Maureen Dowd is already in "oblivion" as a political commenter. She is defined by her silliness and her columns are basically fodder for mockery. But she wrote a few lines today that merit consideration because they follow a theme that has been running through the Obama campaign, mostly through his supporters in the Media and the blogs - "Bill Clinton looks at Obama and sees his own oblivion", writes Dowd. Of course, the opposite is true. The Obama Post Partisan Unity Schtick has been a direct descendant of Bill Clinton's Third Way Schtick of the 1990s. Obama, in many ways, not the least of which is the marked improvement in race relations in the 1990s, IS Bill Clinton's legacy.

But, as I wrote about before, Barack Obama seems determined to disown this Democratic legacy. In a political campaign that is becoming increasingly dominated by economic concerns, this is political stupidity. Obama should be embracing the Clinton economic legacy. He should be trying to place the Bush economic legacy on John McCain.

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It doesn't look like Sen. Barack Obama will name his running mate after all this week. It's hard to imagine him naming someone on Wednesday when he's leaving for vacation in Hawaii on Friday. But to add to the Evan Bayh speculation, there's this, from his birthday party-fundraiser in Boston Monday night:

Introducing Obama, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said: "I asked Barack Obama what he wanted for his birthday. He said, 'Indiana, Colorado and Virginia,' " said Kerry, referring to three potential swing states Obama hopes to win in the Nov. 4 election.

Since both Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and Sen. Ken Salazar have said they haven't been asked for documentation, that says to me Obama will pick either Kaine or Bayh. It would be crazy to pick Kaine who is personally anti-choice and has backed abortion restrictions. Between the Hillary supporters he's alienated and others who won't vote for a wishy-washy on abortion candidate, Kaine's negative impact on the ticket is obvious. That leaves Evan Bayh.

I suspect he will drop hints at his joint appearance with Bayh today in Indiana. Then his campaign can do a final round of polling before he makes a final decision.

One question: What if his final polling results indicate it has to be Hillary? [More...]

Steven Waldman analyzes "the religion factor" as the candidates consider various potential running mates. Too bad he didn't mention the last clause in Article VI, section 3 of the United States Constitution:

but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

When I first heard today of the new website Drug Dealer Cindy, I thought it was going to be about Cindy McCain's past struggles with prescription drugs. It's not. It's about her family beer distributing business, Hensley & Company.

The site and the video are the work of Safer Choice, a Colorado organization whose goals I've supported in the past.

This new site makes me a little uneasy. I'd almost rather it was about the sweetheart deal Cindy McCain got for her prescription drug violations that others don't get -- and if her husband is elected President, won't get.

SAFER in the fine print says the site is not an attack on Cindy McCain but on the hypocrisy of our laws that tolerate alcohol abuse while punishing users of marijuana, a less harmful substance.

Sorry, SAFER, I see it as an attack on Cindy McCain and I think it will be viewed as mean-spirited. I'd rather you stick to attacking our unjust laws and the politicians who pass them. That's John McCain, not Cindy.

Raw Story has more.

Go Paris! Here's the video TChris mentioned earlier.

Paris responds to John McCain's using her in a celebrity ad. Shorter version: She's got her own energy plan and she'll see us in the White House.

Update: The video has been removed from You Tube and substituted with the above censored version that blanks out the word "b*tches.

I like Paris Hilton. I defended her plenty on TalkLeft during her last brush with the law. (Scroll down for the almost daily posts on the raw deal she got. I even live-blogged her court hearings. Graphic here. )

This is an open thread.

At the Republican Convention, President Bush will speak on Labor Day, with the hope that backyard barbequers will be too busy to notice he was there. Dick Cheney might skip the event entirely, for equally obvious reasons. Also absent will the indicted Ted Stevens and the toe-tapping Larry Craig.

"Gordon Smith of Oregon, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine all face tough re-election campaigns" so they'll also take a pass. They may be hoping that voters don't realize they're Republicans.

In other Republican news:

A newspaper is asking John McCain's campaign why a black reporter assigned to cover a rally was singled out by security and told to leave a backstage area.

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The schedule for the fall presidential debates has been announced:

• 9/26 in Oxford (Miss.), Jim Lehrer moderating.
• 10/2 in St. Louis, Gwen Ifill moderating.
• 10/7 in Nashville, Tom Brokaw moderating.
• 10/15 in Hempstead (N.Y.), Bob Schieffer moderating.

As I was driving and listening to CNN on Sirius earlier this afternoon, they replayed segments of John McCain and Barack Obama's latest energy speeches.

McCain said members of Congress should interrupt their vacations and recess and return to Washington to pass an energy bill.

"Congress should come back into session, and I'm willing to come off the campaign trail. I call on Senator Obama to call on Congress to... Come off their vacation and address this energy challenge to America and don't leave until we do, Republican and Democrat joining together," the four-term senator said.

Other Republicans are joining the call. Is this just a ploy for the Republicans to reconvene Congress during Obama's scheduled vacation to Hawaii? He leaves Friday. Vacations before a convention can be hazardous to a campaign, remember John Kerry's winsurfing fiasco?

Who will campaign for Obama in his absence? You guessed it -- Hillary Clinton.

John McCain made the rounds at the annual Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally yesterday.

Standing on the main stage at a world famous motorcycle rally in rural South Dakota on Monday, John McCain looked out on a sea of denim-wearing bikers and told them he enjoyed their company much more than that of the 200,000 Germans who turned out to see Barack Obama last month.

“As you may know,” he told the tens of thousands gathered at the 68th annual Sturgis Rally at Buffalo Chip campground, “not long ago, a couple of hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of fifty thousand Harleys any day.”

The bikers roared their approval by revving their engines. [More...]

Chris Bowers discusses Obama new ad against McCain:

Chris writes:

If used with the proper level of rhetoric, the "McCain has been in D.C." for too long, could change the narrative, and start directing the balance of attacks toward McCain. . . .It is better than the "McCain is a flip-flopper" attack, which doesn't make any sense if you want to tie McCain to Bush.

Chris' critique makes sense but does not go far enough imo. McCain's 26 years in Congress is not the issue - Bush's 7 years as President and McCain's embrace of it is. In short, I think every Obama ad or discussion of McCain should be about George Bush and McCain's ties to him - that McCain will be Bush's third term.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Digby highlighted Bob Somerby's piece about how the race issue is cutting against Obama. I was struck by Somerby's quote of Bob Herbert:

HERBERT (8/2/08): Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation [in saying Obama “played the race card.”]

We’ll stay away from definitive judgments about McCain’s motivation. But we agree, whole-heartedly, that race is dangerous for Candidate Obama . . .

It is obvious of course but Somerby and Digby and frankly, all commenters have decided to forget what happened in January 2008 in the Democratic Party, when "everyday the campaign was about race" was GOOD for Obama. As we know, Bill Clinton has not forgotten. On February 14, 2008, I wrote a post titled Turning Obama Into The Black Candidate:

Digby writes about poblano's piece in the LATimes and questions one of his premises. Poblano wrote:

The GOP will nominate a candidate who is widely perceived as being to the left of the party's conservative base, whereas the Democratic Party will again pick a standard-bearer more authentically liberal than centrist.

Digby responds:

I agree that McCain was chosen because he wasn't perceived as a doctrinaire Republican, but is it true that Obama was chosen because he's more authentically liberal than centrist? I thought he was running as someone who was beyond labels --- a post-partisan whose vision was to transcend partisanship altogether. The problem is that these Independent voters still see McCain as a moderate while they see Obama as a raging liberal. The post-partisanship hasn't sold to them the way it was supposed to, at least not yet.

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