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Friday Night Democratic Roundup
I will not be including any fundraisers in the next 24 hours in this roundup, nor articles about fundraising: the first quarter deadline is tomorrow, and rest assured any serious campaign is furiously trying to raise money and will be jetting around the country to do it, while lowering expectations simultaneously. It’s just the way it is. Skip those articles tomorrow and save yourself a big headache.
Obama is still getting the rock star treatment - literally (I HATE the phrase but it applies perfectly here). Crowds waited outside a Tallahassee meeting for him and he had to give a three minute address from a park bench. I don’t care what your politics is, that’s amazing. That’s straight out of old-school politics - like, 19th century and 18th century politics.
Jesse Jackson endorsed Obama. I’d write abou tthe endorsement vs. Sharpton’s reluctance, but I don’t think many people actually give a damn about these endorsements. It’s better looked at as symptoms of Obama convincing African-Americans rather than a possible remedy.
Obama is in Milwaukee in mid-April and will charge $25 for admission to a rally. It’ll be a nice easy way of taking the Obamania and converting it into campaign cash without offending anyone.
Bill Richardson is traveling to North Korea for talks in April, according to an AP report. The other candidates are trying to shore up weaknesses while barely being in the Senatae or not in government at all, and a sitting Gov. takes time to fly to North Korea for negotiations. Pretty unbelievable. He’ll reach more people in the news over this than he would trying to campaign locally. That said, he’ll have to buckle down in the early states all the more to make up time.
Richardson called for more focus on preventing a nuclear 9-11. He stated: “In the 20th century, nuclear deterrence worked. In the 21st century, it won’t. Nothing will stop suicidal Jihadists from using a nuclear bomb if they get their hands on one. … Defending ourselves from new dangers requires new thinking, new strategies and new tactics. We need to adapt our ideas about national security to an age in which the nuclear threat come not from a missile, but from a suitcase or a cargo hull. Not from a nation, which can be deterred by the threat of retaliation, but from a shadowy terrorist network with no return address.” Full text of his speech is here. Impressive making such a substantive speech so close to the fundraising deadline: most of the time, all free time is used for fundraising (note Obama scheduling his town hall meetings on health care for next week, not this week).
At a union rally, Richardson pledged that his labor secretary would be a union member. Also, the war wasn’t popular.
Dodd talked about how he is runnign because voters will want someone with experience as President. How he is better than the experienced people ahead of him (Clinton, Richardson, and Biden) he doesn’t really say. The interview is mostly Dodd shaking his head at how much Bush is hated in South America.
Kucinich stopped his spying project; more on this soon.
He’s off to New Hampshire early this week.
Is Clinton worried about Dodd? Probably not, unless he’s stalking her on the HIll or something. But still, she’s holding a roundtable in Orlando tomorrow on his signature issue, subprime mortgages and predatory lending. This is probably a hedge against someone accusing her of not caring about the issue.
Clinton is in Iowa on Tuesday, visiting Iowa City, Fort Madison, Burlington and Mount Pleasant.
One fundraising note: I’m venturing a guess that Clinton has significantly more than the 25-30 rumored. She’s trying to run on inevitability, and will need to crush expectations to do so. Add in former Pres. Clinton shadow fundraising while she campaigns, and the way too prevalent rumors of $25-30, and I think she has something like 35-40 million when the FEC releases: she’ll want Democrats to say ‘wow.’ And this is her first best chance (especially since no one is really -that- excited about her policies). The other candidates are far too risky to even venture a guess, although Edwards and Obama both have the potential to come in with surprisingly high marks.
Biden will speak in front of the National Jewish Democratic Council in late April. Other Democratic candidates are expected to speak as well as Democratic Congressional leadership.
Biden found a state director for his Iowa campaign, Bill Romjue, whose resume goes all the way back to Carter-Mondale in 1976. He alo once worked for John Edwards.
The whole Edwards clan, Elizabeth and his kids, will be in Iowa on Sunday. Also noted, Dodd will be there too. That should be quite the competition for attention.
There’s probably no right answer on whether Edwards should keep campaigning or not. The editorials online are mostly positive, but not all (Alhough, that article is one of the most partisan and cynical I’ve seen; if you don’t believe Edwards should be president, say so, don’t try to use his mere running as evidence against him. It’s crappy editorial like that which are part of the reason we started this site. And there are just as many on the left as there are on the right.). Some cancer patients are lauding their decision. Hopefully these types of articles will fade over time. It’s a completely defensible decisions to keep running, given how strongly they believe in what they are doing, and that it’s not something that is physically affecting her yet.
Gravel debated a University of Virginai law professor over the similarities and differences of the Iraq and Vietnam wars.
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Written by John · Filed Under Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Christopher Dodd, Democratic Ticket, Dennis Kucinich, Economy, General Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Issues, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Mike Gravel
Clinton, Richardson & Biden are more experienced then Dodd? WTF?!
CLINTON married her way into the White House & got the Senate seat based on her last name.
BIDEN can’t keep his foot out of his mouth if you paid him not to do it.
RICHARDSON is a whole whopping 1-4 points above Dodd in most polls. That’s the 2008 equivalent of being “In a 3-way tie for 3rd place.”
Once Obama-mania burns itself out (yeah, it will), people will get cold feet about Billary & it’ll be a new race with Edwards, Richardson, Biden & Dodd.
Anonymous,
You’ve misread.
JW was not saying that Dodd was necessarily less experienced than the others. He was saying that Dodd failed to articulate the specifics of his purported superior experience.