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The Republican National Committee has spun off its own independent expenditure committee and plans an initial $3 million ad buy targeting Barack Obama in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Politico reports.
Why the separate group?
Brad Todd, who will run the effort, blamed Obama in a statement to Politico: "Following Barack Obama's decision to become the only major party presidential candidate in history to not adhere to campaign spending caps, the Republican National Committee has begun an independent expenditure campaign in accordance with FEC regulations."
Under federal law there are no limits on how much the group can spend, though it cannot coordinate efforts with John McCain's campaign or the RNC. Still, both have helped to raise some of the funds that will launch the new effort.
So now we know where the RNC will be funneling some of its cash advantage over the Democratic National Committee to try to compensate for the record-breaking fundraising Obama has enjoyed. And the decision to target those Rust-Belt states underscores the GOP view that Obama is vulnerable in that part of the nation. Three of the four -- Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- went Democratic in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
Lot of white working-class men and women in those states, which account for 68 electoral votes.
-- Scott Martelle
So Mike Huckabee told the world the other day that if John McCain calls, he'd be happy to be his running mate, but that he doesn't expect McCain to call. Good thing Huckabee's not waiting by the phone. The folks over at Politico have a piece this morning saying the call could well go to Mitt Romney. But, of course, at this stage no one knows, as our colleague Doyle McManus points out with his own list of bandied-about names.
McCain doesn't need to rush. He doesn't need a r unning mate until the Republican National Convention, scheduled for Sept. 1-4, which comes after the Democratic National Convention, set for Aug. 25-28. Advantage goes to McCain, since he gets to see what the Democratic slate will look like before he makes his call. And yes, he can pick a running mate earlier to make himself look decisive and unconcerned about political ramifications (which ties into his Straight Talk theme) but, chances are, he'll keep his cards hidden until he has to play.
So why Romney? As Politico points out, he's gone through the media vetting process, has access to cash fountains through his business connections and fellow Mormons, and plays well in his birth state of Michigan, which could be crucial in picking the winner.
The downside? The chemistry between McCain and Romney isn't exactly "Let's spend the next eight years together, shall we?" It's more like: "Does he have to come to this meeting? Can't we just send him to a state funeral somewhere?"
The other top names on McCain's list, per Politico, are former Ohio congressman and White House budget director Rob Portman -- not exactly a household name -- and John Thune of South Dakota, who knocked minority leader Tom Daschle out of the Senate in 2004.
Now it's your turn. Who do you figure? And no, not Dick Cheney -- he's not in charge of the search committee. The comment section is open below.
-- Scott Martelle
Photo credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times
Eagerly awaited polls from four key states will be welcomed by the Barack Obama camp today -- he leads in every case (though his edge over John McCain in Colorado is within the margin of error, barely).
Here are the results from the surveys conducted by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in conjunction with washingtonpost.com and the Wall Street Journal: Colorado (9 electoral votes): Obama 49%, McCain 44%
Michigan (17 electoral votes): Obama 48%, McCain 42%
Minnesota (10 electoral votes): Obama 54%, McCain 37%
Wisconsin (10 electoral votes): Obama 52%, McCain 39%
And here's an attention-grabbing quote from Peter A. Brown, the polling institute's assistant director: "November can't get here soon enough for Sen. Barack Obama. He has a lead everywhere, and if nothing changes between now and November he will make history."
But then Brown hedges his bet, adding that Obama "should not be picking out the drapes for the Oval Office just yet. His lead nationally, and double digits in some key states, is not hugely different from where Sen. John Kerry stood four years ago at this point" in his ultimately unsuccessful bid to unseat President Bush.
Kerry carried Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Obama almost assuredly needs to hold them as part of assembling the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Bush won Colorado; if Obama triumphs in all the states that went for Kerry, a win in Colorado would put him 10 electoral votes away from 270.
More of what Brown has to say and a raft of polling data can be perused here. The Swamp's take on this story is available here.
Perhaps the politician who will be most chagrined by the results is Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. He is widely mentioned as a vice presidential prospect on McCain's ticket, but his stock will drop if, as the summer progresses, it continues to appear unlikely that his home state is in play.
-- Don Frederick
Much attention, understandably, is being paid to the notes Barack Obama sounds in his first general election television ad, which starts running Friday and can be viewed here.
Its emphasis on family values, self reliance and patriotism would have made Ronald Reagan's media shop proud. And in case anyone misses the point, the spot's title -- "Country I Love" -- says it all.
What really grabs us, however, is where the ad will appear (and, in one case, where it won't).
For the most part, the 18-state list is predictable. It includes the battlegrounds, large and small, that political analysts expect to watch through election day: Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico among them.
But the list also includes a handful of reliably Republican places where Obama aides have been saying they believe he can compete, based on strength he showed among certain voting blocs during the primary season.
The states in this category are Georgia, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina and Virginia.
And then there are two states -- Alaska and North Dakota -- where the airing of the Obama ad demonstrates that:
A) His campaign knows something about these GOP redoubts that the rest of us doesn't;
B) When you're riding herd over an organization that raises massive amounts of cash seemingly without breaking a sweat -- and just today announced it was breaking free of the restraints imposed by the campaign finance system, as our friends at The Swamp write about here -- you can afford to take a flier on a couple of longshots, especially when the media markets are inexpensive;
C) It's always fun, when the November election still seems a long way off, to play in a few of your rival's backyards, if for no other reason than to cause some headaches on the other side.
Probably some combination of A, B and C explains the decision to advertise in Alaska (which President Bush carried with 61% of the vote in 2004) and North Dakota (which Bush won with 63% of the vote four years ago).
Looking at all seven states where the Obama ad buy raises eyebrows, here are some of the daunting historical facts ...
Read more Barack Obama ad targets include some shockers »
It strikes us that both presidential campaigns this week ignored the cardinal rule of real estate: location, location, location.
 It was a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama would receive an official blessing from Al Gore, the question was when and where. The ringing endorsement Gore bestowed Monday came a bit later than might have been expected, but the real surprise was the setting -- a rally in Detroit, the leading city in the one state where words from perhaps the world's best-known advocate for transforming oil-based economies might be greeted with chagrin.
True, Gore carried Michigan by about 5 percentage points in his 2000 presidential bid. But in that campaign he did not stress the environmental call to arms that since then has become his life's mission.
Although we appreciate the skepticism with which many greet any analysis of Democratic maneuvering by Karl Rove, we do think he got it right on Fox's Hannity & Colmes when he said, "If you're an autoworker or in the auto-parts business or somebody who feels strongly about the auto economy, you don't want to have Al Gore sort of rubbing your nose in it in your own hometown."
Rove mentioned alternative sites for the Gore/Obama love-fest, and two made particular sense to us: Colorado or New Mexico, states expected to be battlegrounds in the general election and places where the environmental movement is revered by some and supported by most.
Similarly, of the possible venues for John McCain to announce his change in position of offshore oil drilling, was Houston the best choice? We don't think so.
McCain's decision to propose an end to the longstanding federal moratorium on oil exploration in coastal waters -- a ban he had long backed -- may play out as a bold stroke that benefits from growing public anger over rising gasoline prices. And, as the Houston Chronicle reported, McCain's audience at a ballroom "in the nation's energy capital gave him two standing ovations as he called for fewer federal regulations on oil exploration."
Maybe his campaign wanted to ensure he received a warm response. But the chosen audience also made it that much easier for critics to argue that McCain, on most issues, was little different than President Bush and that his policies were more oriented toward big business than the average citizen.
An audience of long-haul truckers or residents of exurbs in Ohio or Pennsylvania -- two of the key targets in November -- probably would have been just as welcoming toward McCain's new policy.
-- Don Frederick
Photo credits: Associated Press
Al Gore unquestionably has taken to heart his role as an elder statesman -- he stayed so far above the fray of the Democratic presidential race that the fray was fast becoming an afterthought when he finally bestowed his imprimatur on Barack Obama today.
As Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune aptly put it in a blog post on the none-too-surprising endorsement, call Gore "nothing if not cautious."
 Gore joined Obama tonight at a rally in Detroit. Before that, he previewed on his website and in an e-mail his embrace of his party's presumptive presidential nominee. He also urged, for the first time, members of AlGore.com to donate to a political campaign -- as if Obama needs any help on that front.
Obama can use help in more fully binding Democrats behind his candidacy after his prolonged battle with Hillary Clinton.
A recent Gallup Poll found him drawing support from 78% of those who share his party registration; by comparison, exit polls showed John Kerry captured 86% of the Democratic vote in the 2004 presidential election.
Most analysts expect Obama's share of the Democratic vote to increase as the campaign progresses, and Gore's moves today could slightly accelerate that process. If committed Democrats agree on anything, it's that the 2000 election was stolen from Gore, and in the years since that has made him a rallying point.
As the former vice president himself wryly (and ruefully) put it tonight, "Take it from me, elections matter."
Still, if Gore sounded most of the expected notes in his speech -- blasting, on issues large and small, what he termed the "incompetence, neglect and failure" of the Bush administration -- there was one omission that may not go unnoticed in certain quarters: a direct mention of either of the Clintons.
He made an indirect reference to Hillary as he sang the praises of the year's Democratic presidential field. And he seemed to be setting up a nod to her husband ...
Read more Al Gore wraps his arms around Barack Obama »
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 »
Let's see: It's June 11, election day is Nov. 4, that's just under five months away.... Yep -- time to start watching the polls!
Not really. There will be more lead changes than in a Lakers-Celtics game before this thing is done, but some numbers have cropped up in recent days that are interesting to ponder. First, there are the dueling tracking polls. Gallup today gives Obama a "statistically significant" six-point lead in the national head-to-head matchup, a lead the pollsters describe as "stabilizing" after holding in that neighborhood for a couple of days.
Over at Rasmussen , the lead for Obama is five points, 46% to 41% -- "a slight decline for Obama who had attracted 48% support for each of the preceding three days. For McCain, the results are little changed. For the past week, his support has stayed between 40% and 42%."
So it looks as if Obama still is getting a bit of a bump -- on the back side of it -- from the attention surrounding his sealing of the nomination, a cycle in which McCain didn't get a whole lot of free media time. Now that they're one on one, expect the coverage to balance out more and those numbers to yo-yo.
More interesting is to look at the polls in some of the battleground states, where things are much tighter. In Michigan, Obama has been holding a slight lead within the margin of error, as he has in Wisconsin and Ohio (note, though, that some of these polls are a week or more old). The Obama campaign has made some noise about maybe being able to put Georgia into play. So far, that's not happening.
In the Western states of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico? There hasn't been any polling there in at least three weeks, so it's anybody's guess what's going on. But you can usually get a sense of where the campaigns believe the close contests are by where they're spending time and energy. So far, not a lot of either has been happening in the Western states.
-- Scott Martelle
The year isn't half over yet, but it's going to be hard to top Danielle DeBuchananne and Matt Rogers as best sports of 2008.
The couple long ago had booked Washington's Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for their wedding reception last Saturday. Only recently did they learn of another event scheduled that afternoon at the same venue -- the Democratic rules committee meeting to deal with the thorny Florida and Michigan primaries.
The latter gathering, of course, proved a marathon and raucous affair that attracted a bevy of protesters and sparked periodic shouting matches. Inevitably, reception guests and fired-up partisans crossed paths. But, as detailed in a detectable report in today's Washington Post Style section, the newly married couple and those celebrating their union rolled with the (figurative) punches.
"We could let it ruin the wedding, or we could embrace it," Rogers told the Post. "We embraced it."
Their forbearance did not go unrewarded. Awaiting them in their room at the hotel was a gift and a gracious note, courtesy of the Democratic National Committee and its chairman, Howard Dean.
-- Don Frederick
Now that the Democrats have voted on seating the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan (all the delegates get to come, but they only get half a vote each), some of Hillary Clinton's highest-profile supporters are divided over what should happen next.
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 ...
Read more Fight or not? Hillary Clinton supporters are split »
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.
-- Scott Martelle
Maybe it will prove an idle threat.
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.
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Associated Press
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.
-- Don Frederick
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.
-- Don Frederick
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.
-- Don Frederick
Photo: Associated Press
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 Rodham Hugh 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 ...
Read more Hillary Clinton's brother is one unhappy camper »
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.
Ickes thankfully took a pass.
-- Don Frederick
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 ...
Read more Howard Dean replays the 2000 election's legal fight »
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.’’
So the question remains: what does Clinton do?
— Peter Nicholas
As if the dispute over whether to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations isn't enough, the Democratic National Committee is facing a mini-uprising in the blogger world over which local blogs will be seated with state delegations at the Democratic National Convention in August.
The DNC, perhaps recognizing how many activists get their political fixes from blogs, decided to grant a seat to (usually) a single blog with each state's delegation in Denver. This is in addition to the large-scale blog sites (think Huffington and Kos) that will get media credentials to cover the event. And some of the state-level blog sites are fairly large, such as Calitics, which gets a seat.
But some bloggers left off the list are smelling bias, or at the least a failure of inclusion. And maybe exclusion based on how far left the bloggers lean. And there's the occasional accusation of favoritism.
One big happy family, those Democrats.
-- Scott Martelle
Well, thanks to everybody who participated in The Ticket's first genuine mystery political button guessing contest yesterday.
We had guesses -- all of them very informed, of course -- from across the country, from our loyal Ticket reader and talker Joe Mathieu on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel to Debbie Meister.
The very wise Robert L. King chipped in, as did Brooks Jackson, another loyal Ticket reader who covered politics for many years with the Associated Press and CNN and now does such an impressive job monitoring American politics over at FactCheck.org.
On Wednesday morning we published a photo of this political button that Ellen Alperstein, yet another Ticket reader, had found among old belongings. The face sure looked familiar to many of us, kind of like the late Merv Griffin in a way.
But why would Merv "Hollywood-sweetheart-loved-your-show" Griffin have a political button? We just knew deep in our kind, gentle hearts brimming with springtime hope that some readers would recognize the guy.
And, sure enough, we were right!
We had guesses ranging from Gary Hart (Debbie) to a long-ago Pat Buchanan (Tominellay). "08" thought it was Tom Eagleton. "MB" suggested Mike Gravel. Wm Tate thought it was the mysterious head of that vast right-wing conspiracy that a certain ex-Democratic first lady often talked about.
Like us, Carter had the politician's name right on the tip of his/her tongue -- but just couldn't come up with it. Sonny Bono and Gilligan were other guesses.
We even had one contestant who thought the man was a disguised Prince Charles, who "Spitzered" that other woman for so many years over in Britain before marrying her. (A new verb to us, but one that works well in the current political season, even outside New York.)
We actually had four winners. The correct answer was ...
Read more Ticket readers solve the Great Political Button Mystery. It was .... »
Yes, there are still states -- and a territory -- to vote, Democratic delegates to select, superdelegates to decide and conventions to be held, but it's hard not to peek ahead to the fall matchup. You can make your own presumptions about whether the Dems will go with Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, but for the sake of argument, we'll presume it's Obama.
And polls, fickle though they may be, show that the general election could be just as tight as the Democratic primaries in crucial swing states where Obama's race and perceived class work against him (witness Kentucky). The tallies maintained at Real Clear Politics give a broader sense of the challenge for Obama and for John McCain.
You can go over there and play, but the overview is the latest state poll aggregates give the current advantage (some of these are within the margin of error) to McCain in Ohio, Florida and Missouri and the advantage to Obama in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin (though McCain led in the most recent poll) and Iowa with Michigan essentially a dead heat.
Now take those poll numbers over to an interactive electoral college map and the advantage is: Nobody. Under that scenario, with Michigan a virtual tie and polls too erratic in New Mexico to count, Obama and McCain would be separated by four electoral votes and both would need Michigan to put them over the 270 threshold.
Let the fun begin. Oh, wait -- it already has.
-- Scott Martelle
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 John Kennedy.
A handful of other states can make comparable claims as bellwethers. Still, Clinton pointedly noted that her husband won Kentucky in both of his successful presidential races. And that helped frame the message in a victory speech that was directed more at Democratic superdelegates than the cheering throng in front of her.
After she spoke kind and gracious words about Sen. Ted Kennedy in the wake of the revelation that he suffers from a malignant brain tumor, after she touched upon her commitment to universal healthcare and ending the war in Iraq, after she made her now ritualistic pitch for cash by reciting her website, she got to what she and her aides see as the nub of the matter.
When the primary season wraps up on June 3 ...
Read more Hillary Clinton, speaking in Kentucky, has superdelegates in mind »
Is this another Bosnian sniper incident, where a Democratic candidate for president describes a scene involving some personal courage, but later videotape shows that maybe perhaps it wasn't really quite all like that exactly?
Sen. Barack Obama, the leading Democratic candidate for his party's nomination, is very fond of telling receptive audiences the story about how last May he walked right into the automotive lion's den of Detroit and told those industrialists they were going to have to shape up, change the way they do things and start making more fuel-efficient vehicles to protect our environment.
"And I have to say," the straight-talking Obama tells his chuckling followers, "that when I delivered that speech, the room got really quiet. [Laughter] Nobody clapped."
Well, in honor of Obama's return campaign visit back to Michigan this week, someone -- perhaps Republicans, perhaps someone closer to home politically -- assembled videotape of Obama's oft-told tale and spliced it side by side with videotape of that actual Detroit speech.
You'll never guess what. The room wasn't quiet at all. Obama, in fact, got a loud round of applause. And at the end of his address the camera's view of him at the podium is partially blocked because the audience of local businesspeople and automotive executives was rising to give him a standing ovation.
(UPDATE: Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesman, has provided numerous contempoary independent news accounts of the candidate's Detroit speech. They describe the audience as presenting a standing ovation at his introduction but only delivering "polite" or "light" applause during it, along with selected quotes from some audience members praising his courage or consistency in delivering the message about better mileage.)
There were no departure ceremonies after the speech because of sniper reports. Far too dangerous for that. It was all he could do then to duck his head and just run for the vehicles. See for yourself below.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Barack Obama did what you have to do if you say something to a person that many people find offensive, especially if you're running for president: He phoned Peggy Agar, the reporter he referred to as "sweetie," to apologize for calling her that and blowing her off after she asked a question following a campaign appearance Wednesday in Sterling, Mich.
WXYZ-TV, the Detroit station Agar works for, has a recording of the voicemail to Agar's phone, along with a story about the apology, available on its Web site. Obama says: "Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I'm calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn't get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren't the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.
"Second apology is for using the word 'sweetie.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next."
The WXYZ story notes that Obama has called people "sweetie" before, and on at least one occasion, caused a mini-tempest.
And in a posting on the New York Times' Caucus political blog, reporter Jim Rutenberg writes: "Back in Pennsylvania in early April, Senator Barack Obama took some heat for calling a female factory worker 'sweetie,' in Allentown."
Obama clearly needs to go on a "sweetie" diet, tightening up on his use of that diminutive.
It just seems dismissive, belittling and, yes, chauvinist, even if he doesn't mean it to be.
-- Frank James
Frank James writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau.
A small but very surprising gaffe by the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, Wednesday during a visit to an automotive plant in Michigan. These photo ops are staged by every presidential campaign for the precise purpose of having TV cameras film their candidate walking, looking and learning something somewhere.
But although the media are absolutely essential to the staged event's success, the campaigns really don't want them messing up their political plans with interruptions or questions. If the cameras only have pictures, that's all the stations can broadcast.
Answering reporters' questions distract from the pleasant photos and could change the subject away from the day's political message. What if they ask him/her about West Virginia or doing poorly among blue-collar Democratic workers like those waiting to shake his hand up the line?
Peggy Agar of Channel 7 TV news in Detroit was with her cameraman at the Sterling Heights, Mich., plant jockeying for position as Obama walked around the facility, trying like all the others in the invited press mob to lob a question in and get the candidate actually talking on-camera instead of merely looking.
Suddenly Obama was walking right toward her. "Senator," Agar addressed him, "how are you going to help the American auto worker?"
"Hold on one second, sweetie," the presidential candidate said, sticking out his right arm as if to ward her off. "We're gonna do a press avail."
Sweetie?
"This 'sweetie,'" Agar noted acidly in her broadcast report, "never did get an answer to that question." Later, the station said Obama had left an apology on the reporter's phone, admitting he had a problem calling women "sweetie" and saying he intended no disrespect.
If there's no disrespect intended, why wouldn't he have used it during, say, one of his debates against Sen. Hillary Clinton? "Now, Sweetie, you're not describing my health care plan accurately." How would that go over?
Alas for Obama, his comment was already captured on tape. Here it is.
--Andrew Malcolm
While everyone keeps running through the math of the Democratic primary battle, Barack Obama's campaign already has come up with its own bottom line: The contest effectively ends on May 20.
There are 217 pledged delegates up for grabs in the remaining six primaries, fewer than the number of as-yet-undeclared superdelegates. The Obama camp will bolster its efforts to court these votes this weekend, when it kicks off a 50-state voter registration drive.
Each of the remaining contests lines up neatly for one candidate or the other-- West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico for Clinton, and Oregon, South Dakota and Montana for Obama.
The Obama campaign is likely to start pressing for commitments from superdelegates -- if not right away, then after the May 20 primaries in Kentucky and Oregon. At that point, under any likely scenario, Obama will lock up a majority of the pledged delegates.
Hari Sevugan, an Obama campaign spokesman, said today: "We are currently 33 delegates away from clinching a majority of all pledged delegates. Looking at this conservatively, coming out of the primaries in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon, we expect to be able to go over the top by the night of May 20th.''
CBS 2, WBBM, in Chicago picked up on this today, declaring that "Barack Obama plans to claim the Democratic presidential nomination on the evening of May 20.''
Obama strategist David Axelrod told the station ...
Read more Barack Obama plays a new number for V Day -- May 20 »
Barack Obama made the type of admission today that doesn't often come from the mouths of politicians.
"I'm not predicting a win," he told radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh, referencing Pennsylvania's Tuesday primary.
Even candidates obviously on their last legs (think Republican Mike Huckabee, on the eve of the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries) are loath to rule out a victory.
But though Obama took a pass on cockeyed optimism, he did offer a measuring stick for his performance in the Keystone State: "I'm predicting it's going to be close and that we are going to do a lot better than people expect."
So what would constitute a better-than-expected showing for Obama? And what sort of winning margin does Hillary Clinton need to get a real boost from Tuesday's results? Here's our take:
Read more A Pennsylvania primer: What to make of Tuesday's numbers »
Actually, Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain were only invited on the popular program for cameo appearances tonight. And, thankfully none was asked to sing. And, once again, Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, at 72 the second oldest guy still in the race, was left out. (So was Ralph Nader, who's 74, but doesn't do TV games.)
Their assignment, as our fellow blogger Carl Lavin chronicles over at Forbes.com, was simply to make charitable pitches to donate to charity. The two straight-faced Democrats did just that, offering ever so sincere pleas for giving.
So did the second oldest candidate in the White House race. But McCain also slipped in a couple of zingers. He said Idol was a lot like the ongoing political primaries except the television show counted votes from Michigan and Florida.
Then, at the end McCain said he had to get back to work on his immigration reform bill -- and British judge Simon Cowell better watch out.
--Andrew Malcolm
Howard Dean is a former doctor, a former state legislator, a former lieutenant governor, a former governor and a former presidential candidate who sought the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in 2005 as a kind of states rights guy, a power to the states fellow who would run the national operation with a lenient hand in terms of centralized power.
So here he is in 2008 locked in a bitter stalemate with two key states -- Florida and Michigan that will be crucial for the Democ ratic candidate come November -- but at the moment are barred from any representation at the party's national convention in late August in Denver, which is a lovely pre-snow time of year there even at 5,280 feet. (Take your jacket just in case.)
But things could get as hot in Denver as Howard Dean was in 2004 when he finished third in Iowa, if this Clinton-Obama mano a mano goes that far. So, our veteran colleague Mark Z. Barabak, who's known the chairman for years, asked him when they sat down for a recent chat, what's wrong with states setting their own primary dates?
“This is a national election," Dean replied. "They supported a set of rules for the candidates to abide by, everybody agreed to abide by those rules — including Michigan and Florida — and then....
Read more The Ticket talks with DNC Chairman Howard Dean »
Gee, bet you can't guess what Sen. Hillary Clinton's opening line is on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"?
She says "it's so  great to be here." A show stopper. But not that. She says she was worried about not making it to the show. And Jay says, "Oh." And Clinton says, "I was pinned down by sniper fire." And Jay says, as he did last week, "You know in L.A. that might be true actually." (Laughter)
After that, things slow down a bit. Clinton sort of but not really explains how she came to tell that Bosnia whopper and the subject gets around to sleep, which most Americans will be about to do when they're watching Tonight tonight. And Clinton says she's lucky because she can nap for a few minutes here and there during her impossible campaign days.
She says it's been "a great election so far" and she sees the Democratic contest with Sen. Barack Obama as....
Read more Hillary Clinton claims snipers pinned her down again »
A growing number of people, mostly her opponents, are publicly calling for Sen. Hillary Clinton to withdraw from the Democratic presidential contest and cede victory to Illinois S en. Barack Obama. He leads in both total delegates and the popular votes of past primaries but has yet to gain the number required to win nomination.
This would, of course, essentially render meaningless the votes of Democrats in a bundle of upcoming primary states including Indiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Clinton has vowed to continue her struggle, which is her right but could produce a long-term damaging stalemate with accumulating bitterness among Obama supporters, even if she did somehow ultimately win. She's recently talked about taking the fight over disallowed primaries and their delegates in Florida and Michigan to a credentials committee fight in Denver at the national convention.
This strategy effectively consumes valuable general election preparation time and financial resources from whichever Democrat ultimately wins, as the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, is already campaigning to unify his party, raise money (he's way behind) and set the scope of his personal campaign narrative.
Or put it this way: If the New York Giants had given up well before the....
Read more Your chance to vote: Should Hillary Clinton quit now or stay the course? »
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, sidelined superdelegate and supporter of Hillary Clinton, still sees a path for Clinton to claim the party's presidential nomination -- if she runs the tables of major primary elections in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana and beyond.
"Then the momentum is with her... and at that point it's a jump ball,'' Nelson said in a program to air Sunday on C-SPAN's Newsmakers. Yet Nelson, whose vote as a superdelegate has been frozen as part of the penalty on Florida and Michigan for holding early primaries, suggests that his fellow superdelegates will be hard-pressed to ignore the candidate who claims the most votes when the primaries end in June.
"If I had a vote as a superdelegate, I'd want to know who won the states that are going to be critical in November,'' says Nelson, pressed on what his advice for fellow senators and other party superdelegates will be if Barack Obama can claim the most support in June. Nelson also sees little likelihood of resolution of the campaign ...
Read more A Clinton superdelegate who can't vote -- yet »
As the Democratic imbroglio continues over what to do about the out-of-bounds Michigan and Florida primaries, a recent poll offers a reminder of how tantalizing a true, fully engaged face-off between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in those two states would be.
The survey, sponsored in part by the St. Petersburg Times, asked Floridians a number of questions -- some strictly local -- on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. But the one that caught our interest focused on the two Democratic presidential candidates. It found Clinton ahead, with 46%, but Obama within shouting distance, at 37%.
Even more intriguing, 16% said they were undecided -- meaning an aggressive, persuasive campaign could make all the difference in determining a victor.
Also, the figures represent slippage for Clinton since she won Florida's Jan. 29 primary -- the one the Democratic National Committee ruled wouldn't count and the one that, as a result, proceeded without the candidates actually pitching for support. In that contest, Clinton received 50% of the vote, compared with 33% for Obama and 14% for John Edwards (still an active candidate at the time).
Michigan's unsanctioned primary, held two weeks before Florida's, was even more problematic. As most no doubt recall, Obama and Edwards -- to show their solidarity with the DNC -- asked that their names be removed from the ballot. Clinton kept hers on, and we remember being struck at the time that the 55% she won in the vote didn't seem particularly impressive under the circumstances ("uncommitted" voters tallied 40%).
All the more reason to think that, as in Florida, a real Clinton/Obama race in Michigan would be worth the price of admission (or, more to the point, whatever it costs to make it happen).
For the latest on the impasse surrounding the two state, see here.
-- Don Frederick
Civics lessons and flowery campaign speeches notwithstanding, politics more often than not is about self-interest.
That's certainly the case with Leslie Moonves, CEO for CBS.
According to a recent story in the Hollywood Reporter, Moonves is "cheered by the fact that the Democratic race is continuing and that John McCain is raising lots of money to combat the eventual Democratic nominee. 'That's music to our ears,' Moonves said. 'We want this to be as long and as dirty as humanly possible.'"
Not exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind, but hey, this is business.
The story focused on the chagrin among TV types in Florida and Michigan that the Democr | |
