Tuesday’s campaign round-up

January 15, 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:

* The Republican presidential primary in Michigan is today, and no one’s really sure what to expect. Polls show John McCain and Mitt Romney as the two leading candidates, with different polls showing each in the lead. One thing’s for sure — in Michigan, the health of the economy is easily the top campaign issue, easily outpacing Iraq, health care, and terrorism.

* A precinct captain for Barack Obama in Reno, Nevada, created a flier encouraging Republicans and independents to participate in the state’s Democratic caucuses on Saturday. “Be a Democrat for a Day,” the flier says. Obama critics argued, without proof, that the flier was part of an Obama campaign effort to undermine the Democratic Party. As it turns out, the guy who made the fliers was acting on his own, has stopped distributing them, and is now prepared to resign as a precinct captain.

* Yesterday afternoon, a Nevada judge ordered MSNBC to include Dennis Kucinich in its debate tonight, citing the Jan. 9 invitation the network extended to the Ohio House member. Charles Thompson, a senior district court judge for Clark County, Nevada, said he would issue an injunction stopping the debate if Kucinich is excluded. MSNBC has indicated that it will appeal the ruling, but with only nine hours before the event begins, the network may run out of time.

* Yet another House Republican is making a run for it — Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.), an 11-term incumbent, is giving up his seat to head the Managed Funds Association, the top lobbying group for the hedge fund industry. Baker is perhaps best known for this remark after the Hurricane Katrina: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”

* Fred Thompson actually campaigned in South Carolina yesterday: “Tieless, hands in his pockets and buoyed by new polling numbers, an upbeat [Thompson] mixed impromptu one-liners with his campaign theme of constancy to conservative principles” in Simpsonville, S.C., on Monday night. “Thompson, increasingly aggressive on the campaign trail, swiped at McCain’s support for failed immigration reform legislation, Romney’s change in positions on key issues, and Democrat Hillary Clinton’s tearful moment in New Hampshire last week.”

* The NYT has a report today about the tensions between the African-American and Latino communities in western states like California, and how that might affect the region’s Democratic primaries. “Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color,” Natasha Carrillo, 20, of East Los Angeles, said. “I don’t think many Latinos will vote for Obama. There’s always been tension in the black and Latino communities. There’s still that strong ethnic division. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I’ve talked to support Clinton.”

* And in Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour’s (R) efforts to play fast and loose with election law in filling Trent Lott’s old Senate seat have suffered their first setback: a Mississippi judge ruled yesterday that Barbour exceeded his authority in setting the wrong special-election date.

Now we hear that some Latinos aren’t ready for an African-American president. That’s funny! They say that a lot of Anglos aren’t ready for that either. But not everyone is that unenlightened.

And then there was the earlier post about how Obama and Louis Farrakhan are linked by n degrees of separation. What a surprise! I once met someone who had met Farrakhan. What does that say about me.

Good grief! This campaign gets dumber and dumber. I had thought that having a woman president would be more controversial than having a half-black Harvard Law grad as president. Apparently I was wrong.

I hope that Kucinich gets to debate tonight. The way things have been going, they would only argue about who dissed LBJ and who dissed MLK. If Kucinich is there, he is likely to call bullshit on the two of them. My guy (Edwards) may have a hard time getting any attention at all – as usual.

  • I’m torn on the Kucinich debate question. He’s not a serious candidate, but he represents a serious and important point of view, and just as including Paul in the Republican debates serves to put in sharper relief how compromised and muddled their candidates are, having Kucinich there in a “keep ’em honest” role potentially helps clarify viewers on what the other Democratic candidates are saying.

    On the other hand, Kucinich himself doesn’t strike me as nearly as effective in playing that role as Paul is. He mostly seems to talk about himself, and “what he would do as president.” I could do that too, and it would be only slightly less relevant to who actually wins. If he’s not there to help focus the other three, there’s little point IMO for him being there at all; he won’t win, and no amount of exposure will change that.

    (It would be nice, of course, if the media themselves worked to “keep ’em honest.” But anyone who credits that likely also believes that Kucinich can create world peace with a twitch of his magic elf ears.)

  • You see, all Fred needed was a little encouragement.

    As for Dennis being in the debate, I’m amazed that John Edwards is. Dajafi is right that Dennis represents views not otherwise expressed by the Party’s candidates, but then Ron Paul does that for the Republican’ts. I say let him be there.

    Even with a caucus system it will be instructive to see if Obama does well in Nevada. That will tell us a lot about Latino acceptance of a Black candidate.

  • The reason Kucinich should be admitted to the debate is due to MSNBC having asked him to be there. If there was a contract, and the MSNBC renighed on that then the injunction is valid. Whether you agree with him or not, or whether he should be there or not is irrelevant, he has standing if his contract was broken. That is really the only issue on the subject that concerns me.

  • The NYT has a report today about the tensions between the African-American and Latino communities in western states like California…

    I don’t know about the Latino population in general but I do know that there have been a handful of cold-blooded murders of Southern California blacks by Latino gang members who stated that their goal is the racial cleansing of their neighborhoods. This has made the local news although I doubt that it made it beyond SoCal. Although these incidents have been, mercifully, very few, the local publicity they get can’t help but raise tensions between the two communities.

  • Hey dajafi, Kucinich could create world peace with a twitch of his magic elf ears, but that would be against the rules put in place by Santa himself, who you do not want to mess with.

  • For Kucinich, I think the issue is that MSNBC apparently invited him—and then reneged on the commitment. That looks to be the issue here, but I hope they don’t simply stand him up there and ignore him for the whole time.

    And I’m failing to see how a “be-a-Dem-for-a-day” undermines the Party. It comes across more like one of those “try-it-you’ll-like-it” moments—and presents the idea that a really large number of people can participate in the process without having to vote for one of the “mutant monosyllabic knuckledraggers” currently listed on the GOP ballot….

  • I would think that Obama’s popularity in Chicago would dispell the myth that all Latino voters won’t support an African American candidate. I think that Carrillo is doing her heritage a disservice by using inclusive term Latino as if there isn’t any variation between those in LA, Chicago, and Miami.

    Be a Democrat for a Day

    Not sure what’s wrong with this. Becoming a Democrat for life starts with just one day.

  • “Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.), an 11-term incumbent, is giving up his seat to head the Managed Funds Association, the top lobbying group for the hedge fund industry. Baker is perhaps best known for this remark after the Hurricane Katrina: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.””

    Oh lovely. 😛

    What this world deparately needs is fewer Richard Bakers and more people like those in my town of 80,000 who are actually making a difference.

    Such as a young woman, who at age 20, while traveling in Africa and confronted with orphaned kids, decided to start an orphanage. Two years later, It’s going well, she has set up a non-profit here, she expects the kids and the people there to help themselves, she just raised enough money from people at our church (by “selling” by donation only Christmas cards featuring art by the kids) to pay for a new water cistern that was desperately needed. Yet this wonderful young woman avoids the spotlight and insists that the story be about the orphanage, the kids.

    Or the young couple that has started a ministry to reach out to street kids in third world countries. Here’s their website (hope you don’t mind, CB):
    http://www.riseupinternational.com/#null

    Of course there are many more examples of people here helping people, helping animals, the environment.

    Shame on Richard Baker and all like him.

  • That emoticon above, in case it’s not clear, is a tongue sticking out, as in BLECH. A Big YUK.

  • Baker is perhaps best known for this remark after the Hurricane Katrina: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”

    Listening to these unreconstructed descendants of the Barbadian pirates is all it takes to prove that the only good Republicans are “pushing up daisies.”

    And of course Mr. Scumbag would get into the scummiest end of crony capitalism. How very Republican of him.

  • Kucinich is in? then I’m watching instead of waiting for Steve Benen to write about it tomorrow.

    I just hope he adds more detail to his platform, for example (a) instead of saying “single-payer”, debunk why continuing private insurance is the wrong way to go. (b) Instead of saying “I’m the only one who voted always against the war funding”, explain why voting against funding would not endanger the troops, and that is the way to end the war, not by non-binding resolutions which get beat by mythical 60-vote barriers…

  • Good point all about MSNBC reneging on their obligation as far as including Kucinich. I stand by what I wrote on the substance, but it would set a pretty horrible precedent if they got away with inviting, then un-inviting him.

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