Campaigns

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Tex.) told reporters that the organization will anoint a candidate to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) in 2010.

According to the Las Vegas Sun, Cornyn told a group of reporters "We don't have a candidate yet...We're working on it. There'll be hopefully some news here in the coming weeks."

Cornyn's announcement, while unspecific, has heightened the speculation surrounding which potential challenger the NRSC will choose. Rep. Dean Heller is rumored to be the top choice amongst Nevada Republicans. But with Heller staying mum, Republican state Sen. Mark Amodei visited Capitol Hill this week and told the Sun early last month "If Dean doesn't, I'll consider it."

Republicans might not be in a rush to appoint a candidate to run against Reid, whose approval ratings have dipped below 40 percent. But Republicans are still watchful that the NRSC chooses a candidate who has a strong chance to unseat the four-term Senator next year.

Democrat Scott Murphy is launching a final push to get out the vote for his special election against Republican

Two independent polls Monday showed incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) trailing Democratic challenger Kay Hagan in the North Carolina Senate race, boosting Democrats

John Stewart, host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, ripped into the media Monday during a breakfast with reporters.

CNN has an account:

Stewart directed most of his ire at the 24-hour cable news networks, which he called "gerbil wheels," and said the media at-large had "abdicated" to what he called the "slow-witted beast."

He said the never-ending television news cycle creates a "false sense of urgency" and forces reporters to "follow the veins that have been mined," instead of pursuing serious and in-depth reporting.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.) had many qualities listed when her name was on the shortlist for vice president but there wasn

Former President Bill Clinton, returning to his role as global activist for the first time after his wife's presidential run, today announced an agreement with six drug companies to lower the price of a malaria-fighting drug by 30 percent.

Clinton made the announcement in New York City at the office of his charitable organization, the William J. Clinton Foundation, which has conducted global initiatives on poverty and HIV/AIDS.

"Nearly every life lost to malaria could have been saved with access to effective medicines," President Clinton said. "My Foundation has helped organize markets for HIV/AIDS drugs, and I am proud that we have been able to extend this model to malaria." Read more...

Blogger and Georgetown law professor Heidi Feldman says she has raised $6,800 aimed at retiring Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign debt through her blog this month.

Feldman announced the fundraising drive on her blog June 8. Visits to her blog tripled to 2,239 June 11, she said, and have remained around 1,000 daily. Feldman credits the increased traffic to the effort.

The blogger says retiring Clinton's debt would empower the senator and push the Democratic Party toward her ideas.

"I believe that Clinton supporters have a need to refocus their passion and energy," Feldman said in a press release. "Many are not happy with the DNC and do not want to support Obama. If a significant amount of money is raised toward the primary debt, it empowers Clinton to have her positions represented in the Party Platform at the Convention and, hopefully it will prod the DNC to make internal changes."

Clinton entered June with over $30 million in campaign debt, Forbes reported.

John McCain today called the Supreme Court's ruling to grand habeas corpus right to Guantanamo Bay detainees "one of the worst decisions in the history of the country," The Boston Globe's Political Intelligence blog is reporting.

The Arizona senator blasted the ruling at a town hall forum in Pemberton, N.J. today, saying it will "hurt our ability" to protect the U.S. from terrorists.

A proponent of closing the Guantanamo prison, McCain reacted more mildly to the ruling when asked about it yesterday.

"These are unlawful combatants, they are not American citizens and I think we should pay attention to Justice Roberts' [dissenting] opinion in this decision," McCain said yesterday. "But it is a decision that the Supreme Court has made. Now we need to move forward. As you know I always favored closing Guantanamo Bay and I still think we ought to do that."

See The Trail's report on McCain's initial reaction here.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new book, in which he alleges the Bush administration deliberately misinformed the public about the Iraq war, will reach number two on The New York Times' June political bestseller list.

The Caucus, the Times' political blog, has released the list; McClellan's What Happened ranks behind Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World.

In other notables, Ron Paul's The Revolution comes in just behind What Happened at number three, while Sen. Jim Webb's (D-Va.) recent book, A Time to Fight, ranks ninth.

The Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) today named Microsoft the Official Software and HD Web Content Provider of the Democratic National Convention, which will be held this August in Denver.

Microsoft will outfit the DNCC's convention website with HD video coverage of the convention. It will also support the convention's electronic voting system for delegates, providing "up-to-the-minute" vote totals to the Office of the Secretary of the Democratic National Committee, according to the DNCC, and Microsoft software will organize the credentialing process for the convention.

The convention's delegate tracking system will also fall under Microsoft's purview. The DNCC says Microsoft softeare will help "gather and manage a multitude of information about Convention participants."

Microsoft served as Official Software Provider for the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston.