Mon, March 10, 2008 - 6:48 PM

We want to hear from you.

Are you reading us online? What do you think of Obama visiting Jackson? What are your thoughts on the primary? Post your thoughts on the blog.

Did you see Hillary Clinton or Obama campaigning in Mississippi? Send an e-mail to adominello@mediageneral.com.

-- Amy Dominello

Most of you out there will probably find the Herd on the Trail blog today through WJTV’s Web site.

But if you’ve found us some other way, be sure to check out WJTV’s live coverage of the Obama event on TV and the Web.

This evening, WJTV will also broadcast Linda Allen’s interview with Obama.

-- Amy Dominello

The assembly center inside is Obama-ready as people file to their seats.



University officials said the assembly center seats more about 8,500. And there will be more in the section along the stage that is standing room only.

People filed into the assembly center like cattle, but everyone seems excited.



A fun combination of rock and R&B songs is being pumped through the speakers. And you better believe each song has a message. Right now the crowd’s bopping along to John Fogerty singing, “Put me in coach, I’m ready to play …”

-- Amy Dominello

Ok, here we go. We’re coming to you live from the Barack Obama event in Jackson.

Obama isn’t scheduled to hit the stage here at Jackson State University until 7 p.m.

But this is the big game in Jackson tonight. People are being urged to avoid driving near the university unless they’re coming to the rally.

As you head into the university, vendors are selling Obama T-shirts and posters.



And hundreds of people have lined up way in advance to get into the Lee E. Williams Athletics & Assembly Center.



This crowd is ready.

-- Amy Dominello

In the age of cell phone video cameras, keeping something "off the record" is next to impossible. So it's not surprising that someone pulled out their cell phone and recorded President Bush warbling a song at Saturday's Gridiron dinner.

Marsha Mercer blogged about Bush's performance earlier, presciently noting that the world would only see it if a stealthy camera man or woman surreptitiously recorded the act, since the exclusive dinner is off the record.

So here for your enjoyment is the grainy footage of the first (and probably last) performance of Bush and the Busharoos:



-- Mark Young

The little girl shown sleeping in Hillary Clinton's "Children" ad, which asked voters who they want answering the White House phone at 3 a.m. when "something's happening in the world" has some bad news for the Clinton campaign: She'd rather have Barack Obama answering that call.

Casey Knowles was eight when she appeared (sleeping) in a commercial for a railroad company. Getty made the footage of Knowles available for purchase as stock footage and the Clinton campaign bought it for the ad. Her brother spotted her in the Clinton ad when Jon Stewart was parodying the spot on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

Knowles, now a high school senior, has been campaigning for Obama.

"I really prefer Obama's message of looking forward to a bright future," she told "Good Morning America."

-- Mark Young

While the Democrats battle it out for the top spot on the fall ballot, Republicans are already looking at whose name will run along side that of John McCain. Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard argues Mitt Romney would be a logical choice.

Barnes writes:

“Romney has allies in the Bush wing of the Republican party. President Bush favors him as McCain's veep. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, preferred Romney over McCain in the primaries, but never endorsed him publicly. Karl Rove, the president's political strategist, has hinted that he considers Romney to be McCain's best running mate."

--Neil Simon

Sun, March 09, 2008 - 10:47 AM

Sunday morning.
The president surprised everyone at Gridiron Club's Spring Dinner last night by leaving the head table and coming onstage to do a spirited, if tune-challenged, rendition of “Green, Green Grass of Home.” Lyrics were rewritten to “Brown, Brown Grass of Home” to reflect his coming return to his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

The president traditionally makes a speech at the end of the white-tie evening, but at his final Gridiron dinner, he donned a cowboy hat and sang with two professional singers from the Marine Band as his backup. He dubbed them the Busharoos.

“As I step down from the plane and there to meet me is my mama and my papa, down the lane I look and here comes Barney, heart of gold and breath like honey…” the president sang.

News of Bush’s singing debut was kept very hush-hush. The 600 guests at the Renaissance Washington Hotel were surprised, as were most of the club members. Club president Carl Leubsdorf, bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News, said later that the backup singers, Gunnery Sgt. Kevin Bennear and Staff Sgt. Sara Dell’Omo, rehearsed three times at the White House.

You won’t be able to catch the Bush song on TV or the Internet (unless someone was secretly recording it.) The Gridiron Club, founded in 1885, is the oldest organization for Washington journalists. Its 65 active members are slaves to tradition, one of which is that the dinner and show are officially off the record. No TV cameras are allowed.

After his song and brief remarks, Bush joined in the tradition of singing “Auld Lang Syne,” linking arms with the redoubtable Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since JFK and is no fan of GWB. The president even gave her a peck on the cheek. Unfortunately, I was standing behind them onstage and couldn’t see Helen’s face.

-- Marsha Mercer

Fri, March 07, 2008 - 12:12 PM

Everybody’s talking about the next big primary in Pennsylvania, but don’t forget about Mississippi.

The state holds its primary on Tuesday, with 33 delegates up for grabs for the Democrats. And at a time when every delegate matters, Mississippians are getting some attention from the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Clinton spoke in Canton last night at a dinner for Mississippi Democrats. She’s in Hattiesburg for a rally this morning. Check out the streaming video right now from Media General television stations WHLT in Hattiesburg and WJTV in Jackson.

Bill Clinton is hosting a fish fry in Tupelo tonight and campaigning Saturday with rallies in Pass Christian, Biloxi, Ellisville and Meridian.

On Monday, Obama will be in Columbus and Jackson, but his campaign has not released further details.

Both candidates are also spending time in Wyoming today. Wyoming holds its Democratic caucus Saturday.

-- Amy Dominello

Thu, March 06, 2008 - 1:19 PM

will.i.am, Black Eyed Peas frontman and the creator of the viral "Yes We Can" song and video that melded clips of Barack Obama's speeches with music released another pro-Obama video this week.

Like the first video, "We Are The Ones" features celebrities, among them singers Macy Gray and N'dambi, and actors Jessica Alba and Malcom Jamal Warner (Theo!) Against a steady beat and the chanted chorus Obama! Obama!, they talk about why they support the senator from Illinois.



Simon Woods, a Hillary Clinton volunteer, wrote an op-ed for London's Daily Telegraph about the new video. Woods complains that the video is nothing more than celebrities "anointing themselves as "the ones", encouraging their fans to join them, to become part of the "movement", to "change the world"."

He goes on to say that the video epitomizes what he sees as the core problem of Obama's campaign: "the Obama model is about the inauguration speech, and Clinton's is focused on the moment she gets back from the Capitol, sits down at that desk, and starts work."

-- Mark Young

Wed, March 05, 2008 - 3:52 PM

President Bush made it official today. He’ll campaign for John McCain if it helps him -- and he’ll campaign against him if that helps him. Get it? Oh, that presidential humor.

Here’s the exact Bush quote from the Rose Garden as the two former rivals stood shoulder to shoulder outside the Oval Office.

“Look, if it – if my showing up and endorsing him helps him, or if I’m against him and it helps him – either way, I want him to win,” Bush said.

McCain and Bush were political combatants back in 2000. McCain beat Bush in the New Hampshire primary that year, but McCain was stopped dead in South Carolina, thanks to hardball tactics by the Bush team. All that was swept aside on the day after McCain accrued enough delegates to become the Republican party’s nominee and Mike Huckabee left the race. McCain and his wife Cindy even arrived at the White House a little early for their lunch date with the president.

McCain sidestepped questions about whether it was really a plus to have someone with such low approval ratings on his side.

McCain said, “I hope that the president will find time from his busy schedule to be out on the campaign trail with me, and I will be very privileged to have the opportunity of being again on the campaign trail with him – only slightly different roles this time.”

Bush still has a Midas touch when it comes to fund-raising among the party faithful, so he could be very helpful to the McCain effort. And it never hurts to be seen on equal footing with the president.

Interestingly, there was no lectern with the Presidential Seal or other trappings of the presidency for the overtly political event. Evidently, the famous Rose Garden setting was enough to give the event a stamp of presidential authority.

-- Marsha Mercer

The John McCain veep speculation started weeks ago, but expect the number two talk to amp up now that he’s locked down the GOP nomination.

Who will it be? Anyone who tells you they know is lying. As McCain’s people told the New York Times, not only have they not selected anyone yet, there’s not even a short list or a process for choosing in place. In other words, they’re still trying to decide how to decide.

All this explains why approximately 417 politicians have been named as possible number twos. There’s governors: Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Sonny Perdue of Georgia, Jon Huntsman, Jr., of Utah, Charlie Crist of Florida and Haley Barbour of Mississippi. There are senators: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, and more.

Uber-prognosticator Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia professor, has a nice breakdown of the pluses and minuses of various contenders.

Settling on a process to select a vice president is more important than it might seem. Dick Cheney was first tapped by President Bush to head his vice presidential selection committee, which, of course, ended up picking...Cheney.

At the joint McCain-Bush news conference this morning, Bush was asked to offer advice to McCain on choosing a number two.

"I'd tell him to be careful about who he names to be the head of the selection committee," Bush said, to laughter. "Look, he's got plenty of experience. He knows what he needs to do, which is to have a process that vets candidates, and the person -- somebody he's going to be comfortable with and somebody whose advice he relies upon."

"People don't vote for Vice Presidents -- as much as I hate to say that for those who have been candidates for Vice President -- they're going to vote for who gets to sit inside that Oval Office and make decisions on how to protect the country and keep taxes low and how to have a culture that respects the dignity of every human being. That's what the race is all about. I know there's going to be a lot of speculation on who the Vice President, this and that, but the speculation is over about who our party is going to nominate," Bush said.

--Sean Mussenden

One down, one to go. Mini Super Tuesday delivered a Republican presidential nominee. Big surprise, it's John McCain. Bye-bye, Preacher Huckabee.

Democrats aren't there yet, no matter what Hillary Clinton says about going all the way. She definitely got the biggest bragging rights Tuesday by shattering Barack Obama's winning streak. By winning Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, Clinton earned her place in the race. As Bill Clinton had said, she needed to win Texas and Ohio to stay in the race, and that's what she did. Her critics will have to stop hammering nails into her political coffin. It's worth noting that she did so by blasting Obama as unready to lead in a crisis or to be commander in chief.

Obama is far from conceding defeat. And it's not just because he won Vermont. The delegates are still being counted in Texas' odd two-step primary and caucus. Obama hopes that he'll fare better than expected in the Texas caucuses -- and win a big chunk of delegates to keep him in the lead.

What we do know is that McCain is now in the catbird seat. He has eight months to campaign single-mindedly against the Democrats while they throw mud at each other. McCain starts today with a visit to the White House where he'll eat lunch with President Bush -- and check out the digs? -- and pick up the presidential endorsement. The two will meet with reporters in the Rose Garden event in the early afternoon.

Next stop for the Democrats: Mississippi next Tuesday.

-- Marsha Mercer

Mon, March 03, 2008 - 3:43 PM

Florida and Michigan might not have a say in the Democratic presidential primary.

But the Canadian government apparently is regretting saying too much.

It has just responded to Hillary Clinton’s claims about alleged signals from the Obama camp to Canadian diplomats that could cast doubt on whether the Illinois senator's public opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement is genuine.

Here is the statement by the Canadian government:

“The Canadian Embassy and our Consulates General regularly contact those involved in all of the Presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials. In the recent report produced by the Consulate General in Chicago, there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA.”
“We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect,” the statement says.

At issue is an internal Canadian memo that the Associated Press has described as written by a diplomat regarding a meeting last month between Austan Goulsbee, Obama’s economic adviser, and George Rioux, the Canadian consul general in Chicago.

According to the AP, the memo said Goulsbee told Rioux that Obama’s campaign remarks about NAFTA “should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”

Hillary Clinton -- fighting to hold a slim lead in Ohio – has seized on the Canadian memo to criticize Obama for giving speeches “that are very critical of NAFTA … and then we find out that your chief economic adviser has gone to a foreign government and basically done the old wink-wink – ‘Don’t pay attention, this is just political rhetoric’ – I think that raises serious questions.

But the Obama camp has repeatedly denied the campaign has sent Canada conflicting signals on the candidate’s views on trade.

And now, the Canadian government is saying its consulate general did not intend to produce a memo conveying that idea.

-- Billy House

It is the smallest state in the country, and it’s certainly no Ohio or Texas in Tuesday’s primary contest, but Rhode Island’s 21 delegates could still help decide who will be the Democratic presidential nominee.

In a race where the delegate count is so close, Rhode Island matters, said Tim Grillo, executive director of the state Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both visited the state this past week, sent their spouses, and in Clinton’s case, her daughter.

“We’ve been getting a lot of attention,” Grillo said, mentioning neighboring Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was walking Federal Hill for Clinton today. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts has campaigned for Obama.

“Everybody’s prepared to – like all good Democrats – support the Democratic nominee,” Grillo said.

Texas and Ohio have 193 and 141 delegates to the Democratic convention. But Rhode Island is not the smallest prize of the March 4 contests. Nearby Vermont has just 15 delegates.

--Neil Simon