White House ’08: Biden, Clinton to take part in web video conference
Staff Report
Vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton will be the featured guests in a web video conference that will air on the Barack Obama campaign website tonight at 8 p.m.
“Women for the Change We Need Week of Action” will be available at http://my.barackobama.com/WomensVideo.
White House ’08: Obama above 50 percent in two polls
Analysis by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Hillary Clinton voters once uncertain about Barack Obama’s readiness to be president are now moving solidly into the Obama camp, pushing Obama above 50 percent in two national polls.
Obama stood at 51 percent in today’s daily tracking poll from Rasmussen Reports and at 50 percent in the daily tracking poll from Gallup, where Obama had an eight-point lead over John McCain. McCain trailed Obama 51 percent-to-45 percent in the Rasmussen polling.
Both polling organizations attributed the gain by Obama, who had been running in the mid-40s for several weeks heading into last week’s Democratic National Convention, to his increased support from Democrats. Gallup broke the figures down even more to examine the much-discussed Hillary factor. A pre-convention Gallup poll had only 47 percent of former Clinton supporters saying that they were certain to vote for Obama in the general election. The first significant post-convention polling done by Gallup has 65 percent of Clinton backers now saying that they are certain that they will vote for Obama, a gain of 18 percentage points among the subgroup that accounts for the bulk of Obama’s recent gains overall.
Gallup also had Obama gaining among voters who had previously supported his candidacy in the Democratic Party nomination season. Eighty percent of Obama voters had indicated pre-convention that they were certain that they would vote for Obama in November. Post-convention, that figure is up to 87 percent, suggesting that the Democratic National Convention solidified party unity heading into the fall campaign.
Winners and Losers: Gilmore, Warner, Frederick, Hillary, McCain
Compiled by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
TELL US MORE ABOUT YOU, JIMMY: More trash from Gilmore
Got another note from the Jim Gilmore campaign with more trash on how Mark Warner is a bad guy. Today it’s something he said to the Virginia AFL-CIO about his support of legislation that would put Virginia’s right-to-work status in jeopardy.
First question – who outside of a business elitist cares one way or the other if employers can strike down unions and fire their employees at will? Does that make my life better? I dunno.
Second question – is Jim Gilmore basing his candidacy entirely on the idea that Mark Warner is a bad guy? I ask that because I’m struggling with what Gilmore would otherwise do to represent us in the U.S. Senate, other than try to get Congress to somehow enact car-tax relief.
Tell us something about you, Jimmy. It’s going to be hard for us to elect you without something else to go on.
SPEAKING OF … More nonsense from Jeffrey Frederick
“Mark Warner’s claim that he is willing to work across the aisle is only true if there are liberals on both sides. When he did work with Republicans, it was only to feed them false revenue projections and cooked books to trick some of them into voting for a tax hike.”
Thanks, Jeff, for bringing inanity to our coverage of Mark Warner’s quasi-keynote address to the Democratic National Convention last night.
Fact Check: The Republican-majority State Senate wanted a tax deal four times bigger than the one that Warner proposed in ’04. Which is to say, he brought the Republicans back into line. And don’t forget, your House of Delegates voted for the tax increase, too.
You want to point at the blood in the water, well, some of it was on your hands, too.
FOX NEWS FAIR AND PARTIAL: Were they watching the same speech we were?
I flipped the clicker to watch some noise from Fox after the Hillary speech, and then asked myself aloud …
Why did they credential these jokers?
Bill Kristol was yammering on and on and on about how Hillary Clinton had only mentioned Barack Obama’s name twice. (I counted 12 mentions. Two, 12, what’s the difference, right?)
The rest of the cast of characters harrumphed in similar fashion, except for Chris Wallace, who said from the convention floor that he thought the speech had been well-received, earning a rebuke from Brit Hume that he then challenged on air, making me worry that we’re not going to be seeing much more of Chris Wallace after, say, the end of the week.
This decided things for me. I was going to play fair during next week’s RNC, but in the interest of fairness and balance, well, let’s just say that John McCain’s acceptance speech left a lot to be desired, even if he’s a week away from delivering it.
The Top Story: Did Hillary save the day?
The Top Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The weight of the Democratic Party’s White House chances was on Hillary Clinton’s shoulders last night. In which direction will the four out of 10 Clinton supporters who are either undecided or telling pollsters that they are thinking about voting for John McCain in November go? We still don’t have an answer to that question, but if Clinton still holds any sway over her 18 million-voter flock, her de facto keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention could end up being the turning point in this election.
“When she came out, I think she was determined to let people know that we need to step up and elect Barack Obama. And I think she did that,” said Augusta County Democrat Lee Godfrey, who hosted a convention watch party at her home outside of Staunton last night, and said the response to the speech from those in attendance was overwhelmingly positive.
Augusta County Democratic Committee chair Tom Long had a similar reaction. “I think she hit all the right notes, had all the right tone, all the right enthusiasm. And I think the accent will come tonight when her husband probably does the same thing,” Long said, looking ahead to the convention speech from Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, scheduled to be the highlight of the DNC tonight.
James Madison University political-science professor Bob Roberts says the big question about the impact of the speech on Clinton supporters who have been threatening to bolt the party is still out there to be asked. “The question is, Will her more ardent supporters go along with her? She didn’t hold back at all, which some people thought she might. Republicans tried to make the argument last night that she didn’t say that he could lead. But that’s looking for something that’s not there,” Roberts said.
“The real question is, Were those Hillary supporters really Democrats? Or were they supporting her because of the fact that she would become the first woman running for president? If some of them were just supporting her for the fact that she was a woman, they may not go with her. But the vast majority of her supporters will either support Obama or just sit home,” Roberts said.
Bridgewater College political-science professor David McQuilkin agrees with the general sentiment that Clinton “did what she needed to do. “The party needs to unite. That was her first point. Her second point was, Did those of you who voted for me vote for me, or did you vote for the ideas that I represent and which the party represents? By putting it in that context, she’s telling these people, Yes, you voted for me, because I represent these ideas, but these ideas are also Democratic Party ideas, and Barack Obama represents those ideas as well,” McQuilkin said. “She said them forcefully, she said them directly, she said them from the beginning of her speech, and she peppered them throughout her speech. Unity, vote for the ideas, vote for Barack Obama, he represents us now, let us stand forth, carry forth, and now carry the election. That was her message. And that she is going to join the fight and join that movement to bring those ideas to fruition on behalf of the person who is now going to represent the party.”
The speech was effective enough to make me think that perhaps McCain will abandon his recent stratagem of courting Clinton voters by trying to play up the idea that Clinton and Obama were still at odds over divisions dating back to their nomination contest. A tepid speech from Clinton last night could have left the door wide open for the McCain camp to try to exploit the perceived division perhaps to the point where McCain would use his vice-presidential nomination to play more to the middle with a choice like former Pennsylvania governor and ardent pro-choice Republican Tom Ridge as a reach-out effort. But with Clinton solidly behind Obama now, I think we can assume that we’re not going to see McCain continue down that line, which also carries with it the risk of alienating the GOP’s conservative base.
This isn’t to say that the local Dems that I talked to today didn’t have suggestions for Clinton to hone in on her pro-Obama message. “I cannot think of anything else she could have said that makes it more clear that she’s 100 percent in Barack Obama’s corner. The only thing, maybe, would be to say, John McCain, stop running those sleazy ads with me in them,” Long said. “I wish that she had leaned across the podium and stopped and just looked across the crowd and said, Read my lips, you have got to vote for Barack Obama,” Godfrey said. “But that sentence where she said, Think about it, did you cast your vote for me, or did you cast your vote for the soldier, the mother, the little boy whose mom works for minimum wage, I thought that was a powerful statement on where she stands.”
View Hillary’s speech on YouTube …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaUbFk4xp9A]
Live Blog: React to Hillary’s convention speech
Moderated by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
A lot of us watched. I was hanging on every word, for sure. Now it’s time to weigh in. What did you think of Hillary Clinton’s de facto keynote Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention?
Join the discussion below.
White House ’08: McCain and Roe
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
So where does John McCain stand, exactly, on Roe v. Wade?
“Going back to 1999, John McCain did an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle saying that overturning Roe v. Wade would not make any sense, because then women would have to have illegal abortions,” said Debra Bartoshevich, whom you wouldn’t otherwise know except that she’s a self-proclaimed “proud Hillary Clinton Democrat” who is the star of a new TV ad from the John McCain campaign in which she declares her support for the once-maverick Republican.
Just one problem with the statement from Bartoshevich at a presser held yesterday to tout her switch in political allegiances – McCain is now selling himself as staunchly pro-life so as to reach out to the conservatives that he has decided need to be his base in November.
Which isn’t to say that the McCain camp isn’t actively trying to sow the seeds of confusion on the issue. McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina told women at an Ohio event earlier this year that McCain “has never signed on to efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade,” even though the official party line now is that McCain is a harsh Roe critic.
As we’re seeing with the Bartoshevic press-conference fiasco, the McCain camp is walking a mighty fine line here – trying to balance efforts to reach out to conservative voters with the desire to steal away a few Clinton voters over to the GOP side.
It could be a much more perilous journey, this tightrope walk, than the McCain folks are letting themselves think to be the case.
David Reynolds: If it’s Labor Day …
Posted by afp on September 2, 2008 · Leave a Comment
… then I must have breakfast in Buena Vista. But where? Up the hill at the high school or down in town at the American Legion Hall. With the Dems or with the Republicans? My usual choice is to breakfast downtown and hear what the elephants have to say. But as candidates like to say, “This year is different.” And, of course, the candidates are always right. Every year is different.
So, I decided to be a donkey this year. I know, I know, I am a conservative, but there are times when I try not to be a darn fool.
There were other considerations in switching venues. First of all, as reported by my daughter from Denver, the Dems had just returned from getting high in the Mile High City. I wanted to hear if Mark Warner agreed with her. (I know that’s a silly question.) Plus my good friend Creigh Deeds would be there. (Actually Creigh is everywhere two or more Democrats gather.)
Another reason is that on Labor Day ‘08 the big elephant circus was scheduled to be held up the Mississippi in Minnesota. Why hear elephants scream in person when I could turn on the tube and hear the same sound?
The final reason is a regrettable one: The Virginia Republican Party left me; I did not leave the party. And to makes matters worse, the Virginia GOP failed to provide me with a smooth road for my departure. It still believes that VDOT can run on a shoestring.
As for the breakfast, the food was good, and the coffee was hot. As for the speeches, three stood up who were also standing for public office. Up first was Sam Rasoul, a big underdog to Bob Goodlatte. Then Creigh Deeds took the mike. Our state senator has more on his mind than being a state senator. Creigh gives a better speech every time I hear him. Finally, Mark Warner, a big top dog to become a U.S. senator, took over the room, which he called “family,” not the partisan gathering he just experienced in Denver. And maybe would like to forget. I asked Mark about being bumped out of prime time as keynoter at the Democratic National Convention. He smiled and simply said, “It was not my choice.”
For more of what was seen and heard on Labor Day in BV, see the op-ed page. But let’s go back to last week when the Democrats staged their big show, the DNC. First, there was the convention with no theme and little red meat for the partisans to chew on. There seemed to be no agenda.
This allowed for an opening for those with an agenda – Mr. & Mrs. Narcissism. The Clinton Convention took over. Is there any doubt who will be the next Democratic Party candidate if Barack doesn’t win? There will be no need for party primaries, just shoot off fireworks over another stadium. It will be 2012, an Olympic year, so why not.
And then there was the acceptance speech convention that sounded like every State of the Union speech I have ever heard. But before that we were subjected to what my kids call music. Why have rock music when rock fans don’t vote? Stevie Wonder and Sheryl Crow have written and sung fine music for those of my generation who do vote. Recommendation: No one under 50 should manage a political convention.
As for the speech itself, it is difficult to criticize unless you have the same problem I have. My problem is my memory. I can still remember what happened yesterday. Such as the roadblocks Mr. Obama’s party has erected to virtually everything he said in that speech. But, political speechwriters are smart. They know that most Americans suffer from another problem – amnesia. Attention span is now measured in seconds, not days. Few care what was said yesterday. Only what is said today. Past performance is a measure we reserve for investing money, not for evaluating candidates and their parties.
Think about all the votes you have cast. When you cast them did you know your candidate’s past performance? Next time, please try to remember.
Before closing and in the interest of full disclosure, I must mention another personal problem. After spending a previous lifetime in government service, one begins to understand what works and what does not in spending your money. That is another reason why the 29-point laundry list speech by a junior senator from Illinois bothers me. But I must not get too set in my views. Therefore, I have added two items to my bucket list: (1) Continue to alternate breakfast venues every Labor Day in Buena Vista; and (2) go moose hunting with the governor of Alaska.
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with barack obama, bill clinton, buena vista, creigh deeds, hillary clinton, mark warner