Friday’s political round-up

September 7, 2007

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:

* John Edwards and Hillary Clinton continue to pick up union endorsements, with each earning the support of a major transportation union yesterday. The 200,000-strong Transport Union Workers threw its weight behind Edwards’ campaign, while the 65,000-strong Transportation Communications Union endorsed Clinton. Edwards, meanwhile, also announced that he now has 2 million union supporters, more than any other candidate.

* Chris Dodd announced yesterday that he will not support any funding bill for Iraq that does not include a withdrawal timeline. Dodd challenged Clinton and Obama to make the same commitment.

* Putting an end to some speculation about his ambitions, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (D) announced that he will not run for governor of Louisiana.

* A Pew Research Center poll released yesterday showed that Americans perceive Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as the least religious of the major presidential candidates. Giuliani, sure, but Clinton has always struck me as one of the most religious. Once again, there’s a gap between perception and reality when it comes to the senator from New York.

* The DSCC held a bumper-sticker-message contest for the 2008 cycle, and announced the winner this morning. Not bad.

* The GOP primary to replace retiring Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) hasn’t even started yet, but there are signs that it’s going to get ugly. The far-right Club for Growth is already going after Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), blasting him for having “one of the most economically liberal records among Republicans in the House.”

* And the LAT had an interesting piece on Fred Thompson’s youth and his start in GOP politics. Apparently, Thompson married at 17 after getting his high-school sweetheart pregnant. His first wife was the daughter of one of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee’s leading Republican families, which helped put Thompson though school and got his career started. As Dana Goldstein put it, “[T]here’s nothing like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

The DSCC held a bumper-sticker-message contest for the 2008 cycle, and announced the winner this morning. Not bad.

That is a good slogan! But I wonder how many “normal” people know that Bush called himself “the decider”?

I would prefer a slogan that people who aren’t political junkies can “get”, like

“The GOP (heart) W. You know what to do “

  • Associated Press line of the Day:

    “Bush also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He later told reporters the two leaders talked about missile defense and fishing.“

  • Old FreddieT got started being lazy early, didn’t he? Smart boy, old Freddie. Just hump a rich guy’s daughter and never have to do any real work again. Use her daddy’s connections to get to Washington and the sky’s the limit.

    Sure makes him qualified to be president, don’t it?

  • Way to go Dodd!

    As somebody remarked on DK, if he doesn’t stop acting like a leader I may just have to vote to make him one!

  • “Chris Dodd announced yesterday that he will not support any funding bill for Iraq that does not include a withdrawal timeline”

    Why can’t these gutless wonders get it through their collective head (no, I don’t mean a washroom stall) that they’d be far better off if they just said that they “will not support any funding bill for Iraq”? Without lifting a finger they have the votes for that. Of course, such a strategy would requires them to have balls.

    I forgot: we’re talking Reid and Pelosi and compromise. Compromise, as the Democrats use the term, means give the minority Republicans everything they want.

  • I always enjoy the right-wing fetishization of Bolshevism, particularly since their hero Dubsie-Doodle has merged the political ruthlessness of Stalin with the operational acumen of Marx. Harpo, that is, not Karl.

    Norman Hsu’s evidently a scumbag, and all the Democrats who took his money should give it to charity. Most of them have; Hillary Clinton, whom you people so hate despite the fact that on policy grounds she’s much closer to you than to most of us, is the only presidential contender to my knowledge who hasn’t done so. So what more are you looking for?

  • *”… Americans perceive Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as the least religious of the major presidential candidates. Giuliani, sure, but Clinton has always struck me as one of the most religious.”

    MOST religious? What did I miss?

    Richardson is so religious, he knows God’s will about which state primary should be first. *snark*

    Obama has been exposed to both Christianity and Islam and has engaged in rather intensive world religions study. Maybe he’s not religious, but one might think such study would bring on any purported benefits.

    For the others, it seems a non-issue. Hil included.

  • Re #6: I notice you don’t make a single mention of Robert Lichfield, a top fund-raiser for Mitt Romney, who has been named in a federal civil suit charging the physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children.

    Odd.

    ————————————————————————-

    A top Utah fund-raiser for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign – who has links to an organization facing a civil lawsuit alleging child abuse – is no longer part of Romney’s state finance team.

    Robert Lichfield of La Verkin, who founded the umbrella group called the Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, brought in some $300,000 earlier this year for Romney during a single Utah event and has donated tens of thousands to the former Massachusetts governor and other Republicans in recent years.

    Lichfield is named in a federal lawsuit charging that students of the “behavior modification” schools with ties to WWASPS were subjected to “physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse.” The suit had 140 defendants at last count.

    The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, alleges brazen acts of child abuse, including that students of the various programs had been forced to eat their own vomit, clean toilets with a toothbrush and brush their teeth afterward, were chained or locked in dog cages, kicked, beaten, thrown and slammed to the ground and forced into sexual acts.

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_6818837

  • Google is our friend.

    1) It keeps one from erroneous HRC bashing. on August 30, it was announced she would give the money to charity.

    2) It also makes it easy to find what CB means about HRC and religion, the good and the bad of it.

    In fact, Clinton’s God talk is more complicated—and more deeply rooted—than either fans or foes would have it, a revelation not just of her determination to out-Jesus the gop, but of the powerful religious strand in her own politics. Over the past year, we’ve interviewed dozens of Clinton’s friends, mentors, and pastors about her faith, her politics, and how each shapes the other. And while media reports tend to characterize Clinton’s subtle recalibration of tone and style as part of the Democrats’ broader move to recapture the terrain of “moral values,” those who know her say there’s far more to it than that.

  • A bit OT: A Canadian take on those “accidentally-sent nuclear missiles.

    I haven’t seen one word about it published in the US today, which is really peculiar. What’s going on?

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