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For the purpose of this diary, we assume that Hillary gets nominated, which should offend nobody because there's an Obama version.
Please use this thread to discuss who you'd like to and expect to see Hillary Clinton choose for a running mate if she's nominated, but not to discuss whether or not she is likely to be nominated--we have plenty of other threads for that.
For the purpose of this diary, we assume that Obama gets nominated, which should offend nobody because there's a Hillary version.
Please use this thread to discuss who you'd like to and expect to see Barack Obama choose for a running mate if he's nominated, but not to discuss whether or not he is likely to be nominated--we have plenty of other threads for that.
Know how every time we have a contest, the media says it will change everything, and then it changes nothing?
Barack Obama won today's caucuses in Guam. By seven votes (2264-2257). I say this totally changes everything and Hillay should drop out after getting a miserable 49.9% in crucial Guam.
Furthermore, while most candidates don't care about Guam because, by my guess, they don't know where it is, Hillary Clinton doesn't care because it's a caucus, and who cares, it's just activists, and as Jon Stewart says, "I mean, ACTIVISTS, those are merely the people who care the most!"
I know we're all (myself very much included) wrapped up in our national nominating contest and our sunny-outlook in-state politics, but let us take a moment to remember the tragedy that has been all but forgotten in recent months: Iraq. What happened to the fire on this issue? We as a nation were united against this war, and then the monthly death toll stopped breaking records, and the election picked up speed, and all of a sudden it's not on people's minds anymore. 52 American soldiers were killed in Iraq in April 2008, the deadliest month since September. This is what we're fighting for. This is the tragedy hanging over all of us. This is the atrocity behind so many of our other problems, domestically and internationally.
So, as many are aware, on Saturday the remainder of New Hampshire's Democratic National Convention delegation was chosen (interestingly, a matter of some contention, affirmative action rules gave the Clinton campaign New Hampshire's seat on the Credentials Committee by default), followed by the unanimous selection of superdelegate Ray Buckley to be Chair of the delegation. Also, the state Democratic committee met, choosing two new DNC members: State Senator Peter Burling was elected, defeating incumbent Gaetan DiGangi (who graciously asked that the vote be recorded as unanimous for Burling), and our own Kathy Sullivan was elected unanimously and unopposed.
Congratulations to the new delegates and DNC members (and to both of the new DNC members, who were each chosen to be a delegate today as well), and don't forget to pre-register for the State Democratic Convention, coming up on May 17.
Nice to meet those of you I saw today, and sorry to those I saw and didn't get to introduce myself to--I'm sure everyone here is looking forward to next Saturday.
Edit: I had forgotten to reflect that Sen. Burling, too, was chosen to be both a DNC member AND a delegate today--I fixed it after being reminded by the Chairman's comment below.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are becoming better and better commentators even as quickly as we lose respect for the people paid for their expertise (as opposed to those paid to be funny). On Wednesday's The Colbert Report, Stephen brought up an interesting point: the Clinton for President campaign has about as much chance for success as US involvement in Iraq. About the first 50 seconds of this video is making fun of all the Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts behind Obama during his speech on Tuesday; the rest is pure gold, and it's at least as insightful as it is funny.
While I hope people find that video as compelling and worthy of discussion as I do, this is an open thread.
The Ticker is reporting that McCain has hired the head of Rudy!'s New Hampshire effort, Jennifer Hallowell, to head up the presumptive Republican nominee's campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Fergus! had this to say, in the Ticker comments, about McCain's new "regional campaign manager":
Jennifer is a pro and a great asset for any team. Jennifer was a pleasure to work with in NH, and the McCain team is lucky to have her talent and worth ethic helping them. Good pick up, Team McCain.
To the many hamsters who never miss a chance for dry humor, this is your cue.
I thought the hamster community would enjoy seeing this:
http://marcambinder.theatlanti...
On one level, Democrats are falling behind Republicans in preparing for the general election.
Rick Davis, McCain's election manager, said today that McCain already had paid staff on the ground in battleground states. The campaign has at least one office open - in New Hampshire. Regional campaign managers are working with the Republican National Committee to write plans for two dozen state campaigns.
But Democrats have the Atlas Project.
For more than a year, three of the party's most respected strategists, Steve Rosenthal, Mary-Beth Cahill and Michael Whouley have spent million to prepare a detailed roadmap on running and winning presidential campaigns in fifteen battleground states. (Chris Cillizza has been the closest chronicler of the AP.) These three and their staff work closely with the Democratic National Committee, state parties, the AFL-CIO and the party's legacy interest groups to collect very bit of data about previous elections, voting trends, demographics, historic media buys. Then, working with consultants from each of the states, they wrote preliminary election plans. The plans contain more than just vote goals and targeting schemes; they include must-know items like the identities of all the union printers in the states. In Michigan, the plans include the dates of legal hunting seasons and football schedules for the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. "These are the things you need to know to hit the ground running," Rosenthal said.
The active phase of Atlas Project begins now. Whouley and Cahill are working with the DNC; they've already briefed the Democratic presidential campaigns. When the nominee is crowned, he or she will immediately receive access to the project's detailed vote goal scenarios and voter contact budgets and plans.
The Democrats have never done this before on a national scale - just ask any Kerry-Edwards '04 state director whether they were handed detailed, integrated, fully updated campaign plans when they scrambled to put their coordinated campaigns together in 2004. Rosenthal will work with outside political groups like the Fund for America and America Votes; the company, he said, has built a firewall to prevent the party from learning about his side of the operation.
The project wrote atlases for 15 states - CO, VA, NH, IA, WI, MN, OH, PA, MI, MO, WV, FL, AZ, NM, and NV - they've stopped updating their Arizona database because they expect Sen. John McCain to win.
Please click the link above, I don't like having the whole thing here but I can't figure out which parts to trim; it's very concise.
Congratulations. Each of you is one of three people who might be the next President of the United States. You have each come very far, and each are extremely formidable, both against each other and against Senator McCain. It seems, however, that the debates of late have been hurting you, have been hurting the Democratic Party, have been hurting our national dialogue, and have been hurting the democratic process. For this, neither of you is to blame. The for-profit broadcast media companies which have hosted these debates have abdicated their responsibility to engage in adult discourse about our nation's most pressing issues, and have instead squandered their time attempting to catch one of you making a mistake in order to create a candidate-destroying sound bite. This is unacceptable. The following is an unscientific poll of the New Hampshire progressive activist community, which I expect will express our support for all future debates being moderated and controlled by either print journalists or non-profit organizations such as C-SPAN, offering a feed to any network wanting it, in which no organization influencing the debate profits from high ratings or selling sound bites to the 24-hour news networks. This will help you, help your opponent, help our party, and help our country, and so we ask that you insist upon these conditions for future debates. Thank you for your attention and for your service, and good luck moving forward.
In the Pennsylvania debate, both candidates pledged not to raise taxes on people making under 200k, and CNN thinks it's a big deal. I disagree. Pledges taken by prompt in debates that nobody watches will not matter after the election is over, particularly because there have been so many excruciating debate.
But we in New Hampshire have plenty of experience with pledges, by candidates for every level of government
I hate pledges. Not because I'm against the policy every pledge advocates, but because a pledge puts candidates in a box whether or not they take them. If a politician takes a pledge and reneges, they're called a liar. If a politician refuses to take a pledge, they're not to be trusted on the issue. If a politician refuses to give one-word answers on every issue, they're a wishy-washy flip-flopper.
Some things are more complicated than binary commitments whose parameters are decided by TV producers. This watered-down politics of sound bites is a cancer on our national debate.
Again and again and again, John McCain repeats the falsehood that Al Qaeda is Shiite (it is Sunni), and that they are being aided by Shiite Iran (which is definitely not true). Remember just a few weeks ago when he said it, and Lieberman corrected him? Didn't take.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
I don't care how many years he spent in Hanoi or how many years he's spent in Washington; the man can't claim to be the best choice for President based on experience if that experience hasn't given him even the most basic knowledge of his cornerstone issue.
At this point, it is unacceptable for any member of Congress not to know that Al Qaeda is Sunni, that the Iranian government is Shiite, and that they do not get along, let alone a major party nominee for President who has been an extremely prominent Senator for decades.
First Lady Laura Bush announced this week that when she and the former President (WOW I can't wait to start calling him that) leave the White House, they will move to Dallas.
( http://www.dallasnews.com/shar... )
I didn't realize there was brush to be cleared in Dallas.
Ever since General Petraeus took over in Iraq and was launched into the national spotlight, our political leaders have been unanimous in one thing: Petraeus is a respectable and competent person. As such, the extremely unpopular President is able to hide behind his apolitical military experts by forcing them to promote his extremely politically volatile agenda.
This President, who promised to unite us, has introduced political partisanship into nearly every aspect of government--including the military. And now he sends a General to promote his war, and the Congress allows it by questioning Petraeus on the advisability of continuing.
It's not a General's job to decide whether a war is worth it. It's his job to decide how to carry out the policy put forth by political leaders. This President is using the apolitical credibility of a respectable military figure to promote an agenda that he himself doesn't have the political capital to champion.
That is an abomination. The President owes an apology to the General and all members of the military, current and former, for what he has done to their credibility.
It's not much, but it's the right thing to do. Paul Hodes is calling on President Bush to boycott the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing, and Nancy Pelosi is telling him to consider it. I know it's only symbolic, but for all we've lamented our Democratic leadership in the Congress not standing up for what is right recently, this is a step in the right direction.
If you can, now is a good time to show your support for Hodes. Don't forget to do it via ActBlue in the left column.
EDIT: Colbert really took the whole situation to task last night.
In the latest PPP poll on the Democratic Primary in Pennsylvania, taken 3/31-4/1, Barack Obama overtook Hillary Clinton among likely Democratic Primary voters. The last PPP poll in Pennsylvania, taken 3/15-3/16, showed a 26 point lead for Clinton (56 to 30), the greatest margin between the two of any Pennsylvania Democratic Primary poll listed on Pollster.com going all the way back to January 2007. While Obama's 2-point lead (45 to Clinton's 43) is within the 2.8% margin of error, this poll is not an outlier, as many in recent weeks have been showing Obama making gains. A Rasmussen poll with a considerably smaller sample taken on 3/31 showed Clinton with a five-point lead, at 47 to 42. Both polls show that more than 10% of likely voters are undecided. Furthermore, Obama leads in all age groups save the oldest.
While it is likely that Obama has not taken a definitive lead in PA, the fact remains that he has gained 28 points in two weeks, and there are nearly three weeks left until Pennsylvanians go to the polls.
http://www.pollster.com/08-PA-...
On a personal note, while I often rail against polls as being unreliable and a negative influence on politics, the fact remains that we're outside observers and this is still better than listening to the same James Carville-Jamal Simmons argument 24 hours a day.
It's a simple question, really. Do you think the so-called Dream Ticket (Clinton and Obama together) is the best-case scenario? I'm not asking if you think it's a worthwhile idea, only if it is, in fact, your personal dream ticket. Personally, it's not mine.
By Bill Richardson
Tuesday, April 1, 2008; 10:29 AM
My recent endorsement of Barack Obama for president has been the subject of much discussion and consternation -- particularly among supporters of Hillary Clinton.
Led by political commentator James Carville, who makes a living by being confrontational and provocative, Clinton supporters have speculated about events surrounding this endorsement and engaged in personal attacks and insults.
While I certainly will not stoop to the low level of Mr. Carville, I feel compelled to defend myself against character assassination and baseless allegations.
Carville has made it very clear that this is a personal attack -- driven by his own sense of what constitutes loyalty. It is this kind of political venom that I anticipated from certain Clinton supporters and I campaigned against in my own run for president.
I repeatedly urged Democrats to stop attacking each other personally and even offered a DNC resolution calling for a positive campaign based on the issues. I was evenhanded in my efforts. In fact, my intervention in a debate during a particularly heated exchange was seen by numerous commentators as an attempt to defend Sen. Clinton against the barbs of Sens. Obama and John Edwards.
As I have pointed out many times, and most pointedly when I endorsed Sen. Obama, the campaign has been too negative, and we Democrats need to calm the rhetoric and personal attacks so we can come together as a party to defeat the Republicans.
More than anything, to repair the damage done at home and abroad, we must unite as a country. I endorsed Sen. Obama because I believe he has the judgment, temperament and background to bridge our divisions as a nation and make America strong at home and respected in the world again.
This was a difficult, even painful, decision. My affection and respect for the Clintons run deep. I do indeed owe President Clinton for the extraordinary opportunities he gave me to serve him and this country. And nobody worked harder for him or served him more loyally, during some very difficult times, than I did.
Carville and others say that I owe President Clinton's wife my endorsement because he gave me two jobs. Would someone who worked for Carville then owe his wife, Mary Matalin, similar loyalty in her professional pursuits? Do the people now attacking me recall that I ran for president, albeit unsuccessfully, against Sen. Clinton? Was that also an act of disloyalty?
And while I was truly torn for weeks about this decision, and seriously contemplated endorsing Sen. Clinton, I never told anyone, including President Clinton, that I would do so. Those who say I did are misinformed or worse.
As for Mr. Carville's assertions that I did not return President Clinton's calls: I was on vacation in Antigua with my wife for a week and did not receive notice of any calls from the president. I, of course, called Sen. Clinton prior to my endorsement of Sen. Obama. It was a difficult and heated discussion, the details of which I will not share here.
I do not believe that the truth will keep Carville and others from attacking me. I can only say that we need to move on from the politics of personal insult and attacks. That era, personified by Carville and his ilk, has passed and I believe we must end the rancor and partisanship that has mired Washington in gridlock. In my view, Sen. Obama represents our best hope of replacing division with unity. That is why, out of loyalty to my country, I endorse him for president.
The writer is governor of New Mexico and a former Democratic candidate for president.
Interesting words from John McCain, the Presidential candidate who believes in "a million years" in Iraq, is against gay rights, supported Bush for RE-election in 2004, gave a speech this week on how it is not the job of the government to help people, and so much more.
Let us take a moment to list the issues on which John McCain clearly chooses dogma over common sense. It'll save some work for people like Howard Dean and Ray Buckley.
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