The National Republican Congressional Committee will be unveiling a new slogan tomorrow, "The Change You Deserve," as part of their 2008 communications strategy. However, the blogger at Bluestem Prairie discovered that the slogan is already being used ... by a pharmaceutical company marketing an anti-depression pill. From the Huffington Post's Jason Linkins:

Effexor, also known as Venlafaxine, is approved for the treatment "of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults." Its common side effects are very much in keeping with the world the House Republicans have striven to build: nausea, apathy, constipation, fatigue, vertigo, sexual dysfunction, sweating, memory loss, and - and I swear I am not making this up - "electric shock-like sensations also called 'brain zaps.'"

The Democrats are already seizing on the coincidental cross-marketing mishap, but the NRCC says they plan to go forward with the ad, telling the New York Times' Carl Huse:

“Republicans are committed to delivering the change American families really deserve,” said a House Republican spokesman, saying the cross-marketing was not a problem.

Unfortunately for the House Republicans, the slogan is already drawing the ire of conservative mainstay Michelle Malkin. Referring to her fellow GOPers as the "stupid party," Malkin declares:

The GOP lemmings deserve everything they’re going to get in November.

Conservative bloggers believe they have found another opening to attack Barack Obama as being out of touch with average Americans. It's still unclear as to whether or not Obama's small town America comments are hurting him electorally, but it's clear Republicans are embracing the attack line now in advance of a likely general election matchup against Obama. There's even a new Facebook group called "Barack Obama is an elitist," asking people to change their profile pictures to this:




WSJ.com columnist John Fund says Barack Obama represents a recurring theme in Democratic presidential nominees: a "rookie" candidate whom voters adore in the primary season but who doesn't hold up under the intense scrutiny of a general election:

With 81% of voters telling pollsters the country is on the "wrong track," no one disputes Democrats can win in November. Still, it should be a matter of concern to them that both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama currently trail John McCain in general-election matchups. Democrats would be wise to have more debates and sharper exchanges in the remaining primaries. It may help minimize the surprises they are likely to encounter this fall.

Other conservatives are jumping on the Obama "elitist" meme as well, with George Will making unfavorable comparisons between Obama and Adlai Stevenson. Which leads Michelle Malkin to joke:

It’s a good little review of late-twentieth-century liberal intellectuals, but dude: George Will is now calling him a snob.

Although Commentary's Jennifer Rubin sees the tactic posing a potentially big risk for Hillary Clinton:

With Snob-gate dominating the news cycle, Clinton now runs a risk. Should she fail to win by a comfortable margin after taking her best shot in the best possible news environment, Obama will claim to have survived the final desperate attack of a dying campaign.

Both critics and supporters of Hillary Clinton, for varying reasons, say her presidency would be a return of sorts to the 1990's. We've seen the downside of that in recent weeks when Clinton's candidacy was damaged after her repeated claims of coming under "sniper fire" in Bosnia while serving as First Lady were proven to be false.
ABC News, which first broke video of Clinton's actual Bosnia landing, now reports that Bill Clinton has been defending his wife's handling of the blunder, but has been flubbing the facts as well, while attempting to downplay his wife's political fumble in what they call a bit of "revisionist history."

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis calls Bill Clinton's comments an "outright lie," and adds:

Hillary actually "misspoke" four times over four months. Then the campaign had their surrogates and press staff fan out in order to defend Hillary's lie as the truth. Now repeated members of the Clinton campaign have claimed that Hillary simply misspoke "once." It's a flat-out lie. They know it's a lie. But they seem to think that you're so stupid, you won't notice. Amazing.

The New Republic's Jason Zengerle says:

It looks like Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama isn't the only thing the Clintons can't let go of.

Meanwhile, over at the conservative Commentary's blog, Jennifer Rubin asks:

Does he want his wife to lose? Maybe he’s a hopeless, pathological fabulist. Or maybe he just doesn’t understand how hard it is to get away with easily fact-checked lies in a 24/7 news environment.

In his column today, the Washington Post's David Ignatius reviews yesterday's testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, with particular focus on Iran. The following passage from Ignatius' piece was brought to my attention as it states in fact a covert Iranian influence on Sunni Muslims in Iraq:

Iran's covert campaign to reshape Iraq has been clear since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Iranian intelligence officers prepared lists of Iraqis for assassination in the weeks and months after the war began; they sent Iranian-trained mullahs to take over the Shiite mosques of central and southern Iraq that had been smashed by Saddam Hussein; they pumped an estimated $12 million a week in covert financial support to their allies as the January 2005 election approached; they infiltrated all the major Shiite political parties, and many of the Sunni ones, too.

John McCain has taken much criticism in recent weeks for first saying Iran was training al Qaeda operatives in Iraq, and later implying Iranians were training Sunni extremists. Assuming Ignatius' point is true, John McCain's pressj people may want to consider distributing the op-ed. It doesn't necessarily fully vindicate his past statements, but it also shows he wasn't completely off the mark, either.

Over at Bloggingheads.tv, Time's Ana Marie Cox and Jon Fine debate whether the press has done their job covering Obama and whether the media will be held accountable for getting so much so wrong during this campaign season.

Especially when you're so very wrong. NBC's Ann Curry apparently didn't realize she was on-screen with one of the great, modern political minds. Via Newsbusters, here's an exchange between Curry and NBC Political Director Chuck Todd, over where exactly Illinois falls on the map:

ANN CURRY: Okay let's talk about the home states because we've got Illinois--

CHUCK TODD: Right.

CURRY (pointing to Minnesota): --which is right here.

(Todd points to Illinois)

CURRY: No, wrong one.

TODD: That's okay.

CURRY (pointing to Illinois): No, wrong one. There we go.

Newsbusters has the video here.