News
- The first ever Democratic primary debate in spanish happened yesterday and from what i’ve read these debates are as interesting in a foreign language as they are in english or on youtube. Meanwhile only John McCain on the republican side has accepted an invitation to debate on Univision.

- The much anticipated report on Iraq from Gen. Patraeus is coming and the candidates did use the Univision debate to pre-emptively attack the report. The democratic party, the liberal blogosphere and liberal pundits seem to be heavily organized on this issue taking out ads, filling the airwaves and keeping the blogosphere filled with attacks on the report, the general, the Republicans and the president (not to mention the democratic party as well!). But with no chance of reaching the votes needed in the Senate and no willingness to cut war funding, what effect will it have?

Democrats are hoping to win the public relations war and for candidates the primary audience. In the Republican party Senator John McCain is arguing that the strategy needs more time while the other Republican candidates are taking a tuff line on islamic terrorism, using the issue to say Democrats are soft on defense and hoping for better news to come from the front lines.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the NY Daily News:

“They said, ‘You gotta quit smoking,’” Thompson explained to a questioner asking about progress in Iraq during a town hall-style meeting. Thompson said the smoking ban and terror tactics Al Qaeda used to oppress women and intimidate local leaders pushed tribes in western Anbar Province to support U.S. troops.

But Thompson’s tale of a smokers’ revolt baffled some in the audience of about 150 who came to decide whether the former Tennessee senator is ready for prime time.

“I don’t know what that was about,” said Jim Moran, 72, who had driven from nearby McCook Lake, S.D.

The right leaning NewsBusters points out that Thompson at the very least had some credibility here as CNN along with a military blogger both made mention of this ban over the summer and the brutal punishment for ignoring it. So there was a smoking ban, it did bother people and it was part of large mistreatment by al Qaeda that would have turned Iraqi’s away.

The problem for Thompson is that when you assert something to an audience you have to explain what you are talking about. If you don’t then forming conclusions about a complex issue around a simple explanation that an audience doesn’t understand will only make you, the speaker, look silly.

I am doing away with the daily news part of the blog which brought you a daily listing of just headlines spit from a database in a rather uninteresting way. You can still see the days headlines on the sites primary page and check out individual candidate pages for news links.

The News
- Democratic fundraiser Normal Hsu is in custody after failing to appear at a California court hearing. FBI agents nabbed him in Colorado on charges of unlawful flight. Hsu has been easily recognized as a major contributer to Sen. Hillary Clinton by the media but this weekend it also came out that in addition to giving money directly to Barack Obama’s senate campaign, Hsu also held a fundraiser for Obama’s PAC and brought major donors and further problems for the Democrats at large.

- Another Republican Senate seat wide open? As reported friday Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel will announce his plans future plans monday but according to “sources” close to Hagel he will definitely call it quits.

- Associated Press is reporting Frederico Pena, former Secretary of Energy and Transportation under Bill Clinton, is becoming a co-chairman of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

- Mitt Romney is starting to give more details on his plans for tax cutting if he reaches the White House. The former Massachusetts governor would remove taxes on all interest, dividends and capitol gains for Americans who make less than $200,000 a year. That would bring tax relief to an estimated 95 percent of Americans and Romney hopes would encourage savings.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chuck Hagel, the rather independent minded Senator from Nebraska, will reveal his future plans on monday at 11:00am Eastern. He has been rumored to be considering a run for the presidency, though those odds have gotten lower as time has progressed. He will also reveal whether or not he will run for re-election. If he choses to run Hagel faces a primary challenge from Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning.

Cross-posted at techPresident.

I am glad to see that a post I wrote Candidates’ Blogs: Glorified Public Relations? has received some good discussion in the comments section at techPresident as well as some other blogs. On MYDD user Psericks wrote a critique of my post that is generating even more discussion. So I thought it would be good to follow-up on that critique and further explore the issue.

I find it interesting that there hasn’t been a great deal of opposition to my main argument, that the current state of official paid-by-the-campaign blogging isn’t very interesting. We all seem to agree it isn’t the bloggers themselves, many of whom are very talented, but perhaps the limitations of the environment. If we can generally agree that these blogs are not effective, or at least not as effective as they could be, we have to figure out what the limitations are.

Psericks questions my assertion that the flaw is fundamental. I said “the problem with these blogs isn’t entirely the fault of the bloggers but the premise, which is you take a bunch of people and have them write positively about a campaign.” I stand by that assertion not as a reflection that they can never work but as a reality check of our expectations on the difference between paid-for-blogging and the political blogosphere most of us are used to reading.

Read the rest of this entry »