A mother on parade in Iran's propaganda war.

President Bush on Congress' timetable for withdrawal:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a few days earlier:

In my post yesterday on Rudy Giuliani's CNBC interview with Larry Kudlow I suggested that there was "a real opportunity on the Republican side for a candidate to fill the Steve Forbes-kind of role in the GOP field with an unapologetic embrace of low-tax, pro-growth, supply-side policies."

Today the Giuliani campaign announced:

New York City - The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee today announced that Steve Forbes, President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine, has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for President of the United States. Mr. Forbes will serve as a National Campaign Co-Chair and Senior Policy Advisor.

"I am honored to support Rudy Giuliani for President," Steve Forbes said. "As Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani showed how exercising fiscal discipline - including tax cuts - lowers deficits, spurs economic growth, and increases revenue. It is time the rest of the country benefit from a true fiscal conservative leader who gets real results."

"Steve and I share an economic vision that embraces supply-side economics, tax relief, and spending restraint," said Mayor Giuliani. "I look forward to working with Steve and am proud to have him as a member of our team."

Rudy leads by 15.8% in the latest RCP Average (Giuliani 33.4, McCain 17.6).

With the Iraq war growing ever more unpopular among the American people, some vulnerable GOP senators are having to walk a fine line between principle and electoral demands. As the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny reports, senators like John Sununu of New Hampshire, who voted yesterday to strip the withdrawal language from legislation, "find themselves searching for balance as they juggle three tasks: responding to the frustrations of their constituents, resisting the demands of antiwar Democrats and not entirely abandoning the White House." Other Republicans, like Oregon's Gordon Smith, who voted for the withdrawal, have adopted a greater anti-war stance than the rest of their party.

Senate Democrats have made clear that Smith is one of the most vulnerable Republicans next year, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post reports, but they've "yet to find a top-tier recruit willing to take on the two-term incumbent." The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a poll showing Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) beating Smith 42-38, but DeFazio "doesn't seem keen on running" after saying he's not interested, writes Cillizza.

In presidential politics, Rudy Giuliani scored a big get in South Carolina yesterday by hiring Gov. Mark Sanford's aide and campaign manager as his communications director. In Florida the Orlando Sentinel's John Kennedy reports that Sen. John McCain raised $300,000 at a recent fundraiser and gained "valuable face time with Gov. Charlie Crist, who remains officially unaligned in the race for the White House." Some of Crist's closest advisers and fundraisers are backing McCain, while former Gov. Jeb Bush's supporters have mostly lined up with Mitt Romney. On the Senate floor yesterday McCain said "we are starting to turn things around" in Iraq and that the surge is "working far better than even the most optimistic supporter had predicted" with tangible progress in "many key areas."

Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign team members are drawing press attention for very different reasons. Campaign co-chair Bill Shaheen denied that Clinton promised him an ambassadorship in her administration for his campaign support. The New York Observer's Spencer Morgan profiles Clinton's mysterious and praised aide Huma Abedin.

The New York Times' Sarah Wheaton digs into just how accurate the number of views on websites like YouTube are. Sen. Barack Obama's YouTube channel registered 2.7 million views recently, but these numbers may be inflated for various reasons. Meanwhile, a South Carolina political blogger was fired for making disparaging remarks about John Edwards' decision to continue campaigning after his wife, Elizabeth, revealed her cancer had returned.

Finally, Democrats are starting to target two GOP House seats. The Politico's Josh Kraushaar reports Democrats are targeting Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ). In Iowa, retired Presbyterian minister Rob Hubler announced he would run as a Democrat against GOP Rep. Steve King.

Find the rest of today's elections news at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

Sen. James Webb held a press conference today to discuss the curious incident involving his aide, a loaded pistol and two magazine clips.

Via Fox News:

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb said Tuesday he did not give aide Phillip Thompson the gun that led to his arrest in a Senate office building. Webb did not say whether it was his gun.

Webb said he has been in New Orleans since Friday and returned Monday night. He said that he couldn't talk about the case because of the legal proceedings and his desire not to prejudice the situation. But then he denied any role in the alleged felony.

Webb also had this cryptic response to whether he regularly walks around town armed:

"It's important for me, personally, and for a lot of people in the situation that I'm in, to be able to defend myself and my family," Webb said. "Since 9/11 for people who are in government I think in general there has been an agreement that it's a more dangerous time. Again, I'm not going to comment, again, with great specificity about how I defend myself, but I do feel that I have that right."

Curiouser and curiouser. Meanwhile, Thompson is facing felony charges.

Rudy Giuliani gave a long interview with RCP's good friend Larry Kudlow, which aired yesterday on CNBC.

The interview was primarily on economic and war issues. Social-issue voters won't learn much, but Giuliani's answers on economic policy will impress conservative and Republican voters.

I have been saying for some time now that there is a real opportunity on the Republican side for a candidate to fill the Steve Forbes-kind of role in the GOP field with an unapologetic embrace of low-tax, pro-growth, supply-side policies.

McCain's past votes against the Bush tax cuts and his recent scuffle with the Club for Growth make him now unlikely to fill this vacuum.

With Kudlow's prodding, Giuliani seemed to willingly embrace the supply-side mantle.

KUDLOW: In your book, "Leadership," you talk several times about the benefits of a free economy. You talk about capitalism. I want to ask you, do you regard yourself as a free market capitalist? Do you regard yourself as a supply sider?

GIULIANI: I regard myself as a supply sider for sure. I mean, watched Ronald Reagan do it and learned it, so it works. Taxes get reduced, more revenue come in. Practiced it as the mayor of New York. I'm the first mayor ever to do that. It's almost harder to do in New York than it is in Washington. There was less of an acceptance for it and more resistance to it. But I have lowered taxes 22, 23 times. I started with a $2.3 billion deficit and by lowering taxes, we cleared that deficit and we started building a pretty big surplus.

So not only do I believe in it, I've made it work. So I believe in it really strongly because it comes out of practical experience. Free market, more and more so. I've said over the last 10 to 15 years I've become more and more convinced that globalization, free market economics is the way to go for the United States. It really just challenges us to kind of predict the future and to try to think of the industries we have to create where we can take advantage of the large number of consumers that are emerging in China, the large number of consumers that are emerging in India. If we challenge ourselves, it really gives us the hope of real growth and that's what we should be pointing toward, growth.

On taxes, jobs and growth:

KUDLOW: Speaking of tax hikes, some in Congress are talking about taxing these private equity funds, which many believe have made business more efficient. They want to tax the so-called carried interest. Do you have a thought on that?

GIULIANI: I first would intuitively say, no well studied or deeply knowledgeable would be I'm against most taxes. I think that taxes have to exist. They should exist at the lowest possible level and to the extent that we can, we shouldn't invent more. Maybe that's my experience being mayor of New York City, where we had so many taxes. I mean, think about it, I made 23 different taxes. And I'm not sure I made all of them. I mean, the city shouldn't have 23 taxes or 30 taxes or 40 taxes. There should be a few. They should be simple. They should be easy to comply with. They should raise the revenue that's most for the essential services of government and they should be competitive. Whenever the people talk about a new tax, I generally don't like the idea.

I think [the U.S. tax code] needs a massive simplification. If we were doing income tax for the first time. In other words, if we were starting off new back at the beginning of the last century, then probably we should go with a--we probably should've gone with a flat tax, maybe two levels of tax, but really simple. Our economy has kind of grown up now on depreciation and deductions and industries have grown up around that and so I don't know exactly how much you can simplify it, but you sure have to make a stab at it.

I think Reagan got it right. I felt that what Reagan did was, I kind of think of it as like cleaning out the forest. You got--the tax code was this big, he got it down to a simple code, reduced the top rates. Kind of leveled out the rates a little so there weren't as many. The tax code needs a simplification in addition to lowering your sum taxes. Another tax that has to be dealt with is the death tax. That's a double tax. People get it twice and it has a major impact on lots of people who aren't really wealthy. You know, people who have their money in land or they have they money in real estate or they have they have their money in the family business or the family farm and they've got to sell the darn thing or they get in a big dispute with the IRS about what it's worth on paper.

KUDLOW: John Edwards, former Senator John Edwards has talked about raising taxes on the rich in order to create universal health coverage. Your thought on the Edwards plan.

GIULIANI: That's how you--that's how you decelerate the economy. I mean, it's exactly the way in which you take the growth that we're having and put a lid on it and start to move it back in the other direction. The reality is that the more ways that we can find to put money back into the private economy, the more our economy grows because that money gets used in a dynamic way. It gets used to create jobs. I used to be a big advocate of lowering the sales tax in New York, or even doing away with it because right around New York we have states that don't have a sales tax. We lose an incredible amount of business to those--to those states. If we did away with the sales tax in New York, it would be a jobs program for New York. The scales would have to go higher, 10 percent more employees, 20 percent more employees, 30 percent more employees. We'd make back a lot of that tax through the income tax, but we would also, more importantly have a growing economy. And that's--the government has to constantly be thinking about. What can we do to grow the economy.

These are exactly the kind of answers conservatives and Republicans want to hear from their presidential nominee. If Rudy continues to pound these themes and follows through with bold proposals to push the country further in the pro-growth, low-tax, pro-free markets direction, it will be a powerful selling point in his attempt to close the deal with Republican primary voters.

And if he does win the nomination, it will in all likelihood set up a strong contrast with the eventual Democratic nominee in the general election, as the Democrats are clearly moving toward a more populist, anti-free trade, more progressive (i.e. higher taxes) economic approach.

More terrible cancer-related news. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Tony Snow and his family.

Interesting results from the first two polls to include Fred Thompson, both released yesterday. USA Today/Gallup has Thompson vaulting into a clear third place, mostly at the expense of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Compared to the last USAT/Gallup taken three weeks ago, Giuliani dropped 13 points, McCain gained 2, Romney lost 5, and Gingrich ticked up one point.

Zogby released a poll yesterday that also showed Thompson moving into a third place tie with Romney. Compared to Zogby's previous survey taken in late February, however, Giuliani only dropped 2 points, McCain slid 7 points, and Romney's support remained constant. It should be noted that Zogby didn't poll for Gingrich, which might explain some of the variation.

So it's clear Fred Thompson is drawing support from the other candidates, though it's not exactly clear at this point who his candidacy is going to hurt the most.

Looks like Sen. James Webb is as happy as a Republican that a federal court struck down D.C.'s handgun ban:

A top aide to Sen. James Webb was charged yesterday with trying to carry a loaded pistol and extra ammunition into a Senate office building, U.S. Capitol Police said.

The staffer, Phillip Thompson, told police that the gun belonged to Webb (D-Va.), authorities said. Thompson also said he forgot that the gun was in a briefcase and meant no harm, they said. [snip]

Police also found two fully loaded magazines, officials said.

A loaded pistol and "two fully loaded magazines"? Folks expected Webb to be a bit unorthodox, but in a fun, John-McCain-"Maverick" kind of way. Packing heat on the way to the airport is not what Democrats had in mind.

I suspect, however, that this won't generate much more than minor alarm, insofar as Webb's name has been thrown around as a possible vice president candidate. (And I also suspect reporters are terrified of Webb -- "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?") Now, if Webb were a Republican the reaction would be very different...

At the same time, you have to wonder what the left thinks of all this. The "Daily Kos" crowd enthusiastically supported Webb's campaign to unseat one-time presidential hopeful George Allen last year, despite being fully aware that Webb wasn't, uh, "with them" on all the issues, which is putting it mildly. Let's remember that as Navy Secretary under Ronald Reagan, Webb resigned because the administration wouldn't follow his advice to build a bigger navy.

Webb talks like a liberal these days on certain economic matters, but otherwise he's much more of a Pat Buchanan-type opponent of the war than a Dennis Kucinich-type. And last I checked the left still despised Buchanan. It will be interesting to watch the relationship between Webb and the left unfold in the next year or so, especially if the rumors of Webb being vice presidential material become more than gossip.

One could make the case that the left likes Webb because he's an antiwar Democrat who appeals to independents and some Republicans. But neither party's base is particularly known for picking favorites based on electability alone. Purity and passion for the cause is what the base wants and conceivably there could come a day when the left won't forgive Webb's unorthodox ways.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, and as Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun reports, "there is no indication that the spigot of campaign cash has been restricted," as $100 million is expected to be raised between all presidential candidates this quarter. However, the chief impact of the law may be on Sen. John McCain himself whose involvement with reform "has been one of the factors dampening his popularity with Republican faithful."

In more money news, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson asked for $500,000 of contributions through his website after announcing last month that he already raised $2 million.

In Iowa yesterday, former Gov. Tom Vilsack pledged he and his wife would help Sen. Hillary Clinton win the Iowa caucuses. In an interview with the Quad-City Times, Clinton said the Iraq war was "one of the most irresponsible positions any American president" has ever taken. She then blamed President Bush for the war and absolved Democrats. "He decided to wage it. He went in on a pre-emptive campaign. He mismanaged it. The Democrats are not responsible for this war. This is George Bush's war, and it's his responsibility to end it before he leaves office," she said. Clinton said she would end the war if elected.

Mike Allen of the Politico writes that rookie mistakes in the form of small contradictions and discrepancies have plagued Sen. Barack Obama. These haven't hurt him yet, but this is Obama's first time on a stage where "small mistakes can have disproportionately large consequences."

On the GOP side, Sen. Sam Brownback said some Republicans in Iowa question why he doesn't support the surge in Iraq. "They push back on my not supporting the surge," Brownback said. "I hope and pray the surge works and the early data, the early information, looks good that it is, but it's not sufficient."

Meanwhile, Republican House members are beginning to enter the presidential endorsement fray. The Politico's Jonathan Martin reports that GOP Reps. Gresham Barrett (SC), Lynn Westmoreland (GA) and Jeff Miller (FL) are all willing to publicly support Fred Thompson for president. Fifty other House members have "already expressed interest in meeting with Thompson when he comes to Capitol Hill" on April 18th.

Elsewhere, Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany endorsed Rudy Giuliani a week after Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) announced his support.

Find the rest of today's political news at RCP's Politics and Elections page.