A fairly new website is intriguing for anyone following the byzantine nominating process the Democrats are living through. It’s mrsuper.org, self-described as, “an undeclared superdelegate debunks myths, offers insight and answers questions about the 2008 Democratic nomination process for President of the United States.”

Reputable journalists have vetted the guy (without, at his request, outing his identity), and the posts seem both credible and carry some insight. It’s worth checking out here.

That darned phone in the White House keeps ringing off the hook.

Hillary Rodham Clinton released a new ad Wednesday that reprises her middle-of-the-night-phone-call-threatening-Armageddon, casting the crisis in economic terms. Unlike the original, which took pains to paint a bullseye on Barack Obama for his lack of experience, this one takes aim at John McCain as someone who do nothing to help struggling American families.

Fair enough. But McCain’s folks were quick enough on their feet to one-up Clinton within a few hours, cribbing her own video with an Internet ad (cheap, but guaranteed free media coverage) that blasted both her and Obama as typical Democrats who only want to raise taxes to fight crises.

Nothing — not yet, at least — from Obama on 3 a.m. phone calls.

Remember the presidential candidacy of Mike Gravel? Don’t be abashed if you don’t, because the former Alaska senator who launched the longest of long shots for the Democratic nomination has pretty much disappeared from view. He made a ripple of news this week by saying he’d pretty much given up on his party and joined the Libertarians. Whatever happens to him, he leaves behind one of the most, uh, memorable ads of this campaign cycle.

Tonight could be the last time Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton debate.

The debate on MSNBC, which begins at 8 p.m. (CST), is the last one scheduled before next Tuesday’s primaries, which have the potential to knock Clinton out of the race.

NBC’s Brian Williams will moderate the event at Cleveland State University, and Tim Russert will join in the questioning.

If you don’t have cable, you can watch the debate on msnbc.com.

Well, that didn’t take long.

Just a few days after the most recent round of Pawlenty-could-be-McCain’s-veep, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza used the National Governor’s Association meeting to have a videotaped sit-down with four governors whose names are being bandied about as possible vice-presidential material.

One was our very own Tim Pawlenty. Of the guv, Cillizza writes, “Pawlenty — widely seen as the current leader in the McCain veepstakes — detailed his long relationship with the senator (the two have known each other for nearly two decades) and his loyalty during the darkest days of McCain’s campaign. But he offered little insight into his own prospects.”

Here’s the video:

For the entire blog post, you can go here.

The Beltway chorus of guessing who John McCain will pick as his running mate keeps swelling and Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s name keeps being sung at the top of the insiders’ lungs.

Most recently, the National Journal privately polled what it calls its “GOP power players” on who McCain would end up picking. Pawlenty led the pack, named by 15 percent of the 87 Republican bigwigs. Running second, with 11 percent, was former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. They mentioned no fewer than 18 other possible VP picks.

Among the assessments of Pawlenty are the following:

“Pawlenty brings it all—regional balance, youth, looks, plus a policy
background that can appeal to the center. He’s also doing great
work on energy and environment issues, which would be a nice turf
poach for the GOP.”

“Solid conservative, anti-tax increases, good family, and keeps the

Midwest in play for McCain.”

“It needs to be a governor who can help carry a state and help deal
with the age argument. The two lead candidates would be Crist and
Pawlenty. Crist has a Quayle-like ‘deer in the headlights’ quality about
him if he has to answer an unrehearsed question, leaving Pawlenty.”

That poll, published Friday, came a few hours after the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza’s politics blog ran its new line of what he calls the Veepstakes. His assessment of Pawlenty:

“The two-term Minnesota governor has to be considered the frontrunner at the moment to be McCain’s pick. He hails from the electorally important Midwest, is young enough to balance concerns about McCain’s age, and he stuck by the Arizona senator in the darkest days of the campaign. The criticism that Pawlenty is an unknown on the national stage may, in fact, be an argument in his favor — voters won’t bring any preconceived notions about him to the ticket. Never forget that one of the guiding principles in picking a VP is to find someone who is comfortable being seen but not heard.”

Icing on the speculation cake first came this week from the Politico, where Pawlenty was subject of an exceptionally flattering profile. As befits his continuing, studied, silence on the topic, Pawlenty declined to be interviewed for the piece.

Stay tuned. The talk is likely to only intensify.

It’s hardly news in the world of politics that one-time rivals often become best friends forever once one of them beats the other one. Case in point: Rudy Giuliani’s fervet embrace of John McCain once Rudy’s Florida firewall strategy imploded and McCain was on his way to becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Giuliani even hopped on the Straight Talk Express for some face-to-face schmoozing with the

traveling press. At one point, according to a story in the current issue of The New Yorker, Giuliani made the following case for McCain:

“When I endorsed John, I pointed out that, as far as I can see, he’s the only candidate we have that can put virtually fifty states in play,” Giuliani said, pouring out some carefully worded frustrations about how his party has shrivelled in the Northeast. “That doesn’t mean he can win fifty states. Nobody ever wins fifty states. It means he can compete in fifty states. When he’s nominated, there’ll be an active campaign in New York, there’ll be an active campaign in New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, California, Washington, Oregon. If somebody else is nominated, they’ll go back to the thirty-five-state strategy. This is very frustrating for Republicans in this part of the world. They haven’t had a Presidential campaign since probably ’84, maybe ’88 in some places. It’s also helped to deteriorate the Party.”

So? Well, it wasn’t that many weeks ago that Giuliani was repeatedly claiming that he was the only guy in the GOP who could credibly mount a 50-state campaign. But, hey times change.

As Wisconsin’s primary next Tuesday approaches, most of the action has taken place on the Democratic side (Mike Huckabee, trailing far behind John McCain in the polls, barnstormed the state for three days, hoping to fire up his base of conservatives and evangelicals). Barack Obama has been working the state nearly non-stop since Tuesday and Hillary Clinton arrives Saturday, planning to stump the state until primary day.

The intensity of the Democratic battle has shown up on Wisconsinites’ TV screens. Clinton, widely perceived as having lost momentum to Obama, has been itching to debate him and threw up an ad this week in which an announcer sneers that Obama would “prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions.”

Oh, yeah? countered Obama’s camp, coming up with an ad that accuses Clinton of “phony charges and false attacks.”

Perhaps predictably, it didn’t take long for some anonymous wiseguy to come up with a parody of Clinton’s ad.

Stay tuned.

Organizers of the Republican National Convention announced today that the Internet behemoth Google will be the “official innovation provider” of the big show that hits the Xcel Center in St. Paul on Sept. 1-4.

In a video posted both on YouTube (a Google subsidiary) and the convention’s official website, President and CEO Maria Cino said enlisting Google’s various tools will ensure that the four-day nominee coronation will be “the most high-tech savvy in history.” It wilk, she said, bring the convention a “wow factor.”

Details of the partnership with Google are available at the convention’s websute. It’s also been cross-posted over at YouTube.

Mike Huckabee has been projected the winner of Saturday’s Kansas caucuses, according to Fox News and CNN.

Huckabee holds a commanding lead over Sen. John McCain — 62 percent to 22 percent, with 76 percent of precincts reporting. Ron Paul is third with 11 percent.

Today’s caucuses will award 36 pledged delegates to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Earlier this morning, Huckabee announced in a speech to a conservative organization that he planned to remain in the race.

“Am I quitting? Let’s get this settled right now. No, I am not,” he said.

Kansas was holding only Republican caucuses today. Democrats held their caucuses earlier this week, on Super Tuesday. Sen. Barack Obama won with 74 percent of the vote.

Three other states are voting today. Louisiana has a Democratic and Republican primary, Washington state has caucuses for both parties and Nebraska is holding Democratic caucuses.