In a fundraising email sent to supporters yesterday afternoon, John McCain's campaign included a photo of the Arizona senator shaking hands with Gen. David Petraeus. Clicking on the photo takes you directly to a campaign contribution form on McCain's campaign website. In the email, McCain writes:

Senator Obama speaks openly about his willingness to sit down with our enemies and engage in open talks, but he hasn't gone to Iraq in over two years to meet with our leaders and see that progress is being made on the ground. Something is wrong with your judgment when you want to sit down unconditionally with Raul Castro and Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but you don't take the opportunity to sit down with General Petraeus and learn about the situation in Iraq firsthand.

The Obama campaign has since complained about the use of Petraeus in the campaign email. McCain addressed the issue today, promising that his campaign wouldn't use Petraeus in future campaign literature.

In their campaign conference call today, the Clinton campaign's Harold Ickes acknowledged that Florida and Michigan violated DNC rules by changing their primary calendar dates without permission. If taken on their merits, Ickes' comments could be interpreted as admission that seating of half the FL/MI delegates may be the best Clinton can hope for. That leaves Talk Left's Big Tent Democrat to the conclusion that:

The Clinton campaign's only argument now seems to be that yes, rules were broken, but to help us in November, the RBC should seat the delegates anyway. It seems to me that the obvious response by the RBC is to rely on its staff memo which says it can only restore half of the delegates, and that to honor the voters of Florida and Michigan, it will magnaminously do so.

I'll be on Washington's News8 at around 7:30pm EST tonight to discuss Scott McClellan and this weekend's DNC meeting and Democratic primary in Puerto Rico. You can watch it online here at News8's website.

Appearances are subject to change due to breaking news, etc.

The Democratic National Committee has released a new ad using footage from Scott McClellan's recent tv interviews. The ad also includes separate clips of John McCain and Dick Cheney from 2002 discussing their belief that the Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The ad concludes with a picture of McCain and a crowd changing "four more years," in reference to the Democrats' meme that a McCain presidency would equal a "third term" for President Bush.

Ground Game is back today and so is Bob Dole, apparently. The 1996 Republican presidential candidate and former Kansas senator rips into Scott McClellan in an acerbic email in which he describes the former White House spokesman as a "miserable creature" who is trying to cash in on President Bush's unpopularity:

[I]f all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job.

That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively,

Dole has surprised the public before with his passion and wit, but the initial reaction to this email seems to be more along the lines of shock and awe. In my earlier post on McClellan I said he would have been demonstrating real courage by stepping down from his position at the time, rather than when it was politically and financially convenient. Not everyone agrees with that take, but I'm not the only voice in the blogosphere airing such sentiment. The Moderate Voice's Pete Abel:

Regardless of how you feel about Bob Dole, he makes a great point. The definition of a real hero is one who stands up to a wrong at the time it's committed, not later, and not for the purposes of personal profit.

This is the second time Dole has played a role in the 2008 election season. Earlier this year, he was involuntarily thrust into the Republican primary when former candidate Mitt Romney compared John McCain's chances to Dole's failed '96 run.

Ground Game will be out of commission for most of today as I tend to some medical issues. Hope to be back later today with some updates, or by tomorrow morning at the latest. See you soon.

I'll be on local ABC News affiliate News8 tonight at 7:30pm EST to discuss Hillary Clinton's efforts to have the Florida and Michigan delegates counted after this week's DNC rules committee meeting. You can watch the appearance live here: http://www.news8.net/

Appearances are subject to change due to breaking news, etc.

The conservative media, and bloggers in particular, often ignore stories that involve fellow conservatives/Republicans doing things that run counter to the movement. The flood of media attention surrounding former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new book has proven different. There has been plenty of name calling, ("scumbag," "turncoat," "backstabbing SOB,") but also some painful admissions from conservatives that much of what the former flack says rings true. So, has President Bush merely been served poorly by inept aides? Or, does the hiring of, and loyalty to, those individuals like McClellan whose talent has been called into question say more about the chief executive?

The top five conservative blogger reactions after the jump...

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new tell-all book, "What Happened," about his time in the Bush administration is receiving all kinds of attention from liberal bloggers. Most point to McClellan's assertion that the WH used propaganda to sell the war in Iraq and that McClellan felt he often gave "misleading" information to the public. But these political diatribes should always be put in proper context. Is McClellan heroic, or even brave, for trashing administration at a time when the president has record-low approval ratings? McClellan seems more opportunistic than anything, finally swinging back at officials who made him their fall guy and cashing in on an increasingly unpopular former boss. If he were truly brave, he would have resigned while the events chronicled in his book were happening, ala Paul O'Neill.

After the jump are the top five responses to the McClellan story from liberal bloggers:

Liberal bloggers seem to have backed off their earlier complaints about Hillary Clinton citing the assassination of RFK as reasoning for her to stay in the Democratic primary. Instead, they are turning their attention to the second half of her argument, which asserted that her own husband, Bill Clinton, didn't wrap up his 1992 nomination until June of that year.

CQ Politics' own Taegan Goddard looks through Bill Clinton's autobiography and finds:

He writes: "On April 7, we also won in Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. On April 9, Paul Tsongas announced that he would not reenter the race. The fight for the nomination was effectively over."

TPM's David Kurtz posts video of Bill Clinton making the same argument and says:

To anyone who remembers past Democratic nomination contests, it will be no surprise that there is nothing unprecedented about the pressure on Hillary to get out of the race.

Brendan Nyhan calls Clinton's argument "bogus."

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.

Now that the Memorial Day holiday is passed, bloggers are turning their attention back to the presumed general election battle between John McCain and Barack Obama. Many leading conservative bloggers have turned their attention to a "gaffe" by Obama during a speech yesterday in New Mexico:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

The "gaffe" description is making its way around conservative blogs almost as if it were a talking point distributed from the Republican Party or the McCain campaign.

Powerline says, "Barack Obama must be the most gaffe-prone politician in memory. "

Michelle Malkin: "The Obama gaffe machine rolls on."

Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard: "The gaffes continued this holiday weekend for the media's presidential candidate.

All the gaffe talk leads Red State diarist Moe Lane to ask how liberals feel now after eight years of mocking, and speculating on, the reasons behind President Bush's sometimes subpar oratory skills.

I'll be on MSNBC tomorrow morning at 9:30am discussing Hillary Clinton's attempts to have the Florida and Michigan delegations counted at the Democratic National Convention.

For DC residents, will be on local CBS affiliate WUSA Monday morning at 9am discussing the same.

UPDATE: appearances are subject to change with breaking news on weather, etc.

In both my recent interviews and private discussions with political insiders and "average citizens," there was a consensus view that a general election between John McCain and Barack Obama would be a respectable and mature campaign that would be good for America regardless of who won. Both have been viewed as transcendent figures who are above the divisive and shallow politics that have dominated Washington since the early 90's.

The most hopeful of such views was probably espoused in Andrew Sullivan's widely read "Goodbye to All That," Atlantic Monthly feature on Obama. Well, so much for that notion. Instead, get ready for another nasty, juvenile and mostly shallow campaign in what remains the most important* election at least since 1980.

Today, we have liberal bloggers accusing McCain of temper problems for his reaction to Obama's criticism of McCain voting against a bill on veterans benefits. And that comes after weeks of ugly displays from both candidates and their campaigns.

Obama's prior shallow moves: Accusing McCain of wanting to be in Iraq for 100 years and of being the heir to a third Bush term. When Sidney Blumenthal calls it a low blow, that's harsh.

McCain's prior shallow moves: Accusing Obama of being endorsed by Hamas and diminishing the threat posed by Iran. If McCain truly is a foreign policy expert, he should know better.

Is this the "hopeful" and "honorable" campaign we have to look forward to?

* Most important without hindsight, of course. After all, the 2000 election was widely considered inconsequential and we see how accurate that assessment was.

The Clinton and Obama mouthpieces both tell Talking Points Memo that CNN's report about formal talks over Hillary Clinton as a potential vice presidential nominee are "100% false." 

A web video from Al Jazeera is making the rounds on the liberal blogosphere this morning, most prominently over at Daily Kos. The report comes from Kentucky and features a number of candid interviews with white voters who acknowledge race was the determining factor in their vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. It's a sad and somewhat shocking display, and I'm not just talking about the shot of people auctioning off a can of Manwich:







Kos also links to the Too Sense blog, who provides a little more background on the racial tensions, which appear to deviate somewhat from the common understanding of racism/racial tensions:

After emancipation, coal mining companies sought an advantage over unions by hiring former slaves as scabs since, the unions were racist, wouldn't allow blacks as members. The companies didn't have to fulfill many obligations to this new, unorganized labor force, and a lot of white miners lost their jobs. So it actually makes sense that people would see race relations as a question of pure exploitation; with one side dominating the other. That's the history of the region. 

John McCain faces an electoral trade-off as the presumptive Republican nominee for president. His preferred stance on immigration, "comprehensive reform," is one that is popular with a majority of Americans but loathed by large swaths of the self-appointed conservative movement. During his party's primaries, McCain made a respectable compromise in promising to secure the nation's borders before pursuing a path to legalization for the millions of undocumented workers and illegal immigrants already in the country. It's a fine example of the kind of compromise McCain touts on a regular basis. And like any good compromise, it has those with purist/extreme views on immigration very upset.

Right Wing News' John Hawkins is topping the conservative blogosphere's discussion this morning with his post entitled, "Why I Will No Longer Support John McCain For President." Hawkins has withdrawn his already tepid endorsement of McCain, saying the Arizona senator has flip-flopped on his earlier immigration policy reversal. It's a quintessential blog post: well-written, a little over-the-top and loose with the facts. Case in point:

Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity

Even McCain's fiercest critics on the left, who also occasionally play loose with the facts, i.e. "100 years in Iraq," rarely employ such dramatic language. But the truth is, McCain has not changed his position. Ed Morrissey, who is every bit as much a legitimate conservative as Hawkins, says it best:

McCain never pledged to give up comprehensive immigration reform. He pledged to secure the borders first, but even in the extensive quotes that John has in his post, he never promised to stop seeking a comprehensive solution for illegal immigration afterwards. Even in this sequence, he talks about border security first. I don't see this as "breaking his security pledge", as John puts it.

So, back to that electoral trade-off. Is McCain best served by appeasing die hards like Hawkins and Michelle Malkin? They're support has been weak already and there's little evidence their influence as blog writers equates to movement at the ballot box. After all, both were big fans of Duncan Hunter's presidential run. Nonetheless, McCain is dealing with some tricky math. At what point does he maximize his potential support from the far right and begin jeopardizing some of that support to appeal to a larger section of the centrist voting public?

She was for excluding Michigan and Florida before she was against it. That's the hard truth about Hillary Clinton's latest push to convince the DNC to count the two state's delegates (and popular vote totals) during their May 31st bylaws meeting. In a fundraising email sent to Clinton supporters this afternoon, she writes:

Yesterday, I spoke to voters in Florida, and they are all too familiar with the consequences of not counting every vote.

On May 31, we'll hear the decision from the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee on whether they'll seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida. And while we wait to hear their ruling, you and I must keep fighting together to win every last vote in the final three races.

But as The New Republic's Jonathan Chait blogs today:

It's worth repeating: They supported this "disenfranchisement." Here's a New York Times story from last fall, headlined, "Clinton, Obama and Edwards Join Pledge to Avoid Defiant States."

Oliver Stone's biopic of President Bush, "W," continues walk an odd line between serious film and parody. Last month, it was announced on the Chud.com film blog that former Daily Show correspondent Rod Corddry could portray former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. And today comes word from the Aint It Cool News blog that Richard Dreyfuss has been cast as Dick Cheney. 

If our CQ Politics video didn't satisfy your appetite for libertarian politics, here's my writeup of the debate, with a few more details, including:

Gravel's appearance seemed especially out of place, with at least one observer describing him as a "socialist." Gravel's most recent attention-grabbing stunt was appearing in a dance video with the self-described Obama Girl, who has filmed several web videos supporting the Democratic frontrunner.

"She's very  . . .  dynamic," Gravel said with a wry grin. With his wife standing just a few feet behind him, he continued, "I may be old, but I'm not too old to appreciate that."

Yesterday I attended a Libertarian Party presidential debate featuring Bob Barr, Mike Gravel and Wayne Allyn Root. Here is a video highlight segment from the debate, produced with CQ Politics' Andrew Satter:

Blog news aggregator Memeorandum's two leading stories this morning are Joe Lieberman's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal going after Democrats and Barack Obama on foreign policy, and Sam Stein's piece in the Huffington Post on how Chuck Hagel has been praising Obama while criticizing fellow Republican John McCain.

Neither Lieberman or Hagel have been shy about crossing party lines or attacking their own. Lieberman has special reason to go after Obama, the Dem frontrunner endorsed Ned Lamont, Lieberman's challenger in the 2006 Connecticut primary.

Blog P.I. looks at the two pieces and sees a disparity between conservative and liberal bloggers' focus:

I see conservative bloggers supporting the Lieberman op-ed, and liberal bloggers criticizing it. Meanwhile, there are plenty of liberal bloggers supporting the article about Hagel, but no right-leaning bloggers weighing in on the same.

That does seem about right to me. The left's approach to things they don't like about the other side is to engage - usually with anger, counter-research, and occasionally reporting. The right's approach is to ignore things about its own party or movement they don't find appealing, i.e. Hagel. They tend to reserve their passion for things they dislike that explicitly emerge from the political left.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had very different interpretations of what last night's results in Kentucky and Oregon mean. Both sent emails last night to their respective supporters declaring various levels of "victory."

From the Clinton email, entitled, "Every time we win,":

We showed America that the voters know what the "experts" will never understand -- that in our great democracy, elections are about more than candidates running, pundits commenting, or ads blaring.

They're about every one of us having his or her say about the path we choose as a nation. The people of Kentucky have declared that this race isn't over yet, and I'm listening to them -- and to you.

And from Obama's "What we just achieved," :

The polls are closed in Kentucky and votes are being counted in Oregon, and it's clear that tonight we have reached a major milestone on this journey.

We have won an absolute majority of all the delegates chosen by the people in this Democratic primary process.

Last night's split decision in Kentucky and Oregon pushed Barack Obama into the majority of pledged delegates but also shaved his popular vote lead over Hillary Clinton down by 150,000 votes. Here's a sampling of how conservative and liberal bloggers are responding this morning to last night's results.

Outside the Beltway's James Joyner:

Clinton is losing but by a very small margin. Obama has to play nice for fear that she'll be halfhearted in backing him in the Fall.

Talk Left's Big Tent Democrat says it is wrong to declare Obama having won a majority of pledged delegates without counting Florida and Michigan:

He has handed Hillary Clinton the most appealing battle cry a politician could possibly have - count the votes. Donna Brazile and Keith Olbermann and the other Obama surrogates can scream about the RULZ. Hillary Clinton can fight for the votes!

Hot Air's Allahpundit looks at the exit polls and finds this:

Interesting tidbit: Of the 42% of Democrats who say Obama shouldn't pick Hillary as VP, fully half of them voted today for Hillary. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

While Obama supporter Andrew Sullivan says the Oregon exit polls show Obama's broad appeal:

Almost a mirror image of Kentucky tonight: currently a 60 - 40 Obama win. Obama won those earning less than $50,000 by 52 percent to 46 percent. He wins independents 65 - 32.

Conservative and liberal bloggers are sparring over McCain and Obama's recent comments about Iran. Obama sparked the ire of McCain and Republicans in general by saying of Iran:

"Iran, Cuba, Venezuela -- these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, 'We're going to wipe you off the planet.'"

McCain responded by saying that Obama's comments show a lack of foreign policy knowledge and experience needed in a president. Michelle Malkin called Obama the "epitome of a 9/10 Democrat," declaring:

Barack Obama complains that no one wants to talk about the 'issues.' Well, his abject ignorance of warfare in the 21st century is an issue that can't be emphasized enough. And the right side of the blogosphere has been all over it.

So, who's right here? Obama is certainly guilty of downplaying the Iranian threat and has even taken some mild criticism from liberal bloggers. But he's also factually accurate in what should be a fairly obvious statement that the Soviet Union was a vastly larger threat to the United States than Iran, as TPM's Josh Marshall explained:

This point is implicit in much of the current paranoid saber-rattling over the Middle East. But does John McCain really think that the threat posed by Iran is equal to that the United States faced from the Soviet Union -- the world's greatest land military power, with a massive strategic nuclear capacity that carried on a multi-decade ideological struggle with the US? 

If all goes as planned, and Hillary Clinton wins by a substantial margin in Kentucky, while Barack Obama wins Oregon by a smaller margin, will anything have changed? Not much, according to most bloggers. There's a good chance Obama will have claimed a majority of pledged delegates, but liberals bloggers have focused themselves on taking down Clinton's popular vote theories, and downplaying expectations for tonight's results.

Talk Left's Jeralyn asks:

June 3 isn't here yet. Hillary has promised to stay in the race until then. Realistically, after tonight, the only big win she may get is Puerto Rico. Here's a question for her supporters: Do you think Hillary should stay in the race after June 3?

In large part, the netroots have turned their attention to John McCain and his continued perceived missteps about Iran, Iraq and other foreign policy issues.

As an Oregon native, I've been more than a little cynical about the endless parade of stories this week about Obama's 75,000 person rally on the Portland waterfront this past weekend. 75,000 is a lot of people, sure. And it's more than any other candidate will get in any other city this cycle. But let's put this in a bit of context. Portlanders love to come out for rallies like this.

For example: 50,000 people showed up at the same spot in 2004 for John Kerry. In other words, the charismatic and highly regarded Obama drew 50% more spectators than the lukewarm Kerry.  Even Ralph Nader, yes, Ralph Nader, drew 10,000 people to a Portland rally in 2000 at the Memorial Coliseum.

A week ago, the buzz was that Mike Huckabee sat atop the list of potential vice presidential running mates for John McCain. Seven days later that seems a distant memory, after Huckabee's joke at the NRA's annual meeting about Obama having a gun pointed at him. Despite his strong showing with evangelical voters in the Republican primary, Huckabee has never been a favorite amongst conservative bloggers. And many of those same bloggers see the NRA joke as taking Huckabee out of the VP race:

AmSpec's James Antle:

I don't think there was any malice on Huckabee's part when he made his Obama gaffe. But I do think it shows spectactularly poor judgment and the potential for some Quayle-ian moments should he get the vice presidential nod.

NRO's Jim Geraghty:

A momentary lapse of the tongue shouldn't be enough to keep someone off the ticket, but it probably will be enough. A McCain selection of Huckabee in a race against Obama would get this joke played and replayed about as often as "macaca."

Hot Air's Allahpundit:

The left will use it as a Larger Truth about the NRA; the media will use it to find some racial subtext that isn't actually there; and righteous conservative bloggers will use it to gently suggest that perhaps Huck isn't VP material.

Liberal bloggers are striking out against John McCain on two fronts today, pointing out contradictions in his own words and attacking the Republican establishment voices that are promoting his candidacy. In today's New York Times Bill Kristol writes of McCain's "exceptionalism," i.e. his potential to succeed despite the Republican dirge taking place nationally. Close followers of Kristol and his Weekly Standard magazine may note the dual meaning of "exceptionalism" here. Along with having the potential to be an electorally viable candidate this fall, McCain has long been a symbolic supporter of neo-conservative "American greatness," i.e. "exceptionalism," that Kristol and his magazine have long promoted.

The second line of attack comes from Glen Greenwald, who has unveiled the "Real McCain 2," a video montage of apparent policy contradictions from McCain that Greenwald says the "corporate media" refuses to report on. MyDD's Todd Beeton agrees:

Doesn't it sometimes seem as though John McCain is his own worst enemy? I mean, the guy says stuff and you gotta think, does he realize a camera's on? Does he realize he'll be held accountable for saying that? Unfortunately, however, many in the media (aka, McCain's base) don't feel terribly compelled to question McCain's inconsistencies and hypocrisies -- doing their job is hard!

One problem with that assertion: he uses NBC DC Bureau Chief Tim Russert calling out McCain on a contradiction as one of his strongest points of evidence in the video. But you can judge the rest of the video's value here:

Barack Obama's assertion that Republicans should "lay off my wife," is drawing a united response from righty bloggers and the larger conservative movement mouthpieces, like Rush Limbaugh. Obama is upset because the Tennessee GOP has released an internet video showing clips of Michelle Obama saying she is "for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," before the Wisconsin Democratic primary earlier this year.



This isn't the first controversial move from the TN GOP, who earlier released a picture of Obama that they claimed showed the senator in "Muslim garb," which John McCain and the RNC both objected to.

So, is Obama right that Republicans are unfairly targeting his wife? At least in this instance, the answer is "no." Obama has frequently used his wife as a campaign surrogate, and the comments included in the TN GOP video come from a campaign event. It's not uncommon to try having it both ways in politics, as Obama is doing here. But conservative bloggers are correct in claiming Michelle Obama's comments here are fair game. As Hot Air's Ed Morrissey put it:

If Obama doesn't want his wife to receive criticism, then he shouldn't use her as a surrogate on the campaign trail. Whatever she says on the stump at campaign events is fair game for criticism, just as it has been with Bill Clinton.

Liberal bloggers have been very aggressive promotion this op-ed, and the accompanying video, from former Clinton administration spokesman James P. Rubin. In his op-ed, Rubin claims John McCain previously endorsed holding negotiations with Hamas. If true, that would make McCain look hypocritical, after his campaign has recently attacked Barack Obama for what they say is his willingness to do the same.  

However, watching the actual video and reading the transcript reveals that McCain made no such promise to negotiation with Hamas. The key quote, "sooner or later we're going to have to deal with them," is more accurately interpreted as a potential military threat to the organization if they do not comport to the traditional standards of a governing entity:

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

The McCain campaign has fired back with a CNN clip from the same day where McCain more clearly outlines the preconditions for engaging with a Hamas-lead government.



McCain's surrogates certainly are justified in crying foul over the characterization of their candidate's views. But they should also be mindful that they have essentially done the same thing to Obama with the focus on him being "endorsed" by the terrorist organization. Negotiations and the question of appeasement have been hot topics in the news lately, and with good reason. Another popular clip making the rounds on the blogosphere this morning is of MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews eviscerating right-wing radio host Kevin James, who fails to understand the historical differences between negotiating with hostile regimes and "appeasing" them.

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.

*Sorry for the lack of posting so far today. The site's database has been down all day, but seems to be back to working...

A rush of stories headlining the blog conversation today, all hitting the central theme that House Republicans are in dire straits heading into November. Karl Rove says the Republicans must "stand for something," while the Politico grimly projects potential 20 seat losses for the Republicans. Their party also has 23 senators up for re-election compared to 12 for the Democrats.

The large Republican losses in 2006 have largely been attributed to a combination of President Bush's unpopularity, the war in Iraq and various scandal stories. However, many Republicans, including John McCain, have said his party faired poorly largely because they abandoned fiscally conservative principles. Hot Air's Ed Morrissey somewhat echoes that position, after a string of Democratic special election victories in previously Republican-held districts:

The lack of motivation comes from a disgust with a Republican Party that still hasn't learned why it lost the majority in 2006. They lost those mid-term elections not because voters stopped supporting conservative principles, but because the House GOP stopped supporting conservative principles. Look at who won these special elections; they're all Blue Dog Democrats, running in support of conservative themes such as gun rights. Now look at the Republicans who last held those seats, such as Hastert and Wicker -- Republicans who spent other people's money on waste and personal ambition.

Progressive bloggers say the results really show that running against Barack Obama doesn't work and that the "politics of fear" has lost its impact as an effective campaign strategy.

Those reports come on the same day as an AFP story on vulnerable Republicans looking to McCain for support on the campaign trail this year. The story includes both House Republican leader John Boehner and deputy whip Eric Cantor stressing McCain's appeal to both independents and conservatives.  The Politico, which authored the report on potential double-digit losses, the same day runs a piece on the "six ways the GOP can save itself."

The Weekly Standard's Gary Anders is more skeptical:

One way to highlight a Republican message and get people to pay attention is to give Democrats a chance to enact their agenda, and then run against it. That might take some time. In the meantime, hard work and patience are probably the best elixirs.

Earlier I posted on how liberal bloggers have not deviated from their long held position that Barack Obama has effectively won the nomination. Many of those same bloggers are conducting a sobering conversation on how Obama overcomes his apparent electoral weaknesses in the face of Hillary Clinton's continued success in states like West Virginia, even if most analysts don't think the wins really "count."

The "how does Obama win the white vote?" may be the most pressing and practical, but at least of equal value in terms of intellectual curiosity is, "Why hasn't Clinton conceded yet?" The theories range from the benign assumption that she simply wants to ride it out, to conspiratorial notions that she wants to destroy the Democratic Party.

CQ Politics' own David Corn and the Huffington Post's Thomas Edsall both look at the possibility that Clinton is staying in the race to best set herself up for a 2012 run should Obama lose to John McCain.

The thing I've been wondering is, are there really Clinton supporters who, thinking rationally, would support a scenario in which she loses the popular vote and the pledged delegate count, but "wins" the nomination by capturing a necessary amount of superdelegates?

Taylor Marsh argues for just such a scenario:

It's time for superdelegates to think long and hard about who can win in November. Clinton keeps winning states Democrats need against John McCain. Obama's way to victory in November depends on reinventing the electoral map. It's risky at best.

Jerome Armstrong, a Clinton supporter, doesn't quite call on superdelegates to overturn the election, but does seem to make a VP argument by highlighting Obama's "serious problem" with voters:

Obama may not even break 30 percent, despite being practically anointed with the nomination?!?! Look, this is a partisan blog. Nearly everyone will come around to supporting the nominee here, but if Obama doesn't recognize the serious problem this presents in the world offline, and his supporters as well, I am speechless (which may not be a bad thing considering).

While much of the media declared Barack Obama the presumptive Democratic nominee after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, progressive bloggers have been declaring the death of Hillary Clinton's campaign for two months. As Liberal Values' Ron Chusid says today:

Clinton's only remaining strategy is to keep trying to move the goal posts, but the referees from the DNC and the superdelegates are not buying it.

Nonetheless, her blowout win last night in West Virginia has much of the media once again discussing far-fetched scenarios in which Clinton takes the nomination. However, bloggers remain convinced the race is over, but are looking forward to how Obama can close what they see as his very real problems with white, "working class," voters. After all, one thing that seems lost in the post-primary analysis is that not only did Clinton hold her projected 30-point victory, she actually built on it. That's both out of character based on past primary victories and especially troubling for Obama supporters that it comes a week after their candidate was all-but-anointed the nominee.

Looking at how Obama has faired with white voters in past primary states, Talk Left's Big Tent Democrat finds:

West Virginia is not an anomaly. Obama's white working class problem is EAST of the Mississippi. It is not just Appalachia. It MUST be addressed. Calling West Virginia names is not going to solve the problem.

Obama has already begun to address this weakness. While Clinton was giving her West Virginia victory speech, Obama was in Missouri talking to swing state voters. The Moderate Voice notices this trend and advises:

The bottom line: it is an Obama vulnerability and if the Obama team is smart they'll make wooing blue collar workers an ongoing project. It is a weaknesss the GOP has most assuredly noticed.

This lefty blog takes an admittedly "ageist" approach to John McCain's candidacy, but does offer some funny and truthful, if not compelling, examples of things that are "younger" than McCain (b. 1936):

Nylons (1938)
"The Grapes of Wrath" (1939)
The Golden Gate Bridge (1937)
The Chocolate Chip Cookie (1937)
Alaska (1959)

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.

Townhall's Matt Lewis has a video interview with Bob Barr, where the former Republican congressman discusses his run for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. Barr tells Lewis that John McCain's successful run for the nomination made it "easier" for Barr to leave the Republicans and that he doesn't mind playing the potential spoiler, ala Ralph Nader.

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.