The Democratic unity-fest is set to continue this week, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton teaming up for some big-money fundraising events on Wednesday and Thursday, the Obama campaign has announced.

The two will meet for a Wednesday evening fundraiser in New York City, followed by a Women For Obama breakfast Thursday morning in New York City.

These joint appearance, starting with their event last week in Unity, New Hampshire, and perhaps extending all the way to Election Day, are viewed as crucial steps in lining up Hillary's voters, especially older women, into Obama's column. So expect a lot of media coverage -- and parsing of just how glowing Hillary's praise of Obama is -- when they do these.

A key new hire in Obamaland: His campaign announces that they've hired Dana Singiser, who was Hillary's director of women's outreach, to help win the female vote.

It's an important move, because the McCain campaign has already begun to work overtime to win over disaffected Hillary supporters, particularly blue collar women, and Singiser, who was also a top aide to Howard Dean in 2004, obviously knows this demographic as well as anyone.

There's no real evidence yet that this demographic is really at risk for Obama, of course. What will prevent this from changing is a successful effort by the Obama team to cut through the fog and persuade women what a McCain presidency would really mean for them -- and Singiser will be central to that campaign.

WSJ: Clinton's Convention Role Still Being Negotiated
The Wall St. Journal reports that negotiations are still ongoing over a serious issue for the Democratic convention: Will Barack Obama be nominated unanimously, or will Hillary Clinton's name be put to a vote in order to not alienate her supporters? "There's nothing symbolically wrong to putting her name in," said Donna Brazile, but the danger is that an overly-enthusiastic reception would make Obama look like he hadn't unified the party.

Obama In Red State Of Georgia Today
Barack Obama will continue his efforts to win red states with a visit today to Powder Springs, Georgia, where he will hold a town hall on economic issues. Georgia used to be one of the Democratic-leaning states in the South, but has turned sharply Republican over the last six years with a GOP takeover of the governorship, both Senate seats and the state legislature.

McCain Courting Latino Voters Today
John McCain will be speaking today to the League of United Latin American Citizens convention in Washington, a part of his campaign's effort to improve the Republican Party's standing among Latino voters. "When you take the solemn stroll along that wall of black granite on the national Mall, it is hard not to notice the many names such as Rodriguez, Hernandez, and Lopez that so sadly adorn it," McCain will say, according to pre-released excerpts.

NYT: Obama Making Headway With Big-Money Donors, Too
The New York Times reports that Barack Obama's fundraising prowess is expanding beyond his small-donor base now that he's won the nomination. The campaign took in $5 million at a Hollywood fundraiser ten days ago, and last night the candidate was in Atlanta for a fundraiser that carried a minimum $2,300 ticket price.

Union Leader Challenges Obama To McCain's Town Halls
The New Hampshire Union Leader, the largest newspaper in this swing state, is joining in on John McCain's town-hall challenge to Barack Obama. "If Sen. Obama would meet the president of Iran without pre-conditions, he can surely find time to meet with Sen. McCain and New Hampshire voters," the Republican-friendly newspaper declares in this morning's editorial.

Former Clinton Spokesman Joins Fox News
Howard Wolfson, who served as Hillary Clinton's top campaign spokesman throughout her roller-coaster of a campaign, has joined Fox News as a contributor/commentator. "It's a huge audience, and it is important to have a strong, progressive voice on the network," Wolfson told the New York Times.

Terry McAuliffe was obviously one of Hillary's most aggressive and high-profile advocates during the primary, but now McAuliffe is really doing his part to help Obama get elected.

We hear McAuliffe will be the main attraction at a unity event for Obama this Thursday, along with Rep. Artur Davis, a top Obama supporter. A source forwards us the invite...

The event is meant to get lawyers and other young professionals who backed Hillary to swing behind Obama -- it's being organized by a bunch of pro-Hillary groups, such as Young Lawyers for Hillary and Young Professionals for Hillary.

Separately, today's Chicago Sun Times caught a glimpse of McAuliffe in Aspen, where he went out of his way to reassure a table-full of Obama supporters: ''We're all on the same team now! This election is too important.''

Just think: Terry McAuliffe, transformed into a lean, mean, unity machine...

Obama And Hillary Teaming Up For Fundraising
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are set to work together this coming week to bring in a lot of money for the Obama campaign and the DNC. First up is a D.C. fundraiser with a $33,100 ticket price, followed by New York fundraiser ranging from $250 to $23,000 per head.

Obama Addressing NEA, Then Goes To Missouri
Barack Obama started his morning in Butte, Montana, speaking via satellite feed to the National Education Association's annual conference in Washington. He then headed off to St. Louis, where he will address the African Methodist Episcopal Church's conference. John McCain is taking time off from the trail for his Independence Day weekend.

GOP Struggling With Bush's Role
The New York Times reports this morning that the Republican Party is trying to reconcile the need to have President Bush rally the party grassroots at their convention, against the need to not have his unpopularity rub off on John McCain. Bush will speak at the convention on opening night, but a source said a joint appearance with McCain is "highly unlikely."

GOP Is Still Okay With Bush Fundraising
Meanwhile, the Washington Post notes that Bush is as strong as ever in the less public area of fundraising for down-ticket Republicans. Bush has done 31 events this year, bringing in $70 million for GOP candidates and state parties.

Pro-War Group Gearing Up For Big Ad Buy
Vets For Freedom, a pro-Iraq War political action committee, is poised to launch major ad campaign for this general election season starting this coming week. The group will open with a $1 million TV ad buy targeting Virginia, Ohio and New Mexico, and will then branch out to other states from there.

Philly Radio Station Won't Run Dem Ad With Bush Impersonator
A Philadelphia radio station has refused to run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's latest radio ad, which features a Bush impersonator praising incumbent Republican Congressman Jim Gerlach. The station's general manager said they were "concerned that our listeners would have been misled by usage of an impersonator in the creative delivery."

The event of the week is about to start: Obama and Hillary at their first public unity event in Unity, New Hampshire.

As one politico cracked to me a few minutes ago, the two in their matching outfits look like a "couple going to the prom"...

Some live-blogging of the event here.

We'll bring you video of all the action soon.

Late Update: You can watch the event live right here on the Obama campaign's web site.

A key hire by the Obama camp: He reportedly signs up senior Hillary policy adviser Neera Tanden, one of her top loyalists, as his new Director of Domestic Policy.

Tanden, a fixture on many a Hillary campaign conference call, was a key architect of her health care plan, which was probably the one domestic policy proposal of hers that was most often compared favorably to Obama's.

Obama And Clinton Today: Unity In Unity
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will hold their first public campaign event together since Hillary dropped out of the race -- an important step in sending the right message to any disaffected Hillary voters out there. The location has been much remarked about: The small town of Unity, New Hampshire, where the two candidates tied exactly in the primary.

McCain In Ohio Today
John McCain will be visiting a General Motors plant in Warren, Ohio, today. Ohio is of course a crucial state for Republicans -- no GOP candidate has won the presidency while simultaneously losing Ohio, and George W. Bush's narrow 2004 victory here was crucial to his reelection. Currently, polls show Barack Obama taking the lead here.

Poll: Obama Leads McCain By Five
The new Time Magazine poll gives Barack Obama a narrow lead over John McCain of 43%-38%, with a ±4% margin of error. Obama beats McCain 44%-37% on who is trusted more with the economy, while McCain wins 53%-33% on the issue of national security and terrorism.

Clinton To Donors: Give To Obama
At last night's joint event with Barack Obama in front of her own top donors, Hillary Clinton repeated her call for her supporters to raise money for Obama. "We are a family," Clinton said, "and we have an opportunity now to really demonstrate clearly we do know what's at stake, and we will do whatever it takes to win back this White House." No word yet on whether she asked them to go to BarackObama.com.

NRCC: Damaged GOP Brand Has Lost Us Special Election
An internal report at the National Republican Congressional Committee has identified a key reason why they lost special elections for red districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi: The poisonous political environment hurting the whole Republican brand. "None of the candidates nor their allies successfully established themselves and their local brand in contrast to the negative perception of the national GOP," the report says.

Bush Pastor Launches Pro-Obama Site
Here's a funny item to start your morning. Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the Methodist minister who officiated at the wedding of Jenna Bush and Henry Hager, has launched a new pro-Obama Web site, JamesDobsonDoesntSpeakForMe.com. Caldwell previously spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2000, and still considers Bush a friend, but is now reaching out to religious voters on Obama's behalf.

Barack Obama has taken a major symbolic step towards party unity: In his efforts to help repay Hillary Clinton's debts, he and Michelle have personally donated the maximum $4,600 to Hillary's defunct campaign.

The announcement was made at a joint event with Clinton before a group of her donors in Washington, and was met with applause from the formerly Hillary-backing audience.

Terry McAuliffe proudly showed two checks -- one from the Obama, another from $4,600 from Obama finance chair Penny Pritzker and her husband -- to reporters gathered outside the event.

Attention, junkies -- time for some more staff notes!

The Obama campaign has installed another Hillary operative in a key slot in a crucial swing state: Jackie Bray, who was deputy field director for Hillary in Ohio during the primary, is now taking over field operations for Obama in that state.

Obama spokesperson Josh Earnest confirms the hire to me. Bray is the third Hillary operative the Obama campaign has hired, coming aboard after Hillary campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and former Hillary spokesperson Isaac Baker, who was hired as Obama's Ohio communications director.

Hillary beat Obama in Ohio by 10 points, so it's a natural for the Obama team to sign Bray up for such a key post in such an important battleground.

Barack Obama has begun privately calling Hillary's top fundraisers and making personal appeals for their support, and in some cases is getting some criticism in return, suggesting that the delicate task of uniting the fractured Democratic fundraising establishment is still incomplete.

Obama's calls to the donors, which were described to me by multiple sources directly familiar with them, come at a very sensitive moment, with negotiations between the two campaigns continuing. Tomorrow Hillary and Obama are set to meet with all these money people together -- a high-stakes event that both camps are hoping will go well.

"Obama has been calling Hillary's top money people and asking for their support, but the fundraisers are in some cases being critical of Obama's operation," said a senior Hillary person who works directly with her top donors on a regular basis.

According to sources, the Hillary fundraisers' criticism of Obama on these calls has focused partly -- but not exclusively -- on a demand that Obama do more to retire Hillary's campaign debt. This perhaps explains why Obama went out of his way yesterday on a call with his own donors to ask them to help her out.

But these criticisms from the donors suggests that bitterness may remain until Obama's efforts show actual results on her behalf.

Venture capitalist Alan Patricof, one of Hillary's top fundraisers and one of the more sought after money-people in the Democratic Party, declined to comment on personal discussions with Obama. "All of Hillary's supporters want to be helpful to Senator Obama and assure his election," Patricof told me. But he stressed that Hillary's debt problem remained unsolved.

"We are also appropriately concerned with the need for his direct support to help retire part of her debt," he said. "He is mindful of this matter and I am very hopeful that he will be helpful."

But Hillary's debt isn't the only concern.

Read more »

The Obama campaign is offering a major olive branch to Hillary Clinton and her supporters. On a conference call with his top fundraisers, Obama asked them to help raise money to retire Clinton's $10 million in debts to vendors -- bills that were racked up in the long primary campaign that in many cases involved attacks against himself.

There are multiple reasons why Obama would want to do this. By helping Clinton pay off her outstanding bills, he ingratiates himself with many of her top donors -- giving them a new incentive to raise money on his behalf. And the overall message of Democratic unity this projects will make Hillary's voters feel that much more welcome in his campaign.

One point of clarification: The Obama camp's help extends only to the vendor debts, but not the more than $10 million in personal debt from Hillary's own self-financing loans. Clinton herself has told her own donors that while she needs help paying off vendors, she is not asking for help paying off the money the campaign owes her personally.

The Obama campaign has just announced the details of his planned joint appearance with Hillary this coming Friday -- their first appearance together since Obama clinched -- and it has to be said that the specifics are pretty artful.

They're holding a joint rally in a town that's actually called "Unity, New Hampshire." And that's not all: In "Unity," the Obama campaign says, each candidate received exactly the same number of votes! One hundred and seven apiece, to be exact.

You can't make this stuff up. What was the likelihood of finding a place called "Unity" for a unity event -- let alone one where both candidates pulled exactly the same support?

This blog took a fair amount of heat for suggesting during the primary that Maureen Dowd's nonstop catty columns about Hillary had an obsessive, even unhinged quality to them. So it was pretty gratifying to see that Times public editor Clark Hoyt weighed in yesterday with a piece aggressively attacking Dowd's coverage of the Dem primary.

The crux of Hoyt's case is that her columns on Hillary were "loaded with language painting her as a 50-foot woman with a suffocating embrace, a conniving film noir dame and a victim dependent on her husband." But take a look at Dowd's defense of herself...

"I've been twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years," Dowd responded. She said nobody had objected to her use of similar images about men over seven presidential campaigns. She often refers to Barack Obama as "Obambi" and has said he has a "feminine" management style...

"From the time I began writing about politics," Dowd said, "I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to force the reader to be conscious of how differently we view the sexes." Now, she said, "you are asking me to treat Hillary differently than I've treated the male candidates all these years, with kid gloves."

This is false, and Dowd almost certainly knows it. As Media Matters notes today, many critics loudly objected to her ritual feminizing of male candidates -- her devotion of an entire column to John Edwards' $400 haircut, or her characterization of Obama as a "starlet" who "can make a three-course meal out of a Nicorette," to name only two examples.

More broadly, by pretending that people are asking her to treat Hillary differently than male candidates, Dowd is ducking the real case against her.

Read more »

The Obama campaign has just announced that the presumptive nominee will be campaigning next Friday, June 27, with a very special guest: Hillary Clinton, who has been urging her supporters to unite behind Obama.

No further details -- where, what time, etc. -- have been announced yet, but we'll keep you posted.

On a private conference call moments ago, Hillary urged her top fundraisers in no uncertain terms to throw their weight behind Barack Obama, and directly asked them in surprisingly candid terms to give or raise money to help her pay off her campaign's debt.

At the same time, in a move that took some participants on the call by surprise, she also clarified that she was not asking their help in paying off her personal loans to the campaign.

Interestingly, Hillary also suggested that she would soon be making public statements about the media coverage of the campaign, as well as the ways "women were discussed," saying that she would "be doing more on that as we go forward."

"I am going to do everything I can to ensure victory for Senator Obama," Hillary told her fundraisers on the call. "I am asking each of you to do the same. I really believe we've got to see a Democrat sworn into the White House this January."

The call, which I was able to listen to in its entirety, left little doubt that Hillary was unequivocally signaling to her top financial supporters -- who are being actively courted by Obama -- that the time had come for them to do their part in getting him elected President.

Read more »

Those who predicted that Hillary's harsher attacks on Obama would be recycled by the GOP during the general election were proven right again today.

The Republican National Committee just blasted out this toughly-worded Hillary quote from back in February, hitting Obama over his campaign finance pledge...

"Actions speak louder than words. No matter how beautiful the words are and how well presented, you've got to get beyond the words. And now we're seeing how the words don't even mean what we thought they meant," Clinton said. "So I think it raises some serious questions about what it is he stands for."

The Republicans are working hard to make Obama "own" his pledge, as Mark Halperin put it, by releasing a timeline of Obama's previous statements on public financing.

But as Ben Smith noted earlier today, if the Obama camp has its way, the focus of the spin war will be less over whether Obama broke his word, and more over whether Obama's smashing success with small donors represents a campaign finance revolution of sorts in its own right.

The Obama camp is also likely to keep hammering away at the idea that McCain recently said that he can't control the ad spending of outside groups, as a way of arguing that Obama's decision was made out of necessity and that McCain lacks the leadership and will to curb abuses on his side.

The ultimate in Democratic unity events will be happening next Thursday, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appear together at a Washington fundraiser before a crowd of Hillary donors.

Hillary has been urging her donors to coalesce around Obama, and to put the ugliness of the primary season in the past. For their part, Clinton donors have had their own demands -- that Obama help in fundraising to retire Hillary's campaign debt, for example, or that he even put her on the ticket.

It's not clear from initial press reports whether this meeting will be open to the press.

This one bears watching: Hillary is set to hold a private conference call with her top fundraising leadership on Thursday evening.

A source forwards me the email from her national finance director, Jonathan Mantz, inviting the money people on to the call. The email says that she wants to thank them for their "dedication and commitment" to her candidacy.

But the real question is what she'll say to them about Obama -- how strongly she'll signal to her top money people that it's time to get serious about throwing their fundraising weight behind the Illinois Senator.

Obama himself wants this. He is privately signaling to Hillary's top supporters that the time for them to start helping build a fearsome general election war-chest to take on the McCain-GOP apparatus is right now.

We'll bring you details on the call if we can get them.

Late Update: I'm told by a Clinton source that she will be using the call to urge her top fundraisers to throw their energy behind Obama.

* Late Late Update: A source tells me that the call has now been rescheduled for Thursday; I've edited the above to reflect this.

Although Hillary Clinton has asked her delegates to support Barack Obama, one particular delegate is taking the polar-opposite route. Debra Bartoshevich, a Hillary pledged delegate from Wisconsin, has now announced that she's supporting John McCain.

"I'm sure people are going to be upset with me," Bartoshevich told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "I don't want to lose my national delegate status."

Bartoshevich is upset at Hillary Clinton's loss, and quoted the great suffragette Susan B. Anthony as an inspiration: "No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her."

Late Update: State Dems have voted to file a complaint at the Credentials Committee in Denver, moving to strip Bartoshevich of her delegate status.

As we first reported here, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe wooed top Clinton donors at a private presentation in Manhattan yesterday, and the early indications are that such efforts are paying off.

Top Hillary supporter Ed Rendell is hosting a fundraiser for Obama tonight in Philadelphia. My sense from talking to Hillary donors is that from their point of view, there's just no percentage in not getting behind Obama, and while there's definitely still a bit of grumbling in these circles, they're basically falling into line.

One thing driving this is that Obama, according to Rendell, is privately signaling to the leading Clinton fundraisers that it's urgent that the Dem fundraising establishment come together and raise huge sums to combat the McCain-GOP apparatus -- right now. And the fundraisers are heeding the call.

GQ is about to post a very interesting, and long, interview with Mark Penn that has a bunch of news in it.

We have some advance excerpts. Here, for instance, is Penn saying that he recognized early on what a phenomenon Obama is and wanted to attack Obama more aggressively, particularly on Iraq, but unnamed others on the campaign opposed it:

GQ: How did you underestimate him [meaning Barack Obama]?

Mark Penn: I think I never underestimated it, that once you had that kind of candidate, that that kind of candidate could be real trouble. And that if that candidate... You know, if Obama won Iowa, it would really change, dramatically change, the situation going forward. And consequently, I really wanted to question Obama as early as possible.

GQ: You wanted to hit him harder?

Well, I wanted to question the basic underpinning of his campaign... His problems in his campaign were (1) that he didn't have the usual experience of somebody running for president, and (2) that the positions he took on Iraq--you know, that were revered by the press--didn't really hold up when you look through his record in the Senate.

GQ: Why didn't you?

Well, I started down that road.... President Clinton took on the Iraq back-and-forth. But the rest of the campaign didn't want to tackle Iraq. They always felt that that was a losing proposition for her, and they always pulled it back.

Penn also sharply attacked the press, arguing that members of the media "fell in love" with Obama...

GQ: When you talk about the media and the treatment of her, you know, part of it--in the beginning of the campaign, back when it seemed like she was the inevitable nominee--she was really distant from the press. Don't you think that had something to do with the fact that the press fell in love with Obama?

Well...no. [laughs] The press fell in love with him, period.

GQ: Why?

The press always falls in love with the new cool intellectual candidate. You know, he is their kind of candidate. Go back through history. They didn't like Al Gore. They loved Gary Hart. They love those kinds of candidates, always have. But--but--but look, I think that he was the first African-American, you know, credible presidential candidate was a factor behind how much the press was enthusiastic about him. But she was also the first woman candidate. But the standard...

You know, the microscope that they put her under, that they did not put her opponent and opponents under, was just incredible. I don't think anybody has ever been put under this kind of microscope running for president. There were certain times early in the campaign where she would try to be...do what people tell her, and say, "Hey, I'll be more relaxed, I'll tell a little joke." But every time she told the joke, it became a, you know, a federal case. Her words are parsed. Every single word is parsed. By the right, by the left, by the press.

More coming from the interview soon.

As recently as one week ago, Hillary was still being widely depicted as a Lady Macbethian figure, a kind of she-demon who was still potentially scheming to take the race to the convention, thus destroying the Democratic Party in service of her insatiable ambition. She was still plotting to employ the "nuclear option," as some pundits with rather lurid imaginations put it.

Well, here we are a week later, and it turns out that Hillary is making private calls to her pledged delegates, asking them to vote for Obama at the convention, and urging them to work as hard for Obama as they did for her. This comes after her speech full-throatedly endorsing Obama that pleased many in the Illinois Senator's camp.

I wonder if Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and Bob Herbert -- all of whom wrote reams of hallucinogenic commentary about Hillary's dark motives during the primary -- will ever find a positive word to say about this or about any future work Hillary does on Obama's behalf.

Late Update: Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who was one of Hillary's toughest critics, has now done what his three colleagues above haven't -- he's written a column today hailing Hillary's "gracious" exit from the race, which he says "couldn't have been classier."

My point here is not to airbrush away past tactics of hers that were questionable. It's simply to wonder whether those who attacked her for months on end will have something to say about it now that she has not fulfilled the cartoonish expectations they set.