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:<\/p>\n
* According to a new book by Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, John Edwards’ instincts told him to vote against the Iraq war resolution in 2002, but he was “pushed into it<\/a> by advisers looking out for his political future.” Edwards spokesman David Ginsberg disputes the suggestion. “John Edwards cast his vote based on the advice of national security advisers and the intelligence he was given, not political advisers,” Ginsberg said. “He got political advice on both sides of the argument, and made his own decision based on what he thought was right, not political calculation.”<\/p>\n * Rudy Giuliani probably won’t like the fact that the only constituents he’s ever had believe his successor would make a better president<\/a> than him. In a new Quinnipiac poll, New Yorkers say Michael Bloomberg would make a better president than Giuliani, 46% to 31%. Polling director Maurice Carroll said, “America’s Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, doesn’t score all that well where he really was the mayor.”<\/p>\n * Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) will become<\/a> the new chancellor of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and is scheduled to resign his House seat in July. Massachusetts’ political ladder, which has been backed up for years, will now see a scramble. Niki Tsongas, wife of the late former Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.); former Lowell Mayor Eileen Donohue; and Middlesex County Sheriff James DiPaola already said they plan on running for the seat. State Reps. Barry Finegold, Jim Sully and James Eldridge are also considered potential candidates.<\/p>\n * CNN reports that John Edwards’ campaign plans to eliminate its contribution to global warming by becoming “carbon neutral<\/a>.” Speaking to a crowd of college students at Bennett College, the former North Carolina senator urged all Americans to help reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. “It’s time for the president of the United States to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war,” Edwards said. “This is an emergency. This requires action now.”<\/p>\n * And in an unfortunate twist, John McCain’s campaign is hosting a NCAA March Madness competition on its website, in which the winner can win campaign gear. This comes after McCain introduced legislation in May 2003 to ban gambling<\/a> on amateur sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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: * According to a new book by Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, John Edwards’ instincts told him to vote against the Iraq war resolution in 2002, but he was “pushed into it by advisers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}