Tag: Fox News

Only time will tell if is it too little too late:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, naming longtime aide Maggie Williams to the top job.

Solis Doyle announced the shift in an e-mail to the staff on Sunday.

“I have been proud to manage this campaign and prouder still to call Hillary my friend for more than 16 years,” Solis Doyle wrote. “Maggie is a remarkable person and I am confident that she will do a fabulous job.”

The move comes a day after rival Barack Obama swept contests in Washington state, Nebraska, Louisiana.

The latest GOP disinformation campaign against Sen. Barack Obama is that he refuses to put his hand over his heart as he says the Pledge of Allegiance.

Above are two videos, one from June 21, 2007, and another from Feb. 1, 2007, in which he says the pledge with hand over heart.

Below is the rightwing disinformation video. It shows Obama in Iowa in September 2007, standing at attention while the National Anthem is being sung. He stands at attention (which was what I was taught to do growing up in the South) but does not place his hand over his heart, even though the other candidates on the stage do:

[…]

It’s hard to put a good face on news like this.

Members of Senator Hillary Clinton’s senior campaign staff have agreed to work without pay for the month of February…

We, like so many Republicans before us, might have to blame Bill. The thought of the former president back in the White House just seems wrong.

The staff move to help the campaign save precious resources comes after a big media blitz preceding Super Tuesday — including a one hour televised interactive town hall meeting on the Hallmark Channel, which set the campaign back millions of dollars, and regular TV ads that totaled more than $8 million over a period of less than two weeks…

Senator Clinton reached into her own pockets to give the campaign a $5 million loan late last month…

The Clinton campaign raised about $13 million in January, plus the $5 million loan from Senator Clinton. The Obama campaign announced recently that it had raised $32 million last month.

Did you feel that? It’s the force of Barack Obama’s momentum driving Hillary off the road and into the ditch. And we, like so many Republicans before us, might have to blame Bill. The thought of the former president back in the White House just seems wrong. Two terms is enough in this country, and if he were still attending to earthquake victims with Jr’s dad or something, we’d probably be O.K. with it.

Instead, ever since the actual voting began – rather than just debates or campaign stops – Bill got busy on the stump. He got a little too busy, because it was finally evident that Obama has a real chance, and now we’re all kind of embarrassed for him.

We’re embarrassed for her, too, because Hillary has shown just how far she’s willing to go to achieve the goal of the Oval Office: about 10 percent farther than any of us would prefer.

The truly most divisive figure in the 2008 race is not Hillary Clinton, it’s John McCain. His ascendancy has ripped the Republican Party asunder — and his most vicious and vocal conservative opponents include the loudest mouths in America: Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and, especially, Rush Limbaugh.

They don’t like McCain because he is a leftwing Republican who advocates policies on campaign reform, illegal immigration, taxes and other policies they find to be insufficiently doctrinaire. The fact that he has promised to continue George Bush’s occupation of Iraq for another century is not good enough for them.

On Monday, Limbaugh told his followers that McCain’s true mission was to destroy the Republican Party:

“He’s going to reach out to Democrats in Congress,” Limbaugh said, citing “McCain-Kennedy” and “McCain-Feingold” as examples of McCain-sponsored bipartisan legislation. “This is how he’s going to get even with Republicans for defeating him in South Carolina in 2000,” Limbaugh said. “The Republican Congress will effectively be neutered.”

And:

“It was just six months ago that if a candidate was endorsed by the liberal media we were instantly suspicious of them,” Limbaugh said. Now he said, “we’ve got drive-by media organizations having orgasms about McCain.”

And — despite the fact McCain has a solid record of voting to cede women’s control of their reproductive organs to government bureaucrats:

“It’s pro-choicers who are voting for McCain. That’s who liberals are!” Limbaugh said.

And then there was the amazing spectacle of Ann Coulter saying she would vote for Hillary Clinton if McCain were to become the GOP nominee. (Someone should get her a Clinton 2008 yard sign and bumpersticker, post haste.)

After McCain won the Florida GOP primary last week, Limbaugh and the others went into overdrive to get word down to their followers to vote for Mitt Romney, who, they say, is the “true” conservative. (Who cares if he held positions far to the left of Mccain just three years ago.) Secondly, the Limbaugh cabal also warned their listeners that a “vote for Mike Huckabee was a vote for McCain” — their logic being that since Huckabee doesn’t have a chance, votes for him will eventually accrue to McCain.

Well, the votes are in, and, there’s no way other way to say: Limbaugh lost big time:

Sen. John McCain cemented his Republican front-runner status Tuesday, piling up big wins coast-to- coast, according to CNN projections…

McCain capped the night by taking California and all its 170 delegates …

McCain also won Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Delaware and Arizona, his home state, according to CNN projections.

McCain has gathered 514 delegates so far in his presidential campaign, including Tuesday night’s projections. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 177 delegates, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has 122.

Early in the evening, the pundits were laying odds that if Romney lost California, he would quit the race. After word came around 9:15 p.m. that McCain had trounced him here (McCain 42.2 percent, Romney 33.3 percent, Huckabee 11.5 percent), Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw were on the set talking about Mitt in somber tones like the guy had just died. No word yet today when Mitt will pull the plug, but it appears to be a matter of time.

As has been stated here before, it is too early to write the obituaries for the conservative movement, but the results from the Feb. 5, 2008, primary do provide evidence that these Reagan era dinosaurs are losing their sway among their own kind.

3:35 p.m.: Exit polling looking bad for Hillary Clinton. Sizable majorities said “change” was more important than “experience.”

4:02 p.m.: One of the few sure bets that was not a home state:
• Georgia: Obama projected winner (MSNBC).

5:38 p.m.: Had to take a break, but here’s an update.
• Alabama – Obama up by 71 percent but only 6 percent of precincts are in.
• Arkansas – Clinton projected winner (MSNBC).
• Connecticut – Too close to call.
• Illinois – Obama projected winner (MSNBC).
• Massachusetts – Too close to call.
• New Jersey – Clinton leading but only 1 percent of precincts are in.
• Tennessee – Clinton projected winner (CNN)

6:04 p.m.:
• Delaware – Called for Obama..
• Massachusetts – Called for Clinton. No Kennedy-Kerry effect at all.
• Oklahoma – Called for Clinton.

6:21 p.m.:
• New Jersey – Called for Clinton (MSNBC).

6:27 p.m.:
• Alabama – Called for Obama (MSNBC).

6:47 p.m.: McCain is winning Northeastern liberal states. Not good for him. He’ll probably also do well in the West but doing poorly in the South.

7:18 p.m.:
• Kansas – Called for Obama (MSNBC).

7:46 p.m.:
• New York – Clinton (MSNBC).

7:58 p.m.:
• Minnesota – Obama (MSNBC).
• Idaho – Obama (MSNBC).

9:13 p.m.:
• California – Clinton

Please join me in an all-out effort to keep Rush Limbaugh from voting in the 2008 election. But more on that later.

Our favorite right-wing nut job, Richard Viguerie, is up on his soapbox again. This time he’s calling on his fellow conservative Goldwater worshipers to call on the Republican Party to open up its convention next September in hopes that some party savior will materialize. Here’s Viguerie dreaming out loud:

The discombobulated state of the Republican presidential campaign means that it is still possible for someone to jump into the race. Such a candidate could serve as a kingmaker at the Republican convention in September, or even – yes, it’s possible – could become the party’s nominee.

Viguerie then goes on to critique the current batch of GOP candidates. Guess what? He finds that none of them is Ronald Reagan:

• McCain has Reagan’s toughness, is a Vietnam War hero, supports a strong military, and opposes pork-barrel spending, but sides with liberals on immigration, freedom of speech, taxes, environmental extremism, and other important issues.
• Huckabee is a Reagan-style populist and a conservative on social issues, but is sympathetic to Goreism, and he fought conservatives on taxes, spending, immigration, and other issues when he was governor.
• Romney has adopted a mostly-Reaganite platform, but he is suspect because he converted to conservatism only after serving as governor, and, besides, many conservatives see him as a probable loser in November.
• Ron Paul is the real straight-talker in the race, the one who stays truest to the libertarian beliefs that are, as Reagan said, “the heart of conservatism.” He is the one candidate who doesn’t confuse a strong defense with the failed policy of nation-building. But most conservatives want a powerful U.S. presence in world affairs and will never support Paul’s defense and foreign policy. In any event, Paul’s chance of getting elected, or even nominated, is infinitesimal.

But do you want to know how really bad it is? Viguerie lays it out like the voice of doom:

Even Rush Limbaugh has raised the possibility that he may not support the Republican nominee this year. The nomination of McCain or Huckabee, he said, would destroy the party as we know it.

Gasp! The Bloviator not support the GOP nominee? Man, things really do look bleak. Of course, they don’t look much brighter when Viguerie goes down his short list of possible party saviors: Former Virginia Gov. and Sen. George Allen, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Sen. Jim DeMint or Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. That’s it? That’s the best you can do Richard?

Well, I think readers of Pensito Review could help out in Viguerie’s time of need by making some recommendations. Viguerie asks for them. He even provides an e-mail address to send them to: RAV@ConservativesBetrayed.com.

What about a Tom DeLay or Larry Craig? Not conservative enough? I hear David Duke’s out on the lecture circuit. But don’t let me tell you who to suggest. Let’s all e-mail Viguerie and do our part to keep Rush Limbaugh away from the polls.

There is nothing as fragile and elusive in politics as charisma. It has been sorely lacking of late. George Bush doesn’t have it, and neither did John Kerry or Al Gore. There is no question that Barack Obama has it, and that he could be in the same charismatic league as Bill Clinton and (the much lower wattage of) Ronald Reagan.
The Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 was nothing compared with what the rightwing did to the Clintons in the 1990s — and will pale in comparison with what they have in store for Barack Obama.
But in the knife fight that is today’s political way of war, when opponents are attacked not on their weaknesses but on their strengths, no personal attribute is easier to destroy than charisma.

If Obama is the Democratic nominee, I believe Republican political tacticians — whoever the next Karl Roves turn out to be — will have his charisma sliced to ribbons within a week or two.

The question is, without his charisma, who is Barack Obama? I don’t know, and, dear reader, neither do you. Compared with the other candidates in the race, he has barely been vetted. His opponent in his run for the Senate in Illinois in 2004 was Alan Keyes, who had no money and barely put up a fight.

I have no doubt Barack Obama is a smart and decent man who’d make a fine president. But then John Kerry and Al Gore were fine and decent men, too. Sans charisma, my fear is, Barack Obama is like them — an upright, honorable fellow whom the GOP can easily mow down. (Yes, I know they cheated at the ballot boxes too, but vote rigging only works if the margins are slim. We need a blow-out this year.)

Clinton may be thin on charisma, but she is as much a known quantity as we’ve had from any candidate in memory who was not an incumbent. If she is the nominee, most of what the GOP will have to throw at her will have already been vetted — and either has been proven false or accurately could be labeled “old news.”

I am generally neutral on the Clintons. I think the Clinton administration was a hallmark in good governance among administrations of the recent past (which is not really saying a lot) and that America made net gains during their eight years in office. On the other hand, I will never forgive Bill Clinton for signing the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 at the same time he was conducting an extramarital affair.

But having read extensively on the Republicans’ behind-the-scenes anti-Clinton campaigns in the 1990s, the record is clear: Most of what people seem not to like about Hillary Clinton is based on lies and distortions that had their genesis in the Arkansas Project and were fed to the public by the likes of Barbara Olson, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and David Brock — all of whom were nobodies before becoming professional Clinton-haters in the 1990s.

We know now what liars the Republican blond squad turned out to be, and, in 2002, David Brock published a full mea culpa on his hatchet jobs against Hillary Clinton and others, titled “Blinded by the Right.” He has come out of the rightwing darkness and is using his considerable intellect as a force for good instead of evil, as the brains behind Media Matters for America.

[…]

The Field Poll is considered the gold standard among California surveys:

A startling surge of support for Barack Obama has catapulted the Illinois senator into a virtual tie with Hillary Rodham Clinton in California’s Democratic presidential primary, a Field Poll released Saturday shows…

But the Democratic numbers are the shocker. Clinton, a longtime California favorite, saw her once-commanding lead slip to two percentage points, 36 to 34 percent, in the new survey. That’s down from the New York senator’s 12 percentage point lead in mid-January and a 25 percentage point margin over Obama in October.

But with 18 percent of Democratic voters still undecided just days before Tuesday’s primary, the election is still up for grabs, said Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director.

About three weeks ago, Clinton had a 31 percentage point lead over Obama in the Bay Area. Apparently that advantage is collapsing, perhaps because Edwards’ supporters there are breaking for Obama. Clinton’s lead in Los Angeles (which has roughly double the population of the Bay Area) remains strong.

Among Republicans, John McCain is leading Mitt Romney 32 to 24 percent. Mike Huckabee has 13 percent and Ron Paul has 10 percent.

The campaigns have all released their fundraising reports from the fourth quarter of 2007, and the results show that three candidates who oppose the endless occupation of Iraq raised the most money.
There is real energy and excitement among the small minority of Republicans who oppose the endless occupation of Iraq.
Democrat Hillary Clinton led the field in both parties with $26.5 million, followed by Barack Obama with $22.8 million. (The Obama campaign says it has already raised $32 million in January alone.)

But the headline that ought to be in 40-point type is the fact the only Republican supporter of withdrawal from Iraq, Ron Paul, trounced his GOP rivals in the fourth quarter by raising nearly $20 million. As a Los Angeles Times blogger put it, it is a “news shocker“:

Well, it’s official, ladies and gentlemen. Believe it or not, Rep. Ron Paul, the 72-year-old Texan who hardly ever gets mentioned in Republican political news and the one-time libertarian who always gets the least time on TV debates if he isn’t barred completely, was, in fact, the most successful Republican fundraiser in the last three months of 2007.

By the thousands, Paul’s fervent followers donated $19.95 million to the “Ron Paul Revolution.” He spent $17.75 million, and at year’s end, had $7.8 million cash on hand, making him the only Republican candidate to increase his fundraising totals in every quarter of 2007. According to his website, Paul’s Paulunteers have contributed another $4.1 million this month…

Compare that impressive financial success with, say, ex-candidate Rudy Giuliani, who raised only $14.4 million from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 and spent $18.2 million.

Or the departed Fred Thompson, who collected $8.9 million and spent $13.9 million.

Or even the newly-minted Republican front-runner Sen. John McCain, who raked in only $9.9 million, spent $10.5 million and had only $2.9 million cash in hand. Of course, McCain’s string of primary victories in January will have boosted his financial fortunes. Everybody loves a winner.

Mitt Romney actually raised only $9.2 million from other people last quarter, less than half of Paul’s haul. However, the former Massachusetts governor — and if he keeps spending at this rate, the quite possibly former multimillionaire — gave himself $18 million more of his own money last fall for a total of $27.2 million and $2.4 million cash on hand.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who’s had trouble raising money … [According to the Federal Election Commission website] he raised about $6.7 million, a third of Paul’s sum, while spending $7.08 million, leaving him on New Year’s Eve with cash on hand of only $651,300.68…

Paul, who’s done well in some symbolic straw polls and little-noticed state caucuses until his best showing so far as a second-place finisher to Romney in the Nevada caucuses, has repeatedly disavowed a third-party effort if his bid to be the Republican nominee in St. Paul next summer falls short.

His determined followers maintain that a news media conspiracy is holding down Paul’s success at the polls, although obviously word has gotten out to somebody for him to raise such sums. Paul’s outspoken stands, including withdrawal from Iraq and drastic downsizing of the federal government, run counter to each of his GOP competitors.

As for Paul’s campaign, his loyal troops plan another “money bomb,” a big fundraising day, today in honor of Ron and Carol Paul’s 51st wedding anniversary. One of the obvious gifts: the undisputed GOP fundraising championship for the last three months of 2007.

Paul also leads the GOP field in cash on hand with $8 million. MccCain has $3 million; Romney, $2.4 million; and Huckabee, $2 million.

This is strong indicator that there is real energy and excitement among the small minority of Republicans who oppose the occupation of Iraq.

Seats in the Kodak Theatre for the Democratic debate in Hollywood last night were said to be harder to come by than tickets to the Kodak for the Oscars later this month.

Like the Oscars, however, folks at home got to watch it for free. And watch it they did:

An estimated 8.3 million television viewers watched Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama debate Thursday night in California, more than double the audience for Republican candidates the night before.

The CNN audience for Clinton and Obama’s debate, the first one-on-one contest for Democrats now that John Edwards has dropped out, was second only to the 9.4 million people who watched the Democrats on ABC Jan. 5, according to Nielsen Media Research.

CNN also televised a Republican debate Wednesday night, highlighted by contentious exchanges between John McCain and Mitt Romney, that was watched by 4 million viewers, Nielsen said.

The Democratic debate eclipsed, by far, any other political debate ever shown just on cable television. The previous high was the Democratic debate in South Carolina on Jan. 21, seen by 4.9 million people.