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
* Yesterday afternoon, Hillary Clinton picked up one of her biggest union endorsements yet, winning the support of the American Federation of Teachers<\/a>, which has 1.4 million members nationwide.<\/p>\n * The fight between the DNC and Florida Dems is getting even uglier<\/a>: “Senator Bill Nelson of Florida is to file a federal lawsuit Thursday accusing the Democratic National Committee of violating the constitutional rights of four million of the state’s voters by refusing to seat its delegates at the party’s national convention next summer. The suit also accuses the committee of violating the Voting Rights Act, which protects voters from racial discrimination.”<\/p>\n * Barack Obama seems anxious to turn torture into a campaign issue. He emphasized it at DePaul the other day, and his campaign was quick this morning to hammer the administration over the NYT revelations<\/a>. In a statement I received via email, Obama said, “Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America’s standing in the world, not how you strengthen it.” Chris Dodd, meanwhile, released a strong statement<\/a> of his own.<\/p>\n * Bob Novak said<\/a> the GOP still can’t get over Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith: “In my travels, I find his religious preference cited everywhere as the source of opposition to his candidacy.”<\/p>\n * On a related note, McCain’s not sure<\/a> if Mormons are Christians.<\/p>\n * Ron Paul raised eyebrows this week by reporting an impressive $5 million<\/a> in contributions in the third quarter, close to John McCain’s haul, and five times the amount raised by Mike Huckabee.<\/p>\n