“What in my background equips me to deal with evil and bad men?” — Senator Hillary Clinton
** L.A. LIVING WAGE LAW. Organized labor in LA has a poll that it say shows that any election move by the business lobby to try to overturn the city’s “living wage” law — which grants airport area hotel service workers a higher minimum wage than others, $9.30 per hour, plus another $1.25 an hour for benefits — would be a slam dunk failure. The numbers show the law supported, 74% to 23%. Indeed, backers say that voters want to go further with the law. There’s no real reason to doubt that. Public support for an increased minimum wage is broad throughout California. But campaigns are campaigns, and what LA labor is not mentioning is that a living wage law in even more liberal Santa Monica was defeated in a public vote.
** WHY DIDN’T THEY THINK OF IT BEFORE? BECAUSE THAT ISN’T HOW THEY THINK. New West friend Dan Weintraub in his Sacramento Bee blog notes that some Republicans in the U.S. Senate like Alabama’s Jeff Sessions have discovered that talking about illegal immigration’s impact on labor markets and services for the poor is a compassionate way to talk about their opposition to immigration, and wonders why they haven’t thought of that before. I suspect they haven’t thought of it before because their opposition to immigration has nothing to do with concern for workers or poor people.
Actually, some other people thought of this before Jeff Sessions. They include quite a few new Democratic members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Which is why comprehensive changes to the immigration laws were not a part of new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s big change agenda.
** SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS. Is there a bit of a p.c. backlash underway in Hollywood against the very strong storyline in 24‘s Season Six, in which Islamic jihadist terrorists have just detonated a suitcase nuke in LA? The acclaimed Fox TV show won Emmy Awards last fall for its fifth season, for, among other things, best television drama and best actor (Kiefer Sutherland as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer). But last night at the SAG Awards, the show lost out for both best actor and best ensemble (the SAG rough equivalent of best drama). The material being judged by the SAG membership was from the same Season Five which swept the Emmys. And Sutherland has previously won a couple of SAG best actor awards for the same role.
Most of the people I voted for in the Screen Actors Guild Awards didn’t win, as it happens, with the notable exception of Helen Mirren winning best actress in a feature film for The Queen.
** GIULIANI’S MOVES. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential exploratory committee has just announced a New Hampshire chair. It’s former New Hampshire Republican Chairman Wayne Semprini. Giuliani has previously brought on board a New Hampshire political director and a “coalitions director” for the Granite State. The 9/11 standout, a frontrunner in the polls, ventured to New Hampshire over the weekend for only the second time in three months. As reported over the weekend, he was received respectfully, but not rapturously, at a state Republican conference. Giuliani, according to the Washington insiders’ Hotline, really didn’t knock ‘em dead in New Hampshire over the weekend.
Noting that there were long stretches of talk with no applause, and no humor, the publication seemed unimpressed. Here’s my observation. Unless you have total commitment to presidential politics, entering a campaign is like playing at half-speed in the NFL. It’s a good way to get hurt.
** HILLARY’S JOKE. Some of the press, ever linear, think Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton made a gaffe yesterday in Iowa when she deadpanned an audience member’s question about what qualified her to deal with evil guys. The audience roared at her response, as you’ll see, in which she repeats the question and stands there at first quietly, then breaks into a big grin as she sways relaxedly on the stage. On one level, she’s obviously making a reference to her sometimes wayward husband, the former president of the United States. Not to mention, on another level, the various guys like Ken Starr and Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News personalities who went after her hammer and tong. Trust a political reporter to ask for an explanation of a joke. Not to mention to expect an answer.
** SCHWARZENEGGER HEALTH CARE WEBCAST AT 10 AM. Continuing his campaign with the business community, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds another roundtable on his comprehensive health care plan, this one at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
** Monitor computer memory prices on a daily basis. Prices are mostly stable.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices have dipped to $54 to $55 per barrel.
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If they stopped driving Schwarzeneger he’d stop doing these events, no?
Hillary is very funny there.
Arnold — vaya con dios. Tough crowd in San Diego.
Schwarzenegger will be on the crutches for several more weeks.
Sad to announce the following:
“Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was euthanized Monday after complications from his breakdown at the Preakness last May.”
That’s sad. Barbaro was a great champion.
Very courageous.
Hillary is funnier than I thought!
Barbaro:
Very sad to see him go, what a great horse:[
It is tragic …I cried and cried when it happened but I am not crying now because this should have happened much earlier…I would never put a horse I loved through what they put him through…his medical treatments were very controversial among us horsey set…
Clinton Answer:
Good thing that reporter didn’t ask me THAT question. I would have said,”By the age of 40,most women have met literally thousands of bad and or cranky evil men.” Then,I would have hit the reporter with a snowball. I like to see Senator Clinton smile and laugh:]
Women, of course, are never ever ever deceitful and/or in the wrong …
I have a question(s)…Why isn’t Clinton being more careful? Or was that intentional?
Barbara,
I agree with you 100%. We have both been through this with our own animals and we both love our pets as family.
It humanizes Hillary and gets people buzzing.
Jeez, I thought that poor horse was getting better. I was really pulling for him (my sisters have horses and love them dearly.).
No matter what, I still don’t think Hillary is going to win in Iowa. I have worked in most of early primary states and NH/Iowa in particular. The activists may love her but they won’t get her across the finish line any closer than third.
Having directed a campaign in Iowa, it occurs to me that Hillary’s problem is that she is not popular with many activists, being insufficiently liberal in their view.
Hillary Clinton’s biggest problem is that she reminds many divorced men of their first wife. And not in a flatterring way. I speak from experience.
Hillary was quite funny and her candor confirms there was some truth to points made by the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”. Though in absence of a famously stained dress, I am sure she would still maintain her husband’s enemies made the whole sexual harassment/federal grand jury perjury story up.
Unless Cruz Bustamante decides to run, Hillary is my pick for Democrat Presidential candidate.
You know the old saying. Be careful what you wish for.
I think Bill makes a good call in comparing a run for the Presidency to a full contact sport. Remember the early fading of Phil Gramm and Richard Gephardt? Interestingly both were tripped up with weak showings in contests in adjacent states. By that logic if Richardson does well in Nevada his bid will start to be taken seriously, if he does poorly he is toast…
Hillary would be in much better shape with activists if she hadn’t spent a bunch of time tying herself in knots over her vote. Saying, “I was wrong, and if I’d known what I know now, I wouldn’t have voted that way,” would’ve largely erased the problem of having voted for the war (with basically everyone but the dead-end Kucinich types).
The ridiculous thing is, saying that would probably be the truth. I don’t think most Senators, on either side, would’ve gone for this war if they’d really understood how bad the planning was, and how flimsy the evidence that it was necessary.
Hillary showed why she is the one to beat. It was a perfectly orchestrated weekend. Large Townhalls, a meeting with the local wag, David Yepsen for a sit down, and strong answers to questions about healthcare, Iraq, and ‘evil’ men. She is tested and ready. The rest of the field will have a very difficult time knocking her out. I think she is the strongest frontrunner the Democrats have had since Walter Mondale. Its pretty unusual for the Dems to have this clear a frontrunner, this early.
I believe that it is a difficult time to be running for president, no matter if it is Hillary trying to explain her disappointment with what Bush did with the go-ahead they gave him, or Obama, who never had occasion to vote, but must nevertheless try to find a position more comforting to himself and to voters than an outright immediate pullout.
Perhaps some of the candidates’ obliqueness might also stem from a trepidation that all might not already be lost in Iraq — that there is at least some possibility that a surge plus smart tactics might work.
I too think Iraq has been handled abysmally, but it isn’t as if there remains no opportunity whatever to turn things in a positive direction there. I think if I were a candidate advisor, I would be trying to buy some time for the candidate on this issue, asking, where will we be if things start to go swimmingly?
Oh, I’m not so sure that Walter Mondale is the name you want to invoke with regard to Hillary.
He lost 26 states to Gary Hart — and would have lost the nomination had Internet financing been available then and, as it was, had to rely on “extra” financing from labor to hang on for the nomination. Then he lost 49 states to Ronald Reagan.
The Hillary folks may not like the analogy to Mondale, but its true. There hasnt been such a frontrunner since Mondale. Hart came in a distant second to Mondale in Iowa and was able to beat him in New Hampshire.
I think Hillary will be alot more formidable than Mondale was; both in the primary season, and certainly, in the General election.
I just was noting that Hillary is in a very strong position. Stronger than Mondale was, because the frontloaded primary calendar helps the better financed candidate.
Mitchell…that was awesome…and dead on.
A boatload of cash and name ID does not a successful presidential primary winner make. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it sure as heck helps but ask Howard Dean how well it worked out for him in the end.
But Iowa isn’t the only problem for Clinton. Even if she finishes wins or finishes 2nd in Iowa, there is a high likelihood she gets creamed in NH and crushed in South Carolina and Nevada.
I have worked and ran campaigns in both NH and South Carolina and know the parties in both states. There is no way the moderate Dems who dominate those states will allow Hillary to pass –she is far too polarizing a figure for to win in a general election.
You don’t like Mondale — then use the Dean example — boy there’s a name that invokes a lot of good felings.
And my friends in labor tell me that they find it hard to support a Hillary candidacy — their own internal numbers and general membership feedback in not as positive as one would hope….course, the NH primary is a year off — anything can happen, right?
My bet would be that Hillary stays in the game longer than folks such as Edwards and Obama.
I know the Mondale v. Hart scenario very well.
I was Gary Hart’s political director in Iowa. For the last month of the campaign.
Hart was in fifth place when I got to Des Moines. After a month that would put me in the hospital today, we maneuvered past the rest of the field, including the supposed big challenger, the very famous John Glenn. When Gary got on the plane out of the Quad Cities on caucus day to fly east to New Hampshire, we discussed his probable second in Iowa. He knew that would alter the equation and with a strong operation and appeal in New Hampshire — we’d already raised a kitty for a TV buy there — he would probably win in New Hampshire and get real famous real fast.
I’ll take that bet….
Regarding Hillary Clinton, I would not be at all surprised if she is the next POTUS.
Labor had plenty of much more damning information about Phil Angelides, but dragged him across the finish line. And the Clintons are more formidable by a multiple magnitude.
I’m not predicting, but I met her a long time ago — and have not been a supporter — but she is not a person to take at all lightly.
Uh, I think Gore was at least as strong a frontrunner as Mondale. The closest Bradley came to a victory was his 50–46 loss to Gore in the New Hampshire primary.
Bill…you have been on the Presidential trail and most of us haven’t. So I can’t really argue the merits on the ground of such a race.
Forgive me, but I don’t dragged him across the finish line behind a twenty point loser and California ain’t Iowa or NH or, for that matter, South Carolina.
No one takes the millions of Hillary lightly…but she has never played, as a candidate, in real primetime. But her jusband can’t win this race for her — she has to and I don’t know that she really can reach the mountaintop.
If Labor doesn’t think she can win in the primary, that is a signal to me, we have a problem.
But no, I think you are right that can’t take her lightly — nor do any of the other Democrats I would hope.
Hap wonders if the candidates have trepidation that “all might not already be lost in Iraq — that there is at least some possibility that a surge plus smart tactics might work.”
I wish that was the case. What the troops and their families are going through is tragic. And what is worse, for a policy ill concieved and poorly executed. Would anyone asasociate the phrase “smart tactics” with this administration? Bill notes Bush (albeit w/o admiting so) is taking some of the Study Group recommendations but only haphazardly. This does not give me confidence at a good outcome. I hope I am wrong.
Sorry, forgot to add my name to the last post.
‘Auros’, you are right-Gore was a strong frontrunner. Dont know why I excluded him.
Dana – You make good points to be sure. I do think it possible that the candidates don’t want to bet the company so to speak that the folks at Defense and State can’t salvage something there. Personally I am trying to be optimistic, which I suppose is a big stretch. . .
Al Gore was the sitting VP while Fritz Mondale was the former VP. He won every state in the contest for the nomination against dear, somewhat hapless Cousin Bill, then went on to win the national popular vote election for president.
That’s real different from Mondale, primaries and general.
Like Hillary, Gore was viewed as a semi-stiff. His advisors helped keep him that way, although the semi-populist stuff worked pretty well.
But they worked hard to prevent him from talking about what he really cared about, climate change.
Yeah, that worked real well.
People want to see conviction in a president. We see that having worked for Bush II even when it was fairly unpopular conviction.
I think the hesitation in adopting a full-throated Out Now message is not because smart pols think Iraq will morph after a period longer than WW II into a success, but because they know that people have conflicted feelings about the course ahead.
I think Arnold actually captured it in a way with that phrase I had a little fun with — We must pull out in a victorious way.
Bradley: “Labor had plenty of much more damning information about Phil Angelides, but dragged him across the finish line.”
Yes, but the random drug test revealed the presence $10million of Tsakopoulosaline and voters disqualified him.
Not before the primary yielded up the loser nominee of all times.
Brasky…you are one funny bastard.
Are divorced Republican males a big constituency for female Democratic politicians?
How did Gov. Schwarzenegger’s health plan webcast go?
The more I see Hillary on the stump, the more convinced I am that Al Gore will be the Democrat nominee.
That “evil and bad men” comment might as well have been a Letterman joke about the Clintons. Self-deprecating humor is one thing; taking a potshot at your spouse feeds into the most negative impressions people have of her.
Riight. And climate change is great, too! lol
You right wing haters need to get over Monicagate. You caused enough troubgle in the last decade.
All righty, Annie. Let’s keep it cool.
Now, Nick. You know what is one of the really, truly greatest things about the Internet? Everyone has an opinion …
Incidentally, what was so devastating about those politically incorrect comments by Arnold last year — leaked by the Angelides campaign to the LA Times — is that they played into the most negative impressions people have about him.
The Phil Angelides crew was so sure about that.
On Comprehensive Immigration Reform:
We shall see…it was my understanding that the bill was always going to originate in the Senate not the House, as the plan since last fall was to reintroduce last year’s McCain-Kennedy after some tweaking …according to press reports,Reid has stated he hopes for a bill no later than August. Some reports have McCain introducing the new bill in just a few weeks…I am actually having a meeting later this week with a friend just back from DC working on this with the Faith- Based nonprofit I am involved with…There certainly is momentum for this …The President wants this bill…In fact if you look at the Presidential candidates: McCain, Brownback, Hagel, Clinton, Biden, Obama,Dodd, all voted for CIRA and when Edwards was asked about it in RENO townhall, he responded that he is for CIRA but he wants the requirement of learning English in the “Citizenship track” component….I am not sure where Rudy is but his favorite think tank
(and one of mine) The Manhattan Institute supports CIRA…only Romney has taken a hardline anti-illegal immigrant stance…
As far as the House goes there are both Dems and Reeps that could derail the bill but “the job of finding that middle ground falls to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who heads the immigration subcommittee.
“There’s a way to deal with this,” she said. “The Republicans I’ve listened to make it clear they’re open to dialogue, to practical solutions.”(LA Times)
I assume she his speaking to resistant DEMS too!…
I am feeling very hopeful about this
issue!…