Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Gas Pains
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions is warning that passage of a new Senate climate security bill could raise gas prices by as much as $5 per gallon. Sessions made the comment to the Business and Media Institute.
The bill calls for a series of caps on carbon dioxide emissions in order to cut greenhouse gases. GOP Sen. James Inhofe says it will cost millions of American jobs and devastate national and local economies.
The bill is co-sponsored by Independent Joe Lieberman and Republican John Warner. Lieberman's office told FOX News Friday that two government studies predicted the legislation would result in a gas price hike of no more than 25 cents while saving consumers billions in energy costs. The bill is scheduled for debate in early June.
Big Tent
Senator John McCain is taking his campaign message to liberal and non-political bloggers. The Washington Times reports McCain invited non-conservative bloggers to join Thursday's regular conference call. McCain fielded questions from the environmental blog Grist.org and the women's sites PunditMom.com and BlogHer.com.
The Times reports the effort has started what it calls a war among liberal bloggers over how to react to McCain's overture. The McCain campaign says the effort is a logical extension of his ongoing attempts to reach beyond the conservative Republican base.
It says McCain will even reach out to sports bloggers as a way to humanize the candidate and break the mold of what it calls "a carbon-copy politician running for office, delivering talking points."
But, some observers caution McCain will have to pick and choose which bloggers to invite to the conference calls because some sites will not treat him fairly.
Under Wraps
Detroit Democratic Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick — whose alleged use of sexually-explicit text messages has put his job in jeopardy — has implemented a new policy that text messages on city-owned devices are now considered private. This negates the old city policy that said such communications were public.
Kilpatrick is currently facing perjury and other charges relating to messages he allegedly exchanged with a top aide. The sometimes graphic messages appeared to contradict Kilpatrick's sworn testimony that he and the aide were not engaged in a romantic relationship.
Can't Win for Losing
And an update on a Grapevine from earlier this month about Raleigh, North Carolina Democratic State House candidate Stan Morse who endorsed and campaigned for his opponent, but still won the primary election. Morse has decided to accept the Democratic nomination and run in the general election.
Morse entered the race initially because no one else was running and he did not want the Republican incumbent to go unchallenged.
Then, Sam Hart Brewer got in, and Morse campaigned for him, because he said Brewer was younger, smarter and better looking.
Now, Brewer says he will give Morse his $3,000 campaign fund — although he's still not sure how he managed to lose to a guy who issued a concession speech the day before the election.
Brewer said in the Raleigh News and Observer, "I was surprised. Having had my opponent's endorsement, I didn't really feel I had to spend any money on a primary campaign. But apparently that was not a correct assumption."
— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.
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