From: Dan Pfeiffer [mailto:XXXX@barackobama.com] Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 5:52 PM
Subject: Resumes and Recommendations
While Barack continues to campaign hard in the upcoming primary
states, we have begun collecting resumes for communications staff for
the general election. Pls send resumes of friends and colleagues who
you would recommend to become part of our organization either in
Chicago or in a state to Lauren Thorbjornsen (XXXX@barackobama.com).
Well, I am. Just a little. It's a long time since I found myself traipsing through a General Motors plant in deepest Michigan with Mike Huckabee and wife Janet looking their finest in oversized safety goggles. Janet had blue masking tape around her wedding ring too, another work-place precaution.
Huck stayed longer in his nomination race than perhaps he should have (hmm, who else has that disease?) but finally bowed to the inevitable. Disappear totally he did not, however.
John McCain is a 71-year-old grandfather who describes himself "older than dirt," but it would be foolish to write him off too soon with the 18-29 mob, especially as he presents himself a bit of an environmentalist.
This may be his strongest suit come November, because unlike George Bush he accepts that global warming is a major challenge. On Monday he promised to have mandatory US curbs on greenhouse gas emissions if he wins the White House in November. For a Republican this is nothing less than revolutionary.
"The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington," McCain told the Danish-owned Vestas Wind Technology plant in Oregon as he signed his name on the blade of a giant wind turbine.
Allow yourself to imagine what life will be the like if Barack Obama wins the race to become the 44th President of the United States of America: all that hope, all that change... Gently ribbing the more excitable elements of the press and public following Obama's campaign, a new website offers a few bold predictions of what's in store should the the junior senator from Illinois take the White House in November...
A softer gentler Hillary is on the campaign trail in the mountains of West Virginia. She spent part of Sunday visiting the birthplace of Anna Jarvis, the creator
of international mother's day on 10 May, a century ago. Jarvis wanted a day to honour her
mother Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis who ran a small Civil War nursing home that was open
to Yankee and Confederate wounded. In the summer of 1865, Ann
famously soothed ill-feelings of opposing families in the Civil War by
holding a remarkable service for soldiers and their families torn
apart by the war and calling it Mothers' Friendship Day. Perhaps
Hillary wants to find a way to heal the bruised feelings of hers and Obama's followers after their recent Civil War.
In his first interview since the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, the presumptive Democratic nominee Obama says that the most important thing he could achieve as president would be to deal with Iraq and the threat of al Qai'da in Afghanistan while improving "our influence around the world."
On Israel's 60th anniversary his target audience were America's Jewish voters, some of whom have been a bit cool to him, in comparison to Hillary or McCain. It was no surprise then to hear Obama tell CNN's Wolf Blitzer that when he is president America will stay glued to Israel, "not just for 60 years but for 600 years."
Is there a hollow ring to Hillary's communications director Howard Wolfson as he explains why she's still running? Some now say she has a less than two per cent chance of winning the nomination fair and square, but a much greater chance of blowing the Democrat's chances if she stays in the race too long.
It does seem that what Hillary cannot win at the ballot box she will try an grab in a back-room manoeuvre. This is thanks to her insider access to the rules committee of the national Democratic party. Her strategy, set out in today's L.A. Times, is fraught with danger for the party.
As I wrote in my previous post the political bloggers have been
widely discussing whether Hillary's campaign has reached the end of the
line. Slate and The New York Times have a handy trawl through some of the better blogs that I didn't mention:
"She gave it her all, found her voice, lost her voice, smiled through
her lies, lied through her cries, schemed, clawed, and cackled. But
alas, it was not enough."
While Richelieu at the right wing Weekly Standardpredicts:
"I think she's out in a week or less."
On Liberal Values, Ron Chusid agrees with Thomas Edsall and says:
"At this point she might remain in the race a little longer only to
attempt to raise a little money to offset her debts, or perhaps to make
a deal with Obama to assume her campaign debts."
The political bloggers are on fire today and all they want to talk about is Hillary's endgame. One of the best is the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder's "Reported" blog - yes, he actually talks to people, and has sharp insights into Democratic thinking: "As Hillary Clinton ponders her next move, she is finding that there is
consensus within her inner-most circle about whether to stay in the
race - the answer is yes - but no consensus about why, and for how
long." he says.
Ambinder cites Hillary strategist Harold Ickes who wants her to stay
in the race until the questions of Florida and Michigan are resolved.
Terry
McAuliffe, the campaign's chairman, also wants her to hang on and fight come
what may.
Others say she will not leave the stage until June, at the
earliest:
"It will be much
easier to unify the party after June if people don't feel like their
candidate was pushed out of the race by the press or by surrogates," he
said. "And then the two of them should get together and form a unity
ticket."
America's punditocracy has declared that it's all over for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Foremost among them is NBC's Tim Russert who laid it on the line for Hillary in the wake of the North Carolina and Indiana votes.
Rumours are circulating that Hillary has abruptly canceled appearances on the morning TV shows tomorrow - though a Clinton spokesperson has since claimed she was never booked on any of the shows. Yet it indicates that all is not well at Clinton Central. In an unusually emollient speech (for her) in Indiana last night, Hillary seems to be signaling that she is preparing for a deal with Obama.
Even still, she seemed to threaten to continue her scorched earth policy, demanding that the Florida and Michigan delegates be seated. With little chance of winning the nomination, is she really going to go on and humiliate the presumed candidate in West Virginia and Kentucky?
This is clearly Obama's "comeback kid" moment. His tail's up and he was first on TV last night with a very generous speech, laden with plenty of God bless Americas.
Thanks to a serious misstep by Hillary with her crazy petrol tax holiday, Obama got himself back on message, put the Rev Wright business behind him for the time being and win a big state.
With more than 90 percent of black voters in North Carolina backing him, Obama also sent the superdelegates a message they cannot ignore: the Democrats cannot win in November without black voters and few blacks voted for Hillary in NC thanks in large measure to Bill's race baiting remarks.
Twelve Indiana sisters in their 80s and 90s who have been voting all their lives and who showed up to vote (for
Hillary?) yesterday were turned away disappointed from a polling place because they did not have a photo ID.
What were the authorities thinking, that the convent was a hotbed of voter impersonation? The irony is that the sisters were turned away by a fellow nun Julie
McGuire. The members of Saint Mary's Convent in South Bendhad been told
earlier that they would need such an ID to vote. But true to the
headstrong tradition of the nuns, they came to vote anyway, including
one aged 98.
Hillary's populism seems to know no bounds and like Ron Paul her appeal to disappointed and fearful Americans is increasing. Ron Paul is still in the race but going nowhere but Hillary is increasingly flying the populist flag for him. Ron Paul's libertarian message has a strange appeal for Americans; driving across North Carolina and Pennsylvania over the past few weeks it is Ron Paul flags and banners you see everywhere rather than Obama or Hillary signs. Yesterday he held a "Freedom Rally" at an Indiana university campus and his book: "The Revolution: A Manifesto" began at No. 1 on Amazon.com's "Hot New Releases in Books."
I am just returned from American Legion Field here in downtown Indianopolis - a stunning natural arena of grass with the city's monumental World War Memorial at one end, where the Obama rally happened. I was perplexed going there. My hotel is far from the park, certainly a mile, yet the end of the line to get into the event was virtually at my front door, snaking from one end of downtown to the other. A LOT of people - white, blacks, old and young - were willing to wait a LONG time to see the man. The local news says the head count was 21,000. And when he got on stage finally, Obama seemed like the candidate he used to be before all that tricky stuff - Wright, bitter voters and so forth - shattered his focus. Aides told me the line to get in actually stretched two miles. They also said that in the course of a day attending events here and in North Carolina, Obama also squeezed in 22 media interviews.
If there are moments when you think you might scream if you hear another syllable about the nomination fight between Barack and Hillary that never ends, spare a thought for the voters in the primary states. The television ads are more obnoxious that you could imagine. And they never stop coming. She's a liar, no he's a liar. Lift the gas tax, don't lift the gas tax. And on and on and on. If I could open my hotel window here in Indianapolis, the ageing TV set would already be in a million pieces on the pavement below.
Anyway, it's time to leave my room and find some entertainment. It's Obama time! It's a super tight race here in Indiana - the CW says she will win by a small margin - so he is having another of his mega-rallies downtown. It's a beautiful evening, it's a few blocks away and I'm out of here. Of course I know what he will say more or less, but these things are pretty festive. But there's more. The local TV news reader tells me (between ads) that there will be surprise major star on stage with him. Who?
As the Democrats look into the abyss and contemplate losing the presidential election in November, is it time for a Granita solution to Clinton-Obama imbroglio? The big question is whether a Blair-Brown style pact between the two politicians would be enforceable given the amount of bad blood between them.
The idea is being floated by writer Daniel Altman, a wunderkind economist, author and blogger who advised the British government in 2003 and 2004. He also has two impressive tomes to his name: Neoconomy: George W Bush's Revolutionary Gamble With America's Future and Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy. ["Clever... A revealing view from the trenches." - TIME, "Altman's book offers a Wall-Street-smart and yet deeply intellectual understanding of our amazingly complex and dynamic world economy." - Robert Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance]
The Clinton machine hasn't had to work too hard to portray Hillary as
the real fighter in the race for the White House. In North
Carolina this week the outspoken governor Mike Easley said
Clinton was so tough she made "Rocky Balboa look like a pansy."
Now as she pushes for the blue collar vote in Indiana a union leader introduced Hillary saying the US needed a leader "that
has testicular fortitude."
This whole extended bun-fight to find a Democratic presidential nominee has dragged on for so long, memories of what has actually happened over the last few months have gotten a little hazy. Thankfully the good folk at Slate have provided a brief refresher...
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