It worked once before -- why not try it again? As our colleagues Maeve Reston and Mark Z. Barabak report elsewhere on the website, John McCain is shaking up his staff again. The winner: Karl Rove protege and former White House point man Steve Schmidt, known to Californians for his work running Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign.
The story notes that "the changes took place amid continuing concern in Republican ranks about the direction of McCain's campaign and the seeming inconsistency of his message. The Arizona senator has alternated between appeals to independents and Democrats, who flocked in large numbers to his 2000 campaign, and appeals to the Republican right."
Schmidt takes over day-to-day operations and Rick Davis moves to what seems to be "CEO/campaign manager" status overseeing the general operations and focusing on fundraising, the convention, and that pesky decision on who gets to share a bumper sticker with McCain in the fall. Word is Schmidt will report to Davis and that the changes came at Davis' request and with his blessing.
Our colleague Noam Levey has a story today weighing John McCain's voting history and public stances on a wide range of energy issues. It's a mixed bag, Levey reports:
"At times he has backed measures to ease restrictions on oil drilling off the coast and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other times he has voted to keep them.
"He has championed standards to require that automakers make vehicles more fuel-efficient, yet opposed standards to require that utilities use less fossil fuel by generating more power from renewable sources, such as wind and solar.
"McCain has rejected federal tax breaks for renewable energy producers, but backs billions of dollars in subsidies for the nuclear industry.
"He has criticized corn-based ethanol for doing 'nothing to increase our energy independence.' Yet while campaigning in 2006 in the Midwest corn belt, McCain called ethanol a 'vital, vital alternative energy source.'
"Senior McCain policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin said McCain's positions reflected a pragmatic approach to governing. 'Sen. McCain is interested in getting results,' he said."
Beyond the policy confusion this can engender (and we'll leave that for others to dissect), it points up the inherent problem any legislator faces in running for president: The longer the service, the bigger the pool for opposition researchers to swim in.
So in an odd bit of political irony, here Barack Obama's relative lack of legislative experience could be an advantage -- fewer votes, fewer points of exposure.
Charlie Black has had his moment of straight talk ... and chances are he's not going to let it happen again.
A recent Washington Post piece on Black aptly described him as "John McCain's man in Washington," a "longtime uber-lobbyist" and "political maestro" who hopes "to guide his friend, the senator from Arizona, to the presidency this November."
Now comes a Fortune magazine article that, even more aptly, notes the "startling candor" with which Black discussed how a spotlight on national security would serve McCain's political purposes.
First, he provided some background.
The assassination of Pakistani political leader Benazir Bhutto in late December was an "unfortunate event," Black told Fortune, but it boosted McCain's stock in the fast-approaching New Hampshire Republican primary that he absolutely, positively had to win. The candidate's "knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be commander in chief. And it helped us," Black said.
Then, the longtime political pro got a bit too honest. Asked about the political impact of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Black replied: "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him."
Black may be correct, but he's not supposed to be quite so blunt in coldly calculating the upside for McCain of harm coming to Americans. Others -- unconnected with the campaign -- could offer such an assessment, but he should have dodged the question.
He knows it, and The Times' Maeve Reston reports that outside a McCain fundraiser today in Fresno, Black said: “I deeply regret the comments — they were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration."
McCain, for his part, did what he's supposed to do -- stressing his lifelong commitment to protecting America and flat out disputing Black's premise. "It's not true," he said when asked in Fresno about his aide's remark.
Barack Obama's campaign played its role, taking great umbrage to Black's comment while using it to stress one of its talking points.
Spokesman Bill Burton said, "The fact that John McCain's top advisor says that a terrorist attack on American soil would be a 'big advantage' for their political campaign is a complete disgrace, and is exactly the kind of politics that needs to change."
But Burton also said Obama "welcomes a debate about terrorism with John McCain, who has fully supported the Bush policies that have taken our eye off of Al Qaeda, failed to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, and made us less safe."
The Fortune article that sparked the flap (and in which Black is tangential) can be read here. Our colleague Jill Zuckman over at the Swamp has her take on the incident here.
Lanny Davis, a Democrat who was former special counsel to Democratic President Bill Clinton and who remained a dedicated campaign spokesman for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even when her cause had become hopeless, has just signed on as a political commentator for Fox News.
There, the Washington lawyer and Democratic insider will join Karl Rove and Mike Huckabee, neither one Democrats, in providing campaign insights on the cable channel that Democrats love to hate and even boycott.
"I consider FOX News to be a network that genuinely tries to be balanced, offering political perspectives from all sides,'' Davis said in a Fox News news release.
As The Times' Michael Finnegan detailed today, initial signs indicate that many women voters who had supported Hillary Clinton's presidential quest are more quickly and willingly lining up behind Barack Obama than many analysts had anticipated. And one conversion is bound to get a lot of attention -- the Obama campaign has announced that additions to its staff include Patti Solis Doyle, who for more than a year managed Clinton's bid.
The prospect of Doyle signing on with Obama had been rumored for a few weeks, and it was made official with the news that she will serve as chief of staff to his eventual vice presidential pick.
At first blush, that would seem to make it less likely that Clinton will be tapped for the running-mate slot.
Doyle, a longtime Clinton loyalist, was jettisoned from her team during Obama's February streak of caucus and primary wins, which gave him a lead in the nomination contest that he never relinquished. At the time, she was singled out for much of the blame for a campaign that had not maximized Clinton's strengths in the race's early stages and then was seriously was short on cash during the Obama surge. Last week, the New York Times reported that since Doyle's departure, she and Clinton had not spoken.
It would seem odd if they were to set about repairing their relationship with Doyle shepherding another Clinton campaign after the jolting end to their most recent collaboration. Then again, the adjustment period for the two presumably would be about a nanosecond.
Also on the list of new hires by Obama is another woman well-known within political circles: Stephanie Cutter, who served as head of communications for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. Cutter has been assigned to what could prove an especially challenging position -- chief of staff for Michelle Obama, expected to be the target of intensifying attacks from some conservatives.
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Having Hillary Clinton get behind his presidential candidacy may have been the easy part for Barack Obama, as he now moves to both buttress his campaign's brainpower and unite the notoriously fractious Democratic Party.
The two tasks aren't necessarily complementary, as Obama discovered Tuesday when labor leaders and others expressed surprise and chagrin over his choice of Jason Furman as his chief economic advisor.
For the presumptive presidential nominee, Furman's selection is part of a process of tapping into heavyweights who weren't part of his initial band of loyalists but whose talents he can now call upon. Furman, 37, served a similar advisory role for the party's 2004 White House nominee, Sen. John Kerry, and has worked closely in recent years with Robert Rubin, the guiding force behind President Bill Clinton's economic agenda.
There's the rub, for the union officials and some liberal activists.
As The Times' Tom Hamburger reports, criticism of Furman includes the charge that, as a promoter of the benefits of economic globization, he overlooks the trend's negative effects.
Marco Trbovich, a top aide to the head of the Steelworkers Union, told Hamburger: "We are very much taken aback that Furman has been put at the head of this team. ... He is a very bright fellow but he is an unalloyed cheerleader for the trade policies that have been very destructive to manufacturing jobs in this country."
Hillary Clinton today sought to distance herself from all the clamor that she has set her sights on claiming the second spot on the Democratic presidential ticket.
A terse statement sent out by one of her top aides, Phil Singer, on behalf of the currently out-of-sight and soon-to-be ex-White House candidate had this to say:
"While Senator Clinton has made clear throughout this process that she will do whatever she can to elect a Democrat to the White House, she is not seeking the vice presidency, and no one speaks for her but her. The choice here is Senator Obama's and his alone."
Speculation about Clinton's interest in the veep spot -- and whether she is lobbying for it -- has been especially fast and furious since Tuesday afternoon, when it was learned she had told fellow lawmakers from New York that she was "open" to the possibility.
But that evening, in the view of many, she stomped on her chances -- whatever they may have been up to that point -- in giving a speech that dwelled on her own campaign, only briefly mentioned Barack Obama and made no acknowledgment that he had laid claim to the delegates needed to secure the ticket's top spot.
Perhaps the conventional wisdom was summed up best in a column today by E.J. Dionne Jr., which began:
"Hillary Clinton talked her way out of the vice presidency on Tuesday night."
Like many of the Democrats who so revile him, President Bush today took note of the conclusion of the party's presidential nomination race. Also like many Democrats, two candidates were still on the Republican's mind.
During the morning's daily "gaggle" with reporters at the White House, Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino said that through her, the president was passing along his congratulations to Barack Obama for securing enough delegate commitments to lay claim to his party's nomination.
"Sen. Obama came a long way in becoming his party's nominee. And his historic achievement reflects the fact that our country has come a long way," Perino said of the success of the first African American to head a major party's presidential ticket.
But Bush, through his surrogate, also gave a nod to the contest's runner-up, the not-quite-ready-to-concede Hillary Clinton. The president, Perino said, congratulated her for waging a "spirited campaign."
Reporters, who included The Times' James Gerstenzang, wondered whether Bush at some point might offer his kind words directly to the two Democrats, via a telephone call.
Not likely, Perino suggested. She noted that eight years ago, after he had locked down the GOP nomination, no such good wishes were forthcoming from then-President Bill Clinton.
There's loyalty in politics, and then there's loyalty. Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, appeared on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" Tuesday night a few hours before Clinton's non-concession speech. She's going to The White House in January, he says. As president.
-- Scott Martelle
(McAuliffe shows up at about the two-minute mark.)
In the pantheon of Bill and Hillary Clinton loyalists, Lanny Davis continues to carve out a special niche for himself.
A friend of Hillary's since they were law students together at Yale, he served as a White House special counsel to Bill from 1996 to 1998 and in that position and as a private attorney fiercely defended him during the impeachment saga.
Davis has shown that same ferocity in promoting Hillary's '08 presidential campaign, particularly in its latter stages. The day after her victory in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, he penned a blog headlined: "The Top Ten List of Undisputed Facts Showing Barack Obama's Weaknesses in the General Election Against John McCain." And in early May, he was at the center of memorably contentious discussions of her candidacy on CNN.
On Tuesday night, he launched -- without, he said, coordination with the Clinton campaign -- a petition drive aimed at persuading Obama to tap her as his running mate. The effort officially begins today at a new website, womenforfairpolitics.com. And here's a missive Davis sent to Obama:
"We write you because we believe it is very important for the Democrats to win back the presidency in 2008. To do so, we must field the strongest possible ticket for the Democratic Party. We believe the 2008 election could be close. And your selection of a vice presidential candidate may make the difference between victory and defeat.
"We write to urge you to select Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to be your choice for vice president because we believe that she would be, by far, the most qualified and strongest candidate to be your running mate.
"Both you and Sen. Clinton during this campaign have demonstrated strengths in different segments of the electorate and in different parts of the country. Together, you stand the best chance of making U.S. history not once but twice -- the first African American president and the first female vice president since the founding of our great nation.
"We know this is ultimately your decision on who is to be your running mate. But with the greatest respect, we ask you to select Sen. Clinton in recognition of the more than 17 million Democrats who supported her at the polls and who, in combination with your more than 17 million supporters, would form the base of a successful presidential campaign in the November election."
The new website joins one set up a few weeks back by a lower-level Clinton acolyte, voteboth.com, that has sought to build momentum for an Obama-Clinton pairing. Davis is listed as one of its "key supporters."
The long-anticipated close to the Democratic presidential race seemingly has arrived, with only the theatrics of the final act yet to be scripted. Still, a mini-drama well worth watching will be played out in South Dakota tonight.
Barack Obama is expected to win in Montana, but as South Dakotans vote today in the other contest that brings the curtain down on the primary season, the result there are seen as up in the air. And although Obama will be focusing tonight, Wednesday and the rest of this week on officially clinching his party's nomination, he and his brain trust undoubtedly would like to do so with two final wins, rather than a split decision.
Symbolism is at work; the difference between a final sprint through the finish line, rather than jogging across it.
Taking even a longer view, recall that Obama pulled ahead in his race with Hillary Clinton -- to stay, as it turned out -- thanks to an impressive string of primary and caucus wins in the four weeks after Super Tuesday on Feb. 5. But Clinton rebounded at that point.
On March 4, her wins in the Ohio and Texas primaries enabled her to stave off calls that she end her candidacy. And since then, she's showed impressive strengths -- especially in her landslide wins in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico.
Tallying all the contests from March 4 through today -- and counting the Texas primary/caucus "two-step" as distinct results -- finds that Clinton has won 8, Obama 6, and one was a virtual tie; Obama's margin in the Guam caucuses was 7 votes and the two candidates split the 4 delegates at stake.
It's purely academic, but the Obama forces would prefer to look back on this final segment of the nomination battle and see a scorecard that, with victories in Montana and South Dakota, reads 8-8-1.
That is especially so for one senior advisor to Obama -- the former senator from South Dakota, Tom Daschle.
It was bad enough that his constituents ousted him from office, and his perch as the Democratic Senate leader, in 2004. It would be another embarrassment for him if he can't bring his home state into the Obama column. Nor would it help his prospects, which have been discussed, as an Obama running mate.
Over the next 8 hours, or 24 hours, or perhaps longer, a new Hillary Clinton watch will be underway -- when will she, once and for all and without a doubt, fold her tent in the Democratic presidential race?
Apparently it won't be tonight, when at some yet-to-be-determined time she speaks to supporters gathered at Baruch College in Manhattan to mark the final two contests in the primary season (South Dakota and Montana).
An initial frenzy of speculation about what she will say at that gathering was set off by an Associated Press story this morning that led with this: "Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president."
That prompted a curt statement from the Clinton campaign: "The AP story is incorrect. Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening."
The back-and-forth may simply be a matter of semantics, sparked in part by the story's use of the verb "concede."
With the combination of delegates Obama will pick up in today's two votes and the continued -- and likely accelerated -- flow of superdelegates into his corner, he may well be able to claim he has reached the magic number of 2,118 needed to declare that he has secured the nomination. And Clinton herself may well acknowledge that (maybe even in her remarks tonight).
But as Clinton has noted time and again since Obama staked out a clear lead in the delegate hunt more than two months ago, the delegates -- all of them, the elected ones and the appointed ones -- can change their minds up to the moment they cast a ballot at the party convention this August in Denver.
Such changes of committment are unlikely to happen, as the Clinton forces well know. But given every signal the candidate has sent up to now, it's also unlikely she would choose tonight -- when matters will still be in a slight state of flux -- to officially end her a quest for the White House that she kicked off in January, 2007.
Even the third paragraph in the AP story, basically overlooked in the burst of attention the piece generated, says: "The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City."
So when will that happen?
Let's simply yield to Clinton strategist Harold Ickes, who said on MSNBC: "She will say what she says when she says it."
For political junkies, part of the fun of watching politics is reading the tea leaves. Admit it. Most of you probably saw friends over the weekend -- a little barbecue, maybe, or a kids' sports match.
And if you talked about politics, chances are good the conversation included a little chatter about how and where the Democrats are going to finish up after Tuesday's final votes in Montana and South Dakota.
Well, three fresh factoids have caught our eye. First, Hillary Clinton announced this morning that she'll spend Tuesday evening in New York, the city that never sleeps and that she represents in the U.S. Senate. Not in Montana or South Dakota, where people are voting, but New York City.
Second, Bill Clinton told folks in South Dakota this morning that "this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, till Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president."
Third, the folks at Politico report that Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman, tells them that "we just haven't figured out our schedule past Tuesday," so many members of the advance team are being sent home.
(UPDATE: A fourth factoid -- Tom Edsall reports over on Huffington Post that Clinton has taken the "unusual move" of summoning "top donors and backers to attend her speech" Tuesday night in New York.)
Barack Obama has scheduled his own election-night event in St. Paul, site of the September Republican National Convention, and his event can be read as a salvo across the bow for the fall election. What can be inferred from Clinton's picking New York City? Well, it is close to home, and it would be a symbolic place to announce that she is ending her historic run for the White House and devoting her full attentions to the Senate job.
Of course, it could be she just wants to repack a suitcase to start visiting superdelegates in person. But after the Democratic rules committee decision Saturday, the steady seepage of superdelegates Obama's way, and the campaign telling its advance people to take some time off, you gotta wonder.
(UPDATE II: Our colleague Noam Levey reports from South Dakota that Elleithee told reporters aboard the campaign plane this afternoon that "we do not expect a nominee will be clear tomorrow night," signaling that the campaign probably would not end Tuesday. But the Associated Press reports that Clinton advisor Harold Ickes and fundraising director Jonathan Mantz told donors Monday that Clinton probably wouldn't appeal the DNC rules committee decision, and that the campaign expected Obama to secure enough delegates by Wednesday to claim victory.)
Rudy Giuliani's rapid descent from leader in the national polls among the Republican presidential candidates to virtual non-factor when caucuses and primary voting actually began this year did not provide a political template others will want to follow.
Be that as it may, the Republican National Committee has signed up several survivors from the Giuliani fiasco as it gears up field operations in a number of states for the fall election.
RNC Chairman Mike Duncan today unveiled a list of operatives expected to lead the party's efforts in nine states, and fully five of the appointees were part of the Giuliani campaign.
Charged with helping deliver the "positive message" from presumptive GOP presidential nominee JohnMcCain and "energizing voters to elect Republican candidates up and down the ballot in November," the Giuliani refugees will be at the helm in Ohio, Arkansas, Colorado, Washington state and Nevada.
Party partisans can only hope that these aides -- especially those assigned to the expected battlegrounds of Ohio, Colorado and Nevada -- did not pick up too many bad habits while working for a presidential campaign that tanked so dramatically.
But as the Democratic rules committee ended its lengthy meeting today in Washington today with a decision on the Michigan primary that left Hillary Clinton's campaign irate, the words from one of her chief strategists have to haunt party leaders striving for elusive unity.
"Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee," Harold Ickes said.
The rules panel, which Ickes serves on, achieved its goal of resolving one of the party's two disputed primaries -- the Florida contest -- in a way that Ickes and other Clinton loyalists indicated they could live with. And combined with the more contentious action on the Michigan vote, the result was to put Barack Obama on the cusp of securing the number of convention delegates needed to soon declare himself the presidential nominee-in-waiting.
But Ickes' admonition on Michigan means that the Clinton camp has not signed off on the new "magic" number: 2,118 delegates. And that means any claim by Obama to be the presumptive nominee will carry an asterisk -- perhaps all the way to the late-August convention in Denver.
Indeed, along with Ickes' words, the chants of "Denver, Denver" by disgruntled Clinton supporters as the rules committee gathering broke up must be uneasily echoing in the ears of other Democrats.
ABC's "This Week": Former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan (pictured) and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe. Round-table with Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, the New York Times' David Brooks, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum and commentator George Will.
Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt": Ralph Reed, Republican strategist and former director of the Christian Coalition.
CBS' "Face the Nation": Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.
CNN's "Late Edition": Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons, Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez and Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen. Round-table discussion with CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, Fareed Zakaria and Jeffrey Toobin.
CNN's "Reliable Sources": National Review's David Frum, ABC's Martha Raddatz, former President Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart, Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond, former New York Times Hollywood correspondent Sharon Waxman and CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
C-SPAN's "Newsmakers": Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron, interviewed by AP's Alan Zibel and Congressional Quarterly's Benton Ives.
"FOX News Sunday": Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's communication director, and David Bonior, spokesman for Barack Obama and former Michigan congressman. Power Player of the Week is Brendan Sullivan, executive director of Headfirst. Panel discussion with Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, Nina Easton of Fortune Magazine, Byron York of the National Review and Juan Williams of National Public Radio.
MSNBC's "Chris Matthews Show": Richard Stengel, editor of Time magazine; Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Howard Fineman of Newsweek; Kelly O'Donnell of NBC News.
MSNBC's Tim Russert: Charles Osgood, author of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House: Humor, Blunders, and Other Oddities from the Presidential Campaign Trail," and presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
Not to put the cart before the horse or anything, but EbonyJet.com -- the website for the two Chicago-based magazines begun decades ago to focus on the African American market -- has set about doing some serious imaginings about what an administration headed by hometown hero Barack Obama might look like.
The first predictive installment -- of five -- didn't just confine itself to the high-profile posts that so many are musing about. No, Eric Easter, chief of digital strategy and political commentator for the site, truly dared to get into the weeds.
For instance, he tabs as Transportation secretary another Chicago pol, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Attorney general -- John Edwards (whom Easter tabs as "a natural" for that job).
Defense secretary: Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
And then there's the Big One -- running mate. Easter's choice is one who's been prominently mentioned by others (and pictured above), Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. (For some of the recent blog chatter about Webb-as-veep, go here, here, and here.)
All of Easter's roster for an Obama-run executive branch (which even includes a "transparency czar") can be perused here. In the piece, he also offers ...
When President Bush was popular and his remaining time in office was long, congressional Republicans were quick to jump to his defense. Now, they are hugging their seats.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's book has come out, and the president's putative Republican allies have been mostly silent. OK, so Congress is in recess. But when Bush was high in the polls, GOP lawmakers would rush to TV studios and send out mass e-mails to defend the president.
Democrats in Congress, of course, have been ready to pounce. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he had instructed his staff to begin discussions with McClellan to determine whether the committee should hold a hearing on revelations in the book about alleged attempts to cover-up the Valerie Plame leak.
Finally, a Republican has piped up. Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the panel's top Republican, said: “While I’m sure Mr. McClellan's publishers would want nothing more than some free publicity from Judiciary Committee Democrats, we have more important things to do on this committee than investigate the unfounded allegations of a disgruntled former employee. . . . It should not take a congressional hearing to determine that Mr. McClellan's statements are not credible.”
The Bush White House wasn't the only crew stung by Scott McClellan's scorching new memoir about his experiences as the president's press secretary.
McClellan also lashed out at the Fourth Estate, saying the national press corps "was probably too deferential to the White House" when it came to questioning whether going to war in Iraq was justified.
An unscientific sampling of Washington journalists expressed puzzlement about McClellan's criticism -- or dissed it as downright hooey.
"It's a stunning and unsupportable statement," pronounced Mark Knoller, CBS Radio correspondent. "Transcripts of McClellan's press briefings provide more than ample evidence of the intense scrutiny imposed on the White House and its policies by members of the press. Most days, McClellan left the briefing room lectern positively spent by the pounding he faced from reporters."
ABC's Ann Compton was perplexed: "Is Scott suggesting the White House press corps can stop, or start wars?"
David Gregory, NBC News' chief White House correspondent, opined: "I think he's wrong." He added: "I think we pushed, I think we prodded. ...The right questions were asked."
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank resorted to a press secretary (McClellanesque?) sort of dodge: "I defer to Scott on this point," he said in an e-mail.
On accepting Scott McClellan's resignation as his press secretary two years ago, President Bush predicted that he and the outgoing aide some day would be "rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."
But maybe their days in the White House together weren't so happy after all.
Next week will bring the publication of McClellan's 341-page tome, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." It is described by Politico's Mike Allen as "surprisingly scathing."
As promised, here's The Ticket's Sunday morning TV guest list, posted every Saturday at noon Pacific time (3 p.m. EDT).
ABC's "This Week": Karl Rove and Barack Obama senior advisor David Axelrod; round table with Vanity Fair's Dee Dee Myers, Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, ABC News' Matthew Dowd and George Will.
Bloomberg's Political Capital with Al Hunt: Mitt Romney and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).
CBS' "Face the Nation": Hillary Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson, John McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Obama supporter Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
CNN's "Late Edition": Major Gen. Mark Hertling, Commander, Multi-National Division-North; Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice); Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas); Obama supporter Robert Reich; Clinton economic advisor Gene Sperling; McCain economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin; Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman and author of a book about her son; CNN's Bill Schneider, Suzanne Malveaux and Gloria Borger.
C-SPAN's "Newsmakers": Major Gen. William Etter, National Guard Bureau, Acting Director of Joint Staff.
"Fox News Sunday": Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe; Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee; Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of Democratic National Campaign Committee; Col. Michael Colburn, director of the U.S. Marine Band; panel with Fox's Brit Hume, Nina Easton, William Kristol and Juan Williams.
NBC's "Chris Matthews Show": David Brooks of the New York Times, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Katty Kay of the BBC.
NBC's Meet the Press: CBN's David Brody, the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, Newsweek's Jon Meacham and NPR's Michele Norris.
Even if things don't work out for Mitt Romney in Arizona this weekend, he signaled today that he intends to remain very involved in national politics -- as a financial rainmaker for Republican candidates.
Romney announced the formation of the Free and Strong America PAC and listed John McCain as the first beneficiary along with Dean Andal of Stockton, who is running for California's 11th Congressional District seat, and six other Republicans.
You might look at it as an avenue for Romney, former Massachusetts governor, to keep his staff employed. The executive director is Peter Flaherty, Romney's former deputy chief of staff and deputy campaign manager of Romney's presidential run. The press contact is Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's loyal press aide (see the end of this video).
Based on the presentations (and presenters) at the annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in New Haven, Conn., today, one could easily conclude that the two leading presidential candidates had taken the roles of the two guys in the Apple commercials.
Both Republican John McCainand Democrat Barack Obama sent surrogates to the confab. For Obama, it was Daniel J. Weitzner, far right in photo, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is a member of the campaign's technology, media and telecommunications committee. Weitzner, who helped draft the campaign's tech policy positions, looked Steve Jobs-cool in his light tan blazer and open-collared pink shirt. And he had his Mac laptop with him on the lectern.
Carrying water for McCain was campaign special counsel Chuck Fish, far left. An intellectual property lawyer by trade, he took a more buttoned-down, corporate approach: dark gray suit, white shirt and tie. And no obvious sign of any Apple products.
Linda Douglass, who parlayed a highly successful career as a television journalist in Los Angeles into an even more illustrious one at the national level, made a switch today that already has sparked discussion about media bias: she signed on with Barack Obama's presidential campaign, joining his staff as a senior strategist and spokeswoman.
Douglass, who served as ABC's chief congressional correspondent for several years earlier this decade, had this to say about her switch:
"I see this as a moment of transformational change in the country and I have spent my lifetime sitting on the sidelines watching people attempt to make change. I just decided that I can't sit on the sidelines anymore."
Most recently, Douglass had been writing about the presidential campaign for National Journal magazine (an influential inside-the-Beltway publication) and hosting the weekly "National Journal On Air" program on XM Satellite Radio's all-politics channel. She made the above comment to one of her colleagues with the company that owns National Journal, Marc Ambinder.
He writes an excellent political blog for theatlantic.com, and after an earlier posting on Douglass's hiring, filed a lengthier item this afternoon about her move. Calling her "an eminently fair journalist," he added: "To conservative media critics, the divide between the press corps and modern political liberalism is fairly narrow, and easy to jump over, and Douglass's decision will reconfirm their sense that bias pervades newsrooms."
But Ambinder also reported that conservatives wouldn't be alone ...
Barack Obama ultimately disrespected Kentucky even more than he did West Virginia; he at least made an 11th-hour stop (albeit a brief one) in the latter state the day before its presidential primary last Tuesday.
In the walk-up to Kentucky's nomination contest this Tuesday, the closest he's come to its borders was when he was at home in Chicago on Thursday.**
Since then, he's gone off to South Dakota, Oregon (which also has a primary Tuesday, and where he was greeted by a massive crowd, at left, on Sunday) and Montana (June 3). Tuesday night will find him in Iowa -- not only the site of the caucus win that first fueled his candidacy, but a likely key swing state come November.
Obama's hands-off approach to West Virginia and Kentucky is striking to us on two counts.
One, public protestations notwithstanding, his willingness to concede them to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race is an unmistakable signal that as he and his aides look toward the general election, neither state figures in its Electoral College calculations. (They are not alone in this assumption -- an astute overlook of the electoral map posted on Salon.com late last week by Democratic pollster Paul Maslin did not include either on the list of 17 states he views as competitive, to varying degrees, in an Obama-John McCain match-up.)
Secondly, it caused us to hark back to the very early stages of the campaign and wonder: What if Clinton had followed the controversial advice of her then-deputy campaign manager, Mike Henry, and taken a pass on a full-fledged effort to win the Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa?
It was almost exactly a year ago -- May 21 -- that Henry (who left the campaign shortly after Campaign Manager Patti Solis Doylewas replaced early this year) wrote an in-house memo ...
John McCain's campaign sent a top advisor packing after questions surfaced over his role in a 527 group -- the kind of organization that is barred from coordinating activities with political campaigns.
Consultant Craig Shirley, a public relations veteran, got the heave-ho after a reporter for Politico began asking questions about his role in the "Stop Her Now" 527 and his former spot as a paid advisor to the McCain campaign (he apparently was most recently an unpaid volunteer).
And given McCain's insistence that he represents a new kind of politics, you can expect this to echo into the fall in various incarnations. As Politico reports:
"McCain campaign manager Rick Davis moved to avoid a recurrence of the situation with his conflict-of-interest policy, released late yesterday. It also sought to stem the impression that McCain’s campaign is run by lobbyists — a characterization Democrats have tried to make since it was reported that a senior adviser, Charlie Black, made lobbying calls from McCain’s signature bus, the Straight Talk Express. Davis himself is currently on leave from his lobbying and consulting firm, and the campaign removed two other officials this week for work they’d done on behalf of Burmese junta."
"We respect John Edwards, but as the voters of West Virginia showed last night, this thing is far from over."
We suspect there might have been stronger views expressed within the Clinton camp when it learned of Edwards' decision which, of course, took the edge off her crushing win in the Mountain State.
-- Frank James
Frank James writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau.
Amid minor movement today among Democratic superdelegates -- so far, Barack Obama has picked up 2 1/2 votes [UPDATE: make that 3 1/2] and Hillary Clinton, one -- Obama scored a coup with an endorsement from the nation's foremost abortion rights advocacy group.
In a news release, the political action committee for NARAL Pro-Choice America had kind words for Clinton but annoounded its backing for Obama, citing its reading of the status of the Democratic presidential race.
"Today, we are proud to put our organization's grass-roots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election," NARAL's president said in the release. "That candidate is Sen. Obama.
James Carville's fierce commitment to Hillary Clinton's presidential quest has led him to utter some of this campaign season's most memorable quotes (see here and here). But at heart, Carville remains more seasoned political operative than polemist, and he has joined others in seeing the writing on the wall for Clinton.
"I think the great likelihood is that (Barack) Obama will be the nominee," he said during an appearance at Furman University in South Carolina.
He added: “As soon as I determine when that is, I’ll send him a check.”
The hours can be never-ending and the pay is nothing to write home about. But perhaps it's the minor indignities that offer reminders that toiling in the trenches of a presidential campaign is something short of glamorous.
Just ask Samantha Tubman, a member of Barack Obama's media advance team.
Tubman was on the job Friday when the Democratic presidential contender made an unscheduled stop at a taqueria in the small Oregon town of Woodburn. No doubt she was pleased that Obama -- who sometimes has been mocked for passing on some of the more caloric fare candidates are expected to sample while on the trail -- dug into a hearty plate of chavindeca, a Michoacan dish of chicken and beef with tortillas.
The Times' Robin Abcarian was also on the scene and reports that as patrons and journalists crammed around the table Obama shared with some locals, a waiter holding a tostada above the crowd tripped on a highchair. The tostada went flying -- and splattered Tubman.
"Last time it was the cow," cracked Obama, referring to an encounter Tubman had in a Pennsylvania barn last month when she leaned over and a friendly bovine licked her face.
No word on whether Tubman will be able to expense her cleaning bill.
Perhaps it's best for the Republic that Bill Richardson's presidential campaign flamed out. And had he defied the odds and gotten on a path to the White House, he apparently would have needed to pick a running mate who excelled at mind-reading.
The New Mexico governor left his home state last weekend on a short trip that included a stop in Kentucky to promote the candidate he has endorsed since exiting the presidential race, Barack Obama (Richardson did part of his stumping at the Kentucky Derby -- nice work, if you can get it).
One little problem -- Richardson neglected to tell his lieutenant governor, Diane Denish, a fellow Democrat, about his travel plans.
"I don't take it personally," she told the Albuquerque Journal. "He just doesn't want to publicize that he's out of state."
But, she added, "I think it would have been better if I were notified" -- in part because a section of the Manzano Mountains happened to be ablaze and she would have asked for a steadier flow of information about the fire.
A Richardson aide insisted no harm, no foul. "The governor is still the governor when he's out of state. He's still making decisions," Gilbert Gallegos told the Journal.
Ever since he claimed his strong win Tuesday night in the North Carolina primary (and ceded the nail-biting race in Indiana to Hillary Clinton before most prognosticators), Barack Obama has clearly signaled that he's ready to move on with a general election campaign.
As part of that, his campaign today announced 14 co-chairs of "Vote for Change," its label for a nationwide voter registration drive. All pretty predictable and routine ... until the list is perused.
Who knew, for instance, that Usher (left) -- the R&B singer and record-label owner, identified in the Obama release by his full name, Usher Raymond IV -- had an interest in the nitty-gritty of political organizing?
Same with band leader Dave Matthews and knockout actress Kerry Washington?
All three will be, according to the campaign, among those who "will oversee the program’s efforts and act as surrogates to boost participation across the country."
The first quote about the effort, in fact, comes from singer Melissa Etheridge (right), who says, “Barack Obama started his career as a community organizer in Chicago, working with communities devastated by plant closings, and after law school he returned to those neighborhoods to register new voters. From the beginning of his career, he’s made change happen by enfranchising people at the grassroots, and that’s what Vote for Change is all about.”
That may well be, but we can't wait to see her, Usher, Matthews and Washington toting regsitration sign-up sheets at shopping centers.
The other co-chairs are more traditional; they include Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Reps. John Barrow of Georgia, Melissa Bean of Illinois and Linda Sanchez of Long Beach (who created a buzz when, on the same day, she endorsed Obama while her sister, Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Santa Ana, announced for Clinton) and Maria Elena Durazo of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.
Barack Obama already had come to rue the comment he made, while campaigning in Indiana in April, about the potential importance of the state's primary. And he probably rues it a bit more after Hillary Clinton and her crew threw it in his face tonight, conveniently skewing for their own purposes one key word.
In the days before the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, Obama conceded that Clinton had the edge in that state, made himself the favorite in North Carolina (which joined Indiana in conducting a primary today) and said the Hoosier state "may end up being the tiebreaker."
Clinton, taking the stage in Indianapolis a few moments ago to claim what may end up a narrow win for her in Indiana (a key county expected to tilt toward Obama remained to be counted), immediately spotlighted his comment -- except she ignored his use of the conditional, saying he had predicted Indiana "would" be the tiebreaker.
Around the same time, her staff issued a memo that similarly tried to use the "tiebreaker" comment as a way to put the best possible spin on a day that was less than stellar for Clinton, given that her dual hopes of winning ...
James Carville keeps burnishing his reputation as the go-to guy for quotes that definitely catch one's attention.
We initially missed, we must confess, his earthy comment to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, providing his take on the relative toughness of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But Maureen Dowd of the New York Times did us a favor by referencing it in her Sunday column, so we backtracked and found the Clift piece.
Here's its concluding sentence:
Hillary is the tougher of the two, the candidate you want on your side in a knife fight, a gender reversal that prompts Carville to indulge in some ribald humor: "If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."
For whatever reason, similar paeans to Clinton were all the rage last week (recall this comment by a union leader in Indiana).
Carville's fierce loyalty to Clinton was most obviously spotlighted, of course, with his controversial "Judas" remark after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson endorsed Obama awhile back. He had no new trashing of Richardson to offer Clift (or, if he did, she didn't write it). But Carville offered this thought about Obama's current political status (note that he does give the Illinois senator some props):
"He had the greatest fastball anybody had seen, and now it's 'Hey man, can you throw a change-up?' He needs another pitch in his repertoire."
