Wednesday’s campaign round-up

February 27, 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:

* A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll suggests Dems still have some work to do in the general election: “In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%)…. The Arizona senator is viewed favorably by 61% of all registered voters, including a plurality of Democrats.”

* The Clinton campaign’s old superdelegate strategy: lean on party insiders to get them to commit now. The Clinton campaign’s new superdelegate strategy: lean on party insiders to get them to remain neutral for now. Apparently, the thinking is, if the superdelegates are going to break for anyone right now, it’s Obama.

* In response to an NYT report the other day pointing to morale trouble inside the Clinton campaign, 503 Clinton staffers and volunteers signed a letter to the editor sent to the Times that read, in part, “The unnamed advisers and aides the story relies on speak for nobody but themselves. The rest of us — thousands of her supporters, friends, members of her staff and volunteers — are working tirelessly each and every day and night, because we believe in Hillary.” The Times declined to run the letter, calling it “a press release from the Clinton campaign.”

* For reasons that are still unclear, Clinton said last night that she would continue to wait to release her tax returns until after the primaries. Pressed for an explanation, the senator said she’s “a little busy right now.”

* Mike Huckabee is still hanging around, and he’s wondering why he and John McCain aren’t debating. “There’s a race going on, and I wish Sen. McCain was debating me this weekend,” Huckabee told reporters in Cleveland. “I wish we were going to be in Cleveland tonight on stage or in Dallas or in Houston or San Antonio or Austin or somewhere between now and Tuesday having a debate. I think certainly Republicans in these states that are voting deserve that, and I’m disappointed that we’re not in that same kind of forum.”

* In a very impressive display of support, the Obama campaign announced this morning it had received support from 1 million donors. Given that it’s February, that’s pretty astounding.

* Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), long rumored as a possible GOP running mate this year, said she has no interest in the gig. During an interview on MSNBC, Hutchison said, “I don’t want to be vice president. I’ve said that over and over again. I’m going in a different direction. I really do not want to be vice president.”

* A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania shows Clinton leading Obama, but by a shrinking margin. As of today, Clinton is up by six in the Keystone State, 49% to 43%, though just two weeks ago, Clinton led by 16, 52% to 36%.

* Houston lawyer Mark White, one of the two surviving Democratic governors of Texas, says he’s endorsing Obama for president because he’s “essentially become America’s candidate. You see people from all walks of life, rich and poor, every color reflected, every ethnicity. There’s enthusiasm, hope. He will not only be nominated, he will be elected president. He will be America’s president.”

* I’m delighted to note that Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) is poised to challenge Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

* And this may seem like little more than a local story, but it’s actually a pretty cool: “In a major victory for Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his party, a Democratic assemblyman won a stunning upset in a State Senate election [in New York] on Tuesday in a district that has been in Republican hands for a century.” Dairy farmer Darrel Aubertine finished with 52%, to 48% for William Barclay, a Republican lawyer and an assemblyman whose father once held the Senate seat. As the NYT noted, “Republicans outnumber Democrats 78,454 to 46,824 in the north country district, and Mr. Barclay had been favored to win.”

The Times declined to run the letter, calling it “a press release from the Clinton campaign.”

Or a loyalty oath/pledge. Creepy.

“There’s a race going on, and I wish Sen. McCain was debating me this weekend,” Huckabee told reporters in Cleveland.

Maybe the Huckster and Clinton should get together for a few debates since they are the only two people who still seem to want them.

Oh, and neither will get their party’s nomination. They can bond.

  • For reasons that are still unclear, Clinton said last night that she would continue to wait to release her tax returns until after the primaries. Pressed for an explanation, the senator said she’s “a little busy right now.”

    Aye. Very nasty of the press to press her like that.
    Who was the dog running those questions at her?
    I want his head on a platter with an apple in his mouth.

  • The tax return thing really is going to hurt her, I think. It’s something everyone can relate to and understand pretty easily. I don’t really suspect any kind of major financial misdealings; I think the couple probably just made a truly shocking amount of cash last year and are worried if people see how rich they’ve become in such a short time she’ll be seen as cashing in and/or opportunistic, along with out of touch.

    Not even to mention the arrogance of saying “You don’t get to see our finances until its too late.” And the fact that for the suspicious types it adds plenty of fuel to the fire.

    Just a really stupid thing to do, especially expecting your party to wait until it’s too late to vet your finances.

  • I noticed in the debate last night that both candidates agreed they would leave a residual force in Iraq. Is that like the surge minus 8,000?

  • Clinton doesn’t want to release their tax returns unless she absolutely has to. They would prefer to keep secret the source of their funds. Maybe she can’t avoid it if she is the nominee, but in case she doesn’t get the nomination (now increasingly likely), she would prefer to continue to keep them secret. That’s one problem with having money.

  • Is it just me, of does that “letter-signing gig” over at Fortress Clinton sound like a loyalty oath? And beyond that—she only got 503 people to sign it? Obama’s got more than 503 staff and volunteers in Ohio alone.

    Speaking of Ohio, I see that we’re now in a “bidding war” with our “rivals” to the east—Pennsylvania just matched our “Obama’s only behind by 6” poll. We “Browns maniacs” will obviously change our support accordingly, and declare the race “a dead heat” before the weekend gets here. Match that, you wretched Steeler fans!

    Tax returns. Obama released his; Clinton still refuses. The conspiracy theories suggesting Clinton has stashed huge sums of money in a Lichtenstein bank will commence in 5…4…3….

  • Clinton doesn’t want to release their tax returns unless she absolutely has to. They would prefer to keep secret the source of their funds. Maybe she can’t avoid it if she is the nominee, but in case she doesn’t get the nomination (now increasingly likely), she would prefer to continue to keep them secret. That’s one problem with having money.

    Actually, I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms, honestly. I was thinking more in terms of shocking amounts of money vs. the criminal activity the right is always accusing them of. Now that I think about it, though, I wonder if we’ll start seeing massive consulting fees for Bill from the Carlyle Group and things of that sort because of his friendship with Papa Bush. Who knows?

  • Remember when Roger Clemens testified and Republican Congressmen were all like – Clemens Rah Rah Rah he’s so fabulous and so wronged. I saw this Gallup poll that said that 57% of the people polled believed that Clemens lied. Wonder how much of that 31% still supports Bush.

  • Bill Buckley’s dead. While I pray he rests in peace, I would hope that in his last years he saw that the outcome of his championing of conservatism was an administration hell-bent on destroying what is good in this nation and the general vacuousness of the movement that was his life’s work. His purportedly noble intentions, erudite manner and elitist accent lead to the rise of a selfish fool who hates smart people and massacres the English language with a faux-folksy Texas twang.

  • Oh and William F. Buckley died. John Cole on Balloon Juice said “Probably heart-broken at what his party has become.”

  • “A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll suggests Dems still have some work to do in the general election: “In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%)…. The Arizona senator is viewed favorably by 61% of all registered voters, including a plurality of Democrats.”

    Just look at that, ANOTHER poll with McCain in the lead of Obama, CB.. I guess that McCain’s fund raising letter last week did have some truth to it…

  • No one else as far as I know has commented on this but in last night’s debate, Clinton reacted oddly when Russert pressed her about her tax returns. When Russert first posed the question, Clinton smiled. Why, I don’t know. Russert then mentioned her husband’s overseas business and Clinton’s smile instantly froze. The expression on her face made it clear that she was furious.

    Clinton has claimed that Obama has not been vetted but neither has she.
    Bill Clinton’s overseas business should be a campaign issue. The other day, the New York Post ran a story about Bill Clinton’s relationship with a Canadian mining magnate that should be discussed among Dems. Granted, the title, “CLOUD OVER AIR BUBBA”, might lead the serious reader to question the quality of the reporting but I would think that most of the facts can be easily verified.

    For starters:

    “On June 21, 2005, Bill Clinton flew to Mexico City aboard a private jet that belonged to a Canadian investment banker he was meeting for the first time.
    The introduction paid off for both men.

    Clinton was borrowing the jetliner to begin a four-day speaking tour of Latin America that would pay him $800,000.

    Frank Giustra of Vancouver was forming a friendship that would make him part of the former president’s inner circle and gain him introductions to presidents of Kazakhstan and Colombia, where he bought mineral rights.

    Giustra, 50, has since put his plane at Clinton’s disposal at least a dozen times to raise money for charity, his wife’s presidential campaign or himself, according to US flight records and spokesmen for Clinton and Giustra.

    The Canadian businessman has become one of the largest donors to the Clinton Foundation, pledging half his future minerals earnings in a way that ties the foundation’s success to his own…”

  • Pressed for an explanation, the senator said she’s “a little busy right now.”

    Rrrrright! Hil just can’t find the time to go up in the attic and drag out the file box where she keeps photocopies of last year’s 1040EZ forms.

    Sheesh.

  • For reasons that are still unclear, Clinton said last night that she would continue to wait to release her tax returns until after the primaries. Pressed for an explanation, the senator said she’s “a little busy right now.”

    Yes, finding out how many millions Hill and Billary are making from Hill’s interventions with central Asian dictators in the service of various con artist hangers-on of capitalism – at the same time upsetting American policies that even Billary supports – might not go down well with the American public.

    In response to an NYT report the other day pointing to morale trouble inside the Clinton campaign, 503 Clinton staffers and volunteers signed a letter to the editor sent to the Times that read, in part, “The unnamed advisers and aides the story relies on speak for nobody but themselves. The rest of us — thousands of her supporters, friends, members of her staff and volunteers — are working tirelessly each and every day and night, because we believe in Hillary.” The Times declined to run the letter, calling it “a press release from the Clinton campaign.”

    Shorter: “The Empress is too wearing clothes!”

  • First item: Clinton and Obama trail McCain in polls

    Last item: Dem candidate blows out old-money Rep candidate in a landslide.

    Anyone else see the disconnect between polls and actual voting results? Makes no sense to me at all. But I will definitely take the voting results and the polls can go do something to themselves.

  • Russert then mentioned her husband’s overseas business and Clinton’s smile instantly froze. The expression on her face made it clear that she was furious.

    Go to the New York Times and search “Bill Clinton + Kazakhstan”

    You’ll find out more than you ever wanted to know (but definitely needed to know) about how he managed to snag a $31 million “donation” to his “foundation.”

  • Me@#12

    LOL. No wonder the NY Post story about Bill Clinton seemed surprisingly well done. I just realized it was produced by Bloomberg News.

    BTW, CB, the NYS Senate race upset was delightful. Reading about Joe Bruno’s bad day made me smile from ear to ear.

  • Did anyone read the AP’s eulogy by Hillel Italie? It’s borderline necrophilic.

    …on the platform he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent’s discomfort with wide-eyed glee.

    What? Disgusting.

    Guess that creative writing class finally came in handy, eh Hillel?

    My favorite part, though, was the admission that “Buckley worked at a daunting pace, taking as little as 20 minutes to write a column for his magazine, the National Review.”

    Buckley’s commitment to quality is the hallmark of most conservative columnists today: Cliff’s Notes-esque, fact-free, afterthoughts written between the morning dump and shower.

  • 503 Clinton staffers and volunteers signed a letter to the editor

    Wasn’t it teh Clinton campaign that was concerned about Nevada caucus goers voting while their bosses looked on?

    “Sign this!”
    “Yes ma’am.”

    Good thing Team Clinton isn’t being distracted by non-issues like phony reports about non-existent morale problems or I’d be inclined to think Obama’s troops are gonna kick their tails up and down in Ohio and Texas.

    .

  • RE: Curmudgeon on the disconnect between polls and voting results.

    My big problem with the efficacy of polls is the fact that they cannot survey an accurate sample of the population. These landline-based surveys exclude the growing number of individuals (like me) who only use cellular phones: about 9% of adults in 2005.

    Interestingly enough, these excluded individuals tend to be younger. Now I’m no genius, but it seems to me there’s a connection to be found here. Obama’s been outperforming expectations set by the polls, and the polls rely primarily on landlines, and Obama has a huge base of support among young voters without landlines, so then…. wait… I lost it…

  • What an amazing coincidence that Hillary’s campaign seems to have shifted their stance on super-delegates at the same time it appears to not be such a great strategy. Oddly, my attitude remains unchanged.

    Of course, she mishandled that situation from the beginning. I initially suggested she publicly take the Wait and See approach, while secretly trying to secure super-delegates. Instead, she went with their standard “In It to Win It” approach, which not only made her look bad, but forced super-delegates from pro-Obama areas to declare that they’d endorse Obama, while Hillary districts weren’t as concerned. And that helped add to his momentum. So her heavy-handed strategy backfired yet again. Why won’t anyone listen to me?

  • Regarding the polls v. election thing, I actually think people have this backwards: Polls are probably a better reflection of the country’s opinion. Of course, there are definite flaws with polls, but there are also flaws with elections. Both involve samples of the population, but polls are random samples, while elections only sample the people who choose to be sampled and are able to show-up and prove their identity. And even then, thanks to GOP hijinks, certain portions of the population are denied the ability to be sampled on election day. After all, an election is just a poll taken at a specific place and time, and there’s nothing magical about them.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that polls replace elections and we should only count the opinions of the people willing to be counted for elections. But when it comes to understanding “The Will of the People” polls are a more representative sample than elections.

  • Sorry for joining the party late here but I’ve been sick as a dog.

    * A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll suggests Dems still have some work to do in the general election: “In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%)…. The Arizona senator is viewed favorably by 61% of all registered voters, including a plurality of Democrats.”

    Someone needs to explain the math to me. All primaries had 2-1 or even 3-1 dem to gooper turnout. I highly doubt many Clinton voters are going to snub Obama, not too sure about the reverse. I can see the figures noted if it was a Clinton/McCain match but Obama/McCain? The numbers don’t play out in my mind.

    Someone care to explain this?

    Trolls…don’t bother. I won’t read or respond.

  • * A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll suggests Dems still have some work to do in the general election: “In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%)…. The Arizona senator is viewed favorably by 61% of all registered voters, including a plurality of Democrats.”

    Just a day or two ago a CBS poll had Obama beating McCain by 12.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/25/opinion/polls/main3874915.shtml

    “When all registered voters were asked who they favored in a head-to-head general election match up between Obama and McCain, Obama led by 12 percentage points, 50 to 38 percent.”

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