2008 Primaries Thread

? A "wan echo"? That strikes me as highly inaccurate, I watched the debate. I think Bill's predicting it'd be civilized because.. afaik the Bush scorched-earth attack dogs are with Romney and not likely to go for McCain.

I don't know what to say - Frank Rich doesn't like the Clintons, and hasn't for years and years, and trashed Gore last time around too.
JOURNAL; J. Crew vs. Banana Republic
Eight months to go -- but hey, who's counting? -- and we're stranded with two establishment, tightly scripted, often robotic candidates who are about as different from one another as J. Crew and Banana Republic. Both are wealthy, Ivy-League-educated boomers who took safe paths through the Vietnam War, whose career advancement was greased by their dads, who advertise their intimacy with Jesus, who reek of smarmy soft money and who will do anything to win, whether it be Mr. Gore's lying about his own Congressional voting record in a debate or Mr. Bush's heartless exploitation of women's fears of breast cancer in a scurrilous attack ad.

In the true Clinton manner, both are also chameleons, ready to don new guises in a flash -- from Mr. Gore's down-home wardrobe to Mr. Bush's last-minute emergence as a champion of campaign finance reform, patients' rights and clean air. The substantive disputes between the men are, in truth, minimal in a prosperous post-cold-war era when both parties aspire to Rockefeller Republicanism (literally so in that each standard-bearer is the prince of a brand-name American dynasty).

WTF?: "Romney leads McCain by 37 percent to 34 percent in California." Within the margin of error, but still . . .

that must be wrong, cnn reported this morning "The poll shows the race on the Republican side isn't as close — John McCain holds a 32-24 percent lead over Romney with Mike Huckabee at 13 percent. Ron Paul pulls 10 percent of support among likely Republican voters."

as for the 'yes we can' video; obviously those things probably aren't going to sway anyone, I don't think the average person is that influenced politically by hollywood and entertainment stars. also, how come scarlett johannson is constantly shown at a mic but never actually sings anything? anyway, i'm sure it was fun for the people who made it, although I think it kind of lessens the impact of that speech, which was one of the great political campaign speaches of recent times

regardless though i predict obama squeezes by clinton in CA

Morbs will start calling you chumps when Hil decides to go with the McCain plan for Iraq, abandons universal healthcare, etc..

akm, is the CNN poll you cite evaluating the GOP race nationwide or in California only?

it was in a piece in the ticker about california (and obama and clinton being essentially tied) so i'm not sure what that reuters thing is about, I think maybe they got mccain and romney reversed?

Super Tuesday's going to be interesting.. I have no idea what's going to happen, I'm seeing some state polls closing up, some not, Hillary's had a significant uptick in daily trackers since the debate (Rasmussen, Gallup) but.. ??

Yeah, Romney = WTF. GOP primaries are winner-take-all so California could be huge, but I don't see Romney ahead anywhere else but Massachusetts.

also, this: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/03/MNF7UR6FE.DTL&tsp=1

romney's doing better in CA cuz that's the only place he's campaigning

If he wins there, but loses everyplace else on Tuesday, I guess at this point he'd consider that a win and a reason to keep going on through the early March primaries.

frank rich hasn't done actual reporting for years, he just repeats things people tell him

sort of a proto-blogger

frank rich hasn't done actual reporting for years, he just repeats things people tell him

as opposed to reporters, of course

garrison keillor has endorsed obama. how very special.

I'm not arguing for Frank's neutrality or anything, I'm just saying I agree with him. Why does the NYT hate the Clintons so much, though?

A reminder - seven years ago, a patriotic group of Americans had to make a choice between conventional experience and change they desperately needed. It wasn’t an easy decision. Both options were compelling in their own right, but when it was time to make a decision, the choice was clear. The New England Patriots started Tom Brady over Drew Bledsoe, and Brady went on to be the MVP of Super Bowl XXXVI. Now that’s change we can believe in.

lolz

haha ouch

ooh this is interesting:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/breaking-news-p.html

was linked to it through tpm

Why does the NYT hate the Clintons so much, though?

they hate them soooooo much they endorsed hillary for president

Well they're not dopes--she is still their senator. But Maureen's still very anti-Clinton, Frank's anti-Clinton, there were the Times' boosting of Whitewater back in the day. I mean, judging by the columnists, it's like they endorsed Obama, you know?

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/020308DailyUpdateGraph2.gif

NY Times front-page story today about Obama lying his ass off about nuclear-regulatory bill that never got passed, despite his trumpeting it as a success in Iowa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html

From a NYT story:

"Looking to Tuesday, Mr. Romney has concentrated his efforts in states that award delegates by caucuses and conventions, where His organization efforts can help offset the pull of Mr. McCain’s higher name recognition."

Whoa, God really is on the Mormons' side.

haha

there's still 10% unaccounted for in that gallup chart -- and if the upward trend of obama's numbers suggests anything, it's that those undecided will probably break more towards obama. here's hoping.

BILL KRISTOL: Look, the only people for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic establishment and white women. The Democratic establishment -- it would be crazy for the Democratic Party to follow an establishment that's led it to defeat year after year. White women are a problem, that's, you know -- we all live with that.

(laughter)

JUAN WILLIAMS (National Public Radio correspondent and Fox News contributor): Not me!

HUME: Bill, for the record, I like white women.

KRISTOL: I know, I shouldn't have said that.

LOL

Brit Hume loves all women of the world.

Thanks to the wonders of my booth tv here at the bar, i get to flip back & forth between Michelle Obama on cspan and the puppy bowl.

Obama is doing a good job at hoovering up the Kennedys...

wau Bill Kristol

superbowl sunday obama girlfest rally with michelle obama, caroline kennedy, oprah & maria shriver in california is a pretty daring headline grab for monday morning

Five points for whoever finds this advanced somewhere as a serious comparison:

"A Massachusetts powerhouse comes to grief in Arizona. The Patriots? No, Mitt Romney, up against John McCain."

^^^ it was the analogy that had to be made

just looking at how the campaigns are being run -- with all the analysts pondering whether endorsements turn into votes, i think an endorsement is what a campaign can make of it, and i give credit to obama's for knowing how to stage-manage and sell the significance of those endorsements to the press.

Tomorrow:

Hillary in New York, Woostah and New Haven, CT
Barack in Hartford, Boston, and... E. Rutherford, NJ

NRO lolz spotted by the Balloon Juice guys:

Boasting in Boston [Michael Graham]

I am so confident of both a Patriots win today and a Romney win in Massachusetts on Tuesday that I made this pledge on the air Friday: "If the NY Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, I will vote cast my Super Duper Tuesday primary vote for (shudder) John McCain."

So when I say "Go, Pats!" I really, REALLY mean it.

I also think they are even more of a lead-pipe cinch to win the Super Bowl than McCain is to win the GOP nomination. Either way, I'm putting my money..er vote where my mouth is.

02/03 05:45 PM

Right on time... Obama's first national lead. CNN has Obama at 49 and Clinton at 45.

Zogby has him up by 5 in MO and 6 in CA

I haven't trusted Zogby since 2004.

Obama 'responds' to the NYT story on Exelon:

The "fact check" did not address Obama's remark about the bill having "passed." It also did not respond to the article's reporting that Exelon executives and employees have contributed $227,000 to Obama's campaign.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/03/obama-defends-record-on-nuclear-leak-bill/

xpost

Well Suffolk and Rasmussen have him up in California too, but only by 1%.

http://www.pollster.com/USTopzDems600.png

xpost

$227,000 to Obama's campaigns. That includes a US Senate race, a failed US House race, and several Illinois State Senate races.

thats like nothing

lying about watering down nuke legislation, that's nothing too I'm sure.

lol so I guess the concerns about a parade conflicting with primary voting in Boston were unfounded lol lol lol lol lol

The Washington Post:

Obama's not the only candidate wading deep in a pool of contributions from the nuclear energy industry.

Clinton has received $68,650 in 34 contributions from NRG Energy, and the company's chief executive, David Crane, is listed as one of her Hillraisers -- meaning he has brought more than $100,000 in contributions into the campaign. The Clintons' ties to the New Jersey-based power giant run deeper than that, though. The company committed $5 million to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2007, according to the web site of the charity run by former president Bill Clinton. The company's six-year commitment is $175 million.

Stanley Fish enters the strange self-perpetuating world of Hillary-haters:

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/all-you-need-is-hate/

Horowitz observes that there is an "inexhaustible fertile market of Clinton hostility," but that "the search for a unifying theory of what drives Hillary's most fanatical opponents is a futile one." The reason is that nothing drives it; it is that most sought-after thing, a self-replenishing, perpetual-energy machine.