Tuesday’s campaign round-up

March 25, 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:

* Maybe we’ll get lucky? “Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, once so eager to debate she ran two ads questioning why her rival wouldn’t, has yet to say whether she’ll debate Sen. Barack Obama in North Carolina next month. Both presidential candidates plan to participate in an ABC News debate on April 16 in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania holds its primary days later, on April 22. Obama also has agreed to a debate April 19 hosted by CBS in North Carolina. North Carolina holds its primary May 6. Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said Monday that the campaign has not made a decision about the CBS debate and is still working through the details.”

* James Carville, who compared Bill Richardson to Judas on Friday for endorsing Obama, bragged yesterday about how pleased he is with the comparison. “I was quoted accurately and in context, and I was glad to give the quote and I was glad I gave it,” Carville said. “I’m not apologizing, I’m not resigning, I’m not doing anything.” After a Clinton campaign spokesperson suggested Carville might want to apologize, the NYT called him back: “For several seconds he laughed – cackled might be more accurate – and then said he stood by his quote fully.”

* In what was billed as a major speech on his economic ideas, John McCain said he doesn’t want to do anything about the housing crisis: “Republican John McCain, who has conceded economics is not his strong suit, says government isn’t in the business of saving and rewarding banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly.”

* Top Clinton aide Harold Ickes is still talking openly about the options available for pledged delegates.

* Pennsylvania is leaning towards Clinton, and Oregon is leaning towards Obama, but no one knows what’s going to happen in Indiana.

* Gordon Fischer, a former chair of the Iowa Democratic Party and Obama supporter, wrote an intemperate item on his blog yesterday about a certain former president: “Bill Clinton cannot possibly seriously believe Obama is not a patriot, and cannot possibly be said to be helping — instead he is hurting — his own party. B. Clinton should never be forgiven. Period. This is a stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica’s blue dress.” The Clinton campaign expressed outrage, accusing the Obama campaign of “gutter tactics,” though there’s no reason to believe the Obama campaign was involved with the blog post. Fisher later removed the item and apologized.

* All three of the remaining presidential candidates have been missing a lot of votes in the Senate, but McCain barely seems to show up for his day job at all.

* No matter who wins Pennsylvania’s primary, Dems have to be happy about this: “Democratic registration in Pennsylvania set a new record yesterday, at the close of yesterday’s deadline to register for the state’s closed primary. Over 4 million Pennsylvanians are now registered as Democrats, out of 8.2 million total registered voters. Republican and independent registrations both shrank slightly — a possible sign of crossover voters for Barack Obama — while 120,000 previously unregistered people entered the rolls.”

* Facing a looming deadline, Republicans in New Jersey finally found a candidate to run against Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) in November: Andrew Unanue, a former executive with Goya Foods Inc. Unanue “was ousted from the leadership of Goya Foods in a family feud in 2004 and has since run a financial consulting firm and a New York nightclub.”

* And in Virginia, Lt. Gov. William Bolling (R) announced yesterday he will not run for governor, clearing the way for state Attorney General Robert McDonnell, and giving the state GOP its first good chance of winning the governorship in a decade.

carville’s right. not suporting hillary is like betraying jesus. whatr’s controversial about that?

  • I think it is sad to watch people turn this into a destructive nomination! Maybe this is the reason the youth hasn’t been envolved… we simply do not like it.

    Oh yeah… now that it is official that Barack won Texas… perhaps HRC should drop out. Her “hubby” said that she HAD to win BOTH! HMMMMMMMMMM!

  • It’s time for Hillary to cash it in. But she won’t. The result: Hillary and Barack will bash each other senseless for the eventual benefit of John McCain.

    My secret (and futile) hope: The two candidates will deadlock and a brokered convention picks neither of the above, but chooses John Edwards instead.

    Yeah, that’ll be the day. All the same I wonder: are we Dems once again going to throw the election to the Republicans?

    Thinking very crankily,
    The New York Crank

  • “Republican John McCain, who has conceded economics is not his strong suit, says government isn’t in the business of saving and rewarding banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly.”

    Oh please, let’s get that piece of film and just run it all election. Given how many of the people in the exurbs – who are in the middle of the crisis and wondering how to keep a roof over their heads – voted for Bush twice, this should be a real Get Out The Vote winner. Republican voters have been known to abandon their “principles” when their ass is about to be bitten off.

    James Carville, who compared Bill Richardson to Judas on Friday for endorsing Obama, bragged yesterday about how pleased he is with the comparison. “I was quoted accurately and in context, and I was glad to give the quote and I was glad I gave it,” Carville said. “I’m not apologizing, I’m not resigning, I’m not doing anything.”

    Hey, he isn’t known as “Snakehead” for anything. I’m sure Mary Matalin even thought for two minutes about giving him sex for that (before turning him down since she is, after all, a Good Republican Woman).

    B. Clinton should never be forgiven. Period. This is a stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica’s blue dress.”

    Blowjob Billy should never be forgiven for anything.

  • At least Carville didn’t call anyone a monster.

    Maybe he was referring to the theological argument that Judas was merely playing a necessary though ugly part in what ultimately had to be done to lead to Jesus’ triumph over death.

    Or maybe he’s a total jerk.

  • “For several seconds he laughed – cackled might be more accurate – and then said he stood by his quote fully.”

    I take that for a blow against the Umbrage Wars as a concept as much as a slam against Richardson as a person.

  • Didn’t anything of substance happen in either campaign?

    Clinton announced a series of measures intended to help the mortage crisis yesterday. Isn’t that worth talking about?

  • What’s stopping everyone from running polls in Indiana? There’s only been one, and it’s more than a month old. It had Obama beating Clinton 40%-25%, but that will have tightened somewhat by now.

  • Didn’t anything of substance happen in either campaign?

    Yes, Clinton conceded that she didn’t really run through a hail of bullets with her daughter by her side. A mistake like that could happen to anyone.

    Her actual foreign policy resume is now reduced to promoting NAFTA. Sorry.

  • How about this year-old letter from Obama to Bernanke – calling for a “working group” a year before Hillary did.

    Talk about foresight and leadership.

    Damn right. Obama’s got the best writers money can by.

    BTW I am glad the letter had it’s intended effect, looks like the housing market should turn around in no time.

  • Didn’t anything of substance happen in either campaign? Clinton announced a series of measures intended to help the mortage crisis yesterday. Isn’t that worth talking about? Yeah it is, why the hell would she put greenspan on this pannel when he was part of the problem, or phil singer for that matter. She is running for the democratic nomination, no?

  • Rasmussen now puts Pennsylvania at 49-38 in Clinton’s favor. The gap is closing, the Wright smear didn’t hold back the flood, and the sun is setting on the Fiefdom of Clintonia. She cannot afford to debate Obama in North Carolina, and I imagine that—given the current “dodging snipers” controversy—that she’d like to get out from under the commitment to debate in Philly. There’s only one way out of that political smite-fest for her, and it’s to withdraw from the campaign prior to the 16th.

    The clock is ticking, Hillary. Three weeks—and counting….

  • carville was interviewed by anderson cooper on CNN last night; carville offered quite the contrary to an apology regarding his judas comments about richardson; in fact, he said he stood by them.

    imagine that — the good governor follows his conscience and he’s accused of selling out Our Couple of the Perpetual Lies for 30 pieces of silver.

    carville, btw, looked like a “Chucky” version of an easter egg during the interview — he’s not a happy camper. at one point carville said something about being outside of the washington circle and cooper shot back “dude, aren’t you mr. washington?” it was hilarious.

  • The Clintons are like Mafiosi or 15th century Italian city-state warlords. They know no morality as the rest of us understand the term. They see ordinary folks’ ideas of right and wrong as silly, something the “little people” worry about. Winning and losing, loyalty and disloyalty are all that matter to them. From the point of view of such people nothing is either good nor bad, right or wrong, holy or evil. It is simply fortunate or unfortunate for them. Everything falls into one or the other of those two exhaustive and exclusive categories.

    Their frame of reference is well spelled out in Chapter XVIII of Machiavelli’s The Prince entitled “Concerning The Way In Which Princes Should Keep Faith”. Essentially, the Prince must only appear to be holy (Italy was uniformly Roman Catholic), but he must never take such nonsense seriously. Leave what Nietzsche would later call the “slave morality” for everybody else.

    I once worked for a San Francisco Democrat, Phil Burton, who was notoriously cast as a Machiavellian. There was much truth in that, and the Burton machine, from his time to Pelosi’s, has always operated, pretty much proudly, under that aegis. But in addition to being flinch-free fierce competitors, the Burtons also carried the torch for truly progressive (if unpopular) legislation and governance.

    The Clintons, in contrast, are mere Machiavellian automata, without a fire in the belly for any cause at all except retaining or getting back their power. Even Machiavelli (Chapter XXVI) had one over-riding principle: Italian unity (Obama’s “put aside our costly differences”). The Clintons have no such over-riding principle. Nor does McAin’t (remember the hug).

    How to battle such amoral battlers? It’s not easy, but it is doable. Keep your principles, remember why you’re in this (primary) fight, try to win over whatever non-sociopaths are at the moment with the other side (they will still be looking for virtue, as they perceive it, in the general). But never hesitate to grapple with the Clintons on their own terms. If they want to take the traditional protections off of pledged delegates, we should also. We smarter than they are (partly because we’re more realistic, not having monarchical images of ourselves) and can beat them at their own game (because, in addition to being competitive, we have the ideals which are drawing some many new voters to our cause). Nietzsche said “When battling with monsters, be sure you don’t become a monter yourself”. As long as we keep our eyes on the prize, we won’t. Every so often the good guys win … otherwise we’d still be fighting Italian city-state wars. Let’s do what it takes to get beyond the Clintons and then take on McAin’t.

  • olbermann described the judas comment as “comparing governor richardson to — well, the guy who gave us easter, to put it charitably”

  • http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/

    This is pretty funny. Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer blasted out an email at 11:23 insisting that Obama release his tax returns for back years,

    Exactly two minutes later, at 11:25, Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor emailed out word that Obama had posted his tax returns for 2000-2006 on his campaign web site. Turns out the Obama camp has been planning this for some time.

  • “Republican John McCain, who has conceded economics is not his strong suit, says government isn’t in the business of saving and rewarding banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly.”

    Even a monkey throwing darts hits the bullseye once in a while.
    Too bad Joihn Sidney McSame couldn’t finish Dubya’s term.

    Not to say I agree that doing nothing is optimal. I’m just concerned that nothing will prove to have been a superior choice to what ultimate IS done.

  • Just for the record, Richardson’s endorsement of Obama is like those of Kerry and Kennedy, directly counter to the way the people they represent voted.

    New Mexico 49-48 (delegates) Massachusetts 56-41

    As Cheney would say: So?.

  • Why is Nancy Reagan’s endorsement of McCain relevant? She says she normally waits but now wants to endorse? It’s already decided Nancy…..

    Bill Clinton said today he ‘admires McCain’ — great…..

  • I’m surprised Indiana is competitive. It used to have the most active KKK north of the Mason-Dixon line and typically votes like a Southern state. It’s black population is not large, its politics are quite right of center. It should be a perfect Clinton fit.

    If Obama wins that one, I’d consider it an upset.

  • Pledged Delegates! If delegates pledged to Clinton begin to realize that she supports defecting, they might start defecting to Obama.

    And BTW – If Hillary is so sure that FL and MI are going to be disenfranchised if they don’t re-vote then she better shut up about all the ways Super Delegates will disenfranchise everybody else who voted to Obama.

  • Does anyone suppose that the reason she’s not committing to the April 19 debate is because she’s hoping that on April 16, reporters won’t question her too closely about the tax returns she is supposed to release on the 15th but on the 19th they would have too many questions about it?

  • Hillary, The Christ? You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the same lady that helped give us NAFTA. I think, Carville is indicative of the kind of supporters we’ve seen from the Clinton camp. Low-brow and small-minded.

    I mean, after all, if you’re going to vote for a candidate merely because they’re of a particular gender, as I often hear from them, well – reasoning and logic are probably not your strong-points.

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