Monday’s campaign round-up

June 16, 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:

* John Edwards sounded rather emphatic recently when he said he’s not interested in being Barack Obama’s running mate, but he sounded a little more open to the idea yesterday. “Well, I’d take anything he asked me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something I’ve done and it’s not a job that I’m seeking, ” Edwards told George Stephanopoulos.

* Speaking of VP speculation, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, currently the leading candidate for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, indicated Friday that he will not be on the presidential ticket. “Let me be clear about this: I have been working very hard these last few months to ask the people of Virginia to give me the honor of being their United States senator,” Warner said. “I will not seek, and I will not accept, any other opportunity.”

* The Obama campaign will take Ohio and Florida seriously, but it also believes it can get to 270 electoral votes without these two battleground states.

* A new Rasmussen poll in Arkansas shows John McCain leading Obama by nine, 48% to 39%. That may sound like a lot, but Rasmussen showed McCain leading Obama a month ago by 24 points, so this is a big step in the right direction.

* A new Mason-Dixon poll in Nevada shows a very close contest, with McCain edging Obama by two points, 44% to 42%. Oddly enough, the poll, commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, showed Obama worse off if he picked Clinton as a running mate, despite Clinton’s success in the Nevada caucuses in January.

* Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) and Norm Coleman (Minn.) are all considered potentially vulnerable this year, and all have adopted a new strategy to shore up in-state support: they’re running ads bragging about the pork they’ve brought to their respective states.

* Speaking of Republican Senate campaigns, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), chairman of the NRSC, was asked late last week whether the Republican Party was going to give up on open contests in Virginia and New Mexico, where Dems are favored. Ensign said bluntly, “You don’t waste money on races that don’t need it or you can’t win.”

* Bob Novak reported that McCain likes the idea of putting Joe Lieberman on his ticket, but doesn’t think he can get away with it.

* With friends like these, we don’t need enemies: “In Tennessee, Democrats are doing the Republicans’ dirty-work for them. Fred Hobbs, a member of the Tennessee Democratic Party’s executive committee, recently expressed fear that his party’s presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama may have connections to terrorists, and suggested that one prominent Tennessee congressman harbors the same suspicions.”

“In Tennessee, Democrats are doing the Republicans’ dirty-work for them. Fred Hobbs, a member of the Tennessee Democratic Party’s executive committee, recently expressed fear that his party’s presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama may have connections to terrorists, and suggested that one prominent Tennessee congressman harbors the same suspicions.”

Last week, several Southern commenters were up in arms about how some others here maligned the south, and how harmful that was to progressive electoral prospects.

To those who took such umbrage, I ask this: (1) can you show me where this sort of thing — Democratic officials smearing their own standard-bearer — is happening outside of the South? (2) presumably we can agree that this has nothing to do with uppity Yanks interfering and causing this – this is entirely a Southern responsibility? and (3) if you want to end the phenomenon of progressives looking down their noses at the South, how come you haven’t cleaned house and gotten rid of these freaks yet, and how can you complain about how you are perceived until you have voted these freaks out of the party positions?

  • Looks like the Democratic party is in need of a little housekeeping:

    Dan Boren
    Fred Hobbs
    Joe Lieberman

  • I lived in Tennessee for two of the longest years of my life and I am not surprised at all by those comments. There is an underlying tension between the democrat party and the black voter base they are supposed to be representing. A lot of the democrats in TN resemble “Dixiecrats” from the 50s and 60s and are really dems in name only. They are Bible thumping, gun carrying, pro-life, dems who rarely unite behind a true democrat cause.

  • Sure am glad to see Warner take that position – we can’t take one single senator out of the senate. If the Republicans have that 1 vote that gives them 41, they will filibuster everything. We have got to get a 61-seat Senate so we can get rid of the traitor Lieberman and have the majority for progress we need.

    The position Obama should offer John Edwards is Attorney General, with a brief to pursue the Bushscum for the rest of their worthless lives. And then put him on the Supreme Court where he can go after the bastards for the rest of his life.

  • Mondaze, I commented on how last week on how many progressives talk about Southerners and how counter-productive it is. I am not a Southerner, although my wife’s family mostly lives in the Southeast. My point was and still is that calling Southerners derogatory names does not help the cause in Southern states. We can respectfully argue the merits of the issues or we can call people freaks and worse. But, as my grandmother used to say, you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

  • Ha ha. Mr. McGoo wants to pick either of two pro-choice VPs (Lieberjerk or Tom Ridge) but the wingnuts he relies on would never, ever accept a pro-choice VP. And for more yummy wingnuts-eating-their-own-fest, see Bob NoFacts’ article:

    …The evangelicals are not an isolated problem for the Arizona senator. Enthusiasm for McCain inside the Republican coalition is in short supply. During the four months since McCain clinched the nomination, he has not satisfied conservatives opposed to his positions on global warming, campaign finance reform, immigration, domestic oil drilling and how to ban same-sex marriages…

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801689.html

    NoFacts forgot to mention the whole abortion thing of course, because that would be the wooden stake through McCain’s political heart. If McCain picked a pro-choice VP we would see a blowout of epic proportions as millions of single issue goobers stayed home in droves.

  • ATX Dem,
    You sound an awful lot like a Republican when you use the term “democrat party” instead of the correct “Democratic party”. And then you did it again when you said “They are Bible thumping, gun carrying, pro-life, dems who rarely unite behind a true democrat cause.” …That would be “democratic cause”.

    Now I’m not accusing you of anything…I’m just sayin’

    😉

  • So let me get this straight. Southern folk can say ignorant, racist things but we can’t *say* they’re ignorant racists because that would get them all riled up and we need their votes. Is that the story? We do need their votes, that’s true, but their words don’t give me a lot of confidence that they’d vote for Obama anyway, so why not at least point out to them that their words have consequences in the court of public opinion?

    It won’t change anything, probably, but it makes all of us sentient life forms feel whole bunches better. 😉

  • So let me get this straight. Southern folk can say ignorant, racist things but we can’t *say* they’re ignorant racists because that would get them all riled up and we need their votes. Is that the story? -Curmudgeon

    That’s McCain’s whole campaign in a nutshell. He can be wrong on Al Queda, Sunni, Shia, troop counts, and flip-flop ’til the cows come home, but calling him out on it is being ageist.

    I disagree with both. I’ll continue to call it like is. I live in reality.

  • (1) can you show me where this sort of thing — Democratic officials smearing their own standard-bearer — is happening outside of the South? — mondaze, @1

    Is Oklahoma (Dan Boren) considered to be the South? Or does the term “the South” stretch-to-fit?

  • I certainly consider Oklahoma part of “the South.”

    I would view it bounded on the west by Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas (inclusive) running all the way to the eastern shore. As it was in the Civil War, things get a little tricky on the northern border – some might argue that at least parts of Missouri belong in “the South,” and culturally Virginia is really two very different states looking at the DC suburbs versus rural Southern Virginia such that if we are dividing on a “whole state” basis it is hard to say where Virginia goes.

  • Curmudgeon @ #8:

    Gee, I didn’t know I was a ignorant racist. I sure am glad you were around to clear that up.

    libra @ #10:

    Well, technically it’s in the Midwest but since they have Southern accents, we might as well lump them in too!

  • McCain is not McAble to abide by any principles because, as his Flip\Flop/ing testifies, he has no principles.
    He’s even been known to postpone answering questions while he looks up, or asks an advisor what he has said or what his position is.

  • So let me get this straight. Southern folk can say ignorant, racist things but we can’t *say* they’re ignorant racists because that would get them all riled up and we need their votes.

    You can say they’re ignorant racists, you just can’t say they’re Southern ignorant racists. Besides, you don’t want to exclude the ignorant racists of the north, east and west. We need their votes too.

  • Oklahoma is in the South?

    Is that like Colorado being in the East?

  • (actually, given that even Iowa went Red in 2004 after being Blue in 2000, it is tempting to say anything south of the Twin Cities is “the South,” but i digress.

    LML, I live in the upper midwest. I certainly have never considered OK to be part of the midwest. Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Minn & the Dakotas.)

  • TAiO @ #14: Good point. We must stand united in our steadfast belief in the right of people to be ignorant racists no matter where they might call home.

    I’m starving. How about a ham sandwich and a brewski?

  • Oklahoma is absolutely a Southern State. Missouri is not. Despite the overt racism in MO.

  • * John Edwards …. Barack Obama’s running mate,..(?)

    Don’t get me wrong – I like both ehese guys (as much as one can like a politician)
    …but the cartoonists will go nutz

  • I have a suggestion for the Obama campaign. Every time a Blue Dog Democrat says Obama’s too liberal for the locals, I think the Senator should go to that district, put on a big rally, and say, “I am not afraid to come down here and ask for your vote in November. And I’m not afraid to ask you to support [INSERT CANDIDATE’S NAME HERE], because I will need your help, [his/her] help, and EVERYBODY’S help in solving the problems this country is facing now.

    The Senator has been willing to push back against GOP opposition. How much fun would it be to watch him push back at opponents in his own party by ENDORSING them!!

  • Ensign said bluntly, “You don’t waste money on races that don’t need it or you can’t win.”

    Holy crow.
    The GOP has just agreed to trade Dean’s/Newt’s 50 state strategy that they won (Newt focused on moderate New England Republican wins that were distinctly blue territory) for our failed post-Clinton strategy (battlegrounds only.)

    Somebody pinch me.
    I’ve warned people the Republicans are NOT stupid.
    Could I have been wrong?

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