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
* Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) delivered a speech yesterday in which he characterized global warming as a key national issue<\/a> that he takes seriously. Shortly thereafter, the McCain announced that former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, a prominent global-warming denier, would be advising McCain<\/a> on energy issues.<\/p>\n * Former First Lady Barbara Bush defended Mitt Romney yesterday against charges that people might hesitate to vote for a Mormon president. “I mean it was in 1897 that bigamy was outlawed in that church,” she said<\/a>. “You know we have a lot of Christian wild people too, and a lot of Jewish wild people and a lot of Muslim wild people. The Mormon religion takes care of its own, they don’t have people on welfare.” She didn’t elaborate on which religious groups do have people on welfare.<\/p>\n * Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning (R) commissioned a poll last week of in-state Republicans on their preference for GOP Senate nominee next year. Bruning said his poll showed him leading<\/a> incumbent Chuck Hagel (R) by nine points, 47% to 38%. Bruning reversed course a few days ago, indicating that he’ll run for the Senate whether Hagel runs for president or not.<\/p>\n * Speaking of incumbent Republican senators in trouble, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee conducted a poll in Texas recently and found that Sen. John Cornyn’s (R) re-elect numbers are fairly weak<\/a>. The DSCC reported that Cornyn “has lower than expected name recognition for an incumbent US Senator, with 39% of the electorate unable to rate Cornyn either favorably or unfavorably.” In a hypothetical match-up against an unnamed Dem, Cornyn is below the 50% threshold, leading a generic Dem, 47% to 38%.<\/p>\n * Democracy for America is currently hosting an online vote<\/a> to determine which congressional candidate will receive the first DFA endorsement of the ’08 cycle. The three finalists for this round are Charlie Brown in California’s 4th, Darcy Burner in Washington’s 8th, and Eric Massa in New York’s 29th.<\/p>\n