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:
* Expecting to come up short, Hillary Clinton is apparently scaling back her efforts in South Carolina, campaigning outside the state over the next few days, and returning later this week. Instead, Bill Clinton will be campaigning on her behalf in South Carolina throughout the week.
* Speaking of the former president, Bill Clinton faced an awkward moment yesterday: “With former President Bill Clinton standing not 20 feet in front of her, Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin took what appeared to be a political shot at the former president’s comments about Barack Obama’s candidacy. Speaking at the 40th annual MLK commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Franklin said the country is on the ‘cusp of turning impossible into reality. Yes this is reality, not fantasy or fairy tales.’ … [A]fter Franklin’s remarks, the crowd of more than 2000 rose to its feet — except for Bill Clinton, who sat in his front pew seat and clapped politely.”
* Rudy Giuliani’s campaign troubles got a little worse yesterday, when an WNBC/Marist poll showed the former mayor losing badly in his own home state. John McCain now leads in New York with 33% of likely GOP primary voters, followed by Mitt Romney with 19%. Giuliani was third with 18%, just three points ahead of Mike Huckabee.
* In Florida, the Romney campaign has unveiled a Spanish-language TV ad, featuring a testimonial from Romney’s son, Craig, who learned Spanish during his missionary work in South America. It’s interesting, of course, that Romney would approve a Spanish-language ad, given his support for English-only measures. “English needs to be the language that is spoken in America. We cannot be a bilingual nation like Canada,” Romney said last year.
* The Obama campaign launched a national ad this week on cable TV, drawing complaints from the Clinton campaign that viewers in Florida might see it, and the candidates aren’t supposed to be campaigning in Florida at all. The Clinton team called the ad “a clear and blatant violation” of the candidates’ pledge, and has threatened to start campaigning in Florida as a result. The Obama campaign responded that it tried to buy a national ad that aired in 49 out of 50 states, but the networks said that was impossible.
* The Obama campaign told supporters in South Carolina that he’s encouraged by the polls, but his backers shouldn’t feel over-confident: You may decide, ‘Well you know what maybe Barack’s got it in the bag, because the polls look good.’ Remember the polls in New Hampshire? We cannot take anything for granted.”
* This morning, Hillary Clinton sounded a bit like she was taunting Obama this morning, following last night’s debate. “I think what we saw last night was that he’s very frustrated – Senator Obama is very frustrated,” Clinton said at a DC press conference.
* CNN is pushing this pretty hard, though I suspect it wasn’t a big deal: “Hillary Clinton and John Edwards met privately backstage following a very contentious Democratic presidential debate in this coastal city, sources with both campaigns confirm to CNN. The meeting took place in the Edwards campaign green room. One of the sources said the meeting happened by chance and the conversation consisted of light chatter. The source added that Clinton did jokingly take a jab at Edwards about his beating up on her during the debate.”
* And Ralph Nader said yesterday that he’s still considering a fourth presidential campaign. “I’ll decide in about a month,” he said in an interview broadcast on CBC Radio’s Daybreak show in Montreal. “What I’m deciding on right now is whether we can get enough volunteers, enough financial resources to overcome the huge ballot access obstacles, which you don’t experience here in Canada, but which are the worst in the Western world in the United States.”