With Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle's (R) withdrawal from the race last week, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine (R) leads seven other potential GOP primary candidates in a new Strategic Vision poll (April 17-19, 800 LV, +/- 3%) of the Georgia gubernatorial race. Attorney General Thurbert Baker (D) leads two others in a potential Democratic primary race.

GOP Primary
John Oxendine 33
Karen Handel 14
Jack Kingston 11
Lynn Westmoreland 7
4 others total 10
Und 25

Dem Primary
Thurbert Baker 41
David Poythress 8
Dubose Porter 5
Und 46

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe announced today that Bill Clinton, for whom McAuliffe is a longtime friend and fundraiser, will hit the trail with him in Richmond and Roanoke on Monday April 27.

"We're thrilled to have President Clinton join Terry on the campaign trail," McAuliffe campaign manager Mike Henry stated in a press release. "As a former governor and close friend of Terry's, he'll talk with Virginians about why Terry is best suited to turn Virginia's economy around. And as America's last great job-creating President, he'll help make the case as to why Terry will be Virginia's next great job-creating governor."

According to campaign finance reports due last week, Clinton has donated $10,000 to McAuliffe, and he also attended a high-dollar fundraiser for McAuliffe in New York in January.

Two separate polls out this morning find New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine with a 54% disapproval rating and trailing Republican challenger Chris Christie.

Quinnipiac finds Corzine down 7 points from Christie and tied with Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, and Christie up 15 points in the GOP primary. Strategic Vision finds Christie up 25 points in the GOP primary and leading Corzine by 11 points.

Quinnipiac
General
Christie 45 (-1 vs. last poll, March 12)
Corzine 38 (+1)
Und 14

Corzine 41 (nc vs. last poll, March 12)
Lonegan 41 (+4)
Und 15

Primary
Christie 39 (-1 vs. last poll, March 12)
Lonegan 24 (+5)
3 Others 5
Und 32

Strategic Vision
General
Christie 47 - Corzine 36 - Und 16

Corzine 44 - Lonegan 39 - Und 15

Corzine 42 - Levine 40 - Und 17

Corzine 45 - Merkt 30 - Und 23

Primary
Christie 40
Lonegan 15
2 Others 6
Und 39

It's been a pretty interesting day-and-a-half since CQ reporter Jeff Stein's piece on Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) was published.

Stein reported that in late 2006, an NSA wiretap picked up a conversation between Harman and a "suspected Israeli agent" during which Harman said she would lobby the Justice Department to be lenient on two AIPAC officials being charged with espionage, and the agent said he'd lobby Nancy Pelosi to give Harman the Intelligence Committee chairmanship.

After uproar about the timing of his piece, Stein wrote a blog post early this morning showing the corroboration of parts of his article by other reporters and their sources. Stein also appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown" last night, on which he said he had three sources who confirmed his story.

"There are many officials that know about this: at the Justice Department, the CIA, the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence and other places, and I'm told that Nancy Pelosi became very aware of this as well," Stein said on the show. "This is somewhat of a secret, but there's a wide circle of people who have known this for some time."

Harman, however, has claimed innocence, and told Andrea Mitchell this afternoon in an in-studio interview on MSNBC that she was unaware of any of this. Harman said the first time she heard about it was Thursday night when Stein called her congressional office.

"I didn't contact the Justice Department or anyone in the administration ever asking for lenient sentences for anybody," Harman said. "I didn't intervene."

On a deal to help her win the Intelligence committee gavel after the 2006 election, Harman said: "No deals were cut with any groups for any reason ever."

Harman said she has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to release any tapes from NSA wiretaps "in an unredacted form" and to investigate if any other members of Congress were "subject to this treatment" of being wiretapped.

(Cross-posted on RCP's Politics Nation blog)

President Obama said Tuesday that he was open to an investigation of controversial interrogation techniques possibly condoned or directed from the Bush White House. The president's reversal follows days of White House assurances that Obama's Department of Justice would not investigate or prosecute those who ordered or administered the interrogations.

Obama told reporters he was open to a "fuller accounting of what took place" by Congress in a "bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process."

Obama's comments appear to undercut his attempt to strike a balance on the torture issue. Last week Obama released previously classified memoranda detailing CIA interrogation techniques but pledged to withhold prosecution of those who led or administered the interrogations. Critics have derided the interrogations, which include repeated waterboarding, as torture.

The president's statement seems to indicate a bow to outside pressure, both domestic and abroad. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-MI, has pushed for a bipartisan commission to investigate the alleged torture. Conyers said in a statement Friday he did "not understand" Obama's reticence to investigate the "legality" of past interrogation techniques.

The top UN official on torture, Manfred Nowak, has reportedly said that the United States is legally committed to investigate credible accusations of torture. The United States is a party to the International Convention against Torture. Another report on interrogation techniques is due from the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Obama administration had already not ruled out the possibility of investigating Bush administration lawyers for offering guidelines for the "enhanced interrogation" of detainees. Several past attorneys representing the Bush White House are already the subjects of a DOJ ethics probe, related to the torture issue.

Obama's statement though looks to have expanded his support for possible investigations. The president's comment is assured to inflame the already heated debate over the efficacy of torture and the decision to release the once classified details of the harsh interrogations.

There's a lot of weird things that go on in gubernatorial politics.  Nebraskans and Kansans have alternated Democratic and Republicans Governors since the early 1960s, Rhode Island has had a Republican governor for 16 years, and Minnesota elected a professional wrestler.

But one of the strangest phenomena is Massachusetts' 16-year run of three different (elected) Republican Governors from 1990 through 2006 (if one counts Democrat Edward J. King as a nominal Republican, Republicans were five and three from 1978 through 2006).  Rhode Island is probably slightly more Democratic than Massachusetts, but Massachusetts is probably the greatest symbol of liberal Democratic governance in the country; the election of Republican Governors is especially discordant there.

Republicans could improve to six and three, if they can find a candidate for 2010.  Rasmussen reports that only 33% of voters would vote to re-elect Governor Deval Patrick.  His approval ratings are similarly weak, with only 34% approving at all, while 39% strongly disapprove.  And near-majorities think his predecessor -- Mitt Romney -- did a better job as Governor.  This is consistent with the 27% approval rating SurveyUSA recently measured for the Governor.

The greatest challenge for Republicans will be finding someone credible to challenge Patrick.  The party has been more-or-less obliterated in the state -- there are a total of 21 elected Republicans among the 200 members in the Massachusetts legislature.  But if Patrick's numbers remain this low (and it is still veeeeery early), credibility will be become less of a requirement for Republicans, and the task will increasingly become one of simply finding a warm body.

From CNN:

Huckaby linked to 2nd girl found drugged

Politico's Scorecard reports:

Former NRCC chairman and political junkie Tom Davis is throwing in the towel on Republican Jim Tedisco's chances of overcoming his 273-vote deficit against Democrat Scott Murphy in the New York special election.

"We lost the special election in New York. It's gone,” Davis told the Washington Times.

My posts on this are becoming a bit redundant, so unless something swings dramatically toward Tedisco, this is probably the last one.  The New York Board of Elections has the count at a 273-vote Murphy lead, and it is pretty hard to see how he overcomes that.  Tedisco's best course of action is probably to give a gracious concession speech to try to avoid Ellen Sauerbrey Syndrome (the pun "Ellen Sourgrapes" nearly wrote itself), and look to 2010.

Freshly minted Pulitzer prize winner Eugene Robinson offers a gentle rebuke to Obama for yukking it up with Chavez:

Chavez can be charming. But when Obama shook the man's hand, he should have telegraphed clearly, through posture, expression and language, that he was not amused. Chavez's gift of the book was meant to affront, not to enlighten, and I would have advised Obama to reciprocate in kind.

I couldn't agree more. A perfunctory handshake would have sent the signal Obama wanted, and would have been much more appropriate than the smiling and backslapping the world saw.

For as media savvy as Obama is, I'm a bit surprised to him make such an obvious political mistake. The question is, why pay more than you have to, especially if the currency you're dealing in is American prestige?

Obama brushed off criticism of the handhsake as inconsequential, but I'm not so sure. He may pay a political price for this gaffe. If his intent was to enrage Republicans, he obviously succeeded.

But how will independents view it? Will those in the political middle feel more or less favorably toward the President after seeing him chum it up with Chavez like Sean Penn, Danny Glover or Cindy Sheehan?

Bob Shrum writes:

Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn spoke at a Nashville tea gaggle where a sign equated Obama and his campaign logo with Hitler and the swastika. To paraphrase a reproof from a previous manifestation of the paranoid style, have Republicans "no sense of decency?"

Of course Shrum was equally outraged every time left-wing war protesters marched through the streets during the last eight years carrying signs equating Bush to Hitler, right?