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:<\/p>\n
* Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) endorsed<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n * Much to the dismay of some conservative activists, Republican front-runners John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have not signed<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n * The Republicans’ official smear sheets were published<\/a> 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<\/a>. It seems odd to think that it’s rude not<\/i> to attack someone, but it seems to fit in this case.<\/p>\n * 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<\/a>, insisting that the former senator was misquoted and said nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n