What a difference a moment makes

Sometimes, timing is everything.

At 1:11 p.m., I got an e-mail update from The Hill.com -- an item about Sen. Norm Coleman, the Minnesota Republican whose lead over the Democratic challenger, comic and author Al Franken, has disappeared in recent polls.

Coleman announced that he has decided to take a radical new approach to campaigning: He's pulling all of his negative ads and vowing to say only positive things from here on out. "I decided that I was not all that interested in returning to Washington for six years based on the judgment of voters that I was not as bad as the other two guys," Coleman said.

I finished reading the update and clicked on to the next item in my inbox -- a note from the McCain campaign that arrived at 1:10 p.m., just one minute earlier.

The note read:

McCain-Palin 2008 today announced that Columbus resident Dewey Stokes, former President of the National Fraternal Order of Police, and Jon Murtagh will host a press conference at 3:00 p.m. EDT to discuss Barack Obama's associations with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers.