The Democratic National Convention is making a show of trying to be environmentally friendly, and as longtime polar bear fans we can't object. And as fans of a certain beverage that has been part of the human experience since, well, forever, we can't object to the way they plan to fuel their ethanol cars.
Turns out Coors has been converting some of its bad beer -- yes, there is such as thing -- into ethanol at a plant in Golden, a Denver suburb. They make about 3 million gallons of it a year to blend with gasoline for E85 ethanol (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline).
And come August, some of it will be poured into part of the Democrats' convention fleet of 450 vehicles, 20% of which will run on E85, DNC transportation director Al Timothy Andrew Ballard told KUSA-TV in Denver.
Coors is the official ethanol sponsor for the convention, and you have to wonder if someone in Coors marketing pondered the sagacity of being known as the firm that gave gas to politicians. But it all makes us wonder which will consume more alcohol August 25-28 -- the cars, or the delegates?
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.
Tonight on his show, Jay Leno will open his monologue with a sports joke. He congratulates the Detroit Red Wings on winning the NHL championship Wednesday night and says the vanquished Pittsburgh Penguins announced today they will finally concede their loss on Saturday.
But let's say you've been a loyal supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton in her onetime-front-runner-then-hopeless-and-now-terminated campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. As a woman, you so wanted to elect the first woman president. Maybe you even gave her effort some of your own hard-earned money.
And you've seen Sen. Barack Obama acquire sufficient delegates to claim the nomination. And you've also seen your chosen candidate not concede after her win in South Dakota on Tuesday and her loss in Montana.
That night Clinton did invite her millions of supporters to go to her website and leave suggestions on what she should do. (They'll also find there a brief video of Clinton thanking people with some unusual phrasing: "I could not have made this part of the journey without you.")
So as a Clinton supporter you go the comments section and leave a heartfelt note re-avowing your support but ...
Ah, we must be thankful today to politics for exposing us to what is to many a new English word: "boo." Not as in scary gremlins at Halloween. But as in "She's my boo" (girlfriend) or "He's my boo" (boyfriend).
Thanks to a tip from loyal Ticket reader Brady and a tip of the hat to this site, we saw that word quickly became one of Wednesday's most-searched items on Google News. And why do you suppose that was?
Because CNN's Anderson Cooper didn't know what it was either and walked right into an embarrassing expression in a back-and-forth during Tuesday night's election coverage with Donna Brazile, a network commentator and a Democratic superdelegate, allegedly uncommitted.
She had said that Barack Obama, who had just clinched his party's presidential nomination, had called her not to seek her support but to discuss his proposed ways of ensuring party unity for the fall election after the sometimes-bitter primary campaigns against Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Cooper was pressing Brazile on what Obama actually said. "He's told everyone," she replied, "that he plans to sit down with Sen. Clinton at the right time."
Cooper replied: "I'm looking for something he hasn't told anyone else -- just you."
"Anderson," Brazile replied with cocked head, "you're not my boo."
The panel laughed. And Cooper walked right into it. "I wanna be your boo," he said, pausing as the panel broke out laughing. "I don't really even know what that means."
At that, Brazile, who was Al Gore's presidential campaign manager in 2000, looked at her watch and asked, "Anderson, are we still on TV?"
"Yes, we are, Donna Brazile."
"Well, I think I better watch my words."
"Someone can explain it to me later," said Cooper.
Since it's pretty clear this morning that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is not going to withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in the face of Sen. Hillary Clinton's admirably annoying tenacity, it falls to the New York senator to adjust to a harsh political reality that a year ago today was absolutely unthinkable: She lost.
Whatever your personal feelings are toward Clinton -- and the Ticket's Comment boards reveal a rude intensity on both sides -- or toward any of the other losers in either party who gave up the electoral marathon weeks or months ago, running for office like this requires a profound commitment by the candidate, his/her family and those around them who invest up to 20-hour days for very little pay over what now spans nearly two years.
This nation's chief executive weeding-out process is brutal, as it should be to force only the most qualified, savvy, lucky, smart to the top.
But we don't have to bring out the violins for any of the....
The political drama of the day seems to be when will Hillary Clinton quit, but the real issue facing the Democrats now is how to retool themselves for the fall showdown with John McCain. And as our colleague Doyle McManus points out in today's paper, Barack Obama has some clear strengths, and some decided weaknesses, to work on -- many of them exposed by the same primary and caucus process he narrowly survived to claim he has enough delegates to win the nomination at the August convention. Writes McManus:
"Even
while celebrating his improbable achievement Tuesday night, Obama faced stinging reminders of challenges he has yet to overcome.
"He lost the primary election in South Dakota, as senior citizens and working-class white voters defiantly stuck with a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton, exit polls showed. Both voter groups are considered crucial to victory in November.
"After controversies over his former pastor and other issues, Obama has lost ground among the independent voters who are important in any presidential election. In February, 63% of independents said they had a favorable impression of the Illinois senator; last month, that number was down to 49%, the Pew Research Center said."
It's worth taking a moment to recall what's happened so far, because sometimes the full weight of history is hard to feel when you're in the midst of it. With the nation at war and the economy teetering on recession, a white woman -- a former first lady no less -- and a biracial man were the last two serious nomination contenders in a Democratic primary battle that lasted five months, burned through $400 million and shattered state voter-turnout records for primary elections and caucuses.
On the Republican side, we could well have witnessed the end of the dominant influence of social conservatives within the party, a role that has had a deep effect on national policies going back to the rise of Ronald Reagan a quarter-century ago.
And the fall general election could well be just as historic, as the Vietnam War generation squares off against those for whom that war exists in textbooks rather than personal memory. It also will likely be a fight over class -- the white working-class -- as well as Latinos, and independent and moderate Democratic women.
And, after eight years of an increasingly unpopular administration, and with Congress already shifted from Republican control to Democratic, the Fall could complete a realignment that began with the 2006 midterms -- a shift just as radical as the change between Jimmy Carter and Reagan, and between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
History unfolds, and as Walter Cronkiteused to intone, "You are there."
-- Scott Martelle
Obama photo: Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times McCain photo: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times
Chances are, Barack Obama, the newly minted nominee of the Democratic Party's presidential ticket, and Hillary Clinton, its latest loser, are sound asleep as we write this. But The Ticket never sleeps.
So here to officially mark the end of the primary season is a new feature, The Ticket Video: Five things to think about as the rhetorical dust settles from a historic primary race that saw the original Republican front-runner, John McCain, fall into oblivion and then recover to win the GOP nomination while the original Democratic front-runner, Clinton, simply fell into oblivion and the victor, Obama, rose from the same place to clinch his win a few hours ago.
This video is about an hour-and-a-half long. Just kidding. It's 88 seconds.
With the final primary concluded barely hours before, top Democratic Party leaders in Washington early this morning ratcheted up the pressure to force all remaining uncommitted superdelegates to make their choice of candidate known by Friday -- and thus end the now hopeless, onetime front-running campaign of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The joint statement was obviously pre-planned and timed for issue shortly after Clinton refused to concede the presidential nomination victory to Barack Obama, who's gained sufficient delegates to clinch the party's nomination.
Howard Dean, right, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, chairman of the Democratic Governors Assn., issued the brief statement for unity just minutes ago:
"The voters have spoken," they said, adding later, "Democrats must now turn our full attention to the general election. To that end, we are urging all remaining uncommitted superdelegates to make their decisions known by Friday of this week, so that our party can stand united."
The carefully worded statement, which does not urge the superdelegates to go one way or the other, is a clear step to force an end to the effort by Clinton, who said Tuesday she would take a few days to consider her options and protect the voices of the nearly 18 million voters who cast ballots for her in recent months. Her hand is now being forced by the Friday deadline.
The move is also a sly one politically, since it leaves Obama free of any appearance of forcing Clinton to quit and thus alienating her millions of supporters, whom the Illinois senator will badly need in the general election come Nov. 4.
In exit polls throughout the just-concluded primary season, an unusually high number of Clinton voters indicated they were likely to reject Obama and vote for the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
A complete text of the Democratic Party leaders' joint statement is available by clicking the "read more" line below.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo Credit: Associated Press / Manuel Bolce Ceneta
The moment the final polls closed in South Dakota -- and Hillary Rodham Clinton took a solid lead in the state's Democratic presidential primary -- Barack Obama was widely acclaimed the party's presumptive nominee.
Perhaps it was a fitting finish to a race that both made history and defied initial expectations.
Throughout the day, enough Democratic superdelegates announced their backing for Obama that, under the party's proportional allocation of delegates picked through primaries, all he had to do was show a pulse of support in South Dakota.
That he did, overriding any focus on Clinton's lead. (Within a few minutes, though, the cable news networks declared her the winner in South Dakota, a result that should cause a bit of chagrin within the Obama camp.)
Also overridden -- at least on CNN and MSNBC -- was presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Both cut away from McCain's speech in New Orleans, where, with the general-election lineup now clear, he took Obama to task on virtually every issue imaginable.
Fox News stuck with McCain through the end of his speech.
Yada, yada, yada, the talking TV heads will be, well, talking and spewing talking points now about what the primary voting results mean in the last two remaining Democratic contests -- Montana and South Dakota.
And what it means for now and the fall and infinity and beyond. Right after these important commercial messages.
Why wait? And endure all that?
Let's hear what you think right now. When should she give it up?
You know, today is the last day of primaries. (Yes, we know AP says Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination by delegates, but there are still real votes to be voted.)
Just like spring, election day comes kinda late to Montana and South Dakota. And they really are the final ones. No, really.
And then almost immediately -- well, five months from tomorrow -- comes the general election on Nov. 4. So you better hurry and sign up for instant results via Ticket Twitter for tonight and beyond.
Had you already signed up for Twitter, you would have known about Obama clinching through a special news tweet.
And, of course, by signing up you also get automatic notification of every new Ticket item as it's posted.
Look how excited someone's new grandson named Charlie is about the prospect of automatically getting election results Twittered to his Fisher play cellphone.
And he could have received news of Hillary Clinton's walloping of Barack Obama in Kentucky a whole lot quicker had he been a Ticket Twitter subscriber -- and born then. But he was otherwise occupied elsewhere. (Yes, that's his personal halo hanging nearby.)
Also, Charlie doesn't want to miss one moment of Rep. Ron Paul's surge now that he's within almost 1,300 delegates of catching Sen. John McCain for the Republican nomination in St. Paul. (Honest, that's where the GOP meets come September.)
Click Follow. Enroll there for alerts on every new Ticket item AND our instant, breaking-news election results whenever and wherever anyone is voting on the U.S. presidency. And it's all free, of course.
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And join.
Once again, on this final primary election day and all the ordinary campaign days in between until the Bitter End when everyone has made their Thanksgiving airline reservations and winced at the new prices, we're going to have all the political news and election result updates for our Twitter subscribers. (Actually, to be honest, we'll be here well beyond Nov. 4 chronicling formation of a new presidential administration and the political fallout in the losing party.)
On the final day with the last two Democratic primaries in Montana and South Dakota, the Associated Press is reporting that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has accumulated sufficient delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination for president at the party's National Convention in Denver come August.
Now, the next question is when will New York Sen. Hillary Clinton concede?
When do you think she should give up? Now? Tonight after all voting? Tomorrow? Never, fight on? See Comments below.
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.)
You'll recall that those two states broke party rules by moving their primaries ahead of the dates on the Democrats' schedule. Primary voters in Michigan and Florida were told that their votes would not count, and Democratic candidates did not campaign in either state. In Michigan, Clinton's was the only name on the ballot; the other choice was "uncommitted."
Top adviser Harold Ickes, a member of the rules committee, appeared on CNN's "Late Edition" Sunday and reiterated his threat to take the matter to the party's credentials committee at the convention in August. He and other Clinton backers are upset that the committee allocated 69 of the Michigan votes to their candidate and 59 to Barack Obama, who was not on the ballot. (By their count, Clinton should have gotten 73 delegates and "uncommitted" 55.)
He did acknowledge that after the final three primaries -- today's in Puerto Rico and Tuesday's in South Dakota and Montana -- Obama could be in a position ...
CNN has just called the Puerto Rico primary for Hillary Clinton, which must be a bittersweet (though anticipated) victory for her just a day after the Democratic National Committee's rules folks shut off one of her few remaining hopes to rack up delegates.
The Puerto Rico primary is an odd duck -- the votes count for sending delegates to the Democratic National Convention, but the territory does not have a voice in the electoral college vote in the November election. So her argument that she can win in crucial swing states doesn't get any oomph with Saturday's vote.
Next up: Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday, which seem to be poised to break for Obama. So what does that mean? Look for a flood of uncommitted SuperDs to hop off the fence Tuesday night or Wednesday. And at that point, Clinton will have all the data she needs to figure out whether she can squeak through or decide for the sake of the party to read the handwriting on the wall. Or she can follow the "third way" and fan the flames of the intraparty passions, though it's hard to see that would gain her anything except enmity.
So what do you figure Wednesday's story line will be? Clinton upsets the political table? Superdelegates give Obama the nomination? Clinton vows a floor fight? Gotta love the drama.
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.
As secretary of the Democratic National Committee, Alice Travis Germond will call the roll of states later this year when the party nominates its presidential ticket at its convention in Denver. She took note of that today as a member of the party rules committee that met in Washington to try to figure out if -- and to what degree -- the Michigan and Florida delegations would be part of that confab.
Germond noted early during the panel's deliberations that in her secretary's role, she looked forward to including the two states as she works her way through the roll call. But she was very careful with her language in discussing the dispute over the nomination contests that Michigan and Florida conducted in violation of DNC rules.
Germond -- for many years a key behind-the-scenes player in California's Democratic Party before she moved East -- seemed loath to use the term "primary."
Her favored term for the votes: "events" (which drew a chuckle from the committee's audience the first time she used it).
No doubt such attention to detail is crucial to her job, which includes certifying all convention delegates and vote counts.
Barack Obama not only spent today far, far away from the trench warfare being waged in Washington over whether -- and in what proportion -- to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations at the Democratic National Convention later this year, he was doing his best to stay above the fray.
The Times' Michael Finnegan reports that as Obama campaigned in South Dakota in advance of the state's Tuesday primary, he had nothing but kind words for Hillary Clinton, praising her for running a "magnificent race" in their marathon battle for the Democratic presidential nod.
"I know that some Democrats are worried that, well, this campaign went on a long time, and maybe you can't bring the party together; the Clinton supporters and the Obama supporters, they're going after each other," Obama told a few thousand people gathered at a rodeo fairgrounds in Rapid City.
"Let me tell you something. First of all, we're going to come together, because Sen. Clinton is an outstanding public servant. She has run a magnificent race. And she is going to be working on behalf of the Democratic Party, as I will be."
Spoken like the presumptive nominee that he and his camp are anticipating he soon will be -- a designation that Clinton and her forces continue to do their best to forestall.
As participants in today's Democratic rules committee meeting blew through a normal lunch hour -- and avoided venturing outside into a nasty thunderstorm that swept through Washington -- it became evident that the difficulties posed by the unsanctioned Florida and Michigan primaries were not equal.
A consensus seemed likely on how to apportion delegates from Florida, based on a proposal offered by the Barack Obama campaign. But how to deal with Michigan -- where only Hillary Clinton, among the major Democratic presidential contenders, was even on the ballot -- emerged as a much stickier proposition.
Several top Michigan Democrats, including Sen. Carl Levin (at left), repeatedly referred to the contest in their state as a "flawed primary" in comments to the committee.
But Levin, passionately, also sought to return the debate to first principles -- whether Iowa and New Hampshire should continue to enjoy special status in picking presidential nominees.
Levin noted that for him, not only was that the root of Michigan's decision to conduct its primary on Jan. 15, earlier than national party rules allowed, but it remained the most flawed aspect of the nomination process.
His voice rising as he made this point, Levin told his party colleagues: "No state should have the right to go first" every campaign. "No state."
A few moments later, he decried what he termed the "God-given right to go first" that Iowa and New Hampshire insist upon every four years.
Regardless of how the immediate dispute plays out, Levin can be counted on to keep pushing -- perhaps at this year's convention, certainly beyond -- for a dramatic reshaping of the primary calendar. And that will remain worth watching.
While Democratic honchos sought today to untangle the problems caused by the rogue Florida and Michigan primaries, the party was in danger of losing a high-profile vote -- that of Tony RodhamHugh Rodham, the brother of Hillary Clinton.
[UPDATE: Correction from the original post; our reporter got it right, but we wrote Hugh when we meant Tony. Many, many apologies. And our thanks to readers who caught our error].
The Times' Faye Fiore found Rodham sitting in an Irish-themed bar across the street from the Washington hotel where the Democratic rules committee was grappling with the mess. He was drinking a pint ... and fuming.
“I’m just here to make sure Americans are represented by one vote for every person," he said, parroting the Clinton line that the results in the two states should be reflected in their totality at the Democratic convention.
With the Democratic National Committee likely to settle on, at some unknown point, a different solution that results in fewer delegates for Clinton, Rodham opined: "What the DNC and (Chairman) Howard Dean are doing is an absolute disgrace.”
The upshot?
Rodham, a self-described “yellow dog Democrat all my life,” is unsure who he would support in November if Clinton is not the party's standard bearer.
"If my sister doesn’t end up with the nomination, I gotta take a look at who I’m gonna vote for,” he said.
Horrors.
Does that mean, Fiore asked, Rodham would vote for Republican John McCain?
“I didn’t say that. It could be Bob Barr,” he said, referring to the Libertarian presidential candidate who, as a House member from Georgia, was a prime player in the impeachment of Rodham's brother-in-law, Bill Clinton).
With that, Rodham paid his check and gathered his family: his son (the grandson of California Sen. Barbara Boxer, whose daughter, Nicole, was once married to Rodham), his baby by his second marriage, asleep in a stroller, and his pregnant wife. They headed back ...
What had been a fairly uneventful debate before the Democratic National Committee's rules committee on the Michigan/Florida primary imbroglio finally was enlivened when fiery Rep. Robert Wexler of Boca Raton appeared on behalf of Barack Obama.
His appearance also produced the proceeding's most laughably arcane exchange (and believe us, much of the discussion during the morning session only could be appreciated by lawyers).
Wexler, in his typically high-decibel fashion, made the case for allowing the Florida delegation to be seated at half-strength at the party's August convention in Denver. He presented that as a "major concession" by Obama because that would mean a delegate pickup for Hillary Clinton, who won a primary that the party had ruled would not count for anything.
Of course, what Wexler pushed for falls 50% short of what the Clinton forces want -- the seating of a FULL Florida delegation, which would give her even more delegates.
Two of the Clinton stalwarts on the rules panel, Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy, sought in questions to puncture Wexler's "major concession" stance, and the result was a clear demonstration of the tensions between the two camps that is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon.
And then there was that moment of arcana.
Ickes, with a sly smile of his face indicating that he believed he was about to ensnare Wexler, asked the congressman his position on "the concept of fair reflection."
Wexler, no doubt speaking the thoughts of many, replied with his own smile that Ickes would have to "educate me" on that concept.
Even as Democratic leaders sat down in a Washington hotel this morning to try to resolve their dispute over primaries in Michigan and Florida, the head of the party took a swipe at the resolution of another fight over counting votes -- the one that decided the 2000 general election.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, in remarks opening the much-anticipated rules committee meeting, invoked the name of Al Gore, the party's nominee eight years ago. And in doing so, he asserted that the presidency had been "snatched from" Gore by "five intellectually bankrupt justices."
So much for the recent recommendation from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia -- one of those who was part of the 5-4 ruling that led to George W. Bush becoming president -- that folks "get over" what happened and that the debate about it is "so old now."
Dean brought up Gore's name in telling an anecdote about his own disillusionment, as a presidential candidate in 2004, with the party he now hopes will unite after dealing with the Florida/Michigan mess and, at some point, settling on a nominee for this year.
Dean told of angrily pacing in a hotel room one night in Wisconsin -- where an impending primary loss would extinguish what had once been his front-running candidacy -- and talking with Gore on the telephone. For undisclosed reasons, he was venting, wondering why he should stay a Democrat and asking what the party had done for him.
Gore, according to Dean, finally cooled him down by saying, "This is not about you, it's about your country."
Who knows, more stories like this one -- and continued squabbling ...
The crucial unanswered question at this stage of the Democratic primary fight is what Hillary Clinton plans to do next week, once contests in South Dakota and Montana wrap up the primary season.
The Clinton campaign is offering no clues.
In a conference call with reporters Friday, her aides were repeatedly asked how far they would carry their fight to seat all delegates from the disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida. Those delegates are crucial to Clinton's increasingly improbable plan for victory. If Clinton doesn’t get everything she wants Saturday when a party committee adjudicates the issue, will she take her protest to the nominating convention in August?
"We think it is not useful to cross streams before we come to them,’’ replied Harold Ickes, a campaign strategist.
The nightmare scenario for most party leaders is that Clinton keeps fighting through the summer. Party officials hope to rally behind a presumptive nominee by the end of June, at the latest.
In public, Clinton is taking a tough negotiating stance. A campaign attorney sent a letter to the Rules & Bylaws Committee today, arguing that it would be wrong to strip delegates from Michigan and Florida as punishment for moving up their primaries.
The two states suffered enough by virtue of the fact that neither Clinton nor Obama campaigned in either place, letter says.
But, alternatively, one person with ties to the Clinton campaign told The Times in a recent interview that among the staff, "There is no expectation at all that we would get 100%. That’s totally off the table at this point.’’
In a talk with the Argus Leader in South Dakota earlier today, Hillary Clinton took a walk through political history -- and stepped on a figurative land mine. Asked about her continuing campaign against increasingly long odds, she invoked 1968 and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy fairly late in the primary calendar. Her intent seemed to be to point out that anything can happen.
But with Ted Kennedy gravely ill, and an undercurrent in the election of the risks Barack Obama faces, well, the reaction was not quite what she expected. Which led the campaign to release this statement a few minutes ago:
"Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That’s a historic fact. The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I’m honored to hold Senator Kennedy’s seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family."
Gaffes like that don't help you play catch up with the SuperDs.
On the same morning Hillary Clinton's campaign e-mailed around to the press corps a link to a column that argues she may be leading in the total popular vote, Barack Obama scored four more superdelegates -- two from California (currently the land of fire and rain), one of them yet another Clinton defector.
The vote-count argument goes down the well-traveled trail of who do you count, and where, pointing out that if all the ballots cast in all the primaries -- including Michigan and Florida -- are counted, then she ekes out 71,000-vote lead with Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota still to vote. The general sense is Clinton will carry Puerto Rico, with Montana and South Dakota harder to read.
But the only way Clinton gets the votes-cast lead is to include those in Michigan and Florida (as well as estimates from the caucus states). Of course, the count that matters under the Democratic Party rules is the delegates. And Obama inched ever closer today with two California SuperDs -- Reps. Jim Costa of Fresno and Dennis Cardoza of Atwater -- and two former John Edwards superdelegates from New Hampshire.
Cardoza had been in the Clinton camp, and his flip seems to have more to do with wanting to jump on a stronger horse (or leave a sinking ship) than based on policy and vision. "While I continue to greatly respect and admire Sen. Clinton and feel she has made history with her campaign, I believe that Sen. Obama will inevitably be our party’s nominee for President," Cardoza in a statement released by the campaign.
He adds that he's doing it in the name of unity: "I am deeply concerned about the contentious primary campaign and controversy surrounding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan -– two states Democrats need to win in November... I believe we need to avoid this potentially divisive situation by uniting behind one nominee and bringing the party together immediately. Therefore, I have made the decision to support Senator Obama at the Democratic Convention in my role as a super delegate.”
Ted Kennedy's very public and dire illness will keep him being the speaker at the 176th Commencement Ceremony at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., on Sunday. His stand-in: Barack Obama.
"Ted and I talked about me filling in for him at Wesleyan University earlier this week," Obama said in a statement released today. "Considering what he's done for me and for our country, there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. So I'm looking forward to standing in his place on Sunday even though I know I won't be able to fill his shoes."
Kennedy released his own statement through the Obama campaign, saying, essentially, he was taking Obama up on his offer to help as he battles brain cancer, "including stepping in to deliver the commencement address at Wesleyan University."
It's not just any commencement. Among the gowned-and-tasseled will be Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Raclin, and son Ted Jr. will be in the audience. The statement, attributed to Kennedy's office, said the Massachusetts senator accepted Obama's offer to step in "knowing it would be an historic opportunity for the school and all those attending."
It should make for an interesting weekend of campaign coverage. Hillary Clinton is planning to be in Puerto Rico, whose June 1 Democratic primary votes will count in the Democratic National Convention, but the territory will have no voice in the general election. So expect coverage of Clinton to be light.
Obama, meanwhile, will be symbolically stepping into the shoes of Democratic liberalism in what will likely be a highly dramatic -- and widely covered -- appearance. Once again, advantage: Obama.
While the world of politics waits around for Sen. Barack Obama to finally get the message and give up his hopeless chase of the Democratic nomination for president because he lost yet another heartland state to Hillary Clinton, Texas Rep. Ron Paul continues to creep up on the once-presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.
Overlooked in all the hoopla about the big Portland, Ore., music rally that Obama piggybacked onto and his winning the Forever Cloudy State in Tuesday's voting was the fact that the 72-year-old libertarian-like Republican rebel snagged two of Oregon's 27 GOP delegates.
Sure McCain got the other 25. But depending on whose count you go by, this gives Paul a total of either 21 or 28 delegates to the September Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Maybe even a few more.
That puts Paul only about 1,245 delegates behind McCain, who weeks ago captured the necessary 1,191 delegates to guarantee him the nomination.
And as The Ticket reported Wednesday morning, Paul is careful with the dollars his loyal followers have donated. Since early 2007, these dedicated bands of imaginative fund-raisers have donated nearly $35 million and Paul still has almost $5 million of that left. Recently, he's been advertising a lot on radio. And unlike most candidates, he lives with no political debt.
So by September it may come down to mano a mano between two 72-year-olds to see who goes up against the 60-year-old New Yorker or the Illinois kid who'll be 60 in about 13 years.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama got mangled in Kentucky tonight by Sen. Hillary Clinton (see her video at bottom) by a better than two-to-one margin. But he basically ignored that setback and returned to an enthusiastic crowd at the scene of his initial primary season victory tonight and talked to Iowans over and over and over about change.
In fact, even before learning of his Oregon victory, standing before the state capitol in Des Moines, the freshman senator said the word change 14 times. That provides a pretty obvious clue to the major theme he envisions in the already building general election campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Obama congratulated Clinton on her overwhelming Kentucky victory and praised her as a pioneer,
perhaps an early indication of reaching out to Clinton supporters, many of whom still cling to hopes of a mathematical miracle in her struggle for convention delegates. Obama said, "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has changed the America my daughters and your daughters will come of age."
The crowd gave a half-hearted cheer.
He made the obligatory attack on McCain, saying, "The lobbyists who rule George Bush's Washington are now running Sen. McCain's campaign."
"McCain," Obama added, "is not change."
"Our journey may be long," Obama said, his voice rising. "Our work may be great. But we know in our hearts we're ready for change."
"Iowa," he added to growing cheers, "change is coming to America. Change is coming."
In case, you didn't get it, Obama thinks change is coming. And he is it.
Hillary Clinton has indulged a taste for history of late. And that was on display tonight, as she claimed her overpowering victory in the Kentucky primary (while ignoring an expected defeat looming across the country in Oregon).
Campaigning in West Virginia earlier this month, on her way to a huge primary win last Tuesday, she stressed that since 1916, no Democrat had won the White House without carrying the Mountain State.
This evening, in Louisville, she put forth a vaguer proposition. It has often been said, she asserted, that "as goes Kentucky, so goes the nation."
Frankly, that was a new one on us. But if it's so, that's bad news for Barack Obama. As we noted earlier, he would seem to have little chance to being competitive in Kentucky as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Kentucky has had a winning track record in recent decades -- the last time the Bluegrass State picked a loser in a White House contest was in 1960, when it backed Richard Nixon instead of
