Friday’s political round-up

November 9, 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:

* In an interview with the WaPo, Barack Obama explained his approach to negative campaigning. “I want to campaign the same way I govern, which is to respond directly and forcefully with the truth,” Obama said. “That means I’m not going to paint a caricature of Senator Clinton. I think she’s a smart, able person. I think anybody who tries to paint her as all negative is engaging in caricature, and when you start slipping into that mode, it’s hard to come back.” Responding to the notion that this might make him appear timid, Obama said, “First of all, you start losing credibility. Secondly, I’m not that good at saying things I don’t really believe. Maybe this is considered a weakness in my political style. I try to stick to what I think.”

* In the same interview, the Post noted that John Edwards was critical of Obama yesterday, saying his style is too conciliatory, and the times call for a leader who won’t compromise. Obama suggested Edwards had reconstituted himself since his last campaign. “John wasn’t this raging populist four years ago when he ran” for the previous Democratic nomination, he said. “He certainly wasn’t when he ran for the U.S. Senate. He was in the U.S. Senate for six years, and as far as I can tell wasn’t taking on the lobbyists and special interests. It’s a matter of, do you walk the walk that you talk?”

* In still more Obama news, the Illinois senator is still screwing up the Social Security argument. He told the National Journal, “You know, Senator Clinton says that she’s concerned about Social Security but is not willing to say how she would solve the Social Security crisis, then I think voters aren’t going to feel real confident that this is a priority for her.” There is no “Social Security crisis.”

* AP: “The Republican Party said Thursday that it would deprive New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, Michigan and Wyoming of half their delegates to the national convention because they planned to hold their presidential nominating contests on dates earlier than the party’s rules allow. The rules require the punishment of states that hold their nominating contests before Feb. 5.” The Republican National Committee vote to punish the five states was 121 to 9.

* The latest Zogby poll out of Iowa shows Mike Huckabee moving up into second place in the GOP presidential race, while Mitt Romney holds a comfortable lead in the top spot. Zogby poll shows Romney leading with 31%, followed by Huckabee with 15%. Rudy Giuliani is third with 11%, while Fred Thompson is fourth with 10%. No other Republican was in double digits.

* Edwards is poised to pick up the endorsement of Iowans for Sensible Priorities, which reportedly has 10,000 committed caucus goers. The group’s litmus-test issue is support for shifting “15% of wasteful Pentagon spending into other priorities.” Apparently, Edwards said what the group wanted to hear.

* Bob Novak reports that much of the conservative movement was let down over the weekend when Fred Thompson said he’s against a constitutional amendment banning abortion, and wouldn’t want to run on the party’s 2004 platform that calls for such an amendment. Novak said Thompson’s comments “sent e-mails flying across the country, reflecting astonishment and rage from pro-life Republicans who had turned to Thompson as their best presidential bet for 2008.”

* How nervous is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about his re-election chances next year? McConnell became the very first senator in the chamber to launch a TV ad campaign a full year before the 2008 elections: “The ads are airing on broadcast television in the Louisville and Lexington markets for at least one week. The buy costs approximately $117,000 per week. The positive spot touts McConnell’s leadership on behalf of Kentucky, and compares him to the last Kentuckian to serve as his party’s Majority Leader, Democratic Sen. Alben Barkley.” You don’t suppose this has anything to do with Dems excelling in statewide races a few days ago, do you?

* Hillary Clinton has put her very-impressive rapid-response operation online. It’s impressive.

* Arab Americans are increasingly looking at a Giuliani presidency as a nightmare scenario. “Dr. James Zogby, a prominent Democrat and founder of the Arab American Institute, sounded a similar alarm: ‘[A Giuliani administration] is the scariest thing I could imagine at this point. He’s Bush on steroids or Cheney without nuance. He is like the kid who group up in the tough neighborhood who wasn’t tough and now has the chance to sound tough. And I find it frightening because he preys on the worst instinct of people… You would be correct to call his administration a doomsday scenario.'”

I’d say Dr. Zogby hit that nail on the head.

Barack is showing he’s pretty good with the two edges of his sword.

As far as Iowa, how the mighty McCain has fallen. We won’t have him to kick around for too much longer.

  • If there’s one issue that’s a litmus test for me as a Democratic voter, it’s Social Security. I don’t give a damn what else Obama does or says, if he keeps giving away the farm on that issue I will refuse to vote for him even if he gets the nomination because if I can’t trust him on what is a Democratic legacy he can’t be trusted period.

  • Much head-scratching must’ve ensued after Obama’s discussion of negative campaigning. How can it be done without destroying your opponenet?? Me no understand!

    In the broadest sense, it’s negative campaigning anytime you talk about why your opponent shouldn’t be elected, rather than talking about why you should be. As Obama explains, this can be done honestly and fairly. Unfortunately, we’ve been primed to perceive negative campaigning of any sort as vituperative. And we love it!

  • Yesterday I posted on The Carpetbagger that I would vote either for Obama or Edwards, but this morning after waking up to the fact that Dodd/Biden/Clinton/Obama did not bother to vote in the Mukasey confirmation and that both Clinton and Obama are for expanding NAFTA while Edwards is not, I would say that Edwards is the only viable Democratic candidate left standing. At least he is an outsider.

  • seriously…pull your head out of hillary clinton’s axx. it’s a primary and recent events have demonstrated that it remains a horse race of great candidates.

  • I know Obama was busy in 2004 with his own Senate campaign in Illinois, but John Edwards was making his “Two Americas” pitch at every opportunity during the Democratic primaries back then, and was far more of a populist than Kerry was. So Obama’s criticism of Edwards on that score rings a bit hollow.

  • Didn’t Obama just make comments regarding Clinton, that as a young adult in the 60s she, like every other person who was a young adult inthe 60s, only knows controversy/fighting and not compromise, and that we saw that play out in the 90s? Isn’t that negative campaigning and caricature? ‘Cause a large part of the 90s I remember, and the president who was in office from 1992-2000, seemed to be a young adult in the 60s and one who was very able to compromise and did compromise on many things to get them through the political process (not that I am judging the compromises one way or the other).

  • It is interesting to me that Democratic netroots folks are so adamantly opposed to admitting a problem in social security. I suspect this comes from being burned by bad proposals before (Bush etc)… but you tell me.

    While there is no immediate crisis, fundamentally, Social Security is a pyramid scheme that depends on a reasonably small ratio of elders to young/middle-aged earners. That ratio is already shifting, and is poised to swing dramatically as both our birthrate falls and baby-boomers retire.

    Are there other, bigger and nearer problems? Absolutely! Is Social Security still broken? Yes it is! I don’t know why Barack has chosen to focus on Social Security over Medicare, but it is still a pending problem that will need to be addressed.

  • As one who, aged 12, shook hands with then Vice-President Alben Barkley (didn’t wash that hand for a week), I resent Mitch McConnell claiming any connection whatsoever. I can honestly say, a la Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 debates, “I knew Alben Barkley and, Mr. McConnell, you’re no Alben Barkley.”

  • “That ratio is already shifting, and is poised to swing dramatically as both our birthrate falls and baby-boomers retire.”

    …Which is why we have a Social Security trust fund. Depending on economic growth, that may be enough to get through the Boomer bulge. And when they’re gone, the problem will be solved.

  • “…Which is why we have a Social Security trust fund. Depending on economic growth, that may be enough to get through the Boomer bulge. And when they’re gone, the problem will be solved.”

    Not to mention the potential positive effects, on the funding issue, of a well-thought out and effective immigration policy.

  • It occurs to me that this whole shocking spectacle of a free-for-all to move up primary elections could actually end up playing to the Democrats strengths this year. In fact, it’s entirely possible we could finally end up seeing what Terry MacCauliffe was trying to accomplish when he opened the flood gates on this mess back in 2003, actually happen — even perhaps taking what he had tried to do a step farther, to turn the tables completely on Republicans.

    It’s really quite easy to imagine a scenario where a Democratic candidate sews up the nomination very early, say by mid-February even, with plenty of cash still on hand to spare for taking potshots at Republicans anytime one of them manages to poke their head up out of an ongoing dog fight for their nomination — a fight that leaves the eventual winner broke, bloodied, bruised and exhausted and an easy target from there on out to the convention, with the RNC underfunded and in disarray, unable to provide much effective cover for them. IOW, it’s well within the realm of possibility that Republicans could end up in a position that past Democratic candidates could tell them a lot about being in. If so, I sincerely hope they enjoy the experience every bit as much as our guys have in the past.

    But I still think all this insane front-loading of the primary season basically sucks for the Democratic process in the longer term. We really need to try and make sure some serious rethinking of the system happens before the next presidential election rolls around. This has gone way past ridiculous.

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