Bill Lambrecht: Good morning from DC. It's a time for all politicians to look patriotic, especially Barack Obama. Speaking of Obama, I see where he's continuing his move to the center by declaring plans to expand the White House Office on Faith-based and Community Initiatives. Wonder what John McCain will have to say about that. I'm looking forward to your questions today.

Joe: Mr. Lambrecht,

In your opinion, do candidates' surrogates help or hurt? Does a Wesley Clark-type outrage display a -- to borrow a sports reference -- 'lack of institutional control'?

This is a CEO position both Sens. McCain and Obama are running for... if they can't keep their 'officers' in line, does it irreparably damage the perception about their qualifications to be the leader of the free world?

As always, I thank you for this weekly forum...

Bill Lambrecht: Great question, Joe. It seems that surrogates, as well as staff, are getting their candidates in hot water more frequently these days. That was definitely the case with Wesley Clark. He may be a general but you still don't say things that can be interpreted as questioning somebody's military service, especially somebody who was an extended-stay "guest" at the Hanoi Hilton. ("Grunts" never did like "flyboys" much, you know?) Likewise, we saw Obama thrown "off-message," as they say, when he had to explain remarks of the staffer who told the Canadians that Obama wasn't really serious about redoing NAFTA, or something to that effect ...
And then we saw McCain strategist Charlie Black say something dumb recently about how a terrorist strike would help his candidate, eliciting a rebuke from McCain.
I think there's something to the analysis that if candidates can't keep his/her people in line, how can they be a good president? On the other hand, the '04 Bush-Cheney campaign was about the tightest ship on any political waters, with few "leaks" and verbal mistakes. Some might ask: How's that one turned out?