Just days after the Wall Street Journal reported that he’d met with the Colombian government to discuss how his PR firm could help pass a free trade deal with the United States that Senator Clinton opposes, Mark Penn is out as chief strategist of the Clinton Campaign.

In a statement, campaign manager Maggie Williams said “After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as Chief Strategist of the Clinton Campaign; Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign.”

“Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign’s strategic message team going forward.”

Sources within the campaign say “Senator Clinton was disappointed that the meeting with the Colombians had occurred. She is a strong opponent of the trade deal. As Mark indicated in his apology on Friday, he knew that the meeting was a mistake.”

“Over the course of the weekend, he recognized that he needed to step aside as chief strategist and Senator Clinton agreed. He will continue to provide polling and advice as part of the team.”

Penn, a controversial and little liked figure within the campaign, was behind much of the campaign’s message - including emphasizing her toughness and the “strength and experience” theme. He’d long clashed with others in the campaign who wanted to emphasize Hillary’s human qualities.

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Hillary Clinton made her first trip to Oregon, speaking to a packed high school gym just outside of Portland. While they acknowledge that her rival Barack Obama is favored here, the Clinton campaign is playing hard — naming a state director and what the campaign calls a “very active” steering committee, ramping up field staff and opening a state headquarters in Portland next week and satellite offices in every congressional district.

They’re also tailoring their strategy around Oregon’s unique mail-in primary system; ballots will be mailed out on April 28th, and the majority of voters are expected to submit ballots through the post.

“I’m here to meet with you and talk with you and hopefully make my case to you,” she told the voters of Hillsboro, OR. “This is my first trip in a campaign of firsts, and I’m glad to be able to blaze a home in the land of the Trailblazers.”

But even in the Beaver State, she was focused on Michigan and Florida. She’s long argued that their delegates should count, but today she claimed their popular votes should count as well — a move that would put her much closer to Obama in that metric.

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Memphis, TN — In an exclusive interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, Sen. John McCain said Friday that he will be meeting with U.S. Secret Service officials next week and intends to take on a detail in the coming weeks, “if not earlier.”

“I think that it’s important as we get more and more visibility–that we recognize the inevitable. And so we will be talking with them early (next week) to arrange for very soon, some Secret Service protection,” McCain said on Fox News Sunday, adding that he has not requested a detail until now because “it inhibits my ability to have close contact with people.”

The news comes one day after the Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told a House Appropriations Subcommittee that McCain is the only major Presidential candidate who has declined Secret Service protection. Sens. Clinton and Obama both travel with Secret Service details.

Wallace’s full interview with the presumptive GOP nominee will be aired on Fox News Sunday this weekend.

Barack Obama addressed an AFL-CIO conference this morning in Philadelphia, just one day after Senator Clinton spoke at the same forum. Yesterday Senator Clinton was introduced to the theme song from the 1976 movie Rocky (Obama opted for his usual “City of Blinding Lights” by U2) and used the Rocky analogy in her speech.

“Well, could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten half way up those Art Museum steps and said, ‘Well, I guess that’s about far enough?’ Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people,” Clinton told the union members.

Today in response, Senator Obama said to those same union members, “I know there’s been some talk about Rocky Balboa over the last couple days. And you know, we all love Rocky.” The audience laughed. “The last time I checked, I was the underdog in this state,” he continued. Obama has consistently polled behind Senator Clinton here in the Keystone State, sometimes by as much as double digits.

And giving Clinton a reality check, Obama added, “We’ve got to remember that Rocky was a movie.”

It is just a movie, of course, but it should be noted that in the work of fiction, Rocky ends up losing the final bout in a split decision to his rival, Apollo Creed.

At a New Hampshire town hall meeting back in January, before John McCain was the presumptive Republican nominee or even the Republican frontrunner, he made comments that are still making waves on the campaign trail. A Granite State voter started to say that President Bush said we could be in Iraq for 50 years when McCain interrupted. Democrats seemingly limitless ammunition in their quest to win over anti-war voter

“Maybe 100,” he said. “We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping, and motivating people every single day,” he continued.

This statement has been used ever since by Democrats in their quest to win over the anti-war vote that makes up much of the Democratic Party’s base.

Senator Obama consistently incorporates McCain’s “hundred year war” into his stump. Today in Lancaster, PA, he mentioned it twice. “You know, John McCain wants to continue a war in Iraq perhaps as long as 100 years,” he told voters at his town hall meeting. He reinforces this by telling voters that he was against the war in 2002 and will end the war in 2009.

For the past couple of days, the McCain camp has sent out releases claiming Obama is “being dishonest when he claims that John McCain has plans for 100 years of warfare in Iraq, it’s not true, and has been repeatedly reported as false. It’s easy to talk about taking on Washington, but when Senator Barack Obama consistently uses Washington’s oldest political tricks and distortions, i smacks of some hypocrisy,” a spokesman said.

Today at a press avail, Senator Obama was asked if he is being unfair, as suggested by the McCain campaign. “I don’t think it’s unfair at all. John McCain, I mean we can run the youtube spot, has said that we will stay there as long as it takes and if it takes another 100 years he’s up for that commitment, and that implies that there is some criteria by which we would understand how long it takes. John McCain has not been clear about what exactly would lead him to decide its time to pullout,” he said in Lititz, PA.

The reporter followed up that even Barack Obama has said he would keep a strike force in Iraq, and troops to guard the embassy and its diplomats. “That’s very different from saying that we’re gonna have a permanent occupation in Iraq,” Obama retorted. “And it’s certainly different from saying that we would have a high level of combat troops inside Iraq for a decade or two decades or as John McCain said, perhaps 100 years. I mean I’m just quoting back what he said, unless you tell me that that’s a misquote.”

When the reporter suggested perhaps McCain had meant he would leave troops in Iraq in the spirit of Germany and Japan, Obama replied, “We’ve been in South Korea for for 50 years and he’s used that as an example as George Bush has, and that is decades. We’re spending 10 billion dollars a month in Iraq right now. Which means that John McCain is willing to sign up for the prospect of spending as much as $150 billion or more each year for who knows how long. That is something that the US cant afford and I think that is going to be a debate we are going to have in the general election should I be the nominee.”

Don’t expect Obama to drop this line from his stump anytime soon.

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Denver, CO — John McCain commented–ever so briefly–on the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama controversy at a Thursday media availability.

Asked whether a candidate should be held accountable for the views of his pastor, McCain would say only that “knowing Senator Obama..he does not share the extreme views..that I saw on television.”

McCain was on a week-long trip abroad while the Wright debate was broiling and had yet to comment on the issue since returning to the states. While some Republican officials have expressed privately that Obama’s association with the controversial pastor could pay some political dividends in the fall, McCain campaign officials say they intend to keep the upcoming general election debate centered around policy rather than personal issues.

Two polls out this week by Pew and the Wall Street Journal both show that the Wright controversy has done little damage to Obama’s support.

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Sen. McCain hit back at Obama after the IL Democrat attacked the mortgage plan he announced yesterday.

Speaking to the press aboard his plane Wednesday during a flight to Monterey, CA, he said, “I know that Senator Obama wants to raise taxes. He’s a - If he wants to do that, fine, but I think that’s the worst thing that we can do to the American people right now in this very difficult economic challenges. But I’ll do whatever’s necessary to help the homeowner and that legitimate homeowner and we may have to do more, but to raise taxes as Senator Obama wants to do or some kind of massive bail out that is a needless expenditure of taxpayer’s dollars is something that I don’t support. This is sort of in a way the classic contrast between a far left, liberal Democrat and a conservative republican. Senator Obama believes that the government should do everything, I believe that the government should do as little as possible.”

Sen. McCain’s selection of the University of Connecticut Huskies to be in the NCAA Mens Basketball championship game in his bracket caused a few heads to turn last week. UConn, a 4-seed in the West, lost their first round game to 13-seeded University of San Diego.

Asked about the selection today, he quipped, “that just shows why every year I am the laughing stock of everybody in the pool.”

He may still have a shot to earn some points though since he selected the University of North Carolina to win it all. His full bracket can be viewed on his website.

Los Angeles, CA — Sen. John McCain is set to deliver a major foreign policy address this morning where he will emphasize the need for the US to be a good world citizen and listen to world opinion if the country expects to be listened to.

“When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them,” he is expected to say. “America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model. How we behave at home affects how we are perceived abroad.”

Here is a short excerpt from the prepared text (full text after jump):

In such a world, where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone. We must be strong politically, economically, and militarily. But we must also lead by attracting others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. Perhaps above all, leadership in today’s world means accepting and fulfilling our responsibilities as a great nation.

One of those responsibilities is to be a good and reliable ally to our fellow democracies. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact — a League of Democracies — that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.

At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. Recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model. How we behave at home affects how we are perceived abroad. We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundation of our society. We can’t torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured. I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.

There is such a thing as international good citizenship. We need to be good stewards of our planet and join with other nations to help preserve our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders. We and the other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand off a much-diminished world to our grandchildren. We need a successor to the Kyoto Treaty, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. We Americans must lead by example and encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India.

While he has previously emphasized the importance of diplomacy at times on the trail–the collective impact of the above section sends a powerful message—-an olive branch from a McCain White House to the world and veiled jabs at Bush foreign policy and the perceived damage it has done to the US relationship with it’s allies.

Also, the topics he hammers on a daily basis–Iraq and the war on terror—are pushed back into the last 1/3 of the speech . He takes a very sweeping, macro-look at the major issues facing the world, choosing to discuss AIDS and Africa, China/India, diplomacy and Latin America all before he gets to Iraq.

Though he does connect Iraq and the America as a good world citizen riff towards the end with this notable line:

“Our critics say America needs to repair its image in the world. How can they argue at the same time for the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq?”

I will post some video excerpts after the speech.

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Bel Air, CA — Former First Lady Nancy Reagan endorsed Sen. McCain outside her home Tuesday afternoon, providing the presumptive GOP nominee with the official blessing of the closest thing to the party’s royal family.

“This is an important, most important kind of expression of confidence and my ability to lead the party that I could have,” McCain said, who often refers to himself as a “foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution.” He lauded the 40th president and former first lady for their lifetime of “honorable and courageous service.”

Mrs. Reagan, 86, who Reagan library officials said did not plan to speak at the appearance, chimed in on a question directed at McCain about why she chose to prematurely endorse before the convention.

“Let me inject in here. Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided and then we endorsed. Well, obviously this is the nominee of the party,” she said as she patted him on the arm. (Full Event Transcript after Jump)

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