Hillary Clinton

Democracy for New York City's Fourth Annual "Summer Cocktail Reception" was all about Barack Obama.

Held at the downtown bar M1-5, the event's theme was "Unity '08," a reference, apparently, to bringing Democrats together (and not to the group that wanted Michael Bloomberg to run for president).

As the guests trickled in, DFNYC finance director Lewis Cohen decorated the bar with "Obama '08" signs.

"I have no doubt we will endorse," he told me.

"I think people are looking at the total candidate," said City Councilman Tony Avella, also a long-shot mayoral candidate. "He [Obama] stands for change, and we need change in the city.  read more »

A former campaign aide to Hillary Clinton, Sam Arora (once named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill"), Twitters the message above.

Michael Bloomberg wants to hear where Barack Obama stands on the issue of free trade, he said earlier today, adding that he thinks John McCain has “a better record on this issue.”

Bloomberg was speaking across the street from City Hall, where the Consumer Electronics Association launched a nationwide bus tour advocating free trade with Colombia, among other countries.

“I think that John McCain has a better record on this issue than Barack Obama,” Bloomberg said. McCain, Bloomberg said, advocates “trading with the only ally we have left in Latin America, namely Colombia.”

“I’d like to hear a lot more from him about how he thinks we could reopen NAFTA without becoming a big loser in that,” the mayor added.  read more »

A reader loyal to Hillary Clinton points out that of the roughly 300 Hillraisers who bundled money for her, it appears only a few gave money to Barack Obama or the D.N.C. in June, according to the F.E.C. filing.

Giving to Obama's Victory Fund were Mark Aronchick, Clarence Avant, John Emerson, John Graham, Chad Griffin, Marc Nathanson. Contributors to the D.N.C. included Rashid Chaudhary, Gary Gensler, Ambassador Arthur Schechter and Maureen White.

Other Clinton donors subsequently have given to Obama, and bundled a lot of money for him too. But the paucity of names so far illustrates how slow-going the unity efforts have been.

Here’s a quick interview with PR guy Matthew Hiltzik, a former spokesman for the state Democratic Party who did Jewish outreach for Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate race, in which I ask him what advice he'd have for Barack Obama ahead of a politically perilous swing through the Middle East.

Among Hiltzik's suggestions, doubtless inspired by certain memorable aspects of his Clinton experience: Get a good translator.

Hillary Clinton's campaign is sending out letters to donors asking permission to roll a $2,300 contribution to Clinton's 2008 general election coffers to her 2012 senate election fund instead of offering a refund.

The letter, read to me by one recipient, includes a photocopy of a handwritten note from Clinton that says, "Dear friend, your commitment has meant so much to me over the course of my presidential campaign. You were there for me when I needed you the most and I'll never forget it. I hope you'll help me continue to fight for the issues and causes we believe in by filling out the enclosed form in support of Friends of Hillary.  read more »

Here is Obama's new communications team. Unlike the campaign's appointments in areas of policy and fund-raising, there is no integration with the Clinton campaign.

Obama Campaign Unveils New Communications Staffing for the General Election New Additions in Chicago and Denver Bolster Efforts Chicago, Il – The Obama Campaign today announced its general election communications operations which includes several new additions and new roles for several long-time aides. The campaign also announced that Democratic consultant Jenny Backus will be the senior Obama communications official in Denver working on the Democratic convention working with Obama aide Liz Oxhorn. Other changes include: Robert Gibbs, one of Senator Obama’s longest-serving and closest aides, has been elevated to Senior Strategist for Communications and Message taking on a broader strategic portfolio for the Fall campaign while continuing to serve as senior communications aide travelling with Senator Obama.  read more »

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In his media column today, David Carr revisits the hubbub surrounding Barack Obama's decision to allow Access Hollywood to interview his daughters. Obama eventually told Matt Lauer that the family "won't be doing it again," but Carr suggests that the whole incident ultimately worked to the Obama campaign's advantage.

To be sure, the Obamas haven't shied away from softer media outlets, and at least one expert thinks that is a good thing for them.

In an e-mail exchange last week, I asked Jin Chon, Hillary Clinton's press secretary for specialty media, who had a fair amount of success putting Clinton in the generally friendly confines of entertainment shows, about the merits of politicians using entertainment-focused media.  read more »

Donors to Barack Obama expect his campaign to raise just over $30 million in June, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Even if that estimate is a tactial lowball, the number is well below the astronomical figures reported during the primary. And when contrasted with the $22 million June haul the McCain campaign reported yesterday, and the additional $95 million McCain campaign aides hope to raise by the end of the summer through the RNC and state victory accounts, it seems to diminish the notion of the Obama campaign's Internet fund-raising operation as a bottomless well.

And if the $30 million number is at all accurate, it could prompt questions not only about whether the substantial editorial hit Obama suffered for his reversal on the issue of public funding was worth it, but also about the significance of the super bundler, a species that some of Obama's own bundlers said had been put out to pasture by the Internet tidal wave.  read more »

"There may be somebody special here today," said Maya Soetoro-Ng, Barack Obama's sister, upon observing the large audience in the Hilton ballroom this morning. Then she abruptly added, "Two somebodies."

It seems the Obama family is having a hard time remembering Hillary Clinton this week. Last night, Obama painfully forgot to make an appeal for the cancellation of Clinton's debt to his supporters at a fund-raiser that was billed as a unity event in which he would make an appeal for the cancellation of Clinton's debt. This morning, in front of roughly 2,000 donors, mostly women, who had donated between $200 and $23,000 to a variety of Obama-related funds, the two former rivals appeared together to argue that equal pay and rights for women was a crucial aspect of any plan for American progress, and that party unity was a critical step to winning in November.  read more »

If nothing else, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have shown over the last couple of days that sometimes isn't easy to show a unified front with a former opponent, even if you want to.

Yesterday they took different positions on the FISA bill, last night they held a joint fund-raiser where Obama initially forgot to make a plea for donations to retire her debt, this morning there was another joint fund-raiser, and then, just now, the Clinton campaign released the winner of the T-shirt contest they launched in May.

The winning design, which is pictured above and can be obtained with a $50 donation, reads "For everyone who's ever been counted out, but refused to be knocked out and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you!"

The night of Wednesday, July 9, was supposed to be when Barack Obama appealed directly to his supporters to help Hillary Clinton erase her campaign debt.

But he almost forgot to do it.

After finishing his speech to a room full of New York donors at the Grand Hyatt without any mention of helping Clinton with her debt, reporters ran over to Obama's spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who was already spinning hard that Obama's failure to make a pitch was no big deal. ("He said a lot of things," she said.) Then the music stopped and Obama, very awkwardly, started speaking again.

"Hold on a second, guys -- I was getting a little carried away," he began.  read more »

Hillary Clinton came out with her statement explaining why she couldn’t vote today for a version of the new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies, a measure that Democrats unsuccessfully tried to remove from the bill. Barack Obama, who she's having a fund-raiser with tonight, supported the bill.

Her Senate office released a statement on her vote that doesn't contain any explicit criticisms of the Obama position, but does say, "In my judgment, immunity under these circumstances has the practical effect of shutting down a critical avenue for holding the administration accountable for its conduct."

Which should provide further fuel, if any was needed, for

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's joint fund-raiser this evening at the Grand Hyatt may have some unwanted guests.

A diehard Clinton loyalist is trying to organize a picket at the meeting to demand that Clinton delegates not be obliged to declare support for Obama at the Democratic convention in August. A reader sent over one of the daily e-mails distributed by former Clinton campaign volunteer and fund-raiser Ricki Lieberman, who calls for other Clinton loyalists to assemble and protest.

"Wednesday we meet at 45th and Park Ave at 5:00pm. We then march to the Grand Hyatt at 42nd and Park at 5:30. Then we flyer and hold signs demanding that Hillary be on a full roll call," the email begins.

It goes on to cite a bunch of negative newspaper articles about Obama and argues that Clinton is still the Democrats' best chance of winning the White House.

Before donors to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton meet this evening to raise money for his candidacy and her campaign debt, there will be a special meeting for the smaller, powerful group of top New York bundlers to Clinton and Obama at around 5 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt, according to major fund-raisers from both camps.

Said one Obama donor with knowledge of the meeting and its attendees, "This one seems to have more traditional Clinton people involved. And that's a good thing."

 UPDATE: The 5 p.m. meeting has apparently been cancelled because both Obama and Clinton are in D.C. voting on FISA reform.

On the heels of Lanny Davis’ announcement last month, Howard Wolfson’s move today brings to two the number of top Hillary Clinton allies who have signed on with Fox News since the end of the primary season. And let's not forget that Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign chairman, also offered praise of Fox that the channel recycled into a promo.

None of this would have been imaginable a year or two ago, back when Fox still treated the Clintons as the face of the enemy. So what happened?  read more »

The Clinton campaign and Clinton supporters obviously believed that traditional “liberal” media outlets like CNN and MSNBC had it in for them and were openly promoting Barack Obama, while Fox – especially as the primary season wore on – was far

Here’s the form Hillary Clinton supporters are asked to fill out when donating money to help retire her campaign debt.

The form was sent to me this morning by a reader who received it recently. It reads in part, “I hereby designate my contribution to be used towards 2008 primary election debt retirement for Hillary Clinton for President. I am making this contribution with my own personal funds and not with funds provided by any other person."

One question to think about is how many of Clinton's donors are even eligible to help her out. After all, wasn't one of the reasons she fell behind Barack Obama in the money game the fact that she relied on wealthy donors who maxed out -- contributing $2,300 to her primary and general election funds? Those supporters, no matter how much they may want to, can't now give her more money.

The wholesale absorption of Hillary Clinton’s best and brightest campaign advisers has begun.

In the weeks since Mrs. Clinton officially suspended her candidacy, the Obama campaign has recruited the services of the Clinton campaign’s director of national security, Lee Feinstein, as well as foreign-policy advisers Mara Rudman, the deputy national security advisor under Bill Clinton; Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary for nonproliferation at the State Department; and Stuart Eizenstat, an international-trade specialist who was policy director for Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign. On the domestic side, Gene Sperling, who was the top economic adviser on the Clinton campaign, has begun consulting with the Obama policy team.  read more »

Here's Obama's second national TV ad, which, like the last one, will air in 18 states (although unlike the last one, it's only 30 seconds long, not a minute).

It's Obama's pitch to blue-collar workers and conservative Democrats. He says he's offering job creation, health care, tax cuts for "workers." Perhaps most notably, this spot delivers the message that Obama is also a worker.

UPDATE: Ambinder points out that the claims in the ad about Obama's welfare-to-work qualifications are a bit on the overblown side.

Hillary Clinton wasted no time in hitting the campaign trail as a surrogate for Barack Obama after their joint appearance earlier in the day, telling an auditorium of black teenagers that Obama sends "each and every one of you his best wishes."

Speaking Friday evening at Columbia University for the first graduation of The Eagle Academy For Young Men, a school she helped start, Clinton said, "Earlier today I had the great pleasure of being in a place called Unity, New Hampshire." She added, "We declared that we would go back together to Unity, New Hampshire to pledge our commitment, together, to change this country.  read more »

As Ben reported earlier today and the Obama campaign just officially announced, Neera Tanden, a senior policy adviser to Hillary Clinton, is moving over to the Obama campaign.

One of Clinton's health care advisers told me he was encouraged by the hire, saying that Tanden, a major architect of Clinton's health care policy, would have a substantive impact on the Obama plan for achieving universal health care. Throughout primary season, Clinton's supporters -- and some prominent advocates of universal health care -- had criticized the Obama plan, which doesn't include a universal insurance mandate, as insufficiently bold.

"The progressive doctors and other health professionals were extremely attached to the notion of universal coverage," said Irwin Redlener, a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia university who organized a group of medical professionals for Hillary.  read more »

UNITY, N.H. – A remarkable event, and well-staged.

Hillary Clinton showed up in a blue pantsuit. Barack Obama was jacketless, with a blue tie.

Clinton was first to the mic, in front of a lively crowd of thousands gathered on gently sloping grass next to the local elementary school. A large old-style sign, perhaps 25 feet tall, spelled out "Unity" at one side of the arena --just in front of a huge, crane-hoisted American flag.

Unity, Clinton said, is not just a beautiful place but a "wonderful feeling.” She looked forward to Barack Obama taking the oath of office. He looked a bit bashful on his stool.  read more »

David Axelrod has appeared in the press enclosure here at the Unity event. He says Hillary will be a "huge force in bringing about the change we all want."

And her husband?

"We would welcome him. You know, there are only four living presidents and he has so much to offer here. We hope to establish a close relationship."

Axelrod also predicted his campaign would be accused of "inventing" the tie result here in the primary but "that was what happened."

And with that, there comes the sound of Obama and Clinton being introduced. No one can see them yet, though, and the crowd, which was cheering wildly, has gone quiet again.

A reporter says to none in particular that HRC might have decided to make a last round of superdelegate calls instead.

More from Niall:

Jeanne Shaheen has just appeared. She said that "divine intervention" produced a tied vote (107 votes each) between Clinton and Obama here in Unity.

She congratulated herself for maintaining neutrality during primary and also claimed solidarity with Hillary Clinton in frustration over press coverage concerning "what you're wearing or what your hairstyle is." Hillary, she said, is "a trailblazer who makes us all proud." Obama is "our amazing Democratic nominee."

UPDATE:

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch stepped up and asked the crowd if they want a president who will improve health care, change the ways of Washington, provide better education and unite all of us.  read more »

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Niall Stanage BlackBerrys a couple of pre-event observations from Unity, N.H.:

The atmosphere ahead of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's joint appearance is part political rally, part country fair.

The sun is warm, the open-air venue is pretty and, at present, a local band is playing (winning political kudos for including "This Land Is Your Land" in its set). It smells like hot dogs and hamburgers.

One problem: the lines of people still outside are perhaps a half-mile long, calling the rumored 1 p.m. start time into some serious doubt.

One of the people outside is Bucky Demers, a 42-year-old mechanic and car race veteran. He has found a high-visibility spot for his race car, which is festooned with pro-Obama slogans and logos like "Change We Can Believe In" and "Yes We Can.  read more »

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After Michelle Obama delivered a measured speech to gay and lesbian leaders at a Manhattan fund-raiser last night, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean abandoned his prepared remarks in favor of some more pointed observations.

“ I frankly don’t believe the John McCain of 2000 would even consider voting for the John McCain of 2008, I really don’t,” said Dean.

“Saddest of all," Dean added, "John McCain was against torture until he supported the president’s veto of the Democrats anti-water-boarding bill. This is a guy who appears not to have principles. And if you don’t have principles when you are president, you shouldn’t be president.  read more »

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Michelle Obama did her part for Democratic unity here today, referring to Hillary Clinton as an "extraordinary woman" at a round-table event with former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen.

"Because of Hillary Clinton's work, the issues of importance to women and working families are more at the forefront than ever before," Obama said, the day before Barack Obama will appear with Clinton for the first time since the primary ended.

Naturally enough, she sought to portray herself and her husband as closely in tune with female concerns.

One of the first rounds of applause during her brief speech came when she paid tribute to her mother for resourcefulness.  read more »

The slow pace of bundler integration between the Obama and Clinton campaigns is picking up, however slightly.

On July 1, Obama's national finance chair, Penny Pritzker, will be in New York for a series of meetings and fund-raising events with major Clinton bundlers, according to one Obama donor familiar with the plans. And Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett met yesterday with Clinton bundlers at a get-together organized by former treasury secretary and Clinton supporter Robert Rubin.

Barack Obama will appeal to Hillary Clinton's base of support in New York on July 9 with an event designed to woo women voters, according to a New York-based donor to the Obama campaign.

Barack Obama will not be able to win in the fall because he hasn't been able to win the most important states in the spring.

We heard this argument over and over again, for months on end, from Hillary Clinton and her supporters during the Democratic primary season. And many prominent members of the media bought into it, too, devoting endless space and countless hours to discussions of the supposedly dire general-election problems that Obama faced.

"I've won the states that we have to win—Ohio and now Pennsylvania," Clinton declared after her April 22 victory in the Keystone State. "If you can't win the states we have to win in the fall, maybe that says something about your general-election appeal.  read more »

A reader sends over this letter from former Clinton bundler Yashar Hedayat calling for contributions to erase Hillary Clinton's campaign debt--and it includes this whiff of a threat to Obama supporters: " I don’t think any of us (including my Obama friends on this list) want her to be saddled with debt while she continues to do so much good for our country."

Here's the letter:

Friends, 

In the past eighteen months, Hillary Clinton ran a historic campaign for the Presidency. And thanks to so many of you on this list, there are eighteen million cracks in that highest and hardest of glass ceilings.  read more »

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In light of the news that Barack Obama will be appearing with Hillary Clinton in Unity, New Hampshire on Friday, it's worth noting that Obama has already started borrowing from Clinton's campaign rhetoric.

"Germany, a country as cloudy as the Pacific Northwest, is now a world leader in the solar power industry and the quarter million new jobs it has created," Obama said today in Las Vegas.

That echoes Clinton's familiar, and sharper, line about Germany's solar power production. As she said in Fresno on October 24, "Explain to me why Germany gets more of its electricity from solar power than California.  read more »

Patti Solis Doyle is expected to do some surrogate work for the Obama campaign to help woo Latino voters, according to the campaign's communications director, Robert Gibbs.

At the end of today's Obama conference call, Gibbs responded to a question from a Latino reporter who asked what surrogates the campaign might roll out in its effort to court the Latino community's voters. Gibbs said, "We will fold in surrogates that have been helpful to the Clinton campaign."

I asked him if Clinton's former campaign manager, Solis Doyle, would be one of those surrogates.  read more »

Another sign of a thaw between the Obama campaign and some of the powerful women who have long been allied with the Clintons: Michelle Obama will speak at a lunch for the National Partnership for Women & Children tomorrow.

The release from the campaign notes that Emily's List founder Ellen Malcolm and Cheryl Mills, who was deputy White House counsel under Bill Clinton, are both on the board of the organization and will be at the event.

Here's the announcement:

Chicago, IL – This Friday, June 20, Michelle Obama, wife of Senator Barack Obama, will speak at the National Partnership for Women & Families 2008 Annual Luncheon.  read more »

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The Associated Press is reporting that the defamation lawsuit brought by former New York Post writer Jared Paul Stern against Ron Burkle, The New York Daily News, and Bill and Hillary Clinton has been dismissed by State Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub. (This comes via Jim Romenesko.)

In April 2006, The Observer's Choire Sicha profiled Mr. Stern at his Catskills cottage and reported on his book deal which was subsequently cancelled .

A former bundler to Hillary Clinton just called in to tell me that Barack Obama's selection of Patti Solis Doyle as chief of staff to the campaign's eventual vice presidential nominee is the "biggest fuck you I have ever seen in politics."

The donor, speaking on background, said that everyone in Clinton circles knows the two have hard feelings towards one another and haven't spoken since Clinton removed Solis Doyle as campaign manager, and that Clinton loyalists view her with deep suspicion and believe that she is shopping around a book deal and acted as a background source for an extremely harsh Vanity Fair piece about Bill Clinton.

"Either one of two things happen," said the bundler. "Hillary is selected as vice president and they fire Patti, or Hillary is not going to be the vice president."

The bundler said that Clinton loyalists were livid over the pick.

"You don't hire Patti Solis Doyle for her operational expertise," said the bundler. "You don't do that. This is someone who failed dramatically at her job. You only bring her on to fuck someone else."  read more »

Hillary Clinton's former campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle has just been officially named "chief of staff to the Vice Presidential Nominee" by the Obama campaign.

Which, given the fact that she was demoted mid-campaign by Hillary Clinton, who she reportedly hasn't spoken to since, doesn't say much for Barack Obama's intentions of picking the former first lady as his running mate.

UPDATE: A Clinton bundler is not pleased.

Here's the announcement, which lists appointments to a number of other key general-election campaign posts:  read more »

It was probably not a speech Barack Obama would have given during the primary.

His address at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan today, entitled "Renewing American Competitiveness," is, on one level, another version of the core message of his campaign: that a vote for him is one for the future while a vote for John McCain is one for the past and George Bush's third term. But the speech was perhaps most notable for its defense of globalization in an old-line bastion of American manufacturing. The points in the speech in which Obama discusses the need to re-tool in order to cope with an internationalized economy seem to be aimed more at unions, and perhaps at the Rust Belt Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary, than McCain and the Bush administration.

From the prepared version: "So there is a clear choice in this election. Instead of reaching for new horizons, George Bush has put us in a hole, and John McCain’s policies will keep us there. I want to take us in a new and better direction. I reject the belief that we should either shrink from the challenge of globalization, or fall back on the same tired and failed approaches of the last eight years. It’s time for new policies that create the jobs and opportunities of the future– a competitiveness agenda built upon education and energy, innovation and infrastructure, fair trade and reform."  read more »

New Yorkers don’t want to see Hillary Clinton or Michael Bloomberg as anyone’s vice presidential candidate, according to a poll out today by Siena.

New York voters oppose a Clinton vice presidency 49 - 41 percent. They oppose a Bloomberg vice presidency 49 - 36 percent.

But -- just for fun, I guess -- Siena determined that an Obama-Clinton ticket leads a McCain-Bloomberg ticket in New York 55 - 37 percent.

Separately, Michael Bloomberg leads David Paterson in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup for governor in 2010 (making it the second poll to show that kind of result.)

And Democrats chose Paterson over Andrew Cuomo, 43 percent to 31 percent.

There was no dancing at the Seneca Club's 109th Dinner Dance--a veritable sea of elected officials--but there were about 55 honorees, who received diamond-shaped trophies and dined on a buffet that included a kosher option.

“It’s sort of like a political bazaar that’s as much like Baghdad as it is anything else," said Roger Adler, a judicial candidate for the 1st Civil Court District in Brooklyn. "There’s a chuckle quality to it, like, give me a break, this is like polyester. And then there’s the more substantive one--people are brought together.”

Outside the buffet, I caught Representative Ed Towns, who was on his way out after receiving an award.

“This is one of the oldest clubs in the borough,” he told me. “In order to be around for over 100 years you have to have a level of consistency, and also the ability to evolve with the community -- Greenpoint is not the same as it was a hundred years ago,” he said, gesturing outside as a man rolled by in a motorized wheelchair.  read more »

From Observer contributor Em Whitney:

Brooklyn’s Hasidic community was well represented last night at the Polonaise Terrace in Greenpoint, where the Seneca Club – the borough’s oldest Democratic organization -- held its 109th annual dinner dance. During an awards ceremony, I sat at the kosher table and talked to some of the attendees about presidential politics.

“It’s sad that Hillary’s not in the race anymore,” said Simcha Eichenstein, the associate director of political and governmental services at The Friedlander Group. “She was the best remaining candidate of the final three. But when it comes to our issues, Obama could be very good.”

He went on to list Obama’s presidential qualities and the liberal policies that Eichenstein said put Obama in line with Democrats in Hasidic community, pausing only briefly to express a familiar reservation: “He could have more of a stance on Israel.”

“I wish I could vote for Hillary,” he concluded.

Another Hasidic attendee, who didn’t want to be named, said, “As Democrats, we now have to be unified behind the Democratic candidate, but it’s not so good because [Clinton] is a senator from our neighborhood. We felt that she had a better understanding of our needs.”

Better, he explained, than others: “We have more access to her than we do Schumer.”

State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem, an early, vocal Obama backer, told me yesterday that Clinton's exit speech was a "giant step" toward winning back the affections of the Obama supporters who were offended by her pre-concession tactics, but that it should be seen as a "beginning.”

”Less visible and less dramatic ef