Tuesday’s campaign round-up

April 8, 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:

* At least partial vindication: “Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has stopped telling a story of a pregnant woman’s medical tragedy after an Ohio hospital challenged its accuracy last weekend. But recent accounts of the episode have omitted key details that suggest there was more truth in the essence of Clinton’s tale than her critics, and even her presidential campaign, have acknowledged.”

* In keeping with the general trend, a new Quinnipiac poll shows the Democratic race in Pennsylvania tightening, with Clinton now leading Obama by six, 50% to 44%. Quinnipiac had Clinton ahead by nine last week.

* Speaking of polls, SurveyUSA’s first Oregon poll shows Obama leading Clinton, 52% to 42%. Oregon’s primary is May 20, the same day as Kentucky’s primary, where Clinton is heavily favored.

* The Clinton campaign has a new ad in Indiana featuring the state’s most popular Democrat, Sen. Evan Bayh, who tells viewers that Clinton will have “a spine of steel” in fighting for working people and against unfair trade deals.

* Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida said that if there isn’t a satisfactory resolution to the dispute over the state’s delegates, there could be “blood on the floor” in Denver during the convention. I’m going to assume he was speaking metaphorically.

* Obama was asked in San Francisco the other day what he’s looking for in a running mate. “I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I’m not as expert on,” he said, adding, “I think a lot of people assume that might be some sort of military thing to make me look more Commander-in-Chief-like. Ironically, this is an area — foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain.”

* Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D) of Illinois, an Obama backer, claims she knows of eight House Dems who will back Obama as superdelegates, but are staying quiet about it for now. “It’s just a question of whether or not — or when — they come out and say it,” Schakowsky said.

* This ought to be a fascinating event: “Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will participate in a faith and values forum that will be broadcast live Sunday exclusively on CNN. Clinton and Obama, in back-to-back interviews, will field questions from CNN’s Campbell Brown and Newsweek’s Jon Meacham as well as prominent members from the faith community. The Compassion Forum, sponsored by Faith in Public Life, will air at 8 p.m. ET on April 13.”

* Interesting: “For an advocate of straight talk and government transparency, John McCain has been less than clear with a voter-education nonprofit, on whose board he serves, about why he hasn’t responded to its survey of issue positions. Now, after nine months, 17 phone calls, and 8 emails asking McCain to state exactly where he stands on key issues, Montana-based Project Vote Smart is poised to kick McCain off its board later this week.”

Clinton will have “a spine of steel” in fighting for working people and against unfair trade deals.

Mark Penn couldn’t have said it better. (cough)

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D) of Illinois, an Obama backer, claims she knows of eight House Dems who will back Obama as superdelegates, but are staying quiet about it for now. “It’s just a question of whether or not — or when — they come out and say it,” Schakowsky said.

More spines of steel, I guess. Come on, superdelegates. There is literally no way Hillary wins this without overturning the votes that have been (and will be) cast. Unless you think a coup by superdelegate would be good for the party, it’s time to step up and serve the nation by being brave enough to piss off the Clintons.

  • RE: The unvetted Clinton lie about an uninsured woman:

    In the linked article, the conclusion is as follows, emphasis mine:

    Clinton erred in telling audiences that the Ohio woman lacked insurance when seeking help for her troubled pregnancy. But according to Casto’s account, Bachtel’s medical tragedy began with circumstances very close to the essence of Clinton’s now-abandoned account: the lack of insurance created a $100 barrier to needed medical attention close to home.

    So which is it, Charles? Did she or didn’t she have insurance? Despite your conclusion, Clinton can’t have it both ways. Unfortunately, the fact is she did have insurance, but Clinton chose to run with an unvetted story she got second, third, maybe even fourth hand because it had the ring of truthiness.

  • This “spine of steel” rubbish smacks of Stalinism at its finest (Uncle Joe was, after all, called “the Man of Steel”). A lot of her bullying tactics are reminiscent of the way he rules the Soviet Union—and I’m really not interested in living in the “Union of Soviet Socialist Rodham-uber-alles” (USSR).

  • Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida said that if there isn’t a satisfactory resolution to the dispute over the state’s delegates, there could be “blood on the floor” in Denver during the convention. I’m going to assume he was speaking metaphorically.

    No, he wasn’t — I hear he saw Taylor Marsh and Jeralyn Merritt at a gun show just outside Terre Haute buying a whole bunch of Tec-9’s and armor-piercing bullets.

  • there could be “blood on the floor” in Denver during the convention. – Bill Nelson

    I think that a good amount of that blood would belong to Howard Dean.

    Historically, SurveyUSA’s polls have been more accurate than quinnipiac. This report card has SurveyUSA in 1st, and quinnipiac in 12th place for 2008.

    By the way, SurveyUSA says she’ll win by 12%, and they tend to be right about these things.

    Besides,the news for Hillary lately has been more positive with her insurance story checking out, and I think we have finally heard the last of the calls for her to drop out. We’ll see just which way the voters swing come election day.

  • Doubtful (2): Did she or didn’t she have insurance?

    She had it when she entered the hospital where she died. She did not have it when she ran up bills at the clinic, which then refused her care until she came up with the $100. This resulted in delayed care.

    “But at an earlier time, Casto said, Bachtel lacked health insurance and ran up unpaid bills when treated at a clinic near her home in Middleport. When she returned for treatment when pregnant, the clinic demanded $100 per visit to help retire the outstanding debt, Casto said. Because Bachtel could not afford the fees and found it difficult to travel, her aunt said, she postponed receiving treatment.

  • Perhaps the blood on the floor in Denver will come when a strained-past-all-patience Obama delegate, outraged at Nelson’s purposeful misrepresentation of the facts regarding Florida’s predicament and how it got there, tears that bad rug off Nelson’s head.

  • It’s really unfortunate that Clinton’s failure to properly vet that hospital story will give Republicans ammunition for pretending that Democrats in general are exaggerating the problems with the health-care system.

    Thanks, Hill! As if there weren’t plenty of verifiable horror stories you could have used if you’d also used your brain!

  • Thanks, Danp. The wording of that sentence threw me off. I thought they were referring to the timeline of Casto speaking when they said ‘at an earlier time.’ Regardless, inadequate vetting of the story is my main complaint, and I think that is still valid.

    I think that a good amount of that blood would belong to Howard Dean. -Greg

    So much vitriol directed at someone who had nothing to do with your delegate loss.

  • CNN’s Campbell Brown is the wife of Dan Senor. Yes, that Dan Senor. Faux Noise Anchor – former chief liar for Rumsfeld’s DOD.

    Why in the hell does any dimocrat agree to be questioned by her? About ‘faith & values’? Her faith is like that of Wolf Blitzer – in AIPAC, in the Likud Party, & in Bush. Her values are what – prosperity gospel?

  • Maria, where have you been? The family of the woman who died has corroborated Hillary’s story.

    The people who would normally speak out in this regard would be the insurance company, I don’t think Obama would want to be thought of as being on their side, so please stop, you are not helping your candidate.

  • Let’s agree on a couple of things:

    Anytime a baby is stillborn and the mother dies too is a tragedy. This story is horrifying and tragic.

    The campaign didn’t vet the story fully and they didn’t, as far as I can tell, ask the family if they could use this story. For sure, it isn’t a story that the family brought to them, this was a third hand account. I haven’t seen yet that it was used with the family’s prior knowledge.

    The woman didn’t have a minimum wage job at a pizza parlor; she was manager of a Pizza Hut. Last week, she was still listed as the contact person, when you googled her name. She was insured (as was her fiance/father of the baby).

    She wasn’t particularly “young” at 35 (in fact, that’s when doctors start calling moms old!).

    The story falsely indicted the hospital. It also seems that all the visits to the hospital Clinton cited weren’t accurate. One report quotes the grandmother: “Mrs Mayle said Miss Bachtel went to hospital for a routine check and was told her baby was stillborn.
    ‘They told her to come back the next day, and she did, and they made her deliver the baby even though he was dead. Then she just didn’t get better.'” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=557680&in_page_id=1811

    Now, was the whole thing a LIE? Well, the story line is there, but many of the details are not true. Was it sloppy to use it? Absolutely. When you’re talking about a situation like this, you should be doubly careful to vet it, doubly careful to check with all parties involved. But hey, it was a “pin drop” moment for them and who can resist that?

  • Let’s agree on a couple of things… -Jen

    Okay, let’s. Great comment all around.

  • Greg, you’re missing the point. We’ve spent days now in a back-and-forth over what aspects of this story are or are not true. Do you think that the majority of low-information voters have followed this to its conclusion? The only thing most people are going to remember about this is that a Democrat was accused of repeating a dramatic health-care story based on hearsay without checking it out first.

    It would have been perfectly simple for Clinton to find a good, ironclad, easily verifiable story–God knows there are plenty of them–and then freaking verify it before repeating it. This stuff does not help our health-care cause.

  • –It would have been perfectly simple for Clinton to find a good, ironclad, easily verifiable story–God knows there are plenty of them–and then freaking verify it before repeating it. This stuff does not help our health-care cause. — Maria

    Gosh, some people are much better than others at just summing everything up! I tend to more of the running on and on (and you should see my posts before I cut them back!)

  • Jen(12) thanks for the link. Wish Greg would do the same when he says the family corroberated the story, but back to Jen’s link. It is from the Daily Mail in the UK. Did you read the comments? Ouch. My favorite was, “Looks like Lady MacBeth is dead.” Seems those Brits don’t have a lot of confidence in the intelligence of the American voter. The other thing that struck me was that the grandmother seemed more concerned that Bachtel was described like she was a welfare case than she was about the fact that she didn’t get early medical care.

    Doubtful: Agreed. Dems absolutely have to vet these stories. I keep thinking back to Gore talking about a class in Florida that didn’t have enough chairs for its students. Turned out (at least according to MSM reporting) that was only a one day issue.

  • Wait, she got health insurance from a company after running up unpaid medical bills while she was uninsured and despite having a pre-existing condition that would kill her shortly? That was incredibly lucky despite the bad luck earlier.

  • @18

    Well, the main point here is that the Clinton campaign didn’t vet this story. BUT from what I can piece together, she had had about 4K in unpaid bills to the other hospital/clinic (two hospitals, two clinics one affiliated with each hospital). That amount was paid off (according to some reports or at least it was written off) in 2005. That second hospital says it does sometimes require “credit deposits” at the clinic, but that they don’t deny necessary/urgent care. Much of their work, they say, is charity cases. Some stories say that she got a letter from them saying if she were to come to the clinic, they’d want a deposit first. Implying that she didn’t go there, just didn’t think she could. All of which is completely separate from the other clinic and the hospital that did treat her.

    SO, she’s been working at Pizza Hut for a while and DID have insurance. I don’t think the pregnancy was “pre-existing.”

    Really, it’s probably going to be impossible to run this story completely to the ground at this point.

    But, I maintain that the problem is that it was stupid and self-serving to use a story for its shock value without having really checked it out.

  • I think people are just trying to find instances in which Hillary has misspoken or even lied. What you guys need to do, if you are the caring citizens I’d like to think you are, is to stop focusing on the story and start focusing on the point that Hillary was ultimately trying to make…that our healthcare system sucks!

  • [20. On April 8th, 2008 at 5:53 pm, Gini said:
    I think people are just trying to find instances in which Hillary has misspoken or even lied. What you guys need to do, if you are the caring citizens I’d like to think you are, is to stop focusing on the story and start focusing on the point that Hillary was ultimately trying to make…that our healthcare system sucks!]

    THAT IS YOUR INTERPRETATION!

    You don’t know what Hillbilly was trying to get across to people. You can’t speak for her. If she is going to lie then she needs to fess up and speak for herself. We are only left to believe that she was trying to get sympathy votes.

    Just like the sniper bullets story; sympathy votes. Regardless, she is not credible. If she can’t run a campaign without it going helter skelter with lies, corruption and back room deals, how the HELL can American expect her to run the country?

  • Gini says: What you guys need to do, if you are the caring citizens I’d like to think you are, is to stop focusing on the story and start focusing on the point that Hillary was ultimately trying to make…that our healthcare system sucks!

    But, what was her point here? That’s what I’m missing in all of this and haven’t heard at all. What exactly about Clinton’s plan would change how someone who ALREADY has insurance will be treated? She liked the tragedy of this story. She liked that it made people shut up and even cry. She *used* the tragedy of this situation to her advantage, but not to enlighten.

    That’s the part that makes me feel oogy. If she’d actually vetted it, if she knew what she was talking about and she’d gotten the family’s go-ahead to use the real facts? Have at it.

  • People, aren’t you a bit suspicious about Barrack Hussein Obama? Well you all should be, he is not what he pretends to be, he will complete the downfall of the U.S. He will do something so bad that it will break this country apart into tiny little pieces. Be careful, be aware, look carefully into his upbringing and his relationship with his pastor. Barrack Hussein Obama hates white people, do not let him fool you. If something is too good to be true, it is because it is indeed, look deeper, do you not think that all those Sundays of hate filled and anger against the white community did not sink in to his mind. You are all crazy if you think it did not!

  • Absolutely, Obama is a time bomb waiting to go off!
    I totally agree with Luciana del Viillar, those who are all accussing Clinton of lying here easily forget how Obama lied about never hearing his pastor make ‘controversal’ statements like the one that was aired recently but when he made his ‘flowery’ speech in Philladephia, he would admit he had heard things that were controversial. When asked about the meeting of his campaign official with canadian on Nafta he also lied but would later agree that a meeting happened but his guy was misquoted. How about lies regarding how his dad came to America re; jfk scholarship/program, Obama lied about events surrounding his birth etc, etc.
    Obama hates whites , his wife hates whites ; just read her college thesis to see for yourselves! Obama lied about Rezko, lied about his role in his campaign cash, lied about special interest money etc.
    Obama hates the state of Isreal and would support Hamas instead. May be Obama was the only family who did not read a copy of his church’s newsletter. Afterall, he had made a ‘beautiful’ speech which ought to cover or atone for all his ‘sins’ Give me a break! Obama is a fairy tale, did nont support the war in 2002 but supported in 2004 . Why Americans are so ‘blinded’ by the media spin I do not understand! Just watch CNN and thier worst political team you will see where I am coming from.
    To have HRC worst critic sit on a panel to review political developments from the campaign trail each night and brand HRC as a liar, can only lead to one outcome; the one desired by CNN: promote Obama and bring HRC down. It is a moracle she even went this far!
    Obama statement this past week comfirms what the bible says: out of the abundance of the heart, the mind speaks! Obama can’t think any thing better after sitting at a hate field church! Anybody wonder why Oprah seems to have completely ‘disappreared’ she is a very smart business woman she has realized that Obama is a liar and she won’t want anything to mess up her brand! Anybody remmebers the million pieces of lies! This is the time Oprah ought to be actively campaigning for Obama but she isn’t doing it! Tells me she is now suffering from buyers remorse!

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