Saturday, May 31, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
100 Days: Return of the Constitution
Bush’s laws will be scrutinized if I become president, Obama says
Posted by: Deborah Charles
DENVER - Maybe it’s his background teaching constitutional law.
If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office.
Those that don’t pass muster will be overturned, he said.
During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama — a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School — was asked what he hoped to accomplish during his first 100 days in office.
“I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution,” said Obama
Other goals for his first 100 days: work out a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq; make progress on alternative energy plans and launch legislation to reform the health care system.
Well this is some incredible news. How crazy would it be for the United States to honor is constitution? I really hope this isnt political speak and he follows through with it.
Posted by: Deborah Charles
DENVER - Maybe it’s his background teaching constitutional law.
If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office.
Those that don’t pass muster will be overturned, he said.
During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama — a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School — was asked what he hoped to accomplish during his first 100 days in office.
“I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution,” said Obama
Other goals for his first 100 days: work out a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq; make progress on alternative energy plans and launch legislation to reform the health care system.
Well this is some incredible news. How crazy would it be for the United States to honor is constitution? I really hope this isnt political speak and he follows through with it.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Im Back...and with a Shocker!
Once again Fox News and there crack team of pundits deliver us with an eloquent view into the mind of the right. Judge for yourself.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
75,000 People!
This is just amazing, regardless of who you are supporting. Drawing 75,000 people out for a candidate, not even the official nominee yet is just shocking. Take a look for yourself and see if you can think of another politician that commands an audience of that size.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Degrading the Office
BIDEN RIPS BUSH
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee absolutely tore into President George W. Bush for his comments from Israel, which appeared to take a swipe at Obama.
Bush said this morning, “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement."
An exasperated Biden skewered Bush over that in a conference call with reporters, calling the comments “pure politics,” “blatant,” “beneath the presidency,” “truly disgraceful,” “outrageous,” “disturbing,” “ridiculous hypocrisy” and “long-distance Swiftboating.” He even said Bush “oughta get a life.”
“For this president to go on the attack against Barack Obama,” Biden said. “It cannot go unanswered.” [Possible veep audition?]
Coupling Bush’s comments with McCain’s assertion that it’s clear who Hamas wants to be president, Biden said he sees “an ugly pattern emerging.”
He said the president should “get in touch with his administration.”
“I assume he’s going to fire his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense,” Biden said. “They want engagement of Iran.”
He went on. “This is the kind of political rhetoric which continues to masquerade as policy,” Biden said. “All they have is masquerades.”
And… “This is why we’re in the situation we’re in,” he said, as he criticized Bush for “demonizing” Democrats.
Bush “should try to figure out how to dig us out of the God awful hole this president has gotten us into.” He added that when he travels abroad, “I don’t criticize the president” --no matter how much they might disagree on various facets of foreign policy. In fact, he said he has defended the president when abroad.
Biden also sharply criticized Bush’s -- and John McCain’s, for that matter -- Mideast policy, or in McCain’s case lack thereof, Biden said. He called Bush’s policy an “abject failure,” “truly delusional” and “backwards.”
“The president’s saber rattling has been the most self-defeating policy imaginable … spurs instability in the Middle East … increase in price of oil … plays into the hands of those Iranian leaders he rails against.
“Since when, since when has talking removed no from the American vocabulary.
More: “This is the same president, who talks about appeasement, the same one who asks me to get on a plane and talk to Qaddafi,” Biden said. “The same president who made a deal with Qaddafi. He writes letters, ‘Dear Mr. Chairman’ to Kim Jong Il.
“He oughta get a life here … Under George W. Bush’s watch, Iran, not freedom has been on the march … They’re a lot closer to the bomb… He calls Maliki our guy … Whose policy produced that? Whose watch was that? … Iran’s proxy Hezbollah is on the ascendancy. Don’t take my word for it, look at NIE … Afghanistan, Pakistan, Al Qaeda is stronger now.
“We should take zero backseat to this pres, talking about appeasement. … Under him, Israel is less safe.”
Biden also admitted to initially calling Bush’s comments “bull----.”
“I reacted viscerally,” he said. “But the essence of what I said was accurate. I should have said malarkey.”
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee absolutely tore into President George W. Bush for his comments from Israel, which appeared to take a swipe at Obama.
Bush said this morning, “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement."
An exasperated Biden skewered Bush over that in a conference call with reporters, calling the comments “pure politics,” “blatant,” “beneath the presidency,” “truly disgraceful,” “outrageous,” “disturbing,” “ridiculous hypocrisy” and “long-distance Swiftboating.” He even said Bush “oughta get a life.”
“For this president to go on the attack against Barack Obama,” Biden said. “It cannot go unanswered.” [Possible veep audition?]
Coupling Bush’s comments with McCain’s assertion that it’s clear who Hamas wants to be president, Biden said he sees “an ugly pattern emerging.”
He said the president should “get in touch with his administration.”
“I assume he’s going to fire his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense,” Biden said. “They want engagement of Iran.”
He went on. “This is the kind of political rhetoric which continues to masquerade as policy,” Biden said. “All they have is masquerades.”
And… “This is why we’re in the situation we’re in,” he said, as he criticized Bush for “demonizing” Democrats.
Bush “should try to figure out how to dig us out of the God awful hole this president has gotten us into.” He added that when he travels abroad, “I don’t criticize the president” --no matter how much they might disagree on various facets of foreign policy. In fact, he said he has defended the president when abroad.
Biden also sharply criticized Bush’s -- and John McCain’s, for that matter -- Mideast policy, or in McCain’s case lack thereof, Biden said. He called Bush’s policy an “abject failure,” “truly delusional” and “backwards.”
“The president’s saber rattling has been the most self-defeating policy imaginable … spurs instability in the Middle East … increase in price of oil … plays into the hands of those Iranian leaders he rails against.
“Since when, since when has talking removed no from the American vocabulary.
More: “This is the same president, who talks about appeasement, the same one who asks me to get on a plane and talk to Qaddafi,” Biden said. “The same president who made a deal with Qaddafi. He writes letters, ‘Dear Mr. Chairman’ to Kim Jong Il.
“He oughta get a life here … Under George W. Bush’s watch, Iran, not freedom has been on the march … They’re a lot closer to the bomb… He calls Maliki our guy … Whose policy produced that? Whose watch was that? … Iran’s proxy Hezbollah is on the ascendancy. Don’t take my word for it, look at NIE … Afghanistan, Pakistan, Al Qaeda is stronger now.
“We should take zero backseat to this pres, talking about appeasement. … Under him, Israel is less safe.”
Biden also admitted to initially calling Bush’s comments “bull----.”
“I reacted viscerally,” he said. “But the essence of what I said was accurate. I should have said malarkey.”
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Conservative Talk Radio
Stuff like this really bugs me. They find the loudest mouth possible and let him scream and shout. At least this time Chris Matthews stands up and calls Kevin James out on not knowing any history and just blurting out catch phrases and slogans. Rule #1 of debating...Know your subject.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Religion and Politics
Young, evangelical ... for Obama?
By Haley Edwards
JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man.
He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.
"I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.
Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.
But, Howard Dean, don't count your chickens quite yet. College-age and 20-something Christians may be leaving the GOP, but only 5 percent of young evangelicals have joined the Democrats, according to the Pew survey. The other 10 percent are wandering the political wilderness, somewhere between "independent" and "unaffiliated."
Shane Claiborne, a Philadelphia Christian activist and author of "Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals," has a different name for these folks: "political misfits."
Claiborne has traveled around the country the past several years, speaking and preaching mostly to college-age Christians who are "both socially conservative and globally aware." That makes them disenchanted with both major parties, he said.
"It's not about liberal or conservative, or Democrats or Republicans," he said. "I don't think it's a new evangelical left. ... There's a new evangelical stuck-in-the-middle."
UW communications professor David Domke said some young evangelicals are breaking with the GOP for the same reasons many people broke from the party in the 2006 legislative elections — the unpopular war in Iraq; the Bush administration's abysmal approval ratings; or, now, because of the tanking economy.
Others broke from the party when John McCain, who hasn't held much appeal for evangelicals in the past, became the presumptive nominee.
The Arizona senator hasn't been a consistent foe of gay marriage, and he supports federally funded embryonic stem-cell research. James Dobson, head of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, announced in February that if McCain was the GOP nominee, he'd sit out the election.
But students at a recent bipartisan political union meeting at SPU say there's something more going on with young Christians than disenchantment with McCain.
In an informal poll of the political union, the majority supported Obama.
"I think it's a new movement starting," said Amy Archibald, 19, a sophomore at the evangelical school. "Most of us would never blindly follow the old Christian Right anymore. James Dobson has nothing to do with us. A lot of us are taking apart the issues, and thinking, 'OK, well, [none of the candidates] fits what I'm looking for exactly.' But if you're going to vote, you've got to take your pros with your cons."
Eugene Cho, a founder and lead pastor at Seattle's Quest Church, which caters to a predominantly under-35 crowd, urges young Christians to look beyond the two or three issues that have allowed Christians to be "manipulated by those that know the game or use it as their sole agenda."
"While the issue of abortion — the sanctity of life — must always be a hugely important issue, we must juxtapose that with other issues that are also very important," Cho wrote in his blog on faith and politics.
Polls have shown that young Christians aren't any less concerned about the "family values" issues that have traditionally driven Christians to the Republican camp. (In fact, a study by the Barna Group, an evangelical polling organization, shows young Christians are actually more conservative on abortion than their elders.) It's just that they're also concerned about issues such as social justice and immigration, issues traditionally associated with Democrats.
Judy Naegeli, 25, who works at a Christian philanthropy, says easy access to information about the world via social-networking sites, YouTube and blogs is the reason her generation is more concerned with social justice.
"It's changed our perspective. ... Each generation chooses their cause, and ours is AIDs in Africa, or poverty or social justice," she said.
Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see U.S. troops leave Iraq.
Anika Smith, 23, who works for a think tank in Seattle, said she's concerned with the same issues, but she plans to vote for McCain:
"I'm worried about the war and the economy and social-justice issues. But, the abortion issue is still nonnegotiable."
Nathan Johnson, the executive director of the King County Republican Party, says he is skeptical that young, socially conservative Christians will desert the GOP this fall.
He agrees young Christians appear to be looking beyond the two or three issues — abortion, gay rights, stem-cell research — that have made Christian voters loyal in the past. "But that doesn't mean they're no longer Republican.
"Once the primary is over, and we get into a head-to-head contest, Obama's voting record will come to light," said Johnson, 24. "Then there will be a lot of young conservative voters who won't be able to tolerate what he's stood for in terms of abortion and other socially conservative values."
Young evangelicals are more of a swing constituency than they've been for decades, said Andy Crouch, an editor at Christianity Today, a national evangelical magazine.
"This could turn out to be the election where both parties realize that the evangelical vote is so hopelessly split down the middle that it's not worth courting them at all because what parties need are blocs that can be appealed to en masse," Crouch said. "Paradoxically, evangelicals would become less relevant than ever before."
Braun, the seminary student, said he's not totally committed to any candidate yet.
"I just keep thinking, if Jesus were alive now, he wouldn't necessarily be voting Republican," he said.
By Haley Edwards
JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man.
He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.
"I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.
Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.
But, Howard Dean, don't count your chickens quite yet. College-age and 20-something Christians may be leaving the GOP, but only 5 percent of young evangelicals have joined the Democrats, according to the Pew survey. The other 10 percent are wandering the political wilderness, somewhere between "independent" and "unaffiliated."
Shane Claiborne, a Philadelphia Christian activist and author of "Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals," has a different name for these folks: "political misfits."
Claiborne has traveled around the country the past several years, speaking and preaching mostly to college-age Christians who are "both socially conservative and globally aware." That makes them disenchanted with both major parties, he said.
"It's not about liberal or conservative, or Democrats or Republicans," he said. "I don't think it's a new evangelical left. ... There's a new evangelical stuck-in-the-middle."
UW communications professor David Domke said some young evangelicals are breaking with the GOP for the same reasons many people broke from the party in the 2006 legislative elections — the unpopular war in Iraq; the Bush administration's abysmal approval ratings; or, now, because of the tanking economy.
Others broke from the party when John McCain, who hasn't held much appeal for evangelicals in the past, became the presumptive nominee.
The Arizona senator hasn't been a consistent foe of gay marriage, and he supports federally funded embryonic stem-cell research. James Dobson, head of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, announced in February that if McCain was the GOP nominee, he'd sit out the election.
But students at a recent bipartisan political union meeting at SPU say there's something more going on with young Christians than disenchantment with McCain.
In an informal poll of the political union, the majority supported Obama.
"I think it's a new movement starting," said Amy Archibald, 19, a sophomore at the evangelical school. "Most of us would never blindly follow the old Christian Right anymore. James Dobson has nothing to do with us. A lot of us are taking apart the issues, and thinking, 'OK, well, [none of the candidates] fits what I'm looking for exactly.' But if you're going to vote, you've got to take your pros with your cons."
Eugene Cho, a founder and lead pastor at Seattle's Quest Church, which caters to a predominantly under-35 crowd, urges young Christians to look beyond the two or three issues that have allowed Christians to be "manipulated by those that know the game or use it as their sole agenda."
"While the issue of abortion — the sanctity of life — must always be a hugely important issue, we must juxtapose that with other issues that are also very important," Cho wrote in his blog on faith and politics.
Polls have shown that young Christians aren't any less concerned about the "family values" issues that have traditionally driven Christians to the Republican camp. (In fact, a study by the Barna Group, an evangelical polling organization, shows young Christians are actually more conservative on abortion than their elders.) It's just that they're also concerned about issues such as social justice and immigration, issues traditionally associated with Democrats.
Judy Naegeli, 25, who works at a Christian philanthropy, says easy access to information about the world via social-networking sites, YouTube and blogs is the reason her generation is more concerned with social justice.
"It's changed our perspective. ... Each generation chooses their cause, and ours is AIDs in Africa, or poverty or social justice," she said.
Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see U.S. troops leave Iraq.
Anika Smith, 23, who works for a think tank in Seattle, said she's concerned with the same issues, but she plans to vote for McCain:
"I'm worried about the war and the economy and social-justice issues. But, the abortion issue is still nonnegotiable."
Nathan Johnson, the executive director of the King County Republican Party, says he is skeptical that young, socially conservative Christians will desert the GOP this fall.
He agrees young Christians appear to be looking beyond the two or three issues — abortion, gay rights, stem-cell research — that have made Christian voters loyal in the past. "But that doesn't mean they're no longer Republican.
"Once the primary is over, and we get into a head-to-head contest, Obama's voting record will come to light," said Johnson, 24. "Then there will be a lot of young conservative voters who won't be able to tolerate what he's stood for in terms of abortion and other socially conservative values."
Young evangelicals are more of a swing constituency than they've been for decades, said Andy Crouch, an editor at Christianity Today, a national evangelical magazine.
"This could turn out to be the election where both parties realize that the evangelical vote is so hopelessly split down the middle that it's not worth courting them at all because what parties need are blocs that can be appealed to en masse," Crouch said. "Paradoxically, evangelicals would become less relevant than ever before."
Braun, the seminary student, said he's not totally committed to any candidate yet.
"I just keep thinking, if Jesus were alive now, he wouldn't necessarily be voting Republican," he said.
Premium Coverage
I have been watching Chuck Todd this season and can't agree more that this guy is above the rest. He provides non-biased fact and number based assessments. Keep up the good work and let NBC know it.
NBC's Primary Source for Election '08
Chuck Todd Keeps The Numbers Flowing
By Howard Kurtz
NEW YORK -- In a borrowed office at 30 Rock, Chuck Todd is on his cellphone, telling a Barack Obama strategist that his boss will probably fall just short of winning Indiana that night.
"Are you really going to ask for a recount over one delegate?" NBC's political director asks, swiveling in his chair. "It is literally one delegate!"
Less than an hour later, Todd is in front of a bright green wall in Studio 3K, a map of Indiana projected behind him, Hillary Clinton clinging to a fragile lead, when MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann asks: "Did it just end tonight?"
"It may just have ended," Todd says, virtually pronouncing Obama the Democratic nominee at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday.
For political junkies, Todd has become all but inescapable. When he isn't shuttling between studios, he is being invoked as an authority by one anchor or another. After a career out of the limelight, the genial 36-year-old is the campaign season's most improbable TV star.
Every organization has someone like "Chuckie T," as his colleagues call him. He is the brainy guy poring over computer printouts, the number cruncher in the back office. But the voracious appetite of cable news has given him a huge megaphone and an outsize role in shaping coverage of the White House race.
Todd admits to worrying about overexposure, saying: "I don't like going on if I don't feel like I have new information or an interesting way to present the information." But he justifies his ubiquity by noting that audiences drift in and out all day.
When he started at NBC a year ago, Todd felt he was struggling. "The hardest part is to explain the minutiae clearly," he says. "Now I can take the minutiae and make it sound like English for laypeople who haven't been following the DNC delegate rules for 20 years."
Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, hired him from the Hotline, the online political digest, telling Todd that beyond his office duties he would get a tryout on "Meet the Press." Apparently Todd passed the audition. "The secret to his success is he understands politics and can explain it," Russert says. "Our platforms are 24/7, and someone has to man the platforms."
Todd is also the point man for dealing with the campaigns. "I think he has emerged as one of the most clear-eyed, honest-dealing pundits in the media," says Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "I have nothing but respect for all of the balls he juggles all day."
Most network political directors labor in obscurity. Few outside the political community knew Todd's predecessor at NBC, Elizabeth Wilner. The most prominent of the bunch was ABC's former political director, Mark Halperin, whom Todd viewed as a model.
On a cable channel packed with such opinionated personalities as Olbermann and Chris Matthews, Todd stands out by not being flamboyant. While others are getting punch-drunk on polls, New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley observed, Todd is "the designated driver of MSNBC's political coverage."
He is accustomed to the role. During his boyhood in Miami, Todd recalls, his conservative father and a liberal cousin often got sloshed and argued about politics.
Todd was 16 when his dad died. Strapped for cash, Todd was accepted by George Washington University on a music scholarship -- he played the French horn -- and pursued a double major in politics.
Longtime friend Andrew Flagel, now George Mason University's dean of admissions, says Todd had phenomenal recall, "whether it had to do with every sports fact you could ever have at your fingertips or every congressional race. He was the Jimmy the Greek of politics. We'd be out at one of the bars in Georgetown or Foggy Bottom and he'd end up with 20 people around us, arguing about either politics or sports, and he's emceeing the discussion."
While in college, Todd worked for the 1992 presidential campaign of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and later started part time at the Hotline. He left school six credits short of graduation. "It's not the proudest thing on my résumé," he says.
The Hotline, with its exhaustive summaries of stories, polls and punditry, seemed like a perfect fit. "From the very first day," says founder Doug Bailey, "it was obvious this was a guy whose instincts were brilliant. And his work ethic was extraordinary." Bailey recalls telling Todd at an Orioles game a year later: "You're going to run this publication one day, so pay attention."
By 2001, Todd had indeed become editor in chief. A year later he married Kristian Denny, a Democratic consultant who served as communications director for Jim Webb's successful 2006 Senate campaign in Virginia. (Todd says he disclosed the connection on the air and tried to avoid discussing Virginia politics.)
Todd, whose role ranges from suggesting stories for correspondents to overseeing NBC's political blog First Read, excels at cutting through the fog. But on occasion he subscribes to conventional wisdom that turns out to be wrong. The day before the New Hampshire primary, he said on "Hardball" that Obama's "trajectory is still going up," that "everybody's thinking this is going to be a blowout," and that Clinton "is on the cusp of what could be the end of her national political career." Clinton, of course, stunned the pundits by winning New Hampshire.
* * *
It is Tuesday, another primary day, and Todd's first stop is the "Today" show. At 7:13 a.m., he tells Meredith Vieira that the day's voting in Indiana and North Carolina won't have much impact on the delegate count, but "perception's everything." He offers a similar analysis on MSNBC at 7:52 and 9:02.
Matthews leads off "Hardball" at 5 p.m. by saying, "As our political director Chuck Todd put it, this is the last shopping day of the primary season." Todd's theory is that the real action is about to shift from the campaign trail to the superdelegates. On the show, he fields hypothetical questions about what would happen if Obama lost both states. "It would be one of those stomach punches," he says.
Shortly before 6, Todd is briefed on the networks' exit polls. Minutes later he is back in front of the green wall to rehearse with an interactive gizmo, mounted on a tall stand, that enables him to summon maps and graphics and write on them in virtual red ink. "I just tap it? Now, do I pop up Indiana or is Indiana popped up for me?"
At 6:08 Todd does it for real, getting down in the political weeds by rattling off the congressional districts deemed favorable to each candidate. An hour later, wearing a lavalier mike and earpiece that allows him to talk to the producers as he roams the halls, Todd gets into an argument about devoting the next segment to Indiana while ignoring Obama's apparent win in North Carolina. "That's why we get criticized," he says. (The segment is killed when the previous discussion runs long.)
After chatting with Brian Williams for the Mountain Time zone feed of "NBC Nightly News," Todd is back on MSNBC, then on the phone again with the Obama camp. Between swigs of VitaminWater, he is trying to figure out whether the 250,000 votes still uncounted in Indiana are in counties that are Obama strongholds.
"I see nothing out of Lake, nothing out of Porter. . . . You can't call it when you've got nothing out of Gary!"
At 9:18, while Obama is speaking in North Carolina, Todd briefs a producer on the Indiana vote, saying that "if he just wins 55 percent of what's out, he's going to win." Todd later repeats this on the air, writing "55" on his virtual map.
Just before 10 p.m., with Clinton still leading by 6 percentage points, the anchors wonder on the air why Lake County, which includes Gary, hasn't reported yet. "Can we find out, Keith, why we're delayed in getting this vote?" Tom Brokaw asks.
"I will ask Chuck Todd," Olbermann says.
As the night wears on, Todd keeps refining his projection of how much of the Lake County vote Obama needs to upset Clinton. There is also on-air joking with Olbermann about whether MSNBC will call the race at the very moment Todd is on the air explaining that it's too close to call -- which happened during the South Carolina primary and again during Florida. While Todd supervises the political unit, election-night calls are made by polling experts at a separate decision desk.
When Todd delivers his post-midnight conclusion that the Democratic race may have ended, he knows full well the weight of his words. Clinton is close to winning Indiana by 2 percentage points, but the way the media score such things, it is a setback because she was expected to carry the state by a bigger margin. ("Nobody wants to stomp on the grave, but at the same time, reality's reality," he explains off the air.)
When Todd appears at the green wall again at 1:07 a.m., everyone seems a bit punchy. He loosens his yellow tie, asking: "Am I dressed too formally?" Dan Abrams, the late-shift anchor, interrupts Todd to project Clinton the winner in Indiana.
Six hours later, at 7:45 a.m., Todd is back before the cameras. He does "Morning Joe" ("Obama found his voice and put her on the defensive," he says), "Hardball" and "Countdown." "You are unbelievable," Matthews tells him. "I feel like Captain Kirk sometimes and you're Mr. Spock."
While the Obama camp praises Todd, relations have been more strained with top Clinton strategists, who view MSNBC as a blatantly pro-Obama network and have complained about remarks by Matthews and correspondent David Shuster, among others. Clinton aides say Todd is a straight shooter but question his ability to rein in the bigger guns at the network. Todd has told colleagues he is frustrated by the complaints and the perception that MSNBC is biased.
"That's the hardest part of this job," Todd says of fencing with the campaigns. "It's nothing but negative reinforcement: 'You guys are so in the tank for X,' or 'Why are you showing that negative ad 25 times?' "
The job is relentless -- though the Arlington resident, who has two children, still makes time to go to his 4-year-old daughter's soccer games -- but the goateed guru doesn't complain about the demands of television. "I don't want to sound like I'm faking being humble, but I never thought of myself as a TV guy," Todd says. "I just assumed I didn't fit the stereotype."
Meaning? "The looks thing. I've got facial hair -- that's supposed to be a no-no. I've got too many chins."
NBC's Primary Source for Election '08
Chuck Todd Keeps The Numbers Flowing
By Howard Kurtz
NEW YORK -- In a borrowed office at 30 Rock, Chuck Todd is on his cellphone, telling a Barack Obama strategist that his boss will probably fall just short of winning Indiana that night.
"Are you really going to ask for a recount over one delegate?" NBC's political director asks, swiveling in his chair. "It is literally one delegate!"
Less than an hour later, Todd is in front of a bright green wall in Studio 3K, a map of Indiana projected behind him, Hillary Clinton clinging to a fragile lead, when MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann asks: "Did it just end tonight?"
"It may just have ended," Todd says, virtually pronouncing Obama the Democratic nominee at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday.
For political junkies, Todd has become all but inescapable. When he isn't shuttling between studios, he is being invoked as an authority by one anchor or another. After a career out of the limelight, the genial 36-year-old is the campaign season's most improbable TV star.
Every organization has someone like "Chuckie T," as his colleagues call him. He is the brainy guy poring over computer printouts, the number cruncher in the back office. But the voracious appetite of cable news has given him a huge megaphone and an outsize role in shaping coverage of the White House race.
Todd admits to worrying about overexposure, saying: "I don't like going on if I don't feel like I have new information or an interesting way to present the information." But he justifies his ubiquity by noting that audiences drift in and out all day.
When he started at NBC a year ago, Todd felt he was struggling. "The hardest part is to explain the minutiae clearly," he says. "Now I can take the minutiae and make it sound like English for laypeople who haven't been following the DNC delegate rules for 20 years."
Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, hired him from the Hotline, the online political digest, telling Todd that beyond his office duties he would get a tryout on "Meet the Press." Apparently Todd passed the audition. "The secret to his success is he understands politics and can explain it," Russert says. "Our platforms are 24/7, and someone has to man the platforms."
Todd is also the point man for dealing with the campaigns. "I think he has emerged as one of the most clear-eyed, honest-dealing pundits in the media," says Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "I have nothing but respect for all of the balls he juggles all day."
Most network political directors labor in obscurity. Few outside the political community knew Todd's predecessor at NBC, Elizabeth Wilner. The most prominent of the bunch was ABC's former political director, Mark Halperin, whom Todd viewed as a model.
On a cable channel packed with such opinionated personalities as Olbermann and Chris Matthews, Todd stands out by not being flamboyant. While others are getting punch-drunk on polls, New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley observed, Todd is "the designated driver of MSNBC's political coverage."
He is accustomed to the role. During his boyhood in Miami, Todd recalls, his conservative father and a liberal cousin often got sloshed and argued about politics.
Todd was 16 when his dad died. Strapped for cash, Todd was accepted by George Washington University on a music scholarship -- he played the French horn -- and pursued a double major in politics.
Longtime friend Andrew Flagel, now George Mason University's dean of admissions, says Todd had phenomenal recall, "whether it had to do with every sports fact you could ever have at your fingertips or every congressional race. He was the Jimmy the Greek of politics. We'd be out at one of the bars in Georgetown or Foggy Bottom and he'd end up with 20 people around us, arguing about either politics or sports, and he's emceeing the discussion."
While in college, Todd worked for the 1992 presidential campaign of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and later started part time at the Hotline. He left school six credits short of graduation. "It's not the proudest thing on my résumé," he says.
The Hotline, with its exhaustive summaries of stories, polls and punditry, seemed like a perfect fit. "From the very first day," says founder Doug Bailey, "it was obvious this was a guy whose instincts were brilliant. And his work ethic was extraordinary." Bailey recalls telling Todd at an Orioles game a year later: "You're going to run this publication one day, so pay attention."
By 2001, Todd had indeed become editor in chief. A year later he married Kristian Denny, a Democratic consultant who served as communications director for Jim Webb's successful 2006 Senate campaign in Virginia. (Todd says he disclosed the connection on the air and tried to avoid discussing Virginia politics.)
Todd, whose role ranges from suggesting stories for correspondents to overseeing NBC's political blog First Read, excels at cutting through the fog. But on occasion he subscribes to conventional wisdom that turns out to be wrong. The day before the New Hampshire primary, he said on "Hardball" that Obama's "trajectory is still going up," that "everybody's thinking this is going to be a blowout," and that Clinton "is on the cusp of what could be the end of her national political career." Clinton, of course, stunned the pundits by winning New Hampshire.
* * *
It is Tuesday, another primary day, and Todd's first stop is the "Today" show. At 7:13 a.m., he tells Meredith Vieira that the day's voting in Indiana and North Carolina won't have much impact on the delegate count, but "perception's everything." He offers a similar analysis on MSNBC at 7:52 and 9:02.
Matthews leads off "Hardball" at 5 p.m. by saying, "As our political director Chuck Todd put it, this is the last shopping day of the primary season." Todd's theory is that the real action is about to shift from the campaign trail to the superdelegates. On the show, he fields hypothetical questions about what would happen if Obama lost both states. "It would be one of those stomach punches," he says.
Shortly before 6, Todd is briefed on the networks' exit polls. Minutes later he is back in front of the green wall to rehearse with an interactive gizmo, mounted on a tall stand, that enables him to summon maps and graphics and write on them in virtual red ink. "I just tap it? Now, do I pop up Indiana or is Indiana popped up for me?"
At 6:08 Todd does it for real, getting down in the political weeds by rattling off the congressional districts deemed favorable to each candidate. An hour later, wearing a lavalier mike and earpiece that allows him to talk to the producers as he roams the halls, Todd gets into an argument about devoting the next segment to Indiana while ignoring Obama's apparent win in North Carolina. "That's why we get criticized," he says. (The segment is killed when the previous discussion runs long.)
After chatting with Brian Williams for the Mountain Time zone feed of "NBC Nightly News," Todd is back on MSNBC, then on the phone again with the Obama camp. Between swigs of VitaminWater, he is trying to figure out whether the 250,000 votes still uncounted in Indiana are in counties that are Obama strongholds.
"I see nothing out of Lake, nothing out of Porter. . . . You can't call it when you've got nothing out of Gary!"
At 9:18, while Obama is speaking in North Carolina, Todd briefs a producer on the Indiana vote, saying that "if he just wins 55 percent of what's out, he's going to win." Todd later repeats this on the air, writing "55" on his virtual map.
Just before 10 p.m., with Clinton still leading by 6 percentage points, the anchors wonder on the air why Lake County, which includes Gary, hasn't reported yet. "Can we find out, Keith, why we're delayed in getting this vote?" Tom Brokaw asks.
"I will ask Chuck Todd," Olbermann says.
As the night wears on, Todd keeps refining his projection of how much of the Lake County vote Obama needs to upset Clinton. There is also on-air joking with Olbermann about whether MSNBC will call the race at the very moment Todd is on the air explaining that it's too close to call -- which happened during the South Carolina primary and again during Florida. While Todd supervises the political unit, election-night calls are made by polling experts at a separate decision desk.
When Todd delivers his post-midnight conclusion that the Democratic race may have ended, he knows full well the weight of his words. Clinton is close to winning Indiana by 2 percentage points, but the way the media score such things, it is a setback because she was expected to carry the state by a bigger margin. ("Nobody wants to stomp on the grave, but at the same time, reality's reality," he explains off the air.)
When Todd appears at the green wall again at 1:07 a.m., everyone seems a bit punchy. He loosens his yellow tie, asking: "Am I dressed too formally?" Dan Abrams, the late-shift anchor, interrupts Todd to project Clinton the winner in Indiana.
Six hours later, at 7:45 a.m., Todd is back before the cameras. He does "Morning Joe" ("Obama found his voice and put her on the defensive," he says), "Hardball" and "Countdown." "You are unbelievable," Matthews tells him. "I feel like Captain Kirk sometimes and you're Mr. Spock."
While the Obama camp praises Todd, relations have been more strained with top Clinton strategists, who view MSNBC as a blatantly pro-Obama network and have complained about remarks by Matthews and correspondent David Shuster, among others. Clinton aides say Todd is a straight shooter but question his ability to rein in the bigger guns at the network. Todd has told colleagues he is frustrated by the complaints and the perception that MSNBC is biased.
"That's the hardest part of this job," Todd says of fencing with the campaigns. "It's nothing but negative reinforcement: 'You guys are so in the tank for X,' or 'Why are you showing that negative ad 25 times?' "
The job is relentless -- though the Arlington resident, who has two children, still makes time to go to his 4-year-old daughter's soccer games -- but the goateed guru doesn't complain about the demands of television. "I don't want to sound like I'm faking being humble, but I never thought of myself as a TV guy," Todd says. "I just assumed I didn't fit the stereotype."
Meaning? "The looks thing. I've got facial hair -- that's supposed to be a no-no. I've got too many chins."
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Bush Effect
GOP getting crushed in polls, key races
By JIM VANDEHEI & DAVID PAUL KUHN
John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days.
In case you’ve been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.
At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.
In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon’s on the eve of his resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP — the lowest since CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Democratic Party.
Things are so bad that many people don’t even want to call themselves Republicans. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found the lowest percentage of self-described Republicans in 16 years of polling.
“The anti-Republican mood is fairly big, and it has been overwhelming,” said Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis.
With an environment so toxic, does McCain have even a chance of winning in November?
The McCain camp thinks so — but only if he sands down the “R” next to his name. “Nobody ever gets elected president by running on their party label,” said Charlie Black, a senior McCain adviser. “The character, the qualities, the independence — that certainly allows him to rise over the party label. It is more important than usual to rise above the party label.”
This statement seems a little at odds with the current McCain strategy. The presumptive GOP nominee has spent much of the recent campaign fastening himself to the traditional Republican brand and even to Bush himself. McCain’s views on the war, the overall economy (especially supporting the Bush tax cuts he previously opposed), the mortgage crisis and judicial appointments are hardly the stuff of a new kind of Republicanism.
McCain risks looking inauthentic and conventional to both camps if he simply solidifies his standing with conservatives and then races back to the middle to appeal to swing voters.
For now, Republicans are heartened by how well McCain sometimes does in head-to-head polling with Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee. But it’s silly to watch those numbers: They fluctuate and reflect nothing more than momentary feelings about the candidates, and they come at a time when public attention is fixed on the final rounds of the Democratic slugfest.
Right now, most voters with any familiarity with McCain probably know him as a war hero, somewhat of a maverick in the Senate and a pretty affable candidate. Let’s see how they view McCain after Democrats use their decisive money advantage to paint him as a much-older Bush clone who loves an unpopular war and knows little about the economy.
Democrats provided us a look at their polling data from 17 swing states — data they’re using to craft new attacks on McCain as Bush 44. The Democratic National Committee polling, according to a memo it provided, has two-thirds of swing voters expecting McCain to pursue policies very similar to Bush’s. The voters’ top three concerns about McCain: his age, his support for the war and his similarities to Bush.
The latest DNC ad ties two of the three together, slamming McCain over the war and showing a picture of him embracing Bush. Lots more to come on that front, DNC officials said. The DNC will leave the age issue alone for now.
Many top Republicans seem heartened by Obama’s likely victory on the Democratic side. They say they’re confident Obama will pay a big price for his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the persistent questions about his patriotism and his inability to connect with working-class whites in swing states.
These are all big problems for Obama. But he will have a massive cash advantage when it comes time to fight back, and the Republican National Committee’s fundraising edge over the DNC won’t be enough to overcome it. Consider this fact: Since the beginning of last year, Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and the DNC have raised $460 million total — about $200 million more than what McCain, Mitt Romney and the RNC raised together in the same time span.
Rich liberals operating outside the traditional fundraising structure are also in private talks to vastly outspend the GOP on issue ads and voter mobilization efforts.
Still, McCain’s biggest problem is the toxic political atmosphere for his party.
It’s so toxic, some Republicans are pointing to 1976 as a favorable historical comparison. That was the year Gerald Ford ran in the dark shadows of Watergate and lost to Jimmy Carter. Says Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party: “When voters really homed in on the choice between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and what each stood for, Gerald Ford almost won the election despite this horrible environment.”
Almost.
By JIM VANDEHEI & DAVID PAUL KUHN
John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days.
In case you’ve been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.
At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.
In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon’s on the eve of his resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP — the lowest since CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Democratic Party.
Things are so bad that many people don’t even want to call themselves Republicans. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found the lowest percentage of self-described Republicans in 16 years of polling.
“The anti-Republican mood is fairly big, and it has been overwhelming,” said Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis.
With an environment so toxic, does McCain have even a chance of winning in November?
The McCain camp thinks so — but only if he sands down the “R” next to his name. “Nobody ever gets elected president by running on their party label,” said Charlie Black, a senior McCain adviser. “The character, the qualities, the independence — that certainly allows him to rise over the party label. It is more important than usual to rise above the party label.”
This statement seems a little at odds with the current McCain strategy. The presumptive GOP nominee has spent much of the recent campaign fastening himself to the traditional Republican brand and even to Bush himself. McCain’s views on the war, the overall economy (especially supporting the Bush tax cuts he previously opposed), the mortgage crisis and judicial appointments are hardly the stuff of a new kind of Republicanism.
McCain risks looking inauthentic and conventional to both camps if he simply solidifies his standing with conservatives and then races back to the middle to appeal to swing voters.
For now, Republicans are heartened by how well McCain sometimes does in head-to-head polling with Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee. But it’s silly to watch those numbers: They fluctuate and reflect nothing more than momentary feelings about the candidates, and they come at a time when public attention is fixed on the final rounds of the Democratic slugfest.
Right now, most voters with any familiarity with McCain probably know him as a war hero, somewhat of a maverick in the Senate and a pretty affable candidate. Let’s see how they view McCain after Democrats use their decisive money advantage to paint him as a much-older Bush clone who loves an unpopular war and knows little about the economy.
Democrats provided us a look at their polling data from 17 swing states — data they’re using to craft new attacks on McCain as Bush 44. The Democratic National Committee polling, according to a memo it provided, has two-thirds of swing voters expecting McCain to pursue policies very similar to Bush’s. The voters’ top three concerns about McCain: his age, his support for the war and his similarities to Bush.
The latest DNC ad ties two of the three together, slamming McCain over the war and showing a picture of him embracing Bush. Lots more to come on that front, DNC officials said. The DNC will leave the age issue alone for now.
Many top Republicans seem heartened by Obama’s likely victory on the Democratic side. They say they’re confident Obama will pay a big price for his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the persistent questions about his patriotism and his inability to connect with working-class whites in swing states.
These are all big problems for Obama. But he will have a massive cash advantage when it comes time to fight back, and the Republican National Committee’s fundraising edge over the DNC won’t be enough to overcome it. Consider this fact: Since the beginning of last year, Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and the DNC have raised $460 million total — about $200 million more than what McCain, Mitt Romney and the RNC raised together in the same time span.
Rich liberals operating outside the traditional fundraising structure are also in private talks to vastly outspend the GOP on issue ads and voter mobilization efforts.
Still, McCain’s biggest problem is the toxic political atmosphere for his party.
It’s so toxic, some Republicans are pointing to 1976 as a favorable historical comparison. That was the year Gerald Ford ran in the dark shadows of Watergate and lost to Jimmy Carter. Says Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party: “When voters really homed in on the choice between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and what each stood for, Gerald Ford almost won the election despite this horrible environment.”
Almost.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Pander Bear
Pandering vs. Presidential by Byron Williams
Whether your heart lies with Clinton or Obama your head has to know tonight was a night for the junior senator from Illinois. Tonight, Monday Night Football's Dandy Don Meredith returned for a one night performance: "Turn out the lights, the party's over, they all say good things must end."
After enduring the worst period of his presidential campaign, Obama gave uncommitted superdelegates who have been sitting on the fence at least a strong reason to inch toward his direction.
By increasing his delegate and popular vote lead, tomorrow morning brings with it a pressure on Clinton to give some consideration for what is best for the Democratic Party beyond making her nom du famille synonymous with the donkey.
She can pledge to the Indiana faithful to press on, but the numbers don't lie. Though she has vowed to take her campaign to West Virginia and Kentucky, the body language of Clinton, her husband, and daughter Chelsea suggests tonight was a campaign eulogy.
The epitaph on the Indiana and North Carolina primaries could very simply read: "Pandering versus Presidential."
The Jeremiah Wright fiasco clearly knocked Obama off of his white charger of change. But its quite possible Clinton herself came to his rescue by pandering to the public.
Seizing on astronomical gas prices that have caused pain for many Americans, she offered a policy that no reputable economist in the country could support. Moreover, it was a policy that had no feasible way of passing this summer. She did not have the votes in Congress nor a president waiting to sign it. So it was nothing more than rhetorical pandering of the highest order.
Obama took the principled stand by opposing it. It was a substantive issue, offering the road less traveled. It was manna from heaven. Obama was presented with an opportunity to talk about something other than Jeremiah Wright, look presidential, while giving the American people a glance at his leadership style.
Maybe we just became privy to the change that has been promised throughout his campaign -- to disagree with your opponent's ideas while always affirming their humanity.
Meanwhile, Clinton surrogates, in particular James Carville, have reminded many that the win-at-all-cost style, even if it includes crass invectives toward a member of your own party and most likely the presidential nominee, is not beyond the pale.
But other than a farewell tour through West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon and Montana, the race is over. There is no longer any rationale to hammer Obama with negative ads that ultimately benefit McCain.
The person most likely happiest about tonight's outcome is Democratic Party chair, Howard Dean. The results from Indiana and North Carolina primaries lessen the importance of Michigan and Florida thereby making a compromise more likely and less acrimonious.
But it's time for primary redemption within the Democratic Party -- to put aside intramural rivalries in order to prepare for the major intercollegiate event in the fall.
It is not the time for Obama supporters put on the suit of arrogance, demanding Clinton's immediate withdrawal. Magnanimity is as important for the winner, if not more so, as it is for the loser.
An "October surprise" in May notwithstanding, we now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, but it is still a long way from November. Tonight, in the words of Winston Churchill, "is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Whether your heart lies with Clinton or Obama your head has to know tonight was a night for the junior senator from Illinois. Tonight, Monday Night Football's Dandy Don Meredith returned for a one night performance: "Turn out the lights, the party's over, they all say good things must end."
After enduring the worst period of his presidential campaign, Obama gave uncommitted superdelegates who have been sitting on the fence at least a strong reason to inch toward his direction.
By increasing his delegate and popular vote lead, tomorrow morning brings with it a pressure on Clinton to give some consideration for what is best for the Democratic Party beyond making her nom du famille synonymous with the donkey.
She can pledge to the Indiana faithful to press on, but the numbers don't lie. Though she has vowed to take her campaign to West Virginia and Kentucky, the body language of Clinton, her husband, and daughter Chelsea suggests tonight was a campaign eulogy.
The epitaph on the Indiana and North Carolina primaries could very simply read: "Pandering versus Presidential."
The Jeremiah Wright fiasco clearly knocked Obama off of his white charger of change. But its quite possible Clinton herself came to his rescue by pandering to the public.
Seizing on astronomical gas prices that have caused pain for many Americans, she offered a policy that no reputable economist in the country could support. Moreover, it was a policy that had no feasible way of passing this summer. She did not have the votes in Congress nor a president waiting to sign it. So it was nothing more than rhetorical pandering of the highest order.
Obama took the principled stand by opposing it. It was a substantive issue, offering the road less traveled. It was manna from heaven. Obama was presented with an opportunity to talk about something other than Jeremiah Wright, look presidential, while giving the American people a glance at his leadership style.
Maybe we just became privy to the change that has been promised throughout his campaign -- to disagree with your opponent's ideas while always affirming their humanity.
Meanwhile, Clinton surrogates, in particular James Carville, have reminded many that the win-at-all-cost style, even if it includes crass invectives toward a member of your own party and most likely the presidential nominee, is not beyond the pale.
But other than a farewell tour through West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon and Montana, the race is over. There is no longer any rationale to hammer Obama with negative ads that ultimately benefit McCain.
The person most likely happiest about tonight's outcome is Democratic Party chair, Howard Dean. The results from Indiana and North Carolina primaries lessen the importance of Michigan and Florida thereby making a compromise more likely and less acrimonious.
But it's time for primary redemption within the Democratic Party -- to put aside intramural rivalries in order to prepare for the major intercollegiate event in the fall.
It is not the time for Obama supporters put on the suit of arrogance, demanding Clinton's immediate withdrawal. Magnanimity is as important for the winner, if not more so, as it is for the loser.
An "October surprise" in May notwithstanding, we now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, but it is still a long way from November. Tonight, in the words of Winston Churchill, "is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The Intelligence of the Immigration Debate
Anyone else find it funny that the side that wants to deport all illegals and force them to learn english, cannot spell correctly in english themselves? Irony...nice.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Late Night Political Joke Roundup
"MSNBC is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security is asking boaters to be on the lookout for terrorists in small boats trying to detonate a nuclear bomb. Fifteen billion dollars a year for Homeland Security and all they can do is come up with three drunks on a Wave Runner?"
---Jay Leno
-
"David Blaine today broke the world record for holding his breath, on Oprah---17 minutes, four seconds. Blaine has now frozen himself, he's starved himself, he's gone without sleep for weeks, and deprived himself of oxygen. Today, Dick Cheney said, 'See, it's not torture. It's magic.'"
---Jimmy Kimmel
-
"Earlier today, Chinese officials held a ceremony to announce that it's exactly one hundred days until the summer Olympics, and they’re working hard to clean up Beijing’s pollution. Unfortunately, they had to cut the ceremony short because the air caught on fire."
---Conan O'Brien
-
"There is one man who has a solution [to gas prices]. John McCain...presented his proposal. He says that over the summer we should have a 'Gas Tax Holiday.' For summer drivers, the 18-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax---he wants that lifted over the summer. Or as it used to be called, 'Grandpa is giving you $5.'"
---Bill Maher
-
Bill O'Reilly clip: What kind of judgment allows a sitting senator to attend a church that radical? Why is Barack Obama continuing to go to that church?
Sean Hannity clip: He stayed in the church for 20 years. I just don’t know how you could sit there for 20 years. Let's say he went to the church ten years and then left the church. I think people would've said, 'All right, he was showing better judgment.'
Stephen Colbert: Exactly! When you see or hear things that are bad or going on in your church, you get up and you walk out. That's what Catholics like me and Papa Bear and Sean Hannity understand. You leave that church!! Unless it's, y'know, widespread decades-long rumors of sexual abuse. In that case you gotta give it time. ... The point is, all any Catholic pundits and Catholic politicians who may be criticizing Obama are saying is: Do as we say, not as we didn’t!
---The Colbert Report
---Jay Leno
-
"David Blaine today broke the world record for holding his breath, on Oprah---17 minutes, four seconds. Blaine has now frozen himself, he's starved himself, he's gone without sleep for weeks, and deprived himself of oxygen. Today, Dick Cheney said, 'See, it's not torture. It's magic.'"
---Jimmy Kimmel
-
"Earlier today, Chinese officials held a ceremony to announce that it's exactly one hundred days until the summer Olympics, and they’re working hard to clean up Beijing’s pollution. Unfortunately, they had to cut the ceremony short because the air caught on fire."
---Conan O'Brien
-
"There is one man who has a solution [to gas prices]. John McCain...presented his proposal. He says that over the summer we should have a 'Gas Tax Holiday.' For summer drivers, the 18-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax---he wants that lifted over the summer. Or as it used to be called, 'Grandpa is giving you $5.'"
---Bill Maher
-
Bill O'Reilly clip: What kind of judgment allows a sitting senator to attend a church that radical? Why is Barack Obama continuing to go to that church?
Sean Hannity clip: He stayed in the church for 20 years. I just don’t know how you could sit there for 20 years. Let's say he went to the church ten years and then left the church. I think people would've said, 'All right, he was showing better judgment.'
Stephen Colbert: Exactly! When you see or hear things that are bad or going on in your church, you get up and you walk out. That's what Catholics like me and Papa Bear and Sean Hannity understand. You leave that church!! Unless it's, y'know, widespread decades-long rumors of sexual abuse. In that case you gotta give it time. ... The point is, all any Catholic pundits and Catholic politicians who may be criticizing Obama are saying is: Do as we say, not as we didn’t!
---The Colbert Report
Say What You Really Think
What Obama wishes he could say
By JOHN F. HARRIS & JIM VANDEHEI
Thrown off his game by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright uproar, Barack Obama’s strongest answer to Hillary Rodham Clinton is one he won’t give: Senator, do you really want to get in a contest with me over who has more unsavory personal associations?
For all the coverage about the rising heat between Clinton and Obama, this year’s nomination race still is a mild affair by historical standards — restrained by a powerful sense on both sides that there are lots of things they could say but shouldn’t.
There is one theme, however, that runs through not-for-attribution conversations with both sides: Each candidate thinks the other has unmitigated gall.
The Clintons, to hear associates tell it, are more contemptuous than they ever acknowledge publicly about what they believe is Obama’s breathtaking arrogance — the way he blithely dismisses the ideological showdowns and policy achievements of the 1990s as “old politics,” the way he thinks his thin résumé leaves him qualified to lead the country. Lately, the contempt level on the Obama side toward his rivals likewise has been soaring.
More precisely, things that many people around the candidate have always believed about the Clintons — about their trail of controversies, about their style of politics — have in recent weeks seemed much more relevant. That’s made the temptation to say them in a more public fashion more powerful.
A couple weeks ago, we wrote a column about what Clinton would say if she said what she really thought.
Fairness dictates that we take a crack at the other side of the question: What arguments has Obama taken off the table, even though he thinks they are true?
Like the earlier column, sourcing on this one must stay pretty opaque. And like the earlier column, this one is intended as a reflection, not a validation, of the views expressed in a collection of not-for-attribution conversations with political associates about the behind-the-scenes thinking of the Obama camp.
The one line from the what-Clinton-thinks column that most agitated Obama supporters was our assertion that Clinton, for better or worse, was a known commodity. Her “baggage” has already been “rummaged through.”
All manner of Clinton controversies, Obama partisans argue, have not been fully ventilated.
This includes old issues, like Hillary Clinton’s legal career, which includes lots of cases that never got much public attention even during the Whitewater era.
It also includes new ones, like recent stories raising questions about the web of personal and financial associations around Bill Clinton. Since leaving the presidency, he has traveled the globe to exotic places and with sometimes exotic characters, raising money for projects such as his foundation and presidential library and making himself a very wealthy man.
Which gets us back to gall. In the fantasies of some of his high-level supporters, Obama would peel off the tape to say something like this:
You want to talk hypocrisy? How about piously criticizing me for Jeremiah Wright when you have a trail of associations that includes golden oldies like Webb Hubbell? (‘90s flashback: He was one of Hillary Clinton’s legal partners and closest friends, whom she installed in a top Justice Department job before prosecutors sent him to prison.) It also includes modern hits like Frank Giustra. (In case you missed it: There was a January New York Times story, which did not get the attention the reporting deserved, highlighting how this Canadian tycoon and major Bill Clinton benefactor was using his ties to the ex-president to win business with a ruthless dictatorship in Khazakstan.)
Obama has never pressed Clinton to talk about Marc Rich, even though the former fugitive financier who won a controversial pardon from Bill Clinton gave money to her first Senate campaign.
He has never mentioned her brothers, even though Hugh and Tony Rodham once defied Bill Clinton’s own top foreign policy advisers by entering into a strange investment in hazelnuts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia (they later dropped the deal) and Hugh Rodham took large cash payments for trying to broker presidential pardons.
Obama is likewise galled to be lectured by Clinton for not being sufficiently committed to universal health coverage. Why is it, his team asks, that Democrats have done so little to advance a long-time progressive goal for the past 15 years? The answer has everything to do with Hillary Clinton’s misjudgments when she was leading the reform effort in 1993 and 1994.
Most irritating of all to Obama partisans is what they see as her latest pose: that she is selflessly staying in the race despite the long odds against her because of devotion to the Democratic Party and the belief that she is a more appealing general election candidate.
It is an article of faith among most people around Obama that the Clintons were a disaster for the party throughout the 1990s. When Bill Clinton came to town in 1993, Democrats were a congressional majority, with 258 seats in the House. When he left in 2001, they were a minority with 46 fewer seats. There were 30 Democratic governors when he arrived, 21 10 years later.
As for electability, the Obama side believes — for all his trouble winning lower-income whites in recent primaries — that it is ludicrous to believe she is the stronger candidate in the fall.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found nearly 60 percent of voters think Clinton is dishonest. Think about that: Only four in 10 voters do not think she lies when she needs to. A majority hold an unfavorable view of her.
Will those numbers improve if she wins the nomination and Republicans resurrect the scandals, the Bill Clinton sexual affairs and her Bosnia fib with the same intensity they brought to the Wright uproar? Unthinkable.
Now that the Democratic superdelegates are facing their moment of decision in this close race, you might think it would be time for politesse to give way to an unvarnished discussion about both candidates' real strengths and liabilities.
The Obama side is frustrated with the news media for not carrying more of its argument. His operatives thought a Newsday story looking exhaustively at her legal career — including the revelation that as a young lawyer she attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old rape victim — would provoke a herd of other coverage. It did not happen.
If he really wanted, Obama could generate all the coverage he wanted about Clinton’s past by leveling accusations in his own words. But that is not going to happen.
Politically, he correctly believes that he would be called out as a hypocrite if he practiced the conventional art of attack politics after preaching against it.
And, to view his motives in the best light — a benefit of the doubt extended by his own team — he believes this campaign would also undermine his governing strategy if elected. He has told associates it would be impossible to win support for a progressive agenda unless he assumes the presidency as a uniting figure who can transcend the personality-obsessed brand of combat that has dominated Washington for the past generation.
“I told this to my team, you know, we are starting to sound like the other folks, we are starting to run the same negative stuff,” he told a crowd in North Carolina this week. “It shows that none of us are immune from this kind of politics. But the problem is that it doesn’t help you.”
By JOHN F. HARRIS & JIM VANDEHEI
Thrown off his game by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright uproar, Barack Obama’s strongest answer to Hillary Rodham Clinton is one he won’t give: Senator, do you really want to get in a contest with me over who has more unsavory personal associations?
For all the coverage about the rising heat between Clinton and Obama, this year’s nomination race still is a mild affair by historical standards — restrained by a powerful sense on both sides that there are lots of things they could say but shouldn’t.
There is one theme, however, that runs through not-for-attribution conversations with both sides: Each candidate thinks the other has unmitigated gall.
The Clintons, to hear associates tell it, are more contemptuous than they ever acknowledge publicly about what they believe is Obama’s breathtaking arrogance — the way he blithely dismisses the ideological showdowns and policy achievements of the 1990s as “old politics,” the way he thinks his thin résumé leaves him qualified to lead the country. Lately, the contempt level on the Obama side toward his rivals likewise has been soaring.
More precisely, things that many people around the candidate have always believed about the Clintons — about their trail of controversies, about their style of politics — have in recent weeks seemed much more relevant. That’s made the temptation to say them in a more public fashion more powerful.
A couple weeks ago, we wrote a column about what Clinton would say if she said what she really thought.
Fairness dictates that we take a crack at the other side of the question: What arguments has Obama taken off the table, even though he thinks they are true?
Like the earlier column, sourcing on this one must stay pretty opaque. And like the earlier column, this one is intended as a reflection, not a validation, of the views expressed in a collection of not-for-attribution conversations with political associates about the behind-the-scenes thinking of the Obama camp.
The one line from the what-Clinton-thinks column that most agitated Obama supporters was our assertion that Clinton, for better or worse, was a known commodity. Her “baggage” has already been “rummaged through.”
All manner of Clinton controversies, Obama partisans argue, have not been fully ventilated.
This includes old issues, like Hillary Clinton’s legal career, which includes lots of cases that never got much public attention even during the Whitewater era.
It also includes new ones, like recent stories raising questions about the web of personal and financial associations around Bill Clinton. Since leaving the presidency, he has traveled the globe to exotic places and with sometimes exotic characters, raising money for projects such as his foundation and presidential library and making himself a very wealthy man.
Which gets us back to gall. In the fantasies of some of his high-level supporters, Obama would peel off the tape to say something like this:
You want to talk hypocrisy? How about piously criticizing me for Jeremiah Wright when you have a trail of associations that includes golden oldies like Webb Hubbell? (‘90s flashback: He was one of Hillary Clinton’s legal partners and closest friends, whom she installed in a top Justice Department job before prosecutors sent him to prison.) It also includes modern hits like Frank Giustra. (In case you missed it: There was a January New York Times story, which did not get the attention the reporting deserved, highlighting how this Canadian tycoon and major Bill Clinton benefactor was using his ties to the ex-president to win business with a ruthless dictatorship in Khazakstan.)
Obama has never pressed Clinton to talk about Marc Rich, even though the former fugitive financier who won a controversial pardon from Bill Clinton gave money to her first Senate campaign.
He has never mentioned her brothers, even though Hugh and Tony Rodham once defied Bill Clinton’s own top foreign policy advisers by entering into a strange investment in hazelnuts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia (they later dropped the deal) and Hugh Rodham took large cash payments for trying to broker presidential pardons.
Obama is likewise galled to be lectured by Clinton for not being sufficiently committed to universal health coverage. Why is it, his team asks, that Democrats have done so little to advance a long-time progressive goal for the past 15 years? The answer has everything to do with Hillary Clinton’s misjudgments when she was leading the reform effort in 1993 and 1994.
Most irritating of all to Obama partisans is what they see as her latest pose: that she is selflessly staying in the race despite the long odds against her because of devotion to the Democratic Party and the belief that she is a more appealing general election candidate.
It is an article of faith among most people around Obama that the Clintons were a disaster for the party throughout the 1990s. When Bill Clinton came to town in 1993, Democrats were a congressional majority, with 258 seats in the House. When he left in 2001, they were a minority with 46 fewer seats. There were 30 Democratic governors when he arrived, 21 10 years later.
As for electability, the Obama side believes — for all his trouble winning lower-income whites in recent primaries — that it is ludicrous to believe she is the stronger candidate in the fall.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found nearly 60 percent of voters think Clinton is dishonest. Think about that: Only four in 10 voters do not think she lies when she needs to. A majority hold an unfavorable view of her.
Will those numbers improve if she wins the nomination and Republicans resurrect the scandals, the Bill Clinton sexual affairs and her Bosnia fib with the same intensity they brought to the Wright uproar? Unthinkable.
Now that the Democratic superdelegates are facing their moment of decision in this close race, you might think it would be time for politesse to give way to an unvarnished discussion about both candidates' real strengths and liabilities.
The Obama side is frustrated with the news media for not carrying more of its argument. His operatives thought a Newsday story looking exhaustively at her legal career — including the revelation that as a young lawyer she attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old rape victim — would provoke a herd of other coverage. It did not happen.
If he really wanted, Obama could generate all the coverage he wanted about Clinton’s past by leveling accusations in his own words. But that is not going to happen.
Politically, he correctly believes that he would be called out as a hypocrite if he practiced the conventional art of attack politics after preaching against it.
And, to view his motives in the best light — a benefit of the doubt extended by his own team — he believes this campaign would also undermine his governing strategy if elected. He has told associates it would be impossible to win support for a progressive agenda unless he assumes the presidency as a uniting figure who can transcend the personality-obsessed brand of combat that has dominated Washington for the past generation.
“I told this to my team, you know, we are starting to sound like the other folks, we are starting to run the same negative stuff,” he told a crowd in North Carolina this week. “It shows that none of us are immune from this kind of politics. But the problem is that it doesn’t help you.”
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Most Unpopular President!
Courtesy of CNN:
A new poll suggests that George W. Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush his handling his job as president.
"No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
"Bush's approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon (22 percent and 24 percent, respectively) but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s," Holland added. "The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 66 percent disapproval in January 1952."
CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974." President Nixon's disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 67 percent.
The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war while 68 percent opposed the conflict.
"Americans are growing more pessimistic about the war," Holland said. "In January, nearly half believed that things were going well for the U.S. in Iraq; now that figure has dropped to 39 percent."
The numbers on the Iraq war come on the five-year anniversary of President Bush's "mission accomplished" moment onboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, when Bush proclaimed that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
The record low support for the war in a CNN poll could be one reason behind the president's unpopularity, but it probably is not the only one.
"Support for the war, the assessment of the economy and approval of Mr. Bush are all about the same — bad," Schneider said.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted by telephone from Monday through Wednesday, with 1,008 adult Americans questioned. The poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A new poll suggests that George W. Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush his handling his job as president.
"No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
"Bush's approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon (22 percent and 24 percent, respectively) but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s," Holland added. "The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 66 percent disapproval in January 1952."
CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974." President Nixon's disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 67 percent.
The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war while 68 percent opposed the conflict.
"Americans are growing more pessimistic about the war," Holland said. "In January, nearly half believed that things were going well for the U.S. in Iraq; now that figure has dropped to 39 percent."
The numbers on the Iraq war come on the five-year anniversary of President Bush's "mission accomplished" moment onboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, when Bush proclaimed that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
The record low support for the war in a CNN poll could be one reason behind the president's unpopularity, but it probably is not the only one.
"Support for the war, the assessment of the economy and approval of Mr. Bush are all about the same — bad," Schneider said.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted by telephone from Monday through Wednesday, with 1,008 adult Americans questioned. The poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
