Tuesday’s political round-up

July 10, 2007

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* What do you know, McCain’s campaign can get worse: “Sen. John McCain’s top political strategists Tuesday resigned from their posts with the Arizona Republican’s presidential campaign. Campaign Manager Terry Nelson and Chief Strategist John Weaver announced their departures in a statement released by the campaign just as McCain took to the Senate floor to talk about the situation in Iraq.”

* Speaking of McCain, according to U.S. News, the senator’s chief advisers are urging him to quit his day job and become a full-time presidential candidate. “Just resign,” one says he told McCain. “Show you’re all in.” USNWR added, “Advisers say being a senator is a drag. He doesn’t have enough time to campaign and raise money. Worse: The issues he has to vote on, like immigration reform, are killers.”

* Barack Obama picked up a fairly big endorsement yesterday from Gary Hirshberg, chief executive of Stonyfield Farm in New Hampshire. “This guy can heal a divided nation,” Hirshberg said on a conference call with reporters. Stonyfield is an organic dairy specializing in yogurt and known for environmental activism.

* The Hill: “Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken out-raised Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) in the second quarter, pulling together more than $1.9 million and topping his own total from the first quarter.”

* And the Politico’s Elizabeth Wilner makes an interesting argument encouraging presidential candidates to pick running mates early, instead of waiting for their respective party nominating conventions.

“There’s enough drunks on this train already.” -Al Frankin as a baggage handler in Trading Places.

Go Al! You’re good enough, you’re smart enough…and doggone it- People Like You!!

  • McCain aka Walnuts is one of the weirdest political implosions I’ve seen in a long time. Just nine months ago, he was the man. Now, he’s a ramp strike. He’s transformed into the male equivalent of thetrainwreck/nightmare/unnatural disaster that is Kitty Harris.

    That’s the member of the Keating Five I know!

  • Campaign Manager Terry Nelson and Chief Strategist John Weaver announced their departures in a statement released by the campaign just as McCain took to the Senate floor to talk about the situation in Iraq.

    You know that’s bad news- they want to be some place where they can win.

  • And the best advice he gets is to resign from the Senate to be a full-time campaigner? Talk about killing two birds with one stone. He loses his Senate seat and his campaign all at the same time.

    Go for it, John. Best idea your people have ever had.

  • Would Arizona law allow Gov. Napolitano to appoint a Democrat to the seat if McCain resigned? That’d make a win-win situation into a win-win-win…

  • Damn right it would!!! If Napolitano picked a strong Dem with real potential to be re-elected . . . man, that’d be a Lieber-proof majority right there!

    May it happen!!!!!!!

  • Yeah, but even if Lieberman is cut loose, you’d still need 60% to overcome a filibuster. Unless… remember the “nuclear option?” The Republicans certainly made effective use of that in intimidating Democrats away from filibusters. What’s good for the goose…

  • Dumping Lieberman from his committee position would at least be extremely satisfying and uplifting for those of us he’s been betraying since the election. And it would deny him all the influence and publicity he’s been getting because of it. How great would that be??

  • I’ve mentioned my policy of discretion for my comments and blogs posts at least a couple of times before, I’m sure. You can always rest assured that more things strike me as interesting than I actually write comments on and I have much more to say than I write in comments (although recently, I’ve begun to break one of my own rules and wisecrack a lot more, having decided I’ll just count on you all to have enough of a sense of humor to not confuse anything facetious for something serious / totally misunderstand what I meant).

    As regards the elections, there are a few things I’ve been keeping quiet about- for a while, I’ve identified what I see as some weak aspects of the Dems’ campaigns, but I might never mention them for decades, so these will never be exploited, if one of the Dems gets elected.

    As regards the McCain campaign, I’ve already decided why I think he’s failing, but if everything works out nice- if his campaign sputters and fails around now and if we have a Dem elected- I’ll do a post-mortem of his campaign then, the day after Election Day or later, but I won’t say anything about it now.

  • Barack Obama picked up a fairly big endorsement yesterday from Gary Hirshberg, chief executive of Stonyfield Farm in New Hampshire. “This guy can heal a divided nation”

    Aye… but it goes a lot deeper than that:

    His candidacy will also drive Cheney’s 18% into saying and doing things that will shame even the MSM into reporting them as loons and goons. In effect: everyone will see just how unhinged Dick’s Dead-enders are…

    With Hillary their hate is big Media codfied and certified:
    She’s a Clinton for crissakes… it is okay to hate and slander her.
    Full speed ahead!

    But with Barack their hate has to plow out a whole new channel.
    And that channel, my friends, brings them to their doom.

    The best thing for this country is Barack’s success.
    Anything less, and the cycle of hate continues…

  • This guy can heal a divided nation

    Sounds like the expectations over Tony Blair’s “Third Way”, and we know how well that went.

  • “Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken out-raised Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) in the second quarter, pulling together more than $1.9 million and topping his own total from the first quarter.”

    Now that is good news. Any word on how the 3 other Dem candidates for that primary are doing?

    • Comments are closed.