Dems Take Old Hastert Seat
The AP has called the race in the Illinois 14th for Democrat Bill Foster.
With more than 96% of precincts reporting, Foster has a 52-48 lead over big-spending GOP candidate Jim Oberweis.
Think Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) is having fun yet as chairman of the NRCC?
Since taking over the NRCC after the 2006 midterms, he's struggled to compete with the DCCC financially, faced an ugly embezzlement scandal within the NRCC, and now lost the seat held by the last Republican Speaker of the House.
As I hinted at the other day, this race recalls Hastert's fall from power, the Mark Foley scandal and the general debacle of the last GOP Congress. In some ways it's the coda to the 2006 elections. But on the other hand, you've got a Democrat winning in a special election in a Republican district against a well-funded opponent untainted by scandal. So last hurrah of 2006 -- or prelude to 2008?
By the way, we'll do this all over again in November. Foster has won the right to fill the seat for the remainder of Hastert's term, when he'll face Oberweiss again. Both men have already won their parties' nominations for the general election.
Late Update: In a just released statement, the NRCC spins this one as sound and fury signifying nothing:
“The one thing 2008 has shown is that one election in one state does not prove a trend. In fact, there has been no national trend this entire election season. The presidential election is evidence of that. The Democratic candidates are trading election victories from week to week and the nomination could hinge on a few news cycles. The one message coming out of 2008 so far is that what happens today is not a bellwether of what happens this fall.”
--David Kurtz
The Last Race of 2006?
For the hardcore junkie, we're tracking the race in the Illinois 14th congressional district tonight. Polls just closed there, and we'll be posting results in our Scoreboard there on the right.
This is Denny Hastert's vacant seat, and the Dems are making it remarkably competitive. For some background on the race, you can start here.
Late Update: AP calls it for Democrat Bill Foster over Republican Jim Oberweis.
--David Kurtz
The Other Obama Girl
That little girl "safe and asleep" in Hillary's 3 a.m. phone ringing ad turns 18 next month -- and is a big Obama supporter.
--David Kurtz
BREAKING: Dog Bites Man!
CNN's politics page has a big feature story headlined "Fellow Legislator Saw Little 'Bold' About Obama" with a introspective, solemn pic of Obama. Then you read the story. And the colleague is a guy named Dan Cronin, a Republican.
Shouldn't they have spoken to one of the Republicans who now has positive things to say about Obama? Oh, wait ...
Late Update: Turns out Cronin is actually a member of McCain's Illinois leadership team. (Good catch by TPM Reader TK) At this point, this amounts to CNN being spoofed. Correction or some explanation is in order, guys.
--Josh Marshall
IL-14: How Bad Is it for the GOP?
The election to fill former Speaker Denny Hastert's vacant seat is today.
As we reported this week, the race for what has been a normally safe Republican seat is going so badly for the GOP that the National Republican Congressional Committee -- which is already struggling to keep up financially with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- has been forced to spend more than $1 million to keep the seat in the R column.
The race is so tight that the NRCC yesterday emailed congressional staff on the Hill asking them to send any of their spare interns over to the RNC to do phone-banking for the GOP candidate, The Hill reports. Is that legal? Not clear, but what happened next is a no-no:
A staffer working for Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) apparently broke House rules Friday, forwarding a request that congressional staffers send interns to the Republican National Committee (RNC) to make campaign-related phone calls.The episode started when an aide at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) sent an e-mail Friday to congressional staffers. The e-mail asked the GOP aides to send interns to the RNC to make phone calls for Jim Oberweis (R), who is running for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) vacated congressional seat in a special election Saturday.
“If you have interns sitting around today, please send them over to the RNC...to phone bank for Oberweis,” the e-mail states.
Matthew Lillibridge, a staff assistant in Chabot’s office, forwarded the e-mail to aides in other congressional offices, apparently violating House rules against using House resources for campaign purposes. Lillibridge used his House e-mail address, forwarding the e-mail to other addresses on the House e-mail server.
We'll be bringing you the results on the IL-14 race tonight as they come in.
--David Kurtz
Please
I guess these things run in cycles. But let's get real and admit that Hillary Clinton is getting the free ride of all free rides on her repeated invocations of foreign policy experience. As part of her foreign policy experience Clinton claims "I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland."
The whole quote is as follows ...
You know, I was involved for 15 years in, you know, foreign policy and security policy. You know, I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland. I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo. I've been standing up against, you know, the Chinese government over women's rights and standing up for human rights in many different places. I've served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And I was the only senator of either party asked to be on an important task force put together by the Pentagon under this administration to figure out what to do with our military going forward.
Now, the Chicago Tribune reports that the borders in question were opened the day before Clinton arrived in the region. But the Northern Ireland claim is the kicker. George Mitchell, who's obviously a friend, has called Clinton's role 'helpful', according to CNN. But the UK papers today have David Trimble, a key unionist leader and former First Minister and Irish historian Tim Pat Coogan both pooh-poohing her claims. Coogan says her role was "part of the stage effects, the optics."
These are the sorts of puffed up claims that get other candidates held up to mockery and derision. But Clinton is using them as cudgels in her effort to portray Obama as a lightweight with no experience dealing with foreign policy crises. And basically she's getting a pass. I guess it speaks to the advantages of staying on offense, which can never be gainsaid. But she's still getting a big pass on this and a lot else.
Late Update: Here's the Clinton campaign's argument (with testimonials) about Hillary's role in the Northern Ireland peace process.
--Josh Marshall
Wyoming Caucus Results
We'll be bringing you the latest on today's vote as it unfolds.
The caucus gets underway at 11 ET.
--David Kurtz
Rock the Casbah
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) pulls out all the stops, a trifecta of racist smears against Obama:
An Iowa Republican congressman said Friday that terrorists would be "dancing in the streets" if Democratic candidate Barack Obama were to win the presidency.Rep. Steve King based his prediction on Obama's pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, his Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein.
"The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida ... would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror," King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer.
King said his comments were not meant to demean Obama but to warn how an Obama presidency would look to the world.
"His middle name does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that."
Late Update: That's the AP version above, but it's worth reprinting the relevant passage from the original report in the Spencer Daily Reporter:
King said he would support presumptive GOP nominee John McCain in part because of alternatives coming from the Democratic Party."I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name - whatever their religion their father might have been," he said. "I'll just say this: When you think about the option of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?"
He continued: "I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror."
King thinks radical Islamists will say the United States has capitulated because the Obama administration would be pulling troops out of any conflict associated with al-Qaida.
"Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. That has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict."
He continued: "There are implications that have to do with who he is and the position that he's taken. If he were strong on national defense and said 'I'm going to go over there and we're going to fight and we're going to win, we'll come home with a victory,' that's different. But that's not what he said. They will be dancing in the streets if he's elected president. That has a chilling aspect on how difficult it will be to ever win this Global War on Terror."
--David Kurtz
Bringing It On Herself
The ChiTrib looks at Clinton's claims of foreign policy experience. And the verdict is not a good one. I refer back to my point from yesterday -- she doesn't need to be a seasoned foreign policy hand. But she's setting herself up for a fall when she claims to be.
--Josh Marshall
Canadian PM's Office: Hillary Camp Made No Secret Assurances on NAFTA
I'm starting to think that covering American politics is far easier than covering Canadian politics. But trying to cover the interplay between them both? A challenge of an entirely different magnitude.
This NAFTA story offers no easy answers, no obvious heroes, and a passel of possible villains pointing their fingers at each other.
Here's the latest from the Canadian Press:
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton never gave Canada any secret assurances about the future of NAFTA such as those allegedly offered by Barack Obama's campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office said Friday.With the NAFTA affair swirling over the U.S. election and Canadian officials skittish about saying anything else that might influence the race, it took the PMO two days to deliver the information.
After being asked whether Canadian officials asked for — or received — any briefings from a Clinton campaign representative outlining her plans on NAFTA, a spokeswoman for the prime minister offered a response Friday.
"The answer is no, they did not," said Harper spokeswoman Sandra Buckler.
That response will come as a relief to the Clinton campaign, which has angrily denied that it has engaged in the kind of double-talking hypocrisy of which it accuses Mr. Obama.
--David Kurtz
Dems Hash Out FISA Compromise
TPMmuckraker has learned the outlines of the compromise version of the surveillance bill worked out between House and Senate Dems.
Immunity out. Exclusivity in.
At least for now.
Late Update: So much for compromise. Sen. Jay Rockefeller's office is now saying he would not agree to the compromise outlined by a senior House aide.
--David Kurtz
Democracy in Action
Dems considering getting special interest groups to foot the bill for a mail-in, do-over special election primary in Florida.
--David Kurtz
Wham-Bam
Pocketing the Power firing and back on the offensive again: Hillary says voters should be suspicious that Obama tells Americans one thing while his advisors tell "foreign governments and foreign press" something else.
--Josh Marshall
Can't Let Go
So John McCain has now done a limited, partial rejection of John Hagee's anti-Catholicism. "I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee's, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics." What about Hagee's statement that God is going to use Muslim terrorists to create "bloodbaths" in our streets to punish us for our sinful policies toward Israel? Can he repudiate that too?
--Josh Marshall
McCain Camp Likes Hillary's Phone Ad
At a Council on Foreign Relations event in D.C. today, as a Hillary adviser touted Clinton's foreign policy experience, McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann reportedly chimed in with: "Please keep running those 3:00 a.m. ads about who you want to answer the phone, because we like those."
--David Kurtz
Temper, temper ...
McCain flips out on the Times Elisabeth Bumiller over whether he discussed the vice presidency with John Kerry in 2004.
Now maybe ask about those 2001 discussions about leaving the Republican party?
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader IB responds ...
The bigger question is how did we get here? Obama rolled the dice, thinking he could win Texas and keep Ohio close. Had he done that, the kitchen sink strategy would have been seen as a failure. He chose wrong, and Clinton is making him pay for it. To dovetail on your boxing analogy, I don't think he gets out of the corner by punch back hard. I think he just needs to wait for her to punch herself out. In the past few days she's made some horrible statements (CIC Threshold), and the didn't come from staffers. they came out of her own mouth. She turned up the volume and won in OH and TX. There is nothing saying that strategy will work next Tuesday.
Could be. And there's always a danger of overplaying your hand. But firing Powers was an awfully big tell in my book. And as they say in a different context, hope is not a plan.
Obama-supporting TPM Reader PT is less sanguine ...
I agree with your long account of the Powers flap/Obama floundering.And let me add a further observation: this is not a good way to raise money. First, lose your mo in a suite of big contests - what good did my last donation do, I ask myself? Then, tell the world that you raised $55 million last month - ok, so they have more than enough money now. Finally, let themselves get visibly kicked around in the press and by Clinton. Do they even intend to fight? Do they have any plan? Any determination? Any discipline? Is there anyone even responding to Clinton on this stuff? Does Obama think he can just go out there and answer another eight questions this afternoon? My wallet's closed shut, for now.
I do agree Hillary is a monster - in a cartoonish way, I think it's true. And Obama has turned into a wet noodle. Sad to have to say it about my guy.
But not TPM Reader BH ...
This is good strategy for Obama, not a sign of weakness. What he is setting up is one more in a long list of examples about the difference between the kind of leadership he offers, and that coming from the Clinton camp: Hillary plays dirty right out of Karl Rove's operating manual (see going after Obama on NAFTA-gate when it was her people that talked, thus her vulnerability), while he gets rid of people that stoop to her level. The contrast will be increasingly clear to voters.
Yet another take from TPM Reader TSJ ...
He had to fire powers. His campaign is based on not being the same old politics. Calling Clinton a "Monster" would qualify and they would have hammered him incessantly over it had she not resigned. My guess is The Scotsman screwed her but oh well. The other point is he can't fight back at Hillary in a similar way as she's attacking him. Even on non-slights (The Snub, the writing at the Texas debate) the pundits kept talking about how he was "disrespecting" her. He goes after her too hard he becomes the Angry Black Man beating up on the Poor White Lady. That's a no go. She wants him to get dirty (so she can say, "See he isn't special. He's just like me.) AND she wants to play the victim card (Oh he's beating up on me *tears*). He's responded well to her attacks but they don't get as much play in the media as his attacks on her gets. His campaigning in Mississippi has been brilliant and my guess effective but it hasn't garnered as much attention as Clinton's barrage 'cause it's not the story they want to tell.
I take the point about the standard Obama is trying to set. And in a vacuum, making an example of power might not be a mistake. But in the context of recent days it seems of a piece with the rest.
And now TPM Reader BOM gets in on the act ...
To project on what TB wrote you, Sen. Clinton apparently just made the following comment on the Power resignation “I think Senator Obama did the right thing but I think it is important to look at what she and his other advisers say behind closed doors…” Now, first of all that sounds very follow-me-Gary-Hart kind of comment as we all know her own campaign staffers probably say things that are just as bad behind closed doors.But more importantly, isn't there a point at which the media realizes how conspicuously they took the bait when Clinton complained about media coverage and there is some kind of backlash ? I have been thinking it should come at some point because I don't think journalists like the widespread perception they were easily manipulated by a SNL sketch and this kind of comment makes me think she is on the verge of overplaying her hand by constantly attacking Obama for things that it is easy to prove she is doing herself (Rezko trial that are actual her donors, NAFTA-gate, the comment thing ... and so on).
--Josh Marshall
Thank You, May I Have Another?
Let me stipulate to one thing: if this were two Republicans squabbling, I'd be laughing my head off at the moment. And I can assure you a lot of them are.
The Clinton campaign has gotten so deep inside the Obama campaign's collective head it just ain't funny -- or, depending on your political persuasion, it's very funny.
Late Tuesday night I wrote that the upshot of the March 4th contests was that Clinton had beaten Obama up a bit and he hadn't responded. She'd not only bloodied up his poll numbers a bit by throwing all sorts of stuff at him. She also showed that it wasn't at all clear that Obama was enough of a fighter to stand up to this stuff or get back in her face. More than the delegate numbers, that was the challenge March 4th had left him with.
But since then she's just been slapping this guy around like crazy. She's on the offense every day, dictating the terms of the discussion and getting results.
This "monster" thing is a good case in point. That's a pretty over-the-top thing for a key campaign advisor to say. But what it tells me more than that is that the Clinton campaign has these guys rattled really bad. Some of this is no doubt due to the fact that Power is a bit out of her element. She's more from the academic/policy world than the political/policy world. But, again, rattled. The Clinton folks have been bashing Obama like crazy. Now they follow up by explicitly demanding that Obama fire one of his key foreign policy advisors and ... how, long did it take? An hour? And she's gone.
If boxing is our metaphor she's got him cornered on the ropes on one side of the ring and she's just landing punch after punch. And all he can manage are the defensive moves that her constant attacks dictate.
Just as I was writing, TPM Reader KM sent in this note ...
Can't believe that Samantha Power actually resigned. This is the type of phony "controversy" the GOP/Karl Rove uses to their advantage. Josh famously called it the "bitch slap" theory of politics, and Clinton is using the same playbook. Obama needed to send a signal that these types of fake outrages won't play, but by her quick resigntation, the bitch slap is alive and well.
Depressing.
So true, so true.
Now, one thing we get at TPM is a really front seat view of each side's immediate feelings and reactions to the campaign. The notes come in angry or plaintive or descriptive. And sometimes they're hard to read since we're on the receiving end of some of the emotional turmoil the intensity of the campaign churns up. So from that, I have a pretty good sense of where the Obama supporters are at at the moment. And a lot of the more intensely engaged of them are telling each other that what Power said is exactly right. And I can see why they're mad at Hillary after a lot of what's happened over the last couple weeks.
But you know what? Ice cream's fattening and we all die too. Get over it. This is about getting inside Obama's (the collective Obama, let's say) head, psyching him out, forcing mistakes and then going right back on the attack all over again. Getting the Obama folks pissed and gritting their teeth and off their game is precisely the point.
The Obama folks can either withdraw to a world where the 'new politics' reigns or focus on the fact that here in the real world there are two 'old politics' practitioners standing between him and the presidency and he needs to decide how he's going to deal with that fact.
As I've written before in different contexts, you can't get distracted by the literalism of the moment. To understand how politicking works you need to look not at the often terribly silly discussion points of the unfolding debates. You need to look at the larger picture the engagement is telling people. And right now this one's saying that Obama won't fight back, that he's easy to fluster, that he's weak. And that's precisely why Team Hillary is taking this tack.
Late Update: David Corn's got some more choice thoughts on this whole matter. One key issue, as David explains, is that campaign aides routinely talk about opposing candidates in this way when they think they're speaking off the record, which Power apparently did. It's not clear from the outside whether The Scotsman just flat out burned Power or whether she wasn't savvy enough in this world to understand the ground rules of the conversation.
--Josh Marshall
Power Outage
Samantha Power resigns.
Late Update: The Power kerfuffle: media event or substantive damage to Obama? Discuss.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is scheduled to be completed next month. Will the Administration release a declassified version of the key findings or keep it under wraps?
--David Kurtz
A Firing Offense?
In a conference call just now, the Clinton campaign called on Barack Obama to fire Samantha Power for calling Hillary a "monster."
There are advisers and then there are advisers. Power is Barack Obama's Condi Rice.
A Harvard Law grad, former foreign correspondent, and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Power left her Harvard faculty gig to go work on Obama's Senate staff for a year. It might be a little condescending to say she schooled him on foreign policy, but that's close to accurate. In the constellation of Obama advisers, the 37-year-old Irish-born Power has as high a profile and as close a relationship to the candidate as anyone.
All of which is to say that her intemperate comments have put her and Obama in a bind -- and the Clinton campaign knows it.
--David Kurtz
Crossing the Threshold
It seemed as if it took the networks about half a day yesterday to realize that the most newsworthy thing to come out of Hillary's Washington press conference was, you know, the commander-in-chief threshold comment.
So, belatedly, here it is:
--David Kurtz
Not With My Money
A DNC source tells TPM Election Central that Howard Dean has put the kibosh on the DNC paying for a do-over election in Florida.
--David Kurtz
Warlord
I think Hillary Clinton is definitely qualified to be commander-in-chief of the US military. In fact, I think she'd make a strong one. She had a successful legal career. She participated in key decisions during the Clinton administration. And she's beginning her second term in the US senate. Her husband was qualified to be commander-in-chief too -- at 46 and having spent his whole political career in Little Rock.
But just what on earth is Hillary Clinton talking about when she says she's crossed the "commander in chief threshold" which John McCain has also crossed but Barack Obama hasn't?
There are two ways of looking at what's required for this aspect of the president's job. One school of thought has it that a potential president needn't be an expert on military affairs or foreign relations any more than he or she needs to be an experts in economics. They need to be informed and knowledgeable. But what's most needed is temperament, maturity and judgment. Detailed expertise can come from advisors.
Others think it's precisely the expertise that's needed. So someone like a Joe Biden is the kind of person you want -- someone who's deeply schooled in every aspect of foreign relations and has been at it for literally decades. John McCain has some of that and he was also career military which gives him, at least arguably, some special grasp of the military components of the job. Bill Richardson had at least some cred on that scale based on his time in the Congress, UN Ambassador and general ad hoc rogue regime diplomacy.
Hillary Clinton seems to think she's a strong contender in this latter category. But that's a joke. She's starting her second term in the US senate, where, yes, she serves on the Armed Services committee. Beside that she's never held elective office and she has little executive experience. I think she can argue that she'd make and would make a strong commander-in-chief. But she's pushing a metric by which she's little distinguishable from Barack Obama. I'm honestly surprised she's not drawing chuckles on this one.
A lot of people are seeing red that Hillary's so aggressively pushing the Republican nominee's credentials to be president. And I can see their point. But I'm more surprised that she's pushing an argument she doesn't need to make and frankly can't make credibly.
--Josh Marshall
Bosom Buddies
Atrios makes a good point. It's not just the media's slavering adulation of John McCain. Things like the Hagee story also fail to pick up momentum because name leaders don't chime in on them. In some abstract sense it shouldn't make Hagee a bigger deal simply because Nancy Pelosi says what a lot of other people are already saying. But in the way news pegs operate, it makes all the difference in the world.
In any case, the anti-Catholicism issue is now rising above the radar. But let me draw people's attention back to another Hagee claim -- that it's not just the terrorists we have to worry about mounting catastrophic terrorist attacks on American soil. God is helping them. According to Hagee God is going to let the terrorists create "bloodbaths" in American streets because we're trying to find a peace settlement for the occupied territories which would have Israel alongside a Palestinian state.
So it's not just better intelligence and border security we need to worry about. God is actually helping the jihadists to come kill us because of our sinful foreign policies. At least according to Hagee, who McCain continues to embrace.
You can find it at the 2:19 mark in our compilation of great Hagee moments.
--Josh Marshall
Echoes of Mark Foley
The GOP is struggling to hold onto Denny Hastert's old seat. The election is this Saturday, and the cash-strapped NRCC has been forced to put more than $1 million into the race.
--David Kurtz
Pelosi Picks up On Hagee
Via Nico Pitney at Huffington Post:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent Catholic serving in the U.S. government, called on Sen. John McCain to reject the endorsement of Texas televangelist John Hagee, who has labeled the Catholic church "the great whore," a "false cult system," and linked it to Hitler's Nazi movement."That behavior is outside the circle of civilized debate in our democracy," Pelosi said during a Thursday conference call. "I certainly think John McCain should reject his endorsement and I'm sure it won't be long before he does."
--David Kurtz
Crossing the Line?
Hillary Clinton, speaking today:
“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold,” the New York senator told reporters crowded into an infant’s bedroom-sized hotel conference room in Washington.“I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy,” she said.
Calling McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee a good friend and a “distinguished man with a great history of service to our country,” Clinton said, “Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold. That is a critical criterion for the next Democratic nominee to deal with.”
--David Kurtz
State By State
It's early; it's just a snapshot; some of the numbers are within the margin of error and all that. But these 50 state polls put out by SurveyUSA are fascinating. The topline is that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton beat John McCain by the slimmest of margins (you can see Eric Kleefeld's write up here). But they do it in starkly different ways. Barack Obama manages to beat John McCain while losing Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida -- which I would scarcely have thought possibly (i.e., that a Dem could win while losing those states). Meanwhile Hillary wins in a more conventional way -- judged by the standards of the last twenty years. Most of the blue states are blue and red states red. But where she loses the Pacific Northwest she takes Florida.
Supporters of Clinton and Obama can both take from this that they're backing solid general election candidates but it does show they're very different -- at least at this moment -- in terms of the package of states they'd put together. The maps here are well worth taking a look at.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Campaign Roundup '08, Episode 15
She may have netted only a handful of delegates, but Tuesday's primary wins by Hillary Clinton had a huge psychological impact on the race. And on the Republican side, what is President Bush doing to help out the Dems' chances in 2008? All that and more in today's '08 Roundup episode of TPMtv ...
Watch this episode on YouTube.
--Ben Craw
Head to Head
The political geek in me loves this kind of stuff.
SurveyUSA has just come out with its 50 state polls comparing the head-to-head match-ups between Hillary and McCain and Obama and McCain.
Hillary v. McCain:
Obama v. McCain:
As it stands now, either Dem wins against McCain. Keep in mind this is different than a single national opinion poll, some of which show McCain ahead. SurveyUSA's exercise here is to allocate electoral votes based on its state-by-state polls.
The interesting thing though is how close Obama and Hillary are to each other in electoral vote count. It's only a 4 vote difference, even though Obama carries far more states. The key difference? She takes Pennsylvania and Florida.
Late Update: Before the arrival of emails from supporters of each candidate, let me acknowledge that there is limited utility in this sort of exercise. Some state polls, for example, are within the margin of error, etc. But this is catnip for junkies.
Later Update: We've got a discussion going on the maps at TPMCafe.
--David Kurtz
Is Hillary Edging Toward Call for Florida Re-Vote?
In a MSNBC appearance today, Hillary supporter Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) revealed that he was pressing DNC chair Howard Dean for a re-vote in his state.
Late Update: TNR is citing an anonymous DNC Rules Committee member as saying that Michigan is likely to hold a caucus sometime before the Democratic Convention, to allocate the delegates that the DNC stripped when Michigan held its primary.
--David Kurtz
Exclusivity v. Immunity
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a conference call with bloggers today about the FISA bill and stressed that for her: "Exclusivity is the issue."
Not immunity.
She says she's "absolutely opposed" to immunity for telecoms, but that she "didn't want the fight to be so focused there that we neglect exclusivity." An exclusivity provision would make FISA the exclusive mechanism for conducting government surveillance.
Not clear whether Pelosi would be willing to throw immunity under the bus for exclusivity, but it has that smell about it.
--David Kurtz
Sign of Things to Come?
Chief Hillary flack Howard Wolfson says Obama is "imitating Ken Starr."
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The GOP does financial oversight just about as well internally as it does for the federal government.
--David Kurtz
The Supposed Gang of 50
Obama camp denies that its holds a secret bloc of 50 superdelegates.
--David Kurtz
Something We Can All Agree On
It seems that even in victory folks in the Clinton campaign are letting everyone know that Mark Penn sucks.
--Josh Marshall
Tangled Friggin' Web
Seems the NAFTAgate leak started with -- surprise, surprise -- the Chief of Staff to Canada's conservative PM Stephen Harper. Only the first hint wasn't about stuff the Canadians had heard from the Obama camp. It was about reassurances the Canadians got from the Clinton campaign. According to a reporter who heard the original conversation, Brodie said "someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."
Only somehow this evolved into a story about the Obama campaign giving such reassurances.
The Globe and Mail has the latest details.
So was Hillary bashing Obama for what her own campaign had done? Did they both do it? Was it all a set up? I think the overarching story here is that friendly governments should not interfere in our elections.
--Josh Marshall
Watch This Video
I usually just post our TPMtv episodes once a day. But there was a lot of news today. And this one I'd like people to get a special look at because it shows what an elaborately choreographed joke the coverage of John McCain is likely to be. Barack Obama got seriously tripped up for apparently not sufficiently denouncing an 'endorsement' he didn't solicit from someone he has no connection with. John McCain solicited the endorsement of a complete nut who's got this long history of slurs against the Catholic Church and a lot else. McCain's sticking with Hagee and he's getting a complete pass.
We put together a little compilation of some of Hagee and McCain's best moments. But look at the second one in the list. US policy explicitly supports a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Hagee says that because the US is supporting that policy God is going to punish America by sending Muslim terrorists to America to create a bloodbath in our streets.
God's going to send jihadists to mount catastrophic terrorist attacks to punish us for supporting the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. It's certainly a new twist on the war on terror.
It's pretty amazing what it takes to create a problem for John McCain ... Take a look.
Watch this episode on YouTube.
--Josh Marshall
The Torch is Passed
President Bush's endorsement of and joint appearance with John McCain today at the White House:
--David Kurtz
Don't Let Others Define You
TPM Reader JG takes a contrary view ...
I think the post is only half right. When Obama got called on the NAFTA/Canadian contact and when the Rezko issue arose, Obama's weak and confused response did tremendous damage to white middle-aged, working class voters. I think they are ready to support a black candidate, but they are going to hold him to a higher standard (at least until they establish a familiarity and a confidence in the candidate). Among these voters, they are going to be wary of a slick, young, black candidate.Obama and Axelrod's responses were inept, and they both had a deer in the headlights look about them in
responding. (I think I saw them both on Good Morning America) seemed defensive and incomplete. When the ABC reporter asked Obama about the Rezko loan -- instead of taking charge of the question and putting the issue in context (I was buying a house and I didn't want or need the extra lot and Rezko was a well known investor in that neighborhood and the transaction was fully disclosed and it was an arm's length transaction from which I received no improper benefit from Rezko), Obama let the reporter control the discussion. Axelrod was equally inept at responding to the experience issue.You take a white, middle class, middle aged or older, blue collar worker in Ohio getting that kind of clue,
and they are not going to give the black candidate the benefit of the doubt.To put it another way, Obama is
the new guy, and he needs to define himself. It is incumbent on Obama to make clear that his skirts are
clean and that he is acting above board to keep this kind of voter. If Obama allows Hillary to rough him
up, it's his fault for not responding more effectively.I'm a big Obama fan, but his campaign the last week or so has not been aggressive enough for my taste. I
thought his response to the 3 am thing was weak. He should have gone on the attack against Hillary and
strongly questioned her judgment. The Iraq vote is only one part of the equation, and he needs to
supplement his attack on her with additional examples of her poor judgment.
--Josh Marshall
What Do Texas Dems and Wash. St. Republicans Have in Common?
Readers have been asking about why the Texas caucus results from last night have been so slow coming in. As of this moment, only 39 percent of the caucus precincts are reporting.
Eric Kleefeld called down to Texas, and the Democratic Party tells him, in so many words, that the caucus reporting was voluntary.
Precincts were not required to report results to the state party, but they set up a voluntary reporting system so that the media would have results to report. Nice of them, no?
In their defense, Texas Dems didn't go the route of the Washington State GOP and make a wild-assed election night pronouncement of a winner based on incomplete returns. But at least in Washington State, they promised a final count, and as far as we know, they got one, eventually, one way or another.
But in Texas?
We're told not to expect too much more in the way of caucus returns. Sort of makes sense. If you were going to comply with the "voluntary program," you probably would have done so by now.
--David Kurtz
TPM Reader BC chimes in from the Trenches
One might use different words to describe what BC's talking about, hit the point harder or softer. But I think the essential observation is an acute one. Let's be honest. If you live in the South, and you've got issues with black people, you're already voting Republican. In states of the old industrial heartland, where racial tension crosscuts ties of unionism and economic populism, that's much less clear.
I was canvassing for Obama in OH from Saturday through Election Day, but I still expected Clinton to win. My reasons were in part anecdotal: Despite working with a solid Obama ground organization, I encountered much starker resistance from older, middle- and working class whites than I had in other places I'd canvassed, namely Maryland and Iowa. But this anecdotal evidence only added to the much more extensive sense of the Ohio electorate I got as the field director on a House race there in 2006.The impression I came away with then, and had reinforced last week, was that in today's America race is actually more of a factor in the Democratic politics of "border states" like Ohio, Tennessee and Indiana than it is in the "Deep South." In the latter region, racism has been thoroughly integrated into Republican politics while the kind of counter-forces that would keep racially conservative whites aligned with Democrats -- primarily unions and economic populism -- are virtually nonexistent.
In the "border states," though, you have a collision between old patterns of racist sentiments bleeding up from the South and traditions of populism and white working class unionism bleeding down from the Rustbelt North. Ultimately, I think this means that while you may find more out-and-out racists in Alabama or Texas, you're more likely to encounter latent racist sentiment among a broad segment of Democrats somewhere like Ohio or Tennessee.
If I'm right, this could be at least a partial explanation for why Obama performed better in southern, red Texas than in midwestern, purple Ohio. It could also explain the odd pattern we've repeatedly seen of Obama performing very well in both the states with the highest African American populations and the lowest, but not as well in those in the middle where ethnicities are more mixed.
I think this is one facet of the race/gender issues in this campaign that the media actually hasn't beaten to death -- in fact, they've barely addressed it. We've heard a lot about Hillary's appeal to women giving her an advantage with them, a lot about how well Obama does among blacks, and even some mutterings about whether Obama's youthful and yuppie white support has to do with those groups wanting a "token black friend"; but almost no one has stopped to ask whether Clinton's consistent lead amongst white working class Democrats might have something to do with race. I'm almost certain it played a role in her margins of victory in states like Ohio, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
I'm also not sure what this means if true, either for the rest of the primary or the general. I guess the question for the primary is whether latent racism exists amongst Pennsylvania's white Democrats to the same degree that it does in Ohio. And for the general, if Obama wins, I'd say the question is whether racial suspicions in swing states like Ohio are so strong that a significant portion of white working class Democrat-leaners would ignore their economic concerns to vote against him, or whether it's a more subtle thing that just nudged them into a preference for Clinton in the primary, but will be trounced by devotion to economic progress in November.
--Josh Marshall
The Fur Will Fly
Looking ahead, Mark Penn says to expect lots more negative campaigning from Hillary -- although he calls it "vetting" and "contrast."
Quick question: Is Penn taking credit for last night's landmark Clinton wins? Or is he still just a lowly "outside message advisor with no campaign staff reporting to me."
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Why Can't McCain Quit John Hagee?
There's been a lot of chatter over the last few days about John McCain's embrace of Pastor John Hagee, who's well-known for a history of anti-Catholicism and claims that God will send terrorists to create a "bloodbath" in America for its support of a two state solution in Israel/Palestine. So what is it exactly that Hagee's said and just how much has McCain cozied up to him? We thought we'd put all the choicest moments into one quick video so you could take a look and make up your own mind ...