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 few weeks ago, we learned of leaked portions of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential playbook, given to the New York Daily News by a still-unknown GOP rival. Today, the Daily News’ Ben Smith, who originally obtained the document, published all 140 pages<\/a> of the dossier online.<\/p>\n * In the already-fascinating competition between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, The Hill reports today<\/a> that Obama is slightly ahead when it comes to website traffic: “Twelve percent of Internet surfers who visit www.senate.gov click to the freshman senator’s homepage, according to rankings on Alexa.com, which tracks website traffic. Obama’s site gets more hits than any other senator’s, and, much like his popularity, those hits have increased over the last month. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who made her official presidential announcement last Saturday, pulls 7 percent of Internet surfers to her site from the main Senate page. Her numbers rose to current levels Monday after stagnating at 4 percent for the last month.”<\/p>\n * In what will likely be this year’s most fascinating off-year race, Kentucky’s gubernatorial campaign has a new contestant: former Kentucky Lt. Gov. Steve Henry announced yesterday<\/a> that he will seek the Democratic nomination for governor.<\/p>\n * Mitt Romney didn’t need any more questions about his fealty to the far-right cause, so it can’t help that Romney was found to have donated to<\/a> a Democratic congressional candidate in New Hampshire as recently as 1992. Romney’s spokesman responded, “A $250 contribution made almost 15 years ago is, obviously, greatly overshadowed by strong conservative governing and a proud, Republican record of balanced budgets and pro-family advocacy.”<\/p>\n * Speaking of Romney, the news didn’t stop Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, from endorsing<\/a> the former Massachusetts governor yesterday.<\/p>\n