It started late last week and continued into the weekend, both Clinton’s calling for the possibility of a joint “dream ticket” with the obvious implication, they would love to have top billing. For most of Saturday and Sunday the Obama camp, undoubtedly mystified by the continued claims, did not have a great response other than to say “it is too early” and “I am running for the presidency not the VP.”
Yesterday the Obama camp finally seemed to catch on openly wondering how a candidate “who’s in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who’s in first place.” In addition to the great line Obama started using a wonderful windup. With crowds he began noting he had won more states, won the popular vote and had more delegates, and he would recount these facts beautifully as if he too was bemused as the audience was, at the stunning illogic of the Clinton’s argument. He also began noting the weird illogic in the following, if Obama is not ready on day one, then why do they want to give him the second most power position in all the land?
There is of course, logic behind the seeming illogic, a somewhat clever ruse that may have actually worked, at least a little, for the Clinton campaign. Here is my take.
If you remember THIS was the moment that started the descent of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and it came while defending a plan of her friend Governor Spitzer. In retrospect, I bet her campaign is looking back wishing they had just thrown him under the bus.
Two Clinton backers have offered up a plan to re-stage the Florida and Michigan primaries.
Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said Sunday that they would be willing to raise half the $30 million it would take to run new contests in those two states. Mr. Corzine and Mr. Rendell submitted their proposal to The Washington Post.
The two governors argue that the Democratic National Committee, and not taxpayers in Florida and Michigan, should pay for a re-election in those states.
Meanwhile The NY Sun reports that Al Sharpton is now threatening to sue the Democratic National Committee if it uses the results of the Florida primary to seat delegates.
Rev. Sharpton is traveling to Florida today to compile lists of residents who skipped the January contest because they thought their votes would not count. He plans to have those residents sign affidavits saying they would be disenfranchised by the seating of the Florida delegation, in the event the Democratic Party allowed that to happen.
The party had promised to exclude Florida and Michigan from the nomination process after the states scheduled their primaries in January, earlier than party rules had allowed, but the close contest between senators Clinton and Obama has turned attention toward those primaries, prompting debate between the campaigns and party leaders over how to handle the lockout.
Giving, service and compassion are recurrent themes on the campaign trail for Sen. Barack Obama, but the Democratic presidential contender has only recently dug deep into his own pockets to support charitable causes.
Obama has enjoyed a robust household income throughout his political career in the Illinois Senate and the U.S. Senate. But for most of that time he has reported comparatively little by national standards in charitable contributions on his tax returns, records released by Obama show.
There is a lot in the article so make sure to check it out.
Recently the Obama campaign has made a major issue out of Senator Clinton not releasing her 2006 tax returns. What hasn’t been mentioned up until this point is that while Senator Obama has released his 2006 returns he hasn’t released those covering other years that he has been a US Senator.
“We’ve said she should release her tax returns from last year, like we have done,” says Obama spox Bill Burton. “Now that some 80% of the Democratic contests have transpired, she has already deprived most Democratic voters of the ability to fully judge her on the information that we have made available.”
As for any pre-2006 or 2007 returns, Burton says he “will keep you posted.”
- Retired Army, Navy and Air Force secretaries will lend a boost to the Obama campaign today at 1:30pm EST during a press conference to be held in D.C.
- Obama won the Wyoming Caucuses this weekend picking up an estimated 7 delegates to Clinton’s 4.
- The New Yorker has a not always flattering look at the mismanagement and amazing resurrection of the Clinton campaign.
- The first Democratic win of 2008 has come in the Illinois 14th district where a special election was won by Democrat Bill Foster who defeated Republican Jim Oberweis. The seat was held by Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
- The Times looked over Barack Obama’s career in the Senate finding a lot of star power but not a lot of depth.
He went to the Senate intent on learning the ways of the institution, telling reporters he would be “looking for the washroom and trying to figure out how the phones work.” But frustrated by his lack of influence and what he called the “glacial pace,” he soon opted to exploit his star power. He was running for president even as he was still getting lost in the Capitol’s corridors.
…And while he rightly takes credit for steering through an ethics overhaul that reformers called a “gold standard,” like most freshmen he did not play a significant role in passing much other legislation and disappointed some Democrats for not becoming a more prominent voice in other important debates.
- John McCain got “testy” with a reporter late last week when she pressed him on a meeting in 2004 with Senator John Kerry.
- The Clinton’s spent the weekend pushing the idea of a joint ticket, undoubtedly a Hillary/Obama ticket but also left open the idea of the opposite as well. Obama wanted no party saying it was too early for such talk and that he would turn down a VP offer.
- Al Sharpton is considering a lawsuit against Florida if delegates from the states primary are seated at the convention.
A look inside the dysfunction of the Clinton campaign. if the reporting is accurate it does not pain a wonderful picture of Senator. Clinton as a leader or manager.
Still, interviews with campaign aides, associates and friends suggest that Mrs. Clinton, at least until February, was a detached manager. Juggling the demands of being a candidate, she paid little attention to detail, delegated decisions large and small and deferred to advisers on critical questions. Mrs. Clinton accepted or seemed unaware of the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama, of Illinois.
Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise.
Mrs. Clinton stood by Mr. Penn and Patti Solis Doyle, who was until last month her campaign manager, even as her campaign was at risk of letting Mr. Obama sew up the nomination. When some of her closest supporters pressed her to replace them, arguing that the two were clearly struggling with their jobs and had become divisive figures in the campaign, she responded by saying she would “think about it.”
In talking up a joint ticket, the Clintons may be seeking the upper hand, attempting to put her in consideration for the top of the ticket when she so far has failed to win the votes necessary to assure that she would face Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election.
The maneuver may also be aimed at countering an image in voters’ minds of Obama as presidential material and at helping restore an aura of inevitability as the party’s nominee that Clinton had early in the campaign but lost.
“The Clintons are in a difficult position,” said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa, who has tracked the presidential race.
“If she wins the Democratic presidential nomination, she would need Obama’s supporters. But she needs to be careful. If this talk of him on the ticket is seen as a cynical maneuver, it could backfire and hurt her,” Goldford said.
“Independent and Republican support is diminishing as they find out he’s the most liberal Democratic senator… As they get more of a sense that he’s not ready to be Commander-in-Chief, a lot of Independents who were supporting him are disappearing.”
Liberal’s have never been Clinton’s base but it is interesting to hear someone so candidly discard them from the Clinton camp and take on what is sure to be the Republican attack line in the general election. In addition from the article:
Penn’s poll-defying arguments about Obama’s electability against McCain will be pressed ever more forcefully as both campaigns move to the dénouement of the primary season. From Penn’s standpoint, Obama’s freshness is his greatest vulnerability. “The G.O.P. attack machine redefines the Democratic candidate,” Penn said recently. “It’s formidable. It commands a vast media network. And it has been able to skew the perceptions even of such distinguished public servants and well-respected Democrats as Al Gore and John Kerry, creating impressions of them very quickly that were out of step with reality.” Hillary Clinton, he went on, “has withstood the full brunt of this kind of attack and will be able to neutralize what is likely to happen, particularly with the nominee who is not as well known through public life.”
Clinton is stressing in all her appearances—another point that Penn sees as essential—that Obama will appear distinctly weaker on national-security questions in relation to McCain. (This infuriates Obama’s supporters—after all, he alone among the surviving candidates opposed the invasion of Iraq.) The Clinton campaign will also press the claim that Obama will not be able to withstand heightened scrutiny of his domestic-policy views. The implication is that Obama is unacceptably liberal, while Clinton, despite the similarity of her positions and voting record, is not. “How much do Independent voters really know about Barack Obama, his voting record, and his past positions?” Penn asked recently. “Certainly less than Democrats know. In a general election the Republicans would spring into action, and quickly, if he were the nominee, roll out his full record. And the kind of Independent support that you see in places like Idaho would consequently evaporate.”
