Ticket Notice: Sunday Shows--L. Bush, H. Clinton, B. Obama, S. Palin

ABC This Week: (Updated to account for ABC changes). Sen. Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican, and Sherrod Brown, Ohio Democrat. Obama Press Secretary-designate Robert Gibbs; a roundtable with PRI's Kurt Anderson, Slate.com's John Dickerson, NPR's Alison Stewart and David Brody of CBN. Jake Tapper guest hosts.

CBS Face the Nation: Bob Schieffer, Paul Krugman, David Axelrod, Illinois Lt. Governor Pat Quinn.

CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: 2008 favorite interviews--N. Y. City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Sen. John McCain, President-elect Barack Obama, Gov. Sarah Palin and CNN founder Ted Turner.

Fox News Sunday: Laura Bush. Bill Sammon, Jill Zuckman, Fred Barnes, Ceci Connolly.

NBC Meet the Press: David Axelrod, chief political strategist Obama campaign and White House aide-designate; Rich Lowry, National Review editor; Todd Purdum, Vanity Fair; Michelle Singletary, Washington Post; Richard Wolffe, Newsweek.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: NBC, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Ticket Replay: Inside the shocking Ron Paul Republican conspiracy

The Ticket is occasionally republishing some of its favorite items from the recent political season. This one originally appeared here on Nov. 30, 2007:

Maybe you've heard rumors about an explosive newspaper expose on a major political figure that would rock the political world just as the presidential voting is about to begin.

We haven't either.

But we do know that today is when this newspaper blows the top off of the Ron Paul Conspiracy, that vast unorganized protest movement that has silently become one of the more interesting political phenomena of the current election season.

A Times reporter -- we'll call him James Rainey to protect his identity -- has managed to penetrate the Paul presidium.

In his story he recounts for the very first time the shockingly ordinary details of a movement of thousands of disparate, dissatisfied people, some of whom want an end to the Iraq war, an end to gun controls and the IRS, an end to laws banning marijuana and a return to the gold standard, whatever that means.

These Paulites believe the government has been hijacked by a bevy of big interests that threaten the freedoms of ordinary Americans. They're not going to take it anymore. Locally, they're even organizing a re-enactment of a brazenly defiant act, the BostonTea Party, except it'll be in Santa Monica and won't involve tea or white people dressed as Indians. And the protestors promise not to leave anything foreign floating in the water.

These committed partisans, bonded by their suspicion of authority and venal influences like the mainstream media that ignored them until they did something, have united behind a 72-year-old....

Ticket Replay: How much McCain and Obama spent to buy our votes

These days The Ticket is republishing some of our favorite items from the recent election season. This one originally posted here on Nov. 19, 2008:

Bet you didn't know how much your vote cost to get.

Here's the kind of stuff real politics fans revel in: Which candidate spent the most TV advertising money per vote received?

And where was that?

It may not surprise you that the winner spent the most to buy votes. Barack Obama spent $14.85 per vote received in Nevada.

The John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket spent $13.95 there.

Obama spent $7.23 per vote in Missouri, but still lost to McCain, who shelled out "only" $5.19. Obama spent $12.15 to win each vote in Virginia while the Republican spent $4.35.

How about Florida? McCain = $2.11. Obama = $8.86. New Mexico: Obama = $7.23. McCain = $9.25. Montana: Obama = $6.09. McCain = $0.

Ohio: Obama = $7.90. McCain = $5.80. Pennsylvania: Obama = $9.08. McCain = $8.51.

For some other states, the National Journal compiled the TV ad costs per vote here.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Associated Press

Ticket Replay: How 4 weeks changed the Georgia Senate race

The Ticket is republishing some of our favorite items from the recent election season. This one originally appeared here on Dec. 2, 2008:

A quick postscript to our post earlier this evening on the Saxby Chambliss-Jim Martin U.S. Senate runoff election in Georgia that the Republicans won handily:

As calculated by a loyal Ticket groupie and all-around good guy, Ben Welsh: What a difference four weeks, some cold rain and the absence of an African American presidential candidates makes. (See news video below.)

On Nov. 4, with Barack Obama atop the Democratic ticket and John McCain-Sarah Palin atop the Republican ballot, the GOP took Georgia in the presidential race, 52.2% to 47%, winning by 204,000 votes out of a total 3.924 million. (Libertarian Bob Barr, by the way, got a little less than 29,000 votes, or 0.7% in his home state.)

No real surprise there.

On the same day in the Senate race, Chambliss, the incumbent, came in first, but not by enough (49.8%) to win. He got 1.867 million votes to Martin's 1.757 million. Trouble is, Allen Buckley, the Libertarian, snatched 128,000 (3.4%), just denying Chambliss the 50%-+1 vote majority needed to avoid a runoff.

Fast-forward to today's two-man runoff: No Barack Obama on the Democratic side. No Bush baggage on the Republican side. No Libertarian Buckley.

With almost all precincts reporting late tonight, there were about 2.126 million total ballots. Chambliss raked in 1.221 million (57.4%) to Martin's 906,000 (42.6%).

Game over for the Democrats and Harry Reid. Not even close. Republican victory.

Lesson for Republicans and Democrats: Don't schedule your Senate reelection bid during a presidential election year ending eight years of White House control by your party.

Lesson for Democrats: Figure out some way to get the African American voters to come out a second time for the white guy.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Ticket Replay: How Illinois' machine survives corruption: One voter's story

For the next couple of weeks The Ticket will occasionally republish another of our favorite items from the past election season. This one originally appeared here on Dec. 12, 2008:

This is a true story about Chicago's Democratic machine politics, an urban brand that has produced President-elect Barack Obama, White House chief-of-staff-designate Rahm Emanuel and now, notoriously, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, accused of selling his nomination to a vacant U.S. Senate seat.

From a distance many observers might not understand how the state's Democratic political organization keeps getting elected for generations, when what all those people elsewhere ever hear about are corruption scandals in the Windy City or Land of Lincoln, as The Ticket detailed here Thursday.

Why wouldn't Chicago voters ever rise up and toss the rascals out?

This story concerns a young woman named Cindy. It occurred some years ago but could have happened yesterday given the constant internal regeneration of the Cook County machine, currently under the command of Mayor Richard M. Daley and about four dozen loyal aldermen, each with their own longstanding loyal organizations.

Cindy was working her way through college in night classes. After school late one evening, she went grocery shopping and was walking home on a deserted residential street on Chicago's North Side carrying two bags.

Suddenly, a disheveled man waving a kitchen knife jumped out of the bushes. He knocked her down, grabbed her purse and ran off.

Shaken, Cindy later reported it to the police, who were ...

Ticket Replay: Senate candidate Al Franken's townhall; one voter shows

As the recount continues in 2009 in the very close U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, The Ticket is republishing some of its favorite items from the past election season. This one was originally posted here Aug. 9, 2008 and may, in reality, show the importance of one single vote:

Al Franken is trying to turn his former fame as a comedian into the gain of one U.S. Senate seat for Democrats by upsetting incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in Minnesota.

But he probably didn't intend his town hall meeting on veterans issues yesterday to turn into the joke.

Only one person attended.

Ouch!

Well, every vote counts. So Franken sat down in Brigitte's Cafe in St. Cloud with the lone voter interested in veterans issues, the theme Franken's staff had established for that public appearance.

Franken spent an hour listening to the woes of Navy veteran Josh John, trying to navigate the medical system for former military members.

Franken also promised to improve veterans benefits, criticized his Republican opponent and the Democratic Congress for inaction and said he hoped to serve on the same veterans committee as the late Sen. Paul Wellstone.

Then, Franken headed off for the county fair, where there was likely to be a slightly larger crowd.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Ticket Replay: New video shows Clinton's escape from Bosnian snipers

From time to time these next couple of weeks, The Ticket will republish some of our favorites from the 4,000 items posted here since June 11, 2007. This one was first published here on March 27, 2008:

It's our policy here at The Ticket to admit when we make a mistake. And, boy, did we make a doozie the other day when we reported that CBS News videos contradicted Sen. Hillary Clinton's hair-raising account of her bullet-riddled arrival in Bosnia in 1996.

In numerous speeches during this campaign season she has described her party making a harrowing landing on the embattled airfield. Passengers, she recalled, were forced to run with their heads down for the safety of nearby vehicles, which apparently had to be kept a safe distance away in order for people to have to heroically run to them. "That is what happened," candidate Clinton said emphatically.

The news video, which we included in our Ticket item and you should probably review again here, to see how seemingly real film can be doctored so seamlessly, appeared to show the First Lady and her daughter Chelsea calmly walking across the tarmac at Tuzla Air Base, greeting a little girl reading a poem and bravely visiting with American troops near the front lines of that ethnic strife.

WARNING: Some of this war footage is graphic and may be disturbing to some readers.

.

Some cynics suggested Clinton was exaggerating the danger and importance of her travels in order to bulk up her credentials of experience to be able to answer the White House phone at 3 a.m. And last night Jay Leno joked that Clinton was supposed to be his guest, but she got pinned down by sniper fire and couldn't make it.

But now we know that peaceful video, which also showed Sinbad trying to be funny in the face of imminent death and Sheryl Crow fearlessly strumming a guitar, had to have been doctored to mask the gunfire and excise the bloody carnage surrounding the brave Mrs. Clinton.

The Ticket has now obtained two videos of the actual visit -- one just above here and another awaiting after you click the Read more line down below.

These film clips obviously show the real wartime conditions that the future Democratic presidential candidate endured on her road toward the nomination. And you have to hand it to the one-time Cubs-now-forever Yankees fan. Not once, does she flinch amid the explosions.

View second video below by clicking on the "Read more" line below.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Bill helps Hillary Clinton pay her campaign debts

Current Senator and about-to-be-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is under some special kind of financial pressure this holiday weekend. Aren't we all? And so, actually, is anyone she owes money to.

The New York senator's still got about $6.3 million in debts left over from her unsuccessful Democratic Party primary campaign. And the minute she's confirmed by that same Senate to join Barack Obama's Cabinet, it becomes illegal for her to raise such political money.

So she and hubby Bill, the ex-president, have come up with a clever idea to infuse probably a few hundred thousand dollars into her deceased campaign's treasury.

The William J. Clinton Foundation is buying access to the Hillary Clinton campaign e-mail lists.

This explains why you may have gotten that friendly e-mail fundraising letter from Chelsea Clinton about the foundation's AIDS work the other day. Or the membership sales pitch this week day from Media Matters for America. It bought the list too. If you gave money or sent one of those website messages of support, you've been sold. Or your e-mail has.

It's all perfectly legal according to the Federal Election Commission rules, as long as Clinton charges "fair market value," whatever that means for a list that might contain five or six million e-mails. Obama's, for example, is said to have perhaps 13 million names on it.

According to ABC News, which broke the story, such an e-mail list rental could be worth several hundred thousand dollars.

As the Ticket reported the other day, Sen. Clinton paid down her debts $1.1 million from November to December, leaving the $6.3 million. Of that sum, $5.3 million is owed to Mark Penn, her former political strategist who was relieved of duties, you may recall, something about working for Colombia and Clinton at the same time.

Clinton also wrote off a whopping $13.1 million of her money which she'd loaned to herself.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Associated Press

Now, feds probe Gov. Richardson of Obama Cabinet for 'pay-to-play'

It seems that Illinois' legally challenged Gov. Rod Blagojevich is not the only close Barack Obama associate and Democratic governor being investigated by the feds for possibly selling government business in return for campaign contributions.

New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson, who is the newly named Secretary of Commerce in Obama's about-to-be Cabinet, is also being investigated by a federal grand jury in his home state for possibly steering state bond business from the New Mexico Financial Authority toward David Rubin, a significant campaign contributor, according to an NBC News report, among others.

NBC's Lisa Myers reports that two former state officials say they've recently been questioned by a federal grand jury specifically about allegations that Richardson or aides pushed state business worth nearly $1.5 million in fees toward CDR Financial Products in 2004. The company is headquartered in Beverly Hills.

This was about the same time as CDR's founder, Rubin, donated $100,000 to two of Richardson's political action committees; mainly it appears to cover expenses of the governor and his staff at the Democratic Party's National Convention in Boston that summer.

Rubin also donated another $29,000 to Richardson's unsuccessful presidential campaign this year and last.

The probe is part of a broad national federal exploration of "pay-to-play," in which government officials reap financial or other benefits in return for state business.

Richardson has ignored reporters' questions on the federal investigation, while a spokesman says he's confident the relationship was entirely appropriate and the governor expects state employees to cooperate fully with federal investigators. A CDR spokesman also said the transactions were appropriate.

An Obama transition official has refused to comment on whether the president-elect knew of the investigation before he appointed Richardson to his new Cabinet position.

Obama has called Richardson "my great friend" and said the governor would be a key member of his administration's economic team. Richardson, the first Latino in Obama's Cabinet, described himself the same way.

On Tuesday, the Obama transition team issued a five-page report of its own involvement with Blagojevich, who's charged in a federal criminal complaint with demanding money for state aid, business and his appointment of Obama's Senate replacement.

The Obama team report completely absolved the Obama team of any wrongdoing, as the Ticket reported here. But Obama was already on vacation when the report was issued and has said he won't be talking further about the matter. The president-elect's main Blagojevich contact, new White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel also happened to be unreachable on a vacation in Africa.

Here's the full video report below.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Associated Press

Sex. Scandals. Lies. Naked. Video. Obama. Clinton. Palin.

For holiday reading ambience, click on video, then read item below.

Nah, none of that here. Not today.

A lot of people think politics is what they watch other people do. Barack Obama. Michelle Obama. Sarah Palin. Hillary Clinton. Big Bill the ex-POTUS himself. John McCain. Rod Blagojevich. George W. Bush. Or Laura Bush.

Truth is, we're all politicians. What we see politicians do online or on TV, we do ourselves almost ever single day. The stuff we admire. They stuff we dislike. Campaigning for something. Conniving for something. Denying something. Convincing someone of something. It's just easier to watch them than confront ourselves.

The crowds aren't as large with friends, with co-workers or with family. So, the scale is surely different.

But politics is politics.

And today is one for family politics in homes all over the Ticket's world really. Remember the childhood magic of that holiday morning? (See photo.) Sharing the stories from past holidays -- and maybe fudging a few details for current audience consumption. Pretending to appreciate an incomprehensible gift. Pretending to listen. Being truly speechless over a surprise. Raving over squash.

So, today is the one day the Ticket is gonna leave the professionals alone. Let all of us amateurs do our own political thing with our own crowds of family in our very own political ways.

Click on the holiday video above -- if you haven't already -- and think for a moment about all that we have to appreciate on this special day, starting with family and moving on up through some other big F's -- friends and freedoms.

We appreciate all of you. Nearly 28 million of you from all over the world -- yes, even New Zealand! -- have stopped by here to share a story or three in the last few months. About 90,000 of you have shared your own comments and stories. We treasure every connection. We'll have plenty to write about in coming days, including the inauguration.

And because we made a political promise to a certain family member a few minutes ago to go online for just a few minutes, we're gonna go back now to our own family. And think of you. And appreciate them.

Happy Holidays to one and all.

-- Andrew Malcolm

By the way, if you got an Amazon Kindle as a gift, you can get the Ticket on it now. You can also get Twitter alerts sent straight to your cellphone by registering here. And RSS feeds are available here. We'll be in touch. Now, get back to your family too!