Tag: Elections

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Edwards Says No to Fox Noise Channel

Trish

Go John! Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards turned down a debate opportunity in Nevada if it meant having to deal with Fox “News.”

The state’s Democratic Party — led in part by Sen. Harry Reid, a Mormon — forged a “partnership” with the biased broadcaster, supposedly in order to reach a more diverse group of voters. That would be the “Minds Locked Down Tighter Than Guantanamo” block, I guess. Even they now admit it’s not working.

…in a letter posted Wednesday on the party’s Web site, Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins said Reid now shares activists’ concerns and “has asked us to take another look.”

Rudy Giuliani’s Home Life is a Mess

Trish

Rut-roh! America’s mayor isn’t the world’s greatest dad. According to his son, Rudy’s kids are not that into their dad’s third wife. Then again, Rudy doesn’t seem that into his kids.

Though he supports his father, Andrew Giuliani does not plan on participating in his campaign. “I will not be active in his campaign,” he said. “I am too busy with golf.”

Andrew Giuliani said he and his father have recently tried to reconcile after not speaking “for a decent amount of time.” In the [recent New York] Times article, Andrew attributed their strained relationship to [Judith] Nathan, saying, “There’s obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife.”

According to the Times, Rudy Giuliani used to pride himself on attending all his children’s events, but at some point after his marriage to Nathan in 2003 he stopped. He missed his son’s graduation in 2005 and his 17-year old daughter’s plays in the last 18 months…

Though he supports his father, Andrew Giuliani does not plan on participating in his campaign. As a Duke University sophomore and aspiring professional golfer, he has no time for distractions.

“I will not be active in his campaign,” he said. “I am too busy with golf.”

Now there’s a rousing endorsement. At least one pundit, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, thinks Rudy’s home life could be a liability.

According to Brinkley, the critical area candidates must keep pristine during the grueling race to the White House is their wholesome family image. Scenes like Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., with his irresistible little girls or Republican Mitt Romney surrounding himself with his children and grandchildren when he announced his run for president are priceless.

“The big moment, the memorable moment, isn’t the speech but it’s when the candidate steps forward, the wife comes on, the kids rush on and you hear this great ‘aww,’ and everyone feels there is a specialness to this person,” Brinkley said.

But Rudy is special. How many people have married their second cousin, then moved in with a T.V. personality while still married to her, then had the marriage annulled since it was — after all — to his second cousin, proceeded to marry the T.V. chick and have two kids with her while carrying on a long-term and fairly public relationship with a staffer, then called a press conference to announce he was divorcing the second wife before mentioning it to her, and then married, not the staffer, but a drug company rep?

Yes, there is a “specialness” to Rudy that few men can match. I hope.

Please, GOP, Don’t Swift-Boat Hillary! (You Might Rally the Wrong Base)

Jon Ponder

That rustling you hear in the dark, acccompanied by the putrid smell of decay, is the rotting carcasses of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy pulling themselves up from the grave. What has given new life to the cadaver corps, of course, is the announcement that Hillary Clinton is running for president.

Nothing could energize the Democratic base faster than seeing the poo-slinging monkeys on Fox Noise and AM radio coming after Sen. Clinton with their patented brand of lies and innuendo.

Instead of a DNA-stained blue dress, the undead zombies have announced that they will be wearing a different costume this time — the threadbare uniform of the Swift Boat veterans for Truth, a group from the 2004 campaign whose name has become synonymous with lying:

Conservative admirers of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth media blitz that helped torpedo Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry’s presidential candidacy in 2004 are now agitating to “Swift-boat” Clinton.

“People are doing what they’re doing because they want to defeat her before she has a chance to win. You can’t hold off your silver bullet to the end,” said veteran Republican operative David N. Bossie, who is involved in [an anti-Hillary, pseudo-documentary] film project with Dick Morris, a former advisor to Bill Clinton…

“Those Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were the real heroes of the 2004 election,” one online exhortation reads. “We at the StopHillaryPAC want to do the same thing to Hillary.”

That group’s website, headed by former Rep. John LeBoutillier (R-N.Y.), collected enough early funding to launch a round of negative television ads on Iowa stations timed to Clinton’s visit there in late January…

Bossie, a blunt-spoken opposition researcher who has mined Clinton controversies since Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, said that the [mock-documentary] film would mimic the hard-edged partisan style of left-wing filmmaker Moore and that camera-carrying “trackers” would tail Clinton during campaign events.

Bossie is delving into Clinton’s roles in the Whitewater real estate deals, her $100,000 profit from cattle futures and the firing of White House travel officials — well-trod controversies that Clinton aides dismiss as old news. He and GOP allies are convinced new nuggets will turn up — and they also see new opportunities in contrasting Clinton’s avowed centrism with what they call her “polarizing liberalism.”

“Conservatives believe she’s more dangerous today as a potential president than when she tried to take over the healthcare plan and root it in socialism,” said public relations man Greg Mueller, who handled media appearances for anti-Kerry veterans in 2004.

Bossie and his Citizens United partners have long vexed the Clintons and Democratic presidential contenders. Morris — the architect of Bill Clinton’s mid-1990s political revival until he was fired in August 1996 after revelations he consorted with a prostitute — declined interview requests from The Times, though he has discussed the movie on Fox News. Bossie said his partner’s past “is an acceptable risk we’ll take because of Dick’s personal knowledge of Hillary Clinton

This is all they’ve got?! Whitewater, cattle futures, the travel office? That same old tired crap is it?

Nothing — nothing — could switch hardcore Dems like Yours Truly off of our neutral-to-negative stance on Hillary Clinton faster than seeing the Bossies and Morrises of this world, along with poo-slinging monkeys on Fox Noise and AM radio, coming after Sen. Clinton with their patented brand of lies and innuendo.

Hey David Geffen — Can I Get a Witness?

Trish

David Geffen deserves applause, not contempt, for his comments to MoDo about why he supports Obama over Clinton.

Get over it, Hil. There will be plenty of other people who agree with Geffen, or support John Edwards, or who just cannot get past your inability — so like the Current Occupant’s — to admit when you’re wrong.

“Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?” Geffen told the Times’ Maureen Dowd…

“Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family,” Geffen told Dowd.

Geffen also alluded to possible campaign distractions caused by Bill Clinton’s personal life should his wife secure the Democratic nomination, saying, “Everybody in politics lies, but [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

The founder of Geffen Records continued, “I don’t think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person,” calling the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”

Whether or not Bill has changed, and I suspect he has — kind of — I for one, am already sick of Jay Leno ending every reference to Hillary with the fact that Bill cheated. I was sick of the dirty yucks when he was president and they haven’t gotten any funnier in the time since.

But the reaction of the Clinton folks actually disappoints me. It’s as if they begrudge Geffen the right to have an opinion or support someone else.

This morning, Clinton aide Howard Wolfson demanded that Obama remove Geffen from his campaign and return the money he had helped raise…

“If Sen. Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign, and return his money,” the Clinton backer said.

Why? What did Geffen say that disqualifies him from polite company? That he prefers Barak to Hillary? And…?

Although Clinton herself is not associated with Wolfson’s remarks, you can bet she favors them. Get over it, Hil. There will be plenty of other people who agree with Geffen, or support John Edwards, or who just cannot get past your inability — so like the Current Occupant’s — to admit when you’re wrong.

What Are Giuliani’s Foreign Policy Credentials?

Jon Ponder

In Los Angeles, a city prone to both manmade and natural catastrophes, we don’t make saints out of our politicians when they don’t screw up in the aftermath of a disaster. I guess it’s different in New York.

Other than doing what mayors do when their cities suffer disasters — ie. his job — I will never understand how Rudy became “America’s Mayor.” And I’m even more flummoxed why anyone thinks such a narcissistic, authoritarian jerk should become “America’s President.” But I am notoriously missing the Republican delusion gene.

The biggest head-scratcher is that not screwing up after 9/11 somehow confers onto Giuliani expertise at foreign policy for which there is no other apparent basis. So what are his foreign policy credentials?

Everybody knows the basics. On Sept. 11, 2001, he rolled up his shirt sleeves and gave reassuring speeches. He has a tough guy persona. He expresses extremely strong disapproval for enemies of the United States. (For instance, Giuliani has bragged about asking President Bush to let him personally execute Osama bin Laden.) All this makes Republicans swoon…

If having a macho swagger and talking tough about bad guys were enough to make a good commander in chief, we wouldn’t have the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history on our hands right now in Iraq. And, need I remind anybody, one of the reasons Giuliani hasn’t been able to fulfill his Bin Laden execution fantasy is that Bush allowed the Al Qaeda leader to escape at Tora Bora by using Afghan proxies instead of U.S. ground

And then there is this:

Last week, Giuliani said that Lincoln had “that ability that a leader has — a leader like George Bush, a leader like Ronald Reagan — to look into the future.”

There’s that delusional thing again. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Rudy’s outrageous comparison of Bush to Lincoln popping up in a campaign ad before the 2008 campaign is over.

Iconic Gay Novelist, Activist Patricia Nell Warren Running for West Hollywood City Council

Jon Ponder

Given the stereotypes about gay people, you might think the gay-dominated politics in the city of West Hollywood would be colorful and. well, interesting. You would be wrong. It turns out that keeping a liberal utopia clean, productive and affordable is rather mundane work. Wehoians tend to elect officials who get the job done and (usually) keep the drama offstage.

So it’s a bit surprising that internationally known author and activist Patricia Nell Warren has announced that she is running for a seat on the West Hollywood City Council. Warren is best known as the author of “The Frontrunner,” a groundbreaking novel published in 1974 about a college track coach, a conservative ex-Marine, who finds himself falling in love with a long-distance runner on his team. She also has published six other novels, including “Harlan’s Race,” a 1994 sequel to “The Frontrunner” — and is an activist and speaker on gay sports issues and a regular contributor to Outsports.com.

So why is an iconic author running for city council in one of California’s smallest cities? Here is what she told Outsports:

WeHo’s 25th anniversary is ahead in 2009, and the city faces some big decisions. It calls itself an “urban village,” yet it’s now the sixth most densely populated city in the U.S. Meaning 37,000 residents crammed into 1.9 square miles. And the population spikes to maybe 80,000 on weekends. Growing density has caused growing pains — scarcity of parking, traffic snarls, and need for affordable housing, especially for seniors and young workforce people. There are challenges around development and culture. So the people of West Hollywood, and its government, will be deciding how “urban” we want our city to be.

Nine other candidates are running with Warren for three seats on the council.Candidates include three incumbents, John Heilman, who currently serves as mayor, and who has served on the council since West Hollywood’s incorporation in 1984; Sal Gaurriello, who has served on the council for 16 years; and Abbe Land, who has served 15 years non-consecutively.

Other candidates include:

Former City Council member Steve Martin (eight years service), attorney heads a West Hollywood Neighborhood Alliance (WEHONA) slate including artist/historic preservationist Heavenly Wilson and community ethics activist and retired businessman Ed Buck…

Contractor Jim Sorkin, a 13-year resident, actor Steve Koller (18 months) and Medical Administrator Shawn Hoffman (one year) all fulfilled the requirements necessary to gain a spot on the ballot.

West Hollywood municipal elections will be held on March 6, 2007.

Obama Pulls a Biden

Buck Banks

Harbinger? Come on, Barack, we thought you were smarter and better than that:

Despite the mea culpa, Obama’s gaffe caused no break in the media gushing over his budding candidacy.

If Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry or Joe Biden had said that American lives lost in Iraq were “wasted,” a media firestorm would have erupted.

And yet there was Sen. Barack Obama, just 24 hours after his presidential campaign announcement over the weekend, saying the nation had “seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.”

Immediately following his off-the-cuff remark during an Iowa town hall meeting — and after huddling with horrified aides — the Illinois Democrat told the Des Moines Register that he regretted his choice of words, and wished he had instead said “their sacrifices are never wasted.”

Despite the mea culpa, Obama’s gaffe caused no break in the media gushing over his budding candidacy. But if he does win the nomination, expect Republicans to play that tape over and over, arguing that it shows a lack of respect for soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Cook: Hillary the Dem to Beat in ’08

Buck Banks

Handicapping the race: National Journal’s political analyst Charlie Cook muses on the effect that Barak Obama’s entry into the presidential race will have on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Seems he thinks it’s not much:

Obama could be just one more of the alternatives whom Democrats disinclined to support Clinton could choose from.

Part of me hated to see Barack Obama jump into the presidential race. Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against the senator from Illinois. But I had a theory about how the contest for the Democratic nomination would play out, and I worried that Obama’s entry could complicate things.

My theory was that the race would largely be a referendum on Hillary Rodham Clinton and on whether her party thinks she could win the general election. Virtually every Democratic voter knows her, and up to 83 percent have a favorable opinion of her. If they decide she can win, I reasoned, most would vote for her. It would come down to whether they see her as a winner.

So, this theory goes, the Democratic nomination contest would amount to two NCAA-style brackets. The top bracket would be the Hillary Clinton bracket. She would be the only one in it, and she would get byes all the way to the final. All of the other candidates would be in the second bracket, competing with one another.

Eventually, someone would emerge as the alternative to Clinton, most likely after the Iowa caucuses. Former Sen. John Edwards, I figured, had the best chance to become the un-Hillary because he is better-known than the rest and has a head start in Iowa.
[…]

Deconstructing the Jeb for President Scenario

Trish

A new book from a Florida insider with no love for its subject warns of a Jeb presidential run as early as 2008.

In ”JEB: America’s Next Bush,” reporter Shirish Date advances a plausible-on-paper scenario for Florida’s 43rd governor to run for the nation’s highest elective office…

New book says Jeb is “not only a liar, but an accomplished one” and describes him as “a tall, mean guy with a giant head and twitching nose hairs.”

”Given his personality, given his sense of mission, given that his father and his clearly less-qualified brother have both accomplished this, it’s hard to imagine Jeb not running for president,” Date writes.

…Date reasons that, at 54, Jeb Bush is too young and ambitious to languish in commercial real-estate boardrooms and policy-wonk think tanks around Miami for long…

”For Jeb, the biggest factor that will push him into a presidential campaign will be his own boredom,” Date writes.

Now there’s a dangerous concept — a bored Jeb. Who knows what mayhem could result from that? I’m tempted to read the book just for the promised descriptions of my least favorite Florida governor ever.

…his narrative is also marked by ventures into more interpretive areas, such as calling Bush ”not only a liar, but an accomplished one” and describing him as ”a tall, mean guy with a giant head and twitching nose hairs.”

Date – pronounced DAH-tay – said in an interview he doesn’t dislike Bush. He just thinks winning outweighs fair play in the autocratic chief executive’s ”bred to rule” approach to government. Bush did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Others say the ultimate irony is that Democrats taking the White House next year could be just the break Jeb needs to make a big ol’ comeback.

[One analyst] said ”Bush fatigue” will hurt the ex-governor in the foreseeable future. But if the Democrats win in 2008, the brand name could be quickly rehabilitated in 2012, she said, and a third Bush presidency would be plausible.

Chilling thought, but Date has another take.

Running for vice president doesn’t fit Bush’s top-dog style, Date said…

And besides, Date said, if Bush doesn’t run next year and the Republicans win, he’ll have to wait until 2016. He’ll be 63 then, young by presidential standards, but will have been out of office for 10 years – while the family’s big-donor list will have died off or found other GOP favorites.

Let us pray.

Rupert Murdoch Urges Gingrich to Enter ’08 Race

Jon Ponder

Not surprising: It’s been a good run but it could be ending soon. News organizations can’t get better access than operating out of the White House political office, as the Fox News Channel has done since Pres. Bush took office in 2001.

Looking ahead, however, News Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, sees a distinct possibility his aparatchiks could lose their access if a Democrat or an unaligned Republican like Sen. Chuck Hagel were to win in 2008.

Murdoch would prefer to have a president who needs a partner to help develop and deliver government propaganda to the people — a president like:

[Murdoch] wants Gingrich to enter the race, even as a long shot, to elevate the debate and inject discussion about frequently avoided issues. He called the ex-House speaker “brilliant” and “the most interesting person out there.”

Newt would “elevate” the debate. That’s rich.