Daily Tidbits: July 28, 2008

• Politico: Governor Kaine (D-VA) is “very high” on Obama’s veep list.
• The normally GOP-partial Andrea Mitchell continues to vouch for Obama and describe the McCain attack ad as “literally untrue”:

• Bush administration veterans former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and former SEC Chairman William Donaldson will join former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, “genius investor” Warren Buffett, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, former US Senator and current Allen & Co. managing director Bill Bradley, NJ Governor (and former Hillary supporter) Jon Corvine, JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon, CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, former Labor Secretary and current Berkeley professor Robert Reich, CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, former Clinton Chair of Council of Economic Advisors, Laura Tyson, and former Clinton Energy and Transportation Secretary, Federico Pena, among others.
• NY Times Has an Eye-Opening Story of Hypocrisy by McCain on Hill. For years, he’s used a non-profit organization, the International Republican Institute, as a vehicle to accept large contributions from lobbyists and corporations with business before his Senate Commerce Committee. Will this evidence be enough for the MSM to question the mythology of McCain the Maverick? Or will this be dismissed by the chattering class as too incongruent with McCain’s narrative?

• WaPo story on McCain’s attacks on Obama contains several complaints about McCain from GOP insiders. Some refer to it as “pathetic” and worse than Bob Dole’s campaign.
• NY Times/John Harwood: On the Hill, the elected Democrats are happy with Obama. But Republicans and McCain have a strained relationship.
• McCain flip-flops to support Ward Connelly’s divisive anti-affirmative action referendum in Arizona and elsewhere. He claims it’s because he’s “against quotas” but quotas were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court long ago and are not at issue. McCain had previously opposed similar efforts in the past as divisive. Is this a hint at a Southern Strategy by the McCain campaign?
• Obama pivots from trip to focus on the economy this week, while McCain wants to keep complaining about Obama’s trip. There’s the election in a nutshell – one is focusing on the future and solutions, while the other is stuck in the past and partisan games.