When Barack Obama launched his first advertisement of the general election campaign this week, it was notable where his strategists decided to air it — and more to the point in this supposedly purple state, where they opted not to.

The Democratic Party’s likely presidential nominee is running the ad in a dozen battleground states, but also in six that lean heavily Republican: Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska. Conspicuously missing from the list of battlegrounds are such presumed battlegrounds of Minnesota, Washington and Oregon.

And it’s notable that Minnesota was on the list of states where John McCain targeted his first ad last week. All of which raises a couple of (at this point unanswerable) questions: Does the Obama team assume Minnesota’s in the bag? Does McCain’s really, truly think the state is going to be competitive in November?

In any case, here’s the ad, a soft and fuzzy paen to America, American values and Obama’s American roots.

Determined not to be Swift-boated as John Kerry was four years ago, Barack Obama’s campaign unveiled a new website today that bluntly takes on unsubstantiated rumors and innuendo that have dogged the candidate for months. Among them: He’s a secret Muslim, he won’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance, his wife used the word “whitey.”

Obama is bucking the conventional wisdom of politics, the widely-held belief that the best (maybe the only) way to deal with rumors is to ignore them. So the campaign launched a new web page called “Fight The Smears” that airs out the rumors and then rebuts them point by point.

Campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor threw down the gauntlet thusly:

“The Obama campaign isn’t going to let dishonest smears spread across the internet unanswered. Whenever challenged with these lies we will aggressively push back with the truth and help our supporters debunk the false rumors floating around the internet. This website is an action center that allows supporters to upload their address books and send
emails to all of their friends. It’s not enough to just know the truth, we have to be proactive and fight back.”

On the tail end of his victory lap last week, Barack Obama ended up back home in Chicago. He walked into his headquarters Friday to thank his troops for the historic upset they had just pulled off.

With a video camera rolling, he praised them, told them to get some rest and, in effect, told them that the hard work between now and Nov. 4 is just beginning. It’s a far more intimate look at the guy than can be gleaned from his mega-rallies, unscripted and up close (and just because it was undoubtedly sanctioned by the campaign, it doesn’t make it less interesting).

Not to be outdone by their Republican counterparts, the Democratic National Committee has its own new video ripping GOP presidential nominee John McCain for his ties to lobbyists, in the hopes of playing the hypocricy card. Take a look.

The Republican National Committee wasted no time taking on Barack Obama. The Xcel Energy Center had barely emptied out Tuesday night when the party had dumped a huge load of anti-Obama stuff on its website. Exhibit A is a web-only video featuring his erstwhile Democratic presidential competitors (and former President Bill Clinton) saying nasty, dismissive things about him. Take a look.

This almost certainly won’t be the last time stuff like this is disgorged, given the fact that Obama emerged from the longest primary fight in modern history, meaning there’s a LOT more video out there.

Day after day, Gov. Tim Pawlenty has suffered the low-level indignity of registering a bum performance as John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, at the hands of the SurveyUSA polling firm. The folks at SurveyUSA have run several hypothetical matchups of McCain vs. Obama, grafting onto them a variety of potential veeps.

Pawlenty’s problem is that among the Republican aspirants, his performance has lagged, sometimes turning in the worst performance for the GOP of the bunch. Not in Minnesota, though. Here, he adds some rocket fuel to the ticket.

SurveyUSA’s analysis (the results are here):

“Republican governor Tim Pawlenty is the sole Republican tested this cycle who gives McCain a win by more than the margin of sampling error. With no running mates, Obama defeats McCain by 5 points; with running mates added, results range from a 8 point McCain win (McCain/Pawlenty vs. Obama/Rendell) to a 15 point Obama win (McCain/Lieberman vs. Obama/Edwards).

Although Hillary Rodham Clinton gives no indication whatsoever that she’s folding her candidacy, she’s increasingly banking on those pesky, outlawed, primaries held in Florida and Michigan to put her over the top that her campaign aides have tried to identify.

The status of those delegates will be decided Saturday by the Democratic National Committee’s committee on rules and bylaws, a meeting where Clinton supporters have vowed to show up in force. But on Tuesday, she suffered a setback when party lawyers circulated an advisory memo that says the committee can only seat half the states’ delegates — too few to give her enough to surmount Barack Obama’s still-growing lead.

Of course, anything can happen Saturday, but Clinton has pulled out the rhetorical stops in a letter she sent to undeclared superdelegates (who hold her fate in their hands), trying to make her case once and for all:

Dear ___________,
The stakes in this election are so high: with two wars abroad, our economy in crisis here at home, and so many families struggling across America, the need for new leadership has never been greater.

At this point, we do not yet have a nominee – and when the last votes are cast on June 3, neither Senator Obama nor I will have secured the nomination. It will be up to automatic delegates like you to help choose our party’s nominee, and I would like to tell you why I believe I am the stronger candidate against Senator McCain and would be the best President and Commander in Chief.

Voters in every state have made it clear that they want to be heard and counted as part of this historic race. And as we reach the end of the primary season, more than 17 million people have supported me in my effort to become the Democratic nominee – more people than have ever voted for a potential nominee in the history of our party. In the past two weeks alone, record numbers of voters participated in the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries. And with 40 and 35 point margins of victory, it is clear that even when voters are repeatedly told this race is over, they’re not giving up on me – and I am not giving up on them either.

After seven years of feeling invisible to the Bush administration, Americans are seeking a President who is strong, experienced, and ready to take on our toughest challenges, from serving as Commander in Chief and ending the war in Iraq to turning our economy around. They want a President who shares their core beliefs about our country and its future and “gets” what they go through every day to care for their families, pay the bills and try to put something away for the future.

We simply cannot afford another four – or eight – years in the wilderness. That is why, everywhere I go, people come up to me, grip my hand or arm, and urge me to keep on running. That is why I continue in this race: because I believe I am best prepared to lead this country as President – and best prepared to put together a broad coalition of voters to break the lock Republicans have had on the electoral map and beat Senator McCain in November.

Recent polls and election results show a clear trend: I am ahead in states that have been critical to victory in the past two elections. From Ohio, to Pennsylvania, to West Virginia and beyond, the results of recent primaries in battleground states show that I have strong support from the regions and demographics Democrats need to take back the White House. I am also currently ahead of Senator McCain in Gallup national tracking polls, while Senator Obama is behind him. And nearly all independent analyses show that I am in a stronger position to win the Electoral College, primarily because I lead Senator McCain in Florida and Ohio. I’ve enclosed a detailed analysis of recent electoral and polling information, and I hope you will take some time to review it carefully.

In addition, when the primaries are finished, I expect to lead in the popular vote and in delegates earned through primaries. Ultimately, the point of our primary process is to pick our strongest nominee – the one who would be the best President and Commander in Chief, who has the greatest support from members of our party, and who is most likely to win in November. So I hope you will consider not just the strength of the coalition backing me, but also that more people will have cast their votes for me.

I am in this race for them — for all the men and women I meet who wake up every day and work hard to make a difference for their families. People who deserve a shot at the American dream – the chance to save for college, a home and retirement; to afford quality health care for their families; to fill the gas tank and buy the groceries with a little left over each month.

I am in this race for all the women in their nineties who’ve told me they were born before women could vote, and they want to live to see a woman in the White House. For all the women who are energized for the first time, and voting for the first time. For the little girls – and little boys – whose parents lift them onto their shoulders at our rallies, and whisper in their ears, “See, you can be anything you want to be.” As the first woman ever to be in this position, I believe I have a responsibility to them.

Finally, I am in this race because I believe staying in this race will help unite the Democratic Party. I believe that if Senator Obama and I both make our case – and all Democrats have the chance to make their voices heard – everyone will be more likely to rally around the nominee.

In the end, I am committed to unifying this party. What Senator Obama and I share is so much greater than our differences; and no matter who wins this nomination, I will do everything I can to bring us together and move us forward.

But at this point, neither of us has crossed the finish line. I hope that in the time remaining, you will think hard about which candidate has the best chance to lead our party to victory in November. I hope you will consider the results of the recent primaries and what they tell us about the mindset of voters in the key battleground states. I hope you will think about the broad and winning coalition of voters I have built. And most important, I hope you will think about who is ready to stand on that stage with Senator McCain, fight for the deepest principles of our party, and lead our country forward into this new century.

The folks at SurveyUSA continue to roll out state-by-state test heats, with possible vice-presidential running mates grafted onto John McCain and Barack Obama (see the 5/20 post below for a longer expplanation).

For champions of a Tim Pawlenty pick by McCain, the short version is this: Bad news, governor.

In Virginia, where Obama runs 7 percentage points ahead of McCain without running mates, Pawlenty drags the GOP ticket to within a single point. In Ohio, his strongest showing is a 5-point loss — and he turns out the worst performance by far, with McCain-Pawlenty losing to Obama and John Edwards by 18 percentage points.

Here’s the link for complete results.

The Hill, the influential Capitol Hill newspaper, has published a story about the possibility of the so-called dream ticket, pairing Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton on the November ballot. The headline of the piece cuts straight to the bottom line:

“Sen. Obama’s backers see dream ticket as nightmare”

Rep. Keith Ellison, an early, enthusiastic Obama supporter, is quoted touting the possibility of John Edwards as Obama’s running mate because “he hasn’t made as many people angry. Some of the things she has said and done and her husband has said and done have disappointed people in a serious way. The comment that she was there for [the] white working class was divisive. I would hope there is a black and Latino working class she would be there for.”

On Sunday, the New York Times delivered a startling SAY WHAT? moment in the midst of this historic Democratic presidential race. It’s analysis of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fading prospects, it started off, “If not her, who?” It then considered a raft of up-and-coming female politicians, including none other than Minnesota’s freshman senator, Amy Klobuchar.

It was startling, if only because “Klobuchar” and “presidential candidacy” have rarely, if ever, been mentioned in the same breath. But there was her picture, in full color, along with 11 other women the Times’ writer deemed up-and-comers. The story’s nickel assessment was merely glancing: “In the Senate, the names that come up most often are Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, both Democrats.”

But for better or for worse, after less than two years in the Senate, Klobuchar’s name is out there. For the entire Times assessment of future female presidential prospects, go here.

No response yet from Klobuchar’s Senate office.