| 11:49 PM: | Op-Ed Contributor: Fight Terror With YouTube. A more interactive, empowered online community, particularly in the Arab-Islamic world, may prove to be Al Qaeda's Achilles' heel. NYT. | |
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| 11:46 PM: | Condoleezza Rice. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (R) is welcomed by Thomas Schieffer, US Ambassador to Japan, upon her arrival at Osaka International Airport on June 26, 2008 to attend the G8 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Kyoto. AFP. | |
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| 11:41 PM: | Campaign Stops: The Reverend McCain. The Republican candidate's views on religion will not sit well with Christian conservatives. NYT. | |
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| 11:41 PM: | Op-Ed Columnist: Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque. Fear-mongering about Islam is a global industry. Barack Obama has a unique power to break the cycle, not least by emboldening moderate Muslims to denounce terror. NYT. | |
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| 11:21 PM: | Surveillance bill filibuster falls short in Senate. An effort to block a wide-ranging overhaul of U.S. wiretapping laws failed in the Senate on Wednesday, with opponents mustering only 15 votes against the bill in a procedural vote. CNN. | |
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| 10:47 PM: | Echoes of Bush's '04 Campaign in Sales Pitch for McCain. President Bush told a Republican crowd in Michigan that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is the only candidate "who knows what it takes to defeat our enemies." NYT. | |
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| 8:55 PM: | Judge refuses to block Florida voter law. A federal judge has refused to block a new version of a Florida voter registration law that critics say could keep thousands of people from casting ballots this year. AP. | |
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| 8:27 PM: | Laptop Searches in Airports Draw Fire at Senate Hearing. Advocacy groups and legal experts told Congress that it was unreasonable for federal officials to search the laptops of United States citizens when they re-enter the country from traveling abroad. NYT. | |
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| 8:09 PM: | Another Thursday, Another McCain Presidential Town Hall. The Arizonan so far keeps to his word that he'll leave time open every Thursday until the convention for Obama to join him for an unmoderated joint debate. This time the town hall is at noon ET in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mark Halperin. | |
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| 8:07 PM: | Many Hurdles for 2 Democrats on Path to Unity. Some loyalists, especially from Hillary Rodham Clinton's side, are having trouble moving on. NYT. | |
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| 8:07 PM: | Republicans won't run anti-voter fraud campaign this year. One report says that some Republicans have decided that their traditional efforts, seen as voter suppression by Democrats and others, might cause a backlash against them. Salon. | |
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| 7:21 PM: | McCain's man in Ohio. Rob Portman is a Bush loyalist from the key swing state, who's even served as a John Edwards stand-in. Could he end up as McCain's running mate? Salon. | |
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| 7:19 PM: | Obama Disagrees With Supreme Court Decision. Barack Obama, whose position on the death penalty has changed over the years (his staff prefers the verb 'evolved'), said that child rape qualifies as "heinous" and therefore as subject to the death penalty. NYT. | |
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| 6:32 PM: | Obama says he wants a VP who offers sound counsel. Obama said on Wednesday his top choice for running mate would be someone who would offer sound advice and "tell me where he or she thinks I'm wrong." Reuters. | |
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| 6:31 PM: | Alaska And Georgia. David Plouffe thinks Bob Barr has the potential to hand both states to Obama. Andrew Sullivan. | |
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| 6:31 PM: | General election fundraising underway for McCain, Obama. The outcome of the presidential campaign in Ohio may well be decided by the likes of retired physician Theodore Castele. USA Today. | |
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| 4:53 PM: | Campaign 08: Capital Punishment, McCain, Obama and Judges. A controversial Supreme Court ruling reminds us why who appoints judges matters. The Nation. | |
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| 4:50 PM: | As Oil Prices Rise, Car Companies Look to Electric Future. Rising oil prices and improvements in battery technology are fueling new interest in electric cars. Tonight on the NewsHour, Spencer Michels reports on how industry giants and start-up car companies alike plan to release new vehicles by 2010. NewsHour/PBS. | |
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| 4:49 PM: | Campaign 08: Charlie Black's History of Dirty Politics. McCain adviser Charlie Black's latest gaffe belies a darker history of racial politics and repping dictators. The Nation. | |
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| 4:41 PM: | Obama's Secret Digital Weapon. The presumed Democratic nominee has a secret weapon. It's a small, obscure firm called Blue State Digital, a market research-New Media hybrid that has played an instrumental role in fostering Obamamania. BusinessWeek. | |
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| 4:41 PM: | Vint Cerf Wonders If We Need To Nationalize the Internet. Should the Internet be owned and maintained by the government, just like the highways? Vint Cerf, the "father of the Internet" and Google's Internet evangelist, made this radical suggestion while he was sitting next to me on a panel yesterday. TechCrunch. | |
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| 4:39 PM: | Feingold on FISA 'Compromise': 'It's not even a fig leaf; it's a joke.' Senator Russ Feingold joined Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Tuesday to speak out about the reprehensible FISA "compromise" brokered by House Leader Steny Hoyer. Feingold has always been the most articulate and outspoken voice on Constitutional liberties, and he sure didn't hold back. Crooks and Liars. | |
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| 4:22 PM: | Netroots feel jilted by Obama's FISA stand. Disappointed over Obama's position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, online activists have begun to question his progressive credentials. Politico. | |
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| 4:21 PM: | Is Ralph Nader losing it? His remarks about Obama' "talking white" were appalling. But he's right that progressives need to keep the pressure on the Democratic nominee. Salon. | |
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| 3:22 PM: | Cindy McCain praises Diana as 'inspiration' The woman who wants to be the next Republican First Lady pledged today to expand her humanitarian work if she makes it into the White House, taking inspiration from the late Diana, Princess of Wales Times Online. | |
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| 3:19 PM: | Obama Manager: Many Paths to 270. "We have a lot of different combinations to get to 270. And our strategic imperative is, as deep into October as possible, to keep those scenarios alive," said Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe. ABC. | |
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| 3:12 PM: | Meet the make-believe strategists of TV. "The first time they called me a strategist," Fleming Kleeb recalls, "I literally laughed on TV." Politico. | |
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| 2:52 PM: | Obama says Dobson 'making stuff up' Sen. Barack Obama said evangelical leader James Dobson was "making stuff up," when he accused the Illinois senator of distorting the Bible and taking a "fruitcake interpretation" of the U.S. Constitution. CNN. | |
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| 2:24 PM: | Media Hated Hillary's Flack. Hillary Clinton's flack was the oft-sweatered Howard Wolfson, who, it turns out now, was universally reviled. Gawker. | |
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| 2:16 PM: | Obama: Going North to Alaska! The Obama campaign said that Obama would be coming to campaign in Alaska sometime before November, a move that would dramatically underscore his western-leaning red-state strategy for the general election. Huffington Post. | |
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| 2:12 PM: | Serenity Lost: Obama And The Netroots. Only weeks into the general election campaign and already a notable tension is beginning to materialize within the Democratic Party. Huffington Post. | |
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| 2:11 PM: | Bayh: I'd say yes to VP. It was once the entrenched practice of any politician with a remote chance of being asked to serve as a party's vice presidential nominee: Never admit you'd say yes to the job. But in the last two weeks, two Senate Democrats have flatly confessed they'd take it if it was offered. CNN. | |
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| 2:10 PM: | Obama says Nader is just looking for attention. At a news conference now under way in Chicago, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was just asked about independent contender Ralph Nader's charge that he is trying to "talk white" to appeal to voters. USA Today. | |
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| 2:04 PM: | McCain Downplays the Polls. Sen.McCain downplayed the significance of current polls, especially those that show him trailing. MSNBC. | |
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| 2:02 PM: | Obama Sets Sights On 14 Bush States. Barack Obama will focus his resources largely in 14 states George W. Bush won in 2004, his chief field operative said Tuesday, hoping to score upsets in places like Virginia, Indiana, and Georgia, the Politico reports. CBS. | |
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| 1:48 PM: | Plouffe Gives Hints on Veep Selection. Obama's campaign manager says in press briefing at DNC's headquarters Wednesday that he doesn't think the Veep candidate's ability to carry a state will be "a factor in the selection." Mark Halperin. | |
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| 1:27 PM: | Chrysler will offer wireless Internet access in 2009 models. Have you ever thought rush hour on the 405 Freeway might be more bearable if you could check your e-mail, shop for a book on Amazon, place some bids on EBay and maybe even, if nobody is looking, download a little porn? LA Times. | |
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| 1:26 PM: | McCain has missed most votes of any senator. Campaigning has kept John McCain from his day job so often that the second most absent senator is Tim Johnson, who was away for months after a brain hemorrhage. Salon. | |
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| 1:26 PM: | Charlie Black's Position Is Secure, For Now. Democrats hope to pressure McCain strategist Charlie Black to resign, but so far, McCain is having none of it, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Marc Ambinder. | |
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| 1:25 PM: | Unleash McCain. Beating Obama should be priority number one for the GOP. Obama's dangerous mix of radical socialist views masked by deceptive charisma threaten to move this country further to the left than FDR did with the New Deal or Lyndon Johnson with the Great Society. Redstate. | |
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| 1:23 PM: | Plouffe: Barr Could Help Obama Win the White House. Obama's campaign manager says at a press briefing that the Libertarian candidate could play a particularly large spoiling role for McCain in Alaska and Georgia, which may tip the scales in favor of Obama. Mark Halperin. | |
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| 1:13 PM: | Bob Barr. US Libertarian presidential hopeful Bob Barr speaks about recent Supreme Court decisions at the National Press Club in Washington on June 25, 2008. AFP. | |
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| 12:59 PM: | POLL: SurveyUSA Missouri. SurveyUSA Missouri McCain 50, Obama 43 Pollster.com. | |
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| 12:59 PM: | Voters Split Over Iraq War. A strong majority of Americans oppose the Iraq War and believe it was wrong in the first place, but more find John McCain better suited to handle Iraq than Barack Obama. CBS. | |
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| 12:57 PM: | Why the new wiretapping law is a lot worse than you think. Sometime today, the Senate is likely to approve the most comprehensive overhaul of American surveillance law since the Watergate era. Unless you're a government lawyer, a legal scholar, a masochist, or an insomniac, chances are you haven't read the 114-page bill. Don't beat yourself up: Neither have most of the 293 House members who voted for it last week. Ditto the mainstream press, who seem to have relied chiefly on summaries provided by the same lawmakers who hadn't read it. Slate. | |
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| 12:55 PM: | Nader Defends Remarks About Obama. Ralph Nader defended comments in which he suggested that Barack Obama has not devoted enough time to poverty in inner cities and rural areas and "wants to talk white." NYT. | |
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| 11:05 AM: | POS: Newsweek, LATimes Polls. You may have heard that a number of recent polls show Obama with significant leads over John McCain. Public Opinion Strategies says don't believe the hype -- and Gallup has us tied. John McCain. | |
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| 10:57 AM: | The Story So Far. Essential reading: The Washington Post's Dan Balz brilliantly describes the politics-as-usual, cable culture, and school-yard taunts that have to date defined McCain-Obama. Mark Halperin. | |
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| 10:55 AM: | 80 Percent Think McCain Can Command Military; 55 Percent Think Obama Can. John McCain beat Barack Obama by a margin of 25 percentage points when Gallup asked Americans whether each candidate could handle the responsibilities of commander in chief of the U.S. military. The Hill. | |
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| 10:54 AM: | Poll: Age Could Trump Race Among Voters. The discussion about the role of race in the presidential campaign continues to grow. But a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that the age of presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain may be more of an issue for voters than the race of Democratic candidate Senator Barack Obama. NPR. | |
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| 10:54 AM: | How Obama Could Take Rural Voters. The prevailing wisdom in political circles is that you can't win the presidency without winning over rural voters in southern states. Democratic strategist David "Mudcat" Saunders explains how Democratic candidate Barack Obama might do this, despite the odds against him. NPR. | |
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| 10:54 AM: | One Senator Says 'Enough' A senior Democratic statesman took to the Senate floor yesterday and delivered a jeremiad against President Bush and his lawlessness the likes of which I'm not sure we've ever heard there before. Washington Post. | |
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| 10:53 AM: | McCain camp pushes back against low polling numbers. In a memo, pollsters for John McCain's campaign don't bother to argue that he's leading; they just say he's not trailing as badly as one recent survey said. Salon. | |
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| 10:53 AM: | Clinton says her husband determined to help Obama. Hillary Clinton brushed off suggestions on Wednesday that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, does not seem to share her enthusiasm for campaigning for Democratic White House candidate Barack Obama. Reuters. | |
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| 10:53 AM: | 6/25: Dueling Narratives. The netroots have never been ones to embrace conventional Beltway wisdom, and that pattern certainly didn't change this week. Natl Journal. | |
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| 10:46 AM: | POLL: PPP Michigan. Public Policy Polling (D) Michigan Obama 48, McCain 39 Sen: Levin (D-i) 54, Hoogendyk (R) 32 Pollster.com. | |
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| 10:20 AM: | Gallup Daily: Obama, McCain Tied at 45% Barack Obama and John McCain, who have been closely matched in Gallup Poll Daily tracking for the last week, are now even at 45% each. Gallup. | |
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| 9:46 AM: | POLL: Rasmussen California. Rasmussen Reports California Obama 58, McCain 30 Pollster.com. | |
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| 9:44 AM: | High court rules against execution of child rapists. The Supreme Court declared by a 5-4 vote Wednesday that the crime of child rape does not warrant the death penalty. USA Today. | |
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| 9:43 AM: | Are the Republicans and Democrats ready for conventions? Both convention committees have absolute deadlines of putting on huge political events in two months time. The executives in charge talk about how the planning and fundraising is going. MPR. | |
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| 9:42 AM: | DNC sues FEC over McCain. The Democrats fired their latest salvo in a fight over John McCain's campaign spending on Tuesday. Salon. | |
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| 9:39 AM: | Obama: I Need the Clintons. Despite any bad blood that may exist between Barack Obama and the Clintons, Obama says the two camps will have to put it behind them in order for him to win in November. "I am going to need them," Obama said in an interview on CNN Wednesday, The Hill. | |
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| 9:38 AM: | Nancy Pelosi And FISA. With high-profile defections in the Senate (Sen. Reid and Sen. Dodd), the FISA compromise looks like less of a sure thing than it did when it comfortably passed the House last week. Marc Ambinder. | |
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| 9:37 AM: | Clinton not asking for her money back. In a letter to supporters, Hillary Clinton sought help paying some of her campaign's debts, but made it clear that the money she's owed is not included in that request. Salon. | |
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| 9:36 AM: | Campaign 08: Big Oil Fuels McCain. Brave New Films McCain has received millions in donations from the same companies that helped the Bush administration create an energy plan that raised gasoline to $4 a gallon. The Nation. | |
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| 9:34 AM: | Heavies. Barack Obama will host an Economic Competitiveness Summit at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh tomorrow. Natl Journal. | |
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| 9:32 AM: | MTV will now run campaign ads. The obvious lead on this news, as others have already written, is that candidates no longer have to moan "I want my MTV." Now, they can have it. USA Today. | |
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| 6:51 AM: | Joseph A. Palermo: Jon Stewart Skewers Obama on Public Financing. When Jon Stewart seeks "balance" for his targets of satire he can end up reinforcing the false impressions that the Bush Republicans want people to have. HuffPo. | |
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| 6:50 AM: | Senator Dodd Speaks in Opposition to FISA Bill on Floor of U.S. Senate. Mr. President: I rise—once again—to voice my strong opposition to the misguided FISA legislation before us today. Christopher J. Dodd. | |
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| 6:16 AM: | Poll: Obama Widens Lead, Wins Clinton Supporters. He'll Help with Her Debt. As a new poll shows Obama widening his lead over McCain, it's unity week for Obama and Hillary Clinton who plan a joint appearance for New Hampshire and meet with campaign donors to coordinate fundraising. A key effort to help pay off Clinton's campaign debt has already started. Firedoglake. | |
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| 6:13 AM: | Does Sen. Clinton want Obama to win? One-third say no in new poll. A new poll signals that "likely" voters divide into three camps when they're asked whether Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton really does want her former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, to win the White House in November. USA Today. | |
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| 6:11 AM: | The End Of An Era: Mike Berman Won't Run The Convention Podium For Democrats. Since 1976, one Democrat has been a ubiquitous and calming presence for every politician and activist who ever spoke at the national convention. Marc Ambinder. | |
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| 6:11 AM: | The End Of An Era: Mike Berman Won't Run The Convention Podium For Democrats. Since 1976, one Democrat has been a ubiquitous and calming presence for every politician and activist who ever spoke at the national convention. Marc Ambinder. | |
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| 6:08 AM: | The Early Word: Countdown to Unity. Signs of renewed harmony between Barack Obama and Hillary and Bill Clinton abound -- at least in public -- this week. NYT. | |
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| 6:08 AM: | McCain Adviser May Have Struck A Nerve. The Obama campaign criticized a McCain aide for saying a terrorist attack before November would help McCain. But the Washington Post reports that behind the protests lay a question that has dogged Democrats since 9/11: Was he speaking the truth? CBS. | |
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| 4:56 AM: | Obama asks contributors to help Clinton with debt. Sen. Barack Obama has asked top contributors to help his former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, retire her debt, an Obama campaign source said Tuesday. CNN. | |
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| 4:52 AM: | McCaskill emerging as key Obama supporter. Claire McCaskill, senator from Missouri, is hardly a household name outside her home state. But Barack Obama knows who she is. She was there when Obama needed her most, a female senator endorsing him just after he lost New Hampshire's Democratic primary to Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was a politically risky move at the time, one that angered many of her own supporters. It came when Obama's clinching the nomination was far from certain. AP. | |
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| 4:51 AM: | Analysis: Chiding aide, McCain forgets own remark. John McCain wasted no time disavowing comments by an aide who suggested a terrorist attack on U.S. soil would boost his presidential campaign. McCain may have wanted to take a moment to consult the history books before he spoke. AP. | |
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| 4:49 AM: | Voters split over McCain, Obama on Iraq. The public's stance on the war is as equivocal as McCain's is not: A strong majority of Americans oppose it and believe it was wrong in the first place, but more find McCain better suited to handle Iraq than his Democratic presidential rival, Barack Obama. AP. | |
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| 4:48 AM: | McCain says it would take 'WWIII' to bring draft back. During a "telephone townhall meeting" last evening, the Associated Press reports, Republican presidential contender John McCain was asked by a mother of two sons if he believes the nation will one day re-institute the military draft. USA Today. | |
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