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:
* In mid-July, Barack Obama will be making an overseas trip to Europe and the Middle East. Though, for security reasons, there’s been no announcement about visiting Iraq, one assumes it will be on the itinerary.
* There’s been plenty of speculation about what Bill Clinton will do, or not, to support the Obama campaign. The ice may be thawing: Although he has yet to pick up the phone when Barack Obama calls, a close associate said Sunday that the former President is ready to make nice this week. ‘This man doesn’t stay mad,’ said former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, although there are a few anger issues hanging around. For Clinton, it’s not all about him, definitely not, McAuliffe said on CNN’s ‘Late Edition.’ ‘Is he somewhat angry, as I am, and others, at some of the treatment Hillary Clinton received from the press? Sure. But, you know, that’s life,’ McAuliffe said.”
* Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) acknowledged on CNN yesterday that he doesn’t believe Republicans have any shot at reclaiming the Senate majority this cycle. “We are not going to be back in the majority in the Senate next year,” McConnell said. “The numbers make that impossible.”
* Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said over the weekend that he’s going to continue to withhold his endorsement in the presidential race, and added that he no longer holds his party in high regard. “I think the party has veered, and shifted, and come loose of its moorings,” Hagel said. “It’s not the party that I first voted for in 1968. I’m an Eisenhower Republican, and the party today is not an Eisenhower Republican Party. Will it come back? I don’t know. Will we have a new party? Maybe.”
* AP: “Barack Obama stopped by Walter Reed Army Medical Center Saturday to visit wounded war veterans, a group that he has said endures substandard care under the Bush administration. The presumed Democratic nominee, who was in Washington to speak to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, spent about two hours inside the facility. On his way in and out, he did not speak to the small group of reporters who follow him, and the visit wasn’t on his public schedule.”
* WSJ: “As Sen. John McCain continues to woo religious conservatives, the Republican presidential contender paid a visit [Sunday] to Rev. Billy Graham and his son Rev. Franklin Graham at their family home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Montreat, N.C.”
* Obama campaign manager David Plouffe put his PowerPoint presentation about the state of the race online for supporters late last week.
* SurveyUSA shows Obama leading McCain in Virginia by two, 49% to 47%.
* SurveyUSA shows Obama leading McCain in Ohio by two, 48% to 46%.
* While some recent polling showed Georgia looking very competitive, a new Rasmussen poll shows McCain leading Obama in Georgia by 10, 53% to 43%.
* Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama in Mississippi by six, 50% to 44%.
* Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama in Texas by nine, 48% to 39%.
* Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama in Arizona by nine, 49% to 40%.
* The Obama campaign is taking the South seriously.
* McCain is, for some unknown reason, running ads in parts of Iowa hardest hit by flooding, where plenty of families are living in FEMA trailers.
* And Lanny Davis hopes Barack Obama doesn’t take all of the nasty things he said about him during the primary race “out of context.”