Month: June 2008

Poll: Obama Got 12% of GOP Crossover Votes, McCain Got Zero Dem Crossover

Jon Ponder

Here’s potentially a bit of good news for November, unless John McCain can rally his party and call these stragglers home:
About 3 million of the 35 million votes for Democrats this year were cast by Republicans.

About 12 percent of Obama’s aggregate vote in presidential primaries came from people who normally align themselves with the GOP, based on a survey of 1,003 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

About 5 percent of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s support came from Republicans.

The poll also found that Arizona Sen. John McCain, who won the Republican nomination in the early months of the primary season, received virtually no Democratic crossover votes.

What is unknown is how much of the Republican crossover was mischief-making:

“McCain didn’t need my vote since he already had the nomination locked up,” explained life-long Republican voter Jerry Maisel, 64, of Plano, Texas. “So I thought that this was my chance to be a spoiler with the Democrats. Barack Obama is the first Democrat I’ve ever voted for in a presidential race. Can’t say I enjoyed the experience.

…Other Republicans came to an opposite conclusion.

“I voted for Clinton because she’s a little less dangerous than Obama. He’s 180 degrees from what he pretends to be,” said Dan Curtin, 58, of Marblehead, Mass.”

About 3 million of the 35 million votes for Democrats this year were cast by Republicans, according to the study. This backs up Trish’s article that “Obama Republicans” may be a trend this year.

Obama Does Have Other VP Choices

Buck Banks

Mother Jones magazine is running an interesting article that explores Barack Obama’s other potential vice president candidates. It notes quite accurately that Hillary Clinton’s potential has been discussed ad nauseum.
vpseal.jpg
The essential question the article poses is whether Obama will “double-down” on his strengths and choose a youthful reform-minded political outsider or whether he’ll choose a running mate who compensates for some of his weaknesses, someone older, more experienced in the ways of Washington and perhaps from an important swing state.

I’m just supplying a list here. Go to the article for the thinking behind each one:

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.), 60
Gov. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio), 66
Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), 62
Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.), 64
Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), 60
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), 61
Gen. Wesley Clark (US Army, retired), 63
Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), 69
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), 52
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), 65
Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-Ariz.), 50
Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), 54
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), 55

Clinton Says She Would Accept V.P. Nod – Unity Ticket Could Be Strongest Since JFK-LBJ

Jon Ponder

Clinton and Obama supporters have bruised each other up pretty badly over the past few months, but the surest path to a Democratic victory in November may well be a unity ticket:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has told congressional colleagues she would be open to becoming Barack Obama’s vice-presidential nominee, saying she would consider it if it would help Democrats win the White House.

Clinton, a New York senator, made the comment during a conference call with other New York legislators today.

The word comes from one of the participants on the call.

Clinton’s remarks were in response to a question from Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez.

She said she believed the best way for Obama to win over key voting blocs, including Hispanics, would be for him to choose Clinton as his running mate.

Clinton replied that she is “open to it” if it would help the party’s prospects in November.

Successful unity tickets have come out of bitter rivalries before. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush joined forces after a hard fought primary campaign in 1980, for example. But the race that may be the most instructive today is the 1960 race when Sen. John F. Kennedy, a young wealthy Yankee insurgent, usurped the Democratic nomination from the powerful Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, and then had the audacity to offer Johnson the vice presidency to Johnson.

[…]

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and human affairs.

— Enoch Powell (1912-1998), British politician, linguist, writer, academic, soldier and poet

At S.C. GOP Convention, Cue for Applause at Mention of Bush Met with Silence

Jon Ponder

There are few states that are more Republican than South Carolina. Just a few years ago, George Bush was the object of a near cult-like worship among the Palmetto State’s GOP true believers.

But during an address to the state GOP convention on Saturday, when Sen. Lindsey Graham — a leading supporter of John McCain — mentioned Bush and waited for the cheers and applause, all he got was, as Keith Olbermann put it on “Countdown” last night … crickets:

Graham used his remarks to embrace President Bush, just hours before he was to meet Bush at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport and accompany him to Furman University for a presidential commencement address that has divided the campus.

At his first mention of Bush’s visit, Graham paused, waiting for applause. When it didn’t come, it took a slight nod from Graham to prompt a round of applause.

“President Bush is my friend,” he continued, “and I’m not going to run away from the friend.”

Graham may want to reconsider not running away from Bush. He is up for reelection in November and faces a primary challenge from Buddy Witherspoon of the benighted town of Irmo. Witherspoon has been attempting to raise Graham’s negatives by calling him the worst name imaginable in South Carolina: “liberal.” In fact, outside the convention hall, Witherspoon supporters had decorated the grounds with signs reading, “Lindsey is too Liberal for South Carolina.”

While George Bush may no longer be popular in South Carolina, the state can still be expected to vote overwhelmingly for McCain, and thus a de facto third term for Bush, in November.

Signs Clinton Might End It Tomorrow

Trish

Camp Clinton is showing signs of folding, according to the big guns.

HufPo:

Hillary Clinton has summoned top donors and backers to attend her New York speech tomorrow night in an unusual move that is being widely interpreted to mean she plans to suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama – if not that night, within a day or two.

Obama and Clinton spoke Sunday night and agreed that their staffs should begin negotiations over post-primary activities, according to reliable sources. In addition to seeking Obama’s help in raising money to pay off some $20 million-plus in debts, Clinton is known to want Obama to assist black officials who endorsed her and who are now taking constituent heat…

“This has never happened before,” one donor said, referring to the personalized request by email to attend the event in New York Tuesday night…

In an afternoon conference call today with about two dozen top fundraisers, Clinton strategist Harold Ickes spoke in very conciliatory terms about Obama, in contrast to his tougher rhetoric in public and on television, according to sources. He told the participants that Clinton wants to “significantly” help Obama, but he did not go so far as saying that she will announce withdrawal — that is the prerogative of the candidate.

Politico:

Members of Hillary Clinton’s advance staff received calls and emails this evening from headquarters summoning them to New York City Tuesday night, and telling them their roles on the campaign are ending, two Clinton staffers tell my colleague Amie Parnes.

The advance staffers — most of them now in Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana — are being given the options of going to New York for a final day Tuesday, or going home, the aides said. The move is a sign that the campaign is beginning to shed — at least — some of its staff…

UPDATE: Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee says the advance staffers haven’t been let go or told to find other jobs, just sent home. They aren’t typically paid for off days. “We just haven’t figured out our schedule past Tuesday,” he said.

DNC Rules Committee Is a Toothless Tiger – Nominee Will Restore Votes to Florida, Michigan

Jon Ponder

Except to deliver a public scolding to Democrats in Florida and Michigan — and to expend a lot of hot air — it is hard to see what good came out of the day long meeting of the DNC Rules Committee on Saturday. In fact, it was much like watching a toothless tiger picking his teeth.
The seating of delegates is the prerogative of the nominee. Both Obama and Clinton have told Sen. Levin that they would seat the full delegations from Florida and Michigan.
The Rules Committee rules don’t matter. It’s up to the presumptive nominee — when we get one — to decide who gets seated at the Democratic Convention:

[It] seems that even though the committee voted to give the delegates from Michigan and Florida only half a vote each at the convention, they will end up getting full votes.

That is the prerogative of the nominee. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan says that both Senator Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton have told him that if they were nominated they would give the delegates full voting strength.

“We’re assured we’re going to get a full vote,” Mr. Levin said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

He added: “And both candidates have said that they want Michigan’s delegation to have a full vote. She said that yesterday and Senator Obama has said that he can guarantee that the Michigan delegation will be seated and they’ll have a full voice at the convention, when he has enough delegates to know that he’s the nominee.”

This raises some interesting questions — like whether the rules matter.

So what is really going on here?

[…]

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.

— Albert Camus (1913-1960), French-Algerian author, philosopher and journalist who won the Nobel Prize in 1957