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:
* Mitt Romney’s come up with a response to questions about being a shameless flip-flopper: I’m not alone. “Senator McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts. Now he’s for them. He was opposed to ethanol. Now he’s for it. He said he was opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. Now he’s for overturning Roe v. Wade,” Romney said, adding: “that suggests that he has learned from experience.” He did the same thing for Giuliani.
* On a related note, Rudy Giuliani, who lived with two gay men after his wife threw him out of the mayor’s mansion for a series of extramarital affairs, came out against civil unions yesterday. In February 2004, Giuliani told Bill O’Reilly, when asked if he supported gay marriage, “I’m in favor of … civil unions.”
* It looks like Sen. John Kerry won’t run unopposed next year. Republican Jeff Beatty announced last night that he is forming an exploratory committee to take Kerry on. Beatty’s previous political experience includes a House campaign last year against Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), when Beatty garnered less than 30% of the vote.
* Poking fun at the reaction to John McCain’s recent song about bombing Iran, McCain’s campaign played the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann” at a campaign stop yesterday. A McCain aide told CNN it was no coincidence that the song was played at the end of the event. “We thought it would add a little levity,” said John Weaver, a senior McCain strategist, adding, “And to show we are not going to get pushed around on things like that.”
* And I’m a little skeptical about the reliability of numbers like these, but in case readers are interested, SurveyUSA took a quick poll last night of debate watchers to see who came out on top. According to the poll, Obama was first with 31%, followed by Clinton with 24%, and Edwards at 14%. (There was a noticeable gender gap — among men, Obama was the big winner; among women, Clinton led the field.) The rest of the Dems were in single digits. Gravel was last with 2%.