NPR: The NPR News Blog

March 31, 2008

Get My Vote: Political Belief Beyond Party Lines

We've been checking out some of the new videos at NPR's Get My Vote project and folks are leaving some thoughtful contributions

Here's Matt Barnes of Portland, Maine on political beliefs beyond party affiliation:

Patricia Rich of Boise, Idaho talks about her first memories of politics when she was eleven, the death of JFK and why she thinks it takes a certain personality type to be excited about politics:

And finally, a Canadian student in the U.S. talks about why Americans have to think not only about their responsibility to their country when they vote but also about their responsibility to the world because of the U.S.' special status as the world's only superpower.

Obama and Oil Money: Not As Simple As It Looks

In a recent ad that aired in Pennsylvania, Sen. Barack Obama made the following claim:

"Since the gas lines of the '70's, Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence, but nothing's changed except now Exxon's making $40 billion a year, and we're paying $3.50 for gas. ... I don't take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won't let them block change anymore. They'll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We'll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil."

Here's the ad:

The Clinton campaign accused Obama of "false advertising" for the ad. "Senator Obama says he doesn't take campaign contributions from oil companies but the reality is that Exxon, Shell, and others are among his donors," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said.

Well, not exactly Phil. Here what an Associated Press Fact Check has to say on the issue. It is true, Obama does not take money from oil companies. No one does - it's illegal. It's sort of like Obama saying "I don't rob banks to finance my campaign" - that would be illegal too. But he also does not take money from oil company political action committees (PACs) or lobbyists.

But boy, he sure does take money from people who work for oil companies. A lot of money. Not as much, however, as Clinton and Sen. John McCain do.

"As of Feb. 29, Obama's presidential campaign had received nearly $214,000 from oil and gas industry employees and their families, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Clinton had received nearly $307,000 from industry workers and their families and Republican Sen. John McCain, the likely GOP presidential nominee, received nearly $394,000, according to the center's totals."

And two of Obama's fundraisers are oil company executives: Robert Cavnar, the chairman and chief executive of Houston-based Mission Resources Corp., and George Kaiser, the president and CEO of Tulsa-based Kaiser-Francis Oil Co.

So this is one of those cases when the candidate is telling the truth but basically ignoring the deeper issue that people really want to know about: could you be influenced by oil company money in some way?

That is a question as yet unanswered.

Arizona Considers Guest Worker Program

Some southwestern states, tired of waiting for Washington to do something about fixing the immigration system, have decided to take matters into their own hands.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Arizona state legislature is considering its own guest worker program which it would administer rather than the federal government.

"The Arizona legislature is expected on Monday to fast track bills to create a temporary worker program in the state. Even with the backing of top lawmakers, the bills face big hurdles, including sign-off from the feds. But if approved, they would streamline the process for Arizona employers to hire temporary workers from Mexico -- and would serve as a model for national reform, say supporters."

The Arizona program would allow an unlimited number of workers to legally enter the U.S. to work temporarily in Arizona for up to two years if an employer can prove a shortage of labor. Under the current federal program a guest worker can only stay for 10 months. Meanwhile The Associated Press reported recently that Colorado is looking at similar measures for its chili, watermelon and tomato crops.

Critics -- and there are many of them -- say the program won't work because it will stimulate, not stop, illegal immigration. "Once migratory movements start, they become self-perpetuating," says Luis Plascencia, an expert on Mexican migration and guest worker programs at Arizona State University in Tempe.

The current presidential candidates have differing positions on guest worker programs. Hillary Clinton is opposed to them because she thinks they will depress wages for Americans. Barack Obama supports a guest-worker program with a database of workers, arguing it will improve wages and conditions for all workers. John McCain had originally wanted a guest-worker program under his failed immigration reform bill. But during CNN's January 30 Republican presidential debate McCain said he would not support his own program if it now came to a vote on the Senate floor. As a senator from Arizona, it will be interesting to see where he stands on his state legislature's idea.

So tell us what you think. Are state guest worker programs the way to deal with illegal immigration? Or is it just another way to sneak into the U.S.? If so, how do we help employers who say their crops are "rotting in the fields" for lack of workers to pick them?

PolitiFact: Tax Chain E-Mail is Not Correct

One of the fastest ways to spread political information ... or disinformation ... these days is to stick it in an e-mail and spam it to as many people as you can in the hope that they will spam it to all their friends and so on. For instance, take the false message sent to many people that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim "bend on destroying the United States." The Obama campaign has had to fight that chain e-mail for months.

PolitiFact, a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, is one of the many good Web sites that now exists to check candidate statements and media reports about them for truthfulness. One of the services that PolitiFact provides is The Chain E-mail Files, which checks out the veracity of the chain e-mails that float around the Internet.

Recently the site looked at an e-mail that said Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to "raise capital gains taxes and dividends taxes, as well as raise tax rates for all income levels" while John McCain wants to make all of President Bush's tax cuts permanent. So PolitiFact checked out the e-mail's claims.

"Clinton has said the tax cuts should stay in place for people making less than $250,000, while Obama has said the tax cuts should be repealed for the top 1 percent. (According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in 2005 were those with an average pretax income of $1.6-million. The minimum income for the top 1 percent is $307,500.) So the e-mail is wrong about what Clinton and Obama have actually proposed. It's correct that McCain supports making the Bush tax cuts permanent for all income levels....

"We find this chain e-mail gets facts both large and small wrong. It doesn't list the higher tax brackets that actually would go up if Clinton or Obama implemented their plans, and it accuses them of wanting to raise rates on lower incomes that they've said should stay the same. So we rate the chain e-mail's claim False."

So the next time you get a chain e-mail that makes a claim that you're not too sure about, check out the PolitiFact site. It'll make you a better informed voter.

Obama Calls for Holiday to Mark Cesar Chavez

Sen. Barack Obama has called for a national holiday to mark the birthday of Mexican-American labor activist and leader of the United Farm Workers, Cesar Chavez.

"Today is Cesar Chavez's birthday, and his life and legacy are important for us all to remember. From his beginnings as a farmworker picking lettuce and beets in the American Southwest, Cesar Chavez rose to help found the United Farm Workers, providing hundreds of thousands of people with better working conditions and the chance to live a better life. He proved what I have long believed -- that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things. When some said he could not organize farmworkers and take on the growers, he said, 'Si Se Puede' - 'Yes We Can.' It's a philosophy of hope and aspiration that inspires us today."

The call for a holiday can be seen as a direct appeal to Latino voters in the Democratic Party who have tended to support Sen. Hillary Clinton.

California currently observes Chavez' birthday, March 31, as a state holiday. Texas also recognizes the day, and it is an optional holiday in Arizona and Colorado.

Supreme Court Won't Get Invovled In Jefferson Case

The Supreme Court today decided to pass on a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling that curtailed the power of the FBI to search congressional offices. The case arises out of the 2006 FBI search of the House offices of Louisiana Democratic Rep. William Jefferson (he of the "cold hard cash" jokes - at one point he stored thousands of dollars in a refrigerator).

Jefferson is fighting federal corruption charges that he solicited more than $500,000 in bribes for business deals in Africa. He argued that when the FBI raided his offices, they took materials they had no right to have. He said many of the documents taken by the feds were protected by the Speech and Debate Clause, "which protects elected officials from being questioned by the president, a prosecutor or a plaintiff in a lawsuit about their legislative work." The FBI's response was that it had legally obtained a search warrant to conduct the raid.

The question for the Supreme Court was did the clause also apply to searches. The Supreme Court ended up agreeing with the appeals court's ruling that some of the documents taken were indeed subject to the Speech and Debate Clause. Jefferson, they said, should have had the right to look over the documents before they were removed.

As The Swamp notes: "The court's ruling means that the Speech and Debate clause applies to searches by federal agents. The Justice Department complained that the decision would force it to give members of Congress advance notice before a raid is conducted, but the opinion doesn't say that. It simply requires that the member be given some opportunity to review and set aside materials related to the legislative process."

The ruling doesn't mean that Jefferson will get all his personal papers and notes back. The case is now being sent back to a lower court judge who will determine which papers fit the "legislative materials" description and must be returned to Jefferson.

McCain Talks about His Family During Tour

As Sen. John McCain continues his fight for media attention, he begins his "Service to America" tour today with a speech in Meridian, Mississippi. In the speech he'll talk about his family's long history of service to the country, including a distant ancestor who served on George Washington's staff, according to notes distributed by McCain's communications people.

"I am the son and grandson of admirals. My grandfather was an aviator; my father a submariner. They were my first heroes, and their respect for me has been one of the most lasting ambitions of my life. They gave their lives to their country, and taught me lessons about honor, courage, duty, perseverance and leadership that I didn't fully grasp until later in life, but remembered when I needed them most. I have been an imperfect servant of my country for many years. But I am their son, and they showed me how to love my country, and that has made all the difference for me, my friends, all the difference in the world."

He'll also release a Web-only ad that will appear on news and information sites that continues the focus on his family's service to the country.

But as NPR's Cokie Roberts noted during her conversation with Renee Montagne on Morning Edition, McCain still has a lot of work to do with the Republican base and they might be put off by this general election strategy. Roberts also noted that the lack of media attention means McCain is having trouble raising money. The New York Times reports McCain hasn't been able to attract many of the big donors who gave to the Bush campaign over the past two election cycles.

Here's one reason why McCain wants to talk about his family - The Associated Press reports it's one of the reasons that he's doing so well in the polls.

MN Senator, NC House Members to Back Obama

Sen. Barack Obama picks up another importance endorsement, and another superdelegate, today when Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar will announce her support during a conference call with reporters.

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Klobuchar said Obama "has inspired an enthusiasm and idealism that we have not seen in this country in a long time."

Klobuchar, a freshman Democrat, said Obama speaks "with a different voice, bringing a new perspective and inspiring a real excitement from the American people." She compared him to the late Hubert Humphrey, who served as a senator from Minnesota and as vice president.

Obama carried Minnesota by a wide margin over rival Sen. Hillary Clinton. The Obama campaign says that Klobuchar is the 64th superdelegate to endorse him since the Feb. 5th Super Tuesday contests. Clinton has gotten nine since that date.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are preparing to endorse Obama as a group, Just one has done so already.

The Journal also reports that both Sen. Klobuchar and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey -- who endorsed Obama last week -- had originally planned to remain neutral, but "decided to weigh in as the Democrats' campaign became more negative and Sen. McCain was free to exploit the confusion looking to the November election."

The Clinton camp continued to reject the idea that a prolonged campaign would hurt the party. Over the weekend. Former Pres. Bill Clinton told 2000 attendees at the California State Democratic Convention to "chill out" about the process. Sen. Clinton said she planned to fight until the convention in August if need be. And even Sen. Obama said that Clinton should remain in the race as long as she wants to, calling her a "fierce, formidable opponent."

Obama Does Well in Texas Regional Conventions

Sen. Barack Obama had a good weekend in Texas. The Houston Chronicle reports that he "emerged with a majority of the state's at-large presidential nominating delegates and possibly a majority of all Texas delegates."

The actual number of delegates awarded to Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton won't be announced until the Texas state convention meets from June 5-7. But Obama appeared to be winning about 58 percent of the delegates to the state convention. The Obama camp says this gives them a 38-29 at-large delegate lead. (The Clinton camp says it's 37-30, but not all the results from Saturday's regional meetings were final.) Clinton won the popular vote primary (in which Democrats, Republicans and independents were allowed to vote) giving her a 65-61 allotted delegate lead.

When the totals from the weekend are added, Obama now has a five-delegate (or three, if there is that delegate difference) lead over all.

"We can confirm now that Barack Obama won Texas," said Obama spokesman Josh Earnest.

But the Clinton campaign says it will continue to fight for delegates until the summer convention and cut into Obama's lead. Clinton state Chairman Garry Mauro said Clinton may be able to take at least two delegates away.

"If we're in a hot race on June 6, we expect to pick up more delegates," Mauro said. "I believe at the end of the day we will run either dead even or come out ahead in the delegate count."

Meanwhile there are also 35 superdelegates from Texas. At present, 12 are for Clinton, 10 for Obama and 13 are uncommitted.

March 28, 2008

"NPS" Offers a New Way to Survey Voters

You know what it's like when you find a restaurant that you really like? Or a mechanic who does a great job .. and is cheap? Or a movie that leaves you breathless? You just want to tell everyone about it.

Well, public opinion researchers (also known as pollsters) have a term for this feeling: Net Promoter Score, or NPS. (Those of us who work on the Internet might use another word to describe it - viral ... you pass it along because you like it -- think of the number of YouTube videos your friends have sent you.)

Now NPS is being "adapted from the world of consumer research" and used "to measure voter enthusiasm and passion for a candidate." Pollsters are asking a simple question: "On a 0 to 10 scale, with 0 being "not at all likely" and 10 being "extremely likely," how likely is it that you would recommend voting for [INSERT CANDIDATE NAME] in the next election to a friend or colleague?"

As pollster Alex Landry (research director at the Republican polling firm, TargetPoint Consulting) writes at Pollster.com, "The NPS is calculated by subtracting the number of detractors (ratings of 0-6) from the number of promoters (ratings of 9 and 10). In the business world, +16 is the median score of more than 400 companies across 28 industries; CostCo has one of the highest known scores at +81.

"Studies have shown a direct and significant correlation between a business' score and company growth - specifically, a 7 point increase in overall NPS or a 2 point reduction in the percentage of detractors can each account for one percent of positive growth, thus indicating the potential electoral consequences of this measure once adapted to political polling."

Landry notes that NPS has its detractors, and it doesn't have a long history in political polling. But when it was tried in 2005-2006, it indicated that the Republicans were in more trouble than many people thought they were -- which turned out to be true.

Landry offers some interesting results for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Definitely worth a read.

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Clinton Strong in PA, Obama Reclaims National Lead

Hillary Clinton continues to have a large lead in Pennsylvania, while Barack Obama appears to have opened a "statistically significant" lead nationally.

A survey by the American Research Group shows that Barack Obama has made little headway in the Keystone State, still trailing Clinton by double-digits, 51% to 39%

Some of the poll's findings: Obama leads among men 51% to 38% and Clinton leads among women 61% to 30%. Clinton leads among white voters 60% to 30% and Obama leads among African American voters 83% to 11%. Obama leads 46% to 43% among likely primary voters under 50 and Clinton leads 60% to 32% among likely primary voters 50 and older.

But the Gallup Daily Tracking poll has better news for Obama. It shows him with an eight-point lead over Clinton, 50% to 42%.

"Obama's current 8-point advantage ties his largest lead of the Gallup Poll Daily tracking program, along with a 50% to 42% showing in Feb. 28-March 1 polling. Obama clearly has weathered the Wright storm, while the dark clouds have shifted to Clinton over whether she has exaggerated her foreign policy credentials. This week she has had to defend her repeated claim that she came under sniper fire while visiting Bosnia as first lady, which news video clearly disputed.

"Many Democrats are concerned that the ongoing nomination campaign -- which has grown increasingly contentious in recent weeks -- will hurt the party in the general election. Right now, the races remain close, but Republican John McCain has an edge over both Clinton and Obama in registered voters' general election preferences. In the new Gallup Poll Daily tracking update, McCain has a statistically significant 4-point lead over Clinton (48% to 44%) and a smaller 2-point advantage over Obama (46% to 44%)."

Sen. Patrick Leahy Calls on Clinton to Drop Out

Going where no senior Democratic politician has gone before, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy has called on Sen. Hillary Clinton to drop of the Democratic presidential race.

"There is no way that Sen. Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination," Leahy, an Obama supporter, said in an interview with Vermont Public Radio this morning. "She ought to withdraw, and she ought to be backing Sen. Obama."

The Los Angeles Times reports that Leahy also said that Republican John McCain "has been making one gaffe after another [and] is getting a free ride," Leahy said the sniping between Democrats hurts them more than anything the Arizona senator has thrown their way.

But the Clinton campaign, in an e-mail sent out to supporters, said it noted a pattern in the calls for her to drop out.

"Every time our campaign demonstrates its strength and resilience, people start to suggest we should end our pursuit of the Democratic nomination," said the note, which made no mention of Leahy. "Those anxious to force us to the sidelines aren't doing it because they think we're going to lose the upcoming primaries. The fact is, they're reading the same polls we are, and they know we are in a position to win."

Dan Balz at the Washington Post reports that Leahy's comment may just be the "sound of one hand clapping, an observation by a politician given to speak his mind but not necessarily something that opens up a torrent of supporting commentary from others in the party. That is obviously Clinton's biggest worry and her campaign will be waiting nervously to see what happens next."

Report: Giuliani Weighing Run for Gov. in "Special" Election

Just because they didn't like him in Florida, doesn't mean Rudy is giving up on politics.

The New York Post reports today that former New York Mayor and one-time Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani would consider a run for New York governor if the current governor, David Paterson was forced to resign.

Paterson, of course, just became governor himself (after the sudden resignation of Eliot Spitzer), but spent most of his first two weeks in office detailing affairs that both he and his wife had during a "troubled period" in their marriage. Paterson also admitted that he had abused drugs decades ago. Questions have also been raised about the possible misuse of campaign funds.

If Paterson was forced out of office, then a special election would have to be held in August. A top adviser to the former mayor said he would consider a run for the office if such a series of events was to take place.

"It appears, however, that those disclosures have raised little outrage, either from the public or his colleagues in Albany," adds the Post. "If anything, coming on the heels of Eliot Spitzer's sex-scandal resignation, Paterson's candor has prompted questions among Albany insiders as to whether he may face further troubles. He added this week that he was done talking about his personal life."

So we'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next few months.

U. of Chicago Says Obama Was Considered a Professor

Sen. Barack Obama has been accused, particularly by the Clinton camp, of exaggerating his resume by saying that he was a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago law school. His detractors say he was no such thing.

Well, it looks like he has the school on his side.

The university's law school issued a press release today to clarify Obama's position. The release says he was a "senior lecturer" but that is considered at the school as being the same as a professor.

Here is the press release.

"The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as 'Senior Lecturer.' From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined."

Sec. of State Rice: U.S. Has "Birth Defect" About Race

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied blacks the same opportunities as whites when the country was founded.

And Rice, while declining to comment on the current presidential campaign, said it was important for Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama to give his recent speech on race "for a whole lot of reasons."

"Black Americans were a founding population," she said. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together -- Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."
As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that. That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today," she said.

On the one hand, she told the Times, race in the U.S. "continues to have effects" on public discussions and "the deepest thoughts that people hold." On the other, "enormous progress" has been made, which allowed her to become the nation's chief diplomat.

"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them -- and that's our legacy," she said.

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey to Back Obama

Sen. Barack Obama will pick up an important endorsement today (and another superdelegate vote) when Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey will announce that he is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Philadelphia Enquirer reports that "Casey plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president today in Pittsburgh, sending a message both to the state's primary voters and to undecided superdelegates who might decide the close race for the Democratic presidential nomination."

The paper said that a source in the Casey camp said that the senator was impressed with how Obama had stood up to the pressures of the campaign, including recent attacks over the racially incendiary remarks of his former pastor.

"Casey's decision was also personal, motivated in part by the enthusiasm his four daughters - Elyse, Caroline, Julia and Marena - have expressed for Obama, the source said. 'He thinks we shouldn't be deaf to the voices of the next generation.' "

Casey's endorsement puts him at odds with fellow Pennsylvania Democrats Gov. Ed Rendell and Rep. John Murtha, who are supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, another Democratic Senator and former presidential candidate, Chris Dodd of Connecticut (who supports Obama) , said it will soon be time for party leaders to "step up to the plate."

" ... we've got a contest coming up in Pennsylvania and one in North Carolina and Indiana very quickly afterwards," Dodd told the National Journal. "... We want this to be over with. We want to get behind this candidate, and we want people to pull together to win that election in November -- to build those majorities in the House and the Senate if we can, and then start doing the work on health care and Iraq and all these other issues that demand our attention."
------
Update: Here is a list of superdelegates from Pennsylvania and who they are supporting:

Congressman Jason Altmire - Uncommitted
Rena Baumgartner - Clinton
Congressman Bob Brady - Uncommitted
Carole Campbell - Obama
Congressman Chris Carney - Uncommitted
Sen. Bob Casey - Obama
Ronald Donatucci - Clinton
Congressman Mike Doyle - Uncommitted
Congressman Chakah Fattah - Obama
Bill George - Uncommitted
Marcel Groen - Uncommitted
Congressman Tim Holden - Uncommitted
Congressman Paul Kanjorski - Clinton
Leon Lynch - Obama
Sophie Masloff - Uncommitted
Gerald W. McEntee - Clinton
Jean Milko - Clinton
Congressman Patrick Murphy - Obama
Ian Murray - Clinton
Congressma Jack Murtha - Clinton
Governor Ed Rendell - Clinton
Evelyn Richardson - Clinton
T.J. Rooney - Clinton
Ruth C. Rudy - Clinton
Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz - Clinton
Congressman Joe Sestak - Clinton

This represents 26 in total. Keep in mind that there are three slots to fill which will be approved by the members of the Democratic State Committee at the regularly scheduled meeting of June 6 and 7. The deadline to provide those names to the DNC is June 7.

Former President Clinton Continues to Generate Heat

If Sen. Hillary Clinton has to run as her party's nominee in the fall, her husband just made it a little more difficult for her to win in the key state of New Hampshire. (Not to mention if she ever has to run in a Democratic primary there again.)

It's well known that New Hampshire residents take their "first primary in the nation" status pretty seriously. They believe it's the one time that a small state like New Hampshire gets a chance to be a player on the national political stage. (And the state has played no small role in rescuing the political chances of both Clintons.) So it seems they weren't too happy when Monday former President Bill Clinton, as the Manchester Union-Leader put it, "threw New Hampshire and our Democratic Secretary of State Bill Gardner under the proverbial bus."

Clinton was trying to make another argument Monday in Indiana for allowing Michigan and Florida delegates to be seated at the Democratic National Convention in August. "We let New Hampshire go out of turn," said Clinton. "They had a Democratic secretary of state. The Florida voters are totally innocent. They asked to vote on time."

"Never mind the historical record, which shows that Florida and Michigan moved up their primaries first, prompting New Hampshire to respond," said the conservative Union-Leader in an editorial. "If they stand in the way of the Clintons' march through history, the facts be damned. And, if they stand in the way of the Clintons' march through history, their friends be damned, too."

Meanwhile, President Clinton is trying a new argument about the pledged delegates - delegates from caucuses aren't as important as the ones from primaries. ABC News reports that Thursday, while speaking to his wife's Texas supporters, Clinton downplayed the importance of caucuses. (Don't tell Iowa!) "Right now, among all the primary states, believe it or not, Hillary's only 16 votes behind in pledged delegates," said Clinton, "and she's gonna wind up with the lead in the popular vote in the primary states. She's gonna wind up with the lead in the delegates [from primary states]. It's the caucuses that have been killing us."

"Bill Clinton's decision to flatly predict that his wife will finish ahead of Obama in the pledged delegates and popular vote which come strictly from primary states comes as his wife's advisers concede that the former first lady will not be able to catch Obama in the total number of pledged delegates," adds ABC.

McCain Launches First TV Ad of Fall Campaign

OK, the Democrats don't have a nominee yet, and the media are focused on their battle to the exclusion of almost everything else. It's hard for a Republican presidential nominee to get any attention. But Sen. John McCain doesn't seem to care. He's ready to campaign for president now, so he's launched the first TV ad of the "fall" campaign.

You can see it here:

Meanwhile, Time magazine "puts McCain to the ethics test" and finds that he isn't quite as pure as the driven snow.

"In some cases, McCain's intervention on causes that favored donors appeared to be exceptional. Consider the committee meeting that McCain led on June 23, 1999. The topic of the day was a proposal to require access to 911 emergency services for cellular phones. But McCain scrambled the script with just a few hours' notice. He introduced an unrelated amendment that would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow companies to own two television stations in the same market. Democrats were outraged by the move, since it violated McCain's own rule requiring Senators to give a full day's notice before introducing amendments, a practice he put in place to prevent under-the-radar legislative tampering."

On the other hand ...

" ... McCain has some surprising character witnesses. 'He has always done the right thing, as far as I know, on the legislation I have worked on with him,' says Joan Claybrook, president of the liberal group Public Citizen, an organization that disagrees with most of McCain's votes on key issues. 'He will listen to the merits and make a decision.' "

As Time notes, this complex legacy may be difficult to explain to voters in the fall. " ...McCain is now in the awkward position of hoping voters will give him the benefit of the doubt that he has denied to others."

Obama, Clinton Say Party Will Unite Behind Winner

Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama told Democrats to take a deep breath yesterday and stop worry. The two rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination told their supporters that "they may bicker daily over issues, character and innuendo" but they both believe that "Democratic voters will coalesce around a nominee and carry him or her to victory in November over Republican John McCain."

The Associated Press reports that both candidates addressed the issue after a series of polls showed that the intensity of their struggle was affecting their supporters. Many told pollsters that they would rather vote for McCain than for the other Democrat.

"Please think through this decision. It is not a wise decision," Clinton said to applause from a crowd in Fayetteville, North Carolina. "Every time we have a vigorous contest like we're having this primary election, people get intense. Senator Obama has intense support. I have intense support. It's exciting because people want to be involved. But, the differences ... pale in comparison to the differences between us and Senator McCain."

Clinton pledged to be a "team player," regardless of who won the nomination, saying she would help to make sure the party was united

Meanwhile, Obama was making a similar point during an interview on ABC's "World News."

"There are going to be some bruised feelings, whoever the nominee is. We are going to have to come together and remind ourselves that there is a heck of a lot bigger difference between either Senator Clinton or myself, and John McCain," Obama said. "I think short term, there is going to be work to do for the nominee to bring the party back together again. People feel pretty passionate about their respective candidates. I appreciate that, and I understand it."

In an interview with the AP, former vice president Al Gore also said there was no urgency to resolve the contest now. "What have we got, five months left?" he said, when asked about whether he would make an endorsement soon.

March 27, 2008

Obama Attacks Wall Street While Taking Their Money

Senator Obama's speech today outlined his differences with the other presidential candidates regarding the crisis on Wall Street. But it also highlighted the degree to which all three major candidates are involved with Wall Street.

In assigning blame for the subprime mortgage collapse, as well as for other financial woes, Obama went further than either his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, or Republican John McCain.

He spread the blame around... but largely in Washington. He said both Democrats and Republicans, quote, let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales.

"The future cannot be shaped by the best-connected lobbyists with the best record of raising money for campaigns. This thinking is wrong for the financial sector and it's wrong for our country."

"Obama is now the number one recipient of securities and investment money among the presidential candidates," says Sheila Krumholz, director of the Center for Responsive Politics. She says the center's analysis of campaign finance data shows that Obama has raised 6.7 million dollars from people and political action committees in the securities and investment industry.

Hillary Clinton is right behind him, at 6 point 6 million. McCain trails the Democrats, at about 3 million.

Continue reading "Obama Attacks Wall Street While Taking Their Money" »

Yet Another Poll Shows No Wright Damage to Obama

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) hasn't been hurt by the controversy over his former pastor's statements, according to a Pew Research Center poll. All Things Considered's Robert Siegel talks with Pew Director Andrew Kohut about Obama, the economy and some good news for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

"More positive for McCain, however, is that a growing proportion of Republican voters say that the GOP will solidly unite behind the Arizona senator; 64% express that view currently, up from 58% in late February. Along with this expression of increased partisan unity, the survey finds that by a considerable margin (52%-37%), independent voters say that if McCain is elected, he will take the country in a different direction rather than continuing Bush's policies."

The survey shows Obama with a solid 10-point lead over Clinton, and a 6-point lead over McCain in the fall general election.

Some Democrats Actually Ask, "What About Gore?"

You had to know that this idea would pick up a bit of steam, considering the current standoff between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama and the nasty way the campaigns are attacking each other.

Some Democrats and pundits are now asking "What about Al Gore?"

Don't panic. Gore didn't suggest the idea, and he has given no hint of any kind that he's interested in running again. But some Dems, desperate for a way out of the current impasse, are looking longingly at the former vice president, best-selling author, Academy Award recipient and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The other day Florida Rep. Tim Mahoney, when pressed by a reporter for a way out of the Clinton-Obama drama, said yes, Gore would be one way. And now Time magazine columnist Joe Klein -- who admits that it's silly season in American presidential problems -- writes "Is Al Gore the answer?"

"Pish-tosh, you say, and you're probably right. But let's play a little. Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let's also assume -- and this may be a real stretch -- that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party -- and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along."

He admits the Democratic Party would have to be "monumentally desperate" by June, but "this has been an exceptionally 'silly" year."

Gore again? Democrats, would you want him to be your nominee? Republicans, would you want to run against him again? Independents, what about you?
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Update: Gore will be on CBS's 60 Minutes this weekend talking about global warming. Here he is talking to Lesley Stahl about prominent politicans who still don't believe in global warming:

"You're talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they???re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat. ... That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off."

Clinton Goes After McCain on Economy, Ignores Obama

Sen. Hillary Clinton gave Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain a few jabs today on his economic plans, but ignored the fact that her rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, also gave a major economic speech.

"I read the speech that Senator McCain gave the other day that set forth his plan, said Clinton. "It said virtually nothing to ease the credit crisis or the housing crisis. It seems like if the phone were ringing he would just let it ring and ring.

"We've had enough of a president who didn't know enough about economics, and didn't do enough for the middle class. I don't think we can afford four more years," Clinton added.

CBS News notes that Clinton, who was speaking at Wake Forest College in North Carolina, "has avoided any direct mention of Obama, perhaps in light of news stories pointing to a potential divide in the party as a result of an already highly contentious and drawn out nomination process."

In his speech at historic Cooper Union in New York, Obama called for major changes in the way the government regulates the financial industry, and called for a second stimulus package to boost the economy.

Mitt and McCain: Rivals Reunite in Utah

John McCain trolled for money and votes in Utah today, which is sometimes described as the most nation's most Republican state. But he needed two of the state's favorite sons to make sure he got the reception the presumed Republican presidential nominee would expect.

Former rival Mitt Romney and Republican Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., had McCain's back, or, well, his sides at least, during a fundraising appearance and news conference. Romney and Huntsman framed McCain, like bodyguards. Utah has been hostile territory for McCain.

Romney won nearly 90 percent of the Utah GOP primary vote Super Tuesday. McCain scored only 5 percent, his worst primary showing. Romney raised more than $6 million in Utah. McCain raised only about $180,000, before today's fundraiser.

Romney is Mormon as are 60 percent of Utahns. McCain's mother publicly blamed Mormons for the scandal involving Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Olympics. And some Utahns blame McCain, in part, for the beloved Romney's exit from the 2008 campaign.

So, McCain needs all the help he can get in Utah, despite its strong Republican roots.

"This is our candidate and he needs to be President," Romney told reporters in referring to McCain. "When it comes time to get around our nominee, we do it."

"We are united," McCain declared.

Incidentally, both Romney and Governor Huntsman are mentioned by pundits as possible running mates for McCain, who said both are qualified but wouldn't say whether either is on his short list.

All that was missing from the Republican presidential lovefest in Utah today was the singing of the chorus to a popular Mormon hymn: "All is well. All is well."

-- Howard Berkes

2:31 PM ET | 03-27-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

House Judiciary Committee Wants Siegelman to Testify

The Associated Press reports that the House Judiciary Committee has asked the Justice Department to temporarily release former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman from prison to testify before Congress in early May about possible political influence over his prosecution.

"A spokeswoman for the committee said Thursday that Siegelman, who is serving more than seven years in a Louisiana prison, would travel to Washington under guard of the U.S. Marshals Service. She said Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, wants to hear directly from Siegelman because lawmakers are having trouble getting information elsewhere, including from the Justice Department."

The Siegelman story, which has been bubbling on the Internet for several months, drew more attention after CBS's 60 Minutes did an interview with Jill Simpson, the Republican lawyer who's testified that Alabama Republicans often chattered about how the Justice Department and local U.S. attorneys would take Siegelman down. (Siegelman received an seven-year sentence on corruption charges.) 60 Minutes alleges that the prosecution case was full of holes.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker wrote earlier this month that "maybe Siegleman deserves every month of his 88-month sentence." But, she adds, "A troubling trail of evidence suggests that Karl Rove and other GOP operatives intervened to ensure that Siegelman -- who stood a good chance of winning a second term as governor of Alabama in 2006 -- would go to prison instead of back to the state Capitol."

She points out that "Dozens of former state attorneys general, Democrats and Republicans, have urged Congress to investigate the Siegelman prosecution."

But K. Whitmire of the Birmingham Weekly wrote last year that the local media view the case differently than their national counterpart. " ... I'd argue that the reason for the local media's incredulity [about the charges of a conspiracy against Siegelman] is that our memories stretch back further - to when Siegelman's administration collapsed after a steady succession of scandals, to when Siegelman's administration tried to squelch the bad press by obstructing reporters' access to public records, to when the governor's fortunes floundered because he couldn't govern as well as he could campaign."

Top Clinton Backers Threaten Speaker Pelosi

Twenty of Hillary Clinton's top fundraisers Wednesday threatened Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that they might withdraw their funds from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee if she didn't stop pushing the idea that Democratic superdelegates "should back the candidate with the most pledged delegates" The Washington Post reports that they urged her to respect the right of those delegates to back whomever they choose at the end of the primary season.

Roll Call reports that the "donors also pointedly noted their own contributions to the DCCC. 'We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August.'"

The New York Daily News reports that the move "stunned" senior Democrats "particularly because at least eight of the letter's authors have not donated to the DCCC since Pelosi became speaker. '[Clinton] looks desperate,' said one. "There is no way they should have threatened to do this. It is terrible. ... I am sure Obama is raising money off of it already.' "

Pelosi did not back down from her position, however, issuing a statement late last night through her spokesman Brendan Daly.

"Speaker Pelosi is confident that superdelegates will choose between Senators Clinton or Obama -- our two strong candidates -- before the convention in August," Daly said. "That choice will be based on many considerations, including respecting the decisions of millions of Americans who have voted in primaries and participated in caucuses. The Speaker believes it would do great harm to the Democratic Party if superdelegates are perceived to overturn the will of the voters. This has been her position throughout this primary season, regardless of who was ahead at any particular point in delegates or votes."

Kids Don't Seem Interested in Leadership Roles

The idea of any boy or girl growing up to be president doesn't seem to hold that much interest to the most recent generation of young Americans.

The Washington Post reports that a new nationwide survey of girls and boys found that a majority of them have little or no interest with achieving leadership roles when they become adults, ranking "being a leader" behind other goals such as "fitting in," "making a lot of money" and "helping animals or the environment."

The study, which was commissioned by the Girl Scouts of America and released today, shows that "three-quarters of African American girls and boys and Hispanic girls surveyed already identify themselves as leaders, a much larger group than white youths, about half of whom think of themselves this way."

"The youths defined leaders as people who prize collaboration, stand up for their beliefs and values, and try to improve society. Girls in particular endorsed these approaches, although a majority of boys did, as well. Yet when asked in focus groups about leadership styles among adults, what they described was traditional top-down management."

Experts say that the survey of 2,475 girls and 1,514 boys ages 8- to 17-year olds shows "a disconnect between what they aspire to and what is."

"The millennial generation has ambivalent, even negative, feelings about formal leadership," said Peter Levine, director of a nonpartisan research center at the University of Maryland that studies young people and civic involvement. "They prefer horizontal leadership in which everyone's a leader."

McCain Quietly Challenges Bush Legacy in Iraq

As a British commentator said last week when a John McCain oped appeared in the Financial Times, it was something that could have been written by John Kerry in 2004. Sen. John McCain's speech in Los Angeles yesterday repeated his themes of consulting with allies before going to war and that the U.S. can't do what it wants, when it wants, regardless of how powerful it is.

"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 said.

As NPR's Steve Inskeep and Juan Williams discussed this morning, McCain may support the war in Iraq, but he is disowning some of the policies that led to it. Without directly criticizing President Bush, McCain is suggesting a more collaborative approach with American allies.

McCain mentioned several presidents he respected yesterday, but did not mention Bush -- as Williams said, it was like "the dog that didn't bark."

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the speech was why he gave it at all. Some political commentators are wondering why McCain is giving major speeches right now when the media are so focused on the battle between his Democratic rivals.

Part of the explanation may be where he gave the speech - in Los Angeles. McCain very much believes he can be competitive in California - a state with a moderate Republican governor with positions very similar to McCain's. By focusing on a more collaborative approach in the world, and by talking about the need to pay attention to global warming concerns, McCain was making a strong case to Californians.
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Update: Two conservative bloggers at NRO's The Corner give McCain's speech a loud "Harrumph!"

Debate Over Pastor Doesn't Hurt Obama in Polls

While Sen. Barack Obama's relationship with his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright is drawing a lot of attention in the media, it doesn't seem to be hurting him in either his battle against rival Sen. Hillary Clinton, or -- if he wins the Democratic nomination -- against Republican nominee Sen. John McCain. That's the take away from a new Wall Street Journal-NBC poll released Wednesday.

The latest survey has the Democratic rivals in a dead heat, each with 45% support from registered Democratic voters. It's a slight improvement for Sen. Obama - two weeks ago, a WSJ-NBC poll had Clinton leading 47% to 43%.

Obama has a two-point lead over McCain - another dead heat. He has lost some support among Republicans, but continues to lead McCain by a comfortable margin with independents.

"Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC polls with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, called the latest poll a 'myth-buster' that showed the pastor controversy is 'not the beginning of the end for the Obama campaign.' "

But the poll does show that the battle between the two Democrats is taking its toll, and it appears to be hitting Clinton harder than Obama. For instance, she is viewed more negatively than positively by women voters for the first time, and her lead among white voters shrank from 50% to 39% to 49% to 41% -- which, as the Journal notes "seems to refute widespread speculation -- and fears among Sen. Obama's backers -- that he would lose white support for his bid to be the nation's first African-American president over the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. of Chicago."

Chuck Todd, of MSNBC's First Read offers a more detailed breakdown of the poll numbers and adds this interesting comment:

"Considering the doom-and-gloom some predicted for Obama with regard to the Wright controversy, the overall tenor of the electorate appears to still be favorable for him. He's mortal, but he's survived ... for now. It's not clear whether he'd be this resilient if another controversy exploded as big as Wright, but it appears that voters are giving him the benefit of doubt. There's lots of evidence inside these numbers that voters still would like to know more about Obama, and that is both an opportunity and a potential obstacle."

Democrats Increasingly Fear Lasting Harm For Fall

Democrats are increasingly worried that the "two-way suicide pact" (as one GOP strategist described it) "serves only to write the script for Republican ads in the fall and to give John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, a head start in framing his candidacy."

The Boston Globe reports that Democrats feel it's very different from 90 days ago when everyone was saying "Isn't it wonderful that we have two great candidates." The increasingly bitterness of the campaign is beginning to affect supporters on both sides.

A Gallup poll Wednesday showed that 28% of those who support Sen. Hillary Clinton says they will vote for Republican nominee Sen. John McCain rather than Sen. Barack Obama, while 19 percent of Obama supporters say the same thing about not voting for Clinton.

Continue reading "Democrats Increasingly Fear Lasting Harm For Fall" »

March 26, 2008

How Should A Candidate's Offspring Be Handled?

When Butler University student Evan Strange asked Chelsea Clinton the about the "L-word" (Monica Lewinsky) he raised an interesting issue: how should a candidate's offspring be handled by both the public and the media?

Few people would question the notion that a candidate's children are off-limits if those children are minors (such as in Barack Obama's case). But what about "a 28-year-old, Stanford- and Oxford-educated hedge fund investment analyst" -- like Chelsea Clinton -- who has crossed into the no-woman's land of surrogate for her mother?

"And though she's likely a boring interview since she rarely strays from her talking points, as Comrade Marinucci told us, recalling Chelsea's visit to Oakland's Mills College, why should she still be shielded from reporters?" writes San Francisco Chronicle blogger Joe Garofoli. "Sally Quinn told CBS News Wednesday: 'I don't understand why the press is being suckered like this.' "

It's gone so far that Wednesday afternoon an MSNBC news anchor just asked correspondent Ron Allen if the Butler student had apologized yet to Chelsea for asking the question. Then again, maybe MSNBC is trying hard to play nice, as they have a history of Shustering the Clinton family. For his part, Strange told CBS News Wednesday that he was just trying to elicit "what makes Hillary so strong."
If your response to this episode is: "Lay off! Chelsea's not the candidate." Then why is she a surrogate on the campaign trail? If you don't want her exposed to reporters, then have her do something behind the scenes. Stick to fund-raisers. Totally fine. But if Chelsea is going to accept the campaign putting her in public settings, then she should be prepared to hear whatever the unwashed ask, no matter how inartful.

What's your take? If Chelsea is out shilling for her mom, should she be subject to questioning like any other Clinton stand-in? Or is she off-limits because of her relationship to the candidate?

Tenn. Gov Urges Superdelegate Primary

Many Democrats worry that the lengthy contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will make it harder for the party come November's general election. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has a solution -- hold a primary for the superdelegates in June.

His suggestion comes as more Democrats express unease with the increasingly personal mudslinging between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

He tells Day by Day's Madeleine Brand that the Democratic National Committee will have to organize the primary. "My thought would be that it would just be a business-like meeting. Have it some place that's easily accessible."

The powers-that-be inside the beltway (Washington) don't like it, but it's been getting a much more positive reception in the rest of the country.

"I think they look at it and say it's a common-sense idea ... Let's not just go on auto-pilot. Let's steer this thing," says Bredesen. He added that Sen. Barack Obama has indicated interest in the issue.

Obama "Muslim" Rumors Spread to Delaware Class

You would think that with all the attention that's been paid to the relationship between Barack Obama and his controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, that most people would realize that the rumors circulating on the Internet that he's a Muslim aren't true.

Apparently not. Even worse, it appears to be a teacher spreading the smears this time.

DelawareOnline reports that a Delaware state human relations commission is investigating allegations that a fifth-grade teacher at Lord Baltimore Elementary School in Indian River told her class she wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because he is a Muslim and "that she is a Republican and that Obama 'believes in different things and is scary.' "

The teacher also allegedly said that Obama "does not swear on the Bible or pledge allegiance to the flag."

Fifth grade, yet.

Obama has had to fight these rumors, usually circulated by far-right-wing web sites, that he is a Muslim "bent on destroying the United States."

Continue reading "Obama "Muslim" Rumors Spread to Delaware Class" »

Clinton Camp Circulates Article that Accuses McPeak of Being Anti-Semitic

James Fallows of theAtlantic.com is pretty upset with the Clinton campaign for distributing a piece from the ultra-conservative American Spectator that accuses former Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, of being an anti-Semite, and a drunk.

The magazine makes this anti-Semite allegation because McPeak -- who garnered attention this week for making a comment that seemed to compare President Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy (after Clinton made remarks that McPeak felt questioned Barack Obama's patriotism) -- thinks that Israel should withdraw to its 1967 borders. (Which, as his fellow Atlantic blogger Marc Ambinder notes, "if advocating the pre '67 border map makes one an anti-Semite, just about every iteration of the U.S. government since 1967 would qualify."

I doubt that the author of the hit job ever bothered to speak with or interview McPeak. I have done so many times, during and after his days as Air Force chief of staff (which he was during the first Gulf War). People can agree or disagree with McPeak's foreign policy or his record at the Pentagon -- but that's not what we're talking about here. Any attempt to fish out a quote that will banish him as a bigot is exactly as fair and accurate as depicting Bill Clinton as being personally a racist based on his "fairy tale" and "Jesse Jackson" comments around the time of the South Carolina primary. I say this having heard McPeak lay out his views, starting while the Gulf War was underway 17 years ago, about how to maintain general stability, US interests, and Israeli security in the Middle East.

As Fallows notes, it's also highly ironic for anyone associated with the Clinton campaign to circulate anything from the Spectator. In the 90s, the magazine had its anti-everything Clinton "Arkansas Project," largely funded by conservative billionaire Richard Scaife. (Yes, we did mention him earlier post today-- he owns the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, to which Sen. Clinton gave her comments about Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright. Christopher Orr of The New Republic wonders if this means that Clinton has joined the vast right-wing conspiracy.)

Shmuel Rosner of Ha'aretz offers an interesting, and calmer view of both the article and of McPeak.

Obama Utah Coup Less Likely; McCain Up in Polls

John McCain stops in Utah Thursday to raise money in an overwhelmingly Republican state that hasn't been entirely friendly to the presumptive Republican nominee.

As we noted March 7 (2008 Headline: Utah Goes for Obama?!?!), it once looked like Democrat Barack Obama would challenge McCain in a November election match-up in Utah. A March poll by the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University had McCain leading Obama by just 10 points in a hypothetical presidential contest

Another March survey by the Deseret Morning News/KSL TV had McCain with just 30 per cent support among those polled. That's a political oddity in a state where some local Democratic candidates don't even pretend they can win and the entire Senate Democratic caucus could meet in a Starbucks and still leave plenty of empty seats.

Why wasn't John McCain embraced more enthusiastically? Well, he was one of the fiercest critics of federal spending for Salt Lake City's cherished 2002 Winter Olympics. And he's perceived as a spoiler in Mitt Romney's failed bid for the Republican nomination.

Continue reading "Obama Utah Coup Less Likely; McCain Up in Polls" »

The Campaign Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Quick, can you name the one issue that is key to the future of every American that sends most politicians (Including the current presidential contenders) fleeing in terror?

Yes, its social security. As The Associated Press reports "Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned that Social Security and Medicare were facing 'enormous challenges,' with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe." The trustees said unless something is done, the resources in the Social Security trust fund would be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019 - just a little over ten years from now.

Yet Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain have reacted to this alarming news with overwhelming ... silence for the most part. As the Los Angeles Times reports they all "sidestepped the issue."

"Everybody knows that there are a couple of 800-pound gorillas under the rug, but nobody wants to talk about them because that is not the route to the Oval Office," said economist Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute public policy center. "The situation is unsustainable in the long run, but the long run is in the future, and our political system operates very much in the present."

One reason for this "see no evil" approach to the issue is that no matter how you try and fix it, raising taxes are going to have to be part of the situation. And a politician would rather chew off his or her leg than say "raise taxes."

"You can't tell people, 'I'll never change Social Security and Medicare,' or 'I'll never raise taxes,' " said David M. Walker, former head of the congressional Government Accountability Office and a leading advocate of reforming entitlements. "If you take things off the table, it significantly undercuts the ability to get a deal."

Actually, Obama did say something on the issue, but it was a one-paragraph e-mailed statement that blamed the problem on "Washington's failure to overcome the special interests and pass health care reform that expands coverage and lower costs." While Obama said Medicare could be kept solvent by investing in "proven measures to improve the health of all Americans and reduce health care cost across the economy" he said nothing about the problem with Social Security.

Clinton Trip Official Says Bosnia Was Dangerous

Last night we received the following comment from retired Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, currently the director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. In 2000 during the Clinton presidency, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Ambassador/Special Negotiator responsible for conflicts in Eurasia and Co-Chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group. He served both the Clinton and Bush administrations.:

I accompanied the First Lady on this trip while serving as the Director for Southern Europe at the State Department. We had been warned shortly before landing in Bosnia of security concerns on the ground (although I do not recall whether the possible threat was snipers). Mrs. Clinton and her daughter were moved to the C-17's cockpit, it was suggested that staff sit on their flak jackets and our aircraft did conduct a rapid and sharp descent to land at Tuzla Air Base.

On the ground the 1st Armored Division's extraordinary security measures were readily visible, including strategically placed armored vehicles and Apache attack helicopters hovering just above the airfield to ensure our protection. While a greeting ceremony did take place on the tarmac, my recollection is that it was briefer than had been originally planned.

Continue reading "Clinton Trip Official Says Bosnia Was Dangerous" »

GOP Faces Problems With State Organizations

Sen. John McCain must be pleased that his rivals -- Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton -- are engaged in what amounts to a verbal knife fight because it gives him time to try and rebuild some of the state GOP organizations that he'll need to win in the fall. And Politico.com writes that he'll have a lot of work on his hands, as the party is still trying to deal with the aftermath of its losses to Democrats in 2006.

"In some of the largest, smallest, reddest and bluest states in the nation, many state Republican organizations are still reeling in the aftermath of the devastating 2006 election cycle, raising questions about how much grassroots help the state parties will be able to deliver to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain," write David Paul Kuhn and Charles Mahtesian for the site.

Republican state parties in New York and California are losing members since 2006 faster than they can count them. "We are dying at the box office," California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said. "We are not filling the seats."

But there are also problems in key states for the fall election like New Hampshire, Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan and Alaska.

In New Hampshire, Democrats out fund raised Republicans 4-1 in 2007. Democratic challenger and former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen is leading GOP Senator John Sununu by double-digits in the latest polls.

"After twelve years of being in power, you tend to get fat and lazy, and in some cases arrogant with respect to your positions," said Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican party. "There is no doubt that we have had people who have gotten caught up in both illegal activities and immoral activities and none of that helps the party as a whole. If you go back to 2006 most people would agree that not only did we lose our brand, that we damaged our brand significantly. We are clearly rebuilding."

Meanwhile Politico also reports that election officials are expecting a record turnout in the fall. Some are predicting that turn out in their states could hit 80 percent. High turnout tends to favor Democrats, but not always. In 2004 turnout was 61 percent and President Bush won.
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Update: In a further look at problems facing Republicans, The Hill reports that "Republican senators with millions of dollars in their campaign accounts have given little or nothing to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), despite its desperate pleas for cash funds." Meanwhile, Democratic Senators have given Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, hundreds of thousands of dollars from their campaign accounts.

Clinton Attacks Obama and Wright Relationship

Sen. Hillary Clinton went full bore into the controversy over the relationship between Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Speaking to an editorial board at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, she said that she would have quit Wright's church over some of his comments. "He would not have been my pastor," said Clinton.

She said: "We don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives. We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend. Everyone will have to decide these matters for themselves. They are obviously very personal matters." She added that if Mr Wright had been her pastor, "the choice would be clear"

But Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo feels that Clinton mentioning Wright means the Wright scandal is nearing its end as an effective weapon against Obama. (For instance, the conservative Wrightapalooza on Fox News is beginning to have a tired air about it -- Chris Wallace of FoxNews even criticized his fellow right-wing pundits for 'Obama bashing '.) When a politician has to bring up a problem, he writes, it means the air is coming out of it in the media. Marshall said he knew the minute that Republicans started talking about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, for instance, the worst was over and Clinton was home free.

Speaking of Ms. Lewinsky, Top of Ticket writes that Donna Brazile -- an uncommitted superdelegate of the Democratic National Convention and one of television's few black, female political pundits -- made an intriguing point about Clinton's attacks on Wright on CNN. "In short, Brazile provided a pointed reminder that some voters (African Americans, in particular, we would think) might recall that Wright did not turn on Clinton's husband during an hour of need for him." (Remember that photo of Wright shaking hands with President Clinton at prayer breakfast held during his Lewinsky problems?)

"Brazile's none-too-subtle point: There's a potential downside to turning away, with nary a forgiving nod, from those who once stood by you."

Brazile continued speaking on the subject Wednesday morning, telling ABC's Good Morning America that she felt Clinton had gone too far with her comments.

Interestingly, the paper with which she did the interview, the Tribune-Review, is owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, a long time foe of the Clintons and part of what Sen. Clinton once described as a "vast right-wing conspiracy." The paper ran stories for year that indicted the Clintons were somehow involved in the death of White House counsel Vince Foster, who committed suicide in July of 1993.

Obama Related to Six Presidents, Clinton to Madonna

Ah, geneology.

We already know that Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney are distantly related. But now the Daily Telegraph reports that the New England Historic Genealogical Society says that Barack Obama is related to someone he might find a bit more palatable - actor Brad Pitt. But that's not the best of it - the society says that Obama is also distantly related through his mother to six U.S. presidents -- from both sides of the aisle. (One of those presidents is George W. Bush, who is said to be a 10th cousin.)

And to top it all off, Obama is related to one of the greatest statesmen of all time, Winston Churchill.

How's that for a family tree?

"His kinships are across the political spectrum," said Christopher Child, a genealogist who traced the family histories of US politicians for the three-year long project.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has a pretty good one too, although from more of an entertainment angle. Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, has familial ties to the singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette, as well as the author Jack Kerouac. (Well, Clinton is always "On the Road" these days, right?)

And speaking of Brad Pitt. Clinton is distantly related to his significant other, actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie.

The society said it had a harder time tracing the family tree of Sen. John McCain because records on his relatives were not as complete as those for Clinton and Obama.

March 25, 2008

Why a Poll's "Margin of Error" Really Matters

This is a really informative piece about polling and why things like "the margin of error" really matter.

Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com looks at the Gallup Daily Tracking poll and shows that despite all the news of the past six weeks - Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright, the Michigan and Florida problems and Clinton's misspeaking on Bosnia, basically nothing has changed in the polls.

Over the past six weeks, the Gallup Daily Tracking poll shows that Obama leads Clinton 46% to 45% - a statistical dead heat. But what about that day last week when Clinton lead Obama 49% to 42%? Or early March when Obama lead 50% to 42%?

Remember that margin of error thing?

"As some of you may remember, most political surveys (including Gallup) calculate the margin of error using a 95% confidence level. That assumption means that we should expect results slightly outside the margin of error for one poll in twenty."

Ah, but there is more to it than that. Blumenthal does a great job of comparing different polls, their variations and results, and how it all works. It's really worth a read.

The take away? Since Super Tuesday, it really is a statistical dead heat and anything else is, as Blumenthal describes it, random noise.

Update: It might be close nationally, but it's not close in Pennsylvania or North Carolina. Clinton leads Obama by double-digits in most Keystone State polls. But a new Public Policy Polling poll shows Obama with a 21-point lead in North Carolina, 55% to 34%. Apparently his speech on the war in Fayetteville last week got a lot of coverage and helped him, particularly with white voters.

The pollsters interviewed 673 likely Democratic voters, and the polls margin of error was +/- 3.8 percent.

Nancy Reagan Endorses Sen. John McCain

It isn't a big endorsement, but it could help him with some conservatives.

Nancy Regan, the wife of the late President Ronald Reagan, has endorsed Sen. John McCain's bid for the presidency.

"John McCain has been a good friend for over thirty years," Reagan says in a statement. "My husband and I first came to know him as a returning Vietnam War POW, and were impressed by the courage he had shown through his terrible ordeal. I believe John's record and experience have prepared him well to be our next president."

Well, not maybe all of those 30 years. McCain wrote in his memoirs that he and Nancy became estranged after his ex-wife Carol went to work as Reagan's personal assistant. But NPR's Scott Horsley e-mails that Reagan and McCain have reconciled and that the former Carol McCain has generally been politically supportive of her ex-husband, refusing requests from political opponents to speak out against him.

Reagan said she normally doesn't endorse the candidate until after the convention, but it was obvious that McCain was the Republican Party's nominee.

McCain aides say that McCain will travel to California to get Reagan's blessing.

Clinton Adviser: Not Letting MI, FL Votes Count Insulting

Michigan and Florida have certainly not gone away as campaign issues, and the Clinton camp brought them up in their daily "state of the race" conference call. Howard Wolfson, the campaign's communications director said not allowing the votes of Michigan and Florida amounts to "slapping these people in the face."

Neither Michigan or Florida look headed towards "do-overs", so it's important to the Clinton campaign to push for the votes to be counted. And the Clinton camp points the finger squarely at the Obama campaign for "sabotaging" any chance of a revote. "Sen. Obama is turning the Audacity of Hope into the audacity of nope," ... said Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign.

The Obama campaign argues that certain complications in a re-vote in Michigan or Florida have slowed the process, and that they are open to finding a compromise. But the Clinton campaign says that is nonsense.

But there seems to be a growing sense that with the remote chance of revotes in the two states, and the Democratic National Committee sticking to its guns about the rules, the Clinton camp may be losing any chance of getting any delegates from the states. Adam C. Smith, The St. Petersburg (Florida) Times Political Editor wrote Monday it's time for the Clinton camp to stop blaming Obama and sit down to negotiations with the other side.

The Year of Being Shocked at Opponents' Comments

Every now and then you read a piece that just makes you say 'Gee, I wish I had written that." Peter Baker has one today in the Washington Post's The Trail blog, "The Campaign Season of Taking Offense."

While the Democratic primary started out talking about substantive issues most of the time, these issues too often get occasional mention while the main story had become how offended the Clinton or Obama campaigns are at the statements of various surrogates, aides, associates, the candidates themselves, their pastors, their comedians, etc. The daily conference calls from both camps all too often deteriorated into even more name calling about how nasty the other side had been (oh, and never mind what the folks on our side said, that was a completely different matter).

Baker puts it this way:

"Somehow an election campaign that in theory is centered on the Big Issues of our day, such as war and recession, instead has turned into a sticks-and-stones contest. Instead of pressing each other on how they would fix health care or fight terrorism, the candidates are busy crying gotcha every time someone on the other side says something offensive or even something that could be perceived as offensive. And the shock, shock over the things being said on the campaign trail isn't even over what the candidates themselves are saying, but what their supporters are saying."

He calls this year's Democratic election campaign the "Apology Tour." He notes that politics always involves name-calling but it seems to be reaching a fever pitch this year. "The eager embrace of victimhood may seem like a questionable campaign tactic, but everyone wants to keep the other camp on the defensive, portraying opponents as supposed purveyors of politics as usual," writes Baker

And it's not just politicians that are being asked to apologize. If a candidate believes the media is swaying too much in one direction or another, the hue and cry is raised. Only this morning, during a conference call with the Clinton campaign about Michigan and Florida, one member of the media who was pushing too hard (apparently) about who was really responsible for the problem was accused of bias. "Let's drop the double standards, sir," he was told by a Clinton official. (Obama officials can be snippy too.)

The only person who can really be happy with all of this is Sen. John McCain.

PS: All Things Considered has a great piece about the care and feeding of surrogates asked to appear on behalf of candidates. Kevin Maddox, former press secretary for Republican Mitt Romney's campaign, put it best when he said that surrogates get in trouble when they forget that they are not pundits being asked to comment on the campaign, but are being asked to represent the candidate.

Obama Posts Taxes Online, Wants Clinton To Do Same

Senator Barack Obama Tuesday posted his complete tax returns for 2000-2006 online at his campaign site. The returns include all schedules. The Obama campaign urged Senator Clinton to join Obama in making her returns public.

Full disclosure on Senator Clinton's part is especially important because she recently loaned $5 million to her campaign, shortly after revelations surfaced that her husband was to receive a $20 million payout from Yucaipa, a supermarket holding company that invests in tax shelters in the Cayman Islands ...
"Senator Clinton recently claimed that she's 'the most transparent figure in public life,' yet she's dragging her feet in releasing something as basic as her annual tax returns," said Obama Communications Director Robert Gibbs. "Senator Clinton can't claim to be vetted until she allows the public the opportunity to see her finances -- particularly with respect to any investment in tax shelters."

Earlier this month, Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said she would release her taxes "on or around April 15."

Puerto Rico Moves Up Primary to June 1

In a Democratic presidential contest where it looks like every delegate will count, the Democratic Party on Monday approved Puerto Rico's proposal to scrap its caucus and hold a presidential primary on June 1.

The Associated Press reports that there are 55 delegates at stake - only Indiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania offer a bigger take. In the past, Puerto Rico held caucuses, but P.R. Democratic Chairman Roberto Prats says that reflected the fact that the Democratic nominee had already been decided by that time. But now Puerto Ricans have a chance to influence the outcome.

"Now it's different," Prats told the Democratic National Committee's rules panel in a conference call. "This is the first time in decades that Puerto Rico will be participating in an event of this magnitude."

Imagine if it all came down to Puerto Rico to decide the final pledged delegate outcome.

Carville Sticks By His Judas Remark About Richardson

Democratic strategist James Carville said he would not back away or apologize for his comment comparing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to Judas for his "betrayal" of Hillary Clinton when he announced his support for Barack Obama.

"I was quoted accurately and in context, and I was glad to give the quote and I was glad I gave it," Carville told the New York Times. "I'm not apologizing, I'm not resigning, I'm not doing anything."

Interestingly, Chris Reed at the San Diego Union-Tribune's SignOnSanDiego said he found Carville's comment amusing. But he noted that while Richardson may not be of much help to Sen. Clinton at the moment, he has helped President Clinton in particular at difficult moments. He points to a CNN story from 1998 about how Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr issued subpoenas for documents to then-U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson and the entire U.S. mission because Richardson had offered a certain young intern named Monica Lewinsky a job as a junior assistant doing public outreach and cabinet agency assignments.

Top of the Ticket at the Los Angeles Times said it like the remark about the Judas comment from political strategist former Bush adviser-now-critic Matthew Dowd on "Good Morning America." Dowd had this to say: "Probably fortunate for Bill Richardson it wasn't Fourth of July because he'd probably be Benedict Arnold today."

Carville swears he's not doing any work for the Clintons. But his claims took a bit of beating in February, when a room full of nosy Canadian journalists noticed that he left his personal itinerary open in full view of everyone in the room. And Adam Radwanski of the Globe and Mail writes, "Now, maybe there's some other explanation for it. But personally, if I'd been vigorously denying a role in Hillary Clinton's campaign (beyond financial contributions), I'd probably be especially protective of that itinerary if its front page referred to participating in an 'HRC strategy call.' "

Maybe he was just dropping by to say hello.

Obama Hangs Much of Candidacy on Chicago Speech

It was the first anti-war speech in Chicago, held before the war even started. On Oct. 2, 2002, then Illinois state senator Barack Obama stood in front of a crowd at the Federal Plaza and said Saddam Hussein was a butcher but that he was not an imminent threat to the U.S. He added that going to war in Iraq was a dumb idea. And he predicted a U.S. occupation of undetermined cost, length and consequences.

And NPR's Don Gonyea reports that almost no one noticed.

Bill Glauber, who covered the rally for the Chicago Tribune, refers to himself as the guy who didn't quote Obama. He said he was there to see what the Rev. Jesse Jackson was going to say. He didn't even mention Obama -- then a little known political figure in Chicago -- in his story.

There is some disagreement from organizers over how important the speech was at the time. Marilyn Katz, one of the event's organizers, recalls the audience's reaction. "The crowd was pretty much transfixed," she said. But Juan Andrade Jr., president of the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute said there was nothing special about the speech. "We were just glad that he was one of those who was willing to step up at a time when very few people seemed to be willing to do that."

His rival Sen. Hillary Clinton dismisses Obama's early opposition to the war, saying that "all he did was give a speech." Obama counters that the speech demonstrated his sound judgment, and that it showed the kind of political courage a president needs.

In an age of YouTube there is no video of the speech. There are only snippets of audio. The Obama campaign has had to reenact portions of the speech in order to use in in campaign ads. But he did give it, and Obama benefitted from word-or-mouth about the speech from the educated, liberal, mostly white crowd that attended the rally in his run for the Senate in 2004.

Clinton Calls For Federal Steps in Housing Crisis

Sen. Hillary Clinton Monday called for more federal intervention to to help Americans with the ongoing housing and credit crisis. NPR's Scott Horsley reports that Clinton is calling for a more aggressive plan wherein the government would step in to buy at-risk mortgages.

The Boston Globe reports that she cast the financial crisis as a "fresh test of her leadership ability."

"We need a president who is ready on day one to be commander-in-chief of our economy," Clinton said, echoing language she has used to question Democratic rival Barack Obama's fitness to handle international and military crises.

"The New York Senator, who a year ago proposed a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures and more recently a five-year freeze on interest rates, acknowledged that such action could be described as a bailout. But she cast her proposal as a populist parallel to last week's relief for investment banker Bear Stearns by the Federal Reserve, saying 'it's now time for equally aggressive action to help families avoid foreclosure.' "

Her plan would create a $30 billion stimulus that would help homeowners buy and resell foreclosed homes or turn them into apartments, as well as help cities and towns with lost taxes.

The Obama campaign said that Clinton's call for a "working group" comprised of financial bigwigs like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, and Alan Greenspan to study a proposal to restructure risky mortgages resembles one that Obama made almost a year ago. But his original proposal called for a much more diverse group "not just some of the same people who helped to create these problems," the campaign said in an e-mail.

March 24, 2008

Clinton Campaign Uses Comments to Raise Funds

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the only thing worse than raising political funds is not raising political funds at all.

So the Clinton camp today seized the opportunity presented to it over the past couple of days by Obama supporters to raise money from supporters. The campaign sent out an e-mail from campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe late this afternoon to supporters (and to the media) using the comments of Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak (who compared Bill Clinton to Sen. Joe McCarthy) to ask the faithful to donate.

Here is just a small sample of the words they have used to describe Hillary and her campaign: "disingenuous," "divisive," "untruthful," "dishonest," and much more.
Well I'm not going to stand for it, and neither should you. There's no better way to fight back than to show your support for our campaign in the face of these attacks.

No comments about the Judas comparison to Bill Richardson.

Obama Girl Returns With a New Video

She's b-a-a-a-c-c-c-c-k-k-k-k.

And Obama Girl -- the totally manufactured supporter of Sen. Barack Obama named Amber Lee Ettinger -- wants Hillary gone.

"And although Obama's gonna win it/you're sorta kinda stayin' in it," she sings.

"He's got the delegates locked down, let him Ba-rock this, 'cause he ain't just another Mondale, John Kerry or Dukakis."

"These attacks are insane...they just help John McCain..."

OK.

At least it's better than stains on a blue dress, Joe McCarthy comparisons and Judas analogies.

Here is it (It only seems to be available on ABC at the moment.)

Fred Thompson Returns to Hollywood

People seemed to like former Tenn. Sen. Fred Thompson. And he had the conservative credentials many Republicans wanted. But whether it was his late entry into the GOP presidential race, his laid-back style of campaigning or his fund raising problems, he never really took off with GOP primary voters.

So he's doing what he knows how to do best - taking up acting again.

The Los Angeles Times' Top of the Ticket blog reports that the William Morris Agency will represent Thompson.

Thompson most recently appeared as district attorney Arthur Branch on "Law & Order" and has played authority figures in the films "The Hunt For Red October," "Die Hard II" and "In the Line of Fire."

Thompson dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Jan. 22.

The Campaign Spot at NRO hopes that Arthur Branch will challenge Jack McCoy for District Attorney on Law and Order.

Clinton May Have Misspoke About Bosnia Landing

In a conference call with reporters this morning, the Clinton campaign said that Sen. Hillary Clinton may have misspoke about her landing under sniper fire in Tuzla, Bosnia.

Just last week, Clinton spoke about her experience landing under sniper fire there. But as the News Blog noted on Friday, the Washington Post Fact Checker blog found a picture that showed her kissing a small child on her arrival at the Tuzla airport, and then later video was found of the same scene.

While the Clinton campaign said she may have misspoken, deputy communications director Phil Singer said it was important to note that at the time no first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt had gone into an area still considered a combat zone. Clinton visited several spots outside the Tuzla area that were considered much more dangerous than the one shown in the video.

And as a piece in the Post describes today, both Obama and Clinton are guilty of trying to take a little more credit than is due for legislation or for their role in particular situations.

Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian Announces Run for Congress

In an earlier posting on the News Blog, we noted that Dr. Jack Kevorkian had taken out papers to run for public office in Michigan, but we couldn't say for sure which office until he actually filed the papers. Well, it appears that Kervorkian got at least the minimum 3,000 signatures he needed, and he will run for Congress in Michigan's 9th district.

The retired 79-year old pathologist said he helped at least 130 people die from 1990 to 1998. In 1999 he was convicted of second-degree murder and served eight years of a 10-25 year sentence.

He called his candidacy audacious. "But it is the most important thing in my life right now."

If elected, he said his main priority will be promoting the little-known Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the rights it guarantees. The Ninth Amendment protects rights not explicitly specified elsewhere in the Constitution, and Kevorkian says he interprets it as protecting a person's choice to die through assisted suicide or to avoid wearing a seat belt.

The seat, considered a safe Republican seat, is currently held by Rep. Joe Knollenberg, who is seeking re-election. Gary Peters, a former state senator and state lottery commissioner, is running for the Democratic nomination. Michigan's statewide non-presidential primaries are on Aug. 5.

Former GOP Presidential Adviser Endorses Obama

He himself admits that it might not be an endorsement of any meaning - unlike the one made last Friday by New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. But Douglas Kmiec says it may be of note is that it is being made by a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents -- Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Kmiec, a former adviser to the Romney campaign, wrote in Slate.com on Sunday that he arrived at his decision to back Obama because he takes Obama "at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and to return United States to that company of nations committed to human rights."

Kmiec, a Catholic, say he still believes in limited government, the right to life, the traditional family model and that the separation of church and state doesn't always mean the complete exclusion of religion from the public sphere.

"In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.

"No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen."

Turns out that some of his Republican friends do disagree with his position. Paul Mirengoff writes at the conservative PowerLine blog writes that Kmiec's endorsement of Obama is "one of the most vacuous statements I've ever read." He adds "why conservatives should vote for a candidate who probably respects conservative views, instead of a candidate who more often than not agrees with them, Kmiec never explains."

Sen. Larry Craig to Keep Promise to Retire

When he was in the middle of his airport bathroom sex-sting scandal, Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig said that while he would not resign, he would also not re-offer for his seat in the fall. On Friday, Craig kept his word.

The Hill reports that Craig didn't file for reelection by Idaho's deadline Friday. Craig's political career had been in doubt since last August when Roll Call reported he had allegedly solicited sex from an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation to crack down on alleged gay sexual liaisons in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport's bathrooms. Craig denied all charges and resisted pressure to step down immediately.

The passing of Friday's 5:00 p.m. deadline brings to a close a career in elected office that began with Craig's election to the Idaho state Senate in 1974 and all but clears the way for Idaho Lt. Gov. Jim Risch (R) to take his seat next year in the strongly Republican state where President Bush defeated Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) 68 percent to 30 percent in the last presidential contest.

McCain: US "Can't Do Whatever it Wants, Whenever it Wants"

During the brouhaha last week over Sen. John McCain's Iraq mix-up over the role that Iran plays training Shiite, not al-Qaida, extremists, there may have been even more interesting material overlooked.

In a dramatic departure from the Bush administration's pre-emptive strike policy, McCain told readers of Le Monde in France and the Financial Times in England that "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 that 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 also be willing to be persuaded by them.

McCain also said that Americans and Europeans need to get serious about "get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand over a much-diminished world to our grandchildren" and he proposed a succesor to the Kyoto treaty that would deal with the problem in "an economically responsible manner."

The Swamp notes that these are positions that he has articulated before, and is part of his plan to present himself overseas as a president who could repair America's tattered image abroad - while still supporting the U.S. presence in Iraq. And while these positions may also help him with moderates Republicans and independents at home, they are not likely to win him any more friends in conservative circles.

Now word from the president or vice president on what appears to be statements in direct opposition to positions they have taken in the past.

Tough Times for K Street Lobbyists in DC

This story has the feeling of something only people inside the beltway would care about a great deal, but we pass it along because the reality of the situation is that "K Street Lobbyists" as they are called in DC, affect legislation that touches every American. (Not to mention many people in foreign countries.)

Well, it turns out it's a bit of tough times for lobbyists. Not that bad, mind you -- lobbyists will still pull in $2.9 billion this year. But thanks to a variety of scandals where lobbyists were behind the implosion of several political careers (can you say Bob Ney or Duke Cunningham?), the National Journal reports that "lobbyists and lobbying firms are now targets as never before."

In 2007, Congress passed tough reforms that cracked down on many of K Street's most hallowed practices. Gone are the days when lobbyists could buy meals and gifts for lawmakers and their staffers and could finance entertainment, corporate jets, and junkets. Lobbyists and their firms must now file three times the number of reports with Congress than in years past. Even more ominous, the new law exposes lobbyists and their employers to potential prison time and hefty fines if they fail to follow the regulations.
As if that were not enough, the lobbying class -- long derided outside the Beltway as the scourge of Washington -- is a convenient punching bag in the presidential campaign. After winning the Wisconsin primary on February 19, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., declared in a victory speech, "Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die... because lobbyists crush them with their money and influence."

But as the article points out, all three of the remaining presidential contenders have top lobbyists working for them. And while there are more rules, there is also more lobbying taking place than ever before.

Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same ...

11:40 AM ET | 03-24-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Hillary Clinton's Iraq Vote Looms Over Her Campaign

It might not seem it at the moment -- with sounds of Jeremiah Wright, Florida and Michigan and questions about how "conservative" John McCain is rebounding around the media echo chamber -- but the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the Iraq war.

So it's appropriate today -- as word arrives of the 4000th U.S. casualty in Iraq -- to look at the candidates and their early positions on the war.

Today, Morning Edition looks at Sen. Hillary Clinton's Senate vote to authorize the war and how it has come to shadow her campaign. (The other candidates will be along later in the week.)

It's been almost six years since the "drumbeat" about a war in Iraq first started to sound. As NPR's David Greene reports, there was a lot of pressure on Democrats -- and Clinton in particular -- to support it. When it came time for her to speak on the Senate floor, she said her New York constituents were on her mind.

Continue reading "Hillary Clinton's Iraq Vote Looms Over Her Campaign" »

Aide's Remarks Knocked But Obama Up in Polls

The story on the weekend was the number of nasty shots the Clinton and Obama campaigns took at each other and their supporters.

First, prominent supporters of both the Obama and Clinton camps criticized the Illinois senator's campaign for allowing one of his campaign co-chairs to make remarks that seemed to compare former President Bill Clinton to the late controversial Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

In Charlotte last Friday, President Clinton said: "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," which seemed to imply that Obama didn't love his country. Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak first said that these remarks were divisive and said Clinton should know about being the target of this kind of smear, considering he was attacked during his 1992 campaign for dodging the draft. Later, he made the McCarthy comparison: "I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it."

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, an Obama supporter, said he didn't think President Clinton was suggesting Obama was unpatriotic in his remarks. "But the point here ... is that the campaign has gotten too negative --- too many personal attacks, too much negativity that is not resounding with the public," he said.

But Richardson was also the subject of some personal attacks over the weekend as well. Long time Clinton supporter James Carville accused him of being a "Judas" for backing Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Continue reading "Aide's Remarks Knocked But Obama Up in Polls" »

March 21, 2008

McCain's Loan Lawyer

Republican John McCain's campaign fundraising remained flat last month. New reports show that he collected 11 million dollars in February. That's about 1/3 as much as Hillary Clinton raised, and just 1/5 as much as Clinton's Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

Throughout the race, McCain has been dogged by fundraising problems. Last fall, he got a bank loan to keep his campaign afloat. That loan raised lots of questions.

Fidelity and Trust Bank, in Maryland, gave McCain's campaign a 4-million-dollar line of credit... later expanded to 5 million. Questions arose, and the bank tried to calm the waters with a reassuring letter from its outside counsel.

This lawyer for the bank was Scott Thomas, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission who left in 2006.

Public records show that, just weeks before the bank made the loan, Thomas had been doing legal work for McCain's political operation -- not for the presidential campaign itself, but for a political action committee connected to McCain.

That committee -- Straight Talk America -- was what's called a leadership PAC. It raised money for McCain to use supporting other candidates and traveling around the country -- before he announced for president.

Straight Talk America paid Thomas' law firm 77 hundred dollars last November 16th, two days after the date of the loan to McCain's campaign committee.

Continue reading "McCain's Loan Lawyer" »

Media Ask "The Beginning of the End for Clinton?"

A "drumbeat" has started to sound in the media the past week with the speech on race by Sen. Barack Obama and with the announcement of Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama - "this could be the beginning of the end for Clinton."

Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen at Politico.com wrote today that "One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning."

Former Republican and Democratic strategist (in fact, he worked for the Clintons) Dick Morris said on Fox News yesterday that "First of all, he is the Democratic Party nominee. There is no way that Hillary Clinton is going to either beat him in elected delegates or persuade the superdelegates. He is the Democratic nominee." (Morris did add that he thinks the Wright issue will sink Obama in the fall.)

Jack Cafferty, of the Cafferty File on CNN, used the phrase when talking about the Richardson endorsement and the delegate count. Specifically, Cafferty said Richardson's status as a special delegate gives other special delegates the excuse to come out and support Obama now, despite the Wright controversy.

Toby Harnden, The Daily Telegraph's U.S. editor since 2006, writes that Clinton has "no realistic path" to the nomination. "Unless Obama is, as the now-jailed former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards once put it, 'caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy' she cannot overcome his pledged delegate lead."

Slate's Trailhead blog looks at the different ways that Clinton could catch up and pass Obama but then adds, "All this being a long way of saying, Hillary's path to the nomination is not 'narrow.' It's barricaded. Yet still there seems to be a hesitation among the media to declare Clinton dead. Maybe it's her zombielike ability to rise again -- first in New Hampshire, then in Nevada, then most recently in Texas and Ohio. But people have to understand there will be no knockout blow, no head shot. Rather it will be a long, slow exit that causes pain to everyone involved."

But there are also two things to consider: 1) endorsements really haven't mattered in the past. Kennedy endorsed Obama, and he still lost Mass. on Super Tuesday; 2) Clinton is way behind in pledged delegates but what about all of those superdelegates who may have benefited from the Clinton legacy in the past ... and who will want to benefit from them in the future?

So what do you think? Is the end nigh? Does the Richardson announcement help Obama with superdelegates? What about Clinton's ability to fight back again and again? (And hey, isn't she leading in a lot of the polls right now?) Don't forget you can also voice your opinion in our GetMyVote section.

Crist May Not Be the VP For McCain Afterall

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has been labeled as a potential running mate for Republican presidential nominee John McCain. And why not? He's the popular governor of a key state in the general election, a state seen as one of the handful that will make or break presidential campaigns.

But a new St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 poll shows that despite Crist's bipartisan popularity in the Sunshine State, it doesn't translate into support for a McCain/Crist ticket in the fall. Crist would only provide modest help in keeping the state in Republican hands in November.

Three percent said Crist as a running mate would make them "much more likely" to vote for McCain, 6 percent said "somewhat more likely" and 87 percent said it would have no effect.

"There is no reason to expect from this information that Charlie Crist adds anything to (McCain's) ticket in terms of winning Democrats in Florida," said pollster Tom Eldon of Schroth, Eldon & Associates, which conducted the poll.

Not only that, but the poll shows that McCain is not that popular a draw among Democrats, which has long been touted as one of his strengths. "The poll shows 16 percent say they are at least somewhat likely to vote for McCain, which is in line with the 13 percent of Democrats who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and the 14 percent in 2004."

But the Crist people still think the matchup is a good idea.

"Gov. Crist has one of the highest approval ratings in the country, and his appeal extends to independent voters ..." state GOP spokeswoman Erin VanSickle said. "If you are looking for proof that Gov. Crist can deliver Florida for Sen. McCain, look no further than Jan. 29 ... that's exactly what he did."

Photo Shows Little Sniper Fire at Bosnia Airport

Sen. Hillary Clinton has been telling people that she remembered landing under "sniper fire" when she landed at Tuzla airport in Bosnia on March 25, 1996

"There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base," Clinton said in a speech at George Washington University on March 8. Clinton has been using the story to illustrate that President Clinton would often send her on dangerous trips.

But a photo taken that day shows that maybe it wasn't such a dangerous trip after all, and that the recent comments of the comedian Sinbad who accompanied her on the trip (to the effect that what they were thinking about during the landing was where were they going to eat next) might be closer to the truth.

Then-first lady Hillary Clinton kisses a local child during her arrival at the Tuzla, Bosnia airport on March 25, 1996

The Washington Post's The Fact Checker blog reports that there are "numerous problems with Clinton's version of events."

As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton Peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. Air Force base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Force base was not Hillary, but Bill, on January 13, 1996.
Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including the Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the First Lady. "As a former AP wire service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened," said Pomfret.

Here is video from CBS News showing the arrival but no hint of trouble.

The Post's blog awarded her "four pinocchios" out of a possible five for the story.

FactCheck.org: Clinton Deserves Credit for SCHIP

Last week the Boston Globe ran an article that questioned Sen. Hillary Clinton's claims that she deserved credit for helping to expand federal health insurance for millions of children. Among the people the Globe interviewed was Sen. Orrin Hatch, who along with Sen. Ted Kennedy, actually did get the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) bill through the Senate. Hatch said that while it was obvious that Clinton cared a great deal about children's health, she didn't have all that much to do with the actual process.

But now FactCheck.org has looked into the situation and its researchers find that "she deserves plenty of credit, both for the passage of the SCHIP legislation and for pushing outreach efforts to translate the law into reality."

Among the people FactCheck.org talked to about Clinton's involvement was Adam Clymer, former chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, who covered the legislative maneuvering and also wrote about it in a 1999 book, "Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography."

Adam Clymer: "On balance, I would say of course Kennedy and Hatch deserve most of the credit, but Hillary helped by making sure the Administration stuck with the $24 billion in [the Senate-House] conference. She didn't write the legislation but she played a significant role in getting it passed."

Other accounts at the time the legislation was passed and since give Clinton substantial credit. The pro-Republican Washington Times newspaper credited (or perhaps more accurately, blamed) Hillary Clinton for the program in a 1997 article. The paper said it had obtained documents from 1993 showing that the White House "plotted" to push a "Kids First" insurance program if Mrs. Clinton's universal health care proposal failed.

Clinton Campaign: Rice Says Her File Breached Too

The Clinton campaign says that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told Sen. Hillary Clinton that her passport file was breached in 2007. The campaign says Clinton will be briefed on the breach.

Last night, news emerged that two state department contractors had been fired, and one suspended, for looking at Sen. Barack Obama's passport files. Rice apologized to Obama personally today.

--
Update: Two's company, but now it appears there is a crowd of candidates who've had their passport files breached. The Associated Press reports that all three of the remaining presidential candidates have had their passport files breached. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the breaches of McCain and Clinton's passport files were not discovered until Friday, after officials were made aware of the privacy breach regarding Obama's records and a separate search was conducted.

The suspended employee who viewed Obama's file also looked at McCain's. "We are reviewing our options with respect to that person and his employment status," McCormack said.

Further Update: NBC's David Shuster is reporting that there were three different types of breaches.

(1) Fall 2007. A training exercise last fall involved somebody typing in Hillary Clinton's name... The person involved was not fired.
(2-a) January 9, 2008. A contractor looked at the passport file of Barack Obama. The supervisor felt it was a firing offense. The contractor was fired. But the immediate supervisor didn't notify officials outside office of consular affairs.

(2-b) February 21, 2008. Another contractor looked at Obama's passport file. Supervisor felt it was a firing offense. The contractor was fired. The immediate supervisor didn't notify officials outside office of consular affairs.

(3) March 14, 2008. A third contractor accessed Obama's passport file and McCain's passport file. Supervisor felt it was not a firing offense. The contractor suspended. The immediate supervisor didn't notify officials outside office of consular affairs.

Appeals Court Tosses Suit Over Florida's Delegates

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has dismissed a federal lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee over the party's decision to strip Florida of its delegates to the national convention. But it left the door open for possible further legal action.

Florida voter Victor DiMaio filed the suit in 2007 -- before the actual vote in January, 2008. He claimed that the DNC's decision to strip Florida of its delegates -- because it has moved its primary to an earlier date -- violated the 14th amendment's equal protection clause.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that "the 11th Circuit said DiMaio's case 'raises a number of interesting and potentially significant questions concerning the impact of the Equal Protection Clause on an individual's right to vote in a primary election,' but ultimately the three-judge panel agreed with a federal district judge in Tampa who ruled last fall that DiMaio lacked standing to bring the suit."

But the court left the door open for DiMaio to amend his suit and carry on his challenge to the DNC decision.

It has to do with when he files his original suit. At that time, he had not yet voted in the Florida primary, and so the court ruled he did not have standing. But now that DiMaio has voted, he could try again.

Rev. Wright Met With President Clinton in 1998

The Clinton campaign is accusing the Obama camp of playing dirty politics after circulating a photo of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright meeting with President Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast in the White House in 1998.

Wright, the former pastor of Sen. Barack Obama's church in Chicago, has generated enormous controversy for Obama this week because of comments made about the United States in past sermons.

The picture, which shows Clinton shaking hands with Wright, was posted on The New York Times Web site

"Less than 48 hours after calling for a high-minded conversation on race, the Obama campaign is peddling photos of an occasion when President Clinton shook hands with Rev. Wright," a Clinton campaign spokesman said. "To be clear, President Clinton took tens of thousands of photos during his eight years as president."

Reuters reports that Bill Burton, communications director for the Obama campaign, confirmed that he had circulated the photo.

"After their top surrogates pushed this storyline, and Senator Clinton's campaign outlined this as a central strategy in her plan to overturn the will of Democratic voters, I can see why they wouldn't want a photo out there that shows the kind of hypocrisy we've all come to expect from their campaign," Burton said in an e-mail.

Gov. Bill Richardson To Endorse Obama

It took Bill Richardson a while to make up his mind, but you could also argue that his endorsement could not come at a better time for Sen. Barack Obama.

Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and the Democratic Party's leading Hispanic politician, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a "once-in-a- lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's international leadership. Obama and his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton have both sought Richardson's endorsement and his backing of Obama is a big blow to the Clinton campaign.

He served as ambassador to the U.N. and as secretary of the Energy Department during the Clinton administration. Last month, Richardson and former President Clinton watched the Super Bowl together at the governor's residence in Santa Fe.

"I believe [Obama] is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime leader that can bring our nation together and restore America's moral leadership in the world," Richardson said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. "As a presidential candidate, I know full well Sen. Obama's unique moral ability to inspire the American people to confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad in a spirit of bipartisanship and reconciliation."

Richardson will endorse Obama at an appearance with him this afternoon in Portland, Oregon.

The other shoe waiting to drop is the endorsement of former Senator and candidate John Edwards, who has not indicated who he will support yet.
--

Update: In his endorsement speech today, Richardson specifically cited Obama's speech on race Tuesday as a reason for his endorsement.

"Earlier this week, an extraordinary American gave a historic speech. Senator Barack Obama addressed the issue of race with the eloquence and sincerity and decency and optimism we have come to expect of him. He did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths. Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility."

Here are Richardson's entire remarks.

John McCain Looks Harder at Public Financing

Is Sen. John McCain thinking about running his presidential campaign using public financing?

McCain has hinted in the past he would like to do so as long as his Democratic opponent did as well -- as a Senator he has been a proponent of public financing. But earlier this month, McCain took the first step on his own, filing papers with the Federal Election Commission to create a separate account that would enable the public money -- about $84 million for a presidential campaign -- to go further.

McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker, however, told Politico.com that creating the new account is not a move toward public financing. "This is a procedural move," she said, intended "to give the campaign as many options as possible."

While his Democratic opponents have been setting fundraising records, McCain has had only modest success with his own efforts. Using public funds has two advantages: he could focus on campaigning rather than trying to raise money; and the public relations advantage for him with voters, particularly independents, who would like the presidential race not turn into a mad dash for cash.

The disadvantage, of course, will be that his Democratic opponent won't use public financing -- mostly likely because of the relative ease with which Democrats have raised money this election cycle. That's why the McCain camp is calling the opening of the FEC account a "contingency."

March 20, 2008

State Dept. Workers Fired for Violating Obama's Files

The Washington Times reports that two state department employees were "fired recently and a third disciplined for improperly accessing electronic personal data on Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama" Bush administration officials said.

The Associated Press reports that spokesman Sean McCormack Thursday night confirmed instances of what he called "imprudent curiosity" by the State Department employees. The employees in question were all contract workers. McCormack said their efforts did not appear to be linked to any political campaign or group. The breaches occured Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton sent out an e-mail statement this evening: "This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an Administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes. This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach."

Interestingly,a similar breached happened was 1992 when state department officials investigated Bill Clinton at a time when a rumor was circulating that he "had sought to renounce his citizenship to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford."
---
Update: The State Department reportedly waited 71 days to notify Sen. Barack Obama that someone has accessed his personal file. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that the Obama campaign is demanding an investigation. One of the problems with the situation is that senior officials in the state department were not informed about the breach by the contractors' supervisors. McCormack admitted he didn't know about it until a reporter asked him to explain what had happened.

The Justice Department and the FBI are looking into the breach.

Did Rendell, Corzine Hurt Clinton's Michigan Chances?

Did Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine -- both Hillary Clinton supporters -- undermine Clinton's chances to get Michigan to hold a do-over primary? That the question being asked over at the Washington Post's campaign blog, The Trail. Post reporter Dan Balz writes the two governors "have done Hillary Clinton no favors in her fight for the Democratic nomination. The neighboring governors ... set out to eliminate one obstacle to do-over votes in Florida and Michigan. Instead they ended up creating one."

Here's the long and the short of the idea. Democratic National Committee boss Howard Dean said he was sticking by the rules with Michigan and Florida ... but if someone could find "soft money" to pay for a do-over that might work. So the determined duo went to work. Corzine, a multi-millionaire, and Rendell, the former DNC chair himself, both knew who to call when looking for some bucks. And within a few days, they had lined up 10 donors to put up between $10-12 million for the primary.

Only one problem. Like Rendell and Corzine, eight of the ten donors were Clinton supporters -- five of whom had already given $100,000 or more to her campaign. (None were Obama donors.) And so is Gov. Jennifer Granholm, to whom they delivered the letter about the donors on Wednesday ... the same day Hillary Clinton came to the state to push the legislature to pass the do-over legislation that was favorable to her position. So as Balz writes, to the Obama camp -- whose approval was required for this to work -- it all "smacks of an inside job."

"Michigan officials bear considerable responsibility for the mess they have helped to create, and a revote is one way out, though that looks increasingly unlikely given the political stalemate," writes Balz. "But [then] Rendell and Corzine took matters into their own hands without thinking through the consequences. Their letter to Granholm creates the impression that a Michigan do-over would be Clinton-financed contest designed to save her candidacy."

McCain Staffer Suspended for Tweeting Video

The other day the News Blog mentioned a video, entitled "Is Obama Wright?", that attempts to tie Sen. Barack Obama to controversial African-America figures, as well as using recent statements made by his wife and former pastor, all set to the soundtrack of black rap group Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." It's a pretty blatant effort to make Sen. Barack Obama's "seem to be sputtering and unpatriotic" ... not to mention how it tries to make Obama's race an issue.

Apparently it was just too tempting for a McCain staffer to ignore. The Associated Press reports that the campaign today announced it had suspended a staffer who sent out the provocative video.

"The staffer, a low-level aide named Soren Dayton, sent out a link Thursday to the YouTube video, titled 'Is Obama Wright?' on the social messaging Web site Twitter. The campaign suspended him a few hours later, although it wouldn't say for how long."

"We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy," campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said. "He has been reprimanded by campaign leadership and suspended from the campaign."

Turns out the video is the work of Lee Habeeb, a former producer of the Laura Ingraham Show, a conservative talk program, according to Politico.com. Habeeb is the director of strategic content at Salem Radio Network, the conservative talk radio powerhouse that airs programs hosted by figures such as Bill Bennett and Hugh Hewitt

Last Chance For Do-Over in Michigan Primary

Chances for a do-over Democratic primary in Michigan looked slim Thursday, which is seen as the last day that an agreement could be reached to hold one. The Detroit Free Press reports that despite efforts on Wednesday by Sen. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Carl Levin and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, skeptics in the Obama campaign and in the Michigan legislature don't seem any more inclined to support current legislation.

The major obstacle appears to be a section of the legislation that would stop anyone who voted in the Republican primary from voting in the do-over Democratic primary. But many Democrats and independents did vote in the GOP primary -- they comprised almost 32 percent of those who voted -- because there was no contest on the Democratic side in January.

Meanwhile USAToday reports that a leading Democrat says the nomination should go to the candidate who has the most pledged delegates after the primary/caucus process is over. Former DNC chairman Roy Romer made the remark this morning at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

Romer, while reiterating that he hasn't taken a side, said the key should be the delegate count -- a standard that is likely to favor Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. He didn't pick up on a reporter's suggestion that the overall popular vote should matter, too. That's probably a disappointment to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign. Romer was a national co-chairman of her husband's presidential re-election campaign in 1996 and became general chairman of the DNC in January 1997, while Bill Clinton was president and the nation's leading Democrat.
"Any decision that goes against the delegate count is a difficult decision," Romer said. "The ultimate issue is who has the most delegates. I think anything that varies from that has a lot of risks to it. ... Math is very compelling." He added later: "You have to stay faithful to the rules you agreed on" at the beginning. "This is a delegate convention."

---
Update: The Michigan state Senate has adjourned without taking up a presidential primary bill, essentially ending Michigan's chances of holding a June 3 do-over Democratic election.

Clinton Records: Judge OKs Questioning of Archive Staff

It seems the ongoing drama (or lack thereof so far) over the release of Hillary Clinton's schedules and records as first lady could continue for a while.

The Associated Press reports that a federal judge Thursday "forced the National Archives to undergo questioning by a conservative group seeking the release of Hillary Rodham Clinton's telephone logs during her years as first lady. The telephone logs cover 20,000 pages."

In an unusual move, U.S. District Judge James Robertson authorized a lawyer for the group Judicial Watch to explore in coming weeks why the archives processes some requests before others. The archives will have to produce at least one witness to answer Judicial Watch's questions.
The Clinton presidential library has hundreds of pending requests for the release of records. On Wednesday, the archives disseminated more than 11,000 pages of Mrs. Clinton's daily calendars from her White House years.

The archives want to place on hold for a year the request from Judicial Watch to see the phone records ... before they would even start to think about how they would eventually release them. Justice Department officials believe the later process will take six to eight months.

Although he called Judicial Watch's request "hyperbolic," and "unusual," Robertson gave permission for the discovery after listening to a Justice Department lawyer try to explain the Byzantine release process.

McCain Adviser Rips the Religious Right

Sen. John McCain's relationship with the religious right has never been on solid ground. But it's certainly not going to get any better after one of his advisers this week said that the role of the religious right in the Republican Party is a serious problem.

On Monday, representatives of the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns spoke before the United Jewish Communities in D.C. The Nation reports that the McCain campaign sent former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger. And he, as they say in the Opus cartoon strip, departed the script when asked about McCain's relationship with the religious right.

On the Christian hard right, I live in Charlottesville now and I can't tell you I'm surrounded by it. I must tell you we fought it there, fought hard against it. There's no question that in the Republican Party it is a serious problem ... Among the hard-right conservatives in the Republican Party John McCain was, shall we say, less than enthusiastically received ... What you see is what you get. You are not going to see him moving to assuage the concerns of these conservatives.
The issues that have concerned the far right I don't see and I don't expect to see any changes. I know there will be some people in his entourage who will want to advocate for those changes, and again, I don't believe he will shift on those fundamental issues. For example, on abortion, he's clear, he's opposed. On one of the issues that upsets the far right, stem cell research, he is prepared to accept some of that, and that's something that upsets the far right. I could go on with these issues.

Shmuel Rosner of Rosner's Blog at Ha'aretz reported that Eagleburger also took a swipe at religious right favorite Rush Limbaugh (following up, it seems, on the one he took late last month).

Here's a video of Eagleburger's remarks provided by the Washington Post.

Clinton Documents: Not Much to See

There are 360 degrees in a circle and it looks like more than a few of them were used when the media and the campaigns examined yesterday's release of Sen. Hillary Clinton's daily schedules from when she was first lady.

The Obama campaign has put its own spin on the schedules this morning, sending out an e-mail noting that "Hillary Clinton's schedules as first lady have finally allowed for the actual vetting of her foreign policy experience (consistent absence during important moments), her undeniable advocacy for NAFTA (at least five meetings to promote it) and a real look at how much work she did to push the Family and Medical Leave Act (none that can be discerned). As for 3:00 AM phone calls, it doesn't even appear there were even any 3 PM foreign policy calls of note. "

ABC News reported on the NAFTA meetings, interviewing two people who attended one of the closed door sessions. In 1993, they said, Clinton's support for NAFTA was strong and they were disappointed she has changed her position. And the Guardian reports that the documents "cast doubts on her claims of first-hand experience."

But otherwise, media found the cupboard mostly bare.

Continue reading "Clinton Documents: Not Much to See" »

Obama Taking "Aggressive Action" to Right Campaign

Aware that his campaign is struggling, Sen. Barack Obama is following the lead of his rivals Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain. As those two candidates did when their campaigns were in trouble, USAToday reports that Obama is taking aggressive action "to safeguard his bid."

He's already given two major speeches this week and will give another one today. He gave an "exclusive" interview to CNN's Anderson Cooper, where he admitted that the recent uproar over the comments of his former pastor has "shaken me up" and reminded him of the odds he faces in winning the White House. And he'll also give an hour-long interview Thursday night on CNN's Larry King Show.

"He's doing everything anybody could do," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who is neutral. "He understands what he has to do and how he has to do it."
Republican strategist Jim Dyke said Obama was smart to address race and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's incendiary sermons, and "definitely smart" to change the subject: "You don't want to give the big speech and then just leave it hanging. You want to keep moving."

Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport said that the Clinton campaign's comment yesterday that Democratic voters are getting "buyer's remorse" about Obama is "premature."

"The real question now is whether or not [Clinton] sustains and increases her lead through the weekend and Monday," Newport said.
----
Update: Many commenters have asked "What lead?" Newport is referring to the Gallup Daily Tracking poll, which yesterday showed Clinton with a "significantly statistical lead" over Obama, 49% to 42% among Democratic voters nationally.

March 19, 2008

First Lady Schedule: Support for Free Trade?

Sen. Hillary Clinton says she is not pleased with the North American Free trade agreement. She has already said that she would tell the Canadian and Mexican governments that she would want changes in the agreement if she was elected president.

But in a tidbit from the schedules of her duties as first lady from 1993-2001 there is a sign of her one-time support for husband's efforts to win Congressional approval for the agreement.

On Nov. 10th, 1993, she gave remarks at a "NAFTA Briefing Drop By." Approximately 120 people were expected to attend in a session that was closed to the press. While no press were there, it's hard to image that the then-first lady would have told those in attendance 'I'm not in favor of NAFTA" when her husband was trying to win its approval.

And in another interesting example of past associations, on January 13, 1998, one of the people who gave opening remarks during a visit by the first lady to a CURE fund raiser dinner in Chicago was David Axlerod - currently the Obama campaign manager. But another politician giving opening remarks that night was then Rep. -- now Governor -- Rod Blagojevich, whose name is "repeatedly coming up," as the Chicago Tribune says, at the Tony Rezko corruption trial ... which only shows that guilt by association is really a silly concept.
-----
Update: Jake Tapper at ABCNews reports that the network got in touch with two of the people who were at that closed door NAFTA briefing in 1993.

"It wasn't a drop-by it was organized around her participation," said one attendee. "Her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy. There was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time. Folks were pleased that she came by. If this is a still a question about what Hillary's position when she was first lady, she was totally supportive if NAFTA."

And apparently the two attendee, neither of whom are affliated with the campaigns, are apparently not too happy with Clinton's switched position on NAFTA

"For people who worked hard to pass NAFTA and who support the importance of markets opening for the economy in the long term, they're very upset," said one woman. "A number of the women who were there are very upset. You need to have some integrity in your position. The Clintons when Bill Clinton was president took a moderate position on trade for Democrats. For her to repudiate that now seems pretty phony."

Recalls a second attendee, "they were looking for women in international trade who supported NAFTA. Senator Clinton came by at the end. And of course she asked for our support and help in passing NAFTA."

Poll: Obama Speech Doesn't Slow Clinton Momentum

The Gallup Daily Tracking poll shows that for the first time in a month, Sen. Hillary Clinton has opened up a statistically significant lead over Sen. Barack Obama in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Today's poll shows Clinton with a 49% to 42% lead over Obama in national Democratic voters' presidential nomination preference.

"This is the first time Clinton has held a statistically significant lead in over a month. She last led Obama in Feb. 7-9 polling, just after the Super Tuesday primaries. Since then, the two candidates have usually been in a statistical tie, but Obama has held a lead in several of the polls, most recently in March 11-13 polling.

"Obama's campaign has been plagued by controversial remarks made by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama delivered a major speech on race Tuesday to try to move beyond the controversy. The initial indications are that the speech has not halted Clinton's gaining momentum, as she led by a similar margin in Tuesday night's polling as compared to Monday night's polling."

In a conference call today, the Clinton campaign made much of the new Gallup poll, as well as a new poll from Reuters-Zogby that also shows her doing well. Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said that "a significant case of buyers' remorse" was setting in among Democratic voters about Sen. Obama.

And chief strategist Mark Penn said that these polls show a strong swing in Clinton's favor after her victories in the Ohio and Texas primaries. When asked if Obama's troubles were specifically related to his relationship with Wright, Penn fudged a bit and said he felt there were a "number of issues and questions raised" over the past few weeks that contributed to the situation.

But one thing about polls ... you can always find one to prove the opposite. The Washington Times reports that "an ambitious 50-state poll of 30,000 registered voters by media pollster SurveyUSA" shows both Clinton and Obama defeating Republican Representative Sen. John McCain. although Obama would have an easier time of it.

" ...Mr. McCain would lose to both of them at this point in the election year, though by a closer electoral margin against Mrs. Clinton (276-262) than against Mr. Obama (280-258) in the race for the 270 votes needed to win the presidency. In both matchups, the poll shows the Democrats winning red states that Republicans have usually carried in past elections, though in some cases by razor-thin margins."

Political Junkie: Race Moved to Front of Campaign

"It was naive," NPR's political editor Ken Rudin writes, "and in retrospect a bit delusional, to have thought that with the first African-American making a serious bid for president, race would not be an issue."

Ken writes in this week's Political Junkie column that you can argue about what brought us to this point in the campaign, but it is what it is.

"You can argue back and forth whether it was the design of the Clinton campaign -- witness statements by surrogates such as Ferraro, Bill Clinton, Bob Kerrey and others -- to 'remind' voters that Obama was black. You can argue that Obama needed to reassure white voters in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. But there's no argument that incendiary and inflammatory statements made by Wright, plastered all over the evening news and YouTube, were threatening to derail the bi-racial coalition Obama had carefully tried to assemble."

Maybe only someone who has the same kind of background as Obama could have made yesterday's speech, which (as Ken notes) has already been compared countless times to John F. Kennedy's famous speech to Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960, when JFK needed to address the issue of his Catholic faith. But what happens now?

"Does it win over white ethnics in the Philadelphia suburbs? Does it alter the dynamic of the presidential contest? I suspect it's too soon to tell. But one thing is almost a certainty: The days of Obama "transcending" race are over. Race has moved to the forefront of the campaign. For better or worse."

Sen. Johnson Seen as Increasingly Safe in S. Dakota

Sen. Tim Johnson, who a year and a half ago suffered a near-fatal brain hemorrhage on Capitol Hill, is increasingly being seen as tough for the Republicans to defeat in November.

Congressional Quarterly has moved Johnson's Senate seat into the Safe Democrat category from the Favored Democrat one. Even though the GOP knocked off Senate Minority Leader South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle in 2004, and Johnson only won his seat in 2002 by 524 votes, Johnson's comeback from his illness has generated a lot of public support for him.

Johnson's seat was seen as a possible pick-up for the GOP in the fall.

But there are also more practical problems facing the Republicans in South Dakota: "... none of the four candidates who have stated intentions to run for this year's Republican Senate nomination appears at this point to have the political and fundraising clout to provide a serious threat to unseat Johnson."

"I think some of the candidates who had considered running were reluctant to run against [Johnson] this year because it would be a very, very difficult campaign to run. Even legitimate criticisms about voting records and things like that would be seen as personal attacks," said Brent Lerseth, professor of political science at Augustana College in Sioux Falls.
"Part of it has to do, I think, with the fact that Johnson's extremely popular in the state. Part of it has to do with the recent events, and I think part of it has to do with [the fact that] we don't have anybody on the Republican side that is a clear front candidate unless somebody like Gov. Rounds decided to turn around and run, which is not likely anytime soon," Lerseth said.

Although much can change in six months, not having to worry about Johnson's seat means that Democrats can devote valuable resources to closer Senate races.

2:59 PM ET | 03-19-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Clinton Campaign: Schedules Are Just A Guide

More than 11,000 pages were released today, showing what was on Hillary Clinton's agenda as First Lady. Clinton, now a Democratic candidate for president, has come under pressure to make her schedules as first lady public. The documents were released jointly by the National Archives and Clinton Presidential Library.

Clinton's campaign said the thousands of pages of schedules are just a guide, but do prove their point that Clinton tackled substantive issues like health care and Social Security as first lady, while also traveling the world.

One turbulent time for the Clinton White House was 1998, during President Clinton's impeachment. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr testified at an impeachment hearing on November 19, 1998. Hillary Clinton wasn't in Washington that day. Her schedule had her in Guatemala, speaking to lawmakers and visiting Mayan ruins.

The schedules do offer a window into the details of White House planning. On January 18 1999, for example, the Martin Luther King Day of Service event was marked optional for the first lady. The president and vice president were expected to attend. What's more, the schedule instructed them to change into Americorps sweathshirts before walking in.

-- David Greene

Republicans See Wright As Way to Beat Obama

Republicans have been worried for months about Barack Obama. They see his amazing fund raising ability, and the huge crowds he attracts to his events and have wondered if they could ever find a way to undermine this success.

Politico.com reports that they feel a way has been found - Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"For the first time, some Republicans are rethinking Hillary as their first choice," said Alex Castellanos, a veteran media consultant who recently worked for Mitt Romney's campaign.
Even Obama's much-lauded Tuesday speech, which detailed his relationship with his church and focused on the issue of racial reconciliation, failed to shake the notion that Republicans had been given a rare political gift.

'It was a speech written to mau-mau the New York Times editorial board, the network production people and the media into submission. Beautifully calibrated but deeply dishonest," said GOP media consultant Rick Wilson, who crafted the 2002 ad tying then-Sen. Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden. "Not good enough."

These GOP consultants believe that Wright's fiery orations, combined with some of the statements made by Obama's wife Michelle, have given the Republicans a winning strategy.

"All the sudden you've got two dots, and two dots make a line," said Castellanos. "You start getting some sense of who he is, and it's not the Obama you thought. He's not the Tiger Woods of politics."

The "swiftboating" of the issue has already begun in a way. Politico mentions a video called "Is Obama right?" that splices together "Wright's most extreme comments, Michelle Obama's statement, footage of Obama not putting his hand over his heart during the anthem at a political event and images of Malcolm X and the two black Olympians in 1968 who raised their fists in the 'black power' salute, set to Public Enemy's iconic rap song 'Fight the Power.' The video ... is described as being produced by something called 'NHaleMedia,' apparently just a dummy website set up to produce anonymous and homemade videos."

Cost of Iraq War Could Be in the $1-3 Trillion Range

President Bush today gave an address at the Pentagon on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. He argued that the war is still worth fighting despite the cost in blood and treasure. The Voice of America reports that the president says critics have exaggerated the war's costs because they can no longer argue the U.S. is losing the conflict.

CNN reports that the president said the debate over the world is understandable but he insisted that a U.S. presence in Iraq is crucial. He also asked Americans for more patience with the ongoing U.S. involvement in Iraq, calling it a fight that America "can and must win."

But Democrats disagree with almost everything the president said today, pointing out that not only is the situation far from being resolved in Iraq, but that the cost to the American taxpayer is far beyond what Bush had originally said it would be. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost will hit the $1 trillion mark by the end of next year. The yearly cost has doubled since the 2003 appropriation of $74 billion - which the Bush administration expected to be the total cost of the war.

The BBC reports that some economists argue that the cost of the war will be far greater.

A study by the Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Linda Bilmes, a budget expert from Harvard, concludes the cost could be at least $3 trillion. The figure is so large because, Professor Stiglitz says, it includes costs that official estimates do not, such as the cost of the lifetime medical care for 65,000 injured American personnel.

Bush administration officials call the $3 trillion cost "exaggerated."

The war is without a doubt going to play a role in the 2008 presidential election. NPR has a timeline of the three remaining presidential candidates positions on the Iraq war.

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Update: TPMCafe reports on a reconciliation conference in Iraq that was boycotted by many of the county's key Sunni and Shiite parties and politicians.

Clinton's First Lady Papers Available Online

The records of Sen. Hillary Clinton's schedules as First Lady during her husband's presidency have just been made available online. They are available here.

As NPR reporters and editors look over the documents, we'll have more updates through the day.

Clinton Goes To Michigan to Push for Primary

Sen. Hillary Clinton is in Michigan, ostensibly to speak at a "Solutions for America" event in Detroit this morning. But her main goal is to push Michigan legislators to OK a do-over primary for the Democratic party in the state.

The Detroit Free Press says the trip -- a valuable day away from campaigning in Pennsylvania -- is "to try to salvage a Michigan Democratic primary do-over that earlier Tuesday was all but pronounced dead in the Legislature"

"Clinton supporters, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said the visit to a union hall in Detroit is aimed at whipping up support for the New York senator's push for legislation to allow an early June primary. If a bill is not passed by Thursday, when the Legislature begins a two-week break, the primary is dead. ... Pressure on Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's campaign also came late Tuesday from state Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer, who issued a statement saying objections raised against legislation that would establish the primary were unfounded."

But the Obama campaign has just sent out an e-mail from Robert Bauer, the campaign's general counsel, where he argues that there are several issues not resolved in the proposal that could subject "the party and its candidates to potential liability."

"Whether the state can achieve its goals here depends on the nature and seriousness of the legal and administrative questions presented by this initiative -- questions that, raised after the election, could put at risk the running of the election, undermine acceptance of the results if the election is held, and in both cases effectively deny Michigan voters, a second consecutive time, meaningful participation in the nominating process."
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Update: The Clinton campaign responded to the Obama campaign's e-mail, saying that "The bottom line is that Michigan has all the problems and promise that we talk about in this country. Competing in Michigan sends a signal that Democrats care and understand the people there deserve the chance to make their voices heard and need someone in the White House who will hear their voices. If Barack Obama doesn???t want to help make that happen, Hillary Clinton is ready to do so. We call on the Obama campaign to let the people of Michigan vote."

Reaction to the Obama Speech - Part Two

Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and politics in America continues to be much discussed Wednesday morning. While many thought the speech one of the best given by a politician in recent memory, others believe it was nothing more than a shallow attempt to distance himself from the sermons of his former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Eugene Robinson, columnist for the Washington Post, and Joe Klein, columnist for Time magazine, told Michelle Norris on All Things Considered that they felt Obama had been successful in dealing with the political dimension of his speech - his need to explain his relationship to Wright. But Robinson wasn't sure if it would make any difference to his critics. Klein felt that the most affective part of the speech was when Obama talked about his relationship with his grandmother and connected that to the reality of racism in America.

Michael Goldfarb writes at The Weekly Standard: "The controversial speech that would have saved Obama's campaign is here, and it was delivered on the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education by a man who really has transcended race. On that day, Bill Cosby said, "Brown Versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem." He said 'We cannot blame white people.' And he spoke about a culture of accountability as the only path to success for Black America.

"If Obama had said those things, perhaps he would have won 88 percent of the Black vote instead of 90 percent, but he would have laid this whole controversy to rest. Instead, he started the speech with 'we the people.' You can't go any further back in American history than those words. Obama just overturned the whole rationale for his campaign, and I don't think he solved any of the problems that his association with Reverend Wright has exposed."

Continue reading "Reaction to the Obama Speech - Part Two" »

March 18, 2008

National Archives To Release Clinton's Records

The National Archives will release Sen. Hillary Clinton's records as First Lady during her husband's presidency. Reuters reports that the move comes "in response to a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group."

"The records, some 11,000 pages in all, document nearly all of the meetings, trips, speaking engagements and social activities Clinton engaged in while her husband, Bill Clinton, served as president between 1993 and 2001, the National Archives said."

The records will contain details about Clinton's failed effort to overhaul the nation's health-care system and her travel to over 80 countries. The records, which are kept at the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas, will be released on Wednesday.

McCain Mixes Up Shiites, Sunni Extremists

First John McCain went to Iraq and and had a hard time getting anyone to notice it in the midst of the ongoing Democratic presidential contest.

Then he got Shiite and Sunni extremists mixed up. But they're all the same, right?

Well, yes and no. Catholic and Protestant extremists in Northern Ireland both used violence, but they were certainly not the same in ideology, nor were their goals the same.

So you would think that Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, who has made his knowledge about the Iraq war a key part of his campaign to be the president, would know the difference between the two. But on Tuesday in Jordan, the Washington Post reports he seemed to mix the two up.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."
Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

(Here's video)

The Post notes that the mistake "threatened to undermine McCain's argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists."

"Do-Over" Primary in Michigan on "Life Support"

The chance for "do-over" primaries in Michigan and Florida seem to be receding as fast as the ice in the Arctic circle.

The MIRS News Service in Michigan (subscription based, so no link, sorry) reports that "Senate Democrats emerged from a closed-door caucus this morning and proclaimed that a fledging idea floated by top Michigan Democrats to create a special June 3 primary election is all but dead."

"Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, a supporter of Hillary CLINTON, also conceded the chances of a June 3 redo of the Democratic presidential primary were slim. She stopped short of declaring it dead, saying instead that it was "on life support" and in need of CPR."

The Detroit Free Press reports that the members of the Michigan Senate says the proposal's survival is dependent on the backing of Sen. Barack Obama.

"The do-over primary is backed by Hillary Clinton and some of Michigan's most influential Democrats. But [Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester] said Republicans have considerable misgivings about the prospect of authorizing a second election to begin with, and won't consider it unless the Democrats are unified."

Last night the Obama campaign criticized the proposal. It will not allow any one who voted in the Republican primary to vote in the do-over. But exit polls show that 32 percent of GOP primary voters were Democrats and independents who may have voted in that primary because there was no real contest in the Democratic one.

Democrats Don't Want Superdelegates to Decide Race

A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows that a majority of Democrats do not want superdelegates to decide who should be the party's presidential nominee.

Fifty-five percent of those surveyed told the pollsters "it would be unfair for Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the presidential nomination through the support of 'super delegates' if she lags among the convention delegates elected in primaries and caucuses"

By 55%-37%, Democrats and independents who "lean" Democratic say an outcome in which Clinton lost among pledged delegates but prevailed with the help of super delegates would be "flawed" and unfair" -- including 77% of Obama supporters and 28% of Clinton supporters.

The poll shows that an outcome determined by superdelegates would cost them the support of independents. Almost two-thirds of those voters call that result unfair, and one-third of that sub group say that such an outcome would make them vote for Sen. John McCain or stay home in November.

Some Early Reaction to Obama Speech

Marc Ambinder at theAtlantic.com:

"In no uncertain terms did Obama renounce -- morally condemn -- the hateful, anti-Semitic, anti-American and just plain bizarre rants of his pastor -- "former pastor," as Obama now calls him. But he did not reject him. He refused to reject him. He is daring, in essence, his white liberal supporters to accept what Wright's anger represents -- a legacy of oppression -- and daring the rest of white supporters to take a leap of faith him... and asking them to expand their minds a bit and see that Wright is preaching in a tradition that has a context that is directly related to the material and spiritual conditions of all Americans.

"The sell will be easier for white liberals, I think. The speech was magnificently written. It was internally consistent with Obama apparently believes."

Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish:

"But I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation. Its ability to embrace both the legitimate fears and resentments of whites and the understandable anger and dashed hopes of many blacks was, in my view, unique in recent American history."

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo:

"The text is one thing. Delivery is another. And Obama doesn't seem to have his A game today ... This was after all a campaign speech. Ultimately it has to be judged on whether it achieved its purpose."

Mark Silva at The Swamp

"Obama's words about race and unity in America today will serve as the benchmark for his ability to regain control of a campaign which he never wanted to make a question of race."

Charles Murray (author of the controverial The Bell Curve) at National Review Online.

"I read the various posts here on "The Corner," mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama's speech. Then I figured I'd better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn't). I've just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I'm concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant ... rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we're used to from our pols.... But you know me. Starry-eyed Obama groupie."

And your reaction to the speech?

Transcript of Obama's Speech On Race and Politics

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution -- a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part -- through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

Continue reading "Transcript of Obama's Speech On Race and Politics" »

Honesty About Infidelity is the Best Policy?

Well, it's probably best to get it all out in the open ...

New York's governor, David Paterson, hasn't been in his new job a day and he's already dealing with news about an extra-martial relationship. Sort of.

Paterson became New York's first black governor Monday after Eliot Spitzer resigned last week after his involvement with a call girl ring became known last week

Only this news didn't come about as the result of an FBI sting, or an investigative report or a former mistress telling all. It came from Paterson and his wife Michelle in an interview with The New York Daily News. Michelle Paterson also admitted in the interview she too had an extra-marital affair. The Patersons "acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago."

"This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point," Paterson conceded in his first interview Saturday. "But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on" ...
"Like most marriages, you go through certain difficult periods," Michelle Paterson said. "What's important is for your kids to see you worked them out."

The Patersons decided to talk about their marriage after rumors had been "circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days" said the newspaper.

Perhaps admitting to extramarital affairs will become like what now happens when you admit to past drug use when you were a teenager. It causes a stir for a few days and then disappears.

Obama to Give Major Speech on Race and Politics

It's a moment that was almost destined to happen the day Democratic Sen. Barack Obama decided to run for president ... and then became his party's frontrunner for the nomination.

Obama will give a major address today in Philadelphia about race and politics. Over the past few weeks in particular, the issue of his race has become a major topic of discussion. While Obama has stayed away from except when asked to respond to a comment like Geraldine Ferarro's, his opponents, the media, the public and often his supporters have openly discussed it.

But it has been Obama's long relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Wright's unabashed black liberation theology, that has been the catalyst for today's speech. As NPR's David Greene said today on Morning Edition, Obama is trying to drive the narrative of this story, rather than have it control him.

Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish at theAtlantic.com writes that today will be a crucial day for Obama.

"It will be a day when we will discover if America's racial environment - and the emotions and feelings and anger and fears that it entails - can allow for a black man - with all that entails - to become president. Can a man like Obama both relate and belong to a congregation like Trinity UCC and be inspired by a man like Jeremiah Wright and still reach beyond race to white and Latino and Jewish and Muslim and other Americans who may find the specific racial context as impossible to understand as it is absurd to excuse?"

Mark Silva at The Swamp writes that "With his address in Philadelphia today, the senator from Illinois faces a moment in his campaign as pivotal as the one that John F. Kennedy, the party's nominee for president in 1960, confronted in explaining his Catholicism to a Baptist audience in Houston."

"For Obama, who could become the first African-American nominee for president of the United States, it's a question of convincing Americans that, regardless of whomever influenced him at important stages in his life and regardless of how alien their views may sound to people predisposed to fear them, his candidacy is forged in his own vision of fulfilling the American Dream, not only for himself, but for all. That's a lot to expect of any one speech.

"It's what Obama must deliver today."

March 17, 2008

Last Second Glitch May Undermine Michigan Primary

It looked like Michigan was all set to go with a do-over on its primary. Recent polls have shown it would be a close battle between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama. But now a technicality in the proposed legislation -- that would make a do-over legal -- is holding up the process.

Under the legislation, anyone who voted in the GOP primary would not be eligible to vote in the Democratic primary. But 32 percent of those who voted in the Republican primary were Democrats or Independents. And as Marc Ambinder of theAtlantic.com suggests, many of these voters were most likely Obama supporters who, since they couldn't vote for him, voted for one of the Republican candidates, most likely John McCain.

"This could be a dealbreaker for the Obama campaign in Michigan," writes Ambinder. "Michigan Democrats have said that they won't move the bill forward unless the Obama campaign gives its assent."

The Obama campaign is currently reviewing the legislation.

Meanwhile the Clinton campaign, perhaps sensing the opportunity was slipping away, sent out an e-mail this afternoon. Clinton strategist Harold Ickes basically demanded that the Obama campaign support a new vote in Michigan, saying "If the Obama campaign thwarts a fair election process for the people of Michigan, it will jeopardize the Democratic nominee's ability to carry the state in the general election."

The Associated Press reports that the Democrat-led House is scheduled to leave for a two-week vacation Thursday, so that means if anything is going to happen it will have to happen very fast. The measure also would have to be approved by the Republican-controlled state Senate. It would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers, and then the approval of Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Clinton supporter.

The contest must be held by June 10 for the results to count under Demcratic National Committee rules.

McCain Embraces March Madness

There are many ways for a political candidate to attract volunteers to his or her campaign. But you might be pushed to remember the last time anyone used a little backetology to do it.

But Sen. John McCain knows that the country will be basketball crazy for the next three weeks, so why not get in a little on the action ... so to speak. McCain's Web site is offering McCain's Basketball Brackets. You have the chance to compare your basketball picks against McCain's. And if you know your hoops, you can win, well, valuable prizes like a McCain 2008 fleece. Or a McCain hit or pin.

But there is a method to this March madness on McCain behalf. You have to fill out a form in order enter to be eligible to test your sports know-how. And the form asked if you're interested in joining a McCain Coalition groups (there are lots to choose from) and also a form if you're interested in doing door-to-door work or be a precinct captain, etc.

Maybe something on the World Series for the fall campaign?

5:03 PM ET | 03-17-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Republicans Turning Out in Droves to Vote for Clinton

Republicans are turning out in droves to vote in primaries right across the country. Only it appears many of them are not turning out for a Republican candidate, but for Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The Boston Globe reports that "About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show." The Globe reports there are a variety of reasons for this development.

... GOP voters who say they would never back Clinton in a general election are voting for her now for strategic reasons: Some want to prolong her bitter nomination battle with Barack Obama, others believe she would be easier to beat than Obama in the fall, or they simply want to register objections to Obama.
"It's as simple as, I don't think McCain can beat Obama if Obama is the Democratic choice," said Kyle Britt, 49, a Republican-leaning independent from Huntsville, Texas, who voted for Clinton in the March 4 primary. "I do believe Hillary can mobilize enough [anti-Clinton] people to keep her out of office."

In early 2008, most Republicans who were voting in Democratic primaries were voting for Sen. Barack Obama because "they were willing to buck their party because they like the Illinois senator." But after John McCain won the Republican nomination and Obama looked like he was going to run away with the Democratic race, "Republicans swung into action."

Spurred on by conservative talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, conservative voters seemed to respond. In Texas and Mississippi, local Republican county chairmen said they knew of many dependable conservative voters who took Democratic ballots because they think Clinton will be an easier opponent to beat in the fall.

Sen. Clinton doesn't seem to be complaining too much at the moment about all this new Republican support. As the Globe notes, the day after her primary victories in Ohio and Texas, she told Fox News "Be careful what you wish for, Rush."

The Smell Test for the 2008 Contenders

With smoke-filled rooms and sleazy dealings, politics can, well, stink. So, an enterprising West Virginian has figured out how to take the stench out of the political process.

April Cline is producing Presidential Perfume. Each of the top presidential candidates has a specially-designed fragrance.

The "Hillary" scent is described as "strong and clean" but also "delicate." Cline's website says "Hillary" is a "floral blend of jasmine, violet, rose and sheerest musk."

Cline told the Salt Lake City Deseret News "It"s a clean and confident fragrance. That does well for Hillary, who is also confident."

The "Barack" fragrance has "clean (and) citrusy notes of Bergamot and musk (to) energize you."

It "makes you happy as soon as you smell it," Cline says in the Deseret News. "It's energizing. He (Obama) is so energizing that it's appropriate."

John McCain gets what Cline describes as a "clean conservative scent." That is achieved, apparently, with "Bergamot, Water Lily (and) Lavender woven with cool greens and frosty musk."

"The frosty musk is not because he's 71," she notes on her Web site [which goes with the slogan "The smell of victory!], without further explanation. Perhaps it's a scent used in old Old Spice? Cline goes on to say the fragrance evokes the smell of a freshly-cleaned t-shirt hanging out on a clothes line on a Spring day.

So who smells best to the perfumer of presidential hopefuls? None of the above. Cline favored Mitt Romney but he dumped out of the race before she could concoct HIS smell. We bet it would start with "clean" and end with "musk," just like each of the surviving contenders.

But we think YOU might be able to fill out the formula for Romney, Mike Huckabee, John Edwards and the rest of the departed candidates. Post your suggestions below.

And get ready to hold your nose in the voting booth, if this thing really catches on.

-- Howard Berkes

McCain, Clinton Clash Over Iraq Policy

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton and Republican president nominee Sen. John McCain clashed over Iraq policy Monday.

Sen. Hillary Clinton at George Washington University.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) delivers a speech on Iraq at George Washington University, March 17, 2008 in Washington, DC.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

In her address, Clinton talked about her plans to start bringing home the troops from Iraq within 60 says of being elected president. She also sharply criticized Sen. John McCain for wanting to keep troops there for 100 years.

"Sen. McCain would gladly accept the torch and stay the course, keeping troops in Iraq for up to 100 years if necessary," she said. "That in a nutshell is the Bush-McCain Iraq policy -- don't learn from your mistakes, repeat them."

"We can have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground for a hundred years, but that doesn't change the fact that there is no political solution to the situation in Iraq. Sen. McCain and President Bush claim withdrawal is defeat. Let's be clear, withdrawal is not defeat. Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years."

But in an interview on CNN, McCain said Clinton's comments were proof she didn't understand the situation.

"Well, all I can say is that she obviously does not understand nor appreciate the progress that has been made on the ground. She told Gen. Petraeus last year when he testified that she would have to suspend disbelief in order to believe that the surge is working. Well, the surge is working.

"So I just think what that means is al Qaeda wins,'' he said. "They tell the world that. And we fight here again and around the Middle East. And their dedication is to follow us home.''

Meanwhile The Swamp reports that the presence of both Sen. McCain and Vice President Dick Cheney is Baghdad "will offer plenty of fodder for the Democrats portraying McCain's candidacy as 'McBush,' a third term for President Bush."

Florida Dems "Likely to Jettison" Mail-In Ballot

Florida Democrats look no closer Monday to finding a way to hold a new primary after a weekend of talking about how to pull it off.

The Miami Herald reports that Democratic state Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman is "likely to jettison" the proposal to have a mail-in ballot on June 3. The question becomes "is there a Plan B?"

Democrats say there are a few options -- though none that the state party controls -- to give the state's voters a voice in picking the Democratic presidential nominee. Most of them, though, have as many political flaws as the technical hurdles involved in mailing ballots to the state's 4.1 million Democrats.

Over the weekend, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a Clinton supporter, floated the idea of cutting the number of Florida delegates in half (basically give each delegate "half a vote"), and then apportioning the remaining half based on the results of the January primary. But the Clinton camp appeared to shoot it down. ''The 2.5 million people [in Michigan and Florida] who voted deserve to be counted,'' Clinton said Saturday.

Meanwhile The New York Times reported over the weekend that major donors in Florida to Hillary Clinton's campaign told Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean that they would "withhold contributions to the DNC unless it agrees to acknowledge the results of the Jan. 29 primary or schedule new elections." But Dean has repeatedly said that he will not recognize the January results, because it would not be fair to change the rules in the middle of the campaign.

"Obama-Like" Crowds for Clinton in Pennsylvania

For most of the Democratic presidential campaign, it's been Sen. Barack Obama who has been drawing the huge crowds. Not in Pennsylvania, where his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton is packing them in as she travels the state.

Primary Colors, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's political blog, writes that "Since landing in Scranton last Tuesday Clinton has racked up more than 12,000 bodies at various campaign stops along the way."

But the really big numbers came Saturday during St. Patrick's Day celebrations, when 300,000 people saw her march in Pittsburgh's parade.

"Clinton was hardily cheered without stop all along the parade route, turning the annual wearing of the green into one big campaign stop. While there was a healthy number of Barack Obama signs along the way, the crowd and the moment was hers."

Columnist Makes Error in Reporting on Obama, Wright

When conservative pundit Bill Kristol became a columnist at The New York Times, many liberals groaned. Their groans will be even louder this morning after it appears that Kristol has made an error about a key piece of information in a column about Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Obama has been under fire the past few days over his relationship with Wright after some of the pastor's more incendiary comments became known. In his column Kristol wrote that Obama was in the audience last July 22 when Wright gave a sermon entitled "The United States of White America."

Here is the paragraph in question:

But Ronald Kessler, a journalist who has written about Wright's ministry, claims that Obama was in fact in the pews at Trinity last July 22. That's when Wright blamed the "arrogance" of the "United States of White America" for much of the world's suffering, especially the oppression of blacks. In any case, given the apparent frequency of such statements in Wright's preaching and their centrality to his worldview, the pretense that over all these years Obama had no idea that Wright was saying such things is hard to sustain.

But Marc Ambinder of theAtlantic.com writes that this is "a major, prejudicial error."

Turns out, Ambinder writes that Obama couldn't have been at the sermon in question because he was on his way to campaign in Florida. (This was before he signed an agreement not to campaign there.) Ambinder even provides video evidence, which shows Obama attending the La Raza Convention in Miami on that date. (Here's a report from the Washington Times that talks about the speech Obama gave on that date. Also LaRaza's agenda for that day, showing Obama as a speaker. The Obama campaign has also confirmed to the NewsBlog that Obama was not at the service on that day.)

The original story, that Kristol appeared to base his story on, appeared on the conservative NewsMax Web site

Ambinder concludes: "Now, a simple Google search suggests that Obama spent most of the day in Miami. But a simple e-mail or telephone call to Obama's campaign might have cleared things up."

Obama Picks Up More Delegates in Iowa, California

Sen. Barack Obama increased his delegate lead on Sen. Hillary Clinton and the next presidential primary isn't for another month.

In a sign of how hard it is to get an actual delegate count at this point in the Democratic presidential race, Barack Obama increased his lead by 12 delegates after California and Iowa released more results over the weekend. (Just last week Clinton had picked up more delegates herself when New York announced its final totals.)

On Saturday, Iowa delegates took another step in their caucus to convention process. On the night of the caucuses in January, the totals showed Obama with 16 delegates, Hillary Clinton with 15 delegates and former Sen. John Edwards with 14 delegates. But on Saturday eight of those Edwards supporters switched to Obama along with one Clinton delegate. That gives him a total in Iowa of 25 pledged delegates, Clinton with 15 and Edwards with six delegates (who are probably remaining with him because they want to see how things will shake out in the next few weeks).

And this may still not be the final count from Iowa. There will still be a state convention and final delegates will be selected there.

Meanwhile The Associated Press reports that California releases its final delegate totals from its Feb. 5 primary, and Obama picked up five more delegates while Clinton picked up two. Final totals from California are now Clinton with 204 delegates and Obama with 166.

According to AP's count, the Iowa and California results give Obama a national lead of 119 pledged delegates and superdelegates over Clinton.

March 15, 2008

Chicago Tribune: Obama Sets a "Standard for Candor"

On Friday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama sat down to talk with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune. It was a 92-minute discussion in which he talked at length about his relationship with now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko. And the Tribune editors believe that he "offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of [Rezko] in his personal and political lives."

"The most remarkable facet of Obama's 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him," writes The Tibune in an editorial. "And he did."

During the conversation Obama acknowledged that Rezko had raised more money for his earlier political campaigns than was previously known.

"We fully expect the Clinton campaign, given its current desperation, to do whatever it must in order to keep the Rezko tin can tied to Obama's bumper. When we endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination Jan. 27, we said we had formed our opinions of him during 12 years of scrutiny. We concluded that the professional judgment and personal decency with which he has managed himself and his ambition distinguish him.

"Nothing Obama said in our editorial board room Friday diminishes that verdict."

Obama admitted during the interview that he should have had the discussion 16 months ago, and talked "uncomfortably" about what it's like living in a fishbowl and that he was too eager to "control the narrative."

"Less protection, less control, would have meant less hassle for his campaign," the editorial continues. "That said, Barack Obama now has spoken about his ties to Tony Rezko in uncommon detail. That's a standard for candor by which other presidential candidates facing serious inquiries now can be judged."

FactCheck.org: Clinton Exaggerated Foreign Policy Experience

Hillary Clinton has made her foreign policy experience one of the main planks in her campaign to be the Democratic presidential nominee. But FactCheck.org report that her claims of extensive experience in foreign policy matters are not as extensive as she claims.

Officials from Bill Clinton's administration are largely divided as to the extent and effectiveness of Hillary Clinton's foreign policy role as first lady. For example, Richard Holbrooke, a former assistant secretary of state and ambassador to the U.N., claims that Clinton's "intense efforts" in Macedonia "contributed to saving many lives." On the other hand, Susan Rice, also an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, argues that Clinton was never asked to do any "heavy lifting" and says that Clinton's role was more about "gentle prodding or constructive reinforcement." That Holbrooke and Rice would remember Clinton's role differently is unsurprising: Holbrooke is a foreign policy adviser to the Clinton campaign, while Rice has the same role with Obama's campaign.
Indeed, the New York Times recently reported that, as first lady, Clinton did not hold a security clearance nor did she sit in on meetings with the National Security Council. We examined some of the specific examples of Sen. Clinton's experience and found that most of them are weaker than advertised.

FactCheck.org looks at Clinton's claims about: her role in opening the Macedonia border in 1999; her role in the Northern Ireland peace process; her March 1996 visit to war-torn Bosnia with singer Sheryl Crow and comedian Sinbad; a conversation she had with her husband -- President Bill Clinton -- about the genocide in Rwanda; and a speech about women's rights in China --- and finds that while she was involved in these areas, the level of her involvement is exaggerated - more than a bit in some cases.

March 14, 2008

Petraeus: Iraqis Leaders Not Making Enough Progress

Although the Democrats have not yet picked their candidate for president, it's a pretty good bet that one item that will be much debated in the fall general election will be the success or the failure of the surge in Iraq. Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has made his support for the surge -- and the U.S. involvement in Iraq -- a key part of his campaign, as NPR's Scott Horsley reports today for All Things Considered.

And while most experts say that violence is down all over Iraq since the surge started, the main reason given by President Bush for the surge of 30,000 troops was to give Iraqi leaders enough time to put together a reconciliation plan to overcome sectarian divisions and eventually allow for U.S. troops to go home.

But by this measurement the surge is not looking very successful at the moment ... at least that's the situation if you believe the opinion of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Petraeus said that "Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences."

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

But Petraeus insisted the Iraqis still have a chance to act. "We're going to fight like the dickens" to maintain the gains in security and "where we can to try and build on it," he said.

The Post reports that "Many Iraqi parliament members and other officials acknowledge that the country's political system is often paralyzed by sectarian divisions, but they also say that American expectations are driven by considerations in Washington and do not reflect the complexity of Iraq's problems."

Obama Condemns Comments Made By Wright

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Sen. Barack Obama said he "profoundly disagrees" with statements made in 2003 by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of his church in Chicago.

In a 2003 sermon, Wright said:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Here is the section of the sermon in question:

The Tribune-Review asked Obama about the "God damn America" line.

A: I haven't seen the line. This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.
Q: What about this particular statement?

A: Obviously, I disagree with that. Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe.

Michael Weiss at Slate.com has a spectrum of comments from the blogosphere about this latest controversy involving Wright.

Roger L. Simon writes that Obama has some explaining to do. "[W]e don't choose our family," writes Simon, "but Obama chose this racist demagogue as his pastor for decades. It's not funny. Barack is running for President of the United States."

But Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo says this is all a result of the interjection of race into the campaign by Hillary Clinton. "I'm not sure there's much in [Wright's sermon] that doesn't come out of the sermon tradition of African-American Christianity with a 60s twist ... Particulars aside, the political relevance is to show Wright as angry black man; and to tie him to Obama."
---------

Update: The Obama campaign releases this statement this afternoon, written by Barack Obama, which originally appeared on Huffington Post:

"The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He's drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.

"Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

"Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.

"As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.

"Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

"The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

"Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.

"With Rev. Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright's statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States."

eBay's Meg Whitman Joins McCain Team

Meg Whitman, president and CEO of eBay, will join Sen. John McCain's team as one of its national co-chairs. In a press release earlier today, the McCain campaign announced that 'Whitman will play a lead role in the McCain campaign. In addition to helping with finance activity, Whitman will be a prominent surrogate for John McCain, travel the country on his behalf, and help the campaign with policy development."

NPR's Scott Horsley, who has been covering the McCain campaign notes that Whitman has been easing her way out of eBay -- she'll be stepping down as president and CEO on March 31, just in time to devote her energy to the McCain campaign. Whitman also used to work at former Mass. Gov. -- and one-time GOP presidential candidate -- Mitt Romney's private investment firm, Bain Capital.

"I'm honored that Senator McCain has asked me to become a part of his campaign," said Whitman in the release. "America needs John McCain's courageous leadership. His unshakable commitment to lower taxes, strong trade, and innovation sets the right course for America's economy and future prosperity. I'm enormously excited to be a part of his team and believe in his vision for our country."

Report: Obama Asked for Funds For Wife's Hospital

Thursday Senator Barack Obama released a list of all the earmarks he had for federal spending in the years 2005-2006. He had already released his earmarks for 2007.

The Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp" blog reports that included in the list is "a request for $1 million in federal funding in 2006 for a new pavilion at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where his wife, Michelle Obama, was a vice president at the time. The request was not ultimately included when Congress passed spending legislation that year, according to the Obama campaign."

There is also a request for $8 million in funding for "High Explosive Air Burst Technology" made by General Dynamics. "Obama's Illinois Finance Chairman, billionaire James S. Crown, a longtime Obama supporter who has raised at least $200,000 for his presidential campaign, is a director of General Dynamics, and his family has a large investment in the company. The request ultimately resulted in $1.3 million in funding for the project."

A spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the senator did not discuss the requests with either his wife or Crown. And he said that Michelle Obama never lobbied for her employer.

------

Update: The Obama campaign sent out a press release this afternoon that points out that Sen. Clinton has not released any of her earmarks requests during her time in the Senate.

"Clinton has refused to put out her tax returns, she will not release records of her time in the White House and her unwillingness to give even the most basic information about the special funding she has requested as a United States senator leaves many Americans wondering what it is she has to hide. On earmarks, is she hiding information about donors she requested earmarks for? The role lobbyists and corporations played in her office as she requested more than a billion dollars for their pet projects? Favors she's now embarrassed to be associated with? "

The Obama campaign says Taxpayers For Common Sense has estimated that Senator Clinton has received $2.2 billion in earmarks over her Senate career.

Lawmakers Cast Doubts On Clinton's Role in Health Plan

Sen. Hillary Clinton's has long said that she played a pivotal role in forging a children's health insurance plan, known as State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. In her speeches and during debates, Clinton said she helped start the program.

But a report in the Boston Globe says Clinton "had little to do with crafting the landmark legislation or ushering it through Congress, according to several lawmakers, staffers, and healthcare advocates involved in the issue."

... the Clinton White House, while supportive of the idea of expanding children's health, fought the first SCHIP effort, spearheaded by Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, because of fears that it would derail a bigger budget bill. And several current and former lawmakers and staff said Hillary Clinton had no role in helping to write the congressional legislation, which grew out of a similar program approved in Massachusetts in 1996 ...
"I do like her," Hatch said of Hillary Clinton. "We all care about children. But does she deserve credit for SCHIP? No - Teddy does, but she doesn't."

Neera Tanden, policy director for the Clinton campaign, says Clinton has always supported SCHIP. She said the Clinton White House opposed the 1997 Kennedy-Hatch amendment to create the program because President Clinton has made a deal not to support any amendments in order to get a contentious budget passed. Tanden "suggested that politics were at play in the criticism of Clinton."

The Globe article said many lawmakers believe that Clinton has a deep and sincere commitment to children's health care. "But privately, some lawmakers and staff members are fuming over what they see as Clinton's exaggeration of her role in developing SCHIP, including her campaign ads claiming she "helped create" the program. The irritation has grown since Nov. 1, when Clinton - along with fellow senators and presidential candidates Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, and John McCain - missed a Senate vote to extend the SCHIP program, which was approved without the votes of those lawmakers."

Clinton Adviser Says Obama Not Electable

Yesterday during a conference call with reporters, Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief strategist Mark Penn said that Sen. Barack Obama was unelectable.

The Pennsylvania vote, he said, will be a "very significant test of who could really win the general election."

"We believe this will show Hillary is ready to win, and that Senator Obama really can't win the general election," Penn said.

The Obama camp was quick to reply, sending out an e-mail late last night debunking the comments made by Penn.

"It can't inspire too much confidence in the Clinton campaign when their pollster ignores both polls and math by making comments as divorced from reality as this one. Senator Obama is leading in delegates, states won, the popular vote, and fares better than Senator Clinton against John McCain in poll after poll, including critical swing states like Iowa, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Wisconsin."

Jonathan Chait at The New Republic says in "The Plank" blog that Penn's comments are part of the Clinton campaign's strategy to convince superdelegates that they need to support Clinton if they want to win in the fall. Chait says in one way it's a silly argument.

"There's not even good evidence to suggest that Obama is less likely than Clinton to win the general, he writes. "Currently, the [Real Clear Politics] poll average has both defeating John McCain by an average of 1.5%. Before the last couple weeks, when McCain and Clinton have both been making mutually-reinforcing attacks on Obama nearly every day, Obama was running well ahead of Clinton in those head-to-head matchups."

But that doesn't mean the strategy won't work. Chait says Clinton needs the superdelegates to break 2-1 in her favor and the only way she can do that is by repeating 'he can't be elected.'

"Some people have treated this as an unfortunate byproduct of Clinton's decision to continue her campaign. It's actually a central element of the strategy. Penn is already saying he's unelectable. It's not true, but by the time the convention rolls around, it may well be."
-----
Update: By way of the Obama campaign, a video of Gov. Ed Rendell not following the Penn script. Rendell says that it doesn't matter who the nominee is - Obama or Clinton - because either one could win Pennsylvania in the fall general election.

Obama: Do-Overs in Michigan, Florida Not Realistic

In an interview with Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama says that counting the results from the January primary in Michigan "wouldn't be fair." He also said the ideas of do-overs in Michigan and Florida are unrealistic.

In an NPR interview that aired Thursday, Clinton said the Michigan and Florida primaries were fair and should be honored, and that Obama chose to take his name off the ballot in Michigan. Obama laughs at that contention.
"We were told that these contests would not count," he tells Steve Inskeep. "Sen. Clinton agreed. Our name was taken off the ballot in Michigan, and in Florida we did no campaigning. Now, if people think that that is a normal democratic way of running an election, then that's not the America that I know."

Obama said his campaign's position has been that has been that the Michigan and Florida delegations should be seated [at the Democratic National Convention] and that a system is needed that is fair to all the parties involved.

On the issue of experience and judgment, Inskeep pointed out that George W. Bush was praised for his judgment during the 2000 campaign. So what makes Obama's argument different than that made for Bush eight years ago?

Obama says there is a big difference.

"Because I've had to weigh in on some of the most significant foreign-policy decisions that face this country over the last five years -- something that George Bush didn't have to do," Obama says. "And on critical issues like Iraq, on critical issues like Pakistan, on critical issues like Iran, I think the voters have been able to see how I exercise that judgment and can have some confidence that my concerns and projections in terms of how problems might arise as a consequence of an invasion in Iraq or saber-rattling with Iran or cozying up to [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf, have played out badly for the American people.
"The issue is not that experience is irrelevant, the issue is whether or not experience has given you better judgment," Obama says. "And I would argue that on critical issues like Iraq, my judgment has been superior to" those of Clinton and presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.

March 13, 2008

Clinton, Obama Accept Invitations for Penn. Debate

Sen. Hillary Clinton has accepted an invitation for a debate with Sen. Barack Obama that would be held in Philadelphia on April 16th, just a few days before the April 22 primary. The debate would be broadcast nationally and locally by ABC.

"Hillary is prepared to show she has real solutions for the problems facing residents of the Keystone State," said a Clinton campaign press release.

Sen. Barack Obama also accepted ABC's invitation. He has also said yes to an invitation from CBS to debate Clinton in North Carolina on April19th

FL Democratic Party Chair Says Mail-in Vote Unlikely

It looks like the plan put forward by some Democrats in Florida to hold a mail-in ballot on June 3 may not go forward after all.

Karen Thurman, the chairwoman of the Florida Democratic party, says that the plan is in trouble. The Associated Press reports that when she was asked by the media if the plan will be implemented, Thurman said, "I have a feeling that this is probably closer to not, than yes."

In a call to MSNBC this afternoon, Thurman said that some things had happened since she made the proposal to Florida Democrats last night that "put it in doubt." Thurman said that the Florida secretary of state was concerned about the verification of signatures issue.

"If this becomes something that we can't do, then we can't do it," Thurman said.

Thurman said she would spent the weekend talking to state Democrats, and will make a decision by Monday. But she also acknowledged that Sen. Barack Obama has concerns and the Democratic National Committee won't support a proposal unless both candidates back it.

Democrats Want To Close KBR Tax Loophole

Several Democratic lawmakers have decided that it's time for KBR Inc., the large U.S. contractor that provides many services to the U.S. military in Iraq (and that until last year was a unit of Halliburton Co.) to pay up.

On March 6th, the Boston Globe reported that KBR "skirted federal requirements to pay payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security by setting up front companies" in the Cayman Islands.

More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.
The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars. But the use of the loophole results in a significantly greater loss of revenue to the government as a whole, particularly to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

So The Swamp political blog reports that this news has lead Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John Kerry Thursday "to propose legislation that would prohibit companies like KBR from exploiting tax havens to avoid payroll taxes." Reps. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana are proposing the legislation, known as the Fair Share Act of 2008, in the House.

From the Democrats' press release on the proposed legislation:

"The reform will close the loophole that recently has allowed the defense contractor KBR Inc. to fleece the American taxpayer by almost $100 million a year. It was discovered that KBR has avoided paying its fair share of Social Security and Medicare taxes by creating shell companies in the Cayman Islands. The Fair Share Act of 2008 will end the practice of U.S. government contractors setting up sham companies in foreign jurisdictions to avoid payroll taxes."

Rendell Says Obama-Clinton Contest a "Good Thing"

Penn. Gov. Ed Rendell talks about why the Clinton-Obama contest is good for the Democrats.

The Wall Street Journal-NBC poll that the Newsblog mentioned earlier today noted that many Democrats are concerned that the contest between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton will ultimately hurt the Democratic Party in the fall.

Penn. Gov. Ed Rendell with Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (L) joins Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) at a rally at Temple University March 11, 2008 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Jemal Countess/Getty Images

But one person who disagrees with that is Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter. During a conference call this morning, where he talked about how important it is to win his state in order to win the fall election, he was asked if the ongoing contest wasn't a problem for the party.

Not at all, he said. "'It's not going to hurt the Democrats," Rendell continued.

He went on to talk about his contest for the Democratic nomination for governor when he ran against now Sen. Bob Casey in 2002. "People said we would split the vote..." and hand the election to the Republicans. But Rendell said the opposite happened.

His Republican opponent couldn't get any media attention "if he had walked down Main Street playing a banjo."

And Rendell says Republican nominee Sen. John McCain is facing the same problem because of the close contest between Obama and Clinton.

"It's good for us, and it's bad for McCain," he says.

NBC-WSJ Poll: Voters Think They Are Worse Off

A Wall Street Journal-NBC poll shows that 43 percent of American voters believe they are worse off now than they were four years ago, while 34 percent say their status is better (21 percent said their situation is the same). Experts say this is a good sign for the Democrats.

Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with GOP pollster Bill McInturff, said that "The compass points due north for the party of change."

The poll surveyed 1,012 registered voters from March 7-10.

But the ongoing battle between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama has many Democrats worried about their changes in the fall presidential race against Republican Sen. John McCain -- 38 percent say that an extended nominating battle would be bad for the Democratic Party, while 25 percent said it will be good.

Clinton currently leads Obama nationally by four percentage points 47-43 percent, but this is the closest margin the WSJ-NBC poll has shown between the two candidates. In January, Clinton lead Obama 53 percent to 37 percent.

Obama has made up ground because he is now winning "among men and, by a considerable margin, African Americans. In December, Clinton was leading among both groups."

The poll also points to a close contest in the fall. When asked if they would rather have a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, those surveyed say they would prefer a Democrat 50-37 percent. But when names are put on the ballot, it's much tighter. Obama leads McCain 47-44 percent, while Clinton leads him 47-45 percent.

Florida Dems Propose June 3 Vote

Politico.com reports that Florida Democrats are looking at a June 3 mail-in vote that would cost in the neighborhood of $10-$12 million.

A memo obtained by Politico "cites a poll commissioned by Florida Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller commissioned a poll of voters who participated in the state's January 29th Democratic Presidential Primary, which found that 59% of those Democrats want a revote."

The proposal has the backing of Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, but the Florida House Democratic caucus had said that it isn't workable. Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is currently meeting with Florida Democratic chairwoman Karen Thurman about the proposed mail-in ballot.

Here are the details of the plan:

Continue reading "Florida Dems Propose June 3 Vote" »

11:26 AM ET | 03-13-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Clinton to NPR: Seat the Michigan and Florida Delegates

In an interview with Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep, Sen. Hillary Clinton said that the results of Michigan's Democratic presidential primary should count, even if Barack Obama's name did not appear on the ballot.

"That was his choice," she says. "There was no rule or requirement that he take his name off the ballot. His supporters ran a very aggressive campaign to try to get people to vote uncommitted."

It's unlikely that she'll get satisfaction on this issue - Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean has said that a decision about the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegates has to be "fair to both sides" and the Obama campaign has already said that Clinton's demand is a no-go.

And so Clinton also told Inskeep that if the delegates from the January primaries can't be seated, then the two states must be allowed do-overs.

"If there is to be any difference between my proposal that we count these votes and any other course of action, it should be a complete re-do of the primary and nothing else is fair," she says.

Clinton also repeated her campaign's theme that she and Obama should run as a ticket, with her as the presidential candidate, because she sees herself as the more experienced of the two to take on Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.

"People talk to me all the time as I travel around the country about how they wish they didn't have to choose between us," Clinton says. "I think we're just going to proceed through these next contests and see who ends up with the nomination, probably in June that will be resolved. Then, one of us will have the duty and the responsibility of picking a running mate."

Obama Campaign Skewers Clinton E-mail Statement

Wednesday morning, the Clinton campaign sent reporters and bloggers covering the campaign a statement that consisted of questions and comments under the title of "Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground."

The Obama campaign's communications department decided to annotate those questions and comments with some comments of their own... and boy, they held nothing back.

Below you'll find the annotated e-mail that has been making the rounds of the media. The Obama campaign's comments are in bold.

To: Interested Parties
From: Clinton Campaign
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Re: Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground [Get ready for a good one.]

The path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes through Pennsylvania so if Barack Obama can't win there, how will he win the general election?

[Answer: I suppose by holding obviously Democratic states like California and New York, and beating McCain in swing states like Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin where Clinton lost to Obama by mostly crushing margins. But good question.]

After setbacks in Ohio and Texas, Barack Obama needs to demonstrate that he can win the state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the last state with more than 15 electoral votes on the primary calendar and Barack Obama has lost six of the seven other largest states so far -- every state except his home state of Illinois.

[If you define "setback" as netting enough delegates out of our 20-plus-point wins in Mississippi and Wyoming to completely erase any delegate advantage the Clinton campaign earned out of March 4th, then yeah, we feel pretty setback.]

Pennsylvania is of particular importance, along with Ohio, Florida and Michigan, because it is dominated by the swing voters who are critical to a Democratic victory in November. No Democrat has won the presidency without winning Pennsylvania since 1948. And no candidate has won the Democratic nomination without winning Pennsylvania since 1972.

[What the Clinton campaign secretly means: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT WE'VE LOST 14 OF THE LAST 17 CONTESTS AND SAID THAT MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA WOULDN'T COUNT FOR ANYTHING. Also, we're still trying to wrap our minds around the amazing coincidence that the only "important" states in the nominating process are the ones that Clinton won.]

But the Obama campaign has just announced that it is turning its attention away from Pennsylvania.

[Huh?]

This is not a strategy that can beat John McCain in November.

[I don't think Clinton's strategy of losing in state after state after promising more of the same politics is working all that well either.]

In the last two weeks, Barack Obama has lost ground among men, women, Democrats, independents and Republicans -- all of which point to a candidacy past its prime.

["A candidacy past its prime." These guys kill me.]

For example, just a few weeks ago, Barack Obama won 68% of men in Virginia, 67% in Wisconsin and 62% in Maryland. He won 60% of Virginia women and 55% of Maryland women. He won 62% of independents in Maryland, 64% in Wisconsin and 69% in Virginia. Obama won 59% of Democrats in Maryland, 53% in Wisconsin and 62% in Virginia. And among Republicans, Obama won 72% in both Virginia and Wisconsin.

But now Obama's support has dropped among all these groups.

[That's true, if you don't count all the winning we've been up to. As it turns out, it's difficult to maintain 40-point demographic advantages, even over Clinton]

In Mississippi, he won only 25% of Republicans and barely half of independents. In Ohio, he won only 48% of men, 41% of women and 42% of Democrats. In Texas, he won only 49% of independents and 46% of Democrats. And in Rhode Island, Obama won just 33% of women and 37% of Democrats.

[I'm sympathetic to their attempt to parse crushing defeats. And I'm sure Rush Limbaugh's full-throated endorsement of Clinton didn't make any difference. Right]

Why are so many voters turning away from Barack Obama in state after state?

[You mean besides the fact that we're ahead in votes, states won and delegates?]

In the last few weeks, questions have arisen about Obama's readiness to be president. In Virginia, 56% of Democratic primary voters said Obama was most qualified to be commander-in-chief. That number fell to 37% in Ohio, 35% in Rhode Island and 39% in Texas.

[Only the Clinton campaign could cherry pick states like this. But in contrast to their logic, in the most recent contest of Mississippi, voters said that Obama was more qualified to be commander in chief than Clinton by a margin of 55-42.]

So the late deciders -- those making up their minds in the last days before the election -- have been shifting to Hillary Clinton. Among those who made their decision in the last three days, Obama won 55% in Virginia and 53% in Wisconsin, but only 43% in Mississippi, 40% in Ohio, 39% in Texas and 37% in Rhode Island.

[If only there were enough late deciders for the Clinton campaign to actually be ahead, they would really be on to something.]

If Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral with a big win in Pennsylvania, he cannot possibly be competitive against John McCain in November.

[If they are defining downward spiral as a series of events in which the Clinton campaign has lost more votes, lost more contests and lost more delegates to us ... I guess we will have to suffer this horribly painful slide all the way to the nomination and then on to the White House.]

[Thanks for the laughs guys. This was great.]

Obama and Clinton Parade Military Supporters

It was like an Election 2008 version of Ethel Merman singing "Anything You Can Do" ... only it went like this: "Any military support you can prove, I can prove better, I can prove military support better than you."

Wednesday the two campaigns showed off the retired military brass that backs each candidate.

In a conference call with Clinton supporters, Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Major General Paul Eaton, Rear Admiral David Stone, Brigadier General John Watkins, Jr., and former Secretary of the Navy John Dalton all talked at some length about how ready Sen. Hillary Clinton was to become commander-in-chief.

Admiral Sestak, for instance, described her as "one strong woman, who is ready to be commander-in-chief" and that "it was important that we have someone who knows how to work the process ... from day one."

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign sent the media its own list of retired senior military officials who believe that Sen. Obama is ready to be the boss on day one. Many of them had appeared with him at an event in Chicago Wednesday. That list includes Brigadier General Larry Gillespie, Major General Scott Gration, Admiral Don Guter, Brigadier General David "Dave" McGinnis, Brigadier General David "Dave" McGinnis, General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, Admiral John B. Nathman, Major General Hugh Robinson, Brigadier General James Smith, Admiral Robert "Willie" Williamson, and Major General Ralph Wooten.

"I spent a career involved in coalition warfare, and I am keenly aware of the importance of working with allies," said Brig. Gen. Smith. "Senator Obama brings a powerful approach to dealing with national security challenges by truly leveraging multinational relationships. He brings a new face of America to the rest of the world."

March 12, 2008

Poll Shows McCain Neck and Neck With Obama, Clinton

In the first release of Gallup Poll Daily tracking on the 2008 general election, Republican nominee Sen. John McCain is very close to both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama. The Democratic candidates lead McCain by two percentage points each: Clinton leads 47-45, and Obama leads 46-44.

One focus in the ongoing campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is the relative strength of Obama and Clinton against McCain in November's general election. These data suggest that, at this point, no candidate can claim an advantage ...

The results are based on interviews with 4,372 registered voters nationwide.

Meanwhile, Obama continues to lead Clinton in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll, but the race is basically a dead heat, with Obama leading by two points, 47-45.

Geraldine Ferraro Leaves Clinton Campaign

Geraldine Ferraro has stepped down from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. A Clinton campaign official confirmed the decision by Ferraro, who caused a firestorm this week by suggesting that Barack Obama is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination because he's black. Last week, she told a newspaper in Torrance California that "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Ferraro remains the only woman to have run on a major presidential ticket in the US.

Ferraro was serving in an honorary position on Clinton's campaign finance committee. She insisted her comment was not racist. And she told ABC News that if her name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine, Walter Mondale would not have picked her as a running mate in 1984.

Obama spoke to reporters about Ferraro's comment, before her decision to step down: "I think it was an unfortunate remark and I said so I think it encourages and feeds into the divisive politics that ultimately does not serve us well."

Clinton said that she disagreed with Ferraro, and that she hopes to keep the campaign focused on issues.

-- David Greene

"Doctor Death" to Run For Congress in Michigan

Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian says he's running for Congress in Michigan.

The Oakland (MI) Press reports that Kevorkian (who will be 80 in May) picked up petitions from the Oakland County Clerk's Office on Tuesday to run as a candidate with no party affiliation.

"I plan to," Kevorkian said Tuesday afternoon. "I wouldn't do this otherwise. We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington."

Kevorkian, who spent eight years in prison on second-degree murder charges because of his work with assisted suicides, said he would have more news on his candidacy next week.

Oakland County Prosecutor Dave Gorcyca, whose office was responsible for sending Kevorkian to prison, dismissed Kevorkian decision to run.

"I would place Jack Kevorkian's candidacy in the same ranking with (Texas U.S. Rep.) Ron Paul's (presidential run)," Gorcyca said. "It's probably more of a publicity stunt. To call attention to himself is standard protocol for Jack when he doesn't have the limelight focused on him. I would not consider his candidacy to be a legitimate one."

Michigan law does not prevent Kevorkian from either voting or running for office once he is released from prison. He lives in the 9th Congressional District. The seat is held by eight-term Republican incumbent Rep. Joe Knollenberg.

A clerk in the Oakland County's election office said that no one was quite sure exactly which office Kevorkian was running for (he said most of the time the office doesn't know until the papers are actually filed) but most people assume it's for Congress. If so, Kevorkian will need a minimum of 3000 and a maximum of 6000 registered voters to sign his petition.

In 1998, Kevorkian's attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, was the Democratic candidate for governor of Michigan and (to put it politely) got clobbered.

NPR Launches Get My Vote Project

Please allow me for a moment to step back from political coverage and tell you about a new NPR project that is, as they say these days, the bomb.

NPR has just launched its Get My Vote project. I like to think of it as a combination of "This I Believe" and YouTube. When you go to the Get My Vote section (which you can find right here), you are invited to send us your thoughts about politics. The project is based around a basic premise: what will it take for political candidates to get my vote?

Now, we're not looking for policy papers. What we want are stories ... stories about how you arrived at your own personal beliefs about our political system or the candidates in the presidential race or the political parties. Tells us about the issues that concern you and why they do, in a personal way. (Get My Vote allows you to upload video, audio or text, so if you're camera shy, or don't like the sound of your voice, you can still participate.)

I'm not going to explain all the rules to you ... that would take too much space. You can find all that information here. But if I could sum up the important stuff: keep it to about two minutes (about 400 words), no four letter-words or bad language, and no personal attacks - on the candidates or on other posters. If you abuse, you lose.

Here are a few examples of what we're looking for.

This piece comes from Cecilia Munoz, and its about treating immigrants fairly:

Here is one from the inimitable Kinky Friedman (yes, that Kinky Friedman) about abolishing the death penalty:

And here's one from former Bush administration adviser Richard Perle on Iraq:

Get My Vote also allows you to comment on the videos you've seen. So there are all kinds of ways to participate.

You're going to be seeing Get My Vote material a lot in the Newsblog. sometime in the next few days you'll be able to find a selection of the videos on the blog's main page.

This is a great opportunity to participate and let people know what you're feeling about the election.

Obama Campaign Says It's Not Just Pennsylvania

After last night's primary in Mississippi, there are eight states and two territories left to hold primaries or caucuses (not including Michigan and Florida and whatever may happen there). And as far as the Obama campaign is concerned, they are all in play ... except for maybe one.

In a conference call earlier today Obama campaign manager David Plouffe didn't actually say that the campaign was conceding Pennsylvania to Sen. Hillary Clinton, but he came very close to it. He noted that the polls show Clinton with a wide lead (19 points in a poll released yesterday) and that she's likely do very well there. But while he said that Sen. Obama will continue to fight hard for the Keystone State, the Obama camp is looking ahead to the other contests as well.

"This race is about more than just a few states," said Plouffe. He said the Obama campaign would put staff in all of the remaining states, such as Indiana and North Carolina.

"We don't cherry pick," he said, in reference to the Clinton campaign's emphasis on the importance of Pennsylvania when it comes to deciding who should win the Democratic nomination. Plouffe said the Obama campaign's goal is to be the clear leader among pledged delegates at the end of June.

12:40 PM ET | 03-12-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Gov. Spitzer Says He Will Resign Effective Monday

Update: In a news conference this morning, New York Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he will resign his office, effective Monday.

"I'm deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me," he said in his resignation speech.

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The Associated Press is reporting that a top New York state official is saying that Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to resign, "completing a stunning fall from power after he was nationally disgraced by links to a high-priced prostitution ring."

Spitzer will hold a news conference at 11:30 this morning where he will announce his resignation, according to a second Spitzer official. Spitzer would be replaced by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who will become New York's first black (and legally blind) governor. ABC News is reporting that transition talks are underway.

Poll shows Dems Split Over How to Fix MI and FL

Rank and file Democrats favor a compromise of some kind over Michigan and Florida, but what kind of compromise it should be is another thing.

In a Gallup poll of 528 Democrats or those leaning Democratic, 55 percent "favor a compromise that would allow the two states' delegates to participate, rather than excluding those states' delegates entirely (23%), which is the current plan. Twenty-one percent do not have an opinion either way."

The Gallup poll offered those surveyed four choices: refuse to allow these delegates to participate, a compromise that would honor the results of the January primaries, compromise to hold a new primary or caucus in the two states, or a compromise with an unspecified outcome. Not surprisingly, a majority of Obama supporters favor not seating the delegates at all, while a majority of Clinton delegates favor a compromise that allows the seating of the January delegates. Obama supporters are also more in favor of the do-over idea, but by a small margin.

NPR's Peter Overby reported on Morning Edition about efforts by two Democratic governors to find the money to hold the do-overs. Meanwhile, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow and Florida Senator Bill Nelson will meet today with a group of donors who might also be interested in helping to support new primaries or caucuses.

But if a do-over is held, it's not likely to be a mail-in vote in Florida. The Washington Post's The Trail blog reports that Tuesday night "Florida's entire House Democratic caucus -- including both supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama -- issued a joint statement that aimed to shoot down a proposal to redo the Florida Democratic primary through a mail-in vote."

10:26 AM ET | 03-12-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Second Muslim Elected to Congress

Democrat Andre Carson -- who describes himself as an "orthodox, secular, universal Muslim" - won Tuesday's special election to succeed his grandmother, the late U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, and fill out the final 10 months of her term.

The IndyStar.com reports that Carson defeated Republican Jon Elrod 54-43 percent in the battle for Indiana's 7th District. But Carson's struggles are not over. The Star reports that he faces a tough fight in the May 6th Democratic primary, and then another campaign in the fall to become the full-time member for the district and "be more than a footnote to his grandmother's legacy."

Carson's faith was an issue for some during the campaign, the Star also reports.

"And although much has been made of his faith as a Muslim -- as well as the fact that controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was among those who eulogized Carson's grandmother at her funeral -- Carson said his campaign had benefited from volunteers who crossed all age, racial, religious and social backgrounds."

Carson said in a recent interview that he is not a member of the Nation of Islam, not does he attend one of its mosques.

Elrod declined to concede Tuesday night's special election, saying he would wait until all the votes are counted. He also faces two Republican opponents on May 6th in his ongoing battle for become the first Republican to hold the district since 1975.

Polls in Michigan Show that Do-Over Would be Close

When the Michigan primary was held in January, Hillary Clinton won 55 percent of the total vote. But with many top candidates not running because the state had been sanctioned by the Democratic Party for holding its primary too early, 40 percent of those who went to the polls voted for "uncommitted." (Several prominent state politicians called on supporters of Barack Obama and John Edwards -- who was still in the Democratic race then -- to vote uncommitted.)

At the time the Detroit News reported that experts said if Clinton didn't receive 60 percent of the vote in a primary where she was basically running unopposed, she should be concerned.

Now a poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports late last week shows that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would each get an identical 41% if a do-over vote were held in Michigan.

Clinton leads by seven among women and trails by eight among men. Clinton does better with low-income voters and Obama does better among upper-income voters. Obama leads among voters under 50 while Clinton leads among older voters.

Clinton currently has a solid lead in Florida, the other state that may hold a do-over, according to the last poll held in the state in late February.

8:00 AM ET | 03-12-2008 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

March 11, 2008