NYTimes

Mark Halperin writes that two sources are saying that McCain will pick Mitt Romney as his Vice President:

Two Republicans close to the situation say McCain has apparently settled on Mitt Romney as his running mate.

Two additional GOP sources say McCain had not offered the slot to anyone as of Thursday night, and that he could still change his mind

I hope so.  Romney simply reinforces the rich and out of touch image, and he doesn’t really appeal all that much to the voters in the middle.  Will he energize the conservative base?  I doubt it.  Half the conservative base isn’t comfortable with his religion, and the rest just wanted him during the primary because he was the only guy left that might have stopped John McCain.

Adding credibility to the Romney rumor, the NYTimes says that McCain will pick a pro-life VP:

Senator John McCain has narrowed his list of potential running mates to a handful of candidates and appears unlikely to select anyone who supports abortion rights, several advisers close to his campaign said on Thursday.

Makes sense after the very unhappy reaction from conservatives when Ridge and Lieberman were floated as possibilities.

But Mitt Romney is a lame pick.  McCain needs someone interesting (and surprising) if he’s going to expect his VP pick to help him.

Paul Krugman gets it right, as usual, in his column today.  The Obama campaign could be destroying McCain on the economy, but just doesn’t seem to be doing so:

Why isn’t the Obama campaign getting more traction on economic issues?

It’s not the Republican offensive on offshore drilling. It’s true that many Americans have apparently been misled by bogus claims about gas price relief. But as I’ve already pointed out, Democrats in general retain a large edge on economic issues.

Nor is there any valid basis for the complaints, highlighted in Sunday’s Times, that Mr. Obama isn’t offering enough policy specifics. Delve into the Obama campaign Web site and you’ll find plenty of policy detail. And the campaign’s ads reel off lots of specific policy proposals — too many, if you ask me.

No, the problem isn’t lack of specifics — it’s lack of passion. When it comes to the economy, Mr. Obama’s campaign seems oddly lethargic.

Maybe Obama just doesn’t have the passion for economic issues.  That’s fine, everyone has certain issues that are most important to them.  But the economy is where Democrats win.  As much as the American people are against the war, McCain will never lose big on that issue (or other national security issues).  The way to beat him is to focus on the reasons for our failing economy (8 years of Bush-McCain economic policies).

Barack Obama, in a statement Monday, said that Georgia should be admitted to NATO:

“I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship,” Obama says.

I’m glad to hear him taking a strong position on this.  Had Georgia been admitted to NATO earlier, Russia would never have invaded.  It would have pissed the Russians off, but they wouldn’t have invaded.

In other Georgia and Russia related news, Russia today ordered a ceasefire.  What this actually means is yet to be seen.  Russian troops are still in Georgia and show no signs of leaving, they just aren’t actively attacking at the moment.

Looks like the conflict between Russia and Georgia has just escalated.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin declared that “war has started” and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia accused Russia of a “well-planned invasion,” saying he had mobilized Georgia’s military reserves.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

The White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said the Bush administration had been talking to both sides to resolve the crisis.

“We urge restraint on all sides — that violence would be curtailed and that direct dialogue could ensue in order to help resolve their differences,” she said.

The European Union and NATO also called Friday for Russia and Georgia to end the hostilities.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a statement calling on both sides to use “the greatest prudence and restraint” and “to halt the use of force immediately.”

The New York Times Editorial Board has responded to John McCain’s latest race-baiting tactics.  And they are not at all happy.  Here it is in full:

We know that operatives in modern-day presidential campaigns are supposed to say things that everyone knows are ridiculous — and to do it with a straight face.

Still, there was something surreal, and offensive, about today’s soundbite from the campaign of Senator John McCain.

The presumptive Republican nominee has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama. The most recent ad compares the presumptive Democratic nominee for president to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton — suggesting to voters that he’s nothing more than a bubble-headed, publicity-seeking celebrity.

The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.

Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain on the ploy, saying, quite rightly, that the Republicans are trying to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills.’’

But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’

The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.

It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjures up another loaded racial image.

The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”

It’s ugly stuff. How about we leave Britney, Paris, and O.J. out of this — and have a presidential campaign?

McCain’s dirty tactics may be backfiring on him.  Serves him right for trying to stoke the fires of bigotry and racism that should have no role in this campaign.  Let’s see if the rest of the media has the integrity to call McCain’s latest strategy what it is: disgusting race-baiting.

The Denver Post says that McCain can gain in the West by picking Mitt Romney as his Vice President.  This might be true, but I question the likelihood of the point.

A Washington outsider who co-founded a private-equity firm and served as Massachusetts’ governor, Romney is viewed as balancing the perceived shortcomings of McCain, who has been an Arizona senator for 22 years and has admitted that economic issues aren’t his strength. Prior to dropping out of the campaign, Romney was substantially vetted, and he knows how to throw — and take — a punch.

Those factors alone might help a McCain-Romney ticket in the West. But Romney’s ties to the region, which include attending Brigham Young University in Utah and rescuing the 2002 Winter Olympics, could reap big political gains for McCain.

It was Romney, after all, who beat McCain in five Western primaries.

Yes, Romney beat McCain in those primaries.  But a large reason for that was the large Mormon percentage in the Republican primaries.  McCain is going to win those voters with or without Romney.  LDS voters are overwhelmingly Republican, and very unlikely to vote for Obama no matter who McCain puts on his ticket.  It might slightly increase LDS turnout with Romney in the VP spot, but I honestly don’t think it’d have a major effect.

There is also the question of Romney’s drawbacks in other areas.

Not that Romney doesn’t have negatives. Though he may help McCain in Michigan, where Romney’s father was governor, he could be a liability in the South.

He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, considered a cult by some evangelical Christians and Southern Baptists. Despite his central-casting good looks, he often comes across as aloof. And he and McCain taunted each other in the primaries, which could be exploited by Democrats.

The Evangelicals have had a tenuous alliance with the Mormons.  Both groups advocate the same socially conservative positions (pro-life, anti-gay rights, abstinence only sexual education, school prayer, etc.).  At the same time however, many evangelical Christians see Mormons as part of a cult; they have a very negative view of Mormons overall and will not want a Mormon President (or Vice President).  Despite Obama’s attempts to court these voters, I don’t think they will go Democratic.  But I do think Romney as VP might cause many of them to just stay home.  They weren’t too pleased with McCain in the first place, and Romney could just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  Will that put any states in play for Obama?  I think that’s unlikely, unless Obama really starts to pull away; but in that case no VP would save McCain anyway.

And then there is Michigan.  Romney has a good chance at bringing in Michigan for McCain.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Michigan could easily outweigh any other concerns.  With such an unfavorable electoral map for McCain, having a shot at Michigan’s 17 Electoral Votes may just be too enticing to pass up.

The other factor for McCain is that there really don’t seem to be a whole lot of other good options.  McCain needs someone to help energize the campaign and Romney just might be able to do that.  At this point I’ll be pretty surprised if Romney isn’t selected.

UPDATE: Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics Says McCain should pick Romney.  Dan Schnur disagrees.

In the 2000 Republican Primaries John McCain fell victim to some of the most vicious and dirty negative campaigning this country has ever seen.  Long an opponent of these sorts of tactics, McCain was bitter about the tactics used by George W. Bush and his chief adviser Karl Rove.  But, as we all know, McCain supported the Bush’s policies.  He supported Bush’s reelection.  And now, it appears he supports Bush’s campaign tactics.  For John McCain, winning is all that matters.  Damn the moral high ground; damn “straight talk;” winning is all that matters.

But this might backfire.  McCain’s whole image is wrapped up in the idea of him being a straight talker and a different kind of politician.  He’s perceived as someone of integrity and honor.  He might get away with a bit of negativity here and there, and his image might even lend those attacks some credit.  But he’s taking things pretty far these days.  At some point, it’ll backfire.

The NYTimes points out:

Well, that certainly didn’t take long. On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook.

And that may prove to be his undoing.  Despite all signs that this will be a huge Democratic year, McCain has stayed close to Barack Obama in the polls.  He’d better be careful though.  Americans are sick and tired of dirty politics; they will like such tactics even less from someone who has always claimed to be better than that.

From the NYTimes:

Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting income. The charges are related to renovations on his home and to gifts he has received. They arise from an investigation that has been under way for more than a year, in connection with the senator’s relationship with a businessman who oversaw the home-remodeling project.

…

Republicans on Capitol Hill were already jittery over a lobbying and influence-peddling scandal related to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is now in prison. Mr. Stevens’s troubles are not linked to that affair. Instead, they stem from his ties to an oil executive whose company won millions of dollars in federal contracts with the help of Mr. Stevens, whose home in Alaska was almost doubled in size in the renovation project.

Just what the GOP needed, a reminder of how corrupt they are.  This will hurt the Republicans far beyond Alaska.  As if people needed another reason not to vote Republican this year…

Apparently things are going fantastically in Iraq these days.  Thank you John McCain!  We couldn’t have stopped the violence without you.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, at least 24 people were killed and 187 wounded, after a female suicide bomber blew herself up amid thousands of Kurdish demonstrators who had gathered near the provincial headquarters building, said Brig. Gen. Burhan Tayyib Taha of the Iraqi police in Kirkuk.

And:

In the attacks in Baghdad, three women used suicide vests and a bomb in a bag to make strikes just minutes apart, killing 24 people, all apparently Shiite pilgrims marching in a festival, according to an official at the Interior Ministry. The dead included at least four children, one of them an infant, and there were at least 62 other people wounded, according to police officials and witnesses.

Can’t we get out of this mess already?