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
* John and Elizabeth Edwards are expected to make an important announcement about the former senator’s presidential campaign in just a couple of minutes. I don’t want to engage in baseless speculation, but all reports indicate Edwards may leave the campaign trail, at least temporarily, because of his wife’s health. I’ll have a full report soon.<\/p>\n
* The creator of the controversial YouTube clip, “Big Sister,” which incorporated Hillary Clinton into Apple’s famous 1984 ad, has been identified<\/a>. The video was made by Philip de Vellis, who worked at Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean’s Internet Team that currently manages Barack Obama’s online presence. Obama’s campaign insisted yesterday that it knew nothing of the ad, and Blue State Digital explained in a statement that de Vellis made the clip independently and without the company’s knowledge. He talked about the ordeal<\/a> yesterday at The Huffington Post.<\/p>\n * The Politico reports that Republican presidential candidates Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney are skipping<\/a> the National Urban League’s annual conference this summer, and league president Marc Morial wants them to know he’s not happy about it. “We’re sending notice, not just to the Republicans, but to all the candidates, that you’re not going to ignore us,” said Morial, the former New Orleans mayor who has led the black civil rights organization since 2003.<\/p>\n * Now that Newt Gingrich has acknowledged his well-established adultery, he now believes the personal lives of candidates should be excluded<\/a> from the campaign. How convenient. I seem to recall Gingrich having a different standard in the 1990s.<\/p>\n