Though I think Noam makes a good point: It may not be Obama’s self-presentation that failed to score the Edwards endorsement (per Heilemann), but Edwards’s self-interest: Early on, he wasn’t sure Obama was tough enough to beat Hillary. Or to reassure voters and superdelegates that he’d be able to win the general. And what good [...]
Juan Cole notes the significance of the Shi’ite cease fire, if such a thing exists, being negotiated in Qom. And it is, indeed, significant that members of Maliki’s coalition sought out Sadr in Iran, where he is trying to burnish his religious credentials. And it may be significant that the agreement came a day after [...]
Ever more fascinating Pennsylvania registration numbers emerged today and the PA Secretary of State is still counting. Apparently there are, so far, 4, 119,213 registered Democrats now in Pennsylvania, that’s up an additional 74,261 from last week’s tally. The state’s voter registration deadline closed at midnight a week ago today. In my voter registration story [...]
On background, which campaign, looking to the fall, said this: “McCain will be able to call out Obama on the public financing issue, and has a leg up in terms of making the reformer/ethics leader argument.” Yes, it’s a little bit of a trick question because, of course, I’ve heard — almost word for word [...]
The Washington Post fronts this morning with the tale of Barack Obama and John McCain’s 2006 spat over ethics reform legislation. Long story short, Obama and McCain once tried to work together to impose tougher congressional ethics rules. But then Obama released a letter criticizing McCain’s approach, McCain took offense, and some nasty correspondence between [...]
Politico has a semi-helpful “Guide to Superdelegates” that tries to subdivide that somewhat secretive fraternity into recognizable types… that has nothing to do with high school. Though I couldn’t help but notice that all of the designations would make terrific band names Did you know that Rahm Emanuel was the front man for the “Strong [...]
It’s not news that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the onetime Democratic VP candidate, is backing John McCain for President. Nor is it news that Lieberman takes a different view of the Iraq War than most Democrats. But what he said this morning on ABC’s “This Week” is certainly news. Well, I say that the Democratic Party [...]
John Heilmann has an interesting account of the efforts by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to woo John Edwards…and guess what? Clinton was far more effective than Obama. Here’s the key section: Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that [...]
HRC’s campaign just circulated a memo calling attention to how much money Obama has received from oil and natural gas companies: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Sen. Obama has received over $160,000 from the oil and gas companies. Two major bundlers for his campaign — George Kaiser and Robert Cavnar – are oil [...]
