Thursday’s campaign round-up

April 24, 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:

* In the wake of her success in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton picked up another superdelegate yesterday, Rep. John Tanner, a Blue Dog from Tennessee. Later in the day, 15 House Dems met at Clinton’s campaign office to discuss how to expand her superdelegate lead, which has been shrinking steadily for several weeks.

* Speaking of superdelegates, Barack Obama also picked up another one yesterday, when Audra Ostergard, a party leader in Nebraska, threw her support to Obama.

* There’s apparently some debate over just how much money the Clinton campaign raised in the 24 hours after the polls closed in Pennsylvania. Aides say it was $10 million, but the NYT puts the number at $8 million. Either way, it was an impressive one-day haul. (Update: it appears the $10 million figure was a “goal,” and some of the estimates were inflated.) (Second Update: The campaign now insists it really did raise $10 million.)

* Obama acknowledged yesterday that his biggest hurdle is likely winning support from seniors: “I have to say if you look at and I know my staff has talked about this: If you look at the numbers, our problem has less to do with white working class voters, the problem is, to the extent there is a problem is with older voters,” Obama told reporters. “They are very loyal to Sen. Clinton. And I think part of that is they’ve got a track record of voting for not just Sen. Clinton but also her husband.” He said he would do more to emphasize issues important to elderly voters, including “prescription drugs or pension and retirement security.”

* Does anyone really need to watch another Democratic debate? “Hillary Clinton’s campaign has increased its efforts to pressure Barack Obama to agree to more debates. On Wednesday, they sent reporters a press release titled “Debate Watch: Day 1,” as part of their continuing effort to focus attention on Obama’s reluctance to schedule more primary season showdowns.”

* The DNC is going to do its part to help define McCain: “The Democratic National Committee has seriously upped its ad campaign against John McCain, with the latest FEC filing showing a $500,000 buy to run the spot on the economy that they previewed over the weekend.”

* McCain is running on Bush’s policy agenda, so it stands to reason that he’d run with Bush’s staff: “Nicole Wallace, the former communications director for President Bush’s reelection campaign, has signed on with John McCain. CNN’s Dana Bash reports Wallace will help craft the Arizona senator’s message and begin May 1.”

* It looks like Clinton’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania will be 9.2%. I was a little surprised by how important this point became yesterday.

* Speaking of Pennsylvania, would “street money” have helped Obama in Philadelphia?

* Obama fans may be interested to know that MoveOn.org has kicked off its “Obama in 30 Seconds” competition, in which members submitted 30-second videos explaining why they back Obama. Online voting has already begun. (Pay particular attention to the clip from my friend Lee Shanahan.)

* And by way of a clarification, the WaPo quoted Obama earlier this week on the issue of autism and vaccines, but a video provided by the campaign shows that the original quote was taken out of context. Good to know.

Aides say it was $10 million, but the NYT puts the number at $8 million.

Duh! It’s more of that novel “rounding up” technique. Get with the program people!

No doubt tax revenue will skyrocket under a Clinton administration, yet somehow the deficit won’t go away. Funny how stubborn numbers can be. They’re so darned reality-based!

  • It isn’t surprising Clinton wants more debates. Does she have any other unbiased former employees willing to moderate? Ferraro maybe?

    Humbly assuming he reads all of my very excellent comments, great video Lee! Good luck!

  • Sidney Blumenthal has a great 4-page history of the rise and power of the modern American Right at Salon today – I strongly recommend you go here andread it:

    http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/04/24/blumenthal_death/index.html?source=newsletter

    Mondy quote – and certainly the truth of it demonstrated in today’s list here:

    But the Democrats have not yet solidified a new coalition. They may be on the eve of becoming a majority national party for the first time in their history without conservative Southerners at their core. But they may still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, mesmerized by grandiose delusions as if the past were weightless. Just as the Republican collapse under Bush has given the Democrats an unprecedented opening, the Democrats may still find a way to reinvent the Republicans. Even if they win the presidency, the Democrats can only consolidate their future coalition through skillful and successful governing. Only then will they be the sun. In Bush’s final days, a new era has not yet dawned, but an old one is setting.

    I’ll end with pointing out that the Clintons still can’t stop lying: 9.2% victory, not 10% (it is a big deal, since it rounds down in the rules of arithmetic to 9), and $8 million, not $10 million.

    The Empress is still hanging on the ropes, but the reporters around the ring are too stupid to see it.

  • * Speaking of Pennsylvania, would “street money” have helped Obama in Philadelphia?”

    Did it help Hillary? Did she give out street money?

  • “It looks like Clinton’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania will be 9.2%. I was a little surprised by how important this point became yesterday.”

    I love ya CB, but I’m a little surprised that you’re surprised.

    The pundits were saying that she needs a double-digit win in Pennsylvania. Whether she got it or not would define the coverage going forward. Of course, the media isn’t living up to their own pronouncements. She won by 9 points after coming into the state with a 20+ lead in the polls, yet somehow, the Hillary circus continues.

    Obama “closed the deal” in Wisconsin. The question is when will the supers realize that they’ll destroy this party if they nominate the person who lost the delegate count, state count AND the popular vote?

  • Meanwhile, as cable news and political junkies like ourselves focus on Pennsylvania primary results, Cheney appoints Patraeus to CENTCOM –

    Bombing of Iran begins in 3…2…1…

  • Tom, I agree that Blumenthal is a good writer and a perceptive analyst.

    He’s also a dead-ender Clintonite who’s fully as comfortable with means-ends chicanery as his bosses, and probably as responsible as anyone in the Inner Circle other than the First Narcissists Themselves for refusing to end this debacle.

  • What’s left to debate? How can you “debate” someone who will look you in your face and lie and then laugh about it? How can you debate viewpoints with someone who changes their opinion depending on what state they are in?

  • What we are witnessing is a power struggle between the establishment political machine and a grassroots “from-the-people” movement. Clinton is still in this thing because the establishment will not step aside. They must be pushed out. And that is what is happening.

  • The only purpose for further debates is to get Hillary free air-time for her campaign—and the networks are stupid enough to fall for the tactic. It’s like a real-time reality show without the production costs.

    If Hillary is “rounding up” her point-spreads on cash and votes, then what’s to say that she’s not “rounding down’ her campaign debts? I saw on Reuters two days ago that she owes Penn $4.4 million already, and millions more to other members of her senior staff.

  • While I’m not on board with the “new math”, or the personal attacks, she has a point regarding The Big O’s inability to win a state with sizable electoral votes (Cal., Oh. NY, NJ, Mass., Pa., TX).

  • (Pay particular attention to the clip from my friend Lee Shanahan.)

    That was a great video spot.

    Lee at #13,

    Do you really think that Obama wouldn’t win CA, NY and MA? If so, tell me: do you prefer your kool-aid on the rocks or straight up?

  • Dale, @4,

    According to this NYT op-ed, *both* campaigns refused to shell out “street money”. However… The question (would it have helped?) is more pertinent regarding Obama, because the practice obtains in big cities, where he’s usually expected to do much better than Clinton and where he’d have profited more from the party’s work on his behalf. I wonder though, what the party bosses would have done if both campaigns *did* shell out…
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/opinion/22ferrick.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Cash+and+Carry+%28the+City%29&st=nyt&oref=slogin

    re debates: I wouldn’t mind if we could have a debate where the moderators were a handful of respected, sensible, left-wing bloggers (starting with Benen)

  • she has a point regarding The Big O’s inability to win a state with sizable electoral votes (Cal., Oh. NY, NJ, Mass., Pa., TX).

    Well, first off, any Dem is going to win California, NY, NJ, Mass., and Ohio.

    For the record, Obama won Texas, the state with the third-most EVs. I doubt either Dem can turn Texas blue this cycle, but if you’re going to argue that winning Texas is important, well, he came out with more delegates there.

    And you conveniently forgot to mention Illinois, which he won and which has as many EVs as Penn and more EVs than Ohio.

    Some of the “big EV states” you mention really aren’t. New Jersey has 15, Massachusetts 12. North Carolina is going to be won big by Obama, and that has as many as NJ. Obama does better than Clinton in Missouri (11), Washington (11), Wisconsin (10), Minnesota (10), Colorado (9), etc. etc.

    Sorry. This is a pathetic argument.

  • I don’t know about Dems winning Ohio but we actually don’t need it. It went red the last two times. We have a better chance with places like VA, CO, IA, and New Mexico. And there’s only one candidate who can put these states in play.

  • I enjoyed Less Shanahan’s 30-second video for Obama a lot more than most I’ve seen on Move On’s website. Too many of 40 or so that I viewed pushed the “he can unite us” theme at the expense of saying anything else, and too many of them were dominated by pictures of babies or children. (Anyone can put babies on the screen and promise them a better life.) And the rhetoric in general was, well, too general, to the point of not really distinguishing Obama from other candidates. (Every candidate can and will say they want to restore America.) There is also the problem of some videos being too stunning or clever: cleverness calling attention to itself and not to the candidate, and stunning images that don’t really relate to the content.
    Has anyone else been similarly disappointed in most of the videos they have seen, or am I just an old curmudgeon? In any case, I’ll sit down and watch another batch tonight.

  • Personally, I’d love another debate between Barack and Hillary. This debate could focus more on real issues – for instance, how is it that Hillary knows she will be able to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq in just 60 days from her potentially taking office? And is this a Bush-like withdrawal, taking out 10,000 here, redeploying 30,000 there? This promise from Hillary rings false to me – as though it’s her pandering to us in the far left. “See, *I* am the only one who has actually *promised* and has a game plan for ending the war (despite the fact that I have no security clearance and will backpedal upon entering the WH,” she seems to say.

    Or perhaps we can ask Hillary about her defense of those scary terrorists the Black Panthers in the 60’s. Or her involvement and worship with The Fellowship, where she finds herself worshiping alongside Rick Santorum and other far right evangelicals. It would be a wonderful opportunity to do to her what she has been trying to do to Barack – only I think with her it might stick.

    Perhaps if Hillary thought that how she worshiped, who she’d talked with back in the day, all those types of things were waiting to spring out and bite her hard the way she pushes for them to hurt Obama, she’d be less likely to want more debates. But so far, I haven’t seen much out of the press in this regard. And they say McCain is getting a pass!

  • Dale — neither candidate gave out street money in PA.

    Limbaugh’sDiabetes — the guy who wrote the book about The Fellowship himself states that Hillary’s association with them is “peripheral”. That can hardly be said about Obama and Wright so trying to generate equivalency there doesn’t work.

    It surprises me that no one seems to worry about Obama’s inability to express himself extemporaneously. His oratorical ability has been so inflated that it has taken some time for people to catch on that he has “foot in mouth” disease when speaking without a script. That is part of why Clinton keeps winning the debates and increasing her standing in polls immediately following each debate. Hardly surprising that Obama would now try to evade debating.

    Obama is obviously being protective and trying to avoid the kind of major gaffe that would seriously damage his campaign, but is it fair for the press to let him get away with that (much the same way they let Bush do it)?

    What does it mean when a candidate can’t speak off the cuff about things? Does he not have command of the facts? Is he hiding unpopular opinions or bizarre attitudes? Does he have trouble, like McCain, concealing irritability? I’d like to know what it means that he won’t let himself be viewed unmanaged and unrehearsed. He has a gift for appearing relaxed when highly scripted, which I think has fooled people into thinking they are seeing the real Obama. I suspect it is an illusion — the kind of thing a long grueling campaign is supposed to wear away so we can all see what we would be getting from the candidate.

  • Is he hiding unpopular opinions or bizarre attitudes?

    I think he’s hiding secret scary aggressive black man Muslimitude! But we are not fooled.

  • It’s shocking that people are so willing to end the debates, just because their preferred candidate hasn’t done as well as his opponent in the most recent one. I agree the questions were trivial and Republican inspired, but that has been the rule in previous debates as well, including the one which gave Senator Obama his first inroad against Senator Clinton: remember the phony brouhaha over her flubbing the Republican-inspired question about licensces for illegal immigrants? I would prefer League of Women Voters hosting the debates without moderators and without commercial interruption, but there seems to be no demand for that on the part of the candidates.

    Ten million people watched the ABC debate. Clearly, there is still a demand for them on the part of the voters. If Obama is to win, he needs to master these issues now before he drags the Democrats to defeat in November.

  • Good show Mary. I just knew if I followed you long enough you would eventually make a compelling case for your Hillary over the scary black dude. Hillary is, indeed, a better debater. I would venture to say she might even rise to the level of a mast-debater.

  • I really can’t believe that Hillary’s latest strategy is saying she has “won” the popular vote– she’s shamelessly lying.

    Her math sucks and she is intentionally manipulating the tally to make herself come out on top.

    How so?

    Even if you include FL and MI (and by counting MI you’re giving Hillary votes and Obama 0) he’s still ahead because she’s NOT COUNTING ANY STATES THAT USED CAUCUSES.

    So Hillary wants to include the votes in Michigan and Florida while ignoring the votes in the following states– Iowa, Nevada, Idaho, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Maine, Hawaii, and Wyoming.

    If Hillary wants to honestly play the every-vote-must-count game she also MUST include some kind of an estimate of all of Obama’s caucus votes– which would put him (or merely keep) him ahead in the popular vote. SHE LITERALLY CAN’T WIN by the numbers unless she convinces 65%-75% of he superdelgates to support her. It’s not going to happen.

    She needs to gracefully bow out so we can direct all of this energy forward towards the GE.

  • Obama can’t win seniors because we expect real solutions for real problems, not a vague wish list. He can’t win us because we aren’t impressed by slogans and shallow rhetoric. We know that change requires knowledge and hard work. And we aren’t too hypnotized by the sing song delivery to notice that he was AWOL in both Senate seats and his grasp of policy is nonexistent. And we don’t want to see him waste the tons of political capital we now have on crude insults for the red States and dated liberal cliches that will do nothing to solve the horrible problems we face.

  • I’m so glad you can speak for everyone in your age group as though you are a monolithic group. That’s funny since I know quite a few seniors who are Obama supporters.

    So much being for older and wiser– you just sound bitter and cynical.

  • Hillary doesn’t need to raise money for media coverage in North Carolina or Indiana. The Republicans are doing it for her…..latest is….. Republicans blasting Rev. Wright and the 30 second time bite (on TV) over and over and over again in Indiana for all to see.

    How anyone can’t see the real truth here, in that, the Republicans are obsessed about having Hillary as their opponent. They have spent far too much money over the past two years on gathering negatives on Bill and Hillary. The amount of “smear” data on those two is endless. I’ve heard they have lots of stuff of Bill and his affairs AFTER his term as President ended. Do we really want to go through all that AGAIN?????? No thank you…..

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