|
|
Last month, as The Ticket reported here, someone hacked into the private e-mail account of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, then the new Republican vice presidential candidate.
The hacker posted some of her e-mails, photos and copied her personal phone book.
Maybe the hacker forgot Palin is now the world's most closely guarded hockey mom. The FBI and Secret Service investigated. They raided a Knoxville home days later.
And Wednesday a federal grand jury there indicted David Kernell, the 20-year-old son of longtime Democratic state legislator Mike Kernell.
The indictment says the younger Kernell, an economics student at the University of Tennessee, accessed the account by resetting the password and adding his own.
He allegedly read and copied much information in the governor's personal account, including family details, e-mails, phone numbers and family data such as birth dates. Additionally, the charges say he copied much of the information via screen shots and posted them online along with the new password, allowing others to access Palin's account before the illegal entry was discovered and the account sealed.
Kernell turned himself in to authorities. No trial date was set. If convicted, he faces a maximum $250,000 fine and five years imprisonment, no doubt using only snail mail.
--Andrew Malcolm
Speaking of e-mail, no need to hack anything to receive Ticket alerts. Just go to Twitter and sign up for free automatic and instant alerts of every new Ticket item sped directly to your cell.
Photo credit: Associated Press
Barack Obama's campaign unveiled its latest attack ad this morning -- a 13-minute "documentary" on John McCain's ties to Charles Keating, the chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Assn. who was charged with fraud, racketeering and conspiracy in the savings-and-loan scandal of the late 1980s.
The ad was rolled out with the same kind of promotional fanfare that you'd expect for the latest indie flick.
Over the weekend, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe introduced a 30-second preview of the film ("Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis") in an e-mail to the campaign's extensive list of supporters. Plouffe urged recipients to forward the e-mail "to everyone you know" and to stay tuned for the premiere of the full spot.
It debuted at noon EDT (9 a.m. PDT) today on a website specifically created for it.
Production-wise, the spot shows what a campaign awash with money can accomplish these days; it's heads and shoulders above the average political ad (as well as being far more ambitious in length).
Clearly, it was in the works for a while -- and comes now as McCain's campaign over the weekend launched a new effort, assaulting Obama for his ties to Bill Ayers, a founder of the notorious Weather Underground radical group almost 40 years ago.
-- Kate Linthicum
Democrats have been loudly complaining about John McCain, Sarah Palin and other Republicans routinely misrepresenting Barack Obama's tax plan by asserting the Democrat would raise the levies that Americans hate to pay across the board. In a true shocker, even a Fox News anchor gave a McCain aide flack on the matter earlier this week.
Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, today sought -- in his inimitable way -- to stress that the Democratic platform calls for increasing income taxes only for those making more than $250,000 a year. But in the process, he delivered a line sure to be mocked far and wide by the GOP.
"You got it," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America" when his interviewer noted that Obama was targeting the affluent. "It's time (for the well-off) to be patriotic." (See the clip below.)
Already, the Republican National Committee has sent off an e-mail flagging the quote. And we're betting it shows up quickly as a laugh line in McCain and Palin stump speeches.
[UPDATE: Right on cue, Palin scoffed at Biden's comment as she and McCain stumped late this morning in Iowa. Telling her typically adoring crowd what the Delaware senator had said, she parried that raising taxes isn't about patriotism, it's "about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse."]
[UPDATE II: McCain, taking the stage after Palin, said of raising taxes in tough times: "It's not a badge of honor. It's just plain dumb."]
-- Don Frederick
Now we know the real reason Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn't do e-mails. Who wants their stupid personal messages plastered all over the World Wide Web? :-(
Overnight, his GOP vice presidential running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had her private e-mail account hacked into and a couple of her messages and family photographs published online.
In fact, if you sent a message to gov.sarah@yahoo.com recently, there's a chance it too will soon show up online. Although that account has now been deactivated.
Someone hacked into that private account Wednesday morning, found 84 unread messages (Gee, wonder why she hasn't been keeping the account up to date these last 17 days) and published two fairly innocuous ones online.
Quickly, someone changed the account's password and closed the account off. The McCain campaign denounced the break-in as an invasion of privacy, and the FBI and Secret Service, now responsible for her protection, are on the case.
The Ticket hacked into David Sarno's blog over at Web Scout and found he has the full story here. Mark Silva at the Swamp has a different version here that examines the political possibilities of using a private e-mail account for official state business.
-- Andrew Malcolm
(UPDATE: An updated paragraph citing McCain learning computer skills is appended below.)
As part of its effort to show the 72-year-old Republican Sen. John McCain as old and out of touch, the Democratic Party's hip campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, which frequently says it honors the former POW's military service to his country, Friday released a new ad.
As noted Friday by our blogging colleagues over at the Technology blog here, the ad says, among other things: "1982, John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't.
"He admits he doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail."
Here's the ad. Listen for yourself. Like many of his generation, McCain does not like to talk details a lot about his wartime experiences, certainly not about any lingering physical symptoms. To be honest, it could sound like complaining and, as he's ruefully noted, unlike many others, McCain did come home.
The former pilot does joke sometimes about flying his plane into a telephone-pole-sized North Vietnamese missile.
Last week in his speech to the Republican National Convention, McCain opened up more than usual, mentioning his two broken arms and broken leg from ejecting over Hanoi, and his 66 months of imprisonment and torture, calling it simply working him over.
But something he did not go into in that speech were ...
Read more Oops, Obama ad mocks McCain's inability to send e-mail. Trouble is, he can't due to tortured fingers »
We assume you’re on the edge of your seats wondering what the John McCain camp thinks about the disparaging remarks aimed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by former Republican aides Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy.
As The Ticket reported earlier today, Noonan, the former speechwriter for President Reagan, says the McCain campaign is “over.” Murphy, the former McCain strategist and the man who steered Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2003 gubernatorial campaign, said the pick reflects “cynicism” on McCain’s part.
You might think the disparaging comments, recorded in an MSNBC session when Murphy and Noonan thought they were not being recorded, might sting, coming as they did from GOP insiders and now being widely circulated on the Internet, including some obscenities added by the two Republicans.
Perhaps they did sting. But you’d never know it from Steve Schmidt, the man overseeing day-to-day operations of McCain’s campaign and the man Schwarzenegger chose to run his 2006 reelection.
“Who cares?” Schmidt said in an e-mail.
-- Dan Morain
According to somebody, that "Joe Biden is my VP choice" text msg/e-mail that Barack Obama's campaign sent out last week went to 2.9 million people. That's a lot of button-punching....
All right, the messages didn't all get there, as The Ticket reported here.
Many were really, really late.
And at least two Democratic Party sources leaked word to reporters hours before, taking the edge off the breaking news long before it was official.
But, hey, it shows how cutting edge the campaign wanted to be, which isn't too hard against the Republican presidential nominee, who admits he has difficulty with e-mail. Our blogging colleague, Jim Puzzanghera, has all the details over on our sister Technology blog. But please click back here!
-- Andrew Malcolm
And since we're talking Twitter right now, join those receiving every Ticket item -- plus special offline tweets from The Ticket's writers -- sent directly to your cellphone. To register for free instant Twitter updates from The Ticket, go here to "follow" us.
If you know a little something about online social network sites -- Facebook, MySpace, Fark, Digg, Twitter, etc. -- you'll want to jump right over our Mark Milian's item on how they are shaping and being used by politics and politicians these days.
It's a detailed, informed look. It's available by clicking right here.
And as soon as we punch the button to post this item, it too will make its way on to some of those sites. To find out how to enroll in The Ticket's Twitter, see below.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Join those receiving every Ticket item -- plus special offline tweets from The Ticket's writers -- sent directly to your cellphone. To register for free instant Twitter updates from The Ticket, go here to "follow" us.
In case you're one of the thousands of people interested in the Barack Obama Democratic presidential campaign who signed up to be the first to learn his vice presidential pick via high-tech e-mail and text message, ours finally arrived.
It's Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware who's held that seat since Obama was 11 years old.
The news came about 15 hours after two unidentified Democratic sources, eager to steal their new party leader's publicity thunder and earn owsies from some media folks, confirmed Biden's pick to some reporters.
You can vote right here on whether you approve of the pick.
We'll let you know if the e-mail version ever shows up. Other than that, the high-tech announcement plan worked pretty well. But it'll probably be the same guy in the e-mail anyway.
-- Andrew Malcolm
P.S.
And just a reminder: You can still join the growing throngs preparing for the rest of this political season and beyond by having every Ticket item -- plus special offline Tweets from The Ticket's writers starting with the two party's conventions -- sent directly to your cellphone.
To register for instant Twitter updates from The Ticket, go here and sign up.
Photo credit: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images
So the recent events in Georgia involving Russian troops sent shock waves all the way down Chicago's Michigan Avenue to Obama headquarters. He decided to call in one of the Senate's top foreign policy experts to counter another of the Senate's top foreign policy experts.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' about-to-be presidential nominee, has chosen a fellow senator, Joe Biden of Delaware, as his about-to-be running mate for the Nov. 4 general election.
Two high-ranking Democratic Party officials have confirmed the choice of the veteran to The Times. Republican reaction is included at the end of this item.
The official announcement should come shortly, as promised, in an e-mail and text message dispatched to hundreds of thousands of Obama supporters around the world. 
As recently as Tuesday, Biden had been telling reporters staking out his home in a cross-country VP watch, "I'm not the guy." So much for full disclosure.
Obviously, the 65-year-old veteran senator was chosen because Delaware with its whopping three electoral votes is such a crucially strategic state on the national political map.
Not!
Biden, who's been a senator since Richard M. Nixon trounced George McGoven for reelection in 1972, was picked because of his long experience in foreign policy and national security affairs.
His presence on Obama's ticket detracts somewhat from the....
Read more Breaking: Obama selects Joe Biden as his VP running mate »
(UPDATE: Updated information is published below concerning a private jet flying from Chicago's Midway Airport to a county field near the home of Sen. Joe Biden.)
TV camera crews are parked outside of possible Barack Obama vice presidential nominees' houses all over the country.
But could a bumper sticker be the real tipoff?
Michael Mahoney, the political reporter for Kansas City TV station KMBC, is reporting that a printing plant in Lenexa, Kan., is today hastily churning out hundreds of thousands of bumper stickers with the names Obama and -- wait for it -- Bayh '08.
So two senators from next-door states -- Barack Obama of Illinois and Evan Bayh of Indiana, former governor and son of former Democratic presidential candidate.
It could be speculative, of course. And campaigns have been known to feint. But Kansas isn't so far from Denver, you know. And Obama has said that geography would not be the major factor it has been sometimes before. Remember Bill Clinton of Arkansas picked Al Gore from next-door Tennessee.
The printing plant is not saying anything. But this is just a heads-up before you get the Tweet or text message tonight. It could be an O-B ticket.
One other tidbit: Sen. Hillary Clinton has released her schedule for upcoming days and it does not show her traveling with Obama, unlike what usually happens with newly-minted running mates. But that's just a paper schedule.
(UPDATE: NBC News is reporting that both Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine have been told they are not the running mates.
Meanwhile, other info filtering into The Ticket at this hour, a private chartered jet belonging to Netjets Aviation took off from Chicago's Midway Airport, on that city's South Side, this afternoon and landed not long ago at New Castle County Airport near Sen. Joe Biden's home.
(Could be connected. Could not be connected.
(Obama and his new running mate are due to appear jointly Saturday at an event in Springfield, about 200 miles southwest of the Windy City.)
Either way, stay tuned here for instant updates whenever anything is breaking. A reminder: You can join the growing throngs and sign up for instant Twitter updates from The Ticket direct to your cellphone here.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: CafePress.com
The Drudge Report, the notoriously 'liberal' website, just posted an item saying the vice presidential choice for Sen. Barack Obama could come as early as tomorrow morning.
Maybe so. Maybe not.
As the Ticket previously reported, the campaign says it will make the announcement first via e-mail to supporters who've signed up.
We've had false alarms in both camps already. They may even be accidental.
But they also serve a campaign's purpose of causing guessing, hyping interest in their campaign, distracting attention from opponents and building anticipation first among the media and then the voting public.
And whether or not it's Tuesday, Wednesday (when Obama is in Tim Kaine's Virginia) or Thursday, Obama's choice probably needs to come this week before the Democratic National Convention starts Aug. 25, with delegates traveling to the Mile High City as early as Thursday.
Friday would seem an unlikely announcement day; the closing hours before a weekend, especially in the summer when many start their weekends early, is usually the time when politicians and governments seek to put out bad news, such as John Edwards' recent affair confession on ABC.
Edwards was reportedly furious because ABC released some interview excerpts Friday morning, which gave the evening program ample attention before the weekend rush, just what Edwards had hoped to avoid.
On the other hand, just writing out loud here, the Olympics run through Sunday. If Obama made the announcement next Monday, wouldn't that be a kickoff to the convention? Or how about this for an unspoken message? Do it Tuesday and stomp all over the attention for Sen. Hillary Clinton's big speaking night.
And while everyone is talking about Obama, which is what his campaign wants in these days of being basically tied in the polls, what about Sen. John McCain?
Everyone's been thinking he'd wait to see Obama's choice, maybe announce the GOP VP choice the day after the Democratic convention ends. Fact is, his campaign is organizing a major rally for Dayton, Ohio that day.
But if McCain's really gonna pick a pro-choice running mate, he might want to do it sooner, say hours after Obama's announcement. That would steal some spotlight from the Illinois freshman and give the GOP conservative base some time to cool off before arriving in St. Paul for their Labor Day start.
Details on Obama's and McCain's announcements to come as available right here. Meanwhile, so you don't miss a thing, here's how to register for free, instant Ticket notification via Twitter and RSS:
For existing Twitterers, go to http://twitter.com/latimestot
Click Follow. Enroll there for alerts on every new Ticket item AND our instant, breaking-news items whenever and wherever anything is happening in the presidential race. And it's all free, of course.
For about-to-be Twitter folks, think of it as text message headlines to any mobile device. Go here to enroll. Click on Join, not surprisingly. RSS feeds also available by clicking here.
Look for the Blogs collection, which, because it begins with the letter 'B' is placed near the end of the list for reasons that probably made sense in that planning meeting long ago. Anyway, at the end of the list are the Blogs. Scroll down to Top of the Ticket, which, amazingly, is under the Ts. Go figure.
See you back here any minute.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, is on vacation in Hawaii tonight. We believe. But, thanks to loyal Ticket reader Mark, just minutes ago we learned that the freshman senator's presidential campaign has confirmed that announcement of Obama's running mate choice is very near.
An e-mail just sent out says Obama "is about to choose a running mate." And when word comes, it will come by text message, e-mail and on the campaign website. An interesting twist that coul d mean the word might be released this week even during Obama's family vacation.
The announcement will surely come before the Democratic National Convention starts in Denver on Aug. 25. It could even come while the candidate is on vacation, scheduled to end next Friday. If not, that leaves a 10-day announcement window of Aug. 15-25.
The traditional scenario would be for Obama and his pick to appear at a grand joint announcement somewhere with their families and dozens of TV cameras.
However, if hypothetically the announcement was to be made dramatically via cellphone texts, e-mails and the Obama website, the two candidates would not need to be together.
And if it came, oh, say, sometime this week, it would instantly dominate the news stream and erase any advantage Republican Sen. John McCain might have gotten from a week of campaigning without the Democrats' competition.
Then, the two Democratic running mates could appear together later at another event and get a bonus second publicity boost.
We're just saying.
This modern tech announcement gimmick, of course, also has the added benefit of presumably getting thousands of people to offer the campaign their e-mail addresses and cellphone numbers, a priceless, free recruiting and fund-raising tool.
When you sign up to receive the VP notification, you are offered another form to help recruit many friends and family to sign up too. NON-PARTISAN WARNING: You will soon also begin receiving regular pleas for money.
(Now, this commercial message: If you would rather receive instant notification of Obama's vice presidential choice via The Ticket -- free -- along with all new blog items 24 hours a day, you can enroll here:
(For existing Twitterers, go to http://twitter.com/latimestot
(Click Follow. Enroll there for alerts on every new Ticket item AND our instant, breaking-news items whenever and wherever anything is happening in the presidential race. And it's all free, of course.
(For about-to-be Twitter folks, think of it as text message headlines to any mobile device. Go here to enroll. Click on Join, not surprisingly. RSS feeds also available here.)
No Ticket donations appeals. We promise.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Wondering what Hillary Clinton would say about Barack Obama's qualifications for the presidency in the wake of her husband's less-than-laudatory answer to that question in a recent interview with ABC News?
Theoretically, the chance to quiz the senator from New York on Obama's resume will present itself at 9 a.m. PDT Thursday.
In a video sent today to those on the e-mail list for her failed presidential campaign, she announces she'll conduct a Web chat at that time on HillaryClinton.com.
Ostensibly, it's part of her ongoing effort to stay in touch with her backers and hear of their concerns.
But as she notes at the start on the video promoting the online chat, there remains that little matter of retiring the hefty campaign debt she incurred in falling from the frontrunner's perch in the Democratic presidential race and ending up an also-ran to Obama.
She offered thanks in today's message to those who have contributed money that helps, as she put it, "pay the small vendors" for services rendered to her campaign.
No mention, of course, of the big vendor whose bill represents a significant chunk of the debt -- Mark Penn, who fresh from helping derail Clinton's White House run has been dispensing occasional wisdom at Politico.com.
She does mention Obama -- once, and with emphasis. She applauds efforts to "work together" to elect him "so we will be able to fulfill the goals we care so deeply about" (universal healthcare prime among them although, as she stressed during their marathon primary battle, his plan on that issue is not near as sweeping as hers).
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Getty Images
So apparently it was a really good thing that Sen. Hillary Clinton lost her 18-m onth, $212-million campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
We learned that today in an e-mail from her hubby, Bill. He reveals that during the campaign, he and Hillary didn't have much chance to eat meals together because they were usually campaigning in different states.
"Of all the people I've had the privilege to break bread with," the ex-president states, "the person I most enjoy is still Hillary."
Of course, now that he's got us all feeling mushy, he sets the hook.
"Now you have a chance to have dinner with her. And if you contribute even as little as $5 today, you can help Hillary retire that pesky campaign debt, and you and a guest might be sitting down to dinner with her soon."
That "pesky campaign debt" is, of course, the $25.2 million that she still owes people all over the country (as of June 30), $13 million of it to herself.
"Trust me on this one," Bill Clinton says. "If you're the lucky winner, it will be a night to remember and one you'll really enjoy."
--Andrew Malcolm
Let's just state right up front that if Scarlett Johansson was chattering publicly to even one person, let alone a media crowd, that we had any kind of relationship, The Ticket would in a nano-heartbeat confirm totally whatever she said. She'd be dead-on in our minds, indubitably.
That's partly why we were so down -- well, devastated really -- a couple of weeks ago when The Ticket learned and wrote that Scarlett -- we call her that because we've never actually met --  was talking publicly about her ongoing relationship with presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
According to Scarlett, who's a fervent Obama supporter with phone calls and fundraisers and everything, the two of them were going at it pretty hot and heavy with the e-mails, back-and-forth and back-and-forth and back-and-forth.
And all of us, including Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett's alleged fiance, were left to guess exactly what might be in those electronic missives.
We learned of the Obama-Johansson relationship, as we learn of most important things, from our fellow LATimes.com blogger Elizabeth Snead over at the Dish Rag. Because of our nonexistent....
Read more Barack Obama dumps Scarlett Johansson! Denies e-mail relationship »
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.
Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...
Read more Top of the Ticket, the start of Year Two »
Whatever happened to all that lovey-dovey stuff from the Democratic debates, when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sounded as if they were the co-presidents of the Candidates Mutual Admiration Society?
Today the Obamans railed against Clinton, with campaign manager David Plouffe calling her a "deeply flawed nominee," suggesting that if the Democrats went with her in the fall there'd be four more years of a Republican White House. "She is not seen as trustworthy by the American people," Plouffe said. "It will nearly be impossible to win a general election if more than half the electorate thinks you're untrustworthy."
The Clintonites tossed their own handful of rocks. In an unsigned e-mail to reporters this morning, the campaign accused Obama of disenfrachising voters and practicing "low-down politics" and concluded -- without citing anyone specific -- that "it’s no wonder that top journalists are calling the Obama campaign desperate, saying that it’s amateur hour in Chicago."
Alert the kids: Mom and Dad seem to be heading for divorce.
-- Scott Martelle
Over these past eight busy political months, loyal Ticket readers have come to expect the unexpected here. We've had nearly-naked hotties 4 Ron Paul. We've had Republicans voting for Hillary Clinton. And the usual boxers vs briefs question. We've even had a U. S. Senator tapping his foot in a men's room.
But this morning's opening primary election day item may top them all. It's about how our presidential politicians literally reside in our subconscious.
Let's say you're in the mall and Hillary walks up and says she's had another argument with Bill and needs a hug. So you hug and she asks if you voted for her and you say yes, even though you didn't, because she looks sad.
Suddenly, you're at the railroad station, but the train is just....
Read more Hillary and Barack invade the real dreams of millions »
From: Governor's Press Office
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 1:17 PM
Subject: UPDATED: Gov. Schwarzenegger's Schedule for February 18
***UPDATED: MEDIA ADVISORY***
Contact:
Monday, February 18, 2008
Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Schedule for
February 18
.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to the state.
.
###
Notice anything strange about this news release just issued by Hillary Clinton's campaign summarizing the most important political news that happened across the country on Saturday?
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 27, 2008 Contact: Press Office
YESTERDAY IN THE STATES
ALABAMA: The Montgomery Advertiser endorsed Hillary, “based on her grasp of issues, her impressive work ethic and her personality.” Read more… U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones campaigned across Alabama for Hillary. She kicked off the day by joining local supporters at the opening of the campaign’s office in Birmingham. Watch. She then attended the Morehouse University vs. Tuskegee University basketball game in Tuskegee.
CALIFORNIA: Hillary supporters throughout the state hosted and participated in more than 250 “Bring Your Own Phone” (BYOP) parties with friends, family and neighbors across the Golden State. Supporters called undecided voters… U.S. Reps. Hilda Solis, Grace Napolitano and Lucille Roybal-Allard joined human rights leader Dolores Huerta, local elected officials and young Latino voters for the grand opening of the campaign’s East Los Angeles field office. Serving a predominantly Latino area, the new office will anchor the campaign’s East Los Angeles get out the vote (GOTV) effort, which includes bi-lingual phone banks and Latino and youth outreach.
COLORADO: The campaign’s Hispanic Leadership Council held a “Latinas for Hillary” event in Denver… Hillary supporters gathered to watch South Carolina returns.
CONNECTICUT: The Hartford Courant endorsed Hillary. “Mrs. Clinton's positions reflect the fiscal discipline her husband managed to effect in the 1990s.” Read more… State Comptroller Nancy Wyman endorsed Hillary. Read more… The campaign announced Hillary will visit Hartford on Monday.
DELAWARE: Clinton senior economic advisor Gary Gensler spoke on behalf of Hillary at a political forum in Newark.
ILLINOIS: Hillary supporters kicked off a two-day statewide phone bank blitz with events around the state.
MASSACHUSETTS: The Worcester Telegram & Gazette endorsed Hillary. “The next president will face considerable domestic challenges, in health care, the economy, [and] education…Overcoming the challenges will require steadfast leadership — with no time for on-the-job training.” Read more… Hillary supporters canvassed neighborhoods throughout Massachusetts… The campaign announced that Hillary will hold a “Solutions for the American Economy” town hall in Springfield on Monday.
MISSOURI: In Independence, President Bill Clinton was “frequently interrupted by applause” while talking about the economy, health care and Iraq. Read more.
NEW JERSEY: Staff and volunteers conducted visibility before gathering to watch the South Carolina primary returns in field offices throughout the state.
NEW MEXICO: Former New Mexico Governor Bruce King and his wife, Alice King, endorsed Hillary. John Wertheim, former chair of New Mexico Democratic Party, also joined the campaign. Read more… The campaign launched a new website to highlight Hillary’s efforts in the state. Visit.
NEW YORK: U.S. Rep. Steve Israel attended an “Ambassadors for Hillary” house party in Laurel Hollow and answered questions from Long Island women. “Ambassadors for Hillary” is a network of over 1,600 New York women who support Hillary and actively encourage their personal networks to support Hillary… The campaign also launched its effort in Dutchess County with a phone bank.
TENNESSEE: The Memphis Commercial Appeal endorsed Hillary. “Clinton has the experience needed to step into the Oval Office at this critical time.” Read more… Hillary spoke about the future and took questions from an “energized” crowd of thousands at a “Solutions for the American Economy” town hall at Tennessee State University. Read more. The campaign announced Hillary will attend worship services today.
UTAH: In Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune endorsed Hillary. “With this country bogged down in two wars, burdened by a crushing deficit and hurtling toward recession, experience and sheer toughness are essential in a presidential nominee… Hillary has an abundance of both.”
WASHINGTON: The campaign held caucus trainings in Sequim and Vancouver."
There doesn't seem to be any mention here of a place called South Carolina, where the entire Clinton family including an outspoken ex-president spent much of the last two weeks. So nothing must have happened in the Palmetto State on Saturday. Nothing to see here, folks. Please. Just keep moving along.
--Andrew Malcolm
South Carolina has a history of rough politics.
Allright, they're downright mean and dirty. Sen. John McCain wasn't the first to get a bitter taste of that in 2000. And now, it seems, some anonymous sources are trying the same smear tactics on Sen. Barack Obama in advance of Saturday's state Democratic presidential primary.
There's a whispering campaign underway across the entire state, often using forwarded e-mails, suggesting that Obama is a closet Muslim schooled in anti-American lessons who refuses to take the Pledge of Allegiance.
To be honest though, Illinois politics is no kindergarten either. So Obama's campaign....
Read more Anti-Obama smear campaign gets rolling in South Carolina »
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd gave up his hopeless campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this month.
But he'd still like some more of your money.
In an e-mail sent to supporters headlined "Retiring" to get their attention, Dodd revealed that after some time off with his family from a grueling campaign that, he says, "changed the debate at home and abroad," he really isn't contemplating retiring from the Senate. LOL
It seems he needs to "retire" his campaign debt. He doesn't reveal how big the leftover campaign financial burden is, but the attached form is equipped to take anything from $25 to $2,300. Dodd said he's very busy right now restoring the Constitution, fighting "that terrible FISA bill" and working to put another Democrat in the White House.
But he sure would appreciate some donations here.
Who wouldn't actually?
--Andrew Malcolm
Quick, can you please just send Mike Huckabee $300,000 by tomorrow midnight?
It seems that he's desperately trying to win Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary, and he and his campaign manager, Chip Saltsman, were just riding on the campaign bus a little while ago, going over the plans for the final push and they realized, doggone it, that they actually needed $300Gs right away to pay for voter ID and turnout phone calls.
So, how about it?
It only took them a few minutes to gin up this urgent fundraising appeal and blast it out to about 36,000 unsuspecting e-mail readers, another of the wondrous blessings of the Internet. Mike said, "I firmly believe, this may be the difference between victory and defeat for our effort in South Carolina Saturday. We must raise $300,000 immediately." And to emphasize how important this is, he underlined the sentences like this. In political appeals, as you no doubt have learned by now, underlining means "very important."
Mike said if everybody getting the e-mail -- oh, wait, we don't need the underlining anymore -- sent in only $25 each, they'd actually get more than $900,000. Of course, if everybody getting the e-mail sent in $300,000, they could buy South Carolina.
So, in truth, doing the math here, the Huckabee campaign could have actually asked for only about $8.35 from each person getting the e-mail and still gotten its $300,000. But that's not important now.
-- Andrew Malcolm
That's the news release that the Michigan Republican Party sent out this evening about the winner of the party's state primary election.
Moments after the last Michigan polls closed at 9 p.m. Eastern, the Associated Press called the winner. And the Republican Party responded quickly with a note of congratulations. "In a close-fought victory, Senator John McCain succeeded again (in) the Michigan Republican primary, winning over a traditionally unpredictable voter base in Michigan."
The problem, of course, is that McCain was not the Michigan primary's winner. The AP had actually declared Michigan native Mitt Romney as the winner, and the party had sent out the wrong prepared statement.
Five minutes later, the state GOP issued a new statement: "In a close-fought victory, native son Governor Mitt Romney won an important contest here tonight."
A party spokesman explained, "We simply pushed the wrong button."
-- Andrew Malcolm
Bloomfield Hills, Mich. -- As if there weren't enough real-world primaries going on, the folks at MySpace and Facebook have been holding their own online primaries, as our colleague David Sarno writes in today's Calendar section. And while the online primaries are as meaningless as the Michigan Democratic primary, the results are interesting.
Any online poll -- and that's what these "virtual primaries" are -- relies on self-selected, and self-activated, participants. So the 150,000 people who took part in the MySpace primary reflect no meaningful political base. Near as we can figure, voters didn't even have to prove they were old enough, or a U.S. citizen. The results, though, indicate where the loyalties lie among that self-selected group of Internet users.
And there were no surprises. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama -- whose support is heavy among left-leaning upper-middle-class Democrats -- took 46% compared to 31% for Hillary Rodham Clinton and 8% for John Edwards. Among the Republicans, Ron Paul's net-revolutionaries clicked mightily, giving him 36% to Rudy Giuliani's 18% and Mike Huckabee's 16%.
In the real primaries and caucuses, Obama won Iowa and Clinton won New Hampshire. On the Republican side, Paul has barely figured in the final outcomes: Huckabee won Iowa and McCain -- who didn't place well at all in the online primary -- won New Hampshire. The MySpace results also contradict national preference polls. As indicators, the virtual primaries just aren't there.
So what lessons do such polls offer? First, sites like MySpace are keen to tie into political activism, and these polls have more to do with marketing and branding than with elections. But look beyond the vote breakdown and you get a glimpse of social and political networking. Political strategists have learned that the Internet is a great organizing and fundraising tool, able to move information to people quickly, and to provide an easily-accessed base of information on everything from events to how to get lawn signs.
But in the end, it's just a place to do a little research and have a detached conversation. Sure, you can rally the faithful there, but campaign strategists know that person-to-person contact is the best way to build a movement. Otherwise, why have all these offices?
-- Scott Martelle
Quietly, deep within an e-mail to supporters from Fred Thompson's campaign manager touting the former senator's South Carolina game plan, William Lacy describes the long days the candidate is putting in on the Palmetto State's campaign trail. He said they needed more advertising to give Thompson the best chance to do well in the upcoming Republican primary there.
Then there's one line we almost overlooked where Lacy makes a possibly revealing admission about the Tennessean's campaign financial condition with ramifications for his political finish.
"Right now," he says, "my budget is a little short of where it needs to be to get that done."
He adds, "Even a donation of $10, $20 or $25 would help Fred get where he needs to be." Thompson is not alone in being cash-strapped. As we wrote Friday, Rudy Giuliani's campaign is not paying top staffers this month, among other cutbacks to maximize funds for their firewall efforts in Florida.
Candidates do not need to report their 2007 fourth-quarter fundraising figures to the Federal Election Commission until the end of this month. But this short Lacy message looking for what is, in effect, small change would not seem to portend well for the Fred Thompson camp's literal fortunes.
Today, Lacy sent another e-mail thanking supporters for their donations and saying they made a hardworking Fred "poised" for success. He also reported a strong response to an appeal for volunteers to go to South Carolina to canvas for Fred.
-- Andrew Malcolm
For presidential politicians who lose a primary, the glass is always half-full. "Well, I’m here to tell you," former Gov. Mitt Romney tells hundreds of thousands of supporters in an e-mail, "that just like in the Olympics, winning the silver in the first event does not mean you’re not going to come back and win the gold in the final event."
Romney can be excused the double-negatives. He lost the GOP Iowa caucus to another former governor, Mike Huckabee, who was little known nationally as recently as two months ago. Romney outspent Huckabee there something like eight-to-one and ran 10 times the TV ads. This evening the two are among those Republicans squaring off in a 90-minute ABC-TV debate.
There's another one on Fox News tomorrow. Ron Paul, who beat Rudy Giuliani in Iowa, is outpolling Fred Thompson in New Hampshire and likely out-fundraising all of the Republicans, was excluded by Fox, which has infuriated the congressman's supporters, now organizing a boycott of the network's advertisers.
The actual New Hampshire vote comes Tuesday. But first comes Romney's e-mail, which asks supporters to forward it to five friends and also offers an online opportunity to record a personalized phone-answering machine greeting in Romney's voice for a $25 donation. ("Hello, this is Mitt Romney. I recently lost the Iowa caucus, so I've got a little time to answer Andrew's phone. He's busy right now, so please leave your message at the tone.")
The governor's Friday e-mail also comes up with a very helpful -- and hopeful -- historical factoid. "Remember," Romney says, "Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush also finished second in Iowa and went on to win the Republican nomination, and I will too. I’m the only candidate who is competitive in all of the early primary or caucus states – South Carolina, Michigan, Nevada, Florida…and of course New Hampshire."
Of course, we'll see soon enough.
--Andrew Malcolm
Happy New Year!
Speaking of party time, former and possibly future presidential candidate Ralph Nader rang in the new year by sending an angry e-mail to reporters. Isn't that what everyone does to start a new 12-month cycle?
Nader was blasting (Nader and blasting seem to go together, don't they?) Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton over her fundraising. Then, Nader said in a follow-up interview that he might run for president again in 2008.
Nader’s e-mail, co-signed by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and former San Francisco supervisor Matt Gonzalez, says: "Do you really believe if we replace a bunch of corporate Republicans with a bunch of corporate Democrats that anything meaningful is going to change? This has to stop. It's that simple."
Reached on the phone later by The Times' Dan Morain, Nader lauded (Nader lauding?) John Edwards for his presidential campaign, saying the former senator is using the opportunity to talk tough about corporate abuses. But Nader also left open the possibility that he would run again himself, saying he would be making the decision in about a month. Possibly good New Year's news for beleaguered Republicans.
Nader angered many Democrats by mounting a Green Party candidacy in 2000, siphoning votes from Al Gore and helping to create the eight-year George W. Bush presidency.
“Hillary Clinton is an unacceptable candidate to large numbers of independents, Democrats and third party members,” the Nader e-mail said. “ … If Hillary Clinton prevails, millions of Americans will look elsewhere for change, or stay home.
“It's that simple,” the missive said.
Then, it ended with, “Happy New Year.”
--Andrew Malcolm
Behind the bright lights of the TV debates, the news sound bites and the daily attacks and defenses e-mailed to supporters and journalists, there's an anonymous army of campaign volunteers who do the grunt work of answering phones and mail, plus countless other chores -- including, importantly, soliciting friends to become supporters.
Such work is especially important in Iowa, where, despite heartfelt promises on sunny fall days, supporters must be marshaled to go out on a cold winter night during the Orange Bowl to listen to endless talking at a caucus. Every campaign has plans and procedures for accomplishing this, which it guards like state secrets.
But today, thanks to The Times' Robin Abcarian and a source of hers within the Barack Obama Iowa campaign, we get a detailed inside look at how they organize, communicate with, motivate, inform and, most importantly, listen to their network of nearly 2,000 precinct captains across the state.
The key is regular phone calls with headquarters. The captains get maybe two days' notice to call a certain number at a certain time. Meanwhile, they're encouraged to e-mail questions they are hearing on the street and would like answers to. Even if only a few hundred of them do this, those missives give the tacticians back in Chicago an on-the-ground feel for the steadily shifting sands of a campaign. And how tired or enthused their own workers are.
Such conference calls, in fact, provided Karl Rove and the 2000 Bush campaign with advance notice that they were in deep trouble from John McCain in New Hampshire. So when they lost that primary by a crushing 19 points, a comeback strategy was in place for South Carolina, beginning the next morning with a 6:30 a.m. departure for Greenville and Bob Jones University.
At the appointed time for the Obama phone meeting, most of the captains call, punch in a code that's different every time, and...
Read more A secret peek inside Obama's Iowa campaign »
It was on, then it was off, then it was on again, sort of. And now the proposed California Electoral College initiative that could have tilted the 2008 presidential election toward the GOP nominee is back on life-support.
Having difficulties raising the $2 million needed to pay petition circulators to collect voter signatures, Republican backers of the measure targeted for the ballot in June 2008 were considering their options this morning, including letting the measure die once and for all.
Consultant Dave Gilliard, managing the drive, said in an e-mail Wednesday night to The Times' Dan Morain that the campaign is “still in a money crunch.”
“The June ballot is looking like a long shot,” Gilliard’s missive concluded.
If approved by voters, the initiative would have altered California’s winner-take-all system of assigning its 55 electoral votes. Instead, electors would have been allotted based on the victor of individual congressional districts. Since Republicans hold 19 of the state's 55 congressional seats in California, the GOP presidential candidate could be expected to have a good chance of winning at least 19 electors, possibly enough to assure the Republicans would hold onto the White House.
Democrats would have fought the measure fiercely anytime. But the measure had the best chance of passing in June when turn-out likely will be lighter and tilt toward loyal Republican voters.
If the measure, in fact, is near death -- backers had pronounced it all but dead once before -- a few possibilities remain.
A financial angel could revive it by showering sufficient money into the cause that petition circulators would press to get it on the ballot. Of course, that hasn’t happened yet. Besides the deadline passed last week to submit petitions to elections officials who would determine whether supporters gathered the necessary 434,000 valid signatures of registered voters.
Another possibility: Backers could place the initiative on the November ballot. That itself is dicey. More Democrats are expected to go to the polls in November, making passage even more difficult. If it were to pass, the measure might not take effect until 2012--defeating the goal of affecting the 2008 presidential election.
(UPDATE: Late this morning Ed Rollins, the initiative campaign's strategist, told Morain, "We are not quitting yet. It does look bleak for June ballot but still trying. Definitely a go for Novemeber if we miss.")
--Andrew Malcolm
Even as you're reading this, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is polishing an important speech he's written himself, likely the most important of his well-organized campaign so far, which has hit some Baptist bumps in recent days.
Although, come to think of it, all the political buzz about the Romney speech this week sure diluted much of the attention that otherwise would have focused on Mike Huckabee's move into first place in the Des Moines Register Iowa poll Sunday. Huckabee is running a new TV ad there now which flashes the words "Christian leader" on the screen, a not-so-subtle play on the belief of many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians,
Thursday morning we'll hear Romney's carefully-chosen words, titled "Faith in America," delivered to an invited audience of 300+ at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University in College Station. There, Romney will receive a priceless political cameo in the form of an introduction by the former president himself. It will be one of the more dramatic moments of the fall campaign.
According to Romney insiders, the decision to finally confront the whispers about Mormonism in a formal speech, while a political gamble that risks identifying him even more as a Mormon, was Romney's alone (there was no staff consensus). It came last week and was driven by the regular religion questions at his 400+ "Ask Mitt Anything" forums and, most recently, the anonymous push-polling in Iowa and New Hampshire seeking to spread rumors about Mormon tenets that can seem strange to non-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Past polls as well as a new one coming this week show that around 25% of Americans say they would not vote for a Mormon, though typically such polls do not offer the name of any specific Mormon. Romney himself has joked that anti-Mormon feelings among Republicans may come because of confusion over Harry Reid, another Mormon and Democratic Senate majority leader.
Many political strategists believe that since it is not usually socially acceptable to express such religious bias openly, anti-Mormon feelings are what have helped give legs to the safer "flip-flop" criticism of Romney.
Wisely, in his speech Romney will not seek to explain any Mormon doctrine which, for instance, according to some, places the Garden of Eden somewhere in Missouri. Just as in his 1960 speech to Baptist ministers confronting the Roman Catholic issue (also in Texas), John F. Kennedy did not seek to explain how his wife Jackie was descended from a rib of Adam's and what in the world Noah did with all that manure on the Ark. Kennedy had one advantage going for him: about 28% of the country's population then was Roman Catholic. Today, about 2% is Mormon.
Instead, with his five strapping sons and wife Ann of 38 years, a convert to Mormonism, as silent witness nearby (and an....
Read more What Mitt Romney will say about faith »
Here's a revealing example of how high-stakes presidential campaigns try to make trouble for each other behind the scenes.
They all do it. The major parties too. Usually, the public doesn't learn about it because of a self-serving secrecy pact between reporters, who want to get information to write, broadcast or blog, and the campaigns, which each have a vast research operation on their opponents and want to circulate certain embarrassing information about them. The reporters get many more tips than they use, and the better ones do their own research and verification.
Remember back in June when Barack Obama had to apologize publicly for a caustic memo his campaign leaked to reporters about Hillary Clinton's ties to the Indian American community? We wrote about it here.
To get Clinton's reaction, a reporter showed the memo to her campaign people, who had no promise to keep. So they turned it around on Obama by leaking it to other reporters with the same secrecy promise to demonstrate the alleged hypocrisy of his "politics of hope" campaign. It's like a game, isn't it? Except the stakes are rather high.
Well, during the last day or so behind the scenes, the Clinton folks, who play hardball, have been shopping around to some writers (not this one) a story idea that a couple of prominent Obama supporters had lobbied the South Carolina Democratic Party's executive council last week to keep Stephen Colbert off the state's primary ballot, which they succeeded in doing.
When you think about it, that's probably a good idea. Colbert, a funny fellow who plays a political talk show host on his Comedy Central show, got Doritos to sponsor his candidacy and claimed to be showing the fundamental hypocrisy of the political system by trying to run in both parties' primaries.
He's good for a laugh, and normally serious Tim Russert even had him on the normally respectable "Meet the Press," for a faux serious candidate interview. The "truthiness," as usual these days, is that Colbert's "campaign" provided priceless free publicity for his TV program and new book.
The Clinton folks may also have wanted Colbert off the ballot too, because each vote for...
Read more Pssst, want the inside story on the inside story? »
It's a classic modern political ploy, showing film of your opponent saying, first one thing and then another. John Kerry in 2004 saying he voted for it before he voted against it, a classic film snippet that Karl Rove called "the gift that kept on giving."
Candidates now know that everything they say in public can show up within minutes on the Internet for hundreds of thousands to see. With the explosive growth of YouTube, it's possible for virtually anyone to post video.
Now, come the John Edwards folks, who think they've found a gap in the once-invulnerable armor of front-runner Hillary Clinton. It involves the last few minutes of her Philadelphia debate performance last week when she appeared to slip into a stereotypical Clinton dodge to have it both ways on policy questions--and avoid providing invaluable video footage for Republicans to use against her in the general election.
In the hopes of driving a wedge into that gap, the Edwards campaign put up on YouTube this afternoon this devastating video montage of her own words titled "The Politics of Parsing." By this evening, more than a quarter-million people had screened it.
But Democrats aren't the only ones using this device. The Republican National Committee has its own version up here.
And from the 2006 election cycle comes another effective example, a video assembly recalling the past comments of newly minted Iraq war critics.
Will the anti-Clinton videos have legs? That depends on what the meaning of legs is. To the extent it reminds voters of past parsing by Clinton I and Clinton II, it could hurt. Edwards (and Obama) have to hope so because they're not catching her in the polls. They've got to hurt Clinton to bring her down closer to them. And there were some initial indications this afternoon that they're succeeding.
A new Rasmussen tracking poll, out today but taken after last week's debate performances, shows Clinton still leading Barack Obama 41% to 22%, with Edwards way back at 13% and Bill Richardson at 4%. However, two weeks ago Clinton's lead over Obama was 49% to 22%.
And a new CNN/Opinion Research poll, also showed Clinton's support slipping. She leads Obama 44% to 25% now, with Edwards at 14%. But last month she lead Obama 51% to 21%.
| |
Palin, then the new Republican vice presidential candidate.
