In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Tank Jones, Levi’s manager-bodyguard, confirmed to Advocate.com that negotiations were underway with both Unzipped Media and Playgirl.com to have Bristol Palin’s baby daddy take it all off for an exclusive photo shoot.

“Naw, that’s serious. Mr. Butler is doing that,” Jones said, referring to Levi’s lawyer, Rex Butler, when asked if such a photo shoot might actually happen.

Rick Andreoli, executive editor of Unzipped Media — whose owners also own The Advocate — also confirmed that Unzipped magazine had made an overture to Levi about appearing au naturel in an upcoming issue.

“When Levi was on Bravo saying that he was willing to pose nude if the offer was right, we made an offer to Tank Jones and we’re waiting to hear back on that,” Andreoli said.

The specter of Johnston doing a nude photo spread was raised by behind-the-scenes video from a photo shoot set to accompany a feature titled “Me and Mrs. Palin” in the October 2009 issue ofVanity Fair. In the video Jones and Levi are captured discussing a potential Playgirl pictorial while riding in an SUV.

“I’d do it … if it would get me out of there,” Levi says when Tank initially asks him about posing in the buff.

However, neither Jones nor Johnston seems to know much about the current state of affairs atPlaygirl. While Levi thinks Playgirl is all about “a dude posing for women,” Tank seems to be unaware that the print version of the magazine folded late last year.

“You’ve gotta have some johnson. You can can’t come in there lacking in the johnson area. You’ve gotta unfold some things, “ Jones says of the potential Playgirl spread while lecturing Levi in the video. “ A dude posed for the magazine and they had to add an extra leaf to fold out for him … [so] I’m saying, do you need extra magazine or do you don’t [sic] need that?”

The exchange left Unzipped’s Andreoli scratching his head.

“What’s confusing is that on the Vanity Fair video, Tank is talking about how Levi is going to pose in the magazine, but there is no Playgirl magazine. The real offer is for Levi to pose forPlaygirl.com. A lot of people are under the assumption that Playgirl is still publishing print magazines, but it’s not,.”

Perhaps even more intriguing is the notion that Levi appears to be completely unaware of just who reads Playgirl.

“The problem is that I think there’s a misconception on Levi’s part. He thinks that Playgirl is a magazine where guys pose nude for women,” Andreoli said. “As a gay man, I can tell you that’s not your primary audience at Playgirl. Many of the models that are seen in Men or Unzipped have also been in Playgirl. There’s a huge overlap of our models.”

And despite a story this morning on Gawker suggesting that a deal between Johnston and Playgirl.com was as good as done, Jones said nothing is confirmed.

Confusion aside, no matter the audience for any photo shoot Levi may appear in, Jones is very clear: His client is completely comfortable.

Asked how Levi felt about becoming a gay sex symbol, Tank said, “I’m gonna be honest with you … you’ve got to understand that you’re dealing with a young man here, and what he has done is he’s broadened his horizons. However he has felt in the past, this [experience] has afforded him the opportunity to meet a lot of different people and find out that people are just people. Sometimes, some things happen for a reason … and [Levi’s] eyes are open, so we don’t care what kind of situation it is or who views the magazine.”

That said, don’t expect anything too outrageous from a naked Levi.

“If we do anything like this, it’s going to be done tastefully and professionally. We’re not going to do any smut … We’re not committed to anything,” Jones said before adding that negotiations have not yet reached such a level as to warrant discussion about restrictions or limitations on a potential photo shoot.

If Johnston, who made his shirtless debut in GQ just a few months back, does end up stripping down for a photo shoot, it will only be the latest salvo in his war of words with Sarah Palin, who once called his family “trailer trash.”

Ironically, even though Johnston’s recent revelatory media tour has proved to be something of an embarrassment for Palin, the former governor has remained conspicuously quiet, suggesting Johnston might have the potential to strip away more than his clothes if given the opportunity.

Originally published at Advocate.com. To read this post and more by Duane Wells at the Advocate, click here.

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Late on the eve of Election Day, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain wound up a whirlwind seven-state sweep across what were seen as the election’s key battleground states with a stirring speech in his home state of Arizona. Before the Arizona senator took to the podium to make his final stand on Monday night, he was introduced by his wife, Cindy, whose voice quavered as she choked up while expressing pride in her husband and his accomplishments.

Some may have perceived Mrs. McCain’s show of emotion as a natural reaction to the end of an exhausting and rigorous campaign, but others wondered if it was a telltale omen of an impending defeat. If it was, nothing in John McCain’s voice, however hoarse it may have been after a long and arduous day of campaigning, suggested as much.

Surrounded by his closest friends in the Senate, senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, McCain implored the excited crowd in Prescott, Ariz., to stand up and fight with him one last time as polls showed him gaining on his Democratic rival Barack Obama amongst the constituencies that would decide the 2008 race for the White House. However, McCain’s all-out final push and rousing call to action seems to have come too late.

Buoyed by what appeared to be a close race, Log Cabin Republicans kicked off Election Day in Washington, D.C., on a note that was simultaneously positive and defiant.

“We’re optimistic about the election,” Log Cabin Republicans president Patrick Sammon said via e-mail early on Tuesday. “The news media seems to have forgotten that voters elect presidents, not political pundits. Every vote counts.”

Scott Tucker, Log Cabin Republicans communication director, echoed that sentiment, describing the mood in their offices as “hopeful.”

“Our national staff spent the morning waving signs for McCain on street corners and at a Metro station in Virginia,” Tucker said.

The sense that John McCain might pull off the biggest political upset of all time still floated gingerly around Republican circles.

Despite the encouraging mood of the Log Cabin Republicans, another conservative Washington insider expressed a slightly less enthusiastic outlook on the day.

“I’m being told by some Republican insiders that the mood right now is ‘expect the worst and hope for the best,’” said Washington, D.C.–based communications consultant and conservative political commentator Marc Destito.

“I noticed an incredibly long line at my polling station in D.C. this morning. Usually in D.C. the general election is an afterthought. The heavier turnout takes place during the primary since it is a Democratic city and that is when the true suspense happens. By Election Day it is a foregone conclusion who will win in D.C. But this year it almost seemed as if people were lining up, knowing Obama would carry the District, but just to be able to say that they cast their vote for something historic,” Destito continued.

By late afternoon the mood among the GOP faithful seemed to be growing more grim despite remaining somewhat cautiously optimistic.

While one Republican commentator excitedly bragged that things looked good because McCain was projected the winner in Kentucky early on in the evening, two others seemed resigned to defeat even at that early stage in what would ultimately turn into an evening filled with disappointment for the GOP.

When asked how she would be spending election night, one Republican activist simply said she’d be “drinking heavily.” When asked where the Republican Party will go from here, another said, “Figure out how to lose the moose.”

As most news outlets began to call the crucial states of Pennsylvania and Ohio for Barack Obama and it became increasingly apparent that McCain’s chances of winning were fading, the Log Cabin Republicans weighed in on the evening’s developments by announcing, “We will be issuing a statement when a winner is declared.”

Well, it wasn’t long thereafter before a winner was indeed declared. As soon as the polls closed in California, Barack Obama went over the top and Senator McCain quickly conceded in a conciliatory address. At that point, Log Cabin Republicans president Patrick Sammon issued the following statement:

“Log Cabin congratulates Sen. Barack Obama on his historic victory. While Log Cabin Republicans proudly supported Sen. JohnMcCain, we recognize this important moment in American history.

“On behalf of Log Cabin Republicans members all across the country, we thank Senator McCain for his service to our country. He should be proud of the campaign he ran, especially his efforts to reach out to gay and lesbian Americans. He was the most pro-gay GOP presidential nominee in American history. We were proud to stand with him in this historic election.”

And so the day that began with hope on all sides ended happily for some, and not so much for others.

Originally published at Advocate.com. To read this post and more by Duane Wells at the Advocate, click here.

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Following Governor Palin’s address to the Republican National Convention, strains of Heart’s classic “Barracuda” filtered through the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., in deference to the first female GOP vice presidential nominee.

After Palin made such a forceful and at times biting debut on the national political stage, the song seemed a dead-on choice to symbolize the GOP’s brash new political star. In fact, Palin earned the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” as a basketball player at her Wasilla, Alaska, high school for being a tough competitor.

Now flash-forward to the next day.

Heart front women Nancy and Ann Wilson were so aghast by the GOP ticket’s use of their music to promote Palin that
they publicly issued a cease-and-desist order asking the McCain campaign to stop using their song, posthaste.

In a statement to Entertainment Weekly , the Wilson sisters even went so far as to say that “Sarah Palin’s views and values in no way [their emphasis] represent us as American women.” One might have thought that would be the end of the story, but Heart’s former guitarist Roger Fisher, who cowrote “Barracuda,” had a different take on the matter. Fisher told Reuters he believed that the McCain camp’s use of the song benefited both sides: Republicans get “the ingenious placement of a kick-ass song” — and Heart gets headlines and royalties. Part of that money, Fisher said, would be heading to the Arizona senator’s opponent: “With my contribution to Obama’s campaign, the Republicans are now supporting Obama.”

The McCain campaign didn’t respond to The Advocate‘s requests for comment. However, according to CNN.com, the campaign has said that it had paid for and obtained all necessary licenses before using “Barracuda.”

Hence, the song was still blaring through the streets of towns like Lebanon, Ohio, last week as McCain and Palin barnstormed through this year’s most contentious battleground states.

A spokesperson for Ann and Nancy Wilson has yet to comment further, so to quote the opening line of “Barracuda” –- “So, this ain’t the end.”

Originally published at Advocate.com. To read this post and more by Duane Wells at the Advocate, click here.

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But with Clinton’s weekend concession and the nomination all but clinched, Barack Obama now hopes the crucial block will shift their support his way.

To help shore up support from gays and lesbians and unify the fractured Democratic Party ahead of November’s general election, Barack Obama is ratcheting up his outreach to LGBT voters.

Last Friday, the Obama campaign hosted a conference call with some 1,200 LGBT journalists, many of them Clinton supporters, to begin the healing process.

On the call, Elizabeth Birch, former Human Rights Campaign head and a Clinton loyalist, addressed journalists about the process of moving forward, as did David Mixner, a former Edwards supporter, and Joe Solomonese, the current president of HRC.

In essence, the call was the Obama camp’s way of extending an olive branch to the LGBT community and, most importantly, to former Clinton supporters, still reeling from the events of the past week.

The call also represented an attempt to bring Clinton supporters into the Obama campaign and to begin a dialogue about Barack Obama’s positions on LGBT issues.

Following up on that effort, yesterday the Obama campaign held another conference call announcing that Dave Noble, the Director of Public Policy & Government Affairs for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, would be leaving his post to join the Obama camp as the Director of LGBT Vote.

In his new position, Noble will work alongside Steve Hildebrand, Obama’s openly gay Deputy Campaign Manager.

LGBT voters could prove to be decisive for the Obama campaign in the 2008 election, particularly in swing states.

According to a recent report from Keen News Service, gay Republican voters helped George W. Bush win Florida in 2000.

Exit polls showed 44,723 gay-identified voters cast their ballots for Bush in Florida that year when only a razor-thin margin separated him and Democrat Al Gore.

That same year, while exit polls across the country found about one in four gay-identified voters cast their votes for the Republican, the gay voting block was big enough to help Gore win Wisconsin, according to Keen.

With the Log Cabin Republicans already on track to endorse McCain this year, the Obama campaign must hope to match if not improve upon on Gore’s performance with the LGBT community in 2000.

Further, as he seeks to consolidate the support of gay and lesbian voters, Barack Obama must also address an unprecedented rift in the Democratic Party that has spawned a grassroots effort to rally support around Senator John McCain among some Democratic constituencies.

Over the weekend, following Senator Clinton’s concession speech, a number of online blogs, websites and PACs joined forces and formed www.JustSayNoDeal.com, a coalition of Democrats bound by a singular desire to defeat Obama in the general election.

A collective of defiant former Clinton supporters calling themselves names like PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) PAC, NoWeWon’t.org, DONE (Democrats Over Nominating Elitists) and ObamaWTF.com, JustSayNoDeal claims to have millions of supporters (though the number cannot be verified) and its representatives have begun making the rounds on conservative chatfests like Hannity & Colmes.

The good news for Obama is that polls now show him comfortably ahead in a hypothetical matchup with John McCain in Senator Clinton’s home state of New York.

Perhaps the healing has already begun.

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But he’s been here before. In fact, the entire scenario is fast becoming an all too familiar refrain.

You may recall that just before the all-important Ohio and Texas primaries, when his campaign was riding high after major victories in Wisconsin and Ohio, a leaked memo to a Canadian official suggesting that his tough stance on NAFTA was merely political posturing appeared just in time to throw Senator Obama’s campaign off message.

Around that same time, snippets of fiery sermons by Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, began circulating on the web and in the media, further derailing the Obama camp’s message of hope and change.

Taken together, these two peccadillos likely cost Barack Obama crucial votes at a time when he needed them most, and ultimately contributed in part to his primary losses in both states.

Moving on to Pennsylvania, where he was the underdog, the issue of his relationship with Rev. Wright continued to dog Obama.

So Obama gave his now famous race address, which at the time seemed to change the discourse surrounding the Wright issue, paving the way for him to return his focus to his campaign.

Then, just as he appeared to gaining in the polls and making headway with Pennsylvania’s working class voters, Bitter-gate happened.

The tape recorded comments of Senator Obama addressing a group of San Francisco swells—in which he described rural Americans as “bitter” about their economic circumstances, “clinging to guns and religions” as a result of that bitterness—once again put the Democratic Presidential contender on the ropes as the Pennsylvania primary was looming.

Despite waging the most expensive campaign in the history of the state, Obama lost the Pennsylvania primary to his rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, by nearly 10 points.

Flash forward to the start of last week. The good news for Obama—the race in Indiana was tight, with polls showing him locked in a virtual dead heat with Senator Clinton. The even better news for Barack Obama, however, was that he had a double-digit lead over Clinton in North Carolina.

But then, early in the week, Jeremiah Wright inexplicably reappeared in the national spotlight, giving a series of high profile speeches that reignited controversy about Senator Obama’s relationship with his former pastor.

This time around, Obama came out strongly against the man he once described as his “spiritual mentor.”

Still, despite his sharper tone and definitive condemnation of Wright’s remarks, Barack Obama spent the better part of the week explaining his relationship with Wright rather than campaigning, a state of affairs which now appears to be hurting his chances not only in the two upcoming primaries, but in the overall race as well.

The latest polls now show Clinton leading Barack Obama in Indiana by a narrow margin and pulling within single digits of him in North Carolina, where she once trailed her opponent by as much as twenty points.

Helping Clinton along this week have been key endorsements from Mike Easley, North Carolina’s popular governor, and the Indianapolis Star, Indiana’s largest newspaper.

On a national scale, the news is equally gloomy for Barack Obama.

A new Rasmussen report indicates that 58% of likely voters believe Barack Obama denounced Jeremiah Wright because of political convenience.

Even more damning, the same Rasmussen report found that while only seven percent of the nation’s voters agree with Wright’s views of the United States, 56% say it’s at least somewhat likely that Obama “shares some of Pastor Wright’s controversial views about the United States.”

The net effect of these results can be seen in new polls which now find Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama statistically tied as the candidate democratic voters favour, whereas a few weeks ago, Barack Obama was comfortably at least seven points ahead of Clinton in like surveys.

Similarly, most recent polls also find both Democratic candidates faring almost equally as well in head to head match-ups with John McCain.

Still, though the sum of these results definitively point to a surge in momentum for the Clinton campaign, they may not necessarily represent the change in opinion about Barack Obama some have suggested.

Instead, they may only reinforce the status quo.

Taking nothing away from Senator Clinton, her wins in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania were largely due to votes from demographic groups in those states that had already demonstrated a pattern of supporting her in earlier primaries and caucuses.

Had Clinton not won any of the aforementioned states, Barack Obama would have appeared to be fatally cutting into her core constituency.

Conversely, if Hillary Clinton had won among African-Americans and so-called ‘Latte liberals’ in Pennsylvania, one could have argued that Barack Obama’s campaign was running out of steam.

But that didn’t happen. In the final analysis, in all three of those contests, Hillary Clinton won among the constituencies she was expected to win, just as Barack Obama won among those groups he was expected carry.

Likewise, in Indiana, Clinton is leading primarily because the state’s demographic patchwork is similar to other states she has won, while Barack Obama is ahead in North Carolina for the same reasons.

So there are no surprises there either. The fact is supporters of both Democratic contenders are deeply entrenched and invested in their candidates, and no amount of scandal is likely to move any them from one camp to the other.

If the latest poll results prove anything, it may be that the surprising number of voters who still remained undecided after all these months of campaigning have begun to lean toward Hillary Clinton.

In polls taken in North Carolina and Indiana leading up to the primaries in those states, a high percentage of voters classified themselves as undecided. I would posit that it is these late-deciding voters breaking in her direction who are responsible for the most recent surge in Senator Clinton’s poll numbers ahead of Tuesday’s primaries, rather than Obama supporters shifting their allegiance.

So it is perhaps not that the tide is turning against Barack Obama as a result of recent events, but that those events may have helped to nudge voters who have remained on the sidelines throughout the Democratic race off the fence.

All of which still amounts to a win for Hillary Clinton, but not necessarily a net loss for Barack Obama.

More important is the question of why more Democrat voters are not turning toward Barack Obama as the contest for the party’s nomination roars to a close.

At this point in the race, Democrat voters should logically be coalescing around the frontrunner, not swinging in the opposite direction, which is exactly what the numbers suggest on the surface.

Barack Obama has got to do more than seal the deal on the Democrat nomination in order to ultimately be successful in his historic bid for the White House in November.

Should he become the nominee, he will also have to win over nearly half of all Democrat voters, which may prove a greater obstacle for him than NAFTAgate, Bittergate and the Jeremiah Wright controversies combined.

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