Clinton-Obama Tussle

Bob Barr’s former GOP colleagues have been beseeching the Libertarian Party presidential nominee not to run against John McCain. “Please don’t do it,” Barr happily recounts being told. They fear he could do to McCain what Nader did to Gore in states such as Georgia, Alaska, and Colorado, the New York Times reports. But those prospects are anything but certain. More »

In this election, at least one group is unafraid to play the race card: comedians. Entertainers may be the only ones who can talk candidly about the subject, the San Jose Mercury News reports. And boy, are they. “I'm voting for Barack Obama," said one comedian. "I did it because he's black. Not because he's intelligent, or well spoken or represents hope. Nope. You had me at Negro.” More »

Anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist visited the LA Times Washington bureau today and left behind more than a few raised eyebrows, if not dropped jaws. In evaluating Barack Obama's economic policies, the head of Americans for Tax Reform referred to the senator as "John Kerry with a tan." Don Frederick blogs: "Since Norquist isn't running for anything, he can get away with such remarks; we doubt McCain will be incorporating the line into his speeches anytime soon." More »

Recent Supreme Court decisions that broke 5-4 underlined the impact the next president could have on top US judicial body, the Boston Globe notes. The liberal bloc—including John Paul Stevens (age 88) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (75)—is more likely to lose members during the next administration, so a President McCain could greatly change the Court's bent by replacing them with conservative Justices. More »

Barack Obama’s plan to cut the Democrats' evangelical deficit (68%-30% in 2000, 78-21% in '04)? Convince the religious right he’s not the devil. That’s a “radically different” course from the one taken by John Kerry and Al Gore, what Jeff Greenfield, on Slate, calls a “reassurance strategy”—“in effect, ‘OK, don’t vote for me; but you have nothing to fear from me.’” More »

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama finally took a stage in support of the same candidate today—with Clinton asserting that it was time for the “36 million Americans who supported us” to stand in solidarity behind Obama, the Washington Post reports. "We are not going to rest until we take back our country," declared Clinton, adding, in a dig to the GOP reign, "think of the progress we have not made!” More »

Score this week for John McCain, writes Mark Halperin in Time . "McCain's week wasn't particularly good, but Obama's was dreadful by comparison." Here’s how it adds up: Image: McCain’s goal is to make Obama look “like an ordinary politician.” Barack helped with one of his “most off-message weeks,” says Halperin, citing campaign finance, NAFTA, and a flap over head scarves. Advantage: McCain. Iraq: The war has always been Obama's ace in the hole, but “favorable reporting” on surge success from major papers “may neutralize the issue.” Advantage: McCain. More »

On the eve of today’s Democratic Unity rally, top Clinton donors intimated that they weren't quite ready to break out their party hats (or pocketbooks) for Obama. Said one of the 200 top Hillary backers corralled by the senators last night in DC, “This felt like when your mom forces you to go visit your Aunt Ida and she has to pinch your cheeks and…you can't wait to leave.” More »

Whether it's John McCain or Barack Obama, the next president will confront a global economic landscape unlike anything his predecessor confronted, write Robert Hormats and Jim O'Neill. In an op-ed for the Financial Times , the two Goldman Sachs executives explain that the new president's greatest challenge will be the rise of emerging economies, whose share of world GDP has doubled since George W. Bush took office. More »

John McCain is getting lost in the giant media shadow thrown by Barack Obama, but there's plenty of time to fix things, writes Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal . For every two Obamania stories, there's one "deadly" boring report declaring: "McCain Unveils Proposal.” Now would be a good time for McCain to get interesting again, Noonan says. To the McCain who in 2000 spoke with unblinking candor, she pleads: Please step up. More »

When the Supreme Court struck down Washington, DC's ban on handguns yesterday, Barack Obama gave the opinion a muted welcome, endorsing both the right to bear arms and anti-gun laws. Obama's measured, even tortured response—after seeming to support the ban in February—is the latest in a series of calibrated positions on hot-button issues that have seen the candidate tack to the center. The New York Times analyzes Obama's new triangulations. More »

Barack Obama made a personal $4,600 donation to Hillary Clinton's campaign—a gesture to win over her supporters as the Democratic party tries to unify following the divisive campaign for the nomination. Obama told a meeting of 200 top Clinton fundraisers he's encouraging his donors to help pay off Clinton's $20 million campaign debt. "I'm going to need Hillary by my side campaigning during his election, and I'm going to need you," Obama said. More »

No doubt the endorsements of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and her uncle were a major boon for Barack Obama, but Michelle Cottle writes in the New Republic that the union may have been “an even shrewder move” for Caroline. JFK's daughter, long the “anthologist of family memories,” has seen the Kennedy name fade over the years. Hitching “her clan’s wagon to the hottest political star” in a blue moon was “genius.” More »

The presidential candidates are ignoring—even insulting—American Muslims in the hope of grabbing the Jewish vote, write Salam Al-Marayati and Steven B. Jacobs in the Los Angles Times . McCain and Obama have on several occasions snubbed Muslims, who seem to be the victims of modern McCarthyism—just substitute terrorism for communism. It's a "disturbing trend" that must stop, write the co-members of an interfaith peace group. More »

Barack Obama and John McCain were firing away even before the Supreme Court's Second Amendment salvo today, Talking Points Memo notes. The Democrat backed away from a year-old comment (by an aide) that he thought Washington’s handgun ban was constitutional; the Republican smacked his opponent for flip-flopping—even using a reference to Obama's much-publicized remarks about "bitter" Americans and guns. More »

The Supreme Court today voided the “millionaire’s amendment,” ruling by 5-4 that the law—which raised donation limits for candidates who face wealthy, self-financed opponents—violates the First Amendment, the AP reports. The majority said it would have been a different story if all candidates saw their limits raised. Notably, Barack Obama (in his Senate primary) may be the biggest beneficiary of the 2002 law to date. More »

Ever wonder what Barack's bumpin' when he's not stumpin'? In a sit-down with Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner, Obama reveals the artists on his iPod, including supporters like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Jay-Z. Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" drowns out the rhetoric on the campaign trail, but Stevie Wonder gets props as the candidate's "one musical hero." More »

John McCain’s team is holding its breath for the “expected” endorsement of Barack Obama by the ever-popular Colin Powell, Robert Novak writes in a Washington Post tour of the “Obamacon” movement. Such Republicans-turned-blue are less energized by Obama's candidacy than they are in agreement with one of their number who called the GOP “a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders.” More »

Barack Obama is meeting with two of the Big Three in encounters the Wall Street Journal says “could thaw festering tension” between the Dem and America’s automakers. A year after Obama criticized the companies for fighting fuel-economy standards and rewarding “failure with lucrative bonuses for CEOs,” he met with Ford’s chief yesterday in a summit the businessman called “productive.” More »

Under the eye of one of Washington's most powerful lawyers, Barack Obama is negotiating with Hillary Clinton over a tangle of issues, from how to retire her campaign debt to what role she will play in this summer's convention. The Democratic party is slowly recovering from its bruising primary fight with the aid of Robert Barnett, who brokered book deals for Obama and both Clintons, the New York Times reports. More »