From The Caucus Blog at NYTimes:

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns will resign his Cabinet seat tomorrow to begin preparing to run for a Senate seat from Nebraska, a senior administration official said tonight.

Mr. Johanns, a former Republican governor of Nebraska, is seeking to replace Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who announced earlier this month that he will not seek re-election in 2008. Mr. Johanns told party officials and supporters that he will make his Senate announcement shortly after he leaves the administration.

Mr. Johanns would become the fourth Republican candidate in the field, which includes Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning. While Nebraska is one of the most Republican states in the nation, the vacancy created by Mr. Hagel is creating a potential opportunity for Democrats, who are attempting to recruit Bob Kerrey to run.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, if you want to preview what the general election arguments will be on the Republican side simply look at the 2004 election. Take your pick: Defense, Gay Marriage, Democrats = High Taxes.

Case in point? Mitt Romney is now running a radio ad talking about gay marriage. His target though is slightly different, he is going after his fellow Republican candidates saying “Not all Republican candidates agree, but defending marriage is the right thing to do.”

There are two obvious points to make. Point 1) is Romney’s own flip-flopping on social issues. Point 2) is the problem in convincing a conservative audience Romney or any of the candidates could or would actually do anything on gay marriage.

There is a simple way of looking at things. George Bush had the House, Senate, Presidency & Supreme Court nominations. He made gay marriage a major issue and won the support of christian conservatives. So here we are in 2008 and… no constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Let’s say Romney becomes president. It is looking pretty good thus far he will face a Democratic House & Senate and if a Supreme court nomination pops up it will have to be confirmed by said Congress. See the problem here?

Now at the end of the day I don’t doubt it is still a potent issue for that block of voters. I just don’t know that in 2008 it will be an issue that is used to select the nominee.

The Senator announced he would give 150 million workers a $500 payroll tax credit, expand relief on mortgage interest, eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 and simplify returns so millions can file in less than five minutes.

How would he pay for it? First he would roll back the Bush tax cuts and then…. he didn’t say. His campaign said the following, quoted from a Associated Press article:

Obama’s campaign said he would pay for his proposals by closing corporate tax loopholes, cracking down on international tax havens and raising the top rate on capital gains and dividends.

However as the article noted “But the campaign did not say how much each of those proposals would generate.”

The article also pointed out that the Obama campaign originally said it would roll back certain Bush tax cuts to pay for the Senators proposed Healthcare plan. It now says they have enough money from “other sources” to pay for that. No one knows what those other sources are at the moment.

I haven’t put anything up about Hillary Clinton’s Universal Healthcare plan because I am still reading all available information. I will have more asap. Until then though I found a very interesting article in the USA Today that says the following:

Clinton unveiled her plan as Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said President Bush wants to achieve universal health care before he leaves office.

Leavitt told the USA TODAY editorial board that Bush will veto a Democratic plan emerging from Congress that would add $35 billion in taxpayer subsidies to the Children’s Health Insurance Program over five years. In doing so, Leavitt said, Bush will urge Congress to join him in seeking coverage for all Americans.

“He’d like to see the larger debate begin,” Leavitt said. “The very best opportunity we have may well be in the next 15 months.”

Could it be true? What in the world would it mean? Lets have a look.
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The NY Times notes that on his “No Surrender” tour championing the Iraq War and the “troop surge” John McCain has refrained from mentioning the B word, read Bush.

But even as he lashes his presidential campaign that much tighter to the war in Iraq, Mr. McCain is seeking to decouple his fortunes from those of Mr. Bush, in the latest chapter of a 10-year relationship that has been at times tortured, at times cordial, at times symbiotic.

So it is that Mr. McCain sprinkles his speeches not with references to Mr. Bush but to General Petraeus, a shift that not only mirrors the White House strategy of putting the military out front but also symbolically encapsulates a recognition of what many Republicans consider to have been a fundamental mistake of Mr. McCain in his candidacy: trying to present himself as Mr. Bush’s anointed successor and ideological heir.