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- A deal struck between the Obama and Clinton camps has resulted in Hillary Clinton's name being put on the ballot at the Democratic Convention. It seems to mainly be a formality designed to salve the remaining wounds of Hillary's more ardent supporters, who want one last chance to "have their voices heard."
- The Wall Street Journal has published an op-ed by Obama economic advisers Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee detailing the senator's tax plan. Significantly, the piece drives home the point that Obama's plan targets the middle classes for tax cuts while McCain's offers the usual Republican breaks for the super-wealthy and bankrupting the federal government.
- Open Secrets reports that U.S. soldiers deployed overseas gave more campaign contributions to Barack Obama than John McCain at a 6-1 ratio. In fact, McCain came in third, behind Ron Paul.
- Eric Kleefield has a compiled a chart that nicely illustrates that the lion's share of John McCain's attacks against Barack Obama have been recycled from Hillary Clinton circa the Democratic primaries.
- Ed Kilgore has some thoughts on why this election year's would-be swiftboating of Barack Obama won't work but that hasn't stopped the Obama campaign from launching an aggressive rapid response team designed to stay one step ahead of Jerome Corsi as he stinks up network studios peddling his compilation of lies. Even if the swiftboating is ultimately ineffective, I'm always in favor of putting right-wingers on the defensive.
- Nate Silver argues that Obama needs to move the economic conversation away from the issue of gas prices and toward a broader discussion of Democratic competence on the economy. Social Security, in particular, could hurt McCain.
- James Fallows takes on the unenviable task of watching all 47 primary season debates and writes about them in the Atlantic. Best debate advice: "For Obama the key is: look at John McCain, and see Alan Keyes."
- Amanda Terkel writes in Salon on McCain's poor record on tech and Internet policy. Humor aside, the next president will be one who needs to formulate some sort of national broadband policy, among other things: "McCain has not released a tech platform, although he may do so this week. On this front, he lags behind Barack Obama, who unveiled his last year."
- And finally, yesterday might have witnessed the world's shortest-lived political rumor as Bill Kristol suggested Colin Powell will not only endorse Barack Obama, but play a role at the Democratic National Convention. The ink was still fresh on this one when a Powell spokesperson emphatically denied it. Steve Clemons speculates -- convincingly, I think -- that this is simply an effort by neocons like Kristol to purge saner foreign policy voices from McCain's neoconservative foreign policy inner circle.
--Mori Dinauer
