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- Was Sarah Palin thoroughly vetted by the McCain campaign before last Friday's announcement? Front page stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post say no, but the Associated Press decides to take the path of least resistance and ask the guy in charge of VP vetting for the McCain campaign. His answer? A thorough vetting! Meanwhile Max Blumenthal takes a look at the "secretive right wing group" who was really behind the Palin pick.
- Ron Paul's "Campaign for Liberty" begins in earnest today at Minneapolis' Target Center -- 18,000 are expected to attend the rally. And the The Washington Times looks at McCain's quiet efforts to win over Paul's supporters and the real prize they carry with them -- donor lists.
- Marc Ambinder reports that the RNC rules committee, which is tasked with setting a primary calendar for 2012, could be heading into chaos during this week's kinda-sorta convention happenings.
- First Read on the "Palin distraction": "But if there's one thing she's done that's a negative that has nothing to do with the vetting process or her own issues like the revelation of her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy, it's that she's taken the focus off of Obama. It seems like it’s been a month -- though it's been just a few days -- that the RNC or McCain hasn't had a sustained attack on the Illinois Democrat. As we've learned this summer, when this campaign is about Obama, the race is a lot closer than when it's not about him. And right now, thanks to Palin, it's not about him."
- Quote of the day, courtesy of Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager: "This election is not about issues." Well, if the fallout from the last 72 hours or so are any indication, I think Davis has clearly been taking his own advice.
- Gallup finds that Obama has consolidated support among former Hillary Clinton supporters, going from 70 to 81 percent since the Democratic National Convention. The Gallup Daily Tracker shows Obama cracking 50 percent for the first time and while the usefulness of the Tracker has come under fire lately, a host of concurrent national polls show a similar, sustained, post-convention bounce for the Democrat.
- A moment of silence, please, to lament the fact that Rudy Giuliani got bumped from today's schedule and instead Republicans get to hear President Bush via satellite, the electrifying energy of Fred Thompson, and Joe Lieberman's unique blend of post-partisan whining.
--Mori Dinauer
