14 posts tagged “news”

From NBC/NJ's Matthew E. Berger At a time when Sen. Hillary Clinton is increasingly relying on superdelegates to vault her to the Democratic Party's nomination, a handful of undecided and pledged superdelegates are coming forward to say her campaign's tactics in recent weeks are doing more harm than good. The Democratic Party insiders say they believe Clinton's direct attacks against Sen. Barack Obama in recent days are hurting the party and its chances in November, and also say it is showing a calculated, desperate-to-win side of Clinton that they dislike. "In looking at the manner in which the candidates are campaigning, I think it would be best they focused their attention on the presumptive nominee and showed our party which one is better in campaigning against McCain," said Garry Shay, a California superdelegate, who announced his support for Clinton. Unlike some in the party, these superdelegates said they do not believe Clinton should drop out of the race. They said they are committed to the democratic process, and want to allow the states still remaining to cast their ballots. But they acknowledged Obama is the likely nominee and suggested the personal attacks were only hurting the party and its viability. The Clinton campaign has been actively wooing these delegates, believing a plurality represents the strongest, and increasingly the only, way for her to win the nomination. But one undeclared delegate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the recent tactics are turning her and other superdelegates off. "I don't think anybody's saying 'step aside,' but 'stop with the garbage' is what people want to say," the delegate said. "Just chill a little bit." As activists committed to the party, they said, they have been impressed by Obama's ability to bring new Democrats into the fold, and they worry that Clinton is threatening that. "We like the fact that there is a candidate that has won so many states overwhelmingly," the delegate said. "We're feeling...

The Canadian Press has learned.Ironically, the day before the story hit American TV, Brodie, told reporters questioning him on trade that "someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . .That someone called us and told us not to worry." But that never made the headlines and no one raised it in the campaign. And as far as I've seen, only Keith Olbermann is seriously raising it since.

Suppose someone in the North Korean government released a false story that shifted a key American election. If Bush were negatively affected, we might be bombing Pyongyang by now. But this just happened with what Hillary Clinton called "NAFTAgate" Without it, she might never have won Ohio, or her margin would have been minuscule. But as a Canadian Broadcasting Company story reveals, practically the entire story was a lie, one that played so central a role in Clinton's Ohio victory as to thoroughly taint any claim she raises about a swing state mandate.

WASHINGTON - Surrounded by military leaders in a Cabinet-style setting, Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she has "crossed the threshold" of foreign policy experience to serve as commander in chief. Supporters of rival Barack Obama fired back immediately, arguing that the former first lady's trips abroad hardly constituted a practice run for managing global crises. "She was never asked to do the heavy lifting" when meeting with foreign leaders, said Susan Rice, who was an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and is now advising Obama. "She wasn't asked to move the mountain or deliver a harsh message or a veiled threat. It was all gentle prodding or constructive reinforcement. And it would not have been appropriate for her to do the heavy lifting."

After Hillary's gracious, if somewhat contrived, final statement at the CNN debate in Austin, Texas, I finally felt Democrats were ready to reconcile after a long, hard-fought election. Hillary would get her final shot in Ohio and Texas, and then, if it didn't work out, we could all move on and focus on a critical general election. Hillary would retain her dignity by at least going out on the high road, and possibly secure for herself and her husband some role in the Obama Administration.

It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise — the priceless value of “experience” — was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.

Three more primary losses, not even close. Now it's eight in a row. A slide in the national polls. Staff shakeup: soap-opera-watching campaign manager out, deputy out. Bill's former campaign manager, David Wilhelm, jumps for Barack Obama. Josh Green, in a stunning piece that might be called a meticulously reported notebook dump, says, in The Atlantic, that Mrs. Clinton made personnel decisions based only on loyalty, not talent and skill. (There's a lot of that in the Bush White House. The loyalty obsession is never a sign of health.) The Wall Street Journal reports "internal frictions" flaring in the open, with Clinton campaign guru Mark Penn yelling, "Your ad doesn't work!" to ad maker Mandy Grunwald, who fires back, "Oh, it's always the ad, never the message." (This is a classic campaign argument. The problem is almost always the message. Getting the message right requires answering this question: Why are we here? This is the hardest question to answer in politics. Most staffs, and gurus, don't know or can't say.) On a conference call Tuesday morning, Mr. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, told reporters Mrs. Clinton simply cannot catch up. It is "next to impossible" for her to get past him on pledged delegates, she'd need "a blowout victory" of 20 to 30 points in the coming states, the superdelegates will "ratify" what the voters do. (I wrote in my notes, "not gloating--asserting as fact.") Within the hour Mr. Plouffe's words were headlined on Politico, made Drudge, and became topic one on the evening news shows. Veteran Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier took a stab at an early postmortem in what seemed a long-suppressed blurt: The Clintons always treated party leaders as "an extension of their . . . ambitions," "pawns in a game of success and survival. She may pay a high price for their selfishness soon." He cited party insiders: Superdelegates "won't hesitate to ditch" Mrs. Clinton if her problems persist. To top it all off, Mrs. Clinton has, for ...