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.)
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.
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.
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.
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??)
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.
Feb. 5 -- the dreaded "Super Tuesday" when residents in nearly two dozen states go the polls to vote in their presidential primaries -- is now less than two weeks away. And for those few remaining Americans who had chosen to remain blissfully unaware of the ins and outs of the White House race, the jig is now officially up. Whether you like it or not, you're going to be hearing from the candidates -- via paid television advertisements.
Democratic hopeful Barack Obama became one of the first candidates to go national with his latest TV ad buy. The spot, which features clips from his now-famous keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, is already in heavy rotation on CNN and MSNBC. Consider it the first flurry in an upcoming blizzard of ads that will begin to hit TV sets in states where there's been little to no campaign activity thus far.
Today's Ad Spotlight has more on Obama's ad, including the controversy over his decision to air it nationally at a time when Democratic candidates have pledged not to campaign in Florida.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
... 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.
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?
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
The gay vote will be reliably Democratic for the foreseeable future, but the LGBT community has a real beef with the party: the M word.
That's marriage, of course. Most of the Democratic leadership and all the 2008 presidential front-runners essentially back marriage rights for gays but without the "marriage" part. During last night's Human Rights Campaign/Logo forum, Barack Obama (perhaps unknowingly) summed up that contradiction succinctly. "You know, semantics may be important to some," he said. "From my perspective, what I'm interested in is making sure that those legal rights are available to people."
The question was whether his backing of civil unions but not marriage for gays was tantamount to a separate-but-equal policy. Gay marriage-backers have a point in that criticism, and Obama's response wasn't much of an answer.
We paid only cursory attention to last night's AFL-CIO debate in Chicago because the pander factor tends to skyrocket during niche forums. But that doesn't mean this meeting, or tomorrow's before a gay issues-oriented crowd, isn't significant. Here are a few takeaway moments that may portend where this race is heading.
Does he really feel your pain? Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has been working the union vote practically ever since his bid for the vice presidency came up short in 2004. Ahead of the forum, campaign reporters were describing the debate as Edwards' chance to shine. Well, he didn't.
Shortly after yesterday's Republican presidential candidates debate in Iowa kicked off, this Gater found herself applauding. Was it for Mitt Romney? Tom Tancredo? Ron Paul?
None of the above. The Gate was clapping for ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, who dug out a few of those negative campaign tactics voters so despise and forced offending candidates to explain themselves.
First on the dock: Sam Brownback, a hero of pro-life conservatives who can't seem to get a leg up in the crowded race for the GOP nod. In an effort to claw upward in the polls, he's zeroed in on Romney, who's positioned himself as the only true social conservative in the upper tier of candidates. Stephanopoulos played Brownback's campaign robo-call to Iowans attacking Romney for his prior pro-choice stance.
We didn't give John Edwardsvery much ink last night (8 candidates vs. 1 blogger = no fair), but quite a few other political commentators were impressed by the former VP nominee. The Politico's Roger Simonwas wowed by Edwards' fiery People vs. The Powerful responses, and named him the winner.
"Edwards needs to project strength, and he is on the road to doing that," Simon concludes.
The veteran journo did "deduct 3.5 points" over Edwards' "dumb" attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton's suit, saying it appeared "sexist and cheap."
Edwards did give forceful responses, particularly on his pet issue of poverty. He's been through the primary meat grinder before, and it shows. But thanks to their disgust with President Bush, Democratic voters (and the independents who now stand with them) seem to be looking beyond the primaries. Edwards' third-place slot means he doesn't have the luxury of taking aim at his possible general-election opponent, as Clinton and Rudy Giuliani do.
Still, he appears to be gaining ground in Iowa, and has a decent amount of cash to work with. He's in nowhere near as much trouble as his GOP third-place counterpart, John McCain. That's reason for the former North Carolina senator to hope.
'Obama Guy' Isn't Necessarily Sold On Namesake Candidate
Also at the CNN-YouTube debate, in case anyone was wondering, was Obama Girl, aka actress/model Amber Lee Ettinger, whose lip-synced ode to Barack Obama has been viewed 2.5 million times and counting. For that reason, organizers invited her to the debate, giving the audience something other than their possible future president to gawk at.
Ben Relles, the man behind Obama Girl, accompanied his creation to South Carolina. Relles is a registered Democrat who's not necessarily an Obama Guy -- he's still weighing his vote.
Liveblogging The Democratic Debate: Clinton, Biden Come Out On Top
End note. Overall, a pretty fun evening, insofar as debates this early in the cycle can be fun. We already know that the front-runners are not happy with the debate lineups, but a certain senator from New York would be wise not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
She has come out looking surefooted at every meet-up so far, and that has to help answer all those woman-Bill-Iraq-vote clouds that hang over her head. Obama, meanwhile, was shakier this evening.
Democrats are learning to their frustration that control of Congress isn't enough. Not only do they need a more substantial majority in the Senate, but they need to not have a veto-wielding president standing in their way. In short, Democrats are out to win next year, and a made-for-TV bio and bucketloads of charm may just not cut it in '08.
The surprise of the evening was Biden, who has the resume but lacks the name recognition (and cash) to make headway in this contest. He delivered some of the more memorable lines of the night and, as his camp frequently and loudly points out, has the only detailed exit plan from Iraq. The Kuciniches and Cindy Sheehans of the nation will never accede to this, but the reality of the situation in Iraq is there is no good way to leave, just less bad ones. Both Clinton and Biden took pains to explain that tonight; we'll see if it starts sinking in with the MoveOn segment of the base.
No gaffes, no Ron Paul moments. The best thing the Democrats have going for them is unity on Iraq (more or less), President Bush, and being on the right side of voters on domestic issues. The worst thing they have going for them is probably history. We'll see how the Republicans fare in this format on Sept. 17 -- by which time everyone's political fortunes could be reversed depending on the highly anticipated U.S. report on progress in Iraq, due Sept. 15.
These are just a few of the questions Americans have posed to the Democratic presidential candidates in tonight's CNN/YouTube debate, which The Gate will be liveblogging.
In some ways, tonight's format, in which candidates must answer 30-second-long video questions selected by CNN, is a natural fit for this slate. The YouTube generation tends to skew young and anti-Bush -- so much so that unhappy conservatives have started a rival site.
There's an argument to be made that the 2008 presidential race is the Democrats' to lose. But none of the candidates -- and that includes you, Senator Clinton -- should expect a free ride to the White House. The answer to that riddle lies on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to be getting some anti-war street cred on the left, with a little help from the Pentagon's No. 2.
Clinton is ratcheting up a spat with Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman by going to his boss, Robert Gates. Yesterday, AP reported on a letter Edelman sent the senator in response to a letter she had sent him about the Iraq war. News organizations and bloggers (including this one) went to town on Edelman's insinuation that asking the Pentagon to begin planning for a withdrawal scenario was akin to aiding the enemy.
Read in full, however, the letter is hardly the spanking AP made it out to be. At the same time, the "embolden the enemy" argument is there, so it's not completely innocuous, either. (TPM has a copy of Edelman's letter.)
While doing his day job last night, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois slipped a statement into the Congressional Record arguing that President Bush (and members of Congress who voted to go to war) may have ignited a cycle of terrorism that will threaten Americans for years.
"The decision to authorize and fight a misguided war in Iraq also created a new cadre of experienced terrorists bent on the destruction of the United States and our allies. The recent attacks in Britain are likely only the beginning of an Iraqi 'blowback,' which may haunt us for years to come. Since we invaded Iraq, the number of Islamic extremist terrorist attacks (excluding those in Iraq and Afghanistan) has risen by 35 percent worldwide." Americans, he argued, "are less secure than we were on 9/11."
Obama, Tancredo (?!) Turn Heads At NAACP Convention
Nine presidential candidates addressed the NAACP's annual conference today in Detroit -- eight Democrats and a lone Republican, immigration enforcer Tom Tancredo, congressman from Colorado.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., roused the crowd by juxtaposing President Bush's commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby with the 10-year prison sentence handed to Georgia's Genarlow Wilson, a young black man convicted of child molestation at age 17 after having consensual sex at a party. "We know we have more work to do when Scooter Libby gets no prison time and a 21-year-old honor student, who hadn't even committed a felony, gets 10 years in prison," he said.
By all accounts, Obama received the loudest response, but his Democratic rivals were received warmly as well, particularly Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. Even Tancredo received a standing ovation, but according to the Detroit Free Press, that was "more because he was the only Republican to show up, rather than approving of his stance on issues."
Ahead of Hillary Rodham Clinton's visit lengthy visit to Iowa over the Fourth of July holiday, her team is embracing the new campaign phenomenon of tracking.
This afternoon, Clinton's staff introduced "HillCam" -- "an exclusive behind-the-scenes look" at the trip, upon which she will be accompanied by Bill Clinton. One thing can be gleaned from the announcement: After a string of strong debate performances, her team is clearly confident that Clinton is not George Allen or Conrad Burns, who were both felled by problematic spontaneous moments on the trail when running for re-election last year.
On another note, the campaign has also been gearing up to introduce the former president in this race in a big way. The man from Hope has popped up here and there, but next week's Iowa trip is being hailed in a de facto way as his coming-out party on the trail.
Democrats Angle For Minority Support At Howard Forum
Though it's a safe bet that black and Latino voters will stick with the Democratic Party in 2008, there is a strong sentiment that the mostly white leadership has taken their support for granted -- a feeling the Rev. Al Sharpton capitalized on in his short-lived 2004 bid. And with post-Katrina dialogue on race and poverty largely disappeared from headlines, it's little wonder many voters of color feel their concerns are still being ignored.
Which makes yesterday's PBS-sponsored candidates forum such a significant event, no matter how debate-fatigued one might be at this point in the cycle. The debate was moderated by black and Latino journalists, and the audience, at Washington, D.C.'s Howard University, was largely black. The candidates were pressed on issues near and dear to minority communities, and will undoubtedly be held to their pledges should any one of them be voted into the White House.
Four-and-a-half months after winding through Iowa on the day he announced his presidential bid, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama debuts the first two ads of his campaign there tomorrow.
In this initial installment, Obama's camp released a traditional 60-second biographical spot and a 30-second spot attesting to the candidate's electability and competence. For more, see NationalJournal.com's Ad Spotlight(subscription).
With 29 percent of the 737 votes cast, Barack Obama won the Politico's straw poll at the progressive Take Back America conference this afternoon. Results were revealed right after 3 p.m. John Edwards placed second with 26 percent of the vote, followed by Hillary Rodham Clinton with 17 percent. When the first and second choices were taken together, Obama also led with nearly 60 percent, followed by Edwards with 54 percent, and Clinton with 33 percent.
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D) pollster Stan Greenberg revealed the results with the Politico's John Harris. Greenberg said that the straw poll's real contest was between Edwards and Obama for the progressive activist vote. (That could explain Clinton's third-place finish -- the activist, progressive audience is not as receptive to the New York senator as the whole Democratic base might be.)
Today was a real zoo at Campaign for America's Future's fifth Take Back America conference. No wonder: Barack Obama and John Edwards delivered back-to-back speeches before the activist-heavy crowd.
The Democratic presidential race's two youngest hopefuls struck many of the same chords, two of which are the major messages touted by conference leaders: grassroots activity and the moral side of the issues facing the country.
Although both candidates stumped naturally on the overarching themes of their campaigns, it was all they could do not to utter former President John F. Kennedy's infamous inaugural address line, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." (Earlier in the day, MSNBC's Chris Matthewscompared Obama to Bobby Kennedy during AFSCME's presidential forum. In Edwards' TBA speech, the candidate told the audience that he grew up watching the 1968 presidential hopeful.)
Democrats want voters to know that Republicans don't have a monopoly on religion, so the Christian group Sojourners partnered with CNN to give the party's top-tier presidential candidates a chance to burnish their faith-based credentials.
CNN's Soledad O'Brien moderated the hour-long forum featuring front-runners John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, in that order, at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium yesterday evening. Each candidate was given 15 minutes to respond to a series of questions from O'Brien and a panel of religious figures sitting in the audience. Edwards made it all the way down the panel, while Obama was only able to field one.
When Edwards took the stage, O'Brien intimated that he might just "own" the crowd -- perhaps because in addition to faith and values, poverty was a central topic of conversation. Not surprisingly, the candidate called as much attention as he could to his background on the issue.
Iraq was the prevailing issue in Sunday night's Democratic debate at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, the second among Democratic presidential hopefuls so far this cycle.
In the otherwise tame debate, tension mounted when former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards sought to distinguish himself as the most vocal opponent of the Iraq war. Initially trying not to name names, Edwards scolded Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama for casting their latest votes against the Iraq funding bill quietly rather than leading the charge on the issue.
Obama replied that Edwards was four-and-a-half years late in his crusade against the war and reiterated that he himself was opposed to the war from the start. Edwards did give Obama credit for that. Clinton later pointed out that while the differences between the Democratic candidates are "minor," the differences between the Democratic field and the Republican contenders for the White House are "major." Most of the Democrats agreed that in general, they are united in the effort to end the war.
Baroody Declines Nomination To Run Product Safety Commission
UPDATED.
President Bush's nominee to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission has withdrawn his name from consideration. Bush's choice for the job -- Michael Baroody -- drew criticism from lawmakers, including Sen. Barack Obama, who suggested that the executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers would be ill-equipped to lead the agency in charge of regulating the very products members of that trade group create.
The controversy surrounding Baroody grew stronger last week, when it was reported that NAM would award him $150,000 in severance pay were he to accept the job.
In a statement responding to Baroody's withdrawal, NAM President John Engler called it "a sad day for consumers and everyone who cares about good government" and slammed the "unprincipled smear campaign waged against Mike, aided and abetted by unethical release of his financial records."
AP reports that the White House "reluctantly" accepted Baroody's decision, but was "disappointed he will not have the opportunity to strengthen the CPSC's ability to protect American consumers."
Commencement Roundup: Two Heads Are Better Than One
While Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush were busy butting heads over the weekend, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were making nice (again). The two appeared together at the University of New Hampshire's class of 2007 commencement, talking about their "common humanity" and the benefits of "transcending politics." Now if only Jimmy and Dubya could get along so well...
The former presidents at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H.: "All you have to do is care, roll up your sleeves and claim one of society's problems as your own." -- Bush. "Thank you Madam President Newman. I like the sound of that. I've decided that women should run everything, and George and I can play more golf." -- Clinton.
ABC News' Bob Woodruff with his wife, Lee, at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y.: "I wish I could protect all of you from the ups and downs of life, from the bends in the road to come. At your age I think I believed that life traveled pretty much in a straight line. If I was a decent person, and worked hard, I would be rewarded. But life wouldn't be life if it didn't have some curve balls in store."
Remember that old saw about people in glass houses?
Last week, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama hit Detroit automakers where they lived -- literally -- which, as Newsweek's Keith Naughtonnoted, didn't exactly endear the home of the Big Three to the presidential hopeful. Now, it seems, Obama forgot one minor detail before he went up in front of the Detroit Economic Club to talk about reducing fuel emissions.
AP is reporting that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is being placed under Secret Service protection -- the earliest such assignment for a presidential candidate ever. A Secret Service spokesman said he was "not aware it was based on any threat," but according to AP, there are reports that Obama has been threatened.
None of this should come as a major surprise, certainly not to many black Americans.
Barack Obama's presidential campaign is reporting that it raised at least $25 million in the first quarter of 2007, putting his early fundraising totals in close competition with those of Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, who reportedly raised a record-breaking $26 million.
Top White House aide and campaigns guru Karl Rove is the latest white political figure to hit presidential aspirant Barack Obama with the "articulate" label. As waswelldocumented following Joseph Biden's infamous interview with the New York Observer, the A-word as applied to "mainstream" black figures is a loaded compliment.
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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 
Remember Obama's victory speech after he won the South Carolina Democratic primary, when 
UPDATED.
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. 
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 
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.
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.
"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.
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.
4:10. All over, no more debates until next year, hurray!
"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."
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 
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, 
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.
Is it 1996 again? Al Gore's going to run in the next presidential election, and Democrats like Hillary Rodham Clinton!
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 
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."
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 
That's marriage, of course. Most of the Democratic leadership and all the 2008 presidential front-runners essentially back marriage rights for gays but without the "marriage" part. During last night's Human Rights Campaign/Logo forum, Barack Obama (perhaps unknowingly) summed up that contradiction succinctly. "You know, semantics may be important to some," he said. "From my perspective, what I'm interested in is making sure that those legal rights are available to people."
Does he really feel your pain? Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has been working the union vote practically ever since his bid for the vice presidency came up short in 2004. Ahead of the forum, campaign reporters were 
The veteran journo did "deduct 3.5 points" over Edwards' "dumb" attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton's suit, saying it appeared "sexist and cheap." 
Clinton is ratcheting up a spat with Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman by going to his boss, Robert Gates. Yesterday, 
While doing his day job last night, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois slipped a statement into the Congressional Record arguing that President Bush (and members of Congress who voted to go to war) may have ignited a cycle of terrorism that will threaten Americans for years.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., roused the crowd by juxtaposing President Bush's commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby with the 10-year prison sentence handed to Georgia's Genarlow Wilson, a young black man convicted of child molestation at age 17 after having consensual sex at a party. "We know we have more work to do when Scooter Libby gets no prison time and a 21-year-old honor student, who hadn't even committed a felony, gets 10 years in prison," he said.
Though it's a safe bet that black and Latino voters will stick with the Democratic Party in 2008, there is a strong sentiment that the mostly white leadership has taken their support for granted -- a feeling the Rev. Al Sharpton capitalized on in his short-lived 2004 bid. And with post-Katrina dialogue on race and poverty largely disappeared from headlines, it's little wonder many voters of color feel their concerns are still being ignored.
President Bush's nominee to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission has withdrawn his name from consideration. Bush's choice for the job -- Michael Baroody -- drew criticism from lawmakers, including Sen. Barack Obama, who 
The former presidents at the 
Top White House aide and campaigns guru Karl Rove is the 
