Monday’s political round-up

September 17, 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:

* On Saturday morning, Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton. “I’m very pleased today to announce my endorsement of Senator Clinton to be our next President of the United States,” Clark said on a conference call (which I was on). “She’ll be a great leader for the United States of America, and I think she’ll be a great commander in chief for the men and women in the armed forces.” Asked if he would consider a role in a future Clinton administration, Clark said he had not considered it.

* After a tense showdown with the DNC, the Florida Democratic Party appears to be backing down over the date of its presidential primary. Faced with the prospect of losing all of its convention delegates, the state party will apparently hold a non-binding “beauty-contest” primary on January 29, and will be delegates at a state convention on February 5.

* Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), the last House Republican from New England and perennial DCCC target, is threatening not to seek re-election unless the House GOP leadership agrees to make him the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “I’m 61 years old. I’ve been in Congress 20 years,” Shays told the Hartford Courant. “If I have to fight to become chairman of a committee, given the job I’ve done, I need to move on.”

* The Clinton campaign quietly dropped Angelique Pirozzi, the senator’s Iowa field director, from the team late last week. Clinton’s campaign would not confirm whether Pirozzi had resigned or had been fired; “She is no longer with the campaign,” was all spokesman Mo Elleithee would offer. The WaPo noted, “Pirozzi, often described as a protege of uber organizer Michael Whouley, has a long history in Iowa Democratic presidential politics, having served as caucus manager for Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 victory and as deputy caucus manager for then-Vice President Al Gore in 2000. In between those races, Pirozzi managed Kerry’s 2002 re-election race to the Senate.”

* And former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who lost his Rhode Island seat last year, has officially left the Republican Party. “It’s not my party any more,” he said. Chafee said he disaffiliated from the party “in June or July,” making him an unaffiliated voter. He did so quietly, and until yesterday, he said, “No one’s asked me about it.” He said he made the move because “I want my affiliation to accurately reflect my status.”

Greenspan: The Iraq war is a war for oil.

Me: Duh.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070917/ts_alt_afp/useconomybankgreenspan

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, for years an inscrutable seer on the economy, is causing a stir by alleging in his new memoir that “the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Greenspan, who as head of the US central bank was famous for his tight-lipped reserve, is uncharacteristically direct, also accusing President George W. Bush of abandoning Republican principles on the economy.

“I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows — the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he wrote in reported excerpts of “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” which is set for release on Monday…

  • CB wrote: “And former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who lost his Rhode Island seat last year, has officially left the Republican Party.”

    Guys like Chafee and Greenspan are so pathetic. Their admissions and realizations come only after they’ve been driven from office. They’re not even ‘deathbed conversions’: it’s more like they’ve converted only after they’ve died and had to face the afterlife (and, for the record, the correct answer is Buddhism, if I have to pick one).

  • petorado wrote: “This may add a new wrinkle to Bush’s plans.”

    You say that as if he actually had some sort of coherent plan… 🙂

  • Isn’t time that our elected representatives banned corporations from providing “soldiers for hire”? It reflects poorly on our country and could potentially entangle America in conflicts that we are not actively involved in.

  • Bush has a plan, it’s called “Make a huge mess for someone else to clean up”.

    He’s been using that plan all his life, and so far he’s gotten away with it.

    Thanks to Nancy Pelosi, he’s going to get away with it yet again.

  • “I’m 61 years old. I’ve been in Congress 20 years,” Shays told the Hartford Courant. “If I have to fight to become chairman of a committee, given the job I’ve done, I need to move on.”

    Actually, Chris, you need to be in the MAJORITY to be a Chairman. You’re gonna be a LOT older than 61 when that happens if you remain a Republican.

  • Just days after highlighting his own foreign policy inexperience in a boomerang attack on his Democratic opponents, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is at it again. Returning to his favorite bogeyman in Tehran, Romney called on the United Nations to ban Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from speaking to the world body next week and instead indict him for genocide.

    For the details, see:
    “Romney to UN: Indict Iran’s Ahmadinejad.”

  • I think Florida wins BIG

    I think that the media will treat the beauty contest as a real contest and the winner will get a big bounce from it.

  • And the mercenaries from Blackwater will go where? Why, they’ll simply hire on with one of the many other “contracting” companies. Probably won’t even go back to the States. The CEO and his henchmen c an retire in luxury and the mercenary war rages on. BFDeal. What a farce!

    As for Chaffee, Greenspan and the like: Bite me, you damn enablers. Greenspan knew all along that he was in league with the devil (read Suskind’s book The Price of Loyalty) and went along with the Bush cabal anyway. And Chaffee, that paragon of moderation, always gave Bush his vote when it was most consequential. Add them to Tenet and the rest of the late converts on the gravedigger shift in the neighborhoods of Iraq. It’d serve every one of them right. If they’re looking for absolution, they can look in church.

  • Angelique Pirozzi made irrational decisions and has no management skills. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was fired or left because of her own power trip.

  • Angelique Pirozzi is one of the finest people in the business with years and years of political campaign experience. Who else would you want running your Iowa field operation but the woman who helped win it for Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000?

  • I worked with Angelique on a campaign in Rhode Island in order to get a casino here. Not only was Angelique FIRED from that campaign, she was responsible for the hiring of some of the most incompetent buffoons I’ve ever worked with in my life. It’s not a wonder she was FIRED from the Clinton campaign — what is a wonder is why she was hired in the first place.

    • Comments are closed.