Oh-eight (D): Obama’s Iowa chasm
Posted: Friday, October 05, 2007 9:30 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
BIDEN: The AP on Biden’s education rollout: “Biden's plan would add two years of preschool to the public school system. It would fully fund Head Start and other early childhood programs, and expand education and nutrition programs that begin at birth.”
Biden’s, whose plan would cost about $30 billion, pledged to be “
an education president.” He also proposed starting teacher salaries of $45,000 a year and his “plan differs from those of presidential candidates Sens. Chris Dodd and John Edwards, who propose, in part, to reform the federal student loan program.”
CLINTON: At least one
New York tab took the new Clinton ad, which shows her at Ground Zero (with a mask on) and viewed as a veiled swipe at Giuliani.
Clinton is now officially leading in the
Hollywood primary.
How does Clinton start convincing folks she's electable and not polarizing? Start telling folks that
support for her among Republicans is growing, as she did yesterday at a stop in Illinois.
Perhaps it was inevitable that the Clinton's inevitability would not start getting questioned on a near daily basis. Today, it's
Scott Lehigh in the Boston Globe who makes the case that the Dem campaign isn't over yet.
EDWARDS: Elizabeth Edwards used an
interview on Air America to attack Rush Limbaugh about his Vietnam deferments and to criticize John Kerry for conceding too soon in 2004. It's comments like these that keep Edwards among the favorites of some in the liberal blogosphere.
NBC/NJ’s Tricia Miller reports on Edwards’ trip to Kentucky: If you needed evidence that John Edwards was not on his usual stumping grounds Thursday, you could find it in the "Beshear/Mongiado" signs lining the highway, the country and classic rock stations dominating the airwaves, and the buzz about next weekend's Civil War days, complete with battle reenactments and a ball.
Edwards spoke at a state park overlooking the Mississippi River outside Columbus, Ky., after residents "demanded" he come during a summer contest on Eventful.com. Columbus, population 229, beat out second-place Eureka, Calif. in the contest. More than 1,200 people showed up for the event, many from out of state, and at least nine yellow school buses were among the vehicles parked on the grass coming into the park. Edwards used the opportunity to emphasize his rural upbringing.
"When I went away to college I thought I was a hick in the big city," he said to laughter. "I thought it because it was true."
Angela Callis said Edwards' emphasis on rural issues was what sold her on him when she met him during the general election in 2004. She drove about 40 miles from northwestern Tennessee to hear him speak at Columbus. "He understands that out biggest assets [in rural areas] are our children, and they leave rural America as soon as they can," she said.
Several local voters said they would support Edwards simply because he honored his promise to come to Columbus. "If he comes to Columbus, I'm going to vote for him," David Bencini, a fish market owner in Columbus, said before the event.
OBAMA: Obama's Iowa plan is outlined today a bit in the
AP: (1) Keep Clinton's support down. Obama has to be careful about how he makes the case against Clinton, since he's campaigning on the need for a new kind of politics of hope instead of rivals tearing each other down. He's been taking the indirect approach - criticizing the actions of the Washington establishment and letting voters and the media make the connection to Clinton. (2) Keep Edwards from surging ahead. Obama's advisers insist they do not see Edwards as a threat for the nomination even if he wins Iowa because he doesn't have enough money to continue an aggressive campaign in the 24 other states that will follow within a month. But if Edwards emerges as the top competitor with Clinton after the Iowa results, it could squeeze Obama out. (3) Continue building Obama's support among both traditional and nontraditional voters.
Obama will have plenty of resources to air television ads across all the early voting states, plus he has a large field staff in those states working intensively to recruit supporters and keep them on board. Hildebrand said 1,900 new supporters signed up the week before the interview, more than half of whom had never caucused
As for the comparisons to Dean '04. "Obama advisers say they learned from the 2004 campaign. While Dean, like Obama, attracted a lot of out-of-staters to Iowa to volunteer, the Obama campaign is careful to make sure that locals are leading the outreach to residents."
Speaking of Dean, there's
an analysis out there that shows Dean donors favoring Obama over Clinton.
NBC-NJ's Aswini Anburajan reports no two events exposed the chasm that Obama’s message needs to cross in Iowa than his speeches at Independence and Decorah on Thursday. While the crowds weren’t quite Main St. versus Wall St, they did expose the two distinct, if not competing sects of the Democratic party, from blue collar, Reagan era Democrats against illegal immigration in Independence to the globally-oriented mindset of Luther College students in Decorah.
In Independence, under a creaky pavilion on country fairgrounds, voters asked Obama about a strike at the local Cargill plant, his stance on illegal immigration, foreign trade, and health care. While Obama was well received, his answers were at times greeted with silence when he said that he doesn't believe in sending 12 million illegal immigrants back to their home countries.
In Decorah, Obama stepped out on a platform amidst a sea of shiny young faces, waving red, white and blue “Os” against the night sky. The senator was introduced by a man that railed against America foreign policy and its role on the world stage, and Obama’s remarks to the crowd of 3,000 people underscored much of his foreign policy message in the past few weeks -- greater involvement in the world with a strong focus on diplomacy and humanitarian outreach
Obama appears to have the 22 and under crowd safely in hand, but it was at Independence where the sell was more earnest and his message of change and hope found it harder to break through the tough exteriors of older voters who’ve heard the same promises every four years.
The candidate talked about
troop benefits in Iowa yesterday.
BTW, no story screams "Drudge creation" more than this silly Flag pin lapel "controversy" involving Obama. Still, "Campaign aides, concerned that the remarks might give an impression of the senator as unpatriotic, first sought to explain them in a short statement. But questions about the comments persisted, and when Mr. Obama arrived here Thursday, he addressed the matter directly to an audience of a few hundred supporters.
“ ‘Somebody noticed I wasn’t wearing a flag lapel pin and I told folks, well you know what? I haven’t probably worn that pin in a very long time. I wore it right after 9/11,’
Mr. Obama said. ‘But after a while, you start noticing people wearing a lapel pin, but not acting very patriotic. Not voting to provide veterans with resources that they need. Not voting to make sure that disability payments were coming out on time.’”
