...on family vacation in Maryland, saw this in this morning's Washington Post:

...from The Capitol Fax Blog:

Biggert claims huge lead

Thursday, Jul 31, 2008

* Two events have helped create a minor buzz about Republican Congresscritter Judy Biggert’s reelection chances. First, Biggert’s Democratic opponent Scott Harper raised almost as much as she did in the recent reporting quarter. Then, CQ Politics made a minor adjustment to her ranking…

• Illinois’ 13th (New Rating: Republican Favored. Previous Rating: Safe Republican). Republican Rep. Judy Biggert , who has centrist GOP leanings, has been very politically secure in a mostly Republican-leaning district that includes Naperville, Bolingbrook and other suburbs southwest of Chicago.

But she may need to keep an eye on Democratic businessman Scott Harper, who already has raised more money than 2006 Democratic nominee Joseph Shannon, who won 42 percent of the vote in what was the best showing by a Democrat against Biggert in her five terms.

Here's the insightful Frank Rich on the respectful treatment Obama received on and after his international tour last week, as Bush and his Administration more and more adopt, McCain wakes up to, and the world ratifies, long-held Obama positions:

[Obama] never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed ... The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain.  ... This election remains about the present and the future, where Iraq’s $10 billion a month drain on American pocketbooks and military readiness is just one moving part in a matrix of national crises stretching from the gas pump to Pakistan. That’s the high-rolling political casino where Mr. Obama amassed the chips he cashed in last week. The “change” that he can at times wield like a glib marketing gimmick is increasingly becoming a substantive reality — sometimes through Mr. Obama’s instigation, sometimes by luck. Obama-branded change is snowballing, whether it’s change you happen to believe in or not.

Looking back now, we can see that the fortnight preceding the candidate’s flight to Kuwait was like a sequence in an old movie where wind blows away calendar pages to announce an epochal plot turn.

...from Kevin Drum at Political Animal:

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND TAXES....I confess that I'm not quite as bent out of shape as some people about Michael Scherer's article in Time this week that describes Obama's and McCain's tax plans. Yes, Scherer is more nebulous than he needs to be, but at the same time, it really is true that the plans are complicated and hard to nail down, and Scherer writes plainly about their main features: namely that McCain's plan benefits the rich while Obama's benefits the middle class, and that McCain's plan is a bigger deficit buster than Obama's.

That said, did everyone catch Scherer's lede?

"The choice in this election is stark and simple," John McCain said at recent Denver event, repeating a phrase that is a staple of his stump speech. "Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't."

Seems clear enough, right? It's an old argument you already know — Republicans cut taxes, Democrats raise them. Except it's not true, at least not in the way that it seems. But don't take my word for it. Here is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic policy adviser. "I used to say that Barack Obama raises taxes and John McCain cuts them, and I was convinced," he told me in a phone interview this week. "I stand corrected."

Italics mine. So Holtz-Eakin, who is still trying to keep his reputation from being completely shredded by the campaign, now admits that Obama isn't going to raise taxes. But his boss is still saying the opposite. Anyone want to take bets on whether McCain stops lying about this?

...from the other day's Democratic Strategist:

Walking Maliki Back

If the subject weren't so serious, it would be pretty funny. Reports this weekend that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had more or less endorsed Barack Obama's redeployment plan for U.S. combat troops in his country produced all sorts of hysteria in the White House, which is now trying to claim Maliki and Bush are in synch on what's being called a "time horizon" for withdrawal. Under God knows what kind of pressure from Washington, Maliki's staff is also trying to suggest that his remarks in an interview with Der Spiegel were mistranslated or misinterpreted. But as The New York Times reports today, Maliki's redemployment of his own words isn't going too well:

...from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer last week:

Gore Aims High on Renewable Energy Goal for U.S.

Former Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore outlined a bold climate goal for the nation Thursday, challenging the U.S. to create every kilowatt of electricity through renewable energy sources within 10 years.

"Our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges -- the economic, environmental and national security crises," Gore saidin his speech in Washington. "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change."

The goal of using only renewable energy within just a decade is achievable and necessary for national security, he said.

"The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more -- if more should be required -- the future of human civilization is at stake," Gore said. "Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure."

...

[ Note to the uninitiated: This is satire. Thanks for the laugh, Hiram. ]

Obama Leads McCain 76%-23% In National Poll - Obama Still Can Catch Up

From the AP news wires today:

Booneville, Ky - “Senator Barack Obama often commands large crowds of young people, college graduates and women at speeches and campaign rallies. But the central front in his war for the White House with Senator John McCain remains hardscrabble Appalachian communities like Owsley County, Kentucky (population 4,858), where Senator McCain recently ended a campaign stop with a nightcap at a local bar. Senator John McCain also does well among the wealthiest 2% of Americans, as well as, with no encouragement of his own, that small number of white Americans who are publicly, avowedly racist.

Merle Black, a professor of politics at Emory University, says Senator Obama ‘may have real trouble with the votes of white racists’ who, Dr. Black notes, are not sympathetic to his candidacy.

Professor Vincent Hutchings, at the University of Michigan, agrees, saying, ‘There are some people who simply aren’t going to vote for Barack Obama this election - and for those voters, John McCain is their candidate.’

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