On September 26th former White House adviser and campaign strategist Karl Rove will debate former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards at the University of Buffalo.

I'm not going to mince words, folks. I'm already ten times more excited about hearing these two joust as I am about any debates between Obama and McCain and their Vice Presidential candidates.

The former Republican Senator from North Carolina passed away Friday, July 4th.

CF: "statistical dead heat"

With just over four months remaining until voters weigh in at the polls, the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey out Tuesday indicates that among registered voters nationwide, Obama holds a 5-point advantage over the Arizona senator, 50 percent to 45 percent.

Talk about things ending not with a bang, but with a whimper:

The Justice Department announced Friday that it would pay $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Steven J. Hatfill, a former Army biodefense researcher intensively investigated as a “person of interest” in the deadly anthrax letters of 2001.

What might Idaho Republican Larry Craig, he of the wide stance, and Louisiana Republican David Vitter, he of the brothel speed dial, be cosponsoring in the Senate?

Up in the Pacific Northwest, things just took a turn for the worse for Oregon Republican Mike Erickson, a pro-life candidate for the open seat in Oregon's 5th Congressional District:

Erickson, a Lake Oswego businessman, is the Republican candidate for the 5th Congressional District and is running on a "pro-life" platform. The charge that he provided money to Tawnya nearly derailed his campaign for the May 20 primary and could hobble his chances in the Nov. 4 general election against state Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby.

As first reported in the blogosphere here at The Texas Blue, the Texas GOP convention button story has taken a turn for the comic: The Dallas Morning News' Trailblazers blog has asked its readership to post their own slogans for the Texas G.O.P..

As you might imagine, chaos follows.

I'm going to venture a guess that all of us who write for The Blue have never known a political campaign without negative advertising in our voting lives. I'm fairly certain I can say this because I'm the geezer of the group, clocking in at the dusty old age of 34, and there's never been an election in my voting life that didn't have some negative advertising in it.

This little nugget in the Dallas Morning News' Trailblazers political blog made me so angry I had to immediately put the keys to my Volvo back in my pocket*, scoot my latte aside**, get on the coffee house's wireless*** and blog about it**** instead of ordering some sushi*****:

Apparently the producers at FOX News learned the lessons of Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater quite well. Via Sadly, No:

Wow. A Princeton Bachelor's, a Harvard J.D., employment at Sidley Austin, the City of Chicago and the University of Chicago only gets a woman a "Baby Mama"? I shudder to think what the producers at FOX News must think of Cindy McCain and Laura Bush.