You are currently browsing the daily archive for April 17, 2008.
(Via RealClearPolitics.)
For 40 of his 65 years, ever since he first registered, Martin Greenblatt has been voting Republican in this Philadelphia suburb. Through much of the past winter, the retired teacher considered himself a supporter of Rudy Giuliani. But when the former New York mayor quit the race without a single primary victory, Greenblatt made a radical decision.
He reregistered as a Democrat so he could vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in next Tuesday’s primary. His vote will be counted along with thousands of others to be cast in the Philadelphia suburbs, traditionally the votes that anoint the winner in Pennsylvania contests.
In a day of interviewing outside the library in this Montgomery County community just before Wednesday’s Democratic TV debate in Philadelphia, Greenblatt’s story was just one of many describing the strange journeys they have taken to their current positions — and the disquiet some of them feel about the votes they are about to cast.
While Clinton had more supporters in these interviews than Obama (or Republican John McCain), it is obvious that all the campaign time the candidates have lavished on Pennsylvania since Ohio and Texas voted for Clinton and McCain on March 4 has fueled more doubts than enthusiasm.
Greenblatt is typical. Asked about McCain, this longtime Republican said, “I don’t like his (Iraq) war policy. I supported the war at the beginning, but I’m increasingly disillusioned with it. McCain just seems to want to keep it going.”
Obama has little appeal to Greenblatt. “He hasn’t had the experience,” Greenblatt said, in a comment I heard many times from other voters. “Two years in the Senate, and one of them he spent running for president. And I’m not happy with Rev. (Jeremiah) Wright,” Obama’s controversial pastor.
Full story here.
(Via Yahoo! News.)
Republicans are no longer underdogs in the race for the White House. To pull that off, John McCain has attracted disgruntled GOP voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats who shunned his party last fall.
Partly thanks to an increasingly likable image, the Republican presidential candidate has pulled even with the two Democrats still brawling for their party’s nomination, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo news poll released Thursday. Just five months ago — before either party had winnowed its field — the survey showed people preferred sending an unnamed Democrat over a Republican to the White House by 13 percentage points.
Also helping the Arizona senator close the gap: Peoples’ opinions of Hillary Rodham Clinton have soured slightly, while their views of Barack Obama have improved though less impressively than McCain’s.
The survey suggests that those switching to McCain are largely attuned to his personal qualities and McCain may be benefiting as the two Democrats snipe at each other during their prolonged nomination fight.
David Mason of Richmond, Va., is typical of the voters McCain has gained since last November, when the 46-year-old personal trainer was undecided. Mason calls himself an independent and voted in 2004 for President Bush, whom he considers a strong leader but a disappointment due to the “no-win situation” in Iraq.
“It’s not that I’m that much in favor of McCain, it’s the other two are turning me off,” Mason said of Clinton and Obama, the senators from New York and Illinois, in explaining his move toward McCain. As for the Republican’s experiences as a Vietnam War prisoner and in the Senate, Mason said, “All he’s been through is an asset.”
Full story here.
Tags: mccain
(Via Yahoo! News.)
Remember the cookies?
Barack Obama wants to make sure that voters do, even if it was 16 years ago that Hillary Rodham Clinton created an uproar when she sniffed that she could have given up her career and “stayed home, baked cookies and had teas.”
While Clinton brought up the problems Obama could face in a general election if he’s nominated, Obama used a two-hour debate Wednesday night to remind Americans what they don’t like about his opponent and her husband, Bill, the former president. Both candidates argued they were tough enough to withstand whatever Republicans try to use against them.
Obama raised President Clinton’s controversial pardons on his last day in office. And he wanted Americans to know that Hillary Clinton repeatedly called him names in the past few days.
The point was to tie Clinton to the divisive politics of the past at a time when a new poll shows that a majority of voters view her as dishonest. The loss of voters’ trust comes as Clinton has been attacking Obama for comments he made recently about Pennsylvania voters who “cling to guns or religion” because they are “bitter” about the economy — statements that he maintains he mangled.
“During the course of the last few days, you know, she’s said I’m elitist, out of touch, condescending,” Obama said.
“You take one person’s statement, if it’s not properly phrased, and you just beat it to death,” he added. “And that’s what Senator Clinton’s been doing over the last four days.”
Full story here.
(Via Matthew Yglesias.)
I’d forgotten that for months now Charlie Gibson has been asserting that $200,000 is a solid middle-class income, blissfully unaware that just 3.4 percent of U.S. households have an income of $200,000 or more. You could be richer than 96 percent of your fellow citizens, but still just folks to Gibson. Obviously that’s not on a par with being bad at bowling or anything on the “out of touch” scale, but it’s still disappointing to learn that even our salt of the earth working class multimillionaire television news personalities aren’t utterly infallible.
Tags: clinton, debates, gibson, obama, pennsylvania
(Via MOMocrats.)
As others have noted the debate was an enormous letdown on the part of the media. Gibson and Stephanopoulos were shameful, asking questions about Bittergate and Bosnia and Wright instead of healthcare and housing and foreign policy. And the flag pin question nearly gave me a stroke.
It’s clear that the giants of media have succumbed to the dumbing down of America, of making this election about speculation and snark instead of issues and ethics. To see them goading the candidates with stupid questions and to have to watch the candidates, Obama in particular, practically begging for something substantial to talk about. Thankfully the latter portion of the debate turned around, largely at the prodding of the candidates themselves. It’s like having the smart kids tell the teacher they really, really want to learn.
George and Charlie, don’t quit your day jobs. And keep wearing those flag pins.
Tags: clinton, debates, obama, pennsylvania
(Via Yahoo! News.)
Hillary Rodham Clinton said emphatically Wednesday night that Barack Obama can win the White House this fall, undercutting her efforts to deny him the Democratic presidential nomination by suggesting he would lead the party to defeat.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said when pressed about Obama’s electability during a campaign debate six days before the Pennsylvania primary.
Asked a similar question about Clinton, Obama said “Absolutely and I’ve said so before” — a not-so-subtle dig at his rival who had previously declined to make a similar statement about him.
In a 90-minute debate, both rivals pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000, and said they would respond forcefully if Iran obtains nuclear weapons and uses them against Israel.
Tags: clinton, debates, electability, obama, pennsylvania
(Via Yahoo! News.)
Democratic Rep. John Murtha said Wednesday that Republican Sen. John McCain is too old to be president. Murtha is 75, four years older than McCain. He says they are nearly the same age, and the rigors and stress of running the country is too much for guys their age.
“I’ve served with seven presidents,” Murtha told a union audience. “When they come in, they all make mistakes. They all get older.”
“This one guy running is about as old as me,” he said, drawing laughter and applause. “Let me tell you something, it’s no old man’s job.”
If elected, McCain would be the oldest man to become president at age 72. Ronald Reagan became president at age 69, but he served as president for eight years and was just a few weeks shy of his 78th birthday when he left office.
McCain, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, said, “All I can tell you is that I admire and respect Jack Murtha. Speak for yourself, Jack. I’m doing fine. Thanks.”
Full story here.
(Via washingtonpost.com.)
Sen. Barack Obama released his 2007 tax returns this evening, hours before his debate with Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The tax returns show he made $4,238,165 last year, most of it ($3.9 million) a result of profits from his best selling books. He reported paying $1,396,772 in federal taxes and making charitable contributions totaling $240,370. Those donations included $26,270 to the Trinity United Church of Christ, which was the Chicago parish of his controversial longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
The release, one day after the tax filing deadline, appeared to be the latest move in a game of transparency one-upmanship between Obama and Clinton. Earlier today, Clinton’s campaign knocked Obama for failing to release returns from 1997 through 1999, something the Clintons had done as part of their time in the White House.
Obama had previously released returns from 2000 to 2006 and pressed Clinton to release her tax returns from the years after she lived in the White House, which she did earlier this month. The Clintons’ returns showed that they had made $109 million in income since leaving the White House. They filed for an extension for their 2007 taxes.
Tags: clinton, income taxes, obama
(Via Reuters.)
Democratic presidential rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton tried to explain recent controversial remarks during a tense debate on Wednesday, with Obama accusing Clinton of taking political advantage of his characterization of small-town residents.
In their first debate in seven weeks, Obama said he mangled his description of the mood in economically struggling small towns and Clinton apologized for the first time for inaccurately saying she came under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996.
The debate, which featured few heated confrontations but plenty of probing and positioning, seemed unlikely to dramatically alter the race six days before the next Democratic showdown in Pennsylvania.
Obama has been under heavy criticism from Clinton and Republican John McCain, who have called him elitist and out of touch for saying small-town residents were clinging to religion and guns in bitterness over their economic troubles.
Full story here.
Tags: clinton, debates, obama, pennsylvania
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