The website Betty Confidential has released a survey of 500 women voters. Survey says:

The survey showed that 60 percent of women "like" Sarah Palin and 60 percent "admire" her. An overwhelming majority (83 percent) said they will not vote for McCain/Palin just because she's a woman.

Now, I wouldn't expect too many women (or any other specific identity group) to admit they would vote for someone in their same identity group based solely on that commonality. So, I do think the "like" and "admire" numbers are more significant here. The survey also found that 65 percent of women say they have become "more interested" in the campaign since Palin was added to McCain's ticket.

"We were amazed at how many women wanted to weigh in and share their very strong views on her," said Betty Confidential editor-at-large Julie Ryan Evans. "But despite even strong disagreements with her politics, women tend to like and admire Palin as person." 

Also worth noting, the survey results were taken before Palin's very mixed performance yesterday during her interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. The already difficult argument for conservatives that Palin is prepared to be president should something happen to John McCain probably just got considerably more challenging.

At a meeting with reporters this morning, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins answered a lot of questions about Sarah Palin. I'll have a write-up on that for the CQ Politics site later this morning. But he also said a few things about blogs.

One reporter repeatedly pressed Perkins on rumors that have circulated about Barack Obama on the Internet, specifically that he is a "secret Muslim." It was strange, because the reporter clearly was interjecting her personal opinion that it was somehow the fault of Perkins and other evangelical Christians that these rumors exist and therefore his responsibility to refuse them.

Instead, Perkins said he did not support the spreading of rumors, but that his focus is on socially conservative issues. However, he mentioned the rumors and allegatios that have also been spread about Sarah Palin and her family.

"Blogs don't hold themselves to a standard of accuracy that most reporters do," he said. "My mother worked in a beauty shop when I was growing up. And the Internet is like a huge beauty shop," where rumors are spread.

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor was also at today's Heritage Foundation blogger briefing, where he was scheduled to discuss the conservative blogosphere's role in supporting Republican efforts to end the offshore drilling ban.

But Cantor spent a good portion of his time talking about the story for conservatives these days: Sarah Palin.

"All that you did in pushing an alternative VP pick, outside the mainstream, made that happen," Cantor said to the bloggers in attendance.

On Palin's ability to manger her family life with a career, he said, "There is something so ordinary about that, it's extraordinary." Cantor also talked about how Palin helps Republicans with middle class voters. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have made a point of critiquing the Republican speakers for not discussing economic issues in detail during their convention. Cantor countered that Palin's background is so authentically middle class, she doesn't have to make direct economic pitches to emphathize with voters.

"The consensus for some time has been that Democrats own the middle class, and that only they can somehow spell out prescriptions for the middle class to relieve their woes," he said. "Sarah Palin didn't have to speak to the middle class because she is the middle class."

Cantor also said conservative online activists played a key role in helping convention organizers make the most out of their abbreviated schedule after Hurricane Gustav.
.

Sarah Palin is leading the Google search trends over Barack Obama and John McCain by 3-to-1. So, it's of little surprise that a number of new Palin-themed blogs and websites have begun popping up. Here's a short review of a few of the better ones.

Sarah Palin Facts: A genuine internet phenomenon, driven by Twitter posts and drawing inspriation from the earlier Chuck Norris Facts website. A similar site exists for MSNBC guru Chuck Todd. There are at least 24 "Sarah Palin" themed twitter accounts runnning now.


No Oprah: Let Sarah Speak: Launched after Oprah Winfrey confirmed she would not have Palin on her show until after the election. Winfrey has already endorsed Barack Obama and had him on her show twice, both times before he was officially running.

Sarah Palin Sexism Watch: Launched by a woman in Wisconsin to track what she feels are unfair press accounts and political shots taken at Palin based on her gender.

Palin Drome: A humorous blog that presents itself as being written by Palin, and occasionally, by her son Track.

Also, Adam Brickley, creator and author of the Draft Sarah Palin blog, appeared on the Colbert Report last Friday. You can watch that video here:

A National Journal Insiders Poll shows respondents favoring Mitt Romney for president in 2012 if John McCain doesn't win this year, with 55 percent of the vote.

However, when they polled conservative bloggers the results were much closer:

A survey of right-of-center bloggers was more divided; Romney won, but with a plurality of less than one-third, barely ahead of Palin and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The mood toward Romney was summed up by one respondent: "Alas." A blogger who picked Jindal said, "I think the field would be quite wide-open in 2012, but the base will demand a 'fresh face,' someone with a record of accomplishment, and someone who's not identified as an old Washington hand."

DNC Chairman Howard Dean held a barbecue lunch for the more than 120 bloggers who are credentialed for this year's Democratic National Convention. He began his remarks by telling the bloggers, "I know this will break your heart, but you have better credentials than the mainstream media does."

And that's very true. Most reporters have a "perimeter pass," which grants them entry to the convention area, but not to the Pepsi Center convention hall itself. A select few have hall and floor passes, granting them greater access. But all credentialed bloggers have at least a hall pass and very few restrictions on their activities. Dean also noted that there twice as many bloggers here in Denver then there were in Boston back in 2004.

After his remarks, Dean grabbed some BBQ and sat down, asking any interested bloggers to join the "scrum." Several did, chatting with Dean for about an hour before he jumped into his hybrid SUV and returned to the Pepsi Center for another event.



HorsesAss scribe David Goldstein of Seattle told me, "In 2004, the state party wouldn't even return my calls. ... They've shown us a lot of faith and innovation to be letting us do what we're doing."

Square State's Aaron Silverstein (who blogs from Colorado) added: [blogging] Widens the participation. It lowers the barrier to entry so we don't have to worry about one person's bias serving as a gatekeeper."

Despite that tough 2004 caucus loss, Howard Dean obviously still loves corn. Here he is today at a blogger bbq luncheon, with two pieces! And he made a reference to his '04 "scream" moment, telling attendees in a deadpan voice:

"We're going to win in South Carolina and Michigan. We're going to take this all the way to Washington DC. Woo."

This should be an interesting feature during both conventions. C-SPAN has announced a partnership with New Media Strategies to provide "coverage of the coverage" for both political conventions. C-SPAN has promised a number of new services, including:

Making C-SPAN video embeddable, access to their historical video archives, and links to bloggers covering the conventions, including their Twitter accounts.

The conventional wisdom is that John McCain has significantly more riding on his vice presidential pick than Barack Obama does. However, the majority of VP chatter online these days appears to be focused on the Dem side. And with that enhanced attention comes criticism. To that end, many progressive bloggers are upset that Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh is apparently at the top of Obama's VP list.
 


An anti-Facebook group has formed, "100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh for VP," although the ground currently has 219 members. Journalist and Dem consultant Ari Melber chronicles the anti-Bayh sentiment:

It is somewhat staggering that Bayh holds any great mentioner status at all. Unlike Obama, he is a centrist Washington fixture who strongly backed the Iraq war. His red state victories are based more on family dynasty than personal dynamism.

The Booman Tribune adds:

It would be hard to fu** up (CQ edit) Barack Obama's brand any worse than picking John McCain's honorary co-chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. We really shouldn't have to say anything more than that.

So, it appears that Obama's VP pick does matter after all. Bayh might be a good pick to appease Washington insiders who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, or for those who think he could bring Indiana over to the Democrats. But it's clear that Obama's online base, a faction whose influence should not be underestimated, wants a candidate whom they feel better represents the message of change that has been so integral to Obama's early success.

While most of the conservative blogosphere's energy has been directed into attacks against Barack Obama, there's been a recent surge this week of focus on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi is participating in an online chat with The Washington Post today to promote her new book. Conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin have been mocking the book's poor first week of sales (2,737 copies so far). Malkin suggests readers ask Pelosi a version of the question: "Why won't you allow up-or-down votes on GOP energy proposals?"

Malkin also posted the following altered parody cover of Pelosi's new book, "Know Your Power":



Online conservative innovator Robert Bluey also sent a Tweet to his 589 followers encouraging them to participate in the Post chat.

And then there's this mysterious "Speaker Pelosi" Twitter account. It contained an unflattering picture of Pelosi and was sending out updates about the House Republicans' energy protest, all under the guise of coming from the Mrs. Pelosi herself. The account has since been reset. A more-authentic Pelosi Twitter account can be found here.

So, are these various efforts time wasters, or can they have an impact on Nancy Pelosi's standing in the public eye? Much like John McCain's recent You Tube effort, they are an attempt to show Republicans having fun at the expense of their Democratic counterparts. It's as much about boosting the rock-bottom morale of party faithful as it is about "hurting" Pelosi and the Democrats.

Several House GOP leaders met with conservative bloggers this afternoon in John Boehner's office to discuss their floor protest over energy legislation. Near the end of the hour long meeting, Arizona Rep. John Shadegg discussed the possibility of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain joining the Republicans on the House floor.

'I would welcome him here," Shadegg said, noting that the only way McCain can be prevented from crossing over to the other chamber is if Nancy Pelosi returns to Washington and declares the House to be in session.

Shadegg was joined by RSC Chairman Jeb Hensarling, former presidential candidate and retiring California Rep. Duncan Hunter, Mike Pence, Marilyn Musgrave and Louie Gohmert.

Like most overtly political films, "Swing Vote" bombed at the box office this weekend. It's been roundly panned by critics and fans alike. But at least one person just loved the movie: Arianna Huffington. In an extensive post on her site, Huffington writes:

The makers of Swing Vote, the new film starring Kevin Costner, have pulled off a rare double play, producing a smart political satire that is also heartfelt and moving. It's also a film that turns out to be remarkably relevant to the 2008 race.

Of course, Huffington was an employee of the film's production, which she waits until paragraph 14 of her press release post to disclose:

I have a very small part in Swing Vote, playing myself. Talk about type casting. We filmed in New Mexico, in an arena. I was in a booth with Aaron Brown and Lawrence O'Donnell. There were laptops all over the set, and I kept pulling up the home page of HuffPost on each of them.

The National Enquirer's ongoing story about John Edwards' alleged affair and "love child," remains largely off the mainstream media's front pages. But it's interesting to see how the non-traditional media is handling this delicate and still largely unsubstantiated storyline.

The top Google search for "John Edwards" is now a link to the Fox News follow-up to the Enquirer story, with a link tagged "John Edwards Affair The Latest On Edwards's Mistress and Love Child on FOXNews.com!" However, when you follow that link, all you actually get is redirected to Fox News' 2008 candidate profile page for Edwards.

In comparison, a Google blogs search shows that nine of the first 10 search results are focused on the Edwards affair story. But it's the top entry that is most interesting. Over at the conservative blog, Death By 1000 Papercuts, "Mondoreb" reports that regular Daily Kos diarist Lee Stranahan has been banned by the site for blogging on the unfolding Edwards scandal.

Stranahan explains at his own blog what happened:

Like most glossy publications, and journalistic enterprises in general, The Atlantic Monthly is trying to figure out how its sometimes great, but nonetheless "old" journalism fits into a web 2.0 world.  To address that question, they hired a nice group of established bloggers (Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Yglesias, Megan McArdle, Ross Douthat and Marc Ambinder) to give their website new shelf life.

A quick survey from Compete shows the site has certainly grown in traffic this year, but at what cost?



A great publication like The Atlantic deserves a much longer and thoughtful analysis. But in short, if Michael Kelly's passing wasn't the telltale sign, then blogs are surely killing The Atlantic. In all seriousness, are Hitler comparisons, Obama cheerleading and outlandish political labels applied to their publication by their own staffers the peak of intellectual journalism?

John McCain's "Celeb" ad deriding Barack Obama as the "biggest celebrity in the world," has racked up 1.24 million hits in just over two days, thanks largely to nearly non-stop attention from the media. But unlike many other high-profile political videos, this one only earns two stars out of a possible five from the users who vote on You Tube's content. In short, that shows the video is likely being viewed more from Obama supporters than McCain's base.

But as the saying goes, any press is good press. The McCain campaign is now bragging about owning this week's media narrative, even as much of that narrative has seen a negative turn in the coverage of McCain, as liberals and McCain's old media allies disingenuously wonder why he's so angry all of a sudden. As further evidence to bolster their claim, the Gallup Daily tracking poll now shows McCain and Obama tied at 44 percent. McCain has claimed about 1.3 points in the poll each day since the "Celeb" ad premiered.

CQ Politics' Craig Crawford looks at the unprecedented level of ads, and ad spending, flooding our nation's airwaves.

And USA Today's Mark Memmott has a blog poll asking who went negative first? I took the least popular option, "they're equally to blame," which is taking in all of seven percent! "Republicans/McCain" are winning with 76 percent of the vote in the "who stole my electoral innocence?" sweepstakes.

Over at Blog P.I., William Beutler has a fascinating look at how Wikipedia editors are dealing with the National Enquirer's story alleging John Edwards fathered a child out of wedlock. No mainstream media outlets have handled the story, with the exception of The Fox News Channel, who was merely able to confirm that Edwards was at the hotel where the Enquirer claims he was visiting the woman they say he had an affair with. Beutler notes that more than 26,000 words have been written by Wikipedia's volunteer editing team discussing the merits of the story, but that the actual John Edwards Wikipedia page has been "locked," meaning that no actual updates have been published:

I've now read about half the debate, which is the whole extent of it before new people start showing up and re-arguing old points. Based on my own knowledge of how Wikipedia works and what I've seen in the press, I've come to the conclusion that, even though it sure looks like Edwards' goose is cooked, Wikipedia's editors are currently doing the responsible thing by keeping it out of the article.

With so much attention on how much more successful the netroots has been compared to their conservative counterparts, I thought it would be interesting to compare the traffic and trends of three of the biggest progressive web operations: Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos.



Everyone says they want to read more reporting on partisan outlets. But out of the three sites compared here (via Compete.com), TPM actually has the lowest readership, with 364,633 readers over the past month and a 7.9 percent upswing in total readers. In comparison, DailyKos.com is often cited as the most influential political blog, but is focused on activism and analysis. DailyKos had 655,577 readers last month, with a 2 percent drop in traffic. Finally, Huffington Post has by far the largest monthly haul of the three, with 2,523,545 readers. While initially launched as a counter to the Drudge Report, HP has expanded its focus to include reporting, commentary and analysis. They also acknowledge that half of their traffic upswing has come from newly implemented entertainment and lifestyle news posts. 

The bottom line: In the great traffic wars, it's clear the public would rather be entertained than informed.

Over at the Politico, Jonathan Martin writes, "GOP losing the new-media war." The article is generating some thoughtful discussion from conservative tech folks inside the Beltway, even though it has already been addressed by mainstream outlets (yours truly on more than one occasion) and other conservative bloggers. 

In his piece, Martin writes:

While conservatives are devoting much of their Internet energy to analysis, their counterparts on the left are taking advantage of the rise of new media to create new institutions devoted to unearthing stories, putting new information into circulation and generally crowding the space traditionally taken by traditional media. And it almost always comes at the expense of GOP politicians.

Very similar to a point I made yesterday, while discussing recent moves by Matthew Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman. I also think it's worth noting that Martin himself worked briefly at National Review, and for Republican Rep. Christopher Shays before being hired by the Politico. So, he's a firsthand observer of the dilemma he's writing about. But it also calls into question this quote from David Brooks in the article:

"In the past 60 years, only one employee of the National Review, Weekly Standard or any conservative magazine has actually been hired as a reporter for a newspaper," says Brooks, who researched the question a few years ago.

With apologies to the crack research team Brooks enjoys at The New York Times, I can offer two examples within the past three years of employees of National Review being hired as reporters for mainstream publications: Jonathan Martin and myself. Yeah.

The Weekly Standard also employs at least four top reporters and editors: Stephen F. Hayes, Matt Labash, Matthew Continetti and Jonathan V. Last. With the exception of Continetti, these guys don't get a lot of attention from conservative bloggers, but that doesn't negate the insightful and often groundbreaking reporting they do.

Two days ago I mentioned Matthew Yglesias moving from Atlatnic to the CAP. I also recently noticed Yglesias' colleague Spencer Ackerman moving his Attackerman blog from The American Prospect to Jane Hamsher's Firedoglake. Their passionate discussions might better suit the 20 something "hardcore punk" fan. After all, his top Google search return is his now-dormant "Too Hot for TNR" blog, referencing his former employer, The New Republic. His blog's new url is his fourth Google search return.

The Yglesias and Ackerman moves to more grassroots organizations helps illustrate a broader truth that while progressive bloggers substantially lead in the partisan tech race, readership tends to be focused more on activism. Conversely, conservative bloggers often establish themselves at more traditional media outlets, offering punditry and analysis of current events.

Sen. Tom Coburn took part in a blogger conference call today organized through the Senate Republican Communications Senator. The call covered topics including Coburn's showdown with Harry Reid and the housing bill. But Coburn opened his remarks talking about Republican efforts on energy, specifically their desire to open up more offshore drilling.


Corburn returned to the topic when answering a question on "Reid's attempt to push through bills Sen. Coburn objected to," by saying he and other Republicans were pushing a stalemate. "I don't think Republicans will be ready to move on anything until we have energy," he said. Coburn added, "If we don't, we will have failed the American people." 

A blog post by Ilan Goldenberg is getting a lot of attention today over at Democracy Arsenal. It's about John McCain's possibly false understanding of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq. Goldenberg uses a series of examples, (Katie Couric/CBS, NY Times, Foreign Affairs magazing and fellow blogger Spencer Ackerman) including quotes from Col. Sean McFarland, stating that the awakening happened before President Bush first announced the surge.

Also, The Jed Report has put together this video which adds some information from a Keith Olbermann segment on the same story. For what it's worth, Olbermann doesn't hat tip either, at least not in the video provided.







Several high-profile bloggers, including Marc Ambinder and Atrios, have cited CBS and the Obama campaign instead of Democracy Arsenal. So, it's not an argument that Democracy Arsenal "broke" the story. But during his show last night, Anderson Cooper did a segment on the story that paraphrased Golodenberg's post, while using several of the same sources (CBS, Foreign Affairs, NY Times) without citing Goldenberg. They're even cited in the same sequence. It's all public information, so this isn't an accusation of content theft. But shouldn't Cooper or the AC360 producers at least given a hat-tip?

You can compare/contrast the post vs. Cooper's script after the jump...

A You Tube video of President Bush speaking at a Houston fundraiser for Republican House candidate Pete Olson began making the rounds last night because of comments the president made saying, "Wall Street got drunk."







But also interesting, is the fact that Bush prefaced his remarks by asking that all cameras and recording devices be turned off before he made the "drunk" remarks. This comes about a week after making a similar request before a Tuscon fundraiser, in which he told donors, "I don't know a lot about technology, but I do know about YouTube."

The Nation's Ari Melber and Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas have won a battle against Time magazine and its reporter/columnist/blogger Joe Klein.

Klein produced a story on last year's Netroots Nation in which he described Hillary Clinton being booed at the event. Trouble is, Melber and Kos say Clinton wasn't booed by the audience. Klein's inaccurate description was included in a version of a story covering this year's Netroots National event in Austin, Texas. Time initially rejected calls for a correction to Klein's piece, leaving Kos understandably agitated:

I already fired off an email to Time asking for corrections to that and several other glaring errors in that terrible piece. But as we've learned with Joe Klein, Time considers itself and its writers infallible, so there's slim chance of any corrections.

But with Melber and Kos bringing attention to the erroneous piece, the Time editors have since abdicated:

The original version of this story said that Hillary Clinton's appearance at a 2007 Netroots Q&A session was greeted by boos. The writer confused that event with accounts of another Clinton appearance that had taken place earlier. Clinton was not booed at the Netroots event.

UPDATE: Another Netroots Nation story bites the dust. This time an attempted humor piece, apparently, from the Austin American-Statesman.

The Campaign for Americas Future and Democracy Corps have released the results of a new polls this morning taken at the Netroots Nation conference of online progressive activists in Austin, Texas over the past weekend.

Several interesting trends emerged from the more than 2,000 activists who attended the conference. Of those who participated in the survey, 19 percent said "Energy and global warming" was their top concern, with "The war in Iraq" garnering 11 percent for a fourth place finish. However, when asked which issues should be the top priority of the next administration, the top choice was Iraq, getting 23 percent of the vote. Energy and global warming was a close second, with 20 percent of the vote.

The views of Congress were quite dim, with 68 percent saying Congress had accomplished "Not too much," and just 2 percent saying "A great deal." In fairness, 16 percent did say "A good amount," but that's still barely over 10 percent. 12 percent said "Nothing at all."

"This straw poll was designed to help us understand a little more about who our netroots activists are and where they stand," said Toby Chaudhuri, communications director for the Campaign for America's Future. "There's a sea change happening in American politics and it's growing on the Internet. Progressives are gaining popularity, strength, capacity and political sophistication, far outpacing conservatives online."

Michael Whitney ran into Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr and found out that the former Georgia lawmaker writes his own entries on the social networking site Twitter. Whitney has some fun with the discovery, noting that a few of Barr's entries are semantically challenged.

A couple of other interesting things I noticed while looking at Barr's Twitter account: He's following far more people (4,795) than he has followers (767). That can't be a good sign when you're a candidate for federal office. Especially when his closest ideological counterpart is Ron Paul, a true Internet phenomenon. However, he's also only posted 24 entries so far. So, maybe the number of followers will spike in the coming days/months.

Barr is using the account mainly as a promotional device, but you have question some of the content he's putting out there. Out of those 24 "updates," 7 are requests to follow his website and/or Twitter account. 5 updates are links to Bob Barr You Tube videos and the rest are links to articles about/by Barr.

The ever-mobile Matthew Yglesias is leaving his perch at the Atlantic for new blogging digs over at the liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress. Over the past few years, Yglesias has largely shed his image as an independent thinker for one that is more overtly partisan and liberal. That doesn't necessarily mean his value as a blogger has devalued. In fact, it was probably a smart business move, as politically centrist views rarely equal high readership in the blogosphere. But now that Matt is working for an openly partisan political operation, I'm wondering if his soon-to-be former colleague Andrew Sullivan will revise the already antiquated "Yglesias Award Nominee," given to conservative and liberal bloggers who buck their side's dogma to express a poignant and independent opinion?

Olive Riley, an Australian woman affectionately known as the "world's oldest blogger," passed away at the age of 108:

Riley had posted more than 70 entries on her blog from Woy Woy on the east coast since February last year, sharing her thoughts on modern life and her experiences living through the entire 20th century.

Needless to say, that's quite an accomplishment. And surely fodder for critics who have been lampooning 71-year-old John McCain for admitting he's still learning how to get online.

The Republican National Committee has created a site, gopplatform2008.com, allowing users to offer suggestions on crafting this year's party platform before the Republican National Convention:

The Republican Party is seeking your input as we develop the policies and principles upon which we should stand for the next four years. On this website, you can share your thoughts, participate in polls, and communicate directly with the policymakers who will be shaping the party's agenda. All comments and feedback will be reviewed and taken into full consideration as we prepare for our convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The site includes introductory remarks from RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, platoform chairman Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and co-chair Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).

The site represents another attempt by Republicans to close the technological gap with their Democratic counterparts. But the early reviews aren't entirely positive. TechRepublican founder David All writes of his first impressions:

"Input" from the American people can be interpreted anyway you like. Will any of this "input" make it to the actual platform? To be determined.
 ...

Just a quick FYI - I submitted my text entry under Jobs & Economy >> Technology Policy and it hasn't yet surfaced so there's clearly a moderation policy.

UPDATE: Just chatted with David All, who offers some additional thoughts. When I asked him if opening up the platform to public imput could send mixed signals, All said, "A lot of people are wondering what Republicans stand for. This is a great opportunity to 'take the temperature,' on a number of issues like immigration. Anything that lowers the barrier to entry for voters is good and helps get everyone together in the same room."

Congress is considering implementing new rules that would require lawmakers to receive prior approval before posting video, or other forms of communications, to websites like Facebook and YouTube.

The change is being considered in the House by the Committee on House Administration, which is chaired by Pennsylvania Democrat Robert Brady. Last month, Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano sent a letter to Brady proposing that a list of approved websites be established where lawmakers could post videos of discussions of ongoing legislation. Currently, members can post to any website, and have already employed social networking sites like Facebook to push for and against legislative efforts. However, both sides agree the current practice is in violation of House rules.

Mr. Brady's office says the rule changes only apply to websites that are operated on a commercial basis. A response letter from House Republican Leader John Boehner to members of the online community argues against the proposal, saying it would in effect censor members of Congress and block citizens from rightfully obtaining information about their government:

If the proposed rule is adopted, the free flow of information over the Internet between Americans and their representatives will be significantly curtailed. Americans who currently use free websites like YouTube to obtain uncensored daily information about congressional policy debates will instead be forced to go to websites "approved" by the House Administration Committee in order to continue getting such information. This would amount to new government censorship of the Internet, by a panel of federal officials that is neither neutral nor independent. 

Boehner also today sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi, arguing many of the same points. A House Republican aide said the initial response has been "pretty overwhelming," and will leave Pelosi "in a box" dealing with angry constituents from both sides of the ideological spectrum. The initial online response has been an angry reaction to the proposed changes. Opponents have created a Facebook group and some conservative bloggers have picked up on the issue.

A response from Rep. Capuano describing the Republican complaints as "laughably inaccurate was provided to CQ Politics. In the statement, Capuano says:

 

"First the ONLY item we seek to address is LOOSENING existing rules to allow Members to post videos as a first step toward making the rules meet our constituents' expectations regarding how they communicate with us in the 21^st century. This was completely ignored during the years that Republicans controlled Congress while the internet grew exponentially. It is currently against House rules to post video on any site with commercial or political advertising or to use taxpayer-funded resources to post outside of the House.gov domain."

"We are not currently seeking to address anything other than video - not blog postings, online chats or any other written form of communication anywhere on the internet. Any assertion to the contrary is a lie."

One campaign theme I've reiterated several times here is that John McCain and Barack Obama will be attacked on grounds that are perceived to be their greatest strengths.

The Democratic attacks on John McCain's military service has now become too frequent and well-chronicled to be brushed off as coincidence. Yesterday, Wesley Clark drew the ire of the McCain campaign (and likely many supporters) for questioning whether McCain's service qualified him to be president. As National Review's Jim Geraghty writes:

After statements by a half-dozen high-profile Democrats and Obama surrogates, you cannot persuade me that there is not a concerted effort on the part of Obama Democrats to criticize McCain on his war record. George McGovern, Jay Rockefeller, Tom Harkin, Democratic congressional candidate Bill Gillespie, Ed Schultz, Tony McPeak, and now Clark. Way too many to be coincidence.

And the attack umbrella extends beyond Democratic politicians. Highly influential AMERICAblog's John Aravosis says McCain accomplished nothing while serving in the military, other than being tortured and throws this low-blow in for good measure:

A lot of people don't know, however, that McCain made a propaganda video for the enemy while he was in captivity. Putting that bit of disloyalty aside, what exactly is McCain's military experience that prepares him for being commander in chief?

On one hand, these attacks come from partisans not to be confused with objective observers. On the other hand, these are many of the same people who have loudly complained about John Kerry being "swiftboated" in the last campaign.

Townhall's Matt Lewis has a post today catching Time's Jay Carney misidentifying the source of the Michelle Obama "whitey" rumors. While Carney was appearing on MSNBC he claimed that conservative bloggers were to blame for spreading the rumor (video here). Of course, anyone following the story knows that's exactly wrong.

Before correcting Carney, there are two points worth making. First, is that he was on TV, where unintentional slips happen all the time. However, he hasn't corrected himself yet either, so maybe he is in fact saying things on air without knowing what it is he's actually talking about. Which brings up the second point: this is not the first time Carney has been caught in a mistake by bloggers. Both he and fellow Swampland blogger Joe Klein have had their share of foul-ups with both the conservative and liberal sides of the blogosphere. Maybe it's an old-school journalism, "boy's club" thing, as Time's female bloggers haven't run into the same traps.

But back to the original point. The Obama campaign has received much attention in the past few days for its new website dedicated to addressing rumors about the candidate. On a side note, can someone please retire the word "smear" from the online debate? It really has become the "Hey Ya!" of the blogger lexicon.

Anyway, as Lewis points out, it was liberal blogger, and former CIA operative, Larry Johnson who was most recently circulating the Michelle Obama "whitey" rumors. Fellow Democrat Bob Beckel also hyped the video during a Fox News appearance. And it was Daily Kos himself, one of the least likely individuals to show restraint or a nuanced point of view, who yesterday acknowledged that National Review's Jim Geraghty, played a major role in tearing down the "whitey" rumors.


UPDATE: Carney apologizes for his mistake

The Barack Obama website allows supporters (or anyone, really) to start their own blog. That led The Urban Grind blogger, "a conservative woman in Manhattan," to see just what kind of crazy blogs she could start on Obama's site. Fake blogs on the "Jewish Lobby" and 9/11 conspiracies were filtered by the site's administrators, but another, equally controversial site, made it through:

I made a page called Jemaa Islamiyah, and called myself Fatima. And sure enough, there was no message saying that my page would have to be approved by an administrator. It went up immediately. And this was back in March. I was surprised at the friendly welcoming comments I received. In fact, I even received an invitation from one guy to be a friend.

Just to refresh your memory, Jemaa Islamiyah was the group behind the Bali bombing. And just so you know, that page is still up on the Obama site.

The site content has been taken down, but it does make for an interesting debate as to how much freedom political campaigns should give to their supporters. News sites like the Washington Post have had their own issues with profane commentors. But unsavory supporters posting on candidate web sites could become the new unwanted campaign contributor/spiritual adviser. How long before we see the McCain or Obama campaigns having to explain the "support" of a political extremist who has posted something controversial on their website?

During a conference call with bloggers today, John McCain announced that he has sent an invitation to Barack Obama to participate in 10 townhall debates between now and the Democratic National Convention in August.

McCain said he suggested the first debate take place at Federal Hall in New York City on June 12th, describing the format as, "something that really changes the debate in America."

McCain also suggested that the townhall participants could be selected by a respected third party. Asked if he was suggesting the townhall format because that appears to be one of his strengths, McCain noted he's conducted 102 townhall events so far this campaign, saying, "I think it's the best format." And of the American people, "I think they want to participate, they want a great debate."

He was also asked about his speaking style compared to Obama's, after initial reviews of the two speeches last night heavily favored Obama. "I intend to address the substance of issues," McCain said.

more from the conference call after the jump...

UPDATE: McCain's full letter to Obama here.

Andrew Sullivan goes into greater detail as to why he continues to support Barack Obama despite Sullivan's conservative political philosophy and that "I haven't sat through a single Obama speech without ideologically wincing at something." But does he leave himself some room to possibly support McCain in the fall?

This is why even as I disagree with him, I want him to win. My heart says so. And the conservative part of my head has a few months to talk me out of it.

John McCain has earned some accolades from conservatives for holding weekly conference calls for righty bloggers. I've participated in a few of these and always found the back-and-forth discussion to be open, and often, more forward-thinking than many traditional press conference calls. McCain, and his online outreach guru Patrick Hynes, have flipped things this week by inviting liberal and "non-political" bloggers to join in on a conference call. It's certainly debatable as to whether this sort of outreach is worth McCain's time. He's not likely to sway their opinions, but it does earn him praise and attention from media outlets like this one for showing a bipartisan touch. It also fits well with his campaign themes of the past week, both in outlining what his first time would look like, and his proposals for combating climate change.

The downside is how those still very touchy conservatives will feel about such outreach. Michelle Malkin, one of the leading voices in the conservative blogosphere clearly feels betrayed by McCain's outreach efforts:

If he's willing to take questions from hostile liberal bloggers, why not take some from conservative bloggers who represent substantial readerships with dissenting views on how best to make this country "safe, prosperous, and proud?"

In other words, reaching across the aisle is a worthy effort, but it often places between each aisle with both sides pointing attacks in your direction.

John McCain has certainly been the most-popular Republican with the media over the past decade. He's been supplanted in recent years by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Bloomberg (before he left the party). But in a race against Barack Obama, McCain will face the unusual prospect of being the non-media candidate. One advantage of McCain's extended "resting period" before facing a Democratic opponent is that he's had plenty of time to brace for this likely pivot in coverage.

As an early example of how they will respond to what they perceive as unfavorable media coverage, McCain adviser Mark Salter goes over Newsweek for this story on Obama that Salter say unfairly portrays McCain's criticism of Obama as unjustified attacks while not applying a similar standard to Obama's missives. Of course, it's unclear what kind of response Salter's response would get if it was simply sent out to campaign reporters as a press release. Instead, the response was forwardly directly via email to McCain supporters through a campaign surrogate. That serves two purposes: it gets the message to the online grassroots and shows those base conservatives, many who have displayed skepticism about McCain, that he is fighting the same "battles" against the media that many in the Republican Party have for fought for decades. From the email:

Without a trace of skepticism, your reporters embraced the primary communications strategy the Obama campaign intends to follow: any criticism of their candidate is a below the belt, Republican attack machine distortion that should discredit the authors. And any attempt by our campaign to counter that suggestion will be dismissed as a rant. The other day, Senator Obama noted that Representative DeFazio’s accusation that Senator McCain was up to his neck in the Keating 5 scandal was a legitimate line of attack, despite the fact the Senator was largely exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee, whose special counsel declared he had been kept in the investigation only because of his party affiliation. Were we to raise the Rezko matter, their campaign would accuse us of distracting voters with a low blow by making more of a “flimsy relationship” than the facts warranted. Evan and Richard, I feel certain, would agree.

Former Washington Post sports writer Michael Tunison was fired by the paper on Wednesday after disclosing his identity, and publishing pictures of himself intoxicated, on the Kissing Suzy Kolber blog (warning: not family friendly).

Tunison's firing has generated the sympathy of some sports blogs, and an evasive reasoning from Tunison himself who argued:

Upon sacking, I was told that I brought “discredit to the paper” with my choosing to drink at bars in my free time. Any good journo knows to keep the flask in the desk

Of course, "choosing to drink at bars in my free time" has nothing to do with why Tunison was fired. Tunison and his supporters may not like it, but news publications like the WaPo have standards of conduct that are often more stringent than typical employers, especially when it comes to freelancing. This Editor and Publisher piece outlines the WaPo's rules explicitly:

The official Post stylebook includes the following references to freelance work and standards of behavior:

“This newspaper is pledged to avoid conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict of interest, wherever and whenever possible. We have adopted stringent policies on these issues, conscious that they may be more restrictive than is customary in the world of private business. In particular:

•We work for no one except The Washington Post without permission from supervisors. Many outside activities and jobs are incompatible with the proper performance of work on an independent newspaper.

•Our private behavior as well as our professional behavior must not bring discredit to our profession or to The Post."

As a blogger/reporter, several of my friends were surprised that I chose to not defend Tunison's conduct. But this is not a case of his free speech being limited, or being punished for having "fun in his free time." Working for a publication like The Washington Post is an exceptional opportunity, not a constitutional right. Every professional publication I've worked for has had clear guidelines about freelance work and outside blogging.

I've turned down several opportunities to do fun, outside projects because of those guidelines, as I'm sure is the case with countless colleagues. But it's also true that every publication I've worked for has awarded me ample opportunity to engage in freelance activities that provided a creative outlet that did not compete with my primary work duties. The difference between Tunison's experience and the experience of someone like me, is that I always sought prior permission before engaging in said freelance activities. I also never posted posted pictures of myself drunk, or otherwise intoxicated, while simultaneously referring to my current employer as the arbiter of a "dying medium." Whether Tunison was being paid for his outside work is irrelevant. The WaPo was well-within its rights to fire him, even if Tunison or his sports blogging friends think it was an unnecessary move.

Earlier today it was reported that Washington's most-popular/notorious political gossip blog, Wonkette, has been sold by Gawker Media's Nick Denton. In an email to the Politico, Denton says the sale was made to the site's current editor Ken Layne. From the email:

WONKETTE is being spun off to the managing editor, Ken Layne, former founder of one of the web's very first news sites, Tabloid.net. The title will become part of the Blogads network of political sites, which includes Daily Kos, among others.

Why these three sites? To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.

Now that the move is complete, it's not surprising that Denton would take a small dig at his former property. But it's also a fairly accurate financial assessment. While Wonkette has retained a large readership for several years, it's always been the traffic runt of the larger Gawker empire, despite being one of the company's signature properties. For Denton, this was the smartest time to sell. As he noted, traffic is up. But it's also an election year, and who knows if that readership spike will be sustained once the presidential campaign is over? Most likely, it won't.

But the move could also be good for Wonkette as a singular enterprise. Freed from the constraints of Gawker's aversion to taking politics seriously, the site can retain it's foul-mouthed humor, while potentially embracing a more sincerely enthusiastic approach to Washington's political and social scene. As Slate's Troy Patterson wrote last week, political satire is often at its best when playing a watchdog role, rather than simply reducing the subject matter to its lowest common denominator.

Patrick Gavin says it would be a mistake to discount the site's longevity:

Around town, we always hear "Wonkette's not what it used to be" but, to be fair, we've always heard that: We heard that when Ana Marie Cox was there ("not as funny as she used to be"), when Alex Pareene and David Lat took over ("not as funny as Wonkette used to be") and also with the current leadership (again: "not as funny as it used to be") so we're not entirely sold on the "slippery slope" theory since we've pretty much always found it funny.

Filmmaker Oliver Stone generates controversy nearly every time he releases a new film or simply makes pronouncements on the public stage. His forthcoming film, "W," a biography of President Bush, is already proving to be far from an exception. Conservatives often take exception to Stone's work, although they were quite fond of his last film, "World Trade Center."

Yesterday, four Bush historians dissected the script, which they said was a mix of fact and fiction. The factual scenes include a confrontation between Bush and his father, in which he challenges the former president to a boxing match after a night of heavy drinking. The fictional comes in what are described as "frat style" policy discussions about the war in Iraq.

Today, the Risky Biz Blog has leaked the first four pages of Stone's script, which begins shooting this month. The pages include a scene from Bush's early fraternity days and his discussions over implementing the "Axis of Evil" term in the days after September 11, 2001. The latter scene appears overly simplistic, backing up the criticism of the Bush biographers.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a McCain campaign surrogate, just took part in a conference call with conservative bloggers in which he outlined what will be the Republican approach to congressional testimony tomorrow from Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker on the state of the Iraq war.

Graham also denied rumors he is in contention to be John McCain's vice presidential running mate, despite their strong friendship and alliance on many issues, including the war:

“I am confident that John will have picks better than me. … Most Americans are going to vote not for vice president, but for president.” “He’s one of the most-qualified people to be president at any time in our history.” “I talked to John four times today. I don’t have an idea who he’s going to pick.”

On the "congressional mood" heading into tomorrow:

“I think Republicans are going to be very reluctant to engage in a strategy that goes against Gen. Petraeus’ advice.” “There’s nowhere near 60 votes now for setting arbitrary withdrawal dates.”  “The trend lines, politically, economically, and militarily are moving dramatically from where they were before the surge.” “I think we can get to pre-surge levels by July.”

North Carolina's Patrick McHenry was elected to a safe Republican district in 2004. During his short time in the House, McHenry has made a lot of enemies across the aisle with his partisan positions on many issues. So, it comes as little surprise that when McHenry makes an unsavory insult about a U.S. soldier in Iraq, that video is catching fire in the blogosphere. In the video, first brought to attention by Think Progress, and quickly gaining traction on YouTube, finds McHenry referring to a U.S. soldier in Iraq as a "two-bit security guard." The video has also resulted in a disparaging press release from McHenry's primary chalenger, Lance Sigmon. In the video, McHenry says :

We spent the night in the Green Zone, in the poolhouse of one of Saddam’s palaces. A little weird, I got to be honest with you. But I felt safe. And so in the morning, I got up early — not that I make this a great habit — but I went to the gym because I just couldn’t sleep and everything else. Well, sure enough, the guard wouldn’t let me in. Said I didn’t have the correct credentials.

It’s 5:00 in the morning. I haven’t had sleep. I was not very happy with this two-bit security guard. So you know, I said, “I want to see your supervisor.” Thirty minutes later, the supervisor wasn’t happy with me, they escort me back to my room. It happens. I guess I didn’t need to work out anyway.

Blogger reactions after the jump...

The Sudanese Thinker asks his readers which U.S. presidential candidate would be best for Sudan.

A few problems today with an otherwise pedestrian article by the Washington Times' Stephen Dinan on how John McCain's outreach to conservative bloggers resulted in a "respectful truce" with McCain's campaign. I agree with the article's thesis, but it has at least one notable flaw: proper identification of his blogger sources.

Buried near the bottom of the piece, Dinan notes how he was unable to get a response from either the Clinton or Obama campaigns on their web outreach efforts. Dinan instead dedicates the last four graphs of his story to Jerome Armstrong, the "godfather" of liberal blogs and curator of MyDD.com. Armstrong is given space to note his views that team Clinton has done a better job of reaching out to bloggers, and Dinan chimes in with a few negative quips about Obama's relationship with bloggers:

Neither Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama's campaigns returned calls about their Web outreach, though Jerome Armstrong, a liberal blogger at MyDD.com, said Mr. McCain's regular outreach tops anything the two Democrats are doing, and he said it's an approach he would recommend to any candidate.

Mr. Armstrong said Mrs. Clinton is ahead of Mr. Obama in her outreach, inviting bloggers onto regular press briefing calls with traditional reporters. He also said her blogger, Peter Daou, pitches ideas to bloggers in the same way press secretaries pitch stories to reporters, and Mr. Daou produces blog clippings in the same way most campaigns produce clip books of newspaper articles.

As for Mr. Obama, he said the Illinois senator "didn't do enough to reach out to his potential allies in the blogosphere and integrate them into the campaign." Now, when he runs into trouble, they are slower to rally to his defense.

And last month, Mr. Obama told reporters on his campaign plane he doesn't read blogs — something they took note of.

What Dinan doesn't tell his readers is that Armstrong is a Clinton supporter and that his website recently was feuding with his co-author Markos Moulitsas' web home, DailyKos, over allegations that the Kossacks are too overtly pro-Obama. Armstrong knows his politics and certainly merits being called upon as a source. He also isn't so far biased as to be considered a Clinton mouthpiece, but his views have been called into some question by some progressive bloggers. This sort of thing can be found in a 30 second Google search and almost certainly merited a citation in the story.

Dinan also fails to identify Matt Lewis and Ed Morrissey as conservative bloggers. Armstrong, however, is identified  as "liberal." This may ultimately be a minor quibble, but I have to believe proper vetting and identification of Armstrong would have taken place if he were a political consultant or traditional media source.

Armstrong discusses his Clinton support to George Washington University students here:




* Disclaimer: I used to work at the Washington Times as a national political reporter and often wrote on the efforts of conservatives to play catch-up in the world of web 2.0.

Steve Schmidt and Jill Hazelbaker of the McCain campaign’s communications shop held a blogger conference call this morning to discuss McCain's "Service to America" tour next week that will take him to spots that were influential in forming his political philosophy, including: McCain Field in Mississippi, Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and stops in Jacksonville and Pensacola, Florida.

There wasn't a lot of news during the call, but Schmidt did announce that McCain will call for a large expansion of the Army and Marines. Hugh Hewitt followed up on that point, but Schmidt wasn't divulging any more specifics:

I asked if the Navy would be part of the call for an expanded military, and Schmidt demurred until the senator speaks next week.  It seems to me that a naval power needs more than the 280 ship Navy we are headed for. 

Schmidt also refused to directly answer a question about Barack Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his choice of Tony McPeak as a military adviser. Schmidt didn't mention Wright by name, but as Ed Morrissey notes, said some of the comments made by McPeak are "disturbing."


Jim Geraghty also has a round-up of the call's highlights.

Brian Stelter, who used to blog for TVNewser.com was hired by The New York Times last year as a media reporter. As part of his new beat, Stelter has a good piece today documenting the way younger media consumers are digesting their news. Social networking sites like Facebook and viral video clearinghouses like YouTube have become not just convenient, but exceedingly popular destinations for campaign videos that are too long for TV:

A December survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press looked broadly at how media were being consumed this campaign. In the most striking finding, half of respondents over the age of 50 and 39 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds reported watching local television news regularly for campaign news, while only 25 percent of people under 30 said they did.

Fully two-thirds of Web users under 30 say they use social networking sites, while fewer than 20 percent of older users do.

In related news, TechPresident reports that nearly 4 million people have watched Obama's Philadelphia speech on race online.

While most of our coverage here specifically concerns the intersection of blogging and politics, there is the occasional non-political blogging story that merits attention. In this case, the story of Philadelphia's Jesse McPherson, who recently had his Xbox 360, TV and laptop stolen. Adding insult to injury, after purchasing a new Xbox, McPherson received a threatening message through the Xbox server from the alleged thief demanding a ransom for the safe return of his stolen goods. After the authorities failed to offer the 26-year-old engineer much assistance, he submitted his case to the news aggregator Digg:

Jesse was shocked to find over 7000 users had launched the event to the top digg's main page. After a barrage of threatening messages to the admitted thief's account from random Xbox Live users and dialog with the brave thief's own mother (His mommy got involved? Ultimate bad-ass!), Jesse's Xbox 360 console was returned in working condition (the Powerbook was also returned on a separate occasion).

CQ Politics' Rachel Kapochunas looks into the controversy surrounding Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kendrick Meek's decision to not endorse their fellow Florida Democrats challenging three incumbent Republican lawmakers. While Schultz and Meek are sitting out because of their ties to the three GOP members:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi , Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , DCCC chairman Chris Van Hollen , Majority Whip James E. Clyburn and Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel sent letters to the three Democratic candidates affirming their support.

Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz co-chairs the DCCC's Red to Blue program, but is in hot water with the netroots for refusing to endorse fellow Florida Democrats running against Republican incumbents Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart. Wasserman Schultz says she's not comfortable going against members from her state delegation, but bloggers are pointing out that challenging Republican incumbents is precisely her job.

Bloggers are especially upset by this Washington Post story where Wasserman Schultz and DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff dismiss their frustrations, with Wolff describing the controversy as "much ado about nothing."

Fellow Florida Democrat Kendrick Meek is also refusing to endorse the challenging Democrats.

Many bloggers are now calling on Wasserman Schultz to resign her leadership position with the DCCC.

Over at the Huffington Post, Washington Note blogger Steve Clemons has a post listing the phone numbers and email for Wasserman Schultz's campaign office, DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen's campaign email and phone number and the main phone number for the DCCC.

Daily Kos has a similar posting with the contact information

Howard Kurtz takes a look at BlogTalkRadio, a slowly emerging vehicle for bloggers, or anyone really, who wants to launch their own free talk radio program over the internet:

A year and a half after New Jersey businessman Alan Levy launched the venture, BlogTalkRadio is averaging 2.4 million listeners each month for programs that range from politics to the paranormal, along with sports, finance, food, religion and romance. The Pentagon recently started two shows on the network.

The question is whether this is a flash in the pan that appeals mainly to geeks and those with a need to talk to someone -- anyone -- or whether, like blogs, online radio could explode in popularity.

Not likely, but that doesn't stop Kara Swisher from offering up some anecdotal evidence suggesting a comparatively larger growth trend for the liberal website:

According to data from Nielsen Online, for example, the Huffington Post’s traffic–as measured by monthly unique visitors in the U.S., at home and work–has more than tripled since February of 2007, when it had about 1.1 million unique visitors; by February of 2008, unique visitors had risen to 3.7 million.

In that same month, the Drudge Report had 3.4 million (it had 2.75 million in February of 2007).

Soren Dayton, a member of John McCain's online communications political shop, has been suspended for circulating a fiery YouTube video on Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright through his Twitter account.

I reported earlier on Ezra Klein's Twitter mishap.

Dayton, like Klein, is a talented writer and contributor in DC's blogging scene. It's unfortunate to see any young voice in the political debate taking the fall for participating in a medium that is still in the embryonic stages of being understood by political campaigns. Bloggers, writers and independent voices shouldn't have to operate in a climate of fear. Then again, when you work for a political campaign, it's probably always best to play it as safe as possible.

Blog P.I. has more thoughts on Dayton, etc.

The criticism of John McCain's foreign policy knowledge, or lack thereof, was escalated to a new level today. Talking Points Memo curator Josh Marshall offers an editorial making the bold argument that the one remaining candidate with actual military experience is the least qualified to serve as commander-in-chief:

Hillary Clinton has stipulated to McCain's qualifications as Commander-in-Chief; and Obama, implicitly, does the same. But his record actually shows he's one of the most dangerous people we could have in the Oval Office in coming years -- not just because he's a hothead in using the military, but more because he seems genuinely clueless about the real challenges and dangers the country is facing. He's too busy living in the fantasy world where our future as a great power and our very safety are all bound up in Iraq.

While liberals would almost certainly reject this comparison, their new attack line against McCain comes from one of Karl Rove's own strategies: attack an opposing candidate on his or her perceived greatest strength. Republicans have used that to great effect against Democratic veterans like John Kerry and Max Cleland. It's not that surprising that Democrats are getting comfortable attacking McCain on his foreign policy credentials. But it's still unclear whether the public at large will agree with that criticism. But so long as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama leave the more direct attacks to people like Marshall, there's a better chance of the attack line succeeding or at least helping to solidify Democratic voters, many of whom are not instinctively comfortable going after McCain on military issues.

Three more videos for you, courtesy of CQ Poitics' video producer Andrew Satter. Hope you enjoy. Conversation with Ari Melber: Conversation with Chris Bowers: Conversation with Tracy Russo:

Some video highlights from today's blogger panel at the Take Back America conference in Washington. One-on-one interviews with the panelists to come shortly...

Earlier today I was at the annual Take Back America conference, hosted by the Campaign for Americas Future. It's the liberal counterpart to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Today's agenda included a panel discussion by five leading voices in the online progressive community: Ari Melber, Chris Bowers, Tracy Russo, Digby, Terrance Heath and Pam Spaulding. Highlights after the jump...

Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith from the Politico breakdown the latest from the 2008 presidential race in a rare non-egghead edition of bloggingheads.tv.

Ashley Parker profiles the residents of "The Flophouse," in yesterday's style section of the New York Times. It's always nice to see bloggers getting some detailed attention in the "big media," but this piece struck me as a little flat.

My first question is: Did any of these bloggers have a professional or personal relationship with Parker prior to her story assignment? They have repeatedly, under the guise of irony, referred to themselves as "cool kids," something Parker calls them at the piece's end as if it were her own label. I have to wonder, what was the inspiration for the piece and how did it come together? Aside from being a little flat, the piece also seems a bit incestuous.

Parker also incorrectly states, "The Flophouse bloggers may not be part of the traditional mainstream news media," but then proceeds to note that most of them currently work for traditional publications. First and foremost, Matthew Yglesias is employed by the Atlantic Monthly. Spencer Ackerman was employed by The New Republic before he was fired, and his blog will be published on The American Prospect's website. Friends of the Flophouse and former residents, Julian Sanchez (Reason, The Economist), David Weigel (Reason, Campaigns and Elections, USA Today), and Katherine Andrews (Washingtonian, CNN, WashingtonPost.com), all work at, or have worked at, D.C.-based publications as well.

My point is, these are all elites, some are children of privilege, and to even joke about living in a "flophouse," almost certainly means their situation is a novelty, not the daunting prospect of a life in poverty that so many of their fellow district residents must grapple with on a daily basis. Of course, there's nothing wrong with being an elite. They are all smart and talented young writers...

I'm sure he would defend the line as delivered as "humor," but if you want to know why so many people dislike D.C. media types, and bloggers in particular, look no further than Ackerman's self-description, "We are smarter and more interesting,' Mr. Ackerman said, by way of explanation."

Nonetheless, if you want more insight into the lives of some of Washington's most-prominent bloggers, the piece is worth a read. Also, note the lack of single conservative blogger mentioned in the piece.

I also think Sanchez, a genuinely talented writer and thinker, at least deserves credit for taking the publicity in stride.

Earlier this week, I stumbled across this picture of actor Robert Downey Jr. (standing in the middle) from the upcoming comedy "Tropical Thunder." The photo was a bit shocking, because Downey Jr. is white and appears as a very black man in the photo. As it turns out, the film is a parody of the making of a Vietnam movie. His character is a method actor, ala Marlon Brando, someone who fully immerses themselves in a role, often to a fault. The joke is that Downey Jr.'s character in the film-within-a-film is an African-American, so he has surgery to "become" a black man for the role. Clearly, the intent is to spoof the previous practice of casting white actors in roles that were meant to be portrayed by African-Americans, Native Americans, etc.

It's like the adage that we all become our parents, but with webcams.

PBS's MediaShift finds, "Mainstream media reporters have started blogging in droves, while larger blog operations have hired seasoned reporters and focused on doing traditional journalism." And now, for a pop quiz:

1. Who won a recent Polk Award for investigative journalism, a blogger or MSM reporter?

2. Which big New York-based website has four editors and four reporters, and is looking to hire two more reporters — a blog or traditional media outlet?

3. Which site hired a young blogger fresh out of college? Blog or MSM site?

4. Which site in Silicon Valley edits 80% of stories before being published online? Blog or MSM site?

Answers: 1. Josh Marshall, Talkingpointsmemo blogger; 2. Gawker blog; 3. NYTimes.com, hiring TVNewser’s Brian Stelter; 4. GigaOm blog.

On Tuesday, I noted that #1 NBA draft pick Greg Oden (who also writes a blog), had a phone conversation with Barack Obama and endorsed Obama for president.

Yesterday, Oden took his political flirtations to another level, appearing with First Lady Laura Bush at a "Helping America's Youth," conference in Portland, Oregon. But really, the picture says it all:

Hillary Clinton has a blog post up at The Huffington Post on child poverty. The most interesting part for once is the 700+ comments, which are decidedly mixed.
Some anti-Hillary comments accuse the positive comments as being Clinton staff plants, while others accuse her of only caring about the issue because she's running for president. Clinton has faced a serious disconnect from the liberal blogosphere since before she made her candidacy official. Now that it appears to be reaching its end, it's fair to ask if Hillary could have closed the netroots gap with a more concerted effort earlier in the campaign? Short of apologizing for her vote to authorize the war in Iraq, I'm guessing the answer is "no."

John McCain hosted another blogger conference call today. Topics included Iraq, spending, and whether McCain knows the difference between MySpace and YouTube (he does).

But the highlight of the call had to be McCain's parting shot at his staff. For at least the past three weeks in a row, McCain has joked that bloggers should start complaining to his staff if there is too long of a gap between conference calls. Today's joke encouraged bloggers to:

"Start complaining to my incompetent staff, who are composed to work-release people."

Now, to the actual highlights. McCain will probably regret this, but when asked how President Bush should best finish his term, McCain focused on Iraq and uttered what has become an essentially taboo phrase, but suggesting Bush "stay the course."

McCain was asked when the U.S. could declare victory in Iraq. "I'm not sure when that happens," he acknowledged, before describing the progress in Iraq as "astonishingly rapid." "Overall, now, I'm confident of success," he said.

On spending, McCain used his regular campaign line, "I will veto any pork that comes across my desk."

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher has launched an email campaign directed to local and national newspapers against the Associated Press' Nedra Pickler, for her recent story documenting conservative attacks questioning Barack Obama's patriotism. Ultimately, I think Pickler's story was one worth reporting, but as TPM notes, the first source in her story is Roger Stone, a disgraced former GOP strategist who has been in the news lately for less-than-savory antics. It's also not the first time liberal bloggers have turned their sights on Pickler.

Hamsher opens by saying:

It was pretty much world-record speed with which the smears against Barack Obama's patriotism alley-ooped from the right wing attack machine into the pages of legitimate media, neatly laundered into the AP by Nedra Pickler.

And then directs her readers:

The AP probably doesn't care a whole lot about what you think, but it does care what the papers who subscribe to their wire service think. So we've set up a page where you can plug in your zip code and automatically send an email to the papers in your area who syndicate the AP and let them know this is beneath what you expect their coverage to be -- for this election cycle and beyond.

Seriously, Obama must be feeling supremely confident these days. Less than a week before pivotal primaries in Texas and Ohio, he took a few minutes to talk with Greg Oden on the phone. Yes, that's #1 NBA draft pick Greg Oden, who plays will hopefully someday play for my hometown team, the Portland Trailblazers. You see, Oden hasn't played a single minute of NBA basketball because he's sitting out this year after having surgery on his knee. But he does write a blog. So, again, Obama took several minutes out of his day to chat up an injured NBA blogger who isn't even playing this year. How awesome/crazy is that? Really, what's he going to get out of it? Another vote in Oregon? Isn't that sort of like Darius Miles adding a few more inches to his car rims? Anyway, take it away Mr. Oden:

The conversation was quick - like two minutes but I got to talk to him like a real person. What I got from talking to him is that he is a real sports fan and he knew about the Blazers. He said that when I come back Brandon, LaMarcus and I will be a force next year. He also asked me about my knee, and he said he wasn't feeling my mohawk - lol. I laughed and explained to him that it's just a haircut to me and he told me he liked how I handle myself as a young man - "Thanks Mom." I did not talk politics with him. He talks about that stuff all the time and I'm going to keep learning more about the issues.

Ok, enough with the shameless Blazers love. I don't want to go all Lee Cowan on you guys.

UPDATE: Fellow Blazer believer Ian reminds me of what should be an obvious point: Oden went to Ohio State and his endorsement is listed on Obama's website.

Just got off another John McCain conference call for bloggers. There weren't too many items that jump out, but a few interesting questions and answers. McCain has said he has nothing left to say about the New York Times story, but nonetheless was asked about whether it had rallied conservatives to his cause. "I don't know the answer to that," McCain said, adding, "I really have to move on in all aspects of this issue."

On Barack Obama's debate answer last night in which he offered to meet with incoming Cuba leader Raoul Castro without conditions: McCain said such a meeting, "has the effect of legitimizing him." But this did allow McCain the chance to work in a decent joke, saying of Fidel Castro, "We eagerly await his chance to meet Karl Marx."

On whether indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), who currently serves as McCain's honorary Arizona campaign co-chair, should step down: "I'm sure congressman Renzi will probably move to step down and that we would accept that."

Just returned from an interesting panel discussion hosted by the New Democrat Network, featuring Joe Trippi, Hotline Editor-in-Chief Amy Walter, and NDNers Simon Rosenberg and Andres Ramirez. The panel discussed emerging trends in 2008, the "collapse of the conservative brand," and the rise of Hispanic voters. But they also got into some interesting points about the increasing role of technology in campaigns.

To summarize, Trippi said what he and Howard Dean started in 2004 with the netroots has come to fruition with Barack Obama's campaign, which he called, "A move from top down media ... to bottom up technology." Trippi used the comparison repeatedly, describing Hillary Clinton's campaign as, "the best top down campaign, the strongest one our party ever put together."

He also noted that because of the differences in online and traditional fundraising that despite Obama raising significantly more more than Clinton, 90% of Clinton's donors had already maxed-out their individual contributions, versus only 3% for Obama's supporters.

Trippi also explained how he thought the Clinton campaign could have taken the reins and "won a change campaign from the bottom," by using Clinton's gender to defuse notions that hers was the establishment campaign. Comparing his own role in the Dean campaign to that Obama's, he said, "We were like the Wright Brothers, and now, four years later, they are landing on the moon."

Walter didn't entirely disagree with Trippi's assessment, but cautioned, "The way Obama has run his primary is not necessarily how he'll run his general election.

For his part, Rosenberg described the differences in how the Democrats and Republicans are using technology in this election to, "the difference between using conventional weapons and nuclear weapons."

A primary/caucus mix and focusing on the more liberal districts. Local and influential blog Burnt Orange Report endorses Obama and explains the two-step delegate system in detail:

Key Point: Senator Obama can win Texas if he can hold his own on March 4 with the 126 Delegates that will be allocated based on the votes in Texas' 31 Senate Districts, and then do well (as he has in the past) with the 67 delegates in the caucus-system that will fully be realized at the Texas Democratic Party Convention in June.

Ari Melber reports that an emerging story from attorney Donna Edwards' Tuesday primary win over eight-term Rep. Al Wynn (D-MD) is the rise of the "Blackroots," web community, which he calls:

[N]ot only a triumph for progressives and prominent bloggers. It is also the most successful web-powered challenge to the Congressional Black Caucus in the history of the "Blackroots," a less hyped but increasingly effective network of bloggers, activists and groups that are using online and traditional activism to advance a new type of open, transparent and progressive politics.

It's been a great fundraising year for Democrats across the country, including in the netroots community:

Across the country, over 7,000 netroots activists donated $400,000 to Edwards via ActBlue, spurred by a diverse range of blogs, while labor, environmental and women's groups spent nearly $1 million backing her candidacy.

ALSO: CQ Politics look at the top 10 best-funded primary challenge campaigns.

Via Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, CNN American Morning producer Chez Pazienza has been fired over objections to content included in his personal blog, Deus Ex Malcontent (warning: foul language abounds):

According to Chez, he was terminated for violating network policy by not running what he was writing through their vetting system. So he was fired not for blogging but for the content of his blog. “It’s not that I’ve been writing,” he wrote in an email. “It’s WHAT I’ve been writing.”

Was Pazienza unjustly fired? I'm guessing not, based on standard corporate policy. Nonetheless, it's a very tough balancing act finding exactly how far into the blogging wilderness a paid professional can venture. I can speak from personal experience, having allowed my creative muse to idle on the eponymous ericpfeiffer.net for more than a year. While it would be wonderful to have an outlet to pontificate on my non-political interests, it doesn't seem worth the risk to my role as a professional writer. Pazienza went a different route, deciding that his principles as a writer outweigh the risk to his day job as a producer with a major cable news network. I applaud him for that courage and conviction, and his personal blog really is a fun read. If CNN was truly savvy, they'd find a way to make Pazienza's creativity and rise in the blogosphere work for them.

Still, based on the initial evidence, it seems CNN was certainly within their rights to view the situation differently. As some are fond of saying, freedom of speech gives you the right to say whatever you like, but it does not protect you from the consequences of said speech.

Just finished a blogger conference call with John McCain. Most of the questions centered on who he would select as his vice presidential candidate. McCain punted on that one, saying he'll wait until he first secures the nomination before looking into possible running mates, "Because we haven't started the process, it's hard for me to say who's in the mix."

In a bit of news, McCain announced he had just returned from a meeting with the House Republican Conference, where he had a "great discussion," and received an endorsement from the House Republican leadership. McCain called the meeting, "another step in the process ... of uniting the party." "I understand I have a lot of work to do," he added.

McCain also dodged a question as to whether he would resign his Senate seat, allowing outgoing Rep. John Shadegg to make a run for it. McCain said he'd wait until after he was officially the nominee, adding, "Right now, I have no inclination to leave the Senate early." Which, in Washington vernacular, means he's definitely thinking about it.

As I noted in my wrap-up of McCain's Potomac primary rally last night, the campaign and the candidate are both clearly transitioning into an attack stance against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the general election.

On Obama, McCain said: "It's not an accident that [according to National Journal rankings] he's the most liberal senator in the United States Senate." McCain also promised to run on his "principles and specfiics ... rather than platitudes."

He also took a hard shot at Iraq war critics, noting he had recently received a phone call from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is in Iraq, and reported political progress to go along with the recent military success of the surge. On war critics, McCain said: "They've been wrong on both counts [political and military] and I hope they'll own up to their absolutely wrong assessment."

Finally, discussing what kind of principles he'd look for in cabinet choices, McCain was vague, except when hinting at his environmental policies, saying he'd take the Republican Party on a "return to the kind of Teddy Roosevelt outlook on things."

The Americas Future Foundation hosts a weekly podcast of bloggers, reporters and influentials in Washington's conservative/libertarian circles. This week's edition of Inside Washington Weekly features a discussion between Carrie Sheffield of the Washington Times, Michael Brendan Doughterty of the American Conservative and Peter Suderman of Doublethink on 2008 politics, including a look at John McCain's rise toward the GOP nomination and how Barack Obama fares in states with comparatively large and small African-American populations.

My personal highlight is a nod to those "voters who think Prince and David Bowie may be deities." But for the record, this is what it sounds like, When Doves Cry.

I missed this yesterday because of all the attention being paid to CPAC, but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both recently reported some pretty impressive online fundraising numbers.

Obama has already been outperforming Clinton with online donors throughout the campaign, but he added another edge when he won the endorsement of the MoveOn.org PAC, which channeled thousands of potential new donors and activists toward Obama. The first results of that endorsement are coming through already. The Nation reports:

Members of MoveOn donated over $320,000 to Obama in an overnight web campaign, according to estimates provided to The Nation. "The Obam-a-mentum fundraiser has been our biggest fundraiser yet this year," said Executive Director Eli Pariser. "There's been an overwhelming response from our members directly, and from past experience we're guessing up to the same number of our members have given through the Obama site as well," he added.

And as further testament to the Democrats' edge in online fundraising, Clinton's campaign reported having raised $4 million from 35,000 donors online. Clinton has been just about the least favorite Democratic candidate amongst liberal bloggers. So, the fact that she raised so much online, even without a natural constituency, is significant. It helps illustrate that Democrats as a whole appear to have the edge not only in enthusiasm, but in a sophisticated understanding of how online fundraising works.

Hugh Hewitt is often-ridiculed for his sometimes over-the-top support of Mitt Romney. While Hewitt and Andrew Sullivan have little in common politically, they both have a reputation for spinning just about anything into a favorable outcome for their respective candidates. But Hewitt offers a thoughtful post today on why conservatives should support the eventual GOP nominee, even if it's not Romney. Sullivan mocks, with a post entitled, "Hewitt Surrender," but the post is actually far more nuanced and compromising than anything Sullivan has said about Hillary Clinton recently:

There are seven reasons for anyone to support the eventual nominee no matter who it is:  The war and six Supreme Court justices over the age of 68.

Folks who want to take their ball and go home have to realize that even three SCOTUS appointments could revolutionize the way elections are handled in this country in a stroke, mandating the submission of redistricting lines to court scrutiny for "fairness."

UPDATE: Over at Commentary's blog, Jennifer Rubin advises Romney to graciously withdrawal from the race and says that Haley Barbour might make a good VP:

Having done so poorly in the South, come in third in Missouri, and lost California, there seems to be little point–other than to perpetuate the animosity within the GOP–to forging on. I think it is telling Romney did not in his speech last night argue that he was the conservative hope for the party or that only he could keep the Reagan coalition together.

Human Events editor Jed Babbin outlines the three things he believes John McCain must address at tomorrow's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington: His views on judicial nominees, the war, and other signature issues where McCain has drifted from much of the conservative base, such as immigration:

One source told me last night that McCain is planning an all-out push at CPAC.  At 3 pm tomorrow, McCain is scheduled to address the crowd expected to number over 6,000 activists.  And McCain plans a very special introduction. 

According to my source, McCain has prepared a video featuring President Ronald Reagan to make the introduction. If McCain uses this video, it is very likely to backfire badly.  This is the group before which Ronald Reagan said in 1975 that, “A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.” 

Babbin's advice is sound in the context of CPAC, but flawed when viewed entirely on its own merits. Conservatives may still be feeling burned by McCain's role in the formulation of the Gang of 14, but that coalition helped usher through John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and many other very conservative justices. And with Democrats now in control of the Senate, how many conservative judges do folks like Babbin think Bush would be getting approved if Republicans had eliminated the judicial filibuster back in '05?

And does John McCain really need to explain himself on the war to conservatives? It's the one issue they strongly agree with him on. Little doubt he'll discuss it, and it would be nice to see him break out of Donald Rumseld/surge talking points, but McCain believes national security is his singular strong point, so why would he avoid it?

Mary Katherine Ham echoes the sentiment of many self-described conservatives, particularly those in the Beltway. To paraphrase, "We KNOW McCain and Huckabee are just awful, but for some reason, the voters appear to disagree." And with Huckabee's strong showing tonight, Ham and several other pundit-types on the right are trying to figure out exactly where that support belongs. Should Huckabee be a vice presidential candidate for McCain or Romney? And if not, will evangelical voters protest by not voting?

Ham ponders:

That makes some more sense for Romney, I think, although the two of them don't care much for each other. For McCain, doesn't the Huckabee vice-presidency knock the legs out from under all his independent support? Although it would seem to be a decent choice on paper since he's Southern and evangelical, every moderate/libertarian Republican or Independent I know would seriously consider sitting out instead of voting for a ticket with Huckabee on it.

The thing about McCain, though, is he has this self-destructive political tick, which would not surprise me if it kicked in and compelled him to pick Huckabee as his veep.

Time for a little shameless self-promotion. I'm hanging out over at Reason magazine HQ, with Washington's fun-loving libertarians. A little earlier, took part in a Reason.tv panel with Nick Gillespie, Reason's Michael Moynihan and DCist's Sommer Mathis.

You can watch the video here.

 

Via Crooks and Liars, conservative author and pundit Ann Coulter has not been invited to this year's Conservative Political Action Conference. Coulter drew the ire of mainstream critics and many on the right when she referred to Muslims as "ragheads" at CPAC in '06 and used a homophobic slur against John Edwards last year. Coulter has been a huge draw at previous CPAC events, but it would appear the organizers no longer feel the baggage her appearances bring is worth the free publicity.

However, Think Progress reports that some of Coulter's supporters have found a way to bring her to CPAC, if in an unofficial capacity:

A few of Coulter’s supporters found a way for her to appear at the conference. Five of this year’s CPAC sponsors — the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), Human Events, Townhall.com, Citizens United, and Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute — have decided to hold a “Q & A session” with Coulter that “is not part of the general sessions.” 

In a post entitled, "Last Action Hero," Ben Domanech over at Red State writes:

Yet this is also what I’ve always admired about McCain, even if conservatives curse him in the course of legislative battle: he is the same man, whichever side he is on. He brings that same infuriating passion to our cause when his inner compass has led him to alliance. His support of the surge confounded the glitterati of the MSM, who gave him every opportunity to break with the president in a fashion that would’ve led to countless more cover appearances for the late-night self-pleasuring of pimply interns of the New Republic. And yet he could not be agreeable to them, as tempting as the doyennes and the cameras were: he rambled through, grousing yet triumphant, middle fingers raised to Rumsfeld on the right and the New York Times on the left. Even if you dislike McCain, you have to admit: It was a glorious moment for him.

Does John McCain’s difficult relationship with some Republicans include differences over judicial nominations? That briefly looked to be the case, when John Fund wrote that McCain opposed the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito:

More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."

Such a sentiment could derail McCain’s already fragmented and often unreliable relationship with the Republican base. However, Powerline sits in on a blogger conference call with the McCain campaign in which the Arizona senator’s support for Alilto is emphasized.

Also, Stephen Bainbridge digs up McCain’s pre-confirmation Alito comments and finds multiple examples of praise.

From our CQ Politics midday update:

Less than a month into his tenure as conference chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander , R-Tenn., is coming under heavy fire from conservatives, who are planning to fashion an alternative Republican agenda for the year.

Conservatives say the agenda they put forth will be meant to complement Alexander’s.

But his candidacy had been opposed by hard-liners, and their dissatisfaction appears to be shared, to some degree, at the grassroots level.

Erick Erickson, who runs the conservative Web site www.redstate.org, sent an e-mail to his more than 100,000 subscribers criticizing Alexander and invoking names in the other party that conservatives love to hate — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton , D-N.Y., and liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy , D-Mass.

“Rather than push bold conservative issues, the Senate GOP leadership will instead enjoy the table scraps Harry Reid , Teddy Kennedy and Hillary Clinton throw them from the leadership table,” that e-mail said.

Erickson is encouraging his readers to contact Alexander's office to express their objections.

A very interesting new list from the Cascade Project, detailing which 100 blogs one should consider reading to be the most informed, using a computer algorithm.

I spoke with Ron Paul’s campaign spokesman Jesse Benton earlier today about the Paul/MLK video. Benton said he had not seen the video or heard of it before being contacted by CQ Politics. “It’s a powerful video put together by an independent supporter,” he said.

When asked about the specifics of the video, Benton said, “We would never make those kind of comparisons ourselves. We’ll leave that to the American people to sort out.”

However, Benton went ahead and compared his boss to Dr. King, saying:

“Dr. Paul and Dr. King do share some things in common, including a belief that people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. And both were supporters of civil disobedience through non-violence.”

“He is someone that Dr. Paul considers a great personal hero,” Benton said, adding the campaign does not plan to return any of the cash raised through the effort. In fact, the daily fundraising total is being touted on Paul's website.

When asked about New Republic reporter Jamie Kirchick’s story revealing a Ron Paul newsletter from 1990 that made disparaging comments about Dr. King, Benton said, “That’s old news. Everyone knows what Dr. Paul believes in.”

I put in several calls to the King Center in Atlanta and to the Washington, DC office of the NAACP. Oddly enough, the websites for both groups were down today. The King Center’s phone system was a mess and I haven’t heard back from them today.

But I did get through to the NAACP. Waiting on a call from their DC Executive Director, Hillary Shelton.

In the meantime, I touched base with Jamie Kirchick, who says of the fundraising video:

"It's ironic -- though perhaps expected -- that Ron Paul's supporters would now try to compare him to Martin Luther King, considering that newsletters published under his name repeatedly slandered King and showed an obsession with the late civil rights leader's sex life. He also seems to think that the wrong side won in the War of Southern Aggression, a view which I doubt King shared. Ron Paul constantly talks about restoring the Republican Party back to its roots. He forgets that the GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln."

First, Ron Paul is accused of harboring racist sympathies. He did a pretty good job of deflecting the direct accusation, but the evidence that Paul was willfully ignorant of the less-than-reputable supporters in his circle was hard to shake.

But rather than play it safe, Paul supporters have instead launched a new fundraising pitch directly comparing their candidate to Martin Luther King Jr. in a new fundraising video. From the video text: "Two great men ... With one great message."



Rough timing. A story from Fox News yesterday notes that one of the Paul newsletters in question referenced Dr. King directly:

In a 1990 newsletter called the Ron Paul Political Report, which resurfaced earlier this month in The New Republic, Ron Paul — or his ghostwriters — called King an adulterer and seducer of young children, and questioned why the nation should celebrate the Civil Rights leader with the same glory as that given to its first president.

The site, "FreeAtLast2008.com," which says it is in no way directly affiliated with the Paul campaign, claims more than 10,000 donors have gone through the site. Meanwhile, the You Tube version of the video has nearly 60,000 views with more than 1,100 comments and 561 Diggs.

Is this 2008 Republican primary season becoming the Special Olympics of political contests, where all the participants get at least one "very special" primary or caucus victory?

A handful of conservative bloggers, lead most prominently by Quin Hillyer, are calling on South Carolina Republicans to vote for Fred Thompson in Saturday’s primary. Thompson has held a strong standing in the right roots community throughout his campaign, but Hillyer tries reaching beyond those confines to the broader GOP community with a big tent approach:

If I were a South Carolina Republican voter on Saturday, then for parochial, tactical, and philosophical reasons, I would vote for Fred Thompson.

This doesn't mean that I would not have voted for Mitt Romney in Michigan on Tuesday, if I were a Michigander, or that I would not vote for Rudy Giuliani in Florida later this month. Voting in each state, especially in a drawn-out nomination battle, involves particularly local considerations as well as national ones.

In other words, Duncan Hunter fans don’t give up hope on a special caucus exclusive to California’s 52nd district, where your guy just might have a shot!

Hillyer also tries to argue that by choosing a different winner than IA or NH voters, SC could boost its prominence in future primary elections. That logic is a little sketchy, but the points about Thompson’s conservative platform and cultural ties to the region are solid, winning praise over at The Corner.

Meanwhile, Red State’s Erik Erickson follows Thompson on the SC trail where it is snowing and Thompson is apparently winning over audiences.

And Matt Continetti looks into Romney’s lowered SC expectations despite his Mighigan win.

Daily Kos has started an unusual campaign, urging Democrats to vote for Mitt Romney in next week’s Michigan primary. Saying the GOP “deserves the very worst,” Kos writes:

Romney is spending a lot of money on ads trashing his fellow Republicans. We want more of that money spent trashing his fellow Republicans. We want an unsettled field with Republicans fragmented and fighting.

Because Michigan moved its primary ahead of February 5th, Democrats stripped the state of its delegates to the National Convention and most major candidates dropped off the ballot. Hillary Clinton is the only top-tier candidate staying on the ballot, going up against the likes of Dennis Kucinich and “Uncommitted.”

Kos’ MI strategy also has a Facebook page, which at last count had 92 members.

Fred Thompson hosted a conference call with conservative bloggers today.

Ed Morrissey posts some highlights:

On his competition, he agreed with one blogger who called most of his opponents liberals. Fred doesn't think that the media picks candidates as much as rolls with whatever story arises and tries to build themes with them. He will try to draw distinctions between the other candidates and true conservatism in the debate tonight. Keep an eye out for that tonight.

Thompson also said his "individualism" and "authenticity" are his greatest strengths.

The Weekly Standard recaps the questions, while Powerline adds:

South Carolina is the ideal state for Thompson to make his stand in. It's a traditionally conservative southern state in which he has friends and contacts. Thompson insists, moreover, that he has enough money to engage the voters, and not just at a purely "retail" level. He promised to be "competitive" on the state's airwave. In Thompson's view, a vast portion of the state's Republican electorate is undecided (polls tend to confirm this) and likely to be receptive to his message.

Republicans yesterday managed to successfully hold two seats after special elections yesterday in VA-01 and OH-05. The fact that Ohio’s Bob Latta and Virginia’s Robert J. "Rob" Wittman held their party's seats isn’t the most stunning news.

However, liberal bloggers made a big push for the Ohio seat and are once again left discussing moral victories, rather than actual electoral ones. The bottom line: Republicans will spin this as a victory, but in reality, they essentially held par on 2006 numbers and had to spend valuable campaign cash to do so. Liberal bloggers will note a normally unnecessary cash influx from the GOP, but they were hoping for a true victory, rather than rationalizing defeat.

Daily Kos has perhaps the best progressive blogger analysis today:

Republicans beat us in the expectations game, got enough of their people out, and basically kept things even from 2006. They spent a shitload of money for an "expectations" game victory in what might have otherwise been a routine and uneventful hold. So well played to them. But the bottom line is that they held an R+10 seat. Funny that this is the sort of thing they're left "celebrating" these days.

Red State diarist Adam C also has a reasonable take from the right:

This combo of big wins seems to suggest that partisan R districts are holding up in a difficult environment where both parties and all parts of government are seen in a negative light. Note however that the NRCC and RNC had to get involved in OH-05 where they should not be needed. This takes money and time away from other tighter districts to spend on an R +10 area.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Singer tries spinning things a bit over at MyDD:

Simply put, regardless of the results of this election, the DCCC thoroughly outmaneuvered the NRCC.

But he quickly comes back with an update that puts things in a more rational context:

Update [2007-12-11 22:33:35 by Jonathan Singer]: To be clear, would I have liked to see a win? Yes. But the Republicans' victory was definitely a pyrrhic one, hurting them more in the long term than it helped them in the short run.