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May 2008 - Posts
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The first half of today’s RBC meeting was all about “unity” and healing. The second part, not so much. After an extended lunch break, the panel returned with a set of resolutions. The first, presented by committee member Alice Huffman, proposed seating Read More...
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Today’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting was hyped as one of the biggest shindigs of the Democratic primary season, and you can see why. It was in everyone’s interest to inflate its importance. Hillary Clinton needs to rake in delegates and ratify the Read More...
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A lawyer for the Clinton campaign fired off a letter today to the co-chairs of the DNC rules committee, outlining the argument they plan to make tomorrow. Their case hinges largely on whether Florida and Michigan have been sufficiently punished. We all Read More...
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The high-stakes drama of Saturday's rules committee meeting appears illusory. Meanwhile, Obama rakes in more superdelegates, putting him 40.5 away from the nomination. According to our formula, that sinks Clinton to 0.4 percent . T minus one day and counting Read More...
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One big question lingers over the inflammatory comments made by Father Michael Pfleger, a Chicago priest who said some not-very-nice things about Hillary Clinton at Obama’s church last Sunday: Didn’t he know he’d get in trouble? Pfleger was fully aware Read More...
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The Obama campaign has been quick to scrub its Web site of all things Michael Pfleger after the Chicago priest said some not-very-nice things about Hillary Clinton at Obama’s church last Sunday. The campaign’s " faith testimonials " page contains more Read More...
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Yesterday we pointed out a major flaw in the debate over the new GI Bill. In fact, the CBO analysis cited by both McCain (in opposing the bill) and Obama (in supporting it) shows that the bounce in recruitment would outweigh the decline in re-enlistment. Read More...
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When it’s a caucus, according to the Clintons. In a letter to superdelegates yesterday, Hillary Clinton quietly dropped caucuses from her calculation of who's winning. “[W]hen the primaries are finished,” she wrote, “I expect to lead in the popular vote Read More...
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One of the strongest arguments in favor of Jim Webb’s new GI Bill, which passed in the Senate last week, is that while higher education benefits might decrease re-enlistment, they would increase recruitment. This was the case made by the New York Times Read More...
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As the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting looms, Hillary Clinton cranks her electability argument up to 11. But Obama continues to woo superdelegates. Odds of survival hover at 0.5 percent . Clinton is now fighting tooth and nail to see that the DNC's Read More...
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Sen. Joe Lieberman has been taking some heat on the blogs ever since Huffington Post reported that he will be headlining Pastor John Hagee’s annual Christians United For Israel conference this July. Lieberman, like McCain, has praised Hagee in the past Read More...
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The Associated Press reported that the Rules and Bylaws Committee cannot fully restore the delegates who were stripped from Michigan and Florida at its meeting, since party rules require a reduction of at least 50 percent since the two states held their Read More...
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Perhaps the biggest advantage of campaigning in Puerto Rico is that it forces both candidates to dance. Obama broke into a timid little groove—it looks kind of like he’s running in place—while campaigning on Saturday in Puerto Rico’s Old San Juan (video Read More...
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This weekend’s meeting of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will be full of theater. Each campaign must publicly make its case for why Florida's and Michigan’s delegations should or should not be seated, and the committee’s 30 members must deliberate. Read More...
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Hillary Clinton's ill-advised invoking of RFK's assassination might have damaged her campaign if there were anything left to damage. Meanwhile, Obama closes in on the current magic number of 2,026, bringing Clinton's odds of winning the nomination to Read More...
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A conversation is already brewing over at " XX Factor " about what Clinton meant when she invoked Robert Kennedy’s assassination as evidence that nomination battles continue through June. Here’s her wording, from an interview with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader Read More...
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In a Wednesday post at National Review Online, Larry Kudlow, he of CNBC fame , asserts that the stock market likes Hillary Clinton more than Barack Obama. How does he know this? Because on two occasions, the stock market went up after Clinton won a primary, Read More...
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In today’s Washington Post , Charles Krauthammer slams Barack Obama for what he calls Obama’s "gaffe"-turned-foreign-policy centerpiece. To hear Krauthammer tell it, Obama’s position that he would meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Read More...
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John McCain finally rejected, denounced, and bused over Pastor John Hagee, whose remarks about the Catholic Church have been dogging McCain for months. The final straw was a sermon in which Hagee, citing the book of Jeremiah, called Adolf Hitler a “hunter” Read More...
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Lanny Davis, former special counsel to the Clinton White House and a high-profile fundraiser/surrogate for Hillary's campaign, circulated an e-mail a few days ago from Rear Admiral David Stone (Ret.), a Clinton supporter who has visited other veterans Read More...
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In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times , Hillary Clinton reiterates that Florida Democrats shouldn’t be punished for the Republican legislature’s decision to move the primary up to Jan. 29. Democrats "had very little or no choice in the matter," Read More...
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Clinton steps up calls for Florida and Michigan to be seated. But those delegations won't make up the difference. Her chances remain stagnant at 0.7 percent . On May 31, the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee will convene in Washington, D.C., to decide Read More...
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On a conference call just now, Clinton adviser Harold Ickes articulated the campaign’s position on Michigan’s "uncommitted" delegates: Obama shouldn’t get them. Over at Politico , Avi Zenilman points out how this would hinder Obama’s attempts to win the Read More...
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Something we didn’t mention in our assessments of Hillary Clinton’s claim that she’s winning the popular vote: the Texas caucuses. We and many other outlets have taken to using the Real Clear Politics popular vote count . The problem is, RCP factors in Read More...
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Now that we’ve laid out Hillary Clinton’s logic for how she’s winning the popular vote, it’s worth examining whether and how she can turn this from a tenuous argument into a compelling case. Right now, superdelegates aren’t buying it, most likely because Read More...
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Last night, Clinton announced that she’s "winning the popular vote." It’s a claim she’s been making since Pennsylvania , but now that Obama has won a majority of pledged delegates, it’s really her last plausible argument for the nomination. As this blog Read More...
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Results from the last several Republican primaries force one to occasionally stop for a fact-check: Mike Huckebee did drop out of the race, right? Like, almost three months ago? Or more to the point: Is anyone in the McCain camp worried that an opponent Read More...
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With Tuesday's contests in Kentucky and Oregon, Barack Obama seizes a majority of pledged delegates. April fundraising numbers show Obama still leads in the money race. And key figures ditch Hillary. Obama now needs about 70 delegates to attain the "magic Read More...
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It’s one thing to damn with faint praise. It’s another to kill with enthusiastc praise. And that seemed to be Barack Obama’s partial goal in his speech in Des Moines tonight. At times, Obama sounded like a Clinton surrogate. He called her “one of the Read More...
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Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight in Louisville was two speeches in one. On the one hand, she seemed more determined than ever to campaign through June 3, seat Florida and Michigan, and reach the “2,210” delegates necessary to win the nomination. But she Read More...
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Despite Hillary Clinton’s dominating win in Kentucky this evening, Barack Obama is still going to win enough pledged delegates to own the majority in that metric. He who holds the pledged-delegate majority holds the key to the kingdom, we’re told. But Read More...
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Another election night, another parsing of the exit polls. As usual, these numbers come from CNN and will probably evolve as the night goes on and the networks receive more waves of exit polls. The gist: As in West Virginia, it’s a sweep, no matter the Read More...
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Another quirk of Oregon’s mail-in voting system is the way exit polls are being conducted. Normally, polling firms set up stations at polling places across the state and selectively interview voters as they emerge. The difference in Oregon is that polling Read More...
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Story lines in this election have been determined as often by timing as by actual events. Two weeks ago, networks called Barack Obama’s win in North Carolina hours before they called Clinton’s Indiana win, producing wishy-washy headlines like NBC’s "CLINTON Read More...
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On normal election nights, results start trickling in when polls close, but it sometimes takes hours for enough precincts to report that you can declare a winner. You end up waiting for areas like Gary, Ind., to get their act together and report. As a Read More...
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Oregon Democrat Steve Novick has become a media darling in recent weeks. Yes, he’s the scrappy underdog in his state’s senatorial primary. Yes, he has an exceptional background, having earned a law degree from Harvard at age 21. But let’s be honest. You Read More...
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For a while earlier today, Yahoo! News had this photo illustrating an article about alleged White House plans to attack Iran -- a piece that had nothing to do with John McCain. The photo's fixed now. Maybe Obama's attempts to tie McCain to Bush are paying Read More...
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For a candidate trying to combat portrayals of himself as a fey elitist, Obama could be choosing his speaking venues more carefully. A headline in today’s Des Moines Register announces that Obama “returns to D.M. today for east-side rally.” The city’s Read More...
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Barack Obama stepped up his anti-lobbyist rhetoric yesterday after a fifth McCain staffer, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, resigned due to lobbying ties. Obama took the opportunity to reiterate his stance on lobbyists: “We're not gonna take money from Read More...
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Obama won't declare victory after Tuesday, but only because the media will do it for him. Clinton's chances sag another 0.1 point to 1.6 percent . Despite reports that Barack Obama would declare victory after May 20, when he's expected to secure a majority Read More...
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While national security issues have gobbled up most news space over the past week, a couple of harsh analyses of John McCain’s economic plan have sailed under the radar. The Center for American Progress Action Fund* released a study yesterday concluding Read More...
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The John Edwards endorsement spawns imitators, and Republicans set their sights on Obama. Clinton's chances wane another 0.1 points to 1.7 percent . Obama nabbed a slew of endorsements yesterday on the heels of Edwards' announcement, including California Read More...
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Mike Huckabee’s penchant for dark humor was a minor obsession of ours back when he was still in the race. So it’s good to see he’s still making people uncomfortable. Look what he just told an audience of NRA members after hearing an offstage noise: "That Read More...
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A miniflap bubbled up earlier this week when Barack Obama said that the Iraq war was occupying Arabic translators who could otherwise be working in Afghanistan. OK, so he didn’t quite say that, but he almost said it. (Video here .) It was close enough Read More...
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The biggest news in John McCain’s "2013" speech today is his suggestion that he’d have troops out of Iraq: By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her Read More...
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Endorsements from formerly coy John Edwards and the United Steelworkers for Obama are two more nails in the Clinton coffin. Clinton's odds drop 1.1 to 1.8 percent . Whatever momentum Clinton picked up from her 41-point West Virginia win the Obama camp Read More...
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John McCain’s speech on his vision for America may have been comically sunny , but it’s got one nugget of genuine inspiration: "My administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. I will Read More...
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If you're looking for entertainment, watch Republican candidates try to imitate Barack Obama’s hope/change shtick. In his now-famous Tuesday night memo to Republicans, NRCC Chair Tom Cole wrote that "Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a Read More...
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Ever since John Edwards dropped out in January “so that history can blaze its path,” he has been careful not to get in history’s way. Even when his endorsement would have carried real weight—before North Carolina, for example—he was quiet. It almost seemed Read More...
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Twenty-four hours later, the verdict seems to be that West Virginia’s results weren’t ideal for Obama, but they haven’t hurt him in any lasting way. Still, he’d no doubt prefer to avoid repeating the same experience in Kentucky, a state that’s a lot like Read More...
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Tous les blogs are aflutter today, less over Clinton’s West Virginia victory than over Democrat Travis Childers’ thumping of Republican Greg Davis in Mississippi’s First District special election. Despite the NRCC sinking $1.8 million into the race—plus Read More...
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The past 24 hours have been a combination of sky highs and brutal lows for Hillary Clinton. She won by double digits in West Virginia—one of her biggest victories yet. But a superdelegate shutout (Obama won four today to her zero) and a crippling campaign Read More...
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CNN’s projecting that Hillary Clinton will win West Virginia big time. The question is how, if at all, this can help her. She’s been running out of arguments for weeks. But here are a few ways she can spin today's results: 1) Obama’s coalition is splintering. Read More...
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This presidential race is full of celebrity look-alikes. Hillary Clinton and Star Trek 's Tasha Yar . Fred Thompson and Javier Bardem . But rarely does someone intimately |
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