Thursday’s campaign round-up
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) endorsed Obama this morning: “Leahy likened his support of Obama to the 1968 presidential campaign, when as a young prosecutor he endorsed Robert Kennedy over Hubert Humphrey. ‘He was bringing us a sense of hope, bringing us together,’ Leahy said. ‘I know those are intangibles, but it encouraged me to go against the establishment in my own state, and go with Bobby Kennedy.'”
* Does it seem like there’s more interest in the presidential campaign this year than in previous cycles? There’s evidence to bolster the suspicion: “American voters, to borrow a candidate’s phrase, are fired up and ready to go. Turnout in the opening Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary this month smashed records. By 2-1, those surveyed in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll say they’re more enthusiastic than usual about voting this year. Nine in 10 say it makes a difference to them who is elected president.”
* When it comes to media attention, John Edwards is getting screwed: “The Project for Excellence in Journalism has done a study of which candidates have gotten the most media coverage in recent days. It found that poor John Edwards has gotten the least attention of any major candidate from either party.” There’s only so much media oxygen, and outlets seem content to let Edwards gasp.
* Let’s hope this is the final word on the subject: “High-profile Hillary Clinton supporter Bob Johnson is apologizing to Barack Obama for comments he made last week regarding the Illinois senator’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager. Johnson said he sent a letter to Obama Thursday morning and said he was also reaching out by phone…. Johnson told CNN Clinton did not ask him to apologize nor leave the campaign. Johnson said he quickly realized his comments were a mistake ‘made in haste in an attempt to be funny.'”
* Slipping in South Carolina polls, Mitt Romney is giving up on the state and focusing his efforts on the Nevada caucuses.
* Speaking of Romney and Nevada, he picked up the endorsement today of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the largest paper in the state.
* And speaking of Nevada, Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, is trying to manage expectations by insisting that Clinton should be considered the “prohibitive favorite” in Nevada due to her strong support within the state party establishment and her large lead in early polling.
* Even Rudy Giuliani’s backers in New York and New Jersey are losing hope: “[A]s Mr. Giuliani has plummeted from first to fourth — or worse — in some national polls, as he finished near the bottom of the pack in the nation’s earliest primaries, and as his lead evaporated even in Florida, the state on which he has gambled the most time and money, those Republican leaders are verging toward a grim new consensus: If Mr. Giuliani loses in the Florida primary on Jan. 29, they say, he may even have trouble defeating the rivals who are encroaching on his own backyard.”
* Let no one tell you that Hillary Clinton lacks a good sense of humor. She’s actually quite funny.
* And anti-immigration group called the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC apparently hopes to draft CNN’s Lou Dobbs into an independent presidential campaign.
* A Mississippi judge ruled this week that Gov. Haley Barbour (R) “exceeded his constitutional authority by setting the special election” to replace former senator Trent Lott for Nov. 4. The judge, however, ruled that the election should be held “within 90 days of the governor’s Dec. 20, 2007 proclamation of writ of election…on or before March 19, 2008.”
* And in Minnesota, Al Franken has launched his first two TV ads. His DFL primary rival, Mike Ciresi, has already been on the air.
“There’s only so much media oxygen, and outlets seem content to let Edwards gasp.”
That just ain’t right.
American voters, to borrow a candidate’s phrase, are fired up and ready to go.
Ah, quoting Hillary! 🙂
I agree with bubba #1. The same media can go 5 deep on the Republican side though.
Meh. Not that funny, actually. She’s a walking sales pitch. Can’t turn it off.
Edwards scares the Establishment, and thus the corporations and monopolies that own the media. This isn’t hard to understand. He, of all the candidates, directly threatens their M.O. And that, along with a host of other reasons, is why I support him.
WOOT!!! The cheap shot of Hillary likening herself to LBJ has just been countered by a full-broadside salvo from USS Leahy (BB-Vt)—likening Hillary to Humphrey—the “chubby little hobbit-like fellow” that lost to Nixon.
In response to #5, I think it’s simpler than that, since Obama threatens the establishment, too. The fact is, the press only wants that which makes a good story. If people are dying and it doesn’t make a good story, they won’t report it. (I know this because I myself made the mistake of going to journalism school for one semester– it made me even more cynical than I already was). So, on the Democratic side, what makes a good story? The first female candidate or the first African-American candidate. The press doesn’t care about Edwards because writing about yet another white male candidate isn’t as sexy a story. On the Republican side, white guys are all they have to work with, so they’re scrambling to find some excitement amongst the five duds, hence, covering them all. If there were a female or minority candidate in the GOP field, you can bet that all the media focus would go toward that candidate.
Personally, I am an Obama supporter, and I don’t care much for Edwards– if he’s so damn progressive, why doesn’t his senate record reflect it?– but I agree that the media should give equal time to all the candidates. The recent race-baiting was purely a media phenomenon, one that riled up the surrogates in both the Clinton and the Obama campaigns. Neither Hillary nor Barack advocated any of that nonsense . . . but, it didn’t matter. The media wanted to make a story. Stories about race and gender are provocative, and get lots of attention. And John Edwards doesn’t fit into that narrative, since there’s nothing the press can really whip up about him. It is a tragedy when attributes in a candidate that symbolize a large step forward for this country are exploited by the media for the sake of selling newspapers and driving up ratings. It is similarly a tragedy when a candidate is ignored simply because his background offers no juicy tabloid headlines. Damn the mainstream media!
I share Leahy’s feelings about Obama. But I’m still an Edwards supporter.
Terraformer @ #5 is exactly right. Big Media has little to fear from anyone but Edwards.
Why in the hell does anyone think that a TV gasbag like Lou Dobbs is a credible candidate for president?
Sen. Pat Leahy made an interesting comment while endorsing Obama. In regards to attempts by Clinton surrogates who are attempting to block the special caucus sites for the Las Vegas Strip workers, Leahy said, “If you’re shutting people out from the nominating process, you’re going to be discouraging people all the way down,” Leahy said. “And that’s not the approach we want to take in the United States.”
These sites are being setup for those who work on the strip and might not otherwise be able to participate.
I realize that earning a party’s nomination for president is a fight, but blocking caucus sites because you think they might favor your opponent? Shameful!
It’s not surprising Leahy would get the Obama=RFK/Hillary=HHH conenction. Everyone I know who was around in 1968 and politically aware then sees it now.
Humphrey was a great liberal who won victories for liberal causes when it was hard to do so – his campaign for a civil rights plank in the 1948 party platform was the first break with the Southern reactionaries and led to the departure of the Dixiecrats. He fought McCarthyism when it was dangerous.
Unfortunately he was co-opted by Lyndon Johnson and forced to run as the representative of Johnsonism – despite his reluctance – and with the support of the Old Establishment whom he had always opposed before 1964. Even with all that, the 1968 election was a cliffhanger, and if it had been a week later Humphrey might have won. Indeed he would have been “better than Nixon”, but up until June 7, 1968, he was the candidate of yesterday in comparison to Robert Kennedy.
Everyone I know who was for Kennedy back then is for Obama today, for the same reasons, and opposed to Hillary for the same reasons they opposed Humphrey.
Oh dear Jeebus hear my cry!
Please, please, please… draft Lou Dobbs (I hear Tancredo is free to round out the ticket) to splinter off the white nativist loons.
The Humpty Dumpty that is the GOP coalition is teetering, it is our moral duty to push it off the wall and enjoy ourselves as it shatters into a collection of angry partylets
I think it is interesting that Obama got endorsements from Sens. Kerry, Johnson, Leahy, and McCaskill, Rep. Miller, and Gov. Napolitano, all immediately after the New Hampshire primary. I think what it says is either 1)Experience is not a reason to exclude him. or 2) There is reason not to vote for his opponents.
Let me guess, the media saved some of the limited oxygen for Republicans who are polling at half of Edwards’ numbers.
Funny how huge corporations hate populists.
The Clintons have repeatedly used the Republican tactic of putting a lie out there by your surrogates and then apologize once it’s too late and the lie has caught fire. When are Democrats going to catch on?
Edwards is not getting screwed.
He has virtually zero chance of winning the nomination. it will be down to 0% unless he does really well in South Carolina.
At best, he doesn’t have the money to compete.
At worst, he spent 4 years in Iowa and came in 2nd just a few votes from 3rd. Since there are less than 4 years between now and the next primary, he is toast.
Stick a fork in him. He’s cooked.
BTW, I went door to door for Edwards in 2004
outlets seem content to let Edwards gasp.
As they should! Bye, bye John-boy.
Everyone I know who was for Kennedy back then is for Obama today, for the same reasons, and opposed to Hillary for the same reasons they opposed Humphrey.
An interesting parallel, no doubt.
As more than one poster has said here, let’s hope the commonalities between RFK and Obama don’t extend too far — losing one real visionary was tragedy enough.
Perhaps the Obama/ RFK connection is this: they were naive individuals who actually thought that THEY alone could change ‘politics as usual’…. RFK would NOT have been a good President– he would have been too OVERWHELMED by the responsibility and may well have had a nervous breakdown over trying to undo what JFK and his fellow Democrats, etc. had started in VietNam. Nixon, for all his faults, managed to get us out of ‘Nam…. I believe Obama would not be a good President for that and many other reasons….
Effort Launched to Draft Lou Dobbs as Presidential Candidate
January 16, 2008
CONTACT: William Gheen of ALIPAC, press@alipac.us, (866) 329-3999
http://www.alipac.us
http://www.LouDobbsforPresident.org
With illegal immigration as a top issue in the 2008 campaigns and the possibility of a pro-Amnesty candidate such as John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, or Mike Huckabee winning the GOP primary, forcing American voters to choose between two pro-Amnesty candidates, a Draft Lou Dobbs for President campaign is being launched today by Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC) found at http://www.LouDobbsforPresident.org
“Ninety percent of our supporters are behind either Romney, Thompson, Paul, or Hunter for President because they appear truly opposed to Amnesty for illegal aliens,” says William Gheen of ALIPAC. “Eighty four percent of our supporters say they would support Lou Dobbs for President, if the GOP primary fails to yield a candidate opposed to Amnesty.” (…)
http://www.alipac.us/index.html
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC – ALIPAC
Shawn, you sound like someone who actually knows very little about American History, about RFK and about Obama. I’m glad you think that Nixon is the reason we got out of Nam.