MSNBC
11-12-07
Oh-eight (D): Plant-gate
BIDEN: The Delaware senator pens a Baltimore Sun op-ed, in which he
describes how he’ll tackle the problems in Pakistan. “First, we must take an
active role in the current crisis and make it clear to Pakistan that actions have
consequences… was clear to me that Mr. Musharraf understands the
consequences if he does not return Pakistan to the path of democracy. For
starters, U.S. military aid will be in great jeopardy. Second, we must move from a
Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy that gives the moderate majority a chance
to succeed… Third …[w]e must help create conditions in the region that
maximize the chances of success and minimize the prospects for failure. When
we shifted resources away from Afghanistan to Iraq, Mr. Musharraf concluded
that the Taliban would rebound, so he cut a deal with them. Redoubling our
efforts in Afghanistan would embolden Pakistan's government to take a harder
line on the Taliban and al-Qaida.”
CLINTON: So how long will this planted question story live? Just when it
appeared talk about the Philly debate was finally going away, the campaign has
a new negative to spin out of. The New York Times on Plant-gate: “At two
campaign events in Iowa this year, aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
encouraged audience members to ask her specific questions, a tactic that drew
criticism from an opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination and led
her yesterday to promise that it would not happen again. Mrs. Clinton, speaking
to reporters in Iowa, said she was unaware that her aides had ever planted
questions.”
More: Political analysts said that while planting questions is not the worst sin of a
campaign operation, the practice could reinforce negative opinions about Mrs.
Clinton. ‘The problem for Hillary Clinton is the whole spin that’s going to happen
— that she and her campaign are manipulative and scheming and that she is
essentially trying to bend the rules to maintain her lead in the polls,’ said Steffen
W. Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University.”
The Wall Street Journal has a rare four-byline story in today's paper chronicling
the rise and fall of disgraced Clinton fundraiser Norman Hsu. But there's very
little new about his relationship with the Clinton campaign.
Just thinking out loud about the campaign’s “Turn up the heat” slogan it unveiled
over the weekend: Isn’t the slogan -- which is aimed at Republicans -- just
practicing more the politics of derision? Get ready for the 1990s all over again,
and she's embracing it.
The Boston Globe’s Venocchi skewers Clinton’s “kitchen strategy.” “TAKE OFF
that apron, Hillary. Democrats want a winning presidential candidate, not a
gourmet cook.” Venocchi calls the women’s vote “famously fickle” and Clinton
“already has a gender gap problem. More than half the married men in a new
USA Today/Gallup Poll said they definitely wouldn't vote for her.” She also cites
Clinton’s lead shrinking in New Hampshire in the latest Marist poll from 21 points
over Obama to 11 now.
The New York Daily News calls Clinton “suddenly vulnerable.” Here’s Mark
Penn’s take: "The opponents went negative, and that created a new dynamic and
a different set of headlines.” “The new dynamic emerged at the debate in
Philadelphia two weeks ago, but didn't just spring from sharp criticism by her
opponents,” the News writes. “Clinton stumbled by offering fuzzy answers to
some questions….”
The Columbia State front-pages, “Clinton leads but it’s not over.”
DODD: This isn’t a headline the Dodd camp wants in the Des Moines Register:
“In Connecticut, many tire of Dodd's presidential bid.”
EDWARDS: These are the type of stories that the Edwards campaign has to be
nervous about. Newsweek's Richard Wolffe went to Iowa for the J-J festivities
and found evidence that Edwards is in trouble. "Is John Edwards in trouble in
Iowa? Peg Dunbar thinks so. She signed up as a county chair for Edwards in the
northeastern town of Waverly earlier this year, after backing the former senator's
campaign in 2004. Now she has changed her mind and switched to Hillary
Clinton. ‘John Edwards has been in Iowa for four and a half years and he's in
third place,’ she says. ‘He should be in first place. Granted, it's very, very close.
But I don't see him going anywhere and I don't go with a loser.’”
This last graph has CW written all over it: "Polling in Iowa is imprecise, but most
show Edwards losing ground of late. No poll has put him in front since August. In
the last month he's been either tied with Obama for second place, or several
points behind him in third. Campaigns can always replace individual supporters—
but reversing a trend is much harder."
The Boston Globe front-pages Edwards vs. Obama for the anti-Clinton vote. “The
three are more or less tied in Iowa polls, but Clinton is so far ahead nationally
that it is hard to see both of them finishing Iowa with momentum to challenge her
for the Democratic nomination.”
And stories like this one aren't helpful to Edwards, either. What does Joe Trippi
want more: Edwards to become the nominee or Clinton to be stopped? This
Politico piece implies he may be more interested in the latter. For what it’s worth,
we've been on the receiving end of "you know, Trippi tried to get a job with the
Obama campaign" rumors for weeks now.
Edwards is using this Veteran's Day commemoration (the actual holiday was
yesterday) to unveil his plan to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
He's unveiling it in New Hampshire.
Yesterday, per NBC/NJ’s Tricia Miller, Edwards yesterday introduced his
campaign’s policy book, which breaks down Edwards’ four priorities -- “standing
up for working and middle-class families,” “ending the war, restoring America’s
moral leadership,” “building a better future for the next generation,” and
“opportunity for all.”
“I promised that my campaign would not be based on rhetoric, so this book is a
fulfillment of this promise,” he said, adding that more than 100,000 copies will be
distributed to Iowa caucus-goers
This profile of daughter Cate is a good reminder that with just 50-plus days to go
until Iowa, we've yet to see Chelsea on the campaign trail.
OBAMA: In its write-up of Obama’s Meet the Press appearance, the AP focuses
on the candidate’s answers regarding Social Security. “Democrat Barack Obama
said Sunday that if elected he will push to increase the amount of income that is
taxed to provide monthly Social Security benefits.”
To watch the full 60-minute interview or read a transcript of it, click here or here.
“Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) dodged questions Sunday about releasing papers
from his eight years as an Illinois state senator, and his campaign has not
answered records requests from the state’s two largest newspapers,” the Politico
reports. “On NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, moderator Tim Russert asked
Obama about the papers from his state legislative days, from 1997 to 2004.
Obama first said, ‘We did not keep those records.’ He then elaborated: ‘Well, let’s
be clear. In the state senate, every single piece of information, every document
related to state government was kept by the state of Illinois and has been
disclosed and is available and has been gone through with a fine-toothed comb
by news outlets in Illinois.”
More Obama: “‘The stuff that I did not keep has to do with, for example, my
schedule. I didn’t have a schedule. I was a state senator. I wasn’t intending to
have the Barack Obama State Senate Library. I didn’t have 50 or 500 people to,
to help me archive these issues.’”
MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski interviewed Michelle Obama on Sunday. Among the
more interesting bites: Michelle Obama's response to the race question -specifically on why she thinks her husband is trailing Clinton among black voters.
Obama: "First of all, I think that's not gonna hold. I'm completely confident Black
America will wake up and get it. But what we're dealing with in the Black
community is the natural fear of possibility. When I look at my life, the stuff we
see in these polls has played out my whole life, always been told by somebody
that I'm not ready, I can't do something, my scores aren’t high enough. There's
always that doubt in the back of minds of people of color."
RICHARDSON: The surest sign that Richardson is in this presidential race for
the long haul? Democratic Rep. Tom Udall has now decided to run for the open
Senate seat in New Mexico.
"I don't believe in UFOs," Richardson said on Fox News Sunday. "You know,
admittedly, sometimes I pump it up for tourism reasons."
The Concord Monitor profiles Barbara Richardson, who went to college in New
Hampshire. “Richardson readily admits that she enjoys her privacy, but her
scarcity on the campaign trail during the early months of her husband's campaign
had little to do with shyness. The woman is just busy.”