Week Two Briefing Stories:

1.) Poll: McCain could win Washington state
In the race for the presidency, Washington State could well be in play, thanks to a nominee who is more in the mold of Washington state Republicans like Attorney General Rob McKenna and former Secretary of State Ralph Munro, both of whom campaigned for Sen. John McCain. According to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, McCain would beat Sen. Hillary Clinton, in the state and is within spitting distance of Sen. Barack Obama.Washington, which hasn't gone for a Republican presidential candidate since voting for President Ronald Reagan in 1984, is considered a "blue" state in most people's electoral calculus, but McCain's general election viability here is a continued trend.

-James Cole

2.) CNN News
It was reported that it has been 1,528 days since Obama has spoken to the gay press while Clinton converts the gay vote. Obama has agreed with Clinton that the “don’t ask don’t tell” law shall be abolished if he takes office but some are saying he refuses to talk with the gay press.

-Jessica Edmisten

3.) Petraeus Meets His Match by Joe Klein of Time Magazine
Senator Joseph Lieberman has become something of an agent provocateur in the semiannual Petraeus-Crocker hearings staged by the U.S. Senate. This semester he chose to open his remarks by chastising unnamed colleagues for having a "hear no progress ... see no progress ... speak no progress" attitude about the war in Iraq. The debate had finally moved on to more fertile turf: If things were going so well, why were Crocker and Petraeus so reluctant to come home? The Senator who mined this turf most profitably was ... Barack Obama. Obama hit Petraeus and Crocker with an artful series of questions about the two main threats: Sunni terrorists like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Iran. He noted that al-Qaeda had been rejected by the Iraqi Sunnis and chased to the northern city of Mosul. If U.S. and Iraqi troops succeeded there, what was next? He proposed: "Our goal is not to hunt down and eliminate every single trace of al-Qaeda but rather to create a manageable situation where they're not posing a threat to Iraq." Petraeus said Obama was "exactly right."

-Ashley Trbovich

4.) With oil prices hitting new highs, McCain on Tuesday called for a summer vacation from federal gas taxes. McCain said that temporarily lifting the gas tax of 18 cents a gallon between Memorial Day and Labor Day would give Americans a break at every fill-up during the busy summer driving season.

-Jeff Kieburtz

5.) Young Obama Backers Twist Parents’ Arms
With his largest audience being in the under-30 range, young Barack Obama supporters have been pestering their parents with a barrage of e-mails, videos, quotes, etc. to try and win them over to Obama. So far, their wheedling strategy is working and there hasn’t been a time in recent memory when the opinions of the young have influenced those of the old this heavily.

-Carrie Potter