Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) “will not deliver the keynote speech at this year’s Democratic National Convention but instead will speak immediately before former President Bill Clinton on what party officials hope will be an energetic second-to-last night,” the Boston Globe reports.

Three high-placed Republican sources tell the Columbus Dispatch that Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) “has decided not to run for re-election, leaving party members rushing to find a replacement in time for the Nov. 6 election.”

“A source said LaTourette is leaving because of a dispute with House leadership about future committee assignments.”

The White House “was subtlety gleeful today as Mitt Romney’s campaign dealt with the latest group to be offended during the Republican presidential candidate’s overseas tour that was intended to showcase his foreign policy credentials,” ABC News reports.

“Romney’s newest diplomatic fumble has insulted the Palestinians by suggesting that the discrepancy between the wealth of Israel and Palestinians was due in part to their different cultures. A top Palestinian labeled the analysis racist.”

National Journal: “For any man who would be president there are unwritten rules of
foreign diplomacy. Mitt Romney seems to have internalized some, while
others apparently slipped out of the briefing book on his flight across
the Atlantic to debut as a potential leader of the free world.”

Fred Hiatt: “In this Romney-Obama matchup, the only motivation that surfaces clearly for voters is the desire to stop the other side — the conviction that the opponent’s agenda would be dangerous. If the pattern holds after the conventions, this may be what propels voters to the polls in November…”

“It is a blocking election. The candidates give us little sense of what they would actually do in office. Neither tries to rally Americans behind a positive vision and agenda for the next four years. The rationale instead is the frightening specter of an enemy win.”

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign released a new video featuring a small businessman criticizing President Obama’s now infamous “you didn’t build that” line.

Says Dennis Sollmann: “I mean, I’m thinking, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ He was trying to say: ‘Hey, you didn’t build that business on your own. The government helped you build it.’ And that’s what ticked me off more than anything.”

However, the Huffington Post reports Sollmann’s electric company has relied heavily on government contracts.

This is the second time this has happened: A previous Romney ad starred a New Hampshire businessman who also received significant government assistance.

[Read more…]

A new Democracy Corps (D) survey shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney nationally by four points, 50% to 46%.

Even more interesting: The poll finds President Obama’s approval rating at 50%.

Businessweek says it’s not about Bain Capital or offshore tax havens. It’s an ad about bullying being run in Michigan by attorney Geoffrey Fieger.

[Read more…]

Howard Kurtz reports on Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) failed efforts to advise Mitt Romney and his frustration at a behind-the-scenes role in the campaign.

“When Mitt Romney declared, during a Republican primary debate in Tampa, that he would pressure illegal immigrants to ‘self-deport’ back to their home countries, John McCain was downright disturbed. Worried that his former rival was grievously wounding himself with Hispanic voters, the Arizona senator staged an intervention. He and fellow senator Lindsey Graham placed a joint call to Romney in January, urging him to tone down his rhetoric. Romney listened politely, sources say, and did not use the phrase again.”

“It was a rare instance of Romney taking counsel from the man who beat him in the last campaign — and who has been relegated to a behind-the-scenes role in this one. Four years after his own presidential bid, McCain’s luster as a Republican Party spokesman appears to have dimmed: a number of proposed campaign trips on Romney’s behalf have quietly evaporated, and there has been no offer of a speaking slot at the GOP convention.”