Strange bedfellows
Posted: Friday, May 23, 2008 2:28 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
2008, Clinton
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Over the past month, the Clinton campaign, its supporters and its surrogates have been using Republicans -- in one way or another -- to make their case that Clinton should be the Democratic nominee.
Just today, the campaign sent out an e-mail with a link to a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer supporting their claim that Clinton is winning the popular vote. The column notes RealClearPolitics’ popular vote totals, in which if Michigan and Florida are included, Clinton leads in the popular vote -- something First Read has noted several times. The writer of the piece notes that this is the “most inclusive count.” But even this writer points out that the counts that include Florida, but not Michigan, “seem more fair.”
Interestingly, the writer is Jonathan Last, whose biography on the Inquirer’s site, notes that he is a staff writer at the conservative magazine, the Weekly Standard. (He also runs this blog.)
There are a few other examples of this that have cropped up. A May 1 Huffington Post piece wrote that Sidney Blumenthal -- whom the piece identifies as a senior campaign adviser and helped coin the phrase “vast right wing conspiracy” -- a decade later “is exploiting that same right-wing network to attack and discredit Barack Obama.” The examples include conservative outlets such as Accuracy in Media (AIM), The Weekly Standard, City Journal, The American Conservative and The National Review.
Also just this week, Clintonites -- from Bill Clinton to Terry McAuliffe, to the candidate herself -- cited Karl Rove, of all people, to help make their case that Clinton is the strongest general election electoral map candidate. The L.A. Times (and others) put up the map from Rove’s firm and headlined the development this way: "Breaking news: Hillary Clinton now thinks Karl Rove's a political genius”
The paper's Malcolm notes in the item, “In recent months one of the worst things Sen. Hillary Clinton could say about her chief opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, was that he was taking moves out of the ‘Karl Rove playbook.’ Can you imagine?! ‘Shame on you, Barack Obama!’ she said.”
Hillary Clinton said Monday, "I found some curious support for that position when one of the TV networks released an analysis done by -- of all people -- Karl Rove, saying that I was the stronger candidate. Somebody got a hold of his analysis and there it is.”
McAuliffe even went on FOX News and praised Rove. “[L]isten, you've got to give credit,” McAuliffe said. "They didn't win 2000 -- they got [inaudible] 2004; they clearly won that election. I think you've got to give credit to people when they actually win elections. They look at the numbers, and I think if you look at the maps that I guess Karl had sent out to a few people, go through that, it looks like Hillary Clinton has a better shot of beating John McCain than Senator Obama. He's just looking at the numbers, doing the analysis in how you win Electoral College victory.
“Karl is saying what I've said. We do agree that Hillary Clinton would be the toughest competitor to John McCain. She puts states in play like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arkansas. I mean, some states -- we were in Kentucky last night, and we won West Virginia by 41 points. She can be competitive in those states. And I think if you want to win the Electoral College, the more states you put in play, the more competitive you're going to be.”
Rove tried to quash some of McAuliffe’s enthusiasm. “Well, Terry, that's not exactly what [inaudible] that she'd be the tougher in the fall. I'm simply saying that as of today she puts some states into play today that Senator Obama doesn't. Now there's a long time, as you know, between May and November. There's several geological ages that are going to come and go before then. But, in looking at it today, she does run better in states like West Virginia, Florida, Ohio, than he does. And, of course, Senator Obama runs better in states like Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa than she does.”
The FOXers joked about it and had some fun pointing out the irony of the former Democratic National Committee chairman agreeing with Bush’s “architect.”
“The headline here for me is that Terry actually was agreeing with Karl's map,” Gretchen Carlson said.
“Nostradamus predicted that, didn't he?” Steve Doocy added.
“Satan -- ‘Terry Agrees with Satan Today,’” Rove concluded.
Politics, sometimes, can make for some VERY strange bedfellows.
