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January 2008 - Posts
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CNN tried to pin Hillary down on Ted Kennedy's comments that Obama=JFK just like CNN=Politics. After Clinton was done paying her respects to Teddy she quickly moved on to downplay the role surrogates' have in campaigns. "This is about the two of us" she Read More...
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Despite pulling out of the race this week, John Edwards' spirit is very much with us. Both Obama and Clinton paid tribute to the fallen candidate in their opening statements, keying in on his poverty work as especially noble. Clinton gave Edwards a shout Read More...
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At this point, the candidates probably dream about their health care policy points in their sleep. Obama nailed his health care response. Obama managed to name drop Ted Kennedy, refer to his past insurance-expansion experience in Illinois, alluded to Read More...
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The Los Angeles Times' first question already tries to get the candidates to go after each other. Hillary is asked to detail the differences between Obama's policies and hers. Clinton answers the question, but she still manages to present a united Democratic Read More...
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Ferris Bueller's Day Off . Seriously. He just said as much to the audience. Read More...
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Hello and welcome to a live-blog of the Democratic throwdown . If you aren't watching Lost , you'll be treated to a live-blog of the debate from inside the Kodak Theater. First impressions as the photo pool takes some pictures: The CNN set looks much Read More...
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LOS ANGELES—Barack Obama supposedly hosted an economic town hall meeting today, but it sure didn’t seem like it. While giving a short stump speech and taking questions from the audience, he mentioned the downturn in the economy only once. To be fair, Read More...
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We just recycled an old Explainer on what happens to the delegates of candidates when they drop out: On Wednesday, John Edwards surprised pundits by announcing he was dropping out of the 2008 Democratic presidential race. So what happens to his 61 hard-earned Read More...
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Now that John Edwards has dropped out of the Democratic presidential race so that “history can blaze its path,” Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will have tonight's debate stage all to themselves. Naturally, the networks (and we) are hyping it as a mano-a-womano Read More...
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With the results from the Florida Republican primary tallied, Trailhead reader Meghan Jensen has edged ahead with 26 points out of a possible 41, making her the fifth person to lead in as many rounds of our Primary Pool . Four other contestants are right Read More...
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A quick eyeball of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s campaign schedule for Barack Obama makes the strategy pretty clear: National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, N.M.; Santa Fe Community College; gatherings in Los Angeles and Oakland. Maybe he’ll drop by a King Read More...
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In the days before Super Tuesday, campaign strategy gets complicated . Apparently Hillary’s plan, at least in part, is to make a bunch of really weird videos. The first is an ad called “ Freefall ,” the main visual motif of which is a body hurtling through Read More...
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You know Barack Obama’s problem? He doesn’t appeal enough to young people. Thank goodness, then, that he has the endorsement of Kal Penn, the actor now and forever known to the world as Kumar. As if the campaign hadn’t already secured the 18-24 male demographic Read More...
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Just because we didn’t live-blog doesn’t mean we didn’t watch the debate. For what it’s worth, we’re adding our belated thoughts to the cacophony of instant reaction . The executive summary: Nobody screwed up, only Romney helped himself. John McCain : Read More...
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Should be interesting to see how much pickup this little story gets. Apparently Mike Huckabee backers raised a reported $111,000 during a ministers’ conference hosted by Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, Texas. This could be problematic for two reasons. Read More...
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NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Mike Huckabee rolled into Orange County today for an event inside the gates of Bayview Estates—a development that bills itself as a “Residential and Equestrian neighborhood.” Something tells me this isn’t the target audience for Read More...
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Just as Edwards ducks out, Ralph Nader appears ready to duck in. (Hard to see it as a coincidence when Nader had endorsed Edwards last month.) He launched an exploratory committee today with this call to arms: Maybe the Democrats and Republicans will Read More...
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The first time I saw John Edwards in person was a book signing at a Borders in Washington, D.C. He was promoting his new book, Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives . As he spoke about the themes of home and family and home and family, I was awed by the man’s Read More...
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SAN DIEGO—A Univision satellite truck was waiting for me as I pulled up to a real-estate and loan office a dozen miles from the Mexican border. A sparse crowd—about 20 people—was schmoozing inside while the correspondent filmed a stand-up in Spanish next Read More...
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This election cycle has seen its conventional wisdom bonfires. Hillary’s inevitability: gone. Obama’s insurmountable lead in New Hampshire: gone. McCain’s summer of death: long gone. But the most brazen assault on the most conventional wisdom of all—Giuliani’s Read More...
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John McCain, welcome to the club. In the past, McCain has been known as everything from maverick to fringe candidate to walking dead man. (Last month, we used the words “McCain” and “embalming fluid” in the same sentence.) He has appealed to an unlikely Read More...
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CNN has called it for Hillary. Her lead is decisive—49 to 29 in the latest tally, with a third of precincts reporting. The campaign is celebrating the victory with a (now legal!) rally in Davie, Fl. So on a scale of one to vacuum, how empty is her win? Read More...
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Early exit polls ( Disclaimer: DO NOT BELIEVE!) show a few interesting trends: Fox News has McCain trouncing Giuliani among Hispanics, 50 to 26. Romney, meanwhile, trails at 16 percent. So much for those ads featuring his Spanish-speaking son Craig. McCain Read More...
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A few things to keep in mind as tonight's numbers roll in: Winner takes all. Normally, most of Florida's 114 delegates are divided among the candidates who win each of the state’s 25 congressional districts, with the remainder allocated to the statewide Read More...
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Over the last few weeks we’ve been trying to calculate the candidates’ expiration dates in our Death Watch series . Tonight, two candidates are in jeopardy. We pay our pre-mortem respects to Mr. Giuliani below. See Mike Huckabee’s Death Watch here . It Read More...
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Over the last few weeks we’ve been trying to calculate the candidates’ expiration dates in our Death Watch series . See our pre-mortem death watch for Rudy Giuliani here . Mike Huckabee does not have delusions of grandeur for Florida. The day after South Read More...
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Today’s Democratic Florida primary is a political inkblot test. Given that no delegates are being awarded (for now), you can pretty much interpret the “beauty contest” results however you want. As a result, the propaganda battle between the Clinton and Read More...
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The New Yorker devotes a quickie to Barack Obama’s poker skills. As a state senator in Illinois, Obama won over other politicians by starting a regular poker night. James McManus offers this analysis of his game: Obama never played for high stakes. Only Read More...
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In about eight minutes, Barack Obama will give a speech at a college gymnasium in El Dorado, Kan. As his campaign reminds us, “Obama’s grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, were Kansas natives. Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was born at the military Read More...
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As the Hispanic-heavy votes in Florida, California, Arizona, and New Mexico approach, Bill Richardson is suddenly the most popular guy around. Apparently he’s been fielding calls from the two leading candidates and their surrogates. Richardson describes Read More...
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Obama has three new ads launching in Arizona, Missouri, and North Dakota, two of which feature Sen. Claire McCaskill and Gov. Janet Napolitano.* (Both available here .) The ads are timed to build support (and name recognition) for Obama in these critical Read More...
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Watching Ted Kennedy share a stage with his niece Caroline, his son Patrick, and Barack Obama, I couldn’t help but think, One of these things is not like the others . No, not like that. The theme of Ted Kennedy’s speech here at American University, and Read More...
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The Obama literary cartel has spoken. Not one to let Ted Kennedy hog all the attention, Toni Morrison has added her endorsement to Obama's collection as well. The Nobel Prize-winning author and Princeton professor wrote a letter to Obama explaining her Read More...
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Another presidency just opened up. Gordon B. Hinckley, president and "prophet" of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, died yesterday at the age of 97. We're always on the lookout for political omens , and this one can't be good for Mitt Romney. Read More...
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Also worth noting about the Kennedy endorsements: This is at least the third prominent political family to be publicly split among the presidential candidates. Jesse Jackson, who himself won the South Carolina primary in 1988, criticized Barack Obama Read More...
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Over the weekend, Barack Obama got two Kennedys (Kennedies?) for the price of one. First, Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, penned a gushing op-ed in the New York Times endorsing the senator from Illinois. Then on Sunday, the campaign announced that Read More...
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Here's a poster spotted in Barack Obama's Columbia, South Carolina HQ. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some sort of "hope" coinage novelty item before the election is over: Read More...
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COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Barack Obama is angry. Oh, he’s in control, certainly, but you can tell he’s pissed. After a week of increasingly bitter spats over race and underhanded campaign tactics, Obama’s victory speech sounded his usual themes -- unity, change, Read More...
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If the presidential race were a sitcom, John Edwards would be the next-door neighbor who doesn’t take a hint. Nobody has the stones to tell him to stop stopping by, so he keeps on showing up with giddy smiles, predictable conversation topics, and a burning Read More...
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COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Didn't make it to Obama's victory speech? No problem! Just grab your ear buds, close your eyes, and tune into the sound of Obama campaigning. A quick glance at the sound engineer's computer reveals the following iTunes playlist compiled Read More...
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As of now, Barack Obama is headed toward a monster win in South Carolina, the likes of which we haven't seen since, uh, 11 days ago. Dozens of news cycles ago, Hillary Clinton beat "uncommitted" in Michigan with 55 percent of the vote and a 15-point margin Read More...
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Hillary Clinton just sent out an e-mail saying she called Obama to congratulate him on his win. Then this: “We now turn our attention to the millions of Americans who will make their voices heard in Florida and the twenty-two states as well as American Read More...
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COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The immediate story, it seems, is Obama’s overwhelming 81 percent take among African-Americans, according to exit polls. Even among whites, he took 24 percent—less than both his opponents, but a big jump from Thursday’s McClatchy poll Read More...
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The juicy bits from CNN's exit polls : Obama's victory margin over Clinton steadily declines as the voters get older. Obama beats Clinton by 45 percentage points among 18-29 year olds, 2 percentage points among voters 60 and older. Among blacks, though, Read More...
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Wolf Blitzer just went over Mike Gravel's vote tally and nearly cringed as he read that Gravel hadn't received any of the roughly 1,400 votes cast thus far. So, what's our over-under for Gravel for this primary? 500 votes? More importantly, what will Read More...
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Within seconds of the polls closing, CNN projected Barack Obama won the South Carolina primaries—a "strong" victory, according to Wolf Blitzer. But this primary, more than most others, isn't about who won overall, but about the candidates' share of support Read More...
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By Christopher Beam and Chadwick Matlin Feb. 5, 2008, aka Super Tuesday, will be utter electoral chaos. On the Democratic side, 22 states hold their primaries, awarding a total of 1,681 pledged delegates, or 52 percent of all those awarded. (“Pledged” Read More...
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COLUMBIA, S.C.—I arrive at the 10:45 p.m. Obama rally to discover they’ve closed the doors. No one is to be let in. Not even campaign staff. Fire marshal’s orders. Variations on this scene happen every few days. There’s always some fire code invoked, Read More...
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FLORENCE, S.C. – No matter how many “truces” the Clintons and Barack Obama call, no one seems willing to concede the last shot. At tonight’s rally, Obama rattled off his usual litany of defensive parries. He said he never praised Ronald Reagan, but that Read More...
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Did George Bush pass his bulge down to Mitt Romney? In 2004, Bush infamously had a giant, microphonelike bump on his back during a debate against John Kerry. Rumors were flying that Bush had a direct line to Karl Rove during the debate and that Rove was Read More...
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COLUMBIA, S.C.—Today, Hillary entered the belly of the beast. The beast being Barack Obama’s base; its belly being Benedict College , a historically black school that Obama has courted assiduously over the past year. The student body is largely pro-Obama, Read More...
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Big shocker here: After winning Michigan, Hillary thinks the delegates from that state and Florida should be counted. From a statement she just sent out: I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the Read More...
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The chatter among political types is a new McClatchy poll released yesterday showing Obama’s support among whites in South Carolina slipping from 20 percent to 10 percent in the past week. The obvious interpretation would be, Obama has somehow alienated Read More...
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The holy grail of campaign opposition research is the perfect metaphor: an activity or hobby or object that captures a politician's character. For George W. Bush, the metaphor has been his ranch, allowing Hillary Clinton to describe his foreign policy Read More...
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The candidates get to ask each other the questions—how cute. Yet not even Q&A sessions can spruce up this snoozer of a debate. Here's who asked whom what, and why: Romney asks Giuliani about China: Look how far we've come since autumn, when Romney |
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