CNN talks to the student who asked Hillary Clinton a planted question. As scandals go, this isn’t much. But it is a telling glimpse of how campaigns actually work.:

Politico assesses the progress congressional Democrats have made in blocking funding for the war in Iraq and put forward this metric as measure of success: Since taking the majority, they have forced 40 votes on bills limiting President Bush’s war policy. Only one of those has passed both chambers, even though both are run by [...]

We’ve seeing a fair amount of triumphalism from the usual suspects on the right about the situation on the ground in Iraq. Premature, I think–in part because of the limits of the bottom-up strategy. We may just be in the midst of a vast Iraqi exhale before the next phase of the civil war. That [...]

So what does it mean that, despite a record that includes lobbying for an abortion rights advocacy group and a stand against amending the Constitution to ban abortion, Fred Thompson apparently has gotten the endorsement of the nation’s pre-eminent anti-abortion political organization, the Natonal Right to Life Committee? In many ways, the move reflects how [...]

Romney piled on McCain for third-party ads touting him in South Carolina, saying “It is an entire end-run on any effort to control campaign spending and offer transparency,” and adding “that the legislation championed by McCain in 2002 to overhaul campaign finance had turned out to be a failure.” McCain senior adviser Mark Salter sent [...]

This SwampCast is about the high standard Clinton has set for herself, and about the balancing act she has to perform to vault over it. (LA Times on how all campaigns plant questions here.)

The Los Angeles Times on the actor’s sliding campaign. As I suspected, Thompson’s candidacy is this year’s Wes Clark…and an object lesson for future latecomers: It’s hard to jump full-speed into a presidential campaign, even an interminable one…and impossible if you’re lazy. The early months of a campaign are crucial for fund-raising, yes, but also [...]

Liberal bloggers did indeed raise the $100,000 they were seeking for Democratic challenger Donna Edwards in her uphill campaign to unseat incumbent Maryland Congressman Al Wynn. Over the weekend, the Washington Post also had this piece on the primary race, and the role the internet is playing.

Clearly, that story about McCain is catching some people’s attention. Jay’s post has the most information, if you want to choose just one.