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:
* Barack Obama’s campaign offered a response to the Clinton campaign’s “commander-in-chief test” yesterday, hosting an event in Washington at which former secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force endorsed Obama and said he “has demonstrated the judgment and has the experience to be Commander In Chief.”
* Yesterday, John McCain at least started to distance himself from his indicted campaign co-chairman: McCain “told reporters that indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) ‘is no longer taking part in his presidential campaign,’ but refused to say whether the congressman had ‘officially stepped down as a campaign co-chair.'” Why on Earth would he refuse to answer that question?
* On Friday afternoon, over the span of a few hours, McCain said “it’s very likely” that America is “in a recession” and argued that he believes “the fundamentals of our economy are still strong.” It seems like an awkward argument.
* Last week probably wasn’t Obama’s best week ever (losses on Tuesday, the Samantha Power flap), but Markos makes the case that as bad weeks go, Obama’s was pretty good. Clinton had a net gain of about four in pledged delegates for the week, while Obama picked up the support of 12 superdelegates to Clinton’s four.
* On a related note, the Wall Street Journal reported on a California blogger who noticed that Clinton’s delegate wins in the Golden State were apparently exaggerated a little: “David Dayen, who blogs at the site Calitics … wrote last week that Sen. Clinton won 203 of the state’s 370 pledged delegates — and not the commonly reported total of 207. He relied on updated vote totals from the state, based on late counts of absentee and provisional ballots. Later, when he noticed that several major news organizations still were showing Sen. Clinton with 207 delegates, he wrote a follow-up post explaining his calculation and exhorting, ‘I know math is hard and everything, but get out your calculators, people.'” A spokesman for the state party confirmed Dayen’s numbers
* In an unexpected move, attorney Mike Ciresi announced yesterday that he is dropping out of Minnesota’s Senate race, clearing the way for Al Franken to take on Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) in November. “In my judgment, continuing the endorsement race would only lead to an unnecessary floor fight. It is time to step aside,” Ciresi said in a statement.
* In 2002, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor was the only Democratic Senate candidate to win a Republican seat. In 2008, the GOP would surely go after the freshman, right? Wrong — the filing deadline has passed and Pryor will have no Republican opponent this year.
* Republican recruiting efforts suffered another setback yesterday when former South Dakota Lt. Gov. Steve Kirby (R) announced he will not take on Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) this year. “Kirby, who could have self-funded his uphill bid against Johnson, had continually prolonged his decision and faced pre-emptive attacks from national Democrats. Republicans remain without a top-tier candidate in one of their top-targeted races.”
* And finally, it looks like the Obama campaign is going to try to capitalize on (read: exploit) Geraldine Ferraro’s intemperate remarks: “A senior adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign called on Hillary Clinton to ‘repudiate’ a comment by one of her top fundraisers that Barack Obama would not be a major presidential contender if he were not black. ‘I think if Sen. Clinton is serious about putting an end to statements that have racial implications,’ Susan Rice, an Obama foreign policy adviser, told MSNBC Tuesday, ‘…then she ought to repudiate this comment.'”