“The press was a main function of what he does on the campaign tour. After the environmental round table, they went outside for 15-20 minutes for questions. From there, the press followed him around the watershed to take video and pictures of his tour of the site. The press was not involved with the fundraisers, it was closed door for just the donors and staff.”

McCain does generally seem to take more time to talk to his traveling press corps than Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama, at least from what I’ve observed out on the campaign trail here in Washington and then in Texas. That could be an interesting tool for his campaign come the summer and fall.

Almost clearly referring to Obama, who said last July that he supported direct and unconditional talks with leaders of Iran, North Korea and other countries, Bush said this today in a speech in Israel:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Obama’s campaign released a statement almost immediately, saying, “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack.”

And, in response to Obama’s response, White House spokesperson Dana Perino made this biting comment: “I understand when you’re running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you — that is not always true and it is not true in this case.”

TIME analyzes this exchange in a piece aptly titled “Behind the Bush-Obama Smackfest.” The obvious reason for Bush’s jab at Obama is that he is fighting on McCain’s behalf, but TIME says it goes further than that - and on both sides.

Bush is struggling to keep his presidency relevant, and injecting himself into the presidential campaign is a sure way to do that. At the same time, Obama is happy for any opportunity to tie Bush to Republican nominee-to-be John McCain’s side.

…

But the speed with which Obama responded to Bush’s Knesset comments says something about his eagerness to lock horns with the President and the use his campaign is going to make of him in coming months.

Obama may not like what the President said about him, but it does give him a chance to denounce him and - by association - John McCain. And McCain backed up the President today when asked about the situation:

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,” Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio.

Asked if he thought Mr. Obama was an appeaser, Mr. McCain sidestepped the question and said, “I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel off the map, who denies the Holocaust. That’s what I think Senator Obama ought to explain to the American people.”

That’s exactly what Obama wants - the sound bite of McCain saying, “And the president is exactly right.” McCain should be careful about how he associates himself with the unpopular President, as Obama will be looking to exploit their relationship every chance he gets. With record number of voters becoming more and more excited about Obama’s calls for change, the last thing they’ll want to hear about is a candidate who could bring more of the same from the Bush era.

“Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

“We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.”

With this ruling, California becomes the second state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. Massachusetts is the other state, and has done so since 2003.

Welcome to the 2008 presidential campaign, gay marriage.

Opponents of same-sex marriage have been preparing for such a potential decision by collecting signatures to put on the November ballot an initiative to change the California state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The Associated Press reports that if the initiative gets on the ballot and is passed, it would trump today’s court ruling.  

California’s governornator said this after the court ruling today:

“I respect the court’s decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling,’” said California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, in a statement. “As I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state supreme court ruling.”

For the presidential candidates, this is a chance to make clear their position on a topic that has been used in recent years as a key electoral wedge issue. Indeed, for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who has struggled to entice Christian conservatives to his candidacy, this is a big moment. Religious website beliefnet — at its “God-o-meter” — put it this way:

If John McCain wanted an opportunity to make common cause with the Christian Right, he’s just been handed it: the California Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the state’s gay marriage ban. One of the Christian Right’s biggest grievances against McCain is his steadfast refusal to get behind a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. This is a moment when McCain can reverse that opposition and make a plausible case that circumstance, rather than raw political calculus, forced his hand.

It wouldn’t be the first time a Republican presidential candidate tried such a thing. President Bush used the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s 2003 legalization of gay marriage as an opportunity to announce his support for the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment, now known as the Marriage Protection Amendment.

The amendment has gone nowhere in the years since then. But supporting it and roughly a dozen similar state-level constitutional amendments became the rallying cry for Christian conservatives who played a huge role in Bush’s reelection. The GOP’s evangelical grassroots have been unwilling to play a similar role for McCain for a litany of reasons. Will McCain seize this moment to try to change all that, reverting more to a Karl Rove style get-out-the-base strategy, or will he stick to running a much more centrist campaign by hedging on support for a constitutional amendment? This is a moment of truth.

To be absolutely clear: McCain has not only opposed the federal gay-marriage amendment for years; he’s blasted it, using such words as these when he voted against the amendment in 2004:

“The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans,” McCain said. “It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.”

He’ll now be asked about those words again. And again. And again.

Obama has picked up four of Edwards’ delegates, and the powerful endorsement of the United Steelworkers. Today, the Steelworkers, who had endorsed Edwards last year, announced thier endorsement of Obama. Their endorsement was highly courted in this election by Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. 

United Steelworkers: “Senator Obama’s call for a significant change of direction amounts to far more than a compelling rallying cry.  It is buttressed by his record of consistent support for workers, by his call for sweeping changes to our health care system, by his unflinching support for Employee Free Choice, and by his insistence that America’s trade policies must, first and foremost, serve the interests of America’s working families.

So, what does this mean for Obama? It means that Obama might not have a problem with some of the “working class votes” in the fall, like so many of the pundits have been debating about non-stop in the last 48 hours.

The steelworkers have roughly 600,000 members, and many reside in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which are two critical states in the general election for the Democrats. Alex Conant, spokesman for The Republican National Committee, didn’t waste time responding to the Steelworkers endorsement.

Conant said: ”Big union endorsements are no substitute for Obama’s serious lack of experience and understanding of economic policy. Obama’s poor judgment on economic matters would result in higher taxes on rank-and-file union members and hurt job creation. Americans looking for strong economic leadership won’t find it in Obama’s tax-and-spend agenda.”

I think this big union endorsement matters, and I suspect more endorsements to follow. I interviewed some members of United Steelworkers Union Local 5032 in Pennsylvania prior to the primary. You can read about thier story here. 

This story comes courtesy of some good leg work by the Associated Press:

Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.

The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.

McCain, who was campaigning in Ohio, said neither he nor his wife were aware of the Sudan-related holdings.

Divestment has become a popular way to oppose the Sudanese government’s genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The New York Times followed up well on this:

Several Democratic and Republican candidates sold off similar investments during the primary season. In Senator McCain’s home state of Arizona, Gov. Janet Napolitano signed into law a bill that would “divest pension funds from those targeted corporations that materially assist the Sudanese government in carrying out the genocide in Darfur. The bill targets foreign companies involved in mineral extraction, weapon sales, and the oil industry.”

Well, frankly that’s not true and we know it.

Politico sees it:

For the past 18 months, ever since the 2006 elections, congressional Republicans have been like a hospital patient trying to convince visitors that he is not really all that sick: a bit under the weather; actually feel better than I sound; should be up and about any day; thanks for asking.

Suddenly — belatedly — all pretense is gone.

The Republican defeat in Tuesday’s special election in Mississippi, in a deeply conservative district where, in an average year, Democrats cannot even compete, was a clear sign that the GOP has the political equivalent of cancer that has spread throughout the body. Many House GOP operatives are privately predicting that the party could easily lose up to 20 seats this fall.

Like I said, it’s true. Chider’s win in Mississippi is the third of what may become a streak of conservative leaning districts that could be lost to the democrats.

Politico suggest that with the 20 seat loss, coupled with the 30 seats lost in ‘06, there would be a 70 vote difference between the parties, giving the Democrats not just a clear majority but an overwhelming juggernaut that could pass just about anything they wanted.

Two things to watch out for if this comes about: 1. With a Dem. in the White House, how will that affect how quickly things get done? 2. With a Rep. in the White House, how will that affect the powers that have been wielded by President Bush? (Will McCain have the same authority if the House becomes severely Democrat?)

I got an up close and personal look at his entire trip, from a round table discussion with an environmental panel and the press in North Bend, to events later on that evening. He was at the Cedar River Watershed discussing his ideas to help take care of the environment and how the United States can lead with the issue of climate change through market based solutions and American innovation.

I’m hoping to ask Cowman a few more questions about his McCain close-up, and hope to post those comments later.  

“Obviously, the people of this state and America need assurances that nuclear power will be an energy source that will be clean, that we will have ways of addressing the spent nuclear fuel and that we will make sure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past,” McCain said …

Those “mistakes of the past” in the Northwest include some particularly big “oops” moments, such as the doomed Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS). This attempt to build five new nuclear power plants in Washington collapse in 1983 in the worst municipal-bond default in history: $2.25 billion. 

So McCain has a hard sell, to put it mildly. But if he can present alternatives to problems surrounding the transportation and disposal of nuclear waste, it might be easier for Americans to imagine nuke plants as a less than terrible option.

A good round-up of this “yeah, that’s nice” perspective can be found on U.S. News and World Report’s campaign blog:

The New York Times reports in a front page story that Clinton won a “strong” victory over Obama, but with Obama “still solidly ahead of Mrs. Clinton in the delegate fight, the West Virginia results are unlikely to adversely affect Mr. Obama’s chances of winning the nomination.” The Washington Post reports on its front page that Clinton “routed” Obama, which “added fresh ammunition to her claim that she is better positioned than Obama to capture critical swing states in November.” However, the win “may have come too late to have a significant impact on the trajectory of a nomination battle.”

But West Virginia’s case does reveal real weaknesses in Obama’s campaign, as Maureen Dowd points out in her latest column:

Interviews with West Virginians leaving the polls showed some profound weaknesses that could haunt the Illinois senator in the fall. More than half said they would be dissatisfied if Obama was the nominee. Half believe he shares the views of the Rev. Wright, and more than half said he does not share their values. More than half also said that he is not honest and trustworthy. Just under half of the Clinton voters said they would not support Obama in the fall.

Obama may have started the primary season with an inspiring win in 94-percent-white Iowa, but he is winding it up with a resounding loss in 94-percent-white West Virginia.

The key wording here is “believe he shares the views of.” Obama must work harder at reinventing himself, or, rather presenting his life story. Younger people really enjoy hearing about his globe-trotting childhood, but he must remind people that he is first and foremost from the U.S., and from very humble origins, for that matter. In this regard, he’ll be in a better position than John F. Kennedy, the last Democrat who had a truly hard time winning over voters in West Virginia. Kennedy had to contend with very strong anti-Catholic feelings.

Charlie Peters, the legendary former editor of the liberal Washington Monthly who ran Jack Kennedy’s campaign in Kanawha County, W. Va., said Obama should study how J.F.K. managed to win there despite raging anti-Catholicism.

“The point of West Virginia in 1960 is that you can change attitudes,” Peters, an Obama supporter, said on Tuesday evening. “But if you don’t act to change them, he could lose West Virginia and I think he could lose the country.

“He has to change those perceptions of the people who think he could actually agree with the Rev. Wright.”

“She has to be really careful that she’s not damaging our prospects, the Democratic Party and our cause for the fall,” he told CBS.

It’s unlikely that this last-minute endorsement will change the dynamics of the race (i.e. Clinton’s dogged fight to the bitter end), but it’s yet another sign that the party establishment wants this contest over ASAP.