Tag: Fox News

Alternative View: Pressure Is Also On Obama to Close Deal Tomorrow

Jon Ponder

Conventional wisdom has it that the primaries tomorrow in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island are do or die for Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions. That is probably true but amidst all the Clinton bashing in the media, and from some members of her own party, it is refreshing to hear a little balance.

Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News has a question about Obama: Can he close the deal?

This is Barack Obama’s third chance to knock her out. If he can’t close the deal this time, maybe he can’t close the deal, period.

Either the third time is the charm for him, or it could be strike three against him. Any result tomorrow that doesn’t finish her off lets her argue that Democratic voters’ love affair with Obama was just one of those flings. She’ll say buyer’s remorse has set in, and it’s time to get serious about winning the White House.

She’ll also bring up her wins in the disputed Michigan and Florida primaries and repeat her vow to fight for those delegates.

Given the wacky past two months, those arguments would keep her alive. They start with the claim that even a split decision tomorrow would fit a pattern showing voters can’t commit to the Illinois rookie.

Obama’s two other failed attempts, according to Goodwin, were in New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday. Prior to this primary season, his track electoral record was spotty. He won his U.S. Senate seat as well as the Illinois Senate seat without facing serious competition. He lost in a primary run to unseat Rep. Bobby Rush, the former Black Panther.

The odds favor Obama tomorrow, and beating the Clintons would be huge, but if Hillary Clinton survives tomorrow, even with a split decision, as Goodwin says, “She is like an incumbent, and the longer the race goes on, the more she benefits just by surviving.”

Campaigning on Fear in East Texas

Trish

The Houston Chronicle claims that the Democratic race could be decided by East Texas, where early voting makes traditional polling difficult. For the actual results we might have to wait until the votes are counted, something news outlets hate.

Republican candidate for Tom DeLay’s old seat: “What we wanted to do is project mayhem.”

65 percent of the early voting turnout in Houston through Thursday included people who had not cast a ballot in the past three Democratic primaries. At least a quarter of the turnout is black…

And 11,213 — 8.2 percent — were people who previously had voted in the Republican primary…

Clinton has held a lead among white voters of about 7 percentage points and a lead of at least 20 percentage points over Obama among Hispanics. But more than 75 percent of the blacks surveyed supported Obama.

Clinton had more than 60 percent support in traditionally Hispanic South Texas.

Leaving it up to East Texas is an especially disquieting thought, if one of the ten Republicans running against U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Houston) is any indication. Lampson, you might recall, lost his 9th Congressional District seat after Tom DeLay succeeded in redrawing his district to make it majority Republican. Then in a triumph of irony, DeLay’s ethical challenges forced him to withdraw from his re-election bid in 2006, and Lampson won DeLay’s own neighboring District 22 seat.

Which brings us to challenger Brian Klock. Klock must have decided that the 2004 failed strategy of scaring people into voting Republican didn’t work because it didn’t go far enough. On his web site, he puts the tactic on steroids.

“Showing Houston in flames is reminding them there is a threat,” he added. “What we wanted to do is project mayhem.”

Well good job, Brian. In addition to showing Houston engulfed in a hellish inferno, Klock, who is supported by Houston-based homebuilder and $3 million Swift Boat Veteran for Truth funder Bob Perry, enumerates all the reasons why the area is the country’s premier terrorist target.

• Economic Engine of the Gulf and the entire region
• Home of America’s energy industry and independence
• Headquarters of world-famous pioneering NASA
• City of world’s largest medical and research center
• Gateway to five-and-a-half million people & door to the USA

I’ll concede the NASA link, although that would mean my nearby Cape Canaveral would also be a main target, and I’m doubting that. But I can’t see why having the Texas Medical Center, which is only “largest” by affiliation with 23 government agencies and 23 public and private institutions located throughout Texas and the world, puts Houston at particular risk.

But my doubts are erased by Klock’s urgent reasoning.

The Department of Homeland Security says Houston is one of the highest risk cities in the country, in the same category as New York and Washington…

A strike to the Port of Houston would paralyze commerce and industry throughout the nation — and dramatically increase gas prices and send the national economy into a tailspin.

Similarly, a terrorist attack on Downtown, the Galleria, Sugar Land, or NASA would seriously damage our local economy, destroy jobs, and worsen the recession we are now facing. And, worse of all, we’d lose family and friends, our homes, and our way of life.

Can’t argue with that. Just ask folks from New Orleans, many of whom moved to Houston after losing their “way of life” in a hurricane, a much more likely threat. But it’s not fun to run a campaign against climate disasters, which would probably “paralyze commerce and industry” in the Port of Houston just as effectively as a dirty bomb or plane flown into a skyscraper. Which, by the way, Klock’s web site keeps a news reel of running at all times. You can watch that second plane fly into the World Trade Center as often as you like, and hear the eyewitnesses scream in horror and disbelief as many times as it takes for you to be scared enough to vote for Klock.

I’m betting that Democratic voters in East Texas, including the 8.2 percent who just deserted the Republican party, won’t be swayed by such tactics. On the other hand Hillary Clinton, whose newest ad tells you the phone could ring in the White House at 3 a.m. and it could be very bad news, seems to see it Klock’s way.

Was Rove Behind Trumped Up Charges That Sent a Dem Governor to Jail?

Jon Ponder

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

A lot of people missed the “60 Minutes” report last week on allegations by a Republican political operative in Alabama named Dana Jill Simpson that Karl Rove and the Bush Justice Dept. rigged the charges against Alabama’s popular former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, for which he is currently serving time in prison.

This segment of “60 Minutes” was literally blacked out in Alabama, a state that is under the grip of the GOP the way Stalinists once controlled Russia. But no one has asked why CBS chose to run this story against the Oscars, the most watched telecast of the year.

After the “60 Minutes” ran the segment last week, the House Democrats released the transcript of Simpson’s sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee:

1. Ms. Simpson stated under oath that she adheres to and stands by the statements in her May 21, 2007, affidavit. (Pages 85-86) She testified: “What I understood, or what I believed Mr. Canary to be saying, was that he had had this ongoing conversation with Karl Rove about Don Siegelman, and that Don Siegelman was a thorn to them and basically he was going to – he had been talking with Rove. Rove had been talking with the Justice Department, and they were pursuing Don Siegelman as a result of Rove talking to the Justice Department at the request of Bill Canary.”

2. Ms. Simpson described a 2005 conversation with Rob Riley in which Mr. Riley stated that, in late 2004, Karl Rove had contacted the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice to press for further prosecution of Don Siegelman, and had also stated that the case would be assigned to a federal judge who “hated” Mr. Siegelman and who would “hang Don Siegelman.”

Update: Just to prove that that one’s point of view depends on where one sits, Trish has rightly pointed out that “60 Minutes” only ran against the Oscars here on the West Coast.

734th Democratic Debate Most-Watched Show in History of MSNBC

Buck Banks

Now I’m almost sorry I missed it:

In addition to being the third-most-watched debate of this election cycle, last night’s Democratic showdown in Cleveland was MSNBC’s most-watched program in the 11-year history of the network. In a head-to-head 9 p.m. ET match-up, the debate was second only to FOX’s American Idol. It ranked as the fourth most-watched program in Total Viewers on all of TV last night.

The numbers for the debate, which was moderated by Brian Williams, joined by Tim Russert, more than doubled MSNBC’s previous total viewer high of 3.7 million who watched on March 19, 2003, the night the Iraq war began.

Palm Beach Post: The Nader Brand Means Nothing

Trish

The Palm Beach Post is not amused by Ralph Nader’s decision to run for president yet again.

Forty-five years after making his reputation as a consumer advocate, Ralph Nader is as deceitful and arrogant as the corporate titans he used to expose.

Nader chided Democrats for failing to enact “decent” energy policy, reminding voters they could have had a president leading the fight against global warming rather than a president who spent most of his two terms denying the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Mr. Nader is selling politics rather than cars, but Americans learned after 2000 that his brand of false advertising can have fatal consequences…If Mr. Nader had not participated, Florida’s electoral votes and the presidency would have gone to Mr. Gore, who would have won the state without controversy…

In 2000, Mr. Nader’s main campaign theme was that there was no real difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates. In retrospect, that statement sounds as ludicrous as the denials by the auto executives in the 1960s that they couldn’t make the safety changes Mr. Nader advocated without making cars prohibitively expensive…

Mr. Nader, demonstrating either that he is out of touch with reality or does not care about the truth, denies any responsibility for the Democrats’ loss in 2000 and thus any responsibility for the thousands killed and wounded and the hundreds of billions wasted [in Iraq].

Announcing his candidacy, Mr. Nader also chided Democrats for failing to enact “decent” energy policy. That criticism simply reminds voters that they could have had a president leading the fight against global warming rather than a president who spent most of his two terms denying the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2000, Mr. Nader received 2.7 percent of the vote. In 2004, he received just 0.3 percent. Mr. Nader blames the steep decline on Democratic legal maneuvering that kept him off the ballot in several key states. In 2004, though, Republicans – especially in Florida – also worked to get Mr. Nader on the ballot. The more important reason for the dropoff in support was Mr. Nader revealing that he has become a self-important fool. The Nader brand used to mean something. These days, there’s nothing new inside the box.

Kitchen Debate Between Obama and Clinton Supporters Ends in Violence

Jon Ponder

If the victim had been a Bush supporter, this would be understandable on some level at least. But come on, guys, the policy differences between Clinton and Obama boil down to nuance. All we’re fighting about is which one will be easier for the Republicans to beat. There’s absolutely no need to come to blows:

Meet Jose Antonio Ortiz. The Pennsylvania man allegedly stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach after the pair quarreled about their respective support of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. According to cops, Ortiz, 28, stabbed Sean Shurelds last Thursday night in the kitchen of an Upper Providence Township home. According to a criminal complaint, a copy of which you’ll find here, the 41-year-old Shurelds, an Obama supporter, told Ortiz that the Illinois senator was “trashing” Clinton (apparently in regard to recent primary and caucus results). Ortiz, a Clinton supporter, replied that “Obama was not a realist.” While not exactly fighting words, the verbal political tiff led to some mutual choking and punching. And, allegedly, a stabbing in the abdomen

H/t: KBMc

GOP Trying to See How Far It Can Go In General Election Without Being Called Racist or Sexist

Trish

It’s easy to see why the GOP wants to avoid one thing more than any other in the general election campaign: “undisciplined messaging.” You say you don’t know what that is? Neither did I until Politico explained it.

Republicans know more than one election is at stake if they appear racist or sexist toward the eventual Democratic nominee. But since they really want to attack Obama for being black and/or Clinton for being female, it’s important to know where the line is and to stay just a hair this side of it.

The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate

The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate, according to people involved. The secretive effort underscores the enormous risk senior GOP operatives see…

…Republicans should expect a severe backlash if they say or do anything that smacks of politicizing race or gender. They didn’t need an expensive poll to learn that lesson, however.

Or maybe they did. Whereas you or I could just tap a coworker, neighbor, or — dare I say it — friend for some input, evidently your average Republican is just a bit more, shall we say, insulated.

“You can’t run against Barack Obama the way you could run against Bill Clinton, Al Gore or John Kerry,” said Jack Kemp, the 1996 GOP vice presidential nominee, who expressed concern that the party could be reduced to an “all white country club party” if it does not tread cautiously.

Reduced to an all white country club party? I thought they cultivated that image and wore it like a big, shiny Girl Scout badge on a sash slung over their jackets. And I’m not the only one who thought so.

Republicans interviewed for this story uniformly believe they will have to be especially careful. Many expect to be held to a higher rhetorical standard than is customary in campaigns, in part because of perceptions of intolerance that still dog the party.

“Fair or unfair, but that’s going to be a reality,” said GOP strategist John Weaver, a longtime confidant of John McCain. “The P.C. [politically correct] police will be out and the standards will be very narrow.”

Don’t you just love it when the people who gave us such terms as “faith-based initiatives” instead of “state-funded religion” and “low food security” instead of “hunger” and now, “undisciplined messaging” instead of “racism and sexism,” complain about the “P.C. police” (instead of “people offended by insults”)?

The real problem for Republicans is that they’re going to have to come out from the shadows this time and they don’t know how to make a case without insinuation meant to push fear buttons. Pointing out Clinton is a woman or that Obama fathered a black child is anticlimactic. What else you got, GOP?

GOP’s Roger Stone Launches Anti-Clinton Group, Citizens United Not Timid – C.U.N.T.’

Jon Ponder

Earlier this year, an infamous, though quite mainstream, Republican Party operative quietly launched a new anti-Hillary Clinton 527 group called Citizens United Not Timid — yes, it really is C.U.N.T. The notorious operative behind it is Roger Stone, a protege of Richard Nixon who is known for his trademark impeccable grooming, a facade that masks as thoroughly sleazy a character as any operating in modern politics.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Stone’s exploits, here’s a brief overview:

In 1996, he was forced to resign from his volunteer role on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign after tabloids tracked down sexy ads he and his wife, Nydia, allegedly placed on a swingers’ website. In 2000, during the Bush v. Gore recount, Stone was chosen by Bush family consigliere, former Sec. of State James Baker, to lead the fake “Brooks Brothers mob” riots in Miami. In 2004, Stone secretly helped Democrat Al Sharpton launch his insurgent presidential bid.

Last summer, Stone was accused of making anonymous threatening phone calls to the 83-year-old father of New York’s Democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer. Listen to the message here, and here’s the transcript:

This is a message for Bernard Spitzer. You will be subpoenaed to testify before the [New York State] Senate Committee on Investigations on your shady campaign loans. You will be complelled by the Senate Sergeant at Arms. If you resist this subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany. And there’s not a God damn thing your phony, psycho piece of shit son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth. And the fact that your son’s a pathological liar will be known to all.

(Emphasis not added.)

In December, Stone, who lives in Miami, made news by warning Florida’s popular bachelor (and preternaturally tanned) governor, Charlie Crist, that if he wanted to be vice president, Crist had better get married because, Stone said, “Bachelors don’t get selected for vice president.” Maybe these days they don’t but in fact, William Rufus de Vane King, the 13th vice president and longtime senator from Alabama, was a confirmed bachelor, nicknamed “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy,” who shared digs in Washington for a quarter century with James Buchanan, who later became the only bachelor to serve as U.S. president.

So that’s Roger Stone. Here’s Paul Kiel at TPMuckraker on Stone’s latest venture:

[…]

Factcheck.org: Clinton Is Right, Obama Mailers Are Misleading

Jon Ponder

Hillary Clinton is doing what second-place candidates in two-person races must do: swing hard. On Friday, she challenged Barack Obama on the truthfulness of a pair of campaign mailers that she says misstate her positions:

Clinton said Obama’s mailers, which have been circulating in some states since Super Tuesday, were “tactics that are right out of Karl Rove’s playbook…”

“Shame on you, Barack Obama,” Clinton said. “Meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics.” The senators have been scheduled for a debate Tuesday in Cleveland.

She may be swinging hard on this issue because she is right. Nonpartisan Factcheck.org checked out the mailers and generally agrees with Clinton’s assessment:

  • Trade: A mailer showing a locked plant gate quotes Clinton as saying she believed NAFTA was “a boon” to the economy. Those are not her words and Obama was wrong to put quote marks around them. In fact, she’s been described by a biographer as privately opposing NAFTA in the White House.
  • Health Care: A second mailer said Clinton’s health care plan “forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it.” We have previously said that mailer “lacks context” and strains the facts. But both Obama and Clinton have been exaggerating their differences on this issue.

This raises the possibility that the Obama campaign is doing what frontrunners should never do: becoming over-confident and sloppy.

Florida Governor Gets Closer to Being McCain’s No. 2

Trish

The St. Petersburg Times’ political writer, Adam Smith, launched the Charile Crist Veep-O-Meter and it’s leaning toward the tanned one. Smith gives a bunch of reasons why John McCain might choose the Florida governor as his running mate, but the most compelling one is money.

McCain’s Florida momentum in January paid off – literally. Not only did the Sunshine State and its governor help deliver him the nomination, but it pumped more than $1.28-million into his campaign, more than twice what McCain raised from Florida in the prior three months, and nearly a third of the $3.5-million he’s raised from Florida to date. The Center of Responsive Politics reports that Rudy Giuliani all told raised $5.4-million from Florida, and Mitt Romney $4.4-million.

Another factor in Charlie’s favor is that no one else seems to want the job. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex.) turned it down cold on ABC’s This Week, while Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) is unpopular in his home state. Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) still looks like a possibility.

Charlie is said to be able to deliver the Sunshine State to McCain, based on the governor’s own high approval ratings. Personally, I’m not feeling it. Crist is popular in Florida, yes, but in context. Democrats like me don’t see him doing anything terribly wrong, in stark contrast to his predecessor Jeb Bush, and we do see him falling on the right side of some battles, like trying to get insurance companies to act fairly and turning around untenable environmental policies.

But all that sure ain’t enough to make me vote Republican for president, and it way sure isn’t enough to make me vote for John McCain.