memeorandum: Audio Of John McCain's Demand That Obama Repudiate Ayers And Apologize … (Hugh Hewitt/Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog)

7:20 PM ET, April 25, 2008

Top Items:

Q&A: David Plouffe — Obama's Manager Discusses Clinton's Negatives & The Delegate Race — Fri. — National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with David Plouffe, Barack Obama's campaign manager, for the April 25 edition of “National Journal On Air.” This is a transcript of their conversation.

Discussion: Hot Air, AMERICAblog, Gateway Pundit, The Page, Political Punch and Commentary

Geoff Garin / Washington Post:

Fair Is Fair — What's wrong with this picture? Our campaign runs a TV ad Monday saying that the presidency is the toughest job in the world and giving examples of challenges presidents have faced and challenges the next president will face — including terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan …

Discussion: Newshoggers.com, Donklephant, Don Surber, American Street, The Common Ills, Daily Kos, TalkLeft, Political Punch, HillaryClinton.com, The Page, The Campaign Spot and The Opinionator

See-Dubya / michellemalkin.com:
Hillary Clinton: Prayer Warrior.

Discussion: Washington Times, Foreign and AmericanPapist

Ben Smith / The Politico:
Plouffe: McCain has the racist vote anyway

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications

Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Self-Inflicted Confusion — After Barack Obama's defeat …

Discussion: The New Republic, protein wisdom, Hullabaloo, NO QUARTER, Media Blog, MSNBC, Indianapolis Star, Anglachel's Journal, The Corner and TPMCafe

Gallup:

Gallup Daily: Obama and Clinton Tied at 48% to 47% — Clinton's increased support has mainly come from undecided voters — PRINCETON, NJ — The Democratic nomination race is now tied, with Barack Obama favored by 48% of national Democratic voters and Hillary Clinton by 47%.

Discussion: Weekly Standard Blog, The Swamp, TalkLeft, Marc Ambinder, The Washington Note, FiveThirtyEight.com, Donklephant, Real Clear Politics and Indianapolis Star

Alan I. Abramowitz / The New Republic:

Cheer Up, Democrats! — Even if the primary stretches on, a long-term tectonic shift in the electorate means the party is in great shape for November. — It's all over but the shouting. Even though the Democratic Convention is still four months away and the presidential election …

Discussion: The Daily Dish, Marc Ambinder, Democratic Strategist, The Huffington Post and Prairie Weather

Elizabeth Drew / The Politico:
Dems' suspense may be unnecessary

Discussion: Washington Post, New York Times, mrsuper.org, Prairie Weather, Spin Cycle and MSNBC

Saira Anees / Political Punch:

DNC Official: “You Know What You Call Someone Who Digs Up Dirt on John McCain? An Archeologist” — Call it the perils of Twitter. — Or a new Maginot Line in what Slate's John Dickerson has called “the Umbrage War.” — On his Facebook page, the Democratic National Committee's director of research …

Discussion: Hot Air, The Impolitic and Hotline On Call

Mark Halperin / The Page:

Obama-DNC Fundraising Deal — After a series of discussions, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee have decided to file papers with the Federal Election Commission establishing a “joint fundraising agreement.” Under the law, such a committee can accept up to $28,500 from individuals …

Discussion: Marc Ambinder, Chicago Tribune, The Caucus, Boston Globe, NO QUARTER, Prairie Weather and The Democratic Daily

Hugh Hewitt / Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog:
Audio Of John McCain's Demand That Obama Repudiate Ayers And Apologize …

Discussion: Hot Air, TownHall Blog and Media Blog

Randyj / The Page:
Obama, Democratic Party Make Fundraising Deal

Discussion: The Fix, The Confluence and TPM Election Central

Jeralyn / TalkLeft:

Olbermann Comments on Hillary Causing Stir — Keith Olbermann's latest: A discussion with Howard Fineman about the need for a superdelegate to “take [Clinton] into a room and only he comes out."/p> — Bloggers say he called for Hillary's murder. Here's a different take by RiverDaughter at Confluence:

Discussion: Delilah Boyd, Redstate, Anglachel's Journal, The Confluence and Althouse

The Huffington Post:

Keith Olbermann's Idea For Beating Hillary: Literally Beating Hillary — There are two kinds of people in the world: People who think there's an ugly strain of misogyny running through Hillary Clinton's media coverage, and people who think she's just not very likable and deserves it for running …

Discussion: TPM Election Central, TalkLeft, Salon, MSNBC, Gawker and NO QUARTER

Ben / Think Progress:

Matthews: Whites are ‘willing’ to support Obama in the same way they ‘root for black athletes.’ — Last night on Hardball, host Chris Matthews sought to give Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) some “advice” on how to get white Americans to vote for him for president: … Watch it:

Discussion: Newshoggers.com and Shakesville

MSNBC:

‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’ for Thursday, April 24 — Guests: Chuck Todd, Howard Fineman, David Shuster, Tucker Carlson, Bob Herbert, Clarence Page, Tom Ridge, Michelle Bernard, Margaret Carlson — CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Do the Republicans fear Obama? Let's play HARDBALL. — Good evening.

Discussion: Stop The ACLU

Chuck Todd / MSNBC:

BIG HRC FUNDRAISER DEFECTS TO OBAMA — From NBC's Chuck Todd — One of the things that both Dem campaigns are always nervous about is defectors. In particular, Clinton is more vulnerable to this problem since she's the candidate that is trailing. Well, NBC News has learned …

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Liberal Values, AMERICAblog and The Jed Report

Michael Goldfarb / Weekly Standard Blog:

McCain: “Clear Who Hamas Wants to be the Next President” — McCain spoke with bloggers this morning on a number of issues ranging from William Ayers to Rev. Wright to Tony Rezko. Jennifer Rubin noted that Hamas had endorsed Senator Obama and asked McCain whether Obama might have given “an unhelpful signal” to the terrorist group.

Discussion: Boston Globe, Commentary, Matthew Yglesias, The American Mind, Spin Cycle, TPM Election Central, The Carpetbagger Report, The Daily Dish, MyDD, MSNBC, Fausta's blog and Angry Bear

Bernard-Henri Lévy / Wall Street Journal:

The Sad End of Jimmy Carter — The problem is not that he is, or is not, talking to the Syrians - everyone does it to some degree. — It isn't that he went to Damascus to meet with the exiled head of Hamas - everyone, including the Israelis, will one day have to do that too …

Discussion: Israel Matzav and TigerHawk

Associated Press:

ElBaradei slams Israel for attacking Syrian nuclear reactor — The head of the UN nuclear monitoring agency on Friday criticized the US for not giving his organization intelligence information sooner on what Washington says was a nuclear reactor in Syria being built secretly by North Korea.

Discussion: Ynetnews, Israel Matzav, Gateway Pundit and Infidels Are Cool

David E. Sanger / New York Times:
Government Releases Images of Syrian Reactor

Discussion: ArmsControlWonk, Danger Room, Washington Post, FP Passport, Salon, TPMCafe, Haaretz and Think Progress

Marc Ambinder:

DNC To Assess Challenges On 5/31 — The DNC will convene its rules and bylaws committee on the last day of May to consider two challenges, that, if successful, could change the delegate math just as the primary season is about to close. But the date of the meeting may be too late for Hillary Clinton …

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blogs and The Page

Amanda / Think Progress:

Zirkle rails against the ‘great porn dragon’ and its influence over Jews. — Tony Zirkle, a GOP congressional candidate in Indiana, recently came under heavy criticism for speaking to the American National Socialist Workers Party (ANSWP) on the 119th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth.

Discussion: Wonkette and Orcinus

Ari Melber / The Huffington Post:

PBS Breaks Media Blackout of Pentagon Propaganda Bombshell — While most TV news organizations have refused to report or even comment on the bombshell Times article exposing a secret Pentagon propaganda campaign to sell Iraq policy, PBS just aired an important segment on the controversy.

Discussion: MoJoBlog, Seeing the Forest, Open Left, hodes.house.gov and The Carpetbagger Report