Tag: 2008 (page 20)

Politico reports on a new Republican attack ad on Obama that is airing on television in Mississippi.

A television ad from Southaven Mayor Greg Davis tells viewers that his Democratic rival, Travis Childers, a realtor and Prentiss County official, has accepted the endorsement of "liberal Barack Obama." Then, with Childers' face beside footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it says, "When Obama's pastor cursed America, blaming us for 9/11, Childers said nothing."

Then: "When Obama ridiculed rural folks for clinging to guns and religion, Childers said nothing." "He took Obama's endorsement over our conservative values. Conservatives just can't trust Travis Childers," the ad concludes.

Politico says:

The ads are a mark of how difficult, with the nomination apparently within his grasp, Obama will find it to stay above or outside the traditional, bitter partisan divisions he so often deplores. [More...]

Barack Obama's new politics may not be exactly the same as his old politics. The LA Times reports he wrote a letter for a donor and client requesting and obtaining a $50,000 grant for a ping pong ball venture.

After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

After receiving his last paycheck from EKI:

Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

More...

I stopped by Larry Johnson's No Quarter and found his latest post on Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. We've both written about Ayers before, but we have different views of Ayers and his wife.

As I've said many times, I admire the work the Ayers' have done for children and education and in trying to keep them on the right track rather than go down the wrong one. Larry tends to view Ayers as a terrorist. I don't. I also like what I know about Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorn for how they took in Chesa Boudin and raised him while his parents were in jail for many, many years over their activities.

So Larry and I disagree a bit on which aspect of Ayers' connection to Obama is or is not a problem.

This is an open thread.

Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics examines the popular vote totals, including caucus states, and says Hillary Clinton is ahead.

Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama.

If you add in the votes, as estimated by the folks at realclearpolitics.com, in the Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine caucuses, where state Democratic parties did not count the number of caucus-attenders, Clinton still has a lead of 12,000 votes.

Barone says even with a loss in North Carolina, Hillary may keep the lead if she does well, as expected in W.Va and Kentucky and Puerto Rico. [More....]

The Associated Press reports on the state of the electoral map and says right now it favors Democrats. It includes 14 states as battleground states that could go either way.

William Arnone, long-time Democratic party activist and the author of the key state series I've quoted many times, has just finished his preliminary electoral vote preview and again graciously agreed to let me publish it.

Arnone says there are 17 battle ground states among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, which also has electoral votes.

As to Hillary or Obama, who's more likely to get the Dems over the 270 mark? Arnone says it's Hillary.

Here's his breakdown of the 538 electoral votes:

• 15 states are likely will go Democratic (196 EV)
• 19 states are likely to go Republican (152 EV)
• 17 are toss-ups or battleground states (190 EV)

The 17 battleground states are broken down as follows: [More...]

Hillary Clinton today asked Barack Obama to participate in a Lincoln-Douglas style debate without moderators. They would each ask the other questions.

Obama tells Fox News in a segment that will air tomorrow there will be no more debates before May 6, when Indiana and North Carolina vote.

Hillary's challenge:

“You know, after the last debate in Philadelphia, Senator Obama’s supporters complained a little bit about the tough questions. And you know, tough questions in the debate are nothing compared to the tough questions you get asked when you’re president and you have to answer them to make tough decisions,” she said.

“So here’s my proposal: I’m offering Senator Obama the chance to debate me one-on-one, no moderators. Just the two of us, going for 90 minutes, asking and answering questions. We’ll set whatever rules seem fair.”

Update: Comments now closed.

Just out from Newsweek:

After an important primary win in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton has reduced Democratic rival Barack Obama's double-digit lead among registered Democrats and voters leaning Democratic by more than half, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Plagued by controversies over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments and the candidate's own "bitter" remarks, Obama has seen his favorability rating slip significantly in the last week, the poll found.

The survey found that Clinton now trails Obama by seven points, down from 19 just one week ago. The previous NEWSWEEK poll, conducted on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, found that more than half (55 percent) of registered voters believed Obama was more electable, while 33 percent gave the edge to Clinton. The current poll finds Obama leading 46 percent to 38 percent.

Complete poll results are here.

Alice Palmer is campaigning for Hillary Clinton today in Indiana:

Joining Chelsea Clinton and other women leaders to campaign for Hillary Clinton today is Alice Palmer, the former state senator who picked Obama to be her successor back in the mid-90s. When she tried to reclaim her spot, though, Obama got her booted from the ballot.

Her story is an interesting one, since it shows how Obama plays hardball.

Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.

But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.

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Hillary Clinton said after her Pennsylvania win that the tide is turning. Thomas Edsell, political director of Huffington Post, today says the media has begun to turn on Barack Obama.

For the first time, reporters working for magazines, newspapers and web sites have abruptly decided that she might well be right, and the results for Obama have been brutal....

....The new tenor of media coverage is visible almost everywhere, from Politico, Time and The New Republic to The Washington Post and The New York Times.

....The first hard punch was thrown by my friend and colleague John Judis in a widely distributed piece on The New Republic web site, filed sometime around 3AM Wednesday, seven hours after polls closed in Pennsylvania. In the article titled, "The Next McGovern," Judis writes: [more...]

The North Carolina Republican party unveiled an ad today against two Democratic gubernatorial candidates. The ad attacks Barack Obama because he remained in Rev. Wright's church. You can view it here.

John McCain and the national Republican party are calling for it to be removed. But, it's nothing compared to the Willie Horton ad by the 527 group the National Campaign Fund (Floyd Brown)attacking Obama for refusing to vote for a bill that included the death penalty for gang members. You can view it here.

Brown says the initial effort, a 60-second spot called "Victims" will be aired later this month in North Carolina and e-mailed to between 3 and 7 million conservatives this week, with a plea for more funding to further spread the message. "All of the efforts I have ever done in my life have been significantly funded," Brown claimed, though he declined to describe the size of the purchase. "This is going to be the most Internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever."

Barack Obama should be praised for his vote against the death penalty for gang members. Similarly, I praised him for his vote against the federal anti-gang bill here. ABC News reviews his objections to the Illiniois bill:

You'll see a lot of articles touting Barack Obama's raising of $42 million in March. While a huge number, it's still $13 million less than he raised in February.

His expenditures in March: $30.5 million. He spent $9 million on media advertising and $5 million in telemarketing. And, notwithstanding the massive expenditures, he lost the popular vote in both the Ohio and Texas primaries.

Hillary Clinton is behind in fundraising but still in the game. She raised $20 million in March. All but $5 million came from online donors.

At the beginning of April, Hillary had $8 million to spend on the primaries to Obama's $41 million.

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Bump and Update: Hillary responds to Obama (audio here with audience joining in):

"Sen. Obama said today that John McCain would be better for the country than George Bush. Now, Sen. McCain is a real American patriot who has served our country with distinction, but Sen. McCain would follow the same failed policies that have been so wrong for our country the last seven years.

"Sen. McCain thinks it is okay to keep our troops in Iraq for the next 100 years. Is that better than George Bush?

"Sen. McCain will continue the failed economic policies of George Bush that have brought us deficit and increasing debt. Is that better than George Bush?

"Sen. McCain does not have a health care plan that will cover every American. In fact, we will have more and more uninsured Americans. Is that better than George Bush?

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