US 2008 Presidential Campaign/Debate Discussion Thread - Part III

[yolland]

Clinton, Obama Spar as Race Heats Up

By Beth Fouhy, Associated Press, Jan. 14

...Both Clinton and her husband, the former president, have engaged in damage control after black leaders criticized comments they made shortly before the New Hampshire primary last Tuesday, which Clinton won. Clinton was quoted as saying that King's dream of racial equality had been realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, while her husband said Obama was telling a "fairy tale" about his opposition to the Iraq war. The former president has appeared on several black-oriented radio programs to say he was referring to Obama's record on the war, not on the Illinois senator's effort to become the first black president.

As evidence for their argument that the Obama campaign had pushed the story, Clinton advisers pointed to a memo written by an Obama staffer compiling examples of comments by Clinton and her surrogates that could be construed as racially insensitive. The memo later surfaced on a handful of political Web sites. Obama later called Clinton's accusations "ludicrous," and said he found her comments about King to be ill-advised and unfortunate.

Another rival, John Edwards, also criticized Clinton's comments about King. "I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change came not through the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that," Edwards told more than 200 people at a predominantly black Baptist church in Sumter, SC. Edwards said, "Those who believe that real change starts with Washington politicians have been in Washington too long and are living a fairy tale."

Later yesterday, the Clinton campaign scrambled to explain comments by a top supporter, Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, that seemed to raise the issue of Obama's admitted teenage drug use. Johnson said at an event with Clinton in Columbia, SC, that he was "frankly insulted" the Obama campaign would make implications about "Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues--when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book." In his memoir, Obama described using marijuana and occasionally sampling cocaine as a youth. The Clinton campaign later released a statement in which Johnson said his comments referred to Obama's years as a community organizer in Chicago "and nothing else."

 

[2861U2]

And they say it's the Republicans who exploit race...

I thought the Democrats didn't give a crap about race, but I guess I'm wrong. Suddenly the GOP field doesn't seem so divided when you look at what's going on with the Dems.

 

[yolland]

The GOP candidates are all white men; it would be surprising if tensions surrounding race or gender were present in the race between them.

 

[deep]

I am looking at my Feb 5 CA GOP ballot pamphlet


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)_presidential_primaries,_2008


and I don't disagree with your conclusion.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

TV Newser

Rep. Dennis Kucinich won't be taking part in MSNBC's debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday. It certainly won't be the first time that Kucinich was excluded from a recent Democratic debate. But the difference is Kucinich was initially invited, and had met the criteria, for the MSNBC debate. Then, MSNBC changed the criteria and told Kucinich he was uninvited.

Alternet published a Kucinich press release, which said that 44 hours after Kucinich got a congratulatory letter and invite from NBC to the Nevada debate, they notified him of their changed criteria, and his exclusion.

In the press release, the Kucinich campaign took a shot at the media as a whole: "When 'big media' exert their unbridled control over what Americans can see, hear, and read, then the Constitutional power and right of the citizens to vote is being vetoed by multi-billion corporations that want the votes to go their way."

According to the Los Angeles Times, the original criteria for the debate called for the inclusion of the top four democratic candidates in national polling. With Bill Richardson dropping out of the race last week, that moved Kucinich to fourth place in polls. NBC decided to change the criteria, featuring the top three Dem. candidates: Sen. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

USAT/Gallup Poll: McCain jumps to lead; Clinton regains advantage

Both winners in last week's New Hampshire primary now lead in the USA TODAY/Gallup national poll of the Republican and Democratic presidential nomination races.

Sen. John McCain has jumped ahead of the other Republican contenders.

In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has regained her lead over Sen. Barack Obama. The two were tied a week ago.

The poll of voters from each party, taken over the weekend and released just a few minutes ago, shows:

Republicans
McCain: 33%, up from 19% a week ago.
Mike Huckabee: 19%, down from 25%.
Rudy Giuliani: 13%; down from 20%.
Mitt Romney: 11%; up from 9%.
Fred Thompson: 9%; down from 12%.
Rep. Ron Paul: 3%; down from 4%.
Rep. Duncan Hunter: 2%; up from 1%.
Alan Keyes: 1%; vs. 0.

Democrats
Clinton: 45%; up from 33%.
Obama: 33%, unchanged.
John Edwards: 13%; down from 20%.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: 1%; down from 3%.
Mike Gravel: 1%; vs. 0.

There were 1,021 Democrats and "Democratic leaners" surveyed and 831 Republicans and "Republican leaners." The Democratic results each have a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points. The Republican results each have a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

As always, the poll is a snapshot of current public opinion -- and that opinion can be swayed by events, such as last week's New Hampshire primary results and the outcomes of upcoming contests in Michigan (tomorrow), South Carolina (Republicans on Saturday and Democrats on Jan. 26), Nevada (Saturday), Florida (Jan. 29) and the 22 "Super Tuesday" states on Feb. 5.

Two other national polls released in the last 24 hours also showed McCain pulling ahead of his Republican rivals and Clinton leading among Democrats.

• A Washington Post/ABC News survey came up with these results:

Republicans
McCain, 28%.
Mccain Mike Huckabee, 20%.
Mitt Romney, 19%.
Rudy Giuliani, 15%.
Fred Thompson, 8%.

Democrats
Clinton, 42%.
Obama, 37%.
John Edwards, 11%.


• A New York Times/CBS News survey produced these numbers:

Republicans
McCain, 33%.
Mike Huckabee, 18%.
Rudy Giuliani, 10%.
Mitt Romney, 8%.
Fred Thompson, 8%.

Democrats
Clinton, 42%.
Obama, 27%.
John Edwards, 11%.

Related news about polling cell phone users: Our Gallup Guru blogging partner, Gallup Poll editor in chief Frank Newport, explains today how Gallup is now making sure to include cell phone users "as part of the sample used for its general population studies."

In recent years, many poll skeptics have alleged that such surveys can't be accurate because so many more people (especially younger voters) either do not have land lines or rely almost totally on cell phones.

 

[Irvine511]

national polls mean more now than they did a month ago, but it's still too early to derive too much.

McCain needs to win Michigan, but not quite as badly as Romney needs to win Michigan. and if Obama wins in SC and NV, then it's going to be a nailbiter. it's about the momentum and not the numbers that comes out of each state. i think HRC's bounce is due to the fact that she was down but came back, rather than the fact that her old inevitability has been shattered. it's the horse race that counts more than it should.

i do hope McCain is the Republican nominee. i've long said that he's the only adult running amongst the Republicans, and i think he'd actually be able to have a mature, thoughtful debate with his opponent, and he, like Obama, would be able to move beyond the intentional polarization of the Bush years. he's been both right and wrong on Iraq -- he's wrong to trump up the surge to be more than what it is and he's wrong to be politically manipulative with the troops, but he was right to spend as much time as he could bashing Rumsfeld and, by association, Bush, in their horrific mismanagement of the war from the beginning, and he's done all he can to re-brand his support of the war.

i think he'd lose to Obama, and it would come down to the wire against HRC. any other Republican would get crushed by either. McCain is their only shot -- let's see if they can get over the fact that he doesn't want to round up Mexicans, doesn't want to torture, and isn't a global warming denialist.

should be interesting.

 

[deep]

national polls mean more now than they did a month ago, but it's still too early to derive too much.

McCain needs to win Michigan, but not quite as badly as Romney needs to win Michigan.

and if Obama wins in SC and NV, then it's going to be a nailbiter.

I agree completely.

and most likely Romney will win Mich and

"Live to die another day."


and most likely Obama will win the primary in S C

and he has this "phony, does not mean anything about how people will actually vote" caucus thing in Nevada stacked his way.


If he does poorly, and somehow misses in SC and Nev, (not likely) he could be on his way out.


After Feb 5 the Dems should have it settled, or a clear winner on track to the nomination.

I can’t say it will be the same for the GOP.

 

[diamond]

I am looking at my Feb 5 CA GOP ballot pamphlet

sexyness

 

[yolland]

Obama, speaking at a press conference following a campaign event in Reno this afternoon:

You have seen a tone on the Democratic side of the campaign that has been unfortunate. I want to stipulate a couple of things. I may disagree with Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. They are good people. They are patriots...I don't want the campaign at this stage to degenerate to so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why we are doing this...I want to send a strong signal to my own supporters that let’s try to focus on the work that needs to get done. If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it...Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically been on the right side of civil rights issues. They care about the African American community...That is something I am convinced of. I want Americans to know that is my assessment.

HRC released a statement an hour or so later, following a union event in NYC:

Our party and our nation is bigger than this. Our party has been on the front line of every civil rights movement, women's rights movement, workers' rights movement, and other movements for justice in America. We differ on a lot of things. And it is critical to have the right kind of discussion on where we stand. But when it comes to civil rights and our commitment to diversity, when it comes to our heroes--President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King--Senator Obama and I are on the same side. And in that spirit, let's come together, because I want more than anything else to ensure that our family stays together on the front lines of the struggle to expand rights for all Americans.

 

[maycocksean]

And they say it's the Republicans who exploit race...

I thought the Democrats didn't give a crap about race, but I guess I'm wrong.

Unfortunately, I'm forced to agree with you.

The "black folks can make fine speeches but it's the white people who get things done" argument isn't pretty. But then the Clintons wouldn't be the first--remember Joe Biden?

 

[verte76]

They keep excluding Kucinich from debates. It's not fair.

 

[anitram]

The "black folks can make fine speeches but it's the white people who get things done" argument isn't pretty.

Having seen what things white people in the US get done, I'll take my chances with another race.

This kind of campaigning is truly nauseating.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

The only people benefiting from all of this nastiness are the Republicans. It's so distasteful, which of course is what the media loves and why they are playing it up.

(CNN) — As both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tried to lower the tension after days of charged rhetoric over race, a congressional supporter of Clinton's presidential bid called the Illinois senator's remarks attacking her over recent comments about President Lyndon Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “absolutely stupid.”

"How race got into this thing is because Obama said ‘race,’” New York Rep. Charlie Rangel, one of the highest-ranking African-Americans in Congress, said in an interview on NY1.

“But there is nothing that Hillary Clinton has said that baffles me. I would challenge anybody to belittle the contribution that Dr. King has made to the world, to our country, to civil rights, and the Voting Rights Act,” said Rangel. “But for him to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid. It's absolutely dumb to infer that Doctor King, alone, passed the legislation and signed it into law."

Rangel’s remarks came in response to Sunday comments from Obama, who told an audience at a Nevada campaign event: "I am baffled by that statement by the Senator. She made an ill-advised statement about Dr. King, suggesting that Lyndon Johnson had more to do with the Civil Rights Act. For them to somehow suggest that we're interjecting race as a consequence of a statement she made, that we haven't commented on, is pretty hard to figure out."

The New York senator has since tried to explain the intent of her remarks was not to diminish the contribution of King, but to point out the benefit of experience in enacting positive legislation.

Rangel also implied that Obama’s admission of prior drug use in his autobiography may have had a financial motive: "I assume that the book was not written for political purposes. It was honest….It was a big mistake for him to have done it [used drugs.] For him to be honest enough to write about it, I guess he thought it might sell books."

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

LAS VEGAS — NBC News said Monday it will appeal a judge's ruling rather than include Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich in a candidates' debate in Nevada.

"We disagree with the judge's decision and are filing an appeal," said a statement provided by Jeremy Gaines, a vice president for MSNBC, sponsor of Tuesday night's debate. Gaines said the parent network would seek an immediate hearing before the Nevada Supreme Court.

Hours earlier, Senior Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson ruled that Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, must be allowed to participate. If he is excluded, Thompson said he would issue an injunction to stop the televised debate.

Kucinich's lawyer had argued that MSNBC at first invited him to participate, then last week reversed course and told him he could not.

A lawyer for the network said MSNBC decided to go with the top three candidates after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.

Thompson called it a matter of fairness and said Nevada voters will benefit by hearing from more than just top contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The cable network and the Democratic Party have promoted the debate as a chance for the candidates to be questioned about issues from Nevada's minority communities. Tim Russert and Brian Williams are the scheduled moderators.

Kucinich learned of the judge's decision when he was handed a note during an interview with Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto.

"Holy smokes! I just found out. I have to get off the phone now. I have to make plans to go to Nevada," Kucinich said.

 

[Infinity]

They keep excluding Kucinich from debates. It's not fair.

Yea it is ridiculous how they also have been excluding Mike Gravel and Duncan Hunter. Ron Paul was also excluded from the FoxNews NH which is absolutely unfair and biased considering that he had 10% of the vote in Iowa.

And its not only excluding. With most of the debates last year, people like Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich always got the fewest questions. And in all these debates, these people most of the time have to stand on the far sides of the stage, which may sound silly to bring up, but it just shows how much the media wants to not give attention to them. What makes me angry is that Fred Thompson got so much attention, even before he announced his candidacy, even though he announced it relatively late, even though he wasn't in many of the earlier debates because of this, and the worst part of it is that the main reason he got all the attention is because he is an actor. Even now, while he did the worst in the amount of combined votes in Iowa+NH and Giuliani did the second worst, they both still get more attention in the media than Ron Paul does.

The media

 

[deep]

Unfortunately, I'm forced to agree with you.

The "black folks can make fine speeches but it's the white people who get things done" argument isn't pretty. But then the Clintons wouldn't be the first--remember Joe Biden?

That is one way to spin it

do you really believe this?




You disregard Clinton's record on race relations?

Do you believe Clinton in office did not deserve the respect and support he got from people for his actions on race?

Having lived through the 60s, I was born in 1955
my perception is that MLK jr was one of the more effective leaders for change, absolutely the most prominent.

Yes, this is a campaign and both sides are using every comparison and perception to their advantage.

Don't forget Mitt watched his Dad march with MLK jr.

Anyways, I don't think it is unreasonable for Hillary to suggest that a powerful, effective speaker-leader is the "change agent" and a "savvy, risk taking, politician" is the person that completes what the "change agent" started.

 

[deep]

Having seen what things white people in the US get done, I'll take my chances with another race.

This kind of campaigning is truly nauseating.

This is sound reasoning???

Because African Americans were disenfranchised under the "white" president Bill Clinton.

So vote race


Alan Keyes will gladly accept your vote.

 

[maycocksean]

That is one way to spin it

do you really believe this?

Actually, I don't think there was anything intentional in Clinton's statement. BUT. . .though she may not have meant to say it, what she said is, "if Obma's MLK than I'm LBJ and let's face it, MLK made some pretty speeches but it was LBJ that got the job done." In otherwords, if we elect Obama we get pretty speeches. If we elect her, the job gets done.

I definitely don't think that the Clinton's have any conscious issues with racism. I would disagree with 2861U2 that the Democrats will make a deliberate campaign strategy decisions that use race (i.e. Willie Horton) but I would agree that racism is not a soley Republican disease. When racism comes out on the left, it usually comes out unintentionally (Joe Biden for example) and that is what could be argued happened with Hillary's recent comments. The idea that black people are great "entertainers" but that white people are better suited for the mental agility required for leadership is not unheard of.

Anyways, I don't think it is unreasonable for Hillary to suggest that a powerful, effective speaker-leader is the "change agent" and a "savvy, risk taking, politician" is the person that completes what the "change agent" started.

But honestly, Deep, you know Hillary wasn't engaging in casual conversation here. She was trying to make a point: That'd she'd do a better job than Obama. Unfortunately, it ended up reflecting poorly on Dr. King.

Truthfully, I think it's a whole lot of fuss about not much, but I guess that's the nature of politics these days.

 

[yolland]

While I grimaced and cringed when I first heard about the MLK/LBJ remark, I was still surprised when the story proceeded to dominate the national political news for several days (with some worthy op-eds and blog pieces emerging as a result)--I got the feeling a lot of pundits had been itching for an excuse to analyze the Democratic contest in terms of race (and to a lesser extent, gender) without risking seeming crass by raising those issues themselves. I wouldn't necessarily say such 'slip-ups' are a first for the Clintons (Bill Clinton's '92 campaign gave us the phrase 'Sister Souljah moment,' after all) but needless to say, the nature of the circumstances made this particular one glaringly visible. I more or less said what I thought about Hillary's analogy in the Thatcher thread, but I do understand where deep's coming from--an analogy-in-response-to-an-analogy is almost by definition open to multiple interpretations, 'gut-response' as well as analytical, and while I'd be disinclined to argue anyone else's much beyond suggesting other possibilities, I'm likewise reluctant to definitively pin down any one as the 'most likely' subconscious explanation myself. I do think Hillary has been getting more intense scrutiny of everything she does in the press in general than is fair, but on the other hand, Obama was put in a tight spot by the tensions all that coverage stirred too because, realistically, as a black man he can't afford to be associated with any perceived 'undue anger' from his supporters, lest that scare off white voters. (Especially after her campaign pounced on the memo from his SC press secretary and tried to parlay it into an implication that his campaign had somehow engineered the entire collective response to her remarks.)

Mostly, I hope both of them will proceed at this point to focus on debating each other on the issues--poverty, education, the criminal justice system, and so forth--and stop running so much of a 'personality campaign' ("I'm the vision candidate, she's the paper-shuffler" "I'm the experience candidate, he's the bearer of false hope"--actual phrases used by both of them towards each other there).

 

[anitram]

This is sound reasoning???

I think about 65% of the time, you read what you want to read in people's comments regardless of what is actually there.

 

[verte76]

Who made the MLK remark?

 

[verte76]

I'm just sick about Romney winning Michigan. I still don't know who won for the Democrats.

 

[Canadiens1131]

I'm just sick about Romney winning Michigan. I still don't know who won for the Democrats.

Well, it would help if Michigan hadn't had its delegates confiscated this time out by the DNC for being a bad little state

 

[Irvine511]

.

 

[U2democrat]

This is for laughs (and Irvine):

http://slatev.com/player.html?id=1377935786

 

[deep]

REPUBLICAN RIVALS SHARE ONE BOND: ALL LOSERS

By CHARLES HURT

January 16, 2008 -- WASHINGTON - With this field of losers, it's no wonder the race for the GOP presidential nomination remains completely up for grabs.
The only common bond among the Republicans running is that each one has managed to humiliate himself with disastrous defeats at some point or another.

These guys have no running game, no passing game, no nothing.

Mike Huckabee got the ball in Iowa and promptly dropped it. John McCain got it in New Hampshire and fumbled it last night in Michigan.

Now Mitt Romney has the ball and is destined to drop it in South Carolina on Saturday.

But there's only one GOP candidate that beats all the rest at being a loser: Rudy Giuliani.

He has perfected the art of underperforming to the point that his campaign now insists it was all part of his game plan.

He's been reduced to watching from the sidelines and praying for other people to lose - like McCain in Michigan so his momentum would be stalled - rather than getting in the game and winning himself.

In fact, Rudy's campaigned so badly that the latest poll shows him losing New Jersey, which had a front-row seat for his shining moment during 9/11.

Even fringe candidate Ron Paul - the million-to-one long shot everybody picks on to make themselves look good - is beating Giuliani.

Paul, who finished ahead of Giuliani in Michigan, currently has twice as much claim on the Republican nomination as "America's Mayor."

 

[Irvine511]

This is for laughs (and Irvine):

http://slatev.com/player.html?id=1377935786

what a great movie. has Reese ever been better?

 

[joyfulgirl]

This is for laughs (and Irvine):

http://slatev.com/player.html?id=1377935786

Cute!

 

[martha]

I loved this Toles cartoon the other day.