It is 3 AM in Metaphorville, and Barack Obama has a new ad up in
Texas countering Hillary Clinton’s new/old ad discussed below.
** FAMOUS PRO-CLINTON/ANTI-OBAMA 527 INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURE CAMPAIGN PASSES WEEKEND DEADLINE WITHOUT A MEDIA BUY. The American Leadership Project, ballyhooed for weeks and dominated by California Democrats, passed this Friday in quiet fashion without buying the long anticipated media time in the Texas and Ohio primaries.
I’ll have more on the specifics of this rather staggering development as we go.
** STEVE WESTLY JOINS ARNOLD, AGAIN, AND DISCUSSES INTERNET TIME IN POLITICS RE THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. Former California state Controller Steve Westly, the ex-eBay honcho-turned greentech venture capitalist who along with new Assembly Speaker Karen Bass was one of the two first major California endorsements for Barack Obama, has a couple of new political moves.
Next week, he joins again with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as he did in 2004 on budget reform. This time around, the two will co-chair the redistricting reform initiative for the November California ballot. Westly was also co-chairman of the ill-fated term limits revision initiative in the February primary. As he points out, had the passing Democratic legislative leadership of Fabian Nunez and Don Perata delivered on their promise of both, they would both still be in office for a few years to come. They dumped larger reform, and are now dumped themselves a bit later this year. To the evident surprise only of their immediate familiars.
Of somewhat more pressing importance, Westly, California co-chairman for Obama, is also a national finance co-chairman of the Obama presidential campaign. Though he has personally raised millions for Obama, more than any other California politician in the presidential race, Westly does not take that all that seriously, opting instead to talk up the power of Obama’s Internet fundraising.
Westly, the eBay pioneer, back from meetings in Chicago and New York says that Obama’s campaign is “a generation ahead” of anyone else in social networking tools and, hence, political fundraising.
The unwritten story of this campaign is how Obama can, thanks to his Net fundraising power, free himself from having to kow-tow to investment banker-oriented shibboleths and oppose the obvious problems of free trade agreements that do not contain adequate labor and environmental provisions.
Relatively unfettered global trade is essential in a globalized world. But the truth is that a political leader can be free of both a strangling protectionism and a compromising globalism, thanks to the financial power afforded by a skilled use of the Internet.
Here is the original of the new Clinton ad, done for Walter Mondale by the same consultant at the height of the Cold War in 1984. “Red Phone.” I know it very well.
** HILLARY = FRITZ. In case you haven’t figured this out. See the TV ad above, and note its similarity to the ad below. Both done by the same Texas establishmentarian consultant, the ever amiable Roy Spence. (Who came up with teh slogan, and I do mean teh slogan, “Don’t mess with Texas,” because he is less than a real Westerner than yours truly.)
The “Red Phone” ad was used by the Walter Mondale campaign to attempt to slow Gary Hart’s momentum one month after his break-through as surprise second, which yours truly had something to do with as the political director, in Iowa, and 22 days after Hart’s smashing victory in New Hampshire. It was somewhat successful, though not nearly so successful as some of the credulous non-history majors writing as journalists have it now.
And, to put it in perspective, it was done at the height of the Cold War, when normal people were far more worried day to day than they are now. As the Soviet Union was a far more fearsome foe than the relatively motley crew of Al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents, and Iranian zealots. Being as our our now dear Russian friends could actually destroy America with the push of a few buttons. And had, despite the marked inferiority of their normal enlisted and junior officer corps due to general physical and intellectual infirmities, a slight edge in the special operations and scientific elites. Which in the end was ground down by the superiority of democracy and the market.
Be that as it may, this ad had much less impact than much of the East Coast-based journo crowd seems to think, absent any actual knowledge of the presidential politics involved. And that was true, despite the fact of the Cold War. And despite the fact that Fritz Mondale was a highly likable fellow who had been a senior U.S. senator on his own hook who actually served as one of the most involved vice presidents in American history prior to Al Gore and Dick Cheney.
Mondale was also a U.S. Army veteran, unlike Hillary or Bill. But then, Hart was a reserve officer in the U.S. Navy, as well as a former chairman of U.S. Senate subcommittees on terrorism and nuclear weapons.
As I say, this ad had less impact than some journos think, and was presented in a very different era. Hart went on from this ad to win some of his biggest primaries, like Ohio and California. In the end, our campaign was undone by a lack of money and organization, neither of which applies to Obama, who has taken the fullest advantage imaginable of the Internet, which simply did not exist — outside the realm of DARPA (ask me what that is) — in 1984.
In the end, Hart won 26 states — and that doesn’t even count the most famous distant second place in political history, the 1984 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses (when I saw Hart off at the airport on election day, I told him he would be second in Iowa, to which he replied that he would then win New Hampshire) — and did FAR better than Mondale in general election match-ups with President Reagan. But the superdelegates of the era tipped the balance for Mondale at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.
Absent the Internet, which did not then exist outside the designs of the Pentagon and a few elite universities — and without even Jerry Brown’s somewhat infamous 800 number of 1992 — there was no serious way to harness a surge of popular, non-establishment support. Barack Obama, who is a vastly superior orator, though perhaps lacking in the policy preparation, though certainly not on an intellectual basis, does not suffer from those technological incapacities. Indeed, as I’ll report in a future item, he is ahead of the curve on the future of political technology.
Hillary Clinton, sliding in firewall states Texas and Ohio, is now running this
ad saying she is the one to deal with a 3 AM national security crisis.
In the works … my regular interviews with dueling Presidential campaign spinners. Who are not allowed to be spinners.
** ROCKEFELLER ENDORSES OBAMA. Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has just endorsed Barack Obama. Implicitly answering the Clinton campaign’s closing message, that she is the best choice on national security, Rockefeller said this: “As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am all too aware that the threats we face are unconventional. They are sophisticated. They are constantly changing and adapting. And they are very serious. What matters most in the Oval Office is sound judgment and decisive action. It’s about getting it right on crucial national security questions the first time – and every time.
“The indisputable fact is Barack Obama was right about Iraq when many of us were wrong. It was a tough call and the single greatest national security question, and mistake, of our time. Today, we remain a country at war, and countless mistakes over the last six and a half years have made us less safe. The stakes have never been higher, and that is why we must take a stand.”
Rockefeller is the 15th member of the U.S. Senate to endorse the freshman Illinois senator. Clinton, the two-term senator from New York and former first lady of the United States, has been endorsed by 12 of their Senate colleagues.
NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, is favored by only 16% of Ohio primary voters. Most believe that Obama opposes it; the view of Clinton’s position is much more muddled.
** CLINTON CAMPAIGN SAYS OBAMA MUST WIN ALL FOUR STATES ON TUESDAY TO SUCCEED. A few weeks ago, the Clinton line was that Hillary would close the delegate gap on March 4th, powered by big wins in the Texas and Ohio primaries. Now the new line, from this morning’s campaign memo, is that in order for Obama to succeed, he must win not only Texas and Ohio, but also Rhode Island and Vermont. Which translates thusly; if Clinton wins only one state, she is the day’s winner. I feel the room spinning: The media has anointed Barack Obama the presumptive nominee and he’s playing the part. With an eleven state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The Obama campaign and its allies are outspending us two to one in paid media and have sent more staff into the March 4 states. In fact, when all is totaled, Senator Obama and his allies have outspent Senator Clinton by a margin of $18.4 million to $9.2 million on advertising in the four states that are voting next Tuesday.
Senator Obama has campaigned hard in these states. He has spent time meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies, and – of course – making speeches.
If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there’s a problem.
Prince Harry, fighting with the British Army in Afghanistan, has been forced to leave after the Drudge Report broke a media embargo on his activities. The UK Ministry of Defence says the revelation places the young royal and his unit in danger.
** BRITS DISGUSTED WITH THE DRUDGE REPORT FOR VIOLATING PRINCE HARRY EMBARGO.From the conservative Sun newspaper: Harry, whose planned deployment to Iraq was scrapped last year, is the first senior royal to fight on a battlefield since Queen Victoria’s grandson Prince Maurice in World War One. His extraordinary tour of duty was known about by all British media — including The Sun — but kept secret under an unprecedented voluntary arrangement.
Yet notorious US news website the Drudge Report yesterday revealed damaging details, sending top brass into a spin.
Generals met late into last night to decide whether to rush Harry home five weeks ahead of schedule. He had already left Garmsir for another desert area, known to The Sun. Some officers claimed this would protect him. But others insisted his war was now over.
One senior military source said: “We’re going to have to bring him home immediately. We have to expect that every fanatical fighter in 1,000 miles of him will be pulling out all the stops to find him.”
Even once home, Harry could remain a target for Taliban sympathisers.
** TEXAS DEMOCRATIC PARTY DECRIES THREATENED LAWSUIT BY CLINTON CAMPAIGN.The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports this morning that the Hillary Clinton campaign has threatened a lawsuit against the combination Texas primary and caucus system. Rival Barack Obama has drawn even or perhaps slightly ahead in the Texas polls after trailing by nearly 20 points a few weeks ago. Former President Bill Clinton declared earlier this month that his wife has to win the Texas primary in order to continue her campaign.
Clinton’s campaign problems in Texas are compounded by the contest being a combination primary and caucus. People who vote in the primary during the day are eligible to participate in caucuses on Tuesday night, where a third of the state’s delegates will be apportioned. So the reality, since it is becoming apparent that Obama is better organized in Texas than Clinton, is that she could win the primary and still lose the overall contest for delegates. And if she loses the primary, even narrowly, she could end up on the short end of a big delegate haul.
Texas political insiders tell me that the Clinton lawsuit move, which they say would fail, since the Clinton campaign agreed to the Texas contest rules, which have been approved by the Democratic National Committee, would be to muddy the waters of her potential defeat for PR purposes.
** REUTERS/ZOGBY TRACKING POLL: OBAMA UP IN TEXAS, CLOSING IN OHIO.The Reuters/Zogby tracking poll, which had a very good track record prior to being wildly off in California, has Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton in Texas and closing in Ohio. In Texas, it’s Obama 48%, Clinton 42%. In Ohio, it’s Clinton 44%, Obama 42%.
This is the largest Texas lead for Obama of any poll, and the closest Ohio race. But this does confirm a seeming trend in all polls.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO THE ARNOLD. During a slow period in California politics, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is off to Columbus, Ohio today, Saturday, and Sunday for his annual Arnold Classic, also known as the Arnold Sports Festival. The Arnold, as it is known, is his decades-long annual bodybuilding competition and festival of physical culture.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
BARACK OBAMA campaigns across Texas, with a veterans town hall in Houston, a prayer meeting in Brownsville, and a rally in San Antonio.
HILLARY CLINTON campaigns across Texas, attending the funeral of the Dallas police officer who died escorting her motorcade in Plano, a rally with veterans in Waco, and a rally in San Antonio.
BILL CLINTON campaigns across Ohio, with rallies in Findlay, Marion, Mansfield, Wooster, and New Philadelphia.
JOHN MCCAIN campaigns in Texas, with a town hall in Round Rock and a fundraiser in Austin.
MIKE HUCKABEE campaigns across Texas, with events in Lubbock, College Station, Fort Worth, and Houston.
President Rush Limbaugh and Vice President Ann Coulter in a
very short-lived Fox News comedy show.
THE MORNING COLUMN
It’s been evident the past two months. The tin ear and declining influence of the so-called “talk show wing” of the Republican Party. That’s the agglomeration of conservative talk show hosts, pundits, and bloggers who play the doppelganger role (and vice versa) to the “netroots” of the Democratic Party, would-be enforcers of an ideological political correctness. Like their lefty counterparts, they’re good at stirring up anger in their hyperpartisan echo chambers. And like their lefty counterparts, they failed utterly in the presidential primaries.
This is because they have political tin ears.
This week, we saw it again, when a yahoo Cincinnati talk show host decided to whip up the crowd at a John McCain rally by going off on Barack Hussein Obama. I won’t repeat any more of his blather, because in real world politics, it’s an irritating waste of time. In real world politics, this is a plus for Mr. Hussein Obama bin Laden, don’t you know?
McCain, knowing full well that this sort of swill is anathema to mainstream voters, couldn’t apologize fast enough. Then a state Republican party in Tennessee, infected as some other state parties are by this virus of nitwit hyperpartisan invective, put on a repetition. Only to be jumped on by the Republican National Committee and Karl Rove, no bleeding heart lib he.
Last week, the tin ear of the king of the talk show wing, El Rushbo himself, was on vivid hi-fi display. Rush Limbaugh was ranting on about the New York Times’ attempted hit job on McCain, which I dissected at the beginning of the week. This, to Limbaugh, was proof that McCain had been oh-so-wrong in cultivating the American press rather than kow-towing to him and his colleagues. Limbaugh sneered that the Times and Chris Matthews, himself a yakker of a certain renown, were just out to do McCain in, like all the rest of the dread MSM.
As fate would have it, in the real world of politics, Matthews was, at that very moment, busily defending McCain from the NYT hit job. As did, frankly, most of the press that Limbaugh painted as mindless left-wing automatons.
While the Times effort, a ludicrous piece of innuendo masquerading as journalism more fit for the hyperpartisan blogosphere than a major newspaper, succeeded in helping McCain get some very tardy backing from the talk show wing of his fractious party, the truth is that the story was beaten down not by hyperpartisans, but by mainstream thinkers. And in large measure by the press itself.
So Limbaugh will have to wait about as long for John McCain to become a regular on his show as Mitt Romney will have to wait to get the vice presidential nod on the national Republican ticket. Which is to say, forever.
Which brings me to the enormous exhibit A of the talk show wing’s tin ear.
The Republican presidential primaries.
In their attempts to enforce a stifling political correctness of the far right, the talk show wing set about their relentless task of destroying one John Sidney McCain III, Captain USN (Ret.)
Folks, I give you your Republican presidential nominee.
They also went about the dismantling of Mike Huckabee.
And set themselves the task of nominating the candidate who was by far the best-funded and hewed, as it were to their strict dogma, Mitt Romney.
They ramped up these efforts into a fever pitch in the run-up to Super Tuesday.
But the Rushes, Seans, Lauras, Anns, etc. of this singular universe failed quite utterly. For on Super Tuesday, McCain and Huckabee, the two targets of their various barrages of the past months, did by far the best.
And Romney? Well, the man who I can tell you with utter certainty will most assuredly not be the Republican vice presidential nominee spent far more money than Mac and Huck combined. And was knocked out of the race for his pains, after suffering a crushing defeat in California, where McCain won all but a handful of delegates.
This, mind you, was a closed Republican primary, excluding any of the independents who comprise the fastest growing constituency in the Golden State. A primary designed specifically by talk show wing acolytes who narrow control the California Republican executive board to advantage a conservative candidate, namely Romney, the favorite of most of the Orange County conservative money crowd.
It was a perfect set-up for the talk show wing to demonstrate its power. And it was a near perfect failure. Of course, Romney’s megabucks California campaign was up against not only McCain’s Vietnam War hero/maverick Western senator persona, but also McCain’s endorsement by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who last year called Limbaugh “irrelevant.”
Any generalization distorts. But here is one of the least distorting of all political generalizations: Independent voters hold the balance of power in American politics, now and even more so in the future.
The talk show wing discovered that it is really in the infotainment business. Whip people into an ideological frenzy in their echo chambers. Some listeners and readers take it very seriously. Others tune in for the entertainment value, then continue on in the real world to vote for John McCain, Mike Huckabee, whomever. There’s no question that Rush Limbaugh, at least, is entertaining, though some of the other folks are just angry. Although, personally, I thought Limbaugh was a lot more entertaining in the early years, before he took himself so seriously as a political power broker.
Now, of course, their equally angry counterparts on the hyperpartisan left, the so-called netroots, were no more successful in the Democratic presidential primaries than the talk show wing was in the Republican primaries.
Mitt Romney, meet John Edwards.
Edwards, who was actually highly electable in his earlier incarnation as a center-left Southern Democrat, moved well to the left in an effort to find some traction when he realized he would be up against superstars in the form of Obama and the Clintons. He was the clear choice of the netroots in the primaries. But after he lost Iowa to Obama, his only effect in the race before dropping out at the beginning of February was to siphon off enough votes in New Hampshire to enable Hillary Clinton to save her candidacy with a narrow win.
Which was not exactly what the netroots wanted, needless to say.
There’s a lot of sound and fury in those hyperpartisan echo chambers. But in the end, to paraphrase a line from the immortal bard — lest I be accused of plagiarism by a certain ever charming campaign — it doesn’t signify all that much.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Barack Obama says he has “news for John McCain” on Iraq and Al Qaeda.
** A.L.P. STILL M.I.A. The much discussed pro-Clinton 527 independent campaign committee — the American Leadership Project — dominated by California Democrats and to be funded by very rich Bill and Hillary Clinton backers, still has not bought media time in Texas or Ohio.
Spokesman and ALP president Roger Salazar, the Sacramento-based Democratic consultant, confirmed this in a conversation with me this afternoon. Another principal in the committee is in Hawaii on a retreat with his firm.
Will the 527 buy media time tomorrow? “We’ll see,” says Salazar.
If they’re going to get on the air the weekend before the Texas and Ohio primaries, I think they have to buy tomorrow. Meanwhile, SEIU and the UFCW are spending millions on behalf of Barack Obama.
** CAMPAIGN DAY DEVELOPMENTS. Looking back, Barack Obama was engaged again by John McCain on Iraq and Al Qaeda, as you see below. President Bush, slammed by Obama for his Iraq policies, stepped into the fray by blasting Obama for saying he would talk with Cuba’s new leader, Raul Castro. Obama fired back at Bush, upping the ante by blaming him for America being in a recession.
The Republicans clearly believe they will be running against Obama in the general election, and are out to engage him now. Hillary Clinton? They’re not as concerned about her.
But the Clinton campaign showed signs of continued relevance, with officials saying that she has raised $34 million in February that can be spent in the primaries. She raised more than that, but the remainder, which makes for a larger number, can’t be used unless she makes it to the general election.
Oddly, however, it doesn’t feel like she has those sorts of resources to bring to bear in the March 4th primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont. She is being outgunned by Obama’s campaign both on the air, and, anecdotally at least, on the ground. And that’s not counting what SEIU and UFCW are doing.
Whatever the Clinton has raised, and it won’t be reported for awhile, Obama has certainly raised substantially more.
** PRINCE HARRY REPORTEDLY LEFT AFGHANISTAN TODAY AFTER DRUDGE REPORT BROKE PRESS EMBARGO. The Drudge Report created a sensation this morning when it reported that Prince Harry, son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, has been fighting as a British Army lieutenant in Afghanistan for the past 10 weeks. The British press, and American media outlets who report on the young royal, participated in a media embargo with the UK Ministry of Defence to protect his well-being. He was originally slated for Iraq, but that became untenable as it became apparent an SAS detachment would have to defend such a high-value target. But the Drudge Report broke the embargo, and now Us Magazine reports that Harry has left Afghanistan.
But in a press availability afterwards, he clarified his position.
With regard to the yacht tax break, Schwarzenegger, according to the Sacramento Bee, blamed “some of my colleagues in Sacramento that are very strong in lobbying for keeping that.”
Then he went on, speaking of state Legislative Analyst Liz Hill’s recommendations. “She has identified $2.5 billion of tax loopholes, including the yacht tax.” (The actual figure is $2.7 billion.) “I think that we should go after those tax loopholes because we would need the extra $2.5 billion. This is $2.5 billion we can give straight to education. I’m totally for that … and I agree that we should go for it and we should do it because everybody has to give something in order to make this work.”
Later with reporters, however, Schwarzenegger came up with a clarification. “I’m not for the recommendations she made, necessarily,” he said.
“I think the key thing that we have to also do at the same time is, as I said in there, to take Liz Hill’s recommendation and to look at – have Democrats and Republicans come together – and look at all the ideas that are available and where we can, you know, close some of those tax loopholes,” he said. “Because I’m sure there are tax loopholes out there that we can close that will give us additional money for our budget so we don’t have to make just cuts, that we can look at those revenues, and I think that’s the important thing.”
I’m just guessing here, but I suspect that in between his appearance and his press avail, Schwarzenegger’s aides reminded him that about half of the loophole total Hill recommends eliminating goes to tax breaks for families with dependents.
One of the key mistakes in Schwarzenegger’s first year as governor was getting rid of the California Performance Review (CPR), which was a long-term project intended to identify governmental efficiencies. And one of the mistakes made in setting up the CPR, as I wrote at the time, is that it did not examine the state’s plethora of tax breaks. You can make a case for anything, of course, and that’s what lobbyists are paid to do. But not all of those tax breaks achieve their stated aims.
** L’AFFAIRE MCCAIN/NYT, ONE WEEK ON. It’s been a week since the New York Times published its sensational story imputing an affair between John McCain and an attractive blonde telecommunications lobbyist 31 years his junior. The paper has offered nothing new since then, and its ombudsman/public editor has declared that the paper erred considerably in its presentation.
66% of respondents say that the Times was out to hurt McCain, rather than simply report the news, with its expose of a week ago.
These are dreadful numbers. If the Times were a political candidate, it would be unelectable.
Worse, the affair, as it were, has helped McCain in the polls. Prior to publication, McCain trailed Barack Obama in general election polling. McCain consistently led Hillary Clinton. After the expose, clearly meant as a knockout punch against the Western senator, McCain leads Obama.
The Times, as it happens, has a new story on McCain, on a totally different topic. Which says he may not be eligible to be president because, as a Navy brat, he was born in what was then the Panama Canal Zone.
NWN Forum poster Sullihan had this cogent analysis of the latest anti-McCain Times story: “Did you catch the NY Times article questioning McCain’s eligibility because he was born in the Canal Zone? I think they forgot that the President appointed the Governor of the Canal Zone (usually a General); the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had jurisdiction over the Zone; only the US flag flew over the Zone, only US law applied to the Zone, “Zonians” regularly sent delegations to the Democratic National Conventions and the DNC through 1976. It was only in 1965, when riots broke out when Panamanian students entered the Zone to try to raise the Panamanian flag, that LBJ agreed to renegotiate the Panama Canal Treaty.”
** NADER’S RUNNING MATE: SAN FRANCISCAN MATT GONZALEZ. And you were wondering maybe why former San Francisco Supervisor and mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez wrote recently — well, yesterday — that he had decided he couldn’t be a fan of Barack Obama, after all?
A few minutes ago, speaking at the National Presss Club in Washington, Ralph Nader picked Gonzalez to be his running mate. So, yes, it would have been awkward for Gonzalez to be a backer of Obama.
Gonzalez nearly beat Gavin Newsom for mayor of San Francisco in 2003. After starting out as a Democrat, he re-registered as a Green. But, after a long flirtation, he ultimately demurred from challenging Mayor Newsom last year. In the meantime, he had retired from politics, leaving the San Francisco board of supervisors. But now he’s back, running with Nader.
And he criticized Obama’s emphasis on the mistakes of the Bush Administration, saying: “That’s history, that’s the past. . . . What we should be talking about is what we are going to do now.”
McCain picks up the endorsement of a Houston-based lawyer today by the name of James Baker. Baker was White House chief of staff for Ronald Reagan and served as US secretary of state.
He co-chaired the Baker-Hamilton commission, also known as the Iraq Study Group, which called for a US strategy of disengaging from Iraq by pursuing a time-limited military surge to stabilize the security situation while working to bring disparate Iraqi factions together and engage with iran and Syria to facilitate it all. This approach was blasted at the time by much of the right and the Bush Administration but has since — in slow-motion fashion — become the basis of the US approach to Iraq. As I predicted at the time.
Obama leads by 16 points among men, trails by nine points among women. Clinton’s lead among Latino voters is down to seven percentage points.
In my opinion, incidentally, the poll may be undersampling Texas black voters. But who can say for sure?
A few weeks ago, Rasmussen showed Clinton with a 16-point lead over Obama in Texas.
** RASMUSSEN PENNSYLVANIA POLL HAS OBAMA CLOSING FAST. If the Democratic presidential race continues past next Tuesday, the next Clinton firewall state is Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22nd. She had a huge lead there at the beginning of the month, some 25 points as I recall. However, that firewall is fading. The new Rasmussen tracking poll, completed last night: Clinton 46%, Obama 42%.
Hillary Clinton not only needs to win states such as Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, she needs to win them big given the head of steam Obama has picked up over the past three weeks.
** NATIONAL REPUBLICANS REBUKE TENNESSEE STATE PARTY HIT ON OBAMA. The Republican National Committee has denounced the Tennessee Republican Party for this hit on Barack Obama.
The attack played up Obama’s middle name Hussein throughout, claimed that Obama is anti-semitic, and portrayed him in the Somali native garb he donned as a courtesy while touring that war-torn, jihadist-infested nation in 2006 with a retired US Air Force general.
I’m told that the RNC, at the direction of John McCain, will formally denounce any Republican Party organ that levels such attacks at Obama in the future.
** BLOOMBERG WON’T RUN. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in an op-ed piece in this morning’s New York Times, announced that he won’t run for president this year. There had been much speculation, fanned by the multi-billionaire media mogul, that he would mount an independent bid for the presidency.
I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president. But I’ll join others in helping a candidate with an independent, nonpartisan approach win the White House.
My understanding is that his scenario worked best with a Hillary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuliani scenario. In other words, two polarizing, slashing figures disliked by large numbers of voters. That is not what is happening.
** CALIFORNIA CONGRESS: TOM MCCLINTOCK OFF AND RUNNING. There has been a lot of talk about a “draft Tom McClintock” effort to solve the GOP’s problem in the Sierra foothills outside Sacramento, where Washington scandal figure John Doolittle has had to step away. The state’s leading conservative icon, McClintock, is a career politician based in Southern California. Specifically, a termed-out state senator who has lost four races for statewide office. Retired Colonel Charles Brown proved a strong Democratic candidate in the Doolittle district in 2006 and has kept up his support.
But McClintock is doing a lot more than listen to talk of a draft. He is running, if this message to his supporters sent early this morning is to be believed.
As you may have heard I am seriously considering running for Congress in the 4th Congressional district. While no final decision has been made yet, all initial indications are very favorable. This is a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by over 17 percent and polling shows me in a very powerful position to win the Republican nomination and take on the Democrat who performed strongly in the 2006 election.
We have opened an exploratory committee to raise the funds necessary to take the initial steps before I am able to commit to this race. Your generous support would allow me to complete the exploratory process expeditiously and would weigh heavily as I prepare to make the final decision.
Hillary Clinton, who’s lost a huge lead in Texas, in this new ad
says she “will level the playing field against the special interests.”
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Hillary Clinton campaigns in Hanging Rock, Ohio and Houston, Texasw.
Bill Clinton campaigns in Smithfield, Rhode Island and Dayton, Ohio
Barack Obama campaigns in Austin, Beaumont, and Fort Worth, Texas.
Michelle Obama campaigns in Canton, Zanesville, Athens, and Chillicothe, Ohio.
John McCain campaigns in Houston and Richardson, Texas.
Mike Huckabee campaigns in Texarkana, Waco, and Amarillo, Texas.
The Russian media has a field day with Hillary Clinton’s gaffe
over the country’s new president.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Barack Obama bears down on Hillary Clinton’s support, now
denied, for NAFTA in last night’s Cleveland debate.
** ANOTHER OBAMA BACKER TAKES CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE LEADERSHIP POST. I’m hearing that another Barack Obama backer will take on one of the two top leadership posts in the California Legislature. Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass of LA, according to a well-informed source, has enough votes to become the new Assembly speaker when Clinton backer Fabian Nunez steps down at the end of this year’s session.
Bass is joining Sacramentan Darrell Steinberg, already announced as the choice to replace Clinton backer Don Perata as Senate president pro tem. She will be the first black woman Assembly speaker. And only the third black Assembly speaker since Herb Wesson, now an LA city councilman who also supports Obama, followed in the footsteps of the legendary Willie Brown, who went on to two terms as San Francisco’s mayor, and Elihu Harris, who became Oakland’s mayor, then went on to become the first and only California Democrat to lose a state Assembly race to a Green.
** RUSSIAN MEDIA MOCKS HILLARY’S PRESIDENTIAL GAFFE. As I mentioned earlier, Hillary Clinton, now saying she should be nominated over Barack Obama because of her foreign policy expertise, seemed not to know much about the man who will be elected Russia’s new president on Sunday, going so far as to be unable to pronounce his name. He’s currently Russia’s first deputy prime minister, was Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, and has been a major player for many years.
Incidentally, the commentary in Moscow generally uses the official transcript of last night’s debate, which is much kinder to Clinton than what she actually said. The fellow’s name is Dmitry Medvedev, which is not all that hard to pronounce, as some of you know from the video packages on him which have run on NWN.
What she actually said was: “Meh, uhm, Me-ned-vadah — whatever.”
This is not a leader of some backwater country. This is a guy who has been a very major player in one of the most powerful countries in the world for nearly a decade.
The Clintons and their handlers, who now complain bitterly about the press, actually got a free ride from the press for more than a year on such matters. Hillary Clinton misstated the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, thought that Pervez Musharraf was running in the Pakistani parliamentary elections, claimed that she didn’t know that the Bush White House intended to invade Iraq when she voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, and deferred to General Wes Clark on all the national security conference calls I was on.
Clark knows what he is talking about.
** SCHWARZENEGGER ON SOLAR. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this afternoon hailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her role in having Congress extend the federal solar energy tax credit and approved his appointees on the California Energy Commission voting to extend $462 million in funding for solar power. Said Schwarzenegger, whose commitment to accelerate the state’s renewable portfolio standard is running behind schedule: “At the same time the federal government is addressing this issue, California is continuing to lead in diversifying our renewable energy options by enabling the California Public Utilities Commission to quickly distribute $462 million in funds for renewable energy projects. This plan will invigorate investment in non-carbon-based energy sources and give us one more option as we work toward our green energy goals.”
In this case, the backer is not a radio talker but the Tennessee Republican Party. Which went off on Obama’s middle name and called the Illinois senator an anti-semite. They also used the now notorious photo of Obama in traditional Somali garb, which the Drudge Report insists was also distributed by the Hillary Clinton campaign in its frustration and desperation.
My view? This is suicidal behavior for conservative Republicans. It works in whipping up the cloistered circles of the far right. It does not work when examined in the light.
** ONE MILLION DONORS.Barack Obama’s campaign passed one million donors today. From MSNBC: “Obama said that 90 percent of his money is raised online in small-dollar donations, an average of $109. Aides have said that the campaign barely needs to work the phones, making fundraising calls anymore. Most of the work is done online.
“Speculation on the Internet is that the campaign may have raised as much as $50 million in February alone. Staffers smile smugly when you ask about numbers, but have been tight lipped about when they will announce their February figures and how much it might be.”
** MIKE HUCKABEE WITH A REMEMBRANCE OF CONSERVATIVE ICON WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY.“Janet and I were sad to hear the news of William F. Buckley’s passing. As one of the founders of the modern conservative movement, William Buckley helped turn the intellectual and political tide, shifting America from liberalism to conservatism. Our country, and our world, are better for his 82 years on this earth.
“Bill Buckley was also one of a kind-a scholar, an activist, a wit, a harpsichord player. As a young man, he wrote God and Man at Yale, an enduring critique of secular liberalism. In 1955, his National Review burst into prominence, influencing many millions of young conservatives, including one youngster from a little town in Arkansas. To this day, his magazine stands as one of the most important voices of conservative opinion. In addition, he produced a seemingly endless quantity of books, novels, articles, columns, and TV shows.
“So all conservatives owe Bill Buckley a great debt. Today, while our thoughts and prayers are with the Buckley family, we conservatives continue to draw inspiration from his life and work. But there is more to be done. It is up to us to carry on, fulfilling his enormous legacy.”
Buckley passed away today at age 82, founder of the National Review and father of a more gentlemanly conservative movement.
** GAME ON: MCCAIN AND OBAMA BATTLE OVER IRAQ AND AL QAEDA. John McCain kicked off a tussle with Barack Obama this morning with this statement: “Last night, we also heard Senator Obama say that once he withdrew US forces from Iraq he would ‘reserve the right’ to act ‘if Al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq.’ Is Senator Obama unaware that Al Qaeda is still present in Iraq, that our forces are successfully fighting them every day, and that his Iraq policy of withdrawal would embolden Al Qaeda and weaken our security?
“Senator Obama talks about the costs of the war in Iraq — despite our increasing success — but refuses to address the catastrophic costs that would result from precipitous withdrawal and defeat in Iraq. Surrender and defeat in Iraq will ultimately cost far more in lives and treasure than will continued success and achieving victory with honor.”
Campaigning in Columbus, Ohio, Obama fired back.
“John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but so far all he’s done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq that has cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars and that I intend to bring to an end. That’s the news, John McCain.”
Now this is the fun part. With apologies to Hillary Clinton for lifting her line.
** LEWIS SWITCHES TO OBAMA. Atlanta Congressman John Lewis, a ’60s icon as a civil rights pioneer, has ended a drama of a few weeks duration by switching his endorsement from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. Lewis kicked off the drama by seeming to tell the New York Times he had switched earlier this month, then clamming up about it. He’s only the latest superdelegate to fall to Obama.
North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan also came out for Obama today. Obama has now been endorsed by 14 of his fellow U.S. senators; Clinton has been endorsed by 12.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST AT 11:30 AM PACIFIC. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell will tour an elementary school in Sacramento and discuss their plans to intervene in 97 troubled school districts around California. The event is webcast live at 11:30 AM.
** DEMOCRATIC DEBATE: STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL VICTORY FOR OBAMA. The last scheduled debate of the presidential primary season, last night in snowbound Cleveland, turned out to be a tactical and strategic victory for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. A strategic victory because Clinton accomplished nothing game-changing. Tactical in that for the first, or at most, second time in these 20 debates, Obama actually won the debate.
After beginning by oddly complaining about “always getting the first question,” and then referencing a Saturday Night Live skit about purported press bias in favor of Obama — she wasn’t complaining about last year’s fawning coverage of her inevitability and great professionalism, which completely overlooked gaffes like her misstatement of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence — Clinton turned in a frequently argumentative performance. Despite her much longer familiarity with health care issues, she battled only to a draw in a 16-minute sequence with Obama on that topic.
Her claim that she’d not supported NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, widely blamed for plant closures and job losses in Ohio, was shredded by Obama and debate moderator Tim Russert. Obama trounced her on the decision to invade Iraq. She looked pointlessly pedantic when Obama agreed to her insistence that he should “reject” as well as “denounce” support from Louis Farrakhan. (A word to the wise: It is actually preferable to be “rejected” than “denounced.”)
And though she complained toward the end that the debate didn’t have enough questions on foreign policy and national security, her supposed metier, she didn’t seem to know much about the next president of Russia, who will be elected this Sunday. (Dmitry Medvedev has been featured in video packages on NWN.) She couldn’t actually pronounce his name, even after prompting from Russert.
To be fair, it didn’t look like Obama knew much about him, either, but he’s obviously a quick study. Obama has improved tremendously since his poor performance at the first candidate forum he participated in last spring in Las Vegas, depicted in a frequently shown NWN video. Clinton is doing about the same as she was early on.
** ALP MIA. The American Leadership Project, that long-rumored pro-Clinton/anti-Obama 527 independent expenditure campaign dominated by California Democrats, still is not on the air in Ohio or Texas in advance of the March 4th primaries there.
I’ll be getting into this.
Here is one clue, from a top Clinton financial backer. “A lot of money people don’t want to to jump into this thing now. Barack is from Chicago. He has a long memory.”
** OBAMA CLOSING IN PENNSYLVANIA, THE NEXT CLINTON FIREWALL STATE. The Pennsylvania primary isn’t till April 22nd. The Clinton campaign, which confidently predicted big wins in Texas and Ohio — after confidently predicting wrapping up the nomination on February 5th — now looks to Pennsylvania as its next “firewall” if it survives next Tuesday’s contests.
But this firewall looks very shaky, too, though as an older state the Keystone State would seem perfect for a smashing Clinton comeback.
The new Quinnipiac poll of Pennsylvania, conducted February 21-25, prior to Obama’s strong performance in last night’s Cleveland debate, shows Clinton clinging to a 49% to 43% lead over Obama. Two weeks ago, Clinton led by nearly three times as much, 52-36. Voters under 45 then went for Clinton by 11 points; now they go for Obama by 17 points.
Obama has not yet done any appreciable campaigning in the state, where Clinton’s campaign is led by Governor and former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell. Rendell has, according to sources, warned the Clinton campaign that he may not be able to hold the state for her if she doesn’t do extremely well in the March 4th primaries.
Both Obama and Clinton hold slight, two-point leads over John McCain in this key general election battleground. McCain and Obama have the highest image scores among all Pennsylvania voters. McCain is 50-27 favorable/unfavorable. Obama is 49/26 favorable/unfavorable. Clinton is 46/44 favorable/unfavorable, indicating that her support has topped out.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Hillary Clinton campaigns in Zanesville and St. Clairsville, Ohio.
Bill Clinton campaigns in Houston and Austin, Texas.
Barack Obama campaigns in Columbus, Ohio before heading back to Texas for events in Duncanville and San Marcos.
Michelle Obama campaigns in Warren and Akron, Ohio.
John McCain campaigns in Tyler and San Antonio, Texas.
Mike Huckabee campaigns in Centerville, Chillicothe, and Zanesville, Ohio.
A right-wing talk show host warming up the Cincinnati crowd
yesterday for John McCain goes ballistic on Obama.
** TIN-EARED TALK SHOW HOSTS. Above you see the self-immolation of a radio talk show host (I think his name is Bill Cunningham) ragging on Barack Hussein Obama not long before John McCain speaks at a Cincinnati rally yesterday. McCain apologized for the performance, and the national McCain campaign is notably displeased about the display. I’ll be getting more into this phenomenon later.
This stuff works, to a certain extent, in a hyperpartisan echo chamber. It doesn’t work outside it.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Barack Obama has a weekend rally with 7,000 people in
Cleveland, where tonight he debates Hillary Clinton.
** DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TONIGHT. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debate tonight in Ohio at Cleveland State University. From 6 PM to 7:30 PM Pacific live on MSNBC. This is the last debate currently scheduled in the primary season.
** PANETTA BLASTS CLINTON CAMPAIGN. Former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta today blasted Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the New York Observer. He says the Clintons had no campaign plan after failing to win three weeks ago on Super-Duper Tuesday. Panetta derided Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn as “a political pollster from the past.” He’s like Bush guru Karl Rove, he said, “It’s all about dividing people into smaller groups rather than taking the broader approach that was needed.”
Penn, head of the world’s biggest PR and lobbying firm, is author of a book called Microtrends. As distinguished, naturally, from Megatrends.
Panetta, a longtime California congressman who also served in the Clinton Cabinet as federal budget director, now directs the Panetta Institute at Cal State University, Monterey.
** U.S. ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF BACKS OBAMA AFGHAN STORY. General George Casey today backed up Senator Barack Obama’s Texas debate story about an under-manned, under-equipped rifle platoon in Afghanistan. Conservative pundits and bloggers, along with a Pentagon spokesman, had called the anecdote outlandlish.
** BOXER REVEALS DAMAGING EPA CLIMATE CHANGE DOCUMENTS. US Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who now runs the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, today released documentation showing that top staffers warned Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson that he risked losing his credibility and having to resign if he rejected California’s ability under the Clean Air Act to sharply curtail tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.
Boxer is about to hold hearings on this. The EPA, after years of foot-dragging on the issue, finally rejected California at the end of last year. All of the remaining presidential candidates in both parties — Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Mike Huckabee — have agreed to approve California’s ability to enact its own greenhouse gas regulations as president.
** TONIGHT’S DEBATE. I keep hearing today that Hillary Clinton will dictate the “tone” of tonight’s debate, because Barack Obama can’t be sure how she will attack him. I think that is totally wrong. He should run his game plan, and slough off any but the most potentially damaging attacks. Which, if they come, he should answer patiently and concisely.
What should be his game plan? 1. Continually articulate his theme of change, with specifics when appropriate in terms of time. 2. Be cool, calm, and collected. Americans want a charismatic figure, but also an anchorman who can explain the past, present, and future in understandable terms. 3. Use humor, subtly, when the openings present themselves.
Pretty obvious, I know.
I think the Clinton crew doesn’t really know how to attack Obama. They and their candidate are the ones who are off-balance. That should continue through the debate.
** QUICK HITS. Crude oil closed at a new record high today of $100.88 per barrel. … The dollar closed at a record low against the euro, nearly $1.50. … Another Ohio poll, this from Survey USA, has Barack Obama closing on Hillary Clinton. The margin, down to 50% to 44% as of last night, is down 17 points in two weeks. Clinton’s lead is due to a 22-point margin among those who have already voted.
** THE MISSING AND THE WORKING. As I reported yesterday afternoon, that much bandied about pro-Hillary/anti-Obama 527 advertising campaign — the American Leadership Project, dominated by California Democrats — had yet to make an appreciable media buy in the March 4th primaries.
I still don’t know of any such buy.
Meanwhile, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as of now have multi-million dollar efforts underway in Ohio and Texas on Obama’s behalf. Their efforts include not just advertising, but phone banks, canvassing, and robocalls.
** SCHWARZENEGGER/SHRIVER LIVE WEBCAST AT 1 PM PACIFIC. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver will join hundreds of service and volunteer leaders in LA at Cal State University Northridge to announce a major new volunteerism effort. Noting the importance of volunteer efforts in helping with the recent Southern California firestorm and other natural disaster efforts, Schwarzenegger will create the first Cabinet-level post in the country coordinating such efforts. The event will be webcast live at 1 PM Pacific.
** OBAMA CLOSING IN NEW OHIO TRACKING POLL. The Rasmussen robopoll taken over the past two nights shows Hillary Clinton’s lead — 14 points two weeks ago — down to five points over Barack Obama. It’s Clinton 48%, Obama 43%. A key closing issue? NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), which many blame for factory closings and job loss in Ohio. Hillary Clinton complains, with her aides saying she privately opposed NAFTA. But it was the Bill Clinton White House that pushed the trade pact through, and Hillary lauded it in the ’90s as one of the successes of their tenure in the White House.
** SURVEY USA TEXAS POLL.Barack Obama has a slight lead in a second Texas poll over Hillary Clinton, 50% to 46%. Obama has a big lead among men; Hillary a somewhat smaller lead among women (who make up 56% of the Democratic primary electorate). Obama has a 19-point lead among voters under 50; Hillary has an 18-point lead among voters 50 and over. Her only statistically signficant lead is among voters over 65, 16% of the electorate, by 68% to 28%. Obama hjas carved into Hillary’s big lead among Latino voters, because nearly a third are under 30.
** OBAMA CLOSING IN OHIO. Where there will be eight to 10 inches of snow on the ground for tonight’s Cleveland debate.
Incidentally, the debate was originally going to be in Columbus. But was preempted there by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Whose annual Arnold Classic festival of bodybuilding and physical culture is setting up for this weekend.
** CHRIS DODD ENDORSES OBAMA THIS MORNING. Senator Chris Dodd endorses Barack Obama at 6:30 AM Pacific this morning at the Intercontinental Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Obama is in town for tonight’s debate at Cleveland State University with Hillary Clinton.
Dodd, a former Peace Corps volunteer and Army reservist, is the first of the Democratic presidential candidates to endorse a rival. A U.S. senator from Connecticut since 1980, who first came to prominence for his liberal foreign policy stances and now chairs the Senate Banking Committee, Dodd was selected by then President Bill Clinton as the Democratic national chairman in the mid-1990s.
Like fellow Senator Joe Biden, Dodd had trouble gaining traction in this year’s presidential field, dominated as it was from the start by superstars Clinton and Obama. He nonetheless acquitted himself well in all the debates, and brings the gravitas of his decades in the Senate and long familiarity with the Clintons to his backing of Obama.
Intriguingly, for all of Obama’s strengths as a candidate, it may actually have been Chris Dodd who started the unraveling of the Clinton machine. Towards the very end of a debate four months ago in Philadelphia, a debate in which Clinton was being treated with kid gloves by the moderators, with Obama not laying a glove on her, it was Dodd who noticed that she was straddling the issue of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. Dodd, who opposes the idea, zeroed in on Clinton, who then appeared to change her position three or four times in the course of two minutes.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Hillary Clinton campaigns in Lorain, Ohio, then debates tonight in Cleveland.
Bill Clinton has early vote events across Texas, in Dallas, Grapevine, and Fort Worth, before heading to New York City.
Barack Obama has an endorsement press conference in Cleveland, Ohio, then debates tonight in Cleveland.
John McCain has events in Cincinnati and West Chester, Ohio, and has a fundraiser in Tyler, Texas.
Mike Huckabee has events in Columbus and Mason, Ohio.
Former Senator John Glenn, first American to orbit Earth, backs
Hillary Clinton in this TV ad for his native Ohio.
** DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TONIGHT: WHICH HILLARY CLINTON WILL SHOW? Will it be the kinder, gentler Hillary, who won kudos for her, as it happens, largely borrowed close last Thursday night in Austin? Will it be the partisan brawler largely on evidence since then?
It’s unclear. What is clear is that the tide is moving against her, even in her latest firewall states of Texas and Ohio.
Despite the importation of her California director Ace Smith to the Lone Star State, Clinton is being out-organized in Texas, where I have multiple reports of a campaign in organizational disarray, intellectually overwhelmed by surging Obama forces. Hillary is now in, at best, a dead heat in this state where she led by some 20 points two weeks ago. In the past week, Obama has won the endorsements of every big daily newspaper in Texas — in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, El Paso, and San Antonio.
She is also being out-organized in Ohio. Late last week, Obama won the endorsement of the mayor of Cleveland. Yesterday, at a huge rally in the city, he won the endorsement of the mayor of Cincinnati. The former mayor of Cleveland also switched from Clinton to Obama yesterday. And while Clinton still leads in Ohio, there are signs that lead is getting perilously small.
Keep in mind that, since Obama eked out a winning edge on Super-Duper Tuesday, Clinton has had to win Texas and Ohio by very big margins to get back in the race for pledged delegates.
Yesterday was a remarkable day in the campaign, with strong signs of emotional and political disarray in the Clinton camp, as communications director Howard Wolfson publicly blew up at the press and the campaign would not deny that its members were distributing a photo of Obama in “terrorist-like” Somali garb. The day ended with deeply worried Clinton campaign advisors plotting a witches’ brew of attacks to stop Obama. One described it to me as the “air burst barrage.”
He’s referring to an old doctrine of the Cold War. A Soviet doctrine, as it happens, which is why he knew the name would perversely appeal to me. If US bombers were ever to be closing in on Moscow to nuke the Russian capital into oblivion, the plan was to launch an “air burst barrage” to stop the planes, even stealth aircraft. In other words, to create a devastating cordon of conventional and nuclear explosions to prevent any aircraft from getting through to the target. You can draw your own conclusions as to the effect of that last ditch strategy on the countryside.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
The New York Times went hard last week at the character of
Vietnam War hero-turned-Republican presidential candidate John
McCain. The attempt backfired in spectacular fashion.
** OBAMA OPENS (16-POINT?!) LEAD NATIONALLY AS CLINTON CAMPAIGN PLOTS “AIR BURST BARRAGE.” Clearly, the Clinton campaign is exhibiting some signs of emotional and political implosion. (There are some things I’m not reporting, out of present deference to some figures from California and elsewhere.) The brand new CBS News/New York Times poll shows Obama with what to me seems an incredible lead nationally, 54% to 38% over Hillary Clinton.
I think that’s way too high, though I am sure Obama is in the lead. But what do I know? There is no NWN poll, at least not yet.
What I do know is that deeply worried Clinton campaign advisors are plotting a witches’ brew of attacks to stop Obama. One described it to me as the “air burst barrage.”
He’s referring to an old doctrine of the Cold War. A Soviet doctrine, as it happens, which is why he knew the name would perversely appeal to me. If US bombers were ever to be closing in on Moscow to nuke the Russian capital into oblivion, the plan was to launch an “air burst barrage” to stop the planes, even stealth aircraft. In other words, to create a devastating cordon of conventional and nuclear explosions to prevent any aircraft from getting through to the target. You can draw your own conclusions as to the effect of that last ditch strategy on the countryside.
** AMERICAN LEADERSHIP PROJECT: NO TV BUY YET. That long-rumored pro-Clinton/anti-0bama so-called 527 independent expenditure committee reported here last Wednesday morning is not off to a flying start.
The group, dominated by California Democrats, has according to contact person and president Roger Salazar in an e-mail exchange this afternoon with NWN, yet to make an appreciable media buy in the March 4th primaries.
** CNN TEXAS POLL: SLIGHT EDGE TO OBAMA.CNN’s new poll of the Texas Democratic presidential primary has Barack Obama moving into a very slight lead over Hillary Clinton. It’s Obama 50%, Clinton 46%. A week ago in Texas, CNN had Hillary holding a narrow lead over Obama, 50% to 48%.
Among the one-third of Texas Democratic primary voters who watched all or most of last Thursday night’s Texas debate, Obama has a 20-point lead over Clinton.
** CLINTON ADVISOR BLOWS UP WITH PRESS. Here is Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson going ballistic today on one of those interminable conference calls, blaming the press for being very unfair to the former Democratic presidential frontrunner. In his view, as expressed here, Barack Obama’s campaign is “entirely negative,” while the Clinton effort has done nothing more than compare and contrast.
“I think it is true,” Wolfson complained, “that every time the Obama campaign in this campaign has attacked Senator Clinton in the worst kind of personal ways, attacked her veracity, attacked her credibility, said that she would say or do anything to get elected, the press has largely applauded him.”
Wolfson, of course, is not engaged for his ability to charm or to articulate a compelling vision of the future. He’s a sort of enforcer type.
** IF A TREE FALLS … If a major presidential candidate gives a major address, and no one pays attention, did it really happen?
Hillary Clinton delivered a speech billed as a major foreign policy and national security address this morning in Washington. I was told this speech was intended to set the table for the eight days of campaigning left until Texas, Ohio et al. But none of the cable networks carried it, aside from showing brief snippets in a split screen, and C-SPAN did not carry it, either.
Perhaps that’s because it committed no news. I scanned the speech text, and noticed nothing new. And there was no direct, or even particularly juicy indirect, attack on rival Barack Obama. All I can recall offhand is talk of how dangerous it would be try to try someone untried in the Oval Office, having just gone down that road with George W. Bush.
Which may be a good argument for John McCain.
Next up in Hillary’s day, a big fundraiser in Washington.
** LATEST DRUDGE FLASHPOINT: OBAMA IN “TERRORIST” GARB.Here’s the latest campaign flashpoint courtesy of the Drudge Report. Drudge published a photo he says was circulated by frustrated Clinton campaign staffers of Barack Obama wearing traditional Somali garb, which the staffers complained would have been all over the news media if Hillary had done something similar.
The Obama campaign slammed the Clintons for this. New Hillary campaign manager Maggie Williams hit back, wondering how Obama viewed in the garb could be a negative, and didn’t deny the charge.
There has been a consistent wave of anonymized e-mails carrying sub rosa, false charges about Obama, centering on his different-ness, prior to each round of major primaries and caucuses. You know the stories, secret Muslim, educated in a madrasa, sworn in to the Senate on a Koran, etc.
The convention also adopted a hardline conservative platform.
Meanwhile, the party’s only proven statewide votegetter, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was on the other side of the country for the National Governors Association meeting. But he was highly unlikely to be at the convention in any event.
McCain himself was very tepidly received when he was the only presidential candidate who bothered to appear at the party’s convention last fall outside Palm Springs. The rightward move of the party, which raises little money, does little for what polls show to be a very uphill struggle to carry California against either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Hillary Clinton is in Washington, DC for a campaign reboot. She delivers what is billed as a major address on foreign policy and national security at George Washington University. She will also hold a big private Washington fundraiser.
Bill Clinton campaigns across Ohio with rallies in Chillicothe, Portsmouth, Athens, and Lancaster.
Barack Obama has roundtables and rallies in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio.
Michelle Obama campaigns across Texas with rallies in Beaumont, Galveston Island, and Houston.
John McCain has events in Rocky River and Parma, Ohio.
Mike Huckabee has events in Providence and Warwick, Rhode Island.
THE MORNING COLUMN
** THE MCCAIN AND SCHWARZENEGGER “SCANDALS” LINK.
The week ahead in presidential politics, amazingly free of any primaries or caucuses, nonetheless has major events coming up, mostly centering around what may be Hillary Clinton’s last full week to rally against Barack Obama.
But first let’s focus in on that backfiring New York Times expose on John McCain, which is similar to the Los Angeles Times’ backfiring expose on Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both hits had the same editor at the center of the action.
I’m referring, of course, to this past Thursday’s New York Times story on John McCain and lobbyists. And one lobbyist in particular, a very attractive young blonde who in 2000 supposedly had an affair with the maverick Western senator, as the paper’s sensational yet largely fact free lead very strongly implied.
It reminded me of the eleventh hour assault on Arnold Schwarzenegger leveled by the Los Angeles Times during the 2003 California recall campaign. The timing in both instances was suspicious. The Schwarzenegger expose happened five days before the election, just as the former action superstar was beginning a statewide bus tour to cement his front-running status. The McCain expose happened after the Vietnam War hero effectively won the Republican nomination with a California primary victory that knocked Mitt Romney out of the race, leaving his party with no good options.
As it happens, one editor was at the center of both sensational stories.
Some say the publication of this New Republic story — planned originally for today — prompted the New York Times to publish a few days ago.
The New Republic reports that the Washington bureau chief of the Times, Dean Baquet, played the key managerial role in pushing the story forward, against the skepticism of Times chief editor Bill Keller.
What the New Republic piece doesn’t say, since it’s written by an Easterner, is that, prior to becoming the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, Dean Baquet was with the Los Angeles Times. Most recently, he was its editor, and won widespread praise in the journalism profession for getting fired rather than carry out yet another round of cuts. But prior to that hero-making stance, he was the managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. And in that role at the LA Times, Baquet was deeply involved with and a key internal advocate of the late-breaking LA Times story during the 2003 California recall slamming Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That story proved to be a major backfire, as Schwarzenegger not only survived but went on to a landslide victory, with most not buying the convenient late timing of the story. Nor its prior awareness by top Democrats, who were primed to go on the attack against Schwarzenegger. The LA Times and its influence has been on a steep downslope ever since.
I wonder if the McCain story will have a similar effect on the New York Times.
The LA Times, under then editor John Carroll, whose animus for Schwarzenegger was evident, threw a team of investigative reporters working with Carroll and Baquet at every aspect of the former Mr. Universe’s life. Schwarzenegger realized this early on. Coupled with the paper’s obviously biased coverage against his candidacy (Times headlines referred to him as “Actor”) — replete with polls which were consistently out of phase with all other credible polls, including the private polls of then Democratic Governor Gray Davis, the very subject of the recall — this made Schwarzenegger notably wary of the Times, as one might suppose.
When all was said and done, Baquet, Carroll, and their crack team of investigators didn’t come up with much. Other than a set of sensational charges that Schwarzenegger had behaved disrespectfully and abusively toward several women. This became the basis of what was dubbed “Gropergate.”
The trouble was that what the Times had was essentially a rehash of a 2001 Premiere magazine article on the same topic. Some of the same women were in both stories. After months of investigation, the LA Times came up with refried beans. Which Schwarzenegger had had ample time to consider since Premiere magazine did it first.
Some of the story sounded like amplified rumor, with questionable details. If one were so inclined, at least half of the story could be knocked down. But some would remain, and getting into any of it would further obscure the campaign’s close.
And some of it was undoubtedly true. Schwarzenegger had misbehaved. Probably not in all the particulars alleged in the LA Times, where volume matched anonymity and vagueness, but enough. And so Schwarzenegger — “Where there is smoke, there is fire” — acknowledged that he had acted like a macho jerk at times, issued a general apology, and set about the task of running against the LA Times amongst his other partisan enemies.
Under Baquet’s guidance, the Times rushed more stories about specific instances of Schwarzenegger misbehavior with women into print. But the Times team was grasping at straws now, with motivation and detail clearly not accounted for in the hurried scramble to validate a backfiring story. One brand new story was promoted to the paper by a longtime Democratic operative. Which the Times neglected to mention. Others seemed at variance with established fact. The purportedly painstaking fact checking, which supposedly accounted for the story appearing so late in the campaign, simply was not. The paper looked worse.
Rushing to defend a backfiring story with more innuendo and hearsay is not what the New York Times did with the McCain controversy, though once again, the editors and reporters had months to flesh out the story. (The Drudge Report revealed the story’s existence in December.) Baquet presumably learned from that mistake with Schwarzenegger.
Of course, one big difference is that the head editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, was not avidly pushing the story, unlike his 2003 counterpart at the LA Times, John Carroll.
Keller was a skeptic about the McCain story. But Baquet, whose title of Washington bureau chief if anything underplayed his clout at the paper, pushed hard internally on behalf of his reporters. In the end, his position prevailed.
Ironically, to borrow Schwarzenegger’s line, there is some fire beneath all the smoke of the McCain story. While the New York Times utterly failed to demonstrate a McCain affair with the lobbyist in question — no sensational trading of sexual favors for official favors, which is what the story centered on — it did demonstrate that the famous reformer has been pretty chummy with a number of lobbyists and has backed their play on occasion as a powerful senator. (Though the piece did leave out instances of McCain going against lobbyists’ interests.)
But that’s a much more standard political story. Not a knockout blow against a front-running candidate.
And make no mistake, the two Timeses were going for knockout blows against Schwarzenegger in 2003 and McCain in 2008.
They both failed.
The public editor, or ombudsman, of the New York Times, whose charge it is to render judgments on controversies involving the paper, sharply criticized his newspaper for its sensational story strongly implying a past affair between the Western senator and the pretty lobbyist.
Wrote Clark Hoyt: “The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and Iseman had a romance.”
The paper did raise some interesting questions about the relationship between McCain, former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Washington lobbyists, suggesting that he’s not beyond their blandishments. But the story led in sensational fashion with the imputation of an affair. Absent that, it was a bit of a snorer.
Of course, it was not absent that. And the upshot is that the nation’s most powerful newspaper, the so-called “Paper of Record,” was rocked to its foundations by the McCain campaign.
“Personally, I was surprised by the volume of the reaction (including more than 2,400 reader comments posted on our Web site). I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot.
“And, frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story. Perhaps here, at the outset of this conversation, is a good point to state as clearly as possible our purpose in publishing. … Clearly, many of you did not agree.”
Clearly.
The political upshot?
The talk show wing of the Republican far right rallied to John McCain against the dread liberal MSM. The lefty/liberal blogoshphere mostly expressed major qualms about the story, or ignored it. With the notable exception of our friends at the Huffington Post, whose proprietor, my old friend Arianna Huffington, was once a huge fan/friend of the Western senator. They played it up big time.
And, contrary to Rush Limbaugh’s ramblings about how this shows the MSM is out to get any Republican no matter what, much, if not most, of the conventional media are openly expressing doubt and dismay about the New York Times story and its methods.
Team McCain’s take at the end of a Thursday filled with furious spin: “We feel good.”
The repercussions of the story will continue to echo this week, as McCain and company continue their task of consolidating the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee is still running, but not seriously, though he wants to get a big vote next week in Texas. Huck hosted Saturday Night Live over the weekend, and winningly went along with the running gag about not knowing when to exit the stage.
Huckabee likes McCain, and vice versa. His continued presence in the race on balance helps McCain, as it gives the far right a way to safely bleed off their resentment of McCain’s moderate apostasies, and distracts from how big a job McCain still has to create a truly national campaign apparatus.
Hillary Clinton, in non-valedictory mode, mocks Barack
Obama yesterday in Rhode Island.
Two people who definitely have national campaign apparatuses, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, continue their duel this week with a Tuesday night debate in Ohio and campaigning in the four primary states voting on March 4th: Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont. These are states that Clinton, now trailing by some 150 delegates won in primaries and caucuses, on the wrong end of an 11-contest losing streak, has to win big to start catching up to the freshman Illinois senator. But it’s not shaping up that way.
A new ABC News poll has Obama in a dead heat with Hillary in Texas and closing in Ohio. Here are the numbers. Texas: Clinton 48%, Obama 47%. Ohio: Clinton 50%, Obama 43%. Clinton, who trails by about 150 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses to date, needs big wins in both states to climb back into a closely competitive position in the race.
In both states, Obama is now seen by primary voters as the more electable of the two in the fall. Hillary is seen as the stronger leader.
Obama and Hillary had a mostly sedate debate last Thursday night in Austin, Texas. But since then, Hillary has been on the attack, on multiple fronts. So their debate Tuesday night in Cleveland, carried by MSNBC, is likely to be more contentious.
The problem for the reeling Clinton team is that they can’t settle on a consistent line of attack. Or, I should say, line, period. So Hillary alternately, over the course of just a few days, presents a positive, even valedictory front, saying what an “honor” it is for her to even be on the stage with Obama, then goes on to say he’s unqualified to be commander-in-chief, has wronged her by attacking the Clintons for pushing through NAFTA, is lying about her record, is against national health insurance, is a false messiah, etc.
One thing she’s no longer attacking him on is “plagiarism.” After her borrowing of lines from her husband and John Edwards for her much-praised Texas debate close has become evident.
It’s another week in presidential politics, folks. The fun never sets. …
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil is trading around $99 per barrel, after hitting a record $101-plus per barrel on Wednesday.
Charlie Wilson’s War, with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-nominated
performance as a maverick CIA officer.
SUNDAY REPORTS
** SURVEY USA POLL OF CALIFORNIA SHOWS BIG LEADS FOR OBAMA AND CLINTON OVER MCCAIN. The latest Survey USA robopoll of California, completed a week ago, shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by whopping 27 points, 61% to 34%. Hillary Clinton leads by 23, 58% to 35%.
Meanwhile, I hear that the California Republican Party convention in San Francsico is going about adopting a hard right platform today. Good luck with that.
** BIG OBAMA LEAD OVER MCCAIN, BIG CLINTON DEFICIT IN SWING STATE IOWA. The new Des Moines Register poll shows Barack Obama with a big lead over John McCain in swing state Iowa, 53% to 36%. Conversely, Hillary Clinton runs well behind McCain, 49% to 40%.
Obama wins independents by a large margin over McCain in Iowa. But McCain wins those independents by a similar margin over Hillary.
After finishing third in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses behind Obama and John Edwards, Clinton’s campaign criticized Iowa and its caucuses as unrepresentative.
** HE’S BACK.Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for president this morning on Meet The Press. The Republicans’ favorite lefty — the famed consumer advocate is widely regarded as having siponed enough votes to cost Al Gore the presidency against George W. Bush in 2000 — got 2.7% of the vote in that election, running as the Green candidate. Next time round, Nader garnered only 0.3% of the vote in 2004, finding it hard to get on many state ballots. Nader’s relationship with the Green Party has become problematic, and many Greens want former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, as their standardbearer.
Wrote Clark Hoyt: “The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and Iseman had a romance.”
The paper did raise some interesting questions about the relationship between McCain, former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Washington lobbyists, suggesting that he’s not beyond their blandishments. But the story led in sensational fashion with the imputation of an affair. Absent that, it was a bit of a snorer.
Of course, it was not absent that. And the upshot is that the nation’s most powerful newspaper was rocked by the McCain campaign.
SATURDAY REPORTS
** STARTING TO LOOK BACK AT HOLIDAY MOVIES. It’s Oscar weekend. And we haven’t even looked at the holiday movies. Yet.
Ordinarily, I would have done this around the, well, Christmas and New Year holidays. But with the, hah, genius of American politics kicking in, there was no time.
Above is a video clip of the estimable Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymoour Hoffman, always very good, in his Oscar-nominated performance as maverick CIA officer Gust Avrakotos in the only hit political movie of the year, that NWN fave, Charlie Wilson’s War.
About America’s successful covert take-down of the late Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Which, as the irony of life would have it, emboldened our then new Islamic fundamentalist friends to perform certain other feats that we now think of as “blowback.”
Important point: Keep paying attention.
Oh, best NWN movie of the holiday season? Charlie Wilson’s War. With Mike Nichols directing, Aaron Sorkin writing the screenplay based on George Crile’s best-selling book, and a cast of Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman et al, it was as good as a I expected. And I had high expectations.
Other holiday movies, ah, did not quite meet expectations. One I discuss a bit below.
Others to come on this Academy Awards weekend.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about my picks in the only movie awards that I actually have a vote in, the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Which also equate to most of the top Oscars, which will be awarded tomorrow night.
** GETTING REAL IN CLINTONVILLE. Most, although hardly all — those would be my longtime, more future-oriented — sources, around Hillary and Bill Clinton are simply in shock over the slow but steady shattering of her candidacy at the hands of Barack Obama.
From the New York Times: Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.
Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues. In a much-reported incident, Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy recently that prompted another senior aide, Guy Cecil, to leave the room. “I have work to do — you’re acting like kids,” Mr. Cecil said, according to three people in the room.
Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time. Some have grown depressed, be it over Mr. Obama’s momentum, the attacks on the campaign’s management from outside critics or their view that the news media has been much rougher on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama.
The first five minutes of The Golden Compass, likely to win the
Oscar for best art direction.
** GOLDEN. As successful and fun and satisfying an adaptation of a long and complicated best-selling book that Charlie Wilson’s War turned out to be — hail Aaron Sorkin (disclosure, my little consulting with The West Wing was after NBC bounced him) — The Golden Compass adaptation turned out to be far more problematic. This should have been the great holiday movie in America. Yet it was not.
Most unfortunately so, because all the makings were there — including a fantastic cast which included Nicole Kidman, Eva Green, Daniel Craig and spirited young English girl Dakota Blue Richards — for a classic.
The film was still quite good, if unfortunately choppy and questionably edited.
Let’s see. Remove actual ending of the book and hold for next movie in the series? Eh, maybe not.
Nevertheless, though The Golden Compass has grossed “only” $70 million at the US box office, it has done $335 million at the global box office. Making it a major hit. And that’s before it opens in Japan next month, and Japan is traditionally a huge market for fantasy and science fiction.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil closed at $98.91 per barrel on Friday, after hitting a record $101-plus per barrel on Wednesday. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
And Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who visits Iraq early next month, will hold a summit with Iraq’s top leaders in Baghdad. Which has already been reported and discussed. But what has not been noted is that Ahmadinejad’s security will be provided, in part, by the US military.
On the other hand, Turkish forces have moved across the border into Northern Iraq to seek out and destroy some safe havens for Kurdish separatist guerillas. The central government in Baghdad had promised Ankara that it would tamp down the Kurdish guerillas, but failed miserably.
** NORTH CAROLINA: BIG OBAMA LEAD OVER CLINTON. If the race gets that far, Barack Obama has moved out to a big lead in the May 6th North Carolina primary over Hillary Clinton. In the brand new poll for the News & Observer, it’s Obama 45%, Clinton 31%. Obama leads among all voter groups other than voters over the age of 65.
** CALIFORNIA QUICK HITS. Missed a few things around the longest day Game Day coverage package earlier this week. Nothing earth shattering, and all of a piece with predictable developments in California politics. … State Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman was finally forced out. He was replaced not by George Runner, an early favorite — who stepped aside to help care for his wife, Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, who is seriously ill — but Central Valley legislator Dave Cogdill. He’s another member of the anti-government faction, except on infrastructure and water. Where he has bonded, if you will, with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, carrying his water storage/conservation package, so there is something in common there. … Big Republican donors, like Larry Dodge, who is owed $3 million and is willing to play ball if the state Republicans stop acting as if they want an ever smaller tree house, are pressuring the current California party leadership. Meanwhile, Flash Report proprietor/party official Jon Fleischman, author of the resolution to keep independents out of the presidential primary, has another to keep them out of all primaries. … The Legislative Analyst Office says the budget deficit for next year is even bigger. And says that new taxes will be required.
** GLASS HOUSES. Above you see video evidence of Hillary Clinton “plagiarizing” some of her husband’s best stuff in last night’s Texas debate. After attacking Barack Obama for using lines from and suggested by his national campaign co-chairman, Deval Patrick.
I’m told by Clinton insiders that this whole plagiarism attack, which has backfired in spectacular fashion, was devised by chief strategist and pollster Mark Penn and communications director Howard Wolfson, the fellow who has for days been trying to pound it home with the press. Penn is due a total of $10 million so far from the Clinton campaign for his consulting services and for polling. Wolfson was paid $266,000 last month.
Amazing.
** SAY WHAT? Incidentally, I’ve very belatedly become aware that many in the conservative blogosphere went ballistic over Barack Obama’s debate anecdote last night about the plight of an under-strength and under-equipped Army rifle platoon in Afghanistan, the upshot of which is that Afghanistan has been the forgotten war in comparison to the tunnel visioned focus on Iraq. I heard his story, and thought nothing of it, as it’s entirely consistent with everything I know. Actually, I thought it was a very effective moment for Obama, coupled with his touting of Fort Hood and the role of a Texas-based division. I text messaged a friend when he did that, remarking that it looked to me like Hillary was wishing she’d thought of it.
Personally, I was surprised by the volume of the reaction (including more than 2,400 reader comments posted on our Web site). I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot.
And, frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story. Perhaps here, at the outset of this conversation, is a good point to state as clearly as possible our purpose in publishing. … Clearly, many of you did not agree.
I’ll get more into this and another similar newspaper episode in the not terribly distant future.
Clearly, to borrow a word from current NYT editor Keller, they didn’t get what they were doing.
Hillary Clinton’s close at last night’s Democratic presidential debate
in Austin, Texas. Many analysts saw this as a possible valedictory.
** THE GREAT DEBATE. Or not. In one of her few remaining opportunities to derail a slowly but surely rising Barack Obama — it’s not a wave, it’s a tide — Hillary Clinton didn’t get it done. Which is not to say that she was bad at last night’s Texas debate on CNN. Just that he easily matched her performance. And that she landed few if any blows on him. One that she tried, a rehash of the “plagiarism” charge about him using some speech lines suggested by his national campaign co-chairman, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, fell very flat.
In the end, the candidate once acclaimed by nearly all media outlets — but not NWN — as the “inevitable” Democratic presidential nominee, scored best at the end. With a rather moving close you can view above. Which, as it happens, echoed in large measure remarks made by John Edwards and Bill Clinton.
Can a candidate plagiarize his national co-chairman? Can a candidate plagiarize her husband?
Rhetorical questions, to be sure, but actually more meaningful than the incredibly high-priced spin being produced for Hillary.
Said former Bill Clinton communications director-turned-ABC News analyst and anchor George Stephanopoulos of Hillary’s closing statement: “It almost seemed like the first draft of a concession speech.”
The campaign is hardly over, of course. There are many slips ‘twixt the cup and the lip.
Quick, who did I appropriate that from?
Seriously, there is another debate between the two on Tuesday in Ohio. That may be better turf for Hillary than Texas, where I have reports of a seriously disarrayed Clinton operation.
And there are always intervening events. Obama has developed very well since I began scouting him as a great skeptic of him more than a year ago. He could yet make a mistake, prodded by fatigue and illness. (His usually very impressive voice last night was clearly cold-ridden.)
Nevertheless, Clinton needs not only to win on March 4th, but win big. For she is now over 150 delegates behind Obama won in the primaries and caucuses to date. And with proportional representation, that is a big gap to make up.
Barack Obama discusses his change theme and the Clinton
attacks on it and his candidacy.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Hillary Clinton has rallies and roundtables today, first in the Metroplex — Dallas and then Fort Worth, Texas — before continuing on to Columbus and Toledo, Ohio.
Barack Obama has rallies across Texas, in Edinburg, Corpus Christi, and Austin.
Bill Clinton has a rally in Corpus Christi, Texas. Given his comments last weekend in Texas, in which he boasted of drawing bigger crowds than Barack Obama to his speeches as president, it will be interesting to compare and contrast.
John McCain has an event in Indianapolis, Indiana (not Jones).
** CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN CONVENTION THIS WEEKEND. The embattled California Republican Party holds its first of two conventions this year this weekend in a very stormy San Francisco. The marquee speaker is South Dakota Senator John Thune. I’m credentialed, but undecided about attending.
Which means that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will not be on hand. He will be attending the National Governors Association conference in Washington, DC.
The convention is a bit on the underwhelming side, dominated by some congressmen and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. I expected Poizner — who is very bright and super-rich, if a bit lacking in command presence — to begin emerging as a vivid public figure with his planned stewardship of the Southern California firestorm rebuilding effort.
But, aside from his contributions to defeat the term limits revision initiative, Prop 93 on the just-passed primary ballot, I’m not seeing much from Poizner. He’s certainly been missing in the aftermath of the big fires last fall. And Prop 93 was beaten by the antics of its legislative leadership sponsorship, God bless them, who thoughtfully provided all the easy ammunition needed to bring it down. In the end, it was actually closer than I expected, going down 47% to 53%. Maybe next time, her principals will give ace Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman better material to work with.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
With her campaign in deep political and financial crisis, Hillary
Clinton needs a major breakthrough in tonight’s Texas debate.
Here she says she knows what it is to work the night shift.
** DEMOCRATS DEBATE. Oh, Hillary Clinton’s big showdown with Barack Obama down in the Lone Star State. Looks like a lone star. Short form: No game-changer for Hillary, i.e., advantage Obama, who was quite good, perhaps his best debate performance. She was good, too. Except for when she got booed with that silly “plagiarism” business again. Some of these incredibly over-priced consultants mis-advising her with their endless spin do her no favors.
** HEADING INTO THE TEXAS DEBATE. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were largely overshadowed today by the McCain/Times controversy and the storming of the US embassy in Belgrade. But here are some telling scenes leading into tonight’s debate at the University of Texas in Austin. ..
The Change To Win labor federation of seven unions representing 6 million workers endorsed Obama today. Change To Win chair Anna Burger said on a conference call that it’s time for Hillary to leave the race. Four of the member unions — the federation formed a few years ago in a split with the AFL-CIO — had previously endorsed Obama. … I hear Clinton Texas state chairman Garry Mauro is complaining that the national campaign is totally disorganized since February 5th and in the process of screwing up the Texas campaign. … Obama, who spent an hour touring the facilities of the University of Texas Longhorns with the team’s popular coach, picked up the endorsement of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson when he made a surprise introduction of Michelle Obama at an Ohio rally. … Former President Bill Clinton’s two-day fundraising expedition to California at the beginning of the week was far less than a panacea for the financially-challenged campaign. He raised $325,000 in his day in Southern California and “less than half a mil” in his day in Northern California.
** L’AFFAIRE MCCAIN/NYT: HOW IT’S PLAYING. Short form: Badly. For the New York Times. The talk show wing of the Republican far right has rallied to John McCain against the dread liberal MSM. The lefty/liberal blogoshphere is mostly expressing major qualms about the story, or ignoring it. With the notable exception of our friends at the Huffington Post, whose proprietor, my old friend Arianna Huffington, was once a huge fan/friend of the Western senator, who are playing up the scandal angle big-time.
And, contrary to Rush Limbaugh’s ramblings about how this shows the MSM is out to get any Republican no matter what, much, if not most, of the conventional media are openly expressing doubt about the New York Times story and its methods.
Team McCain’s take at the end of the day: “We feel good.”
Here are the numbers. Texas: Clinton 48%, Obama 47%. Ohio: Clinton 50%, Obama 43%. Clinton, who trails by about 150 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses to date, needs big wins in both states to climb back into a closely competitive position in the race.
In both states, Obama is now seen by primary voters as the more electable of the two in the fall. Hillary is seen as the stronger leader.
** A MCCAIN STORY IRONY, AND A BIG CALIFORNIA CONNECTION. No sooner do I acknowledge that the day’s media buzzing will be dominated by the John McCain controversy do thousands of Serbian protesters occupy the US embassy grounds in Belgrade and trash the embassy’s exterior. So that story is now crowding the McCain/New York Times story for screen space.
Serbs are upset by Kosovo’s declaration of independence. The best real time analysis award has to go to retired General Wes Clark, for his MSNBC analysis and commentary. As NATO commander, Clark played the lead role in winning the Kosovo War against Slobodan Milosevich in 1999. I’ve been on a few conference calls with Hillary Clinton and Wes Clark. Invariably, she defers my questions to Clark, who then answers impressively and thoughtfully, and then Hillary agrees with what he said. Clark would have been a top choice for VP with Clinton. With his own presidential campaign experience from 2004 (he won the Oklahoma primary) and tremendous on-camera skills, this highly decorated Vietnam combat vet, first in his class at West Point, Clark could also make a good running mate for Barack Obama.
The New Republic reports that the Washington bureau chief of the Times, Dean Baquet, played the key managerial role in pushing the story forward, against the skepticism of Times editor Bill Keller.
What the New Republic piece doesn’t say, since it’s written by an Easterner, is that, prior to becoming the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, Dean Baquet was the managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. And in his role at the LA Times, Baquet was deeply involved with and a key internal advocate of the late-breaking LA Times story during the 2003 California recall slamming Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That story proved to be a major backfire, as Schwarzenegger not only survived but went on to a landslide victory, with most not buying the convenient late timing of the story and its prior awareness by top Democrats. The LA Times and its influence has been on a steep downslope ever since.
I wonder if the McCain story will have a similar effect on the New York Times.
** OBAMA V. CLINTON: SHOWDOWN IN TEXAS. There is no question that the biggest buzzing today is going to be around the John McCain/New York Times controversy. But the biggest actual event of the day is the Democratic presidential debate tonight — 5 PM Pacific on CNN — between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in big trouble, political and financial. She needs a game-changing event to prevent the further attrition of her campaign by the forces of Barack Obama.
The new financial filings with the Federal Elections Commission make clear that her campaign is in bad financial straits. At the end of January, she had a whopping $7.6 million debt. That did not include the $5 million she and husband Bill Clinton loaned to her campaign from a joint account. She also had millions more in cash on hand, as she deferred paying vendors around the country.
But Obama had a huge cash on hand edge, and there is no reason not to believe that his edge continues, notwithstanding claims from the Clinton campaign of great fundraising feats since then. I’ll have more on that later today.
This is why the much-rumored anti-Obama/pro-Clinton independent expenditure 527 committee dominated by California Democratic operatives backing Clinton, which I reported yesterday morning, has been launched.
So Clinton needs to get it going tonight. Unfortunately for her, since she has thrown so many charges at Obama already, it won’t be too hard for Obama and his team to anticipate and develop counters. Yet, something could happen. Which is why we watch.
** THE MCCAIN CONTROVERSY. Make no mistake, this story, which you already know about, though I’ve been sleeping through much of its emergence following the longest day Game Day package of Tuesday and Wednesday early morning, is about an implied illicit relationship with an attractive, much younger blonde telecommunications lobbyist. Here’s the Washington Post front page story on the controversy, which makes that obvious.
John and Cindy McCain held a press conference early this morning to address the allegations and reporting in the story and flatly deny them.
McCain senior advisor Steve Schmidt calls the story something that “belongs in the National Enquirer,” referring to it as filled with “rumor and innuendo.”
This may be a blessing in disguise for McCain, for the New York Times is hated by the right. It could actually help him unify his fractious Republican Party.
Assuming the story is wrong in its implications. I’ll be following this more closely during the day.
** OBAMA WINS DEMOCRATS ABROAD GLOBAL PRIMARY.Make that 11 wins in a row for Barack Obama.The returns are in from the first online global primary, held by the Democrats Abroad, and Obama again crushed Hillary Clinton, 66% to 33%.
Seven delegates were at stake in the primary which combined online voting, mail ballots, and some in-person voting.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
JOHN MCCAIN, after his hastily scheduled press conference early this morning with wife Cindy McCain to refute the bombshell New York Times story on his past relationship with a female lobbyist, has events in Toledo and Perrysburg, Ohio and tours the Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan.
MIKE HUCKABEE is campaigning in Texas today. He has a rally and fundraiser in Houston, visits the Alamo, and has a rally in San Antonio.
BARACK OBAMA participates in the CNN/Univision debate in Austin, Texas. He then holds a post-debate rally/fundraiser in Austin.
HILLARY CLINTON has an early vote event in Laredo this morning before participating in the CNN/Univision debate in Austin, Texas.
BILL CLINTON holds early vote events across Texas in San Antonio and San Angelo.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** FEBRUARY 20TH: IN PERSPECTIVE. Let’s see. In the 1984 race, the first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses were on … February 20th. Today.
But this February 20th, we have already decided the Republican presidential nomination. And the Democratic race, after dozens of state contests, has replaced an “inevitable” frontrunner fronting the most fearsome national political machine in decades with a skinny black guy with big ears and a funny name.
** INTERESTING PROJECT: SUPERDELEGATE INVESTIGATION. Here’s an interesting project. The Huffington Post, via editor Marc Cooper, an old NWN friend, is launching a citizen journalism project to look into the question of just who are these Democratic superdelegates.
** BUSH VIEWED NEGATIVELY ACROSS THE BOARD. A new national Gallup Poll on President George W. Bush shows his performance to be viewed as negative on every issue area polled. Those numbers are all down compared to a year ago.; Overall, 65% disapprove of his job performance; only 31% approve.
Only 22% approve of his handling of immigration, 25% on health care, 26% on energy, 27% on the economy, 31% on Iraq, 32% on overall foreign affairs, and 47% on terrorism. That last is clearly his best area. Yet 49% disapprove of Bush’s handling of terrorism.
So presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain and the rest of the Republican Party have a tremendous problem. How to use the asset of Bush’s still strong fundraising capability — which they obviously need, given the relative paucity of Republican fundraising compared to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — without becoming further entangled in his sinking policy legacy.
** BLOOMBERG CHARGES FRAUD IN NEW YORK VOTE COUNT.New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it’s a matter of “fraud” that Barack Obama came away with zero votes in more than 80 districts in New York City during the New York presidential primary on February 5th. The districts include many dominated by African American voters. The billionaire media mogul has been weighing an independent presidential candidacy.
“If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that’s a euphemism for fraud,” he said yesterday.
** TEAMSTERS TO BACK OBAMA. A labor source tell NWN that the massive International Brotherhood of Teamsters will back Barack Obama for president. The union comprises some 1.4 million members, in a myriad of occupations.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama rallies in Dallas, Texas.
Michelle Obama has rallies in Providence and Warwick, Rhode Island.
Hillary Clinton has events in New York, Hidalgo, Texas and Brownsville, Texas.
Bill Clinton rallies across Texas in Galveston, Beaumont, Victoria, and Houston.
John McCain has events in Sugar Grove, Illinois, Columbus, Ohio, and Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Mike Huckabee has an event in Plano, Texas.
** CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS AT CORE OF NEW ANTI-OBAMA CAMPAIGN.
NWN has learned that several California Democrats are at the center of the brand new independent expenditure 527 campaign committee to take down Barack Obama.
This is the pro-Hillary Clinton committee, organized under the controversial 527 code, much rumored and discussed here several times. It was expected to appear after Clinton’s expected defeat in New Hampshire. But in the event, she narrowly won, and the need for extreme measures was averted. Then.
The American Leadership Project is soliciting funds in chunks of $100,000 from Clinton donors in hopes of amassing a $10 million warchest to help Hillary Clinton defeat Obama in upcoming contests. While Pennsylvania lawyer William Titelman, a top fundraiser for New Mexico Governor and former Clinton Cabinet member Bill Richardson, is the group’s chief solicitor, the group is mostly run out of California.
Two top hands in the late Gray Davis Administration, Jason Kinney and Roger Salazar (co-publishers of the California Majority Report web site, launched with a lot of promotion on NWN), are in the core group, with Kinney reportedly in more of a leadership role. Kinney, an early Clinton supporter, is a partner in the Sacramento-based California Strategies firm, a senior advisor to state Senate leader Don Perata, and was chief speechwriter for former California Governor Davis. Salazar, of the Sacramento-based Acosta/Salazar, was campaign press secretary for ex-Governor Davis and is chief spokesman for the California Democratic Party. Other consultants include Mattis Goldman, media consultant for LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (a national chair of the Clinton campaign), Paul Rivera, a former senior advisor to John Kerry’s campaign, and Erick Mullen, who has worked with a number of politicians.
The legal work is handled by the firm of Remcho, Johansen, and Purcell, historically the California Democratic insiders’ political law firm. The accountant is Nancy Warren of San Francisco’s Warren & Associates.
UPDATE: Here is the group’s 527 filing, listing Roger Salazar as the president. He is in Sacramento. The headquarters address is listed in San Francisco.
Hillary Clinton, speaking this morning in New York following crushing defeats
in Wisconsin and Hawaii, says she is “the only choice” for president.
Kinney has already confirmed his role to me early this morning.
I know some of these guys quite well. And will have some thoughts on what they are likely to do, and how well it is likely to go.
There are no limits on what this group can raise. Legally, of course, it can’t coordinate with the Clinton campaign. We’ve seen this sort of thing here in California in 2006, when mega-developer Angelo Tsakopoulos and his family funded a $10 million “independent expenditure” campaign to boost the failing fortunes of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides.
Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain raised $12.8 million in January.
Obama had 300,000 contributors in January. About 200,000 of them were first-time contributors to Obama.
John McCain decries Obama’s “eloquent but empty call for change.”
** A PERSONAL NOTE.After yesterday’s “Longest Day” Game Day coverage — stretching well into the early morning with the exclusive coverage of Hawaii — things are going to be a bit more sedate here on NWN today. I’ve slept two hours out of the past 27 hours.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
5 AM Pacific (Feb. 20) — Hawaii: Obama Wins By More Than 3 To 1
The semi-final results from the Hawaii Democratic Presidential Caucuses: Barack Obama 76.2%, Hillary Clinton 23.8%.
The turnout was over 37,000, more than twice the highest forecast and many times the previous record turnout. Thousands more reportedly came to the caucuses, but left because the caucus sites and their organizers were overwhelmed by the turnout.
Obama grabbed a 3 to 1 lead in the early returns and held on to it every step of the way.
This marks the 10th victory in a row for Obama in the past two weeks, after it became apparent that he had eked out a very narrow delegate victory over Clinton in their 22 contests of Super-Duper Tuesday.
Obama’s 17-point victory in Wisconsin — a state in which Clinton led by a large margin until several weeks ago, and which the Clinton high command determined they had a good chance to win just this past Friday — shattered the Clinton coalition. But Obama’s 52-point victory in Hawaii, the state of his birth, in which his forces simply overwhelmed the aging traditional state Democratic machine headed by longtime Senator Daniel Inouye, has to be quite satisfying and enjoyable for the freshman Illinois senator.
Every one of Obama’s victories in the past two weeks has been by a landslide, and the Wisconsin blow-out was actually by the smallest margin. The Obama tsunami in island state in the middle of the Pacific gave him one of his largest margins of victory.
One should never count out the Clintons. However, the limits of their capabilities have been fully exposed since the beginning of the year. Hillary has two debates with Obama coming up this week and the next. Thursday in Texas, and next Tuesday in Ohio.
She and her increasingly incredible campaign have to hope to force a major Obama miscue between now and the round of primaries on March 4th, which they say constitutes the former first lady’s latest electoral firewall. Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Obama began yesterday trailing in the first three of those states, but with already closing numbers. But Rhode Island should fall to him. So Clinton needs to win by huge margins in Texas and Ohio to even begin to pull back up in the delegate race.
She’ll take her first step on the comeback trail this morning in New York with a speech redefining her candidacy. Her theme? She’s “the only choice” for president.
Her campaign is expected to continue to try its negative attacks on Obama. But they fell completely flat in yesterday’s longest day contests. Perhaps predictably so, given their general lameness.
12:50 PM Pacific — CNN’s Hawaii Coverage
I just noticed CNN running what seems to be a pre-recorded “live” report from Hawaii on the presidential caucuses. They even have one of their top correspondents there. So much for the 24/7 promise of global cable news.
12:40 PM Pacific — More Color From Our Projected Obama Victory In Hawaii
With organizers overwhelmed by the record turnout in the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, the count is going very slowly. But Barack Obama has an overwhelming 3 to 1 lead over the increasingly embattled Hillary Clinton in the early going.
Correspondent Saundra Schwartz, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, checks in with her experience on the island of Oahu: I drove home through late afternoon traffic, and caught the report on NPR of the Wisconsin primaries at 5:00. About 30 minutes later there was a drive time telephone interview that Obama gave to a local reporter earlier today. Obama hit upon all the local issues, singling out traffic, tuition, and the environment as top concerns for people in Hawaii.
The caucus sites were open from 7:00, but people had arrived early to line up. I voted at Niu Valley Intermediate School, the caucus site for District 18, consisting of the coastline of East Oahu between Kahala and Hawaii Kai (a relatively affluent suburban area of Honolulu).
When I arrived at 6:30, there was already a line snaking around the school ground. There are no tradewinds today, so the air is still, albeit a little muggy but a pleasant evening to stand around outdoors. There must have been well over a thousand people. No one I spoke with could remember such a long line for any event, much less for an election. People waited patiently, chatted with neighbors, There was real excitement in the air: it’s not often that Hawaii is seen as a critical state in a national election, and this is the first time in history that someone with roots in Honolulu has gotten so close in a national election. There were more Obama signs than Hillary signs. Volunteers reassured everyone in line that everyone would have a chance to vote. I did not notice any reporters or media there.
The caucus workers were not prepared for such a large turnout. No one in line seemed to know what the process was or if they were registered democrats. As a precaution, many people filled out blue party registration cards—mostly photocopies of cards, as a site ran out of cards. There were seats on the lanai (porch) outside the caucus site where rows of senior citizens awaited their turn to vote. People were very friendly in line. Obama people passed out oatmeal cookies and cheezits. Behind me was standing a young couple. As they scanned the long line, the young (haole, or “white”) woman pointed out that her boyfriend was the only “popolo” there (pidgin for “African American,” generally used in a derogatory sense–as is “haole” as well, for that matter). They were proud Obama supporters. I asked if they would still vote if he didn’t win the nomination, and they enthusiastically said they would.
The voting was held in the hot and crowded cafeteria. There were lunch tables for each of the subdistricts, marked with handmade signs (like you have at a table in a restaurant.) Once the line reached the cafeteria, voters were let into a door and had to cross through the crowd to the opposite side of the cafeteria. It was a very confusing process which, as I learned after asking several people, actually involved three separate steps: one was to verify that voters were registered as a Democrat, the other was to verifying in which subdistrict they were registered to vote, and the last step was to go the sub-district’s table and vote. By the time I made it to the last step, it was close to 8:00 p.m. and they had run out of ballots and were making them there from plain white paper torn into quarters. Voters had to write the name of their candidate and the ballots were collected in manila envelopes. Then that was the end of it. If the margin is as large as it is expected to be, that’ll be a relief, because the process was quite chaotic.
12:20 PM Pacific — Obama Sweeping Hawaii In Overwhelming Victory
At this hour, with 30% of the vote counted in the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, I think it is safe to call the Aloha State for Barack Obama. He has a smashing lead over Hillary Clinton, 74.3% to 25.7%.
This is Obama’s 10th win in a row over Clinton. Each has been in landslide fashion.
I will be staying up, in contact with correspondent Andrew Walden on the Big Island and others in Hawaii, to cover and analyze the returns from Hawaii. Barack Obama has a huge lead over Hillary Clinton in the early returns.
Based on the returns thusfar, Walden projects the caucus turnout far above the highest forecasts, about 40,000. The highest forecast prior to tonight was 18,000, which would have been a caucus record in itself.
I’m hearing that the turnout for the Hawaii Democratic presidential caucuses is not merely record-shattering, it has delayed caucuses, and hence counts, for hours. And, odd as it may seem, and I am being ironic, that record turnout is not really for Hillary Clinton
Correspondent Andrew Walden reports from America’s Paradise in the Pacific.: It has been a long time since Hawaii played a deciding role in any Presidential election. The opportunity to have an impact in the close contest between Clinton and Obama has drawn out thousands of Hawaii Democrats.
Record turnout is being reported from Democratic Party Caucus sites across the state. A line snaked out the door of Hilo High School cafeteria, the District 2 Hilo caucus site. Caucus organizers struggled to be heard over an underpowered PA system. The room quickly became hot as the crowds filled the precinct tables to vote for a presidential delegate slate tied to either Obama or Clinton. An estimated 500 to 600 people were in attendance. A t District 3 Hilo and District 4 Puna lines formed to vote at precinct tables several hundred people were present at each caucus. If these numbers are typical, the statewide total of all 51 House Districts voting at 75 sites could be 50,000 voters—more than twelve fold increase over the last presidential caucus in 2004 and far beyond the predictions of 12,000 from Democratic Party sources and 15-18,000 from the Hawaii Obama campaign.
Honolulu’s AM-830 reported heavy turnout and jammed parking around Oahu caucus sites located in Aiea, Kailua, Nuuanu and Hawaii Kai. Walden has also compiled reports from the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspapers.
The Advertiser reports: 3000 at one caucus site at Manoa, Oahu. — Clare Hanusz, 39, said this was her first caucus anywhere and she decided to do it for the first time “because Hawai’i finally matters.”
Over 200 people voting 4-1 for Obama at one single precinct on Kauai.
The Advertiser also reported: Koko Head Elementary School’s caucus site ran out of blue Democratic Party registration cards around 7 p.m. At Kailua District Park, more than 1,000 people stood in two separate lines that snaked around the pool, gym and baseball fields. Only four volunteers staffed tables at the entrance as others passed out blue Democratic Party cards. At Kawananakoa Middle School cafeteria’s caucus site, overwhelmed volunteers had to open up the school’s auditorium to handle the overflow crowd of 1,200 people. Patrick Stanley, the caucus site’s coordinator, said he did not expect voting to end until 10 p.m.
At Hilo’s District 2 and 3 caucus sites, on the Big Island of Hawaii, voting was done by 8:15pm and ballots were being counted.
The Star-Bulletin reports: Before the 7 p.m. start of voting, hundreds of people were reported outside caucus sites, including in Kalihi, Mililani, and Wailuku, on Maui. Democratic Party officials are expecting a record Maui turnout to exceed 10,000 voters, compared with the roughly 4,000 people who voted in the last caucus in 2004. Party officials don’t expect to start announcing results until after 9 p.m., however the large turnout may push that late into the night.
Many voters reported not being members of the Democratic Party—they were allowed to sign up on the spot. Others were clearly new to the process and looking for assistance finding their caucus location. Many were motivated by the fact that for the first time in years, Hawaii might actually make a difference in the outcome of the primary race. The strength in Hilo 2 and 3 should indicate strong union-organized get out the vote efforts—a plus for Hillary Clinton. But the strong showing in District 4 Puna will be a big plus for Obama. The vote totals will be a measure of the shifting balance of power within the Hawaii Democratic Party.
As of 9:30PM no results have yet been released by state Democratic Party officials.
10:30 PM Pacific — Obama Shatters Clinton Coalition In Wisconsin
Well, I told you throughout the afternoon what would happen in Wisconsin, based on reports on the ground and the early exit polling. And that’s what happened. Another big landslide for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, 58% to 41%. (Just two points under the exit poll horse race number I didn’t give you, but you could divine from the internals.) Meanwhile, it will take some time to get the results from Hawaii, far out in the Pacific.
Obama broke open what seemed like a close race in Wisconsin going into the weekend into a huge victory in a state with favorable demographics for what has been the Clinton coalition. Which Obama is now shattering. Clinton had a large lead in Wisconsin until several weeks ago. And at the end of last week, just a few days ago, her campaign felt she had a real shot to win there.
Incidentally, the word, as reported by several other outlets, was that Clinton, who again neglected to do the normal thing of congratulating the victorious candidate, would speak before the polls closed in Wisconsin. Instead, she chose to speak after John McCain, perhaps hoping to throw Obama off his own plans. I suspected she would try to preempt Obama’s schedule, and so did not report it.
Instead, Obama spoke, knocking Hillary off the air, and keeping her off the air for good, as he went for over 40 minutes. Which was not a coincidence.
The exit polls, as I reported hours before the polls closed, showed that Hillary was seen as an unfair attacker. Most of her campaign in Wisconsin was negative, and there is no reason to believe that that will not continue as she continues to her Alamo on March 4th, in the form of the Texas and Ohio primaries. In which she must now not only win, but win overwhelmingly in order to avoid failing even further behind in the delegate count.
Perhaps Obama’s most memorable line before a boisterous crowd of 20,000 in Houston, Texas? “Houston, we have lift-off.”
I reported most of this stuff to you hours ago, but to recap: Obama split white women, her fundamental base, with Hillary. He won single women. He split married women. He won 60% of white men. He won urban voters, as usual. He also won suburban voters. He split rural voters, one of Hillary’s few bulwarks in Virginia a week ago. He split working class voters and union household voters. He dominated among independents, and among crossover Republicans.
Obama is shattering Hillary’s base vote. And there are more moves he can make in this direction.
Hillary’s speech was very negative. I expect the negativity to continue, in campaign appearances and in debates over the next week. For a very simple reason. The positive is not working for her.
Mdeanwhile, in a preview of what may well be to come, John McCain, as I reported hours ago, focused on Obama. His themes? “Inexperience” and “empty rhetoric.”
For his part, Obama excoriated Washington solutions with “the same old folks with the same old solutions.”
Yet for all the inherent competitiveness in that prospective general election match-up, Obama and McCain are fundamentally positive, upbeat figures.
McCain needs to stay positive, because the fact is that the independents he has always counted on are flocking to Obama. As are a great many moderate Republicans. As in Virginia, Wisconsin moderate Republicans crowded into the open Democratic primary to vote for the freshman Illinois senator.
There are moves Obama can make to neutralize McCain’s fairly obvious moves against him.
But that is another column.
Incidentally, the break between items was due to an important dinner meeting and some international television.
6:10 PM Pacific — John McCain Strikes
As I told you in the mid-day item below, Team McCain sees taking down Barack Obama as one of its very highest priorities.
So as I write this, John McCain is delivering his victory speech with long passages going after Obama.
6 PM Pacific — On What Has Happened With Bill Clinton
So, what is up with former President Bill Clinton?
Once the ace campaigner of, perhaps, not just US but global politics, the onetime Arkansas wunderkind intervened very effectively on behalf of his wife’s reeling presidential campaign to help her narrowly pull out utterly critical wins in New Hampshire and Nevada. Since then — aside from helping her hold off Obama in California on Super-Duper Tuesday, which result was also a factor of Obama’s chessboard strategy — he has been at best a mixed blessing. And more recently, he has been irritating many again with his comments in Texas and Ohio over the Presidents Day weekend.
I’ve spoken yesterday and today with some major backers of the Clintons, who know them well. Here is a paraphrase of their view.
Their longtime maximum leader is seen as something akin to an out-of-shape professional athlete. In that it has been years since he was on the campaign trail as a mere mortal. Now he exists in a somewhat unreal bubble, traveling around the world where he’s been greeted everywhere with unquestioning adoration, hanging around with the super-rich.
In a very real sense, in this view, he is seen as having lost his touch.
In 2000, Al Gore didn’t let him campaign for him. In 2004, he couldn’t campaign due to his heart surgery. (John Kerry, in a different view, is known to believe that Clinton did not want him to win.)
So, in this view of some who know him well, the former president thinks he is better than he is, and as a result gets too cute by half.
4 PM Pacific — More Wisconsin Exit Poll Thoughts
Some more internals from the second wave Wisconsin Democratic primary exit polls.
Among women: Barack Obama 51%, Hillary Clinton 49%. Among independents: Obama 63%, Clinton 34%. Among families with incomes under $50,000 per year: Obama 51%, Clinton 49%. Among union households: Clinton 50%, Obama 49%.
3:40 PM Pacific — Hawaii Story: Checking In From America’s Paradise In The Pacific
Correspondent Andrew Walden reports: Hawaii Democrats were surprised when 4000 people turned for the normally sleepy Democratic Presidential caucuses in 2004. For 2008, Democrats are predicting a much larger turnout–with projections up to 20,000–participating in district level or precinct level party caucuses. Hawaii’s senior Senator Dan Inouye even made a rare return visit to the islands with his new fiancée to staff the phone banks for Hillary Clinton along with the heavyweight AFSCME-affiliated Hawaii Government Employees Association.
Facing off against Inouye are Obama supporters led by former Vietnam war protester Rep Neil Abercrombie. Abercrombie rallied 700 supporters at Honolulu’s Farrington High School last night pointing out: “The emotion is all what it is about. It is all for Obama.”
Ducking for cover are Senator Dan Akaka and Representative Mazie Hirono. As with all Democratic senators and members of congress, both are “super delegates”. But they have declined to endorse either candidate. Hirono backed John Edwards in 2004. Much of the campaign team which won Akaka’s tough 2006 Democratic primary battle against Representative Ed Case is working for Obama.
Campaigning on the ground in Hawaii is Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. Soetoro-Ng, a private school history teacher, has appeared at several rallies underlining Obama’s connection to the state of his birth. For the Clintons, Chelsea swept through Oahu and Maui plumping for her mom.
For Clinton as for Kerry the support comes from the government employees unions and the weakening Inouye machine. HGEA, joined on the phones by Inouye—who usually is too diffident to even show up—is concentrating on mobilizing their membership for the caucuses tonight.
For Obama, the support comes from Abercrombie’s urban Honolulu organization bolstered by the influx of thousands of wealthy new-age Northern Californians and Obama’s own energetic campaign organization. These newcomers flexed muscle (to derisive catcalls from the rest of the state) in the latter half of 2007 by blocking the new inter-island Superferry from serving Kauai and protesting it on Maui. On both islands they have taken control of the Democratic Party organizations as Hawaii locals continue their exodus to the mainland. Obama campaigners were spotted yesterday on the street in the Big Island hippie enclave of Pahoa, rounding up likely suspects and directing them to show up at the caucuses. About 4000 people have signed Democratic Party cards in the lead up to the caucuses.
The Hawaii election commission does not record party registration information. To join one must contact the party organization directly. So in spite of running Hawaii as a one-party (Territory and then) State from 1954 until the election of Republican Governor Linda Lingle in 2002, only about 24,000 people are actual members of the Democratic Party. Caucus goers have the option of joining the Party on the spot at the caucus in order to participate and the Obama supporters are taking full advantage.
3 PM Pacific — More Early Exit Poll Thoughts
In the second wave Wisconsin exit poll numbers in the Democratic presidential primary, the emphasis on change was favored over the emphasis on experience, 52% to 24%.
Hillary Clinton was seen as the most unfair attacker of the two Democrats.
27% of the voters so far in the Democratic primary were registered independents.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were tied in the category of who is best qualified to be commander-in-chief.
Some 60% viewed Obama as the best choice to unite the country and the best choice to beat John McCain.
2:50 PM Pacific — Early Exit Poll Thoughts
Based on consideration of the early exit poll numbers below and some additional information, which includes word that the Wisconsin Democratic primary has a significantly higher proportion of $50,000-and up voters than four years ago, at the moment it looks positive for Barack Obama.
John McCain is likely to have a sizable win.
2:30 PM Pacific — First Cut On Wisconsin Exit Polls
So far, Wisconsin Democratic primary voters are critics of globalization. 70% said U.S. trade with other countries takes more jobs from Wisconsin and less than 20% said it creates more jobs for the state. Barack Obama has been criticizing Hillary Clinton for her husband’s success in pushing throught NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement).
As in earlier primaries, most Democrats are very worried about the state of the economy. Republican primary voters were not as pessimistic.
About one in seven Democratic voters said today is the first time they were voting in a primary.
As usual, men outnumbered women in Republican primaries and, as usual, the reverse was true on the Democratic side. 90% of the voters in each party were white. About 40% in each party were college grads.
Clinton has been counting on big wins in the March 4th primaries in Ohio and Texas, where she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have campaigned most of the past week. Obama has closed the gap in Texas down to 5 points in this organization’s tracking poll, and now this. Intriguingly, he has only briefly been in Ohio, and not in Texas at all, during the time in which these polls have closed up.
There is a huge generation gap in this Ohio poll. Among voters 65 and over, Hillary leads 65-30. Among voters 18 to 34, Obama leads 57-37. There’s also a big gender gap. Among women, Hillary leads 62-34. Among men, Obama leads 55-39.
12:15 PM Pacific — In Case You Were Wondering Who Team McCain Is Out To Bring Down …
… Cindy McCain, wife of the senator, who does not engage in the back-and-forth of the campaign whirl, took a hard shot this morning at Michelle Obama at the McCain campaign appearances in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
“I’m proud of my country,” she declared. “I don’t know about you if you heard those words earlier. I’m very proud of my country,” she said.
Cindy McCain was referring to Michelle Obama’s remark yesterday that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of America, now that her husband is doing so well at generating a wave of enthusiasm for his presidential candidacy.
McCain himself can’t attack his opponent’s wife. But his wife can.
It is a core element of Team McCain’s strategy to find ways to bring Barack Obama back to earth. They have been looking for ways to chip away at Obama-mania, starting with the senator’s Chesapeake Tuesday disparaging of Obama’s rhetoric at his own Virginia victory party.
Hillary Clinton says she’s fighting for America’s middle class
against the oil and drug companies in this Wisconsin TV ad.
They know how to run against Hillary Clinton. Obama is more of a phenomenon, with much greater appeal to the independent voters McCain has always seen as his turf in national politics. If he is not the Democratic nominee, they’re just as happy.
11:45 AM Pacific — $100 Per Barrel Oil, Turmoil In Cuba And Pakistan, And …
… and the national political press corps is essentially focused on the parsing of a handful of polls, with many misremembering the numbers, tit for tat charges of “plagiarism” of speech lines, and discussion of what other media types are saying.
Because, you know, it’s all about us. To borrow a line from the classic movie, Broadcast News.
Is anyone asking John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, at their public appearances today, to discuss in depth what it means that oil has again gone over $100 per barrel, Cuba is confronted with a post-Fidel — though not post-Raul — future, and Pakistan is sorting through its governance after a tumultuous election? All of that happening today, mind you, as the Pakistani election was yesterday and word of Castro’s resignation came in the middle of the night.
A rhetorical question to be sure, as the answer is clearly no.
10:45 AM Pacific — Hawaiian Sunset
With expectations of a record turnout in tonight’s Hawaii Democratic presidential caucuses, results will nonetheless come in very late tonight and in fairly leisurely fashion. The sunset of today’s elections — in the far, far west of the United States — will come so late that it may feel more like tomorrow.
Perhaps that is to be expected in America’s slice of paradise in the middle of the Pacific, the most multi-racial state among the 50, where Barack Obama was born in 1961. The weather is great, as you can see by clicking here.
Correspondent Andrew Walden says: “I expect Obama will win big here, but the details will be telling.”
He notes that Dennis Kucinich got a quarter of the vote in the Hawaii caucuses four years ago, finishing well behind John Kerry. And he won on the island of Maui, in what was clearly the high water mark of his two presidential campaigns. “I expect his people to go for Obama,” says Walden.
But the turnout tonight in Hawaii will dwarf that of 2004, so the Kucinich factor does not appear to be a major one.
Walden is going to visit two local caucuses in the Hilo area and report on them.
Hilo is the second largest city in Hawaii, after Honolulu, Obama’s original home town. Hilo is on the island of Hawaii, which is known as the Big Island, so as not to confuse with the state as a whole. Honolulu is on the island of Oahu, which is also the site of the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
“The Dems,” Walden reports, “just had a knock down internal fight over open vs closed primaries. Open (the old boys and unions) beat Closed (the gays and enviros) but only after the AFL-CIO threatened to cut off funds and Inouye laid down the law.”
Closed primaries, he notes, would give disproportionate influence to the far left wing of the Hawaii Democratic Party.
9:45 AM Pacific — Unpopular Fidel
Global events are huge this year in presidential politics. Today we’re looking at Monday’s vote for Pakistan’s national parliament, and how that plays out and what it means. And, of course, Fidel Castro’s resignation as president of Cuba.
All three of our potential presidents — John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton — issued statements critical of the Castro regime and calling for a democratic state in Cuba.
John McCain
“Today’s resignation of Fidel Castro is nearly half a century overdue. For decades, Castro oversaw an apparatus of repression that denied liberty to the people who suffered under his dictatorship.
“Yet freedom for the Cuban people is not yet at hand, and the Castro brothers clearly intend to maintain their grip on power. That is why we must press the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections.
“Cuba’s transition to democracy is inevitable; it is a matter of when – not if. With the resignation of Fidel Castro, the Cuban people have an opportunity to move forward and continue pushing for the moment that they will truly be free. America can and should help hasten the sparking of freedom in Cuba. The Cuban people have waited long enough.”
Barack Obama
“Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba’s history. Fidel Castro’s stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba.
“Cuba’s future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime. The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It’s time for these heroes to be released.
“If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together.”
Hillary Clinton
“As you know, Fidel Castro announced that he is stepping down as Cuba’s leader after 58 years of one-man rule. The new leadership in Cuba will face a stark choice—continue with the failed policies of the past that have stifled democratic freedoms and stunted economic growth—or take a historic step to bring Cuba into the community of democratic nations. The people of Cuba want to seize this opportunity for real change and so must we.
“I would say to the new leadership, the people of the United States are ready to meet you if you move forward towards the path of democracy, with real, substantial reforms. The people of Cuba yearn for the opportunity to get out from under the weight of this authoritarian regime, which has held back 11 million talented and hardworking citizens of the Americas. The new government should take this opportunity to release political prisoners and to take serious steps towards democracy that give their people a real voice in their government.
“The American people have been on the side in the Cuban people’s struggle for freedom and democracy in the past and we will be on their side for democracy in the future.
“As President, I will engage our partners in Latin America and Europe who have a strong stake in seeing a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba, and who want very much for the United States to play a constructive role to that end. The United States must pursue an active policy that does everything possible to advance the cause of freedom, democracy and opportunity in Cuba.
“The events of the past three days, including elections in Pakistan and Kosovo’s declaration of independence, are a vivid illustration of people around the world yearning for democracy and opportunity. We need a President with the experience to recognize and seize these opportunities to advance America’s values and interests around the world. I will be that President.”
9:15 AM Pacific — Wisconsin: High Turnout, Better Weather?
In Wisconsin, state election officials are predicting a 35% turnout, the highest in 20 years.
The last time that many people turned out for a presidential primary in Wisconsin was in 1988, which had competitive races in both parties, Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson on the Democratic ballot and George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole on the Republican side.
This time around, the action is primarily on the Democratic side, as the Republican nomination is decided and GOP turnout has been much lower than Democratic turnout in previous contests.
Correspondent Tom Bozzo in the Madison area reports that the election day is already well underway, “with signs that there is a powerful light source in the sky, so I imagine preparations for a high turnout won’t be in vain.
“Polling of the race suggests that Obama will roll up a double-digit margin over HRC, and that’s consistent both with the chatter over snow-shoveling and the open primary format.”
His wife Suzanne, he reports, voted just after 9 AM. She was voter number 225. “So turnout,” he notes, is brisk but the short ballot is keeping the line short.
7:45 AM Pacific — Where They Are Today, And Why
The candidates themselves today have all moved on from today’s contest states, looking ahead to future contests. John McCain makes a stop in Wisconsin, to show he’s not taking support for granted, but he is the Republican presidential nominee essentially no matter what happens. Tellingly, Mike Huckabee is down most of the day. After taking three days in the Caribbean for a speaking gig through Sunday.
In the real contest, on the Democratic side, Barack Obama is hitting Texas for the first time in weeks, with two new polls showing him surprisingly in striking distance of Hillary Clinton in this latest of her firewall states, which votes on March 4th. Hillary Clinton is in Ohio, another big state on March 4th, which she not only needs to win, but win big.
Daughter Chelsea is in Wisconsin today trying to buck up Hillary’s youth vote. Husband Bill, the former president, is in his second day of fundraising in California. Last month, the couple had to put an emergency $5 million from their newfound post-presidential wealth into her campaign. Another such infusion will stir up more questions about how that money was made.
Barack Obama is campaigning in Texas today. He holds an economic roundtable discussion which is then followed by a town hall meeting in San Antonio. Tonight he holds a major election night rally in Houston.
Hillary Clinton is campaigning in Ohio today. She holds an economic roundtable discussion in Parma and has a rally in Youngstown.
Bill Clinton is raising money for his wife’s campaign in California. The events are private.
Chelsea Clinton is campaigning today for her mom in Wisconsin, with events in Oshkosh and Madison.
John McCain has a rally in Brookfield, Wisconsin followed by a press conference in Columbus, Ohio. He will host an election night party tonight in Columbus, Ohio.
Mike Huckabee has an election night event in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Former President George Bush endorses John McCain yesterday in Houston. McCain effectively won the Republican nomination two weeks ago in the California primary.
THE MORNING COLUMN
Another big day begins in presidential politics, with the Wisconsin primaries in both parties and the Hawaii Democratic caucuses. While Republican John McCain has been the presumptive nominee since his backbreaking California primary win over Mitt Romney two weeks ago, a question remains about how swiftly he consolidates his party and deals with remaining opposition from Mike Huckabee. Which leaves the real races between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, two brand new polls indicate a tightening race in the March 4th Texas primary, along with Ohio Hillary’s latest firewall in the race. CNN has Hillary leading by only two points, while Survey USA gives her a narrow 5-point edge. Clinton leads only among Texas voters 65 years of age and older.
Good morning, it’s “Game Day: Wisconsin And Hawaii.” I’ll be anchoring PJ Media network’s coverage throughout the day, weaving together reports and information from correspondents and contacts inside and outside those states. The anchor coverage will be linked to and, to an extent, mirrored here on NWN. This will be a continuation of the “Game Day: Iowa,” “Game Day: New Hampshire,” “Game Day: Michigan And Vegas,” “Game Day: Nevada And South Carolina Republicans,” “Game Day: South Carolina Democrats,” “Game Day: Florida Republicans,” “Super-Duper Tuesday Special Edition,” “Game Day: Semi-Super Saturday,” and “Game Day: Chesapeake Tuesday” packages.
In today’s contests, Obama has a slender edge in Wisconsin, a state which should go to Clinton, and Hawaii, where he was born and where I see no polls. Until recently, Clinton led in Wisconsin, which is 92% white, with only a 6% black population, and a huge white blue collar vote. There’s also a sizable college grad vote, which is why candidates like Gary Hart have been able to win there. Hart, of course, is white.
Obama has campaigned steadily in Wisconsin, where Governor Jim Doyle announced his support, and Hillary had mostly left the state to former President Bill Clinton and other surrogates — though she’s running attack ads — until late last week. But a big storm has disrupted the plans of both candidates, causing them to cancel their planned rallies Sunday around the state. So Hillary, whose campaign has launched a furious set of attacks on Obama, spent all of yesterday campaigning around the state.
The polls indicated a close race going into the weekend. And there have been a couple of late public tracking polls taken over the weekend — wildly at variance with one another — which points up the difficulty of weekend polling. And when you throw in a national holiday weekend (yesterday, of course, was Presidents Day), it becomes even more problematic.
While Obama has won the last eight straight contests since Super-Duper Tuesday, Wisconsin is a state which should be good territory for Clinton. In addition to being 92% white, with the black population only 6%, the socioeconomic structure of the state generally matches the core structure of the Clinton enterprise.
Working class folks are a group that Clinton has counted on to date. The Wisconsin Democratic primary electorate has a higher proportion of blue collar workers than the national Democratic electorate as a whole. Roughly 40% of Democratic primary voters this year make less than $50,000 per year. But 50% of Wisconsin primary voters in 2004 are in that category. While half that constituency is white on a national basis, the figure for the Wisconsin primary is over 80%.
With the campaign in rather desperate straits, Clinton campaign communications director Howard Wolfson yesterday accused Obama of plagiarism, a charge designed to upset Obama’s aura of authenticity on the eve of the Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses. Obama’s supposed sin? Using some lines also used by and suggested to him by a longtime close friend and advisor, Deval Patrick, the first black governor of Massachusetts.
The lines in question, used in reply to Clinton’s charge that “words are cheap”: “Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words! ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words — just speeches!”
Patrick immediately put out a statement: “Sen. Obama and I are longtime friends and allies. We often share ideas about politics, policy and language. The argument in question, on the value of words in the public square, is one about which he and I have spoken frequently before. Given the recent attacks from Sen. Clinton, I applaud him for responding in just the way he did.
The flow of a speech is going to get awfully choppy if the speaker properly attributes everything suggested by advisors and aides. As a frequent ghost, and having seen much from my columns turn up elsewhere, not infrequently in a speech, I can tell you the obvious; it doesn’t happen. And since Clinton herself is not a writer, that’s not a good road to go down. Especially since her wealth — although the $5 million she put into her campaign came from a joint account with her husband, she says it’s from her book deal — comes from a book with major ghost writing.
The Hawaii caucuses are today as well, and overshadowed. In part because of the flight time out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean for the contest in Barack Obama’s state of birth (he was born in Honolulu), the candidates themselves have not been there of late, instead sticking to the big upcoming contests on the mainland.
Clinton is backed by Hawaii’s longtime top Democratic, Senator Daniel Inouye, and a big public employees union. But the Clintons probably don’t expect to win in the Aloha State. Hawaii state party officials are expecting a record surge of participants in tonight’s caucuses.
What was he doing in the Caribbean at this seemingly odd moment? Giving what apparently is a lucrative lecture. Which involved his hanging around the conference, or at least its general vicinity. He’s not on the public payroll and is not a really rich guy. But if he had a real shot at coming in first in Wisconsin, he wouldn’t take a Caribbean holiday. Which indicates he is ready to play ball again with John McCain, with whom he is friendly.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
| Comments (0) |