Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Rudy Giuliani's ability to win the Republican primary hinges on convincing GOP voters that he supports federalism and constructionist views on the Constitution. It takes his socially-liberal policy views off the table to a large extent if he can convince Republicans of his sincerity on those points, and nowhere will that be more evident than in his appointments to the bench. His new effort in that regard seems solidly calculated to confirm that commitment.

-- ED MORRISSEY

I'm married to the answer.

-- MICHELLE OBAMA

Away from the bright lights and high-minded rhetoric of the campaign trail, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama has quietly worked with corporate lobbyists to help pass breaks worth $12 million.

In his speeches, Obama has lambasted lobbyists and moneyed interests who "have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play."

"It's an entire culture in Washington -- some of it legal, some of it not," the Democratic hopeful told a New York crowd in June, rallying support for his ethics reform agenda.

But last year, at the request of a hired representative for an Australian-owned chemical corporation Nufarm, Obama introduced nine separate bills exempting the company from import fees on a range of chemical ingredients it uses in the manufacture of pesticides and herbicides. Nufarm's U.S. subsidiary is based in Illinois.

-- JUSTIN ROOD

He raises tens of millions of dollars over a few months. His supporters are passionate, almost fanatical. And his grass-roots movement threatens a more established rival.

A description of Howard Dean in 2003 or Sen. Barack Obama today?

Obama campaign advisers -- many of them campaign veterans who watched Dean's slow rise and rapid descent at close range -- reject the comparison, arguing that their candidate and organization won't repeat the mistakes of the former Vermont governor.

-- ANNE E. KORNBLUT and PERRY BACON Jr.

McCain's real straight talk these days isn't invigorating--it's depressing, largely based on his grim vision of perseverance in Iraq.

-- MICHAEL CROWLEY

With mass departures from his campaign staff, it may be time to write John McCain’s political obituary. The captain of the Straight Talk Express deserves to go out on his shield like the honorable warrior he has always been.

In an eerie parallel to Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny,” the Senator from Arizona morphed from a lifelong by-the-book career serviceman to the unhinged Capt. Queeg of the popular 1950’s novel, play and movie.

In the anger over his support for an insane war, it would be an injustice if McCain’s service to his country were swept out with the Iraq wreckage. Unlike Bush, Cheney and, yes, Bill Clinton, he served and suffered through Vietnam, another unjust war not of his making.

-- ROBERT STEIN

Hurting in opinion polls and haunted by charges of lavish personal spending, Democrat John Edwards took his presidential campaign on Monday to some of the most impoverished parts of the country.

With America's poor the crux of his campaign, the former vice presidential candidate launched an eight-state tour in New Orleans, a city that exposed U.S. poverty to a global audience following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

His focus on poverty challenges his top Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and enables Edwards to present himself as a leader with a cause bigger than his own ambition, analysts said.

-- REUTERS

In an effort to jump-start a presidential campaign that still has not broken into the top Democratic tier, former Sen. John Edwards made his most ambitious policy announcement yet at a campaign event in Iowa Monday: a promise to eliminate all unpleasant, disagreeable, or otherwise bad things from all aspects of American life by the end of his second year in office.

-- THE ONION

Cartoon by Jeff Danziger/New York Times Syndicate