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.
** SCHWARZENEGGER SAYS CLOSE TAX LOOPHOLES, THEN APPEARS TO BACKTRACK ON SPECIFICS. This is what I get for (rarely) missing one of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s webcasts, which I actually forgot to link to. Late this morning in an address on California’s economy and budget at Town Hall Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger, in answer to a question from an audience member, called for closing some $2.5 billion in loopholes, or tax breaks. She had raised the now notorious yacht tax break, and he agreed with her that it should go, along with a lot of others.
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.
What is the impact to date?
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.
** MCCAIN KEEPS UP FIGHT WITH OBAMA OVER IRAQ AND AL QAEDA. This morning at his town hall meeting in Houston, John McCain continued his firefight with Barack Obama on Iraq and Al Qaeda. McCain called Obama’s position, “not logical.”
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.
** RASMUSSEN TEXAS POLL PUTS OBAMA IN FRONT. The Rasmussen tracking robopoll of the Texas primary for the first time places Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton. Obama leads, 48% to 44%, in the tracking poll done Tuesday and Wednesday.
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.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil is trading in the $100 to $101 per barrel range , after hitting a record $102 per barrel on Wednesday.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum.
Read 
| Comments (0) |
Why the Navy?
>Wilbur :
I hope Drudge meets the Royal Navy soon in some dark waterfront bar.
Feb 29, 2008 12:08 AM
No prob.
>Jonathan Hemlock :
Sorry for the double posting.
Feb 28, 2008 10:12 PM
No prob.
>Jonathan Hemlock :
Sorry for the double posting.
Feb 28, 2008 10:12 PM
Indeed.
>Jonathan Hemlock :
Mr. Drudge is an enormous blight on the new media landscape.
Thoroughly irresponsible and despicable.
Feb 28, 2008 10:10 PM
The right to place people in danger.
>Chris M :
Drudge may be a sleazeball, but I’d defend to the death his right to do what he did. Tis all that stands between us and tyranny.
Feb 28, 2008 09:06 PM
Watch how little criticism Drudge gets in the US.
>Barbara :
Prince Harry/Drudge…mothers and sons:
Mr. Bradley this is really appalling! When a journalist violates an embargo is there no authority and/or regulating body that can impose a penalty, financial or otherwise of some sort?
Watch how little criticism Drudge gets in the US.
>Barbara :
Prince Harry/Drudge…mothers and sons:
Mr. Bradley this is really appalling! When a journalist violates an embargo is there no authority and/or regulating body that can impose a penalty, financial or otherwise of some sort?
He’s clearly a carpetbagger, a termed out professional politician in search of a seat.
>larry :
As a rank amateur, I’m confused about the 4th congressional district. Was the 2006 race close solely because of Doolittle’s problems, or was Charlie Brown an attractive candidate in his own right? Has the composition of the district changed? And will people accept a candidate who is not a resident, but an extreme ideologue who was successful only in a tailor-made district much different from the 4th? Is McClintock really a viable candidate there? Would his candidacy (or that of Ose) actually help the Democrats?
Feb 28, 2008 08:19 PM
All will be revealed.
>Jack Aubrey :
What happened to the Clintons’ 527? That’s a collapse.
Feb 28, 2008 05:38 PM
Well said.
>Dana :
One person’s loophole is another’s strategic investment.
>Bill Bradley :
Well, he said he’s for closing loopholes, but got unspecific about which ones.
Feb 28, 2008 04:27 PM
Well said.
>Dana :
One person’s loophole is another’s strategic investment.
>Bill Bradley :
Well, he said he’s for closing loopholes, but got unspecific about which ones.
Feb 28, 2008 04:27 PM
Perhaps.
>Dana :
Maybe Schwarzenegger
would help raise money for his good buddy McClintock to make sure the Republicans hold the seat (and burnish his image with the insiders still disgruntled about the Kennedy appointment, etc.)?
>Bill Bradley :
There may have been some real change in 2 years.
It will be interesting to see if McClintock can raise money without Schwarzenegger bailing him out, as he did in the last state senate re-election.
Feb 28, 2008 04:24 PM
Shocking. Positively shocking.
>Ann :
Jonny Flashman and the Flush Report sounded the BIG TAX SCHWARZENEGER ALARM!
No comments! I guess the righty wingnuts don’t care except for Jonny boy. lol
Feb 28, 2008 04:10 PM
Michelle Obamma received a bugus raise of $195,052 annually after Barack Obama was elected senator. Check out this article on Michelle Obama
Michelle Obamma received a bugus raise of $195,052 annually after Barack Obama was elected senator. Check out this article on Michelle Obama
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