Sen. Barack Obama
1. Ready or Not Fugees
2. What's Going On Marvin Gaye
3. I'm On Fire Bruce Springsteen
4. Gimme Shelter Rolling Stones
5. Sinnerman Nina Simone
6. Touch the Sky Kanye West
7. You'd Be So Easy to Love Frank Sinatra
8. Think Aretha Franklin
9. City of Blinding Lights U2
10. Yes We Can will.i.am

Sen. John McCain
1. Dancing Queen ABBA
2. Blue Bayou Roy Orbison
3. Take a Chance On Me ABBA
4. If We Make It Through December Merle Haggard
5. As Time Goes By Dooley Wilson
6. Good Vibrations The Beach Boys
7. What A Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
8. I've Got You Under My Skin Frank Sinatra
9. Sweet Caroline Neil Diamond
10. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes The Platters

Not one, but TWO abba songs. Oddly enough McC doesn't have any songs from his youth except one timeless classic from the chairman of the board.

I think What's Going On is a particularly great choice.

--timball

Favorite Songs of the Candidates -- Political Wire

WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens allegedly made false statements to cover up gifts given to him by an oil contractor seeking his help on Capitol Hill, according to a seven-count federal indictment unveiled Tuesday.

hahahahaha (i'm not bitter)

--timball

FOXNews.com - Sen. Ted Stevens Indicted, Charged With Making False Statements in Corruption Probe - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

CT-05 Chris Murphy (incumbent)
LA-06 Don Cazayoux (incumbent)
ME-01 Tom Allen (incumbent, running for Senate)
MS-01 Travis Childers (incumbent)
TX-22 Nick Lampson (incumbent)
TX-23 Ciro Rodriguez (incumbent)
WI-08 Steve Kagen (incumbent)

AL-05 Parker Griffith
KY-02 David Boswell
IL-11 Debbie Halverson
NV-03 Dina Titus
NJ-03 John Adler
OH-01 Steve Driehaus
OH-16 John Boccieri
OR-05 Kurt Schrader
NJ-07 Linda Stender

freedom watch <3's those robocalls

the above list is the "weak" dems that they've decided to target. I'm saving this now so that come november I can laugh at them.

The Crypt: Freedom's Watch runs robocalls against Dems - Politico.com

This site hosts this video to explain the launch of two exploratory projects — first, a Change Congress movement, and second, my own decision whether to run for Congress in the California 12th.

I have decided I want to give as much energy as I can to the Change Congress movement. I will decide in the next week or so whether it makes sense to advance that movement by running for Congress.

Many friends have weighed in on that decision — both strongly in favor and strongly opposed. Many more have joined draftlessig.org and a Facebook group asking me to consider it.

Watch or listen and you will understand some of my reasoning. Feel free to send your thoughts or advice to lessig@lessig08.org (though please excuse any slowness in my response).

— Larry Lessig, February 19, 2008

Professor Lessig is running for Tom Lantos's seat (CA-12).

Oh. Hell. Yes.

--timball

Lessig '08 - Change Congress.

We have a list of superdelegates to the 2008 Democratic Convention who have officially endorsed a candidate but who is left? Who hasn't made an official endorsement?

Now that the primaries have started we will probably see a wave of endorsements. Let's take a look at which Democratic superdelegates haven't endorsed a candidate yet. Along with our superdelegate list we will be updating this list as new endorsements are made.
This will be an ongoing work in progress so check back often for updates.

Superdelegates highlighted in red are from Michigan or Florida and do not count toward the nomination at this time.

There is no *definitive* webpage that can give you the "accurate" count of delegates, but 2008 demconwatch has been watching the delegate + "superdelagate" counts as closely as they can track.

Superdelegates suck. They're ~ 800 dem big shots that get to vote for whomever they like. And since they're *actual* delegates the votes they cast count slightly more than ours.

--timball

2008 Democratic Convention Watch: Superdelegates who haven't endorsed

Top House Republicans were told in recent days that a former employee of their campaign committee may have forged an official audit during the contentious 2006 election cycle and that they should brace for the possibility that an unfolding investigation could uncover financial improprieties stretching back several years, according to GOP sources briefed on the members-only discussions.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has retained a forensic auditor to review its accounting for the last several election cycles, the sources said.

forensic auditor := Ninja accountants (?)

--timball

NRCC probe scares GOP - Patrick O'Connor and John Bresnahan - Politico.com

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan names names in a caustic passage from a forthcoming memoir that accuses President Bush, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney of being "involved" in his giving the press false information about the CIA leak case.

McClellan’s publisher released three paragraphs from the book “WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington.”

[skipping to the juicy bits]

“I had unknowingly passed along false information,” McClellan wrote.

“And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Fmr aide McCellan feels like he got a raw deal. With his new publisher and these firebombs I'm sure he'll get a different deal. Book comes out April 21st.

--timball

McClellan points finger at Bush, Rove - Mike Allen and Michael Calderone - Politico.com

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) plans to resign his seat by year's end, a senior Republican official told Politico.

The announcement took Capitol Hill by surprise because Lott, the former majority leader, seemed to be relishing his job as minority whip, the second-ranking GOP leadership job. He had regained a post in leadership after he resigned following racially insensitive remarks at a birthday party for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).

Something doesn't smell right. Sen Lott (R-MS) was *ultra* unhappy when he got ousted from the senate leadership and took him four years to get back to where he was in 2002. Not just that but he *JUST* got re-elected in '06. There's some idle speculation about he fact that if he retires *this* year he can start lobbying the senate members in one year instead of two, but that's no reason to leave the senate early. Especially after 34 years of service.

Anyways Gov Barbour (R) gets to appoint someone to fill out the seat till '08 and then there's a runoff for a seat that ends on 2012.

UPDATE: From an old new yorker article I read in a dentist's office:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/05/12/030512fa_fact_lemann?currentPage=4

I asked Rove if it was true that he had engineered the demise of Trent Lott, of Mississippi, as Senate Majority Leader, and Lott’s replacement by the more Bush-friendly Bill Frist, of Tennessee—it would be hard to find anyone in Washington who believed he hadn’t. (In 1990, Lott publicly criticized President George H. W. Bush for raising taxes, and the Bushes have long memories.) “No,” Rove said, flatly. Then he mentioned, in what I thought was a less than entirely sombre tone, that on the day the Lott affair reached its dramatic peak, when Lott was scheduled to appear on Black Entertainment Television to defend himself, Rove had got a call from his friend Bill Frist: “Monday morning, Frist calls me and says, ‘You know, on Friday we’re supposed to take our boys and go hunting in South Texas together—you think we ought to go?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, let me think about it. Can I call you tomorrow?’ And the next day”—after Lott’s performance on BET, which came across as abjectly liberal, and failed to save him—“I call Frist and say, ‘I don’t think it’s going to be good for you or for me to be seen in South Texas, hunting with our boys.’ I think the world of Bill, but I don’t take credit.” That certainly settles that!

--timball

Top official: Lott to resign - Politico.com

Welcome to the State Department's first-ever blog, Dipnote. As a communicator for the Department, I have the opportunity to do my fair share of talking on a daily basis. With the launch of Dipnote, we are hoping to start a dialogue with the public. More than ever, world events affect our daily lives--what we see and hear, what we do, and how we work. I hope Dipnote will provide you with a window into the work of the people responsible for our foreign policy, and will give you a chance to be active participants in a community focused on some of the great issues of our world today.

With Dipnote we are going to take you behind the scenes at the State Department and bring you closer to the personalities of the Department. We are going to try and break through some of the jargon and talk about how we operate around the world.

We invite you to participate in this community, and I am looking forward to stepping away from my podium every now and then into the blogosphere. Let the conversation begin.

PS - We're new at this. It looks like we broke our own rule and used State jargon in our blog title. "Dipnote" refers to a diplomatic note. It is one of the many ways in which governments formally communicate with each other.

The dictionary definition of a diplomatic note is: "A formal communication between an ambassador and a minister (usually the foreign minister) of this host government or another ambassador."

It's officially then end of the blogs. The faceless nameless Dept of State has decided to have a blog... In true USDoS fashion it's color scheme is grey on black.

--timball

US Department of State Blog

BOISE — Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig will announce Saturday he will resign from the Senate amid a furor over his arrest and guilty plea in a police sex sting in an airport men’s room, Republican officials said today, according to The Associated Press. The Idaho Statesman independently confirmed the report.

Craig's office declined to confirm or deny a resignation.

Craig's communications director Dan Whiting told the Idaho Statesman, "I won't say either way."

It's official a public servant for 27yrs is now resigning because of his "wide-stance".

--timball

UPDATED 4:48 p.m. -- Craig to announce resignation on Saturday | News Updates | Idaho Statesman