The latest wave of polling has been an almost uninterrupted parade of good news for Barack Obama – widening leads in national surveys, solid advantages in most swing states, and startling strength in numerous Republican bastions.

It could all mean nothing, of course. Michael Dukakis led George H. W. Bush by 13 points at this moment in 1988, a margin that would swell to 17 points after the July Democratic convention only to evaporate by Labor Day, never to reappear.

But Obama seems a far more durable candidate than Dukakis, while John McCain leads a Republican Party that is in a state of disrepair unimaginable 20 years ago.  read more »

Obviously, Democrats want voters to be thinking about John McCain’s age and fretting over whether it might be eating away at his mental faculties. There’s no other reason why party’s anti-McCain talking points would call for surrogates to so prominently slip forms of the word “confused” into attacks on the soon-to-be 72-year-old Republican candidate.

In a Wednesday conference call that received much attention, Susan Rice, one of Obama’s national security advisors, talked about McCain’s “disturbing, even disconcerting, pattern of confusing the basic facts and reality that pertain to Iraq,” while John Kerry called his Senate colleague “confused” – a word he repeated several times in an MSNBC interview later in the day. It’s not the first time Democrats have played this card this year, and it surely won’t be the last.  read more »

Think Barack Obama can get away with an ad like this in the fall? 

Tomorrow night marks the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, D.C. Members of the press corps (including some Media Mob contributors who are already on their way—note low posting rate today!) will have a chance to clink glasses with the president and his cabinet and remind themselves that despite five years of war, an economy some are already calling a Depression, and a painful slog of an election season, it's all in good fun. L'chaim! To us!

This year's event will be emceed by CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson, whom the W.H.C.A.'s president (and ABC News correspondent), Ann Compton, is really excited about: "Craig Ferguson is a fresh take on late night TV. As a new citizen, a first-time uncommitted voter and someone who has looked at American politics from the outside, I am looking forward to his unique take on our system."

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The April 22 Pennsylvania primary breathed new life into an underdog presidential campaign that had been on the ropes, ensuring that the race would continue at least through the Indiana primary in two weeks and raising new concerns within the party about the front-runner’s ability to close the deal.

Yes, this is old news—28 years old, to be exact.  read more »

This year, Republicans have chosen to nominate for president a war hero and longtime senator with one losing White House bid under his belt. In 1996, the party put up a 73-year-old war hero and longtime senator who already had two failed White House campaigns to this name.

On this basis, it has become fashionable to compare John McCain to Bob Dole, the septuagenarian whose listless ’96 effort established the low-water mark for Republicans in the post-Goldwater era—159 electoral votes and 41 percent of the national popular vote.

Reflecting on Mr. McCain’s recent biography-themed campaign swing and a new ad, The Atlantic’s Ross Douthat wrote that the G.O.P. standard-bearer “pushes all my Dole-redux buttons.”  read more »

 As Ralph Nader becomes the Harold Stassen of the 21st century and a running joke to everyone except Al Gore, we sometimes forget that a generation ago (When Stassen was our perennial candidate for President), Nader was a founder of the consumer and environmental movement. How does someone evolve from one of the most credible policy advocates in the country, to a punch line on late night television?

When you buckle your seatbelts and when your air bag deploys—saving your life—you should thank Ralph Nader. The Clean Air Act, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act are at least partially due to Nader’s skill as an advocate in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

I mention the history because Nader did not build his reputation as a consumer and environmental advocate by pushing symbolism at the expense of results. He must know that his popularity is trending down.  read more »

It’s funny what conservatives will forgive.

Late last week, they treated John McCain to a chorus of jeers when he appeared before the Conservative Political Action Conference and dared to bring up illegal immigration—a very sore spot with an audience that believes McCain’s efforts on the subject have amounted to a bid to provide “amnesty” to 12 million or so undocumented workers.

But the next morning, the very same activists in the very same room serenaded George W. Bush with chants of “Four more years!”—even though it was Bush who made enacting McCain’s despised “amnesty” legislation one of his second term priorities.

Over and over this campaign season, we have heard about the right’s distrust of McCain, talk that reached fever pitch when he emerged as the likely Republican nominee and was promptly greeted by a band of talk show bloviators who suggested they’d sooner vote for Hillary Clinton than for him. How could they be so offended by McCain, but not Bush?  read more »

The bloodletting between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was not stanched by the end of last night’s debate in Myrtle Beach. It continued in the spin room.

Ann Lewis continued to talk about Obama’s comments about the trajectory changing force of Republican ideas to a Las Vegas editorial board.

“He said that they were the party of ideas,” she said. “Clearly in contradiction to the Democratic Party.”  read more »

Supporters of Hillary Clinton reaffirmed in a conference call just now that they are outraged by Barack Obama's positive remarks about Ronald Reagan as a trajectory-changer in American politics.

"I was stupefied by the comments," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts. He added, "It's baffling to me that Senator Obama would speak so favorably of him."

The best line of the call though came from an angry Representative Corrine Brown of Florida.

"Every time I see a homeless person I think about Ronald Reagan," she said, before adding, "It is very important that young people know about the history."

UPDATE: The Clinton campaign e-mails to say that their supporters on the call were also taking exception to Obama's remarks to the Reno Gazette-Journal's editorial board, in which he said "I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."

To be fair, Obama did put this in the context of the Republican approach having "played itself out."