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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Political bits

After railing against 527's throughout the campaign, a fairly transparent pro-Obama 527 has been set up in California. So, is Obama still railing against 527's?

In Dan Balz's daily blog, he mentions that both Clinton and Obama have been talking with (courting?) John Edwards.

(MiamiHerald) Clinton has a HUGE lead in Fla, 42-23.

(AFP) McCain won the Louisiana caucuses.

(AP) Buried down in this AP piece is the mention of the Democratic "superdelegates," 800 Democratic figures given their own vote at the convention. That's twice as many delegates as California, more than three times New York. (It takes 2,025 delegates to win.)

(AFP/NYTimes) Bill Clinton keeps attacking. (Let's not forget that Obama's "Reagan comments" relegated the Clinton presidency to a placeholder. It marked a broader Obama strategy turn to run against the negatives of the Clinton presidency.)

The NYTimes outlines that all the Republican majors hate Romney and has this weird article on Giuliani that makes him sound crazy.

(AP) Stephen Colbert has raised $171,000 for the Yellow Ribbon Fund through sales of his "wriststrong" bracelets.

Believe it or not, we've got a State of the Union speech Monday.

And, (AP) Americans United for Change, "a liberal advocacy group," plans to spend $8.5 million over the next year with the sole goal of keeping Bush's approval number down. (Their stated goal is to help the Dems in the election by putting the nail in the legacy.)

Later: Kucinich abandons his presidential bid (likely needing to defend his congressional seat.)

9 Comments:

  • I've been thinking about the generationality of this election cycle and it just dawned on me that Hillary is closer in age to McCain than to Obama.

    I don't want to make too big a deal out of it, but I do think this explains not only the candidates' rhetoric, but also the demographics of their supporters.

    I'm not making a judgement. I'm just saying I see a generational difference that transcends policy ideology. There is the parochial school and there is the Waldorf school, in a manner of speaking.

    By Blogger -epm, at 10:17 AM  

  • Maybe, but I would argue it's more operative on the Obama side than the Clinton side.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:57 AM  

  • Agreed. To the extent there is a generational shift in the expectations of politics, Obama is the one actively playing on it.

    I think this demographic divisions between Hillary and Obama are and interesting insight into the American electorate. Well, at least the American Democratic electorate.

    By Blogger -epm, at 11:24 AM  

  • I'll buy that.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:34 PM  

  • "(MiamiHerald) Clinton has a HUGE lead in Fla, 42-23."

    Is this only slightly more politically significant as saying Obama has a HUGE lead in Ontario?

    I'm puzzled about FL and MI. Their delegates won't count at the convention, but will the FL primary results affect the news cycle? Michigan didn't, but Florida is a special animal. Is there any marketable spin for Hillary in winning in FL? Is there a negative spin for Hillary winning < 50% of the vote in an a heavily establishment Democratic state... in which no campaigning took place?

    By Blogger -epm, at 3:14 PM  

  • Fair point, but within the momentum horserace, Twenty points is pretty big.

    Going into Feb 5, being able to tout strength in quadrennial battleground Florida is something.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 3:49 PM  

  • This comment has been removed by the author.

    By Blogger -epm, at 7:28 PM  

  • I'm just not that savvy on the ways of political strategy and gamesmanship. To my way of thinking reality is in the corporate media cycle. If Hillary "wins big" in FL, but she's the only one going "WooHoo!" while the media yawn (as they did in MI with the Dems and WY with the Repubs) then does it become more analogous to a tree falling in the woods...?

    As I said, I don't really have a sense for these things.

    By Blogger -epm, at 7:29 PM  

  • I don't know. The Dem result in Fla will definitely be secondary, but I still think, even with all the caveats, you'd rather have it than not to talk about for the following week..

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:19 PM  

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