Gravel grovels for recognition. McCain Pays Tribute to Strom Thurmond in South Carolina Speech. Fred has met the enemy, and it's the GOP! 
The following piece was produced through the Huffington Post's OffTheBus. Edited by Richard Riehl and Denise Wheeler. Reported by Kirsten Anderson, Ken Bank, River Curtis-Stanley, Jodi Lampert, Julie Pierce, Debbi Plummer, and Theresa Weathers.
No-surrender candidate surrenders once again to pandering: While speaking at the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson University Wednesday, McCain said this of the late U.S. senator, governor and one-time champion of segregation: "I have not known an individual who was a more astute politician and more dedicated public servant..." Could this be the start of his southern strategy?
Gravel pumps up the volume: Protesting his exclusion from Democratic presidential debates, Mike Gravel has taken his message of peace to the streets--literally--in a new YouTube video that proves the Old Hack may be last in the polls but can still rap while gagged and draped in the American flag. Right on, Dude!
Huckabee stumps in heaven: In a speech Tuesday at Virginia's Lynchburg University, the Huckster declared. "I'm not saying God wants me to be elected...Last time I checked, he hadn't registered in any of the states to vote. If he does register...I will ask for his vote." In Wednesday's debate he said Jesus was too smart to run for office, now he claims God isn't a registered voter. Better get Tancredo to check God's citizenship status.
May the best scar win: Joe Biden finally took a poke at John Edwards, pointing out that, unlike Edwards, he walked a picket line when he was a senator and suffered politically from it. Edwards showed up only as a candidate seeking votes. "I think John is pro-labor, just not as pro-labor as I am, because I've got the scar on the back to show you," he said. Anybody out there remember LBJ pulling up his shirt to show us his scar from an abdominal operation? Let's hope comparative scar showing doesn't creep into this campaign.
Will Fred save us from more GOP incompetence? On his web site Thompson repeats the usual clichés about inefficient government bureaucracy. "Is this the government that some would have play an even greater role in running our lives? We must do better." He didn't acknowledge which party was responsible for running Congress for twelve of the last thirteen years, the White House for seven of them.
The champion of the Constitution says it needs tweaking: In a mailer circulated this week in South Carolina, Ron Paul calls for an amendment to the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship. Dismissing the last 150 years or so of jurisprudence, Dr. No previously expressed his opposition to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Wonder who's trampling on the Constitution now?
And then there were seven: Joe Biden must have spent some time at the race track, because he obviously knows a long shot when he sees one. "If I don't come out of here in the top three, unless you're bunched up, then I'm out of here," he told Iowa Public Television Wednesday. As they say in horse racing, the only difference between praying at the track and praying in church is that at the track you mean it.
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