memeorandum: Candidates battle new foes: Stress and fatigue (Chicago Tribune)

1:20 PM ET, March 26, 2008

Top Items:

Frank Newport / Gallup:

If McCain vs. Obama, 28% of Clinton Backers Go for McCain — If McCain vs. Clinton, 19% of Obama backers go for McCain — PRINCETON, NJ — A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination.

The Politico:

Southern Dem warns party to avert disaster — Democrats are increasingly nervous about their party's protracted nomination fight, and some prominent figures are publicly warning that the party needs to act fast to avoid disaster. — Chief among these voices is Phil Bredesen …

Discussion: TownHall Blog, Trailhead, Philly.com, The Moderate Voice, MSNBC, TPM Election Central, Pennsyltucky Politics and Political Punch

Rasmussen Reports:

22% of Democrats Want Clinton to Drop Out; 22% Say Obama Should Withdraw — Twenty-two percent (22%) of Democratic voters nationwide say that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found …

Discussion: Facing South, Fox News, Hot Air, Prairie Weather, Forum: News/Activism, Gateway Pundit, Public Policy Polling, Donklephant and Daily Kos

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:

Pastor Of Clinton's Former Church: Don't Use Wright To Polarize — On Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton re-stoked the flames of the controversy surrounding Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, saying she would have long ago distanced herself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright if she had attended his church.

Discussion: TalkLeft

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

YA THINK? — As you know, earlier today Hillary Clinton tried to stoke the Jeremiah Wright controversy by telling an editorial board meeting in Pittsburgh that Jeremiah Wright “would not have been my pastor” and then going on to note that she had denounced Don Imus in contrast to Obama's allegedly …

Discussion: The New Republic, Washington Monthly, Spin Cycle, Shakesville, Comments from Left Field, TPM Election Central, The Carpetbagger Report, Seeing the Forest, The Jed Report, Unfogged, AMERICAblog, Prometheus 6, marbury and The Reaction

Noam Scheiber / The New Republic:
Time to Lose McPeak — I tell pretty much anyone who asks …

Discussion: NO QUARTER and Weekly Standard Blog

Byron York / The Corner:
Hell Has Officially Frozen Over

Discussion: MoJoBlog, The Newshoggers, CBS News, David Corn, Middle Earth Journal, AMERICAblog, USA Today, The Other McCain, The RBC and PoliGazette

Eric Martin / American Footprints:

Backing the Wrong Horse? — As predicted on this site repeatedly over the past couple of months, the aggressive anti-Sadrist actions of the ISCI/Dawa factions - in tandem with the US military - has led to the scuttling of the cease fire by Sadr. The US military, and its Iraqi allies …

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Informed Comment and Needlenose

Spencer Ackerman / The Washington Independent:
Maliki, Sadr, and the Wages of Sin

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Matthew Yglesias, Guardian and The Daily Dish

Qassim Abdul-Zahra / Associated Press:
Iraqi PM gives Basra gunmen ultimatum

Discussion: Time, All Spin Zone, missing links, Sweetness & Light and Abu Aardvark

New York Times:
Iraqi Crackdown on Shiite Forces Sets Off Fighting

Discussion: Danger Room, The Moderate Voice, Confederate Yankee, TPMMuckraker, McClatchy Washington Bureau, Balloon Juice, American Power, Hot Air, Agence France Presse and Prairie Weather

Brianinmo / BLOGS FOR JOHN McCAIN:

McCain Asks When Hillary Clinton Will Apologize to Gen. Petraeus - Video — Here is Sen. John McCain on March 24, 2008 asking when Sen. Hillary Clinton will apologize to Gen. David Petraeus for her remarks last year ridiculing the idea that “The Surge” strategy in Iraq was working.

Discussion: The Impolitic, Comments from Left Field, Sister Toldjah, Hot Air, Macsmind, Stop The ACLU and Forum: News/Activism

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

What can and cannot be spoken on television — I'm going to re-post the segment I posted yesterday, from Charlie Rose's fifth anniversary Iraq show, because I want to encourage as many people as possible to watch it. If I could recommend one article or segment for Americans to read …

Neal Gabler / New York Times:

The Maverick and the Media — Amagansett, N.Y. — IT is certainly no secret that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a darling of the news media. Reporters routinely attach “maverick,” “straight talker” and “patriot” to him like Homeric epithets.

Discussion: PressThink, TownHall Blog, Swampland, Achenblog, Shakesville and The Page

Mark Halperin / Time:

Exclusive: Clinton Vows to Push On — Hillary Clinton is under a lot of pressure these days, but in a Tuesday interview she seemed cheery, confident and unapologetic as she talked about her determination to fight on in the Presidential race. Speaking by phone from Pennsylvania …

Discussion: Trailhead, Dick Polman's American Debate, Jules Crittenden, TPM Election Central and The Page

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Hillary or Nobody? — While the cool cat's away, the Hillary mice will play. — As Barack Obama was floating in the pool with his daughters the last few days in St. Thomas, some Clinton disciples were floating the idea of St. Hillary as his vice president.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, MSNBC, Don Surber, NewsBusters.org, The Strata-Sphere and About.com US Liberal Politics

Think Progress:

Text of McCain's speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. — REMARKS BY JOHN MCCAIN TO THE LOS ANGELES WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL — ARLINGTON, VA — U.S. Senator John McCain's will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery today at the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, California:

Discussion: Taylor Marsh

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

It Takes A Pillage — Jeremiah Wright is now the moral equivalent of David Duke? The latest Clintonite ratchets up the Wright issue still further. However dim a view you take of some of Wright's rhetorical excesses, and I'm not defending them, to compare a man whose church has such a long history …

Discussion: protein wisdom and Prairie Weather

Gateway Pundit:

Oops!... She Did It Again- Michelle Obama Bashes Ignorant America! (Video) — “It's easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance...That's AMERICA” … Oops!... She did it again! — Michelle Obama bashes America:

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Hot Air, Redstate and JammieWearingFool

Ruth Marcus / Washington Post:

Hijabs at a Harvard Gym — It's a measure of America's multicultural journey over the past half-century that we've gone from “God and Man at Yale” to Allah and Woman at Harvard. — In a contretemps scarcely imaginable in William F. Buckley's day, Harvard has closed one of its gyms to men …

Discussion: Little Green Footballs and Reason Magazine

Jonathan Chait / The New Republic:

Half-Baked — The latest in global-warming denialism. — Republicans are no longer denying the scientific basis for global warming. That's good news for those of us who have grown accustomed to the continued existence of things like polar sea ice, various forms of life, and Miami.

Discussion: The Corner