Oh-eight (D): The downballot effect
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 9:10 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
The Des Moines Register previews today’s NPR Democratic debate. “Organizers say the format of the event - without live television and a studio audience - should discourage the theatrics present during the recent CNN/YouTube debate.” More: “The audio-only debate also sheds light on how television has transformed presidential elections. No longer is the race just about the person with the best ideas or leadership experience. Instead, a complex mix of aesthetic appeal and stature come into play when voters consider a candidate, experts say.”
BIDEN: He said the “I” word again. "That's why I want to be very clear: If the President takes us to war with Iran without congressional approval, I will call for his impeachment," Biden said. More: "I am dead serious. ... I'm saying this now to put the administration on notice and hopefully to deter the president from taking unilateral action in the last year of his administration."
CLINTON: The headline of this
New York Times piece does the damage: "Vulnerable Democrats See Fates Tied to Clinton." According to the story, "Clinton is a long way from winning the Democratic presidential nomination, and over the last few weeks has struggled to hang on to the air of inevitability that she has been cultivating all year. But the possibility that she will be the nominee is already generating concern among some Democrats in Republican-leaning states and Congressional districts, who fear that sharing the ticket with her could subject them to attack as too liberal and out of step with the values of their constituents."
The piece spotlights freshman Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas as an example of someone who could be hurt by the top of the ticket.
Here's a Boston Globe piece by Peter Canelleos that some Clinton foes will likely twin with that New York Times article: “In a decade marked by weightier concerns - and weightier battles - the so-called ‘Clinton scandals’ can seem trivial. And while the Clintons were the focus of the battles, they were not the instigators: The question for the current campaign is whether they nonetheless deserve some blame because of their behavior or their style of politics. It's an open question, and how it gets answered could be the key to Hillary Clinton's fate."
The Clinton campaign was a bit frustrated yesterday that the Iowa State and AP-Pew state polls didn’t receive as much attention as the Des Moines Register survey. But one thing to realize about BOTH polls is that they were conducted over a two- to three-week period and conducted earlier in November before the Register poll even began its survey.
Does the Clinton camp sound like a Republican campaign these days? Mark Penn on "Morning Joe" brought up media bias a couple of times. He never uttered the word "bias" -- but instead said "spin." He seemed to complain, though, consistently during the interview about how others were spinning things, be it the Kindergarten press release or the lack of mention of those older Iowa polls that happened to be conducted before the Register poll but released afterwards.
Meanwhile… “The 125,000-member Office and Professional Employees International Union is the latest part of Big Labor to cast its lot with Clinton.”
EDWARDS: It's profile time for Edwards in the Chicago Tribune. "A tight clutch of advisers say his 2004 defeats and the years that followed gave Edwards the knowledge and confidence to shed caution in what could be his last run for elective office. ‘Urgency’ is the one-word bumper sticker many of them use to describe Edwards '08."
On “Today” this morning, NBC’s Matt Lauer asked Edwards if he has to win Iowa to remain in the Dem race, and Edwards largely ducked the question. He said he experienced a “rapid rise” in the polls in the last 30 days before the 2004 Iowa caucuses, and noted that he expected the same thing to happen in the next 30 days.
OBAMA: In an interview with
Boston Globe editors yesterday, Obama made his electability case. "Obama said that he is capable of winning a ‘mandate for change’ in the general election, while his chief rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, would be too polarizing to capture more than a slim victory. If she is the Democratic nominee, he said the country would see a replay of the partisan contests of 2000 and 2004."
“‘Even if we win, we will have just eked out a victory, and we can't govern,’ Obama said. ‘I mean, if we have a 50-plus-one election, we cannot get a serious healthcare bill done. We can't have a serious agenda on climate change. And that is what I'm trying to break through, and I think I have an opportunity to break through.’”
Per NBC/NJ’s Aswini Anburajan, Obama's South Carolina campaign will have a huge religious rollout today, releasing the names of dozens of religious leaders from across the state and nationally.
“[Obama] outlined a plan that would prevent credit card companies from raising interest rates without giving consumers the chance to opt out of the agreement. Obama's plan would ban rate increases on past debt. It would also prevent credit card companies from charging interest on transaction fees.”
RICHARDSON: It's a little thing, but it does matter: Richardson campaigned in his 99th Iowa county yesterday, making him the second Dem candidate to campaign in all 99 counties. The other is Edwards.
Richardson wants an overhaul of mortgage rules. “His proposal includes a temporary freeze of introductory rates on the most default-prone adjustable-rate mortgages, which he said will prevent 1.75 million Americans from defaulting on their mortgages.”
