From the Politico if you were curious what the ‘08 election was going to look like you might want to turn back to 2004 at least as far as Rudy Giuliani is concerned. Just like the Bush admin did in that previous election Giuliani has now launched his major message will undoubtedly find its way back to the heart of the Republican party.
That message? Elect a democrat & expect another 9/11, elect a Republican and you will be safe.
The meeting betweenSenator Hillary Clinton & the Rutgers basketball team, which had been postponed twice because of weather & the Virginia Tech shootings, finally went on yesterday. Unfortunately a meeting between Clinton, the coach, assistant coach and what was supposed to be some of the players didn’t entirely work out. The players opted instead to goto study hall to prepare for upcoming exams as well as cited ‘fatigue” with the issue as a reason for not attending.
Clinton did speak with a crowd of about 700 students where she talked about the issue and asked them to take a pledge of some kind.
Gov. Bill Richardson has been heralded by some as the dark horse and next big thing of the Democratic primary but yesterday he gave voters a reason to pause. While talking about embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to The Hill Richardson said the following on his position of asking for the resignation of the AG:
The only reason I’m not there is because he’s Hispanic, and I know him and like him,†Richardson said, adding, “It’s because he’s Hispanic. I’m honest. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.â€Â
It would be very difficult to swallow if the President said he gave Donald Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt on Iraq because “he is caucasian” or “white” and likewise it would be hard to swallow if Barack Obama said he gave a black leader the same leeway because of his race or Hillary Clinton because of their gender or any candidate because of a persons religion, ethnicity or creed.
Richardson, about an hour ago, made up his mind giving the following statement to the Associated Press:
After reviewing the attorney general’s behavior, I must reluctantly conclude that new leadership is needed.
It is still hard to ignore the gaffe by Richardson and if he does move up in the polls/fundraising that little quote could come back to haunt him in a big way. It would be the easiest move by Republicans who, on the issue of illegal immigration, see a fearful group of conservatives and moderates in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania & throughout the South, to warp that statement into many different things.
The statement does amount to a certain kind of racial profiling, one that gives preferential treatment to one group of people over another and had Richardson been a Republican that uttered those words I would be hard pressed to find a Democrat or a leader like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton who wouldn’t use it against him.
Sen. John McCain hit YouTube popularity when he gave his answer to a question about Iran being responsible for many deaths as “bomb, bomb, bomb… bomb, bomb Iran” set to the music of the Beach Boys. Critics piled on. McCain’s response?
“Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends,” he told reporters. “My response is, Lighten up and get a life.”
In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court made what is being called the most important decision about abortion since Roe vs. Wade. In their decision the court ruled that a federal ban on late-term abortion was constitutional and did not infringe on a women’s right to an abortion even though it includes no exemption when the procedure is necessary to save the life of a mother.
All of the top candidates are weighing in on the decision, their positions/comments are below:
Today’s decision blatantly defies the Court’s recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother. As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account. It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.”
strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women. As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman’s medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient. I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman’s right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women.
Today, our nation’s highest court reaffirmed the value of life in America by upholding a ban on a practice that offends basic human decency. This decision represents a step forward in protecting the weakest and most innocent among us.
A story from the Boston Herald cites some people from the Kerry-Edwards ‘04 race that shows the candidate, who has been running far from his vote to authorize War in Iraq today, wasn’t so eager to do the same while running for VP.
Yet as John Kerry’s 2004 ticketmate, the former North Carolina senator was anything but eager to acknowledge error on Iraq. Instead, according to several Kerry-Edwards campaign aides, Edwards argued repeatedly that the two should stand by their votes, even after it had become apparent that Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction nor collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.
I don’t entirely know how accurate this information is but I do find it interesting for other reasons. Kerry-Edwards seemed like a happy couple in 2004 but losing the election seems to have had some pretty harsh effects on that relationship as well as the relationships amongst their staffs. There have been plenty of little leaks of information about Edwards during this campaign that don’t paint him in the best light as a strategist. Most of these accounts have been coming from former staffers and potentially some high level people from the Kerry camp which makes you wonder what went on behind the scenes and what John Kerry is up to.
The media seem to be on a pummel Edwards week with plenty of bad stories coming out about the former Senator. Is this from a concentrated effort by people leaking information or just something coming out of the wake of fundraising news?
- You could probably do a good commercial with the following:
Price to hire two bloggers to appear to the liberal left - $4,769.06 .
Cost of alienating Catholics by hiring said bloggers and stalling your campaign for a month while you tried to deal with the issue from both political sides? Priceless.
- The NYTimes has a feature showing where the money comes from. My favorite thing to do? Click on the lesser known candidates and see the spheres representing size of dontations disappear.
- Who contributed the most money in Quarter 1? Wall Street says the Wall Street Journal.
- Edwards has lost his finance director. According to Hotline Jennifer Swanson has quit the Edwards campaign. She was reportedly not fired, her blog post (this happened two weeks ago but wasn’t noticed by most until now) says the biggest obstacle was that she could not move to South Carolina to be with the campaign.
- Celebrity gossip site TMZ (which broke the Michael Richards racist outrage story not too long ago and gave us plenty to look at when Britney Spears went on a bit of a binge) will reportedly begin following presidential candidates during the lead-up to the ‘08 election.
- Speaking of gossip, John Edwards who has been very popular on YouTube with a video of him combing his hair set to the tune ‘I Feel Pretty’ is in for another round of hair-related gossiping. Thanks to his campaigns FEC filings we now know that the candidate received two $400 haircuts while on the campaign trail. The story adds to others related to candidates wealth & lifestyle which seem anti-thetic to his populist message.
- Joe Klein calls him a disgrace & thanks to a recent stunt involving victims of 9/11 some are saying he is using these survivors as political pawns. Love him or leave him one thing is for certain, Michael Moore will be releasing a new movie just in time for the elections. Considering the attention, both positive and very negative, he received during the 2004 elections it should make things interesting for Democrats trying to recapture the support of the entire country.
