One of my favorite sub-subplots of the presidential campaign is John McCain's continuing exploitation of Representative John Lewis, the civil rights icon and hero. This has been such a strange episode, and I wonder what it means about the GOP presidential candidate.

First, in April, McCain went to Selma, Alabama, to deliver a speech about patriotism and courage--and expropriated the patriotism and courage of Lewis. Speaking at the site of a historic civil rights clash, McCain recounted how hundreds of civil rights activists, led by Lewis, had marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and peacefully confronted state troopers who brutally attacked them. McCain hailed Lewis and quoted him. ("When I care about something, I'm prepared to take the long, hard road.") McCain did not cite any action he himself had ever taken to advance the civil rights cause--presumably because there were none to cite. (McCain had even opposed establishing the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. as a holiday.) McCain, as I noted at the time, was trying to wrap himself in the bloody shirt of John Lewis. Moreover, a Lewis associate told me that McCain had never been close to Lewis, that McCain did not invite Lewis to attend this event, and that McCain had not even informed Lewis he would be making this speech.

McCain had served in the U.S. Congress with Lewis for 21 years. But in all that time, McCain had not established any relationship with Lewis. If McCain really was so impressed with Lewis, why had he not reached out to him? Yet McCain, looking to grab a piece of civil rights history, was claiming Lewis was a leader to emulate. And in the same speech, McCain bashed Barack Obama, who had been endorsed by Lewis, as a panderer and peddler of "false promises."

This was odd; McCain was attempting to sell himself by praising a fellow who was campaigning for Obama. Then the story got more bizarre. At the presidential forum hosted by best-selling mega-pastor Rick Warren on Saturday, McCain was asked to name the "three wisest people" he would call on were he to become president. His list: General David Petraeus, Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, and, yes, John Lewis.

The following day, we at Mother Jones asked Lewis for a comment, and the Georgia congressman said, "I cannot stop one human being, even a presidential candidate, from admiring the courage and sacrifice of peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or making comments about it." But Lewis added, "Sen. McCain and I are colleagues in the US Congress, not confidantes. He does not consult me. And I do not consult him."

Think about this. McCain said Lewis would be one of the three wisest people he would rely upon for advice in the White House. But McCain has not asked Lewis for any advice in the two decades he has been in Congress with him. How else then to read McCain's references to Lewis other than as crass pandering and exploitation? After all, since Lewis entered the House in 1987--and even before that--McCain has had the opportunity to pick up the phone and say, "Hey, John, can you help me out with some advice." But he has not done so.

McCain is lucky that Lewis is a class act. He could make an issue out of this and cause McCain to look like a fool. Lewis has chosen not to. But for voters looking for authenticity, this is an indicator that McCain can be as phony as any non-maverick politician.

I'm still on vacation. Be back soon..

McCain surrounded by lobbyists! McClellan telling the truth about Bush White House lies! Obama and Clinton tussling over what to do about the Florida and Michigan delegations! This is all important stuff. But what about policy? There's always plenty of media coverage for political developments. Policy matters....well, you know. It's the poor cousin in the house. Which is why I was delighted to receive a press release from the Democratic National Committee today that zeroed in on John McCain's stance on nuclear proliferation--which is one of the more important policy topics a president must handle.

The oppo research team at the DNC discovered that McCain has been inconsistent in articulating his policy in this area. And in the missive they zapped out to reporters they shared the evidence. In a Foreign Affairs article published last December, McCain wrote,

The nuclear nonproliferation regime is broken for one clear reason: the mistaken assumption behind the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear technology can spread without nuclear weapons eventually following....The next U.S. president must convene a summit of the world's leading powers -- none of which have an interest in seeing a world full of nuclear-armed states -- with three agenda items. First, the notion that non-nuclear-weapons states have a right to nuclear technology must be revisited.

Yet in a speech he delivered a few days ago, McCain said,

But in order to take advantage of civilian nuclear energy, we must do a better job of ensuring it remains civilian. Some nations use the pretense of civilian nuclear programs as cover for nuclear weapons programs. We need to build an international consensus that exposes this deception, and holds nations accountable for it....I would support international guarantees of nuclear fuel supply to countries that renounce enrichment and reprocessing, as well as the establishment of multinational nuclear enrichment centers in which they can participate. Nations that seek nuclear fuel for legitimate civilian purposes will be able to acquire what they need under international supervision.

So a short time ago, McCain declared that spreading civilian nuclear technology undermines efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and he advocated a policy prescription: stop non-nuclear countries from developing nuclear energy. Yet now he says that it's fine for other nations to pursue nuclear energy, as long as there is appropriate international supervision. So which is it? Is the proliferation of nuclear technology a problem or not?

This is not a case of gotcha politics. At this point in his long career as a national security-minded legislator, McCain should have clear thoughts on this critical subject. Yet he's contradicting himself on a key issue. In addition to all the other stories in the news these days, this sure deserves front-page treatment.

Quick--name an official task that was Hillary Clinton's responsibility last time she was in the White House? The answer is obvious: health care. It was a top priority for the Bill Clinton administration in the first years of his presidency. And he handed the mission to his two-for-the-price-of-one First Lady.

What happened next? We all know: an unmitigated disaster that set the cause of health care reform back for years. Hillary Clinton and her top advisers--in proceedings marked by secrecy and we-know-best arrogance--cooked up a plan that no one could understand. They bent over backward to accommodate the corporate community and miscalculated: Big Business ended up opposing the plan. And the common folks who the plan was supposed to help couldn't comprehend it--which meant they (and their elected representatives) could not fight effectively for it.

Flash forward to 2008. Clinton is fighting for her political life in a fierce battle with Barack Obama. She's pandering on gas prices, she's suggesting that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, she's pouncing on a remark he made to suggest he's an elitist, she's making a big deal out of his past relationship with a onetime 70s radical, she's accusing him of not being committed to withdrawing from Iraq, she's pushing reporters to dwell upon Obama's friendship with a developer indicted on corruption charges, she's pondering how to game the delegate system. And her latest ad in North Carolina, which holds an important primary on Tuesday, she repeats her claim that she is the candidate who can make change happen.

In the ad, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley, a Clinton supporter, says:

These are tough times in America and I think that Hillary is the one we can count on to get the job done. She's going to turn the economy around, she's going bring new jobs, she's going to get some tax cuts for the middle class for a change. She's going to make health care available to everybody in this country, and she's going to do everything she can to help every child reach their full potential. She is so resilient, so determined. She knows how to deliver.

To which anyone with a skeptical view (and a memory) might say, "Hillarycare." Sure, she's racked up a few accomplishments as a senator. But she failed miserably on the biggest task she has ever assumed. She didn't get that job done; she botched it. True, it was a tough assignment, and the odds were against her. But if she's making promises now, her first attempt to "make health care available to everybody in this country" is relevant. (More relevant than the issue of her laugh.) Well, maybe she can get the job done on the second time around. Older and wiser, and all that. But her early-90s failure was one reason why health care disappeared as a political issue for so long. That's a reality that present-day campaign rhetoric can be measured against.

The Democratic primary contest has been "relatively mild." So said Hillary Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday morning. But in the same call, he and Phil Singer, another campaign aide, continued to whack Obama for making remarks that they blasted "as elitist and condescending." Singer added that Obama is "somewhat detached" from American voters. And Wolfson noted that the whole fuss over Obama's "bitter" comments is "an important issue." But it's a fuss fueled by the Clinton campaign, which yesterday put up an ad in which supposed Clinton supporters--average Joes and Josephines in Pennsylvania--gripe about Obama's remarks.

"It just shows how out of touch Barack Obama is," says Man 1 in the ad. (That's how the campaign identified the fellow in an email to reporters.) "I was insulted by Barack Obama," says Woman 1. And in the spot--the first negative ad in the Obama-Clinton contest that attacks an opponent by name--Woman 2 says, "I'm not clinging to my faith out of frustration and bitterness. I find my faith is very uplifting." [Correction: Howard Wolfson emails to say, "This is not the first ad that mentions an opponent by name -- we ran ads in WI urging him to debate -- he responded by saying we would say anything or do anything to win."]

Gal No. 2 gets to the heart of this non-issue. At that now-infamous San Francisco fundraiser, Obama, referring to middle-class voters in areas hit by massive job loss, said,

So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Obama's foes--in the Clinton camp and the John McCain camp--have accused him of saying people "cling" to guns and faith only because they are bitter. That's not exactly what Obama said. He noted that people in hard-pressed areas become bitter because they see the system failing them and they cling to their belief in gun rights and/or God (as well as other beliefs, such as opposition to immigrants or gay rights). Obama obviously knows that these beliefs--the good and the bad--were already deeply held before the mill jobs disappeared. Such beliefs, though, are presumably further embraced in difficult times. And given that some of these beliefs (gun rights, opposition to abortion and gay rights) tend to cut against candidates perceived as liberals, it can make things tougher for certain Democrats. This ain't in much dispute.

No doubt, Obama was trying to express what passes for a sophisticated point in our culture of debate-by-soundbites, yet he did so in a clunky manner that offered his opponents the chance to assert that he believes that faith and a love of guns come only out of frustration. There may be an argument for such a proposition. But I doubt Obama would accept it. As a former community organizer and longtime churchgoer (we all know that he goes to church), he hardly fits the bill as a secularist elitist. Yet the Clinton campaign pounced on these words to claim that the man whom they have already decried as not able to protect America as commander in chief is out of touch with real Americans. What a "mild" attack.

During a conference call on Wednesday morning, David Plouffe, the campaign manager for Barack Obama, pointed to what he called a "warning sign" for Democrats: the exit polls from Mississippi, where Obama on Tuesday beat Hillary Clinton 61 to 37 percent. Plouffe noted that when Democratic voters who participated in this primary were asked "which candidate do you think is honest and trustworthy," 50 percent said Clinton was not. Seventy percent of the Democrats polled said Obama was honest and trustworthy. That's a 20-point integrity gap--and its among Democrats. Certainly, many Democrats elsewhere--such as in states where Clinton won big--do not share this distrust of Clinton. But Plouffe is right: numbers like these ought to give Democrats, be they voters or super-delegates, pause.

Another interesting factoid from the exit polls: who's the more vicious candidate. The exit pollsters asked Democrats in Mississippi if either Obama or Clinton has attacked "the other unfairly." Sixty-one percent said that Clinton has; 39 percent said that Obama has. So in addition to the integrity gap, there was a 22-point nasty gap. Again, Democratic voters in states that went for Clinton may not see this the same way. And given that the Mississippi Democratic electorate included many African Americans, this number may reflect a sentiment held more by black Democrats than white Democrats. (Remember South Carolina?) Nevertheless, all this is food for thought for Democrats: do they want a presidential candidate that many voters within their own ranks consider unfair and not honest?

For more of a breakdown of the Mississippi vote--particularly the racial component (short answer: Clinton won whites; Obama won blacks)--see my colleague Jonathan Stein's posting at MotherJones.com.

Barack Obama has a big problem.

If the Democratic presidential race is between him and Hillary Clinton--sorry, Senator Edwards--it boils down, in a way to this: Clinton says, believe in my resume; Obama says, believe in me.

Clinton is pitching herself as a woman of experience who can start working for you and our children on Day One. Look, 35 years of policy wonkery and advocacy. Look, a record of accomplishment. (Fill in the number of children in fill in the state have health insurance because of her.) Look, years of traveling overseas as First Lady, years of hard toil--including working with (gasp!) Republicans--in the Senate, and years of doing political battle in the trenches. All of this is measurable and confirmable. A voter can easily evaluate her case and judge whether she's right for the job.

Obama is selling himself as...himself. That is, Obama is insisting that he has the ability to create a new politics--a transformative, overcoming-the-divide politics--because of who he is, because of his character and considerable personal attributes. Sure, he points to his past as a community organizer and civil rights lawyers and to his work in the Illinois state senator and the U.S. Senate to bolster his argument that he possesses the right stuff. But his is not a campaign of resume-waving. He's running on his soul. And Obama goes further than asking voters to hire him as their advocate. He issues an invitation: join me in this grand cause to change politics, change government, and change the nation. He speaks of his campaign as a movement and compares it to the great social movements of America's past.

With Obama, it's not about his career highlights, it's about him. To buy his case, a voter must believe in him, have faith in him, place hope in him--must have (or feel) a connection with him. And this is where the problem kicks in.

In the small and early states, a presidential candidates can forge a connection with voters. There are direct interactions: meet-and-greets, town hall gatherings, rallies. Word of mouth can spread. And the media in the early states devote extensive coverage; even couch potatoes come into regular contact with the contenders. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Obama was able to create a bond with a great number of voters--many of whom had been able to interact closely with him or his campaign. They could hear him speak. They could look him in the eye. They could experience Obama--in real time, in real life.

After Nevada and South Carolina, that's going to change. The election will be shaped by Supersaturated Tuesday, February 5, when two dozen states, including some of the largest in the union, will hold primaries or caucuses. No candidate will be able to reach large number of voters in an up-close-and-personal manner. There will be big rallies in California and elsewhere. But the people who show up will be a minuscule fraction of the electorate, and these events may not receive extensive local media coverage--absent Oprah or a newsworthy mishap. (California television news is notorious for shortchanging political coverage. There are, after all, so many car chases to chase after.)

At this stage, the candidates will be reaching voters mainly through commercials. A television spot is a fine medium for a candidate to share his or her resume, to list his or her accomplishments. It is much tougher to convey the intangibles of hope, faith, and transcendence in a 30- or 60-second spot. The bottom line: advantage to Clinton.

In the mad scramble that will ensue after the South Carolina Democratic primary on January 26--with the candidates flying back and forth across the country in an intense nine-day dash--Obama may find it difficult to connect directly with voters in the fashion he needs to. He proclaims, let me lead you in a noble cause, and many Democrats are already sold. They have been inspired. They are part of his crusade. But others might need to feel the buzz viscerally before jumping on the Obama Express. Can Obama jazz them up from a distance--when he's hopscotching from one state to the other, responding to Clinton's criticisms (or attacks), and keeping it all together?

Prior to the primaries, Obama did move thousands of Democrats, who flocked to his website and donated generously. He did not shake the hand of each one. He did not have to. And the enthusiasm he generated set him up well for Iowa and New Hampshire. But as New Hampshire demonstrated, he needs to expand beyond that base. And that means reaching voters who have not yet felt the Obama magic. How to convince them from afar is a profound challenge. (To be clear: I'm not predicting he will fail. I'm not predicting anything at all about this election. Not anymore. I'm merely noting Obama has much unique heavy-lifting to do in the next three weeks.)

When Supersized Tuesday first materialized, political observers made the obvious observation that it would favor any candidate with big bucks, extensive organization, and/or establishment backing. But it also gives an advantage to any candidate with a conventional (and, thus, easy-to-convey) message. And that isn't Barack Obama.

I'll be out of town for a few days. See you next week--after Nevada.

John McCain, the war ain't helping you. That is, all the war advocates who have recently been mouthing happy talk about the Iraq war are not doing McCain any favors. And he can include himself in that group.

Look at the Michigan primary. Mitt Romney finally won a gold medal last night and whooped McCain by 9 points. Half the voters in Michigan said that the economy was the No. 1 issue. Only one-fifth pointed to Iraq. Among those who cited the economy, Romney bested McCain 41 to 29 percent. Of course, Michigan is in a near-depression, and it comes as no surprise that GOP voters there are looking more for an economic savior than a military commander who can keep Iraqi insurgents from coming over here to attack our malls. And during the campaign Romney did his best to pander to Michiganders, promising to bring back the golden age of automobile manufacturing. McCain, though, told 'em to suck it up and get with Plan B (retraining and education for non-automaking jobs). Thus, the candidate of national security was trounced by the candidate of economic miracles.

McCain and his strategists can dismiss the Michigan loss as inevitably due to the specific circumstances of the Michigan economy. But that might be whistling past the shutdown factory. The meta-narrative these days is this: the war is going well, the U.S. economy is rushing toward a recession. It doesn't matter whether this is an accurate depiction of reality. After all, the war in Iraq has hardly turned the corner, and even the recent passage of a de-Baathification law in the Iraqi parliament was not much of a true success. (Almost a half of the body didn't turn up for the vote, and its passage pissed off Sunnis and Shias alike, with many of the former remaining unconvinced this legislation will change much for them.) But if GOP voters believe--or hear repeatedly--that the surge is working, they have less reason to fret about the war, and less reason to feel a need for McCain.

What other issue is McCain known for these days? Maybe pork-busting. But he's never had much of a profile on grand economic matters. Conservatives still hold a grudge against him for not being a passionate tax-cutter. So if the pending--or already-arrived--recession is now the worry of the moment for GOP voters, McCain doesn't meet the demand. Enter Romney, Mr. CEO. The guy who gave us Staples and cheap paper clips. In Michigan, his economy-first message triumphed. Could he do the same elsewhere?

For months, McCain has been proclaiming that the surge is succeeding. And with such pronouncements filling the media, Iraq has become a less salient issue for voters in both parties. McCain might end up a victim of his own success.

DEMS DO NEVADA. It was a rather low-key debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night for the Democratic presidential contenders. They all played nice. They all looked exhausted. Here's my report from MotherJones.com:

What did the umpteenth Democratic presidential debate, held in Nevada on Tuesday night, demonstrate? That Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton each need a nap. The trio looked worn out. Perhaps that was why few punches were thrown. The Iraq war, the politics of race, tears (or near tears)--the Democratic contest had become rather heated in recent days. Clinton, using misleading information, had accused Obama of being a disingenuous hypocrite regarding the war. Obama's camp had seized on a comment Clinton had made to Fox News and assailed her for supposedly dissing Martin Luther King Jr. And Edwards had snidely insinuated Clinton might not be strong enough to be president (after she became emotional at a campaign stop in New Hampshire). It was getting nasty.

But in Las Vegas, there was relative calm. And no one hit the jackpot. Sure, there were a few pokes. Clinton declined to state that Obama and Edwards are prepared to be president. Edwards noted that Clinton and Obama had pocketed campaign contributions from corporate executives. Obama suggested that Clinton was using the specter of a future terrorist attack to scare people into voting for her. Overall, though, the three stuck to their positive scripts. Obama: I can inspire, mobilize, and bring together a divided nation. Clinton: I have the experience to be ready on Day One to solve problems for you and your children. Edwards: I will fight to my last breath for middle-class and low-income Americans. (Clinton did have a Clintonian moment when she acknowledged that she had voted for the anti-consumer bankruptcy bill of 2001 but "was happy that it never became law." In other words, I voted for it but didn't inhale.)

The major clash of the night came over...energy policy....

You can read the rest here.

The Fred shall rise again?

Well, he tried. At the GOP presidential debate in South Carolina, Fred Thompson, the lackadaisical former senator, finally got off the couch. His past debate performances-- like much of his campaign--have been a series of nothing burgers. He's acted the curmudgeon, grumbling about this or that and making a not very good fifth (sixth, seventh, eighth....) impression. But last night, when the opportunity arrived, he pounced--and lit into Mike Huckabee. Reading from notes--or a script--Thompson called the former Arkansas governor a "Christian leader" but (gasp!) a liberal when it comes to economic policies, foreign policy, and immigration policy. In one of the few instances of Thompson displaying any passion, he was bashing Huckabee, who deflected the blast with an aw-shucks response. It was as if some campaign aide had finally attached electrodes to his backside so Thompson, for at least 90 seconds, could show some pep. (I could imagine the cheers at Thompson HQ: "He's alive, he's alive!")

South Carolina is truly Thompson's last stand. But he's up against his old Senate pal John McCain, who's resurgent, and Huckabee, who plays well to the social conservatives of the Palmetto State. South Carolina was McCain's Waterloo in 2000, but as a national-security-first Republican maybe this time around he can win over the Republicans who did not fancy him as a maverick eight years ago. And Huckabee can grab those religious rightwingers who still recall that McCain dissed Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the religious right during the 2000 campaign. That does not leave much space for Thompson, a son of the South.

Thompson's flopping performance (so far) has been one of the surprises of the 2008 campaign. Remember the conventional wisdom that he got into the race too late? Well, maybe he entered the contest too early. He was much better as an almost-candidate than as an actual candidate. The consensus explanation for his lack of success (so far) is that he's been a lazy and lousy candidate who has not shown any flash or zeal. That's certainly true. But I have another theory.

Thompson has spent more of his years as a Hollywood actor than as a politician. And as an actor, he's been quite lucky. People keep developing roles that suit him, but each one is essentially the same role. We need a gruff White House chief of staff. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff district attorney. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff president. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff admiral. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff CIA director. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff senator. Let's get Thompson. Or in the case of his first movie, Marie, we need Thompson. Let's get Thompson.

Fred Thompson has not had to stretch his acting chops much. He has basically had to hit his mark, read his lines, and be himself. He's done that well, and he's made millions of dollars. But he never developed range or flexibility as an actor. He could do gruff--and perhaps laconic--but not a lot more.

So there he was early last year, pursuing his acting career, when people started telling him they had another part for him: presidential candidate. He jumped into the race believing that, once more, he could play himself and wow the crowds. But this script demanded more of Thompson. He might have (for some) looked the part--though it does seem he's aged six years in six months--but he did not possess the skills needed to connect with the audience, I mean voters, who were expecting more than a gruff former prosecutor/admiral/CIA director/chief of staff. He's been mailing in his performance and receiving the predictable reviews. The debate last night was not quite a career-reviving moment, even if it did show Thompson had a dollop of spunk left in him.

In recent weeks, my one-liner take on Thompson has been this: if you want your cranky uncle to be president, Thompson is your candidate. Last night didn't change that review. Thompson still has to prove to Republican voters there's more to Fred Thompson than just Fred Thompson.

At Milly's Tavern in Manchester, New Hampshire--where Barack Obama campaign workers had assembled to watch the Iowa caucus results on Thursday night--there was only one question on the mind of the few reporters in the room: what is Hillary Clinton to do now?

By trouncing Clinton by 8 points, Obama shifted the political landscape. If he had won by merely a few points and Clinton and John Edwards had finished close, the race in New Hampshire probably would have been just a continuation of the Iowa contest, with the candidates sticking to their basic gameplans and messages. Finishing (as of this writing) in third place and losing by a significant amount, Clinton and her strategists cannot look at New Hampshire and say, "We just have to do what we've been doing better and hope it will play better before a different audience of Democrats and independents." No, you lose by 8 points, you have to make some changes.

But what changes?

Hillary Clinton has four days to try something else--and two of those days are the weekend. And for it to work, it will have to be big and be bold, so that New Hampshire voters truly notice. One obvious option: go nuclear on Obama. Clinton could, for instance, attempt to frighten--really frighten--voters about his lack of experience.

But when Clinton has attacked Obama in the past, it hasn't done her much good. She fell in the polls after tearing into him. As one Clinton adviser told me a few weeks ago, Clinton plays better as victim than attacker. What else could she do? Let Bill loose? He was ably deployed in Iowa, and that didn't do the trick. Are there other surrogates she could call on who could have an impact in New Hampshire?

Moreover, any dramatic move she might make at this point has the potential of casting her as desperate. Voters, like dogs, can smell fear. She's in a tough fix.

Despite the beer that was flowing at Milly's, none of us reporters cooked up any good ideas for HRC. She's on her own. Iowa was one damn big siren-screaming warning for the Clintonites. Young voters, independents, women and others turned out for Obama, endorsing his message of change and embracing him as the messenger. During his eloquent victory speech, Obama seemed to be riding a wave of history. (Talk about peaking at the right moment.)

In the heat of the moment--especially at Milly's--it's easy to overemphasize Iowa and even, perhaps, New Hampshire. There are other contests after the Granite State, and Clinton has plenty of money to keep her campaign fueled all the way to Super Duper Tuesday on February 5. She could opt to hang tight and hope to best Obama in later rounds. But Obama's triumph in Iowa does suggest that what Clinton has been doing ain't working. To win, she, too, might have to embrace change.

McCAIN'S 1000-YEAR WAR. At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Thursday night, John McCain told me that he wouldn't mind if U.S. troops stay in Iraq for a "thousand" years, as long as American casualties are declining. Read my report on this here.