News Flash

Bill Clinton cares about his wife and wants her to win.


Shocking!

Going Negative

I gather from recent press coverage that Hillary going after Obama for things he actually said means she's nasty whereas Bush in 2000 - whose campaign claimed McCain had an illegitimate child on the eve of the South Carolina primary - simply proved he was a nice guy.

Um, Barack?

“In Obama’s twenty-five years of public service, his positions haven’t changed when the politics got hard, and neither will the policies he pursues as President. The same can’t be said about Senator Clinton.”

Obama in 2003:

“So the challenge is, how do we get federal government to take care of this business? I happen to be a proponent of a single payer health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14% of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out.

"A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get their immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, we have to take back the House.”

Obama

Washington Democrats are the problem and he's going to bring back our core values but only if he can remember what those core values are.

Prediction

Questions to be raised this week by the punditocracy as to how it is Obama has so far failed to capitalize on his stunning Iowa win.

State of the race

I think Halperin's take is pretty good here. But make no mistake - Hillary has come full circle from being essentially written off by people like me after Iowa to being in a position of strength heading into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

Clinton Wins

Time for Edwards to go.

To have his cake and eat it too

Obama talks a nice line, but it's sometimes bullshit.

The sound of one hand clapping

The Giuliani campaign.

Random Question

What did Ron Paul do with all his millions raised?

*Yawn

Political pundits must be really bored to be dissecting the results of a Democratic primary that didn't count.

Krugman

On Obama's selling out before the battle has even begun:

The Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?

Anyway, on Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right.

For example, the Obama plan appears to contain none of the alternative energy initiatives that are in both the Edwards and Clinton proposals, and emphasizes across-the-board tax cuts over both aid to the hardest-hit families and help for state and local governments. I know that Mr. Obama’s supporters hate to hear this, but he really is less progressive than his rivals on matters of domestic policy.

Annoying

Obama attempts to inject racism into the campaign and then arrogantly announces he's for an end to the "tit-for-tat."

Presumably he thinks the same things will work with the Republicans if he's lucky enough to win the nomination.

Hillary's challenge

For months the press has treated the Democratic primary as a referendum on Hillary Clinton. She's explained herself, defended herself and hit back at her opponents more times than anyone can count - and we know about all of it because the press reports her every utterance, Bill's every utterance, her campaign's every move and even most stray words uttered by campaign surrogates. But you can't win the nomination simply on a referendum going up against someone as personally appealing as Barack Obama.

So if the press isn't going to step up and make this - at least to an extent - a referendum on Obama then Hillary has to do it for them. That means everything is on the table. Is Barack Obama Martin Luther King? Is he JFK? No. And Hillary needs to contest those comparisons. Despite his early war opposition, has he followed that up with any meaningful action in the Senate? Does his message have any meat to it? For voters to decide, clearly, but Hillary should be expected to fight on all of it.

Still, the question needs to be asked, where is the press in this process? Where is their examination of Obama and his message and his language and his tactics? Where?

More Hillary on Meet

Tim, I was fourteen years old when I heard Dr. King speak in person. He is one of the people that I admire most in the world. And the point that I was responding to from Senator Obama himself in a number of speeches he was making, is his comparison of himself to President Kennedy and Dr. King. And there is no doubt that the inspiration offered by all three of them is essential. It is critical to who we are as a nation, what we believe in, the dreams and aspirations that we all have. But I also said that, you know, Dr. King did not just give speeches. He marched. He organized. He protested. He was beaten. He was jailed. He understood that he had to move the political process and bring in those who were in political power, and he campaigned for political leaders; including Lyndon B. Johnson because he wanted somebody in the White House who would act on what he had devoted his life to achieving.

So I think it's important to set the record straight. Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this. And you know, I think we should just take a step out here for a minute. This is the most exciting election we've had in such a long time because, you have an African-American, an extraordinary man, a person of tremendous talents and abilities, running to become our president. You have a woman running to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling. I don't think either of us want to inject race or gender in this campaign. We are running as individuals, we are making our cases to the American people, and it's imperative that we get the record and the facts straight because people are entitled to have that information. But I have no intention of either, you know, doing something that would move this race in a wrong way or, frankly, set standing by when I think tactics are being employed that are not in the best interest of our country.