Wonkette

Does Barack Obama have a “major league sports team owner” problem? It sure looks like it, because he has not raised nearly as much money from this crucial demographic as that other guy, John McCain. McCain has raised more than $3.2 million from major sports team owners and their families, while Barack Obama has raised only $615,000 — despite the fact that Obama is way better at basketball. Too bad Obama is too much of an elitist to relate to simple, working-class multimillionaire sports team owners. [Politico]

This is why John McCain will win the presidency: All of his exciting sex scandals happened 50 years ago, and since then he’s pretty much confined his misdoings to dull and complicated campaign finance/influence peddling bullshit that nobody cares about. We defy you to watch this very informative attack ad without falling asleep 15 times. How boring is this ad? So boring that in spite of the fact that it’s called “Tainted” we could only manufacture one tiny joke about Ralph Reed’s monstrous, world-devouring taint. Please Jesus let Vicki Iseman be knocked up with a little walnut-cheeked hellion so the DNC can make better ads. [YouTube]

We cannot give all campaign ads precious real estate on Wonkette. No, it’s not because there is too much other news to cover — in fact there is absolutely no news, at all, ever. It’s just because we have no idea these ads are coming out. Ha! Anyway we’ve taken the last four minutes to scan over John McCain’s YouTube page for any recent comical web ads. The digging effort has been, by most standards, a modest success. The video above is brand new from today and gets you pretty excited about jobs — no small task, indeed. Two others, after the jump. MORE »

Sure, Hillary Clinton’s campaign ended like $30 million in the red, but that doesn’t mean our intrepid girl candidate will have to start eating out of soup kitchens. Complicated campaign finance laws and a clever lawyer will somehow manage to spin Hillary’s stack of IOUs into mountains of cash, or at least food stamps, or free tickets to Regal Cinemas, or front-row seats to Mark Penn’s nude public flogging. [Politico]

For somebody who’s always accusing his opponents of being “out of touch” with the Working Man, John McCain sure does hang out with a lot of fat-cat plutocrats who don’t even have the decency to be American. On a recent visit to the tony U.K. — a nation populated entirely by decadent, incestuous polo players with “smart” accents and harelips — McCain attended a fundraising luncheon hosted by Lord Rothschild and Nathaniel Rothschild. The problem is, American candidates aren’t allowed to take campaign contributions from such fancy foreign nationals as the Rothschilds! But does “hosting” an event constitute a “contribution”? MORE »

So, remember how Bill Clinton left office in a flurry of pardons? And there were all kinds of allegations of family members taking money to ask for said pardons? Yeah, some scandals never die.

MORE »

San Francisco mayoral politics are bad. So bad, in fact, that actor and director Sean Penn once offered hunky-hipster attorney Matt Gonzalez $5 million to fund his war chest if he were to run as a Democrat against Mayor Gavin Newsom. MORE »

In a big huge graphic about how much money the campaigns have and how they’re spending it, the Times today gives us this little bit of David Brooksian brand identity-as-sociology. It turns out both campaigns spend a lot on really shitty coffee, but their choice of shitty coffee suppliers varies based on their party identification! The Times also tells us how much the campaigns are spending on pizza, but not where they’re getting it — but Republicans probably love Pizza Hut, while Democrats prefer the younger, hipper, equally terrible Papa John’s.

(Also, John McCain is out of money)

Where Campaign Money Goes [NYT]

* Hank Paulson carries the budget flag up to the hill, and by the end of the day is looking for an ATM to fully fund every program. [WP]
* President Bush has a sense of Morissettian irony over the Senate’s support of Gen. David Petraeus while opposing the surge. [WP]
* Luckily, Robert Gates has a back-up to the back-up plan. [LAT]
* Thanks to Walnuts, Ill Hill, and Barry Hussein the ‘08 election will likely cost over a billion dollars. [WP]
* MPAA uses actor from West Philadelphia to illustrate their blue-collar base. Patrick Leahy really liked The Queen. [NYT]
* Military wants civilian agencies to “step up” and “get ‘r done” in Iraq. [NYT]
* Which six states want to expand death penalty powers? Exactly the ones you think. [USAT]

* President Bush to announce new grant program for states tonight that will provide health insurance for all legal citizens who talk proper American. [WP, NYT]
* Pies baked for previous SOTUs remain in sky. [WSJ]
* Nancy Pelosi marks her territory on John Dingell’s desk, then tells him what to think about climate change. [WP]
* A jury of Scooter Libby’s peers: white women who read a lot of Us Weekly — cause the stars are just like us! [WP, NYT]
* Classy casino owner gives $1 million classy dollars to ever classy Newt Gingrich. [WP]
* Public campaign financing sounds too much like welfare to Hillary Clinton. [WP, NYT]
* John Warner’s just happy to have a reason to talk to the microphones again. [WP, NYT, USAT]

• Polling shows an increase in support for President Bush, as well as a sharp divide in public opinion over setting a deadline for Iraq withdrawal. [WP]

• Bush condemns the media’s disclosure of the Administration’s secret bank-records surveillance program, calling it “disgraceful.” [WP; NYT]
• A deeply divided Supreme Court strikes down Vermont’s restrictions on campaign contributions and campaign spending by candidates. [NYT; LAT; WP]
• Condoleezza Rice defends Afghan President Hamid Karzai, denying reports that his foreign and Afghan support is eroding. [WP]
• Rush Limbaugh is detained for over three hours at a Florida airport, after being found in possession of a bottle of Viagra without a prescription. [AP]

* House approves campaign finance legislation along party lines; new rules will primarily benefit Republicans. [WP]
* Rep. Tom DeLay’s departure “has emboldened centrists and conservatives to push their divergent views more assertively.” [NYT]
* Many Republicans facing reelection “are feeling voter wrath” over Iraq; voters are increasingly critical of pro-war stances. [WP]
* Senate Republicans near agreement on immigration but “showdown” will come this morning; legislation “would allow undocumented workers a path to lawful employment and citizenship if they could prove [that] they have been in the country for five years.” [WP, NYT, USAT, WT]
* Bush tries to shift attention to domestic issues; visits Connecticut to talk healthcare. [WP, NYT]
* Majority of federal budget –military and entitlement programs– cannot be reduced by lawmakers. [NYT]
* Conservatives see the fall of DeLay as “a setback and a warning for their movement” — “a big hole in their forces in Congress.” [NYT]

MORE »

* Online donors who fed the ‘04 elections with small contributions are more representative of the middle class but just as polarized as large donors. [WP]
* The GOP’s post-9/11 push for the Jewish vote has “not materialized in any convincing fashion”; DeLay and Abramoff scandals have cut into gains made on security issues and Israel. [WP]
* Bush left his political problems at home when he left the country. [NYT]
* Democratic party leaders shine spotlight on Sen. Obama. [USAT]
* DeLay’s reelection is a referendum on DeLay. [NYT]
* Democratic candidates lack unified national message. [NYT]
* Few lawmakers are against NSA eavesdropping; most seek oversight. [USAT]
* Mainstream Democrats reject calls for Bush’s impeachment as a few stray radicals float the idea. [W$J]
* Electronic disclosure of contributions to senators is in the Dark Ages. [USAT]

• White House situation room received warnings from the Department of Homeland Security about Katrina’s “likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property”; FEMA also had dire forecasts two days before the storm hit. [WP, NYT]
• Administration launches “blitz” campaign to gain ground on NSA eavesdropping controversy; officials roll out the phrase “terrorist surveillance program.” [WP, NYT, NYT, WT, USAT]
• White House and Jack Abramoff refuse to release photographs of meetings with Bush. McClellan: “Trying to say there’s more to it than the president taking a picture in a photo line is just absurd.” [WP, NYT]
• Supreme Court rules some advocacy ads may be exempt from campaign finance law. [WP, NYT, USAT]
• Bush spends 100 minutes fielding questions from crowd of 9,000 Kansas State University students; 61 instances of audience laughter. [WP, NYT, USAT]
• GOP dominance of congressional practices results in criticism of the structure and lobbying; Democrats shut out from negotiations. [WP]
• Bush’s ballooning budgets bother fiscal conservatives. [W$J]
• Approval of Bush holds at 43% in Gallup Poll. [USAT]
• Tens of thousands participate in March for Life; optimism felt among pro-life movement. [WP, WP, NYT]