Of Course, Edwards Voted for Obama

May 10, 2008

Appearing Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," former U.S. Senator John Edwards was pressed by co-host Mika Brzezinski to discuss who he had voted for in last Tuesday's North Carolina primary.

"You're saying that this candidate you voted for will be the candidate that you potentially endorse, that it looks highly likely, if I can use your words?" asked Brzezinski.

"I'd say that's very likely," replied Edwards.

McCain Had Better Hope Voters Think He's a Liar

May 9, 2008

O.K., let me get this straight:

Polls and anecdotal evidence tell us that Republican President George Bush is dramatically unpopular -- with approval ratings that have dipped into the low 30s or high 20s.

Polls suggest that Republican Vice President Dick Cheney -- Bush's running mate in 2000 and 2004 -- may well be the least popular elected official in the American history.

Clinton's Post-Mortem

May 9, 2008

It's perhaps a bit premature to write Hillary Clinton's political obituary, but that hasn't stopped members of the media from doing so. Yesterday Time magazine's Karen Tumulty published a pretty thorough list of "The Five Mistakes Clinton Made."

Analyses like Tumulty's tend to focus on the tactical errors committed by camp Clinton: they didn't devote enough resources to caucus states, didn't plan beyond Super Tuesday, didn't build a small donor fundraising base. All true, but focusing on the tactical errors alone obscures the substantive reasons why many Democrats turned away from Clinton's campaign.

The biggest factor that doomed Clinton, from day one, was Iraq. Her vote for the war and subsequent lack of apology cost her the support of a huge segment of the party that flocked to Obama (and, early on, Edwards) and tarnished her brand from the very beginning. That vote, more than any other, reflected the hawkishness, caution and calculation that soured many Democrats on Clinton and hurt her with young voters, new voters, independent voters, etc.

Vice President Clinton?

May 8, 2008

Why would a smart woman like Hillary Clinton continue her campaign when the odds are against her? In her public appearances as a newly cast woman of the people she says she is doing it for us. If so, thanks but no thanks.

Speculation assigns her pertinacity to other motives. Some are guessing that she is continuing to campaign as a means of crowbarring herself into being chosen as the vice-presidential candidate. According to this line of thought, the longer she campaigns the more she binds white women of a certain age to her and can argue that unless she is on the ballot they will be so disaffected that they will stay home on election day.

Others whisper that she hopes by soldiering on to make a deal with the Obama campaign that, in return for a.) her withdrawal and b.) her promise to stump for him against McCain, her campaign debts will be taken care of and she will be repaid the money she loaned herself. She does have a reputation for grasping for a buck.

Clinton Drops Stump-Speech Criticism of Obama

May 8, 2008

During a quick campaign swing into West Virginia, which appeared to have been organized mainly for the purpose of stifling rumors that she will quickly exit the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton on Wednesday restructured her standard stump speech to remove overt criticisms of Barack Obama.

As with her muted victory/concession speech after losing Tuesday's North Carolina primary and barely scraping through the Indiana contest on Tuesday, the New York senator sounded party-unity and anti-Republican themes rather than stressing her differences with the now likely Democratic nominee.

Clinton's speech also dropped references to staying in the race "until the convention" and instead indicated that she was in it "until we have a nominee." That line echoes former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's comments from the latter stages of the Republican nomination race and leaves open the prospect of exiting the competition at a point when:

The Clinton Campaign is Broke

May 7, 2008

Don't misread the reports that Hillary Clinton has fronted her presidential campaign another $6.4 million.

This is not onward-to-victory money.

This is keep-the-lights-on money. And it has already been spent.

Clinton One Step Closer To Exit

May 7, 2008

Most reporters are bad at math, but I can still count. Hillary Clinton won by 214,000 votes in Pennsylvania and netted eight delegates, according to CNN. Barack Obama won North Carolina last night by 233,00 votes and picked up fourteen more pledged delegates than Clinton. Hillary's narrow win in Indiana--by 18,000 votes and two additional delegates--will not be enough to slow Obama's momentum or check his math.

Clinton will likely stay in the race until June 3, but the contest effectively ended last night. The question is not if Obama will be the Democratic nominee, but when.

The primary entered what I like to think of as a clarifying moment in the past few weeks. For months people said there were few legitimate differences between Obama and Clinton. Yet ever since Ohio, the wonky, centrist, empirically-minded Senator from New York transformed into a rough-and-tumble cultural populist: courting downscale whites almost exclusively, slamming Obama from the right on guns and Bill Ayers, siding with John McCain on the gas tax, scoffing at economists and threatening to obliterate Iran. Like the Republicans, she went after Obama's patriotism, "elitism" and former pastor, thus validating the right's attacks. "She may continue the campaign, but the harsh attacks are over," the Politico's Mike Allen predicted this morning. We'll see. As polls closed last night, Clinton adviser Harold Ickes--stealing yet another page from the GOP playbook--warned of an "October surprise" with Obama.

Barack Obama's Very Good Primary Night

May 6, 2008

The last really good primary night for Barack Obama was February 19, when the senator from Illinois won the Wisconsin primary by a 58-41 margin.

Since then, the candidate who has been on the verge of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination for so very long has struggled to "close the deal."

He did not close it Tuesday night.

'A Change is Gonna Come'

May 6, 2008

American Idol finalist Syesha Mercado had just finished singing Sam Cooke's 1964 classic "A Change is Gonna Come" when Obama strode onto the stage in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Syesha wept, as she reminded Randy, Paula and Simon of the civil rights movement which fueled Cooke's song, life and power.

Obama spoke of the change that was coming --the attacks, the rightwing playbook, and he worked to inoculate himself with power, passion, and words that soared.

Key Voting Blocs Boost Obama in Indiana

May 6, 2008

So Barack Obama is back. The results on Tuesday did not provide the "game changer" Hillary Clinton so desperately needed. Instead, Obama built on his leads in delegates and the popular vote. His aides pointed to May 20 as the day when he will clinch a majority of elected delegates, essentially becoming the party's presumptive nominee. And that's not all.

In Indiana, Obama improved his support across several key demographics, despite a bruising month of attacks on his pastor, patriotism and populism. Compared to Ohio and Pennsylvania, he generally drew more votes from white women, Catholics, gun owners, households earning under $50,000 annually, voters prioritizing the economy, and voters without a college degree. A Democratic field operative sent in this graph of Obama's performance in the three states: