Thursday’s political round-up

October 25, 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:

* Let there by no doubt that Hillary Clinton plans to fight hard to win Iowa, and possibly land a knock-out punch: “Sources tell First Read the Clinton campaign is making a push to significantly step up their efforts in Iowa. They are aiming to add more 100 paid staff in the Hawkeye State by Nov. 1.” Adding 100 staffers to the existing team would be considerable — according to an analysis by the Des Moines Register, Obama has 145 paid staffers in Iowa, Edwards has 130, and Clinton has 117.

* Joe Biden, whose history of questionable language on race hasn’t done his presidential campaign any favors, appears to have stuck his foot in his mouth again, this time during an interview with the Washington Post editorial board. The Delaware senator certainly implied that DC’s large African-American population is responsible for the city’s struggling school system. “There’s less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American,” Biden said. “There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.” His campaign scrambled to insist he was referring to socio-economic support systems.

* Chris Dodd unveiled a new TV ad yesterday, a lighthearted spot set in an Iowa barbershop, which emphasizes all the work the senator’s done that turned his hair white. If you listen carefully at the very end of the ad, you can hear a not-so-subtle shot at the flap surrounding John Edwards’ haircut, which may or may not rub people the wrong way.

* Much to my surprise, Mike Huckabee’s campaign ended up getting enough questions about a recent debate mistake that it had to issue a formal response. On Sunday, Huckabee claimed “most” of the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence were ministers, when in fact, only one out of 56 were. Yesterday, the former governor said, “While I do appreciate the interest and media attention that my comments sparked, I believe it’s critically important to remember history in its proper context — and not to extract the lessons that we may hope to portend. Ours is, and was, and hopefully will always be, ‘One Nation under God.'”

* John McCain told some New Hampshire workers at a small weapons factory that he not only wants to catch Osama Bin Laden if elected, but said he “will shoot him with your products.” He later told reporters, “I certainly didn’t mean I would actually shoot him. I am certainly angry at him, but I was only speaking in a way that was trying to emphasize my point.” (Several conservative bloggers criticized McCain for backpedaling.)

* Yesterday afternoon, the Obama campaign changed its website to start organizing volunteers to help respond to the California wildfires. Shortly thereafter, the other leading Democratic campaigns followed suit.

* Politico: “A newly formed political action committee is aiming to stop Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary by calling into question her progressive credentials. ‘We think there are other Democratic presidential candidates who are both more progressive and have a better chance of beating the Republicans than she does,’ said the president of Democratic Courage, Glenn Hurowitz. He declined to tip his hand on the group’s case against Clinton, but said the PAC plans a paid media campaign in the early primary states to make its position clear.”

* This would be a very big surprise: “Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is considering endorsing Rudy Giuliani for the GOP presidential nomination and will meet with him Thursday in Washington to hear his views on abortion.” Brownback has also met with McCain.

* And finally, Fred Thompson’s habit of losing aides continued this week when media consultant Nelson Warfield left the campaign, and Dan Hughes, a top backer of Thompson in New Hampshire, decided to give up on Thompson and join McCain’s team. Asked to comment on the departures, the candidate said, “You know, the campaign can address that. I can’t really address who’s doing — and who was doing — exactly what at every level of this campaign.”

What the hell is Huckabee talking about? I’ve read this three times now and I have no idea. Couldn’t he have just said, “I loves the Baby Jeebus” and have done with it?

  • “…I believe it’s critically important to remember history in its proper context — and not to extract the lessons that we may hope to portend.”

    In other words, when facts are inconvenient, stick with what you wish was true. (Which is the exact opposite of the plain reading of Huckabee’s statement.)

    Huckabee also said, “[The Founders] were willing to die for their belief that our Creator has bestowed on us certain unalienable rights….” Well, yeah. People throughout history have been willing to die for a belief in a Creator, whether it’s a creator who ordains one family as a ruling dynasty, or a creator who demands that you pray on one day instead of another.

  • Huckabee also said that 29 of the 56 signers had the equivalent of seminary degrees, even if they did not choose to be “ministers” – so he wasn’t really correcting an error, he was giving the reasons why his statement was correct. Big difference.

    Joe Biden…now there’s a guy who is the embodiment of “gaffe-prone;” it’s almost like a kind of Tourette’s with him.

  • I think Chris Dodd’s new ad is great. How refreshing is it to get back to some gentle ribbing instead of the murderous sewage that gushes from the rightwing hate machine 24/7 these days?

    And as for Mike Huckabee, he’s still getting it wrong. There’s an excellent item that lays out the history and issues of ‘One Nation Under God’ here:

    http://www.au.org/site/DocServer/One_Nation_Under_God.pdf?docID=154

    An excerpt:

    —————————————-

    Q. How did “under God” get into the Pledge of Allegiance?

    A. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister. Bellamy crafted the Pledge for a magazine called ‘The Youth’s Companion’ as part of a patriotic exercise to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage to the New World. Bellamy, who was an advocate of church-state separation, did not include religious references in his Pledge. In 1954, Congress inserted the phrase “under God” into the Pledge after a lobbying campaign led by the Knights of Columbus. This was during the McCarthy era, and the change was seen as a blow against ‘godless communism’ in the Soviet Union.

    ————————————————————–

    So all that stuff about America being “under God” since 1776 or whatever is just plain balderdash.

  • It’s about time someone had some Democratic Courage. Maybe they could put on a demonstration for the Democratic leadership in Congress while they’re at it.

    Somehow, I have been labeled a “Hillary-hater” on occasion. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. I have nothing against HRC. I have a BIG problem with her record in the Senate.

    1. Voted in favor of the Patriot Act twice.
    2. Voted in favor of the AUMF in Iraq
    3. Voted in favor of the REAL ID Act to replace state driver’s licenses with a microchipped national ID.
    4. Voted in favor of the Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (granted the Dictator-In-Chief increased power to declare martial law and use the military as a domestic police force).
    5. Voted in favor of the AUMF in Iran (Kyl-Lieberman).

    She’s a NeoCon in a liberal’s pantsuit.

  • Chris Dodd unveiled a new TV ad yesterday, a lighthearted spot set in an Iowa barbershop, which emphasizes all the work the senator’s done that turned his hair white. If you listen carefully at the very end of the ad, you can hear a not-so-subtle shot at the flap surrounding John Edwards’ haircut, which may or may not rub people the wrong way.

    See, here’s a reason not to like Chris Dodd. This is the kind of shot he shouldn’t be taking at one of our people. It makes you wonder why he’s running.

    (Several conservative bloggers criticized McCain for backpedaling.)

    This story is wacky… all he has to say is it was totally tongue in cheek, and we’ll do to Bin Laden whatever it is the law calls for when and if we catch him.

    The conservative bloggers don’t have to stick up for public officials’ statements of vigiliante justice. Shooting someone is something Saddam Hussein would do, not something an American president would do. We have a system of government and laws so individual people don’t go around killing whoever they want– so people are organized and governed in a smart way– not to ratify that. It’s totally understandable if people want to kill Osama bin Laden, but we don’t need people using lynch language and edging us away from our institutions when our institutions are perfectly capable of taking care of Osama Bin Laden when we catch him without individuals deciding what to do with him on their own.

    Imagine if some conservative fuckwad went to Pakistan for some reason, happened to see Osama Bin Laden, and shot him with a gun he picked up at some Pakistani market. The guy may think he has done something great and proved his credentials as a ‘real man’ (‘If I ever saw Bin Laden, I’d shoot him right away…”), but think about it. If Bin Laden dies, then we don’t get a chance to interrogate him. That may be the first and best chance we have to learn about undiscovered terrorist cells and terrorist plots in progress.

    Right wing bloggers and pundits enouraging this stupid talk is nonsense. The people who think that kind of talk are fools and have a totally distorted idea of what it is our country needs. Just because they themselves are chickenshit they think everyone else must be more cowardly than them just because other people don’t go around pretending to be tough all the time, and they think the rest of us need ‘toughening up’ by these stupid means. To those people I say ‘Get a brain.’

  • Well most (not Huckabee’s most, but the real most) people who came to the US and took it over have been Christian. It was founded by people who called themselves Christian. Almost no elected officials are non-Christian. So it IS a Christian country. Separation and church and state are vital, but to call it crazy for someone to say this is a Christian country is just, well, crazy.

    There is zero place for subtlety in the presidential campaign. Zero.

  • We have a system of government and laws so individual people don’t go around killing whoever they want– so people are organized and governed in a smart way– not to ratify that.

    You know, doing what someone like Osama Bin Laden does.

  • Out here in Southern California we’re all waiting for Bush to announce that the Army Corps of Engineers is going to rebuild our levees to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

  • It will be very entertaining to hear Bigot Brownback rationalize his support of Emperor Rudey, if it happens. The faithful may actually have to think for themselves for a change if they keep getting conflicting messages from the god machine.

  • pizza tumor –

    As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

    US Treaty with Tripoli, 1796-1797 Emphasis mine.

    The US was not founded as a Christian nation – the US was founded as a free nation of free people open to all religions including, explicitly, non-Christian religions such as “Mahometism” (what we know today better as “Islam”).

    There is a difference between saying that a nation was “founded by people who were Christians” and that a nation is a “Christian nation”. The first is a statement of fact about the founders – the second is a statement about the governing principles of the nation. We are a nation founded by Enlightened Christians and Enlightened Men of a Christian Heritage, and we are a nation that is primarily populated by people who call themselves Christians. But we are NOT and have NEVER BEEN a “Christian nation”. The US Constitution is a wholly un-Biblican and un-Christian document, and it was considered heretical and decried as diabolic by the Christianists of the time. The fact that their descendants have chosen historical revisionism over outright condemnation of the document just points out how entrenched the idea of religious freedom has become to our national character (a wholly UNCHRISTIAN philosophy, by the way – the Christian philosophy is that there is ONE true way and that other paths are false. Religious tolerance is not a Christian principle at all – it’s a pragmatic Enlightenment-era principle).

  • ***pizza tomour*** keep in mind that native Americans were already settled here and they were not a Christian nation but they were moral.

    Bush had OBL in his sights in Aug. ‘07 and didn’t take him out. Can’t get rid of the Boogeyman.

    Swan***’terrorist cells’ was a term used by Stalin to describe groups of hidden capitalists acting as Russians until they were given the order to attack. It’s a fascist fear mongering term that works well in the movies. But you knew that.

    American ‘terrorists cells’ are more like the young republicans who went to Florida to disrupt the vote count that would have made Gore the actual elected president, or the sleeper cells of Regent University (semi) law school working in the WH or the DoJ who do whatever their ‘holy’ leader tells them whether legal or not, or DoD evangelicals who suddenly announce they go by biblical law(as translated by the demagogue Hagee) rather than the constitution and start attacking dissidents and imprisoning non believers screaming long live Blackwater…the true ‘Christian Soldiers’. All ragheads are terrorists.

    Agree with Anne***Huckabee wasn’t acting like he had made any mistake, offered no clear explanation about the issue at all(his response was non sensical) except the last sentence which was the point his overly exaggerated facts tried to reach in the first place,… “Ours is, and was, and hopefully will always be, ‘One Nation under God.’”

    ***Thanks Crumdgeon*** for setting Huckabee straight on the “and was” part of his statement. His history is distorted in its vision, it’s what he wishes it was rather than what it actually is. After all, God created America in 1776 right after the flood.

  • ***NonyNony*** Christian means followers of Christ and these enlightened men you speak of were as much Deists as Christian by definition. And the principles by which this nation was built are not particular to Christians but are rather universal principles that can be found in nearly all Religions.

    Saying this nation was founded on “Christian” principles means you are saying it was founded on principles of one particular religion over another. There were Christians by religion involved in founding our government but “Principled” men is the one complete definition to describe the founders. Leave “Christian” out of your definition because these principles are not unique to the “followers of Christ” alone…they are universal. We are a nation of principles…a principled nation…not a “followers of Christ” nation.

  • So history in its proper context actually had most of our founders being ministers, even though at the time only one was.

    Who knew?

  • Equivalent of a seminary degree? Here’s where I imagine that came from. Schools like Harvard were founded by Protestant denominations who felt that a person could only be a minister with a college education, but who didn’t like to send their young back to England for training, where they so often died of endemic smallpox. So my guess is that the 29 is simply another way of saying college-educated. Not that any of those 29 ever had any intent to become ministers.

    Christianity was not in fashion among the leaders of this country at its founding. The educated elite looked down upon the kind of Christianity we have today as superstitious. Jefferson wrote a different version of the New Testament, taking out all of the supernatural bits. Thomas Paine wrote a book slamming religion. A minister in the mid-nineteenth century complained that of all of the presidents so far (about six), none of them had been Christians. And while some of those on paper appear to have been nominal Christians — stating for public consumption a religious association — their private correspondence generally reveals a dislike for organized religion and often a more explicit rejection of Christianity.

  • Maybe Huckleberry thinks the founding fathers were flim-flam artists like he is, and therefore they probably had “Seminary Degrees” from one of the diploma mills operating on the internet back in 1776…

    Columbia Evangelical Seminary is not Accredited

    Columbia Evangelical Seminary is not accredited. However, as stated above, if you do not absolutely need a degree from an accredited school, why spend the extra money earning one when a degree from a non-accredited school may serve your purposes just as well?

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