{"id":9461,"date":"2006-12-28T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2006-12-28T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9461.html"},"modified":"2006-12-28T12:00:07","modified_gmt":"2006-12-28T17:00:07","slug":"thursdays-political-round-up-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/thursdays-political-round-up-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday&#8217;s political round-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn&#8217;t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n<p>* Much to my relief, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, rumored to be eyeing a congressional race against Rep.-elect John Hall (D-N.Y.), said this week that he has <a href=\"http:\/\/politicalwire.com\/archives\/2006\/12\/28\/in_ny19_fleischer_denies_interest.html\">no interest<\/a> in a campaign. Fleischer told the New York Observer via email, &#8220;I do want you to know that I am NOT running. Now that I have children, I would never do anything that could risk making them into Redskin fans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>* South Carolina, home to the second primary in the presidential nominating calendar, may be fertile ground for Barack Obama, should he decide to run. The State&#8217;s Lee Bandy, South Carolina&#8217;s most experienced and knowledgeable political reporter, <a href=\"http:\/\/electioncentral.tpmcafe.com\/blog\/electioncentral\/2006\/dec\/27\/south_carolina_dems_run_obama_run\">noted this week<\/a> that the state the first primary with a large minority population, much of which may gravitate towards Obama. A recent poll noted that Obama is seen favorably by 91% of South Carolina&#8217;s black community. Local Dem activist Inez Tenenbaum told the paper, South Carolina could send him on his way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>* On a related note, Iowan <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrollspaper.com\/main.asp?SectionID=29&#038;SubSectionID=137&#038;ArticleID=3132\">Douglas Burns noted<\/a> that Obama may also appeal to voters in the first caucus state due to geography. &#8220;It goes without saying that when Barack Obama is on the television screen or behind the political podium we see a black man,&#8221; Burns said. &#8220;That is, after all, what he is. But when you listen to Obama, the substance of thinking, the cadence of his reasoning, his unassuming acceptance of people, you hear a Midwesterner.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>* And outgoing Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R), despite losing his re-election bid by a healthy margin this year, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washtimes.com\/metro\/20061214-121406-8493r.htm\">not ruled out<\/a> returning to Republican politics at some point. Ehrlich is reportedly eyeing the 2010 Senate race, in which incumbent Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D) is rumored to be considering retirement. &#8220;I would not eliminate that as an option,&#8221; Ehrlich said of the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn&#8217;t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Much to my relief, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, rumored to be eyeing a congressional race against Rep.-elect John Hall (D-N.Y.), said this week that he has no interest in [&hellip;]<\/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-9461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461","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=9461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}