The Washington Post ran a story today about the frequency with which backtracking has become the rule and not the exception this campaign season.

Say what? The 2008 presidential campaign theme could be “Oops! What I meant was …”

Just about every Republican and Democrat has flubbed an answer to a question or made a borderline inappropriate comment _ some so uncomfortable they make you cringe _ only to take back the remarks or seek to clarify them later when under fire.

This month alone, Republican Mitt Romney backtracked from a comment about his sons’ lack of military service. Rival Rudy Giuliani retreated from his suggestion that he spent as much time as Sept. 11 rescue workers at the ground zero site and was exposed to the same health risks. Democrat Bill Richardson stumbled over a question about whether homosexuality was a choice. All sought to skirt controversy by quickly explaining themselves.

It is happening so often, “you’d think it’s deliberate!” quipped G. Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania.

Joking aside, he said: “I don’t think you can go through this grueling ordeal and not find even the most seasoned politician who isn’t susceptible to misspeaking or a malaprop here or there. We’re seeing some genuinely real moments as these candidates are in the pressure cooker.”

Chalk up the glut of apologies and clarifications to changing times.

Candidates of all stripes have become extremely sensitive to the Internet era and painfully aware of video-sharing Web sites such as YouTube that allow images and audio to be posted online immediately.

At the same time, it has become routine for campaigns to send out “trackers” with recorders to capture a rival’s every appearance in hopes of catching an election-altering misstep to use in a television ad or Web video.

“In the olden days, this wasn’t an issue because if you said something that could be problematic, you just denied that you said it,” said Jenny Backus, a Democratic consultant. “These days, it’s too easy to have cold, hard proof.”

“You’ve got to have a strategy to combat the YouTube video,” she added. “Now, one mistake can be replayed often.”

Typically, Republican and Democratic strategists say, candidates who slip up take one of two damage-control avenues.

Some opt to stand firmly behind their comments and plow forward with their campaigns. They believe that apologizing or clarifying is a sign of weakness and that sticking to their viewpoints shows strength and projects self-awareness. The risk is that they can appear stubborn and unwilling to admit mistakes.

More often, candidates decide to acknowledge their errors or explain their comments quickly. The hope is to take blunders off the table and blunt the impact of any attacks. But they also could appear as though they do not mean what they say and will change positions when they feel the heat.

Regardless of which path they choose, strategists say, each situation must be handled individually and candidates must strike a balance between being authentic and being willing to admit they are wrong.

“I’d rather be who I am and make mistakes than come across as this very carefully scripted, totally handled person. I think people are so sick of that,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican whose words sometimes have gotten him in trouble. “People will forgive me for a mistake more than they’ll forgive me for phoniness. And, if they don’t, then I’m not their guy.”

Huckabee once referred to Arkansas as a “banana republic” and, on another occasion, jokingly attributed his 110-pound weight loss to spending time in a concentration camp.

Among the recent gaffes:

_Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, defended his five sons’ decisions not to enlist in the military and said “one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected.” Later, the Republican said he misspoke, explaining: “I didn’t mean in any way to compare service in the country with my boys in any way.”

_Giuliani, the New York City mayor during the terrorist attacks, claimed he was at ground zero “as often, if not more, than most of the workers” and was exposed to the same health risks. After drawing the ire of some firefighters, he acknowledged: “I could have said it better” and “What I was saying was: ‘I’m there with you.’”

_Richardson, New Mexico’s governor, said “It’s a choice” and then “you know, I’m not a scientist” when gay-rights activists asked during a forum whether people are born gay or whether they choose homosexuality. He quickly clarified. The Democrat also has said, “I screwed up” when citing conservative Byron White as a model Supreme Court justice.

_John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona known for his off-the-cuff style, twice has clarified comments. In separate instances, he referred to U.S. lives lost in Iraq as “wasted” and used the term “tar baby,” which some people consider a racial epithet. In both cases, he quickly said he regretted his word choice.

_Barack Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, also apologized for using the word “wasted” about U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. During a campaign speech in Virginia, he drastically overstated the death toll in the springtime tornado in Kansas, saying, “Ten thousand people died _ an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll was 12.

“There are going to be times when I make mistakes,” Obama said then, recognizing his mistake before his speech ended.

Even unofficial candidates are not immune.

Fred Thompson, a Republican expected to enter the race in September, offered an explanation after Democrats assailed him for saying “we’re living in the era of the suitcase bomb” as he bemoaned illegal immigration from Cuba.

In 2006, several politicians learned the hard way that a slip of the tongue could have disastrous consequences. Most prominent was Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia, who lost his re-election bid after he referred to a young man of Indian descent as “macaca,” which some consider a racial slur.

Similarly, Democrat John Kerry endured crushing fallout when said young people who do not study hard would likely “get stuck in Iraq.” Republicans seized on the remark. Days went by before Kerry apologized after cajoling by Democratic leaders in Congress.

The episode virtually guaranteed that the 2004 Democratic nominee wouldn’t run for president again.

The lesson? Watch what you say.

Many observers of the 2008 run for the White House view John McCain’s support of the Iraq War as the Senator’s biggest liability and why he could likely lose the Republican presidential nomination. However, in response to criticism that he was one of the war’s biggest supporters, McCain recently told Kiran Chetry, host of CNN’s American Morning, that, 

“…I was the greatest critic of the initial four years, three and a half years. I came back from my first trip to Iraq and said, ‘This is going to fail. We’ve got to change the strategy to the one we’re using now.’”

In the early stages of the war, however, McCain painted a fairly different picture on numerous occasions.

He told then Today Show host Katie Couric on March 20, 2003, “But I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators.” Earlier that month on March 7th, he told ABC’s This Week, “I’m confident we’re on the right course. … I am confident that an imperfect democracy is what we’ll get out of Iraq will be vastly superior to what the people of Iraq had prior to this.” Eight months later on October 31, McCain told CBS News, “I think the initial phases of it [the war] were so spectacularly successful that it took us all by surprise.”  On the September 21, 2004, McCain further asserted on MSNBC’s Hardball, “Have mistakes been made? Yes. But the necessity of winning, I believe, is overwhelming. And I think that President Bush is presenting a clear picture of the benefits of success and the consequences of failure.” And on December 8, 2005, McCain told The Hill, “I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.”

Senator McCain has claimed for some time that he was initially critical of President Bush. A February 22, 2007 Los Angeles Times article discussed that, “McCain said his criticism started three years ago ‘when I saw that this train wreck was taking place, and that we needed more troops, and we needed a different strategy.’” Click to read the full text of the article.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain was anything but subtle Wednesday as he took swipes at the Bush administration during a meticulously staged appearance with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the bustling docks of Los Angeles Harbor.

President Bush’s record on global warming? “Terrible,” McCain declared. His pursuit of the Iraq war? “A train wreck.”

If the point of the Arizona senator’s visit was to put distance between himself and his party’s unpopular president, McCain was following a pattern set by Schwarzenegger in his reelection campaign. For McCain, the task is especially important because his vocal support for Bush’s recent troop buildup in Iraq threatens a voter backlash.

In what was billed as a nonpolitical event to call for tougher federal action to stop global warming, McCain joined Schwarzenegger for a hazy morning helicopter tour of the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports. The Republican duo flew over the future site of a hydrogen power plant that would pump carbon dioxide into the ground instead of the air.

Later, standing side by side amid the roar of engines as cranes hoisted cargo containers onto ships and trucks, Schwarzenegger lavished praise on McCain (“a great, great senator, a great national leader”), raising the question of whether he supports him for president.

All signs to the contrary, Schwarzenegger said, “We’re not doing presidential politics here” — but not before McCain wisecracked: “I think it’s the endorsement, yes.”

One of McCain’s chief Republican rivals, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had to settle recently for a private steak dinner and cigars with Schwarzenegger in the governor’s Sacramento hotel suite.

But on the San Pedro docks, Schwarzenegger offered McCain access to his usual retinue of trailing TV crews, and McCain used the opportunity to pound Bush on a number of fronts.

“I would assess this administration’s record on global warming as terrible,” McCain said, recalling that he got “no cooperation from the administration” at Senate hearings on the subject. He pronounced himself “very happy to see the president mention global warming and a renewed commitment from the administration to this issue.” But he added tartly: “It’s long overdue.”

(White House spokesman Tony Fratto declined to respond directly to McCain but said Bush had “set an ambitious goal for our nation to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and we’re meeting it.”)

Asked about the scathing remarks he has made on the administration’s conduct of the war, McCain said his criticism started three years ago “when I saw that this train wreck was taking place, and that we needed more troops, and we needed a different strategy.”

As the campaign has heated up in recent weeks, McCain has repeatedly criticized the administration.

In South Carolina on Monday, McCain said former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would “go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of Defense in history.” (“I stand by my comment about Secretary Rumsfeld,” he responded to a question on that topic in San Pedro.) In an interview last month with a politico.com columnist, McCain said that Bush had been “very badly served” by Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, who shot back Wednesday.

“I just fundamentally disagree with John,” Cheney told ABC News. “John said some nasty things about me the other day, and then next time he saw me, ran over to me and apologized. Maybe he’ll apologize to Rumsfeld.”

Cheney praised Rumsfeld for doing a “superb job.”

“He and John McCain had a number of dust-ups over policy,” Cheney said. “Didn’t have anything to do with Iraq — other issues that were involved. John’s entitled to his opinion. I just think he’s wrong.”

McCain, whose campaign spokesman, Danny Diaz, declined to respond to Cheney’s comments, was not entirely acidic toward the Bush White House at his harbor stop with Schwarzenegger. He said he was still “strongly supporting” Bush’s plan to add 21,500 troops to U.S. forces in Iraq, a stand that could cost McCain support among the independents and moderates who are crucial parts of his political base.

As for the fight against global warming, an effort that Schwarzenegger made a centerpiece of his reelection campaign, McCain portrayed California as a model for Congress to take action. He voiced support for the kind of mandatory reductions in carbon emissions that California enacted last year.

“I’m here,” he said, “because I think that California leads the nation, and we all know that in many respects — much to the dismay sometimes of us in Arizona, particularly when it comes to the theft of Arizona’s water.”

Factcheck.org wrote an intersting article today about yesterday’s Democratic AFL-CIO debate in which it discusses Senator Barack Obama’s backtracking of his statement that he would consider invading Pakisan.

“Sen. Obama rewrote history when he defended his controversial remarks about invading Pakistan if necessary to eliminate al Qaeda.

Obama: I did not say that we would immediately go in unilaterally. What I said was that we have to work with [Pakistan’s President Pervez] Musharraf.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

That’s not exactly what he said. Obama is referring to an Aug. 1 policy address, in which he made no direct mention of working with Musharraf. Instead, he said he would “take out” al Qaeda if Musharraf failed to act.

Obama (Aug. 1): I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.

That’s the only time Obama mentions Musharraf at all in the speech, as posted on his own campaign Web site.”

MSNBC’s David Shuster filed this report on Monday’s Hardball, which sums up Sunday’s Republican presidential debate in Iowa. Romey’s flip-flops were a big topic of discussion. Romney said, “I am pro-choice, and that is the truth….and I am tired of people that are holier than thow because they are pro-choice longer than I have.

The report goes on to discuss Romney’s contention ”he has always been secretly pro-life” and regretted not being open about his true beliefs while governor of the liberal state of Massachusetts.   

Schuster goes on to say, “The issue is whether Romey is a man of true beliefts, or if he will say anything to get elected.” 

Romney then accused Senator Barack Obama of inconsistency on foreign policy. “In one week he went from saying he’s to sit down for tea with our enemies to he’s going to bomb our allies. In one week he went from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove.” 

Given Rudy Giuliani’s 9/11 connection and his departures (past and/or present) from G.O.P. dogma on issues like abortion and gun control, terrorism has been the central issue of his campaign so far.  Giuliani has so far largely neutralized questions about his actions in the hours and days following the World Trade Center attacks by repeatedly calling for aggressive offensive action against terrorist groups in order to head off more national tragedies.

 Until recently, Giuliani appeared determined to keep the issue of terrorism above the vicious political fray, rejecting attacks on President Clinton’s record of fighting terrorism as distracting and unhelpful.

[Last September] Giuliani defended Clinton’s record amid political bickering over which president — Clinton or George W. Bush — missed more opportunities to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don’t think he deserves it,” Giuliani said during a stop in Florida. “I don’t think President Bush deserves it. The people who deserve blame for Sept. 11, I think we should remind ourselves, are the terrorists — the Islamic fanatics — who came here and killed us and want to come here again and do it.”

Giuliani’s rhetoric was markedly different Tuesday in comments delivered at Pat Robertson’s conservative christian Regent University, however, suggesting that former President Clinton failed to respond adequately to the 1993 WTC attack.

“Islamic terrorists killed more than 500 Americans before Sept. 11. Many people think the first attack on America was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993,” said the former New York mayor.

Giuliani argued that Clinton treated the World Trade Center bombing as a criminal act instead of a terrorist attack, calling it “a big mistake” that emboldened other strikes on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, in Kenya and Tanzania and later on the USS Cole while docked in Yemen in 2000.

“The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond,” Giuliani said. “(Osama) bin Laden declared war on us. We didn’t hear it.”

In hindsight, Giuliani said, maybe it’s all clearer now, “but now is now, and there is no reason to go back into denial, and that is essentially what the Democratic candidates for president want to do: they want to go back, to put the country in reverse to the 1990s.”

Certainly Giuliani has every right to change his mind about Clinton’s record, but he conveniently failed to note that as Mayor of New York he may have underestimated the warning of the 1993 attack by locating his emergency command center  on the 23rd floor of a building in the WTC complex just across the street from the towers – a building that subsequently collapsed following the 9/11 attacks.

If a candidate wants to flip-flop and assign blame to somebody else, it pays to make sure one’s own record doesn’t invite charges of hypocrisy.

John Edwards is the most unabashedly populist candidate (so far…) in the race to November 2008, frequently utilizing class-infused rhetoric in his diagnoses of “two Americas.”

One of Edwards’ loftiest priorities is to eradicate poverty, and ostensibly to that end he founded the now-defunct Center for Promise and Opportunity in 2005.  The group’s rather vague mission statement read:

The Center for Promise and Opportunity (CPO) is dedicated to exploring new ways to expand opportunity and realize the promise of our country for all Americans. CPO’s mission encompasses much more than just proposing ideas — it will lead efforts to build public support for change, and will serve as an incubator for solutions, conducting real-world trials.

CPO has three overarching goals. First, CPO is committed to exploring new ideas to help Americans build a better life. Second, CPO will be an advocate for change, leading efforts to build support for policies and movements that will make America stronger. Third, CPO will work to prove the strength of its ideas, through pilot projects and partnerships.

As The New York Times reports, however, the organization’s day-to-day mission seems to have been sustaining John Edwards’ presidential ambitions.  This inconvenient truth seems to represent a flip-flop from CPO’s supposed purpose, which says nothing about promoting John Edwards.

The organization became a big part of a shadow political apparatus for Mr. Edwards after his defeat as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and before the start of his presidential bid this time around. Its officers were members of his political staff, and it helped pay for his nearly constant travel, including to early primary states.

While Mr. Edwards said the organization’s purpose was “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” its federal filings say it financed “retreats and seminars” with foreign policy experts on Iraq and national security issues. Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors — as political action committees and other political fund-raising vehicles do — and there were no limits on the size of individual donations. [...]

Additionally, Edwards has gone a fair bit beyond the usual extent to which politicians funnel cash to their own interests — though it all appears to have been ambiguously legal.

[...] [I]t was his use of a tax-exempt organization to finance his travel and employ people connected to his past and current campaigns that went beyond what most other prospective candidates have done before pursuing national office. And according to experts on nonprofit foundations, Mr. Edwards pushed at the boundaries of how far such organizations can venture into the political realm. Such entities, which are regulated under Section 501C-4 of the tax code, can engage in advocacy but cannot make partisan political activities their primary purpose without risking loss of their tax-exempt status.

Because the organization is not required to disclose its donors — and the campaign declined to do so — it is not clear whether those who gave money to it did so understanding that they were supporting Mr. Edwards’s political viability as much or more than they were giving money to combat poverty.

Edwards partisans will no doubt assert that, as perhaps the only major candidate who avowedly supports “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” the ex-Senator’s political viability is the best way to force Washington into taking on the difficult class issues that hurt many hard-working Americans.  Edwards’ campaign certainly seems to think so:

“One of the Center for Promise and Opportunity’s main goals was to raise awareness about poverty and engage people to fight it,” Jonathan Prince, deputy campaign manager, said yesterday. “Of course, it sent Senator Edwards around the country to do this. How else could we have engaged tens of thousands of college students or sent 700 young people to help rebuild New Orleans? It’s patently absurd to suggest there’s anything wrong with an organization designed to raise awareness about poverty actually working to raise awareness about poverty.”

 “Of course, some of the people who worked for Senator Edwards in the government and on his campaign continued to work with him to fight poverty and send young people to college,” he added. “Perish the thought: people involved in politics actually trying to improve peoples’ lives.”

Edwards allies also note that the related and almost identically named Center For Promise and Opportunity Foundation has actively helped many low-income students afford to attend college:

 The Center for Promise and Opportunity Foundation, which started with $70,000 in 2005, gave out $300,000 in college scholarships in 2006, said Pamela Garland, the executive director of the College for Everyone Program that is part of the foundation. The center, often praised for helping poor students in Greene County, N.C., get into college, is on track to give out $476,000 this year, Ms. Garland said.

But some critics take a far less charitable perspective, decrying what they see as unethical gaming of the system:

“It’s a permanent campaign,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington. “It’s about shaking every money tree possible and finding every means to finance a permanent campaign. It’s like having different checking accounts, with different rules, and the goal of keeping your name and agenda in the public eye.” 

So is getting the word out about John Edwards a valid form of “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation?”  Or did Edwards flip-flop on the purpose of his organization?

——

UPDATE 6.24.07

According to the Associated Press, John Edwards has issued new comments defending the Center for Promise and Opportunity:

Speaking to reporters after a town hall meeting Saturday night in Reno, Edwards denied accusations that the Center for Promise and Opportunity has been used to promote his presidential campaign.

Edwards noted his efforts on behalf of the center to raise the minimum wage in states, help low-income students attend college, organize workers into unions and engage young people in the fight against poverty.

“All of this was an effort to try to deal with the issue of poverty in America, which is the cause of my life,” he said. “What I’ve been doing is not only significant and there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s something I’m very proud of. Everything we did was not only completely legal but we did a lot of good.”

Asked if he would disclose a full list of donors to the organization, which is not required by law, Edwards refused:

“I will do whatever the law provides. That’s what I do on all these things.”

The McCain campaign has noted a number of Mitt Romney’s policy/rhetorical shifts over the past few weeks, including such issues as stem cells, immigration, and abortion.  Now the ex-governor from Massachusetts, or at least his campaign staffers, have struck back against Senator McCain in an attempt to derail the so-called “straight talk express.”

Michael Cooper of the New York Times’ “Caucus” political blog reports that the Romney camp is publicizing a discrepancy between McCain’s campaign rhetoric and his voting record regarding the U.S. Information Agency.  Until the public diplomacy agency’s duties were folded into the State Department in 1999, it sought to promote and publicize official U.S. policies and positions to foreign governments and populations.

Excerpts from a speech McCain was scheduled to deliver in Palm Beach, Florida find the Senator advocating reconstituting the Information Agency as an independent body.

“Dismantling an agency dedicated to promoting America and the American message amounted to unilateral disarmament in the struggle of ideas,’’ he will say, according to excerpts of the speech obtained from the campaign.

As the Romney campaign points out, though, this opinion is apparently at odds with his Senate voting record:

The Romney campaign lost no time in pointing out to reporters that Mr. McCain voted for the 1998 bill that merged the United States Information Agency with the State Department – a bill that also authorized payments to the United Nations and authorized spending for the State Department.

While the Romney campaign is certainly correct that McCain’s new statement represents a direct departure from the bill for which he voted nearly ten years ago, the actual significance and relevance of this point requires a few caveats.

First, the bill “also authorized payments to the United Nations and authorized spending for the State Department,” which means it was much more complicated than just the one agency.  In fact the bill addresses a number of issues and is rather complex, running 119 pages in PDF format.  McCain surely bears responsibility for his votes, but this was only part of a larger bill — given the log-rolling and compromise in Washington, it’s not unusual for politicians to support bills that they do not entirely support in exchange for their own provisions and so forth.  According to Wikipedia, the department’s functions were not eliminated but rather folded into other departments for bureaucratic expediency — which means this flip-flop is not as earth-shaking as McCain’s opponents would desire.

Second, this bill was authorized in 1998, at the very height of the “e-revolution” – a period that the neocon Francis Fukuyama had erroneously suggested followed “the end of history,” which had occurred with the fall of the Soviet Union.  It was optimistically predicted that the inexorable spread of free-market capitalism would usher in era of peaceful entrepreneurship and prosperity for all.  Since then, we’ve had a long-term sluggish economy, the fall-out from outsourcing, and — of course — 9/11.  The term “flip-flop” is really supposed to refer to broad shifts in rhetoric, approach or philosophy for political reasons — generally not other instances when politicians decide to change their minds based on the events around them.  Due to the relatively technical and arcane nature of the U.S. Information Agency, it is unlikely that McCain masterminded this shift to pander to a particular demographic, so it’s unclear whether this shift qualifies as a true “flip-flop.”

Secure in the knowledge that McCain’s position on the U.S. Information Agency does not really represent a juicy flip-flop, prospective voters (and donors) can go back to examining his proposal on its own merits.  And scrutinizing all the candidates’ records of flip-flopping on such more sweeping and fundamental issues like the war in Iraq and America’s immigration policy.

At last year’s Take Back America meeting of liberal activists, the New York Times described the reception of Hillary Clinton,

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, faced boos and shouts of ‘bring them home’ from an audience of liberal Democrats here on Tuesday as she argued against setting a deadline, wading into what she called a ‘difficult conversation.’

At last year’s conference she said,

“I don’t think it’s in the best interests of our troops or our country [to withdraw troops from Iraq],”

At this year’s meeting she said,

“I have been saying for some time that we need to bring our combat troops home from Iraq starting right now.”

In a piece by NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, on this morning’s today show, NBC News political analyst Charlie Cook said,

“You can see that Clinton’s position has shifted increasingly against the war and at about the same timetable as public opinion has moved over.”

Mitchell’s piece goes on to discuss the entire Democratic Party’s increasing move to the left over opposition to the war.

To check out Mitchell’s entire story, look for Today Show video “Democrats Swinging Too Far Left?”

An article published yesterday discusses Hillary Clinton’s shifting position on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law signed by her husband, which permits states to ignore same sex marriages or civil unions granted in other states.

“Clinton’s change on DOMA came to light when her advisers released the text of her candidate questionnaire for the Human Rights Campaign.

Her new stance may be an attempt to establish a separate identity from that of Bill Clinton, whose presidency was somewhat of a best-of-times, worst-of-times for LGBT Americans….

DOMA contains two provisions — one that gives states autonomy on marriage and one that prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

With the precision of a neurosurgeon, Clinton cut herself free of the second plank of the law while continuing to embrace the first plank, essentially saying that she would let states decide their own destiny on marriage but leave the door open for federal recognition of same-sex unions.

‘Sen. Clinton believes that each state should make its own decisions regarding marriage or civil unions, but once a state legalizes such relationships, these relationships should receive full federal recognition and benefits,’ Ethan Geto, Clinton’s senior national adviser on LGBT issues, wrote in an email to The Advocate.

‘As several states have legalized gay marriage or civil unions, Sen. Clinton has come to believe that the restrictions imposed by DOMA on federal government recognition of same-sex relationships are unfair.’

The position represents a marked departure from her comments to a group of about 40 LGBT leaders in New York in October during her Senate reelection campaign, in which she stood firm on the strategic importance of DOMA in helping to defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have constitutionally denied the right of marriage to gay and lesbian couples.

‘One of the strongest arguments we had against the constitutional amendment, which kept Democrats and even some Republicans from voting for it, was DOMA — that (the Federal Marriage Amendment) was not necessary; marriage has always been the province of states,’ Clinton said during that meeting.

‘I feel very good about the strategy we took on DOMA,’ she added.

While cynics may roll their eyes at ’strategy,’ and while many LGBT activists criticized Clinton for not being more supportive during the federal marriage debate, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, has credited her as a strategic force in defeating the amendment in 2006.”

The Boston Globe ran an article yesterday about John McCain’s consistency on controversial immigration legislation. According to the Globe, “And he may never be the Republican presidential nominee, either. That could be the price of standing for what he believes in.”

A related Boston Globe article today on McCain’s positions on immigration reform commented

“He [McCain] also said the nature of the debate over immigration reflected the ‘deterioration of the political discourse in America today.’

One of the toughest amendments, McCain said, is one that would require illegal immigrants to return to their home country before  applying for a ‘Z visa,’ which the bill would create to allow them to legally work in the United States.

…McCain said conservatives who want to focus exclusively on securing America’s borders are missing a major part of the problem: that 40 percent of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States are here because they overstayed their visas, not because they entered the country illegally.

…As he did in 2000, McCain has staked his candidacy in part on his authenticity, often saying that it’s more important to him to do what is right than to win an election. His support for overhauling immigration laws is hampering his outreach to conservatives, and his outspoken support for the war in Iraq appears to be pushing independents away from him.”