A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

MCCAIN GAME PLAN WORRIES INSIDERS
(David Paul Kuhn, Politico)
Four months have passed since John McCain effectively captured the party nomination, and the insiders are getting restless. Top GOP officials, frustrated by what they view as inconsistent messaging, sluggish fundraising and an organization that is too slow to take shape, are growing increasingly uneasy about the direction of the McCain presidential campaign.  While the practice of second-guessing presidential campaign decisions is a quadrennial routine, interviews with 16 Republican strategists and state party chairmen — few of whom would agree to talk on the record — reveal a striking level of discord and mounting criticism about the McCain operation... Some Republican officials who spoke to Politico noted that there is still time for the campaign to find its footing and that no campaign is without its detractors. But the bulk of those interviewed expressed serious concern about what has appeared to be an aimless campaign so far, one that has failed to take advantage of a four-month head start on Democrats and has showed little sign of gaining traction.

OBAMA WIN OFFERS BRAND AMERICA A GLOBAL LIFT
(Frederick Kempe, Bloomberg News)
The U.S. would profit globally from a failed Obama presidency more than it would from a successful McCain presidency. That's the sort of provocative, but plausible, statement that lies at the heart of the famous Oxford Union debates. Disagree? Then take it up with Kunal Basu, an Indian-born, U.S.- educated, Oxford University professor who examines how corporate reputations are made and broken. He argues that America's badly damaged brand around the world, one that has changed the course of human history, has never been about its military superiority, its economic-growth rates or even its innovative spirit. "Where the U.S. has really been on the leading edge has been not technology but morality,'' he says. Its very existence has been constructed around freedom of religion, speech and other individual choices, and the ground-breaking ideal that all humans were created equal. "Now it has the chance to re-establish itself there again,'' he says. ``The fact that the most powerful nation in the world could again be the most moral would be transformative. The world needs it.'' Reputation, a matter of the most enormous value for companies and individuals alike, is hard to establish but easy to lose. The same is true of countries.

WHO'S SMEARING WHOM?
(James Kirchick, Politico) 
The only obstacle between Barack Obama and the presidency is the mountain of smears that will no doubt come his way. That’s the narrative that Obama supporters — and his swooning chroniclers in the mainstream media — would have us believe. Obama himself set up a website, fighthesmears.com, correcting some e-mail chain letters that allege he “can’t produce his birth certificate,” is “secretly a Muslim” and that he “won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance.” In May, Newsweek published a cover story confirming the Obama campaign’s fears, declaring that “the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968.” Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. “It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as ‘the other’ — as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.” But has it been a “sure bet?”  Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged “scare” tactics in which Republicans — and, apparently, only Republicans — have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it’s that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears. 

OBAMA SEEKS BIGGER ROLE FOR RELIGIOUS GROUPS
(Jeff Zeleny and Michael Luo, New York Times)
Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush had fallen short on during his two terms. “The challenges we face today — from saving our planet to ending poverty — are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Mr. Obama said outside a community center here. “We need an all-hands-on-deck approach.” Some Democrats have previously backed similar efforts, but Mr. Bush’s version, a centerpiece of his first-term agenda, has been a lightning rod for criticism from those concerned about the separation of church and state and those who argued that Mr. Bush had used it to further a conservative political agenda. In embracing the same general approach as Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama ran the political risk of alienating those of his supporters who would prefer that government keep its distance from religion. But Mr. Obama’s plan pointedly departed from the Bush administration’s stance on one fundamental issue: whether religious organizations that get federal money for social services can take faith into account in their hiring. Mr. Bush has said yes. Mr. Obama said no.

OBAMA CAMP SIGNALS ROBUST APPROACH ON IRAN
(Daniel Dombey and Edward Luce, Financial Times)
The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is the biggest threat facing the world, according to one of Barack Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers. He also signalled that the US Democratic presidential candidate would push Europe to agree tougher sanctions against Tehran. In an interview with the Financial Times, Anthony Lake, a former US national security adviser who has worked with Mr Obama since the start of his campaign, also urged the US to learn lessons from its traumatic withdrawal from Vietnam regarding pulling out of Iraq. “The most dangerous crisis we are going to face potentially in the next three to 10 years is if the Iranians get on the edge of developing a nuclear weapon,” he said. “If I were the Europeans I would much rather put on the table more sanctions, together with bigger carrots, and have that negotiation than I would face that crisis down the road.” In recent weeks, the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme has gained prominence as speculation has mounted about a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

THE END OF WES CLARK'S VP CAMPAIGN
(Steve Kornacki, New York Observer)
Clark’s defenders have a point, but in the picture, the details of the argument aren’t what’s important. The real significance of this week’s controversy – however unfair and unjust it is – is that it pretty much ensures that Clark won’t be on the Democratic ticket this fall, something that seemed a very real possibility beforehand. And Clark, almost certainly, would not have lived up to his potential as a running-mate. That is the story of Clark’s political career, which began sometime in the early part of this decade, when he began toying with a 2004 presidential campaign. On paper, then as now, he seemed the perfect face for a Democratic Party whose leaders have all too often been caricatured by the right as national security weaklings, eager to appease aggressors and frightened of using force. What better antidote to this poisonous perception than an actual military general, a man who oversaw a successful war and Kosovo and who spent three years as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander?

HOW BUSH RATINGS COMPLICATE MCCAIN'S PRESIDENTIAL FIGHT
(John D. McKinnon, Wall Street Journal)
President Bush's record unpopularity is playing an unprecedented role in the 2008 campaign, complicating John McCain's task among key constituencies. Mr. Bush received a 66% disapproval rating in The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll for June, tying his own record for the highest ever for any president in the Journal/NBC poll. The previous highs were a 56% rating for Mr. Bush's father in late 1992, and a 50% score for President Clinton in 1993. In the long-running Gallup Poll, Mr. Bush's disapproval rating reached 69% this spring -- a record going back to the Truman administration.

OBAMA GOT DISCOUNT ON A HOME LOAN
(Joe Stephens, Washington Post)
"Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. ... Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates. ...Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month. Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors... The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen... Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, has no mortgages on properties he owns with his wife, Cindy, who is a multimillionaire."

THE THREE GEOGRAPHIES
(Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill, Politico) 
We believe Americans' political perspective — if not their final voting behavior — is largely shaped not so much by their state but, rather, by the type of place they reside in. Defining an area are factors such as how many people are homeowners, take transit and have children living at home, as well as the preponderance of middle-class households and the extent of economic and racial diversity. We believe the most effective breakdown of how Americans live can be seen in three basic geographic forms: the urban, suburban and small town/rural. These geographies, although not uniform across the country, show significant differences in almost all major characteristics, including voting behavior. Even when voting for the same party, residents of these different geographies often do so with different motivations. Democrats in the small cities and towns of the Great Plains, for example, closely follow issues related to agricultural and infrastructure policies, including energy development, that help expand economic opportunities. In contrast, urban politics in places such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco tend to have a far greener tinge and to be concerned with social issues such as gay marriage.