"You know and it's a lot of the Clinton people that are putting this out and I really resent it. It's wrong. I believe very strongly that this was a big vote for Obama because he brought a lot of new people in. That's why he won and those people should stop trying to get scapegoats," - Bill Richardson on the Clinton machine's spin.
Culinary workers endorsing tomorrow
The Times reports they'll go with Obama, and that's what all the campaigns expect, though the union — which endorses tomorrow — has managed to hold its cards very close.
If the big Las Vegas union does endorse him, it'll be his first major labor endorsement and perhaps the beginning of a bandwagon effect.The Culinary Workers' parent union had reportedly been leaning toward Edwards, but the Vegas-based organization was courted by all the candidates, and by Bill Clinton, and Hillary was seen as having a real shot at its support.
New Hampshire Turnout 'Absolutely Huge'
ABC News' Karen Travers Reports: New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlan told ABC News that turnout among primary voters today is "absolutely huge" -- and there are concerns about running out of ballots in towns like Portsmouth, Keene, Hudson and Pelham."Turnout is absolutely huge and towns are starting to get concerned that they may not have enough ballots," Scanlan said. "We are working on those issues. Everything else seems to be going smoothly."
"There's a battle in the Democratic Party between the idealists and the interest groups," Matthews began. "And in the beginning of every Democratic campaign for president, there's an idealist who comes forward ... and they do very well in the first offing. ... And then the interest groups get all called in, the meal tickets, all the people that get something out of the party are bussed in, trucked in from out of town ... and they blow away the idealist."
"It has been done so many times," he continued. "Kill the fire of insurgency. And when that's killed, then you go back to the same old interest group politics."
"Once in a while, someone comes along and shakes things up," Matthews acknowledged. "It's a phenomenal thing. And it's going on now. It'll go on through tonight. But at some time, it's going to be really challenged by the forces of the establishment, by the status quo, by the interest groups and the big-money contributors, and they're going to try to put this fire out."
"They will find some way to counter this power. You watch it. It's scorched earth, but the establishment in American politics almost always wins. ... All the people around the Clintons ... are getting together to try to figure out how to stop this.
These are pros, who win year after year.
"They are under threat right now, because if Obama wins, they lose," Matthews went on, turning aside Scarborough's suggestions that this year the dynamics might be different. "If you think it's going to happen, then you are definitely a dreamer.
Maybe I am too. But I've seen this dream die so many times."
"They'll play on every heartstring. They'll make Hillary a more sympathetic figure," Matthews predicted, saying that between now and Super Tuesday on February 5, the newspapers will fall over themselves to give us "the new Hillary, the softer Hillary, the humble Hillary."
"The fawning journalism is yet to come," concluded Matthews. "It's absolutely predictable. ... Oh, it's coming!"
NASHUA - In addition to the as yet unconfirmed rumors that Carville and Begala are returning to try and save the Clintons' bacon (UPDATE: Major Garrett says it's a done deal according to senior advisers in the Clinton camp, which he called "solid" sources), Tom Edsall at the Huffington Post reports that the special interest groups backing Clinton are throwing around the idea of consolidating resources into an "anti-Obama" 527 group in an effort to try and "Swift Boat" the Illinois Senator turned Presidential front runner. Edsall writes:
Three groups conducting independent expenditure campaigns in behalf of Clinton - Emily's List, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) - have explored the possibility of trying to put together a multi-million dollar effort privately dubbed the Anybody-But-Obama 527 Committee, but they have run into problems finding any Democratic operative willing to become the director of a campaign against the man who now is the odds-on favorite to become the party's nominee.This raises a question I've been mulling for a while. How ironic is it that Bill Clinton - once dubbed America's first black president - is now in the position, along with his wife, of having to go negative against a black man who appears to have the first legitimate chance of winning the White House? If the Clintons are successful in snuffing out Obama's insurgency with swift boat like tactics, how much venom and hatred will that unleash against them by progressive activists and the African-American community - and how might that play a role in the general election?
The fall debates will see a respectful Obama listen intently to the elder statesman and promise to consult closely with him, and then he'll turn to the audience and talk about a new era of change that will include the best of the generation that has served us so well and so bravely. If McCain tries to get tough with Obama, the Saturday night McCain emerges, and the GOP is toast. If he smiles at Obama and comments on his youth and inexperience, everyone will hear their grandpa saying "When I was a kid...." and tune out. Turn out the lights on the GOP at that moment.
Dartmouth Students Walk Out on Bill
By Jose Antonio VargasHANOVER, N.H. -- About thirty minutes into Bill Clinton's nearly two-hour stop here at Dartmouth College, a steady stream of students started walking out of the venue.
Moments later, Clinton -- his voice hoarse, sometimes cracking -- took arguably the toughest question of the night, courtesy of a tall, blond 19-year old freshman wearing a bright red sweater. "My main concern is, if Hillary were elected, it would create a dynastification of American politics. Bush, Clinton, Bush. What do you think?" asked Sebastian Ramirez, standing less than a hundred feet from the former president.
Clinton responded, to rolling laughter across the room, "I'm not responsible for the 12 years that the American people gave to the Bushes." He continued: "I actually tried to talk Hillary into leaving me when we were in law school, that's the God's truth. I told her, 'You have more talent for public service than anybody in my generation that I have met... I shouldn't stand in your way.' She looked at me and said, 'Oh, Bill, I'll never run for office.'"
That got a few cheers from the crowd of about 600, most of them students, with their backpacks and books in tow. But many of the students in the room, judging from more than two dozen interviews, are supporters of Sen. Barack Obama. They plan to vote for him tomorrow night.
"I am not anti-Hillary, I am not anti-Clinton, I love Bill Clinton. But I just think we need a fresh start, a new face," Ramirez told The Trail. "All my life I've known the Clintons. As much as I like them, it's time for someone like Barack."
Obama Contacts Kenyan Leaders
By NEDRA PICKLER (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated PressJanuary 08, 2008 1:43 PM ESTHANOVER, N.H. - Between campaign stops in his bid for the White House, Democratic front-runner Barack Obama has been making calls regarding the presidential election and resulting violence in his father's homeland of Kenya.
More than 500 people have been killed in disputes over last week's election in which President Mwai Kibaki was re-elected. His rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga, accused Kibaki of stealing the vote and ethnic clashes ensued.Obama has been working the phones for the past week to urge an end to the bloodletting. He spoke to Odinga for about five minutes Monday before going into a rally in Lebanon, N.H., and was trying to reach Kibaki Tuesday as New Hampshire voters went to the polls.
"What I urged was that all the leaders there, regardless of their position on the election (to) tell their supporters to stand down, to desist with the violence and resolve in a peaceful way in accordance with Kenyan law," Obama said. He said Odinga " gave me some encouraging signs that he would be willing to have such a meeting."
Odinga rejected Kibaki's offer for talks on Tuesday, saying it was a public relations gimmick that would undermine attempts to end the fighting.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, asked about Obama's call to Odinga, said he did not want to get involved in the presidential campaign."Any time you have a person of stature ... who is pushing for a peaceful, political resolution, that's a positive thing," McCormack said.
Obama was coordinating his efforts with the State Department, his advisers said. He discussed the situation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Jan 1. The following day Obama recorded a statement with Voice of America after a canvass kickoff in Davenport, Iowa.
On Jan. 3, the date of the Iowa caucuses, Obama spoke with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Nairobi between satellite interviews with local Iowa stations. Tutu has been in Nairobi trying to secure an end to the violence. Obama spoke Saturday with the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, while in a hold room after a rally in Nashua, N.H.
Obama last visited Kenya in 2006 and was met by large and adoring crowds throughout the visit. Obama's father was an economist studying in Hawaii when he met Obama's mother, but he returned to his homeland when Obama was a toddler and was not around for his son's upbringing. He died in a car crash in 1982.
Odinga told the British Broadcasting Company Tuesday that Obama's late father is his maternal uncle, making them cousins. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Odinga and Obama's father are from the same Luo tribe, but he isn't aware that they are related.
Obama's Kenyan relatives followed the news from New Hampshire via radio reports from Kogelo, his father's home village in western Kenya. Following his win in Iowa Jan. 3, Obama was ahead of rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in polls of New Hampshire voters going into the primary.
Obama said it's important for him to get involved in the situation because of his family connections and because he thinks it's an important relationship for the United States.
"Kenya has been a stable, democratic government in a region that could end up being a base for terrorist activity, for ethnic violence that results in refugees," Obama said. "It could be very destabilizing if the violence there is not contained. And it is, I think, absolutely vital to our long-term national interests to make sure that we continue to see a stable Kenya that can be a partner with us in a whole host of issues, including our national security."
At a campaign stop in Portsmouth, N.H., this morning, a voter asked Clinton how she gets up every morning and keeps at it on the road.
Clinton started out firmly. "It's not easy, it's not easy," she said. "I couldn't do it if I just didn't passionately believe that it's the right thing to do." Then she paused, her voice softened, and she said: "You know, I have so many opportunities for this country, and I just don't want to see us fall backwards -- no."
Clinton's emotions seemed to swallow her words, and the crowd came to her aid with a round of applause.
Her voice still cracking, she continued:
"You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political, it's not just public. I see what's happening. We have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game, they think it's like who's up and who's down. It's about our country, it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together."
Clinton seemed to regain her emotional footing as she turned to her talking points: "You know," she said, "some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. But some of us are right, some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on Day 1, and some of us haven't really thought through enough. And so when we look at the array of problems we have, and the potential for it getting, really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections America has ever faced."
The good news for Clinton: With Mitt Romney having choked up at least twice in recent weeks, there ought to be a limit on how much anyone can make of Clinton's teary eyes and cracking voice. The bad news for Clinton: While Romney got emotional about fallen soldiers in Iraq and the race history of his own church, Clinton seemed to be crying about her own political plight. More bad news for Clinton: Her emotional moment comes just as the evening news shows need a visual representation of a campaign in crisis.
Eight paragraphs into his new stint as a New York Times op-ed columnist, William Kristol, it turns out, has already made an embarrassing error.
His column, which suggests that the Democrats not underestimate Mike Huckabee's chances to win it all, includes this graf just past the midway point, quotes the "conservative writer Michelle Malkin" as saying, "For the work-hard-to-get-ahead strivers who represent the heart and soul of the G.O.P., there are obvious, powerful points of identification."
There's just one problem: She never said, as she was quick to point out herself on her michellmalkin.com site: "Since I never usually appear on the New York Times op-ed page unless someone's calling me a fascist, I was pleasantly surprised to see the quote. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I didn't write what Kristol attributed to me. A different MM-Michael Medved-was the author."
Clinton's National Lead Collapses
The Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows that Sen. Hillary Clinton’s national polling lead has collapsed. Before the Iowa caucuses, Clinton held a 17 points lead over Sen. Barack Obama. Today, that lead is down to 4 points in a survey with a four-point margin of sampling error.
Some Democrats are licking their chops at the prospect of a Huckabee nomination. They shouldn’t be. For one thing, Michael Bloomberg would be tempted to run in the event of an Obama-Huckabee race — and he would most likely take votes primarily from Obama. But whatever Bloomberg does, the fact is that the Republican establishment spent 2007 underestimating Mike Huckabee. If Huckabee does win the nomination, it would be amusing if Democrats made the same mistake in 2008.
The Iowa caucus process is a broken and flawed process. It was designed to allow for the active party Dems generally known to one another to assign delegates and was not designed to handle a flood of students and independents. It was a system designed to give more power to Dem party loyalists. In the tension over whether the candidates should be chosen by the party or by the general public, the Iowa caucus was designed to give the party the advantage. For this reason, the Iowa system failed on Thursday.
McCain Falsely Claims He Has ‘Never Asked For A Single Earmark Or Pork Barrel Project’ For His State »
In tonight’s Fox News GOP presidential forum, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attempted to argue that if elected president, he will eliminate “wasteful spending.” As evidence, he claimed that he has never asked for an earmark for his state of Arizona:
And I’m proud to tell you, Chris, in 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state and I guarantee you I’ll veto those bills. I’ll ask for the line item veto and I’ll veto them and I’ll make the authors of them famous.McCain’s claim is false. In 2006, the senator teamed up with fellow Arizona senator Jon Kyl (R) to funnel $10 million toward the University of Arizona for an academic center named after the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. Even Arizona lawmaker, Rep. Jeff Flake (R), said he was planning to “lean against the measure.” The National Taxpayers Union, another traditional McCain ally, questioned why the senator was making federal taxpayers foot the bill for the center.
In 2003, McCain also slipped $14.3 million into a defense appropriations bill tocreate a buffer zone around Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. As Roll Call reported in 2003, this project violated McCain’s own anti-pork rhetoric:
The only problem is the project to acquire more land near the base was not requested by President Bush or fully authorized by the Senate Armed Services Committee - two of McCain’s criteria for identifying so-called ‘pork.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), a notorious porker, was overjoyed that McCain had joined his side. “One man’s pork is another man’s alternate white meat,” said Stevens. “If he asked for it, we put it in.”
McCain Suggests Lieberman As Possible Secretary Of Defense
In his semi-weekly blogger conference call today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) heaped praise upon Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who has endorsed McCain’s GOP presidential bid. McCain told the bloggers that he would like Lieberman to serve in his administration:
I would definitely want Joe Lieberman to play a part — particularly in national security issues — in my administration.
HRC Campaign Director, Pollster and Blackwater Consultant Mark Penn
Be careful what you ask for
In an e-mail message sent to reporters Saturday, the Clinton campaign asked, "Where Is the Bounce"? The answer: Right here.
Team Clinton based its message, in large part, on a CNN/WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll, taken immediately after the Iowa caucuses, that showed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 33 percent. While that tie represented four points of improvement for Obama, the Clinton team noted that the poll's margin of error meant that there had been "no statistically significant change" in the candidates' numbers "before and after the Iowa caucuses."
"Contrast that with the 17 points John Kerry gained in 2004 in the Boston Globe poll ... in New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses. Or with the 7 points Al Gore gained in 2000 in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, increasing his lead in New Hampshire from 5 points to 18 points," the Clinton campaign said. "New Hampshire voters are fiercely independent. They will make their own decisions about who to support."
Maybe so. But a second CNN/WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll was released Sunday, and that one shows Obama leading Clinton 39 percent to 29 percent. Add the 10 points by which Obama leads now to the four points by which he trailed before Iowa, and you get a 14-point swing -- exactly the sort of Kerry/Gore bounce the Clinton campaign said Obama wasn't getting before.
