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
* A biopsy of John McCain’s latest facial spot turned out to be negative<\/a>: “A biopsy of a spot removed from the right cheek of Senator John McCain revealed no evidence of skin cancer, an official at the Mayo Clinic said Tuesday in a statement released by the McCain campaign. Mr. McCain, who has had four melanomas, had a spot removed for testing at his regular checkup at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.”<\/p>\n * In response to the McCain campaign’s ad blaming Barack Obama for high gas prices, the Obama campaign has responded with a response ad that talks to voters as if they were grown-ups. The spot, called “Old Politics<\/a>,” will air in the same states McCain’s ad is airing.<\/p>\n * Obama was on the Hill yesterday to meet<\/a> with the House Democratic Caucus. “The caucus room of the Cannon House Office Building was so crowded that some members of Congress did not have seats.”<\/p>\n * Obama’s Latino outreach is being well received<\/a>: “Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) on Tuesday praised an effort by Barack Obama’s campaign to use $20 million to ‘engage and inspire’ Latino voters ahead of the election. Calling the $20 million sum ‘unprecedented,’ the CHC members, many of whom supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign, said the effort to target Latino voters in Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico is both a recognition that Hispanics will be a critical voting bloc in the general election and that Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) must not take these voters for granted.”<\/p>\n * When campaign web stunts go awry<\/a>: The day’s clever RNC attack on Obama seems to be in the process of being swallowed by the Internets. After Obama supporters swarmed BarackBook with a series of not-so-friendly discussion threads, the GOP seems to have disabled the discussion feature and deleted the mockery. The ‘review’ feature is still on, however, so the first thing readers see on the page is ‘E-Viagra for crotchety old Republicans: Destined to be the #1 website in Czechoslovakia and the Iraq\/Pakistan border region.'” * The Obama campaign has named a new national coordinator for Muslim affairs, Mazen Asbahi<\/a>, who will also head the campaign’s outreach efforts to Arab Americans.<\/p>\n * Hillary Clinton is hosting a dinner to help retire some of her campaign debt<\/a>. “In her latest plea to supporters, Mrs. Clinton has sent a breezily written e-mail about the ‘simple pleasures’ of summer, including ‘family vacations, baseball games, and dinner out under the stars.’ And guess what? For those who contribute, Mrs. Clinton says, ‘you and I could be enjoying a summer dinner together soon!'”<\/p>\n
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\n* Mike Huckabee equated McCain with Bob Dole<\/a> yesterday. I suspect that was not well received at McCain HQ.<\/p>\n