From the Associated Press Fred Thompson, expected to announce his candidacy Labor Day week has a new campaign manager:

Bill Lacy, a former strategist for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and Republican National Committee, will run day-to-day operations of Thompson’s committee to “test the waters” for a presidential run.

“He turned around my campaign for Senate in 1994 and, as I move toward a decision on whether to run for president, I am confident he will take our operations to the next level,” Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and “Law & Order” actor, said in a statement.

Update from Senator Barack Obama:

“If I were president, I probably would. It’s a remarkable achievement. And he deserves, I think, our congratulations.”

“I remain concerned about the cloud that exists not just in baseball but in everything from basketball to the Tour de France. I mean you just get a sense right now that sports is suffering from a crisis of confidence and my hope is that all the various sports leagues take those responsibilities seriously.”

In a somewhat light-hearted moment of the debate last night Barack Obama was asked if he would invite Barry Bonds, who has faced accusations of steroid abuse, to the White House to celebrate beating Hank Aaron’s record. Obama worked through the question to the entertainment of the audience and gave a non-committed answer saying basically “we will wait and see”.

Well sure enough last night Bonds hit the one home-run needed to break the record.

I am interested to hear the follow-up!

I enjoyed the boos and applause in last nights debate. Every campaign as well as the media are trying to distort it to their liking. “This candidate got more applause and more boos, that candidate got silence” etc.

I thought Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama all were about the same. They all received both applause and skepticism. Obama probably walked away with the least amount of negative or flat reaction while Clinton walked away with the loudest applause and one moment of heavy boos when she went after Obama. Kucinich got the most sustained applause and was rewarded for almost everything he said. I don’t recall if he was booed or greeted with silence at all.

Dodd actually was booed quite a few times but the biggest tells of the night went to John Edwards.

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Last night Senator Barack Obama fielded a question in the debate about immigration. He gave a balanced “we need to enforce the border while respecting and dealing with those who have come here” response that didn’t seem to be entirely what the crowd or Bill Richardson who was standing next to him, wanted but what is probably needed.

I looked into Obama’s thoughts on illegal immigration some more and found his 2006 Floor Speech in the Senate:

The American people are a welcoming and generous people. But those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws.

Obama supported:

“But while security might start at our borders, it doesn’t end there. Millions of undocumented immigrants live and work here without our knowing their identity or their background. We need to strike a workable bargain with them. They have to acknowledge that breaking our immigration laws was wrong. They must pay a penalty, and abide by all of our laws going forward. They must earn the right to stay over a 6-year period, and then they must wait another 5 years as legal permanent residents before they become citizens.”

“But in exchange for accepting those penalties, we must allow undocumented immigrants to come out of the shadows and step on a path toward full participation in our society. In fact, I will not support any bill that does not provide this earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population–not just for humanitarian reasons; not just because these people, having broken the law, did so for the best of motives, to try and provide a better life for their children and their grandchildren; but also because this is the only practical way we can get a handle on the population that is within our borders right now.”

The left doesn’t want to hear about limitations any more than the right wants to hear about amnesty and I always applaud and respect when people go to a house where everyone opposes you and say what they don’t want to hear. (When its sensible of course.)

I bring this up because a large chunk of the debate tonight was devoted to China:

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.