Peter Coors has been a candidate for just a few weeks, but he's already in hot water with minority groups for comments made by one of his spokespersons:

DENVER (AP) - Minority groups called on Republican Senate candidate Peter Coors to apologize Wednesday after a spokeswoman said it would be worse to be compared to Sen. John Kerry than to a convicted killer. The dispute arose last week when an appeals court upheld the conviction of a reputed Ku Klux Klansman in the murder of a black man. The New York Times mistakenly used a photo of Coors with a story about the ruling. Asked about the error, Coors campaign spokeswoman Cinamon Watson said: "It could have been worse. Pete could have been identified as John Kerry."

The Rev. James Peters, spokesman for the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, said the remark was insensitive. "If Peter Coors or Ms. Watson thinks it is funny or lighthearted to compare Sen. Kerry to a convicted KKK murderer, then they are either willfully ignorant of the emotion African-Americans feel about such matters, or they are terribly out of touch and they should be ashamed," Peters said.

A new New York Times/CBS poll shows support for Bush and the war dropping significantly in recent months:

Support for the war in Iraq has eroded substantially over the past several months, and Americans are increasingly critical of the way President Bush is handling the conflict, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. After initially expressing robust backing for the war, the public is now evenly divided over whether the United States military should stay for as long as it takes to stabilize Iraq or pull out as soon as possible, the poll showed.

Asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47 percent of respondents said it had, down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December, just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein. Forty-six percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 37 percent last month and 31 percent in December.b

...just short of a year after Mr. Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln last May 1 and proclaimed the end to major combat operations under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," his approval rating has slid from the high levels it reached during the war. It now stands at 46 percent, the lowest level of his presidency in The Times/CBS News Poll, down from 71 percent last March and a high of 89 percent just after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001....Mr. Bush's approval rating for his handling of Iraq was 41 percent, down from 49 percent last month and 59 percent in December.

The poll shows that Bush and Kerry remain in a statistical dead heat.

John Kerry has begun the process of getting background checks on his potential Veep candidates--including Dick Gephardt and John Edwards. Another is said to be Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. [link via Political Wire.]

Please, Mr. Kerry, pick Mr. Edwards. He will get the Democrats enthused and engaged in a way that the others won't. He will bring in the youth vote in a way the other's won't. He'll bring in the South and the blue collar workers. He's a great and tireless campaigner. He's telegenic. He's real. He connects with people. Choose him.

by TChris

Borrowing a term that has become popular within the blogosphere, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) denounced VP Dick Cheney as "the lead chicken hawk cackling about John Kerry." He used visual aids to illustrate his point.

Lautenberg pointed to a poster with a drawing of a chicken in a military uniform that defined a chicken hawk as "a person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it."

"They shriek like a hawk, but they have the backbone of the chicken," he said.

The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice will conduct an investigation of Attorney General John Ashcroft's alleged campaign finance irregularities:

The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section is reviewing allegations that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft may have violated federal campaign finance and disclosure laws based on information developed by the Federal Election Commission. The Public Integrity Section is responsible for determining whether allegations merit investigation as potential criminal violations of campaign finance and disclosure laws and for making recommendations as to whether a special counsel would be needed when a potential conflict of interest with senior Justice officials exists.

At issue is the valuable campaign fundraising list of then-Sen. Ashcroft. He had claimed ownership of the fundraising list during an FEC inquiry, but had not reported it as an asset on his Senate or Justice Department financial disclosure statements.

Jerome at MyDD is covering the Pennsylvania primaries. Republican Senator Arlen Specter has a comfortable lead (52% to 48%) over challenger Toomey with 73% reporting. You can follow the votes here.

Bush backed Specter. In our view, Specter is better than Toomey, but a Democrat would be better than either one:

Specter is in line for the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee next year _ a prospect that scares conservatives still smarting over his 1987 vote thwarting the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork.

....Toomey, a three-term lawmaker, is a fiscal conservative, opposes abortion rights and has voted against an increase in the minimum wage and background checks for firearm purchasers at gun shows.

Specter will face Democrat Joe Hoeffel, a Congressman from Philly's suburbs.

Please contribute to Hoeffel here. Here's one reason you should:

American foreign policy should reflect the American ideals of social justice, human rights and personal liberty. And if we must go to war, we must do so with the support of our allies and the United Nations, with a plan to keep our troops safe and a plan to bring our kids home.” - Joe Hoeffel

The Washington Post reports that the Democrats are about to launch an attack on Vice President Dick Cheney. Eric Alterman, writing for the Nation, and Kevin Drum of Political Animal have already begun. (Kevin is the blogger formerly known as Calpundit who wrote this profile of Cheney last November.)

SK Bubba has a good post up on the unreliability of electronic voting. He adds:

Look, I'm a professional software developer with over 25 years experience. I work with the same technology used in these voting machines. I have seen some of the source code and database design. I have reviewed the Johns Hopkins study of the systems. There are problems. If an aeronautics engineer or experienced pilot told you there were problems with a particular aircraft's design and that they wouldn't fly on it, would you? It's the same thing. And you don't have to be an expert to know that a paper receipt and audit trail are just plain common sense. Anyway, if you vote in a precinct that uses these machines I once again strongly encourage you to request a paper ballot. That's what Mr. Michael Manning did according to the article above. Smart guy.

Kevin Drum at Political Animal explains why there's still good reason to be suspicious about President Bush's National Guard Service, and why the press has been silent about it lately. Kevin reviews the documents that have been released and then addresses those that are missing. He says the two together give us plenty to be suspicious about. As to the silence of the press, Kevin says, there's just no smoking gun. We think he's probably right.

However, we did receive this email today from a retired lieutenant colonel, who's not willing to let Bush off the hook and who pleads with Kerry and the Democrats to stay on this:

We received this by email:

Thanks to the release of Bush and Kerry's Vietnam-era military records, we now know more than we ever thought we'd needed to know about the condition of their buttocks.

John Kerry suffered multiple sharpnel wounds to his buttocks when an enemy mine detonated near his swift boat. Despite the wounds and intense sniper fire from both riverbanks, Kerry rescued a fellow soldier who had fallen overboard and earned a Bronze Star for his valor.

George Bush developed a hemorrhoid while flying a Texas Air National Guard jet to protect the shores of South Padre Island.

Is there any doubt about whose buttocks should be in the Oval Office on January 21, 2005?

DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe had this to say in response to numerous Republican attacks on John Kerry's military record:

"Since Bush himself is in no position to criticize John Kerry on his military service, he has opted instead to let others do his dirty work for him But whether he's making this charge himself or relying on surrogates, we welcome any opportunity to contrast Kerry's distinguished record of service as a Naval officer who faced combat and was wounded in Vietnam to Bush using his family connections to get placed in the Texas Air National Guard, requesting to not be sent overseas and then not even bothering to show up for duty or even fulfilling his required length of service. Simply put, Kerry has a proud record of sacrifice and service whereas Bush has a record of cashed-in connections and evasion."

Don't miss the DNC's side-by-side comparison of Bush and Kerry's military records (pdf.)

The Village Voice reports that Dick Cheney rewarded Roger Stone for shutting down the Florida recount by letting him pick the Interior Dept. officials who would regulate Indian gaming. Stone has since made millions from Indian tribes needing Interior approval to open casinsos. Also implicated: GOP insider Scott Reed.