Tag: Fox News

Clinton’s 10-delegate net* wasn’t the only the underwhelming result of the Pennsylvania primary. One poll shows she’s not getting much of a boost in popularity either. Rasmussen Daily Tracking for today:

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, it’s Obama 49 percent, Clinton 42 percent. Those numbers are unchanged from the night before and, so far, there is absolutely no indication that Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania has changed the overall dynamic of the race. These results are based upon a four-day rolling average and include two full nights of polling following the Pennsylvania Primary.

These results and other data suggest that there is no “momentum” in this Primary Season. Typically, momentum results as voters learn more about a candidate who is doing well. This cycle, Hillary Clinton began the campaign as one of the best known people in the world. Democrats uneasy with her quickly settled on Obama as the chief challenger who has now become the frontrunner.

As the candidates have become known, each has developed a solid core of supportive constituencies. For Obama, these included African-Americans, younger voters, more liberal Democrats, and upper-income voters. For Clinton, strength comes from White Women, older voters, more moderate Democrats, and lower-to-middle income workers.

Six weeks of campaigning in Pennsylvania, and still uncounted millions of dollars in campaign spending, was unable to significantly move any of the demographic support groups from one candidate to the other.

HRC’s unfavorables aren’t dropping either.

Among all voters nationwide, McCain is viewed favorably by 52 percent and unfavorably by 46 percent. Obama’s ratings are 50 percent favorable and 48 percent unfavorable. For Clinton, the reviews are 46 percent favorable, 53 percent unfavorable. Just 41 percent of Clinton supporters have a favorable opinion of Obama while 48 percent of Obama supporters have a favorable opinion of Clinton.

* Clinton won a total of 83 delegates from Pennsylvania while Obama won 73.

As in too long, too negative and too dull. That’s the finding of a new Pew Center poll that measured voters’ attitudes toward the presidential race compared with a survey Pew performed in February. Looks like the campaign is tanking fast:

Half of those surveyed say the campaign has become too negative, up from 28 percent who said so in mid-February. The increase has been especially rapid among Democrats — 50 percent say it’s too negative, while only 19 percent thought so in February.

The contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned especially heated in the weeks before Tuesday’s primary in Pennsylvania, which Clinton won. She criticized Obama for saying small-town residents who are bitter about their economic hardships cling to guns and religion, while Obama accused her of being too close to special interests.

Even so, Democrats have been turning out in record numbers to vote in the primaries.

Despite that, 65 percent said the campaign has gone on too long, up from 57 percent in February.

Thirty-five percent think it is too dull, compared to 25 percent two months ago. About four in 10 Republicans find the campaign boring, compared to a quarter of Democrats.

It is always with a sense of trepidation, if not outright dread, that I open an e-mail from Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman. One cringes just imagining what stupid stuff the FDP has come up with this time. Today’s electro-missive from Tallahassee was a doozy.

Seems the party is going after Republican Rep. Tom Feeney who represents District 24, which covers a broad swath of Central Florida, including Orlando and Brevard County, where it is illegal — illegal — to wear a thong bikini on the beach.

You might remember Feeney for his association with jailed uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Jack took Tom and a bunch of buddies in a chartered plane to Scotland to play golf at the venerable St. Andrews course. The always-generous Abramoff paid for Feeney’s expenses, including lavish dinners and accommodations with fistfuls of tainted lobby dollars. The House Ethics Committee eventually made Feeney pay nearly $6,000 to cover his expenses for the trip.

In September 2006, Feeney was named one of the 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The organization said Feeney’s ethics issues arise from trips he has taken in violation of House travel and gift rules, and his failure to disclose his ownership of rental property.

OK, so Feeney is an appropriate target for political action and he really needs to be run out of Congress on a rail. But puh-leeze, Karen and krew, can’t you mount an intelligent, savvy, effective campaign against him? Apparently not.

First, they create an on-line advertisement that is sophomoric and ineffectual.

Then they put up an anti-Feeney Web site that is poorly designed and ineffectual.

Then they fill the Web site with ineffectual content in the form of seven “questions.” These”questions” are in the form of badly written press releases that, well here’s a sample:

“Can we trust Florida’s most corrupt politician to be honest about his golf score at St. Andrews? Or did Abramoff let Feeney get away with a few mulligans, gimme-putts, and lost balls?” Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski said. “Other than illicit relationships with crooks, we still don’t know Tom Feeney’s handicap. But we hope he enjoyed his golf trip, since those 18 rounds in Scotland may prove to be the fatal stroke of his career in Congress.”

That appears to be an attempt at snarkiness, but instead it devolved into a kind of dumb-sounding playground-level taunt. Maybe that kind of discourse is effective in Talla-sassy, but that dog won’t hunt in more sophisticated parts of Florida. Like Apopka.

Maybe there will come a time when the Florida Democratic Party gets savvy and sophisticated, and really figures out this politics thing and becomes a true force against the Republicans in Florida. Yeah, I should live so long.

Appearing with her mother on Larry King’s show this week, first daughter Jenna Bush left open the possibility that she might not vote for John McCain in November:

KING: Do you have a favorite between the two, the two Democrats?

LAURA BUSH: My favorite is the Republican.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Yours, too, I would imagine.

JENNA BUSH: I don’t know.

KING: A-ha. J. BUSH: But, I mean, you know —

KING: Are you open to —

J. BUSH: Yes, of course. I mean, who isn’t open to learning about the candidates? But, I mean, and I’m sure everybody is like that. But I really — I honestly have been too busy with books to really pay that much attention.

If Jenna were to support a Democrat this year, she would be the second daughter of a Republican president to switch parties so far. Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that Julie Nixon Eisenhower, daughter of GOP Pres. Richard Nixon, had donated $2,300, the legal limit, to Barack Obama.

Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of GOP Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, is also an Obama supporter.

Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, came over from the dark side long ago but if she has announced whom she is supporting this year we missed it. However, she did write an article that was published in Newsweek last December, requesting that the midgets who were seeking the Republican nomination stop comparing themselves to her father.

An hour after voting ended, MSNBC declared Hillary Clinton to be the winner in the Pennsylvania primary. At 6:10 p.m., with 8 percent of the vote in, she leads Barack Obama 53 percent to 47 percent.

Update: The final tally was Clinton with 55 percent to Obama’s 45 percent.

This must-see video, which was posted at The BRAD BLOG, is a bit long but worth it. If you’re not familiar with Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox News, you may not know that he sends a producer out a camera crew to ambush people in the news by asking them questions phrased to play into Fox’s rightwing propaganda — sort of like “When did you stop beating your wife?”

In this clip Michael Pfeger, a Catholic priest, is unrelenting in refusing to let the Fox dweeb pin him down — and if you watch it through to the end, he actually appears to silence O’Reilly’s goon.

Brad says O’Reilly was only able to use five seconds of this very long interview. In the unfair, unbalanced world of Fox News, that’s a win for the good guys.