Thursday’s campaign round-up

January 10, 2008

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:

* Apparently, it’s not just John Kerry. Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who is up for re-election this year, also announced his support for Barack Obama, as did Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.).

* For those of us who are still inclined to take polls at least a little seriously, a Rasmussen survey, conducted yesterday, showed Hillary Clinton not getting a post-New Hampshire bump in South Carolina, at least not yet. The poll showed Barack Obama leading with 42%, followed by Clinton at 30%, and Edwards at 15%.

* As for Republicans in South Carolina, Rasmussen shows John McCain claiming the top spot with 27%, followed closely by Mike Huckabee with 24%, Romney third at 16%, and Thompson rounding out the top four with 12%. The rest of the GOP field was in single digits.

* Rudy Giuliani has an interesting new TV ad in Florida, arguing that media pundits should be ignored. That’s probably true, but Giuliani’s only saying that because the pundits think he’s going to lose.

* The Clinton campaign said yesterday that it emerged from New Hampshire with more than $25 million in the bank. (Given that the campaign raised more than $100 million in 2007, does that mean it’s spent $75 million? Already?)

* All eyes are still on Rep. Jim Clyburn, the most important Democratic voice in South Carolina, who has not yet endorsed anyone.

* The Romney campaign is, surprisingly enough, declining to extend its television presence into next week in South Carolina and Florida.

* With Kerry backing Obama, will Ted Kennedy follow suit?

* And after taking all kinds of heat for excluding Ron Paul from its debate a few days ago, Fox News will allow him to participate in its debate in South Carolina tonight.

Hucklebee needs a win in SC to remain viable. Romney needs a win in Mich or LV. It’ll be interesting to see how the African American voters break for Hillary vis-a-vis Obama in SC.

  • I hope Clinton makes it to the CA primary, because I’m voting for her if she does. Any of the democrats running are ok tho.

  • Dudley said: “Oops–I meant Nevada. Las Vegas isn’t the *entire* state.”

    Not that we can tell. 😉

    I think it’s interesting that the Clinton campaign is telling us how much money they have. It’s going to put pressure on the other campaigns to announce this too, and other than Ron Paul they are all going to look rather thin I suspect.

    This makes me suspect that Hillary and her crew are confident they can go one on one with Obama because publishing their bank balance is going to drive the Edwards campaign out early.

  • Hmmm. Comparing the previous poll with this one, looks like Hillary remained at 30%, Obama picked up 5%, and the other candidates lost support. There also seems to be a large number of “undecided” voters. I wonder if Obama essentially picked up some of the people who were formerly supporting other non-Hillary candidates? True, the margin of error is too big to make any definite conclusions, but this would tend to support the hypothesis that Edwards voters (and others?) might swing over to Obama when it seems like their preferred candidate is no longer viable.

  • In 2004, a stable, mainstream presidential candidate from the previous election endorsed the popular, visionary, progressive favorite of the activist masses.

    In 2008, John Kerry endorses Obama.

    Uh oh?

  • Hillary’s campaign is talking about the money they have because there was a lot of speculation that she was going to run out of money, or contributions were going to dry up – so I think this is all about conveying that her campaign is eminently viable and not near death as some have speculated – or hoped.

  • I saw a post at Huffington that made me change my mind about how Hillary pulled off her NH upset. She’s got a well-oiled poll-driven machine, and she saw an opportunity to play a card we only usually see Cheney playing…

    http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14177.html#comment-365807

    The above is a link to my post, which references a column by Bob Cesca*, which at Huffpo (at least in my IE window) can’t be seen in its entirety, but if you extract the text from a print window you can see the last few paragraphs, which are pretty important IMHO.

    * http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/senator-clintons-fearmon_b_80782.html

  • Fox News has as many low points as Al-Qaida has number twos.

    It might help Romney to not campaign in SC and Florida. The more you see him the less you like him. If you never see him they might love him.

  • Also, a good portion of Hillary’s money has been earmarked for the general election so that the tank isn’t running dry just when they need it topped off the most. I seem to recall that she has some $20 or $30 million dollars ear-marked so far. Whether that’s the 25M she’s talking about being in the bank (because it can’t be spent in the primaries) or whether that’s on top of what’s earmarked is unknown.

  • (Given that the campaign raised more than $100 million in 2007, does that mean it’s spent $75 million? Already?)

    More likely the $75 million (less whatever is set aside for the general election) represents what has been spent *and* committed, e.g. media buys in NY and CA.

  • All of these endorsements for Obama coming from congress members (especially John Kerry) indicate to me that Obama has agreed to play ball with the industrial-military-media-complex. It means that no matter what is promised, military goals and military spending will not be tampered with. Sibel Edmond’s statements indicate that these candidates agree to cooperate with the powers that be (just like Kerry did) in order to get these power endorsements.

    It means that Edwards is the only major candidate still willing to stand against them. The president of the American Chamber of Commerce formally condemns Edwards for his stands against corporations saying that it’s bad for business. DUH!

    ***RacerX*** Hillary’s win was only considered an upset because of recent polls. She was always expected to win in NH before Obama’s Iowa upset and then based on that, polls changed. I doubt Hillary’s win was caused by any one factor.

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