The administration has been heavily focused in knocking down Al Qaeda in Iraq. Which by and large did not exist during Saddam Hussein’s reign. But AQI didn’t attack America on 9/11. AQ Prime, i.e., the hard-core cadre of the organization, did.
They are hiding out in the remote tribal regions of Pakistan such as Waziristan. For the most part, the US has relied on Pakistani forces to track down and eliminate these individuals. They have failed, going so far as to negotiate a peace accord at one point, all the while receiving billions of dollars in US funding for the express purpose of eradicating Al Qaeda Prime.
But this should not be a surprise. Since it was the Bush Administration’s decision not to use US Marines, who were in the vicinity — and to block British special operations forces (the Special Boat Service) from acting — in going into the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan to take down Osama bin Laden. Instead, in the foggy denouement of the Afghan War in 9/11′s aftermath, we relied on Pakistani forces to block the retreat of Al Qaeda and Taliban cadre. Which they completely failed to do.
“It is appalling that there is still no comprehensive, interagency strategy concerning this critical region, and this lack of foresight is harming U.S. national security,” says Berman.
** RASMUSSEN CALIFORNIA POLL: OBAMA AND CLINTON OVER MCCAIN, BY DIMINISHED MARGINS.The brand new Rasmussen robopoll is the second recent poll to show Barack Obama running better than Hillary Clinton — who won the Democratic primary here 10 weeks ago — against John McCain. Obama and Clinton had larger leads over McCain a month ago.
Obama leads McCain now, 50% to 43%. Clinton leads McCain, 47% to 42%. Obama has a 58% favorable rating among California voters, Clinton has a 47% favorable rating, and McCain has a 48% favorable rating.
** HERCULES IN NEW YORK: SCHWARZENEGGER DOES ISSUES AND BILLIONAIRES. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in New York City today for an appearance at his friend Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s issues luncheon, a private fundraiser hosted by Bloomberg, and a private fundraiser hosted by financier Ronald Perelman.
The issue luncheon is moderated by TV host Charlie Rose, featuring Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg discussing infrastructure, climate change, security, and immigration. Schwarzenegger goes on to Yale tomorrow for a much-anticipated conference with other governors and policy experts on climate change. Expect something of a reprise of Schwarzenegger’s address at last year’s Newsweek conference in Washington, D.C.
Of at least equal importance, of course, are the fundraisers organized for Schwarzenegger by billionaires Bloomberg and Perelman. They’re among the richest men in America and Perelman is — or at least, I haven’t checked lately, was — the richest man in New York.
The dough goes to Schwarzenegger’s California Dream Team, formerly the California Recovery Team, though some would say the original name is more appropriate. This is the committee which funds the former action superstar’s lobbying and initiative efforts, and thus can take huge contributions from individuals and other entities.
Bloomberg has already given $250,000 to be used for the redistricting reform initiative Schwarzenegger is backing for the November ballot. Undoubtedly some of today and tonight’s haul will go toward that effort, and perhaps to a budget-oriented measure.
Bloomberg is a media billionaire, founder of the Bloomberg News empire. He’s become a familiar figure in California. Somewhere I have the NWN video in which Schwarzenegger calls the mayor — who explored running for president as an independent — his “soulmate.”
Perelman, who will host Schwarzenegger tonight at his storied house in Manhattan, was a famous corporate raider of the 1980s, fueled by Michael Milken’s junk bonds. He has many holdings now, the most famous of which is Revlon. He’s previously owned a large bank in California and Marvel Entertainment, though I’m not up on his current interests in the Golden State.
** REPUBLICANS WIN DEMOCRATIC DEBATE. A great ABC News debate for the Republican Party last night. How many people actually saw it live is very much an open question, as many ABC stations outside the Eastern time zone, where it aired at 8 PM, ran it on tape delay to avoid disrupting their local news and strip programming.
Over half of the debate was taken up with questions catering to the Republicans’ cultural agenda, centering around the already emerging attack agenda against Barack Obama. The Wright Stuff, Bittergate, the flag lapel pin, Bill Ayers. Hillary Clinton got a glancing blow in the form of a question, not followed up, regarding her Bosnia sniper fabrications. Which she slipped, in part, by suggesting again it was her lack of sleep that caused her to repeatedly tell her very involved tall tale.
Strangely, with regard to whatever hopes she still harbors in this election, she undercut her message by saying that Obama is electable. And she pushed the Bill Ayers question — pursued first by the Clintons’ former White House communications director, George Stephanopoulos, now an ABC News political anchor — after Obama gave his reply. Which prompted Obama to bring up something very damaging to Hillary and her husband, who as president commuted the sentences of two Weather Underground bombers.
That’s the Bill Ayers matter. He was a member of the Weather Underground back in the Vietnam War days. Now he’s a professor in Chicago who served on the board of a foundation on which Obama also served.
Stephanopoulos, incidentally, was urged by Fox News personality Sean Hannity on his radio show to push the Bill Ayers matter at Obama.
As a result of the extended exchange, which Hillary pushed, and her campaign continues to push even though then President Clinton helped the bombers by shortening their sentences, the Weather Undergound, an idiotic anti-war terrorist group from decades ago, is now an issue for the Democrats.
It was over 50 minutes into the debate before policy issues were engaged.
This is exactly the sort of debate that Democrats feared when contemplating a debate on Fox News. Ironically, it occurred on a mainstream broadcast network.
Not a good night for Obama. Not a good night for Clinton. A very good night for John McCain. Unless there is a backlash to the debate. Which is entirely possible.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Washington, DC and Raleigh and Greenville, North Carolina.
Hillary Clinton is in Washington, DC and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Bill Clinton is Erie, Warren, Saint Marys, Brookville, Clearfield, and Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.
John McCain is in Washington, DC.
** 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.
John McCain discusses “Bittergate” and other matters on Chris
Mathews’ Hardball college tour.
** DEBATE NIGHT. The ABC debate, I suspect, was not seen live in quite a few markets outside the Eastern time zone. Very tabloid-y, by most assessments I’m hearing. And one big upshot is that the Weather Underground is now an issue for the Democratic Party. How so? Co-moderator George Stephanopoulos, former communications director in the Clinton White House, brought up Barack Obama’s relationship with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, who served on a foundation board with Obama. Conservative commentator Sean Hannity had also suggested the question to Stephanopoulos. So, of course, it turned out, as Obama pointed out when Hillary Clinton decided to make an issue of it herself, that Bill Clinton pardoned two Weather Underground bombers.
That cheering sounds you’re hearing in the background is from John McCain headquarters. More tomorrow …
** AN EARLY CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL ENCOUNTER? Crime Victims United and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (state prison guards union) held their annual crime victims march on the Capitol today. At a noon rally, they presented awards to various politicians for their advocacy and help for crime victims. Which set up an intriguing break from the endless Democratic presidential campaign, since Crime Victims United presented one of its big awards to former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, the Democratic frontrunner for governor again in 2010 if he runs. The group opposed Brown when he ran for attorney general in 2006, supporting his conservative Republican challenger Chuck Poochigian, who lost in a landslide.
For balance, the group also gave an award to the Republican frontrunner for 2010, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.
The two were slated to appear back to back, which I thought would make for an intriguing video. But it didn’t happen, as Poizner didn’t come.
Brown, who was well received by the assemblage of more than a thousand crime victims, said what you might suppose he’d say. He noted in passing that his grandfather “drove the stage coach from Hangtown to Sacramento in the 1850s, so we’ve been around for a long time.” (Actually, it was Brown’s great great grandfather, but I couldn’t resist.)
Later, he discussed the Supreme Court decision reinstating the death penalty, saying the law would of course be enforced in California and that he expected a lethal injection procedure to be in place in the near future.
Earlier, talking about the “Bittergate” matter, he noted that just this last weekend at his ranch, he’d fired his shotgun and his .38 to keep in practice. He didn’t mention exactly when he’d been in church, though he did spend his 70th birthday last week at a Trappist (Catholic) monastery.
** HAPPY CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS. Flash Report proprietor Jon Fleischman, Southern California vice chairman of the Republican Party and a key leader of the party’s hard right faction, is complaining that while he was let on to a media conference call announcing the formation of a new California Republican group called CRAFT — fueled by more moderate and pragmatic Republicans — he never got to ask any questions while reporters were allowed to ask repeat questions. Well, since the group is being formed in large measure to counter the faction that Fleischman is part of which has a narrow majority on the state party’s executive board, that’s not an exactly a surprise, is it?
The poll’s director says “with each passing day, it’s clear that the Clinton’s campaign to gain traction with this (“Bittergate”) issue is not working.
** OBAMA PICKS UP THREE CONGRESSIONAL SUPERDELEGATES. Barack Obama picked up three congressional superdelegates today from upcoming primary states. Indiana Congressman Andre Carson joined North Carolina Congressman David Price and North Carolina Congressman Mel Watt in backing the freshman Illinois senator. Price and Watt had been backers of John Edwards.
** DEMOCRATIC DEBATE TONIGHT. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debate tonight in Philadelphia. The two candidates are spending most of the day on debate prep and rest from the grueling schedule they’ve been keeping.
The debate is live tonight on ABC at 5 PM, for 90 minutes. Moderators are ABC personalities Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. The latter was a top aide in the Clinton White House. On Good Morning America this morning, Stephanopoulos said that the polls look very unpromising for the former first lady, Bittergate isn’t biting Obama, and Clinton needs a game-changer tonight.
But Clinton’s negatives are such that attacking Obama in this forum is extraordinarily risky, as she drives herself down at least as much as she, and she’s behind.
Except in Pennsylvania, though two brand new polls show a very close race there.
** THE BOSS BACKS BARACK.Legendary roots rocker Bruce Springsteen today endorsed Barack Obama. Springsteen comes from a small town in New Jersey. Springsteen lived in LA for awhile, but moved back to the Jersey Shore. In recent years, he’s been active with liberal causes, and campaigned for John Kerry in 2004, the first candidate he ever endorsed.
This is an endorsement that comes at a pretty good time, from the maybe the biggest working class hero of American rock: He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where “…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.”
At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment. After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. … Over here on E Street, we’re proud to support Obama for President.
Bruce Springsteen, of course, lives on Easy Street now, not E Street. But his fans have never begrudged him his success. Well, except when he married that model. Incidentally, watch for some superdelegate endorsements of Obama today. In advance of tonight’s debate in Philadelphia.
** BIG NATIONAL LEAD FOR OBAMA AS CLINTON’S CREDIBILITY PLUNGES. Which was the more damaging controversy in the Democratic presidential race — the Wright Stuff, the Bosnian Adventure, or Bittergate? If you’re reading NWN, you know the answer: The Bosnian Adventure.
A whopping 58% of all voters see Clinton as untrustworthy.
The poll was conducted April 10-13, catching most of the height of the Bittergate media firestorm, which broke April 11th.
In general election match-ups, Obama leads John McCain by five points, 49% to 44%, while Clinton trails McCain by three.
By a 2 to 1 margin, Democrats view Obama as more electable than Clinton.
Hillary Clinton has a 54% unfavorable rating. Bill Clinton has a 51% unfavorable rating. John McCain has a 40% unfavorable rating. And Obama has a 39% unfavorable rating.
** A.L.P. RETURNS. The American Leadership Project, a 527 independent expenditure committee launched by California Democrats, returns with a $250,000 media buy in Pennsylvania to help Hillary Clinton. This was originally thought of as a $10 million operation funded by Clinton’s super-rich friends such as Susie Tompkins Buell. But that never materialized.
The group, headed by Sacramento consultants Jason Kinney and Roger Salazar, played a much more limited rule in last month’s primaries, funded by the big AFSCME public employee union which was doing more advertising for Clinton on its own. This $250,000 comes from AFSCME and the machinists union.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appears at the annual San Francisco Bay Area Outlook Conference, sponsored by the Bay Area Council, this morning at the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda. The event is webcast live at 10:30 AM.
Michelle Obama appeared last night on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.
** OBAMA ON COLBERT. Michelle Obama appeared last night on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. She was an energetic supporter of her husband, but not, let’s say, actually funny. It hasn’t been my impression that she’s a particularly funny person. You’d think she might make an effort to be funny on a comedy program.
But humor can be dangerous, backfiring, for those for whom it doesn’t come naturally. The only particularly funny person of the six candidates and spouses left in the running is John McCain. And he has a lot of experience at it.
In any event, Michelle Obama’s public profile is only recently slowly being raised again. She was quite prominent through most of the campaign, but then was reined in after her notorious remark that she was proud of America for the first time now that her husband is a leading candidate for president.
What she actually said was somewhat different from what I just wrote. But what I just wrote is what was bandied about. She said she was really proud for the first time as an adult to be an American. Which alters the meaning of her statement. But if you say something like that, expect to see it sanded down to something clearly controversial.
Given that, maybe a little dull is a good thing.
** 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 counters Hillary Clinton’s attack ad with this
brand new ad in Pennsylvania.
** QUICK HITS. After crashing through the $114 per barrel mark for the first time, crude oil settled today at a record $113.76 per barrel. The dollar continues to be very weak against the euro, and the world is in an economic slowdown. … The State of California took in nearly a billion dollars less last month than was forecast, deepening the state’s chronic budget problem. I don’t see much action happening in the Legislature on this, with both Democrats and Republicans giving lip service to the problem while remaining locked in their usual reflexive partisan stances, dominated by their parties’ respective ultra-government and anti-government factions.
In North Carolina, it’s Obama 47%, Clinton 34%. In Indiana, it’s Obama 45%, Clinton 40%. The polls were conducted April 10-13. The “Bittergate” imbroglio broke on April 11th.
** HOW “BITTERGATE” IS PLAYING NATIONALLY. The latest Rasmussen robots tracking poll is very interesting. Barack Obama has moved back into a nine-point lead over Hillary Clinton, 50% to 41%. Obama trails John McCain by four points. Obama’s image score, which took a hit over the weekend, has come back up a bit. He’s 49% favorable, 49% unfavorable. Clinton is 43% favorable, 54% unfavorable. McCain, in contrast, is 53% favorable, 45% unfavorable.
This is not to say that most Americans liked the now notorious passage which first emerged on the Huffington Post. 56% disliked what Obama said; only 25% liked it. Among independent voters, who disagree with the comments by a two-to-one ratio, 40% feel they reflect an elitist view on Obama’s part while 34% do not.
I hear there are some more polls coming which will show stability for Obama in the primaries.
** QUINNIPIAC POLL OF PENNSYLVANIA: STATUS QUO DESPITE BITTERGATE.The new Quinnipiac poll of the Pennsylvania primary shows essentially no change since the Bitttergate firestorm broke. It’s Hillary Clinton 50%, Barack Obama 44%.
What has happened, which I expected, is that Obama’s upward momentum in the state where Clinton recently held a 25-point lead, has been halted.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Washington, D.C. and Washington, Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton is in Washington, D.C.
Bill Clinton is in Coatesville, Phoenixville, Quakertown, and Easton, Pennsylvania.
John McCain is in Pittsburgh and Villanova, Pennsylvania.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCASTS THIS MORNING AND THIS AFTERNOON. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger does another of his California budget reform events with Monterey County local elected officials and taxpayer groups this morning in Salinas at 10 AM.
This afternoon, at 1:45 PM in the Capitol, he gives awards to people who’ve made major contributions supporting and advocating on behalf of crime victims.
Hillary Clinton tries to make hay in Pennsylvania out of the media firestorm over Barack Obama’s comments at a San Francisco fundraiser with this new TV ad.
THE MORNING COLUMN
It’s one of the great ironies of the campaign. The resolutely pro-Obama Huffington Post, the site Barack Obama chose last month to put out his statement on Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s outrageous comments, this month is the source of one of his biggest campaign crises. Its namesake co-owner, the conservative-turned-liberal commentator profiled recently in the New York Times as “Citizen Huff,” Arianna Huffington, was on David Geffen’s yacht in Tahiti when the deal went down.
I’m referring, of course, to the Huffington Post’s report of the now notorious comments Obama made on April 6th at a private fundraiser in San Francisco. There, the freshman Illinois senator, opining about people in small towns where the jobs have fled, said: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Those few magic words, transcribed from a more than 45-minute recording of Obama, buried in the midst of a very ruminative, rather personally-oriented piece by Mayhill Fowler, an activist blogger who supports Obama and contributed the maximum allowable $2,300 to his presidential campaign, kicked off a media firestorm.
“It’s stunning,” Arianna Huffington told me last night, “the way the Clinton campaign has completely distorted the meaning of what he said. It’s stunning Hillary chose to confirm every right-wing demagogic characteristic about her own party.”
“We recognized it was a politically volatile story and thought it would create news,” says Marc Cooper, editorial coordinator of Huffington Post’s “Off The Bus” project for “citizen journalists” such as Fowler. “We had no idea that the controversy would reach this magnitude.”
One person who did is Steve Schmidt, a senior advisor to John McCain who ran Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s landslide 2006 re-election campaign, and before that the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign war room. He seized on a handful of magic words — bitter, cling, guns, religion — in the midst of Fowler’s heartfelt prose about Obama, words that cast the Democratic frontrunner as a demeaning elitist.
“This is elitist behavior by Senator Obama,” says Schmidt. “The condescension he shows toward the values of people who are the backbone of America is very clear.”
Team McCain team swiftly blasted the magic words out through not only its own campaign apparatus but every media organ of the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, reeling from the latest gaffe by former President Bill Clinton, who had just come up with a multi-faceted fabrication to explain Hillary’s multi-faceted fabrication about her Bosnia trip, was only too happy to change the subject by jumping on the issue with both feet.
It turns out that the momentous decision by Huffington Post to run this piece which would cause so much trouble for the site’s preferred presidential candidate was made in just a few hours last Friday morning, with Huffington weighing in via cell phone from the South Pacific.
Some have speculated that the lag time from the San Francisco fundraiser on April 6th to the appearance of the Huffington Post story on April 11th was sign of an internal debate about the story. But that’s not so. The editors never saw or heard what turned out to be the offending quote until early Friday. That’s when Fowler, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, had flown to New York and turned in her piece to Off The Bus director Amanda Michel and made her recording available. Huffington Post is run out of Huffington’s Brentwood home in Los Angeles –where editor Roy Sekoff works– and an office in Manhattan, where HuffPo co-founder Ken Lerer –who hosted an Obama fundraiser last year at his Central Park West apartment– lives and works.
Before that, Fowler had turned in a piece which ran April 7th and caused a ripple, with Obama telling the San Francisco fundraiser crowd that he doesn’t need a foreign policy expert as his running mate because he already knows a lot about foreign policy. Huffington, who was about to leave for Tahiti, was concerned about that piece, which had no political impact other than pointing up Obama’s cockiness.
This is when the Obama campaign got more than concerned. The campaign is wisely staying out of the business of publicly expressing dismay about an activist blogger supporter publishing material on a very high-profile new media news and opinion outlet that is taken from a private event to which the press was not allowed. (I asked to attend the event and was told it was “private, off the record, and closed to the press.”) But Obama campaign sources say privately that they are furious with the situation.
They had a different expectation of Fowler. For the past year, the 61-year old Vassar graduate, wife of a wealthy Bay Area attorney, has hung around with people in the Obama campaign and traveled to several states, blogging all the while about her experiences and perceptions of the campaign and candidate. She was seen as an opinionated activist blogger, a supporter, someone who had a tendency at times to lecture the campaign in her copy but was ultimately an enthusiast. She was not viewed as a journalist.
Fowler told her editors that she had more from the private fundraiser, that Obama had said some things about small town America not in his standard stump speech. But she was not sure if she wanted to write more, and would think about it. Since she is unpaid, they didn’t direct her to turn over her recording of the event so they could determine what could be done with the material. The first time they got ahold of the recording was Friday, a few hours before the article and the recording were posted on the Huffington Post.
That, according to sources, is when Arianna Huffington, thousands of miles away in the South Pacific where she was staying on billionaire Obama backer David Geffen’s 454-foot yacht, learned of the brewing issue. She signed off on the story, which was then underway.
“Roy (Sekoff) and I were on the phone multiple times,” says Huffington. “I agreed with how he and Marc (Cooper) decided to handle it, placing Obama’s thoughts in context and avoiding sensationalism.”
She had not, according to sources, been thrilled with Fowler’s earlier piece from the private fundraiser, with a cocky Obama saying he didn’t need a running mate with foreign policy expertise.
Huffington’s partner in New York, Ken Lerer, according to sources, had not liked the first piece either. Nor was he happy about the second piece. Lerer talked yesterday with top Obama campaign figures in New York and elsewhere.
A Clinton campaign official, speaking not for attribution, described the Huffington Post as “a conveyor belt” for material that is pro-Obama and anti-Hillary. The relationship between the publication and the Obama campaign has been close, and Huffington scored a major coup when she procured Obama’s first statement on the Jeremiah Wright firestorm, which appeared in the form of a personal blog by Obama on the site.
But the Clinton campaign is happy to take thousands of hits in exchange for the cudgel which the McCain campaign and they discovered in the midst of Mayhill Fowler’s post, like the prize in a box of cracker jacks.
Fowler, with help from editors Cooper, Michel, and Sekoff, framed her concerns about how Obama characterized some rural voters in a sympathetic light, with plenty of context. “It was not written in a sensational manner in any way,” says one Huffington Post figure. But the reality is that the piece was simply grist for the campaign mill. Fowler’s heartfelt commentary mattered not in the least; the few magic words contained therein are what mattered. For the Steve Schmidts of the world, who employ smart young researchers to scour media outlets for potentially damaging material, the new technologies that enable a Mayhill Fowler to have a major outlet for her musings are tools to further accelerate the political demolition derby.
“After a short time,” says Huffington, speaking of last Friday, “I didn’t have to call Los Angeles. It was all on CNN International, with constant updates.”
A new media outlet clearly favoring a candidate –and conventional media outlets have faced such questions for as long as they’ve existed– can weigh at some length the impact of what it reports, and make decisions about what to report and what not to report. But in this case, not having had the tape or transcript in advance, with only a few hours to consider what to a political pro is clearly incendiary language to be deployed against the candidate, and with Huffington in Tahiti, there was no lengthy period in which to assess the possible political impacts.
Which, from a journalistic standpoint, is admirable. But distinctly unhelpful to HuffPo’s favorite presidential candidate.
And from the standpoint of Obama campaign figures, the material was gotten under false pretenses. One top Obama hand speaks of the campaign and candidate being blindsided. Fowler was a supporter, a contributor, an activist, a blogger, not a reporter. With the event closed to the press, Obama spoke with less care than he would have otherwise had he known a reporter, of any sort, was in attendance.
With the rise of new media, campaigns frequently hold conference calls for the press, and conference calls for bloggers. The blogger calls are designed to stir up the partisan base, to provide enthusiasts on the Internet with talking points to spread throughout the blogosphere and, to a certain extent, on talk radio, which has a significant overlap on the hyperpartisan right.
This episode may well mean the end of allowing activists who blog access to private campaign events.
But that doesn’t mean that the situation is controlled. Not any more, that is. Cooper makes a good point when he says of the Obama campaign (and this applies to any campaign): “If Joe Shmo Obama Supporter had loved O’s remarks and posted his video of the event to YouTube, and that becomes central to a media frenzy, what do you do about that?”
With all the electronic devices we have, many now highly portable, anyone can become a media outlet. But how many would bother to record 45 minutes of a talk, and prepare a column about the event, without access to a recognized outlet? For all the people pointing little camera devices at Obama that day in San Francisco, no video has emerged of him talking about bitter people clinging to guns and religion.
And for all the talk of how YouTube helped turn the U.S. Senate from Republican to Democratic when George Allen had his “macacca” moment, it was actually a staffer for Jim Webb, tracking the Virginia senator with his little video camera, who prompted the meltdown at a very public event.
Still, the metaphorical cat is out of the media bag. Absent Mayhill Fowler, what Barack Obama thought was a talk in a private setting to a group of supporters would have remained simply that. But sometime, somewhere, some candidate would learn the hard way that his or her unguarded moment was suddenly memorialized for all time by one of those cute little devices clutched in the hands of an eager supporter. Or at least someone who paid to get into the fundraiser.
Private space just got a bit smaller. That might mean that more will get a virtual backstage pass as a result. Or it may just mean that politics will become even more stage managed and less candid. …
** 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 tries to explain his “bitter” remarks.
** MORE “BITTER.”The Quinnipiac poll coming out tomorrow on the Pennsylvania primary apparently shows little change so far. Hillary Clinton still leads Barack Obama, but not by a whole lot.
Meanwhile, of course, the Clinton campaign is going up tonight with a TV ad attacking Obama, featuring outraged Pennsylvanians.
** OIL HITS NEW RECORD HIGH. Crude oil closed at a new record of $111.76 per barrel today on the continued decline of the dollar against the euro. The euro is now at $1.58, a near record.
** OBAMA HITS BACK ON “ELITIST” CONTROVERSY, A.P. CHAIRMAN REFERS TO “OBAMA BIN LADEN.” Barack Obama addressed the controversy over his comments about small town Pennsylvanians at a private San Francisco fundraiser at the annual Associated Press conference. He also took questions posed by AP chairman William Dean Singleton, who referred to Osama bin Laden as Obama bin Laden. After Obama corrected him, Singleton, whose Media News chain owns a string of newspapers around the country, including the Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, and Oakland Tribune, apologized.
I know I kept a lot of you guys busy this weekend with the comments I made last week. Some of you might even be a little bitter about that. As I said yesterday, I regret some of the words I chose, partly because the way that these remarks have been interpreted have offended some people and partly because they have served as one more distraction from the critical debate that we must have in this election season.
I’m a person of deep faith, and my religion has sustained me through a lot in my life. I even gave a speech on faith before I ever started running for President where I said that Democrats, “make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people’s lives.” I also represent a state with a large number of hunters and sportsmen, and I understand how important these traditions are to families in Illinois and all across America. And, contrary to what my poor word choices may have implied or my opponents have suggested, I’ve never believed that these traditions or people’s faith has anything to do with how much money they have.
But I will never walk away from the larger point that I was trying to make. For the last several decades, people in small towns and cities and rural areas all across this country have seen globalization change the rules of the game on them. When I began my career as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, I saw what happens when the local steel mill shuts its doors and moves overseas. You don’t just lose the jobs in the mill, you start losing jobs and businesses throughout the community. The streets are emptier. The schools suffer. …
I’ve heard these stories almost every day during this campaign, whether it was in Iowa or Ohio or Pennsylvania. And the people I’ve met have also told me that every year, in every election, politicians come to their towns, and they tell them what they want to hear, and they make big promises, and then they go back to Washington when the campaign’s over, and nothing changes. There’s no plan to address the downside of globalization. We don’t do anything about the skyrocketing cost of health care or college or those disappearing pensions. …
And after years and years and years of this, a lot of people in this country have become cynical about what government can do to improve their lives. They are angry and frustrated with their leaders for not listening to them; for not fighting for them; for not always telling them the truth. And yes, they are bitter about that.
Now, Senator McCain and the Republicans in Washington are already looking ahead to the fall and have decided that they plan on using these comments to argue that I’m out of touch with what’s going on in the lives of working Americans. I don’t blame them for this — that’s the nature of our political culture, and if I had to carry the banner for eight years of George Bush’s failures, I’d be looking for something else to talk about too.
I haven’t gotten new Pennsylvania primary numbers yet.
** MCCAIN ANNOUNCES “FORGOTTEN AMERICA” TOUR AT ASSOCIATED PRESS ANNUAL MEETING.Now, before I take your questions, I would like to respond briefly to the comments one of my opponents made the other day about the psychology and political mindset of Americans living in small towns and other areas that have experienced the loss of industrial jobs.
During the Great Depression, with many millions of Americans out of work and the country suffering the worst economic crisis in our history, there rose from small towns, rural communities, inner cities, a generation of Americans who fought to save the world from despotism and mass murder, and came home to build the wealthiest, strongest and most generous nation on earth. They were not born with the advantages others in our country enjoyed. They suffered the worst during the Depression. But it had not shaken their faith in and fidelity to America and its founding political ideals. Nor had it destroyed their confidence that America and their own lives could be made better. Nor did they turn to their religious faith and cultural traditions out of resentment and a feeling of powerlessness to affect the course of government or pursue prosperity. On the contrary, their faith had given generations of their families purpose and meaning, as it does today. And their appreciation of traditions like hunting was based in nothing other than their contribution to the enjoyment of life.
In my other profession and the war I served in, the country relied overwhelmingly on Americans from these same communities to defend us. As Tocqueville discovered when he traveled America two hundred years ago, they are the heart and soul of this country, the foundation of our strength and the primary authors of its essential goodness. They are our inspiration, and I look to them for guidance and strength. No matter their personal circumstances, they believed in this country. They revered its past, but most importantly they believed in its future greatness, a greatness they themselves would create. They never forgot who they were, where they came from, and what is possible in America, a country founded on an idea and not on class, ethnic or sectarian identity. And America must not and will not forget them.
Next week, I’ll begin a tour of places in America that do not frequently see a candidate for President. They are places far removed from the prosperity that is enjoyed elsewhere in America. I want to tell people living there that there must not be any forgotten parts of America; any forgotten Americans. Hope in America is not based in delusion, but in the faith that everything is possible in America. The time for pandering and false promises is over. It is time for action. It is time for change, but the right kind of change; change that trusts in the strength of free people and free markets; change that doesn’t return to policies that empower government to make our choices for us, but that works to ensure that we have choices to make for ourselves. For we have always trusted Americans to build from the choices they make for themselves, a safer, stronger and more prosperous country than the one they inherited.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.
Hillary Clinton is in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Bill Clinton is in Corydon, Indianapolis, and Decatur, Indiana.
John McCain is in Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh.
THE MORNING COLUMN
And last week had gone so well for Barack Obama. Until Friday afternoon. This week in presidential politics, the spotlight will shine brightly on the Democratic frontrunner, with a suddenly critical debate Wednesday in Philadelphia against Hillary Clinton.
This week’s debate comes six days before the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary, a must-win-big affair for Clinton in her struggle to retain relevance in the race. Pennsylvania is a perfect state for Clinton — older, whiter, with established political machines and closed primary in which independents can’t vote — but Obama has been coming on strong there. He closed what was once a 25-point gap in the Keystone State into single digits.
But that was before Friday afternoon’s report in, of all places, the vehemently pro-O Huffington Post, about his remarks at a private fundraiser on April 6th in San Francisco. The event was closed to the press and off the record, but an Obama supporter, an activist blogger who has given the maximum allowable contribution to Obama, was allowed in and proceeded to record the freshman Illinois senator’s lengthy (45 minutes off-the-cuff) remarks. She blogged about them.
Very late in her piece, with Obama talking about the plight of some in small town Pennsylvania, came some magic words. About “bitter” people, “clinging to guns and religion.” Whoops! That was all it took for the John McCain campaign, with senior advisor Steve Schmidt, former head of the Bush/Cheney campaign war room and campaign manager for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, leading the way, to rapidly mobilize every media organ of the Republican Party. The Clinton campaign was slower to get its act together, but, with options closing down, jumped on even harder.
Hillary Clinton does her Jack Nicholson impression.
While the Democrats engage in their fresh round of follies, McCain will continue to raise money and organize for the general election.
Before the report of Obama’s private fundraiser remarks emerged, McCain’s week had gone only fairly well. The final three candidates each had their “presidential” moments last Tuesday questioning General David Petraeus when he appeared before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees to report on the situation in Iraq, where things had been going quite well before the recent factional fighting, uncomfortably settled by Iran. Obama and Clinton both did fine, as did McCain. Except for when he confused the Shia with the Sunni. Whoops.
But we know that he knows the difference, so the verbal gaffe hasn’t hurt him. Yet.
It could, however, in a different way. When Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democratic congressman, became chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s worst moves, it emerged that he actually did not know the difference between Shia and Sunni. McCain quite obviously does. But there is an emerging narrative about him being pushed by his partisan enemies.
Just as Obama is being pushed by his partisan enemies as an elitist who is not a real American, and Clinton is being pushed as a liar who is dangerously ruthless, McCain is being pushed as a doddering warmonger.
While he continues to back the military surge in Iraq that he championed, McCain’s campaign will continue to look for ways to appeal to all-important independent voters by showing that he is a different kind of Republican, appealing to Latinos and blacks and young voters. He’ll also be campaigning in Pennsylvania this week while the Democrats duke it out there. It’s a state the McCain campaign would love to take in the general election. …
** 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.
Let met clear this up for readers. I am an actual gun owner, who once served in the military. Which is totally different from the fading Mrs. Clinton, as well as the presidential frontrunner Barack Obama. Which does not make me better than Obama. But does make me more authentic than Clinton and her team of relentless spinners.
Hillary Clinton, a very rich woman who is going about Pennsylvania pretending she relates to the concerns of the dispossessed, last fired a gun about 45 years ago. That is what I know. If the ex-first lady wants to try to “correct” my report, she is welcome to try.
This, by the way, is all the time I have for the demonstrably agnostic/atheistic Hillary Clinton campaign — notwithstanding her unconvincing religious claims — on a Sunday afternoon. But I might find more next week. Or not.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Chicago, Illinois and Grantham, Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton is in Grantham, Pennsylvania.
Bill Clinton is in Lewisburg, Bloomsburg, and Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
John McCain is off the trail.
The original trailer for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
The new Indiana Jones picture comes out next month.
SATURDAY REPORTS
** MCCAIN AND GAY MARRIAGE. With Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, appearing yesterday at the Log Cabin Republicans national convention in San Diego while also servng as a surrogate for John McCain, coming out strongly against the proposed gay marriage ban initiative which might appear on the November California ballot, an obvious question arose last night. Where is McCain himself on this issue?
NWN Forum poster Mr. Brasky found what appears to be the answer: I believe McCain supported a similar initiative in AZ in 2006 (it banned “legal status” similar to marriage for unmarried folks). That measure lost. He did oppose a federal marriage ban.
“I believe that the institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman,” said McCain. “The Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage in our state. I wholeheartedly support the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment and I hope that the voters in Arizona choose to support it as well.”
** AN OBAMA/NEW MEDIA BROUHAHA? John McCain had his latest mangling of the Shia/Sunni distinction when questioning General David Petraeus during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq. I cut him slack on that because I do believe he knows the critical distinction, though he does continue to misspeak on it.
Barack Obama has what might be a brouhaha stemming from remarks he made at a private fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. Emerging on Friday afternoon, in no small measure due to the efforts of NWN friend Steve Schmidt, McCain’s senior advisor, who pushed it out through all Republican media, Obama’s comments about the cause of “bitterness” among some in small town Pennsylvania emerged Friday on the Huffington Post.
I’ll get into this more after the weekend. Obama, in the course of a lengthy and rather sympathetic musing on the topic, said something along the lines that since politicians have been lying to people whose factories have fled that they cling to guns and religion and fear of immigrants and free trade, and so forth. Not the politically correct way to put it.
I’ll tell you one interesting thing about it now. I asked to attend that San Francisco fundraiser, and was denied on the not unreasonable grounds that it was private, off-the-record, and closed to the press. How does something that is off the record and closed to the press end up in the Huffington Post?
Barack Obama is in Muncie, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois.
Hillary Clinton is in Indianapolis, Mishawaka, and Valparaiso, Indiana.
Bill Clinton is in Winterville, Wilson, Goldsboro, Deep Run, New Bern, and Jacksonville, North Carolina.
John McCain is off the trail after some private fundraisers yesterday.
** 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.
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is keeping up the pressure on Obama, who they expect to face in the fall, on his backing away from a seeming earlier promise to take public financing himself. Of course, Obama said this — in a statement leaving him some wiggle room, but the intent of which was clear — last year before he proved to have an enormous fundraising appeal, especially on the Internet.
Obama is starting to make the argument that Internet fundraising is a form of public financing. Which is probably a pretty good counter to the McCain criticism.
** TOP SADR AIDE ASSASSINATED AS FACTIONAL FIGHTING CONTINUES. While the latest Clinton melodrama continues to distract, a top deputy to Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr was assassinated today. Riyadh al Nouri was killed after his daily prayers. Nouri was one of the key political players with the Sadr movement, important to its plans for upcoming Iraqi national elections.
Prime Minister Maliki’s move against the Sadr forces in Basra, which did not go well and ended with a deal brokered in Iran, looks at least in part like a move to shape the playing field for the elections. Today’s assassination is definitely that. But by whom?
UPDATE: Former President Bill Clinton said today that his wife called him and reminded him that he didn’t know what happened in Bosnia and he should leave any explanations to her. Good advice.
** BILL CLINTON: THERE HE GOES AGAIN. You may recall I wrote this in the Monday Morning Quarterback column about the week to come. “It’s also a week in which Hillary Clinton’s trailing campaign must sort itself out after the sacking of chief strategist Mark Penn, try to keep former President Bill Clinton from having another outburst, answer more questions about the Clintons’ sudden post-White House wealth, and push hard to try to make up an increasingly large fundraising gap with frontrunner Barack Obama.”
Well, the Clinton campaign decidedly did not succeed in keeping President Clinton from having another outburst. It happened late yesterday in Indiana, when he tried to spin Hillary’s Bosnia sniper fire debacle. You can watch the video above.
Bizarrely, Clinton did it twice yesterday. Also bizarrely, he was not accompanied by a campaign press aide.
BILL CLINTON: A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me. But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y’all see all that. Oh, they blew it up. Let me just tell you.
The president of Bosnia and Gen. Wesley Clark — who was there making peace where we’d lost three peacekeepers who had to ride on a dangerous mountain road because it was too dangerous to go the regular, safe way — both defended her because they pointed out that when her plane landed in Bosnia, she had to go up to the bulletproof part of the plane, in the front. Everybody else had to put their flack jackets underneath the seat in case they got shot at. And everywhere they went they were covered by Apache helicopters.
So they just abbreviated the arrival ceremony.
Now I say that because, what really has mattered is that even then she was interested in our troops. And I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. And you woulda thought, you know, that she’d robbed a bank the way they carried on about this.
And some of them when they’re 60 they’ll forget something when they’re tired at 11:00 at night, too.
There are so many false statements in there. Hillary didn’t spin her tall tale late at night, one time. It happened several times, never late at night when she was tired, including in a prepared speech text delivered in Washington, D.C. But you know this. The flak jacket story is false. The president of Bosnia didn’t defend her story. The arrival ceremony — the one in the real world where the little girl read her a poem on the tarmac, rather than the Hillary version of dodging sniper fire as she ran to her vehicle — was not abbreviated. Hillary didn’t “forget” anything, she made it up. And for someone who wants to answer the red phone at “3 AM,” it’s best not to complain about being tired at 11 PM.
Oh, and the attempt to turn Hillary’s debacle in an historic first — first first lady in a war zone since Eleanor Roosevelt — that’s wrong, too. Patricia Nixon went to Vietnam. During the height of the Vietnam War.
It makes one wonder how Bill Clinton would have done in 1992 with the Internet and easily accessible video and without a compliant press corps that allowed him to skate on such “misstatements.”
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cuts the ribbon on the west approach to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in an event starting at 10:40 AM. The event will be webcast live via this link.
The west approach is on the San Francisco side of the Bay Bridge, a one-mile stretch of Interstate 80 linking San Francisco to the Bay Bridge. For seismic safety reasons, the entire section had to be removed and replaced, all while nearly 300,000 cars continued to use it every day.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama campaigns across Indiana in Indianapolis, Columbus, and Terre Haute.
Hillary Clinton is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Bill Clinton is in Clinton and Greencastle, Indiana and Roanoke Rapids and Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
John McCain is in Lubbock, Texas.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addresses the national convention of the Log Cabin Republicans this afternoon in San Diego. The Log Cabin Republicans is the principal organization for gay and lesbian Republicans.
Schwarzenegger is appearing both on his own hook and as a surrogate for John McCain.
** 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.
John McCain talks Iraq before the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
** CHENEY PLAYS THE WRIGHT CARD. Vice President Dick Cheney, phoning in to Sean Hannity’s radio show this afternoon, played the Rev. Jeremiah Wright card against Barack Obama.
I’ve watched what’s going on on the Democratic side with great interest, and sort of blowing hot and cold in terms of who is going to win, whether it is going to be Senator Clinton or Senator Obama. I thought the controversy over Reverend Wright was remarkable. I thought some of the things he said were absolutely appalling. And, you know, I haven’t gotten into the business of trying to judge how Senator Obama dealt with it, or didn’t deal with it, but I really — I think, like most Americans, I was stunned at what the Reverend was preaching in his church and then putting up on his website.
In case you were wondering how this would be kept alive for the general election.
** CALIFORNIA TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION APPROVES BIG INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS. A total of $3.5 billion in new transportation projects approved in the Big Bang Bonds infrastructure package championed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders Don Perata and Fabian Nunez in the 2006 general election. Here is the list of projects.
** BUSH CALLS FOR INDEFINITE COMMITMENT IN IRAQ, OBAMA RESPONDS. Not surprisingly, President George W. Bush in his speech today today actually went beyond the report of his Iraq commander, General David Petraeus, calling for an indefinite commitment of US forces in Iraq. Petraeus merely called for the return of the surge brigades by July and a subsequent 45-day halt to further drawdowns of forces. It is clear that stay-the-course is the order of the year for the Bush Administration.
Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama had a stark response to this message of inertia, or resolve, depending upon how you look at it: “President Bush gave no answer to the most important question about the way forward in Iraq: how will we end this war that is not making us safer? After five years, over four thousand lives, and over half a trillion dollars, we have a blank check strategy in Iraq that is overstretching our military, distracting us from the other challenges we face, burdening our economy, and failing to pressure the Iraqi government to take responsibility for their future.
“We cannot press Iraq’s leaders to resolve their differences and spend their money if our plan is to stay in Iraq indefinitely. We cannot relieve the enormous strain on our military and our military families unless we restore adequate time at home for our troops – 12 month deployments represent a step forward, but we need to give our troops adequate dwell time at home. We cannot finish the fight in Afghanistan and focus on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s core leadership unless we end this war that should’ve never been authorized. The decision to go to war in Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder, and President Bush is only adding to his disastrous legacy by refusing to show the American people any clear goal or any clear plan to end the war.”
Wolfson and company, not incidentally, are putting out word that it is actually ex-chief strategist Mark Penn who was responsible for everything you didn’t like about the Clinton campaign.
Amusing, to be sure.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Gary and Lafayette, Indiana.
Hillary Clinton is in Hopewell Township and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Bill Clinton is in Boonville, Jasper, and Vincennes, Indiana.
John McCain is in Brooklyn, New York. He appeared this morning on The View, an increasing rite of passage for male candidates, and will be introduced at his economic roundtable today by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
** COLIN POWELL BACKSTOPS OBAMA. Well, it can’t get much better for Barack Obama than this. The Republican Colin Powell, our former secretary of state, national security advisor, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defends Obama in the Rev. Wright controversy and declares that Wright has done “many great things.”
** YOU GOTTA LOVE SHEER POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM: DAVID BROCK. So here is David Brock, the right-wing journalist who went after the Clintons hammer and tong in the 1990s, on every possible pretext. Showing up in now in Manhattan fronting for global billionaire George Soros with a new independent expenditure committee to attack the Republicans.
** OK. TO ME, THIS COLUMN BY EX-DUKAKIS CAMPAIGN MANAGER SUSAN ESTRICH READS LIKE SOMETHING DASHED OFF BY SOMEONE GOING OUT THE DOOR OR …What do you think?
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS AFTERNOON. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appears this afternoon at a Metro stop in Los Angeles to discuss the stimulative effects of infrastructure investment on the economy.
In 2006, as we know, Schwarzenegger championed $42 billion of infrastructure bonds, the Big Bang Bonds as NWN dubbed them, the largest infrastructure package since the late Governor Pat Brown. The package is beginning to come on line, and Schwarzenegger has announced a variety of projects late last year and earlier this year. The event will be webcast live at 3:30 PM.
** 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.
U.S. Marine and Army units take Baghdad on April 9, 2003.
** THE NON-CANDIDATE. Incidentally, with regard to the principals of the Iraq War, which most definitely includes then-National Security Advisor-turned-Secretary of State Condi Rice, forget about all this ill-informed talk about her as vice presidential candidate — yes, that means you, the quiet LA Times political blog — she’s not going to run for public office. I remember the talented Ms. Rice from when the Stanford professor was on the foreign policy advisory board to the Center for A New Democracy, the Gary Hart think tank for which I served as West Coast representative. It is not going to happen.
** NEW CHAIRMAN BERMAN’S TAKE. Today’s continuing report on the situation in Iraq marked the first major hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee under its new chairman, LA Congressman Howard Berman. One of the interesting and entirely unreported developments in the internal workings of US politics is the shift of the House Foreign Affairs chairmanship from the late Tom Lantos to Howard Berman. On the surface, there were important similarities. Each a longstanding California congressman, Lantos from the San Francisco Bay Area, Berman from Los Angeles. Each a champion of the Jewish community. Each a stalwart advocate for Israel. Each a supporter of the invasion of Iraq, going against the grain of much of their respective districts.
But a few years ago, a divergence began. Berman, after supporting the first few years of the Iraq policy, turned into a skeptic. Lantos continued on with his staunch advocacy of the Iraq experiment. To the extent that former state Senator Jackie Speier, elected last night in a special election landslide to replace the late congressman, decided last year to take him on in this year’s Democratic primary.
Berman conducted his committee hearing this afternoon on the status report of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. He asked questions of Petraeus and Crocker — regarding how the US can more rapidly draw down its troop strength in Iraq without incurring the predicted woes and what the scenario might be for minimizing a malign Iranian influence — to which he did not actually receive answers.
And he delivered, in his studiedly cool manner with which I’m quite familiar, a rather withering opening statement. Excerpted from that opening statement, as I took it down: “Are we there? (With regard to the goals laid out confidently last fall by Petraeus.) Hardly. Can we get there at a cost appropriate to the benefits? I’m not convinced. … Our diplomats and military personnel are literally under fire in Baghdad, which we captured five years ago today. The Green Zone is under its worst fire in five years. … We do not seem to be close to seizing Sadr City. Must we rely on the whims of Muqtada al Sadr to maintain the peace? … Some reports say the rockets were made in China. How have they made their way to Baghdad? .. The sacrifices the US has made in creating the space for reconciliation in Iraq haven’t brought us there. There has not been significant progress to national reconciliation by any means. …
“The most disturbing strategic development in the war is that Iran has emerged as the winner. Saddam Hussein’s regime is gone and in its place is a government seemingly very open to Iranian influence. … Prime Minister Maliki is cementing his friendship with Iran. … To what extent is the ceasefire in Basra due to Iran?To what extent is our success in Iraq reliant on Iran?
“Strategically, we’re treading water. … We’ve strained US military readiness and curtailed our ability to influence other countries, all in the name of a strategy that has not achieved its goals.”
Berman, incidentally, is an undeclared Democratic superdelegate.
** LATEST PENNSYLVANIA POLL: SLIGHT CLINTON LEAD. The latest Public Policy Polling tracking poll, conducted April 7-8, gives Hillary Clinton, who needs a huge win to retain relevance, a slight edge over Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama. It’s Clinton 46%, Obama 43%.
** BERMAN COMMITTEE HEARING ON IRAQ STARTING NOW AT 10:30 AM PACIFIC ON C-SPAN 3.
** BAGHDAD FALLS PLUS 5: HOUSE HEARINGS UNDERWAY. Despite a vehicle ban in the city today, and consequent shutdown of shops, financial institutions, and most offices, violence continued in the Iraqi capital with over a dozen killed.
Day 2 of the General David Petraeus hearings is on, this time in the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees. But unlike yesterday’s Senate hearings, the cable news nets are paying little attention. Instead, they are all transfixed, last I checked by a big fire somewhere. This is why I have taken to avoiding the U.S. news nets in favor of foreign news channels, except when they are doing the only thing they do well any longer, i.e., provide saturation coverage of discrete events.
Yesterday wasn’t a good day for advocates of a continued US military presence in Iraq. Even though it’s obviously inevitable, at least for the near term. Something which is almost certainly measured in years ranging to the high single digits.
That’s because the administration’s representatives, General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, came armed with precious few answers. Unlike last year, they didn’t really have a scenario.
They had a plea. More time. And a prediction. Bad things could really happen without more time.
Gee, I already knew that. Thanks.
The recent factional fighting in Iraq — ended only with a deal brokered from Iran, very influential even with US Shiite allies in Iraq — dissolved what would have been a favorable report this week. Now the Iraq situation feels awash in inertia. Precipitous withdrawal, however that is defined, is clearly not a plus theme for the Democrats, who are politically stuck. But ennui is a loser for the Republicans. I’m sensing a path forward for Barack Obama in this.
** HOWARD BERMAN’S DEBUT AS HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS CHAIRMAN. Meanwhile, today marks the debut on the national stage as House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman. The veteran Los Angeles congressman succeeded to the chairmanship early this year when Bay Area Congressman Tom Lantos died.
Berman was elected to Congress in 1982. He’s been a key figure there from the beginning. And has been an even more important figure in California politics for much longer than that.
Berman and Henry Waxman, beginning in the early 1970s, formed a legendary California political machine, the Berman-Waxman machine. Waxman was elected first to the state Assembly, then Berman. Waxman went on quickly to Congress, where he has long been a power and now chairs the House Oversight Committee, which merely has oversight powers across the entire federal government. Berman became a power in the Assembly, swiftly becoming Assembly majority leader.
In the pre-term limits days, such a title had much more power, and Berman exercised it. He and Waxman used their connections on the West Side of LA amongst the Jewish community and the entertainment industry to fund candidates across LA and around the state. They used cutting edge computer technology and direct mail techniques devised by Berman’s brilliant and eccentric brother Michael to win district elections throughout California. But it wasn’t all politics. Berman was the legislative author of the state’s landmark Farm Labor Act, working closely with its proponent, then Governor Jerry Brown.
Berman mounted a fateful and epic speakership fight — the tussles of today are nothing compared to this — against then Speaker Leo McCarthy of San Francisco. Berman won a majority of the Democratic caucus, ordinarily enough to claim the office, but McCarthy stayed in via a deal with minority Republicans, who feared what the Berman-Waxman machine could do to them with the additional power of the speakership. Michael Berman was a master of redistricting. With all those things, the Republicans were happier with the devil they knew.
So a great struggle ensued in Assembly elections around the state. The Berman forces defeated the McCarthy forces in several primary elections, and elected more of their members than the embattled speaker. But the machine, especially brother Michael — he and I knocked heads over slating the California delegation to the Democratic National Convention four years later — had a reputation for ruthlessness. The minority pro-McCarthy faction turned to another fellow from San Francisco named Willie Brown. Who then cut a secret deal with Republicans to deliver the speakership to himself.
The Republicans thought Willie Brown would be a far weaker speaker than Howard Berman. But the arrangement they thought they had with him faded, and he proved to be the most lasting speaker in California history, some 15 years, becoming a legend, and later San Francisco mayor, in the process.
Meanwhile, Howard Berman and close allies like Mel Levine, also a key machine lieutenant, decamped for Congress after brother Michael did the decade’s redistricting with the late Congressman Phil Burton, also a legendary old school figure from San Francisco. Recent state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton is his brother.
In Congress, Berman and Levine joined with Waxman as a crucial triumvirate of pro-Israel liberals. They raised millions for their allies around the country nand continued their California machine, adopting a fellow named Gray Davis as one of their members.
Davis was Jerry Brown’s chief of staff for seven years, but when he decided to take over Berman’s Assembly seat, which centered on Beverly Hills, he needed to forge a tight alliance with the Berman-Waxman machine. It was so tight that Davis, California’s future governor, used to hang out at Michael Berman’s rather nondescript LA consulting office.
Back to Howard Berman. He forged a strong pro-labor and pro-Israel record in Congress, with routine re-elections. He supported the invasion of Iraq, backed the ongoing effort there, and has been quite worried about the re-emergence of Iran. However, he broke with the administration on Iraq as it became apparent that the policy was a debacle, and has been suspicious of the surge. It will be interesting to see his performance today, his public debut as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Obviously I can go on about these characters at some length. But I think this is enough for this morning.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Malvern and Levittown, Pennsylvania and South Bend, Indiana.
Hillary Clinton is Aliquippa, Pennsylvania and New York City. She has a big fundraising concert tonight with Elton John.
Bill Clinton is in New York City.
John McCain is in Washington, D.C. and Westport, Connecticut.
** JACKIE SPEIER EASILY WINS CONGRESSIONAL SPECIAL ELECTION. Former California state Senator Jackie Speier easily won yesterday’s special election to replace the late Tom Lantos in the San Francisco Bay Area congressional district once held by the assassinated Leo Ryan. As I reported last fall, a private poll showed Speier, then planning a primary challenge of Lantos, with a big lead over the incumbent, then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Lantos announced late last year that he would not seek-relection due to health issues, then died of cancer. Speier’s strength in the district dissuaded any major candidates from opposing her.
Lantos, a Hungarian immigrant who was the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, had lost support from his staunch support for hawkish policies in the Middle East.
Speier, who now faces a June primary and November general election which should be no problem for her, has long represented the area on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and in the state Assembly and Senate. She narrowly lost the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor in 2006 to John Garamendi, then was term limited out of the Senate.
Her victory is a vindication from events 30 years ago. Then a young aide to Congressman Leo Ryan, she accompanied him on a trip to Guyana to investigate the Jonestown location of the Rev. Jim Jones’ cult. The “People’s Temple” had relocated from the Bay Area under fire for corruption and cult-like behavior. Worried family members prompted Ryan to investigate. Ryan was assassinated by Jones and his followers, who left Speier for dead on a remote airstrip with multiple gunshot wounds. The cult then committed mass suicide with cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Hence the term “drinking the Kool-Aid” which some younger readers don’t always understand.
Lantos, incidentally, was a Hillary Clinton superdelegate. Speier endorsed Clinton early on, but I’m told she said during the campaign that she would make her choice as a superdelegate following the primaries. A number of national outlets are going off old information.
** A CLINTON “SADDAMISTA” PLAYS THE REV. WRIGHT CARD. Lanny Davis, a Bill Clinton impeachment lawyer and spinner, has a Wall Street Journal op-ed today urging Barack Obama to answer more questions about his controversial former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
“Saddamista” is a term referring to bitter end supporters.
“I have tried to get over my unease,” pens the unctuous Mr. Davis in his lead, “surrounding Barack Obama’s response to the sermons and writings of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. But the unanswered questions remain.”
Actually, that’s hardly the case. Davis has repeatedly brought up the Wright controversy, usually when Hillary’s fortunes are hitting new ebbs.
Which is not to say, as I’ve said from the beginning, that Obama will not have to do more to address the controversy in the general election. But he should do that according to his plan, not that of desperate operatives of Senator Clinton.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger takes his push for his version of California budget reform to the far North Coast city of Eureka today, where he will hold a roundtable discussion — minus the roundtable — with local elected officials and business and community leaders. The event will be webcast live at 11 AM.
** 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.
General David Petraeus testified last year that the U.S. military
surge in Iraq was largely successful.
** PETRAEUS DAY 1, AND THE PRESIDENTIALS. General David Petraeus, accompanied by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, just finished a day of testifying to the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. (Virginia Senator Jim Webb, the former US Navy secretary and Vietnam War hero whose election in 2006 swung the Senate to the Democrats, is on both committees. Lucky him.)
The takeaway from Petraeus? Things are better, but still fragile. After the surge brigades are removed in July, he’s recommending a 45-day evaluation period before any further withdrawal of US troops. What would constitute enough success, and expectation of continued stability, to withdraw forces beyond what they were a year ago? Well, that is still not clear.
John McCain emerged, as expected, as a full-throated champion of the surge strategy. Which is no surprise, since it is largely his strategy, forced upon a stumbling Bush White House after years of criticism. He used his highlighted role on Armed Services to describe the phased withdrawal of troops supported by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as “reckless and irresponsible.” He said his goal is an Iraq that does not require US troops.
Clinton performed an interesting and polished Senate oversight role, asking Petraeus and Crocker if there are any circumstances under which they would recommend withdrawal short of some indefinite model of victory and/or success. She then countered McCain’s positioning by saying it’s irresponsible “not” to begin a phased withdrawal.
Obama positioned himself differently. He began by establishing the premise, with which Petraeus did not disagree, that Al Qaeda and Iran were not significant factors in Iraq prior to the US invasion. He then asked Petraeus and Crocker to define success in Iraq. Is it the original blue sky conception, promoted by long departed and discredited war architects Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsefeld? Or is it something like the current situation, or at least the current situation prior to the latest turmoil, still volatile, but with perhaps 30,000 US troops still in-country, with Al Qaeda a minimal presence if at all and Iran not dominating the country. He didn’t get a real answer.
Webb, for his part, as the freshman anchor man on both committees, brought up the still vaguely reported status of forces agreement negotiated between the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government. He didn’t get a specific answer. Which prompted Senate Foreign Relations chairman Joe Biden to note that he is having hearings on that particular matter on Thursday and will get the specifics from administration officials.
On Wednesday, Petraeus and Crocker testify before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, the latter of which is now chaired, following the death of Bay Area Congressman Tom Lantos, by LA’s Howard Berman.
UPDATE: Governor Schwarzenegger has cancelled out of the afternoon webcast due to a scheduling conflict.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS AFTERNOON. After making some amusing remarks (see below) at his morning event about Democrats and Republicans having to come together, and musing anew about the need to find some fresh revenues somewhere and not simply cut away to a balanced California budget, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joins this afternoon with Assembly Majority Whip Kevin De Leon to push for new legislation to enable private employees to participate in the state’s lucrative Public Employee Retirement System through IRAs. The event, a Capitol press conference, will be webcast live at 3:45 PM.
** PETRAEUS REPORTS: NO MORNING FIREWORKS, BUSH TALKS IRAQ ON THURSDAY. No morning fireworks generated by either John McCain or Hillary Clinton at this morning’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this morning with General David Petraeus. We’ll what Barack Obama comes up with this afternoon in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, with chairman Joe Biden is convening now with a pointed opening statement. I’ll assess where the three candidates ended up later today.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S ENTHUSIASM ABOUT CALIFORNIA BUDGET REFORM. Speaking at his live webcast Modesto event this morning (see below), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed optimism about the ability of Democrats and Republicans to come to the table for a budget reform deal in which each compromise and noted his bipartisan marriage. “And if I can do that, then the Democrats and Republicans can. I’m not saying they should sleep together; that’s only for the daring!”
** PENNSYLVANIA (RASMUSSEN). The latest Rasmussen robopoll of the Pennsylvania primary has the same five-point margin as last week: Hillary Clinton 48%, Barack Obama 43%.
** BIG OBAMA LEAD NATIONALLY. Barack Obama now has his biggest lead yet in the Rasmussen robopoll, 51% to 40% over Hillary Clinton. Obama, as I predicted in real time, has clearly survived the Rev. Wright firestorm. Clinton is at her lowest support level in this poll since it became a two-person race.
** TEAMSTERS CHIEF CALLS FOR PENN DISMISSAL, AND PENN(SYLVANIA) DYNAMICS. While chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn has been fired from that post, he has not been fired from the Hillary campaign in the wake of last week’s revelation of his big-money lobbying for the Colombian trade deal that Clinton says she opposes. So the Barack Obama campaign just had a morning conference call with Teamsters Union president Jim Hoffa and Indiana legislator Ryan Dvorak to discuss Penn, Clinton’s trade policies, and the campaigns in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Hoffa urged that Clinton dismiss Penn altogether, noting multiple reports that he is still part of the strategy team for Hillary, participates on key calls and is a pollster for the campaign. He noted that he and other union chiefs had repeatedly complained to Bill and Hillary Clinton about Penn’s lobbying for anti-union interests contrary to their professed positions, and were ignored.
Hoffa says he doesn’t see a parallel with Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, a professor who met with a Canadian consul and discussed NAFTA, the specifics of which conversation are in great dispute. Clinton floated the parallel this morning on one of the morning shows. Goolsbee isn’t paid by Obama or by Canada.
He also said he had dialed in from Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of the places in the Keystone State he’s campaigning in for Obama. Hoffa said Obama is making progress in Scranton, perhaps the biggest Clinton stronghold in the state, where Hillary’s father is buried.
Why not dump Penn entirely, given the multiple conflicts of interest between his role with the Clintons and his role as head of the Burson Marsteller PR and lobbying firm?
Well, he is owed a lot of money by the Clinton campaign, and would probably demand payment. Which could not be forthcoming, as Clinton is being heavily out-raised and out-spent.
Indeed, that may be the real point of the Pennsylvania contest. Clinton predicted and needs a huge win there to retain any relevance in the race. Obama has blitzed the state with ads, as well as a six-day bus tour by the candidate himself, and has closed the gap. Now Clinton is spending heavily on TV there to try to get some of her prior margin back.
In warfare, it’s called attrition. When you have to spend time and energy and resources to defend what should be yours without question, you are in very deep trouble. The dynamic worked for Obama on February 5th’s Super Tuesday (the day Penn insisted would end in Clinton’s wrapping up the nomination), where his closure in supposed Clinton stronghold California — Obama now runs much better there against John McCain than Clinton — forced the Clintons to expend time and resources in the Golden State while Obama picked off other states to end the night ever so slightly ahead.
And so, since the Clintons can’t pay Penn what he’s owed, the strategist — who is clearly money-oriented, witness his refusal to take a leave of absence from his corporate business while serving as Hillary’s campaign chief — could prove to be a serious problem for them if he is further humiliated by an outright dismissal from the campaign. He’s been intimately involved with the Clintons’ political lives since the mid-1990s.
Penn was brought into the White House by strategist Dick Morris after the 1994 national Democratic meltdown. He was deeply involved in the re-elect and played a key strategic role with Bill Clinton in fending off his impeachment and removal from office.
** BACK TO IRAQ. Today General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, back from Baghdad, begin the first of two days of congressional hearings. On Tuesday, it’s the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. On Wednesday, it’s the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees. The latter hearing, incidentally, features the debut of new House Foreign Affairs chairman Howard Berman, a long-time Los Angeles congressman and longtime acquaintance of NWN. More about Berman tomorrow.
Petraeus and Crocker will argue for more time in a complex situation that’s not as bad as it was. The three remaining presidential candidates — John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton — will use their posts on the Senate committees today to promote the rightness of their core positions, to the extent they have them.
McCain championed the surge and wants the country to see it as succeeding, after years of bungling by the Bush White House and despite the efforts of anti-war forces.
Obama wants the country to see him as having been right from the start on Iraq, viewing it as a distraction that is more trouble than it’s worth.
Clinton wants the country to see her as a great critic of the various Iraq policies. To the extent that over the weekend, she committed another of her “misstatements” during a campaign appearance in Oregon. She claimed that she had criticized the Iraq War before Obama. Which is patently false. Obama, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate, gave a speech denouncing the impending invasion of Iraq in 2002; Clinton, already in the Senate, voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. Clinton did not criticize the course of the war in 2003 and 2004, while Obama did. In 2005, shortly after Obama was sworn in to the Senate, Clinton did criticize the war effort. But Obama had already done that in his first hearing as a US senator. And a month later, Clinton said that there could be no timeline for a US withdrawal as that would hand victory to our enemies. Now, of course, she does back a timeline.
** PENNSYLVANIA (QUINNIPIAC): CLINTON LEAD NARROWS.The new Quinnipiac poll, which last week showed Hillary Clinton with a nine-point lead over Barack Obama, shows today that lead has narrowed to six points. It’s Clinton 50%, Obama 44%. Obama has picked up in all demographic groups.
“With two weeks to go, Sen. Barack Obama is knocking on the door of a major political upset in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Obama is not only building on his own constituencies, but is taking away voters in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s strongest areas – whites including white women, voters in the key swing Philadelphia suburbs and those who say the economy is the most important issue in the campaign.”
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Hillary Clinton is in Washington, D.C. to speak to the communication workers union and participate in the Senate Iraq hearings.
Barack Obama is in Washington, D.C. to speak to the communications workers union and participate in the Senate Iraq hearings.
John McCain is in Washington, D.C. to speak to a Veterans for Freedom rally and participate in the Senate Iraq hearings.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, back in the state after a week away, renews his push for his version of California budget reform with a roundtable discussion in the Central Valley. He will meet in Modesto with local elected officials from Merced, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin counties in an event that will be webcast live at 10:15 AM.
George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin held their last summit
meeting over the weekend.
** 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.
Scenes from former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown’s 2007 Inaugural in this NWN video. With wildly enthusiastic introduction by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
** BIG OBAMA LEAD IN NORTH CAROLINA. Barack Obama has moved into a big lead in North Carolina, which holds its primary on May 6th. According to the new Public Policy Polling track, Obama now leads Hillary Clinton, 54% to 33%.
He is making inroads among white voters in the state, trailing Clinton just 47-38, while maintaining his customary large advantage with black voters 81-10.
“The race in North Carolina has really stabilized,” said Dean Debnam, President of
Public Policy Polling. “Even with both candidates now running tv ads in the state,
Obama is maintaining his lead in that solid 20 point range. A reignition of the Wright controversy or some other issue for the Obama campaign could tighten it up but for now he’s looking at a dominant victory.”
The poll also found that 43% of likely voters think the drawn out primary contest could hurt Democratic prospects in the fall. Obama has a 29 point lead with that group, an indication that some voters may be moving toward his column because they want the fight to be over with.
** MONEY BILLS STALLED IN CALIFORNIA SENATE. State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata just announced that any bill costing more than $50,000 will be automatically moved to the “suspense file,” i.e., sidelined, on account of the state’s chronic budget problems. The deadline to move anything back in play is May 23rd.
** MCCAIN’S BEST FUNDRAISING MONTH IN MARCH: $15 MILLION. John McCain raised something over $15 million last month, all for the primaries. (He’s probably taking public financing in the general election.) That’s his best month yet, after raising about $12 million in each of the two preceding months. But it’s far less than Barack Obama, who raised over $40 million last month, and even less than Hillary Clinton, who raised about $20 million. About $11 million of McCain’s money came from conventional fundraising, while $4 million came from direct mail and the Internet.
** GALLUP NATIONAL POLL: OBAMA LENGTHENS LEAD OVER CLINTON.The new Gallup tracking poll, conducted April 4-6, gives Barack Obama a pretty big lead over Hillary Clinton, 52% to 43%. It’s close to Obama’s biggest national lead yet. Obama and Clinton are both in a statistical tie with John McCain.
** SCHWARZENEGGER HAPPY ABOUT STEM CELL RESEARCH SUCCESS. The University of California at San Diego has announced a new drug to treat a blood disorder that can cause leukemia. Stem cell research, funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), led to the discovery of this new treatment. This makes Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a champion of stem cell research, quite pleased.
“Thanks to this innovative research by UC San Diego scientists,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement, “California is leading the world in the development of a life-saving therapy to help more than 100,000 Americans. I am proud of our state’s commitment to stem cell research, which delivers the best promise in finding treatments for deadly and debilitating diseases.”
Following Schwarzenegger’s intervention in the campaign, in November 2004, California voters approved Proposition 71, which created CIRM and authorized $3 billion in bonding authority for stem cell research. CIRM has approved over a quarter billion dollars in research grants so far. But the state’s stem cell research program got off to a very slow start, as conservative and fundamentalist groups succeeded in bottling it up in court. In 2006, however, Schwarzenegger jump started the program with $150 million in loans from the state’s general fund. Last year, the California Supreme Court ended the legal challenges to the program. California’s stem cell research program is the world’s largest.
** MCCAIN JUMPS ON IRAQ ISSUE IN ADVANCE OF PETRAEUS REPORT. John McCain, in his speech this morning to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, staked out his position on Iraq and contrasted it with those of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
An excerpt: The job of bringing security to Iraq is not finished. Iraqi forces recently battled in Basra against radical Shi’a militias, supported by Iran, a fight that showed both the progress made by the Iraqi security forces — a year ago, they could not have carried out such operations on their own — and the continuing need for coalition support. The situation in southern Iraq remains unsettled. There continues to be a significant flow of money and weaponry from Iran into Diyala Province, Baghdad, Basra and elsewhere in support of the Iranian-backed Special Groups, the Jaysh al Mahdi, and the Badr Organization. Sunni terrorists and insurgents continue to maintain bases in Mosul and elsewhere in Ninewah Province.
But there is no doubt about the basic reality in Iraq: we are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success. Success in Iraq is the establishment of a generally peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists. It is the advance of religious tolerance over violent radicalism. It is a level of security that allows the Iraqi authorities to govern, the average person to live a normal life, and international entities to operate. It is a situation in which the rule of law, after decades of tyranny, takes hold. It is an Iraq where Iraqi forces have the responsibility for enforcing security in their country, and where American troops can return home, with the honor of having secured their country’s interests at great personal cost, and helping another people achieve peace and self-determination.
Today these goals are within reach. “Never despair,” Winston Churchill once said. And we did not despair. We were tested, and we rose to the challenge. Some political leaders close their eyes to the progress that the surge has made possible, and want only to argue about the past. We can have that debate. I profoundly disagree with those who say we would all be better off if we had left Saddam Hussein in power. Americans should be proud that they led the way in removing a vicious dictator and opening the door to freedom, stability, and prosperity in Iraq and across the Middle East.
But the question for the next President is not about the past, but about the future and how to secure it. Our most vital security interests are at stake in Iraq. The stability of the entire Middle East, that volatile and critically important region, is at stake. The United States’ credibility as a moral and political leader is at stake. How to safeguard those interests is what we should be debating.
There are those who today argue for a hasty withdrawal from Iraq. Some would withdraw regardless of the consequences. Others say that we can withdraw now and then return if trouble starts again. What they are really proposing, if they mean what they say, is a policy of withdraw and re-invade. For if we withdraw hastily and irresponsibly, we will guarantee the trouble will come immediately. Our allies, Arab countries, the UN, and the Iraqis themselves will not step up to their responsibilities if we recklessly retreat. I can hardly imagine a more imprudent and dangerous course.
Over the past year, the counterinsurgency strategy of General Petraeus has been based on the premise that establishing greater security in Iraq is indispensable to advancing political reconciliation and economic reconstruction; to making diplomatic progress in the region; and to preparing the Iraqi military to assume its responsibilities to defend the sovereignty of Iraq and the authority of its elected government. Should the United States withdraw from Iraq before that level of security is established those goals will be infinitely harder if not impossible to attain. …
** JERRY BROWN TURNS 70
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown turns 70 years old today. The two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination (behind former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter), the clear favorite for a third term as governor of California if he chooses to run in 2010 — as he is not affected by the state’s term limits law passed in 1990 — will celebrate in splashy style with a big, star-studded party tonight … Oh, wait, that’s wrong.
Actually, Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown, former chief operating officer and general counsel of the The Gap, are spending the day at a Trappist monastery in Northern California. The pair drove there from their home in Oakland, where Brown was mayor for eight years, stopping along the way up I-5 to check in on Brown’s 2700-acre ranch, which has been in the Brown family since the 1850s.
What’s he doing at a Trappist monastery? Contemplating life and mortality, he says.
It turns out that this is the same monastery Brown visited after winning the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1974. Which was a fairly big move for a 36-year old guy. Brown went on to win the governorship that fall, then won a 20-point landslide re-election, bigger than either of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s two landslide wins, in 1978.
To the evident surprise of some of the governor’s staff, Brown’s formed a spiky sort of friendship with Schwarzenegger, though they don’t really hang out.
Does Brown intend to succeed Schwarzenegger? It’s not easy to say. California politics is, in many respects, still broken.
He’ll have the opportunity to try, if he wants it. Brown has tremendous energy for any age, and is frequently running around Lake Merritt. His dad, the legendary Governor Pat Brown, was nearly 91 when he died and his idea of exercise was splashing around in his pool. The Republican prospects, all of whom I’ve scouted, look rather underwowing.
What about the Democrats, on display the weekend before last at their annual state convention?
I’ve been to every state Democratic convention since the late ’70s. A “horrifying thought,” as my old pal Patricia Duff told me before I came in for the latest one.
I thought Brown clearly gave the strongest speech of any of the potential candidates, firing up the crowd. As for the others …
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, working on his 2009 re-election after running into personal and political trouble last year, didn’t come to the convention. He was at last year’s, but didn’t speak. A capable guy, Villaraigosa’s metier is not public speaking.
Treasurer Bill Lockyer, the former attorney general and state Senate leader, sitting on a $10 million campaign warchest, didn’t come to the convention, either. He’s said that if Brown runs, he wins.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is very talented, and was well received. He recovered from his personal scandal last year, as I predicted, and won an easy re-election. But he’s young, and not that well known yet. And that’s him in the NWN video above, introducing Brown at his inaugural last year as attorney general with the most fulsome praise.
“We are here, once again, witnessing history in the making,” Newsom declared. “That is the remarkable and prolific campaign that was run and won by Mayor Jerry Brown. There is a wonderful old saying, that you don’t want to be the best of the best. You want to be the only one that does what you do. I refer to that because Jerry Brown is certainly unique in that sense. He is not the best of the best, he is unique in every capacity, at setting the bar, to becoming the only one who does what he has done.”
Would Newsom run against Brown? It’s certainly possible. But his dad, Billy Newsom, was appointed a justice of the state court of appeals by Brown. Newsom, who sounds a fair amount like Brown at times, is an old friend of the Brown family.
Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi is an impressive figure with a following. But he lost to Jerry Brown’s chief of staff, Gray Davis, in a 1986 primary for state controller. And he lost to Jerry Brown’s sister, Kathleen Brown, in a 1994 primary for governor. Would he do better against Brown himself?
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell is a good man with past backing from the teachers union. But he received a tepid response at the convention, and is not very well known despite winning two terms in his office.
2006 nominee Phil Angelides, the former state treasurer, was taken apart by Schwarzenegger. He wasn’t at this year’s convention. His polling showed that Brown, had he chosen to run for governor last time rather than attorney general, would have immediately become a big frontrunner over he and rival Steve Westly.
With widespread bad feelings about Angelides’ campaign, Westly, the former state controller who narrowly lost the primary, looks better in retrospect. The ex-eBay honcho is now a leading green tech venture capitalist. Even more to the point, he’s one of the leading players in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, serving as California co-chairman and a national finance co-chairman, having raised millions for the Democratic presidential frontrunner and helped the Illinois senator harness the power of the Internet. Along with San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, Westly pulled together a meeting of 500 Obama backers at the convention.
Would Westly run against Brown? He’d certainly start out well behind. But with his great personal wealth, he could make serious trouble for the former governor. And he might have some White House backing, as Brown is neutral in the race between Obama and Clinton, keeping out of most overtly political doings.
Actually, Westly has run against Brown before.Something obscured by the coverage of California’s high-turnover press corps and a propaganda blitz from Angelides designed to make the rather liberal Westly seem a crypto-Republican.
Back in 1989, Westly was state vice chair of the Democratic Party. And he was running for state party chair, seemingly without serious opposition. Until Jerry Brown decided that he wanted to get back into politics. Westly, notwithstanding his Stanford business lectureship, was actually a longtime grassroots liberal activist. Alarmed by Brown’s re-emergence — he’d been off studying Zen Buddhism, working with Mother Teresa, and being a lawyer, among other things — Westly ran against Brown as “the candidate of big money,” Brown having been a champion fundraiser in his gubernatorial days. Something of an irony.
It didn’t work, as Brown swept to victory. So Westly decided to get really serious about business. Ultimately focusing on this thing called the Internet. And a little company called eBay. When Westly signed on with eBay, I remember telling him it sounded to me like “some sort of online garage sale.” I certainly called that right, didn’t I?
And now, because Westly lost his big political goal to Brown, 19 years later, he is super-rich.
It is the sort of irony of life that Brown may be contemplating today at the Trappist monastery on his birthday.
Brown, incidentally, as is widely known, was himself a seminarian before deciding not to pursue the priesthood, opting instead to major in classics at Berkeley and get his law degree from Yale. But he was not a Trappist, he was a Jesuit. He worked in the vineyard. The seminary’s wines were sold publicly, I believe with this slogan: “Heavenly wines, devilishly good.”
The Trappist monastery where Brown is spending his 70th birthday has a vineyard, too, and orchards. Along with a medieval chapter house rebuilt with 800 year-old hand-carved Spanish limestones originally shipped to America by William Randolph Hearst. A good setting in which to ponder the continuum from past to future.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in California, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. for private fundraising and Senate preparations.
Hillary Clinton is in Washington, D.C.
Bill Clinton campaigns across Puerto Rico in Barceloneta, Salinas, and Ponce.
John McCain gives a speech about Iraq at Veterans of Foreign Wars headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri.
John McCain visits Jacksonville, Florida, site of his Navy flight
training, during last week’s national tour.
** MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
Another big week in the presidential race is on tap with General David Petraeus coming to Washington to discuss the situation in Iraq. It’s especially important for John McCain, for whom a continuing sense of success about the surge strategy he championed is key. Much of the general election will turn on how Iraq is defined in the public view, and how the candidates are perceived going forward.
It’s also a week in which Hillary Clinton’s trailing campaign must sort itself out after the sacking of chief strategist Mark Penn, try to keep former President Bill Clinton from having another outburst, answer more questions about the Clintons’ sudden post-White House wealth, and push hard to try to make up an increasingly large fundraising gap with frontrunner Barack Obama.
McCain will have an edge when Petraeus testifies on Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. He’s the ranking Republican on Armed Services, so he will speak very early in the proceedings and can interject questions and comments at any time. Clinton and Obama, in contrast, are junior members of Armed Services (Clinton) and Foreign Relations (Obama), and under the seniority system will go late in the proceedings.
Is the military surge having its hoped for effect? Are Iraqi forces able to win in the field? (Something much in question after the recent factional fighting in Basra against Shiite militias.) Has the Iraqi government made real progress in reconciling the various factions and forging a true national government? What role is Iran now playing, amidst reports that it was Tehran which quelled recent fighting amongst Shiites and that the US may be about to have further talks with Iran?
More about McCain and Iraq, but first the Democrats.
Mark Penn is out as chief strategist to Clinton’s presidential campaign. The controversial pollster and spinner was fired yesterday in the wake of the controversy over his role pushing a trade pact with Colombia that the candidate said she was against. On Friday, the government of Colombia fired Penn and his firm — Burson Marsteller, he’s CEO of the international PR firm — after Penn apologized for his secret meeting Monday with Colombia’s ambassador to the US to discuss pushing the trade pact.
Penn will supposedly continue to provide polling assistance to the Clinton campaign, which trails Obama and seems to have no actual hope of catching up to the freshman Illinois senator.
On a personal note, I had gotten very tired of Penn months ago for his relentless spin and avoidance of political candor. He notoriously put out a memo purportedly discrediting the Des Moines Register poll which showed Obama on the verge of winning Iowa. Penn claimed that “the numbers” showed the Register’s pollsters had no idea of what they were talking about. Actually, they were exactly right, and Penn was simply assembling and manipulating reefs of numbers to buttress his spin.
I recall asking Penn last year, after one of his campaign conference call presentations which, as usual, asserted that Clinton’s candidacy was “inevitable” — which the conventional media totally bought into — what would happen to all the numbers he cited if Obama won Iowa. He didn’t have an answer.
New Clinton pollster Geoff Garin and longtime Clinton spin doctor Howard Wolfson are the new message mavens. Wolfson has sought to distinguish his spin from Penn’s, but they have usually been in total alignment.
Clinton previously fired her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, after failing to lock up the nomination on February 5th as the senator and Penn always said she would.
Leaders of some of the biggest unions in the country, now backing Obama, such as the Teamsters and SEIU, insisted that Clinton fire Penn, who says that he was not meeting with the Colombian ambassador on behalf of Clinton, but in his other role as CEO of the Burson-Marsteller international PR firm. Penn apologized for the meeting last Friday, but it was too little too late. Especially since, last month, while making hay out of a meeting between Obama’s economic advisor and the Canadian consul in Chicago in which Obama’s criticism of NAFTA was supposedly made light of, Clinton had this to say: “Just ask yourself what you would do if some of my advisors had been having private meetings with foreign governments.”
Bill and Hillary Clinton have put out their tax returns for the past seven years. They made over $109 million, paid $33 million in taxes, and made $10 million in charitable donations.
Nearly half the money came in the form of fees paid to former President Clinton for speaking engagements. This is a lot more than I thought. Reporters and bloggers will be picking through all of it. One key question. What did Clinton do for Ron Burkle, the LA billionaire who paid him over $15 million? The Burkle investment firm Clinton is part of handles the portfolio of the ruler of Dubai, a Gulf state emirate which makes for a very intriguing situation with a former president and current presidential candidate involved.
Bill Clinton already has serious new image problems. A new national poll by the Rasmussen robopolling outfit finds that a big plurality of American voters believe that former President Bill Clinton’s campaigning on his wife’s behalf has hurt his historical legacy. 43% say they believe that he’s hurt his reputation, while only 17% say he’s enhanced it. 29% see no impact. The assessment crosses party lines. Among Democrats, 22% have the positive view while 41% have the negative view. There is no gender gap.
Speaking of money, Obama raised over twice as much money as Clinton in March, some $40 million to her $20 million. All of Obama’s money can be used in the primaries and caucuses; Clinton always has some of hers which can only be used for a general election which looks increasingly like a mirage. Obama now has about 1.3 million contributors, with the great bulk of the money coming in over the Internet.
Obama and McCain started sparring again with one another last week, and that will undoubtedly heat up this week around the Petraeus report.
Last week, in the midst of McCain’s “Service To America” biographical tour, Obama charged again that McCain wants an endless war in the Middle East.
“The lofty rhetoric,” said Schmidt, of Barack Obama’s speeches. “It’s nonsense talk.” Salter chimed in as well, “His whole brand is, ‘I’m not about that. I’m about something better.’ “
The two advisors complained about Obama’s repeated invoking of McCain’s statement last January that he could see a U.S. presence in Iraq for another 100 years. McCain seemed to be talking not about a hundred years war, but about a non-combat presence, as the U.S. has in South Korea.
But since then, Obama, Clinton and the Democratic Party have repeatedly talked up the “100 years” comment to suggest that McCain wants to continue the war that long.
“It’s absolutely dishonest,” Schmidt says, “absolutely dishonest. It’s old style Chicago politics. I guess that is how they play politics in Chicago. Senator Obama has done the country a great service in this ‘100 year’ comment,” says Schmidt, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign manager, “because now the American people have the information they need to know that he is being dishonest.”
McCain has not said that he wants a 100-year war in Iraq. What’s he’s talked about is along the lines of the ongoing American presence in South Korea, which dates back to 1945. But as the Democratic National Committee points out, a Washington Post Fact Checker post shows McCain saying last November that he wasn’t for keeping troops in Iraq for decades.
The Obama attack came on the same day that McCain gave what he saw as the most important speech of his tour, his address at Annapolis about his heritage of national service. The attack devised by “Chicago,” as the Obama high command is known, cleverly distracted McCain from his message of the day.
But the speech had already been given some short shrift. Aside from an early snippet on MSNBC, the cable news nets didn’t carry the Annapolis speech live, in contrast to McCain speeches the previous week in California on both geopolitics and the financial crisis. Even Fox News kept to its usual early morning chat fest.
It’s too bad, because the Annapolis speech is quite telling about what McCain is about. I’ll write about it in a future column. …
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