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).
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.
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."
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."
There was a collective sigh of relief among Democrats here in North Carolina and across the country after Obama finally stuck it to the showboating Reverend. There is now mounting evidence that he is close to winning the "invisible primary" of superdelegates provided he doesn't trip up again.
In the process Obama appears to have persuaded a majority of elected superdelegates on Capitol Hill to back him. Most are waiting for the primary season to end on 3 June before declaring however. But the writing seems to be on the wall for the Clinton campaign which is now preparing to fold its tent in mid June, it is whispered.
So appalling was some of Hillary's behaviour in the Pennsylvania primary that the New York Times - which still endorses her - described her triumph as "The Low Road to Victory".
The six-week long campaign had plenty of in the gutter moments, not least Hillary's emasculation of Obama before Pennsylvania's angry white males. But there were some benefits to the campaign. One included bringing to national prominence Philadelphia's articulate and bright new mayor Michael Nutter. Black and hugely popular, Nutter remained as steadfast supporter of Hillary throughout the campaign, despite the fact that his city voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
There are killer sandwiches in Philadelphia, candidate killers that is. Remember John Kerry back in 2004 asking for Swiss cheese instead of the Philly favourite "cheez whiz" on his cheesesteak sandwich. He was mocked as an effete snob on the talk shows that Joe and Jill Sixpack listen to from one end of the country. (Kerry was right; by the way the "cheeze whizz" sandwiches are disgusting). But the story, along with the famous photograph of Kerry on a windsurfer did more to damage him than all the infamous Swift Boat attacks by the Republicans. Today there is another Philly sandwich war going on. This time it's between the Clinton and Obama camps at Di Bruno bros famous deli on Chestnut Street.
I'm in Philadelphia, scene of the Rocky, the 1976 film, where the small-time street fighter Rocky Balboa survives 15 rounds with the undefeated World heavyweight champion Apollo Creed. As they go to the polls in Pennsylvania in what seems like the 15th round of a bruising world title fight, everyone wants to know is whether Hillary has finally found Obama's glass jaw and is about to knock him out of the race. A split decision means big trouble for her, given the high expectations that she was going to win Pennsylvania by more than 10 percentage points.
Chick's Diner is a Scranton landmark and its full-on for Hillary. All chrome, red piping and bustling waitresses, Edward Hopper could have painted Nighthawks, his famous painting of customers sitting at the counter of an all night diner, here. This diner is always full by seven in the morning and it stays open 24 hours a day. It's the best listening post in town and on the eve of the primary all the talk in this greasy spoon is about Hillary's pending victory, at least in Scranton.
Lori, my platinum blonde waitress just cannot conceive of a president named Obama. "I just can't see it," she said, to a chorus of approval from the old timers at the counter. "And then when you realise his middle name is Hussein," she said, "No, I don't think so."
Scranton, Pennsylvania is ground zero for Hillary as she tries to keep her presidential hopes alive. Her supporters were out in force this morning, packing into a Scottish Rite Masonic Hall that is now a ballroom to hear her final pep talk. Obama's supporters were out in force the night before.
A huge jump in the number of Democratic voter registrations across Pennsylvania bodes well for Obama as he continues to eat into Hillary's lead. Its an expectations game now and if he deny's her a double digit victory he will have robbed her of the knockout margin she desperately needs to justofy staying in the primary battle. Expect to hear a chorus of calls for her to pull out if she does not achieve a crushing victory.
"I’m not predicting a win. I’m predicting it’s going to be close and that we are going to do a lot better than people expect," says Obama. Listen to the (audio).
The Pennsylvania race is incredibly tight with a poll released Sunday showing Clinton's leading Obama by 48 to 43 percentage points with eight percent still undecided. Could Obama pull it off against all the odds?
That's what his organisers secretly believe, although they are playing down expectations in the media. Over a slice of pizza at Lancaster train station where the candidate had just given a speech on his train trip across the state, one of his top Pennsylvania operatives, who prefers to remain anonymous, was confident of victory or a worst a narrow defeat. He described how team Obama had been operating "below the radar" in Hillary's heartland of central Pennsylvania for over six weeks and had "registered the *!@*# out of the place."
The Jed Report which helped bring to light Hillary Clinton's "snipers in Tuzla" problem has a new three-minute "trailer" that is already breaking records for the number of times it has been viewed. Consisting of old archival footage of
Clinton backing the NAFTA trade agreement (now she's against it) and telling stretchers about Tuzla as well as Iraq and then complaining that Obama is "elitist." The most damaging stuff comes from Hillary's own mouth.
Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News has an important interview with Barack Obama in which he asked whether an Obama
administration would seek to prosecute Bush
administration officials for their role in encouraging torture. The questions were prompted by a recent report by ABC News
that high-level White House officials including
Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell,
John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, met in the White House
to discuss waterboarding and other torture techniques on suspects.
To his credit Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his Attorney General to "immediately review the
information that's already there" and determine if an inquiry is
warranted - but he also worried that
such an investigation could be turned into "a partisan witch hunt". If willful criminality is found, all bets are off Obama said, because "nobody
is above the law".
You might think that - of all people - the chairman of the Associated Press would have the name of the democratic frontrunner down pat. In Washington today the AP chairman Dean Singleton asked Barack Obama whether he would send more troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, where the Taliban is gaining strength - and "Obama bin Laden" is still at large.
The room, packed with journalists, fell quiet as everyone wondered if they had really heard what they thought they'd heard. Obama certainly did and after pausing a moment, he smiled and said "I think that was OSAMA bin Laden." Singleton covered his face in shame as he said: "If I did that, I'm so sorry!"
To which Obama deadpanned: "This is part of the exercise that I've been going through over the last 15 months, which is why it's pretty impressive I'm still standing here." Thunderous applause followed at the discomfort of the AP boss.
Hillary Clinton was quick to speak out against China's crackdown in Tibet, urging President Bush to boycott the Olympics opening ceremony. Her noble position is undercut somewhat by husband Bill's relationship with Alibaba, the Chinese Internet giant. Alibaba now owns Yahoo! China and as might be expected it closely hews to Beijing's line. Recently it carried a "most wanted" posting on its homepage urging readers to rat on Tibetan activists involved the recent riots in Lhasa.
John McCain is a bit like the Duracell Bunny who never stops turning up. While the two leading Democrats engage in a death spiral over the nomination, McCain is traveling the country on his Straight Talk Express, getting to places most Republicans rarely venture, like the inner city and heavily black areas of the Deep South. It’s a tour the likes of which no Republican nominee has taken on before. Here are some clips, first on Letterman (where he announced his run for the Presidency) and then on the back of his bus in footage taken last year:
Mark Penn was in damage control mode Monday, despite getting severely kicked as a hypocrite on cable TV by Obama's strategist David Axelrod (see video), hosting a conference call with managing directors of Burson Marsteller - the British owned PR firm for which he is "Worldwide CEO" trying to persuade them that the media meltdown following his resignation would soon pass. The Huffington Post has the scoop as their reporter listened into 25 minutes of he phone call. Penn made clear that his resignation is really a dodge. This was always in the cards as he is extremely close to Hillary. "I think you've heard that I made the decision to step down as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign. Penn Schoen and Berland (his polling company) is going to continue to poll for it and I'll continue to play a role advising Senator Clinton and former President Clinton as well as the rest of the leadership of the campaign," he said.
The hilarious campaign slogan, "In an Absolut World", showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Many Americans already feel their country is being taken over by Hispanics and it is also the case that these underpaid and often abused workers keep the US economy ticking over.
Mexico still seethes at the loss of that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence. The annexation of Mexican territory isn't something Americans generally feel comfortable talking about. But seeing the ad on various blogs was a red rag to a bull and a campaign was quickly whipped up which could have damaged Absolut's bottom line.
At a time when the Repubicans are gearing up to make "illegal" immigration a major issue in the election and with the Bush Administration pressing ahead with building its famous fence across the wilderness, Absolut Vodka has redrawn the map of North America to show what Mexicans think of all the gringo antics.
This is the sort of video that drives the Clintonistas nuts. OK it's schmaltzy, and the kid is precocious, but it tells a story of how young Americans are being swept up in the cult of Obama.
Spreading like wildfire across the internet is the news that Jane Fonda has endorsed Obama for president. This wont help Obama with the Republicans who detest "Hanoi Jane" who showed up at a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery in June 1972 singing an anti-war songs, while John McCain was trussed up and being tortured nearby.
Fonda was out at dinner and as she exited a video camera was rolling. Someone shouted out "Who are you going to vote for?"
After a moment of silence, the activist actress turned to the cameras, smiled and said said, "Obama".
Hillary has launched another of her famous 3 A.M ads, but this one is directed at McCain who, by his own admission, is clueless about economics. Whats really going on here, it seems is that Hillary is trying to draw attention away from Obama whom she is telling anyone who will listen, has no chance of winning the election.
ABC News' George Stephanopoulos says she told Bill Richardson before he endorsed Obama: "He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win."
"It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade," is how the San Francisco Chronicle described the moment someone asked Bill Clinton about Bill Richardson's defection to the Obama camp. During a meeting with superdelegates, Rachel Binah, who supports Hillary, told Bill how "sorry" she was that his old campaign manager James Carville had called call Richardson a "Judas" for backing Obama.
Obama dropped some heavy hints about his closeness to Al Gore today saying they talk all the time and he would give him a Cabinet-level position or higher at the drop of a hat. It all started at a "town hall" meeting in Pennsylvania when a woman asked Obama if he would use the former VEEP to drive a new policy on global warming.
Democrats are salivating at the prospect of Michael Bloomberg being asked to join Obama as his running mate. Much of the chatter is about Obama's need to shore up the Jewish vote - deeply unhappy over the Reverend Wright business - if he is to take the White House. Bloomberg introduced Obama without endorsing him before the candidates speech on economic policy
at Cooper Union in New York, reviving memories of their breakfast meeting at a NY diner four
months ago.
Interest in Bloomberg's future is at fever pitch among the chatterati but Stu
Loeser, his press secretary, hosed down the idea of
the vice presidency, saying, "He's trying to shape and influence the
campaigns, he's not trying to join one."
Talking Points Memo has performed an invaluable service knitting together key
moments of Hillary's cv enhancing Bosnia sniper story. They have assembled tape of Hillary speaking on the subject on
different occasions, the key video from the trip, what
eyewitnesses have to say and what her aides said. Here in one place you have Hillary, people who were actually there and no Republicans or Obama types lining up to deliver a gratutious kick or two. Sit back and enjoy.
Hillary is pumping
the Jeremiah Wright business as much all she can, while husband Bill puts it about that only she and McCain are patriotic enough to run for president. But as consistently brilliant Talkingpointsmemo.com points out, her latest remarks that Wright "would not have been my pastor" were disingenuous at best.
Get ready for a nasty presidential fight when Obama snags the nomination. A McCain staffer has been fired for Twittering a link to the Obama Wright video seen below. Soren Dayton was kicked off the campaign after texting a link to the “Is Obama Wright” video on the Twitter micro blog site.
Bill Maher is back on form. Listen to him demolish John McCain for his "senior moment" when he confused Sunni an Shia. He tells us that most Americans know John McCain is the one who should answer that phone ringing at 3am because they know he’ll be up trying to pee...
Remember Hillary's really effective "3am ad", about the phone ringing in the White House with some crisis or other and needing somebody already "tested" to answer it. Well here's Casey Knowles the little girl in the video, now all grown up, who it turns out is an Obama volunteer. She has made her own video rejecting what she calls "the politics of fear".
John Edwards
has been lying low since dropping out of the race in late January after a dismal showing in his native South Carolina. Here he tells Jay Leno that he has been using his tractor to clear brush and small trees off his land (what is it about American politicians that they love "clearing brush"? Ronald Reagan used to do it at his Santa Barbara ranch, Bush does it in Crawford and now Edwards is at it in Posh Chapel Hill North Carolina), home-schooling his kids and playing hoops with Obama. But he's still not ready to say who he intends to endorse, Obama or Clinton.
Obama called for a dialogue on race to begin. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and his “Senior Black Correspondent” Larry Wilmore give a flavour of how that discussion might go
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." --Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.
Hillary has been desperately burnishing her credentials as world leader in waiting boasting that she endured "sniper fire" after landing at an airport in Tuzla in 1996. She said, "We just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles" she miss-recalled. The truth is easier to discern in this photo, taken on the airstrip that date. The Washington post's fact checker gives her four pinocchios for telling this whopper.
The Fox News favourite, Pastor James Manning of Atlah World Missionary
Church in Harlem is also a big fan of Bill Clinton who has his office nearby. Here Manning is laying it on the line, calling Obama a “long-legged mack daddy” and much, much worse.
Here in Philadelphia Barack Obama has just given an extraordinarily brave and personal account of the legacy of slavery in contemporary America. No American politician in living memory - least of all a presidential candidate fighting for his political life - has ever had the audacity to open up a discussion on racial divisions in this manner. Its a subject that is normally guaranteed to clear a room or destroy a political career.
Obama is reeling from the growing controversy over his relationship to the firebrand preacher Rev Jeremiah Wright. Videos
from Wright sermons condemning United States foreign
policy and treatment of blacks are exploding on the internet. The backstory to the controversy is that in the 1980s after Obama moved from New York to Chicago to work as a community organiser in poor black neighbourhoods he "found Christ" through Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ.
Here is the leader of the free world in a cowboy hat singing his farewell song at the annual Gridiron dinner for selected American journalists. He mocks the lack of WMDs in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and the efforts to protect his pal Scooter Libby from obstruction of justice charges.
Obama doesn't need Hillary to destroy his image among wavering white voters, his own pastor the Rev Jeremiah Wright (who provided the inspiration for the title of Obama's book Audacity of Hope and presided over his marriage to Michelle) is doing it all for him. Its offensive and paranoid stuff, shocking even, to those Americans who don't leave the suburbs much. Now Rupert Murdoch's media empire is leading starting with this rant in the Wall Street Journal. What the commentators generally miss is is that black churches have their own unique cultural style and Obama explains in his book that he became a member of this church to get a closer understanding of inner city black America.
The audio and video of this tub-thumping sermon at his South Side Chicago church, complete with cutaways of cheering parishioners, is doing the rounds on the cable news channels. It is damaging and embarrassing to Obama who has campaigned under a banner of racial and political unity in which saying the battle is about the past and the future. Oh Yeah? says Bubba.
Here is Mark Penn, a highly paid lobbyist and chief strategist for Hillary saying that Obama "really can't win the general election". Listen to the gall of the man who is on the payroll of public relations firm Burson Marsteller (owned by the UK giant WPP) saying that "if Barack Obama can't win" in
Pennsylvania, "how could he win the general election?"
The Clinton campaign is still smarting from the remarks by Irish author Brian Feeney in Time magazine that despite
her Pinocchio-like claims to have played a role in the peace talks of
the 1990s, "The road to peace was carefully documented, and she wasn’t
on it." Chief witness for the defence is Gerry
Adams, president of Sinn Féin.
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