Media fixation on the March 4 primaries as do-or-die contests for Hillary Rodham Clinton guaranteed that last night's debate -- the final one before voters in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont go to the polls -- would get a lot of attention, but it was something of a surprise to see Clinton turn some of that attention back on the media.
Clinton called MSNBC's moderators out for going easy on Barack Obama, telling Brian Williams that she is used to always being tapped for the first question on any given topic. (Slate has a lengthy explanation of Clinton's comment about the SNL skit mocking the media for fawning over her rival.)
A question about the North American Free Trade Agreement sparked Clinton's comment last night at Cleveland State University. NAFTA is particularly delicate territory in bellwether Ohio, which has a high proportion of blue-collar workers concerned about jobs going overseas.
Obama-McCain Squabble Injected Into Army Readiness Hearing
A controversial anecdote relayed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in last week's Texas debate wended its way into a Senate Armed Forces hearing on Army readiness today.
Obama claimed that he'd "heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon" that was sent to Afghanistan grossly undermanned and underequipped. "They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief," Obama said during Thursday night's debate.
Lindsey Graham, who lately has been stumping hard for Republican John McCain, relayed the story to Army Secretary Peter Geren and Army Chief of Staff William Casey during the hearing. "Has Sen. Obama talked to you or anyone in the department about this?" the South Carolina Republican asked.
"I have not discussed this with Sen. Obama," Geren replied, before handing the baton to Casey.
"As we looked into this, the best we could tell was this incident occurred back in 2003 and 2004," Casey said. "We talked to the brigade commander, looked at readiness reports. The brigade was manned over 100 percent and stayed 100 percent manned when they were there."
A fight over whether Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can reject federal funds for his presidential campaign has thrown new attention on a stalemate hamstringing the Federal Election Commission and given unexpected attention to the role of McCain's possible election opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in that impasse.
The situation presents problems for both McCain, whom Democrats are accusing of defying the same campaign finance regulations he has championed, and Obama, who is seeing a hold he placed on an FEC nominee used in a bid to undermine his claims of working in a bipartisan manner.
McCain's problem, meanwhile, is generating calls for the White House or Senate Democrats to blink in their battle over FEC nominees.
"When you talk about the FEC, people's eyes glaze over.... But there will be increasing public pressure to do something as more and more people understand" the situation, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Her group called Friday for Republicans to compromise to end the standoff.
Did Hillary Rodham Clinton step under a ladder and over a black cat before announcing her presidential campaign last year? The hits -- in the bad sense -- just keep on coming at her.
She was booed last night after sniping that Barack Obama was pushing a message of "change you can Xerox" -- a reference to Camp Clinton's charges that Obama plagiarized Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick -- an Obama supporter. It was an Ouch moment for Clinton, and the audience did not like it.
Yesterday's CNN/Univision debate at the University of Texas (transcript) was tense at times and warmly collegial at times. Neither candidate tripped up too badly, but it was clear that Obama has greatly improved his debating skills. Clinton's been strong there from the beginning, so she's not being awarded any extra points.
The New York senator ended the evening on a high rhetorical note that won a standing ovation. Points for that, right? Nope. Many viewers read her lips and saw a concession speech.
And either the Clinton campaign is too arrogant or too tone-deaf for its own good.
Beware the punditocracy.
Whereas two weeks ago it was premature to call Ohio and Texas do-or-die states for Hillary Rodham Clinton, that is not the case today. In most other election years, Wisconsin and Hawaii would be two "so what?" states. Not this year, and not on the heels of three straight primary/caucus sweeps for Barack Obama.
Out of the 10 contests Obama's won since the Super Tuesday draw, Wisconsin's tilt toward Obama is the most significant. (NJ's James Barnes has a feature on this today.) Obama is eating into all of Clinton's constituents, including older white men, single white women and lower-income Democrats. Now the question everyone is asking is whether Camp Clinton can slow this train down.
As Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama head into yet another crucial primary test today, the latest round of national polling suggests the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is still too close to call either candidate the definitive front-runner.
Yesterday's Gallup Daily Tracking survey had Obama surging ahead to a 7-point advantage over Clinton among national Democratic voters, prompting today's Poll Track to declare Obama the undisputed leader in the race. But earlier this afternoon, Gallup released new numbers showing that the gap between the two has narrowed once again, putting Obama and Clinton in a statistical dead heat at 46 percent to 45 percent, respectively.
The 3-point dip for Obama and similar bump for Clinton in just a single day comes as the New York senator has stepped up her attacks on her colleague from Illinois. Pundits, pollsters and other close watchers of the race will be anxiously awaiting the results from Wisconsin tonight to see if Clinton's last-minute effort to paint Obama as a plagiarist will help erode the strong level of support he currently has there, particularly among the independents who are able to vote in the Badger State's primary.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has edged out Barack Obama in the New Mexico Democratic caucus, winning 73,105 votes to Obama's 71,396. But in terms of delegates, the rivals come out about even.
The final delegate awards haven't been meted out yet, but per an earlier Albuquerque Journal tally, which had Clinton with 68,659 votes to Obama's 67,538, the delegate count was 13 for Clinton and 12 for Obama.
Still, Clinton needed a good headline after days of glowing press granting the Illinois senator the glint of an aura of inevitability. A win for Clinton here was viewed as proof that she was running away with the Latino vote this cycle, while a win for Obama would have shored up his argument that he trumps the New York senator in red states and swing states.
In a painfully drawn out press conference, Brian Colon, chairman of the New Mexico Democratic Party, called the results "one of the slimmest margins of victory in" the state's history.
Looks like the GOP has its very own Joe Lieberman: former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee.
Chafee, the only Republican to vote against giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, is bypassing former colleague John McCain in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who wasn't yet in the Senate for the 2002 vote but opposed the war as an Illinois lawmaker.
"I believe Senator Obama is the best candidate to restore American credibility, to restore our confidence to be moral and just, and to bring people together to solve the complex issues such as the economy, the environment and global stability," Chafee said in a conference call with reporters.
Chafee, always a popular lawmaker in his state, was swept out of office on an anti-GOP tide in 2006. His successor, Sheldon Whitehouse, campaigned on an argument for Democratic control of the Senate to challenge President Bush's authority. The Republican Party didn't exactly rush to Chafee's defense, and last year Chafee left the GOP to become an independent.
The Providence Journal reports that Chafee excoriates the leaders of both parties, particularly on the Iraq war vote, in a soon-to-be-released memoir.
In homage to the great sportswriter (and Brookings Institution egghead) Gregg Easterbrook, we're dubbing today's spate of regional votes the Potomac Drainage Basin Primary. (It's no worse than any of the other nicknames we've seen.)
So in case you missed it, there's a primary vote happening today in Virginia, Maryland and right here in the District. Barack Obama's going to sweep those votes, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to keep losing contests until March 4's Ohio and Texas primaries, which she might also lose. Wow, those are a long way away. She's a goner.
And... scene.
So goes our cheeky ribbing of the media speculation-a-thon regarding today's primaries, which according to MSM bylaws a) must have a cutesy nickname (Chesapeake or Crab Cake?) and b) must be predictive of the nomination winner and, while we're at it, the winner of the November general election vote.
McCain & Conservatives: It's Not Love, But It'll Do
Conservative activists still haven't forgiven John McCain for thumbing his nose at them in 2000, when he challenged their candidate, George W. Bush, for the Republican nomination. That's evident this week, as thousands of the conservative grassroots convene at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington for the 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference.
Eleven months ago, as the 2008 presidential race was kicking into gear, there was zero support for McCain at CPAC. Though Mitt Romney emerged the CPAC straw poll winner, support for him at the time seemed to be borne of resignation. The conservative base was agonizing over its choices for the nominee, and at its dim hopes of hanging on to the White House in the wake of a tremendously unpopular Republican presidency. The ennui prompted Mike Huckabee to quip that the conference ought to be renamed, "Dude, where's my candidate?"
With no offense intended to Huckabee, who still remains in this contest, it's now pretty clear that, dude, your candidate is John McCain.
"I hope you will pardon my absence last year, and understand that I intended no personal insult to any of you. I was merely preoccupied with the business of trying to escape the distinction of preseason front-runner for the Republican nomination which, I'm sure some of you observed, I managed to do in fairly short order," McCain said at the conference yesterday, using humor as he often does to defuse an awkward situation.
It worked, and not just because the room was packed with the McCainiacs who were totally absent at last year's CPAC. Just hours before, Mitt Romney informed attendees he was dropping out of the race. Romney supporters were also on hand to hear from McCain, in an irony-laden, fresh-start introduction to the GOP's presumptive nominee.
Even though the candidates have moved on to the next round of contests -- caucuses in Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington tomorrow; Maine on Sunday; and the Potomac Primary next Tuesday -- the final Super Tuesday tally in the incredibly tight race between Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama remains unresolved. As delegate counts from various states continue to trickle in, the latest count by MSNBC has Obama with a razor-thin lead over Clinton, 861 to 855.
Meanwhile, the results of New Mexico's Feb. 5 caucus still hang in the balance. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, MSNBC (a NationalJournal.com partner) has Clinton leading, 49 percent to 48 percent. But with just over 1,100 votes separating them, the two senators are waiting for more than 17,000 provisional ballots to be counted before a winner is declared.
AP reports that it "could be a couple of days" before there's an answer; UPI quotes state party leaders who say it may take another week. Either way, the two are likely to split the delegates from that state down the middle.
We called it quits last night with two states outstanding. The results are in for one of the states, while the other is turning out to be a nail-biter.
In the New Mexico Democratic caucus, the Clinton-Obama contest is still too close to call. Fewer than 120 votes separated Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama after counting earlier today, so that contest will be decided by provisional ballots, the Albuquerque Journal reports. State Democratic Party workers will begin counting the more than 16,000 provisional ballots today.
Per the Journal, Clinton took most of the counties while Obama bested her in Santa Fe and Bernalillo counties. The strong Latino vote helped Clinton here, but it's too soon to tell if that will be enough.
New Mexico is a proportional delegate state, with 38 up for grabs. That means both will walk away with some of the booty. But a win here for Obama adds another swing state to his column, further undergirding his claim that he would perform better than Clinton in the general election. That's why both candidates lobbied so hard for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement. He declined to tap either until the nomination is decided, but he did watch the Super Bowl with Bill Clinton. (Of course, President Clinton used to be Richardson's boss.)
The excitement surrounding yesterday's unprecedented Super Tuesday nominating contests obscured the latest and perhaps most damning news to come out on the troubled economy: Activity in the crucial service sector slowed for the first time in nearly five years last month.
The report from the Institute of Supply Management shows a significant decline in non-manufacturing activity (previously the "firmest pillar of economic expansion") in January. Those numbers, coupled with last week's news that jobs were declining, are heightening concerns that the economy is not only headed for a recession, but is already in one.
"Recession is here," the headline on CNNMoney.com read yesterday. The report quotes several economists who said the ISM report was the tipping point for them.
National Journal's Ronald Brownstein and James A. Barnes are up this morning with first reactions to the Super Tuesday results.
On the Republican side, Barnes parses John McCain's victory across a broad geographic and ideological spectrum of voters and notes that GOP nominating rules in the biggest states are working in the Arizona senator's favor.
Meanwhile, Brownstein pores over the exit polls and concludes that the persistent demographic divides separating Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama could keep the Democratic race hanging in the balance well into spring.
1:58. Obama's declared the "winner winner" in Missouri. He and Clinton are running about even in New Mexico.
In the Republican field, it's near impossible to see how anyone stops McCain. A comeback for the history books, surely. It will be interesting to see how he's received Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which he skipped last year because there was so much hostility toward him. The Gate will be there.
Meanwhile, Romney is meeting with his top advisers tomorrow to discuss his future, the Boston Globe reports. He's been accusing Huckabee of splitting the evangelical vote, but Huckabee's supporters are more likely to go to McCain should their guy bail out. The South was in a pretty anti-Romney mood today, and there's reason to believe this has something to do with religion.
Knowingly or not, Huckabee has used the religion wedge to his advantage. Somewould say knowingly, although he hasn't really been called out on it.
We're going to call it a night. Check back tomorrow later today for those lingering New Mexico and Alaska results.
1:26. MSNBC's Chuck Todd did the math, and he projects Obama and Clinton will be about tied in delegate counts. They will have to soldier on in the upcoming contests: Louisiana (2/9), Washington (2/9), Maine (2/10), D.C. (2/12), Maryland (2/12), Virginia (2/12) and probably beyond.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are dueling for the coveted Latino vote in California, Arizona, Illinois and New Jersey. Though Clinton was viewed as having cornered this demographic, Obama's late-breaking sweep of support following his South Carolina primary victory could net him a significant portion of the Latino vote.
Carin Zissis of the New York-based Americas Society/Council of the Americas breaks down where these voters might go today.
We've been quietly wondering whether John McCain's sudden ascendancy would worry Democrats supporting Barack Obama enough to make them rethink their vote. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been cast as the "experience" candidate, and the veracity of that claim aside, she has been viewed as a safer bet to win against a strong war-on-terror candidate like McCain in the general election.
Remember Obama's victory speech after he won the South Carolina Democratic primary, when he and a stadium full of supporters asked America not to tell them change was impossible? Well, the "believe" mantra you've been seeing on all those campaign signs and hearing in so many of Obama's speeches appears to be taking hold, less than 24 hours before Democratic voters in 22 states go to the polls.
Several new surveys show Obama outperforming Clinton in national matchups against McCain. In one poll showing the two Democrats both beating McCain, Obama does it by an 8-point margin, compared to a 3-point margin for Clinton. Others show Clinton losing to McCain and McCain losing to Obama.
(Mitt Romney, by the way, gets bludgeoned by both.)
It looks as if Democratic voters tomorrow won't have to make a painful choice between following their heads and following their hearts after all.
McCain Wins Giuliani Nod, Puts Entire Field On Notice
UPDATED.
"I made it clear at different times in this campaign that if I had not decided to run -- I believe I even said it at a debate -- the only person in the country that I clearly would've supported for the president of the United States would be John McCain. And that came from the heart.
"Today, I'm officially announcing my withdrawal as a candidate for president of the United States."
And with that, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani closed the chapter on his own presidential aspirations and opened a new one in this rollercoaster ride of an election cycle. McCain's victory in the Florida Republican primary yesterday was already validation that he's now the GOP front-runner. Giuliani's decision to ally himself with McCain today sent a strong message to the challengers in both fields: This election will once again center on security and defense.
"It will be a clear choice this November, and I believe that my life has prepared me. A life of service, and a life of dedication to lead this nation and the transcendent challenge of the 21st century: the great threat and evil of radical Islam," McCain said, accepting Giuliani's endorsement.
The person who should fear McCain's ascendancy most immediately is Mitt Romney, who's been pushed out of the headlines as the nation digests McCain's comeback, unthinkable just months ago. McCain not only has a delegates-count advantage going into next week's Super Tuesday contests, he also has a wide margin over Romney in national polling, which at this late date can be considered a fairly reliable indicator of how the big-prize states will vote.
Edwards Ends WH Bid But Keeps Anti-Poverty Message Alive
UPDATED.
John Edwards ended his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination this afternoon during a stop in New Orleans, where he first announced his entrance into the race one year ago in order to punctuate the primary theme of his campaign: combating poverty.
"It's time for me to step aside, so that history can blaze its path," he told the assembled crowd against a backdrop of newly built homes in the hurricane-ravaged Ninth Ward. "We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is our Democratic Party will make history."
Edwards, surrounded by his wife, Elizabeth, and three children, said he had spoken with the two remaining Democrats in the race -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama -- who both pledged to him that they'd make "ending poverty central to their campaign" and, if elected, their presidency. However, he did not formally endorse either candidate.
"America's hour of transformation is upon us," Edwards told the crowd, returning to the message of "change" that has dominated the Democratic primary race. He evoked numerous images of the kinds of struggling Americans -- the homeless, the hungry, the uninsured, neglected veterans and working people -- that he has pledged to fight for, and he promised to continue that fight even as he exits the White House race. "It's hard to speak out for change when you feel like your voice isn't being heard," but "the Democratic Party hears you," he said.
"It's time for all of us together to make the two Americas one," he concluded, echoing the theme of equality that he first laid out as a presidential candidate in the 2004 race.
Edwards thanked his supporters, volunteers and campaign staffers after saying he was "suspending" his campaign. That terminology may generate some head-scratching, but AP reports that, according to his advisers, it "was simply legal terminology so that he can continue to receive federal matching funds for his campaign donations."
McCain Edges Romney In Florida; Giuliani Bowing Out
UPDATED.
John McCain edged out rival Mitt Romney to win the Republican primary in Florida, sealing his comeback status as the front-runner in this race.
"Our victory might not have reached landslide proportions, but it is sweet nonetheless," McCain said, as supporters cheered an increasingly familiar refrain, "Mac is back! Mac is back!"
"To everyone who in good times and bad devoted much time and energy and hope to keeping our candidacy competitive: Thank you from the bottom of my heart," McCain said, in reference to his astonishing revival after being left for dead last summer when his campaign operation imploded.
These numbers will be confirmed tomorrow, but McCain bested Romney by about 36 percent to 31 percent. Rudy Giuliani won 15 percent of the registered-Republicans-only vote, followed by Mike Huckabee 2 points behind. The exit polling data show some surprising alliances. Latinos overwhelmingly went to McCain, even though Romney was up with Spanish-language ads in Florida nearly a year ago. McCain also bested Romney among voters middle-aged and older. The two fared about equally among middle-income voters, with Romney gaining an edge in the $100,000-$199,990 bracket. But McCain won over Republicans earning $200,000 or more, 44 percent to 30 percent.
With Super Tuesday just a week away, McCain heads into that 24-state competition the delegate-count winner, with Romney his chief rival and Huckabee the wild card.
Meanwhile, without actually saying he was dropping out, Giuliani all but drew his campaign to a close in his concession speech tonight. He said he was "proud" of his campaign for keeping things positive -- he never really went after anyone except Romney and Ron Paul -- and nodded to his improbable candidacy and improbable strategy.
When he's not freestyle rapping, Mitt Romney also enjoys running for president of the United States. Tonight, we will find out if the Republican voters of Florida will crown him the candidate to beat going into next Tuesday, or if his chief rival in this state, John McCain, definitively becomes 2008's Comeback Kid.
We kid the former Massachusetts governor, of course, who is poised to win the Florida primary today and put to rest doubts that he can sweep enough Super Tuesday delegates to carry him to the nomination. He shot for and missed winning the nod in the supposedly crucial (but probably not so much anymore) states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which prompted a bunch of fortune tellers to write his WH '08 obit. But Romney doesn't have the best ground game and organization in this field for nothing. Pollsput [PDF] him in a dead heat for first with McCain, which could effectively make Feb. 5 a two-man contest.
That is, if potential spoiler Rudy Giuliani doesn't beat expectations. The former NYC mayor is promising he will deliver in spite of the polling numbers. He's crossing his fingers that a lot of the absentee balloting went his way, though it's not clear that would make a difference, our colleagues at Pollster.com say.
In another troubling sign of crisis in the U.S. housing market, the number of home foreclosures rose a staggering 75 percent to a total of more than 2.2 million filings in 2007, according to new data from RealtyTrac. The online seller of foreclosure properties reports that filings were up 97 percent in December compared to December 2006.
In an interview with MarketWatch, RealtyTrac's Rick Sharga concluded that the "primary driver" of the surge in foreclosures was "the high delinquency rates of these adjustable-rate subprime mortgages," and he warned that "we have one more massive wave of these loans that will adjust or reset... in late May or early June." Listen to the interview here and view RealtyTrac's findings here.
CNNMoney.com's Les Christiepredicts that the "rapid rise" in foreclosure risk "could last for years."
According to Forbes' breakdown of the data, many of the hardest-hit counties are in key electoral battleground states, including some that have already held presidential nominating contests (Nevada, Michigan) and some that will weigh in next week on Super Tuesday (California, Arizona, Colorado). With overall economic concerns already a top priority for voters, the housing crisis could shape up to be one of the key issues in this year's presidential election.
Liveblogging President Bush's Final State Of The Union Address
End note. SOTU affairs are always a laundry list, and few expect them to deliver poetry. This year's address (full text) did lack the rhetorical punch of previous years, particularly Bush's first SOTU address following 9/11, which received very high marks.
If there is one character trait that describes this president, it is determination-bordering-on-
stubbornness. He has largely ignored polls and the punditry, and he only changed tacks in Iraq when the calls for a change in course permeated his own administration. Plenty of Americans didn't tune in to this speech tonight, on the assumption Bush is a lame duck. That is probably not the case, at least as far as the legislature is concerned.
With his veto threat and the executive order coming Tuesday, Bush is asserting himself in a dramatic way. The rate of federal spending under Bush's watch is triple that of the Clinton administration. That Bush is positioning himself to put a foot down on pork-barrel spending was pretty unexpected in his final year in office. We'll be watching to see how it pans out.
As for Bush's various claims in tonight's speech, NPR's reporters have been posting fact checks all evening. See their corrections on the tax cuts, FISA, Iraq and entitlement reform. Good night.
10:27. A somewhat unexpected criticism of the president here: "In spite of the attempts to convince us that we are divided as a people, a new American majority has come together. We are tired of leaders who rather than asking what we can do for our country, ask nothing of us at all.
"We are Americans sharing a belief in something greater than ourselves, a nation coming together to meet challenges and find solutions; to share sacrifices and share prosperity; and focus, once again, not only on the individual good but on the common good."
It should come as little surprise that Sebelius has endorsed Barack Obama. This speech reflects Democrats' palpable eagerness to move the country well away from the Bush era.
When Gen. David Petraeus returns to Washington in March, he will brief Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the progress of the U.S. troop drawdown. He'll be asked how units are faring in Iraq as more of them leave, and whether the targeted reduction -- from about 160,000 to the pre-surge 130,000 by this summer -- should progress as planned.
What he won't be asked is whether troop levels can be brought down further.
On the one hand, that isn't surprising. The answer is clearly no, although the Pentagon hasn't publicly confirmed that. Violence against U.S. troops is back down to 2005 levels -- which isn't great, but it beats the carnage of 2006 and 2007.
The main U.S. objective moving forward is to help Iraq rebuild its military and security forces. In an interview with the New York Times published Jan. 15, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qadir forecast that Iraq's military forces would not be able to fend off internal and external threats independently until at least 2018.
That lines up with many U.S. commanders' assessments that significant assistance from their own country will be required in Iraq for at least a decade. Right now, the presidential candidates are bickering over whether the surge is working. A better debating point would be whether the U.S. has a responsibility to help Iraq become a fully sovereign nation or whether Washington can live with the very real possibility that all the gains made last year could be undone if American politicians oppose commanders' recommendations.
Congress: WH Race Threatens To Hamstring Dem Majority
With Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois likely fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination well into February, and one of them virtually assured of being the nominee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be doomed to spend 2008 much the same way he spent 2007 -- hamstrung by a slim majority.
With lawmakers eager to sidestep controversial votes and spend as much time as possible campaigning for their own re-elections, the track record for legislative accomplishments is already unremarkable.
This year, with Democrats holding a razor-thin majority and three senators still in the thick of the presidential race -- Clinton, Obama and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- some aides foresee an even lighter-than-usual workload.
Obama Pulls Off Decisive S.C. Win, Plus One Heck Of A Speech
UPDATED.
When Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the White House in February last year, he knew he was a mere mortal going up against a dragon. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, comprised the head of the Democratic Party establishment. The race for the nomination was Hillary's for the taking, the chattering classes believed, because the Clinton machine was simply too entrenched, too monied, too formidable.
Tonight, Barack Obama drove a dagger into the heart of that dragon.
In a rousing, to-the-rafters speech reminiscent of a religious revival, the one-term, 46-year-old senator from Illinois delivered a damning indictment of the very thesis of Clinton's candidacy.
"We're looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington. We are looking for more than a change in the party in the White House," Obama told a packed auditorium of supporters. "This is a status quo that extends beyond any particular party. We are not going to let them stand in our way any more."
In a very close electoral battle that wasn't decided until the New York delegation cast the last vote, Washington and Lee students predicted at their centennial mock convention that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the Democratic Party's 2008 nominee for president.
Having only missed a prediction once since 1948, this year's preview is especially risky because most political analysts are still hesitant to forecast who will win the fight between Clinton and Barack Obama.
In the end, Clinton received 2,117 votes, with Obama in a close second at 1,642. John Edwards received 288 votes, and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel got 2 delegates thanks to his native Alaska.
Hey, you guys! It's so super to see you! No matter what happens in Florida on Tuesday, let's promise to always be friends. I am so serious!!!
Ahem.
The Republican candidates debate last night was mind-bogglingly polite -- proof that in politics, anything really is possible. Gone were the condescending swipes at Mitt Romney that dominated the previous GOP debate earlier this month. Romney, in kind, held his fire, and so for once we had a forum that was dominated by issues.
We heard some interesting ideas from the candidates on how to jump-start the economy. Mike Huckabee, for instance, made a pretty good point when he said that the rebate checks millions of Americans will receive as part of a congressional stimulus package will likely go to goods made elsewhere, which does nothing to address the dying manufacturing sector here at home.
"And frankly, in talking about the stimulus package, one of the concerns that I have is that we'll probably end up borrowing this $150 billion from the Chinese. And when we get those rebate checks, most people are going to go out and buy stuff that's been imported from China. I have to wonder whose economy is going to be stimulated the most by the package," the former Arkansas governor said.
You won't hear talk like that on the Democratic side, where it's anathema to question the soundness of cutting those checks even though economists doubt they are actually stimulative.
Yesterday's debate also saw the return of the Iraq war as a campaign issue. Romney in particular foreshadowed the general-election argument to come on this topic: "We cannot turn Iraq over to al-Qaida and have al-Qaida have a safe haven from which they could recruit people to carry out bombings, to attack this country and our friends around the world. It's unthinkable. And that's why I will not walk away from Iraq until we have been successful and finish that job."
Where there were policy differences, the candidates managed to lay out their arguments without elbowing the others along the way. We saw what looked to be genuine camaraderie between Romney and Rudy Giuliani on the heels of a New York Times article on why Romney is the most disliked candidate in this field. And speaking of Giuliani, his chuckling and snorting punctuated nearly all the lighter moments of the 90-minute debate. (Where was that Giuliani when he was mayor of New York??)
Tired of watching Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton slug it out on the trail? If you want to know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, keep an eye this weekend on Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va.
On Friday and Saturday, the university is holding its mock convention. Heralded for its accuracy, W&L's convention has correctly predicted the presidential nominee for the out-of-office party each time since 1948, except once (delegates chose Edward Kennedy over George McGovern in '72). The Gate is here in western Virginia this weekend to bring you all the sights and sounds. Check back tomorrow for the convention results. We'll be posting a comprehensive write-up plus plenty of photos on Monday.
To non-hyperpartisans who've been following developments in Iraq, it's been clear for some time that there will be a significant U.S. presence there going into the next decade, regardless of which party rules the White House next year. Though both sides called a de facto truce in Congress following the anticlimactic testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in September, lawmakers appear to be getting their sea legs back on the war debate.
A skirmish is just now brewing over the White House's negotiations with the Iraqi government concerning the longer-term American posture there. "Status of forces" agreements are standard issue with allies; we have one with more than 120 countries, according to the State Department. Iraq, of course, is not just any country, and Democrats are nervous that the new agreement will lock the U.S. into a deeper, more long-term engagement than they'd like.
It's already playing on the campaign trail. In a debate in Las Vegas last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama agreed to pursue legislation requiring President Bush to request congressional approval for the Iraq status of forces agreement. "I think we have to do everything we can to prevent President Bush from binding the hands of the next president," Clinton said.
Presidents usually don't have to bring those agreements before Congress, but administration officials acknowledged to the Washington Post that they might have to submit the Iraq agreement for lawmakers' approval.
Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich is bowing out of the Democratic primary race, his hometown paper is reporting. According to Openers, the political blog of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kucinich will explain his "transition" out of the race at a news conference around noon tomorrow in Cleveland. He promises a "rather lengthy statement" on his reasons for dropping out.
In an exclusive interview, Kucinich also said he would not be endorsing one of his Democratic rivals in the primary race, perhaps a surprising decision considering that he had urged supporters to back Barack Obama as a second choice in the Iowa caucuses. See the Plain Dealer's interview here.
In recent weeks, Kucinich has been spending much of his time and energy trying to maintain some kind of role in an increasingly whittled-down Democratic field. In particular, he has vocally (and in some cases legally) contested his exclusion from several televised debates.
But in recent days, the Ohio congressman's attentions have turned back to his home turf, where he faces primary challenges from Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman and North Olmstead Mayor Thomas O'Grady, among others.
Super Saturday I: McCain Wins S.C. Primary In Nail-Biter
UPDATED.
Now you may call it a comeback: John McCain has taken the South Carolina Republican primary.
McCain pulled out a narrow victory over Mike Huckabee, 33 percent to 30 percent. Fred Thompson (16 percent) and Mitt Romney (15 percent) basically tied for third.
"You know, it took us a while, but what's eight years among friends?" McCain quipped in his trademark self-deprecating manner, referencing his South Carolina loss to President Bush in 2000. "As I have said before, I know that before I can win your vote, I must earn your respect. And the only way I know how to do that is by being honest with you. I have tried to do that throughout this campaign, and to put my trust in your willingness to give me your fair consideration. So far, it seems to be working out just fine," he continued, in a room filled with ecstatic volunteers and supporters who minutes before had been chanting "Mac is back! Mac is back!"
McCain also made sure to note -- or gloat, perhaps -- that the chattering classes had declared his campaign DOA just months ago. "I am aware that for the last 28 years, the winner of the South Carolina primary has been the nominee of our party. We have a ways to go, of course," he said. "There are some tough contests ahead, starting tomorrow in the state of Florida. But, my friends, we are well on our way tonight. And I feel very good about our chances."
The outcome in South Carolina tonight is meaningful for at least two big reasons. One is that neither Huckabee nor McCain directly engaged in a negative way in a state infamous for its down-and-dirty politics.
It's been one year since the unofficial kickoff of the 2008 presidential campaigns, and the state of play for the Republican nomination contest is remarkable both for what has changed and what hasn't.
Most obviously different are the front-runners. Mike Huckabee, nationally unknown this time in 2007, now rides comfortably in the top tier. He's always had the goods to do well in this campaign but faced long odds against better-funded celebrity candidates.
Both he and John McCain have smashed pundits' expectations and are now enjoying the attention and funding that front-runner status guarantees. But in many ways, the game for the Republicans hasn't changed one bit. This field still lacks a candidate who is all things to all GOP voters. The party isn't coalescing around one or two choices, as is happening in the Democratic race. Rather, the party is being divvied up like a pie, with each candidate representing just a slice of the big-picture GOP platform.
The primary vote is so fractured, in fact, that a brokered convention actually seems a distinct possibility. Yeah, yeah, we hear that every other cycle. Only, the longer you examine the differences among Huckabee, McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, the more completely, utterly irreconcilable those differences seem. MSNBC's Chris Matthews is taking even more heat this week for a comparison he made between the GOP and Iraq's warring factions. Matthews may have stumbled through that analogy rather inelegantly, but he is on to something.
Yesterday's decision to allow several Las Vegas casinos to double as caucus sites in tomorrow's presidential nominating contest was met with predictable responses from the two campaigns expected to be most affected by the ruling.
Barack Obama, whose backing by the state's Culinary Workers Union is expected to boost his standing among the laborers who will be caucusing at the casino sites, hailed U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan's decision and chided rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign in a meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board yesterday.
"This caucus process was designed by Democratic Party of Nevada in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee," he told the board. "I, as somebody who's not part of the establishment of the Democratic Party, had no say in the rules... [but] individuals like Harold Ickes, Clinton's key adviser, were a part of making these rules. And some of the people who filed the lawsuit were a part of making these rules," he added in reference to the involvement of Clinton supporters in challenging the casino sites.
Late yesterday afternoon, the Clinton camp came out with its own statement disavowing any involvement in the lawsuit but clearly expressing regret at the decision. "Make no mistake -- the current system that inhibits some shift workers from being able to participate, while allowing others to do so, would seem to benefit other campaigns. More importantly it is unfair," the statement reads. "The Obama campaign has been clear in its belief that whoever wins the culinary union endorsement will win Nevada. We will leave it up to the people of Nevada to make that decision."
For background on the disputed sites, see The Gate's coverage here.
First, the disclosure: MSNBC is a content partner of National Journal.
Thanks to a swirl of big economic news and the Republican National Committee's Winter Meeting (our post on that goes up tomorrow), we're a little late with the reaction to Tuesday night's Democratic candidates debate that we promised. If you watched it, you'll recall that moderators Brian Williams and Tim Russert started off the forum in Vegas with questions about the race tiff between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama -- which both sides had by then declared over. (If you missed it, see our liveblog coverage.)
More to some viewers' chagrin, Williams brought up the dirty-politicking, false Internet rumors about Obama's secret Islamofascist plot to take over the country.
U.S. District Judge James Mahan has ruled in favor of the Nevada Democratic Party in a dispute over the use of casinos along the Las Vegas strip as caucus sites in Saturday's presidential nominating contest. The ruling allows voting to be held at the casinos as planned.
Mahan determined that the Democratic Party had a right to set its own rules, and he said he did not want to set a precedent that could impact other caucuses held across the U.S. AP has details.
Today's decision will likely have a profound impact on Saturday's results in what is shaping up to be a very close three-way race among Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama (the GOP contenders are largely ignoring Nevada in favor of South Carolina).
Rising food prices may be one of the most underreported economic stories. New data show that this trend is impacting the larger economy.
Consumer prices rose 4.1 percent last year, according to the Labor Department. In a new report, the Federal Reserve found no growth in factories, mines and utilities last month. Inflation is the highest it's been in 17 years, and the Fed is expected to announce a half-point rate cut to ease the pain when it meets later this month.
AP reports: "Energy costs rose by 17.4 percent this past year while food costs rose by 4.9 percent. Both were the biggest increases since 1990. Gasoline prices were up 29.6 percent, the biggest increase since they soared by 30.1 percent in 1999."
Obviously, this is hitting Americans who live paycheck to paycheck the hardest, which is why we've seen the economy skyrocket among voters' lists of concerns going into the 2008 elections. But the rise in food prices is perceived as a mixed blessing by analysts.
End note. We've suspected for a while that the media have blown up trivialities in the Democratic nomination contest because the candidates are mostly on board with each other on the major issues. This forum was a case in point.
Have Clinton and Obama really been squabbling over who is the rightful heir to MLK? Of course not. But you might have been led to believe otherwise by the previous days' news cycles, which is why it came up tonight.
Is Obama really struggling to convince voters that he's not a jihadist in disguise? Certainly. Not. The only plausible defense Williams et al. could give for bringing that story up is that it's already out there, and they were simply giving Obama a chance to put the rumors to rest. Again, we say: Anyone willing to believe those rumors hasn't been following Obama hardly at all and probably wouldn't vote for him no matter what. Imagine George Stephanopoulos asking John McCain about his rumored illegitimate black baby. Some things, my friends, should simply be out of bounds.
You're going to hear more about the rocky beginning of this debate tomorrow, I suspect. We'll update with reaction in the afternoon. [I lied; we'll go up with it Thursday.]
By the way, with 89 percent of precincts reporting, it's not even close: Romney trounced McCain 39 percent to 30 percent. Because Romney is a native son, a win in Michigan means much less than a loss would have. Still, he needed a gold, and he'll use his victory tonight to convince GOP voters that he's still in it to win it. See reports on the GOP contest here and here.
No, he won't. Keith Olbermann just reported that Nevada's Supreme Court has overruled a lower-court judge in favor of MSNBC's decision to exclude Dennis Kucinich from tonight's debate.
On the merits alone, it looked like the network would have to reinvite Kucinich in order to air the Democratic candidates forum at 9 p.m. EST as scheduled.
The Ohio rep sued parent network NBC earlier for excluding him from the Las Vegas debate. District Court Judge Charles Thompson ruled in Kucinich's favor and told the Peacock Network that he would order an injunction stopping the debate if Kucinich was not included.
NBC appealed Thompson's decision to Nevada's Supreme Court. With less than an hour to go before showtime, the court announced that MSNBC had not breached its contract when it disinvited Kucinich from the debate.
In case anyone has any lingering doubts, the U.S. economy is teetering dangerously close to recession. The latest evidence: Citigroup actually managed to surprise with its 4Q 2007 results today, in an environment that already expects the worst.
Now, for the really dire news: Rich people are pinching pennies.
Middle class stagnation is by now the natural state of things in the American economy. That those consumers are exercising caution is to be expected, particularly as gas prices skyrocket. But when the wealthy start trimming back on their Louis Vuitton and Tiffany purchases, you know something is afoot.
According to a report in this morning's New York Times, high-end retailers Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany experienced a marked slowdown in sales last month.
The rate of spending by American Express' customers, "a generally affluent group of consumers," fell from 13 percent growth to 10 percent growth, "the first slowdown since the 2001 recession," according to the Times report.
If there were any doubts about the continued importance of the Iowa and New Hampshire nominating contests in light of this year's accelerated primary schedule, a slew of new national polls should put them to rest.
Last week, a Gallup/USA Today poll, the first national survey taken after the Iowa caucuses, showed significant jumps in support for that state's two winners -- Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee -- propelling each to the top of their respective party's slate. But those gains were apparently short-lived, as a flurry of new national polls conducted after the New Hampshire primary last week has the Granite State's victors -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain -- leading their respective fields.
For more details on recent national polling on the White House race, see today's Poll Track. And see National Journal's current cover story for analysis of how the dominant demographics and ideologies of future primary states are likely to impact the campaigns ahead of Feb. 5's "Super Tuesday" contests.
"As we head out West, the fight goes on!" Bill Richardson declared after a disappointing fourth-place finish in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. But in New Mexico this afternoon, the governor was singing a decidedly different tune as he bid his presidential campaign adieu.
"It is with great pride, understanding and acceptance that I am ending my campaign for president of the United States," he told a crowd of supporters after being introduced by his wife, Barbara, and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M. Calling his unsuccessful bid "an experience I will treasure and I will never forget," Richardson said, "I believe we made our case to the people. A case for change, but guided by an experienced hand."
Despite his evident disappointment in failing to drum up enough support in the early primary states, Richardson went on to praise his opponents, calling them "the most talented field of my entire lifetime, running to change the direction of our country. And in the end, one of them will."
In his speech, Richardson also endorsed Udall for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pete Domenici, effectively ending speculation that the governor would launch a Senate bid himself.
Today's campaign news cycle is all about how the media and pundits boo-boo'd so badly, having declared Clinton's campaign DOA heading into the New Hampshire primary and John McCain out for the count for the last six months running. There's a sea of red faces out there but, we contend, for the wrong reason.
Last we checked, journalism was about reporting facts, not predicting them. Some amount of prognostication can be quite useful for contextualizing the news. But when so many talking heads call a close contest well before the first vote tallies come in, what's the point of that, exactly? It seems as if egos, and not the public, are the ones getting served.
Leave it to quirky, independent-minded Granite Staters to tell the rest of the country: Not so fast.
Clinton Takes New Hampshire In Stunner; McCain (& Huckabee) Also Triumph
UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has pulled out an upset in New Hampshire, where a surprisingly tight battle with Barack Obama upended early predictions that a misguided strategy might doom her bid for the Democratic nomination. The upside for those embarrassed by their premature crystal ball-gazing is that voters across the country have a real menu of options in both parties.
"I come tonight with a very, very full heart," Clinton said to tremendous cheering and applause from supporters. "I want to especially thank New Hampshire. Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice."
The crowd roared in response. More than anyone else on the 2008 slate of presidential candidates, the question of "how human" she seems dogs the former first lady. When Clinton appeared to be the inevitable nominee just months ago, it was because she had defied expectations in her strong debate performances and favorable responses from voters on the trail. In what was probably a moment of simple, human fatigue (although longtime Clinton-haters will say otherwise), she appeared to choke up during an exchange in a diner yesterday. A media frenzy ensued, and pundits were wondering out loud whether Clinton was too soft to endure the knocks of a presidential campaign.
By a hair (39 percent to 36 percent), Granite State voters voiced their preference for Clinton today, putting on pause the post-Iowa surge Obama appeared to be riding. If you aren't already convinced, Clinton's squeaker may be yet more proof that cable news is often best watched on mute.
Study: U.S. Lags Industrialized Nations In Preventable Deaths
When the Republican candidates for president met Saturday for one of their final debates before today's New Hampshire primary, there was one point on which all six of them seemed to agree -- America has "the best health care system in the world."
While the Democrats have spent much time and energy proposing sweeping reforms to increase access for the 47 million uninsured Americans, the Republicans have been warning that a move to "socialized medicine" -- which is how they characterize the government-run systems of most other industrialized nations -- would compromise the quality of care. For example, Rudy Giuliani asserted in a radio ad that, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, his chances of survival in the U.S. were nearly double what they would have been in England "under socialized medicine."
Those figures were later disputed by some experts, but in the end his point about disease treatment may be irrelevant. As Mike Huckabeepointed out in the debate, "What we have in America is a health care maze. It's built on the idea that we wait until people are so desperately ill that the cost to try to fix them is catastrophic and out of control."
A new study published in the policy journal Health Affairs seems to echo Huckabee's concerns. In the study, the United States came in dead last among 19 leading industrialized nations in preventable deaths. The researchers based their analysis, which placed France, Japan and Australia at the top of the heap, on the number of deaths that "could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care," Reuters reports.
--Hillary Rodham Clinton, jokingly, to her Secret Service detail after MSNBC replayed tape in slow motion showing host Chris Matthews pinching her cheek before going in for a hug.
N.H. Countdown: Of Knuckleheads, Huckaburgers & Crybabies
As much as you might resent the presidential candidates for forcing you to confront the 2008 election so early, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for them. Most are sleep-deprived and anxious just four days after the Iowa caucuses, the results of which forced some candidates to retune their campaign strategies on the run.
This is especially true for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is locked in a super-tight battle for first in tomorrow's New Hampshire primary, pollsreleased today show. Her decisive loss to Barack Obama in Iowa seemed to send her camp into a tailspin. There are strong hints that if she is humiliated in the Granite State, a personnelshuffle will follow.
A mixture of anxiety, adrenaline and sheer physical exhaustion may explain why we've seen such a range of emotions from Clinton this week. First, she feistily returned fire at rivals Obama and John Edwards at the ABC/Facebook debate on Saturday -- a performance that indicated she wasn't going to take the onslaught of attacks lying down.
An uncharacteristically emotional moment for her today is sucking up most of the oxygen in coverage of New Hampshire. That she seemed to choke up when asked about the hardships of campaigning by a voter raises questions about her gender again. Those questions have distracted the media before, but the Clinton Crying story comes less than 24 hours before Granite Staters go to the polls.
WH '08: A Brusque, But Not Brisk, Farewell To Iowa
We haven't matched the rest of the media's outsized coverage of the Iowa caucuses because of the very nature of the caucuses themselves. But we have to admit that what we saw last night was pretty astonishing, in part because a poll predicting the results actually turned out to be right.
Of course, that could just be a coincidence, but the Des Moines Register appears to have corrected for some of the factors that plagued surveys past. (Though it's still not without its problems, Mark Blumenthal points out.) The David-vs.-Goliath victory of Mike Huckabee (results) flew in the face of conventional wisdom, proving that a virtual unknown with hardly any money to campaign with and virtually no organization could sell himself to voters.
Huck's defeat of Mitt Romney does not, however, mean that the conventional wisdom won't prevail.
If you know anything about how the caucuses work, you know that they are unrepresentative of party voters nationwide and are undemocratic, particularly on the Democratic side (irony, irony), to boot. So of course all the attention now goes to New Hampshire (but not Wyoming, which holds its GOP caucus tomorrow), for the first primary vote of the season. New Hampshire's results will almost certainly be different from Iowa's, so a lot of comparing and contrasting will ensue.
We purposely did not devote a lot of blog space to the caucuses for good reason. But yesterday's surprising results dispelled some long-standing prognostication about the 2008 presidential election. Since dispensing with conventional wisdom can be fun (OK, we're nerds), let's take out the trash after the jump.
Last night's Iowa caucuses created two decisive winners in the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest and two new casualties in the overall race.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Barack Obama pulled ahead of the Democratic pack with 38 percent of the vote, followed by John Edwards in second with 30 percent and Hillary Rodham Clinton close behind at 29 percent.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee completed his ascent from relative obscurity just a few months ago to capture first place with 34 percent of the vote, with 96 percent of precincts reporting. Mitt Romney came in second with 25 percent, and Fred Thompson eked out a third-place finish with 13 percent, dispelling (for now) recent rumors that he could soon drop out of the race. John McCain tied Thompson for third, with Ron Paul close behind at 10 percent.
Meanwhile, two other candidates did bid their presidential ambitions adieu last night. Democratic Sens. Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd announced they were abandoning their bids after the former drew only 1 percent of the vote in Iowa and the latter garnered even less.
If you're all Iowa-ed out, NationalJournal.com's Ronald Brownstein looks ahead to the New Hampshire contest coming up on Tuesday. NationalJournal.com also has the overall results for the Democratic and Republican caucuses, and the Des Moines Register breaks down the results by county. See On Call for more reactions and details from Iowa, and check back with The Gate later today for more analysis.
CNN, NBC and FOX News are calling it for Barack Obama. His margin over John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton is much smaller than Mike Huckabee's over Mitt Romney's, however, so the Edwards and Clinton camps may well declare tonight a sort-of victory, too.
Campaigning in New Hampshire, John McCain declared Huckabee's win "a victory" for positive campaigning -- a dig at Romney. The enemy of his enemy is Huckabee... for now. Romney spent loads of cash in negative ads against McCain and Huck. Does his defeat tonight force his campaign to rethink that strategy? Or, does his loss in Iowa mean the "anything goes" strategy holds?
Again, check with On Call for updates as the night progresses; we'll have full analysis tomorrow.
[UPDATED 9:52] Obama's lead is turning out to be pretty significant, according to the Register's returns.
In case you missed it, and there's pretty much no chance you have, the Iowa caucuses are tomorrow, Jan. 3, more than eight months (!) before the first party nominating convention will be held. The ground in both fields has shifted dramatically this month alone, which indicates that what the tiny percentage of Iowans who caucus tomorrow have to say will probably not hold.
Nonetheless, there are more media outlets on the ground in Iowa today than ever before, and coverage is wall-to-wall. We've explained before why Iowa polls are unreliable. The new Register surveys, which show Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee in the lead, were conducted Dec. 27-30, when enough Iowans to skew the results were probably traveling and therefore were unable to pick up the phone. There are also questions about whether Iowans, who by some accounts are receiving more than one campaign-related phone call a night, are still picking up their phones at all. (Think about it: Would you?)
Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal -- a new National Journal Group colleague (welcome!) -- has some must-readexplanations of Iowa polling.
Moreover, there are long-lingering questions about the actual significance of the Iowa caucuses. Democratic caucus-goers tend to be more liberal than primary voters elsewhere, and GOP caucus-goers more conservative. Fewer than 10 percent of Iowans, who are overwhelmingly white, participate, but the outsized media coverage arguably has a king-making effect. Those candidates who don't place in the top five might be considered road kill by Friday morning, which could doom them in other states where they are faring better.
Georgetown's Christopher Hull crunches the numbers in his new book, "Grassroots Rules" (seriously, there are charts and graphs). If you want to understand Iowa's effect on party nominations, read this book. His ultimate conclusion is that Iowa is important. But: "Controlling for New Hampshire results and measures of exhibition season performance, Iowa is not a statistically significant predictor of overall primary performance."
MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa -- A woman who famously switched from volunteering for Hillary Rodham Clinton to Barack Obama has changed her mind again.
Susan Klopfer was volunteering for Clinton until, she estimates, November. She worked hard as a volunteer but resented the advance staff that was brought in to take charge of the events. As the next-door neighbor of Clinton backer and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Klopfer (a recent transplant from Nevada and, therefore, a first-time caucus-goer) had a bit higher profile than most Iowans. When she switched, the Obama campaign made a video that got lots of play -- not only on YouTube, but also on cable news programs.
"It got more hits than Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. It got the all-time highest over that weekend," she said of the video's YouTube hits. The video was so potent that the Clinton campaign made a response video with its own former Obama supporters.
Yet when Klopfer showed up at a John Edwards house party this morning, it was because she was on the verge of switching again.
Before the Christmas break, we wrote that Americans' dwindling interest in the Iraq war might be perilous to the national interest, as Alasdair Roberts recently contended in Foreign Policy. Now the war on terrorism -- which even critics of President Bush must admit now includes Iraq -- is back in the headlines, thanks to yesterday's tragic events.
The view from Washington is that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a serious kneecap blow to U.S. foreign policy. To quickly review: President Pervez Musharraf, an ally by necessity, is increasingly unpopular at home and for good reason. (People who live under military dictatorships generally do not enjoy the experience.) Meanwhile, there's a virulent strain of anti-Western, Islamic fanaticism seeping through Pakistan at the moment, which means this White House's usually cherished principles of liberty and democracy do not apply.
The Bhutto-Musharraf power-sharing compromise was seen as the most feasible shot at calming Pakistan's restive populace. In Bhutto, Washington saw a more reliable and transparent ally in the war against extremism, in part because of her shady ethical past. She had something to prove.
Now that she's gone, we're back to where we were, and less than two weeks before Pakistan's elections no less. No doubt there is panic in the Beltway today, if only for the dearth of available options now.
Outraged supporters of Benazir Bhutto have taken to the streets following confirmation that the Pakistani opposition leader was assassinated today, with at least one province placed on emergency alert.
Bhutto had just spoken at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, and had gotten into a car when a gunman opened fire. The apparent assassin then blew himself up. There are conflictingreports on how she was killed. Some witnesses said she had been shot in the neck and chest, while a doctor at the hospital that treated her told the New York Times she had shrapnel wounds but would not confirm she had been directly shot.
At least 15 other people were also killed in the attack, according to various news reports. "Police in Sindh have been put on red alert," a police official told Reuters, referring to Bhutto's home province. "We have increased deployment and are patrolling in all the towns and cities, as there is trouble almost everywhere."
Television footage is showing mobs of people setting fires and destroying property in the streets.
President Bush's Passive-Aggressive Holiday Greeting
Speaking at his final White House press conference of the year, President Bush congratulated Congress on its 11th-hour legislative achievements while making sure to backhand lawmakers for taking so long to get there.
Returning later to the AMT bill, the president added, "Unfortunately, Congress passed this legislation after a lengthy delay. It is going to add to the time it takes to process tens of billions in refunds. We will work hard to minimize the impact of congressional delay."
And after thanking Congress for sending him new spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan before the New Year, Bush noted that it was "approved at the last minute, nearly three months after the end of the fiscal year." He continued, "When Congress wastes so much time and leaves its work until the final days before Christmas, it is not a responsible way to run the government."
The president later denied that his relationship with the Democratic-led Congress was truly "antagonistic," but his annual pre-holiday address to the press corps encapsulated the testy and wearying push-pull the two branches have been engaged in all year.
Fingers point to strategist Mark Penn for allegedly running Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination as if she'd already won it: here, here and here.
Curiously, these blame-the-strategist whisperings always seem to start when candidates are in mortal danger. Where were all these off-the-record critics earlier in the fall, when we first started to see that Clinton would actually have to, *gasp*, fight for the nomination? Might this not just be Camp Clinton's way of deflecting blame for the campaign's missteps away from the candidate?
4:10. All over, no more debates until next year, hurray!
Up until a couple of months ago, there seemed to be a critical mass of Democratic support building behind Clinton, in part because of her metamorphosis into a suddenly "human" and likable politician and the assumption that the Clinton machine could best take on the Republican nominee next year. The political press carried on that change vs. experience debate all summer and into the early fall.
But now the nomination fight has been upended, and polls [PDF] show(subscription) that Obama and Edwards are viable in general election matchups, too. That eliminates for some voters their primary thesis for supporting Clinton, and it's why she's been struggling to stay afloat this month.
Most of us can look forward to relaxing with family in a week or so, but for the presidential contenders and Iowans it's closing arguments time. One thought to keep in mind: Part of the shifting around in this field and in the GOP as well is that the Iraq war has largely dropped out of the debate. Iraq no longer dominates the front page because of the decrease in violence and because of the campaigns. That changes in March at the latest, when Gen. David Petraeus is due back in Washington to report on the ground situation. We know the military part of the surge is working, but we are not much farther than we were in September on political reconciliation. The "what's next?" question is still hanging out there, unanswered. The GOP front-runners have more or less indicated loyalty to the Bush administration's policies, so answers will have to come from the Democratic field.
Not counting the week between Christmas and New Year's, when presumably even Iowans will want to leave politics behind in favor of eggnog and football, the presidential candidates really have only about two weeks left of campaigning in the crucial caucus state -- and it shows. John Edwards is rolling up his sleeves for an eight-day Iowa bus tour. Barack Obama's showing off his most glamorous accessory. And yesterday, for the first time in his prolific ad campaign, Mitt Romney went negative.
The GOP contender became the first on either side of the aisle to purchase air time for an attack ad this week amid the continued rise of Mike Huckabee in both Iowa polls and national surveys of likely Republican primary voters. Romney's new spot blasts Huckabee's record on an issue that has proven to be a lightning rod for Republicans in Iowa -- immigration. Today's Ad Spotlight(subscription) has more details on the ad. Meanwhile, perhaps blunting the ad's blow to Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor was endorsed by Jim Gilchrist, founder of border security group the Minutemen, in Iowa this morning. MSNBC has more.
Sure, she can move Tolstoy, but can she move middle-aged white women to the Jan. 3 caucuses? We'll get our first clues this weekend when Oprah Winfrey, probably the most famous woman in America, joins Democratic candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail.
The Oprah and Obama show, as it's already being dubbed, hits Iowa tomorrow and South Carolina and New Hampshire on Sunday. Tickets for the Columbia, S.C., rally went so fast that it was moved from an 18,000-seat venue to an 80,000-plus capacity football stadium.
The political press already gets excited when celebs team up with politicians because, well, they're celebs. The Oprah-Obama moment, however, takes us into completely untested and somewhat bizarre waters. Oprah is probably the most famous and beloved woman in America. "Beloved" may actually be a little weak. If you are not already acquainted with her daytime talk show, the feverish, high-decibel fervor her alarmingly ecstatic audience frequently displays might be a little frightening to watch. So much so that this "SNL" parody doesn't seem that far off the mark.
The premise that women in early primary states will run screaming at the top of their lungs toward the Obama camp once they get a glimpse of him with Oprah, then, becomes not a little offensive. Maybe, dare we say, a lot offensive.
When asked what issues matter most to them, Americans usually name the Iraq war, the economy and health care by a mile [PDF]. Yet immigration has been dominating the debates in both parties. What gives?
See GOP candidate Tom Tancredo's new campaign ad above. It is the most gruesomely graphic scare spot we've seen yet this cycle, and as much as you might want to turn away -- don't. This ad may well indicate that illegal immigration will be 2008's flag-burning/gay marriage, which in previous cycles had a very real effect on election outcomes despite Americans' protest that those concerns weren't part of their Election Day calculus.
As we had hoped, this afternoon's Democratic debate in Des Moines sponsored by NPR and Iowa Public Radio left little room for petty politics and applause lines (largely because there was no live audience) and brought the conversation back to the issues. Three main issues, to be exact: Iran, China and immigration.
Debate moderators Steve Inskeep, Michele Norris and Robert Siegel said they chose to narrow their questions to those three broad topic areas in order to dig deeper into the candidates' positions and allow more time for follow-up. The heavy focus on foreign policy and immigration largely left out the talking points that Democrats have focused on throughout this year of campaigning: Iraq, climate change, health care and economic burdens on the middle class (although at the end they candidates were given time to discuss what they'd do to improve the economy over the four years of their first term).
Instead of standing at podiums, the seven candidates were seated at a V-shaped table. (Bill Richardson was attending the funeral for a Korean War soldier whose remains he helped repatriate back to the U.S. earlier this year.)
The format largely had the intended effect: The candidates were civil, the discussions were substantive (for the most part) and the moderators did their best to coax straightforward answers from the candidates. And maybe it's just us, but there's something about the radio format that made everyone (well, almost everyone) sound more presidential. Here are some of the highlights:
NPR Democratic Debate: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Tired of the politics of presidentialdebates? NPR to the rescue! Teaming up with Iowa Public Radio, NPR News had scheduled two back-to-back primary debates this week in the Hawkeye State, exactly one month from the first-in-the-nation caucuses. But due to scheduling conflicts with several of the GOP contenders, NPR had to cancel the Republican event originally slated for yesterday. That's a shame, considering the raw deal the candidates got from their CNN/YouTube debate last week. (NPR says it is working with the candidates to reschedule for early next year.)
This afternoon, the Democratic contenders will assemble in the snow-covered plains of Des Moines as scheduled to discuss the issues with Robert Siegel and Michele Norris of "All Things Considered" and Steve Inskeep of "Morning Edition." The last time the Democratic field gathered on the debate stage in Iowa, they spent much of the time discussing exit strategies for Iraq and questioning Barack Obama's readiness for the White House. Since then, however, the tone of the race has changed dramatically, with the campaigns becoming increasingly aggressive, particularly against front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hostage Situation At Clinton's N.H. Office Ends Peacefully
New Hampshire TV station WMUR is reporting that an armed man has taken people hostage at Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, N.H. FOX News is reporting that the man claimed to have a bomb and walked into the office demanding to speak with the New York senator.
Clinton is scheduled to speak today at the DNC's fall meeting in Northern Virginia.
[UPDATE 2:03] Two campaign workers are being held hostage, WMUR reports. Police were alerted to the situation after the hostage-taker released a woman who was with her infant.
[UPDATE 2:06] The area surrounding the office is in lockdown and a nearby school is to be evacuated in a "soft lockdown" with buses on site in case an evacuation is ordered. You can watch WMUR's coverage here.
[UPDATE 2:14] Clinton has cancelled her speech at the DNC meeting, FOX News and CNN report. The former first lady's whereabouts are not being made public at the moment.
CNN's sorry, so very sorry, for the Clinton plant at last night's debate.
"We regret this, and apologize to the Republican candidates. We never would have used the General's question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate," said CNN exec David Bohrman.
"The Most Trusted Name In News" protests that it checked out retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr, the gay serviceman who asked the Republican candidates about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to make sure he had not contributed to any of the candidates. But if CNN's producers had just, say, Googled the guy, they would have found that he is a member of Hillary Rodham Clinton's LGBT steering committee. Bloggers did, and they were alerting the media about it before the debate was over.
Let's assume that CNN tried its level best to ensure a fair and balanced debate for the Republicans. The network's defense of how it not only let the Kerr question through without full disclosure but gave him five minutes on the floor for follow-up rings pretty weak because of the swiftness and ease with which bloggers found him out. As I noted in my liveblog coverage yesterday, conservatives were already dubious about whether they would be treated fairly at last night's forum, and afterward, a few prominent bloggers agreed they were not.
What it comes down to is this: The debate last night was first and foremost about Republican primary voters, not the general electorate. The reasonable thing to have done was make sure there were plenty of questions being asked by Republicans on issues of primary concern to Republicans. Those illegal immigration questions were a good start, but the evening took several bizarre turns as the night went on. Since the debate ended, conservative bloggers have found out the following:
Looking ahead to tonight's highly anticipated CNN/YouTube debate, we find ourselves pondering a few weighty matters.
How much representation will CNN give to questions about Iraq, now that coverage of the war has dropped off steeply on that network and elsewhere?
Will the format of tonight's debate prove more hostile to the Republican candidates than to the Democrats, as we suspected in July?
And finally: What are the chances Mitt Romneywon't be asked to take a question from that Snowman?
These and other issues will be resolved starting at 8 p.m. EST tonight on CNN; The Gate will be liveblogging the action starting at 7:45. But first, some prognostication, after the jump.
We couldn't post this until now thanks to a certain ailing (current) vice president. What were you expecting, fisticuffs? Judgingbytheseheadlines, the MSM was really, really hoping for a slapfight -- tsk. These are probably the same guys who refusetobelieveAl Gore isn't running for president next year, despite his repeated insistence he has no plans to do so. Note to pollsters: Maybe it's time to start leaving Gore off the matchups, hmm?
As The Holidays Begin, Campaigning Doesn't Slow Down
This week, Americans have turkey on the brain. But with a pushed-up primary schedule and the first-in-the-nation caucuses only six weeks away, it seems the holiday season and the campaign season will go hand-in-hand.
Several of the 2008 presidential candidates are not breaking from their busy schedules to celebrate Thanksgiving this week. Arizona Sen. John McCain will use the holiday recess to take his seventh trip to Iraq, while Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden will head to Iowa to serve meals with their families and celebrate the holiday with supporters, according to The Caucus.
Meanwhile, a new poll shows some candidates would be more welcome at American dinner tables than others. Quinnipiac University pollsters asked likely voters which candidates they would most like to share their Thanksgiving meals with, and perhaps not surprisingly, the front-runners of each race were perceived to be the most desirable house guests.
Remember that audience member question from the Las Vegas Democratic candidates debate that we slammed? Turns out that while young Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval dreamed up the diamonds vs. pearls question, it was a) among several substantive questions she submitted, and b) in response to CNN's request for a "light" question, The Caucus reports. As the debate was winding down, another audience member asked a question about Yucca Mountain, one of the topics Parra-Sandoval was most eager to raise. At a CNN producer's request, when it was Parra-Sandoval's turn to query the candidates she went with that silly jewelry question.
TPM's Greg Sargentnotes that while Parra-Sandoval ultimately agreed to ask the question of Hillary Rodham Clinton, CNN betrayed shady news judgment by picking it. In the meantime, Parra-Sandoval, an honors scholarship student and Princeton fellowship winner, is being hounded online and elsewhere for her performance.
... and little gained. Barack Obama and John Edwards continued to pepper front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton with pointed attacks -- and seemed to have shot themselves up a bit instead. By dint of steely preparation Clinton swiftly crushed the immigration ID debate with a simple "no" and hit the gender card question out of the park.
"I'm just trying to play the winning card," Clinton said to tremendous applause. "People are not attacking me because I'm a woman, they're attacking me because I'm ahead."
Ker-pow. Not only is that almost certainly correct, but it's also a great talking point. In a remarkable contrast to her would-be Republican rivals, Clinton has powered through the media's sometimes great mistrust of her to what increasingly resembles a bulletproof lead. This is not a case of base-wide amnesia; the Democratic left's concerns about Fortress Clinton are still quite real. But those voters seem to have decided that there are bigger issues to worry about this election.
Highlights, lowlights and frosted tips (stay with us) after the jump.
WH '08: They're After You For A Reason. No... Not That Reason.
Within the first 15 minutes of tonight's Democratic presidential candidates debate in Las Vegas, expect Hillary Rodham Clinton to make a self-deprecating joke about her last debate performance and then try to move on. Will her rivals let her? Fat chance.
Two weeks ago, Clinton's uncomfortable equivocations on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants and on her husband Bill's White House records reminded Democrats of what they like least about her: that she sometimes appears to be a politically savvy cyborg. Clinton's nearest rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, aren't very near at all, according to polls. As expected, Obama and Edwards went after Clinton pointedly in Philadelphia. They are expected to go after her even harder tonight.
While Clinton's numbers slipped a bit by some measures since the MSNBC forum in Philly, she still appears to be Democratic primary voters' candidate of choice to go against a Republican next year. That last part is key. Recent history indicates that voters no longer believe they have the luxury of being swept off their feet by a candidate. Funny that the last time this appears to have happened for Democrats was when Bill Clinton was the nominee...
If all this is somehow hurting Hillary Clinton's feelings, she isn't showing it. Mark Penn, her top strategist, had this message for Democrats today: Suck it up, and keep your eye on the ball.
This is what Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said of today's Fred Thompson endorsement:
Our endorsement is a testament to Senator Thompson's long-standing pro-life record, his commitment to protecting unborn children, and our belief in his ability to win.
Emphasis ours. Ed Morrissey rightly points out that NRLC could have easily waited until a nominee emerges to make its decision, rather than casting its lot so soon with a candidate who's not completely on board with them. Rudy Giuliani winning the nod puts all the pro-life grassroots in an awkward position, so they'd all be in the same boat.
The reason this endorsement is significant is because of what it says about Mitt Romney's candidacy. It's nothing new, by the way. But it's worth chewing over.
On the issues, Romney is more in line with the pro-life grassroots than Thompson (a federalist) or Giuliani (pro-choice). It doesn't take much to figure out what's going on here. The institutions that are the face of evangelical America won't come out and say it, but the men and women who make up that base will.
WH '08: Don't Quit Your Day Jobs! No, Seriously. Don't.
Many of the candidates for president say that the campaign finance system is in urgent need of repair, yet they are shelving the issue precisely because of said system. As a result, we've got the longest, most expensive and most annoying presidential election maybe ever.
Meanwhile, here inside the Beltway, Congress is still mostly deadlocked on such pressing concerns as the war and health care for disadvantaged children. Hence, disapproval ratings that have managed to exceed those of the pariah in chief, President Bush.
Might all this playing hooky in order to chase a dream that for some is very (very, very) distant explain why Congress doesn't seem to be accomplishing very much?
When the Service Employees International Union announced that it wouldn't endorse a candidate on the national level this year, it seemed like bad news for John Edwards, who's widely considered organized labor's best friend among the Democratic contenders. But it turned out to be just the opposite: Instead of a single big endorsement that faded from the news in a day or two, the state-level nods Edwards is collecting one by one are keeping the story alive and, his campaign hopes, at the front of voters' minds.
NBC News/National Journal embedded reporter Tricia Millerreports on the SEIU endorsements' impact on the Edwards campaign. Hotline On Call and Atlantic's Marc Ambinder have more on Barack Obama and the New Hampshire union's endorsement process.
It was ugly, all right. And we're not just talking about the city.
The Democratic presidential candidates chasing Hillary Rodham Clintonsought last night [video] to portray the front-runner as George W. Bush with a better health plan. Did they succeed? And does it matter?
We ask the second question because of how close we are to the primaries and because of how gaping the Big Mo gap's become. Clinton tops second-place Barack Obama by 14 percent and 28 percent per Zogby and CBS News, respectively. Though everyone on stage at Drexel University might come to regret it later in the general election, last night seemed as good a time as any to air out the family business.
By that we mean the internal conversation Democrats have been engaged in practically since Clinton announced she was running for the Senate, a move widely viewed as a springboard to this moment. To the amazement of quite a few old political hands, the former first lady has managed to overcome many of her negatives. In the latest survey, CBS respondents gave her the highest favorability rating among the candidates.
So last night, as expected, Clinton was attacked more pointedly and with more aggression than we've seen in this field. Did anyone manage to land a punch? Yep. Is Clinton down for the count? Nope. Are we going to ride the "Rocky" metaphors for the duration of this post? You bet.
Takeaways from the Dilly in Philly after the jump.
Yo, Hillary! Field Hopes For Front-Runner KO Tonight
Seven of the Democratic presidential contenders descend tonight on America's least-attractive metropolis for what promises to be the ugliest debate of the season.
Both Barack Obama and John Edwards are scrambling to slam the brakes on Hillary Rodham Clinton's runaway lead. With the Iowa caucuses about two months away, double-digit spreads are forcing the rest of the pack to be more forceful and, dare we say, meaner than they've been so far.
The M-word might be unfair, but it's inevitable because of Clinton's gender. Everyone wants to avoid a Rick Lazio moment, in which they attempt to treat her as they would a male candidate and end up coming off as ungentlemanly.
On the other hand, Clinton isn't just any woman. She's in the lead because she's been exuding forcefulness and strength throughout her campaign -- a breakdown in most polls shows she scores highest on national security issues, not personality. It also doesn't hurt that a large swath of the Democratic left is waving the white flag as they signal their support for the former first lady. So Obama, Edwards and the rest -- Christopher Dodd, Joseph Biden, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich -- will take time to remind primary voters of Clinton's many apparent weaknesses.
The eight major Republican presidential candidates have signed on to the CNN/YouTube debate on Nov. 28. We're not going to use the F-word, but this news apparently means Mitt Romney has changed his mind about participating in the forum.
In July, Romney sniffed that "the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman." Both he and Rudy Giuliani pooh-poohed the debate, originally scheduled for Sept. 17, to the consternation of Republican primary voters and, well, us.
The Family Research Council's Washington Briefing last weekend only reinforced the impression that religious conservatives are in for a frustrating election cycle. As the GOP front-runners continue to beat each other up over who wants abortion outlawed the most, and a new FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll [PDF] indicates the eventual nominee might have to clam up on the issue when he enters the general.
The survey of 900 registered voters indicates a majority of Americans believe women should be given the option of terminating pregnancy in nearly all cases. Seventy-three percent said abortion should remain legal for those whose lives were endangered by their pregnancy; 70 percent said victims of rape or incest should also have access to the procedure. The majority thins for the greyer areas of the mother's mental health and if the fetus has a fatal birth defect. Fewer than 40 percent said an unwanted pregnancy justified abortion.
It's not as though abortion won't be a campaign issue next year; with two probable vacancies on the Supreme Court looming for the next president, it undoubtedly will. The Democratic Party has learned to ditch the talking points of pro-choice activists and moderate its language on abortion. So, in a departure from previous cycles, the ground conditions and these numbers indicate the abortion issue works more favorably for the Democratic candidate in '08.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation survey shows that, behind Iraq, health care is the second most important issue Americans want the 2008 presidential candidates to address. In many cases, particularly on the Democratic side, the candidates have heeded that call, putting forth detailed plans aimed at reforming the current system and avoiding the pitfalls of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's notoriously failed effort in the '90s.
In this week's National Journal, health care reporter Marilyn Werber Serafini gathered a team of 10 experts to assess the health plans of the major presidential contenders, giving careful consideration to their potential impacts on consumers, employers, the uninsured, the economy and quality of care.
Meanwhile, the Kaiser poll shows that the Democratic front-runner in the race, Hillary Clinton, leads the field on this issue despite her previous failure. Today's Poll Track(subscription) has analysis of those numbers and other recent surveys on the '08 race.
Wildfires Roundup: Arson Suspected; Bush Tours Devastation
The fires that have ravaged a large swath of the Golden State since Sunday showed signs of letting up today, as the Santa Ana winds that had so fiercely fanned the flames for days began to subside, giving firefighters the chance to gain some control. Here's a snapshot of the latest news from Southern California:
Bodies found. The death toll from the fires appears to have risen to three, as the San Diego Sheriff's Department announced the discovery of two charred bodies inside a home in the community of Poway, which was hit by the biggest fire in the region this week.
Arson suspected. The major fires are still being attributed to a deadly combination of drought conditions and those Santa Ana winds, but at least two people have been arrested in Southern California this week for allegedly setting smaller fires contributing to the destruction. Federal and local officials are remaining vigilant to prevent further "copycat fires and looting," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Even in the grimmest of times there's plenty to laugh about in Washington, and a number of lawmakers proved that the case this week at the Funniest Celebrity in Washington contest.
Politicians and the reporters who cover them get to be funny on purpose for one night a year with proceeds going to a worthy cause. This year's beneficiaries were VH1's Save The Music Foundation and the Institute of Musical Traditions, and contestants included The Nation's David Corn, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, sister of 2006 champion Rep. Linda Sanchez.
Wednesday night's winner was Joseph Randazzo of The Onion. No fair, we say, because -- hello -- The Onion. (Also, he lives in New York!) We prefer to think of the first runner-up as the rightful champion: the senior senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter.
If Americans won't listen, maybe Scandinavians will. Al Gore said in an interview with Norwegian TV network NRK that he isn't running for president and his Nobel Prize win hasn't changed his plans.
Days before he was awarded the prize, a group called Draft Gore took out a full-page ad [PDF] in the New York Times again calling for his candidacy, and the organization claims to have 200,000 signatures on its draft petition.
But maybe it's time to start focusing on the question of Gore's endorsement, which he said he'd make before the end of the primary season. Gore's historically rocky relationship with the Clinton family means that his endorsement of the former first lady is by no means a sure thing; he told 02138 magazine in its September/October issue that he doesn't feel an obligation to get behind Clinton. (Full disclosure: 02138 is owned by Atlantic Media, NationalJournal.com's parent company.)
In fact, Gore hasn't met with either Clinton or Bill Richardson, who was Energy Secretary in Bill Clinton's Cabinet. The Washington Postreported over a month ago that he has met with other contenders, though: Barack Obama, John Edwards and Christopher Dodd.
The third-quarter money race is coming into focus this week, as yesterday marked the deadline for candidates to file their official fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission. The national front-runners on both sides of the aisle -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy Giuliani -- pulled ahead of their closest rivals in the money race, adding fuel to their growing leads and fresh hurdles for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, who have been stagnating in the polls.
But for at least one candidate, the correspondence between campaign momentum and cash flow isn't quite as clear-cut.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has experienced something of a renaissance on the trail after a dismal second-quarter showing and a major campaign shakeup, is reporting $3.4 million cash on hand, $1.8 million of which is set aside for the general election. Factoring in his $1.7 million in reported debt, Marc Ambinderhelpfully does the math: "That means that McCain's campaign has no cash on hand -- in fact, even with the general election money factored in, it owes about $94,000. It is, in other words, bankrupt."
The South takes center stage this week in the ongoing presidential primary calendar wars. South Carolina Democrats are considering requesting an earlier primary date and Florida Democrats, already rebuked by the national party, are crying foul.
The Columbia State first reported earlier this month that S.C. Democrats were considering requesting the earlier date of Jan. 19 to coincide with the state's Republican primaries. But South Carolina Democratic Party Executive Director Joe Werner said in a telephone interview that Jan. 19 is only "one date we're looking at," and that the executive committee will meet Tuesday to decide whether to approach the DNC about a possible move as well as which date to request.
Denying the possible move has anything to do with Florida voting on the same day, Werner said that "it has everything to do with the fact that South Carolina Republicans will be voting on the 19th, and we'll be going 10 days after." Democrats are afraid that a large gap between the two primaries will discourage voters from going to the polls, he added.
Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize; Wild Speculation Ensues
UPDATED.
As many anticipated, the Norwegian Nobel Committee today awarded its prestigious prize for peace to former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a move that has rekindled speculation that Gore could still jump into the 2008 White House race.
Gore, who has been crusading against climate change ever since he lost the 2000 presidential race to George W. Bush, "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted" to curb global warming, the committee said in bestowing the award on him. Reuters has the full text of the committee's citation.
Gore told reporters this afternoon that he would be donating his half of the $1.5 million prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to spread awareness and spur action on the climate change issue.
Congratulating the IPCC and thanking the Nobel committee for the award, Gore said, "I will be doing everything I can to try to understand how to best use the honor and recognition of this award as a way of speeding up the change in awareness and the change in urgency. It truly is a planetary emergency and we have to respond quickly."
What he didn't say is that he'll be running for president in 2008, but that hasn't stopped his staunch supporters from holding out hope.
Hey Democrats -- Remember When You Liked Hillary Clinton?
Is it 1996 again? Al Gore's going to run in the next presidential election, and Democrats like Hillary Rodham Clinton!
Reality check: Gore is probably not going to enter the 2008 presidential contest, despite what a group of speculationists would have you believe. As for Clinton, she's surged ahead of her rivals in Iowa and New Hampshire, where primary victories would all but clinch the nomination for the former first lady. Her negatives are still high, indicating she's the front-runner because of the perception she's best equipped to beat the eventual Republican nominee.
"It's not as cut-and-dry as, I used to hate her but now I love her," liberal advocate Fred Gooltz told the New York Observer recently. "It's a complicated mix of feelings."
This is how low the bar is set for the 2008 Republican front-runners' debate performances: Don't screw up, and make us laugh at least once.
That's according to most of the news coverage, anyway. Of Fred Thompson's long-awaited debut in yesterday's GOP primary debate in Michigan, the general assessment is no, he didn't screw up, and yes, that one thing he said at the end was kind of funny.
"I've enjoyed watching these fellas," the former Tennessee senator said as things were winding down. "I've got to admit, it was getting a little boring without me."
Good line, were it not for the fact that the debate wasn't terribly exciting with him either. He didn't scuffle with any of his eight rivals there, so there were no fireworks. Nor, as Rich Lowryalso observed, were any of the "Law & Order" star's lines very funny. Does it matter? Thompson's catching a lot of flak for a rocky campaign launch -- before CNBC aired the debate, Radar magazine went up with a YouTube-laden "blooper reel" feature -- but his ready-made support in the polls guarantees him top-contender status. That support, remember, was there even before he officially entered the race. Unless he goofs up horribly on the national stage, it isn't going away because of one disappointing debate performance.
Thompson's viability is rooted less in who he is than who he is not. So voters might be better served by also paying attention to how Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney fared, even though this was their umpteenth televised debate.
When we watched Hillary Rodham Clinton's Sunday-shows tour two weeks ago, we noticed that she answered the questions she thought silliest with a somewhat uncharacteristic burst of laughter. And then we moved on.
Themedia, itseems, havenot. Forget her long-awaited revised national health care plan -- what's with that cackle?
We'll leave it to others to parse whether that Bwah-Ha-Ha (thanks, John Dickerson) is genuine or faux, and to still others on its relevance to her campaign. The ultimate question appears to be: Should the president of the United States have a laugh like that? We don't know -- we've nothing to compare it to.
So please allow us to present: The Gate's first-ever Most Presidential Laughter From A Woman Contest!
The paradigm of the Republican Party heading into the 2008 presidential election is as follows:
The American way of life faces its greatest threat ever in the form of a hateful, violent ideology known as Islamofascism. The only way to stop this menace is through swift, aggressive, forceful action...
...by a giant, crazy-eyed, stomping-mad elephant.
Behold, the 2008 Republican National Convention logo, which appears to combine the feral, hulking strength of an elephant on stampede with the red-white-and-blue patriotism of the Stars and Stripes. We're not sure why the highly vexed elephant is so mad at the year 2008, but we wouldn't want to mess with something bearing such pointy tusks, either.
The latest round of polling should have many a pundit smiling with self-satisfaction this week, as new surveys confirm the prevailing conventional wisdom about the 2008 presidential primary races: Hillary Rodham Clinton looks more and more "inevitable" with every passing month, and the GOP primary remains (almost) anybody's game. Plus: Bill Clinton may have been onto something when he dubbedMike Huckabee the Republican dark horse to watch.
See today's Poll Track(subscription) for analysis of the latest state and national numbers on the White House race.
Clinton & The Democrats Lead In Third-Quarter Fundraising
As if further proof was needed, the third-quarter fundraising totals trickling out of the top presidential campaigns this week are demonstrating that in the 2008 White House race, the Democrats have the almighty dollar on their side.
And despite breathless media reports crowning Barack Obama the king of the third quarter yesterday, Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign reports this morning that she raised $27 million ($22 million for the primary) in the past three months -- $7 million more than her closest rival. Looks like Democrats are going to have an even harder time combating Clinton's image as the inevitable nominee.
The highly anticipated season premiere of "Grey's Anatomy" opened with --
Oops, wrong post.
In case you missed it, and you probablydid, there was a Republican presidential debate last night at Morgan State University in Baltimore. As with the Democrats' turn in June, radio and talk-show host Tavis Smiley was on hand to host the All-American Presidential Forum on PBS before a mostly black audience on the historically black campus.
What was different this time around? The four empty podiums on stage.
Out of the belief that the gains made by the GOP under President Bush's leadership have been hopelessly eroded (by President Bush's leadership), or the belief that with independents out of reach, their socially conservative, mostly white base is more crucial than ever, front-runners Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson skipped the event.
The six candidates chasing them were smart enough to take advantage.
The Democrats' perpetual No. 3, former Sen. John Edwards, put a little oomph into his campaign this afternoon when he announced that he would accept federal matching funds for the primaries -- and the limitations that go with them.
An Edwards campaign adviser told The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder that the influx of cash means three big players will go into the primaries: "Before we did this, there were only two campaigns [Barack Obama's and Hillary Rodham Clinton's] who thought they'd be around before the primaries with about $20M or $30M on hand. Now, we're going to be right there with them. We're going to have between $18M and $21M on hand now. That'll give us a huge boost."
After a town hall forum in Conway, N.H., last night, Edwards defended his choice to ask for public financing this far into the campaign, saying he wasn't concerned about state campaign finance limits.
"One thing that's clear is that we have plenty of money to compete," he said.
Ambinder has more on the pros and cons of Edwards' decision, as well as the official statement from his campaign that challenges Clinton to follow his lead.
Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are, apparently.
The leading Republican presidential candidates cited "scheduling conflicts" as their reason for skipping tonight's All-American Presidential Forum on PBS.
"I'm puzzled by their decision. I can't speak for them. I think it's a mistake," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich earlier this week.
President Bushalso weighed in on the matter last week: "My advice to whoever will be our nominee is to reach out to the African-American community as well as other communities, because I believe we've got a very strong record when it comes to" issues affecting them.
The N.H. Democratic Debate: Blurring The Lines Of Distinction
The longer the seemingly endless presidential primary season drags on, the more it's beginning to look like there's not much, substantively or ideologically, to distinguish the top tier of Democratic contenders.
Indeed, front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton more or less admitted in her numerous television appearances over the weekend that she and her fellow Democrats were united on the subject of universal health care, and that her much-vaunted plan wasn't even all that different from those proposed by John Edwards and Barack Obama.
And when it comes to the issue most voters claim is the most important to them -- the war in Iraq -- last night's Democratic debate in New Hampshire further blurred the lines of distinction among the top three. Debate moderator Tim Russert of NBC News pulled no punches, kicking off the event with a specific and pointed question for all the candidates: Will you pledge to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of your first term in January 2013?
The answer from Clinton, Edwards and Obama was a resounding "no," which suggests that all three of them now have at least one eye on the general election, not on winning over anti-war activists and the left-wing netroots.
In 1992, the young and handsome duo of Bill Clinton and Al Gore achieved something close to rock-star status. Fifteen years later, they're more famous and beloved than ever, thanks to their work on humanitarian and environmental causes.
Yesterday, a grayer Clinton and, uh, more big-boned Gore teamed up for the third annual Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York City (video). The dynamic twosome had parted ways since leaving the White House, thanks to a certain intern and failed presidential bid. It seems both may have put the past behind them.
"I'm very proud that he's continued in this fight," Clinton said, after talking about losing the battle to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
"First of all, I'm proud of what you're doing... and thank you for your leadership on all of these issues," Gore responded, beaming warmly.
When the Democratic presidential candidates gather in New Hampshire tonight for yet another debate, don't be surprised if Joseph Biden walks on stage with an extra spring in his step. The Delaware senator just scored a fairly significant victory on the issue that has dominated his campaign: Iraq's political future.
Today, the Senate overwhelmingly passed an amendment "calling for creation of a federal system of government in Iraq with regions divided along ethnic lines," CongressDaily reports. The measure, sponsored by Biden, marks the first Democratic amendment calling for a change in Bush's war policy to clear Senate negotiations of the defense authorization bill. And it passed with a bipartisan, 75-23 majority.
Last week, The Gate reported that President Bush was looking increasingly lonely, both in Washington and on the world stage. Looks like you can add the campaign trail to the list of unwelcome places for the president, as well.
Bush's approval ratings have teetered a bit lately, but they're still in the low-to-mid 30s (and in some cases the 20s) according to most national polls. So it comes as no surprise when AP puts out an analytical piece headlined, "Bush Unwelcome on the Trail," even though the president called himself a "strong asset" to GOP candidates in a press conference last week.
Indeed, while the Republican presidential candidates (not counting a few lower-tier contrarians) are careful not to criticize Bush in front of GOP crowds, they are loathe to volunteer his name or heap praise on him unprovoked. They are far more likely to rail against the current leadership -- both in Washington and in the Republican Party -- and present themselves as agents of change, much like their Democratic counterparts have been trying to do.
But is it already too late? Bloomberg News reported last week that the Bush backlash may be hitting '08 Republicans where it hurts most: their pocketbooks.
Florida Democrats sent a message to Howard Dean yesterday: It's our party, and we'll vote when we want to.
In officially bumping their presidential primary date up to Jan. 29, Florida Dems rebuffed the Democratic National Committee chairman's threats that they'd lost all their seats at the party's nominating convention next summer.
"We make this election matter. Not the D.N.C., not the delegates, not the candidates, but Florida Democrats like you and me voting together," Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurmanwrote in an e-mail. "We make it count.... The nation will be paying attention, and Florida Democrats will have a major impact in determining who the next President of the United States of America will be."
Barack Obama is about to find out. He'll be a no-show at tonight's forum co-sponsored by the AARP, that politically powerful group of voters over age 50 known as "seniors" or "aging boomers." And the head of the AARP-backed coalition, Divided We Fail, is not happy.
National Journal's Linda Douglass examines the politics behind attendance and the risk Obama is taking. Read the full story for free.
End note. March is the new September. Petraeus has made it crystal clear he's not discussing an ultimate drawdown until that month next year. Reid and Pelosi have promised a super-charged challenge to Bush, which he is expected to ignore or squash. For now, it doesn't look like we'll get the GOP insurrection Democrats have been praying for, and we'll know for sure soon enough. Check back tomorrow for reaction from the White House and Hill. Good night.
7:33. Crocker on the spending: "It's something we have to do, because we don't have enough people in the State Department, and they [private contractors] do it very well."
7:28. The former auditor says the amount of U.S. money spent in one month in Iraq could buy health insurance for 800,000 American children. Expect to see more of that stat this election cycle.
7:22. McCaskill also wants to send Tony Soprano to Baghdad. Crocker responds, "We can facilitate. We can pressure to some degree. Ultimately, national reconciliation has to be an Iraqi process." He continues with words that both hurt and help him: "This is a long, slow, hard grind, that could become easier" in the improved security environment.
7:19. Oh thank God. McCaskill's back.
7:17. Oh golly. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill, who hasn't gotten to ask questions yet, and Chairman Levin are both away for a vote. The committee is going to wait for them, and in the meantime Warner is asking follow-up questions. This really is starting to get torturous.
7:07. A parachute for fence-sitters, courtesy of Crocker. Frustrated Republicans, including Tennessee's Bob Corker it seems, want to know why U.S. officials don't simply strong-arm Iraqi politicians, Tony Soprano-style. Crocker's testimony indicates he doesn't buy into this approach, which possibly hands certain Republicans looking for a credible way to break with the administration a means to do so.
1:59.John McCain and Susan Collins are filing in for the Armed Services hearing. C-SPAN expects this round to last about as long. Good lord -- forget the sandwich Biden advised, get these gentlemen an IV. We're going to follow the Armed Services hearing in a new post, and will only report anything new-ish that happens there.
1:56. Biden wrapping up. He lays praise on them before concluding that without details on the final drawdown, there's nothing new here. Good bet many of his fellow panelists feel the same way.
1:53. Happily, he closes with a question nearly everyone in the military wants answered re the deployment schedule. In case anyone's forgotten, the rationale for staying in Iraq seems to have gotten gradually farther away from a national self-interest; meanwhile, American troops are serving repeat and longer tours with less time at home.
This just in: Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd has made it his campaign's policy not to accept money "raised, solicited, or delivered by fugitives from justice."
That bold and principled stand was announced in a press release earlier this afternoon -- just one day after a judge in California issued an arrest warrant for Hong Kong businessman (and Clinton campaign donor) Norman Hsu when he failed to show up in court.
To state the obvious, it's no fun being a new homeowner or investor these days. Today's news that foreclosures are up 93 percent from a year ago says it all. So where do we go from here?
Expect the issue to be harped on -- and distorted -- on the campaign trail. As CNBC's Bob Pisaniobserves, more than half of the foreclosures are in states that are packed with votes (California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio) and/or are emerging battlegrounds (Nevada, which leads the country with one foreclosure for every 199 households).
Democratic candidates including Christopher Dodd and John Edwards play right into critics' hands when they suggest the federal government throw money at the problem. The few recent polls on the subprime lending meltdown indicate Americans hold lenders and borrowers responsible for the default crisis.
The Dems' Iowa Debate: Knocking Obama, Stuck On The War
"Let's pick on the new kid!"
Such went the kickoff of yesterday's Democratic debate in Iowa. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos didn't mince words, in a repeat of his fine performance as GOP debate moderator two weeks ago. First question: Is Barack Obama ready to be president?
A good question to ask on behalf of those who've watched Obama's political evolution and are beginning to wonder if his candidacy isn't all just heat and light.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who can be held responsible for planting doubts in the ether about Obama's readiness, opted to stay above the fray and sidestep the topic. Saying she would comment only on her own qualifications, she added, "So I think we have a great group of candidates. You don't have to be against anybody. This is a great problem to have."
The dearth of journalists of color in the media might be bothersome to some, but Larry Wilmore from "The Daily Show" almost makes up for it. In a segment on journalists' fascination with Barack Obama's blackness and whether America is "ready" for it, Wilmore says, "It's a good question that's for some reason mainly asked by white newscasters."
Burn. The underlying premise being, of course, that the "black enough" question is aboutasinsulting as Joseph Biden's ham-handed attempt to praise his Democratic rival as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
But GOP strategist Frank Luntz says the "black enough" question belies some advice for Obama: Blacken it up.
WH '08: You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here
The crowded presidential campaign fields can be headache-inducing, and that has some political pundits wishing more candidates would make like Tommy Thompsonand just leave.
Today, the National Review's Rich Lowry calls on Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback to pack his bags and go.
Calling Brownback's abortion platform "the very embodiment of a tendency toward impractical perfectionism among pro-lifers," Lowry points to fellow pro-lifer Mike Huckabee's surprise second-place finish at the Iowa Republican Straw Poll. "Huckabee has shined in the debates, is a natural orator, and has considerable crossover appeal to the media. None of this can be said of Brownback," Lowry scoffs.
The Chinaphobia train grew a little more powerful today, but there are various ways to view our emerging supercompetitor to the East.
One is the What, Us Worry? approach. The repetition of product recalls and bans this year exposed a large, ugly gash in the exports machine China's become. Sure, they can turn out commodities faster and cheaper, but where's the quality control? For nations including the U.S. and Germany, which lead China in exports but not for long, this is potentially good news. Those fearing China's economic reach will soon envelop the world have good reason to suspect the communist giant can't logistically handle the task after all.
The other, darker vision of what's ahead: China, as both manufacturer and investor, is simply too wealthy and ambitious to ignore. The relationships China has developed with countries like Iran and Russia have given rise to an alternative axis of world powers that has successfully stymied the agendas of the U.S. and EU. China is rising, and no amount of crowing about its lax human rights record and alarming income gap will change that.
Media fixation on the March 4 primaries as do-or-die contests for Hillary Rodham Clinton guaranteed that last night's debate -- the final one before voters in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont go to the polls -- would get a lot of attention, but it was something of a surprise to see Clinton turn some of that attention back on the media.
A controversial anecdote relayed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in last week's Texas debate wended its way into a Senate Armed Forces hearing on Army readiness today.
A fight over whether Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can reject federal funds for his presidential campaign has thrown new attention on a stalemate hamstringing the Federal Election Commission and given unexpected attention to the role of McCain's possible election opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in that impasse.
"When you talk about the FEC, people's eyes glaze over.... But there will be increasing public pressure to do something as more and more people understand" the situation, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Her group called Friday for Republicans to compromise to end the standoff.
Did Hillary Rodham Clinton step under a ladder and over a black cat before announcing her presidential campaign last year? The hits -- in the bad sense -- just keep on coming at her. 
Looks like the GOP has its very own Joe Lieberman: former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee.
Even though the candidates have moved on to the next round of contests -- caucuses in Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington tomorrow; Maine on Sunday; and the Potomac Primary next Tuesday -- the final Super Tuesday tally in the 
The excitement surrounding yesterday's unprecedented Super Tuesday nominating contests obscured the latest and perhaps most damning news to come out on the troubled economy: Activity in the crucial service sector slowed for the first time in nearly five years last month.
Remember Obama's victory speech after he won the South Carolina Democratic primary, when 
John Edwards ended his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination this afternoon during a stop in New Orleans, where he first announced his entrance into the race one year ago in order to punctuate the primary theme of his campaign: combating poverty.
UPDATED.
When he's not 
In another troubling sign of crisis in the U.S. housing market, the number of home foreclosures rose a staggering 75 percent to a total of 
End note. SOTU affairs are always a laundry list, and few expect them to deliver poetry. This year's address (
When Gen. David Petraeus returns to Washington in March, he will brief Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the progress of the U.S. troop drawdown. He'll be asked how units are faring in Iraq as more of them leave, and whether the targeted reduction -- from about 160,000 to the pre-surge 130,000 by this summer -- should progress as planned. 
With Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois likely fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination well into February, and one of them virtually assured of being the nominee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be doomed to spend 2008 much the same way he spent 2007 -- hamstrung by a slim majority.
UPDATED.
Hey, you guys! It's so super to see you! No matter what happens in Florida on Tuesday, let's promise to always be friends. I am so serious!!!
To non-hyperpartisans who've been following developments in Iraq, it's been clear for some time that there will be a significant U.S. presence there going into the next decade, regardless of which party rules the White House next year. Though both sides called a de facto truce in Congress following the 
Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich is bowing out of the Democratic primary race, his hometown paper is reporting. According to Openers, the political blog of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kucinich will explain his "transition" out of the race at a news conference around noon tomorrow in Cleveland. He promises a "rather lengthy statement" on his reasons for dropping out.
UPDATED.
First, the disclosure: MSNBC is a content partner of National Journal.
U.S. District Judge James Mahan has ruled in favor of the Nevada Democratic Party in a dispute over the use of casinos along the Las Vegas strip as caucus sites in Saturday's presidential nominating contest. The ruling allows voting to be held at the casinos as planned.
Rising food prices may be one of the most underreported economic stories. New data show that this trend is impacting the larger economy.
End note. We've suspected for a while that the media have blown up trivialities in the Democratic nomination contest because the candidates are mostly on board with each other on the major issues. This forum was a case in point.
UPDATED.
In case anyone has any lingering doubts, the U.S. economy is teetering dangerously close to recession. The latest evidence: Citigroup actually managed to surprise with its 
"It is with great pride, understanding and acceptance that I am ending my campaign for president of the United States," he told a crowd of supporters after being introduced by his wife, Barbara, and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M. Calling his unsuccessful bid "an experience I will treasure and I will never forget," Richardson said, "I believe we made our case to the people. A case for change, but guided by an experienced hand." 
"Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice," a relieved and triumphant Hillary Rodham Clinton 
UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS.
While the Democrats have spent much time and energy proposing sweeping reforms to increase access for the 47 million uninsured Americans, the Republicans have been warning that a move to "socialized medicine" -- which is how they characterize the government-run systems of most other industrialized nations -- would compromise the quality of care. For example, Rudy Giuliani asserted in a 
We haven't matched the rest of 
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Barack Obama pulled ahead of the Democratic pack with 38 percent of the vote, followed by John Edwards in second with 30 percent and Hillary Rodham Clinton close behind at 29 percent.
In case you missed it, and there's pretty much no chance you have, the Iowa caucuses are tomorrow, Jan. 3, more than eight months (!) before the first party nominating convention will be held. The ground in both fields has shifted dramatically this month alone, which indicates that what the tiny percentage of Iowans who caucus tomorrow have to say will probably not hold.
UPDATED.
Speaking at his final White House press conference of the year, President Bush congratulated Congress on its 11th-hour legislative achievements while making sure to backhand lawmakers for taking so long to get there.
4:10. All over, no more debates until next year, hurray!
Not counting the week between Christmas and New Year's, when presumably even Iowans will want to leave politics behind in favor of eggnog and football, the presidential candidates really have only about two weeks left of campaigning in the crucial caucus state -- and it shows. John Edwards is rolling up his sleeves for an eight-day 
"The Most Trusted Name In News" protests that it checked out retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr, the gay serviceman who asked the Republican candidates about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to make sure he had not contributed to any of the candidates. But if CNN's producers had just, say, Googled the guy, they would have found that he is a member of Hillary Rodham Clinton's LGBT steering committee. Bloggers did, and they were alerting the media about it before the debate was over.
Will the format of tonight's debate prove more hostile to the Republican candidates than to the Democrats, 
Several of the 2008 presidential candidates are not breaking from their busy schedules to celebrate Thanksgiving this week. Arizona Sen. John McCain will use the holiday recess to take his seventh trip to Iraq, while Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden will head to Iowa to serve meals with their families and celebrate the holiday with supporters, according to 
"I'm just trying to play the winning card," Clinton said to tremendous applause. "People are not attacking me because I'm a woman, they're attacking me because I'm ahead."
The reason this endorsement is significant is because of what it says about Mitt Romney's candidacy. It's nothing new, by the way. But it's worth chewing over.
Many of the candidates for president say that the campaign finance system is in urgent need of repair, yet they are shelving the issue precisely because of said system. As a result, we've got the longest, most expensive and 
When the Service Employees International Union announced that it wouldn't endorse a candidate on the national level this year, it seemed like bad news for John Edwards, who's widely considered organized labor's best friend among the Democratic contenders. But it turned out to be just the opposite: Instead of a single big endorsement that faded from the news in a day or two, the state-level nods Edwards is collecting one by one are keeping the story alive and, his campaign hopes, at the front of voters' minds.
The Democratic presidential candidates chasing Hillary Rodham Clinton 
Both Barack Obama and John Edwards are scrambling to slam the brakes on Hillary Rodham Clinton's runaway lead. With the Iowa caucuses about two months away, 
Bodies found. The death toll from the fires appears to have risen to three, as the San Diego Sheriff's Department announced the 
Politicians and the reporters who cover them get to be funny on purpose for one night a year with proceeds going to a worthy cause. This year's beneficiaries were VH1's Save The Music Foundation and the Institute of Musical Traditions, and contestants included The Nation's David Corn, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, sister of 2006 champion Rep. Linda Sanchez.
Days before he was awarded the prize, a group called Draft Gore took out a 
Gore, who has been crusading against climate change ever since he lost the 2000 presidential race to George W. Bush, "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted" to curb global warming, the committee said in bestowing the award on him. Reuters has the full text of the 
Is it 1996 again? Al Gore's going to run in the next presidential election, and Democrats like Hillary Rodham Clinton!
That's according to most of the news coverage, anyway. Of Fred Thompson's long-awaited debut in yesterday's GOP primary debate in Michigan, the general assessment is no, he didn't screw up, and yes, that one thing he said at the end was kind of funny.
When we watched Hillary Rodham Clinton's Sunday-shows tour two weeks ago, we noticed that she answered the questions she thought silliest with a somewhat uncharacteristic burst of laughter. And then we moved on.
Behold, the 2008 Republican National Convention logo, which appears to combine the feral, hulking strength of an elephant on stampede with the red-white-and-blue patriotism of the Stars and Stripes. We're not sure why the highly vexed elephant is so mad at the year 2008, but we wouldn't want to mess with something bearing such pointy tusks, either.
As if further proof was needed, the third-quarter fundraising totals trickling out of the top presidential campaigns this week are demonstrating that in the 2008 White House race, the Democrats have the almighty dollar 
Out of the belief that the gains made by the GOP under President Bush's leadership have been hopelessly eroded (by President Bush's leadership), or the belief that with independents out of reach, their socially conservative, mostly white base is more crucial than ever, front-runners Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson skipped the event.
Yesterday, a grayer Clinton and, uh, more big-boned Gore teamed up for the third annual Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York City (
Today, the Senate overwhelmingly passed an amendment "calling for creation of a federal system of government in Iraq with regions divided along ethnic lines," CongressDaily reports. The measure, sponsored by Biden, marks the first Democratic amendment calling for a change in Bush's war policy to clear Senate negotiations of the defense authorization bill. And it passed with a bipartisan, 
Bush's approval ratings have teetered a bit lately, but they're still in the low-to-mid 30s (and in some cases the 20s) according to most national polls. So it comes as no surprise when AP puts out an analytical piece headlined, "
7:33. Crocker on the spending: "It's something we have to do, because we don't have enough people in the State Department, and they [private contractors] do it very well."
1:59. John McCain and Susan Collins are filing in for the Armed Services hearing. C-SPAN expects this round to last about as long. Good lord -- forget the sandwich Biden advised, get these gentlemen an IV. We're going to follow the Armed Services hearing in a new post, and will only report anything new-ish that happens there. 
This just in: Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd has made it his campaign's policy not to accept money "raised, solicited, or delivered by fugitives from justice."
Expect the issue to be harped on -- and distorted -- on the campaign trail. As CNBC's Bob Pisani 
A good question to ask on behalf of those who've watched Obama's political evolution and are beginning to wonder if his candidacy isn't all just heat and light.
The underlying premise being, of course, that the "black enough" question is 
Today, the National Review's Rich Lowry calls on Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback to pack his bags and go. 
The other, darker vision of what's ahead: China, as both manufacturer and investor, is simply too wealthy and ambitious to ignore. The relationships China has developed with countries like Iran and Russia have given rise to an alternative axis of world powers that has successfully stymied the agendas of the U.S. and EU. China is rising, and no amount of crowing about its lax human rights record and alarming income gap will change that.
