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
* The latest Clinton\/Obama spat is still going strong<\/a>, with Clinton insisting Obama was “irresponsible and frankly na\u00efve” for his debate comment on international diplomacy, and Obama insisting about Clinton, “If you want to talk about irresponsibility and naivety, look at her vote to authorize George Bush to send our troops into Iraq without an exit plan.”<\/p>\n * Fred Thompson may be having staff trouble<\/a>, but he’s nevertheless having success picking up support from top religious right leaders<\/a>. “Some of the nation’s most influential social conservatives say their movement is quickly coalescing around Fred Thompson … a decision that would bolster his expected campaign with money and grass-roots support.” Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins are looking the other way on Thompson’s pro-choice lobbying work, and Richard Land concluded, “It’s almost as if the man and the moment met.”<\/p>\n * In response to new Mitt Romney ads that feature the former governor’s wife, children, and grandchildren, Rudy Giuliani said<\/a>, “He has a right to emphasize the things he wants to emphasize…. I never emphasize those things.” Care to elaborate why, Mr. Mayor?<\/p>\n * For months, everyone has considered Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) one of the most vulnerable incumbents in next year’s campaign cycle, but Dems were struggling to recruit a top challenger. It looks like State House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D) is ready to take the plunge<\/a>, and will file notice with the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 1.<\/p>\n * On a related note, there’s been some interest in DC about finding a top-tier opponent for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), too. Yesterday, State Attorney General Greg Stumbo (D) floated his name in the Louisville Courier-Journal and formed an exploratory committee. Chris Cillizza analyses<\/a> the potential match-up and concludes, “This race has potential despite McConnell’s significant political chops and fundraising capacity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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: * The latest Clinton\/Obama spat is still going strong, with Clinton insisting Obama was “irresponsible and frankly na\u00efve” for his debate comment on international diplomacy, and Obama insisting about Clinton, “If you want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}