April 2008 - Posts
From NBC/NJ’s Carrie DannHOPE MILLS, N.C. -- Jackals, no. But maybe spies.
In the first time Bill Clinton has ever publicly acknowledged the existence of his small and battle-hardened traveling press corps, President Bill Clinton noted today that his treks through rural America have expanded the horizons of the intrepid reporters who follow him.
"Some of the people that are embedded with me -- that's what you call the press that hafta follow you around," explained the former president, as your NBC reporter and her ABC colleague snapped to disbelieving attention from their seats on the distant press riser.
"The embeds," he repeated to the audience with a giggle. "Sounds kinda like a spy, doesn't it?"
"Spy" may be more flattering than the terms used behind closed Escalade doors about the reporters who track him. The phrase "media jackals" has recently been bandied about in a recent report about how the one-time president feels about the press members in question.
"Anyway," he continued in the inaugural shoutout to the campaign reporters who record his every move. "They see more of small-town America than they ever dreamed they would."
From Hope Mills, N.C. (population: 11,237). I have to say that, for once, he's absolutely right.
From NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy
ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- After admitting that his gas tax holiday was not a “panacea,” saying that it will not address America’s reliance on foreign oil and calling it a “a nice little break for Americans,”
McCain once again hit
Obama for not supporting his proposal.
“I noticed again that Sen. Obama refuses to endorse a tax-- gas tax holiday for Americans despite the fact that he voted for it several times when the price of gasoline was about a dollar and a half per gallon,” McCain said. “All we need to do is cut out hundreds of millions and billions of dollars of pork barrel projects that have been funded by the pork barrel bills, the transportation and highway bills that have gone through the Congress of the United States.”
After pushing his message of the day, McCain also responded to the recent ads released referencing his comments on a lengthy American presence in Iraq, quickly blaming Obama for misrepresenting his statements.
“It’s a little distressing to me when Sen. Obama says that he wants to run a very great campaign that is above politics and above the mundane aspects of political campaigns and then keeps turning around and saying and totally falsifying my statement, which is clear in saying that after we win we may have a presence in Iraq the way we do in south Korea,” McCain said.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ’s Mike MemoliPORTAGE, Ind. -- The
Clinton camp has worked hard of late to portray Hillary Clinton as the fighter in the race, someone with the determination to see her plans through no matter what the obstacles. Yesterday in North Carolina, Gov. Mike
Easley (D) raised some eyebrows when he said Clinton was so determined she made “Rocky Balboa look like a pansy.”
Well this afternoon, a local labor leader introducing Clinton pushed the envelope further, saying the nation needed a leader “that has testicular fortitude.”
While defending Bill Clinton’s role in the passage of NAFTA, Paul Gipson, president of a steelworkers local, said that union members need to look forward, and support a leader who can work to amend and improve provisions in the trade agreement.
“I truly believe that that’s going to take an individual that has testicular fortitude,” he said. “That’s exactly right. That’s what we gotta have.”
Clinton, standing behind Gipson, smiled sheepishly before breaking into a nervous laugh. Gipson continued by slamming unnamed “Gucci-wearing, latte-drinking, self-centered, egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle,” before endorsing and introducing Clinton.
The New York senator, after some introductory remarks, then had some fun with Gipson’s remarks. “I must say, Paul, I appreciate that endorsement. It means a lot to me,” she said. “I do think I have fortitude. Women can have it as well as men.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Kristin Wilson
McCain, trying to burnish his "everyday man worries" credentials, repeatedly told reporters aboard his Straight Talk Express that "we ought to give the American people a break" on gas prices for the summer.
He suggested that giving Americans a break should include canceling the “Bridge to Nowhere” pork project in Alaska "and the $2.3 billion dollars in pork barrel projects that Sen. Clinton has asked for... that have contributed nothing to America's transportation system."
McCain said these earmarks have gone to unnecessary and unwanted projects that should have gone to repair the bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed last summer.
"The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse, because there wasn't enough money," he said. "The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork barrel projects."
A long-time opponent of pork barrel spending, McCain fired buck shot at his fellow legislators who earmark billions of dollars per year for projects in their home districts.
"It should surprise no one, when we look at the lists of projects that we are funding that have everything to do with power and the influence of the individual congressman or senator, and it has nothing to do with the actual transportation needs of the United States," he said. "Need I say more?"
From NBC/NJ’s Mike MemoliSOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Hillary
Clinton portrayed herself as a modern-day Teddy
Roosevelt this morning, saying she’d build the political will to take on oil companies as president.
“At the turn of the last century, Teddy Roosevelt took on the oil companies,” she said at the Deluxe Sheet Metal factory this morning. “We need a president who will take on the oil companies again, and I will do that. I will take away their tax subsidies. They don’t need them to make these outrageous profits.”
All week, Clinton has been beating the drum on her plan for a gas tax holiday. Today she used some different language on the issue, not calling it a tax holiday but saying she wanted “the oil companies to pay the federal gas tax this summer.”
She also criticized McCain when asked about his statement that he’d use treasury funds to replace revenues the tax provides for the highway trust fund.
“I think that’s a typical Republican response: don’t pay for anything,” she said of McCain’s plan. “We haven’t paid for the war in Iraq; we haven’t paid for the tax cuts for the wealthy, so now we’re not going to pay to replenish the Highway Trust Fund. … He is just driving us deeper and deeper into deficit and debt.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ’s Athena JonesThe
Obama camp held a conference call Wednesday morning to publicize a 64-page complaint it has filed with the Federal Election Commission against the American Leadership Project, which is running an anti-Obama ad in Indiana and which Obama's lawyer called Swift Boat wannabes.
Obama's Chief Counsel Bob Bauer said the complaint alleged the group was violating the law by failing to register with the FEC as a political committee in order to collect money from anyone and in whatever amount without having to disclose that information.
Bauer said this type of group had been made famous by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which targeted Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and said the FEC complaint aimed to curtail the actions of such groups, calling it the first shot in the continuing "Swift Boat saga."
He said ALP was violating the law in exactly the same way as the Swift Boaters' group and that he hoped the FEC would enforce the law "to send the ultimate message" to other organizations that this kind of action wouldn't be tolerated.
Bauer said any legal defense of the organization would require a great deal of creativity and said there was nothing in the record to show the group's purpose was not to raise money for pro-Clinton efforts. He suggested the group was leaving a "documentary trail" to show this was its purpose.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mike ViqueiraWASHINGTON, D.C. -- A small but very fired up group of Floridians rallied in the street outside the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters here today, demanding that their primary votes be counted and threatening to literally block the doors of the Democratic Convention if they aren't.
"We will shut down the convention!" exclaimed Rep. Corrine Brown. "If we are not seated, then nobody is going to be seated!"
Brown, a superdelegate pledged to Clinton, addressed a crowd of about 150 who had been bused up to D.C. from Florida this week under the auspices of LULAC, an Hispanic advocacy group. Though Brown and another super who spoke -- Rep. Hilda Solis -- are in the Clinton camp, organizers went out of their way to remove any hint that they favored one or the other Democrat in the race. Many in the crowd wore T-shirts with the name of each Democratic candidate, from Kucinich to Dodd to Richardson to Obama, printed across the back in the shape of a rainbow. There was but one Hillary '08 shirt or button to be seen.
"We're not supposed to talk about that," confided Harriet Meltzer, 83, a member in good standing of the Del Ray Democratic Club, though she allowed that she was, in fact, a Clinton supporter. "What's he going to do when he goes to the Middle East?" she asked of Obama, who she deems to be lacking in experience. "Charm them?"
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
The Clinton and Obama campaigns announced one more superdelegate each.
CA Rep. Lois Capps endorsed Obama, and Puerto Rico superdelegate Luisette Cabanas endorsed Clinton. (Chelsea Clinton is stumping in Puerto Rico today.)
Today, Obama has three superdelegates to Clinton's two.
To recap:
OBAMA: Rep. Baron Hill (IN), Rep. Bruce Braley (IA), Rep. Lois Capps.
CLINTON: Bill George (PA AFL-CIO president), Luisette Cabanas (PR DNC member).
SUPERDELEGATE TOTAL: (280 uncommitted)
CLINTON 268
OBAMA 247
PLEDGED: Obama 1,490-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,737-1,602
Since the PA primary, Obama leads 10-6 in superdelegates.
From NBC/NJ’s Carrie DannSANFORD, N.C. -- As his wife was spending the morning with an Indiana driver to publicize her plan to fix suffocatingly high gas prices, her husband was in North Carolina, fiercely defending her support of a gas tax holiday.
"She has been criticized by her opponent and by others, who say, 'Oh, it is just pandering to people to offer them gasoline relief,'" he said, standing atop a long flatbed truck at an early polling rally. "Well, let me tell you something folks -- when people are choosing every week between whether they got enough money to go to work and enough money to put food on the tables for their kids -- it is not pandering to try and help them get through the next six months."
Clinton has concentrated on the oil issue during his two-day swing through North Carolina. His wife's proposal to eliminate the gas tax during the summer months has been criticized by rivals who point out that the short-term benefit for many Americans would register at a savings of less than $50.
Other critics say that the summer solution fails to encourage the responsible seeking of long-term solutions to the energy crisis. The former president took special exception to that claim in Apex this morning.
"Hillary has got a long record as an environmentalist," he said. "But to say that giving people a little slack on these gas prices is going to discourage us from switching to higher mileage cars is just factually wrong. We're dealing with people here that cannot pay their bills."
From NBC's Ron AllenSOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Sen.
Clinton just went along on the morning commute with Jason Allen Wilfing of South Bend, who works at a sheet metal plant. They stopped for gas in his white pickup truck at a Marathon station where the price for regular is $3.75 a gallon. Clinton and Wilfing are now "commuting," to his job, in a motorcade, a motorcade that incidentally included eight low-gas mileage SUVs.
It was all quite contrived, like many campaign events, with Secret Service in the back seat of the truck and a swarm of media at the station. However, this one seemed a bit more "unnatural," shall we say, than most. And Sen. Clinton admitted because of her "special circumstance," she hasn't bought gas in a long while. But it’s an example of how determined Clinton is to win over working-class voters by showing her concern and understanding of "kitchen table" issues.
While the gas dial was rolling up to $63.67, Clinton and Wilfing "chatted" about the high price of groceries and how rising fuel costs are affecting many aspects of family life.
Clinton also made a pitch, when asked about it by reporters, for her "gas tax holiday," which would suspend fuel taxes for the summer months. While Sen. Barack Obama and others have called the proposal a "gimmick" that only would save most families about $28 over the summer, Clinton says small businesses, trucking firms, farmers and families driving off for vacations would save much more. Clinton seems determined to make this a defining issue over the remaining days of the campaign.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
A small wave of superdelegate endorsements this morning. We mentioned Rep. Bruce Braley (IA) in First Thoughts for Obama. In addition, Obama picked up the endorsement of congressman Baron Hill. Clinton also picked up one -- Pennsylvania AFL-CIO president Bill George.
Hill represents Indiana's hotly contested ninth congressional district. Hill is a former Indiana high school basketball star who is in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, alongside NBA legend Larry Bird.
Here's how the numbers shake out:
SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 267, Obama 246 (282 uncommitted)
PLEDGED: Obama 1,490-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,736-1,601
Since Pennsylvania, it's Obama 9-5 in superdelegates.
Here's how those break out:
CLINTON (5): Bill George (PA DNC), Rep. Ike Skelton (MO), Gov. Mike Easley (NC), Kathy Sullivan (NH add on), Rep. John Tanner (TN).
OBAMA (9): Rep. Baron Hill (IN), Rep. Bruce Braley (IA), Rep. Ben Chandler (KY), Richard Machacek (IA), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (NM), Charlene Fernandez (AZ DNC), Rep. David Wu (OR), Audra Ostergard (NE DNC), Gov. Brad Henry (OK).
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** Dumping Wright: A day ago, we asked if yesterday would be the day Jeremiah Wright would go away, at least in the context of the Obama-Clinton primary race. Well, not quite. Obama made sure the story would last one more day by holding a press conference in which he unequivocally denounced Wright. That denunciation -- just like his speech on race more than a month ago -- has received universal praise. It made him look strong, and it might have even helped him a bit if he wins the nomination (after all, denouncing him now is MUCH better than doing so in October). But the criticisms still to be leveled against Obama are twofold: 1) it was late and 2) he did this only after Wright personally attacked him; Obama didn't get angry over the OTHER things Wright said, but only when Wright made it personal. One thing still hanging in the air: will Wright respond; he did a sort-of response through a blind quote in the New York Post but considering how upset black church leaders seem to be with Wright, he may end up keeping quiet. Clearly, superdelegates were the most important audience yesterday. They may be relieved Obama finally showed an ability to deal with a baggage crisis head-on, but they still will want to know if Wright will continue to dog him. Obama's back was against the wall and he delievered. But like every other time, it feels a little late, the question is, was it TOO late.
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VIDEO: NBC Political Director Chuck Todd discusses Obama's fallout with his former pastor. ***
The odd good news for Obama: The Wright Story Volume 2, which began on Thursday when PBS released excerpts of the reverend’s interview with Bill Moyers, has now lasted six days -- which, by the way, is the same amount of time between now and Tuesday’s elections in Indiana and North Carolina. And unlike right before the past contests in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, it is Clinton -- not Obama -- who seems to have all the momentum. The perception is that Obama is bleeding. But this COULD be a good thing for Obama, relatively speaking, of course. Clinton won the expectations game in those past three contests, primarily because it seemed like Obama had all the Mo’. But now that Mo’ is on Clinton’s side. What happens if Obama is still able to defeat Clinton by double digits in North Carolina and essentially split the delegates in Indiana? Of course, the bigger question for his campaign might be: What if he doesn’t? And what if those exit poll cross-tabs in North Carolina and Indiana show white voters abandoning Obama in greater numbers than in Ohio and Pennsylvania?
*** Hillary, working 9 to 5: Per NBC’s Ron Allen, Clinton begins her day today with an interesting "event." A typical Indiana resident -- Jason Allen Wilfing, who has worked at Deluxe Sheet Metal for 15 years -- will just happen to stop by the hotel where Clinton is staying, and she will join him on his typical commute to work. And what's more, they will have to stop for gas. (The tank just happens to be running dry while Clinton's along for the ride.) Clinton will then help Wilfing pump gas. And then he will complete the typical trip to work. Of course, we all wonder when was the last time Clinton drove a car? Or pumped gas? Or even, after that $109 million, had to worry about the cost of gas? Politicians do all kinds of things to attract votes, but this has the potential to be memorable. Indeed.
*** Pander alert: The Clinton gas event is yet another sign that Clinton is trying to harken back to the '90s and hammer home the "I feel your pain" aspect of the Clinton years that voters responded to so well back then. But the debate over the gas-tax holiday is an interesting one -- and it's a test of just how closely voters are following the campaign. Will voters respond simply on the pocketbook front and demand this gas tax holiday, despite all the downsides that many experts have outlined about the idea? It's the old "if it feels good, do it" (that Clinton and McCain have seen succeed for so long during times that pocketbook politics have dominated the debate) versus the intellectual argument Obama is trying to have (that usually is praised by, well, intellectuals but dismissed by rank-and-file voters who want their tax cut or gas prices cut). Clinton is trying to own this issue big time -- even running TV ads about it and constantly criticizing Obama for not supporting the gas-tax holiday.Obama's criticism of McCain's plan and Clinton's are accurate. The only problem is it leaves voters saying, "Ok, it's a gimmick; so what's your proposal? This feels like Clinton v. Tsongas '92. But the electorate acts as if its more informed than it was 16 years ago, and also could be a bit more distrustful of government handouts than in the past. Regardless, one could argue that the Clinton-Obama debate over this issue sums up their candidacies and potential presidencies. In this environment, which do voters prefer?
*** How low can you go; how high can you fly? Yesterday, we released some early numbers from the latest NBC/WSJ poll, which comes out tonight. The numbers? Only 21% approve of President Bush's job in handling the economy -- his lowest number ever as president on that question. Also, a whopping 81% believe the US is currently in a recession. Interested in the latest numbers in the Obama-Clinton race? Want to know how both stack up against McCain? Or curious about which party -- Democratic or Republican -- holds the advantage heading into November? And want to know which relationship is worse: Bush or Wright? Tune into Nightly News, or click onto MSNBC.com, at 6:30 pm ET.
*** One more plug: Obama will be on Meet the Press for the full hour this Sunday. Tim Russert will travel to Indianapolis to sit down with the Democratic front-runner for the live interview, taking place on the even of what could be the most significant primaries of the campaign season. Set your TiVOs now if for some reason you haven't yet clicked "season pass" for Meet the Press.
*** Closer to the magic number: Obama picked up another superdelegate just this morning, Rep. Bruce Braley (IA), who was a strong supporter of Edwards. Yesterday, Obama picked up two more superdelegates: Kentucky congressman Ben Chandler and Iowa DNC member Richard Machacek. Clinton also picked up one: Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton. Skelton cited Clinton’s “support in rural America” as a reason for backing her. Since the Pennsylvania primary, Obama has gotten eight superdelegates to Clinton’s four. Here’s where the counts stand: SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 266-245; PLEDGED: Obama 1,490-1,334; OVERALL: Obama 1,735-1,600.
*** On the trail: Clinton spends her day in Indiana, stumping in South Bend, Portage, Lafayette, and Kokomo; McCain raises money in Florida and then holds another health-care event in Allentown, PA; and Obama, in Indiana, has events in Indianapolis and then holds a rally at Indiana University in Bloomington. Also, Bill Clinton has a whopping seven events in North Carolina, and Michelle Obama is in Indiana.
Countdown to North Carolina, Indiana: 6 days
Countdown to West Virginia: 13 days
Countdown to Kentucky and Oregon: 20 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 188 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 265 days
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The New York Times’ lead: "Obama broke forcefully on Tuesday with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., in an effort to curtail a drama of race, values, patriotism and betrayal that has enveloped his presidential candidacy at a critical juncture." More: "At a minimum, the spectacle of Mr. Wright’s multiday media tour and Mr. Obama’s rolling response grabbed the attention of the most important constituency in politics now: the uncommitted superdelegates - party officials and elected Democrats - who hold the balance of power in the nominating battle."
VIDEO: NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports on Sen. Barack Obama calling remarks by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "destructive".
“Eileen Macoll, a Democratic county chairman from Washington State who has not chosen a candidate, said she was stunned at the extent of national attention the episode has drawn, and she said she believed it would give superdelegates pause. ‘I’m a little surprised at how much traction it is getting, and I do believe it is beginning to reflect negatively on Senator Obama’s campaign,’ Ms. Macoll said. ‘I think he’s handling it very well, but I think it’s almost impossible to make people feel comfortable about this.’”
The Los Angeles Times writes, "Some black leaders said Tuesday that they were frustrated at Wright for undertaking a publicity tour in recent days that may have harmed the chance to elect the first black president. And a number of African American church leaders expressed alarm that Wright, whose views on social issues are far to the left of most black clergy, claimed on Monday to speak for all black churches. ‘I wish that Jeremiah, my friend, had kept his eye on the prize,’ said the Rev. Frank Madison Reid III, pastor of a large African Methodist Episcopal congregation in Baltimore who studied with Wright and has invited him regularly to preach at his church. ‘And the prize here for America, for all Americans, is that we can elect the first black man for the presidency.’”
The Washington Post: “At a meeting of black religious leaders at the Howard University School of Divinity on Tuesday, Wright declined to address the firestorm that his remarks had ignited. ‘You heard what I said [Monday] morning,’ he told a reporter. ‘I just wish that the media would focus on more of what they are saying in there, because they are trying to make this about me and Barack.’”
The New York Post: “After 20 years of loving Barack like he was a member of his own family, for Jeremiah to see Barack saying over and over that he didn't know about Jeremiah's views during those years, that he wasn't familiar with what Jeremiah had said, that he may have missed church on this day or that and didn't hear what Jeremiah said, this is seen by Jeremiah as nonsense and betrayal," said the source, who has deep roots in Wright's Chicago community and is familiar with his thinking on the matter. 'Jeremiah is trying to defend his congregation and the work of his ministry by saying what he is saying now," the source added. "Jeremiah doesn't care if he derails Obama's candidacy or not . . . He knows what he's doing. Obviously, he's not a dumb man. He knows he's not helping.'"
The Boston Globe: “The condemnation was a dramatic shift for Obama, who had tried to navigate a personal and political minefield: maintaining a relationship with the minister who brought him to Christianity, performed his wedding, and baptized his two daughters, while distancing himself from Wright's most incendiary sermons and trying to quell a controversy that threatened to undermine Obama's campaign's focus on racial unity.”
The Washington Post’s editorial page mostly praises Obama denouncing Wright yesterday. “Did Mr. Obama climb out of that hole yesterday? It seems to us that the whole sorry episode raises legitimate questions about his judgment… But Mr. Obama is right when he says that his entire career is antithetical to the divisiveness of the Rev. Wright's comments. We've found things to cheer and things to criticize about Mr. Obama during this long campaign, but we don't see how anyone could question his commitment to transcending old racial battles and finding common ground. The Rev. Wright doesn't speak for the candidate, and we hope the pastor doesn't become a continuing excuse for political ads built on racial fears.”
CONTINUED >>
More polling evidence that Clinton and Obama supporters are starting to hate the other candidate more than John McCain.
Politico reports, “Capitol Hill insiders say the battle for congressional superdelegates is over, and one Senate supporter of Barack Obama is hinting strongly that he has prevailed over Hillary Rodham Clinton. While more than 80 Democrats in the House and Senate have yet to state their preferences in the race for the Democratic nomination, sources said Tuesday that most of them have already made up their minds and have told the campaigns where they stand. Asked which way the committed-but-unannounced superdelegates are leaning, McCaskill -- who has endorsed Obama -- said: “James Brown would say, ‘I Feel Good.’”
But Clinton spokesman Phil Singer was singing a different tune ("You've gotta have faith?”) “Considering the rough patch Sen. Obama is going through, it’s understandable that Sen. McCaskill would want to change the subject, but her observations don’t jibe with what automatic delegates are actually saying,” he said. “Most are concerned about Sen. Obama’s electability and are impressed by the fact that Sen. Clinton is winning the states that Democrats must carry if we are to be successful in November.”
A Michigan compromise? “Michigan Democrats working to get the state's delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday suggested splitting them 69-59 between presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton has argued that she should get 73 delegates based on the results of the Jan. 15 primary, which she won -- 18 more than Obama. Obama, who removed his name from the ballot, wants the 128 pledged delegates split evenly, 64-64.
“The compromise, suggested Tuesday in a letter to Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer [from Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, Sen. Carl Levin and Democratic National Committee member Debbie Dingell, wife of Rep. John Dingell], fell halfway between the two proposals.”
INDIANA: Obama is spending three of the next four days in Indiana. Clinton spends the next two days there.
NORTH CAROLINA: John Edwards, you lost the Dem nomination a few months back and you just can't decide whom to endorse... what are you going to do next!?!?! Edwards: "I'm going to Disney World!"
That's right, "Edwards is vacationing at Walt Disney World in Florida this week, fueling speculation that he's not going to endorse either Democratic presidential candidate before the May 6 primary. But then, another vacation turned out differently. In July 2004, Edwards took his family to Disney World for a vacation, leading many to declare he was not John Kerry's vice presidential pick. As it turned out, Edwards had slipped away, catching a flight to Washington to meet with Kerry."
Mike Easley's endorsement of Clinton focused on her outreach to blue-collar voters. "Easley doesn't have a powerful state organization, nor is he a national political figure. But Easley's endorsement of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could help the Democratic presidential candidate in her quest for more traditional rural and small-town blue-collar Democrats in North Carolina's primary Tuesday.”
“Easley's reputation as a sort of ‘Governor Bubba' helped make him the only two-term Democratic governor in the South. Easley was elected to office as a pistol-packing former prosecutor and was re-elected as the governor who crashed a NASCAR race car into the wall during a charity event.”
“‘Easley probably appeals to more conservative Democrats, to the blue-collar voters that Hillary Clinton has been targeting,’ said Steven Greene, an N.C. State University political science professor. ‘He strengthens her efforts among those groups.’ But Greene said he thought Easley's endorsement would have only a modest effect, noting that public opinion polls suggest that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has a double-digit lead."
CONTINUED >>
The New York Times’ Friedman hits both Clinton and McCain on their gas tax holiday support. "It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country."
Uh, oh. The Wall Street Journal: "Although the major presidential candidates are making record gasoline prices a campaign issue, they are avoiding mention of measures they each support that would indirectly raise prices at the pump. ... Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain support some type of corporate cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gases, which likely would increase fuel prices. In addition, the Democratic contenders have called for a ‘windfall profits’ tax on oil companies, which ultimately could be passed on to consumers."
In an ed board meeting with the Indy Star, Clinton said Dems shouldn't switch sides if their candidate doesn't win the Dem nod. "Clinton also said Tuesday that she thinks the primaries have been ‘energizing’ rather than divisive, resulting in many new voters being brought into the electoral process. She's committed, she said, to keeping those voters in the Democratic column, regardless of whether she or Obama ends up as the nominee."
More: "Clinton wouldn't address whether she'll stay in the race if she doesn't win Indiana, but said her upbringing near Chicago and her message of turning this from the ‘rust belt’ to the ‘opportunity belt’ helps her connect with Hoosier voters. ‘I'm going to try to do as well as I can in Indiana. I never make predictions because who knows,’ she said.”
The Wall Street Journal looks at how Clinton is playing on economic fears of voters to win them over. "By focusing on voter fears about globalization and job losses in troubled industries, Sen. Clinton has cultivated support among factory workers and others worried about U.S. competitiveness that has given her an edge over Barack Obama in several key races, including Pennsylvania and Ohio. ‘She's cultivated a message that focuses on industries that share commonality -- in terms of the pressures they're under and the impact on the working-class population,’ says Chris Lehane, a Democratic political consultant based in California. ‘That means metals in Pennsylvania, tires or rubber in Ohio, coal in West Virginia."
Staying on the econ message, a separate WSJ piece notes how Clinton's focus on the '90s economy also risks reminding voters of the '90s Clinton scandals.
Clinton stressed economic issues last night as she called the Hoosier state “the most important manufacturing state” in the country, NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli reports. “You’re the people of steel and of autos and of defense and of so much else that really makes America work,” she told nearly 2,000 supporters during a chilly, outdoor rally. “But the economy is not working for hard-working Americans right now. The jobs are not there, the incomes not rising, the cost of everything from filling up your tank to paying the health-care bills to the utility bills is getting way beyond what anybody dreamed. So we’ve gotta start playing both defense and offense again.”
Politico’s Martin looks at Republicans ignoring Clinton: “Clinton, it seems, has been erased from the picture, Soviet-style. Republicans mostly act like she doesn’t exist -- an unusual turn of events considering her run of big-state victories and the fact that not so long ago Republican campaign plans were predicated on the idea of Clinton as the Democratic nominee. Indeed, her recent success has only increased the volume and ferocity of the attacks -- not on her, but on Obama.”
Clinton “will appear in a two-part interview on The Fox News Channel's ‘The O'Reilly Factor’ starting Wednesday at 8. Part two will air Thursday at 8 p.m.”
The Washington Post says McCain yesterday “rejected calls by his Democratic opponents for universal health coverage, instead offering a market-based solution with an approach similar to a proposal put forth by President Bush last year… Democratic Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) have vowed government action to fulfill what they cast as a moral right for Americans to have health insurance. They favor mandates for coverage; McCain (R-Ariz.) proposes tax incentives. Obama and Clinton would impose new regulations on insurers; McCain's plan is designed to avoid direct regulation. The Democrats would build on the current employer-based system; McCain would shift to a more individual approach.”
The New York Times adds: “His proposal to move away from employer-based coverage was similar to one that President Bush pushed for last year, to little effect. And his call for expanding coverage through market-based competition is in stark contrast to the Democrats’ proposals to move toward universal health care coverage, with government subsidies to help lower-income people afford their premiums."
The Times also looks at what kind of relationship McCain could have with congressional Republicans while in the White House and notes some of the rocky nature they've had. "The McCain campaign and House Republicans, in an effort coordinated by Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the party leader, are engaging in a bit of therapy to strengthen their political marriage. Top McCain officials gathered recently with chiefs of staff to House Republicans to emphasize the idea that it is to their mutual advantage to pull together as the election unfolds.”
“Mr. McCain has reached out more to the House leadership. Republican officials say that Mr. Boehner sought and received assurances from Mr. McCain in a private meeting in February that he would not ignore the interests of his backers in the House when pushing his policy ideas. Mr. Boehner would not comment on those discussions. But he noted that, on major topics like the Iraq war and federal spending, most House Republicans and Mr. McCain are now in sync."
From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
BOONE, NC -- In the North Carolina college town that is home to one of football's greatest upsets, Bill Clinton was quick today to paint his wife as an underdog -- and as a defensive player.
"Most of what people have said in this campaign is wrong, including who's been more positive and who's been more negative," said Clinton in an address to more than 2,000 at Appalachian State University. "She's talked relentlessly about the solutions. She won in Pennsylvania after being hit with negative ad after negative ad after negative ad, and negative letters. And all she did was respond."
Clinton opened his remarks with a shoutout to the school's football team, which famously defeated the University of Michigan in a stunning upset last fall. "I think it will have special meaning here if I begin with a line I always say today," he said. "Whenever somebody tells you you can't win, it's because they're afraid you will."
From NBC's Mark Murray
We are releasing some early numbers from the latest NBC/WSJ poll, which comes out tomorrow night.
The numbers? Only 21% approve of President Bush's job in handling the economy -- his lowest number ever as president on that question.
Also, a whopping 81% believe the US is currently in a recession.
Interested in the latest numbers in the Obama-Clinton race? Want to know how both stack up against McCain? Or curious about which party -- Democratic or Republican -- holds the advantage heading into November? Tune into Nightly News, or click onto MSNBC.com, at 6:30 pm ET tomorrow.
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
WINSTON-SALEM, NC -- Obama opened a somber, nearly half-hour press conference this afternoon by saying he was outraged and saddened by Wright's comments to the National Press Club in Washington the previous day and that the Wright who spoke those words was not the man he had met 20 years ago.
Wright has been a particularly thorny issue for Obama, since snippets of his sermons -- which many viewed as divisive and unpatriotic -- aired repeatedly on YouTube and cable television last month in the lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary. The remarks threatened to alienate the white, working-class voters Obama has been attempting to woo away from Clinton in recent contests, with little success.
Obama has framed his candidacy -- or it has been framed for him -- in "post-racial" terms and many of his supporters have been inspired by a campaign that cast itself as one about unifying people across ethnicities, creeds, and political parties. A close association with a man whose message is seen as divisive would damage that over-arching theme, something the senator acknowledged.
Obama said he had given his pastor the benefit of the doubt during his speech on race in Philadelphia and had spoken to him after delivering that speech, though he would not elaborate on their conversation. But the senator said there was no excuse for Wright's comments yesterday linking the US government to the creation of AIDS, praising Louis Farrakhan, and connecting US wartime efforts to terrorism.
"His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the Black Church," he said. "They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs and if Rev Wright thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, well I may not know him as well as I thought either."
Speaking slowly, deliberately and at times sternly, Obama repeatedly said Wright's comments contradicted everything his campaign was about, all that he had worked for throughout his life and his vision for America, while acknowledging his former pastor had a right to make his views known.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Hillary Clinton defended her plan for a gas tax holiday, saying it would have a larger impact on the nation’s economy than just the immediate savings for drivers.
Clinton toured a family owned furniture manufacturer in Indiana’s largest city to illustrate that the high cost of fuel has a significant impact on small businesses, as well as truckers who move the products made here. She claimed the company had seen orders canceled because customers were unwilling to pay fuel surcharges on shipping.
“You’ve gotta bring those logs in; you’ve gotta send the finished products out,” she said. “And the costs are sent down the supply chain, from the factory floor to the corner store.”
The New York senator highlighted new oil company profit figures as evidence her proposed windfall profits tax was the answer.
“The oil companies have figured out a way to keep profiting no matter what else happens,” she said. “Over the last three months, while you were being pummeled by high gas prices, Shell’s profits rose by 25 percent, and BP’s by 63 percent. So the oil companies are doing very well, and it’s high time that they helped to relieve the burden of high gas prices on our families and our businesses.”
CONTINUED >>
From MSNBC’s Norah O'Donnell and Adam Verdugo
With the North Carolina Democratic primary a week away, Elizabeth Edwards tells MSNBC she'd be "surprised" if either her or her husband endorsed either Obama or Clinton before the contest. But she quickly left the door open for a change of heart saying, "You never say never" -- given that there are big news events that can impact the race.
"My inclination is not to say more than I have said," noting that she has only gone so far as to endorse Clinton's health-care proposal for universal health care coverage.
She also said the Edwards family is on vacation in Orlando, Fla. When asked about a New York Times report suggesting the possibility that she would endorse Clinton and her husband would endorse Obama, she responded, "We're more concerned about whether we're going to stand in line for Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain next."
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Missouri congressman Ike Skelton endorsed Clinton, per the Clinton campaign.
"It is my intention as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention to vote for Senator Hillary Clinton because of her support in rural America, her commitment to National Security, and her dedication to our men and women in uniform," Skelton said in a statement released by the Clinton campaign.
This brings the superdelegate count to:
CLINTON 266
OBAMA 244
Since Pennsylvania, it's Obama 7, Clinton 4. (285 are uncommitted).
PLEDGED: Obama 1,490-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,734-1,600
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones and NBC's Mark Murray
WINSTON SALEM, NC -- In an extraordinary press conference here, Obama denounced the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying that Wright's comments yesterday angered and saddened him -- and are antithetical to what his campaign is about.
"I've known Rev. Wright for almost 20 years. The person that I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church."
"They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Rev. Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well I might not know him as well as I thought, either."
More to come...
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Richard Machaceck, an Iowa DNC member and superdelegate, has endorsed Obama, according to a report by the Des Moines Register, passed along by the Obama campaign. This is Obama's second superdelegate of the day.
"I think it needs to be over, and in good conscience, I can't fly in the face of my precinct, county and district," Machacek told The Des Moines Register. "The raw numbers coming out of the district conventions really sat me down hard."
This makes it 7-3 superdelegate pickups for Obama since the Pennsylvania primary.
SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 265-244 (286 uncommitted)
PLEDGED: Obama 1,490-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,734-1,599
*** UPDATE *** By request, Joe, here are the pickups since the PA primary:
OBAMA (7): Brad Henry (OK GOV), Audra Ostergard (NE DNC), David Wu (OR Rep), Charlene Fernandez (AZ DNC), Jeff Bingaman (NM SEN), Ben Chandler (KY Rep), Richard Machacek (IA DNC).
CLINTON (3): John Tanner (TN Rep), Kathy Sullivan (NH add on), Mike Easley (NC GOV).
From NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy
TAMPA, Fla. -- Despite receiving top billing during McCain’s weeklong health-care tour, this morning’s speech at the University of Southern Florida featured only an expansion of the healthcare proposal McCain has been advocating on the stump for months.
Even McCain’s top policy advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin had little to preview during a sit down with reporters last night saying, “Remember, it is April, and the election’s November, so not everything will happen tomorrow or this week.”
When asked what was new, Holtz-Eakin said, “There’s more examples on all fronts of what he thinks of as the personal responsibility and prevention issues, treatment of chronic diseases and insurance market issues.”
The center of McCain’s health-care proposal is the creation of a refundable health-care tax credit of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to go toward offsetting the cost of health insurance. The tax credit would be available to everyone, and partial funding would come from eliminating the tax credit currently given only to employees.
“You simply choose the insurance provider that suits you best,” McCain said this morning. “By mail or online, you would then inform the government of your selection. And the money to help pay for your health care would be sent straight to that insurance provider.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mike Viqueira
Do-nothing Congress? Well, not quite.
On this very day your US House will vote to express its "sense" that "there should be established a National Watermelon Month." Later this afternoon, the people's House will move to consider whether to similarly express themselves over "National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day." And then, in a separate bill, it will weigh in on setting aside a day of recognition for this nation's letter carriers.
So when the president and Republicans say that this Congress isn't doing much this year, they may have ground to stand on. But that isn't necessarily at variance with what usually happens in an election year -- especially a presidential election cycle where, no matter what, there will be a new administration come January.
So far this year, the stimulus package has passed, and that's about it. It has been slow going, no question. Behind the scenes, the Democratic leaders are still wrestling with the question of how to handle the president's latest request for war funding, this time for $108 billion. They are looking at legislation to ease the housing crunch. The farm bill has been on the verge of closure for weeks, if not months. And Democrats are clamoring for a second stimulus package for the economy, this time focused on extending unemployment insurance, infrastructure spending, and other items that they failed to pass in the first version.
But none of this is going to be easy. And on the fundamental job of Congress -- to pass spending bills to keep the government functioning -- it is quite possible, if not likely, that Democrats will simply punt it all into next year, thereby giving the new president, who they obviously hope will be one of their own, a clean slate on which to enact new policies and priorities.
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
RALEIGH, NC -- North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley (D) made his endorsement official this morning, saying that Hillary Clinton “gets it” and is a fighter who he said “makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy.”
“There’s a lot of ‘yes we can’ and ‘yes we should’ going around,” he said, taking what seemed to be a subtle jab at Obama. “Hillary Clinton is ready to deliver. That’s the difference.”
Clinton said she was honored to have Easley’s endorsement, calling it “politically very meaningful.” But more than that, she said the example Easley had shown in his two terms as governor that he “gets it” as well, and in his administration has shown how state governments “truly are the labs of democracy.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro
NBC News has confirmed an AP report that Kentucky congressman Ben Chandler, a superdelegate, is endorsing Obama today in Louisville.
With Chandler's endorsement, that brings the superdelegate count to Clinton 265, Obama 243. Overall (including pledged and superdelegates), it's Obama 1,733, Clinton 1,599.
Chandler's endorsement also adds to Obama's lead over Clinton among elected superdelegates (congressman, governors, senators). Clinton leads Obama 3-2 in Kentucky superdelegates. Obama has both congressmen from the state -- Rep. John Yarmuth is the other.
AP: LOUISVILLE -- Democrat Barack Obama's campaign director in Kentucky says Congressman Ben Chandler will endorse Obama for their party's presidential nomination.
Carolyn Tandy told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Chandler will announce his support for Obama at a midday news conference in downtown Louisville. Chandler represents a central Kentucky district and carries one of the most famous names in Kentucky politics.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Our pledged delegate count inadvertently had 1,491 for Obama; it should be 1,490. We've adjusted the above count.]
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones and NBC's Mark Murray
For the second time in the past four days, Obama played basketball in front of TV cameras -- this time with the big boys. Below is the pool report from the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny:
It was shortly after 7:00 am when Sen. Barack Obama arrived at the hallowed ground of college basketball, home of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. Before heading to the court for a quick morning game, he took a tour of the team’s facility. His guide? Coach Roy Williams.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Williams walked through the basement hallway of the UNC basketball center, passing black and white photographs from seasons gone by. The coach, dressed in a suit, and the senator, dressed in workout clothes, made small talk and smiled throughout the brief tour, which concluded in the locker room. “What a tradition,” Mr. Obama said, his eyes gazing around the room, which was decorated by banners from previous Final Four appearances.
Joined by Wanda Williams, the coach’s wife, the three stood on the plush blue carpet, where a school logo fills the center of the room. This is a zone of respect, where neither players nor coaches are allowed to walk across the logo. (Coach Williams explained the rules to the senator and a local Secret Service agent warned your pool to keep its distance from the mighty UNC.)
The senator made his way to the M.W. “Dyke” Peebles Jr. Practice Facility, where members of the UNC team were already warming up. One by one, the players approached and shook hands with Mr. Obama. From the moment they came into view, it was clear that today’s game would be slightly more rigorous than the one he played last Friday night at a middle school in Kokomo, IN. “These guys are a lot better than me,” Mr. Obama said, running down the full length of the court, trying to keep up with guys half his age, who less than a month ago were playing in the N.C.A.A. Final Four.
Tyler Hansbrough, the national player of the year for 2007-2008, was on hand in his signature blue jersey, No. 50. Mr. Obama drew the good fortune of being on his team. The senator played for several minutes, occasionally lagging behind the bunch. His best chance for a basket came shortly after he made a behind-the-back pass. As the ball was passed back to him, he fired up a jump shot, but it bounced from the backboard and around the rim.
“Thought I had that one,” he said.
CONTINUED >>
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** Is today the day Wright goes away? Maybe -- at least in the context of the Obama-Clinton campaign. As we speculated yesterday, if there was a silver lining to Wright dominating the news, it was that voters were easily able to distinguish between the two men. Reviews of Wright’s performance at the National Press Club were absolutely brutal. The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley wrote, “Wright revealed himself to be the compelling but slightly wacky uncle who unsettles strangers but really just craves attention… Wright doesn’t hate America, he loves the sound of his own voice.” If yesterday was the end of the Wright story, then the next week may actually be something the Obama camp looks forward to. Bob Herbert perhaps put Obama’s last six weeks the best: "Obama seems more and more like someone buffeted by events, rather than in charge of them.” And that's something that he has to change soon if he hopes to change the subject in time to put Clinton away on May 6. Also, Obama began a stronger pushback on Wright late last night, per NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: "My opponents realize they don't have the better argument so what they're now saying is 'Well, I don't know about Obama. You know, we, we gotta, we gotta know more about him and you know, he doesn't wear a flag pin. His former pastor said something and he's, he's got uh, we don't know what his values are. We don't know if he's patriotic. He's got a funny name, you know, it sounds, sounds Muslim.’ That, that's what's dominated. That is what has dominated political coverage over the last several weeks."
*** The downballot effect: Republicans are certainly linking Obama to Democrats running in two upcoming special congressional elections. In Mississippi, Greg Davis (R) is running an ad using Jeremiah Wright against Travis Childers (D). And in Louisiana, Freedom’s Watch is airing an ad whacking Don Cazayoux (D) by tying him to Obama’s health-care agenda. As our friends at Hotline noted yesterday, these Democrats have been unable to easily swat away these attacks. “Both Dems have succeeded so far by avoiding the liberal tag, and in many cases, the Dem label. But in an interview on XM radio 4/26, Childers avoided discussing the WH race like the plague. In Cazayoux's response ad to GOP attacks, he also ignored the WH contest. Both answers seemed greatly lacking.” But Democrats -- who are thrilled to be playing in these two contests, especially the one in Mississippi -- believe that attacks on Obama could help turn out the sizable African-American populations in both districts. Still, the GOP using Obama in downballot races presents this dilemma to Democrats: Until Obama (or Clinton) wraps up the nomination, it’s hard for the DNC, DCCC, and DSCC to whack back at these kind of attacks on their downballot candidates. And this is why it seems Obama can't beat back these attacks; He's getting hit on three or four fronts, and there are no third-party groups who can help back him up because these groups aren't ready to pick between Clinton and Obama just yet.
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VIDEO: NBC Political Director Chuck Todd talks about the aftermath of yesterday's Wright speech, the debate over a Summer gas-tax holiday, and the continued fight for superdelegates.
***
Pump it up: If it hadn’t been for Wright's appearance yesterday, there would have been a substantive policy debate over an issue that would have received a ton of coverage. The issue? A gas-tax holiday. The matter actually has interesting alliances. McCain and Clinton favor a temporary halt to the 18.4-cent federal gas tax (although Clinton calls for a tax on oil company profits to pay for it), while Obama and the White House oppose it. A gas-tax holiday might be good politics -- pander bears anyone? -- but it's viewed by some as lousy policy. In fact, the
New York Times confirms Obama’s argument that such a holiday would save consumers no more than $30, about a half of tank of gas. But pander politics can trump intellectual arguments in the short term.
*** Electability watch: Lots of new information for superdelegates to weigh today: A new AP/Ipsos poll has Clinton doing MUCH better against McCain than Obama does; another poll has Obama beating McCain in Wisconsin, but Clinton losing to the Arizona Republican; elected superdelegates, per the Wall Street Journal, see Obama as being the better candidate for Dem downballot candidates; but NRCC chair Tom Cole adds his two cents: “I think [Obama’s] the weaker candidate.” What do all of these things tell us? Doesn’t look like much has changed, at least for now.
*** McCain’s house call: Last week it was poverty; this week it's health care. For a candidate who has been hit with being a one-trick pony (Iraq and national security), McCain is doing what he can to make sure folks realize he'll have a robust domestic agenda. Beginning yesterday, he has launched a week-long focus on health care this week. His plan, not surprisingly is reliant on the free market, which he hopes will drive down the cost of health care by slowly moving folks away from having to rely on employers for health care. The Washington Post identifies a $5,000 tax credit as the centerpiece of McCain's proposal, which would be used for individuals to search out the best insurance for their needs. McCain will also borrow a page from Mike Huckabee and talk about prevention and nutrition. McCain backs up his launch with a statewide TV buy in Iowa focused on health care. Meanwhile, the SEIU begins a $1 million TV ad campaign in Ohio hitting McCain for his lack of attention on rising health-care costs. The ad features Bush and McCain hugging and even shows Bush kissing McCain (a visual we bet we'll see again and again and again). There will be a similar ad set to run in DC and West Virginia, but the Ohio buy is a big one and dwarfs, for instance, any anti-McCain spot the DNC has aired to date.
*** Slow ride, take it Easley: In Raleigh, NC this morning, Clinton received one of her biggest endorsements in the last couple of months -- from North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley -- who comes from one of the upcoming pivotal states: North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley. Per NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann, Easley was long suspected of being in the Clinton camp, but many believed that he would stay neutral. One key to Clinton's past victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania were the huge endorsements from the governors in those states. Easley's endorsement comes just one week before the state's primary, so Clinton might not be able to tap into his political network/machine the way she did with Strickland’s and Rendell’s. But Easley's help, no matter how late, certainly doesn’t hurt. That said, while Easley is retiring after this year, Obama has endorsements from North Carolina's two gubernatorial candidates. What does that tell us about the makeup of the primary electorate?
*** Crunching the numbers: While Clinton picked up a superdelegate with Easley’s endorsement, Obama yesterday got his own from New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman. Here are the counts: SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 265-242 (288 uncommitted); PLEDGED: Obama 1,490-1,334; OVERALL: Obama 1,733-1,599.
*** On the trail: After her event in Raleigh, NC, Clinton makes six stops in the Hoosier State -- Indianapolis, Gary, Hobart, Evansville, Princeton, and South Bend; McCain, still in Florida, speaks at a cancer research center at the University of South Florida in Tampa and then raises money in Tampa and Bonita Springs; and Obama holds town halls in Winston-Salem and Hickory, NC. Also, Bill Clinton stumps for his wife in North Carolina.
Countdown to North Carolina, Indiana: 7 days
Countdown to West Virginia: 14 days
Countdown to Kentucky and Oregon: 21 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 189 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 266 days
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The reviews of Wright’s appearance at the National Press Club yesterday were mostly unkind. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank: “Wright, explaining this morning why he had waited so long before breaking his silence about his incendiary sermons, offered a paraphrase from Proverbs: ‘It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’ Barack Obama's pastor would have been wise to continue to heed that wisdom. More: "Should it become necessary in the months from now to identify the moment that doomed Obama's presidential aspirations, attention is likely to focus on the hour between nine and ten this morning at the National Press Club. It was then that Wright, Obama's longtime pastor, reignited a controversy about race from which Obama had only recently recovered - and added lighter fuel."
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson: "I'm sorry, but I've had it with Wright. I would never try to diminish the service he performed as pastor of his Chicago megachurch, and it's obvious that he's a man of great charisma and faith. But this media tour he's conducting is doing a disservice that goes beyond any impact it might have on Obama's presidential campaign. The problem is that Wright insists on being seen as something he's not: an archetypal representative of the African American church. In fact, he represents one twig of one branch of a very large tree."
Adds Bob Herbert: "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him. Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big-time news media — this reverend is never going away. He’s found himself a national platform, and he’s loving it."
The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley: "Now it turns out that Mr. Wright doesn’t hate America, he loves the sound of his own voice. He is not out of touch with the American culture, he is the avatar of the American celebrity principle: he grabbed his 30-second spots of infamy and turned them into 15 minutes of fame."
The Washington Post has this interesting nugget: "Obama aides said Wright had rebuffed their recent offers of public relations assistance. They stressed that they had no warning about a media blitz that included an appearance with Bill Moyers on PBS on Friday night, a nationally televised speech to the NAACP in Detroit on Sunday evening and yesterday's appearance at the National Press Club."
CONTINUED >>
The New York Times front-pages, "Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, spoke out firmly against the proposal, saying it would save consumers little and do nothing to curtail oil consumption and imports.”
“While Mr. Obama’s view is shared by environmentalists and many independent energy analysts, his position allowed Mrs. Clinton to draw a contrast with her opponent in appealing to the hard-hit middle-class families and older Americans who have proven to be the bedrock of her support. She has accused Mr. Obama of being out of touch with ordinary Americans who are struggling to meet their mortgages and gas up their cars and trucks."
The Washington Post’s fact-checker weighs in on the matter. “The advocates of a ‘gas tax holiday’ are exaggerating the benefits to consumers from their proposal. If the Illinois experience is a guide, there is likely to be some reduction in the price of gas, but it would fall well short of the size of the tax reduction. In order to pay for the tax cut, the government would have to cut back on highway construction and maintenance or find some other way of plugging the shortfall in revenues to the Highway Trust Fund.”
Meanwhile, NBC’s John Yang reports that President Bush will hold a news conference today in the Rose Garden at 10:30 am. He will deliver an opening statement (approximately eight minutes long) regarding Americans’ understandable anxiety about issues affecting their pocketbooks. He will also call upon Congress to send him sensible and effective bills that will help Americans weather this difficult period and keep our country moving forward.
INDIANA: The Indy Star looks at how white women could be the key to any Clinton victory in the state.
NORTH CAROLINA: Gov. Mike Easley is a nice get for Clinton. But "Easley does not have the sort of political machine that Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania used to help deliver votes for Clinton in that state. But Easley is popular with rural, white, blue-collar Democrats, the sort of voters that Clinton has successfully targeted in wins in Pennsylvania and Ohio.”
The Clintons have been quietly courting Easley, who is also a Democratic superdelegate, for months. Former President Clinton has had numerous telephone conversations with Easley."
Politico adds: “Easley is a meaningful ally in the culture war she's waging against Senator Barack Obama, as she seeks to cast him as a hopelessly unelectable liberal elitist and to persuade the Democratic Party leaders who will decide the nomination -- the ‘superdelegates’ -- to choose her instead.
The New York Times writes about the still-silent Edwards family in the primary. Of course, the piece also simply assumes if either Edwards endorses it will be for Clinton.
Clinton trotted out her "Day One" talking points in North Carolina and compared the decision for president to the decision they would make if hiring a surgeon to perform an operation -- you hire someone ready to perform the operation on Day 1.
The Wall Street Journal’s Seib wonders if it's time for another race speech, this one by Clinton. "[I]t is Sen. Clinton who now has the greater ability to ease racial tensions within her party. Arguably, she also has the greater need to do so, for her long-term standing. Simply stated, her camp is the one now being accused of, or at least implicated in, using the race card. The most recent assertions came in the form of comments last week by Rep. James Clyburn, a black Democrat from South Carolina, who accused Sen. Clinton and, more pointedly, former President Clinton, of damaging the Democratic Party by using race to political advantage."
Is what Rev. Wright is doing to Obama similar to what Bill Clinton is doing to Hillary? The New York Times: "The question of what exactly Mr. Clinton’s ‘role’ is in his wife’s campaign has been a much-pondered mystery. As has been the case throughout his public life, Mr. Clinton’s motives, agenda and apparent mistakes have been the source of great speculation outside the Clinton world and hand wringing within it. Inside the Clinton campaign, the general view is that Mr. Clinton’s more provocative statements are not calculated as Mr. Clyburn and others have suggested… What is clear, among insiders, is that Mr. Clinton is playing a big — and some say expanding — role within the operation, one that might be sacrificing part of the accumulated prestige of his long public career for the cause of returning his wife (and himself) to the White House.”
“In the early stages of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, Mr. Clinton often felt left out, according to friends. But after a series of staff changes, he has become a more visible and influential presence, associates said, and an advocate of aggressively confronting Mr. Obama. He is especially close to Cheryl Mills, a former aide to him in the White House who has taken on an increasingly influential position in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign headquarters and provides him with a much more direct line into daily campaign deliberations and strategy decisions. Likewise, Mr. Clinton has settled into something of a “bad cop” role for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. It is not unlike that of a presidential running mate in a general election, the chief surrogate more safely positioned to attack the opposition while the candidate travels a higher road."
CONTINUED >>
The Washington Post's Shear previews McCain's health care speech today. "In Sen. John McCain's perfect health care world, individuals would each seek the ideal health insurance policy in a competitive marketplace that would drive down premiums even as prevention and healthier living reduces the cost of care. That's the vision McCain will outline Tuesday morning as he launches a week-long discussion of health care and his efforts to improve quality and increase access. The vision is not new -- he's been talking about it for months -- but aides promised a few more details as McCain seeks an alternative to the plans being offered by Democrats.”
“The centerpiece of McCain's plan remains a $5,000 tax credit that individuals could use to search out the best insurance for their needs. McCain economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin told reporters in a briefing Monday evening that the tax credit would allow some people to leave their employer-sponsored plan and do better on their own."
USA Today has more: "McCain's plan aims at eliminating ‘the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance’ by offering tax credits for individual plans, according to his campaign website. The credits would be $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. Those amounts would be subtracted from the final tax bill. Families, the campaign says, should be able to buy nationwide policies that can move from state to state.”
CONTINUED >>
Who needs Harold Ickes and his database when you are the Obama campaign… Bloomberg News notes the list the campaign is building. "Even if the Democratic presidential candidate doesn't succeed in his White House bid, this data will make Obama a power broker in the party for years to come. For the interest groups or Democratic candidates he chooses to sell it to, it would provide a gold mine of information and access to potential donors. Almost 2 million people have entered personal information on Obama pages on social-networking Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace and his campaign's mybarackobama.com, offering home addresses, phone numbers, their views on specific issues and the names of friends. The data have allowed Obama, 46, to raise more than $200 million, fill sports arenas with supporters across the nation and motivate millions more with custom-tailored messages."
There are a lot of folks waiting for Obama's Sister Souljah moment to be on the issue of affirmative action. Hasn't happened yet but...
Clinton has gotten a bump in the polls since Pennsylvania. In the latest AP/Ipsos poll, she leads McCain, 50%-41% (Obama leads him 46%-44%).
Here’s yet another Wisconsin poll that shows Obama besting McCain -- but McCain beating Clinton.
The Wall Street Journal’s Calmes looks at Obama's potential trump card: elected superdelegates who view Clinton's negatives as too high to have at the top of the ticket.
While there's still more GOPers who think Clinton and not Obama is the easier downballot target, NRCC's Cole has been the consistent dissenter on this issue and is betting that Obama and not Clinton will be the bigger drag. Politico: "Republican-leaning districts could be particularly fertile ground for Obama-focused attacks, GOP officials say. ‘I think he’s the weaker candidate, and I’ve thought that for over a year now,’ NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) said at a briefing on Monday. ‘He’s very inexperienced. He is by any definition liberal and to the left of Hillary Clinton, and he will give us plenty of ideological divisions to work with.’”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
INDIANAPOLIS, IN -- Obama said he was disappointed today in the new Supreme Court decision that has upheld Indiana's voter ID law, calling it "wrong," and emphasizing that the law could suppress turnout among minorities and poorer voters.
"I am disappointed by today's Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana's photo identification law -- one of the most restrictive in the nation," Obama said in a written statement.
He referenced his decision to file an amicus brief when Indiana's voter ID law was first challenged, saying he did it because he believed that "it places an unfair burden on Indiana residents who are poor, elderly, disabled, or members of minority groups."
Obama pledged to ensure that all voters have "unfettered access to the polls" on May 6th, and added that he was "encouraged that the Court has not complete closed the door to future challenges to state voter ID laws that create discriminatory barriers to the right to vote."
In a 6-3 decision today, the Supreme Court said that Indiana's requirement that voters show a form of identification at the polls is not unconstitutional. Opponents of the law argued that the law placed a burden on the right to vote and would depress turnout among poor, elderly, minority and disabled voters at the polls.
Clinton's Indiana state director, Robbie Mook, when asked about the law, avoided any comment on the decision, only saying: "Our top priority is that every vote will be cast and counted." He added that the campaign would act according to the law and was encouraging its supporters to vote absentee and vote early.
From NBC's John Yang
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" this past Sunday, Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean told Tim Russert that he hoped his party's nomination fight would "be over by the end of the month of June." That would require most of the 288 uncommitted superdelegates to declare their support for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
So how does that sound to Leila Medley, the political director for the Missouri National Education Association and one of the superdelegates we profiled for "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams"?
"He hasn't communicated with me," she says of Dean. "So, for now, I'm still doing my thing -- which is being uncommitted to the convention."
After the bruising Pennsylvania primary campaign, Medley, originally a John Edwards supporter, says the race is "more unpredictable now than a month ago." While still leading in pledged delegates, votes and states won, Obama is "sort of losing ground, it seems to me. He hasn't been able to close the deal."
The pressure from the campaigns and other rank-and-file Democrats has eased up a bit, Medley reports. She still gets letters and e-mails daily, but it's nothing like it once was. Nonetheless, it is wearying. "It seems like it ought to be over," she says with a sigh.
And she's been getting calls on behalf of Clinton from a fellow Missourian -- former House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt. Medley twice went to Iowa in support of Gephardt's presidential campaigns.
"Fortunately, I've been out of the office when he's called," she says.
And she hasn't called back.
From NBC's Mark Murray
As we mentioned earlier, Hillary Clinton is calling for a holiday on the 18.4-cent gasoline tax, and she says she'd make up the funding from that (which funds transportation infrastructure) by taxing oil company's "windfall" profits.
But it's worth pointing out that Clinton OPPOSED efforts to cut or repeal gas taxes during her 2000 Senate contest against Rick Lazio. It's also worth pointing out -- as the RNC has for last several days -- that Obama supported a holiday on Illinois' state gas tax when he was in the IL Senate (although as PoliFact later noted that Obama voted against legislation making the reduction permanent).
Here's what Clinton said at her October 8, 2000 debate with Lazio: "[O]ne of my fundamental disagreements during this campaign with my opponent was when he called for the repeal of the gas tax. Now, the gas tax is one of those few taxes that New York actually gets more money from Washington than we send. And we are totally reliant on it to do things like finishing I-86 in the Southern Tier, or the fast- ferry harbor works up in Rochester, as well as the work we need to do here in the city. So you can count on me to support infrastructure."
And here's a June 28, 2000 Newsday clip: "Campaigning in the Hudson Valley, Lazio continued a two-day assault on Clinton's support of maintaining the 18-cent federal gas tax and then used tough rhetoric to declare that 'trust' and 'character' were campaign issues during an evening fundraiser in Manhattan that raised more that $1 million. Clinton, meanwhile, lashed out at Lazio's plan to repeal 4.3 cents of the gas tax, calling it 'a bad deal for New York and a potential bonanza for the oil companies.'"
"During a visit to a shopping mall in the Buffalo suburbs, Clinton said that 'the gas tax is one of the few exceptions where we actually get more money back than we send to Washington.'"
(Hat tip to Political Base.)
*** UPDATE *** Clinton spokesman Phil Singer tells First Read that Clinton's opposition to gas-tax reductions/repeals in 2000 was due to the fact that they would take money out of the Highway Trust Fund. Her current proposal -- as mentioned above -- makes up for any money lost by taxing oil company windfall profits.
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
WILMINGTON, NC -- In a hastily arranged press conference next to the whirring engine of his 757 Monday afternoon, Obama spoke about his controversial former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Wright is back in the news today after delivering a fierce defense of himself and the ideas he has put forth in which he argued that mainstream America did not understand the black church.
Obama did not address the content of Wright's remarks to the National Press Club in Washington today, instead restating his view that he found some of the pastor's remarks offensive but saying the man whose church he has attended for 20 years had a right to speak his own mind.
"He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the campaign, and so, he may make statements in the future that don’t reflect my values or concerns," the senator told reporters who strained to hear him on the loud tarmac. At one point, he had to pause as a helicopter flew by.
Obama said he would remain focused on the issues voters were asking him about, like how to deal with lost jobs and high gas prices. He said voters had not mentioned Wright to him. He argued, as he did earlier today, that his rivals were trying to distract the American people and make this election about him.
"Obviously, what people like John McCain are now doing is, not being on the strong side of the issues, have decided they're gonna try to make this campaign about me," he said.
He said voters could separate him from his associates.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli, NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro
Mike Easley, two-term North Carolina governor in his final year, will endorse Hillary Clinton at a rally in Raleigh tomorrow, according to sources in the governor's office and sources close to the Clinton campaign.
Easley is a superdelegate, bringing Clinton's superdelegate lead to 265-242 (288 supers are uncommitted).
PLEDGED: Obama 1,491-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,733-1,599
*** UPDATE *** NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann adds the following for context on Easley's endorsement:
Gov. Easley will be the second NC superdelegate to go for Clinton. Easley was long suspected of being in the Clinton camp, but many believed he would stay neutral, as -- like many of the state's public officials -- he might risk alienating the state's large black population.
Suspicions of his allegiance were all but confirmed earlier this month when Easley publicly criticized Barack Obama for declining CBS's invitation to debate in North Carolina.
Local experts often draw parallels between Easley's early career, which began with a failed run at federal office and a stint as attorney general, and President Bill Clinton's. Easley was heavily recruited as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and it's widely believed that he could have been a formidable challenger to Elizabeth Dole. But Easley declined to run, famously saying that he wouldn't like a job that entailed "sitting in meetings" all day.
Although he enjoys fairly strong support in the state, Easley tends not to be described as a hard worker. Some politicos in the state quipped that he would stay on the sidelines because following through with an endorsement would be too much work for the laid-back legislator.
He was recently on the hotseat for violations of public records transparency by his press office, which reportedly requested that some e-mail traffic in and out of the governor's office be deleted. The man Easley appointed to oversee the resulting campaign for reform offered the capital press corps a good laugh when he was quoted as admitting that he didn't know how to "cut on a computer."
From NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli
SALISBURY, NC -- Hillary Clinton used her latest proposal on oil prices to portray herself as the fighter in the race, telling a few hundred people at the local train station here that she’d be their champion in the White House.
This morning, Clinton unveiled a plan to tax oil company “windfall” profits to pay for a gas tax holiday, which she said would provide needed relief for working-class Americans, who have seen energy costs take up greater percentage of their incomes. Here, she also discussed plans to create new jobs in a push to move toward energy independence, while outlining tough tactics she’d employ against oil producing countries to keep oil prices in line.
“Now, none of this is easy to do, but I don’t think we have a choice,” she said. “We can continue to be at the mercy of the … oil countries, which will mean that our standard of living will continue to decline. We will not recognize America. We will not recognize the American middle class. So we can either say, ‘OK, fine we’ll just kind of go along and, you know, elect somebody who’s nice or elect somebody who’s gonna continue the Bush policies. Or we can elect somebody who’s gonna fight for you. That is the choice in this election.”
Amid cheers, she made clear which candidate is that fighter.
“Now, I know there are some people who say, ‘Oh my goodness, she is tough. Well, if you’d had my life you’d be tough, too.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
WILMINGTON, NC -- Obama spent much of his speech at a town hall here on the Carolina coast focusing on economic issues, but he used his first few minutes to urge supporters to hit the polls early -- as early as today, in fact.
"You don’t have to wait until Election Day to vote. You can vote right after you leave this rally. You don’t even have to be registered yet. You can go and register and vote all in one stop and you can do that before Saturday,” he said, going on to give the number for his hotlines and his Web site address for people who want information on where to go.
Polls show the Illinois senator leading Clinton in the Tar Heel State, but exit polling data from the contests he lost in Pennsylvania and Ohio also show he has had problems making inroads with blue-collar voters and those without college degrees, voters who are more concerned about the kind of kitchen-table issues his rival has made a point of emphasizing.
Over the weekend in Indiana, Obama talked extensively about gas prices, lost jobs, health care, and paying for college. Today in North Carolina, before a crowd the campaign estimated at 5,000, he spoke about Americans who were working harder and harder to get by, who were struggling to pay for food and college. He said many people felt like the American dream was slipping away, echoing the kinds of lines Clinton often uses on the stump. He also said that when he talks about the need to change the way politics is done in Washington, he is "being very specific.” It’s another favorite line of his rival's -- one she uses to paint him as more rhetoric than action, a criticism he has increasingly sought to address in his stump speech.
In a bid to connect with voters, Obama talked about his work as a community organizer and ended his remarks with a slice out of his life story, focusing on being raised by a single mother and about his grandfather who was from a small town in Kansas “"right smack dab in the middle of the Midwest.”
Obama hit back at McCain for criticizing him for opposing a gas-tax holiday the Arizona senator has proposed. "He had the gall yesterday to tell me that obviously because I didn’t agree with his plan I must not be sympathetic to poor people,” Obama said. “That’s what he said. This is at the same time that he is proposing hundreds of billion of dollars of more tax breaks for corporate interests, to the wealthiest Americans. And he doesn’t explain how it is that we are going to replace the Highway Trust Fund. That’s where your gasoline tax goes to rebuild roads and bridges and put people to back to work right here in North Carolina. So but, you see, here’s the thing: That’s typical of how Washington works.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray
The Republican National Committee held a conference call with reporters this afternoon, announcing that it is asking TV cable networks not to run a "maliciously false" and "misleading" TV ad by the Democratic National Committee whacking McCain on the Iraq war.
The ad -- which the DNC said it will air on MSNBC and CNN -- hits McCain for his past statement that he would be fine with US soldiers remaining in Iraq for "maybe 100" years. McCain did say that, but as the RNC and other fact-checkers have pointed out, it was in the context of talking about a peace-keeping force in Iraq after the violence there had ended.
The RNC also charged that the DNC and the Obama and Clinton were coordinating with each other (by sharing similar pollsters and polling firms and having meetings), and that made this new TV ad illegal.
DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton tells First Read that: "1) we used McCain's own words and 2) there has been no coordination. These are just baseless claims -- we obviously struck a nerve." The DNC will elaborate on those arguments in its own conference call later this afternoon.
*** UPDATE *** In the DNC's subsequent conference call, chairman Howard Dean shot back, "I understand that we have struck a nerve with the RNC with this ad." After reading back McCain 100-year quote, Dean added that the ad makes two arguments: "One, we don’t think Americans want us to be in Iraq under any circumstance... We don’t want to be there for 100 years, whether there is a war there or not. Two, anyone who thinks we’re going to be occupying Iraq for 100 years and doesn’t think there will consequences ... doesn’t understand what is going on Iraq."
"He is completely out of touch with where the American people are on the war," Dean said, later saying: "There is nothing false about this at all... [These are] John McCain's own words... You are going to see a lot of this kind of stuff."
Also on the DNC call, general counsel Joe Sandler said the RNC's claim of coordination between the DNC and the Democratic presidential campaigns is "completely baseless." And he noted that there was no indication from MSNBC and CNN that they would NOT air the ad.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Obama just picked up the support of Sen. Jeff Bingaman (NM), the campaign announced. Bingaman chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Obama leads among senators 15-12 among senators, not including those from Michigan and Florida. But factoring in even the support Clinton has from Sens. Debbie Stabenow (MI) and Bill Nelson (FL) -- Carl Levin (MI) is uncommitted -- Bingaman gave Obama the lead, 15-14. Obama has now picked up five superdelegates to Clinton's two since her nearly double-digit win in Pennsylvania.
SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 264-242 (289 uncommitted)
PLEDGED: Obama 1,491-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,733-1,598
From NBC's Cherelle Kantey and Abby Livingston
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The man who has been at the center of a political controversy for the past six weeks -- Jeremiah Wright -- spoke today in DC and was unrepentant in his remarks.
His speech here at the packed National Press Club, which kicked off a two-day symposium on the African American religious experience, provided mostly context and a history of the black church. He also offered a vigorous defense of himself and said attacks on him were, in fact, attacks on the black church, an institution he said is misunderstood by many whites.
“Maybe now, as that dialogue begins, the religious tradition that has kept hope alive for a people struggling to survive in countless hopeless situations, maybe that religious tradition will be understood, celebrated and even embraced,” Wright said. With an audience that included those from his alma mater, Howard University, there was mostly agreement.
The tone turned more combative during the question-and-answer session. Wright didn’t miss a chance to throw digs at the press corps seated and standing before him and even above him in the balcony of the press club. Outside the press club, a smattering of protestors both in support and against Wright exchanged taunts.
Wright did not mention “Obama” until almost 30 minutes into his opening remarks, but he did not shy away from bringing Obama into his comments during the Q&A. Wright’s appearance brought him back to center stage in this presidential race despite Obama’s efforts to explain his former pastor’s experience in a widely lauded speech on race in America.
“We both know that if Sen. Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected,” Wright said. “Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites based on polls…. Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have to have to have a different person to whom they are accountable. As I said, whether he gets elected or not, I'm still going to have to be answerable to God Nov. 5th and Jan. 21st…. I do what pastors do; he does what politicians do.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy
The Center for American progress held a conference call responding to McCain’s health-care roundtable this morning and the impending rollout of his health-care proposal tomorrow. On the call, Elizabeth Edwards responded to the public back-and-forth between her and McCain on whether McCain’s plan would cover people like them -- cancer survivors -- and whether McCain’s Naval health-care coverage has put him out of touch with the trials of the open healthcare market.
On ABC’s “This Week” last Sunday McCain said he would establish a “special Medicaid trust fund set up to help take care for those people who are -- have preexisting conditions.” He then referenced that five chronic diseases account for more than 70 percent of the health-care costs in America, but it was unclear if the special “trust fund” McCain referred to would be intended to address those costs.
If so, Edwards said on the center’s call this afternoon that the costs associated with such a program would be “enormous.”
“If he’s talking about expanding Medicaid to cover chronic conditions…he is talking about the most radical expansion of government health care that has been proposed -- that I know of,” Edwards said.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ’s Aswini AnburajanINDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Continuing to beat the drum on the need for a debate in Indiana, Sen. Hillary
Clinton's Indiana state director, Robbie Mook told reporters on a conference call this afternoon that it was "more productive to discuss plans to create jobs openly and publicly rather than through people's mailboxes through false negative attacks."
Clinton's Indiana team accused the
Obama campaign of distributing "negative attack mailers" that "distort" Clinton's record on jobs. By contrast, they argued, Clinton's upcoming three-day visit to the state will focus on "her positive vision for the country" with a "Standing Up for Jobs; Standing Up for You" theme.
"She will be visiting with Hoosiers where they live and where they work in more intimate settings, to continue listening to the daily struggles they are facing," Mook said.
Clinton will return to Northwest Indiana where a significant portion of the Democratic vote exists, but that poses a challenge for her because it’s located in the Chicago media market. Mook told reporters voters in the area were working class and union members, and despite a familiarity with Obama, they would be open to Clinton's message.
"This campaign is about jobs, jobs, jobs," he said, repeating the line that has become the campaign's rallying cry across the state.
Clinton's visit, including those made by her husband and daughter, will mark the campaign's 70th stop in the state, with 39 cities visited, part of a strategy to have face-to-face interaction in as many communities as possible.
Over the weekend,
Bill Clinton marked his 24th stop in Indiana, winding his way through small, rural towns in Northeastern Indiana, which were at times so remote that nary a ubiquitous Dairy Queen in sight. The former president told partially filled gymnasiums of older voters that it was individuals in communities like these that helped his wife stay in the race.
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
GRAHAM, NC -- While saying -- once again -- that she would not have attended a church led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Clinton said she regretted that Republicans have “politicized” the matter and criticized McCain for not acting more strongly to put a stop to ads by local Republicans that invoke Obama’s former pastor.
“I believe that if Senator McCain was serious, he would do more than send a letter,” Clinton told reporters this morning. “He is the putative nominee. I think he could very clearly tell the North Carolina party, tell the Mississippi party that he would not tolerate to those kinds of advertisements and I am waiting to see whether he does that.”
Asked later whether new public comments from Wright, particularly those mocking Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, reflected on Obama, Clinton was terse, saying only: “You’ll have to ask him that.”
Clinton also was asked about reports that her husband has seized a larger role in the campaign. “I’m very proud to the role my husband is playing in the campaign,” she said. “I think it’s very helpful to have the only successful two-term Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt campaign for me.”
But she did not answer -- even in a follow up -- concerns that have been raised by some party leaders, most notably Rep. Jim Clyburn, that some of his public comments are having a detrimental role.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Pete Williams
In one of the most closely watched cases of the term, the US Supreme Court has upheld Indiana's requirement that voters show government-issued photo IDs at the polls. At least 17 other states were awaiting this decision before going ahead with similar laws of their own.
The vote was 6-3, with Justice John Paul Stevens joining the mostly conservative majority.
Democrats had attacked the law, saying it created a burden for poor, minority, and handicapped voters, who would have a harder time getting government-issued IDs. They accused Indiana officials of passing the law to suppress the minority vote.
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** You’re so vain, you probably think this campaign is about you: After addressing the NAACP yesterday in Detroit, Jeremiah Wright travels to the heart of the media beast -- the National Press Club in DC -- where he has been speaking this morning. At this point, no matter one's political inexperience, Wright has to know he's not helping his friend; his decision to go public and defend his reputation at this point in the campaign is doing nothing to help Obama, if anything, it's leading some to believe he's actually trying to sabotage him. He's hurting him and hurting him very badly. Frankly, it’s as selfish of a move as we've seen in some time. Imagine, for example, if Norman Hsu or Vicki Iseman were doing publicity tours right now. Maybe, if there's a silver lining for Obama, he's giving Obama a very easy chance to simply walk away. Remember, Obama didn't toss Wright under the bus, but Wright appears to be doing that to Obama’s candidacy. Still, if Wright Vol. 1, “bitter,” and Pennsylvania didn’t move superdelegates, what will? Nevertheless, Obama seems to be starting off this week in about as bad of shape as we've seen in him in some time.
*** McCain on the offensive: One of the more interesting political developments over the past few days has been McCain’s harsh tone toward Obama -- on Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and even Hamas (noting that the terrorist organization prefers Obama to win the presidency). A few things seem to be going on here. One, it looks like McCain is using this to define Obama on these matters. Two, the Arizona senator seems to be trying to draw a line in the sand now that he’s going to be tough on Obama -- unlike how Obama’s Democratic rivals treated him early on. (If they set the ground rules this far out, they can draw him into a fight early and potentially hurt him on his greatest strength: that he’s above the fray.) And three, it seems McCain is trying to shore up his base and placate the GOP’s amplifiers on these issues. (check out the 90%+ he's already getting from Republicans in nat'l polls; who woulda thunk he would have 90% of the GOP at all, let alone in late April). The downside to McCain’s tough tone, of course, is that it's very un-McCain. This isn’t the same guy we saw in 2000 or even in the GOP primaries until he began whacking Romney in Florida. Indeed, this tack can turn off folks (especially those coveted independents) as much as it might hurt Obama.
*** Obama’s re-launch: One story the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all seem to agree on today: Obama’s recasting his stump speech as he talks more about the economy. Obama is trying to address an economic weakness the same way a professional basketball player approaches his craft -- by working on the weak parts of your game. Yet expect the Clinton campaign to jump on something in particular that was in the New York Times, the implication that Obama's "bored" with the primary. We can almost hear the Clinton hit on this now: "So, apparently, my opponent is bored debating the issues with me; he's bored, folks.” Now, the New York Times never quoted Obama as saying he was "bored"; it's a characterization based on interviews with aides. But the comment is one that can easily be used for some stump lines today. Yet let's take this "bored" sentiment a step further -- it's clearly a reflection of a candidate who seems to be struggling with what to say next and how to refine his pitch just enough to finish the job. The campaign seems to be shying away from the big rally approach. Here's our question: Why aren't they simply re-running their Iowa/New Hampshire strategy where he did a little of both, big rallies in small towns?
*** I challenge you to a duel: Clinton has not let a day go by without bringing up her debate challenge. What's been interesting is that Clinton keeps changing the offer; it started with simply accepting another media organized debate; then it shifted to Lincoln-Douglas-style debates (i.e. no moderator) and finally, yesterday, she offered to debate him on a flatbed truck. Maybe tomorrow she'll call for debates in the back of an astro-turf-lined El Camino. Still, the doggedness of the debate challenge may start to get under Obama's skin -- and given Wright's decision to not get out of the news -- maybe a debate will be what Obama wants in order to change the focus of the last week of this campaign.
*** Hillary Strangelove? Because of Jeremiah Wright remaining in the news, not that much attention has been paid to Clinton’s recent comments regarding Iran and the Middle East. But Sunday’s Boston Globe weighed in -- harshly. It dubbed her “Hillary Strangelove,” because of her umbrella Iran-Mideast ally retaliation policy. And the paper called that "Rambo rhetoric" that "plays into the hands of Iranian hard-liners who want to plow ahead with efforts to attain a nuclear weapons capability." More: “[T]here are some red lines that should never be crossed,” it said. “Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC's ‘Good Morning America’ that, if she were president, she would ‘totally obliterate’ Iran if Iran attacked Israel. This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.”
*** What say you, superdelegates? By the end of June, Howard Dean says (and said again on Meet the Press) he wants superdelegates to come out to say which Democratic candidate they are backing. Just asking… After 15 months, do they really need more than two more months? For those keeping score at home, Clinton and Obama each picked up a superdelegate over the weekend. Clinton got the backing of New Hampshire add-on Kathy Sullivan, the state's former party chair. Obama picked up Charlene Fernandez (AZ), who filled a vacancy. Here’s where the counts stand: SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 264-241 (290 still undecided); PLEDGED: Obama 1,491-1,334; OVERALL: Obama 1,732-1,598.
*** On the trail: Clinton spends her day in North Carolina, stumping in Graham, Salisbury, Concord, and finally with a rally in Charlotte; McCain is in Miami, where he holds a health-care roundtable; and Obama campaigns in North Carolina, hitting Wilmington, Wilson, and ending with a rally in Chapel Hill. Also, Bill and Chelsea Clinton are both in North Carolina.
Countdown to North Carolina, Indiana: 8 days
Countdown to West Virginia: 15 days
Countdown to Kentucky and Oregon: 22 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 190 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 267 days
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INDIANA: Could Indiana go blue, really? A poll out this week showed Obama beating McCain and Clinton tied with him there. The Boston Globe looks at the possibility: “Long an afterthought in presidential politics, Indiana Democrats -- who haven't delivered their state in the general election since 1964, and haven't had a meaningful say in picking their party's nominee since 1968 - see the growing excitement over the contest between Clinton and Barack Obama as an opportunity to build up muscle in places where the party's national reach had atrophied.”
NORTH CAROLINA: Some stats for you. First, this one from today's Raleigh News & Observer: "The popularity of early voting can be seen in the numbers. By Friday night, more than 121,500 people statewide had voted at one-stop locations, according to the State Board of Elections, and an additional 10,593 mailed ballots."
And next, check out these stats in Sunday's Los Angeles Times: "As a prelude to North Carolina's May 6 Democratic presidential primary, state voters recently were asked about prejudices. As related by the News & Observer in Raleigh, here's what the poll found: A whopping number -- 91% -- said race would not affect their political decisions, but 54% said they knew someone who would not cast a ballot for a black candidate. A candidate's gender, 79% said, would make no difference to them, but 63% said they knew someone who would not vote for a woman.”
“The survey by Elon University also looked ahead to the fall election, which will feature Republican John McCain trying to become the oldest person elected to a first presidential term. No problem, 66% said; age would not be a factor in their vote. But 44% said they knew someone who would not support someone they viewed as ‘too old.’” Nice to know there are so many open-minded folks in the Tar Heel State. Too bad about so many of their neighbors, though."
Just how badly does the presidential primary hurt the downballot primaries? "In some ways, next week's North Carolina primary is like rock star Bruce Springsteen showing up at a high school battle of the bands. In a very short time, the Democratic presidential duel between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken center stage. And the dozens of Tar Heel races -- from the statehouse to the courthouse -- have been reduced to a political sideshow struggling to draw voters' attention.”
“The presidential candidates are drawing the huge crowds, dominating the TV ads, vacuuming up the news coverage and driving the voter turnout. State candidates, strategists and party leaders -- some of whom have been carefully planning their campaigns for years -- are scrambling to figure out how to maneuver in a changed political landscape."
Bloomberg's Al Hunt sums up what is probably the undeniable fallout of this campaign regardless of who ends up the Dem nominee: "Bill Clinton May Be Biggest Loser of Campaign." More: "Before this campaign, he was an international statesman extraordinaire and the guru for ambitious Democratic politicians. In recent months, he has devalued himself and his future by his conduct. Although he has a decent relationship with John McCain, given the continuing partisan resentment of Bill Clinton, he would remain largely in exile under a Republican president.”
“If Hillary Clinton upsets the odds and wins the presidency, it's likely to prove an unhappy time for her husband. He would be scrutinized, politically and personally; political strains between the president and first spouse would emerge.”
“A President Obama would drive him crazy. If not irrelevant, it would make Clinton a secondary figure within his own country and party. There is little that would make him more frustrated or angrier."
Speaking of Bill, the New Yorker's Lizza has an interesting piece about Bill vs. Barack. "Adjusting to the modern, gaffe-centric media environment has been wrenching. At most of his Pennsylvania stops, the national press was represented mainly by a pair of young TV-network ‘embeds,’ whom Clinton regards not as reporters but as media jackals who record his every utterance yet broadcast only his outbursts, a phenomenon that has helped transform him into a YouTube curiosity and diminished him -- perhaps permanently. ‘It’s like he’s been plucked out of time and thrown into the middle of this entirely new kind of campaign,’ the adviser told me. Jay Carson, a senior Clinton campaign official and Bill’s former spokesman, said, “Because of the way he is covered, the only thing anyone ever sees is fifteen seconds that is deemed by the pundits to be off message.”
About that $10 million in one day from 100,000 donors... Politico's Vogel throws some cold water on the figures: "It made no difference that the details didn’t always add up -- wide variations in the numbers of new donors; a conflicting timeline of when the money was actually raised. It was the eye-popping $10 million figure -- the most ever claimed in a 24-hour period -- that dominated the news cycle."
CONTINUED >>
Here are advanced experts of McCain’s remarks on health care today. “As a nation, we do not uniformly deliver the best possible care. Shortfalls in patient safety and medical errors remain a dangerous reality, and too many Americans do not have health insurance. But most importantly, our health care is too expensive. We spend a staggering amount of money on health care -- over $2 trillion and almost twice as much as any other country per person. Within the decade total health care spending will more than double and consume nearly one out of every five dollars in America.”
More: “We can build a health care system that is more responsive to our needs and is delivered to more people at lower cost. The ‘solution,’ my friends, isn't a one-size-fits-all-big government takeover of health care. It resides where every important social advance has always resided - with the American people themselves… The engine of our prosperity and progress has always been our freedom and the sense of responsibility for and control of our own destiny that freedom requires. The public's trust in government waxes and wanes. But we have always trusted in ourselves to meet any challenge that required only our ingenuity and industry to surmount. Any "solution" that robs us of that essential sense of ourselves is a cure far worse than the affliction it is meant to treat.”
Over the weekend, the New York Times ran this story: “Given Senator John McCain’s signature stance on campaign finance reform, it was not surprising that he backed legislation last year requiring presidential candidates to pay the actual cost of flying on corporate jets. The law, which requires campaigns to pay charter rates when using such jets rather than cheaper first-class fares, was intended to reduce the influence of lobbyists and create a level financial playing field. But over a seven-month period beginning last summer, Mr. McCain’s cash-short campaign gave itself an advantage by using a corporate jet owned by a company headed by his wife, Cindy McCain, according to public records. For five of those months, the plane was used almost exclusively for campaign-related purposes, those records show.”
“Mr. McCain’s campaign paid a total of $241,149 for the use of that plane from last August through February, records show. That amount is approximately the cost of chartering a similar jet for a month or two, according to industry estimates. The senator was able to fly so inexpensively because the law specifically exempts aircraft owned by a candidate or his family or by a privately held company they control. The Federal Election Commission adopted rules in December to close the loophole -- rules that would have required substantial payments by candidates using family-owned planes -- but the agency soon lost the requisite number of commissioners needed to complete the rule making.”
CONTINUED >>
The New York Times front-pages that Obama “is making subtle changes to his campaign style and message in an effort to strengthen his appeal to blue-collar voters and to avoid a defeat in Indiana that aides fear could give Democratic Party leaders further pause about his viability in a general election… Mr. Obama is seeking to absorb the lessons of his defeat in Pennsylvania. The changes reflect concern that he is being portrayed by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as distant and culturally out of touch with many working-class Democrats, a worry underlined by her lopsided victory among many of those voters in that state on Tuesday and last month in Ohio.”
More: “In interviews with several associates and aides, Mr. Obama was described as bored with the campaign against Mrs. Clinton and eager to move into the general election against Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee. So the Obama campaign is undertaking modifications in his approach intended to inject an air of freshness into his style. In strategy sessions last week, advisers concluded that Mr. Obama, of Illinois, needed to do a better job reminding voters of his biography, including his modest upbringing by a single mother and one of his first jobs as a community organizer helping displaced steel mill workers. He also has to sharpen his economic message, they said, to improve his appeal and connection with voters in hope of capitalizing on the sensibilities that served him well in Midwestern states.”
The Washington Post adds, “[I]n a noteworthy shift, the Illinois senator is trying to reach working-class and middle-class voters by arguing more explicitly that the reform ideas driving his campaign can address the economic troubles that threaten their way of life. Supplanting lobbyist influence with citizen activism, uniting the country beyond petty partisan gamesmanship and bringing more candor to government, he argues, are not just abstract goals, but concrete steps that can level the playing field and lead to a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth… Obama hopes the message, still being refined, will bring a victory in the May 6 primary here and help him close out the battle for the Democratic nomination against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But interviews here suggested it is not an easy sell. Obama's faith in the power of numbers has taken hold with young and engaged voters, but it is harder to convince Americans who have grown dissociated from their government that they have a role to play beyond going to the polls every few years.”
WSJ runs a similar story. "Barack Obama recast his call for change by speaking more directly to voters' economic concerns as polls show him in a dead heat with Hillary Clinton in Indiana. The shift comes amid signs that Sen. Obama's lofty appeals for hope and change may not be resonating with financially insecure voters, and may even be driving them away.”
The Washington Post looks at the debate Wright has sparked inside many black churches. "Wright's appearance today at the National Press Club will begin the annual Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. The conference, named for the noted religious scholar, will bring black religious leaders from across the country to Howard University. And at the center of the discussions will be the powerful and provocative tenets of liberation theology.”
CONTINUED >>
A staggering stat courtesy of today's Washington Post: 1 million new voters have registered for the last seven primaries. "The past seven states to hold primaries registered more than 1 million new Democratic voters; Republican numbers mainly ebbed or stagnated. North Carolina and Indiana, which will hold their presidential primaries on May 6, are reporting a swell of new Democrats that triples the surge in registrations before the 2004 primary."
USA Today takes a closer look at the coalitions each candidate has built in general election matchups. "Republicans lined up more solidly behind McCain than Democrats did behind Obama. Nine of 10 Republicans backed the Arizona senator, compared with eight of 10 Democrats who supported the Illinois senator. Each got equal support, 8%, from members of the other party.
Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese and Democratic strategist Paul Begala hold a media conference call at 10:00 am ET to announce the launch of the HRC’s unprecedented nationwide campaign to mobilize voters for the 2008 election and discuss the state of the national electorate in terms of electing pro-civil rights leaders.
From NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-TreworgyMcCain spoke with reporters in Miami Sunday afternoon at a press conference that had been hastily arranged late Friday night. The ostensible purpose of the event was to allow the presumptive GOP nominee to continue criticizing
Obama for not supporting his gas tax holiday proposal.
But what was seemingly meant as another chapter in an ongoing series of criticism quickly moved toward the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the North Carorlina Republican Party’s continued commitment to airing an ad referencing Wright’s comments in connection with Obama. Over the course of an 18-minute press conference McCain used Obama’s name an average of once per minute -- many times in response to direct questions but almost every time in a disparaging context.
The highlights include a reference to additional comments by Wright -- that McCain claimed he had just seen yesterday -- in which the pastor compared “the United States Marine Corps with Roman Legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our Savior,” according to McCain.
He also referenced a comment made by Obama this morning on Fox News Sunday in which McCain relayed that his Democratic opponent said that Wright’s comments are “legitimate political issue.”
“I have said that I will not…have any comment on it and that’s because I thought and I believe that Sen. Obama does not share those views” expressed by Wright, McCain said. “But Sen. Obama himself says it’s a legitimate political issue, so I would imagine that many other people will share that view, and it’ll be in the arena.”
On whether he has the ability to stop the NC GOP from running an ad with clips of Wright, McCain once again said that he had done all he can do, although he did admit that he has not personally tried to contact the state party and he does not plan on punishing the party if they go through with plans to place the ad on TV.
The Obama campaign responded in writing this way: "By sinking to a level that he specifically said he'd avoid, John McCain has broken his word to the American people and rendered hollow his promise of a respectful campaign. With each passing day, John McCain acts more and more like someone who's spent twenty-six years learning the divisive, distracting tactics of Washington. That's not the change that the American people are looking for."
From NBC’s Domenico MontanaroThis weekend,
Clinton and
Obama each picked up a superdelegate. Clinton got the backing of New Hampshire add-on Kathy Sullivan, the state's former party chair. Obama picked up Charlene Fernandez (AZ), who filled a vacancy.
SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 264-241 (290 still undecided)
PLEDGED: Obama 1,491-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,732-1,598
From NBC/NJ’s Athena JonesINDIANOPLIS, Ind. --
Obama told reporters Sunday that Indiana was important, but declined to call it a "tie-breaker" as he had before.
"I think that Indiana is a very important state," he said during a roughly five-minute impromptu press conference outside a restaurant he visited after attending church. "So is North Carolina. We don’t take that for granted, so I'm going to be going down there on Monday and Tuesday, but there’s no doubt that Indiana is a state where it's close; it's tied statistically in the polls. We feel very strongly that our message of bringing about change in Washington is something that will resonate with the people here in Indiana."
Since his nearly double-digit loss to
Clinton in Pennsylvania Tuesday, Obama has faced more questions from reporters and pundits about why he can't seem to "close the deal" with voters. Many see wins here in the Hoosier State and in North Carolina on May 6 as key to helping him do that. Polls show a tight race in the former and Obama leading in the latter.
The Illinois senator said he didn't believe the Midwestern values that Indiana, his home state of Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and other states represented were "reflected in the debates in Washington" and talked about the need to end political bickering.
He said a win was a win in Indiana and defined a win as 50 plus 1.
Obama declined to answer questions about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright or what it would mean to lose Indiana. When asked to respond to Clinton's latest challenge to a Lincoln-Douglas style debate without a moderator, he repeated his earlier statement that he would not debate before May 6, because he wanted to focus on meeting as many voters as possible in the nine days remaining. He kept open the possibility of considering "something" after those contests, but did not answer directly whether he thought that particular style of debate would be a good idea.
From NBC/NJ’s Athena JonesIn an interview on Fox News Sunday,
Obama acknowledged he may have some work to do to attract blue-collar voters.
"They are less familiar with me than they are with her," he told Chris Wallace. "So we probably have to work a little bit harder. I’ve got to be more present. I’ve got to be knocking on more doors. I’ve got to be hitting more events. We’ve got to work harder, because although it’s flipped a little bit, we’ve always been the underdog in this race."
Obama expressed confidence that his race would not keep him from being elected in the general election, despite exit polls in Pennsylvania that showed votes divided along racial lines. He also argued he was putting unexpected states in play.
"If you look at the general-election polls, we are doing better against John
McCain than Sen.
Clinton is," he said. "And we are putting states in play like Colorado and Virginia that have not been in play for a very long time. Here in Indiana, we just-- you just saw polling by the Indianapolis Star showing me beating John McCain."
He called his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright a "legitimate political issue" but argued, as he has in the past, that the use of 30-second sound bites had simplified and caricatured his former pastor and said he felt that had been "done in a fairly deliberate way," calling it "unfortunate."
"I also know that I go to church not to worship the pastor, to worship God,” he added. “And that ministry, the church family that's been built there, does outstanding work, has been I think applauded for its outreach to the poor.”
He also discussed his association with 1960s radical William Ayers and issues like charter schools, merit pay for teachers, tort reform and Iraq. The senator said he would not debate Clinton again before the May 6th contests. The interview was taped Saturday, before news that Clinton had challenged Obama to a 90-minute, moderator-free, Lincoln-Douglas-style debate. After the news, Obama's campaign maintained that there had been plenty of debates and that after May 6, they would consider more.
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
ANDERSON, IN -- As Obama campaigned in Indiana this weekend, he talked about his attempts to avoid the kind of divisive politics that he says have shaped this country over the last 20 years. It's a central part of his "new politics" argument
"If you watched the last few weeks of this campaign, you would think that all politics is about is negative ads and bickering and arguing and gaffes and sideline issues," he complained. "There's no discussion, serious discussion about how we're actually gonna bring back jobs to Anderson. That's not what's been debated. That's not what's being discussed, but that's the politics that we've become used to over the last 20 years. I'm tired of that politics 'cause it doesn't solve problems."
Obama went on to talk about his work across the aisle in the Illinois state house and the US Senate, saying he had tried to resist the old politics. "So one of the things that we've gotta do is bring this country together and stop being distracted by, you know, back-and-forth, tit-and-tat (sic) bickering," he said. "I have been trying to resist this in this campaign and I will continue to resist it when I'm president of the United States of America."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
KOKOMO, IN -- Obama has been known to shoot a few hoops from time to time, but Friday night in central Indiana was the first opportunity the traveling press has had to bear witness to his skills as a baller.
Obama played in a 3-on-3 basketball game after a town hall here. The other participants were Marion High School junior Blake Hancock and Indiana University-Kokomo freshman Kory McKay, both supporters who collected voter registration forms from new voters to qualify for the “3-on-3 "Challenge for Change."
Hancock, who wore a T-shirt with "Blake the Great" on the back, invited two friends to join the game. Also on the court were WNBA Indiana Fever’s Alison Bales -- the tallest player on the court -- and the Fever’s Tamika Catchings, an Olympic gold medalist, who refereed.
Obama came out on the floor to cheers of "Yes we can." He wore long navy sweats, white tennis shoes, and a gray USMC (US Marine Corp) t-shirt, a gift from an agent.
During the roughly 25-minute match on half the court, Obama played well, blocking a few shots and sinking four of his own -- including the winning shot from three-point range. At one point, he drove to basket for lay-up, missed, rebounded his own shot, tried again, and scored.
He had a few turnovers and managed several assists, many of them to Bales, who hit quite a few shots herself.
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli and Athena Jones
SOUTH BEND, IN -- Clinton yesterday threw a curveball in her latest pitch to get Obama to debate her before the May 6 primary here, calling for a Lincoln-Douglas style meeting that would have the two go head-to-head without a moderator.
Standing on a platform above home plate at South Bend’s minor league ballpark, Clinton noted that Obama partisans “complained a little bit about the tough questions” during the April 16 debate in Philadelphia, and also “complained about the moderators.” She also alleged that the Obama camp had “turned down every debate that has been offered.”
“I’m offering Sen. Obama a chance to debate me one-on-one, no moderators,” she said. “Just the two of us, going for 90 minutes, asking an answering questions.”
She said such a meeting would be a throwback to the debates of Lincoln and Douglas in neighboring Illinois 150 years ago, when the two met seven times. She also said Indiana deserved such a forum, having “wandered in the wilderness of American politics for 40 years,” the last time the state mattered in presidential primary politics. “Who knows we might even carry Indiana in the fall if we start with a good debate right here,” she added.
“We’ve had four debates between Sen. Obama and myself -- that’s all we’ve had since this whole campaign has gone on,” she said. “I think that would be good for the Democratic Party, it would be great for democracy, and it would be great for Indiana.”
Just before Clinton made that challenge, however, Obama told Fox News Sunday that he would not take part in any further debates before two-state showdown in North Carolina and Indiana on May 6.
In addition, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod gave NBC/NJ this response to Clinton's challenge. "I think if Lincoln-Douglas had debated 21 times, I don't think there would be much appetite for another Lincoln-Douglas debate."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee will take up the issue of Florida and Michigan again on May 31st, likely its last opportunity to come up with a solution before jurisdiction moves to the Credentials Committee. (That would officially happen June 29th.)
The RBC has two challenges before it from supporters of seating voting delegations from Michigan (Ferguson) and Florida (Ausman). Those challenges generally dispute that the committee had the authority, in part, to strip those states of their delegates.
Members of the RBC could potentially come to the meeting with an agreed-upon solution that would quash the issue. But if that doesn’t happen -- something that has seemed a near impossibility so far -- the committee would take up the complaints and possibly vote on them. If those challenges are voted down, then any further appeals would have to be made to that Credentials Committee.
From NBC's Mark Murray
In recent days, McCain has taken some critical -- and, some might argue, personal -- shots at Obama. On Sunday, McCain questioned the tenuous association Obama has with the former '60s radical William Ayers. Yesterday, he delivered a jab at Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright. (Responding to questions about the endorsement he received from the controversial pastor John Hagee, the Arizona senator said, "I didn't attend Pastor Hagee's church for 20 years.")
And today, on a call with conservative bloggers, McCain said this: "I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare... If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly."
McCain was referring to a the favorable comment a Hamas adviser recently made of Obama. But Obama has criticized the terrorist group and has said he would not meet with them.
Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan responded to McCain's comment on Obama and Hamas. "We want to take Senator McCain at his word that he wants to run a respectful campaign, but [it] is becoming increasingly difficult when he continually tries to use the politics of association and makes claims he knows not to be true to advance his campaign. This type of politics of division and distraction, not only lead to a campaign not worthy of the American people, but also has failed to help our families for too long."
Sevugan also points to this Obama camp statement that was made after the Hamas adviser made his remarks -- a statement the McCain campaign should have known of. "Senator Obama has repeatedly rejected and denounced the actions of Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of many innocents, that is dedicated to Israel's destruction. As president, Obama will work with Israel to isolate terrorist groups like Hamas, target their resources, and support Israel's right and capability to defend itself from any attack."
*** UPDATE *** McCain spokesman Brian Rogers defends McCain's statement earlier today with this statement. “This is a legitimate issue for the American people to think about. The reason for Hamas’ praise of Senator Obama’s foreign policy is his commitment to meet unconditionally with Iran -- a nation whose president denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map, funds terrorists and sends weapons to Iraq to kill American soldiers. Senator Obama’s positions present a radical departure from the longstanding bipartisan consensus for isolating rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea.
“It is not only responsible to raise these critical issues in this election, but it would be the height of irresponsibility not to have this discussion with the American people.”
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones and Mike Memoli
INDIANAPOLIS -- In a press conference today, Obama linked his rivals' Washington experience to the failure to deal effectively with high energy prices -- which sparked a quick response from those rivals.
"The candidates with the Washington experience -- my opponents -- are good people. They mean well," Obama said. "But they’ve been in Washington for a long time, and even with all that experience they talk about, nothing has happened. This country didn’t raise fuel efficiency standards for over 30 years. So what have we got for all that experience? Gas that’s approaching $4 a gallon, because you can fight all you want inside Washington, but until you change the way it works, you won’t be able to make the changes Americans need."
Clinton said Obama's attack rings hollow because of his vote in 2005 on the Bush Administration’s energy bill. “Earlier today, my opponent attacked me on energy issues,” she said from the floor of Indiana University’s basketball court. “But he voted, which I think is always the way to figure out where somebody truly stands... When sit came time to stand up against the oil companies, to stand against Dick Cheney's energy bill, my opponent voted for it, and I voted against it. And that bill had billions of dollars in giveaways to the oil companies. It was the best bill that the energy companies could buy.”
And McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds also jumped into the fray. "Barack Obama rolled out the cameras, and then said nothing about his new opposition to immediate price relief for hardworking Americans who are seeing record prices at the pump. Barack Obama can’t deliver for working people if he supports higher gas taxes when the price of fuel is at a record high, and is likely to get higher by summertime.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Chuck ToddOne of the things that both Dem campaigns are always nervous about is defectors. In particular, Clinton is more vulnerable to this problem since she's the candidate that is trailing. Well, NBC News has learned that a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, former Amb. to Chile Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon is leaving the campaign to join up Barack Obama's campaign. Officially dubbed a "
Hillraiser," Guerra-Mondragon raised nearly $500,000 for Clinton's campaign, according to some estimates. He has been informing people inside Clintonworld this week in what's been described as some tough conversations. A formal announcement of a role for Guerra-Mondragon on Obama's national finance committee will be made next week. Guerra-Mondragon was appointed Amb. to Chile by Pres. Clinton in '94 and served until '98.
Among the reasons for Guerra-Mondragon to defect, according to one informed source, was he was uneasy with the tone of the Clinton campaign and was beginning to worry about what this would mean for the general election.
It's unclear if this defection will lead to others; the Clinton camp has been particularly effective at getting folks to keep their powder dry. For Obama, this comes at a time when his campaign is trying to re-convince insiders that the math indicates he has the nomination virtually wrapped up. In addition, Guerra-Mondragon's defection could serve as a tipping point with some key Hispanic Democratic leaders that Obama is ready to start making a bigger effort to court Hispanics.
From NBC's Abby Livingston and NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
At his media avail in Indiana, NBC's Lee Cowan asked Obama about Rev. Wright's statement that the Illinois senator acted as a politician in giving his speech on Wright and race in Philadelphia back in March.
Here's Obama's response: "Well, look, I have commented extensively, most prominently in that speech in Pennsylvania on my profound disagreements with some of Rev. Wright's comments. And you know, I understand that he might not agree with me on my assessment of his comments. That's to be expected."
"So you know, he is obviously free to ... express his opinions on these issues. You know, I've expressed mine very clearly. I think that what he said in several instances were objectionable. And I understand why the American people took offense. And you know, as I indicated before, I took offense."
From NBC/NJ's Mike MemoliJACKSONVILLE, NC --
Clinton continued pressing
Obama for a debate here this morning, saying that each state has a unique set of issues that deserve discussion.
Clinton, joined outside a fire house near Camp Lejune by retired military leaders, told several hundred supporters that she was happy the campaign has continued in North Carolina, because there is “no better place to be in the springtime.” She made a pitch for her campaign’s interactive “NC Ask Me” feature, in which people can submit questions online and get an answer -- some of which have been used in television ads.
“It has been great, and we’ve gotten over 14,000 questions,” she said. “We have answered every one of those questions. But the only question I can’t answer is why Sen. Obama won’t debate me in North Carolina. And I’d sure like to give an answer.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ's Carrie DannFor those who are counting, the
Obama campaign announced 12 new field offices today in North Carolina, bringing its total to 33. The
Clinton campaign has 18 in the state.
From NBC/NJ's Carrie DannThought the NC governor's race couldn't get any uglier? Think again!
Richard
Moore, one of the candidates in the NC gubernatorial race, who is targeted by the GOP's controversial "Extreme" ad, is up with a
new commercial attacking his opponent, Bev
Perdue, for her vote against a hate crimes bill. The 30-second spot slams Perdue for voting against a bill that included a provision for tougher investigation of the KKK.
As with most political ads, there's more to the story -- Perdue has a respectable civil rights record and has always polled well among black voters in the state. The Perdue camp furiously compared Moore's attack to the legendarily dirty ad wars waged by Sen. Jesse Helms.
Perdue is accusing Moore of "race-baiting." And now, the Republican group that's threatening to run the Jeremiah Wright ad is throwing in their two cents, too, citing the "racially-tinged" Democratic back-and-forth as a sign of hypocrisy.
"We have stood firmly against the injection of race into this discussion and have reiterated again and again our focus on the issue of judgment," says NC GOP chairwoman Linda Daves in a statement criticizing her Democratic counterpart. "Clean up your own house before you tell us how to run ours.”
*** UPDATE *** Here's a fact check on the ad from the Raleigh News & Observer. It says the ad is accurate, that she voted against the bill, and was only one of two Democrats to do so. But her campaign said she "did not recall the vote" and "given the context of other votes she cast, it must be a 'misvote.' She would have been voting against her party leadership, which would have been unusual for a freshman. Legislators who push the wrong button when voting can, and often do, ask to have their vote corrected afterward." Also, they add, that "other votes at the same time better reflect her record on civil rights, such as voting in favor of making Martin Luther King Day a paid state holiday."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this post incorrectly noted that a still of Obama was used in the beginning of the ad.]
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** Wright reappears…: Obama had himself a bad day yesterday, and he wasn’t even on the campaign trail. Thanks to the advanced excerpts of a Rev. Jeremiah Wright interview on PBS (which airs tonight at 9:00 pm ET), as well as Wright's dismissal of Obama's criticism of him as just politics, this wasn't something the Obama campaign could have been pleased with. That said, if the Moyers interview -- which will likely only be watched by Obama's PBS-watching base, but will also be picked up by others -- ends up humanizing Wright, it could be helpful in the long term. But short term, his appearance wasn’t helpful in a week the Clinton campaign is ramping up its argument that Obama isn’t electable.
VIDEO: NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, says controversial statements from his sermons were taken out of context.
***
… And so does Bill: But will Bill Clinton -- and the comments he made earlier this week about Obama playing the race card -- overshadow Wright today? It might happen, thanks to these comments by Rep. Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American in Congress. “In an interview with The
New York Times late Thursday, Mr. Clyburn said Mr. Clinton’s conduct in this campaign had caused what might be an irreparable breach between Mr. Clinton and an African-American constituency that once revered him. ‘When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar,’ Mr. Clyburn said. ‘I think black folks feel strongly that that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation.’” More: “Clyburn added that there appeared to be an almost ‘unanimous’ view among African-Americans that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton were ‘committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never win.’” Clyburn's the first major Dem leader to give voice to the speculation that Clinton is staying in to prepare for 2012. By the way, Clyburn is still officially uncommitted but given the opinions he's expressing, is he really?
*** The CW is now set: Two new Indiana polls are out that show the race there to be as close as we have expected it to be. Per a South Bend Tribune/Research 2000 poll (conducted April 21 to April 24), it’s Obama 48%, Clinton 47%. And an Indy Star/WTHR poll -- conducted (April 20 to April 23) by Ann Selzer, who famously got Iowa right -- has it Obama 41%, Clinton 38%. The biggest surprise in the Selzer survey is Obama's strength against McCain -- he leads him in Indi-freaking-ana! Clinton's basically even with McCain. Is the GOP brand in THAT bad of shape in reliably red Indiana? According to these and other polls, this race doesn’t look like Ohio or Pennsylvania at all, where Clinton had significant leads two weeks out. Rather, it looks like a jump ball. Meanwhile, the Washington Post cements the CW about North Carolina: To change the race, Clinton needs to upset Obama here, or get awfully close to it. "North Carolina, with its large African American population, has long been seen as a firewall for Obama after contests in Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere that favored Clinton. A win here and in Indiana, which also votes May 6, could cement his status as the front-runner.”
 |
|
VIDEO: Chuck Todd talks about the potential for a general election fight in Indiana and Majority Leader Harry Reid's assertion that he may call on superdelegates to pledge their support, soon.
***
Track the ad spending: What's going on with Clinton's money? According to various sources, here's what we know right now regarding TV ad buys: Obama is up in Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon, and now Kentucky. Clinton is on par with Obama in Indiana and has a little less money on the air than Obama in the Tar Heel State. This will be a good way to find out just how much of Clinton's initial $10 million windfall is useful in the primary. Currently she's not up in any states beyond IN and NC, but $10 million is more than enough for those two states. So watch the buys closely in these two states plus Kentucky, West Virginia, and Oregon to see how deep the Clinton campaign’s resources are.
*** Jumping ship? This piece by Tom Edsall in the Huffington Post is bound to be a topic of discussion today: “In a blink of an eye, the media has jumped ship from the Obama campaign and become a crucial Clinton ally, pressing just the message -- that Obama is a likely loser in the general election -- that Hillary and her allies have been promoting for the past six weeks… For Hillary, the shift is a potential lifesaver as she struggles to keep her head above water; without it, she would, metaphorically, drown.” The media’s constant refrain, Edsall’s piece points out, is that exit polls show Obama faring poorly with working-class voters, and that could doom him in the fall. But as one of us wrote yesterday, has this exit-poll analysis gone a little too far? After all, when McCain was losing evangelicals, weekly church-goers, and Republicans without college degrees -- even after the he became the presumptive GOP nominee -- no one was declaring that he’d have a huge problem with these folks in the fall. Can exit polls in a primary race tell us as much about the general election as the chattering class is claiming when you’re dealing with different candidates and different voters?
*** What are the supers thinking? While the focus after Pennsylvania is all on Obama, Elizabeth Drew has a piece in the Politico reminding us all the flaws that Hillary would bring to the table in a general election -- flaws that the superdelegates aren’t forgetting. Clinton, she writes, still hasn't answered the question marks over her head: Can she be a helpful leader of the Democratic Party? Can she have a better track record at building the party than her husband did? Right now, she doesn't have to answer those questions because she's the challenger; it's Obama's burden. But the undecided superdelegates are remembering the original reasons they didn't rush to her side in the first place. Ultimately, if she's to convince the supers to deny Obama the nomination, she needs to answer the concerns Dems originally had with her.
*** What will it take? Yesterday, Obama picked up Oregon Rep. David Wu, and has rolled out three superdelegates to Clinton’s one despite Clinton’s Pennsylvania primary victory. Clinton very nearly reached that 10-point mark in Pennsylvania, and superdelegates don’t yet appear to be moved. Clinton leads in the superdelegate count 263-240, the closest the count has been. Obama leads overall: 1,731-1,597. In the pledged count, Obama is up 1,491-1,334. There are 292 superdelegates still to be had (229 of those are named; there are 63 vacancies/add-ons).
*** GOP targets Obama: The LA Times runs a piece on the GOP ramping up its attacks -- on TV and radio -- against Obama. Once again, the CW has been overturned: A year ago, the assumption was the Democratic nominee was going to have the time and resources to define the GOP nominee. Well, it appears the Republican Party is getting the head start on defining Obama, thanks to the protracted race. In fact, it couldn't have worked out better -- as Clinton's attacks on Obama are helping to reinforce the GOP attacks. The Republican Party can afford to ignore Clinton for now because 1) they don't believe she'll be the nominee and 2) they've spent 16 years defining her to swing voters.
*** On the trail: Clinton begins her day in Jacksonville, NC and then heads to Indiana, where she stumps in Bloomington, Gary, and East Chicago; McCain is in Little Rock, AR, where he visits and holds a media avail at Arkansas Baptist College and then goes to Oklahoma City; and Obama, in Indiana, holds a rally in Bloomington (about an hour before Clinton’s event there) and a town hall in Kokomo. Also, Bill Clinton is in Oregon, and Chelsea Clinton and Michelle Obama are in Indiana.
Countdown to North Carolina, Indiana: 11 days
Countdown to West Virginia: 18 days
Countdown to Kentucky and Oregon: 25 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 193 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 270 days
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Veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew has an interesting reported op-ed in Politico today. "Notwithstanding the plentiful commentary to the effect that the Pennsylvania primary must have shaken superdelegates planning to support Barack Obama, causing them to rethink their position, key Democrats on Capitol Hill are unbudged. ‘I don’t think anyone’s shaken,’ a leading House Democrat told me. The critical mass of Democratic congressmen that has been prepared to endorse Obama when the timing seemed right remains prepared to do so. Their reasons, ones they have held for months, have not changed – and by their very nature are unlikely to.”
“Essentially, they are three:
(a) Hillary Rodham Clinton is such a polarizing figure that everyone who ever considered voting Republican in November, and even many who never did, will go to the polls to vote against her, thus jeopardizing Democrats down the ticket – i.e., themselves, or, for party leaders, the sizeable majorities they hope to gain in the House and the Senate in November.
(b) To take the nomination away from Obama when he is leading in the elected delegate count would deeply alienate the black base of the Democratic Party, and, in the words of one leading Democrat, ‘The superdelegates are not going to switch their voter and jeopardize the future of the Democratic Party for generations.’ Such a move, he said, would also disillusion the new, mostly young, voters who have entered into politics for the first time because of Obama, and lose the votes of independents who could make the critical difference in November.
(c) Because the black vote can make the decisive difference in numerous congressional districts, discarding Obama could cost the Democrats numerous seats."
In his National Journal column, NBC political analyst Charlie Cook writes, “The good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she’s winning a lot of battles. The bad news is that the war is pretty much lost. Sure, she won Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary by a strong 9 points in the face of being outspent on television ads by Barack Obama 2-to-1. She also won Ohio, Rhode Island, and at least the primary part of the bizarre “Texas two-step” primary-and-caucus combination on March 4.
CONTINUED >>
INDIANA (May 6): Going for the knockout blow, Obama is spending the next two days in Indiana; he doesn't head to North Carolina again until Monday.
A couple of new polls are out today in Indiana -- both essentially showing the race a dead heat. An Indianapolis Star poll, conducted by the same pollster who regularly nails it for the Des Moines Register in Iowa (Selzer and Co.) has Obama with a narrow three-point lead, 41%-38%. Interestingly, this poll has Obama actually leading McCain in the general. "Among Hoosiers who said they would vote in the general election -- a statewide sample of voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points -- Obama beat McCain 49 percent to 41 percent. Clinton broke even with McCain, with both backed by 46 percent of those polled. And, by 49 percent to 35 percent, Democratic primary voters said Obama is the candidate best able to win in the general election."
Meanwhile, a new Research 2000 poll conducted for the South Bend Tribune has Obama up 48%-47%. A week ago, this same pollster had Clinton had by three points.
The Los Angeles Times looks at the map. "Clinton is expected to have the upper hand in factory towns like Anderson and Muncie, where blue-collar anger runs deep over the North American Free Trade Agreement and other, pending foreign trade deals. But the powerful United Auto Workers union has held off from an endorsement. Most of the state's top Democratic officials, from Sen. Evan Bayh on down, back Clinton, giving her ‘the Cadillac organization on the Democratic side,’ Howey said. Obama has the support of former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, who has done a radio ad and is expected to campaign around Evansville, his former congressional base.”
“Clinton's toughest challenge is farther upstate, where new registration has soared among students in college towns like Bloomington, home of Indiana University. Overall, the state's voter totals have grown by 150,000 this year, officials reported. ‘Obama's played Bloomington like a violin,’ said Rob Stone, an emergency room physician. ‘Last summer, his people put out a table at the local farmers market, and they've been showing up every weekend.’”
“Clinton also faces surging first-time registration in black wards in Indianapolis and Gary, where Obama is counting on local leaders' backing."
To the West: Illinois, Obama’s home state. To the East, Ohio, where Clinton scored a double-digit victory. “The result: Neither candidate has a clear advantage as they seek the 72 pledged delegates at stake in Indiana's primary on May 6. Polls are split, making Indiana perhaps the biggest question mark left on the primary calendar.”
NORTH CAROLINA (May 6): The Washington Post looks at how a loss at NC could "shake" Clinton's claims of dominance in so-called "big" states. The CW is laid out: "North Carolina, with its large African American population, has long been seen as a firewall for Obama after contests in Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere that favored Clinton. A win here and in Indiana, which also votes May 6, could cement his status as the front-runner.”
CONTINUED >>
In what appears to be a response to the New York Times’ editorial on Wednesday that accused the Clinton campaign of taking the “low road,” campaign chief strategist Geoff Garin has a Washington Post op-ed defending the campaign's tactics. "Our campaign runs a TV ad Monday saying that the presidency is the toughest job in the world and giving examples of challenges presidents have faced and challenges the next president will face -- including terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mounting economic dislocation, and soaring gas prices. The ad makes no reference -- verbal, visual or otherwise -- to our opponent; it simply asks voters to think about who they believe is best able to stand the heat. And we are accused, by some in the media, of running a fear-mongering, negative ad.”
“The day before this ad went on the air, David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief strategist, appeared with me on ‘Meet the Press.’ He was asked whether Hillary Clinton would bring ‘the changes necessary’ to Washington, and his answer was ‘no.’ This was in keeping with the direct, personal character attacks that the Obama campaign has leveled against Clinton from the beginning of this race -- including mailings in Pennsylvania that describe her as ‘the master of a broken system.’”
“So let me get this straight. On the one hand, it's perfectly decent for Obama to argue that only he has the virtue to bring change to Washington and that Clinton lacks the character and the commitment to do so. On the other hand, we are somehow hitting below the belt when we say that Clinton is the candidate best able to withstand the pressures of the presidency and do what's right for the American people, while leaving the decisions about Obama's preparedness to the voters. Who made up those rules? And who would ever think they are fair?"
More: "The bottom line is that one campaign really has engaged in a mean-spirited, unfair character attack on the other candidate -- but it has been Obama's campaign, not ours. You would be hard-pressed to find significant analogues from our candidate, our senior campaign officials or our advertising to the direct personal statements that the Obama campaign has made about Clinton."
The New York Daily News on Clinton’s $10 million haul: “Maybe now Hillary Clinton can afford to pay her bills.”
Speaking of that debt… “Hillary Clinton's campaign debt at the end of March was bigger than it appeared because she didn't list the $5 million she loaned herself, a campaign finance watchdog group” (the Center for Responsive Politics) reported yesterday afternoon. “Clinton, in her filing with the Federal Election Commission, reported that her campaign had $9 million in cash on hand as of March 30, and $10 million in debts.” But, “Including the loan would put her debt as of March 30 at $15.3 million, the nonpartisan group said.”
The AP's Ross writes on Bill Clinton's troubles with black Dems. "He is a figurative black man watching an actual black man soak in all the love that black voters used to save for him. Suddenly, he looks oh so white.”
“The former president's love affair with black America hasn't soured to the point that he'll be chased out of his office in Harlem. But black people might revoke Clinton's honorary brother card if, out of his pain, he keeps hating on Obama. He's treating the Illinois senator like an unworthy heir to his racial legacy. At first, Clinton's slips of the lip about black voting habits and the like could be chalked up to election-year politics."
MCCAIN: Born-again tax-cutter
“Without naming Obama, McCain said those who would meet with a leader like Kim ‘should explain to the American people how talking unconditionally to dictators like Kim Jong-il in the aftermath of recent disclosures advances American interests,’” Reuters reports.
The Washington Post examines McCain's evolution on tax policy from someone who picked fiscal discipline over tax cuts to a simple tax-cutter now. "To supporters, McCain has simply seen the light and now understands the power that business tax relief has to spur economic growth and innovation. Said J.D. Foster, a former Bush White House and Treasury tax policy expert, now at the Heritage Foundation: ‘It's logical that he wouldn't be repeating the arguments he made then. We all learn from experience.’”
VIDEO: Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain talks with TODAY's Meredith Vieira about his trip to New Orleans and his run for president.
“To critics, it is political pandering. ‘It's just part of the new John McCain that's taking on the conventional wisdom that in tight races, you have to energize the base and win by 50.000001 percent,’ Chafee said. ‘I was frankly surprised that he's kept it up after securing the nomination. I thought he'd move to the center, and I haven't seen it.’”
CBN's Brody looks at the McCain campaign's efforts at faith outreach. Per RNC deputy chair Frank Donatelli, "We are going to have a very aggressive program to reach out to religious voters whether they are Evangelical, Protestant, Catholic or whatever. That is a staple of our campaign because what we find is that the most religious voters certainly in terms of Church attendance tend to vote Republican more than the general public. There are a lot of voters there for us. The senator’s team has been meeting with these (pro-family) groups. He has conducted some meetings and he’ll continue to have such meetings. I think the test here is what we are saying in terms of issues. The issues that are of concern to religious voters namely winning the war on terror and appointing and supporting judges to the federal bench that will interpret the Constitution and not make social policy, those are bedrock issues as far as Senator McCain is concerned. I believe that as the campaign goes on this will become more and more evident. We’ve got plenty of time here, lots of time for meetings and interaction and I just believe that as we go forward that the groups you’re talking about will become more and more comfortable with our campaign.”
Brody concludes: "When you combine McCain’s lack of appetite to engage on social issues with the fact that he’s the guy who pushed campaign finance reform (reviled by pro-family groups) and is against a federal marriage amendment plus he doesn’t really want to open up about his faith (run on sentence alert), the RNC and the McCain camp would be very wise to be overly aggressive courting the Evangelical base. Of course they can’t pander either or they’ll be slammed by moderates. Tough job. I’m glad I’m just a blogger posting articles in my basement with my pajamas on."
McCain lost more than a quarter of the vote in Pennsylvania. Is it a sign of trouble? Not necessarily. “The support for other candidates could be seen as a protest vote against McCain, who is trying to unite the Republican Party behind him. But the lack of unanimity is not atypical. In 2000, the last contested Republican presidential race, competitors were still winning sizable shares of the vote well after George W. Bush had secured the nomination and McCain withdrew in March of that year. The next month in Pennsylvania, Bush won 72 percent of the vote to McCain's 22 percent.”
Noting a critical Krugman column on Obama is like alerting folks of another plane landing safely at National. Yet despite the predictability of Krugman criticizing Obama, he makes an important point. "After Barack Obama’s defeat in Pennsylvania, David Axelrod, his campaign manager, brushed it off: ‘Nothing has changed tonight in the basic physics of this race.’ He may well be right -- but what a comedown. A few months ago the Obama campaign was talking about transcendence. Now it’s talking about math. ‘Yes we can’ has become ‘No she can’t.’”
The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the slow trickle of GOP made TV and radio ads that are critical of Obama. "The flurry of attacks underscores how Republicans and their allies are sensing opportunity in the increasingly battered image of Obama, whom many Democrats have viewed as their best hope for appealing across ideological lines and helping their party win in conservative areas. The ads also are playing into a debate among Democratic officials about Obama's electability in November, a discussion that gained urgency after his 9-percentage-point loss to Hillary Rodham Clinton in this week's Pennsylvania primary. That contest provided more evidence that the Illinois senator has had trouble winning over seniors and working-class white voters, who are seen as important to a Democratic victory this fall.”
National Journal’s Victor writes a feature story about whether Obama can take a punch. “‘I don’t think we know yet whether he can take a punch,” observed Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). Guillory, a former reporter who has written extensively about politics, added, ‘I think that is what is making a lot of Democrats nervous.” More: “‘McCain won’t do it, but the Republican satellite groups will put Reverend Wright on television,’ Shrum said. ‘I think it is a lot like the Bill Clinton draft records in 1992. It came out and it hurt him some in the primaries, along with the other stuff, but by the time of the general election … people just dismissed it and said this election is about my job, about health care, and a whole set of other issues.’”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Ken Strickland
The Senate Ethics Committee today issued GOP Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico a "public letter of qualified admonition" for his involvement in the Justice Department's firing of several US Attorneys last year. It was a scandal that helped lead to the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
In March of 2007, former US Attorney David Iglesias testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Domenici had called him at home asking about an ongoing investigation of Democrats in the senator's home state of New Mexico. Iglesias said Domenici wanted to know the timing of indictments.
According to the transcript from the hearing, the US Attorney said the senator asked, "'Are these going to be filed before November?' And I said I didn't think so, to which [Domenici] replied, 'I'm very sorry to hear that.'" Iglesias then said, "the line went dead."
Domenici later apologized for the call, but said he did not pressure Iglesias to move on the case. The 75-year-old senator has since announced his retirement saying he was diagnosed with a dementia type brain ailment.
The committee said it "finds no substantial evidence to determine that you attempted to improperly influence an ongoing investigation." But it did find that Domenici should have known his actions "created an appearance of impropriety that reflected unfavorable on the Senate."
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
WRAL-TV tells the Raleigh News & Observer it has rejected the North Carolina Republican Party's Rev. Jeremiah Wright ad, linking Obama, Wright and, by extension, Democratic gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore, who have endorsed Obama.
"A spokesman for another Triangle station, WTVD, said it had not been asked to air the ad but would have reservations about doing so," the News & Observer writes.
McCain and the Republican National Committee have asked the NC GOP not to air the ad.
From NBC's Shawna Thomas
Nancy Pelosi will be on Larry King Live tonight. CNN previewed a clip in which the House Speaker says a so-called Obama-Clinton Dream Ticket is not a good idea.
LARRY KING: If you had your power woud you want them to run together?
PELOSI: No
LARRY KING: No?
PELOSI: I don't think it's a good idea.
LARRY KING: Not a good idea?
PELOSI: No I don't think so.
LARRY KING: Because?
PELOSI: I think that first of all the candidate, whoever he or she may be, should choose his or her own vice presidential candidate. I think that's appropriate. That's where you would see the comfort level not only how to run but how to govern the country. And there's plenty of talent to go aroud to draw upon for a good strong ticket. I'm not one of those who thinks that that's a good ticket.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Check out the following excerpts from this Detroit News editorial on the Clinton camp's push for those Michigan delegates:
There is no deal yet to seat the delegation. But the Clinton camp is working overtime to ensure the elected slate is sent. Keep in mind that Clinton won 55 percent to uncommitted's 40 percent since Obama wasn't on the ballot. He has pushed for a 50-50 percent delegate split, but that proposal hasn't gained traction.
It's becoming apparent that Obama should have consented to a revote here. He certainly wouldn't have lost by 15 percentage points or more; polls have pegged the pair in a dead heat. But Obama seemed spooked that Clintonites put forth the plan and the money, so he quashed the do-over last month.
Now Obama is paying the price in delegates, starting with the Michigan Democratic Party's 15 district conventions on Saturday. The Clinton battle plan was flawlessly executed with an eye toward a contested convention. Their delegate roster is crammed with big names like former Gov. Jim Blanchard and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. 'We wanted to pick people who would be loyal to Hillary, who would commit to her through multiple ballots,' Blanchard says.
Michiganders for Obama, a ragtag group of new volunteers, triumphed in turnout Saturday but were steamrolled by the Clinton machine. Obama has proved to be a master of organization, but he made a tactical error not to plump up his skeletal apparatus in Michigan.
More: Given her narrow path to the nomination, Clinton and her aides have argued that pledged delegates are fair game to flip. Although they've since backed away from such statements, the Michigan delegate conventions show the Clinton delegate strategy is being set into motion. What this could mean is four very interesting days in Denver. Although the odds still favor Obama -- who leads in delegates, the popular vote and states won -- he has to be a bit rattled over two losses in one week. If Clinton comes out on top in a floor war, we might well look back at the Michigan mêlée as the turning point.
From NBC's Ron Allen
We are about to take off for North Carolina after a quiet morning with no events and a lot of sunshine. Several retired "flag officers" are aboard "Hill Force One." One theme of the day is Sen. Clinton's concern about veteran's families and their economic concerns. And, of course, that she's ready on Day One to be Commander-In-Chief.
North Carolina is, of course, a big military state. Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will appear with Clinton today.
And if you happened to see Clinton around the Senate this morning, she was there to vote on a bill that would extend veteran's benefits to Filipinos who fought with US troops in World War II. Not sure of the bill's fate or the number of survivors affected, (I do wonder how many if anyone knows?) or what Sens. McCain and Obama's positions are on the bill.
From NBC's Mark Murray
By now, you've probably heard it a 100 times. Obama has a problem with working-class voters. Clinton fares poorly among African Americans -- younger Democrats, too. And these disadvantages will be big problems for either candidate, if they become the nominee.
Indeed, after 45 Democratic contests, a familiar pattern has emerged from exit polls: Clinton performs well among women, seniors, and low-income whites; Obama wins blacks, higher-income folks, young people, and independents. And pundits, campaign operatives, and superdelegates are now poring over these numbers as if they are a political crystal ball that will tell us the future about the general election.
But has this analysis gotten a bit out of hand? Consider what the exit polls told us about McCain. In South Carolina, Huckabee beat him by wide margins among weekly church-goers and born-again Christians, and Huck even beat him among those without college degrees. In Virginia -- even after McCain became the presumptive GOP nominee -- the Arizona senator once again lost decisively among weekly church-goers, evangelicals, and those without college degrees, and he also lost among those making less than $100,000. What's more, in this week's Pennsylvania GOP contest, more than a quarter of the vote went to Huckabee and Paul, not McCain.
While McCain is unlikely to do as well among evangelicals as Bush did, does anyone think that his performance with this group is a big general-election problem for him? Probably not. Is he doomed among voters without college degrees? Unlikely. Will he be unable to get a quarter of the GOP vote in November? Forget about it.
No doubt that exit polls are useful at analyzing particular races. Without them, we wouldn't have known how well Clinton performed in Pennsylvania among white women and the suburbs, which were important keys to her win.
But extrapolating their findings to tell us something about another election -- with different candidates and different voters -- is a dubious exercise.
From NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy
NEW ORLEANS -- On the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, McCain said, “Never again. Never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled.”
When he was asked if it was fair to say that the failure of leadership extended all the way to the Oval Office, McCain said yes. But he added that he places "some of those responsibilities on the Congress of the United States, which funded pork barrel projects that were not only not needed and certainly not as important as some of the projects that were needed here."
He also said corporations should be asked to handle more of the response to a future disaster.
McCain then went further in his diatribe against earmarks and wasteful spending.
“I have never voted for a single earmark or pork barrel project,” McCain said. “Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton have voted for hundreds of millions, hundreds of millions of pork barrel projects and earmarks and wasteful spending. They’re part of the problem. I’m part of the answer.”
While it is true that McCain has never sponsored an earmark -- by the strict definition of the word -- he has certainly voted for bills with earmarks, including some of the specific projects he criticizes most vocally on the campaign trail.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's AnaMaria Arumi
In the primaries (not caucuses, and excluding Michigan and Florida) so far this year, Clinton's lead among White voters with Household Incomes of less than $50,000 was in the middle of the pack of the states where she had an advantage over Obama. There are nine where she bested Obama by a bigger margin than in Pennsylvania and 13 where she won by narrower margins.
She had her greatest advantage in Arkansas (65 percentage points) and her narrowest advantage in New Mexico (2 points).
Obama had an advantage among whites who make less than $50,000 in Wisconsin, Illinois, Utah and Vermont.
WHITES UNDER 50K |
|
|
CLINTON |
OBAMA |
|
VT |
36 |
61 |
|
IL |
46 |
51 |
|
WI |
48 |
50 |
|
UT |
38 |
49 |
|
NM |
49 |
47 |
|
CT |
52 |
41 |
|
TX |
58 |
41 |
|
MD |
57 |
40 |
|
CA |
50 |
39 |
|
NY |
61 |
37 |
|
AZ |
56 |
35 |
|
MO |
60 |
35 |
|
VA |
61 |
35 |
|
GA |
62 |
35 |
|
MA |
63 |
34 |
|
PA |
66 |
33 |
|
RI |
67 |
31 |
|
NH |
47 |
31 |
|
DE |
68 |
30 |
|
OH |
69 |
28 |
|
LA |
60 |
27 |
|
NJ |
73 |
25 |
|
MS |
68 |
24 |
|
AL |
74 |
23 |
|
TN |
69 |
22 |
|
SC |
40 |
19 |
|
OK |
72 |
19 |
|
AR |
81 |
16 |
From NBC's Chuck Todd and Mark Murray
North Carolina GOP chairwoman Linda Daves just said on MSNBC that the state party's TV ad -- linking Obama with Rev. Wright -- won't be airing until NEXT WEEK...
To us, this seems to be even more evidence that the ad is -- and has always been -- a publicity stunt to raise money.
From NBC's Christina Jamison
The Clinton campaign announced today on its press bus it hit its $10 million mark in 24 hours goal. Spokesman Mo Elleithee said they had 100,000 donors, 80,000 of them new, and the average contribution was about $100.
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
Oregon Rep. David Wu is throwing his support to Obama. Oregon has 12 superdelegates -- four of which are now committed, evenly split 2-2 among Clinton and Obama.
Willamette Week writes: “Wu also kept the window open -- by the smallest of cracks -- to changing his mind, saying in response to a question that he'd obviously think about his decision if Clinton were to win his congressional district by 25 percentage points. ‘But I don't think that's going to happen,’ he said.”
The superdelegate count is now Clinton 263-240.
Obama leads by 134 delegates overall: 1,731-1,597.
He also leads by 157 in the pledged count: 1,491-1,334.
There are 292 superdelegates still to be had (229 of those are named; there are 63 vacancies/add-ons.)
*** UPDATE *** NBC News has allocated one more Pennsylvania delegate. The Pennsylvania pledged count is now Clinton 83-73 with two still unallocated. The above numbers are adjusted.
From NBC's Lindsey Pritzlaff
Can the sale trend of women's thongs provide clues about who might be the next president?
Users of CafePress.com have generated tens of thousands of creative election-themed products. And it's not just the bumper stickers and buttons anymore. This year's candidate paraphernalia crosses the entire spectrum -- from beer steins and Hillary baby bibs to a woman’s thong featuring Obama’s face and reading “OHHHH-BAMA!”
McCain even gets some CafePress attention -- “Join the McSurgency! John McCain 2008,” is printed on a white cotton t-shirt.
According to CafePress, of the three candidates, Obama has the highest product approval rating in the CafePress Marketplace with 95% of Obama paraphernalia being pro-Obama and 5% anti-Obama. McCain merchandise runs a close second -- 92% pro-McCain and 8% anti-McCain. And Hillary’s products are 73% pro-Clinton and 27% anti-Clinton.
CafePress reports that in the Thong Primary, Obama leads Clinton 57%-43%. But Clinton dominates the Beer Primary, leading in the sale of Clinton beer steins.
The CafePress Web site, launched in 1999, has added a new feature -- the CafePress Meter, an interactive candidate tracker tool. Any site visitor can use it to see if sales match current momentum in the race.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Check out these comments by PA undecided superdelegates Reps. Jason Altmire and Mike Doyle.
Altmire said that despite Clinton’s win, he’s remaining undecided until after the primaries are finished. “It doesn’t change my thinking,” he told the Beaver County Times. “After the June 3 primaries, I’ll have all the results in front of me and all the information and be informed as to how I will use my superdelegate vote.”
Altmire’s district (CD-4) went overwhelmingly for Clinton, about 66%-34%, the paper finds. And Altmire appeared last weekend with Bill Clinton. But… “I really have tried to be thoughtful and get to know the candidates,” he said. “I really am trying to be evenhanded in the whole thing.”
“On Wednesday, Altmire said he’s ‘willing to give Sen. Clinton the opportunity to finish the next nine primaries’ before giving his support. However, if Obama is still leading in the popular vote and delegate count after the final primary, Altmire said, ‘It’s going to be difficult for me to just go the other way.’”
Doyle echoed that, but said he may make his decision sooner -- after the early primaries in May -- though he’s content to also wait until after all the primaries are over in June as well.
Towns in Doyle’s district, CD-14, (Coraopolis, Kennedy Township and Robinson Township) went for Obama by about 7,000-plus votes. “If Clinton tightens the race in the coming primaries then she deserves to continue, Doyle said. ‘I’m willing to give her the chance to do that as long as she’s making progress,’ he said.” But…“[I]f Clinton falls further behind Obama in the popular vote and delegate count, Doyle said his decision would be easier.
“‘I’m not denying that man the nomination if he’s got the popular vote and the delegate count,’ Doyle said.”
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** All about North Carolina? So which May 6 state is more important to Clinton -- Indiana or North Carolina? Sure, many in the media (and in the Clinton campaign) are pointing to Indiana, because the race is likely to be very close. But isn't North Carolina the opportunity for Clinton to either prove or disprove momentum? The state isn't just a pothole for Clinton in her comeback bid, it's a potential sinkhole. It's a big state, not some small red state. And the gains Clinton made in the popular vote, thanks to Pennsylvania, could be wiped away completely in the Tar Heel State. And because the popular vote is now the most important measuring stick to the Clinton campaign, they have to figure out a way to either pull the upset or make the Obama victory margin so close that it will serve as a wakeup call to the superdelegates. It's been said a bunch of times, but we'll say it again: Obama can't seem to convince Clinton to get out until he beats her in a place that demographically favors her, and she can't convince superdelegates that he's really unelectable unless she beats him in a place that demographically favors him. And since the burden still remains with Clinton to catch up, it may mean North Carolina is actually more make-or-break than Indiana.
 |
|
VIDEO: NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd discusses the importance of North Carolina to Hillary Clinton and the different ways to calculate the popular vote in the Democratic race.
***
I’ve got friends in high places: After 45 contests, this pattern has emerged in the Clinton-Obama race: The person who has received the best political endorsements in a state has ended up winning that contest. Ed Rendell and Michael Nutter were HUGE for Clinton in Pennsylvania, especially in keeping down Obama’s margins in Philly. So was Ted Strickland for Clinton in Ohio. Meanwhile, Obama got big help from Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Tim Kaine in Virginia. There are a few exceptions, of course -- Clinton lost Maryland (where she had the support from Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Barbara Mikulski), and Obama lost Massachusetts (Ted Kennedy and Deval Patrick) and Arizona (Janet Napolitano). But that’s about it. What does this tell us for the upcoming May 6 contests? It looks like Clinton might have the advantage with supporters like Evan Bayh and former Gov. Joe Kernan, as well as the chairman of the state party. And Obama seems to have the clear advantage in North Carolina, where almost every notable state politico who has endorsed is backing him.
*** In search of a validator: Speaking of endorsements, it seems that Clinton is in need of a endorsement from a top Democrat as evidence that the tide -- as she and her campaign are arguing -- is really turning. She needs the equivalent of what Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy clan did for Obama after South Carolina. Who’s potentially out there? Al Gore. John Edwards. Nancy Pelosi. Jim Webb. Even someone like Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer or Elizabeth Edwards. Murtha was a good get for Clinton a few weeks ago, and now she needs someone else to jump aboard the Clinton Express to suggest to superdelegates and the press that the momentum is on her side. For now, the only "progress" Clinton's made with her recent success is simply slowing the superdelegate trickle to Obama's side. She needs to show the public and the supers that others actually believe she can win -- not just survive until the end of the primary calendar.
*** That front-loaded calendar: Here's a thought that hasn't gotten much play, but might be the single biggest reason why Obama has clinched yet: The frontloading gave Clinton an early safety net. How much better would Obama have performed in many of those Super Tuesday states had the contests been held later? Writes the LA Times’ Skelton: “Californians can be thankful the state held its presidential primary on the earliest day legally possible. And Hillary Rodham Clinton should be especially grateful. Clinton probably wouldn't even be in the race today if California had not rescued her candidacy way back on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, by delivering a timely victory that helped keep her afloat. The Pennsylvania primary Tuesday likely would have been irrelevant." This is a moot point now -- the calendar is the calendar. But it's a reminder of just how important Feb. 5 was to Clinton and how damaging it was to her when she couldn't clinch it by then. For now, this is simply something for historians to ponder.
*** A Big Easy? McCain’s tour today takes him to New Orleans, where he will make a stop in the Ninth Ward and hold a media avail there. Afterwards, he holds a town hall in the city and then heads to Baton Rouge, where he will raise money and attend a business banquet. As much as Iraq has hurt President Bush’s poll numbers and the GOP’s brand, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath broke their backs and helped contribute the Democrats’ midterm election sweep. Can McCain’s visit there begin to repair the political damage? Meanwhile, the Louisiana Democratic Party will be holding a news conference in New Orleans, where they will argue that McCain voted against measures to boost reconstruction aid and also remind reporters that McCain endorser John Hagee said that Katrina was God’s punishment to New Orleans sinners.
*** Numbers, numbers, numbers: Obama picked up two superdelegates to Clinton’s one yesterday, bringing Clinton’s advantage to 263-239. A new addition: the uncommitteds. There are 293 superdelegates still to be had (230 of those are named; there are 63 vacancies/add-ons.) Obama leads by 133 delegates overall: 1,729-1,596. He also leads by 157 in the pledged count: 1,490-1,333. The Pennsylvania pledged count (as of 6:15 pm Wednesday) was Clinton 82-73, with three delegates still to be allocated.
*** On the trail: Elsewhere, Clinton campaigns in North Carolina, hitting Jacksonville, Fayetteville, and Asheville; Obama is down in Chicago; and Chelsea Clinton stumps in Indiana.
Countdown to North Carolina, Indiana: 12 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 194 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 271 days
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The Wall Street Journal reports on the Clinton campaign's effort to convince undecided members of Congress that this isn't over. "The Clinton campaign was trying to overturn the sense of Sen. Obama's inevitability. Fifteen Democratic members of Congress assembled at Sen. Clinton's northern Virginia headquarters early Wednesday to strategize with staffers about courting the several hundred uncommitted superdelegates. One adviser said Tennessee Rep. John Tanner, a leader among House Democratic conservatives, had called last week. ‘He said, “If she wins Pennsylvania, I'm with you.”’ Later in the day, Sen. Clinton's campaign announced Rep. Tanner's endorsement.
“The Clinton campaign is renewing its fight to claim disputed votes from Florida and Michigan primaries, but that may anger the very superdelegates the campaign needs."
The LA Times: "Clinton's Pennsylvania win has bought her time -- but not much -- to make her case to the Democratic Party's superdelegates, many of whom expressed a strong desire Wednesday to end the nominating contest once the final votes are cast. Though few seem eager to use their power to call a halt to the presidential race -- and many said they welcomed the continued balloting -- a number of party leaders and other activists sent a clear signal that they want the fight over well before the Democratic convention in August.”
The paper interviewed a bunch of uncommitted supers for this story. This comment from the Idaho Dem Chair sums things up pretty well: “I'm not buying the Clinton argument that Sen. Obama is unelectable, but I certainly intend to continue to watch his performance to make my own determination of just how strong a candidate he will be," said R. Keith Roark, chairman of the Idaho Democratic Party.
CONTINUED >>
INDIANA: The Politico’s Martin writes that Indiana is an even-steven race between Clinton and Obama. “With a demographic landscape that’s well-suited to both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Indiana is shaping up to be the most consequential battleground of the remaining states… Obama and Clinton have traded the lead in Indiana polls, but there have been few reliable local surveys to date. One thing seems certain: Unlike Pennsylvania, where Clinton began with a pronounced advantage, Indiana is a state where both begin on an equal footing.”
The Wall Street Journal runs a similar piece. If it wasn't for the fact that Obama came from a neighboring state, Clinton would likely be favored to win by double-digits. But unlike Ohio and Pennsylvania, Obama starts on a more level playing field thanks to the Chicago media market bleed into Northwest Indiana.
Does Indiana shy away from change candidates? The New York Times suggests so. "With all the talk among the Democratic presidential hopefuls about change, they may wish to consider this as they wander Indiana: People here practically revolted a few years ago when their governor, Mitch Daniels, pushed to change to daylight saving time like most of the country. Change, it seems, may not carry quite the same political magic in this state as it has elsewhere.”
CONTINUED >>
The Clinton campaign said it
raised $3.5 million by 10:30 a.m. Wednesday and claimed to be on track to raise $10 million in 24 hours. The campaign called it "our best fundraising night ever."
The LA Times looks at McCain's poverty tour. “McCain (R-Ariz.) tried to position himself somewhere between Johnson and Reagan while campaigning here Wednesday, styling himself as a compassionate conservative but emphasizing his crusade against ‘wasteful’ government spending. ’I wouldn't be back here today if government had fulfilled the promises that Lyndon Johnson made 44 years ago,’ McCain told reporters as his campaign bus rolled through the green hills of eastern Kentucky. ‘The moral of the story is -- government isn't always the answer.’”
More: "A centerpiece of McCain's speech was an economic initiative that would give tax write-offs to companies that offered high-speed Internet access to low-income people. In towns where businesses won't offer that aid, he said, the government would make government-backed loans or low-interest bonds available. Otherwise, the third day of McCain's tour of America's ‘forgotten places’ seemed largely symbolic. When a reporter asked what could be done about healthcare coverage in Appalachia, as well as the high rates of diabetes, obesity and cancer, McCain said his administration would emphasize ‘wellness and fitness.’”
The Washington Post looks at the tour and notes: "McCain is reaching out to voters in these Democratic strongholds to try to build the broad, center-right coalition that aides believe is necessary for him to become president. Advisers do not think Republicans alone can elect McCain, given how many have become disenchanted with President Bush and his policies. McCain's "Time for Action" tour is less about specific proposals; those will come later, advisers said. The important part, they said, is for McCain to lay the groundwork in places such as Inez to credibly claim that he cares about the people who live on the edge of the modern economy. In effect, McCain is launching Version 2.0 of Bush's ‘compassionate conservative’ campaign."
CONTINUED >>
The New York Times’ Nagourney looks at how much Obama's problems have to do with race. "While arguably critical to determining the viability of Mr. Obama’s candidacy, the role of race is difficult to disentangle from the other strands of the political debate surrounding him, encompassing topics like values, elitism, ideology and experience. Although some polling evidence hints at the depth of racial attitudes in this country and the obstacles Mr. Obama faces winning white voters, it has historically proved challenging to measure how racial attitudes factor into voter decisions. (Respondents do not tend to announce to pollsters that they will not vote for a candidate because he or she is black.)”
“It is also hard to discount that Mr. Obama has arrived at this place in his candidacy after winning big victories in very white states. The crowds at his rallies are as white as any at a Clinton rally, and many analysts in both parties believe that racial attitudes in this country are changing at a breakneck pace, particularly among younger voters, making it risky to impose models from even four years ago on this unusual election."
Ex-Virgina Gov. Doug Wilder, an Obama supporter, offers some advice to Obama. Most importantly, be prepared for folks to continue lying to pollsters due to race. That said, Wilder is confident about Obama's chances and thinks if the GOP gets seen by the public as if they were race-baiting, they'll be in trouble.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Audra Ostergard, the lone remaining Nebraska superdelegate, publicly endorsed Obama, per a campaign release. Obama now has the backing of all six Nebraska superdelegates. Today, Obama announced two superdelegates (Ostergard and OK Gov. Brad Henry) and Clinton announced one (TN Rep. John Tanner).
Clinton now holds a 263-239 superdelegate lead.
Obama leads by 133 overall: 1,729-1,596.
Obama leads by 157 in the pledged delegate count: 1,490-1,333
The Pennsylvania pledged count (updated 4/23, 6:15 pm): Clinton 82-73 (three delegates still to be allocated.)
There are 408 delegates up for grabs in the remaining nine contests.
And a new addition, some "fun" with POPULAR VOTE numbers...
Without MI/FL:
Obama: 14,447,566
Clinton: 13,965,192
With FL, but NOT MI:
Obama: 15,016,607
Clinton: 14,822,400
With MI/FL, including "uncommitted" for Obama:
Obama: 15,254,369
Clinton: 15,150,551
With MI/FL, giving Obama 0 in MI and Clinton 328,000-plus (the only metric which gives her a lead):
Clinton: 15,150,551
Obama: 15,016,607
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
HILLSBOROUGH, NC -- Bill Clinton fired up a Tar Heel crowd here today by recounting some facts and figures from his wife's victory in Pennsylvania. He said that victory was made possible by "people like you," working-class types that he claimed the Obama camp is now writing off.
"Today her opponent's campaign strategist said, 'Well, we don't really need these working-class people to win, half the time they vote for Republicans anyways,'" he said, while speaking from a flatbed truck on a baseball field. "I will tell you something -- America needs you to win and therefore
Hillary wants your support and I hope you will help her in this primary in North Carolina."
Clinton apparently was referring to comments by Obama strategist David Axelrod, who told NPR today that the "white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years," and that the Democratic candidates "haven't solely relied on the demographic"
Clinton told the hundreds on hand, as he told thousands of Pennsylvanians for more than a month, that this was "the biggest state still to vote." And he tweaked the Obama camp for ducking a previously planned debate.
CONTINUED >>
Per NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
Despite criticism from the RNC and from its presumptive presidential nominee, the North Carolina Republican Party is resolute in its plan to air a 30-second ad that links Obama to the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
"This is a legitimate question to be asked," said state party spokesman Brent Woodcox, who emphasized that the NC GOP has "a great relationship" with their national leadership. "We are not the only ones asking it."
VIDEO: April 23: MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell talks with North Carolina GOP chair Linda Daves about a controverisal new ad running in the state that calls Barack Obama too extreme.Woodcox says the party plans to air the ad Monday night at 6, but that the buy is "still being finalized." (That means there's still time for the party to balk, rendering the ad a trial balloon or a stunt.)
He said that the urging of party leadership will be "taken into consideration," but that they stand by the ad as of now. "We plan to go ahead with this," he said.
The Republican National Committee was aware of the ad last night, but a formal request for the ad to be aired was not made by the RNC until this morning.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
NEW ALBANY, IN -- Despite his loss in Pennsylvania last night, Obama declared that he was winning in the race for the Democratic nomination, dismissing the notion that last night's loss proved that he has problems closing the deal.
"The way we're gonna close the deal is by winning. And right now we're winning," he said. "And you know what we'll do is keep on campaigning in Indiana and North Carolina and Oregon and these other states. And at the conclusion of all these contests, people will go back and take a look and say, 'Who's won?'"
VIDEO: April 23: Sen. Barack Obama talks with reporters in New Albany, Ind. about his ten-point loss in the Pennsylvania primary. Obama claimed that only at the conclusion of all the primaries, could a decision be made on who really deserved the nomination and projected that it would be him.
"We've won more states, we've won more votes, then it'll be ... apparent that we're in the strongest position to win in November," he said.
CONTINUED >>
From MSNBC.com's Andy Merten
This afternoon, Obama and Clinton will return to Washington, D.C., to make an appearance at their day jobs for the first time in two weeks. They will be voting on a Senate bill that will make it easier for individuals to sue employers over unequal pay -- a politically contentious measure, which has invoked the threat of veto from the White House.
It’s no secret that the demands of running for the presidency can sometimes interfere with the daily voting duties of congressional members looking to further their careers. Late last year, Obama caught flak for not voting on a non-binding resolution declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, after he sought to use Clinton’s yay-vote to paint her as too hawkish.
As of today, Obama has missed slightly fewer than 40 percent of his Senate votes since the beginning of 2007, while Clinton’s absentee rate is just under 30 percent.
But McCain has topped both candidates, missing a staggering 58 percent of his votes during the 110th Congress, according to the Washington Post’s congressional votes
database.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Clinton has picked up her first post-Pennsylvania superdelegate, a Red-stater, Rep. John Tanner (TN). Tanner is the first Red State elected official to back Clinton since Blanche Lincoln (AR) on Feb. 7. Is this the beginning of several to come?
Obama got the backing earlier today of Gov. Brad Henry (OK).
Clinton now holds a 263-238 superdelegate lead.
Obama leads by 132 overall: 1,727-1,595.
Obama leads by 157 in the pledged delegate count: 1,489-1,332
The Pennsylvania pledged count: Clinton 80-71 (seven delegates still to be allocated.)
*** UPDATE *** NBC News has allocated two more delegates from Pennsylvania. The delegate split out of there now is Clinton 81-72. There are still five delegates unallocated. Note, however, as we've noted before, that the split from Pennsylvania will likely be higher for Clinton when the counting is done. We've adjusted the numbers above.
From NBC's John Boxley
EN ROUTE TO INDIANA -- The new spin we are hearing from the Clinton campaign today is that more people have now cast votes for Clinton than Obama, when you include MI and FL AND exclude the caucuses which Obama has dominated. (See earlier post on the popular vote logic.)
The campaign also said, fundraising continues to grow, now at $3.5 million since last night and rising with the campaign claiming that 80 percent of these donations are from first-time contributors.
*** UPDATE *** The Clinton campaign adds that Michigan and Florida are counted in their numbers and so are Obama's caucuses.
But, as First Read crunches the numbers, we ask: Is the Clinton campaign giving Obama zero votes in Michigan since his name wasn't on the ballot? Because if Clinton gets the approximately 328,000 in Michigan and Obama were given credit for the 237,000-plus "uncommitted" votes, she still wouldn't have enough votes to overtake his current popular vote lead even with Florida factored in. But if she were to take the state 328,000 to 0 she'd take the popular vote lead.
*** UPDATE 2 *** The campaign confirms that this is, in fact, how they have figured the math. Their view, roughly, is that Clinton got 328,000 votes that were certified; Obama got none. Of course, Obama's name wasn't on the ballot. And that's their point exactly.
From NBC's Mark Murray and NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
In a conference call with reporters this morning, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe argued that Clinton's win in Pennsylvania yesterday doesn't change the current trajectory of the race:
-- Obama leads among pledged delegates, and Clinton will have to win about 70% of the remaining ones to overtake Obama on this measure.
-- to get within 100 pledged delegates of Obama, Clinton will have to win 57% of the remaining ones
-- and when looking at the total delegate score (pledged delegates and superdelegates), Obama is about 300 away from clinching the nomination; Clinton, according to NBC's count, is more than 430 delegates away.
VIDEO:
NBC's Andrea Mitchell talks with Obama's national campaign co-chair Bill Daley about the Democratic presidential election."We don't believe the structure of the race is going to change fundamentally," he said. "She does need to win out here and win by some margin."
Plouffe also touched on electability, noting that the Clinton campaign touts its wins in big battleground states (like Ohio and Pennsylvania). "Well, North Carolina is a big battleground state," he said. "So by their own definition, it would appear that they would need to win North Carolina and win it by a big margin."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
NBC News has updated its Pennsylvania pledged delegate count. Clinton now has an 80-71 split with seven delegates still to be allocated.
Keep in mind, however, that when the counting is done, Clinton will likely net more than that.
Obama now leads by 157 in the pledged delegate count: 1,488-1,331
Factoring in the superdelegate count (Clinton 262, Obama 238), Obama leads by 133 overall: 1,726-1,593.
From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
Update to NC Gop anti-Obama ad that references the Rev. Jeremiah Wright...
Per the RNC, the national leadership of the Republican Party has been in contact this morning with the North Carolina GOP, urging them to refrain from running the "Extreme" ad. The party says that the content of the anti-Obama ad, which references the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is "not appropriate" and "unhelpful."
The NC GOP is an independent organization not bound to the recommendations of the national party. A spokesman from the NC party declined to comment on any conversations between the RNC and the North Carolina team.
*** UPDATE *** McCain wrote the following letter to North Carolina Republican Party Chair Linda Daves "imploring her not to run their new TV ad," which includes the Rev. Wright, per the McCain campaign.
Here's the letter:
Dear Chairman Daves,
From the beginning of this election, I have been committed to running a respectful campaign based upon an honest debate about the great issues confronting America today. I expect all state parties to do so as well. The television advertisement you are planning to air degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats. In the strongest terms, I implore you to not run this advertisement.
This ad does not live up to the very high standards we should hold ourselves to in this campaign. We need to run a campaign that is worthy of the people we seek to serve. There is no doubt that we will draw sharp contrasts with the Democrats on fundamental issues critical to the future course of our country.
But we need not engage in political tactics that only seek to divide the American people.
Once again, it is imperative that you withdraw this offensive advertisement.
John McCain
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
After Clinton's victory last night, the latest out of Clinton camp is that Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama in the popular vote. Of course, as we noted in First Thoughts, this can only be done by including Florida and Michigan, which is what the Clinton campaign has done.
Coming across journalists desks this morning was the following e-mail from Phil Singer at Clinton camp with the subject, "More People Have Voted For Hillary Than Any Other Candidate":
"After last night's decisive victory in Pennsylvania, more people have voted for Hillary than any other candidate, including Sen. Obama. Estimates vary slightly, but according to Real Clear Politics, Hillary has received 15,095,663 votes to Sen. Obama's 14,973,720, a margin of more than 120,000 votes. ABC News reported this morning that 'Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama' in the popular vote. This count includes certified vote totals in Florida and Michigan."
ABC's The Note reported this morning, however, similarly to what we wrote in First Thoughts: "By one (rightly disputed) metric -- the popular vote, including Florida and Michigan -- Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama. But without the rogue states, Obama is still up by 500,000 -- and if you can find another objective measurement by which she's in the lead, let us know."
RealClearPolitics keeps a popular vote tally, which breaks down the totals. It has a line also factoring in Michigan, which has an asterisk.
What we wrote: "That new popular vote total (not counting FL or MI) has Obama leading Clinton, 49%-47%. For those keeping score, that's a difference of 483,129. ... So those remaining contests, per this conservative projection, bring Obama’s popular vote lead to 515,629. If you add Florida, that gives Clinton almost another 300,000 more. So you if you include the Sunshine State, Obama will still lead her by about 215,000 popular votes. No wonder Clinton herself decided to start talking about Michigan again, because she can't "win" the popular vote without it. The problem: Even many Clinton supporters believe it’s not a valid measurement."
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** The secret to Hillary’s success: So how did Clinton win so decisively last night? The answer is women, specifically white women. They continue to be as important to her success in these primaries as new voters and African-Americans have been to Obama. Per the exit polls, 47% of the Pennsylvania Democratic electorate last night was made up of white women, higher than any other race/gender subgroup. Clinton ended up winning them by more than 30 points, 66%-34%; in Ohio, she won this group, 67%-31%. The question that everyone seems to be asking now is: Why can’t Obama put Clinton away? The AP’s Ron Fournier takes a stab at answering this, and he points to five reasons (race, working-class voters, friends in trouble, inexperience, and mettle). But to us, women seem to be the bigger reason. They continue to rally to her side; nothing has shaken their confidence in her. If Clinton continues to beat Obama by 30-plus points among white women, how can he knock her out?
 |
|
VIDEO: NBC Political Director Chuck Todd offers his first read on the questions following the Clinton victory in the Pennsylvania primary.
***
Rocking the suburbs: What’s more, Clinton must have won white women decisively across the state's geographic landscape, because there's no other explanation for her pulling off the upset in the Philly suburbs. To most lay observers, Obama looked to be a lock to win the Philly ‘burbs; the only question was by how much. But he didn’t win them. Overall, Obama carried just seven of the state's 67 counties. In his successful gubernatorial primary win over Bob Casey in 2002, Ed Rendell carried 10 counties -- and the big difference between Rendell's path and Obama's was that Rendell carried Montgomery and Bucks counties, while Obama lost MontCo narrowly and got clobbered in Bucks. This success by Clinton in the suburbs, by the way, might be the best talking point the campaign has going forward because it's the first evidence in weeks that Clinton has finally cut into Obama's coalition. Of course, Pennsylvania could simply be her Wisconsin, where everything that happens in the state, well, stays in the state. Remember Wisconsin? That was Obama's supposed big break through in cutting into Clinton's coalition of white, working-class voters and even white women. Wisconsin didn't take for Obama. Will Pennsylvania take for Clinton?
*** The Tar Heel equalizer? Like it or not, the Obama folks are going to have to deal with the fact that popular vote is going to be a metric for SOME superdelegates. The good news for them is that not every superdelegate thinks this is a fair barometer, but enough do that the Clinton campaign is going to successfully tout this measurement. But this fight for the popular vote could be very short-lived. While the contest for pledged delegates is over, with Obama holding what now appears to be an insurmountable 150+ lead, the fight for the popular vote lives on for another two weeks. But it may be on for ONLY another two weeks. Why? North Carolina. A top-10 population state, Clinton can't afford to lose it at all -- let alone lose it by 10 points or more -- because if she loses the state by 10 points, she'll lose 150,000 of the 200,000 in popular vote she gained yesterday. And if she loses by 15 points, he can wipe out the 200,000-plus she netted completely. After May 6, there's just not enough vote for her to catch up. So while all eyes may be on Indiana as a "tie breaker" (the words of Obama, not us), North Carolina may be a bigger key in two weeks. Because of North Carolina’s size, the Clinton campaign is going to have a harder time dismissing the state's significance than they did Mississippi and some of the smaller states. The Clinton campaign has an effective talking point against Obama on this idea he can't win in certain big states, but the effective talking point Obama has is that he competes in every state. And this is why she can't avoid North Carolina because it's a big state, so it's not something she can avoid. She can keep going if she wins Indiana but she can't win the nomination; if she wins North Carolina, THAT would be a game changer, period.
*** Another Obama-is-Reagan analogy: Now what? The biggest shot in the arm for Clinton appears to be financial. The campaign took pains last night to make sure everyone was updated minute by minute about her online fundraising success last night (some $2.5 million in the three hours following the Pennsylvania election call). Financially, the Clinton camp is living dollar in, dollar out (while the debt piles up). This could mean the significance of Pennsylvania won't fully be known until after May 6. Why? Because if Obama sweeps Indiana and North Carolina, one of the reasons will be his financial advantage. In fact, there's a chance that what Obama did to Clinton in Pennsylvania is akin to what Reagan did to the Soviet Union in the 1980s -- He dragged her into a spending war she couldn't keep up with. Still, as of right now, Obama's looking like someone who is limping to the nomination battered and bruised rather than sailing through smoothly. Bottom line: this is a cold war and the candidate with the deeper pockets is likely to hang on.
*** It’s a bird, it's a plane, it’s another Obama superdelegate: Before the sun even rose, the Obama campaign rolled out the endorsement of Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, a superdelegate and someone from one of those uncontested red states. Interestingly, Oklahoma is a state Clinton carried on February 5 -- by A LOT. By the way, does Clinton have an interesting superdelegate endorsement or two in her back pocket right now? She just hasn't had a BIG endorsement in weeks. Of the remaining "gets" the one that seems most likely to come to her side (and would serve as a real boost) would be John Edwards, although he’s not a super. Newsweek's Howard Fineman said on MSNBC last night Elizabeth Edwards is likely to show up at a Clinton rally or two, but can she convince the ex-candidate to come over? It's a tough decision for John Edwards since Obama is such a heavy favorite in his home state.
*** Perception vs. reality: Perception always means more than reality. For instance, last night, just how important was it that Clinton's lead got to 10 points rather quickly and stayed there before settling down to 9 points? With 99% of precincts reporting, it was Clinton 54.69%, Obama 45.31%. What if her lead was 6-7 all night, and then ended overnight at 9 points? It's a little thing, but perception for her (and her donors) is everything right now. For those wondering, Clinton won Ohio by more than 10 points, 55.23% vs. 44.77%.
*** Where we stand: Obama leads in pledged delegates per the NBC hard count (1482 to 1326), overall delegates (1720 to 1588), the popular vote (14,447,568 to 13,964,439), and total number of contests won (29 to 15). Note: We’re not including Texas in this last total, given that Clinton won the primary but Obama won the caucus and netted the most delegates. That new popular vote total (not counting FL or MI) has Obama leading Clinton, 49%-47%. For those keeping score, that's a difference of 483,129. Projecting the rest out…
|
|
Total votes |
Clinton |
Obama |
Projection |
|
NC |
1,500,000 |
675,000 |
825,000 |
45%-55% |
|
IN |
900,000 |
460,000 |
440,000 |
51%-49% |
|
WV |
400,000 |
240,000 |
160,000 |
60%-40% |
|
KY |
500,000 |
300,000 |
200,000 |
60%-40% |
|
OR |
600,000 |
270,000 |
330,000 |
45%-55% |
|
SD |
100,000 |
45,000 |
55,000 |
45%-55% |
|
MT |
125,000 |
56,250 |
68,750 |
45%-55% |
TOTAL |
|
2,046,250 |
2,078,750 |
|
So those remaining contests, per this conservative projection, bring Obama’s popular vote lead to 515,629. If you add Florida, that gives Clinton almost another 300,000 more. So you if you include the Sunshine State, Obama will still lead her by about 215,000 popular votes. No wonder Clinton herself decided to start talking about Michigan again, because she can't "win" the popular vote without it. The problem: Even many Clinton supporters believe it’s not a valid measurement.
*** We can stop the delegate math: Turning to the delegate math, if Clinton nets approximately 16 delegates out of Pennsylvania, she'll trail in the pledged battle by 150 delegates. With just 408 pledged delegates remaining, that means she'd need 68% of all pledged delegates left to overtake Obama. Now, if Obama and Clinton simply split the 187 delegates up for grabs on May 6 basically down the middle (which would be a rosy projection in Clinton's favor) and Obama's pledged delegate lead simply stayed at 150 and didn’t grow to 160 (the most likely outcome in two weeks), Clinton would need to win 85% of the then 221 remaining delegates up for grabs. 85%! As we mentioned on air last night, the battle for pledged delegates is over, Obama will win that metric and win it by some 100+ delegates.
*** The GOP goes there…: This morning, NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann reports, the North Carolina GOP will unveil a 30-second ad that attacks Democratic gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore for their endorsements of Obama. The ad, per the party, will reference "controversial figures from Barack Obama's past" and raise the question of the candidates' "judgment" in supporting him. The ad will be unveiled at an 11:00 am press conference. So far, the Democratic gubernatorial campaigns say that they have not yet seen it and declined to comment before knowing the content. But it's anticipated by Democratic bigs in the state that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright will play a starring role.
*** Back on The Hill: Per NBC’s Ken Strickland, both Clinton and Obama will return to the Senate today to vote on a bill challenging a Supreme Court ruling on equal pay. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear that lawsuits claiming pay discrimination had to follow Equal Employment Opportunity Commission procedures and be filed within 180 days of when the employer first gave Ms. Ledbetter her check. The legislation would allow the 180-day-clock to run each time a paycheck is received. Today’s vote, Strickland adds, is only procedural, requiring 60 votes to advance the bill. It's unlikely supporters will muster that many votes, let alone the 67 needed to overcome the president's veto threat.
*** On the trail: Clinton holds a rally in Indianapolis before returning to DC; McCain -- on the third leg of his tour -- is in Kentucky; and Obama holds a town hall in New Albany, IN before heading to DC. Also, Bill Clinton campaigns for his wife in North Carolina, making five stops there.
Countdown to North Carolina, Indiana: 13 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 195 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 272 days
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Today's spin war... The Obama campaign will make the case the prolonged contest is hurting the party and damaging the nominee; the Clinton campaign will make the case the prolonged contest continues to energize the party and -- at a minimum -- toughens up the eventual nominee for the fall campaign. What do superdelegates believe? They will probably be talked into believing that every state should get their shot at voting simply because it's good for the local Democratic Party economies (that's the good news for Clinton); But these same superdelegates will want the race over on June 4; no prolonged debate about Florida and Michigan (that's the good news for Obama). No doubt Clinton will get a bounce out of her victory. The question is will it just be a boost for her or will we see Obama punctured at all in match-ups with McCain? That seems to be the definition of whether Clinton's bounce is useful or not -- does it not just boost her in the polls in both Indiana and North Carolina, but also boost her in match-ups with McCain compared with Obama?
A dead cat bounce? The Washington Post's Balz lays out the numerical reality facing Clinton. "Clinton's path to the nomination remains extraordinarily treacherous even after the victory in Pennsylvania. Her margin was decisive, but even some of her most loyal supporters privately expressed doubts last night that she can prevail in the long battle against Obama.”
“The senator from Illinois still leads in the number of pledged delegates and the popular vote. He is almost certain to hold the delegate lead and will probably maintain the popular-vote advantage when the primaries end in early June. Perhaps more important, Clinton's campaign is nearly broke, whereas Obama has an enormous amount of money in the bank to throw into the next two contests and beyond. "
The Los Angeles Times' Z. Barabak and Levey concur. "Mathematically, with just nine contests left, it appears virtually impossible for Clinton to overtake Obama in the popular vote and among pledged delegates -- those chosen in primaries and caucuses. Her best hope was to instill enough doubts about Obama to persuade the 300 or so uncommitted superdelegates to rally to her side."
CONTINUED >>
The New York Times editorial page, which endorsed Clinton, yet again criticizes what it sees as the Clinton campaign’s negative tone. “The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it… It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.”
VIDEO: April 23: Sen. Hillary Clinton talks with TODAY’s Matt Lauer about her victory in Pennsylvania and talks about criticisms that her campaign has become too negative.
More: “On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad -- torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook -- evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden… If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: ‘We would be able to totally obliterate them.’”
NBC’s AnaMaria Arumi analyzed the exit polls from last night to explain Clinton’s victory. Clinton rode to victory in Pennsylvania lifted by support from demographic voter subgroups that have lined up for her in earlier primaries. Clinton won seven in 10 votes from white Catholics in the Keystone State, and six in 10 votes from white women, voters with a high school education or less, and seniors aged 65 and older.
WHITE CATHOLICS: The New York senator did much better among white Catholics than she did among white Protestant voters. In several other states with big Catholic populations this year, she also did better among Catholics than Protestants, but these differences were not as large. Here she did 13 points better, but in Wisconsin the difference was just 7 points, same in New York, and 5 points in New Jersey. In Ohio, there was essentially no difference in the vote of white Catholics and white Protestants.
White Catholics made up more than a third (37%) of all voting in yesterday’s primary -- and they will be an important swing voter group for the fall. The exit polls show Clinton doing much better than Obama among this group is a test election against John McCain. Eighty-two percent of white Catholics in PA said they would vote for Clinton if she’s the party’s nominee, while just 12% would defect to McCain. By contrast, a smaller percentage -- 59% -- of white Catholics said they would cast a ballot for Obama if he’s the Democratic nominee running against McCain. Also, a higher percentage -- 21% -- said they would cross party lines to vote for McCain. Another 17% said they would stay home and not bother to vote.
RACE: Voters were again asked, as in previous contests, how important the race of the candidate in deciding their vote today. Most voters said it was not important, but some said it was. Among white voters, 16% said race was important; 83% said it was not a factor. This is virtually identical to what we saw in Ohio, where 18% of white voters said race was important. Now, that 16% among white voters was higher among certain groups -- just a little more than one-in-10 white voters in the Philadelphia area said race was important. By contrast, nearly two in 10 among white voters in other parts of the state said it was important. And non-college graduate white voters were about twice as likely as college graduates to said race was important to them. Clinton won a sizeable majority -- 75% of the vote -- among these voters. Clinton also won among white voters who said race was NOT important, but by a smaller margin (58% to 41%).
IN TOUCH’ AND HONESTY: Both candidates have had to deal with particular lines of attack from their critics -- changes of dishonesty and lack of trustworthiness in Clinton’s case (Bosnia), elitism in Obama’s case (after his small-town remarks). Obama was seen as more honest and trustworthy (68% said he was, 32% said he’s not) than Clinton (56% said she was, 44% said she’s not.)
The Boston Globe: “Two million Pennsylvania voters played to type yesterday, hewing to the demographic loyalties set forth in earlier contests: Older, Catholic, and working-class white voters stuck with Hillary Clinton, and new, highly educated, and black voters went for Barack Obama. Exit polls and interviews with voters suggested that the disruptions to the race - including controversies over Obama's pastor, his comments about small-town bitterness, Clinton's claims of facing fire in Bosnia, and a high-profile debate that touched on all those subjects - had little influence on the hardened demographic divide within the Democratic Party.”
MCCAIN: Trade isn’t going away, folks…
Lost in the shuffle of the Obama-Clinton vortex, expect to see this used by Dems against McCain in the general election. “McCain made a risky argument in a hard-hit Ohio steel town yesterday, telling residents that free trade can help solve their problems,” the Boston Globe writes. “That is a tough sell in communities that have hemorrhaged jobs as manufacturing moved overseas and cheap imports flooded the market. But McCain insisted that free trade is the solution and not the cause.
"The biggest problem is not so much what's happened with free trade, but our inability to adjust to a new world economy," McCain said during a town hall-style meeting at Youngstown State University. "So we want people to be part of that revolution, and we've got to be part of that new economy, rather than try to cling to an old economy."
The
New York Times: “Is Nafta a four-letter word? No, Senator John McCain told an Ohio voter on Tuesday, he did not think so. ‘I am prone on occasion to make a mistake,’ Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told Jack O’Connell, a retired labor leader, at a town-hall-style meeting at Youngstown State University. Still, he said, ‘last time I checked, Nafta has five letters, not four.’ Mr. McCain was responding to a question from Mr. O’Connell, who called Nafta, or the North American Free Trade Agreement, ‘a bad four letters,’ then asked Mr. McCain what he thought of the deal. Mr. McCain’s answer made the crowd laugh, even if his more substantive response -- the overall result of the trade agreement has been ‘a benefit to our country’ -- was politically unpalatable to many Ohio voters who blame the trade deal for lost American jobs.”
The New York Times writes that Obama appears to be shifting his focus from Clinton to McCain. “A series of endorsements are scheduled to be announced in the coming days, including superdelegates who intend to pledge their support for Mr. Obama. And more campaign workers in the Chicago headquarters will be dedicated to taking on Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee. Mr. Obama only mentioned Mrs. Clinton by name once in his remarks at a rally here late Tuesday night, when he congratulated her on winning the Pennsylvania primary. He referred to Mr. McCain seven times, a pointed reminder to Democrats of the challenge that lies ahead.”
This morning, NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann reports, the North Carolina GOP will unveil a 30-second ad that attacks Democratic gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore for their endorsements of Obama. The ad, per the party, will reference "controversial figures from Barack Obama's past" and raise the question of the candidates' "judgment" in supporting him.
The ad will be unveiled at an 11:00 am press conference. So far, the Democratic gubernatorial campaigns say that they have not yet seen it and declined to comment before knowing the content. But it's anticipated by Democratic bigs in the state that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright will play a starring role.
It's unclear how extensive the buy will be, because the buy itself has not been made yet. A spokesman says that the party is "still making the decisions" as to where and when the ad will run, but says that a weeklong rotation is planned starting "sometime next week." Of course, releasing it at a press conference tomorrow gives the party time to gauge reaction and pull the plug. But Brent Woodcox, the party's communications director, insists that "the buy is going to be made, because this is a legitimate question."
The ad was not made in coordination with any of Moore and Perdue's Republican rivals. The front-runner for the GOP nomination in the state is Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, who has a reputation as a pro-business moderate.
As mentioned above, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry is endorsing Obama.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
NBC News has allocated so far a 75-65 split for Clinton out of Pennsylvania; 18 delegates are not allocated yet.
With that, Obama now leads by 156 pledged delegates: 1,482-1,326.
Our superdelegate total is Clinton 262, Obama 237.
In all, Obama now leads by 131 overall: 1,719-1,588.
From MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell and Adam Verdugo
With Hillary Clinton winning tonight, we wanted to look ahead to the fall election and gauge how much this contentious Democratic primary race has divided the party.
Overall, 71% say they would be satisfied if Clinton wins the nomination; 64% said they would be satisfied with Obama. These satisfaction levels are very similar to what we saw in Ohio.
Also, as we saw in previous states, Clinton supporters would be more unhappy with Obama as their nominee than Obama supporters would be if Clinton became party's choice. Six out of ten Clinton's voters say they would not be satisfied with him. Only about half the Obama voters would be dissatisfied with her as the nominee.
The poll specifically asked Clinton and Obama voters what they would do if their preferred candidate did not win the nomination. They were faced with the following choice: support the other Democrat, vote for John McCain, or stay home. First, only 53% of Clinton voters say they would vote for Obama. A quarter of her supporters would cross party lines and vote for John McCain and 18% would stay home.
As for Obama voters, 69% say they would vote for Hillary Clinton if she ends up the nominee against McCain; 16% would vote for McCain and 13% would stay home.
And what about those new voters? Remember some 300,000 new voters in Pennsylvania today? Well, 29% said they would not vote for Hillary Clinton in November.
From NBC's Ron Allen
PHILADELPHIA -- The ballroom here at the Philadelphia Hyatt has come alive, a mix of celebration, relief and optimism that this long nomination race may just be starting ... again. Hillary Clinton may just have started a comeback.
Terry McAuliffe, one of her top advisors just said, "One down, nine to go," referring to the remaining contests to come. Clinton has said she's going to fight all the way to the convention. She seems to thrive on beating the odds, and proving her doubters wrong. Now, the Keystone State has given her more reason to press on.
It’s not just that she won. It’s that Obama lost, she'll say. Lost after outspending her by a three-to-one margin. Why, Clinton has asked, can't he put the nomination away? Why can't he win a big swing state like Pennsylvania that the party will need in November?
One of Clinton's theme songs is playing, "Well, I won't back down; you can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down."
The Clinton campaign believes Obama damaged his "brand," by going so negative in Pennsylvania. They're warning of more of that to come. They're going to try to convince superdelegates he's not tough enough. They'll say that was proven when he criticized the questions at last week’s debate. Tonight, they're calling that night "pivotal."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC/NJ's Matthew Berger
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- The Pennsylvania Secretary of State said a petition was denied in Philadelphia to extend all county polling places until 10 pm.
Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said the petition was filed after three polling places in the county had sporadic machines down. The judge in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ruled this afternoon that the city had properly resolved the issue, and the malfunction didn't warrant the entire county remaining open. A spokeswoman said she did not believe an appeal had been filed.
Cortes said he expected turnout to be at 40 to 50 percent across the state, compared to less than 20 percent in recent presidential primary race. Cortes said he estimated voting in Allegheney County, which includes Pittsburgh, to be as much as 60 percent.
He said a few polling places did not open on time or had small malfunctions.
"The good thing is there is enough safeguards built into the process that, in the end, the electorate was given the opportunity to vote," he said.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
NBC News has projected Clinton to win Pennsylvania, but if Obama keeps it closer than the margin in Ohio, there are some signs in the exit polling that would show why.
Obama fared better in the largest voting bloc by age, the 50-64 group. In Ohio, that group made up 32% of the electorate, and Clinton won it 60%-37%. This time, the group made up 36% of the electorate, and Clinton won it by a slighter margin, 56%-44%.
The electorate in Pennsylvania is older (second oldest in the country behind Florida). The +65 category was 23% of the vote vs. just 14% in Ohio. But Obama did better with this group in Pennsylvania (63%-37% for Clinton) than in Ohio (72%-26% for Clinton).
Education was another factor. Among those without a college degree, Clinton won 58%-42%, similar to her victory in Ohio, 58%-40%, but more voters in Pennsylvania reported having a college degree (47% vs. 32% in Ohio). And Obama won those voters 51%-49%, a similar margin to Ohio (51%-47%).
Obama also scraped around the margins with every racial demographic, but not enough to pull off the victory. Clinton won white women 66%-34% (47% of the electorate); she won that group 67%-31% in Ohio (44% of the electorate). With the overall white vote, Clinton won it 64%-34% in Ohio and 62%-38% in Pennsylvania. Among white men, Clinton won 58%-39% in Ohio and 56%-44% in Pennsylvania.
Among black voters (13% of the electorate; was 18% in Ohio), Obama won by similar margins in Pennsylvania (89%-11%) as in Ohio (87%-13%).
*** UPDATE *** With the recalibrated exit polls, we've updated the numbers above.
Another point, As Marc Ambinder points out, Clinton improved her margins with Catholics, which contributed to her victory. In Ohio, where Catholics were 23% of all voters, she got 63%-36%. In Pennsylvania, where they comprised 37% of the vote, she got a higher percentage, 69%-31%.
NBC News declares
Hillary Clinton the projected winner in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary.
Clinton has taken a lead, according to exit polls, and NBC has now marked Pennsylvania as "too early to call."
