Tue, May 27, 2008 - 4:27 PM

MSNBC.com is doing a little crowd sourcing to handicap the frontrunners in John McCain's search for a running mate.

The site set up an NCAA basketball tournament-style bracket and is inviting readers to pick which potential Veep picks will advance to the second round. The Republican (or independent, in Joe Lieberman's case) that garners the most votes advances to the next round.

So far the voters haven't picked many first-round upsets, although as of this writing Gen David Petraeus is losing to former Sen. Fred Thompson and Colin Powell is edging Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

We assume that when it comes to the final round MSNBC.com voters will pull a Dick Cheney and pick themselves as McCain's running mate.

-- Mark Young

On Air Force One today, Dana Perino said her boss "thinks it's good that we have a two-term limit in the United States."

And you thought you and the president had nothing in common.

Perino continued that Bush believes: "It's good for the country to have that smooth, peaceful transition of power every four or eight years; one where you get new energy and new ideas across the board -- from the President on down, throughout the administration."

The president's spokeswoman also said Bush understands what the candidates are going through, and he likes being able to sit back and observe rather than trying to win an election.

But it is an unusual campaign for the Bush family. Perino noted that this is one of the few presidential campaigns in many years without a Bush on the ticket.

As for McCain's criticisms of Bush and his policies, all's fair in love, war and politics. Perino noted that when Bush and McCain appeared together in the Rose Garden in March, the president recalled that McCain had campaigned for Bush in 2004. They'd made up after the nasty 2000 campaign in which Bush shut down McCain's presidential bid in South Carolina.

"The President believes it's our turn to try to help him, and we'll do that in whatever way he needs," she said.

Bush remains popular with the Republican faithful, if not the overall population, which explains why he's still in demand as a rainmaker.

-- Marsha Mercer

Thu, May 22, 2008 - 1:04 PM

Thu, May 22, 2008 - 2:12 PM

In a segment set to air today on "The Ellen DeGeneres show," the talk show host and Republican presidential candidate John McCain talked about same-sex marriage.

McCain believes in legal agreements but not marriage between gay people. DeGeneres plans to wed her actress girlfriend now that California Supreme Court has said gay marriages can take place in the state.

After discussing their disagreements on the issue, DeGeneres joked with McCain.

"So, you'll walk me down the aisle? Is that what you're saying?" she asked.

"Touche," McCain said.

Now that would be an interesting wedding.

-- Amy Dominello

WASHINGTON – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign says it will look to Florida and Michigan Democrats “for guidance” on what she should do if appeals to the national party to seat both states full delegation are rejected next week.

At the same time, Clinton campaign advisor Harold Ickes said in a conference call this morning with reporters that the New York senator will not settle for a compromise solution – such as seating half the delegates in Florida.

Obama has said he would consider such a compromise.

The Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws panel is scheduled on May 31 to reconsider its decision from last fall on whether to keep the Florida and Michigan delegates banished from the convention.

Ickes, himself a member of the rules committee, said the Clinton campaign has not ruled out taking its battle all the way to the Democratic National Convention’s credentials committee, if anything less than a full seating of both states’ delegates is decided next week.

-- Billy House

Wed, May 21, 2008 - 1:37 PM

WASHINGTON – Taking a vacation to Washington, D.C., next week? Want to give Democrats a piece of your mind?

The Democratic National Committee has just sent out an advisory of how its Rules & Bylaws Committee will proceed on May 31 during a much-anticipated meeting to reconsider issues in the Florida and Michigan delegate flap.

According to the notice, the rules committee will meet at a Washington area hotel and consider two challenges – including one from Jon Ausman, a national committeeman from Florida.

The two challenges are seeking to overturn the rules committee’s decision to strip Florida and Michigan of their presidential delegates.

Both the Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigns will apparently also have a chance to state their cases during the meeting, which the notice today says will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

In order to maintain the decorum of the meeting, banners, posters, signs, handouts, and noisemakers of any kind are strictly prohibited.

The advisory says, “each challenger (including Ausman) will be entitled to present an Oral Argument before the RBC prior to Committee consideration for a period of 15 minutes each.”

“A representative from each state party and from each presidential campaign will also have an opportunity to address the committee regarding each of the challenges,” the notice explains.

“Oral arguments from the parties will be heard during the committee's morning session. Following a lunch break, committee members will consider and debate the challenges,” the notice says.

In a sign that the DNC is expecting a big crowd for the meeting, members of the public wishing to attend are being required to register on-line starting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday (May 27) at
http://www.democrats.org/rbcmeeting. Those lacking Internet access who would like to pre-register can do so by calling 202-479-5137.

Democrats in both Florida and Michigan were punished last year by the national party with the loss of all of their delegates because their states scheduled presidential primaries too early, in violation of national party primary calendar rules.

Hillary Clinton went on to win both primaries, but none of the candidates actively campaigned in either state and Barack Obama’s name was not even on the Michigan ballot.

Clinton, who trails Obama in the Democratic presidential delegate tally, has been saying her victory in Florida’s Jan. 29 primary should count for some delegates and she has not conceded the nomination, even though he has clinched a majority of the delegates from other states.

The Obama campaign has said that anything other than completely eliminating Clinton's advantage – in other words, splitting the Florida and Michigan delegates between the two -- is unfair.
He contends the Florida primary wasn't fair because the candidates, even though they were on the ballot, didn't campaign here.

-- Billy House

WASHINGTON – Is time spent in Florida really a strategic feint by Barack Obama?

As the Illinois senator makes his appearances in Tampa and elsewhere in the state, one prominent national political analyst doubts that Obama will be able to carry the state in November against Republican John McCain, or that he even needs to.

“I think Florida will be competitive, but I’d be surprised if he wins it,” said Charlie Cook, of the non-partisan Cook Political Report newsletter, in an interview today.

The single biggest reason: “White voters over 60.”

“It doesn’t have anything directly to do with McCain,” Cook added. “Right now they (Florida Democrats who voted in Jan. 29 primary) are going with Hillary Clinton over Obama.”

“They have a problem with Obama,” said Cook, of the older, white Floridians.

But while “McCain can’t win without winning Florida,” insisted Cook, “Obama can.”

And Obama could even win the White House without Ohio, said Cook.

Cook rattled off a number of other-state combinations that he says can put Obama over the top without winning Florida this fall – succeeding here or there where Democratic presidential nominees John Kerry and Al Gore only barely failed.

In short, Cook said that if Obama can win Iowa, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Nevada or Colorado, he won’t need Florida or Ohio.

“And I would be very, very surprised to see John McCain win a single state that John Kerry won,” said Cook.

Still, Cook said he expects Obama to spend some time and some resources in Florida.

“A Democrat should not want to win without Florida and Ohio,” added Cook.

“But in 2000, Tim Russert said it’s all about Florida, Florida, Florida,” said Cook. “I don’t think anybody is going to be saying Florida, Florida, Florida this time.”

Still, Cook said he expects Obama to spend some time and some resources in Florida this summer and fall, if for no other reason than to make McCain expend some of his resources.

“To the extent that he forces McCain to spend money in Florida – he’s (Obama’s) accomplished something there,” said Cook.

-- Billy House

Mon, May 19, 2008 - 5:44 PM

Mon, May 19, 2008 - 6:52 PM

John McCain is at a fundraiser tonight in Savannah, Ga., and Democrats there took the opportunity to hammer him about the GI Bill.

Jane Kidd, the chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, and Bill Gillespie, a Democrat who is challenging Republican Rep. Jack Kingston called on McCain to support the GI Bill sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia.

Webb’s bipartisan bill expands education benefits to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and pays for it with a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans. It passed the House last week.

“It seems that Senator McCain and President Bush don’t like that bill,” Kidd said in a phone interview Monday. “We feel our vets deserve better.”

Georgia is home to a dozen active military bases.

As noted previously on the Herd, this isn’t the first time McCain has come under fire from Democrats for not supporting Webb's version of the GI Bill.

McCain supports a different bill introduced by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, which aims to expand educational benefits for armed service personnel who stay in the military. That version died in the Senate.

Both Obama and Clinton support Webb’s version.

-- Amy Dominello

Fri, May 16, 2008 - 12:28 PM

It seems to be much ado about nothing, but there’s still a lot of yammering out there about Barack Obama calling a female reporter “sweetie” this week.

(Check out the full story and ABC video here.)

Obama apologized and the reporter didn’t seem to mind too much. She just wanted her question answered.

So is it offensive? I think it’s all about the tone and tenor of the conversation. The tone wasn’t terribly condescending, but he should have been more respectful to the reporter doing her job.

What do you think? Is it a big deal?

-- Amy Dominello

Thu, May 15, 2008 - 3:14 PM

In the two months preceding the North Carolina presidential primary, Bill Clinton stumped for his wife in 53 towns in the state, and all but a handful were tiny, working class areas.

Polls showed Hillary Clinton closing the gap in the final week before the primary, based on support from white, working class voters in these little towns her husband stopped in. Sometimes, he hit six or seven in one day.

Pundits called Bill Clinton her secret weapon in rural North Carolina. She needed a monster showing with white, working class voters and her husband’s visits were supposed to drive her comeback, the pundits said.

Even Bill Clinton seemed convinced that his political pull had not faded over the last year, when many urban and educated Democrats abandoned him because of his attacks on Barack Obama. He sounded very self assured on the Sunday before the election when he told a crowd in Morganton, N.C. that, in other states, his wife did much better when he swung through town on her behalf.

“In every place I did a front porch rally, on Election Day, Hillary got more than 60 percent of the vote in those counties, So don’t break my string and embarrass me,” he told the crowd.

Well, Bill, consider yourself embarrassed. I went back and ran the numbers today. From March 21 to May 6, Bill stopped in towns in 43 counties in North Carolina. In only six counties did his wife get more than 60 percent of the vote. In fact, Obama won 23 of those counties to Clinton’s 20.

I did not go back and check the correlation between margin of victory and his campaign stops in other states, so I don’t know if his 60 percent streak boast was actually true.

Certainly some of the county losses in North Carolina can be explained by the fact that his tour included a few stops to large metro areas, which overwhelmingly went for Obama – Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Raleigh. But all but a small handful of his stops were in small towns, where he held the sort of front porch rallies he mentioned in the above quote.

The full breakdown is below, and includes the county, the vote split, and cities Bill Clinton visited in those counties.

--Sean Mussenden

Bill Clinton’s NC Tour ’08 – 53 Towns in 42 counties from March 21 until May 6.

Alamance County – 57-41 Obama
Elon

Buncombe County – 55-44 Obama
Asheville

Burke County -- 68-30 Obama
Morganton

Caldwell County – 68-28 Clinton
Lenoir

Cabarrus County – 51-47 Clinton
Kannapolis

Catawba County – 56-42 Clinton
Newton
Hickory

Columbus County – 58-38 Clinton
Whiteville

Craven County – 54-42 Obama
New Bern x 2

Cumberland County – 66-32 Obama
Hope Mills

Davidson County – 56-41 Clinton
Thomasville
Lexington

Durham County – 75-23 Obama
Durham

Edgecomb County – 68-30 Obama
Rocky Mount

Forsyth County – 67 – 32 Obama
Kernersville
Winston-Salem

Franklin County – 52-46 Obama
Louisburg

Gaston County – 53-45 Clinton
Gastonia

Guilford County – 68-30 Clinton
Greensboro
High Point

Halifax County – 60-37 Obama
Roanoke Rapids

Harnett County – 52-45 Clinton
Dunn
Lillington

Iredell County – 53-44 Clinton
Statesville

Johnston County – 53-44 Clinton
Smithfield

Lee County – 53-43 Clinton
Sanford

Lenoir County – 55-42 Obama
Deep Run

McDowell County – 71-25 Clinton
Marion

Mecklenburg County – 70-29 Obama
Charlotte
Huntersville

Nash County – 58-39 Obama
Rocky Mount

Onslow County – 49-47 Obama
Jacksonville x 2

Orange County – 70-29 Obama
Hillsborough

Pasquotank County – 63-34 Obama
Elizabeth City

Person County – 48-48 (Clinton won by 3 votes)
Roxboro

Pitt County – 60-38 Obama
Winterville

Randolph County – 62-34 Clinton
Asheboro

Rockingham County – 50-46 Clinton
Reidsville

Robeson County – 51-41 Clinton
Pembroke
Lumberton

Rowan County – 50-48 Obama
Salisbury

Surry County – 72-26 Clinton
Elkin
Mt. Airy

Scotland County – 55-41 Obama
Laurinburg

Union County – 50-48 Clinton
Monroe

Vance County – 61-36 Clinton
Henderson

Watauga County – 55-44 Obama
Boone

Wake County – 65-34 Obama
Apex
Cary
Raleigh
Zebulon

Wayne County – 58-38 Obama
Goldsboro

Wilkes County – 72-26 Clinton
North Wilkesboro

Wilson County – 62-36 Obama
Wilson

Merchandise for the 2008 Republican Convention in Minnesota was unveiled this week during a fashion show at the Mall of America. Apparently the dress code for Grand Old Partyers this year won't be a conservative three-piece suit, unless one of the pieces of that suit is a pair of loud, red striped pants.

Zubaz, a line of baggy pants that enjoyed (mercifully brief) popularity in the early 1990s, were among the styles previewed at the show and that are now available for purchase (for $30) on the convention Web site.

Zubaz have a Minnesota connection: the pants were created by two Minnesota gym owners who wanted pants that would be comfortable for weightlifters to work out in. And, according to BadFads.com, when demand for the ostentatious pants peaked, Zubaz turned to the Minnesota Department of Corrections to have female inmates sew their products.

A brief slideshow of the Mall of America fashion show is on The Minnesota Monitor Web site.

-- Mark Young

Wed, May 14, 2008 - 4:28 PM

Multiple sources are reporting that John Edwards will endorse Barack Obama tonight in Michigan, dealing yet another blow to Hillary Clinton's ongoing bid for the presidency.

Edwards hinted in a television interview last week that he would endorse Obama. Asked in a TV interview who he would endorse, he said he would endorse the person he had voted for in the North Carolina primary. "I just voted, I just voted for him on Tuesday," he said. Notice the him. We were pretty sure he wasn't talking about Mike Gravel.

--Sean Mussenden

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, a Democrat from Palm Beach Gardens and one of Florida’s uncommitted superdelegates, says he’s enjoying quality face-time with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by not endorsing either.

Mahoney’s been invited to another meeting tonight in Washington with Clinton, after meeting with her last Wednesday. He’s also had a semi-private meeting with Obama, along with about six other superdelegates.

As Mahoney sees it, his main goal during such get-togethers is to insist Florida’s delegates get seated at the party nominating convention; he won’t even consider endorsing either candidates until that is assured, Mahoney said.

But Mahoney also says his uncommitted status is providing opportunities to talk to both potential presidential candidates about issues important to Florida, and “once you are with one or the other, you can’t talk to the other one.”

Will he ever endorse, then?

“The answer is eventually – not now,” he said in an interview.

More generally, Mahoney says he feels uncomfortable with the role of “superdelegate,” a role he got by virtue of his elected position in Congress.

He said he doesn’t like the idea that “some folks,” such as himself, are simply given that status and can show up at the nominating convention.

Still, Mahoney says he will attend the convention to perform his role of superdelegate, if he has to do so.

He also admits he didn’t even know he was a super delegate by virtue of being a congressman until a reporter called and told him.

“That was a surprise,” he said.

-- Billy House

Bloggers, I hate to break it to you.

But you’re one of us now.

The Democratic National Convention Committee has selected its “blogger corps.” A political blogger from each state was selected to attend.

The DNCC received more than 400 applications from bloggers across the country.

Those selected had to show they’ve become recognized authorities on state and local politics, submit daily audience information and illustrate the reach and impact of their posts.

Each blogger (list here) will be credentialed and seated with their state delegations. They’ll also have access to the floor of the convention hall. And there will be a blogger pool, made up of to-be-determined bloggers.

Sounds suspiciously like the hated main-stream media, doesn’t it?

Some reaction from the selected bloggers here, here and here.

And an interview on SquareState.net with Howard Dean about greater accessibility for bloggers.

-- Amy Dominello

With a Democratic win in Mississippi’s special election in the First Congressional District, the conventional wisdom appears to be that the Republicans might be facing some trouble come November.

The District has been a long-time Republican stronghold, but Democrat Travis Childers beat out Republican Greg Davis by 54 percent to 46 percent. Davis and Childers will face each other in the general election in the fall.

The seat was vacated by Roger Wicker, a Republican who was appointed to Trent Lott’s post in the Senate.

Davis had brought in Dick Cheney to campaign to keep the seat in Republican hands and attempted to cast Childers as a liberal connected to Barack Obama.

What the implications are for the fall’s elections remain to be seen. But it is the third seat in recent special elections to change hands from Republican to Democrat.

And, as one would imagine, Democrats crowed about their victory:

From Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the chairman of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

“After three consecutive Special Election defeats in districts President Bush twice won easily, it is abundantly clear the American people have turned their back and shut the door on the special interest driven agenda of the Republican Party. There is no district that is safe for Republican candidates because President Bush's failed policies have hurt every community in America.”

But if you expected the Republicans to fire back, you would be wrong.

House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is sounding the alarm bell to his fellow Republicans:

“The results in MS-01 should serve as a wake-up call to Republican candidates nationwide. As I’ve said before, this is a change election, and if we want Americans to vote for us we have to convince them that we can fix Washington.”

-- Amy Dominello

Mon, May 12, 2008 - 2:18 PM

Sen. Jim Webb still hasn’t endorsed Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but Webb’s GI bill was front and center on the stump with Obama today in West Virginia.

In Charleston, W. Va., Obama hammered Republican presidential nominee John McCain for opposing Webb’s bill:

“I have great respect for John McCain’s service to this country and I know he loves it dearly and honors those who serve. But he is one of the few Senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it’s too generous. I couldn’t disagree more. At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue the American Dream.”

Clinton has sponsored Webb’s bill as well. McCain supports a different bill introduced by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, which aims to expand educational benefits for armed service personnel who stay in the military.

--Neil H. Simon