McCain had an affair?

At his age? With a wife as cute as this?

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

Maverick is on the verge of clinching the nomination, and now there's a bimbo eruption?

I'm guessing this won't amount to much, but still.

McCain had a lobbyist girlfriend when he was in his mid-sixties?

Say what you want about the ethical lapse or the appearance of corruption, but ... McCain had a chippy on the side? That is just remarkable. Viagra truly is a wonder drug.

Update: Scout Finch ...

Regardless of whether they were having an intimate affair or not, didn't John McCain realize that it was inappropriate for a telecommunications lobbyist to be "turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client’s corporate jet?" How could he not realize how inappropriate that is on a variety of levels? But this isn't the first time that John McCain used poor judgement when it comes to lobbyists. And it wouldn't be the first time (by his own admission) that he cheated on his wife. He married his current wife, Cindy, only one month after he divorced his first wife. ...

It seems that poor judgement is a theme in John McCain's life. This story is bad for him from so many angles. I'm not sure if McCain survives this one. Speculation about an affair is one thing, but an intimate relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist? Not smart. Not smart at all.

And somewhere Mike Huckabee is smiling. Stay tuned.

Houbama

"We do know this, Houston: The change we seek is still months away and we need the good people of Texas to get there," Obama said. "If we're blessed and honored to win the nomination, then we're going to need you to help win the election in November."

We rode the train downtown and stood for an hour in one of two lines that snaked along the front, around the corner, and down the side of Toyota Center, but my feet were hurting and my blood sugar low so we stepped out of line about 7 p.m., walked over to the BUS, ate, and went home.

The audience of approximately 19,000, which had waited hours for him to speak, drowned Obama out time and again as he described his vision of change in America and called Washington a place "where good ideas go to die." The crowd cheered and chanted Obama's battle cry of "Yes, we can!"

He promised the crowd he will end predatory lending practices that contributed to the national mortgage lending crisis. He said he will end lobby influence in Washington. And he said he will replace tax breaks for wealthy people and corporations that ship jobs overseas with tax cuts for the middle class.

Obama also said he wants to reform the immigration system. He has promised to bring those who are productive workers onto the path to citizenship while punishing employers who hire illegal workers.

"If you are ready for a change, we can stop using immigration as a political football," he said.

Obama's speech began about 8:40 p.m. and lasted for 45 minutes; except for the list of locals whom he thanked and a brief description from the card given to all inside describing the complicated Texas prima-caucus, he spoke without notes or teleprompter. Here's the first half:



Oh yeah, about that early voting that started yesterday:

By the end of the day, 9,233 ballots were cast in the Democratic primary; 2,914 in the Republican, said Harris County Clerk's spokesman Hector de Leon. First-day totals for early voting in the 2004 presidential primary totaled 849 in the Democratic contests and 678 in the Republican.

I put out signs at 5:30 a.m. at my EV poll -- Fiesta Mart, at the intersection of OST and Kirby, in the shadow of Reliant Stadium -- and returned to vote about 10 a.m., after my doctor's appointment. There were about twenty e-Slates available but only half a dozen or so occupied; the bottleneck was at sign-in, where the lines were two and three deep. None of the registrars were offering to stamp voter registration cards or offering "receipts" for attending the March 4 caucuses, and when I asked to have my card stamped, the pad was so dry that my "Democratic" stamp was barely readable. Not from overuse, either.

Not the sort of difficulty that should be happening on the first day of voting.

We got home about 8 p.m., turned on the teevee to see if they had called Wisconsin, and watched Obama give that speech. Jeffrey Toobin of CNN declared it "too long".

Go on over to FOX, Jeff. Douchesack.

The final noteworthy event of the evening was Austin's Kirk Watson proving to be an embarrassment to himself, and pretty much all of us in Texas, by failing to name a legislative accomplishment of Obama's when challenged by Tweety the Screamer Chris Matthews of MSNBC. Keith Olbermann tried to save Watson by pulling hard on Matthews' leash, but the cause was long lost by that time.

Other than that, a good time was had by all.

Oh yeah: Bill Clinton was downtown too.

Update: Watson has some answers now. Update (2/21): More photos inside and outside of Toyota Center here and here.

Will the squishy centrists abandon Obama?

No. At least not enough of them to matter. But that doesn't stop Froma Harrop from advancing the false premise. After citing a couple of her friends as evidence, there's this:

The notion that many Clinton voters cannot be easily transferred to Obama contradicts much "expert" opinion. But a Super Tuesday exit poll suggested there is something to it. While 52 percent of Obama's supporters were amenable to a Clinton candidacy, only 49 percent of Clinton voters said they'd be happy with the Illinois senator, according to the survey by Harvard University's Institute of Politics.

A laughably ludicrous interpretation of that poll, considering that the margin of error is great enough to flip it the other way. The actual scientific polling suggests precisely the opposite, in fact: Obama edges McCain while Clinton trails badly. Presumably he does so with a majority of self-described Democratic "moderates". Either that, or he's sweeping independents and conservatives. So with that much faulty thinking it's no wonder she arrives at this conclusion:

What Democrats must understand is that their moderates now have another candidate to consider. And this slice of the electorate is big enough and grumpy enough to swing a general election to John McCain.

No, it isn't. And whatever the amount is, it has already been overcome by the legions of new and mobilized young and minority voters, as well as by conservatives making the switch from Republican primary voter to Democratic. A much more obvious trend verified by actual turnout, if Ms. Harrop had bothered to look at, you know, results of states that have already voted.

Froma, if you want to do a column based on anecdotal evidence then let's hear about the effect of Hillary Clinton at the top of the November ticket on downballot Democrats. Because that evidence is overwhelming.

As for mushy "centrists" and "moderates", Jim Hightower said it best: "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos."