Oh-eight (D): Obama gets more profiles
Posted: Monday, August 13, 2007 9:09 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
Last week was the GOP's turn to dominate Iowa. This week, it's the Democrats. Both Edwards and Obama have bus trips that will involve some state fair time.
CLINTON: The
AP's most experienced Clinton reporter, Ron Fournier, has a story that questions Hillary Clinton's electability -- not for herself, but for Democrats down the ballot. "In more than 40 interviews, Democratic candidates, consultants and party chairs from every region pointed to internal polls that give Clinton strikingly high unfavorable ratings in places with key congressional and state races… The chairman of a Midwest state party called Clinton a nightmare for congressional and state legislative candidates.”
The
Boston Globe examines Clinton's efforts over the years to build her national security resume. "Clinton has taken extraordinary pains, not only on the campaign trail but in her years in the US Senate, to position herself as the candidate who would be the strongest commander in chief, even as she has infuriated some Democrats who believe her desire to appear tough made her slow to criticize the Iraq war."
The New York Times reports that Clinton's first quarter fundraising take is actually lower than originally reported -- low enough that she ended up even with Obama on total money raised. Of course, Obama outraised her in primary money in the first quarter, but many press reports at the time included Clinton's overall total (which included approximately $6 million in general election money), which was more than Obama's.
It’s not Oprah, but it’s also not bad… Former Lakers’ star Magic Johnson will host a Sept. 14th fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton. Also in attendance will Quincy Jones, Motown founder Berry Gordy, and former Motown Chairman Clarence Avant.
DODD: Fresh from taking shots at Obama during last week's AFL-CIO debate, Dodd goes after Clinton. Here's a direct quote in today's New York Sun on Clinton and health care. “‘So when people say I'm ready to lead, fine, so tell me how you have. And I cite, you know, I know my colleague from New York says this all the time, and I say this respectfully, that she “bears the scars” from what happened on the health care thing,’ Mr. Dodd said. ‘Political scars are one thing. But the scars from mismanaging an issue that people have had to pay [for] because they haven't had any health insurance or coverage for the past 15 years is a lot more serious in many ways. So when you're talking about how that happened, it happened because it was mismanaged.’”
And for good measure, here's another Dodd shot at Obama: “‘When you're reading off a teleprompter at a speech, in front of a distinguished audience, and you pose a hypothetical problem and propose a hypothetical solution to it, which suggests the unilateral action into another country that is a nuclear power, the alternative of which is a jihadist, fundamentalist state with nuclear weapons, that's irresponsible,’ Mr. Dodd said. ‘Who's advising him, first of all? But you ought to have enough sense, beyond a briefing book knowledge of this thing, you don't say those kind of things.’”
EDWARDS: We've said it before, we'll say it again: Nothing gets the media going like hypocrisy.
Politico's Ben Smith may have uncovered some in reporting that News Corp. paid Edwards' daughter and chief political aide, Jonathan Prince, money for the most recent Edwards book. This is in addition to the money the campaign already disclosed and already said went to charity.
OBAMA: The
Washington Post has an in-depth profile of Obama, and it focuses on his meteoric rise. Here's an interesting nugget about his ambition: "And then there's ambition -- a given in any presidential candidate, but worth pointing out because Obama works hard to dispel the image of having sought his superstar status. ‘It's not about me, it's about you,’ he likes to tell his crowds. But according to those who know him, he has been talking about the presidency for more than a decade. ‘It was clear to me from the day I met him that he was thinking about politics,’ says Harvard Law School classmate Christine Spurell.”
Obama will be on the cover of the September GQ -- in fact, it's the magazine's first political cover since '92, when Clinton and Gore shared the honor. Ryan Lizza, now of the New Yorker, pens the piece. From the piece's subhead: "We already know that Barack Obama has what it takes -- the crowd-pleasing charisma, the outsize ambition, the audacity of hope -- to be a serious candidate for president. But does he have all the rest -- the nerve, the political spine, and the will to do the (sometimes dirty) work it takes to get to the White House? That is the question. A journey with the new star of the Democratic Party."
Some interesting excerpts (the piece won't be on GQ's web site until 10:00 am today): "One way to describe Obama is that underneath the inspirational leader who wants to change politics -- and upon whom desperate Democrats, Independents, and not a few Republicans are projecting their hopes -- is an ambitious, prickly, and occasionally ruthless politician. But underneath that guy is another one, an Obama who’s keenly aware that presidential politics is about timing, and that at this extremely low moment in American political life, there is a need for someone -- and he firmly believes that someone is him -- to lift up the nation in a way no politician has in nearly half a century.”
“One of the riddles of the Obama campaign is, to what extent does a candidate who preaches a gospel of changing politics need to run a revolutionarily different kind of campaign? The question has gnawed at Obama since he entered the race. At his very first press conference as a candidate, a reporter asked Obama why he was employing a team of opposition researchers -- aides who spend their days and nights digging up dirt on other candidates and often leaking that info, ‘anonymously,’ to the media.”
More from Lizza after a June speech: "I realize I have never witnessed a politician so genuinely trying to fuse idealism and pragmatism. The theme runs through almost everything he says. ‘But the flip side of it is,’ he explains, hinting at what divides him and Hillary, ‘if it’s all tactics and all politics, and there’s not the idealism, if it’s not touched by that sense of movement, then you actually never bring about change. Then it’s just pure transactions between powerful interests in Washington.’”
RICHARDSON: The
Washington Post's Capehart, who was one of the questioners at last weeks Human Rights Campaign forum, chastises Bill "I'm not a scientist" Richardson for his answer about whether being gay is biological or a choice. Left unsaid in the column was the fact that this was yet ANOTHER case where Richardson showed the potential to melt under the glare of the spotlight. A friend of "First Read" wondered to us over the weekend: "Bill Richardson has winged it all his life and gotten away with it; but you can't wing it when running for president."
