Oh-eight (D): 'No whining in politics!'
Posted: Friday, November 02, 2007 9:13 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Democrats
BIDEN: Biden and Gravel filed to be on the New Hampshire ballot yesterday.
CLINTON: Here's the New York Times’ coverage of her speech at Wellesley yesterday.
The
Washington Post's Ruth Marcus thinks the gender card is not appropriate: "Please. The Philadelphia debate was not exactly a mob moment to trigger the Violence Against Women Act; if anything, this has been an overly (pardon the phrase) gentlemanly campaign to date. Those other guys were beating up on Clinton, if you can call that beating up, because she is the strong front-runner, not because she is a weak woman… And a candidate as strong as Clinton doesn't need to play the woman-as-victim card, not even in "the all-boys club of presidential politics," as Clinton called it."
The New York Sun's Gerstein notes, "The Clinton campaign's use of gender in its response to the debate could play well in the Democratic primary, in which about 60% of voters are women. However, if such talk alienates men, it could hurt Mrs. Clinton in the general election, where winning male votes will be more critical."
Adds conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin: "This after the fact whining hardly seems an appropriate response from an empowered and confident woman to the normal verbal sparring that accompanies every campaign. Her Republican counterparts joust with one another on a range of issues from immigration to taxes and routinely question each other’s consistency and credibility. In the general election will the GOP nominee expected to play by different rules when Hillary is the opponent? … So the lesson for her Democratic rivals and her eventual Republican opponent is plain. She doesn’t like it when the guns are turned on her and will complain bitterly about the mean fellow(s) making her uncomfortable. The smart opponent will ignore the histrionics and recognize those signs as evidence his attacks have landed. And when all else fails, a new adage may be in order: “There’s no whining in politics!”
Salon's Scherer has a smart piece calling this week the beginning of the main event of this campaign. And here’s the main storyline we've all been waiting for: " Can anyone -- Democrat or Republican -- stop Clinton? And can anyone, besides faithful Hillary supporters, deal with the Hillary fatigue to come?"
"For the next two months, in the clumsy holiday stumble toward the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the specter of Clinton is destined to overwhelm the nation's news broadcasts, the pundit round tables and the cluttered debates. For both Republicans and Democrats, she will lurk behind all discussions, testing the willpower and endurance of the American people. The hatred she can summon, the hope she can inspire, all of it, will be on display day after day. And no matter how they feel about her, voters will be forced to endure sense memories of the '90s, flashing back to that era's exhausting fog of anti-Clinton rhetoric."
“The group Emily’s List, which supports women who back abortion rights, will try to reach as many as 100,000 women who might support the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Has Clinton now lost the Bush family's faith in her ability to get the Dem nod? Bush 41 is suddenly not so sure.
The Clinton campaign's courtship of one-time enemies continues. First there was David Brock (now an ally at the liberal watchdog group Media Matters), then Matt Drudge (to whom the campaign regularly leaks), and now Richard Mellon Scaife's one-time journalistic hit man, Chris Ruddy. Bill Clinton is sitting down with Ruddy for an interview in Newsmax.
Is this the Clinton campaign's effort to prove they won't be as divisive as some of their opponents are trying to argue?
Bloomberg News looks at the lawsuits by -- and against -- Clinton fundraiser and friend Ron Burkle. “The bitter allegations are detracting from the benevolent image Burkle is cultivating through his philanthropic foundations and donations and his friendship with Bill Clinton. Until last year, Clinton was an adviser to three of Burkle's funds, helping scout investments and other tasks. “The former U.S. president remains a frequent houseguest at Green Acres, Burkle's mansion, and a passenger on Burkle's private Boeing 757. Burkle jokes he stages so many soirees -- including a March fundraiser for Hillary Clinton -- that he's made his landscaper wealthy from repairs to the estate's lawns.”
Under the headline, “Clinton faces China grill,” the New York Post writes: “The feds are eyeing a Chinatown donor to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign to see if she was ‘coerced’ into being a front for someone else's contribution.”
The New York Daily News headlines the AP story: “Hillary Clinton Chinatown donors get visit from Justice Dept.”
DODD: “Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, lagging far behind the leading Democratic challengers in the fundraising race, tried a chatty strategy on Thursday in an e-mail with the subject line: ‘Fw: Re: Update?’ The e-mail purports to pass along an e-mail chain that includes messages between two staff members.
EDWARDS: The Edwards campaign continues to try and force its way into the Clinton-Obama dynamic and turn the race into the competitive three-way race it is in Iowa. "For the better part of 10 months or so, the press has pretty much showcased this race as a Clinton-Obama campaign," Joe Trippi, a top Edwards adviser, told the
Daily News. "The clear choice really is Clinton and Edwards."
The campaign is now
officially eligible for matching funds from the FEC. He can't receive the money until January 2, but he can borrow against the note now, which is what the campaign is likely to do.
GORE: The DraftGore campaign is going to start running TV ads to try and lure the former veep and Nobel Prize winner into the race. “In the ad, an announcer says: ‘Imagine what tomorrow can be. Imagine a renewed world, an end to the war in Iraq. Imagine Al Gore as president ... Call him. Write him. Seize the moment.’”
OBAMA: The Illinois senator is up with a new TV ad in New Hampshire. Per NBC/National Journal’s Aswini Anburajan, The 30-second spot shows Obama telling a small crowd of people, "This Administration has further divided Wall Street from Main Street." Obama then turns to the camera and calls American workers "the bedrock" of the economy.
Bloomberg News profiles Michelle Obama. "Fifteen years after Clinton drew comment and condemnation as the standard-bearer of a new generation of professional women, Michelle Obama's juggling of professional life, motherhood and the duties of political spouse make her something of a modern-day everywoman. ‘I don't think it's that unusual anymore,' Obama said in an interview between campaign stops in Clarion, Iowa, last week. ‘It's not that Hillary and I have so much in common, it's just that we're in a generation now where a lot of women go to school, they develop these wonderful careers, they have their professions in their own rights.’”
