of 29 other Republicans. According to data analyzed at VoteView.com, McCain's voting record in 2005-06 would place him second in the contest for America's most conservative senator in the 109th Congress and eighth in the 110th Senate. McCain supported Bush in 95% of his votes in 2007 and has managed to achieve a perfect 100% score so far in 2008.  But voter ignorance of the "real McCain" is not the fault of the voters. They are simply consuming reports from the media that refuse to take McCain's politics seriously. 

It's not easy to run for President of the United States of America as a black guy named Barack Obama. Just ask Barack Obama. For one thing, a lot of Americans are afraid of the unknown. They don't know any other black guys named Barack Obama. And then on top of that you've got all these email messages zipping around telling people that the only Barack Obama they do know is a secret Muslim who refuses to pledge allegiance and was sworn in on a Koran. (Note: this is false.) How, then, to reassure Middle America that Obama comes in peace? One way, as Slate's Chris Beam suggested yesterday, would be for his campaign to start some rumors of its own. As in, "Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach." Or "Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL." Or "Barack Obama travels mostly by FORKLIFT." Just so, you know, the folks in Nebraska can be sure that this Obama character shares their values.

Turns out that Obama--or at least his admaker--was thinking pretty much the same thing. Unveiled today in 18 (count 'em, 18) states, the nominee's first spot of the general election may not mention Obama's bald eagle sidekick--name: Susan "Beak" Anthony--but it does manage to dish out plenty of apple pie along the way. For starters, it's called "Country I Love"--a reference, sources say, to America. (Conveniently, Obama also says this in his second line.) Over the course of 60 seconds, we learn a lot of nice things about Obama. He thinks the USA is strong--"a country of strong families and strong values." He wears a flag pin. He's "been blessed" "with a deep and abiding faith," much like a Christian, which he is. His values are "straight from the Kansas heartland," not the Indonesian island of Hyde Park, Hawaii. He is accompanied by gentle acoustic guitar music. Unlike other minorities and liberals, he believes in "accountability and self-reliance" and "working hard without making excuses." He doesn't eat old white women (there's video to prove this). He was "raised by a single mom" who forced him to "tak[e] jobs and loans to make it through college," and never once fed him arugula. Plus, he's "cut taxes and "passed laws moving people from welfare to work," which kind of makes him a Republican. "Love of country," Obama says. "The country I love."

According to the campaign, the ad will air Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia. That marks the official Obama battleground. Worth noting is that four of these states--North Dakota, Montana, Alaska, Indiana--are new to the Illinois senator's list, while three other states--New Jersey, Oregon, Washington--have mysteriously disappeared. What gives? Well, as everyone knows, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington are coastal, expensive and not particularly American; thus, Obama is already well ahead of John McCain in the polls. In contrast, North Dakota, Montana, Alaska and Indiana represent the rugged, God-fearing, Republican heartland--albeit the parts where polls show that a little reassurance (as in, $1.5 to $3 million per week) could go a long way.

And if that doesn't work, there's always the bald eagle.
 

Courtesy Colleen King
A rainbow appeared as Washington bid farewell to Tim Russert

By Tammy Haddad

The first "Russert miracle," as attendees called it, happened at the private funeral service held at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown; the family of the late Meet the Press host Tim Russert had requested that Senators Obama and McCain to sit together, and the two presidential combatants obliged. CNN Washington Bureau chief David Bohrman, a former NBC producer, describes the scene to NEWSWEEK: "They sat side-by-side and spoke for twenty minutes. The body language was total friendship. They were warm and friendly and truly engaged in a conversation.... I kept thinking here we are at the funeral at the son of a sanitation worker and the presidential candidates are having their first one on one conversation here."

The second "miracle" took place at the end of the memorial service at the Kennedy Center that began with Tom Brokaw and ended with Luke Russert's tribute to his dad. At the end of the 65-minute-long televised service, a surprise guest appeared: Russert favorite Bruce Springsteen, on a giant screen playing "Thunder Road." "This is for your pop," Springsteen told Luke.

The third "miracle" took place as the crowd moved to the rooftop for a reception.  The sun returned after a light, fast summer rainstorm and the sky opened to a rainbow extending from one end of the Kennedy Center to the other. Colleen King of MSNBC's "Hardball" captured it on her cell phone camera.

"After the magical experience of this service, to come out and see the rainbow and Luke at the bottom of it made the last dry eye weep," said NBC News executive Phil Griffin. The last song in the memorial service was, fittingly, "Somewhere over the Rainbow."

When asked his reaction to explain the sudden appearance of the rainbow at the exact moment, Luke Russert, his sparkly smile so reminiscent of his father's, said: "Is anyone still an atheist now?"
 

What's worse: a broken system or a broken promise?

Barack Obama is betting on the former. In a video sent to supporters at 8:35 this morning (above), the Illinois senator and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee announced that, unlike Republican rival John McCain, he will refuse public financing for the general election--despite a previous pledge to accept it. "It's not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections," said Obama.

"Support" is one way to put it. "Said I would opt into" is another. Asked last September on a questionnaire from the Midwest Democracy Network whether he would "participate in the presidential public financing system" if his "major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign," Obama checked the box marked "yes," then outlined his vision for the 2008 contest. "In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election," he wrote. "My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election... If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

As expected, McCain, who publicly committed himself last March to accept public funds in the general "if the Democratic nominee agrees to do the same," responded to this morning's announcement with a flash of moral indignation. Calling Obama "just another typical politician who will do and say whatever is most expedient," spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said that the Democratic nominee had "failed" "the true test of a candidate for President"--i.e., "whether he will stand on principle and keep his word to the American people"--and that the "reversal of his promise to participate in the public finance system undermines his call for a new type of politics." Obama, on the other hand, cast the decision as an unfortunate but necessary defense against Republican dirty tricks. "John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs," he said. "And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations."

So who's right?

It's murky--to put it mildly. If Obama had never checked the "yes" box, he'd be in the clear. It's true that our current public financing system is "broken." Although candidates themselves can only spend their allotted $84.1 million, the tax-exempt, unaccountable and completely unregulated "527 groups" that Obama refers to (think 2004's Swiftboaters) can invest unlimited sums in negative advertising designed to ruin an opponent's reputation. The result: a nastier, dirtier election. So far, the candidates have taken different approaches to the problem. At a meeting in Indianapolis on May 2,  "top [Obama] fundraisers... asked his campaign donors to refrain from contributing to liberal independent political organizations in hopes of controlling the tone and message of the general-election campaign." Meanwhile, McCain has adopted a hands-off stance, telling the Boston Herald earlier this month that he "can’t be a referee of every spot run on television." The truth is, neither candidate can control what 527s do on their behalf; the groups simply don't have to answer to federal or state political finance committees. So it's no wonder that they're each following the most profitable path. For McCain, that means accepting a public check (and relying on the RNC to outspend the cash-strapped DNC). For Obama, it means arming himself with private donations--which are expected to top $300 million for the general election.

Unfortunately, Obama did, in fact, check "yes." At the time, he was well-aware of the havoc 527s could wreak; after all, he'd watched the Swiftboat Veterans slime John Kerry. And it was no secret--as Howard Dean had proven more than three years earlier--that the Internet could democratize the process of funding a favored politician. "The presidential public financing system works," Obama told Larry King on Jan. 24, 2007; the next month, he co-sponsored legislation to preserve the current set-up. Since then, the 527s haven't gotten scarier, and the Web hasn't gotten webbier. What's changed is that it's now Obama (not Kerry) who's in danger of being Swiftboated and Obama (not Dean) who's rolling in the dough. So McCain's charge of "expediency" carries some weight.

But that's been clear for awhile now. With its cash flow at record levels, the Obama campaign spent the first few months of 2008 attempting to backtrack, equivocate and wriggle free from what seemed, at the time, like a pledge. After telling the press in Feb. 2007 that Obama, if nominated, would "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election"--language that Obama himself echoed nine months later in the MDN survey and reinforced by telling Tim Russert that he would personally sit down with McCain to hammer out a deal--Obama spokesman Bill Burton said this February that "public financing" is "an option that we wanted on the table," but added "there is no pledge." By April, Obama was suggesting, in what amounted to a justification of opting out, that his low-dollar network of online donors effectively represented a "parallel public financing system."

That's why it's not particularly surprising to learn that Obama's pursuit of an agreement, now that he's the nominee, has been less than "aggressive." The official line, according to Burton, is that "our campaign counsels met and it was immediately clear that McCain's campaign had no interest in the possibility of an agreement." But McCain's lawyer Trevor Potter recalls the exchange a little differently. "This is not true!" Potter told ABC News. "I met with [Obama's lawyer] on a different subject... about 10 days ago. During that meeting, he asked what Sen. McCain’s position was on public general election funding, and I said we were for it, and hoped Sen. Obama would participate as well. There was absolutely NO discussion of 'negotiations' about participating—the word was never mentioned." Just to recap: no negotiations, no dedicated meeting, no McCain, no Obama (who promised, remember, to sit down personally with his rival)--and suddenly that's enough for the Dems to declare that there's "no basis for any further exchange." Some tenacity.

Obama, of course, long ago calculated that he could skip public financing. Most voters simply don't care enough about wonky campaign-finance details to hold this slippery maneuver against him for long, so the major plus (an overflowing war chest) easily outweighs the major minus (a bad process story in the dog days of June).  Still, there's no doubt that the decision clashes with his "new kind of politics"--a fact that becomes painfully obvious watching Obama spin it as a matter of principle rather than pragmatism in this morning's video message to supporters. If we "do something that’s never been done before [and] declare our independence from a broken system," he warns, "we'll be forgoing more than $80 million in public funds during the final months of this election"--as if we should applaud him for risking life and limb to take the $300 million instead."Let's build the first general election campaign that's truly funded by the American people," Obama says— ignoring the fact, as the AP notes that "the system he's opting out of is paid for by taxpayers who donate $3 to the fund when they file their tax returns."

Now, don't get me wrong. Obama's massive fundraising machine--which thrives on small checks from 1.5 million individual donors and rejects money from lobbyists and PACs--deserves a ton of praise. It is, simply put, the most democratic in American political history. But as Obama knows, even the fairest private funding operation can't replace a public system. Why? Because the latter is equal. Both candidates get the same multimillion dollar, taxpayer-financed grant--meaning that money is eliminated from the list of potentially decisive factors. And that's the point. Obama has raised an impressive 45 percent of his dinero from donations of less than $200. But the other 55 percent still comes from people giving more--including nearly 30 percent from contributions larger than $2,300.  As the candidate himself put it exactly two years ago, "if we're still getting financed primarily from individual contributions, than those with the most money are still going to have the most influence." 

With that imbalance in mind, a modest proposal: if Obama's own success with private fundraising has convinced him that the public system is "broken," perhaps he should consider pledging to fix it. After all, his machine is the exception, not the rule. Sadly, Obama missed a great opportunity to do just that this morning. Here's hoping he makes the promise before Election Day--and this time, he keeps it.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN TIGHTENS CONTROL OF IMAGE AND ACCESS
(Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times)
At a rally for Senator Barack Obama in Detroit on Monday, two Muslim women said they were prohibited from sitting behind the candidate because they were wearing head scarves and campaign volunteers did not want them to appear with him in news photographs or live television coverage. The Obama campaign said it quickly called the women to apologize after learning of the incident... But the incident, first reported Wednesday by Politico.com, pointed to pitfalls the campaign faces as it moves into the general election and seeks to maintain control of Mr. Obama’s image by tightly managing his public appearances... While the strategy has won compliments from political professionals of both parties, who say Mr. Obama’s campaign is exhibiting a high level of discipline, it has also created some early turbulence for a candidate who has run on promises of openness and cultivated a grass-roots following and a cottage industry of homemade campaign videos, memorabilia and street murals... Strategists for Mr. Obama, the country’s first black nominee, have made it clear that they believe they need to take extra steps to control his image and protect against attack. But such efforts at times appear to conflict with the candidate’s stated desire to be unusually transparent and open, and they have already occasionally put him at loggerheads with news organizations pushing for greater access to him now that he is the presumptive nominee.

IT'S NOT WHAT OBAMA AND MCCAIN HAVE DONE, IT'S WHAT THEY'LL LEARN
(John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail)
The biggest concern over the possibility of Barack Obama becoming president has been his complete lack of executive experience. History tells us, however, that this may not matter. What matters is whether Mr. Obama or John McCain has the capacity to grow...Lincoln appointed one incompetent or vacillating general after another. His war secretary, Simon Cameron, was spectacularly corrupt. And Lincoln only narrowly averted war with Britain, which was the very last thing the Union needed... Harry Truman came to office feeling as though "the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me." He was clearly overwhelmed by the job, and voters administered a shellacking in the 1946 midterm elections...  John F. Kennedy started out abysmally, with the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Nikita Khrushchev positively mauled JFK at their first summit. He watched helplessly as the Berlin Wall spread across Germany, and he vacillated on the civil-rights issue... From gays in the military to health-care reform, Bill Clinton committed one blunder after another, and lost Congress to the Republicans in 1994...  A pattern emerges. A new president arrives clearly unequipped to meet the demands of the office. He makes mistake after mistake, his popularity wanes and the pundits prepare his political obituary. But the president has the capacity to analyze each failure with a clear head. He discovers which advisers he can trust, which policies he should jettison or embrace. He figures out the Congress. The successes of the second half of his first term vindicate the learning curve of the first. Other presidents obstinately determine to stay the course, and we get what we have now.

OBAMA SAYS HE WANTS TO HIRE A 'TEAM OF RIVALS' FOR HIS CABINET
(Joe Klein, Time)
"I don't want to have people who just agree with me," he said. "I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone." Obama said he'd be particularly interested in having high-ranking Republicans advising him on defense and national security. "I really admire the way the elder Bush negotiated the end of the cold war—with discipline, tough diplomacy and restraint ... and I'd be very interested in having those sorts of Republicans in my Administration, especially people who can expedite a responsible and orderly conclusion to the Iraq war—and who know how to keep the hammer down on al-Qaeda." When I asked him specifically if he would want to retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, Obama said, "I'm not going to let you pin me down ... but I'd certainly be interested in the sort of people who served in the first Bush Administration." Gates was George H.W. Bush's CIA director—and he has been a superb Secretary of Defense … Associates say Gates might stay if he believed the security of the troops was at stake.

OBAMA AND MCCAIN SPOUT ECONOMIC NONSENSE
(Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal)
Barack Obama and John McCain are busy demonstrating that in close elections during tough economic times, candidates for president can be economically illiterate and irresponsibly populist... Messrs. Obama and McCain both reveal a disturbing animus toward free markets and success. It is uncalled for and self-defeating for presidential candidates to demonize American companies. It is understandable that Mr. Obama, the most liberal member of the Senate, would endorse reckless policies that are the DNA of the party he leads. But Mr. McCain, a self-described Reagan Republican, should know better. 

CAN OBAMA DEFEND AMERICA?
(Michael Tomasky, The Guardian)
On Monday, Obama gave an interview to ABC News in which he brought up the successful prosecutions of all but one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers... For the neocon circle around McCain, this was all they needed to hear. That girly-man Obama wants to arrest terrorists instead of kill them... So for two days running, McCain aides and supporters on the daily press conference call stressed that the comment proved that Obama had a "September 10 mindset", a famous phrase from the 2004 campaign, was advocating "a policy of delusion" and basically that if he became president we'd be lucky if we weren't all blown to smithereens by 2012. This is the point at which the Kerry campaign would have done one of three things: one, said nothing and hoped the matter went away; two, said something lame along the lines of "Americans are tired of seeing their leaders play politics with our national security" and then tried to change the subject back to domestic issues; three, said something trying to prove that Kerry could be just as tough as Bush, which statement would inevitably seem laughable to conservatives, unpersuasive to moderates and cringe-inducing to liberals.... [But] Obama is not going to do what Democrats have done on military issues going back to the 1980s and on terrorism for seven years now. He's not going to say: "Hey, look at me, I can be a tough guy too." He's going to say: "The notion that these people are the tough guys is an illusion. They've screwed up everything they've touched, and there's a better way to do all this, and here it is."

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...
 

In which Stumper parses the denials, dismissals, evasions and affirmations of 2008's various veep contenders. 

Not Interested, Period: “If drafted, I will not run; nominated, I will not accept; and if elected, I will not serve. So, I don’t know how more crystal clear I can be.” (Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D), June 10, 2008)

Not Interested, But Only Because I Can't Say I Am Interested: Let me be clear about this: I have been working very hard these last few months to ask the people of Virginia to give me the honor of being their United States senator. I will not seek, and I will not accept, any other opportunity." (Former Virgina Gov. Mark Warner (D), June 15, 2008)

Not Interested, But Actually I'm Interested: "I have done that. I just think that John's got to go -- ought to go -- with a Republican because obviously it comes to the convention. I'm not a candidate. I don't think it's going to happen. And at this stage in my life, I am very happy where I am." (Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (I), June 18, 2008)

Give Me a Job: "I'd make a great president. I 'd make a great Secretary of State. I'd make a great vice president." (Delaware Sen. Joe Biden (D), June 17, 2008)

You Know How Much I Want This Gig? Enough to Completely Change My Long-Held Position on the 'Third Rail' of Local Politics to Mirror Yours. That's How Much: Governor, are you dropping your opposition to drilling for oil off of Florida's coast? "I am not." (Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R), June 10, 2008)

"Floridians are suffering... [Drilling off Florida's coast is] something I'd least like to do, but I also understand the economics of what's happening to our country." (Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R), June 17, 2008)
 

Here's NEWSWEEK editor-at-large Evan Thomas with a must-read first-person essay on the gap at the heart of Obama's campaign--that is, the disconnect between what Obama promises and how Washington really works.  

I went to a party last Sunday night given by a friend, a well-known journalist, who is well connected in Washington and friends with various movers and shakers, particularly in the legal world. The conversation, after the expression of shock about the loss of Tim Russert, turned to Jim Johnson, the "consummate Washington insider," as the papers called him, who had been ousted as Barack Obama's veep vetter. The people I talked with seem to think Obama had been unwise to hire someone who had profited so mightily from his Washington contacts. Still, the general assumption seemed to be, of course, any new president will need to hire people who know the town, who are "wired" and get around.

...

There was a certain amount of worry that the Washington establishment was about to embark upon one of its periodic acts of cannibalism and start questioning the client relationships or legal involvements of other Washington insiders close to Obama—notably Eric Holder, another veep vetter who, as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, took part in the Marc Rich pardon. One of the lawyers at the party noted that few big-time lawyers could (or would wish to) withstand such guilt-by-association scrutiny. We all agreed it would be unfortunate if, say, Greg Craig was disqualified from taking a top job with Obama (whom Craig advises on foreign policy) because he has, necessarily, represented some shady types over the years as a white-collar defense lawyer at the law firm of Williams and Connolly.

I joined this chorus. I know Craig to be a decent, smart and public-spirited person. I have no doubt that if Obama is elected, the country would benefit from having Craig, or savvy high-powered Washington lawyers like him, in top White House jobs.

And yet....Two nights later, I was standing on the floor of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, deafened by the roar for Obama, who was giving one of his rousing speeches for change. I wondered what the 20,000 or so people in the crowd, most of them African Americans, would have thought of the conversation I had participated in two nights before in the living room of my well-connected friend. The fact is that Washington is largely dominated by people, some of them very smart, who get well paid to represent the status quo and fairly narrow interests.

These people are not by any means wicked or unjust or venal—some of the guests at the party had performed significant public service in one way or another. Many of them were Democrats who will vote for Obama. But I am sure that if you took a poll and asked them whether Obama could really change Washington—could really close loopholes on energy companies and raise taxes on the rich, reform the health-care system and significantly scale back the ill effects of global warming, substantially improve public schools or get us out of Iraq anytime soon—the answer would have been no, probably not. These "realists" might even want such changes, or most of them. But they know how Washington works. They might argue that Obama will need insiders if he really wants to change Washington (think of FDR hiring stock speculator Joseph Kennedy to be the first head of the Securities and Exchange Commission). But at the same time they have a strong appreciation for congressional gridlock and the countervailing powers of influence peddlers. They know that money—perfectly legal money—can trump idealistic campaign promises in a city thick with more than 30,000 lobbyists.

I agree with them; I am part of that Washington world as a journalist and I have low expectations that any politician, no matter how gifted, can change it in a significant way.  At the same time, standing in the press gallery on the floor of that arena in Detroit, I was moved by Obama's ability to rouse and give hope to so many people who really seem to believe he can achieve the change he talks about. There is a disconnect here, and I don't see what's going to change it. Obama is a shrewd and realistic person, as far as I can tell. I wonder what he really thinks.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

It is a truth universally acknowledged: if a small swath of the American electorate starts to accuse you of being a whiny, elitist, unpatriotic "Angry Black Woman" who's never been "proud of [her] country," get thee to a nunnery. Or if there are no nunneries nearby, appear on ABC's "The View" instead.

And so it was this morning, as Michelle Obama, wife of Barack, completed Phase One of what the wags at the New York Times are calling her "new introduction" to America: a coffee-fueled A.M. gabfest with Babs, Whoopie, Liz and the rest of gals. Worried that a rising chorus of conservative critics, a creeping cache of patently false rumors and Michelle's own missteps on the stump have served to define her, detrimentally, before she could define herself, "her husband’s presidential campaign is [now] giving her image a subtle makeover, with a new speech in the works to emphasize her humble roots and a tough new chief of staff." The point of today's "guest turn on “The View,"' according to the Times? "Softening [Michelle's] reputation." And here we thought that chatting about pantyhose would appeal to West Virgina coal miners.

So how soft was she? Like a pashmina-wrapped puppy atop a pile of pillows. She spoke about fashion! She spoke about cereal! She even spoke about her children! The tabloids said to expect "fireworks" between Michelle and Elisabeth Hasselback. But instead of showering the conservative host with abuse, Obama showered her with--gasp!--praise. "This girl is solid," she said of Hasselback. "She's got great kids. She's a great mom. She's funny. Sure, I disagree with her on some points, but I could come back tomorrow and we'd be friends." Paging Kodak--we just had a moment.

By showing she could be soft, Michelle managed to show she could be a lot of other things as well. Here's what else we learned:

Michelle is misunderstood. Asked again about her "proud" remark, Michelle said, "Of course I'm proud of my country. Nowhere but in America could my story be possible." What she was trying to express back in February, she added, was how proud she was of the "political process" and the interest the race between Obama and Clinton had sparked.

Michelle is polite. Describing herself as "really touched" by Laura Bush's decision to defend her last month on ABC--"I think she probably meant ‘I’m more proud,’" Bush said at the time. "You have to be really careful in what you say because everything you say is looked at and in many cases misconstrued"--Michelle sat down and wrote a thank-you note. The greeting? "Dear Madame First Lady." Michelle also admitted that she's "taking some cues" from Bush, praising her "calm, rational approach." “There’s a reason why people like her," she said. "She doesn’t… fuel the fire.”

Michelle is square. When she arrived on stage, Michelle made sure that she was "greeted properly"--with a famous Obama "fist bump." But lest Middle America think that she's some sort of, you know, terrorist football player, Michelle quickly dismissed the gesture. "I'm not that hip," she said. "I got that from our young staff." But of course. Otherwise she would've called it a "dap."

Michelle isn't political. When Barack first said he wanted to run for president, Michelle said, "No. Don't do this." Now she insists she'll "have nothing to do with" her husband's vice presidential pick. "People think I'm always out campaigning," she added. "But I'm at home more than I'm on the road." No word yet on whether she uses her own cookie recipe, too.

Michelle isn't an elitist. She's frustrated by the time it takes to do her hair and makeup in the morning. She doesn't wear pantyhose. ("It feels better.") She loves bacon. And her demure, black-and-white dress? Straight off the rack! "Put a little pin on it and you've got something going on," she said.

Michelle is a woman, too. Showing solidarity, Michelle praised Hillary Clinton and admitted that "obviously there was sexism" in the primary coverage. "People aren’t used to strong women," she said. "[Hilllary] has taken [public hits] so that my girls, when they come along, won’t have to feel it as badly."

A polite, square, misunderstood, apolitical non-elitist? Michelle is just like us! ("Us" being women aged 34 to 65 who are home at 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday.)  Of course, no one brought up racial segregation at Princeton, Michelle's time at Harvard Law or her executive work at the University of Chicago Hospitals, and there were few flashes of her sarcastic wit or strong opinions--in other words, all the stuff that makes Mrs. Obama an interesting individual. But that was obviously the point. Appearing on shows like The View is about seeming ordinary, not extraordinary. And after running into resistance because her career, her color and her character break the first lady mold--sound familiar, Hillary?--it's only natural that Michelle would seek to show her "more traditional" side.

That said, I suspect a single line from this morning's Times story better conveyed her personality than anything said today on "The View." Asked about the "unfounded claims that [she] gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of 'whitey,'” Michelle shook her head. “You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be,” she said. “I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say.”

Soft? Not really. But much cooler.
 

Is that the sound of something bouncing? 

When the fine folks at Quinnipiac University Polling Institute released their last round of swing-state surveys in late May, things looked sort of bleak for Barack Obama--at least at first glance. While Hillary Clinton trounced John McCain in all three head-to-head match-ups-- 48 to 41 percent in Florida, 48 to 41 percent in Ohio and 50 to 37 percent in Pennsylvania--Obama trailed his Republican rival by four in the first two contests (41-45 and 40-44, respectively) and led by a narrower margin (six points to Clinton's 13) in Keystone country. According to Clinton, this meant that she would win big swing states on Election Day and Obama wouldn't.

But as we wrote at the time, looks can be deceiving. With the interminable Democratic primary clash stuck in a strange twilight phase, Clinton's supporters were still coming to terms with the fact that Obama was all-but-certain to top the ticket--and many felt disappointed, angry and/or vindictive. Obama's supporters, on the other hand, were celebrating his impending nomination; they largely felt magnanimity toward Clinton, who posed little threat. That's why in Quinnipiac's McCain-Obama matchups, 26 to 36 percent of Clinton supporters in each state said that they'd vote for McCain in November if their candidate wasn't the nominee, while only 10 to 18 percent of Obama supporters responded in kind. Thanks to a little back-of-the-envelope math, we calculated that pro-Clinton defectors represented a 7.5 percent swing vote--and that if even half of them were to swing back to Obama, he would lead McCain in Florida and Ohio and pull further ahead in Pennsylvania. "Call it the Electability Mirage," we concluded. "Right now, Obama trails McCain in key states [largely] because a sizable number of [Clinton] supporters tell pollsters they will crossover in the fall."

Turns out we were right. This morning, Quinnipiac released a new round of numbers from Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania--and delivered a clean sweep for Obama. With voters now forced to choose between two candidates (Obama and McCain) instead of three (Obama, McCain and Clinton)--these are the first post-primary polls to hit the wires--the Illinois senator has established leads of 12 points in Pennsylvania (52-40), six points in Ohio (48-42) and four points in Florida (47-43). For the record, that's his first-ever edge in the Sunshine State. Why the bounce? Part of it's due to a decline in defectors. Last month, for example, 36 percent of Clinton's Florida supporters said they'd vote for McCain over Obama in November; today, that number has plummeted to 19 percent. But an even bigger reason is Obama's huge post-Clinton gains among women overall. Last month, Obama split women in Florida (43-42) and Ohio (42-40) with McCain; today he crushes the Arizona senator 50-40 among female Floridians and 51-39 among their Ohio counterparts, all while doubling his lead with Keystone State women from 12 points (49-37) to a massive 23 (57-34). Also boosting Barack: the fact that Quinnipiac is now surveying "likely voters" instead of "registered voters," which means that factors that could greatly affect turnout--an expanded electorate, the enthusiasm gap between liberals and conservatives and the Democrats' recent gains in party ID--are finally being taken into account.

The Quinnipiac Poll is the first to surface in Florida since Clinton withdrew from the race, so it's too early to say for sure if it represents the start of a statewide trend. But Ohio, at least, seems to be leaning toward Obama at this point.  The other poll released this week (PPP) shows the Democratic nominee ahead by a whopping 11-point margin, and he now clobbers McCain by an average of 6.2 percent in the state. Of course, a lot could--and will--happen in the four-and-a-half months before Election Day. But until today, Florida was the "one traditional swing state that always had looked off-limits to Obama." Not anymore. That's why the latest stats should have the folks at McCain HQ at least a little worried. In 2004, John Kerry lost Ohio and Florida but still managed to win 252 electoral votes (that's 18 short of a majority). If Obama picks up even one of these prizes--which are worth 20 and 27 electoral votes, respectively--it will be very, very difficult for the Arizona Republican to find a plausible path to the White House.

Boing boing.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

CANDIDATES CLASH ON TERRORISM
(Ann E. Kornblut and Karen De Young, Washington Post)
The campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama on Tuesday engaged in a heated exchange over the rights of terrorism suspects, with each side accusing the other of embracing a policy that would put the country at risk of more attacks in the future. In a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters, McCain advisers criticized Obama as "naive" and "delusional" in his approach to the handling of terrorism suspects after he expressed support for last week's Supreme Court decision granting detainees the right to seek habeas corpus hearings. Obama fired back, saying the Republicans who had led failed efforts to capture Osama bin Laden lacked the standing to criticize him on the issue. The exchange marked the general election's first real engagement over the campaign against terrorism and demonstrated that both sides are confident that they have a winning message on the issue.

THREE QUESTIONS FOR MCCAIN
(David Leonhardt, New York Times)
A week before Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary... [McCain] said he would abolish the dreaded alternative minimum tax. He said he would also allow companies to write off spending on new equipment more quickly than they now could, effectively reducing their taxes. Most ambitiously, he vowed to set up a simpler income tax system, one that anyone could voluntarily use instead of the current tangle. In the months since then, Mr. McCain has repeated these vows. Fast forward to last week, when a Washington research group called the Tax Policy Center set out to estimate the budgetary effects of Mr. McCain’s and Mr. Obama’s plans, after having talked with the campaigns about the details. Almost immediately, the center’s report became the yardstick that journalists and bloggers used. To anyone who has been following the campaign closely, however, there were some strange things in the report’s summary. The alternative minimum tax? Mr. McCain apparently no longer wants to abolish it. The write-off for corporate equipment? It exists for a few years, but then it disappears. The simple new tax system? Gone... So far, Mr. McCain is having it both ways. On the campaign trail, he has sounded like a bold tax cutter. To budget wonks, though, his campaign has gingerly inched away from those plans, saying details will be forthcoming. In the meantime, the most-cited analysis of his proposed budget doesn’t square with what he is saying on the stump.

STRAIGHTENING OUT MCCAIN'S STRAIGHT TALK
(John Dickerson, Slate)
Tuesday brought more frustration for Team McCain. A carefully planned two-week rollout of the candidate's energy plan was in danger before he'd given the kickoff speech. The message was supposed to be that McCain was offering a multifaceted plan to wean the U.S. off foreign oil. Among his proposals was an unartful call to end the federal ban on offshore drilling—a reversal of his position in 2000. But instead of talking about biofuels and hydroelectric cars, the campaign found itself fighting charges of flip-flopping opportunism. The wobbly start of the GOP candidate's push on energy raised the possibility that the whole thing might topple—just like his previous efforts to get voters to compare him and Barack Obama side-by-side.

MORE: McCain Risks 'Flip-Flop' Jibes by Voters (Edward Luce and Andrew Ward, Financial Times)
Nobody is yet calling John McCain a “flip-flopper”. But the Republican nominee’s increasingly finely balanced efforts to shore up his support among the shrinking Republican base while reaching out to independents is starting to fire up the critics. 

MCCAIN PLAYS WITH FIRE ON OFFSHORE DRILLING
(Charles Mahtesian and David Mark, Politico)
By calling for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, John McCain is placing a risky bet. He is wagering that skyrocketing gas prices have finally reached a tipping point, a threshold moment that has led voters to rethink their strong and long-held opinions against coastal oil exploration. The stakes couldn’t be higher: If he is wrong, McCain will have seriously damaged his chances in two key states with thousands of miles of coastline — California and Florida — and where opposition to offshore oil drilling has been unwavering. And he will have undermined some of his closest political allies in those states and others, including potential fall battlegrounds such as Virginia and North Carolina.

AFTER ATTACKS, MICHELLE OBAMA LOOKS FOR NEW INTRODUCTION
(Michael Powell and Jodi Kantor, New York Times)
Now her husband’s presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover, with a new speech in the works to emphasize her humble roots and a tough new chief of staff. On Wednesday, Mrs. Obama will do a guest turn on “The View,” the daytime talk show on ABC, with an eye toward softening her reputation. Her problems seemed hard to imagine last fall and winter. Mrs. Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, appeared so at ease with the tactile business of campaigning and drew praise for humanizing, often with humor, a husband who could seem elusive. Then came some rhetorical stumbles. In Madison, Wis., in February, she told voters that hope was sweeping America, adding, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” Cable news programs replayed those 15 words in an endless loop of outrage. Barack Obama often blurs identity lines; much of his candidacy has seemed almost post-racial. Mrs. Obama’s identity is less mutable. She is a descendant of slaves and a product of Chicago’s historically black South Side. She burns hot where he banks cool, and that too can make her an inviting proxy for attack.

When I wrote last Thursday about the possibility of Hillary Clinton receiving an invitation--no regrets allowed, s'il vous plais--to join Barack Obama's presidential campaign as his pick for veep, I noted that although "Clinton brings more pluses to the ticket than any other contender... she also brings more minuses." My conclusion? "Not likely."

Make that "bloody impossible."

Buried in a list of new appointments the Obama campaign announced Monday was this revealing little tidbit: "Chief of Staff to the Vice Presidential Nominee: Patti Solis Doyle." In case you've forgotten, Solis Doyle was the trusted Clinton confidante of 17 years--she started as Hillary's assistant in 1992, coined the term "Hillaryland" and went on to run her PAC and as well as her two Senate campaigns--who was handpicked by the candidate to manage her 2008 presidential bid, then unceremoniously yanked after Clinton's losses in Iowa and South Carolina. At the time, Solis Doyle promised that she would travel with Clinton and remain on as an adviser. "I have been proud to manage this campaign, and prouder still to call Hillary my friend," she said. But behind the scenes, Clintonites seethed, saying that Solis Doyle had run Clinton "into a ditch" by failing to plan beyond Super Tuesday. Cut off, she never appeared on the road again. And she hasn't spoken to Clinton since.

When Solis Doyle's name appeared yesterday afternoon on Obama's list, the chattering classes immediately started (what else?) chattering. Considering that Obama hired someone so clearly identified with Clinton for a job so clearly identified with the VP slot, there were only three ways, it seemed, to explain his decision:

1) A mere coincidence. Solis Doyle is friends with top Obama strategist David Axelrod, after all. Plus she's a prominent Hispanic female (the campaign is short on both) and a useful symbol of intraparty reconciliation.

2) A welcome mat. A familiar face, Solis Doyle will negotiate a truce and pave the way for--you guessed it--Clinton's forthcoming veep announcement. 

3) A snub. Solis Doyle is a disgruntled ex-Clintonite blamed for mismanaging Hillary's presidential campaign, and asking her to run his vice president's affairs is Obama's way of saying that frozen pigs will fly through hell before he lets the former first lady be his running mate.

If option one were true, Obama probably wouldn't have installed Solis Doyle in the only position guaranteed to spur this sort of speculation; if option two were true, he probably would've chosen someone on speaking terms with Clinton. So I'm leaning towards three. Apparently, much of Clinton's inner circle agrees. One associate told the Washington Post yesterday that they were in "shock." "It's a slap in the face," added Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Clinton backer. "Why would they put somebody that was so clearly ineffective in such a position? It's a message. We get it." And, as yet another Clintonite told CQ: "Translated subtitles aren't necessary. There is no other way to interpret this other than '[Expletive] you.'"

Is Obama speaking in (cuss-laden) code? Probably not. Then again, it doesn't take a paranoid to suspect that Solis Doyle's recent resurrection hurts Clinton's veep chances more than it helps. The dream may not be dead yet. But now the Comeback Gal's final comback is looking less likely than ever.

UPDATE, June 18: At least one Hillaryite sees it different. Here's Clinton cheerleader Lanny Davis speaking to Politico's Mike Allen:

“Senator Obama's decision to select Patti in a major role in the general election as chief of staff to the vice presidential candidate is indicative that he takes seriously the need to integrate Hillary loyalists into his campaign as  Hillary takes seriously encouraging her loyalists to support Senator Obama. Indeed, I still believe that the strongest ticket would be for Senator Clinton to be Vice Presidential candidate. … So it could be that Patti Solis Doyle will return to the role in which she has the most experience - chief of staff for her long-time friend and political mentor, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And if someone else gets Senator Obama's nod, Patti will do a great job for him or her."

Developing, as they say... 
 

qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

Oh, wait. Sorry about that. It seems that I passed out on the upper left-hand corner of my keyboard. Must've been the news that Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama last night that put me to sleep.

In a move that surprised exactly no one, the former Democratic nominee for president traveled yesterday to Detroit's Joe Louis Arena to throw his support to... the current Democratic nominee for president. "This moment and this election are too important to let pass without taking action," he said. Of course, the Oscar- and Nobel-winning veep could've delivered his benediction earlier--like, say, February, when it may have helped bring the interminable Democratic primary battle between Obama and Gore's ex-boss's wife, Hillary Clinton, to an earlier conclusion. After all, Gore and Obama have talked frequently since January 2007, including in a meeting last fall at Gore’s home in Nashville--while Hillary and Gore aren't what you would call close. That he didn't--and that he waited a full ten days after his choice had narrowed to a) a Democrat or b) a Republican--is evidence either of his judiciousness (I'll let the voters decide) or his caution (Why burn a bridge?). In other words, "yawn."

That said, there's at least one thing about the Gore endorsement worth noting: the location. (No, he won't accept a slot as Obama's veep--no matter what James Carville says.) One of two states where the Democratic primary process was derailed by disagreements between the national party and its local satellites--and where, consequently, the presidential candidates did not campaign--Michigan is now enjoying Obama's nearly undivided attention. What's interesting here is that Florida (site of the other botched primary) is not. According to the Washington Post's 2008 Campaign Tracker, the Illinois senator has made 10 campaign stops on two separate swings through the Great Lakes State since mid-May--far more than any other non-primary state--versus only six in Florida (on a single trip). What's more, the Michigan events included Obama's two biggest endorsements to date: John Edwards on May 14 in Grand Rapids, and now Gore (whose backing, as Ben Smith notes, "might have had more symbolic resonance [in] Florida.")

Obama is obsessed with Michigan because, unlike Florida, it's a must-win state--and winning there is hardly a sure thing at this point. In Tropicana country, Obama currently trails McCain by an average of 8.3 points. That's a difficult hill to climb, which is why Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has designed his boss's electoral strategy around losing Florida (like John Kerry) in November. The problem is, Obama can't afford to drop Michigan's 17 electoral votes (which Kerry won) as well. Recent Michigan polls are rare, but the three taken since May 19 show McCain with an average lead of 1.6 percent. Why so close? Democratic divisions. In Rasmussen's national polling, Obama and McCain earn identical levels of support from members of their own parties: 81 percent of Dems back Obama and 83 percent of Republicans back McCain. But the latest Rasmussen poll in Michigan shows that while McCain's local GOP support matches his national number--83 percent--Obama's support among state Democrats falls seven points to 74 percent. Those defectors--perhaps former Clintonites dissatisfied with how Michigan's controversial delegate clash was resolved--are enough to keep McCain in contention.

With that in mind, expect Obama to make Michigan a major focus of his fall travel plans. And expect the candidate--and even the Goracle itself--to continue pushing the party-unity argument unveiled by the former veep last night. “Looking back over the last eight years, I can tell you that we have already learned one important fact,” he said. “Take it from me, elections matter."

Translation: Now's your chance to right the wrongs of 2000. Don't blow it. We'll see in November whether Gore's message is more compelling than his timing.
 

By Jessica Ramirez 

He's still toddler, but Alex's prodigious talents are already on display. He likes trying new foods, for example, and chasing after the family dog. Oh, and he's also the star of a new anti-McCain commercial by MoveOn.Org. The ad, called "Not Alex," features Alex's mom (actually an actress) taking McCain to task for his saying that the U.S. shouldn't withdraw from Iraq anytime soon. "John McCain, when you said you would 'stay in Iraq for a hundred years,' were you counting on Alex?" she asks. "Because if you were, you can't have him."

The dramatic "Not Alex" spot, which begins airing today in the battleground states of Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan and nationally on CNN and MSNBC, is the first national release from the newest wing of MoveOn--a network of top ad execs modeled after the "Tuesday Team" that propelled Ronald Reagan to reelection in 1984. Their goal? To transform McCain's greatest strength--national security--into his greatest weakness. "We heard from a lot of moms that not only was McCain's comment irresponsible, but that a hundred years is generations and that includes their children and their children's children," says Jonathan Cranin, Chief Creative Officer for MoveOn's new ad team. "So telling it through the lens of a mother and child was a way of bringing that message home."

A $540,000 buy, "Not Alex" is the product of an unlikely pairing: MoveOn (which endorsed Barack Obama during primary season) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (which endorsed Hillary Clinton).  Paul Booth, executive assistant to AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee, stresses that his group's participation does not represent an Obama endorsement. But what it does represent, he says, is a broad consensus among the union's 1.4 million members that McCain would offer little more than an extension of President George W. Bush's policies.

According to Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, the group that tests ads for MoveOn, tugging at voters' heartstrings may pay off. Of the more than 50 ads focus-grouped for MoveOn over the years, "Not Alex" received the highest scores in key areas like persuasiveness, says Senior Vice President Anna Greenberg. Recent polls indicate that Americans are split on which candidate would do a better job with Iraq--making them a prime audience for the latest MoveOn message. Eli Pariser, executive director at MoveOn, says the ad is mainly meant to target "independent, but conservative-leaning, working-class white folks, especially women." In other words, Clinton supporters tempted to jump ship for McCain. "We wanted an ad that would speak to those people," he says. "And this one does."
 

A lot of people accuse the mainstream media of bias. Bias for Obama, bias for McCain, bias against women, bias against brown-haired, 26-year-old Italian-Jewish Americans under 5'9" (my own personal gripe). It's not hard to find evidence of each of these (often conflicting) biases in the endless stream of information bombarding us every hour of every day. (Why else would anyone criticize Stumper?) But the truth is, the MSM's only systematic bias is for new narratives, new plot twists, new news. And when nothing newsworthy is actually happening, the press is completely willing to amplify, distort and/or misconstrue what is happening to make it seem like something new.

Case in point. Each day, I receive an email from the Newsweek Research Center alerting me to the latest results from Gallup's daily tracking poll of the presidential race. To take the nation's temperature, Gallup calls up "no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide," combines today's data with the stats from the two previous days and then posts a composite "McCain vs. Obama" number on its website. On Sunday, the organization's headline was "Obama-McCain Race Reverts to Virtual Tie." The next day, however, something had changed. Now, according to Gallup, "Obama [had] reestablishe[d a] significant lead." What caused such a momentous shift in the mood of the electorate, I wondered? Was it Obama's Father's Day speech in Chicago Sunday morning? His visit to ailing Flint, Mich. on Monday? Had Hillary Clinton's reluctant supporters finally broken for the Democratic nominee? 

Then I happened to, you know, glance at the actual numbers. They told a different story--to put it mildly.

Sunday, June 15: Obama 44 percent, McCain 42 percent
Monday, June 16: Obama 46 percent, McCain 42 percent

The margin of error? Plus or minus two percent. As our friend Mike Allen over at the Politico put it this morning, "YA CAN'T MAKE IT UP."

Unless, of course, you can.
 

 
Scout Tufankjian / Polaris

Will Obama win Wyoming? Don't be silly. Still, Paul Tewes's job is to make McCain defend his turf. Here's my NEWSWEEK colleague Richard Wolffe on the man--and the thinking--behind Obama's 50-state strategy.

Barack Obama's supporters talk about how they've given sweat and tears to the cause. Paul Tewes can do better than that: he gave his eyebrows. Last Fourth of July weekend, Tewes, who led Obama's winning campaign in Iowa, pushed his staff of field organizers and volunteers to sign up thousands of new supporters around the state. He set an unreasonably tough goal and didn't really expect them to meet it. To motivate his overworked underlings, he joked that if they succeeded he'd shave off his eyebrows. At least he thought he was joking. At the end of the weekend, the organizers reported their tallies on a conference call. They'd done it. At first Tewes tried to back out. He worried his brows wouldn't grow back. But his staffers held him to the promise. "It was very painful," he says now with a laugh. "When I'd go jogging, the sweat ran straight into my eyes."

That kind of dedication gets you noticed by the higher-ups. A year later, Tewes has a brand-new set of eyebrows, and a new job: head of the Democratic Party's massive national field operation to elect Obama. In the coming weeks, Tewes will lead the effort to put the national party under the Obama campaign's control. The idea is to re-create the kind of success he had in Iowa, but on a much larger scale—mobilizing tens of thousands of volunteers and organizers nationwide in what the Democrats call their "50-state strategy." Instead of the usual way of doing things—putting precious campaign dollars into only those states the candidate has a chance of winning—the Obama team will run hard everywhere, even in traditionally Republican states.

Sort of. Obama's strategists don't really believe he can beat John McCain in Utah. So why blow cash there? To force McCain, who has far less money on hand than Obama ($24 million versus $46 million) to spend more there, too. Ed Rendell, the Pennsylvania governor who won his state for Hillary Clinton but now backs Obama, suggests the 50-state approach is more like the arms race with the Soviets than a presidential-campaign strategy. "There's something to be said for … making sure the other side spends resources to defend areas that they don't normally spend resources in," Rendell tells NEWSWEEK.

There's another reason for spreading the wealth: winning "down ticket" congressional races that could pay off later if Obama takes the White House. "While we might not win Wyoming, there's a very important congressional seat that the [Democratic] candidate lost by 1,200 votes in '06," says Steve Hildebrand, Obama's deputy national campaign director, who started a consulting firm with Tewes. "What can we do in '08 to help [the Democrat]? Can we register new voters, or increase the number of Democratic voters to turn out? Can we use our volunteers that are motivated by Barack Obama to help him? We don't have great expectations that we can win everywhere. But we … might help elect members to Congress. And they might help pass universal health care and bring the troops home from Iraq."

Tewes, 38, has spent years trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. He got his start in big-time politics in 2000, when Hildebrand hired him to help run Al Gore's Iowa campaign. That time, he was on the side of the establishment candidate who was battling an insurgent Bill Bradley. One thing he's learned in the field: the importance of getting there early. The Obama campaign began organizing a national voter drive even before he secured the nomination. Last week the camp deployed 3,600 volunteers to 17 states, where they are proselytizing for the candidate and looking for recruits.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

HOW CLOSE MCCAIN IS TO BUSH DEPENDS ON THE ISSUE
(Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times)
The Democrats like to say that electing Senator John McCain would usher in the third term of George W. Bush, and they do not mean it as a compliment. The Republicans counter that calling the senator “McBush” is political spin and that Mr. McCain is his own man. A look at Mr. McCain’s 25-year record in the House and Senate, his 2008 campaign positions and his major speeches over the last three months indicates that on big-ticket issues — the economy, support for continuing the Iraq war, health care — his stances are indeed similar to Mr. Bush’s brand of conservatism. Mr. McCain’s positions are nearly identical to the president’s on abortion and the types of judges he says he would appoint to the courts. On the environment, American diplomacy and nuclear proliferation, Mr. McCain has strikingly different views from Mr. Bush, and while he shares the president’s goals in Iraq, he was at times an outspoken critic of the way the war was managed.

POLL FINDS INDEPENDENT VOTERS SPLIT BETWEEN MCCAIN, OBAMA
(Dan Balz and Jon Coen, Washington Post)
In the first Washington Post-ABC News poll since the Democratic nomination contest ended, Obama and McCain are even among political independents, a shift toward the presumptive Republican nominee over the past month. On the issues, independents see McCain as more credible on fighting terrorism and are split evenly on who is the stronger leader and better on the Iraq war. But on other key attributes and issues -- including the economy -- Obama has advantages among independents. The presumptive Democratic nominee emerged from his primary-season battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with improved personal ratings overall, but with no appreciable gain in the head-to-head competition with McCain. Majorities view both men favorably, but about twice as many said they have a "strongly favorable" impression of Obama as said so of McCain. But Obama still has some work to do to unite the Democratic Party. Almost nine in 10 Republicans now support McCain, while not quite eight in 10 Democrats said they support Obama. Nearly a quarter of those who said they favored Clinton over Obama for the nomination currently prefer McCain for the general election, virtually unchanged from polls taken before Clinton suspended her campaign.

MORE: Unity Still Out of Reach (Matthew Dallek, Politico)
On matters of policy, the differences between Obama and Clinton are indeed small, and numerous pundits have predicted a rapid reversal of the primary enmity. Nonetheless, the divisions among their followers are not insignificant and easily bridged. In the history of modern primary campaigns, ideology is one, but far from the only, source of disunity between presidential candidates of the same party. Historically speaking, issues of class, gender, race and even personality have been nearly as poisonous in causing internecine strife as ideological infighting has been.

ARE DEMS TALKING ABOUT MCCAIN'S AGE IN CODE?
(Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico)
In a campaign year marked by flare-ups surrounding comments that have offended one group or another, John McCain and Barack Obama have moved on to the next sensitive battleground: the question of McCain’s advanced age. As some Republicans see it, Democrats are deliberately talking in code about the presumptive 71-year-old GOP nominee as part of an attempt to highlight his age. “It is code; there is no question it is,” Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who helped lead President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign, said when age surfaced as an issue. “They are trying to raise doubts.” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough repeatedly argued on his show last week that the Obama campaign was portraying McCain as a “doddering, old, confused fool. He needs to go to Miami Beach and play checkers.”... A Democratic strategist not involved in the campaign, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said he sees footprints of a deliberate Obama campaign strategy. “They have made allusions to McCain’s age and temperament because, with McCain, both his age and his volatile temper are legitimate issues. There is a line of appropriateness that they cannot cross. And I don’t think they have,” the strategist said.

OBAMA PLANS SPENDING BOOST, POSSIBLE CUT IN BUSINESS TAX
(Bob Davis and Amy Chozick, Wall Street Journal)
Sen. Barack Obama shed new light on his economic plans for the country, saying he would rely on a heavy dose of government spending to spur growth, use the tax code to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers in the U.S. economy, and possibly back a reduction in corporate tax rates. n an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Illinois Democrat said that he was trying to put together tax and spending policies that dealt with two challenges. One is the competition from rapidly growing developing countries, like India and China. The other: the U.S. becoming what he called a "winner-take-all" economy, where the gains from economic growth skew heavily toward the wealthy. Sen. Obama cited new economic forces to explain what appears like a return to an older-style big-government Democratic platform skeptical of market forces. "Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers," he said, and a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably. He spoke aboard his campaign bus, where a big-screen TV was tuned to the final holes of the U.S. Open golf tournament.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...
 

Call it the "Tale of Two McCains."

If you buy the central argument of Barack Obama campaign--at least when it comes to his Republican rival--John McCain suffers from something like split-personality disorder. The McCain of the past, says Obama, "can... legitimately tout moments of independence from his party." This is the "maverick" Arizona senator famous for his GOP-defying positions on "earmark reform and climate change" as well as immigration, torture, nuclear proliferation and campaign finance. According to Obama, though, this McCain is history. "Something’s certainly changed about John McCain," he says. Instead, the new and unimproved McCain is nothing more than a George W. Bush clone--a man "determined to carry out a third Bush term," "no matter what the costs, no matter what the consequences." Or so the Democratic nominee constantly insists. Obama's online fans have even given this McCain a cute little nickname: McSame.

There is a shred of truth in Obama's not-so-complimentary attack. In the wake of his 2000 loss to Bush, McCain drifted rightward as he positioned himself for a second presidential run. In the 107th Congress (2000-2002), he ranked as the 46th most conservative senator, according to voteview.com--a moderate record. By the 109th, he had become the second most conservative. And there's no denying that McCain reversed course on Bush's tax cuts, which he opposed in 2001--"I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief," he said at the time--but now wants to make permanent. That shift (along with the fact that McCain has always been an orthodox conservative on social and economic issues) has provided Obama, who's eager to tie his Republican rival to an unpopular president and claim the mantle of change for himself, with the fodder necessary for a "McCain Is Bush" onslaught.

The only problem? Obama's leap from "McCain agrees with Bush more now" to "McCain will govern exactly like Bush" is pretty misleading. Presidential elections are about how the present will affect the future, not how it differs from the past. Which means that the most consequential question confronting voters in an election year is how a candidate will govern tomorrow, as president. And as any objective observer will admit, there's simply no way McCain would ever "carry out a third Bush term."

Fact is, he couldn't--even if he wanted to. According to the Cook Political Report, the Democratic Party is poised to pick up 10 to 20 seats in the House of Representatives and four to seven seats in the Senate. At best, that would give the Dems voting majorities of 77 and 16, respectively--margins much larger than any enjoyed by the GOP during Bush's tenure in the White House. So just as running for the Republican nomination has forced candidate McCain to emphasize his conservative bona fides, facing off against a heavily Democratic Congress would force President McCain to make compromises--if, that is, he hoped to accomplish anything in office.

At this point, McCain would undoubtedly deviate from Bush's divide-and-conquer playbook. Whereas Bush and Co. arrived in Washington, D.C. "believing that the intensity of Republican support was more important than the breadth of his appeal"--Karl Rove, for example, advocated a "50 percent plus one" approach to governing--McCain has a long record of working with Democrats when necessary. Without a majority, it would be necessary. As president, then, McCain would likely do what he has plenty of practice doing in the past--partnering with Dems on immigration (McCain-Kennedy), campaign finance (McCain-Feingold), climate change (McCain-Lieberman) and even education--while skipping the stuff he's never been particularly enthusiastic about, like pushing for conservative social policies to please right-wing Republicans. On Iraq, the economy and even Supreme Court justices, he would have to find common ground or risk gridlock. As president, McCain would have a pretty clear-cut choice: either a) bend or b) get nothing done. Not much room for Bush-like behavior.

In any case, McCain would have little incentive to kowtow to conservatives. Unlike Bush, he'll win in November in spite of the right--not because of it--and arrive in the Oval Office owing moderate Independents and crossover Democrats more than he'll owe Republican extremists. What's more, he's unlikely to design every policy position for maximum political advantage--a hallmark of the Bush regime--for the simple reason that this election may be his last. As the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reported earlier this month, "when he formally announced his presidential candidacy last year, Sen. John McCain was inches away from making an unprecedented pledge: if he were elected, he would serve only one term as president." He didn't go through with it, of course, but the implication--that getting reelected is less important getting the job done--still holds truer for him than most. Without another election looming on the horizon, pissing off your party is no longer the worst thing in the world.

Yes, McCain is a Republican. Yes, he--like Bush--has Republican positions. And yes, you should vote against him if you disagree with the Republican Party on the issues. My only point here is that McCain, based on his bipartisan past, is probably one of the Republicans least likely to govern like Bush--and thus least deserving of the inevitable "Bush III" label. None of this is to say that McCain would be a perfect president, or even a good one. I'll let the voters decide that.  Maybe you think he's too old. Maybe you think he's too conservative. Maybe you think he's squandered his honor for political gain. Maybe you just like Obama better. Any reason is fine, as long, that is, as the crucial comparison is between Obama and McCain--their policies, their personalities and the problems they'll face as president--and not between Obama and Bush. Because even though 43 has done some preposterous things during his time in the White House, he's not defying the Twenty-Second Amendment to run for a third term--despite what Obama says.
 

Whither Hillary?

After conceding the Democratic primary battle to Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. last Saturday, the former first lady vanished--and she hasn't been spotted since. Understandably, we political junkies are suffering through the symptoms of withdrawal. At nine days and counting, Clinton's current hiatus represents her longest absence from public view since the start of her presidential campaign 17 months ago--if not the longest of her 17-year stint in the national political spotlight. At night, we awake in the cold sweat, muttering the phrase "18 million votes." By day, we roam the streets like zombies, clutching at every pantsuit we see. It was, in a word, inevitable.

So far, we've had only one clue to Hillary's whereabouts. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that "Clinton has been at home in Washington and Chappaqua," where she, Bill and Chelsea are "currently taking some time off as a family" and "enjoying some well-deserved R & R." But while the New York senator is good at many things, relaxing isn't one of them. So we immediately suspected that there was more to the story than Clinton's surrogates were letting on.

Turns out we were right. At 2:18 this afternoon, an email from "Hillary Clinton" titled "Incredible people, incredible memories" (above) arrived in our inbox.  "Together, you and I changed America forever," she wrote. "We touched so many lives over the course of this campaign, and I can't thank you enough for the support you showed me. I met so many wonderful people out on the trail, and I wanted to share some of those memories with you." And then, in the blue, underlined text of an active hyperlink, Clinton unveiled the product of her prolonged seclusion. Was it a pitch for Democratic nominee Barack Obama? Not so much. A plea for party unity? Wrong again. Instead, Clinton has created (drumroll, please) ... an "online album with some favorite photos from the campaign"! But of course--sentimental scrapbooking. How else to spend a vacation? Click through for shots of Clinton with some confetti and a woman with a lot of buttons on her hat.

Oh, and in case you missed it, there's a big, red "Contribute" button at the bottom of each page of photos. Just in case you're so overcome with nostalgia seeing Hillary sign a poster for a young boy with "Clinton" written across his forehead that you decide to donate, say, $2,300 to help retire the senator's $30 million campaign debt. No pressure or anything.

"Thank you so much," writes Clinton, preemptively. "I'll be in touch soon."

Watch out, hopeless romantics. Next time she may break out the Celene Dion. 
 

 
Key: Red: Republican, Blue: Democrat; (c) Robert J. Vanderbei, Princeton University

With five months to go until Election Day, there's plenty of time to parse the polls and predict who's going to be our next president--and plenty of ways to slice and dice the stats. The press, for example, loves to promote the latest poll as definitive proof of who's winning or losing in any given state; so when, say, University of Wisconsin releases a survey showing Obama ahead by 13 in the Badger State, we get headlines like "Wisconsin, an Obama stronghold"--even though a lot can happen between now and Nov. 4. Others (like the folks at Pollster.com) ignore the horserace hype and look for trends in how the candidates have polled over time--a smarter approach. And when making his projections, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com balances out the polls with comparative demographic data. 

We here at Stumper headquarters aren't particularly good at math, so we'll leave the statistical analysis to the pros. But we are interested in history. That's why we thought it'd be interesting--as a thought experiment, at least--to compare how John Kerry and George W. Bush were polling at this point in the 2004 cycle to how Barack Obama and John McCain are polling now. Both Obama and McCain claim that they can "change the map"--that is, make red states blue and blue states red. But are they really performing better than their predecessors were exactly four years ago? If so, where? And where are they doing worse? To find out, we raided the polling archives at RealClear Politics for historical numbers--i.e. May-June 2004--then compared them to the site's current averages.

Lynne Sladky / AP

In the wake of the divisive, drawn-out primary clash between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, John McCain seems to have made it his mission in life to seduce Clinton's sorest supporters away from the Democratic Party--and thus march to victory on November 4. In the days after Clinton's defeat, he stocked cable TV with surrogates of the fairer sex; his new blog, The McCain Report, rhapsodized about the “genuine affection”  for the former first lady “here at McCain HQ”; and when I saw him speak last week in Philadelphia, he went out of his way to welcome disgruntled Clintonites to the fold. On Saturday, the wooing hit fever pitch with a "virtual town hall" conference call for curious "Democrats and Independents"--a call, according to the campaign, that included "many... participants [who] are... former supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign." Leading McCain's outreach: former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. In this week's dead-tree mag, my colleague Jonathan Darman profiles McCain's wingwoman; I've excerpted his piece below. As you read, though--and as stories about McCain-Clinton crossover voters flood the MSM--it's worth remembering how little this phenomenon is changing the overall shape of the race. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls, Obama trails among white suburban women by six points--but leads by seven among all white women and a whopping 19 percent among women overall. In other words, Carly has her work cut out for her. Here's Darman:

For the past 15 months, Carly Fiorina has given her life to John McCain. A brand-name businesswoman owing to her tumultuous tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Fiorina serves as "victory chairwoman" of the Republican National Committee and is the McCain campaign's most outspoken and energetic female surrogate. But as she strolled around a dining room in the battleground state of Ohio last week, praising "a focused, determined, intelligent, empathetic, powerful leader," she wasn't talking about the GOP nominee. She was talking about Hillary Clinton—a woman, she told the 50 women gathered to see her in a Columbus suburb, who'd been wronged. "Women in positions of authority, particularly bold women who are trying to change things, are … caricatured differently, commented upon differently and held to different standards," she said. "I watched all of this happen to Hillary Clinton."

This kind of talk was candy for the crowd—and Fiorina knew it. She'd traveled to Columbus at the invitation of Women for Fair Politics, a coalition of Ohio Clinton supporters formed to protest what they see as an injustice done to Hillary by the Democratic Party. Two weeks after their candidate dropped out of the race, the group's founders are far from falling in line behind Obama, a man they accuse of "Swift Boating" the Clintons and participating in an act of sexism. Mostly lifelong Democrats, the group reached out to Fiorina as part of a broader bolt toward the GOP. "We need to elect John McCain in 2008," said Cynthia Ruccia, a Franklin County Democratic Party official and group cofounder. "That's the only way the Democratic Party will learn it can't treat women this way."

The War for Women is on. In the two weeks since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, the GOP has pushed women to give its candidate a second look, lavishing praise on Clinton, wallpapering cable TV with female surrogates and, ever so discreetly, reminding female voters just how moderate McCain can be. While Republicans are happy to help sow Democratic discord (six of 10 men at the Columbus gathering were from the McCain campaign), few in either party expect a massive defection of liberal women. But the McCain campaign thinks that distaste over what happened to Clinton, combined with its candidate's appeal, could help McCain break through to independent females. They are a serious prize for the senator. With women making up 56 percent of the swing vote, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, wooing women could be McCain's most important task.

Fiorina is eager to be his ambassador, using her legendary communications skills to soften McCain's image. In the corporate world, she was known for embracing risk, and on the stump, she tries to make a virtue of McCain's weakest points. In Columbus, unprompted, she brought up Iraq: "When he said, 'President Bush, you're wrong about how to prosecute the war in Iraq … and Donald Rumsfeld [is] the worst secretary of Defense in history' … the Republican Party beat him every day."

But at H-P, Fiorina also earned a reputation for sometimes using her superior sales skills to mask underlying problems with the product. Trying to ease the Columbus women's fears about McCain's pro-life views, Fiorina claimed the senator "has never signed on to efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade." (McCain said in 2007 he thought Roe "should be overturned.") In her presentation, she strayed far from the GOP comfort zone, telling voters McCain "will not drill in ANWR [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]" and "diversity is about competitive survival."

These are the kinds of liberties a surrogate can take in the early days of a general-election campaign. But they reflect a broader dilemma facing McCain: as primary-season memories fade, can he really compete for women without losing his base?

READ THE REST HERE.

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

OBAMA CAMP SEES POSSIBLE WIN WITHOUT OHIO, FLA.
(Nedra Pickler and Philip Elliott, Associated Press)
Barack Obama's campaign envisions a path to the presidency that could include Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states, but not necessarily the pair of battlegrounds that decided the last two elections — Florida and Ohio. In a private pitch late last week to donors and former supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe outlined several alternatives to reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of recent elections... Plouffe also has been touting Obama's appeal in once Republican-leaning states where Democrats have made gains in recent gubernatorial and congressional races, such as Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota. ... The key, Plouffe told supporters, will be to register new black voters and new young voters in Virginia. Likewise, Georgia has many unregistered black voters who could turn out in record numbers to support the first major-party nominee who is black, he argued... Plouffe argues that McCain squandered his opportunity to reach independent voters in the past three months... While Democrats hammered each other in their marathon contest, McCain left aides from his primary states sitting still, waiting for orders. It took more than two months for McCain's national headquarters to approve budgets for the battleground states. 

MORE: Obama, Trumping Despair, Can Win Comfortably (Albert R. Hunt, Bloomberg News)
Some American journalists love to focus on the state-by- state electoral breakdown, full of fancy-colored maps -- red for Republican, blue for Democrat -- that add little value. If a candidate wins the popular vote by 4 or 5 percentage points, there is no practical chance the Electoral College will go the other way; the map follows the voters. However, in a razor-thin election -- 1960, 1968, 1976 and, of course, 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote and lost the presidency because of the infamous Florida recount -- the map matters. Both camps talk about expanding their party's universe this year, competing in states that used to be out of reach. Disregard most of that; if Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate, wins California or New Jersey or if Obama takes Texas or Georgia, it will be a landslide like 1964, 1972 or 1984.

'MAVERICK' MCCAIN BEDEVILS DEMOCRATS
(Joseph Curl, Washington Times)
Although conservatives bristle about Mr. McCain's proclivity to cross party lines to vote with Democrats, a glance at his voting record over 25 years in the Senate portrays a solid Republican. For instance, he voted for every item on the Republicans' Contract With America, the document penned by conservatives in 1994 that called for shrinking the federal government, cutting taxes and reforming welfare. The senator from Arizona, a staunch pro-lifer, has an American Conservative Union rating of 82, not a top-rated conservative but certainly a solid member. As Mr. Obama regularly points out, Mr. McCain voted in line with President Bush's wishes 95 percent of the time in 2007, and 100 percent of the time so far this year. But Mr. McCain also has bucked his party often, and on several high-profile issues. He attached his name to McCain-Feingold, a campaign-finance reform bill co-authored by Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, that Republicans opposed. He also joined forces with a liberal leader, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, via the McCain-Kennedy bill to overhaul immigration. Many Republicans opposed the bill. Still, some say those against-the-grain transgressions could help more than harm Mr. McCain.

A DELEGATOR, OBAMA PICKS WHEN TO TAKE THE REINS
(Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg, New York Times)
Like most presidential candidates, Mr. Obama is developing his executive skills on the fly, and under intense scrutiny. The evolution of his style in recent months suggests he is still finding the right formula as he confronts a challenge that he has not faced in his career: managing a large organization. The skill will become more important should he win the presidency, and his style is getting added attention as the country absorbs the lessons of President Bush’s tenure in the Oval Office... Mr. Obama’s style so far is marked by an aversion to leaks and public drama and his selection of a small group of advisers who have exhibited discipline and loyalty in carrying out his priorities... He reads widely and encourages alternative views in policy-making discussions, but likes to keep the process crisp. He is personally even-keeled, but can be prickly when small things go wrong... As the chief executive officer of Obama for America, a concern of nearly 1,000 employees and a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. Obama is more inclined to focus on the big picture over the day-to-day whirl.

WOMEN VOTERS LINING UP BEHIND OBAMA
(Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times)
Now that the Democratic marathon is over, Clinton supporters like Authenreith are siding heavily with Obama over McCain, polls show. And Obama has taken a wide lead among female voters, belying months of political chatter and polls of primary voters suggesting that disappointment over Clinton's defeat might block the Illinois senator from enjoying his party's historic edge among women. The rancor peaked two weeks ago with televised images of furious Clinton loyalists protesting a Democratic Party meeting in Washington to settle a dispute over Florida and Michigan delegates... An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found a wide gap last week: Women favored Obama over McCain, 52% to 33%. The survey also found that voters who cast ballots for Clinton in the Democratic primaries preferred Obama over McCain, 61% to 19%.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...
 

Tim Russert, NBC News' Washington bureau chief and the moderator of Meet the Press, died of an apparent heart attack earlier today while recording voiceovers for his Sunday broadcast. Russert had recently returned from Italy, where his family was celebrating the graduation of son Luke from Boston College. He was only 58.

Needless to say, this is a sad day in the world of media and politics. In a statement released at 4:25 this afternoon, Republican presidential nominee John McCain called Russert the "preeminent political journalist of his generation." Few would disagree. "He was truly a great American who loved his family, his friends, his Buffalo Bills, and everything about politics and America," said McCain. "He was just a terrific guy. I was proud to call him a friend, and in the coming days, we will pay tribute to a life whose contributions to us all will long endure."

Moments later on the tarmac in Columbus, Ohio, Democratic nominee Barack Obama expressed a similar sadness, saying Russert was "somebody who, over time, I came to consider not only a journalist but a friend." "There wasn't a better interviewer in TV, not a more thoughtful analyst of our politics, and he was also one of the finest men I knew," said Obama. "I am grief-stricken with the loss and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family. And I hope that, even though Tim is irreplaceable, that the standard that he set in his professional life and his family life are standards that we all carry with us in our own lives."

On Nov. 14, 2007, I actually had the honor of interviewing the master. We were standing in the lobby of Washington, D.C.'s still-unopened Newseum for Meet the Press's 60th Anniversary bash. Politicians and media personalities circulated with cocktails and Asian hors d'oeuvres in hand. A novice, I was somewhat nervous. (It's one thing interviewing a politician; it's another interviewing a fellow journalist, especially a journalist you admire as much as Russert.) But he put me right at ease. Asked about the presidential race, his passion was palpable. "It's just so wide open," he said. "It's the first election since 1952 where an incumbent president or vice president's name is not going to be on the ballot. It's historic, it's volatile, and there are a lot of surprises still to come."

All his Meet the Press interviews, he said, had "had an impact" on him. But pressed to name a favorite, Russert confessed that "the most memorable" were his conversations with "a president in the Oval Office, whether it's Bill Clinton or George Bush." When I asked if it would be good to have Bill back in the White House, Russert balked. At the time, I assumed I had offended him. But looking back at the video, I see something different: a journalist dismayed by a media culture long on opinion and short on knowledge. I won't forget his answer.

"I don't make judgments," he said. "That's up to the voters. You know, a lot of shows, the host will tell you what's good, what's bad. What I do is ask questions of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, let people finish their sentences and complete their thoughts, and then let the voters decide."

He will be missed.
 

NEW YORK--Be careful what you wish for, Senator.

Last night at Manhattan's storied Federal Hall--site, in 1789, of George Washington's inauguration and the ratification of the Bill of Rights--John McCain held the first of what would've been 10 joint town hall meetings with Democratic opponent Barack Obama. Except that Obama, citing logistical conflicts, wasn't there. According to McCain, flying solo was a shame. "This town hall meeting tonight would have been a little bit more interesting if Senator Obama had accepted my request,” he said. But "interesting" or not, I can't help but think that the Obamaless event was a blessing in disguise for the presumptive Republican nominee.

The reason? A pair of brief but telling exchanges near the end of evening. The first came when a young, blond woman in the back row, maybe 25, stood up and asked McCain how he would appeal to her peers--many of them registered Republicans voting for Obama, she said, because his campaign "speaks their language." In and of itself, McCain's answer was good--he didn't seem particularly old, or out-of-touch, or any of the other things that a septuagenarian's staff might worry about him seeming. He assured the woman that "there will be a real competition for young people's votes." He mentioned that he'd appeared on "Saturday Night Live, and Jon Stewart, and MTV Town Hall." And he delivered a winning, self-deprecating joke--"The primary qualification to be president of the United States is to be very, very, very, very old"--before pivoting to his real reply: I'll treat them like the adults they are. "I've got to communicate that I'll give them a more prosperous, safer world than the one that I had," he said--refusing, wisely, to condescend.

But the thing is, it's easy to dismiss the age issue when you're the only candidate on stage. Not so easy: dismissing it when you're standing alongside a rival who leads by as much as 30 points among young voters and represents, as conservative columnist Peggy Noonan puts it, "the New America." In that scenario, there's a direct comparison between older and younger, past and future, 71 and 46--in other words, "the kind of direct comparison that most campaigns strive to avoid." Alone, he's fine. But side by side with Obama, McCain--whom 30 percent of voters consider too old to be president--can't help but suffer, at least a little, when the conversation turns to age.

McCain's other challenge: observers tend to see every slip, blip or gaffe through the prism of his senior citizenship. In late May, for example, the abrupt, cold-related cancellation of a McCain event in Pennsylvania spurred frenzied speculation about the senator's health--speculation that wouldn't have attended a similar announcement from Obama. Likewise, there's little doubt that Democrats keep describing McCain as "confused" for a reason. So even though it received no coverage in today's reports, the exchange that immediately followed the "youth vote" moment last night might have seemed significant to the chattering classes had it happened in Obama's presence.

Taking the microphone, an "Hispanic-American" lawyer posed a simple, direct question: "What character traits are you looking for in the people who will serve [on the Supreme Court] for many, many years and help shape your legacy?"

McCain's response was odd--to put it mildly. "I thank you," he said. "As we were talking about the youth vote, we're also going to have to compete strongly for the Hispanic, Latino vote as well, and I believe I can do that." With that, he trailed off. Of course, the man hadn't asked about McCain's Hispanic outreach efforts. But what had he asked? Attempting to answer, McCain, it seemed, was at a loss for words. There were a few awkward "um's" as he tried to start a sentence. "I believe that, um..." But when the senator realized it wasn't going anywhere, he did what any competent conversationalist does in a similar situation: turn the question back on the questioner. "Could you tell me a little bit more about your background that indicates this concern?" he said, vaguely. "Just a bit more."

On the trail, McCain often requests more information from a voter who's asked about a personal issue like, say, health care. But in this case it was unclear what bearing the man's background had on the topic at hand--that is, Supreme Court appointees. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that McCain couldn't quite recall what was being asked. Luckily, the man--who also informed the senator that he was a father, a Catholic and a New York native--quickly rephrased the question, and all was well. "Now I understand your question better," said McCain, as if it were incomprehensible until situated in the proper biographical context.

The point here is not that McCain is, you know, senile. He's not. Everybody loses their train of thought from time to time--I've done it on national television--and everybody fumbles a few words. But everybody catches colds, as well. Whether you think this particular exchange is relevant, revealing, or completely pointless, it's impossible to imagine the punditocracy--Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer, Charlie Gibson, et al--comparing a head-to-head Obama-McCain cagematch without making a big deal about it. And that, for McCain, is the danger of these duels--which, unlike last night's event, will include some non-Republicans in the audience (see video above), and thus much more contentious questions.

In the end, however, none of this may matter. After receiving a counterproposal from Obama offering just one town hall and one extra debate in response to McCain's suggestion of 10, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis confessed today that talks seem to have broken down. "We fear that our negotiations over joint town hall meetings are turning into a debate about process," he said. "That is exactly what we have always hoped to avoid." Unfortunately, it's exactly what Team Obama--which has apparently concluded that the costs of joint appearances outweigh the benefits--wanted to happen. In the end, no town halls is probably good news, in some respects, for both candidates--even if it's bad news for the rest of us.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

MAKE THE ELECTION ABOUT IRAQ
(Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post)
The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their "narrative of defeat and retreat" (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed. It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq war the central winning plank of his campaign. Yes, Americans are war-weary. Yes, most think we should not have engaged in the first place. Yes, Obama will keep pulling out his 2002 speech opposing the war. But McCain's case is simple. Is not Obama's central mantra that this election is about the future, not the past? It is about 2009, not 2002.

OBAMA, LIBERALISM AND THE CHALLENGE OF REFORM
(David Brooks, New York Times)
Is Barack Obama really a force for change, or is he just a traditional Democrat with a patina of postpartisan rhetoric? That question is surprisingly hard to answer. When you listen to his best speeches, you see a person who really could herald a new political era. But when you look into his actual policies, you often find a list of orthodox liberal programs that no centrist or moderate conservative would have any reason to support. To investigate this question, I looked more closely into Obama’s education policies... He’s for the vast panoply of pre-K and after-school programs that most of us are for. But the crucial issues are: What do you do with teachers and administrators who are failing? How rigorously do you enforce accountability? Obama doesn’t engage the thorny, substantive matters that separate the two camps... Obama endorses many good ideas and is more specific than the McCain campaign, which hasn’t even reported for duty on education. But his education remarks give the impression of a candidate who wants to be for big change without actually incurring the political costs inherent in that enterprise.

WILL THE REAL TAX-AND-SPENDER PLEASE 'FESS UP?
(Larry Rohter, New York Times)
With the general election in full gear, Senator John McCain has stepped up efforts to paint his rival, Senator Barack Obama, as what he calls a traditional Democratic tax-and-spend liberal. On Tuesday, for instance, Mr. McCain, addressing a business gathering, accused Mr. Obama of wanting to enact “the largest single tax increase since World War II.”... Economists of various ideological persuasions, however, view Mr. McCain’s assessment as inaccurate or exaggerated. Some question whether Mr. Obama’s tax plan can even be characterized as an increase. Some also argue that contrary to Mr. McCain’s assertions, the Democrat’s proposals, if enacted, would actually reduce taxes for the middle class — the voters both candidates see as the key to victory. 

GESTURE POLITICS
(Rich Lowry, New York Post)
For a politician whose forte has never been domestic policy, McCain has a peculiar taste for complex, verging on unworkable, regulatory schemes - from campaign-finance reform, to comprehensive immigration reform, to a cap-and-trade system limiting carbon emissions. The attraction for McCain of these plans isn't their intricacies, but their symbolism. Campaign-finance reform demonstrated his incorruptibility; comprehensive immigration reform his belief in an America open to all comers; cap-and-trade his commitment to fight global warming. These positions were all the more alluring in that they placed McCain in opposition to what he considered the loose ethics, nativism and head-in-the-sand denial of global warming of his own party. They marked him as a bold reformer refusing to compromise himself: Here I stand, I can do no other. Without this branding, McCain wouldn't have a chance this year. But a gestural politics of personal honor has its limits - namely that there's very little in it for anyone besides you. McCain's other domestic crusade has been pounding his fellow politicians for giving constituents what they want, but shouldn't get: earmarked spending that isn't justified by the general welfare. If this is all very admirable, it's not a good fit for the public mood when rising energy prices mean that the average worker's wages are falling.

OBAMA RISKS 'PRISTINE' IMAGE IN QUESTION OF PUBLIC FINANCING
(Kristin Jensen and Jonathan D. Salant, Bloomberg News)
Barack Obama learned the pitfalls of claiming the moral high ground this week when a top adviser resigned under pressure. His next challenge is whether to forfeit a huge financial edge over Republican John McCain or renege on a promise to accept public-funding limits. Obama pledged in March 2007 to pursue an agreement with the Republicans to participate in the public-financing system, which is designed to limit the influence of big money. That was before he began shattering private-fundraising records. Strategists from both parties say the presumptive Democratic nominee would have an advantage of more than $100 million in the general election if he declines public money and its spending restrictions. The question is how much criticism he'd take for becoming the first presidential candidate to opt out of the system, which dates back to the Watergate era.

MEDIA AND CRITICS SPLIT OVER SEXISM IN CLINTON COVERAGE
(Katharine Q. Seeyle and Julie Bosman, New York Times)
Angered by what they consider sexist news coverage of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, many women and erstwhile Clinton supporters are proposing boycotts of the cable networks, putting up videos on a “Media Hall of Shame,” starting a national conversation about sexism and pushing Mrs. Clinton’s rival, Senator Barack Obama, to address the matter. But many in the news media — with a few exceptions, including Katie Couric, the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” — see little need for reconsidering their coverage or changing their approach going forward. Rather, they say, as the Clinton campaign fell behind, it exploited a few glaring examples of sexist coverage to whip up a backlash and to try to create momentum for Mrs. Clinton.  

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...

By Daniel Stone 

There's no such thing as too much change--either in your couch cushion or, apparently, in Washington. Obama says "Change We Can Believe In"; McCain responds with "The Change You Deserve." The times, it seems, are a-changin'.

And now, according to a new study from Pew Research, the rest of the world agrees--at least when it comes to changing America.

In survey of 21 countries throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, Pew discovered that America's popularity is--heart be still--holding steady or even increasing overseas. Despite dips in our favorability ratings in Spain (down one percent to 33), Japan (down 11 to 50) and Mexico (down nine to 47), America is booming elsewhere: South Korea (up 12 to 70), Poland (up seven to 68) and Turkey (up three to 12; hey, it's progress). Our biggest success story? Tanzania, which now likes America 19 percent more than it did last year. Thank you, David Archuletta!

All kidding aside, you'd think that President George W. Bush deserves at least a little credit for the upswing. But Pew president Andrew Kohut says U.S. foreign policy has little to do with our growing popularity abroad. So what's his explanation? Anticipation. The world, says Kohut, is eager to see a new president--with a new attitude toward other countries--in the White House. In Spain, South Africa and Nigeria, for example, more than two thirds of those who've been paying attention to the election told Pew that the future of U.S-international relations is bright.

According to Kohut, Barack Obama deserves at least some credit for the show of goodwill. In Japan, he's ahead by 37 percent, and his advantages in France and Spain are even larger: 51 and 73 percent, respectively. In fact, John McCain defeats his Democratic rival in only one country: Jordan. By one point. That said, the resounding foreign support for Obama's bid--in France, 84 percent of those who've been following the U.S. election say they have confidence that Obama would "do the right thing regarding world affairs," compared to 33 percent for McCain--has less to do with his policy proposals than the fact that he's not a Republican. Even in this YouTube age, foreign citizens don't have a lot of information about where U.S. candidates stand on the issues, and many can't even understand English. So while their views may be just as absolute as ours, they're often based on little more than a simple "Bush is a Republican, I don't like Bush, so I don't like McCain" equation. 

For that reason, most Americans probably won't put too much stock in Pew's findings--which is good news for McCain. Sure, some may agree with the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who wrote last year that (internationally, at least) Obama represents "the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan." But others will just yawn. After all, the French and their foreign brethren can't, you know, vote--and that's one thing that won't be changing anytime soon.

 

Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day.

Nate Silver is channeling Nostradamus. As a University of Chicago econ alum slogging through an undemanding post-collegiate consulting gig, he developed a comprehensive historical database that could project the future performance of any pro baseball player by matching him to a comparable predecessor--down to, like, his height, his weight, his career singles and the size of his home stadium. Called PECOTA, it's now recognized as the most accurate baseball forecasting system on the market.

But apparently Silver wasn't satisfied. In October, he started posting anonymously (nom d'écran: "Poblano") at DailyKos, where his detailed district-by-district projections of who would win each Democratic contest (and by how much) soon earned him a massive following. Relying on demographic data from previous primaries and ignoring the usual mishmash of polls, Silver ultimately came within 20 delegates of the final split on Super Tuesday (out of nearly 1,700) and nailed the margins in Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Montana and Kentucky. Taking a break from blogging at FiveThirtyEight.com--not to mention his new duties writing for The Guardian and The New Republic--Silver (whom I profiled in this week's dead-tree Newsweek and who supports Obama) spoke to Stumper about where the McCain-Obama match-up is going next. Excerpts:

So we'll start with an easy question: Who's going to win the election?
Well, if you look at where the polls are right now, it's going to be just as close as it was the last couple of cycles. That said, if anyone wins by a large margin, it's more liable to be Obama. Right now, he's tied with McCain, even though he's losing 20 percent of Democrats to McCain. That number is pretty unprecedented-it's usually about 10 percent. If Obama can get that number down to 15 percent, then that represents a bump of four points overall: you're basically taking two points away from McCain and giving two to Obama. That would represent a landslide compared to recent elections.

The fact is, the fundamentals favor Obama. He is tying McCain among Independents, and there's four-to-three ratio of Democrats to Republicans in terms of voter ID. If those numbers stay the same, he just has to hold his own among Democrats-maybe even losing a few more Democratic voters than John Kerry might have because of race or because some Hillary supporters stay bitter-and he wins. That's especially important states like Ohio where you had big swings at the state level to Democrats, and Hillary picked up the bulk of that support.

Can he win them back? A lot of Clinton supporters say no-they're going to vote for McCain.
I think by the time it gets to September, Hillary die-hard supporters might still not love Obama, but they won't love McCain either. At that point McCain's going to be advertising to his base-Republicans-and Democrats are going to be advertising to theirs. So he's going to look unacceptable to Democrats, even if they supported Hillary. McCain's goal is to win 60 percent of the Independent vote to counteract by the Democrats' edge in party ID, which he'll do by saying Obama is too liberal.

We are talking about this in sort of a macro sense, but it's the electoral college that will decide the election.  It's state by state. Now, I know on your site is keeping track of every state-by-state poll that comes down the pike. How is the map shaping up?  It seems to me that if Obama can pick up New Mexico, Iowa and Colorado, he doesn't have to worry as much about places like Ohio and Florida where he isn't quite as popular as Hillary among Democrats.
Right. Or, if you take the Kerry states, add Ohio-which I think Obama's almost certainly going to win--and then add Colorado and Iowa, then that's a winning map by a few electoral votes for him. Actually, I think it's one of the more likely maps.

If you had to predict a couple of surprises, what would they be?
You want to get exotic? If Obama just won Colorado and Iowa-not Ohio--and picked up one electoral vote from Omaha, in Nebraska, then he would tie 269 to 269. Now, McCain is going to win Nebraska. He'll totally clobber Obama. Republicans usually win the state by 20 points or more. But the thing is, Nebraska divides its electors up by congressional district, and there are two districts out of three where Obama might be competitive. One is the city of Omaha, where Obama is running about 10 points better than the state overall, and the other is focused around Lincoln and the University of Nebraska and borders Iowa, where people seem to love Obama for some reason. He could win one of those districts, and with things being so close, that could be the technicality that decides the election. In light of what happened in Florida in 2000, it would almost be fitting, no? Tying 269-269 by winning the city of Omaha, then having it go to the House, where the Democrats would vote for him. Farfetched, but possible. That one electoral vote could matter.

Any other possible surprises?
Indiana is an interesting state. It's always a state that maybe shouldn't be as red as it is. Like, the Bill Clinton maps from '92 and '96--Bill won in a lot of states where Democrats don't often win. Indiana is a little lake of red in the middle of a lot of blue. It's unusual that it hasn't gone more Democratic. I think part of the reason is that some of these states haven't really had a democrat campaign there for years.  Indiana, they've just written off. It's usually voted Republican, but it's also a state that has a huge manufacturing industry. It has the same concerns that Ohio has. Which is why, I think, our current projections show Obama losing by less than four. North Carolina is another state that might be reasonably competitive; McCain's up by about six in our system. I think in the course of the long Democratic primary campaign, Obama discovered a couple of hidden swing states where he can compete that he otherwise would've written off.

What about Virginia?  That's another one that people toss out there.
I think in four years Virginia is going to kind of a solid blue state, because it's becoming more northern. So while Virginia is a good opportunity for Obama, whether it gets there right away, I don't know.  The western panhandle of Virginia reaches into Appalachia, where he's going to lose pretty badly. But Virginia-along with Missouri, where Obama is also polling pretty well-are going to be the only Southern tossups. But I think he's not likely to win a state like Mississippi, which the campaign says it's targeting. They talk about turning out the African-American vote out in Mississippi, but even if you do that, it's not going to happen. Turnout among African-Americans is pretty good already. 

That said, I'm watching Georgia.  I'm fascinated by it. The polls show Obama trailing McCain by about ten points, but they also have former Congressman Bob Barr drawing six to eight percent. So if Obama can increase African-American turnout and inch up a few points, it seems like he might have a shot.
Don't forget: it's also one of the youngest states in the country. Alaska could be interesting, too.  Thanks to its harsh climate and hard-core industries, it attracts a very hearty, very male population. Historically, there's a lot of affection for third-party candidates in Alaska, so it's a state where Barr could get five or six or seven percent of the vote-which is about how far behind Obama is in the latest polls. It might be enough to tip it. In which case, we'll be up until 4:00 in the morning waiting for the returns from Juneau.

What about the reverse?  We have been talking optimistically about Obama, but what about McCain?  He's more competitive in places like Pennsylvania or New Jersey or Michigan than any other Republican would be.
There are a lot of Independents in Michigan, and they certainly seem to have a lot of affection for John McCain.  They certainly did in 2000, and right now he's leading in our projections by a tiny, tiny margin-one-tenth of one percent. I think that the fact that Obama didn't get to mobilize there in the primary campaign probably hurts him, but that at the end of the day, Michigan leans Democrat. Still, McCain's could win. He's got a special relationship with the state. Wouldn't be interesting if Obama wins Ohio and loses Michigan? That's what our map shows him doing right now. It's one of millions of permutations, but it's possible.

Overall, though, Obama is in a better position than John Kerry was.  In Pennsylvania, Obama has pulled enough ahead now where it's not likely to be supercompetitive. And in states where McCain otherwise might be especially strong-- like in the West-any "native son," regional advantage is probably outweighed at this point by changes in demographics and the local political cultures. Arizona won't be competitive, of course, but those neighboring states-New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada-will be.

Where McCain does better than Bush did, actually, is on the East Coast. He might stay within eight or ten points in Massachusetts, whereas Bush lost by 20. Or Connecticut might be within in seven points But he's not going to do well enough to actually win then. Because it's his strongest region, he gains popular votes--but not necessarily electoral votes.

In which Stumper examines the Democratic nominee's possible--and not-so-possible--vice-presidential picks. (Previous McCain installments: Bobby Jindal; Mitt Romney; Charlie Crist. Previous Obama installments: Ted Strickland; Jim Webb; Wes Clark.)

Name: Hillary Clinton
Age: 60
Resume: New York Senator, Former First Lady and Democratic presidential candidate

Source of Speculation: The buzz about a potential dream ticket started way back in January--when the outcome of the Democratic nominating contest was still unclear--and Barack Obama admitted as early as March that Clinton "would be on anybody's shortlist" for the vice presidency. But the chatter kicked into overdrive on the final day of primary season, June 3, when several news outlets reported that after months of sidestepping the issue Clinton finally told her supporters--either in response to a question or, according Buffalo News, by "bringing it up herself"--that she was "open to" signing on as Obama's veep.

Backstory: On March 5, the hosts of CBS's "The Early Show" asked Clinton whether she and Obama should be running mates. Her response: "That may be where this is headed." Later that day, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell hopped on the bandwagon, and Bill Clinton told reporters "she has always been open to it." But that didn't mean Hillary was ready to run as Obama's No. 2. "Of course, we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket," she told CBS. "I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me." With the math breaking in Obama's favor even then, Clinton's caveat prompted some commentators to wonder whether her VP rhetoric was, in fact, a "strategy for swaying fence-sitters"--and apparently Obama was one of them. "I have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton," he said in Columbus, Mississippi on March 10. "I have won more of the popular vote than Senator Clinton. I have more delegates than Senator Clinton. So I don't know how someone in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person in first place." At that, Clinton quickly backed off.  "It's premature to talk about whoever might be on whose ticket," she said the next day.

But as her chances of overtaking Obama's delegate lead dwindled over the next two months, aides and associates began reviving talk of a "dream ticket"--now with Clinton as No. 2. None was more vocal than the former president. "He is definitely talking it up, making no secret it would be a strong ticket for Barack Obama," George Stephanopoulos reported May 23 on "Good Morning America." "He believes she's earned the offer of vice president." By the time Clinton signaled in New York on June 3 that she would start to wind down her presidential campaign, behind the scenes, her next political push--a bid for the vice presidency--was already up and running. While supporters like Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Charlie Rangel pitched the idea publicly, Clinton was "le[aving] the door open" in private, according to a top strategist "Many of her supporters believe if she's not nominated she must be on the ticket," the strategist told Stumper. "They've been overt and aggressive about that." By confirming and reinforcing the speculation, I wrote, Team Clinton was clearly trying to put public pressure on Obama to pick her as VP at the precise moment that she has the most possible leverage--i.e., when many of her 17 million voters didn't want to see her go.

Odds: Not likely. Clinton brings more pluses to the ticket than any other contender--but she also brings more minuses. For every possible pro, in fact, there seems to be an equal and opposite con. For example: proponents of the pairing say that Clinton would assist Obama electorally by solidifying his support among the 18 million voters--many of them older women, Latinos and working-class whites--who chose her over him in the Democratic primaries. That's undoubtedly true. But even though Clinton would shore up some of Obama's demographic soft spots, she could do him irreparable damage elsewhere.

Take those blue-collar voters. As the New Republic's Noam Scheiber has written, "working-class whites who vote in Democratic primaries are often very different from the working-class whites who don't." That is, while the first group seems to dislike Obama, the second group--i.e., Republicans and independents--seems to dislike Hillary. (Overall, 67 percent of Republicans have very unfavorable views of Clinton, 24 percentage points more than feel that way about Obama; among independents, Clinton's 32 percent negative rating among Independents is 10 points worse than Obama's.) The result: you "risk alienating two groups of working-class whites by putting her on the ticket." The math is grim. In the polls, McCain leads both Obama and Clinton among Caucasians without college degrees by a similar 10-12 point margin--which only goes to show that if "Hillary wins certain working-class whites whom Obama would lose to McCain, then... Obama must be winning certain working-class whites that Hillary would lose to McCain." In the end, it's unclear whether Clinton could help Obama win back the former. But she'd almost certainly hurt him with the latter.

Similarly, there's no way of knowing whether the people who will vote for Obama just because Clinton's on the ticket will outweigh those who will vote against him for the same reason. But with her disapproval ratings hovering around 50 percent, there isn't much room for error. "“Conservatives ‘distrust’ McCain, but they ‘hate’ Clinton," the National Journal's John Mercurio has written. "And hate is a far stronger motivator. It’s a passion that would propel them to turn out for McCain on Election Day in a way no terrorist attack, Swift Boat ad or gay-marriage amendment ever could."

We can apply this same pro-con pattern pretty much across the board. With substantial experience inside the White House and on Capitol Hill, Clinton is probably best prepared of all the potential veeps to steer Obama through swamps of D.C.; she'd serve as his brass-balls prime minister, "tending to Congress and health care reform and trade agreements while Obama travels and inspires and thinks." And what better way to reinforce his message of bridging old divides, seeking consensus and getting things done than by uniting with an old rival? Then again, the inevitable distractions--a meddling, scandal-plagued Bill, Hillary's own ambitions and a media hungry for any sign of conflict--would make it difficult for the former rivals to work together effectively. And while choosing Clinton might symbolize unity, in practice the pick would completely undermine Obama's promise to "change" the long legacy of partisan warfare and endless score-settling in Washington. Plus it would look weak.

Either way, don't expect a decision until late July--at least. Right now, the biggest road block is probably personal: after a bruising primary battle (with a messy conclusion), there's little sign of trust, chemistry or compatibility between the two politicians. For Obama--as for any president--those things are important. That's why the senator will spend the summer working to heal old wounds and unite the Democratic Party. If successful, he won't need to call on Clinton. It's only if Obama can't pick up the pieces that this particular dream--or nightmare--has any chance of coming true.
 

We here at Stumper headquarters love a good argument. Last night, for example, I wrote that while Barack Obama's reaction to the Jim Johnson episode spawned all kinds of hypocrisy and absurdity, the original offense--hiring an insider to vet your veep prospects--wasn't all that surprising and shouldn't have been all that damaging. Now, NEWSWEEK political columnist Howard Fineman begs to differ, writing in his new piece, "Getting to Know Him," that Obama's relationship with Johnson is"way more than a mere Inside-the-Beltway story. It's a deeply revealing episode from beginning to end." Where do you stand? Read the excerpt, weigh in below.

What we learn is that Obama by instinct is no revolutionary, but rather a soothing semi-insurgent seemingly eager to reassure the very Establishments he claims to be eager to assault. We learn that he has yet to master the art of keeping his cool when someone (an opponent or the press) has the temerity to question his decision-making. We learn that his first instinct is to brush off criticism with a flick of a finger.

But we also learn that Obama has absorbed much from his crash-course in presidential campaigning. One lesson he has internalized is how to cut his losses quickly. It took him months to ditch the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity Church of Christ. It took him weeks to distance himself from the likes of Samantha Power.

It took Obama only a day to throw Johnson under the bus.

The original, revealing mistake, of course, was tapping Jim Johnson in first place to be the guy to vet Obama's vice presidential choices.

On one level, and at first glance, Johnson seemed to be the perfect, even unavoidable, choice. He is a fixture here; he is what passes for a Washington wise man these days. The son of a prominent Minnesota Democratic legislator, he came to Washington in the 1970, part of the "Minnesota Mafia" that surrounded Walter Mondale.

Tall and courtly, Johnson was not a lawyer, but had the bearing of one. He was famous for his starched white shirts and corporate demeanor. He ran Mondale's 1984 presidential race, a disaster which lost 49 states, yet Johnson somehow emerged with his reputation for probity and good management enhanced. He has been involved as a top inside political player in almost every Democratic general-election campaign since. He was closer to the Clintons, of course, but also had made a shrewd decision to move to Obama this time around.

Johnson has a genius for looking as bland as vanilla.

So when it came time for Obama to pick a guy to vet his veeps, Johnson was a natural, or so Obama and his top advisors, David Axelrod and Washington lawyer Graig Craig, must have thought. And who would care anyway?

Well, that was wrong on almost too many levels to count. If they had thought about it for more than a minute, they would have realized that Johnson is the very embodiment of the world they had been running against: a fabulously wealthy man who had gotten that way by manipulating the tangled strings of money and power in the capital, and whose chief calling card to many who admire him is not his mind but his access to other people's bundled cash.

I am told by Democratic sources that within MINUTES of Hillary Clinton's speech "suspending" her candidacy, Johnson was working the phones, calling her most loyal supporters asking—all but demanding—that they attend fundraisers and start Bundling for Obama. (He couldn't have been that busy on veep vetting.)

Johnson made hundreds of millions, perfectly legally, as the leader of Fannie Mae, the mortgage-bundling semi-governmental agency that helps homeowners of modest means. Under Johnson, Fannie Mae greatly expanded its role, and helped drive home-ownership numbers to record levels, but it also became a gilt-edged ghetto for patronage appointees who used their contacts and chits to insulate the companies (and Johnson) from political attack.

He parlayed his Fannie Mae work into investments and corporate board ties in New York and elsewhere. No one knows how much he is worth, but it is said to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. No one begrudges him his success. Johnson is widely liked. But only in Washington would he be seen as a character who did not clash horribly with Obama's message.

And he wasn't all that good a veep vetter, either. It was Johnson who oversaw the "vetting" of Geraldine Ferraro as Mondale's running mate in 1984. It was a historic choice—the first female on a major ticket. But no sooner had she been chosen than the press and the Reagan Machine descended on her husband, raising questions about his business dealings that the Mondale campaign evidently had never considered.

When reporters raised questions about some of Johnson's personal mortgage dealings, Obama's first instinct was to tartly brush off the questions. I don't vet my vetters, he said. But as the media vultures circled—and as others pointed out the glaring mismatch between his basic message and the man he had chosen—Obama changed his mind.

And Johnson was out. He can still Bundle for Obama, and the betting here is that he will.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

WILL THE ELECTION BE ALL ABOUT OBAMA?
(Steven Stark, Boston Phoenix)
There is always a threshold over which nominees must pass when the electorate decides whether a candidate can be trusted with the most powerful job in the world... The good news for Obama is that most nominees do, in fact, successfully make the transition, especially when there is an overriding desire for change. John F. Kennedy in 1960, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Reagan in 1980, and Bill Clinton in 1992 all faced an initially skeptical electorate and, through favorable debate performances and constant exposure in the general-election campaign, gradually reassured the public that it had less to fear from the unknown than from the known. Upon closer examination, however, the Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton comparisons may not offer much of a precedent for Obama. After all, each of the three was a centrist who ran at his challenger from the right as well as the left... In contrast, as his Senate voting record and positions demonstrate, Obama is as liberal as they come, without any public record of straying from his party's left-leaning causes and constituencies. That means to win, he'll have to replicate the Reagan experience and basically lead an ideological revolution that will redraw the electoral map.

OBAMA'S RUMOR-FIGHTING PLAN
(Karen Tumulty, Time)
As long as there have been rumors in politics, there has been one widely accepted way for a candidate to deal with them. Basically, it's not to. Otherwise, according to prevailing wisdom, all a candidate achieves is to elevate the rumors to a legitimate story for the media to feast on. That don't-go-there approach was Barack Obama's plan for months until, on the candidate's first full day of campaigning as his party's presumed presidential nominee, a reporter from McClatchy Newspapers who was traveling aboard his plane asked him about a particularly toxic bit of hearsay that was zooming around the Internet about his wife Michelle. Obama lost his cool... That night, in a conference call, Obama told his top aides it was time for a more aggressive solution to the rumors that have been popping up on the Internet about him and his family for months. And so the Obama campaign has built what might best be described as a Web-based rumor clearinghouse, located at fightthesmears.com, in which it hopes all the shady stories about Obama's faith, his family and his rumored connections with controversial figures can go to die. Obama is enlisting his millions of supporters to help him hunt down and quash these stories, just as those supporters helped him turn his insurgent campaign into a history-making juggernaut. Says Obama adviser Anita Dunn: "We will not allow Michelle—or, for that matter, Barack—to be defined by rumors."

MCCAIN'S TAX PLAN FAVORS WEALTHIEST, ANALYSIS SAYS
(Deborah Soloman, Wall Street Journal)
Both John McCain and Barack Obama promise to cut taxes for the majority of Americans. But an Obama administration would redistribute income toward lower- and middle-class households, while a McCain White House would steer the bulk of the benefits to the wealthiest families, according to a nonpartisan analysis of the still-evolving tax plans of the presidential candidates. Both plans risk causing more economic damage than improvement, according to the detailed study by the Washington-based Tax Policy Center. While some of Sen. McCain's tax cuts could lift economic activity, the "adverse effects of the resulting increased deficits may make the net effect of the plan economically harmful," the report says. Sen. Obama's plan similarly "would substantially increase the deficit" and could create "additional complexity" to the tax code by offering a range of targeted breaks.

MORE: Analysts Say Obama Offers Three Times the Tax Break for Middle Class (Nashua Telegraph)
The tax cut plan of Democratic nominee to be Barack Obama offers three times the break for middle class families than proposals of likely Republican nominee John McCain, according to analysts working for a left-leaning think tank. Families making between $37,595 and $66,354 of annual income with Obama would get an average tax cut of $1,042 per family while McCain’s tax cut for this group would be $319, the report states.

MCCAIN, OBAMA REACHING OUT TO FEMALE VOTERS
(Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post)
Sen. John McCain and his aides have gone out of their way to praise Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in recent days, and by the end of the week his most prominent female supporter, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, will embark on a female-focused speaking tour in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The presidential campaign is hoping to capitalize on the "security moms" who backed President Bush over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 election, while making inroads with other voters by questioning Sen. Barack Obama's experience on the economy and foreign affairs and trying to exploit unhappiness with his defeat of Clinton... But the Obama campaign and its allies are already courting Clinton's supporters with phone calls and behind-the-scenes negotiations on staffing and say they are confident that even Democratic women who have expressed anger about the outcome of the primaries would support Obama in the fall because of the Democratic Party's stance on domestic issues.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...