The delegate fight: Exaggerations…
Posted: Monday, March 24, 2008 9:45 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The Washington Post does some resume busting on both Obama and Clinton, writing about instances where both Clinton and Obama embellished their roles in various policy fights.
AP: “Clinton and Barack Obama took a much-needed rest from their presidential campaigns on Easter Sunday as their tight race for the Democratic nomination looked set to drag on for months. Republican John McCain, who has locked up his party's nomination, returned from an overseas trip where he tried to polish his foreign policy credentials and prepared for a fundraising swing through Western states this week.” More: “Clinton took Friday through Sunday off from active campaigning and was scheduled to resume events in Pennsylvania on Monday. Obama, who campaigned in Oregon on Saturday, was taking a vacation with his family and would not return to active campaigning until Wednesday in North Carolina.”
Sen. Arlen Specter urged Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the passport breaches of all three presidential candidates, “saying the breach could be a violation of several federal criminal statutes. Specter also indicated that the Judiciary Committee might take a look as well. ‘Privacy is a very fundamental matter. And if you can't have privacy for Senator McCain and Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, so what's the average person facing?’ he said.”
The Boston Globe profiles James Roosevelt, co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. He was called “unflappable” and “perfect” for the job by supporters of both Clinton and Obama. When it’s formed in June, Roosevelt will also co-chair the convention credentials committee, which is where the Florida-Michigan fight goes if it’s not settled beforehand. Roosevelt "is going to have to be Jesus and Moses all at the same time, and maybe Solomon, too,” said Don Fowler, the 1995 party chairman, who appointed Roosevelt to the RBC co-chairmanship.
Salon's Walter Shapiro laments the Dem primary calendar. "With more than five months to the Denver Convention, the problem for the Democrats remains the crazy-quilt schedule that caused far too many to vote too soon. That is the real buyer's remorse -- a front-loaded political calendar that has turned most partisan Democrats into now-irrelevant bystanders just when a real decision is needed."
NORTH CAROLINA: NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann notes, Obama may be favored to win here based on demographics, but the Carolina press corps is not shy about painting this one as a squeaker. Recent articles call the race "unexpectedly tight."
PENNSYLVANIA: The Boston Globe reports on Obama’s goal securing the popular vote lead. “Obama's campaign has given every indication that he does not expect to win the most delegates when Pennsylvania votes on April 22, due to an overwhelmingly white, working-class electorate that has already given Hillary Clinton a sizable lead in some polls. But Obama's team has put to work an intense registration program designed to achieve a broader strategic goal: limiting the scale of Clinton's win to maintain Obama's national edge in the number of total votes cast in the Democratic primaries.
The Washington Times notes the two Dem candidates may be pressed on their gun stances by Philly Dem leaders. Of course, what city leaders want to hear about guns may not be what rural leaders want to hear.
NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan notes today marks the last day that voters in Pennsylvania can change their registration to vote in the closed Democratic primary on April 22nd. It's a critical date for the Obama campaign, which has been running a not quite under the radar voter registration drive, aggressively recruiting Independents and Republicans to participate in the Democratic primary. For the week of March 10th alone, 22,152 people changed their registration to Democratic, according to the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's website. Since February 5th, the number of newly registered Democrats has spiked, with several thousand registering every week. The campaign's effort in recruiting volunteers through email appeals to supporters is clearly working. From mid February when over 4,800 Democrats had changed their party, the number nearly doubled by the first week of March when over 8,600 voters registered as Democrats.
But in looking at the numbers, there should be a word of caution before assuming that Republicans and Independents could tip the Democratic primary. New voter applications have also spiked. The week of the Potomac primaries, over 10,000 people registered to vote, when Obama was riding high on a winning streak. That number was doubled on the week of March 10th, when over 20,000 people registered to vote following Clinton's wins in Texas and Ohio. Several thousand voters have been registering to vote in Pennsylvania every week since the first of the year.
Some more PA news and notes from NBC/NJ's state-based reporter Matthew Berger:
Obama says he’s going to treat Pennsylvania like it’s Iowa. "Hopefully, I'm going to be able to go back to that style of meeting people one-on-one and in small groups, having conversations," Obama said in an interview with The Inquirer late Friday. "That approach works well for me."
*Obama spent about $330,000 to run the new ads in Philadelphia through today’s voter registration deadline.
*The 60-second ad, “Opportunity,” focuses on his work for change. His two 30-second ads key in on his efforts to taking on special interests and uniting Democrats and Republicans.
*Both campaigns registered voters throughout the weekend. “According to state voting records, Democratic registration has soared across the state since last fall. From November through March 10, enrollment has increased by 111,000 - a roughly 3 percent bump.”
*Allentown mayor Ed Pawlowski hasn’t endorsed yet, and said he’ll likely endorse the first candidate to make their way to his neighborhood.
