Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) endorsed Barack Obama yesterday, offering the Illinois senator one of his highest profile Senate endorsements to date. Daschle said Obama has a “great capacity to unify our country and inspire a new generation of young Americans, just as I was inspired by the Kennedys and Martin Luther King when I was young.”
* Much to the dismay of some conservative activists, Republican front-runners John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have not signed an anti-tax-increase pledge that most of their rivals have already endorsed. The pledge has been a mainstay of GOP presidential politics for two decades, and every Republican presidential nominee since 1988 has signed it. The pledge asks the candidates to sign a statement declaring they will “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates.”
* The Republicans’ official smear sheets were published yesterday, featuring far-right talking points on the Democrats running for president — at least most of them. The Republican National Committee’s opposition research team didn’t bother to do one on Dennis Kucinich. It seems odd to think that it’s rude not to attack someone, but it seems to fit in this case.
* Variety, the entertainment magazine, quoted John Edwards this week as saying an Israeli attack on Iran was the greatest short term threat to world peace. The Edwards campaign is pushing back, insisting that the former senator was misquoted and said nothing of the sort.
* And as the YouTube wars continue among Republican presidential hopefuls, yesterday, a new video appeared featuring John McCain speaking out against an immediate repeal of Roe v. Wade during a 2000 debate.