Friday, March 23, 2007

More ish i forgot to post

Strategists say that serious candidates will need to raise at least $50 million ¡X and probably more like $100 million ¡X by the end of the year. They say that money from Jewish donors constitutes about half the donations given to national Democratic candidates (an extremely large pot of gelt long coveted by the GOP).

Clinton will get most of the Jewish community¡¦s money, ¡§first, because she¡¦s going to receive the lion¡¦s share of all [Democratic] political money, and second, because she and her husband are enormously popular with the Jewish community,¡¨ said Democratic strategist Steve Rabinowitz, a Clinton supporter.


"The accelerated use of campaign video is likely to continue throughout the 2008 campaign as technology opens new opportunities and challenges, with even more significant changes likely by 2012, when Internet Protocol television -- the equivalent of television channels based on the Web -- becomes more technically and financially feasible."

"In this campaign, groups such as the Swift Boat Veterans will not need cable television's assistance."

Campaigns have added a position to their tables of organization: Several have decided to employ a videographer to track the moves -- public and behind the scenes -- of the candidate. "From a positive standpoint, it's providing that kind of backstage access that nobody else except the people on the campaign get to see," said Spencer Whalen, an e-campaign strategist for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

"I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America," said the 42-year-old candidate for a Senate seat from Illinois.
(You just can't get away with such blatent lies for very long.)

As part of the reassessment of McCain, "several Republicans pointed to last week's news that prominent national strategist and former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, one of Mr. McCain's earliest supporters in 2000 against then-Gov. George Bush, has become Mr. Romney's policy chairman."

Under the headline, "On the Electronic Campaign Trail, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza and Dan Balz take a look at how Web video has become the center of communications strategy for the 2008 presidential campaign. LINK

In a front-page look at the "Rahm primary," the Washington Post's Shailagh Murray and Peter Baker report: "Under other circumstances, Emanuel would be a natural for the Obama camp. But Emanuel was a rambunctious 31-year-old when he joined Clinton's campaign in 1991 as one of the original members of the Little Rock war room and followed the candidate to the White House. Although he was demoted at one point ¡X reportedly at the instigation of the first lady ¡X he eventually became one of the president's closest aides."


Pat Healy and Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times included (outlier) billionaire George Soros' decision to go with Obama over Clinton in the fifth graph of their Page One New York Times story on Sunday on Clinton's entrance into the race.

In 2004, both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) opted out of the matching-funds system for the nomination season. But in every campaign since 1976, the nominees have accepted matching funds for the general election.

In 2004, the FEC gave $75 million each to Kerry and Bush. With an inflation adjustment, the grant is expected to be $83.8 million in 2008.

the Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman got Charlie Cook to weigh in on his cell phone, saying of Sen. Obama: "I think he's going to have a very, very hard time beating her. What you've got is a boxer from the YMCA level going into the world championship fight. He's never taken a punch, he's never had a tough race."


"She voted to give the President the authority to have a stick to go over there and negotiate with Hussein," said McAuliffe.

the note:If you trace Clinton's time in the 1990s (and understand the lessons she learned from losing repeatedly to the political-media Freak Show) ¡X and if you look at the tactics and strategies she employed in winning her Senate races in 2000 and 2006 and in her Senate career (in which she has mastered the Freak Show and built a political operation that looks at lot more like the Bush-Rove model than the Bill Clinton model) ¡X you will understand why Hillary Clinton is as well positioned to be the next president of the United States as anyone else making the race.





My prediction:
If still in Iraq in '08, the Clinton-Obama ticket beats Romney
If Iraq is stabilized by '08 Romney still probably loses to Clinton-Obama

(Is there any reason to assume McCain is any better off today than he was in 2000? Is there any reason to assume Romney is any less capable of doing to McCain what Bush did in 2000?)
Consider: The mere fact that Romney has wrapped up the #2 spot despite being the mere minority party governor of Masserchussenneger shows the man is on a trajectory that is dope, although few republicans would describe it that way. Meanwhile McCain as #1 guy is getting attacked for taking stands that Romney gets a free pass on. ie. troop surge. And that is going to totally distract everyone from the question they will be asking as soon as dude wins the nomination, "can we seriously elect a Mormon?"

Last week we witnessed a historic moment with the hanging of Saddam Hussein. I was reminded that this war was not a mistake. There were mistakes in the intelligence assessment , and our post-invasion policy has been a long series of mistakes. But the war itself was for all the right reasons. Today, we need to correct the mistakes of that post-invasion policy. Up until now, we have been attempting to avoid a dependent Iraq. But what we have is an Iraq that still requires American assistance. We must now recognize that an instable Iraq is a dependent Iraq. As such, the primary goal for our forces in Iraq will be to establish stability. We have not tried this before, and we will succeed. In order to accomplish this, I am requesting funds to double the number of soldiers present in Iraq. Winning this war is worth the cost in funds and lives. The reputation and security of our nation are on the line, and so is the future of the Middle East. Our enemies will be as disheartened by our victory as they will be encouraged with our failure. For this reason, we will do what it takes to win. We will stabilize Iraq. It will be one of America's greatest successes and a turning point in world history. It will be remembered as the event which forced the world to admit the the days of tyranny as an acceptable form of government on Earth are numbered.
Or, it will be a turning point in the other direction, members of congress, the choice is yours.

Stelzer that i forgot to post

There is Barney vs. Ben: Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, vs. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Bernanke wants his colleagues to begin to think about setting an explicit, though flexible, inflation target to use as a guide in setting interest rates. Exceed the target, and raise rates. Frank fears that will divert the Fed from its other mission, maintaining full employment. In short, in one corner we have soft-money Democrats, for whom a whiff of inflation holds no terror, but to whom a few tenths of a percentage point rise in the unemployment rate is anathema. In the other corner we have the Fed, ever fearful that once inflation takes hold it is difficult to wring out of the system without causing a major recession.

For the Democrats, corporate profits have risen, partly because the administration's free-trade policies have forced American workers to compete with $1-a-day Asian labor, while allowing big corporations to outsource work that once provided good jobs for Americans.
Democrats howled in anger when the full-year trade figures were released. The trade deficit hit $764 billion last year, a rise of 6.5 percent over 2005, and the fifth consecutive record. That prompted House speaker Nancy Pelosi to demand that the president deliver a plan within 90 days to reduce the deficit with the European Union, China, and Japan. Pelosi is fond of
setting deadlines--for the passage of favored legislation, or the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, or, now, the adoption of protectionist measures.
She wants Bush to take a tougher line in talks with China, including levying tariffs on imports that are "subsidized," either directly or by the Chinese policy of keeping the renminbi at an artificially low level.

News Alert: Hillary Hating Hooters Waitress Infiltrates DLC Meeting with Sledgehammer and Starts to Break Shit

I predicted this in an earlier blog entry:

article about viral obama ad

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/18/MNGHNONEPS1.DTL&feed=rss.news

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Obama vs. Clinton

2-25 New York Post

WELL, NOW that Hollywood titan/ mogul David Geffen has emphati cally aligned himself with the Democrat's rising star Barack Obama and against his former friends the Clintons, I suppose we will take it as a given that the other undisputed king of Hollywood, Jack Nicholson, who is on the outs with Geffen - will now throw his support to Hillary. How else can it fall out?

2-25-The New york post

"Obama is inspirational," gushed Geffen.

What?

A little more than two years ago, Barack Obama was an undistinguished member of the Illinois state Legislature - a body arguably less functional than New York's Legislature, which barely is possible.

He has no record in the Senate.

And he is a foreign-policy cipher.

Nevertheless, Obama inspires David Geffen.

That says far more about Geffen's poor judgment than it does about Obama's sketchy qualifications for high office.

None of this would mean much - except for the fact that Geffen and many of his Hollywood colleagues are extraordinarily influential individuals. If nothing else, they raise huge sums of money for favored candidates (as is, unquestionably, their right).

But it should be kept in mind that their stock in trade is fantasy - not for nothing was Geffen a founder of a studio called "Dreamworks" - and their grasp on reality sometimes reflects that.

Anyone who says he is inspired by the prospect of Barack Obama's ascension to the White House at this stage in his career is delusional.

Or, perhaps, lying himself.

2/25-the note
1. The Clinton campaign is the first (of the Big 6) to go for a high-profile Howard Dean-style Internet baseball bat-type fundraising drive. Launched on Geffen Day by a Bill Clinton mass e-mail, the goal is to raise $1 million on the web in one week. Three days in, they are nearing $400,000. If you don't know why this is key, you aren't paying enough attention.

Important Developments

"Clinton's support, meanwhile, slipped by five points. The reason, again, is entirely blacks. In ABC/Post polls in December and January, she led Obama among African-Americans by 60-20 percent. Today it's a 44-33 percent race among blacks, with Obama in front."

On the Republican side, the Washington Post duo report that Giuliani holds a "2 to 1 advantage over McCain among Republicans, according to the poll, more than tripling his margin of a month ago."

"The principal reason" for Giuliani's gains "was a shift among white evangelical Protestants, who now clearly favor Giuliani over McCain. Giuliani is doing well among this group of Americans despite his support of abortion rights and gay rights, two issues of great importance to religious conservatives. McCain opposes abortion rights," they write.